by David Estes
Instead he leans in close enough that she’ll be able to hear his whisper, her lips tantalizingly close to his, slightly parted, and says, “A person is worthy of life, no matter what the world tells her.”
She pulls away so sharply she takes his breath with her. “You don’t know anything about my worth. The mistakes I’ve made…”
“We’re just that,” Harrison says. “Mistakes. Not intentional. Screwing up takes a lot of practice, and we’ve both had more than our fair share.”
She opens her mouth to speak, but Harrison cuts her off. “No more negativity. No more excuses. From now on everything we do is to save Benson. He’s a good guy. We might’ve been friends in another world. One way or another we’re meant to be together in this place, doing crazy things to save Benson Kelly, the infamous Saint Louis Slip.”
Destiny’s eyebrows crease together. “I thought you didn’t believe in fate,” she says.
“I don’t,” Harrison says, “but it sounded pretty good, didn’t it?”
She laughs, and it sounds so good he wishes everything he says would make her laugh. “It sounded pretty good,” she admits.
“Let’s go,” Harrison says, grabbing her hand. “We’ve got to be ready when the players exit the locker rooms. My friend will be last. He’s always last.”
They sneak from beneath the stands and along the sleek metal building with the doors that say “Players only.” Harrison still has his LifeCard, but he’s pretty sure his access has been terminated. Swiping his card and letting the scanner pass over his eyes will only lead his enemies right to him. Through the snowstorm, Harrison hopes they’ll look like just another couple of hoverball fans.
They cling to the corner of the building, watching as players begin to exit the locker room. A few hardy members of the press linger, snapping shots for the holo-news or the Saint Louis Times, seemingly oblivious to the cold weather. Each player gets into one of the aut-cars waiting in a line against the curb. Some players share, slapping each other’s backs and congratulating one another on a good game.
Harrison’s best friend, Chuck Boggs, is nowhere to be seen, just as he expected. Unlike Harrison, Chuck isn’t as fond of crowds or posing for photos. Whereas Harrison always wanted to be first to leave the locker room, Chuck was always last. Some things never change, which Harrison is glad for. It’s a moment of stability in a wholly unstable world, and it makes Harrison’s feet feel more firmly planted on the ground.
Long after the cameras and media are gone, only one aut-car remains. The side of the vehicle opens, the door rising automatically at the same time as the locker room exit cracks open one final time.
Harrison inadvertently gasps, not because he sees Chuck Boggs, who exits the building, but because of who he spies waiting in the aut-car, beckoning to Chuck with a smile and a wave and a come-hither ferocity in her eyes that Harrison is all too familiar with:
Nadine. Harrison’s ex-girlfriend. Well, technically she’s still his girlfriend, as they never formally broke up, but it’s clear from the way she’s looking at Chuck that she’s already moved on from Harrison. Like wayyy on, Harrison thinks as she steps from the vehicle to kiss Chuck. Chuck Boggs is sturdy, built like a tank, and Nadine has to bend down slightly to find his lips. He can almost feel them on his own, so soft and tender but with the potential for fierce passion. It’s the same passion he used to love to watch on the hoverball field, where she was the star player on the STL Flyer’s girls’ team. Her dark skin contrasts the falling snow beautifully, like a shadow in a white room.
He’d never thought of her as a serious girlfriend, so it shouldn’t bother him to see her kissing Chuck, but for some reason it does, burning like a fire in his chest.
He’s so stunned by the scene that he almost forgets why they’re here. Rather, he does forget, until Destiny hisses, “That them?” and douses the fire between his lungs.
“Yeah,” he grunts, striding from hiding. “C’mon.”
Nadine seems to notice the movement, because she pulls away from Chuck too early, twisting her neck to look at them. Her eyes instantly become the size of hoverballs. “Harr—Harrison?” she says.
Chuck turns in surprise, a flash of anger crossing his face, but then disappearing when he sees Harrison. “You’re—you’re here!” he says. “You’re alive!”
