by Terry Brooks
“You’ve found something out?” Ash asks.
“I’ve found a lot out, and it all points to your uncle. You already know his signature is on both the writ of exemption and the negation order. Now guess who shows up on BioGen’s purchase manifests as its biggest client? ORACLE. Guess who sits on the board of directors of BioGen? Cyrus Collins.”
Ash feels his blood turn cold.
She pauses, a finger lifting. “I’m not done. Guess who’s listed on the territorial registration records as titleholder of Starfire? Who therefore must have arranged for delivery of Starfire to our doorstep several days ago? Who was the last person to have access to her before she ever got to us? Who might have had time to tamper with her?” Jenny leans back.
“All right.” Ash feels his anger building. The conclusion is all too evident. “So it’s my uncle who’s responsible after all. But we’re right back where we started. Why would he blow up his very expensive racing machine to kill either T.J. or me? That’s what you’re suggesting he did, isn’t it?”
She shakes her head. “No, it isn’t. Blowing up his racer to kill anyone makes no sense at all. Which is why I don’t think he’s the one responsible.”
“Wait a minute.” Ash holds up his hands to slow her down. “Didn’t you just make a case for why he did do it? Haven’t you just proven it?”
Jenny gives him a small smile. “What I’ve done is show you why everyone who knows enough to be suspicious is supposed to think that’s what happened. I think someone is trying to shift the blame to your uncle.”
“Well, who else would it . . .?” The blood drains from his face as realization sets in. “You think it was the Shoe?”
“Everything that happens at Street Freaks goes through the Shoe. You couldn’t be here without him knowing. We couldn’t have helped you once he knew you were here if he didn’t approve. Cyrus Collins warned us by issuing that negation order to countermand our writ of exemption and sent in Achilles Pod to mess around with us. Didn’t work. The Shoe let you stay anyway. But I think he’s been playing a game of his own. A game with your uncle. A dangerous game. The Shoe is an opportunist; he always has been. He knew you were valuable to Cyrus. Maybe he told your uncle he should leave you where you were at Street Freaks and let him try to find out what your father told you. Maybe he did it to curry favor with a powerful benefactor, but maybe he extracted a promise of something more.”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I do know that they’ve had an arrangement for a long time. Cyrus Collins uses us to get revenge on people who go up against him. Every so often, he uses us for his own purposes. He uses us to break into corporations he wants to damage or destroy—or simply to find information that will discredit specific corporate leaders. The Shoe and Street Freaks, in turn, get protection from interference in all their break-ins, legal and not, through our writ of exemption. The Shoe thinks none of us know this—and the others don’t. But I found out a while back. Your father was the only one I told.”
“My father knew? So maybe he was killed because of this . . .” Ash starts.
But Jenny is already shaking her head. “I don’t think so. It was his death that triggered everything that’s happened. I think it goes more like this: The Shoe is trapped in a situation largely of his own making. He let you settle in here and made you think he’s your friend; he did so in large part to find out what you know so he can tell your uncle. But now it’s looking like either there’s nothing to find, or if there is, you’re not going to open up about it. So he’s left empty-handed and Cyrus is running out of patience. Thus the fraying of their relationship begins.”
Ash frowns. “But how does killing T.J. do anything to help?”
“The Shoe wasn’t trying to kill T.J. He was trying to kill you and make it look like an accident that had nothing to do with him. Who took T.J. out of the cockpit? Who put you in his place? If you were killed in a racing accident, it would be unfortunate, but it would also remove the problem of what to do about his failure to find anything out after promising he would. He saw his chance when T.J. damaged his fingers at Checkered Flag. Put you behind the wheel of Starfire in T.J.’s place. Rig the machine to explode—likely by remote signal. Cut his losses. Cyrus would lose interest in Street Freaks with you dead, and the Shoe would be in the clear. No one would ever know what he had done. Things could go back to normal.”
She paused. “Except he didn’t realize T.J. was so determined to drive that the broken fingers were not enough to keep him from doing so.”
