by David Estes
He forces his stare away from the vehicle and toward the holo-screen. He has to look natural, unconcerned, innocent.
When the vehicle passes the memorial, he allows himself to breathe again, a misty white cloud billowing from his lips as his hot breath meets the frigid air. He’s okay. He’s okay.
There’s the squeal of rubber on asphalt as the Crow car slams on the brakes, skidding to a stop just beyond the memorial. Benson’s mind is a blur, considering his alternatives. Minda and the others won’t be back around for another few minutes. There’s nowhere to hide—clearly he’s already been seen, his disguise either ineffective or too effective, drawing the attention of the Crows.
The river. The thought pops into his head in a moment of clarity, urging him to turn, to push off, to start running across the concrete strip between the memorial and the waters of the Mississippi. Waters that once welcomed him like an old friend.
He hears the whoosh! of the aut-car doors opening—
His feet barely touch the ground, his legs churning;
—the thump of feet on hard ground—
the rocky shore approaches, falling downward to the water, which stretches for over a mile to the far shore, to a house he once lived in, once called home;
—a shout carrying over the wind, punching his ears—
Fly! Fly! he urges himself, building the momentum he hopes will carry him over the rocks and directly into the water;
—clarifying, the voice suddenly registering somewhere deep in his brain.
he stops less than a meter from his launch point, his arms wind-milling to keep his balance.
When he looks back, he’s confused, wondering if he’s made a deadly mistake. Three black uniforms streak toward him, heavy black boots pounding the cement, weapons gripped tightly by pumping fists.
Then he sees the faces. Check, trying to hide a smile; Rod, looking grim and determined; Gonzo, holding his large weapon with one hand, gangster style.
He gawks at them all the way until they reach him, stopping a few meters away.
“You scared the bot out of me,” Benson says, shaking his head and half-smiling.
“Don’t smile,” Check says, his narrow eyes darker than usual, shadowed by his too-long bangs. “We need this to look like a real Crow stop, like we’re questioning you.”
Benson immediately wipes the grin off his face, realizing the wisdom in the strategy. “That was a little dramatic, don’t you think? I almost jumped in the river.”
“Sorry,” Check says, sounding sheepish. “Your disguise is so good it almost fooled us. We were going to take a couple of laps around until you arrived.”
“Then I saw straight through you, amigo,” Gonzo says, proudly tossing his thick mane of dark hair to the side. “You may be a punk on the outside, but your mannerisms are still good old dorky Benson.”
“Thanks,” Benson says. “I’ll have to work on that.”
Just then, another aut-car screams to a halt in front of the memorial, and all four guys look back. Minda. By all appearances, Benson is in trouble, surrounded by Crows. He waves to her and signals her to keep circling. Thankfully, she gets the message quickly and the vehicle leaves once more.
“Harrison?” Rod guesses, his brown-skinned face sheened with sweat from their sprint.
“Minda,” Benson corrects.
Check’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “How’d you keep him away?”
“It’s his turn for a makeover.”
“But he already looks like a punk,” Gonzo notes. Not that long ago, that would’ve been a real insult, but now Benson can tell from the lightness in the words that his Jumper friend is joking. Although Harrison and Gonzo will probably never be friends, at least they’ve reached a tenuous understanding.
“Congrats on being number one,” Check says, changing the subject.
Benson knows exactly what he’s referring to. The latest edition of the RUSA Most Wanted List. He received more than a few slaps on the back when it was released with him at the top, ahead of Jarrod. Within the consortium, making the list was apparently a matter of pride. At the time, it made Benson want to throw up.
“Thanks, I think,” Benson says.
“That list is manure,” Gonzo says. “No way should Harrison be ahead of us. They even stuck me and Rod here in the same spot, like we’ve only got—”
“One brain,” Rod finishes for him, smirking. “Maybe they got that part right, after all.”
Gonzo pushes him. “Stop doing that!”
