False Positive

by C. Ryan Bymaster

  “You’re smiling. Practically beaming, even.”

  “I am not.”

  “Liar.”

  He was.

  An hour and half later, he was back in the room. All but one light was off. The television was off. The laptop was sleeping. Fifth was gone.

  A number of scenarios played out in his head. He went to the closet, unlocked the digital safe, and pulled out his Glock. The palm scanner clicked and he was back at the door. That was when he noticed it.

  A note was hanging from the door handle:

  Out of food. Resupplying. Back in a few. K.

  He grabbed the note, tearing it in the process. Why did the girl have to be so … so … uncontrollable? They had armed men after them and she was out on her own. He would have to sit her down and explain a few things to her when she got back.

  He pulled out his phone and called her.

  She picked up after the second ring.

  “Hey, De—Dad.”

  “Wher—what?”

  “Oh, I’m fine. Just grabbing us some burgers to go from the hotel restaurant.”

  Dent was completely at a loss. “What?” he tried again.

  “Yeah. And I got a large soda, too. It’s not diet, so I hope you don’t mind.” She gave a little laugh. “We are on vacation, after all.”

  “Why did you leave?”

  “Oh, I met a nice lady here. She’s from …,” the phone muffled and Fifth came back, “… Texas. She’s really nice.”

  Were they having two different conversations here? He had nothing to say.

  “Okay,” Fifth said in a light voice, as if he had said something. “I’ll be back in a minute.” Then she hung up.

  And for almost a minute, Dent stared at his phone.

  When the door beeped and clicked five minutes later, Fifth came in, juggling two Styrofoam boxes and drinks. He was about to reprimand her when she shot him a look and barked, “A little help, here?”

  After getting her inside, and a quick peek outside into the hallway, he closed the door and rounded on her.

  “What was that all about?” he demanded.

  “I was hungry. We were out of food. I left you a note.”

  “Not what I meant.”

  She gave him a shrug.

  He started to realize how uncommunicative a shrug could be at that moment. And how bothersome.

  “Kasumi,” he said, voice flat and even.

  She opened her container and began eating the fries, talking between mouthfuls. “The front desk called while you were out. They wanted to know if the Escalade parked out back, the one with rear damage, was ours.”

  He let that sink in, all the possibilities it brought with it. “What did you tell them?”

  “What do you think? I said it wasn’t ours, he said someone thought they noticed us parking it, I told him I wished we had an Escalade. Then I started to tell him my Dad was out of work at the moment, how I wished we could get a car like that someday. Anywho, he got tired of listening to me talk and politely apologized. Then he hung up.”

  He could understand the man’s choice. “Why did you leave then?”

  “To do some recon.”

  He stared at her.

  “Sheesh. I went out to see if there were cops around. I headed to the front desk, talked to the guy who called, got him to …,” she tapped her forehead, “you know, want to answer my questions.”

  “And?”

  “He said there was mass-media message sent to all the hotels and motels around the area, regarding information on our car.”

  Dent began moving, picking up their belongings, getting ready to pack up.

  Fifth swallowed a bite of her burger and said, “Wait, wait!”

  “The police know we’re here, Fifth. We have to get moving.”

  “Nope,” she said, melted cheese marring her smile. “We don’t.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He hadn’t contacted the police yet. I convinced him to not call. Made him feel bad, saying if he was wrong about that car in the parking lot being the one the police were looking for then he would be ruining somebody’s vacation.”

  He didn’t know if that would work, if her emotional influence would stick with the man long enough for them to get out safely.

  “Admit it,” she said. “I did good.”

  I did well, he thought of correcting her, but didn’t see the point. Either way, they would have to get moving. He looked at the cheeseburgers and drinks and back to Fifth.

  “Hold on,” he said. “You got the food after you went to the front desk and found out that there’s a police bulletin out on us?” She should have come straight back and informed him. At least given him a call.

  “I had to. I was forcing my emotions pretty strong onto the hotel guy and some lady nearby got caught up. She came over, started talking to me all nice and friendly, so … Well, I just went with it. Got her to buy us lunch. Told her you were feeling a little under the weather and I wanted to surprise you.” She took another large bite, which seemed difficult with how wide her smile had become, and flicked her eyebrows up and down.

  He didn’t know what to say. She’d bought them time, true, but fact was they needed to get going.

  “Hurry up and eat,” he told her. “I’ll get us packed.”

  She nudged his free lunch with her elbow. “You’re welcome,” she said.

  He looked at it, and after a moment, slid out a chair. He actually was hungry ….

  X

  “It smells like a wet dog in here,” Kasumi complained, waving her hand in front of her nose to further pronounce her point.

  Dent, of course, didn’t reply. He hadn’t replied to any of her numerous complaints about their current choice of vehicle. It was a two-door truck, way older than she was. Dent had gotten it started by sparking something under the hood while she watched. When she asked how he did it, all he said was something about a solenoid. And when she asked what a solenoid was, he simply said it was a car part.

  He never taught her the cool stuff.

  She leaned over and spun the knobs on the radio, searching for a station. Searching for anything. All she got was static.

