by Riley Flynn
One more tank of gas. With the leaks, spills, and general unreliability of the dilapidated car, they needed all the gas they could get.
But Timmy was right. Not far now. Not far at all.
Alex held his face in his hands. He was tired. He had to wake up. Just one more tank of gas. Then they’d be in Virginia. For the last week, he’d tried extra hard to push down every single memory and recollection about the farm. He couldn’t let thoughts about Sammy or Dad or Mom cloud his judgment.
Like a pot on the stove, the lid was rattling as the steam escaped out from the sides. His mind was boiling, his memories bubbling to the surface and popping. The closer they got to the farm, the more the thoughts and feelings and recollections made themselves felt. Alex had to keep everything under control, for his friends’ sake.
Pinching his cheeks, he pulled himself out of the car.
“All right.” He looked up at Timmy. “Let’s see what’s here.”
The truck stop buildings were squat and ugly. Concrete bunkers built to ward off the cold winds and the brittle winters. The gas pumps were empty. Or not working. Either way, they had no chance of siphoning the gas out of them, if there was anything left.
Timmy’s eyes turned toward the trucks. Five of them, all lined up like crows on a telephone wire, perched and ready for take-off. For whatever reason, they’d never completed their journey. Big eighteen wheelers, hauling their goods across the country. Deliveries never to be completed.
Leaving Alex behind, Timmy went to check the trucks.
“Could be something valuable inside,” he reasoned as he walked away. “Wanna bet what I find?”
“Flat-pack furniture and pantyhose.” Alex recognized the store names printed along the side of the truck. “Check if they have gas or whatever.”
“Will do, boss.”
Elsewhere around the truck stop, everyone had picked a building to explore. Cam had entered the diner and Alex saw him through the big windows walking around. Checking in the till, in the store rooms. Nothing worth taking, his demeanor seemed to suggest.
Joan was out of sight. She’d walked into the store. Could be food inside. Their meal packs were down to the bare bones now. Cam had cut into the supplies. If she could find anything in there, it would be useful. They’d need food on the farm, too. Timmy’s seedbank wouldn’t be ready to harvest right away. Maybe she could pick out a few Twinkies. Real end of the world food.
Searching around the perimeter, Alex found himself walking to the rear of the diner. Cloaked in shadows, hidden from sight and sun where the back of the building pushed up against an outside storeroom, a slow dripping sound caught his attention.
It was a small space, perhaps three feet from one building to another. Even with the sun, no light found its way inside. Alex stepped closer. The drip was slow, deliberate. A metallic echo calling out to him from the darkness.
Checking over his shoulder, Alex walked forward into the shadows. Fallen leaves had been blown into the space and had piled up on either side. He was close. The dripping sound grew louder with every step.
There it was. Something beneath the leaves. A large object, about the height of a knee. Alex bent over and tapped a nail against the surface. That same metal clink. He brushed the foliage aside, his hand getting wet. This time, the drop hit against his middle finger. He looked up. A crack in the gutter had opened above the object.
Alex looked down and brushed aside more of the leaves. A jerry can, stashed away out the back of the diner. He kicked it. Half, maybe three-quarters full. Even if people had sacked the rest of the truck stop, they’d easily miss this.
Finding the gas here was like striking gold.
He didn’t pause to brush off the rest of the leaves, just picked up the can and began walking back to the car.
It was heavy, rusted, and it cut into Alex’s hands as he carried it across the parking lot. The liquid inside sloshed around. A decent amount. Probably enough to get them through the park, over the hills, and down past Roanoke, depending on how fast they drove. Something must have snapped or broken under the hood, he thought, because the car shouldn’t have been eating this much gas. Once they hit the farm, they could ditch it for good.
“Hey, hey!” Timmy ran toward Alex with something in his hands. “Alex, man. Look!”
Alex couldn’t quite see what Timmy was carrying. It fit into two hands, it was flat and the size of a large book. It must be light or Timmy wouldn’t be able to carry it in his weakened state, especially while running.