“Guys,” Check says. “Look the part.” Benson’s somewhat surprised to hear the command in his friend’s voice. He’s even more surprised as the two rambunctious Jumpers obey him immediately, their hands returning to their weapons.
“Where’d you get the outfits and the car?” Benson asks. He realizes the answer the moment the question slips off his lips: “Jarrod.”
Check nods once.
“You told him where you were going?” Benson says.
“No, just who we were meeting.”
“He could’ve had you followed.”
“He didn’t.”
“You trust him?” Benson frowns, getting frustrated.
Check looks away, toward the river, then back to Benson. “He told us what he did to you—what he tried to do to you.”
“Yeah, he tried to kill me. But not just me. It would’ve been my mom, Minda, Simon. We were all trapped.”
“Then how…” Check’s question trails off, his face screwed up in confusion.
“How am I alive? Because this is bigger than any of us. There are powers at work here that even Jarrod, Mr. Rebellion himself, isn’t aware of. My father was a part of something important, something monumental. And Jarrod needs to stop the killing so we can finish what my father started.”
“Tell me,” Check says. “Jarrod won’t stop the bombing without more details, nor should he. If it’s any consolation, he knows he made a mistake when he tried to make a martyr of you. It’s unforgivable, I know. I almost left right when he told me.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“Because even if Jarrod makes mistakes and is a little scary sometimes, the alternative to him is even scarier. This world is a disaster. Things need to change, and if we can’t change people’s minds about population control, then fear is our only option. If they’re scared enough, maybe they’ll force our leaders to meet the Lifer’s demands.”
“It’s not fear—it’s terror,” Benson says scathingly. “Is that what you want to be a part of?”
“It’s better than doing nothing.”
“We’re not doing nothing,” Benson says, shaking his head in frustration. “My father had a plan. A good one. Come back with me. You can help us. You have to trust me.” He realizes he’s pleading now, but he doesn’t care. He’s spent the last eight years of his life with these three. He can’t just let them slip away.
“We do trust you, amigo,” Rod says.
“Yeah, it’s your father we don’t trust,” Gonzo says.
“My father is dead.”
“All the more reason to abandon whatever failed plan he had,” Check says. “Your father may have had good intentions—I don’t really know—but from the start he was going about things the wrong way. All those years in power and nothing changed.”
“The time wasn’t right,” Benson says. “But now it is.”
“Then tell us what you’re planning to do. I told you about Jarrod’s plan to destroy Pop Con headquarters.”
“Cutting off the head of the beast won’t work,” Benson says. “Not when it has ten heads. You have to cut them all off.”
“Then we will. Or you can tell us how you’re planning to do it.”
When Benson set up this meeting, he’d intended to tell his best friends everything, using the logic of his father’s plan to persuade them to come over to his side. But now he knows he can’t. Not when they’re acting like Jarrod’s minions. Not when he can see the desire for violence in their ey
es. Not when they might run straight back to Jarrod and tell him everything. He wants to trust them—should be able to trust them—but this is too big, too important.
When Benson remains silent, Check says, “I see how it is.”
“I’m sorry,” Benson says. “Can you buy me some time? Delay the attack on Pop Con?”
Check shakes his head. He looks sad, and Benson’s pretty sure it’s not because he’s not able to help. “The very fact that you would ask that scares the hell out of me.”
This conversation isn’t going at all like Benson had planned. But he still has to try to salvage things, to fulfill the promise he made to Luce before she died. “Where’s Geoffrey?” he asks.
“He refused to come.” Check won’t meet Benson’s eyes, settling somewhere on the top of his Mohawk.
“He’s my responsibility,” Benson says. “Can you get him? Can you bring him to me?”
Check closes his eyes, breathing slowly, letting moments pass like the lazy snowflakes that have begun to fall. When his eyes flash open, they’re full of anger. “The kid made the Most Wanted List, for bot’s sake. He’s safer where he is. Just because you loved her doesn’t mean you have a monopoly on all things Luce, especially not her brother. It’s Geoffrey’s choice, and he wants to stay with us.”