Harrison smiles, feeling a certain thrill at seeing his two friends again, even if they were just making out like he’d never even existed. “Why wouldn’t I be?” Harrison says, shaking Chuck’s hand and pulling him into a back-slapping man-hug. He turns to Nadine and kisses her lightly on the cheek, hugging her more gently, breathing in the familiar scent of her jasmine perfume.
“Harrison, we—we thought you were…” she says, trailing off.
“Gone?” Harrison says. “I was gone. Technically, I still am gone. I was never here, you understand?”
Chuck nods. “Yeah, man, your secret’s safe with us. But what happened to you? My father refuses to tell me anything, and the papers are saying you broke your mother out of the asylum and helped your brother, Benson Kelly”—he spits out the name like a curse—“escape from Pop Con. None of that is true, right?”
Harrison says, “It’s all true.”
His friends stare at him.
“But it’s not the whole truth,” Destiny says from behind him.
“Who the hell is this?” Nadine says. Harrison’s surprised by the sharpness in her tone.
“A friend of Harrison’s,” Destiny says. “Like you.”
Nadine looks her up and down, inspecting her torn, wet clothing and hoverskates. “You’re nothing like me,” she says.
“She’s helping me,” Harrison says. “This is Destiny.”
“Chuck,” Chuck says, extending a hand. Destiny accepts it firmly, pumping it up and down.
Nadine extends her hand, too, although not as quickly or as exuberantly as Chuck. “Nadine.”
Destiny takes her hand but withdraws quickly when Nadine squeezes tighter than she must’ve expected. Harrison cringes. This isn’t going exactly as planned. “Listen,” he says. “We need your help.”
“Anything,” Chuck says. “Share an aut-car?”
Harrison grins. He knew his friend would come through for him. He didn’t intend to get Nadine involved, but it shouldn’t affect the result. He helps Destiny into the car and follows closely behind her. Once they’re all settled and the door is closed, Chuck says, “Where to?”
“We’ll all be safer just driving around for a while,” Harrison says.
As Chuck lets the car scan his retinas, Harrison and Destiny face away, just in case. His friend instructs the car to take a convoluted route around the city that will require at least an hour of driving time, more than enough for Harrison to get his friends up to speed.
“Okay,” Chuck says. “Now tell us what the hell happened to you and what facts we’re missing.”
Harrison clears his throat and begins his tale, holding nothing back from the friend he’s known since he was three years old when they played on the same midget hoverball team.
~~~
Whump! Whump! Whump! Whump!
Benson knows the sound he’s just heard can’t be good, especially since it’s accompanied by a burst of blue light that seems to pierce the blizzard. Sharp lines of blue crisscross each other to form myriad of Xs, creating a makeshift fence. A laser fence, designed to trap them inside.
It’s hard to tell through the storm, but Benson estimates the perimeter has created an area of at least five hundred square meters. However they tracked them to this point, their pursuers are obviously unable to pinpoint their location exactly, perhaps because of the storm’s interference in the signal. But it doesn’t matter. They’re trapped, and it’s only a matter of time before the Hunters find them.
And when they do, they’ll kill them, no questions asked.
They’ll kill his mother, whose only crime is loving her children too much.
He can’t let that happ
en.
A dark shadow descends from above, landing silently inside the laser fence, perhaps two hundred meters away. The Hawk. Although his visibility is atrocious, Benson can almost picture a squad of Hunters leaping from the aircraft, garbed in all back, hefting guns set to “terminate,” spreading out and searching the area. He has not a second to lose. Simon must be thinking the same thing, because he shoves Benson from behind, forcing him into the tunnel.
Slithering back inside, Benson says, “Hunters. They’ve made a fence around us but don’t yet know exactly where we are.”
“How?” Minda says, her mind following the same fact pattern as his own. How did they find us? One of her eyebrows lifts slowly, as if coming to the same conclusion. A traitor. Her gaze goes straight to Simon, who immediately frowns.