“Check it out, man, got it from one of the trucks.”
Looking past his friend, Alex could see one of the truck doors swinging open. The biggest one, bright yellow with chrome fixings. The license plate read ‘TONKA12’, a custom. Of course Timmy had raided that truck, he laughed to himself. It looked like a toy.
Timmy must have been going through the drivers’ compartments rather than the haulage.
“See, we can check out those drives now.”
Alex could see it now. A laptop. Flat and grey. An old model. God knew what the trucker was using it for, stashed away in the back of his cabin.
“Is that all you found?” Alex placed the gas can next to the car.
“What do you mean ‘all you found’? It’s a computer, man! We can finally take a look at what’s on those drives.”
“Yeah, I know, I know. I meant there wasn’t anyone else over there? You were all alone?”
Timmy slowed to a stop as he reached the car. The smile flickered.
“Well, maybe not quite ‘alone’. There might have been someone else there. But he doesn’t want it now, trust me.”
“He’s dead?”
Timmy just looked Alex in the eye and kept his mouth closed. They shared a knowing look.
“I found this can of gas. Want to help me fill the tank here?”
“You can do it. I’m going to try and open this baby up.”
“I doubt it even works, Timmy. Don’t get too excited.”
“Nah, man. I got this. Trust me.”
Leaving the laptop on the ground, Timmy dove headfirst into the trunk of the car and buried his face in one of the bags. Alex opened the car’s gas tank to and unscrewed the top of the jerry can. It certainly smelled like gasoline inside. Lifting up the can, he began to pour. He spilled plenty. He cursed.
“Stop shaking the damn car, Timmy.”
Crawling backwards, Timmy nearly fell out of the trunk. He steadied himself and then dropped to the ground anyway, sitting cross-legged next to the rear wheel. The laptop balanced across his thighs, he began to wind up the small portable generator he’d brought all the way from Castle Ratz. It whirred and fizzed.
“Throw me one of those flash drives.” Timmy didn’t take his eyes from the empty screen.
“You don’t even want to get it up and running first?”
“Just throw it to me, man.”
Alex stopped pouring the gas and looked around the parking lot. Cam was still in the diner, Joan was probably still in the store. Finn was sniffing at the wheels of the trucks and lifting a leg to leave his mark. No one else around. They had time.
“Fine.” Alex tucked a hand into his pocket and found a flash drive. He handed it down to his friend.
“Thank you kindly.”
Timmy had charged up his generator and was trailing the cable from the laptop into the socket. He pressed the power button. The screen lit up, black and white text appearing followed by a company logo.
“She’s alive!” Timmy shouted.
Alex watched his friend tap away on the keys.
“Ah, crap.” Timmy’s voice lowered and he bit his lip.
A password screen. Fingers began to tap on the keys.
“You really think you can guess his password?”
“Maybe, man.” Timmy’s lips moved even when he wasn’t speaking, his fingers working furiously on the keyboard. “Most people’s passwords are pretty simple. Just trying a few basics.”
“Like
‘password’?”
“Hey, man, you’d be surprised how much that works.”
Timmy slapped the keyboard.
“Damn it. Okay, we’re going to have to think a bit harder.”
“Can we do this on the road?”
“Think, man. Think.”
“We don’t need to do this now, Timmy.”
Alex could see his friend’s eyes scouring the horizon. He was unlikely to find an answer looking out down the lonely road. Timmy’s eyes settled on the truck with the open door. Finn was sniffing at the license plate.
“No way, man. No way.” Click-clack as Timmy tapped on the keys. “And we’re in. Can’t believe it.”
“You’re in?”
“Yeah, man. Gotta love vanity plates. Would you believe it? So. Want to try?”
The computer worked through the start-up process and Timmy held the flash drive up in front of Alex. Small. Plastic. Black. Maybe it contained everything they needed to know. Everything needed to get their lives back on track. Everything the government didn’t want them to know. Maybe it contained nothing. There must be a reason the agents were after it.
“You want to check?”
