Flight or Fight (The Out of Dodge Trilogy Book 1)

by Scott Bartlett

  And yet, he’d accomplished something. Riley and Jenny were free thanks to him, and even though he hadn’t succeeded in freeing Natalie, he took solace in the knowledge that they would at least be on the same prison barge. He would not be left to wonder whether she was okay.

  One thing he did wonder about, during the empty hours he spent waiting in the cell, was his hacker’s identity. Would he ever get a chance at payback for the years of digital torture? It didn’t seem likely, now.

  On his second day in the cell, they let his brother visit him, though Carl felt certain his captors turned up the TV’s volume the moment they began talking, as though to ensure he didn’t forget about his situation, even for a moment.

  “Thank you, Carl,” Leo said, his eyes glistening. “I can’t tell you how grateful we are. I know Riley will be much better off in the New World than he was in FutureBrite’s hands.”

  “How’s Rachel?”

  “Sad.” Leo looked at the floor. “She said to thank you too, but she’s home…feeling pretty depressed about being separated from Riley. But hey, we’re both going to work really hard to save up for a plane ticket. When we have enough we’re going to send her over, and I’ll stay in Dodge till I save enough for mine. We know this is for the best.”

  Carl inclined his head, and said nothing.

  Then Leo looked up with a small grin. “They ever give you anything to drink in here?”

  Carl shook his head. “If I did I’d pour it down the toilet. For some reason, getting drunk is the last thing I want to do.”

  “That wouldn’t be very good for your consumption record,” Leo said. “Wasting good booze like that.”

  They both laughed hard at that.

  “Hey, Carl…I’m sorry for being so hard on you before. You’re my brother, and you were on my side. I shouldn’t have doubted that. I should have known there were certain things you couldn’t say.”

  “It’s okay, Leo. I forgive you.”

  They embraced, as well as they could through the bars.

  During the long, empty hours when he had nothing to do but witness his own public excoriation, he found himself remembering what Natalie said about feeling responsible for her sister’s arrest. She wasn’t responsible, surely, but what could have caused her to feel that way?

  He wanted to ask her, but somehow he doubted being on a prison barge would make her more likely to talk about it. It seemed too sensitive a subject.

  The reps that passed by his cell barely glanced at him. They seemed rushed, antsy, like they were waiting for something to happen and unsure of where they should be when it did.

  On day three Anders became his cellmate, and he explained the reps’ anxiety to Carl. “FutureBrite is on the ropes,” he said. “The public is pissed about being lied to. There have been gatherings in the streets, demonstrations. The reps don’t know how to handle it, because they’ve never had to deal with anything like this before. The system is supposed to squash dissent before it ever gets the chance to gather momentum.”

  “But people think we’re terrorists, don’t they?” Carl gestured at the wall opposite their cell.

  “Some do. But they’re only showing you what’s on television. I’m willing to bet they haven’t let you see the conversation that’s taking place online, which has grown too large for SafeTalk to control.”

  Carl smiled and glanced toward the beds. “I call top bunk.”

  “Deal,” Anders said, snorting. “I have on too much weight to bother heaving it up onto high places anyway.”

  “Did you give them much of a chase? Before they arrested you?”

  “Nah. I just sat in my house and waited.”

  “What about Maria?”

  Anders glanced at him. “She ran.”

  “And?”

  “She got away. Has a lot of tricks up her sleeve, that one. I think she plans to continue leaking the FutureBrite docs, despite that Xavier cooperated about Riley and Jenny. See if she can get the rest of those kids free.”

  “Good. That’s good.”

  “She said, uh…” Anders cleared his throat. “She said to tell you she loves you. No matter what.”

  Carl nodded. He thought about how Maria must feel, knowing he was leaving Dodge with Natalie. And he wished he had a way of telling her he loved her back.

  EPILOGUE

  Brianna and Allison were the workers on-shift when the reps came for Jenny. “What did you do?” Allison yelled at her when she saw the reps. “Did you do something to one of the teachers at school?”

  Jenny just stared at her, and when the reps explained that she was going to get on a plane and leave Dodge forever, she hugged Brianna goodbye but not Allison. The reps’ words had left both caregivers dumbfounded and staring, but at least Brianna hugged her back. Jenny liked the way Allison’s mouth gaped as the reps led her to the access pole. She stuck out her tongue at her before rounding the corner, out of sight, forever.

  “What about my Mom and Dad, and my sister?” Jenny said from the back of the reps’ cruiser, on the way to the Air Earthport.

  “You can write them when you get to the New World.”

  But Jenny knew that wasn’t true, because no one wrote from the New World. They didn’t allow any contact with Dodge there, because they thought Dodge was a bad place, and they were right. She sighed. The reps were lying to her, but she was used to being lied to, and she’d learned a long time ago that you couldn’t stop adults from doing whatever they wanted to you. So she just sat there and waited.