“He misjudged T.J.’s determination. But T.J. was going to take the blame either way. The Shoe would have told Cyrus it was T.J.s idea in the first place, his suggestion. Even though you refused it, T.J went behind your back and put Ash in Starfire anyway.”
There is a long silence as Ash considers the unpleasant conclusion that the Shoe, whom he trusted to keep him safe, has betrayed him. On reflection, it doesn’t seem as far-fetched as he might once have imagined.
“I guess he might be capable of something like that,” he says.
“What? Of throwing you to the wolves? Blowing up your uncle’s prized racer and you in the process? In a heartbeat, if he thought it would serve his own needs.”
Ash stares at her. “But you don’t know for sure. You can’t. You’re speculating that all this happened based mostly on your suspicion.”
“Give me a better explanation than the one I’ve just given you.”
Ash exhales sharply. He can’t, of course. There isn’t one. “So what do we do?”
She shrugs. “We’ll confront him tonight when he returns. Get the answers we deserve. I just finished working this out. As you said, it’s still a lot of speculation. I don’t know for sure if I’m right.”
But she is. She is exactly right. The more he lives with it, the more certain he becomes. Everything she has said makes perfect sense. Everything fits.
“This won’t be pleasant.” Jenny stands. “After all, the Shoe is going to have to make up his mind about what to do with you when he finds you’re still alive. Maybe between us we can make him do the right thing.”
They move out into the garage area and Bay 3, where Holly and Woodrow are working on the Regal Flyer, a retro machine with flames and pinstripes for decorations, a custom order they have been building for several months now. They work mostly without talking to each other, and then only when it is necessary to converse about what they were doing. No one mentions T.J. But Ash is certain no one has stopped thinking about him.
The afternoon passes into evening. It is late at night before the Shoe finally slips in through the back door. Holly has gone to bed and Woodrow is puttering around with computer parts in Bay 5. But Jenny and Ash are waiting to confront him, and they follow him into his office without waiting to be invited.
Ash does not miss the momentary expression of shock that crosses the Shoe’s face when they lock eyes—but the look is gone almost as quickly as it appears.
“So T.J. ended up driving Starfire, after all,” he says with a wry smile. He moves over to his desk and sits behind it. “That would explain the reason she made it all the way to the finals. However lucky or skillful you might be, Ash—no offense intended—you could never have managed it.”
“Turns out I’m pretty lucky as it is,” Ash responds, managing to keep his tone of voice steady.
“What is it you want?” he asks, seeing the looks on their faces. His clothes are rumpled and stained, and his face is
haggard. “Speak up. I’m tired and I want to go to bed.”
Jenny tells him, laying it all out clearly and concisely—everything from what she has learned to what she has surmised. To his credit, the Shoe doesn’t try to cut her off or interrupt. He lets her get it all out before he speaks, and when he does, his voice is soft.
“That’s one wild tale, Jenny,” he says. “Really an amazing piece of creative thinking. But you know it isn’t true.”
They stare at each other. “Isn’t it?
” she asks finally. “You thought it would be Ash behind the wheel. You never considered that it might be T.J. You have something going with Cyrus Collins. An arrangement. He wanted to know what Brantlin might have told Ash, and you were trying to strike a bargain that would turn a profit for you. I know how your mind works. I’ve been here long enough to understand how you think.”
“You don’t understand anything.”
“After Cyrus allowed Achilles Pod to breach the compound, you knew you had to get rid of Ash. Our corporate sabotage business was too lucrative to let him mess it up. So you rigged Starfire and put Ash behind the wheel. A major loss for Cyrus, but it didn’t cost you a single credit and everyone thinks it was nothing more than an unfortunate accident. That’s what you did, didn’t you? Don’t lie to me.”
The Shoe starts to say something and then stops. He gives her a dark, threatening look. “You don’t want to do this,” he says quietly.
“I’m doing it.”
