Decision Made

by Michael Anderle

  “It must be hell inside your head.”

  He nodded sadly.

  Up ahead, Taigan shared all the knowledge she could think of with Kural and Esak about cancer. It was strange, he thought. They weren’t very well-informed about these things by the standards of their world, but they still knew much more than the wizard, who had spent centuries studying.

  Right now, for instance, she was explaining how cancer could spread to bones and lymph nodes, which the two men had not known could happen.

  “What are lymph nodes?” Kural asked finally.

  “Uh…” She cast a blank look at Jamie. “I don’t know. They swell up when you’re sick—right, Jamie?”

  “Yeah, because the doctor presses on the back of your neck.” He mimed the gesture.

  Esak and Kural looked at the two of them, then at each other. He wondered if they were thinking of lymph nodes and bone cancer the same way people in his world thought of leeches and humors—as some ridiculous and wildly inaccurate concept of the world.

  He wouldn’t exactly blame them.

  “Doctors study for years and years,” he explained. “We’re not doctors. We only know some of the basic things from our checkups each year and so on.”

  “Your what?”

  “We go to the doctor every year to make sure we’re growing right and not developing anything weird.”

  Esak considered this. “Your world is very strange. You know so much but you’re so helpless. It’s like you spend so much time learning exactly how helpless you are.”

  “That’s depressingly accurate,” Taigan said. “We got it all the time about me and my comas—when I’d fall asleep and they couldn’t wake me up. They could tell my parents how my brain waves were, which parts were waking up and which weren’t, how my metabolism was going, et cetera. But they couldn’t ever fix it.”

  There was a silence that wasn’t even close to comfortable.

  “Brain…waves?” Esak asked finally.

  “You two are breaking my world, I’ll have you know. There will be many questions and weird theories floating around after this.”

  “Sorry,” Jamie muttered. “We’ll shut up.”

  “No, no, go on. I want to see you try to explain this one.”

  He grimaced as he considered what he could say. By her facial expressions, he could tell that Taigan was sifting through ideas in her head and discarding all of them.

  “You know what a brain is, right?” she asked.

  The two men both looked at her, slightly offended.

  “Sorry, I’m only checking. Have you ever wondered how a brain works?”

  Another silence followed, this one less onerous.

  “No,” Esak said finally. He frowned deeply.

  “No,” Kural agreed. He looked thunderstruck. “I haven’t, I have to admit. But you’re right. It’s a very strange…hmm. How does it work?”

  “Like lightning,” she said. “You know how lightning comes down from the sky to touch things, or to reach all across the sky from one place to another? Thoughts are like that—like tiny bolts of lightning that go from one place in your brain to another.”

  “Ah.” Esak looked deeply uncomfortable with this concept. “And, ah…where do the waves come in?”

  “If you look in the right way, you can see how many thoughts someone is thinking,” Taigan explained. “Basically. And different parts of the brain do different things. So the part right behind your forehead is where most of what you’d think of as thinking happens—planning, analyzing, all of that. Here, just inside your ears, are the two parts that feel emotions. Back here, at the top of your neck, is the part that tells your body to breathe and keep your heart beating—”

  “Wait.” Esak stopped her quickly. “Those are thoughts? Your brain tells your body to do those things? What about when you sleep?” He sounded like he was panicking.

  “Esak,” Jamie reminded him. “You’ve gone to sleep every night for your whole life and it hasn’t gone wrong yet. Everyone does. It’s okay.”

  “Okay, but what about her?” He pointed at Taigan. “She said she falls asleep and she can’t wake up.”

  “Well, that’s…a good point, honestly.” He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Taigan?”

  She thought for a moment. “Well…how many people are in your town, Esak? A hundred?”

  “Maybe half that.”

  “Okay. Picture a thousand people.”

  He nodded.

  “Now imagine a thousand of those.”

  From the look on Esak’s face, he could not imagine it at all.