“Here and now?” Even as Alex asked, he realized he couldn’t see Cam or Joan anymore. That was odd, he thought, but the computer was too interesting a proposition to distract him. They were probably just exploring.
“Sure, why not?”
“Maybe we need time?”
“So? Quick look now and then we’ll dive in deeper when we get to the farm. Come on, man, I can’t not know.”
“Should we wait for the others?”
“Doesn’t matter. Give them a shout. I’m plugging in.”
Alex cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted out their names. Joan. Cam. Finn. As soon as he called out, he regretted it. Just for a moment, he’d forgotten. Don’t shout. Don’t attract attention. With all the excitement, it was easy to forget the simple things.
The dog’s ears pricked up and he started toward them. No sign of the others.
The sound of the drive sliding into the computer was old school. Traditional, maybe. People hadn’t used these storage drives much in recent years. Everything lived online. Lucky they’d found such an outdated computer in the back of a truck, really. Alex kept all this to himself and slumped down beside his friend, leaning his back against the car.
The computer was ready. Timmy moved the cursor over one folder titled “XXX” and raised his eyebrows to his friend.
“Might need this in the brave new world, eh?”
“Just get on with it, Timmy. Don’t make me wait.”
“That’s what she said.” Timmy spoke the words into his chest, looking down and tapping the drive to make sure it was in place. “Okay, here we go.”
Timmy’s finger double-tapped against the plastic. The screen changed. Blinked. Went black. A red light ignited beneath the black plastic on the drive. It blinked. Beeps and shrill noises came from the computer and the drive, working in tandem.
Alex reached down and pulled the screen toward him. As he touched it, the darkness vanished. A blue background, embossed with some agency logo. No time to check which before it was obscured by a new folder. A scrolling list of text, filling up the screen with speed. Moving too fast to read.
Gradually, as the words flew by, Alex began to pick out recognizable slabs of text. Names. Ages. Medical conditions. All of it lined up in a table, the information populating the screen. There must have been thousands of the names flashing before his eyes every second. Then it stopped.
A block of text appeared.
UNRECOGNIZED WORK STATION. CURRENTLY CONNECTING TO CIA SERVERS. PLEASE WAIT.
The red light on the drive stopped blinking. It held a steady, ominous red. A single eye, watching them. Tracking them.
Timmy slammed the screen shut and stared straight ahead.
The air had gone cold in Alex’s throat. Words failed him. He could feel the panic beginning to infect his thoughts. Timmy moved first, jumping to his feet.
“Crap. Crap. Crap.”
He ripped the power cord from the laptop and pulled the drive out of the socket. The red light dulled.
“Do you think it got us?”
“Timmy. Tell me that wasn’t what I thought it was.”
“Crap.”
Both men scrambled to their feet. Timmy threw the laptop and the cables and everything else into the back of the car. Alex bellowed across the parking lot.
“Joan! Cam! We need to move. Now! Right now!”
Faces appeared in doorways and began to run toward him. Alex ran around to the driver’s side and hurled himself into the seat. Get the car running. No time to top off the gas.
That was a tracking program. He knew it. Timmy knew it. Whatever was in that flash drive, it was connecting to something. No wonder they had such old tech. Maybe it wasn’t old at all. They’d crammed a GPS unit into it? Who knew. Who cared. They had to move.
As he prepared to drive, Alex couldn’t help but think. His mind was moving at a hundred miles an hour. His fault. His curiosity. His burning desire to see what was on those drives. If this went wrong, this was all on him. He had to fix it.
In the mirrors, he could see Cam running. Joan came behind him, carrying something in her hands. No time to ask what.
“We need to move right now!” Alex shouted and slammed the door. No time to think. No time for guilt. Just drive.
Chapter 32
“What’s happened?”
Joan sat in the back seat, the dog balanced on her lap. Every dip and bump in the road rattled the car. She held on tight.
“I said what the hell happened? Timmy? Alex? What’s going on?”
Cam watched out of the back window through the binoculars. Timmy had the map in his hands but wasn’t looking at it. He turned to Alex.