“Don’t look at me,” he says. “I’ve been a Lifer longer than you have. I would never betray the cause.”
“Well it certainly wasn’t me,” Minda says.
Benson looks back and forth between them, not sure what to believe. The truth is he wants to believe them both. Heck, he likes them both. But the facts don’t lie. “You both pushed yourself into coming with me,” Benson says. “It could be both of you, working together.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Minda says. “We both have guns. We both could’ve shot you in your sleep.”
Benson chews his lip, his eyes darting to the snow wall when he hears a shout from one of the Hunters. Have they spotted their igloo? “Okay, maybe they tracked us another way.” He has to hope that the second they exit the igloo that none of them alerts the Hunters to their presence. But if they do… “Mother, stay here,” he instructs Janice. If you hear shooting when we go outside, bury yourself in the snow. Maybe they’ll miss you. Maybe they don’t even know you’re here. They’re after me. Hide as long as you can. Do everything you can to survive.”
Janice grabs his hand, her fingers like ice. “My boy is so grown up,” she says. “Like a big tree without leaves. Or maybe with leaves. Maybe without branches.”
“Thank you, Mother,” Benson says. “Stay safe.”
He releases her and is the first one through the tunnel. For all he knows Minda and Simon might have their guns already aimed at his back, but he has to hope they don’t. He pulls himself out into the storm, which immediately penetrates his layers all the way to his skin.
Peering through the snowfall, he’s almost surprised when no one shoots him, and Minda and Simon appear on either side. “What now?” Simon says, his hand on the gun in his hip holster.
“Now you freeze and don’t move,” a voice says from behind. It’s not loud, and Benson can barely hear it above the howling wind, but it is commanding.
When he turns he’s staring down the barrel of a gun, held firmly by a Hunter standing atop their igloo. Benson’s hands automatically rise above his head, although he knows it doesn’t matter. This is it. Every sacrifice made by his family and friends was for nothing. It wasn’t enough.
To Benson’s surprise, the man doesn’t shoot. “Where’s your mother?” he asks, a question almost as bad as a bullet.
“My mother?” Benson parrots, playing dumb.
“Where’s Janice?”
“I have no idea,” Benson lies.
“Look, kid, I’m not going to shoot you. I’m trying to save your asses. Get your mother out here and let me.”
Benson has no idea what to think. He should be dead. A Hunter has a gun aimed at his chest and he’s not dead. And why does this guy care about the crazy woman who’s his mother?
Maybe there’s a chance, after all. Maybe this guy isn’t the enemy.
It’s a chance he’ll have to take. He drops to a crouch and hisses, “Mom! C’mon out. It’s okay.”
There’s a shuffling sound and Janice mutters, “Tunnels, funnels, tunnels, funnels…”
When she emerges, she raises her arms to the heavens, as if thanking the snow gods for more snow. “Don’t even think about it,” the Hunter says, when Simon starts to slide his gun from the holster. “You kill me and you’re all dead. There are a dozen more Hunters inside the fence and more on the way, and they’re the real deal. I’m your only chance to get out of this alive.”
Minda says, “I think we can trust him. If we couldn’t, we’d already be dead.” Benson can’t disagree—it’s exactly what he was thinking.
“I need to scan your mom,” the Hunter says.
When Benson steps in front of her protectively, the Hunter says, “We don’t have time for heroics. There’s a tracker on her somewhere. I scrambled the signal enough that the others can’t pinpoint her exact location, but I tracked you here. We need to get it out or we’re all screwed.”
Grudgingly, Benson steps aside and says, “Mom, hold out your arms,” which turns out to be a completely unnecessary command as her arms are already out, like she’s trying to hug the falling snow.
The Hunter whips out a long black stick, and when he waves it across her head and arms, it chirps softly. He slides it down her torso and legs, and finally to her shoes, where it lights up red. “Your shoe,” he says. Just before he puts his gun down in the snow to lift her foot, he says, “Please don’t shoot me.”
