by Dima Zales
My pulse jumps, and adrenaline floods my veins. Through the shattered window, I see a red truck on our tail. It must be the source of the gunfire. There’s not much traffic on the freeway otherwise, with more cars ahead of us than immediately behind. Still, there’s a small chance the shot came from a car hiding behind the truck.
I squint and confirm my suspicions about the truck. There are two people in the front seats. A black motorcycle helmet obscures the driver’s face, something that’s suspicious on its own, and not just because it thwarts the facial recognition app. However, it’s the second person, the one with the assault rifle pointed at our limo, who seals my conviction that the truck is up to no good.
I don’t need an app to recognize that I’m staring at the killer chimpanzee mug of Vincent Williams.
Just when I think the truck is the only vehicle we need to worry about, I hear the roar of two-stroke internal combustion engines revving, and four motorcycles appear from behind the truck. They must’ve been hiding there. The bikers are wearing helmets like that of Williams’s driver, only one of them drew a fierce scowling skull over his or her helmet.
The rush of adrenaline puts my boosted mind into that slowed-down battle mode, a sensation that’s unfortunately beginning to feel familiar.
My first thought is about Ada’s safety, and I wonder if it’s the pregnancy variable making me feel so savagely angry at the attackers. I feel myself becoming wrath. I wouldn’t be surprised if I burst into green skin and rippling muscles. If I had the chance, I’d beat every one of our pursuers to death with a small hammer and then do something equally awful to their corpses.
Ada and I are still sitting within hugging distance in the back, meaning she’s much too close to danger. I grab Ada by the shoulders and pull her toward the middle of the limo while telepathically saying, “Stay here, baby.”
She’s in so much shock that she complies—or she’s just smart enough to comply. My logic for putting her in the center is that, with all these men around the car, the middle is the safest place. To reach Ada, the bullet will have to go through me or one of these men—a sacrifice I’m willing to make.
While I’m taking care of Ada, my brain boost allows me to pay attention to the world around me. I’m aware that Joe and his people sprang into action at the same time I did. Gogi gets up too, but it’s clear that moving hurts him. Two men—Luke and Carter, according to the face recognition app—already have their guns out and are leaping for the broken window, probably moments away from shooting back. Everyone else, including Joe, is reaching for the seat they were sitting on—though I can’t fathom why.
A number of facts surface and congeal into a partial explanation of what’s happening. Agent Lancaster was adamant about not having anything to do with Vincent Williams’s attacks. There was a point when I wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth, but I later believed him, mostly because his words were supported by the fact that Muhomor nearly got killed during the attack at the restaurant, and the task force wanted Muhomor alive—in part due to his insurance policy, and in part because they wanted Tema. I also suddenly recall something that slipped my mind while they were holding me prisoner.
Williams mentioned a list when we faced each other. That list doesn’t make sense in the context of the task force, but it does if someone has a bone to pick with Joe and me. So, if Vincent Williams attacked us for reasons unrelated to the task force, it stands to reason he would still be after us, even though the task force is done with me. Then again, whatever his original mission, Williams is likely after us now to avenge his brother’s death.
Thanks to the boost, I think all these thoughts while Luke and Carter only make a millimeter of progress toward the window, moving as though underwater.
Joe and the rest are also still reaching for their seats.
Since I have no gun and no plan, I decide to do something that won’t take much real-world time and jump back into the virtual conference with Mitya and Muhomor. As soon as I connect, my friends’ images show up in the already crammed interior of the limo. Grateful for the speed with which we can communicate in Zik, I do my best not to sound too hysterical as I summarize the situation, concluding with, “It’s Williams again. Oh, and Ada has to survive at all cost. She’s pregnant.”
In this moment, Ada also joins the conversation. She must’ve recovered from her initial shock.
“We need to work together to get us out of this.” Ada’s Zik is again quicker than normal. “Mike, you take the lead, like during the gunfight at the restaurant.”
“Got it,” I reply, careful not to point out that she’s taking a lead by assigning me a role, since I’m grateful she did.
I have to give Muhomor and Mitya credit. They don’t say a peep about Ada’s pregnancy or complain about her bossing everyone around. Instead, in unison, they ask, “What can I do?”
“Muhomor, you’re on reconnaissance and, if possible, sabotage duty,” I rattle out. “Mitya, I want you to come up with a plan. Get police on the phone and find us a good place to go and maybe supplies we can use—”
“I’m already in the process of hacking into some satellites.” Muhomor’s anime avatar rubs his cartoony hands together in anticipation. “Also, I’ll see if I can get into your pursuers’ phones or their vehicles’ computers.”