Although the words hit Benson deep in the chest, he can sense the underlying message not spoken by his old friend. An unexpected kindness, even if he figured it out anyway.
Geoffrey blames you for his sister’s death.
Although the thought hurts more than a hundred tranq darts piercing his skin, he can’t be angry at the kid for feeling that way. The truth is, if he’d never met Luce she’d still be alive. She was a runaway orphan, but not an illegal citizen, like him.
“Protect him. Please,” Benson says, fighting off the swell of emotion swimming behind his eyes.
When Check’s gaze meets Benson’s, the anger is gone. The last couple weeks seem to disappear, and they’re the kids who met on a fateful night eight years ago again. The kids who grew up together, who conquered the streets together, who laughed and loved and lived together.
The moment disappears when they blink, and Check says, “I will. Take care of yourself.” He turns and heads back toward their waiting Crow car.
Rod mouths I’m sorry and follows him. Gonzo is the last to go, his lips pursed in what appears to Benson to be indecision. In a voice low enough that the other two won’t be able to hear him, he says, “I’ll do whatever I can to give you extra time, but I can’t make any promises. Jarrod is pretty set in his plans.”
“Thank you,” Benson says to his friend’s back as he walks away. Watching them go, he feels a bubble of loneliness expanding in his chest.
He knows there’s a very real chance this is the last time he’ll ever see them.
Chapter Eight
Destiny has never seen so many people. They’re like ants, crawling all over each other, trying to push forward to get a better view. Everything in Saint Louis is bigger, faster, more…potent. Like the air, which seems dense and hard to swallow. Like the buildings, monstrosities of engineering that seem to grow higher, reaching into the clouds even as she tries to climb her eyes upwards to their peaks. Like the aut-cars and the people, who never seem to stop, always in motion, as if it’s the movement itself keeping them alive. The energy that rolls off of them makes her heart pound through her chest.
Perhaps from the excitement.
Perhaps from the fear.
It makes her feel alive again, the not knowing what will happen next. Not being in control.
She’s spent her entire life on the run, moving from one small town to the next, trying to stay one step ahead of the Hunters. Being amongst a crowd this large is strangely liberating, although at the same time she feels exposed and unsafe, like at any moment one of the thousands of hands could grab her around the throat.
The thought makes it hard to breathe.
She lets out a gasp when someone jostles her unapologetically from behind, brushing past her. Fortunately his attention isn’t on her, as he’s carrying a portable holo-screen which appears to be showing the same report as the one being projected from the massive screen on the side of the building. The man’s eyes dance between the holos, as if searching for differences.
The three-dimensional holo of the reporter is enormous, her legs the size of girders and her head like a blimp. Her words echo throughout the buildings like thunderclaps. For the last minute, she’s been building the suspense for whatever she’s about to show them, which is what has drawn the crowd of rubberneckers.
“As I said at the beginning of this report, the videos were sent by someone referring to himself only as the Destroyer, an alias we have confirmed belongs to an ex-Hunter cyborg named…”
But Destiny doesn’t hear the rest, her breath hitching in her throat, her fists clenching instinctively. She doesn’t even notice the woman that pushes past her with an elbow.
Destroyer.
The single word conjures up horrible, horrible memories. A concrete prison. Waking up from an unnatural sleep to find herself bound, to find Harrison having been tortured. The red-hot tip of a knife closing in on her eye. The smell of burning human flesh—her flesh—as the blade was pressed into her cheek, sizzling like bacon being cooked by a food-maker.
When her hearing returns, she realizes her hand is on her face, her index finger tracing the lines of the knife-shaped scar, the contours of the rippled skin, like a gruesome frozen teardrop.
“…warn you that the video we are about to show is extremely graphic. Viewer discretion advised.” Destiny drops her hand from her cheek, darkly impressed with the reporter, whose gritty declaration has only further piqued the interest of the citizens, who seem to lean in as one as the woman disappears, leaving the holo black and empty. The seconds are drawn out purposely, as everyone in the city seems unable to blink for fear of missing something.