Benson looks at Simon and shakes his head. If this guy was really a Hunter trying to kill them, there’s no way he’d put his gun down like that.
The guy peeks under Janice’s foot, which makes her giggle slightly, and then uses a small knife to cut out a piece of her shoe. He pinches his fingers together and holds up a rice-size device. “Crap,” Benson says. Well, at least it means Simon and Minda aren’t traitors, he thinks.
The Hunter-not-a-Hunter uses his knife to slice open the device until it sparks. “They can no longer track you but we’re still trapped,” he says.
“What are our choices?” Benson asks.
“I don’t want to blow my cover,” the man says. “All I can do is go back and try to keep them away from this area. I’ll show them the destroyed tracker and say that you must have found it and sliced it out.”
“Why are you doing this?” Benson asks. “Who are you?”
“I’m a friend—that’s all you need to know. I wish I could tell you more.”
Benson has a dozen more questions swirling like snowflakes around in his head, but he doesn’t ask them. The other Hunters could wander by at any moment. Instead all he says is “Thank you. Be safe.”
The man gives a short bow and then turns on his heel and disappears into the storm like a ghost.
“Back inside,” Simon growls. “We should seal the entrance.”
They clamber into the igloo and Simon pulls enough of the tunnel’s roof down to seal them inside. The air will hopefully last until the man has convinced the Hunters that they’re not within the designated search grid. If not, they can always dig their way out, let some more air in, and then rebury themselves.
Benson’s more worried about how the hell they were tracked in the first place. “Mom,” he says. “How did that tracker get into your shoe?”
“Tracker, slacker, packer, stacker,” Janice says.
“Mom, focus. Please.”
“Helped me tie my shoe last night,” Benson’s mother says. “Helped me get them nice and tight, for walking.”
Benson looks at Minda and Simon, who look at each other. “Who helped you?” Benson asks, holding his mother’s hand.
She cocks her head to the side, like a curious bird. “That nice man. You know—Jarrod.”
The snow seems to close in on Benson like a casket.
~~~
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JoseCuervo: Ping.
SamAdams: I’m here.
BloodyMary: Me, too.
JoseCuervo: Any word from ShirleyTemple?
SamAdams: Nothing. But without her real name it’s hard to tell whether she was amongst the dead. I’d say it’s fifty-
fifty at this point.
JoseCuervo: Any other news on the Pop Con front?
SamAdams: Yes. We found the Saint Louis Slip and his mother.
JoseCuervo: What!? Pop Con took down the rest of the Lifers? Then ShirleyTemple must be dead.
SamAdams: No. Benson and Janice Kelly weren’t with the main body of Lifers.
BloodyMary: Things are getting interesting. Where were they?
SamAdams: Wait for it…heading for Saint Louis. They got trapped in the storm. Jarrod put a tracker on Janice before they “snuck away.” He played them the whole time. He figured if Benson Kelly wasn’t going to play by his rules, he’d make a martyr out of him. Yet another Slip killed by the evil empire. The Lifer leader sent an encrypted file with the tracking details to a Pop Con analyst. We had them dead in the water…or snow, I should say.
JoseCuervo: You saved them?
SamAdams: Barely, but it was a close call.
BloodyMary: And Janice?
SamAdams: Safe, for now.
JoseCuervo: We need her alive. You couldn’t have brought her in?
SamAdams: No. Too dangerous. I had to lead the Hunters away from them. But when I removed Jarrod’s tracker I implanted one of my own. We won’t lose her again.
JoseCuervo: Good. I don’t have to remind you how crucial her brain is to our mission.
SamAdams: Of course not.
BloodyMary: The only question is: What’s left of it? Her brain, that is.
JoseCuervo: More than any of us may know, I suspect.
BloodyMary: Now what?
JoseCuervo: The end is approaching. Check this forum every hour from here on out. We need to stay focused.
***Chat terminated by chat leader***
Chapter Twenty-Six
“That story is too crazy to be a lie,” Chuck says.