  At the Air Earthport they put her with a boy, who they didn’t introduce, and he didn’t introduce himself. They made them both go through a Security Check, which took a long time because they didn’t trust her or the boy, just like she didn’t trust them. When they finally made it through to the other side the reps were still with them, even though Jenny hadn’t seen them go through a Security Check. She and the boy sat in uncomfortable chairs, waiting to get on the plane, and the reps stayed standing. All around them Jenny could hear the other passengers grumbling, and from listening to their complaints she learned that they’d been called at their homes and told their flight was leaving a lot earlier than it was scheduled to leave, and that they had to come now or not at all.

  She wondered what the adults were like on the other side of the ocean. She thought they were probably a lot nicer, though she was trying not to get her hopes up before she actually met them. For years, it had been her passion to read book after book about the New World, and to watch videos online when her workers would let her. She couldn’t wait to experience it in person.

  When it came time to finally get on the plane, a flight attendant led her and the boy past a purple curtain and to the very back of the plane, where he gave them seats next to each other. The seat in front of Jenny’s had a screen embedded in it, but after tapping on it for a bit she couldn’t find anything good, and anyway the man in front of her glared at her for doing it. Maybe she’d been tapping too hard.

  The boy next to her sniffed, and she realized he was crying. “What is it?” she asked him.

  “I miss my parents.” It was the first time he’d spoken.

  She nodded and said nothing. The flight attendant was still nearby, and Jenny asked him whether they had a headset she could use.

  “It costs money,” he said. “Do you have money?”

  She shook her head, crossing her arms at the same time.

  “Did you want it to play games with?” the boy asked, still sniffing.

  “Yeah.”

  “I play games.”

  She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, frowning slightly. “Hmm.”

  “My favorite one is Sector Red.”

  Now Jenny twisted in her seat to face him, disbelief etched in her features. “Mine too.”

  They were instant friends.

  They barely noticed when the plane took off, immersed as they were in a shared world of smoking planets and hideous aliens. They swapped war stories, moments when a
ll had seemed lost but a well-placed bullet or lightning punch had saved the day. At some point they exchanged names, and Jenny learned the boy was called Riley.

  “What’s your favorite part of Sector Red?” Jenny asked.

  “Killing the Broodfather. Duh.”

  The flight took a little over ten hours, and for some of it they slept, but mostly they talked about Sector Red. To Jenny and Riley it seemed like barely any time had passed at all when a tone sounded above their heads and a man started to talk. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m honored to have been your pilot during this, the beginning of an exciting new chapter. I hope you’ve enjoyed Air Earth’s one-way flight from Dodge to the New World. If you look out your window, you’ll have the opportunity to watch as your new home draws near—the New World in all its glory. Thank you for flying Air Earth, and best of luck to you in this wonderful land of boundless opportunity.”

  The sun was rising as they approached the New World. A castle appeared on the screens nestled in the backs of the chairs. It had towering blue-topped spires that extended into an even bluer sky. Jenny recognized it as one she’d seen several times while watching videos of the New World.

  “Look!” she said, pointing past Riley and out the window. He turned his head, and he gasped when he saw. It was the New World’s humongous seawall, made using nanotech. Long ago, the seawall had stopped the ocean from eating up the land. Along its parapets, she could see small specks she knew were people. People by themselves, couples, and families, all out for a morning walk in the sun.

  “I wanna go up there,” Riley said.

  “Me too.”

  They flew past the seawall and reached a vast metropolis that stretched to the horizon. The city, impossibly tall towers and pretty earth-hugging structures, was interspersed with huge green spaces where trees grew greener than any Jenny had ever seen.

  In the distance, a dark pillar extended so far into the sky that she could not see the top. “See, in the distance?”

  Riley goggled. “What is it?”

  “It’s a space elevator.”

  “An elevator to space?”

  “Yep.”

  The plane began to circle, and she saw the reason for it. Below them was the castle, their destination, surrounded by a grassy expanse. Excitement made her squirm in her seat.

  The crew handed out parachutes to everyone. Jenny remembered this part from the videos, too. The New World didn’t let planes from Dodge land, so passengers had to jump out of the plane. Some people spent weeks taking skydiving lessons before leaving for the New World.

  “Are you afraid of heights?” Jenny asked Riley.

  “No,” he said, but he looked scared.

  When she got up from her seat she discovered her legs were very stiff, so she stretched them out a bit and stamped them on the floor before joining the line of people that had formed straight down the middle of the plane. Jenny and Riley inched forward as the front passengers leapt from the plane, one by one.

  As she passed through the curtain into the front section of the plane, Jenny become aware of a man at the doorway who wouldn’t jump.

  “Sir,” a flight attendant standing nearby said, “I’m afraid you’ll have to. There’s a lineup of people behind you, and you signed a contract. We can’t bring you back to Dodge.”

  The man was shaking his head. “I can’t, I’m sorry. I just—”

  The attendant laid a hand on his shoulder. “Take a deep breath, sir. Count to ten. And don’t forget to count to ten on your way down before engaging your parachute. Now, do you know what I did to overcome my fear of heights? I just…” The attendant shoved the man out of the plane. He looked around at the other passengers. “He signed a contract.”