“I don’t have a plan yet,” Mitya chimes in, “but let me enumerate some useful information. First, you’re driving in my limo, which—”
“Please tell me it’s one of the Zapo rip-offs,” I interrupt. “The ones you asked Sven to mod? That would be awesome news.”
“And please tell us that unlike the window, the rest of the limo is bulletproof,” Ada adds. “Because in my opinion, that would be awesome news.”
“I don’t own any bulletproof vehicles,” Mitya replies defensively. “Unlike some people, I don’t have any enemies. Also, I wouldn’t say it’s a rip-off per se. An argument can be made that Zapo was a rip-off—”
“No time to argue about originality,” I cut in. “Is it a limo that can be remotely driven with the Batmobile app? The one with a bunch of sensors all around it, a nitro boost, and so on?”
In the real world, Luke and Carter finally reach the window and shoot. The sound reverberates through the confined space, and Ada mentally curses. The motorcyclists or the people in the truck shoot back. I hear Luke grunt and see him clutch his shoulder. Carter is fine and returns fire.
The gunshots scare Mr. Spock to the point where his mental aura is a nervous gray. I do my best to reassure him through the app. Mr. Spock’s mood turns amber, and I feel a pang of jealousy. I wish someone could do for me what I just did for him, because if I were a rat, my aura would be the darkest black.
Meanwhile, my cousin and his people open the limo seats, and I finally understand why. Under the seats is storage, and it contains an arsenal that would make a warlord squeal in glee. At a glance, I see guns, bulletproof vests, and even something that looks like a rocket launcher.
“Yes, it’s one of those limos, and yes, it’s Sven’s work. Before you ask, I told your cousin about that storage space, though I didn’t think he’d turn it into an armory.” Mitya’s reply is only slightly grumpy. “The limo is currently being driven by Einstein. The driver is just there to open doors for you guys, so you can have your cousin hand him a gun. Eli is a Gulf War vet, so he can probably assist you.”
“Joe,” I say out loud. “Toss me a gun and pass one to the driver.”
Joe doesn’t just throw me a gun; he also pulls out a stack of bulletproof vests and tosses three my way. He then scoots up to the small window, where the driver’s hand is already sticking out, and gives the man a gun. I put on one vest and hand both the smaller and the larger ones to Ada, figuring two vests are better than one. To emphasize the importance of my request, I address Ada out loud. “Put those on, please.”
I then hand Mr. Spock to Ada, figuring she’s bound to stay safer if she’s protecting him as well as herself.
T
hen I recall she’s already protecting something small—our unborn baby—and this thought brings back the blinding anger. It threatens to overtake me, but I push it back for now.
I need a clear head to deal with this.
“Protect her,” I tell Mr. Spock through our mental connection. “Do your best to keep her calm.”
I could swear Mr. Spock gives me a small nod before letting Ada stuff him into her bra under the bulletproof vest. I bet he’s already bruxing in the warm comfort of her bosom.
While I examine my new gun and put on the vest in the physical world, I also keep the hyper-fast virtual conversation going with my faraway friends. “Mitya, take over driving the limo. You have a brain boost, so your response time should be better than any normal human driver and, in this case, better than the safety-obsessed Einstein.”
“Done,” Mitya says. “I’ll take you to my LAR facility. It’s only fifteen minutes away.”
Again, I multitask by doing more than two things at once. I enter the information of the gun my cousin gave me into the aim-assist app while also researching what Mitya meant by LAR. A millisecond later, I find out he’s talking about Levin Aero Robotics, the facility that produces and stores his delivery drones. While I do all that, I tell Joe out loud, “Can you spare two men to protect Ada with their bodies? I want her inside a human pyramid.”
I expect my cousin to protest or say I should be either at the front or back of the pyramid I proposed, but he nods decisively at Gogi and Luke. “You heard him. Gogi, bind Luke’s shoulder while you’re at it.”
His choices make sense. Both men are wounded and can’t help in the fight anyway. Gogi grunts in pain as he gets to the floor, and Luke follows him. This is the only situation I can imagine when it would be okay for other men to be so close to my Ada. Once she’s in that protective formation, I feel like I can exhale the breath I’ve been holding since the shooting began.
“Why are you taking us to LAR?” I ask Mitya. “It’s just a glorified factory.”