He shakes his head. “The hell with it. You always were too smart for your own good. He shrugs, gives her a resigned look. “What difference does it make now. You’ve made up your mind. So, okay. You’ve gotten most of it right. What are you going to do about it?”
“What are you going to do?” she asks him back. “Isn’t that the important question?”
He leans back in his chair. “Not really. I wish I didn’t know half of what I do. I wish I’d done some things differently. Maybe then T.J. wouldn’t be toast. But I didn’t and he is. It’s too late to do anything about it now. There’s nothing I can do to bring him back.”
“You could tell someone what you know!” she snaps. “That won’t bring T.J. back, but it would be a start to setting things right.”
“I could tell someone what I think I know,” he corrects her. “But I won’t. What I’ll do is keep my mouth shut. We don’t have the muscle or the money to stand up to Cyrus Collins and BioGen. They’ll eat us alive if we try. We’re little fish swimming in a pool of sharks.”
“So you’re just going to go on ignoring what they’re doing over at BioGen? They’re killing kids with their experiments, just to make a larger profit. Cyrus is involved in all of it. He sits on their board of directors. He protects them from any sort of accountability. What about Ash’s father? Do we just sit back and ignore what happened to him? Are we just supposed to forget all of it?”
The Shoe brushes her off with a gesture. “It would be better for you if you did. Do you think for one minute Cyrus Collins gives a rat’s ass about a bunch of street kids? A few discards are part of research in every phase of scientific evolution that I can think of. I don’t know what they’re doing over at BioGen, and I don’t think you know either. But I do know this. If Cyrus thinks for one minute we didn’t get the message about sticking our noses in where they don’t belong, the robo-sweepers will end up scrubbing us off the Red Zone pavement.”
He looks over at Ash. “In an effort to try to set that part of things right, I’m going to do what I should have done in the first place. I’m giving you to your uncle.”
“You can’t!” Jenny snaps at once, incensed.
“Shut up, Jenny!” The Shoe continues to eye Ash. “You have become a huge liability. You’ve cost me uncountable credits and grief just by being here. Thanks to you, I’m saddled with some very powerful enemies. You’ve been nothing but trouble, and I want you gone.”
Ash nods slowly. He guesses he would want that too if he were the Shoe. But it’s the coward’s way out, and he had hoped the Shoe would be better than this. He wants the owner of Street Freaks to honor his father’s trust.
“You told my uncle I was hiding here, didn’t you?” he says. “It was you.”
The Shoe snorts. “He already knew. He learned about it from somewhere else, from someone on the streets. I tried to help you. I let you stay. Big mistake.”
“You tried to use Ash to help yourself!” Jenny is practically screaming. “You tried to find out what he knew about his father’s notes so you could give everything to Cyrus!”
“I think I told you to shut up once already, didn’t I?”
Jenny starts to say something more, but the Shoe reaches out cat-quick, snatches the front of her ribbed sheath, and yanks her halfway across the desk.
“Don’t say anything more, Jenny,” he hisses. “You hear me? Don’t. Not one word. Not about T.J., not about Ash, not about me.” His smooth features are intense, dangerous. “You let Ash back in here after he left for ORACLE. You told him everything about our corporate espionage business. You made him a member of our family, and you didn’t ask my permission about any of it. Who the hell do you think you are?”
He releases her, shoving her back across the desktop where she collapses in her chair, her face white. “You’re just a ’tweener, Jenny. ’Tweeners are disposable. Don’t you get it? Just because I saved you once doesn’t mean I’ll do it again!”
He pauses, his face dark. “So here’s the deal. Listen closely, Jenny, because I’m only going to say this once. No more hacking into computer systems. No more poking around in the affairs of BioGen and ORACLE. All that’s finished. You do nothing from here on out but what I tell you to do. That’s not a suggestion. That’s an order! If you can’t follow it, get out!”
“What about T.J.?” Ash demands suddenly. “Because of you, he’s dead. What about that?”
The Shoe wheels on Ash. “Better him than you, don’t you think! You should be grateful it wasn’t you!”