  “Antenna’s broken,” Dent said.

  “Satellite radio?”

  “Didn’t have satellite radio in ’78.”

  She groaned, giving both knobs a last spin each before leaning back into her lumpy, springy, dusty, stinky seat. She dug out her EB, relieved to see that it at least had a signal. She opened a music app and started thumbing through her playlists when Dent asked, “Did Otto say anything else?”

  She looked up and over. “Nope. I was just looking for some music.”

  She closed out the music app and checked Otto’s last message to them. It was just a name and a city: Lynn Wilkens. Herristown, Colorado. The way she figured it, this woman either was in trouble because of eTech or had something to do with eTech.

  Dent figured as much, too. As soon as Otto had sent the message, they’d left the hotel in their new car, which was, sadly, a very old truck. Not what she would have picked.

  Watching Dent as he kept his eyes on the road, Kasumi wanted to reach over and pat his shoulder to let him know they were in this together. She didn’t tell him, but she was worried about him taking out a contract with Otto. She didn’t think Otto was one of the bad guys — he wanted all illegal eTech shut down for some reason — but still she wondered about the mystery man’s reasons. His intentions. And now that Dent had agreed to contract out for him, she was worried.

  Otto had promised to find a way to reverse the ear-piece eBlocker so she could go out in public without worrying about affecting others unconsciously. But Otto would be able to hang that over Dent’s head. Dent would do anything for her. And Otto knew that.

  That’s what made Otto dangerous in her book.

  When it came down to it, Otto was using her to get to Dent.

  So she would have to use Otto, make sure she got the eBlocker reversed and then
she could tell Otto to shove it. She’d take Dent from this life and teach him how to be normal.

  The truck started to slow, then began to bounce as Dent drove it off the side of the road, into the dirt and low brush that had dominated the scenery for the million or so miles they’d been driving on this boring highway.

  She snapped back to reality. “What’s up? We get a flat tire or something?”

  “Something,” he said, eyes glued straight ahead.

  She looked. Way up ahead, were the highway disappeared between two small hills, she saw a traffic jam.

  “Accident?” she asked.

  “Not likely.”

  “Well, what then?”

  “Checkpoint.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Traffic is still flowing past us at a steady pace,” he pointed out. “Only the vehicles heading east are being stopped.”

  “And you think it’s for us?”

  “Even if it isn’t, it may cause a problem.”

  She leaned back, trying to figure out solutions. She could see Dent doing the same.

  “Can we turn around? Find a way around it?” she asked, looking out into the distance.

  “Possibly. Though if they have spotters on motorcycles up there, they’d likely attempt to stop anyone who did turn around. It would only draw suspicion.”

  She scanned the immediate area. “Any other roads?” She knew it was a stupid question, because the road they were on was the only road in existence right now.

  He didn’t bother answering her. She didn’t blame him.

  “We can’t just sit here,” he said, and she took that as an open invitation for her to come up with an idea.

  But when he reached behind his seat and pulled out one of his guns, she had the distinct feeling that she had been wrong.

  “Dent. You can’t possibly be thinking of shooting our way through.”

  He waited for a minivan to pass by and then pulled back onto the highway behind it. “Only if it comes to that.”

  “We don’t know that they’re even looking for us.”

  “We don’t know that they aren’t.”

  She didn’t want people getting hurt. Not because of her. Not because Dent couldn’t open a door without having the need to shoot someone.

  “Wait,” she said. “Let’s figure another way.”

  “I won’t react unless they prompt me to. The gun is for assurances only. A back-up plan. If we’re lucky, we can pass through. They might only be searching for the vehicle we left back at the hotel.”

  “And if they start asking you questions that you can’t answer?”

  He tapped his gun. “That’s what the back-up plan is for.”

  That’s what she was worried about. And as Dent slowed to a stop behind the minivan, she became even more worried. She twisted, looked out the back through the grimy window. A little four-door car had pulled up behind them, waiting its turn to get through the checkpoint up ahead. Trapping them in the line.

  She looked over at Dent. His face was unreadable. As usual. What she wouldn’t give to have an open line to his thoughts. But then again, those thoughts were probably as unreadable as his face.

  They moved up one car length.

  “I don’t like this,” she said, looking out at the dried shrubs wavering in the heat rising from the dirt.

  “No other choice,” he said.

  She turned back to him. “There’s always another choice.”

  He didn’t respond, though she did catch him leaning over to his left, scanning the cars ahead of them. She leaned to the right, did the same.

  The road they were on was relatively straight, with one lane going east, one lane going west, and a sea of brown and yellow with the occasional wave of green everywhere else around them. There were six cars ahead of them, then the checkpoint. She could see two police cars on this side of the road at the checkpoint, one pointed in each direction, their red-and-blues flashing. And there, only about three cars up and far off to the side in a small ravine that followed the highway, she saw a cop on a motorcycle. Dent may have been right about that small fact. The motorcycle cop had his helmeted head pointed back the way they had come and he looked ready to zoom off in an instant after anybody who turned around.