  “Like individual grains of dirt,” Taigan said. “A thousand thousand.”

  “I…”

  “And imagine a thousand of those.”

  “That…can’t exist.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t— I can’t—”

  Kural stared off into the distance as though his mind was being opened to new possibilities. Either that or he was having an acid trip. Jamie decided it could be either.

  “That’s a billion,” she said. “A thousand, thousand, thousands. Did I put the s in the right place? It’s not important. My point is that in my world, there are seven billion people. And as far as anyone knows, I’m the only one whose brain does that.”

  Esak looked blankly at her.

  “So it’s very rare,” she explained. “One in seven billion. Those are good odds, right? Wow. I seriously drew the short straw.”

  “You seriously did,” her brother agreed.

  “Okay, this was funny, but now I think they might be going crazy. Rein it in. I have to deal with them after you go, remember.”

  He chuckled. “Anyway, that was a long way to say we don’t know much about cancer. It’s simply the body…growing the wrong way.”

  “Huh,” Esak said. He looked like he might never be able to form a complete sentence again.

  Kural sidled up next to Jamie. “I don’t suppose you could bring me some of the textbooks from your world,” he said.

  “Don’t you dare,” Prima said warningly.

  “Er…no, sorry. There’s…uh, I wouldn’t know how.” He shrugged.

  “Too bad.” The wizard headed up the path. “Oh, look, I do believe this is a switchback. We seem to be on a good path.”

  “We were due some good luck after everything that’s been going on,” he responded.

  “Indeed.” The man shaded his eyes with one hand and watched Midnight race ahead. “I’d say we could reach the peak a little after nightfall if we maintain this pace.”

  “Thank God,” Jamie said. “I will never go hiking again.”

  “Go…hiking?”

  “Where we come from, people climb mountains for fun.”

  “Why?” Kural demanded. “I’m beginning to think the two of you weren’t truthful about any of this.”

  “We were!” he assured him. “Don’t kids ever climb hills to see a pretty view or something like that?”

  “I suppose. Still, it’s strange.”

  “I agree.” Every muscle in his body seemed to be aching by now. His back ached, his calves ached, and his thighs seemed to be made of fire. He regretted every hamburger he’d ever eaten and every chance he hadn’t taken to collect helium balloons that would float him up the mountain in style.

  Or maybe a jetpack.

  “Do humans get all pink in your world too or does that only happen here? When they’re pushed past their limits, I mean.”

  “It happens in our world, too,” he said grumpily.

  “Huh. Now, I’m not very good with gauging attractiveness, but I don’t think this is very attractive.”

  “Is there a point to this?”

  “Yes. I was insulting you.”

  “Oh. That was the whole point. I see.” He rolled his eyes. “You couldn’t go insult someone else for a while, could you?”

  “That’s the best thing about being an AI. I can insult everyone at once.”

  He sighed.

  Chapter Twenty-Two
<
br />   Nick had barely stepped out of his building when the sleek grey car pulled up at the curb. The window rolled down and Amber craned out to look at him.

  “Get in, loser.” She stuck her tongue out. “We’re going on a wild goose chase.”

  “I…” He shook his head and adjusted his thought processes. Refocused, he walked closer and folded into the car, which was a great deal lower than he had thought it would be. “How far am I off the ground?”

  “A few inches. Don’t worry, we won’t go off-roading.” She checked her mirrors and pulled out into traffic with a rev of the engine.

  “Fuck!” He grabbed a handle. “Amber. Amber. I don’t want to die, Amber!”

  “Stop being such a baby.” She turned sharp left and accelerated to get through a yellow light. “Aww, yeah.”

  “So…where are we going first?”

  “Oh, we have a whole fucking list.” She grinned evilly. “Do you see him, by the way? He’s on the bike with the gray fleece.”

  He flicked his gaze at the rearview mirror, which unfortunately also showed several cars fading into the distance far too quickly. “How is he supposed to keep up with us like this?”