The truth solidifies for both Ash and Jenny at the same moment. The Shoe did rig Starfire to explode. He did intend to see Ash killed in what appeared to be a racing accident. T.J. was collateral damage, an unfortunate loss of a valuable employee but likely not much more.
A very long, uncomfortable moment of silence follows. Then the Shoe abruptly wheels away. “I’m done talking! Believe what you want!”
He leaves, slamming the door behind him. Ash and Jenny sit in stunned silence, staring after him. When Ash finally speaks, his voice is shaking. “You were right.”
She nods, tight-lipped. She sits up and straightens her clothes. She brushes out a few of the wrinkles and looks out to where the Shoe has disappeared into his private quarters. “I never thought he would go this far. All that talk of being a family. All his promises to look after us. It never meant a thing.”
“He’s afraid.”
“Very afraid. He should be. If your uncle knew what the Shoe tried to do to you, he would kill him.”
“Only because he thinks I know something about my father’s work. He thinks my father told me or gave me something. Not because he cares otherwise.”
“Doesn’t matter why.”
Ash stands. “I’ll leave right away. I’ll go somewhere else. I don’t want anything to happen to the rest of you. I’m already responsible for T.J.”
She comes over and takes hold of his arms, facing him squarely. Her voice is steady and firm. “No, Ash. You aren’t responsible. No one but the Shoe is responsible. He might think we can’t do anything about your uncle, but he’s wrong. We’re not giving up.”
“You can’t afford to risk yourselves . . .”
“Ash, don’t you see what he’s doing? He’s trying to rid himself of you. He needs to square things with Cyrus. Putting you inside Starfire didn’t work. So now he’ll get word to your uncle. Achilles Pod will come after you, and we’ll never see you again!”
She releases him and moves to the door, peering out into the darkened bays. Even Woodrow has gone to bed. Ash can tell she is checking to be sure. She has a furtive, almost haunted look about her.
“What are you up to?” he asks.
She glances at him. “I didn’t tell the Shoe everything. I didn’t spend all my time on the computer searching for information about your father. I hacked into BioGen’s security system—into the backup storage units where they store the locking codes to their files. They’re encrypted, but I deciphered their keys and downloaded the results.”
<
br /> He stares. “Won’t they know what you’ve done?”
“Not the way I work, they won’t. Only problem we have is that the keys to the locking codes have to be entered directly into the mainframe units to get the information we need. It’s an added layer of protection against hacking. I can’t do it from an offsite computer.”
“What are you saying?”
She gives him a look. “I’m saying if we want to find out what’s really going on, we’re going to have to break into BioGen.”
- 22 -
That night, drifting in the gray world of transition between waking and sleeping, Ash dreams.
His dream comes and goes in small snippets between uneasy sleep and wakefulness, abandoning him when he verges on the latter and then returning when he sinks back into the former. There is a schizophrenic element to it that alternatively grips and releases him so that it feels as if he is living more than one life.
This duality is clearly revealed in the fragmented dreams he experiences.
In the first, he is sitting with his father in the kitchen of their sky tower home, eating breakfast and talking. His father is saying something important, but Ash isn’t hearing the words. His mind is elsewhere. It is locked on a nameless inevitability so terrifying he cannot confront it directly, cannot make himself think about the details. Instead, he is frozen in place, pretending to listen while his father speaks, unable to understand him, his words a confused jumble.
A sense of impending disaster weighs heavily on him. Something is going to happen that will change his life forever.
In the next, he is in a medical facility of some sort. A hospital, perhaps. Or a research center. He comes down a hallway past any number of closed doors until he reaches a room where the door is open and enters. He appears to be alone, although he believes someone might have accompanied him. He waits patiently for an explanation. He sits on a chair molded of a synthetic material, the kind used for large gatherings in meeting halls. Once he sits, he cannot make himself move. He keeps looking around, sensing he is being watched but unable to find anyone. He is thirsty. He is sleepy.