“You think they got us?”
Alex turned to face his friend. Those eyes, one blighted and gray, stared back at him, wide and worried. What little color Timmy had left in his face had drained away.
“Don’t know. Probably. Let’s just hope they’re heading to Tennessee.”
“Hey. I just asked-”
“You don’t want to know, Joanie.” Timmy had turned in his seat, his knuckles paling as he gripped the fabric. “Trust me.”
“What the hell does that mean? What did the two of you do?”
Alex drove. They weren’t going fast. Every time he pushed the needle past thirty, the car coughed and complained and felt as though it were about to fall apart. But he had to move. He pushed the car harder. Thirty-two. Thirty-four. The rattling and creaking were so bad he couldn’t hear the others talk. They argued.
Timmy leaned back and was shouting in Joan’s ear. As the story unfolded, Alex watched her face in the mirror. Was she angry? Scared? He couldn’t tell. She turned to tell Cam what was happening. A game of telephone. The soldier locked eyes with the driver, ripped away the punctured tarp from the rear window, and then reached for his rifle. Cam watched the tail, the empty road stretching out behind them.
Every thought in Alex’s head told him to go faster.
Get away.
Flee.
Don’t be near the truck stop. He could already imagine Byrne and Root driving along, the alert coming through to their satellite. A gift from God. Manna from heaven. A stupid, stupid mistake. The needle pushed past thirty-six. A dumb, idiotic move. Alex wanted to punch himself in the face.
Shouldn’t have done it. Should have waited. Shouldn’t have done it. Shouldn’t have listened to Timmy. Shouldn’t have opened strange devices when secret agents had been sneaking around the camp only a few hours earlier. Alex cursed his dumb ideas. He pushed the car harder and faster.
The road was flat and straight. Cam scanned the horizon. Alex watched the road signs fly past. National park up ahead. That was where they needed to go. Not far now. Five miles. If that. Once they hit the winding roads, the routes over the mountains, the canyons a
nd the riverways, they’d be able to slow down and lose themselves. Out here, on the freeway, they were sitting ducks.
“It’s my fault,” Alex shouted over the struggling engine and the creaking car. “Timmy, you hear? It’s my fault.”
Timmy looked at him. He didn’t respond for a second, before opening his mouth wide and bellowing something to Alex. It was drowned out by the car. They had to slow down.
“I see something.”
The rattle and hum of the car had hardly died down when the words reverberated around the interior. The last thing anyone wanted to hear. Cam repeated himself.
“I see something out there. Other end of the road.”
A snapping sound, the grinding and breaking of metal. The car lurched, bounced, and drove on. Alex slowed down. He had to.
In the mirror, with Cam perched up against the empty window, Alex saw a piece of the car tumble away in the distance. No way of knowing what it was. Might as well be a breadcrumb to lead the CIA right to their location. He hoped Cam was wrong.
“What can you see?” Timmy tried to crane his neck to secure a better angle. “I can’t see nothing.”
Looking down the scope of the rifle, Cam spoke out of the corner of his mouth.
“Vehicle. Black one. I think we know who that is.”
Their speed had dropped. The car still complained.
“I can’t move any faster,” Alex shouted to the others. “We’ll just fall apart if I do.”
“How the hell did they catch up so fast? What did you do?” Joan pressed Finn down onto the middle seat and looked through the back window. Alex could feel the weight of accusation in her voice. “I thought you said they were heading in the wrong direction?”
“Maybe these folks didn’t fall for that.” Cam lined up the rifle. “Think I can take a shot?”
Timmy held up the flash drive. The red light was off. All that remained was the same matte black surface, giving nothing away.
“They might have tracked us.” Timmy leaned around to show Joan the device. “We booted this up with a laptop I found. It lit up.”
We, Alex thought. He said we. But it wasn’t Timmy. This is all my fault.
“You what?” Joan tried to snatch the flash drive from Timmy’s hand. The car lurched again and she only grabbed empty air. “Give it to me, Timmy. Get rid of it.”