  “He’s not.” She waggled her eyebrows. “He’s supposed to lose us a few times. Basically, we have to keep his whole mind engaged until we get him to the final destination.”

  “It honestly sounds like you’re talking about death, you know.”

  “It does, doesn’t it?” She stopped sharply at a light. “Boo. I hoped I could make that one.”

  “You probably could have if you’d added rocket boosters to the car.” Nick normally loved driving with her, but all his previous experiences of it had been on open roads in the west. Amber in heavy traffic was not good for his heart.

  The light changed and her acceleration sucked him into his seat. She wove through the cars ahead with a slight smile and complete focus. At least she wasn’t someone who took crazy risks with a cigarette in one hand and a cell phone in the other. That helped somewhat.

  “So where will we end up?” he asked.

  “I don’t know, to be honest. I only have an address for somewhere uptown.” She shrugged. “Price didn’t tell me what it was. She said it would make a better surprise. So…yeah, I have no idea.”

  “Huh.” He clutched the side handle as she merged right across three lanes of traffic in one smooth sweep. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck—”

  “Oh, shut it. You’re fine. And stay here.” She put sunglasses on and slid out of the car before she strode across the plaza to the building nearby.

  INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE was printed on the sign in block letters. Nick frowned at it, then stole a glance at their pursuer. Brooks had stopped his bicycle nearby and watched as a man in a dark suit came out of the building. He leaned close to speak to Amber, both of them serious and reserved, and she handed him an envelope. With a brisk nod, he handed her a folder and she returned to the car.

  “What was that?” Nick asked.

  “Actor Number One,” she said cheerfully. She set off again at high speed. “He’s in some off-Broadway stuff, I guess.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  She lowered her voice to mimic the other man’s. “Hello. Are you the person I’m supposed to speak seriously to?” She shifted to her formal tone. “Yes. Do you have the folder of Dilbert cartoons?” Again, she spoke in the man’s voice. “I do. Do you have the folder of McDonald’s coupons?”

  He couldn’t help a genuine laugh. His glance in the rearview mirror revealed that Brooks was falling behind. “Where to next?”

  “Intelligence agencies—where else?” She laughed this time. “And then the Italian consulate—I guess Jacob knows someone there who agreed to come out to speak to me and look all formal—and finally, to thoroughly confuse him, the Met.”

  Nick grinned. “Okay, that’s…something. So, what is he supposed to infer?”

  “I have no idea.” She shrugged. “I tell you, though, I hope it works. I do not look forward to another few weeks of him listening in on my whole life. Fart noises only go so far.”

  “No wild sex for you two while he has bugs in the apartment?”

  “Nah, I’m not so much into that.”

  “Too bad.”

  “That would be a very specific kink,” she said.

  “They should use that to recruit spies,” he suggested. “Or diplomats.”

  “Yeah, that would be good. You should suggest that to someone.”

  “I’m full of good ideas. I could start a consulting firm. I’d call it—oh fuck, oh Christ!”

  “I don’t think you should call it that,” Amber said in a measured tone, having made the turn ahead of oncoming traffic and now pulled up to a building. “I’ll get out of the car and if you’ve peed yourself, please throw your pants out the window while I’m there. And…find something to cover yourself with.”

  “I didn’t pee myself,” Nick said weakly.

  The exchange at this building wasn’t quite the same. This time, she went in. When she came out, she had the look on her face that he knew as exasperation.

  “Man, they do not like people simply walking into the lobby and walking out again.” She shook her head. “So, I guess I’m on a few watch lists now or something.”

  “Maybe you should work on that kink,” he suggested.

  “Oh, hell. Tell me I won’t be spied on for the rest of forever.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.” He shrugged. “But…uh, I don’t suppose you’d slow down at all. We’ll get a ticket.”

  “Yeah, probably. But it’s so fun watching him try to keep up on the bike.” She looked in the rearview mirror.