Blue flashing lights appear peripherally, dozens of Crow cars stopping on the outskirts of the crowd, and a finger of icy fear crawls across her skin. She curls her toes slightly to lower her hoverskates to the ground, and ducks behind a largish man.
But the Crows aren’t here for her. It’s a matter of procedure, she realizes, watching as first crowd-control bots and then human law enforcement officials dressed in riot gear and wielding stun guns swarm from the stopped vehicles. Somehow the people manage to part, creating a wide lane for them to occupy, while squishing together even more. If anyone is concerned about the Crow presence, they don’t show it, their attention fixed firmly on the blackness waiting to be filled by the Destroyer’s video.
There’s a gasp when the first image appears, a ruined cyborg face, a smoldering wreckage for an eye socket. Destiny knows she should feel some semblance of pride for having inflicted the wound that saved their lives from the psychopath, but instead she feels bile rising in her throat. Because he’s alive. The Destroyer is really alive.
The camera pans to the ground, where someone lies still, as if sleeping. Beneath the body is wetness, glistening under the light of the camera. Blood. The shot zooms in on the body’s face. Screams chase their way through the crowd. Someone shouts, “It’s Mars! Corrigan Mars!”
The holo spins and the Destroyer’s giant face fills the space above their heads. His lips move slowly, hissing out the words. “The head of Pop Con is dead. He was weak, like the many that came before him. You are safe now. I am the Destroyer. I am Pop Con.” His face fades and stark images cycle through the air, showing death and malice and cruelty. Over the bodies of the dead babies, a message flashes:
Illegals will die.
When the video returns to the Destroyer, he’s close to Mars’s body, holding some sort of a multi-toothed instrument.
That’s when he begins sawing.
Destiny looks away, unable and unwilling to watch any more. Cries of fear, outrage, and horror rattle through the audience. “Pop Con can’t even protect itself!” som
eone shouts. “How can they protect us?”
“They’ve never protected us anyway!” someone else yells. “They kill our children.”
“So we can survive.”
“Killing is NOT surviving.”
“Population Control protects us. We’d all starve without it.”
So many people are shouting now that their words begin to meld together into a dull roar of anger and disagreement. The Destroyer’s video isn’t the reason for the tension, but it’s certainly the catalyst. Although Destiny always suspected the citizens of the RUSA were divided on the issue of population control, she’s never seen it debated so openly.
“We’ve been waiting for Birth Authorization for nine years,” a woman says with disgust.
“Not everyone should have kids,” a man snaps back.
Destiny catches a glimpse of a man shoving through the crowd, pushing another guy with both hands. In the thick tangle of bodies, the guy has nowhere to go, and he bounces back, throwing a punch, which connects with the other man’s jaw.
More shouts and pushing and punches follow, the crowd whipping itself into a frenzy, like sharks in chum-filled water.
“Cease immediately!” a crowd control bot booms, its hollow voice echoing from its speakers.
As if by some unspoken agreement, the crowd begins pushing forward, trying to close in on the Crows from all sides. Destiny feels herself being herded, unable to stop moving forward for fear of being trampled. The bodies are pressing against her and the desire to lift off with her hoverskates and zip away rushes through her. No, she tells herself. She has to stay cool, not draw attention to herself. There are cameras everywhere, nearly every citizen holding them aloft and filming the scene as they stampede forward. There are too many witnesses. She needs to blend in.
A fizzer can flies through the air, moving far too fast for it to be empty. She watches its trajectory as it arcs, tumbling end over end, before smashing into the giant holo-screen. Cracks plume out from the point of impact, shards of projection material crumbling away onto the heads of those directly below it. More projectiles are thrown, some of them hitting the screen, others glancing off the crowd control bots or the Crows’ riot shields. Other objects don’t make it nearly far enough, falling dangerously into the crowd. Destiny is forced to duck twice to avoid being hit.