  She twisted the seatbelt in her hands. Dent gripped the steering wheel with both of his. His gun was tucked under his thigh, easy access for him.

  She could find a way through this, she knew. She had to. But how? They were trapped in line, which just moved forward one more car length. She adjusted herself in her seat, thinking, running her mind ragged for an answer, a way out, anything.

  “Stop fidgeting,” Dent said.

  “What?”

  “You’re moving around too much. We don’t want to draw attention to us.”

  “Well, we can’t all be as robotic as you, Dent. Some of us don’t like being ….” She stopped talking. An idea sprang to mind.

  “Being what?”

  She shushed him, holding up a hand to keep him from bothering her. She twisted around and looked into the car behind them. A young couple was inside, with the man behind the wheel. She turned back, tried to see though the tinted rear window of the minivan ahead of them. It looked like there were four people inside.

  People didn’t like having to stop in the middle of nowhere for no good reason. Especially for a police checkpoint. She definitely didn’t want to be stuck here, they didn’t either, right?

  They crept another car length forward and now they’d pulled even with the motorcycle cop. The lower half of his body and motorcycle were hidden by the drop in the ravine and the heat waves made him look like he was a mirage, like a genie escaping from a bottle. He was looking back down the road, ignoring the cars inching past him. She wondered how he could ignore the heat, not to mention the glare from the sun, as well.

  Kasumi leaned back into her seat. She didn’t want to be in this stupid checkpoint. She wanted out. She wanted to be anywhere but here, right now. She began tapping her feet, impatiently, frustratingly.

  Impatience. She truly wished the cops would pack up and leave so everybody could get where they’re going.

  Frustration. They were in the middle of nowhere, no reason to be stuck at a dead stop. Didn’t these cops have better things to do then sit out in the baking sun?

  She closed her eyes. Dent said something to her, but she ignored him. He said something else, pissing her off because she was trying to get them out of this mess. She decided to take that anger, to feed it into her bubbling emotions. The seatbelt was soaked from her sweaty hands, her foot tap-tap-tapped faster and faster against the side of the door.

  She didn’t want to be here, hated being stuck here. She let that feeling grow, snowballing into something more as anxiety now mixed in with it.

  Dent said her name.

  “Shut up!” she hissed.

  He went quiet.

  The car behind them honked.

  Then it honked again.

  She opened her eyes, leaned over, and laid on the horn of their truck. Dent tried pulling her hands away, but she fought back, honk-honk-honking away.

  Then the minivan ahead lurched a few inches forward then started blaring its horn. The car ahead of them joined in. Soon, five or six cars, not including them, were honking their horns, revving their engines, rolling down windows and waving their arms outside.

  She didn’t want to be there, and now they didn’t want to be there. She continued pushing that emotion out, out, out to all the drivers around them. The motorcycle cop swiveled his helmeted head their way, no longer concerned with the cars further down the highway. He did something, shifted his weight on his motorcycle.

  Something, somebody was bound to snap. And then ….

  The little four-door car behind them gave one last honk before suddenly screeching backwards, hitting the car behind them. In the small space that he opened, the guy driving the little car peeled out and made a U-turn, nearly hitting a huge truck that was tr
aveling in the opposite direction. In an instant, like he’d been waiting for that exact thing to happen, the cop on the motorcycle shot up out of the ravine and through the gap the little car left in the line. Dust trailing behind him mixed with smoke as his back tire squealed. He blared his sirens and shot off after the fleeing car.

  And that was the icing on the cake as the party really got wild. The minivan ahead of them took off, heading down the other side of the highway, driving on the wrong side of the road. The car that was ahead of the minivan was quick to burn out and follow.

  “Move!” Kasumi snapped. “Go, Dent! Go!” she said through clenched teeth, even going so far as to slap his leg to get him to hit the gas.

  Thankfully, he took the hint. He took off, the minivan and other car clearing the way for them. Up ahead, oncoming cars hit their horns and Kasumi could see dust clouds kicked up as they were forced to swerve into the dirt and bushes on the side of the road to avoid head-on collisions with the minivan.

  Behind them, two more cars had had enough and didn’t feel like waiting patiently anymore. They joined in the race to get past the checkpoint just ahead. The small convoy of angry drivers going the wrong way raced by two cops standing in the middle of the street. One stood there stupidly with his mouth hanging open while the other was yelling, either at the cars speeding by or at the other cops to get in their cars to follow.

  Too little, too late, buddy.

  The road opened up ahead as they passed the checkpoint and Dent didn’t hesitate to swerve back into the correct lane and race away, fast enough to overtake the minivan. She turned, just in time to see a cop car speed onto the highway to give chase only to have another car slam into the corner of its front bumper, sending both cars spinning and screeching to the side.

  “Go, go, go!” she urged Dent, her hands drumming on the dashboard.

  “I am,” he said, and she was nearly shocked at the clipped tone he’d used.

  It wasn’t until a good ten minutes later, the scenery whooshing by, that Dent had slowed the truck to a more regulated speed limit. Her breathing had also calmed down to a reasonably regulated rate, her heart slowly doing the same.

  He didn’t turn her way as he asked, “What was that?”