  The next few minutes were a series of jaw-clenchingly tight turns and quick accelerations until he began to feel lightheaded and slightly motion sick. He wasn’t sure he would ever want to go on a roller coaster again.

  Through it all, Brooks hung on gamely.

  “He is earning that paycheck,” Amber said. “The man will have expended about a marathon’s worth of calories by the time we get to the final destination.”

  “If we kill him, you’ll be sorry,” Nick warned.

  “That’s a good point.” She tapped her teeth together before she slowed and pulled her phone out. “Here. Order something.”

  “What? Oh.” He saw that they had pulled up outside a burger truck. Quickly, he typed the order on her phone and they waited a couple of minutes until someone hurried to the car with the burgers. They ate while snickering at the sight of Brooks panting weakly in the background and chugging water.

  “He should be careful with that water,” Amber said. “He’ll need to pee and we won’t stop for a while.”

  “What if we need to pee?”

  “You’d better not.”

  “You couldn’t tell me this before I ordered the soda?”

  She grinned and swung onto the road again, having finished her burger. Behind them, Gary Brooks flailed his limbs in his haste to start biking again, although somewhat weakly.

  “You’ll be the reason he retires early with ulcers,” Nick told Amber. He ate his last curly fry and shook his head. “Poor dude.”

  “Nick, his whole job is to blackmail people who don’t go along with completely slanted government regulations.”

  “Okay, fair.”

  “And he’s trying to enslave our friend.”

  “She’s our friend now?”

  “I think so,” she said. “She helps us out, she cares about the people we care about—what is a friend if not that?”

  “I…don’t know.” He shrugged. “And I don’t want her to get locked in some missile guidance system.”

  “Oh, God, can you imagine?” Amber began to laugh. “She might bomb the actual Pentagon.”

  “Now you’re on the watch lists.”

  “Probably.”

  They passed a solid couple of hours weaving through traffic, stepping out occasionally to exchange folders with
people—and once, for coffee and for him to pee. He had to pretend to not notice Brooks when the man came into the bathroom, which was difficult because their pursuer was bright red in the face, dripped sweat, and breathed like he had been running from a nightmare.

  Nick washed his hands while he used all his concentration to keep his face straight and moseyed out of the bathroom to get his coffee.

  They stayed there long enough for Brooks to get iced tea and stop looking like he was about to die.

  “Is this nice?” Nick asked Amber. “Or, like, a super-evolved form of torture?”

  She sipped her coffee and considered the question. “Honestly, I’m not sure. I’ll have to think about it.”

  “Sure.” He followed her and they headed out again. Brooks limped behind them, whether from blisters or sore legs, he didn’t know.

  The agent could give up, of course. It was an option. He simply didn’t do it and remained doggedly behind them when they went to a couple more places. Nick also left the vehicle at the last one to exchange handshakes with a serious-looking woman in a suit, whom Amber introduced as, “Kayla, who enjoys juggling, watercolors, and brewing beer.”

  He introduced himself, blushed slightly, and had the sense that this had been a set-up. When they entered the car, he gave Amber an accusing look.

  “What? I thought I’d be efficient with this.” She shrugged. “She’s nice, right? Smart, pretty, good sense of humor…and her beer is seriously good. The whole package, right there.”

  “Uh-huh.” He rolled his eyes. “Cool.”

  “You should go on a few dates is all I’m saying.” She grinned at him. “If you agree to it, I won’t take that turn up there.”

  “What turn up—oh shit.” He cringed in his seat. “I’ll go! I’ll go. But don’t kill us both, please.”

  “It wouldn’t kill us.” She rolled her eyes. “Baby. Anyway, your date is tomorrow at 7:30 at Bottle Rocket.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “I, uh…you know, took the liberty of setting it up.”

  “Did she know?”

  “Nope.” She was smiling. “You’re both all up in your heads about not having enough time to date so I organized it all myself.”