  “That’s right,” another passenger said. “When you sign a contract…”

  The flight attendant who’d taken them to their seats checked Jenny’s parachute to make sure it was strapped on correctly, and then he checked Riley’s. “Remember,” he said. “Ten seconds, then you pull the cord.”

  Riley started to cry again. “I don’t want to jump.”

  The attendant knelt down in front of him, and another addressed Jenny. “Will you jump, sweetheart?”

  She nodded, biting her lip. She felt afraid, but she didn’t want to cry like Riley.

  “Go on, then.”

  Jenny stepped up to the open doorway, and then she stepped off the plane.

  The wind rushed past her, pushing up against the bare skin of her hands and face, making her clothes flap violently and taking her breath. At first, she forgot to count. When she remembered, she guessed that five seconds must have passed, and she counted five more before pulling the ripcord.

  She felt herself tugged upward for an instant, her quick descent halted. Her body was nestled in the harness, and the parachute was the only thing preventing her from falling to the ground and dying. It felt odd, but she soon got used to it.

  Below her, she saw the tops of many open parachutes. Above, she saw the same in reverse—the soles of shoes, with parachutes splayed against the sky behind. Farther below, on the ground, she saw…

  Nothing. A barren wasteland, dotted here and there with scraggly brown trees. The city was gone. The green spaces were gone. The seawall was gone. The space elevator was gone.

  There was nothing. Except, she began to make out a teeming mass of figures. More figures rushed toward the crowd, and some rushed away from it. She watched as a passenger landed, covering someone else with the parachute. Passengers darted here and there, becoming entangled in other parachutes, tripping, getting up, and repeating the process.

  Something had gone terribly wrong. A horrible feeling welled up in her stomach. Where was Riley? Had he jumped too? Did he remember to count?

  Her feet touched the ground, and the parachute came crashing down on top of her, pinning her and blocking out the sky. She tore at her harness, her fingers eventually settling on a clasp and popping it open. Pushing through the billowy white folds for what seemed like forever, she finally emerged, and she just managed to jump aside before getting knocked down by a man running by in the opposite direction, calling a woman’s name.

  A pimply man dressed in rags ran up to her and clutched her sleeve. He smelled bad. “Hey,” he said. “You were on the flight?”

  “Yes,” Jenny said, trying not to sound as scared as she felt.

  “Hurry. You have to come with me.” The ragged man tugged on her arm.

  Jenny shook her head. She gestured at their surroundings. “Where did it go? Where is the New World?”

  The man’s laugh ended almost as soon as it had begun. “This is it.”

  The only thing worse than living in a dystopia is discovering you’ll live in one forever

  Michael Haynes is 91 and tired of a crumbling world. A cancer diagnosis makes him glad - he’s certain his death will improve things for his children. One medical miracle later, followed by a car accident that should have been fatal, and dying doesn’t seem to be in the cards. Michael’s learning something shocking about the universe, and the government wants in. Michael must contend not only with living forever but also with stopping his family from tearing itself apart.

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  EXCERPT FROM CRAVEN NEW WORLD

  PROLOGUE

  Xavier was scared.

  The reps that escorted him from the cruiser and into the Air Earthport remained polite, but he could detect none of the reverence they’d once shown him. Their demeanor suggested they would seize the Hand’s arms the moment he tried to flee. He didn’t plan
to try. He was the Hand of the Market, and above such indignities. But for how much longer?

  Inside, the Air Earthport was all but empty, a cavernous structure of steel and glass. Nearby, a young Air Earth worker lounged at her post, looking bored. The next flight didn’t leave for six hours, which Xavier knew because he’d learned the schedule by heart. As each flight left Dodge he always took a moment, no matter where he was, no matter how busy, to spare a thought for those who flew to the New World. Those who believed they traveled to some sort of utopia.

  Xavier had become Hand knowing full well what it entailed…what kind of system he helped to uphold. And for him, knowing it meant confronting the fact of it twice every day. He forced himself to face it.

  They approached the perimeter, the gleaming glass wall curving up and away from them, and they entered the Customer Service Station. Here, he encountered a broad spectrum of looks from various reps, some disbelieving, others disappointed, a couple disgusted. A chill ran through him. Not for the first time, he wondered what consequences would answer his unprecedented blunder.

  Centuries lay between now and the last time anyone had successfully dissented in Dodge. But Carl Intoeverylifeali and his associates had dissented, and on Xavier’s watch no less. Before, the systems of surveillance and micronudging had maintained the population in a state of perfect conformity, suffocating resistance before it drew its first breath. Now, one of Dodge’s pillar corporations lay battered and bleeding, when just yesterday it had ridden high on a tide of public approval. In the space of an hour, with Carl Intoeverylifeali holding a gun to Xavier’s head onstage, it had all fallen apart. Xavier felt his face harden at the thought of Intoeverylifeali. The prison barges were too good for him.