The gun information—Beretta 92—registers with the app, and when I enable the HUD overview, a bullet count of fifteen shows up in the corner of my vision. This gun feels a bit bigger in my hand than the Glock I’ve been practicing with, and I hope that doesn’t affect my aim.
“There are four security guards on LAR’s premises,” Mitya explains. “And it’s not just a factory. It’s also a storage facility where we do some research and development—”
“Just take us to the damn LAR.” Ada looks unhappy about her passive position. “It’ll give the police a specific location to go to and—”
“This isn’t the best plan.” Muhomor imbues his message with worry, though he’s watching the events from far away in a hospital bed. “I just checked the satellites. Four more cars and five more motorcycles will join you at the next exit, and I don’t think you can get to LAR without passing by that exit. I’ll send everyone the link to my view.”
In a fraction of a second, I see what Muhomor is talking about. Vehicles are turning onto the exit in question. The black helmets leave no doubt that these people are in league with the bikers behind us.
“Well, the limo can’t get anywhere without passing that exit anyway,” Mitya says, and I have to agree with him. We already passed the ramp leading off the freeway, and the tall walls on either side of the road prevent us from going off-road, either intentionally or by accident.
“How many drones do you have parked at LAR?” Ada asks Mitya. “I think I have an idea.”
“A hundred percent of the ones that deliver in New Jersey,” Mitya says. “And forty percent of the ones that service NYC.”
As Ada and Mitya talk telepathically, I say out loud during a pause in the gunfire, “Joe, we’re about to have more company.”
“Mitya, does this screen work?” I ask, nodding toward the gigantic TV located next to the little window on a wall that separates the driver’s section from the passenger side.
“Yes, it does,” my friend replies. “I’ll put up a regular Skype window there so Muhomor and I can speak with your cousin and the rest of the Brainocyteless.”
“I also want you to put feeds from various cameras around the car,” I say. Realizing I haven’t taken the time to put the feeds from those cameras onto my AROS overview, I do so.
“Mitya, I’m taking over control of all the available drones.” Ada’s telepathic message is a fury of determination. “These fuckers pissed me off.”
“Shit,” Muhomor messages me privately. “If pregnant women are anything like bears with cubs, Ada might be a sight to behold right now.”
Before I can reply to Muhomor, another bout of automatic gunfire rings out, and the side windows shatter into little pieces, raining onto the carpeted limo floor.
The cameras show that the gunfire came from the motorcyclists who were hiding behind the truck. There are four of them, and they sped up to flank us on both sides.
Two motorcyclists are level with the front doors, while the other two are level with the middle. What’s worse is they’re all aiming their Uzis at us, ready to shoot again.
I brace for the blast of noise and deadly danger.
“I got this,” Mitya says from the screen. “It’s going to get a little bumpy.”
“Dude, wait,” I mentally send, but it’s too late.
Tires screeching, the limo veers toward the left side of the road.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Gogi curses as he nearly falls onto Ada. Joe and most of his guys grab on to the tops of the seats, and I follow their example, my wrist feeling like it might come out of its socket.
“I know this isn’t a good time to complain about someone’s BO,” Ada shares in a telepathic chat, “but if we survive this, I’m getting Gogi a case of deodorant.”
The driver’s door of the limo crashes against the middle of the front-most bike, resulting in another unpleasant bump for us. The bike flips in the air, tossing the rider off like a mad bull at a rodeo. The motorcyclist’s black helmet slams against the asphalt, and he rolls under the limo’s back wheels. It feels like we hit a speed bump as we run the guy over.
I hope the downed bike trips up the second motorcyclist driving right behind it, creating a nice chain reaction of death for our pursuers, but the second guy must’ve worked as a stunt driver. In a brain-boost-worthy display of quick reactions, he lets go of his Uzi, grabs the hand grips until his knuckles turn white, and pulls in a jerky motion. His front tire lifts at just the right moment, and he runs his bike up the obstacle in the most impressive way possible. After the guy successfully finishes his maneuver (and probably feels a rush from that accomplishment), Joe shoots him in the head. The motorcyclist falls sideways with his bike without letting go.
He has a literal death grip on it now.
The motorcyclists on our right must be upset with the fates of their leftmost brethren, because they frantically shoot at us again, as do the two assholes in the truck behind us.
“What happens if they hit our tires?” Ada asks inside the virtual conference. Her wide-eyed avatar looks as panicked as I feel.
“The limo’s tires are airless,” Mitya says. “Didn’t Sven put the same ones on Zapo?”
“You know he didn’t,” I reply, glad that transmitting jealousy is optional when using the Telepathy app. “What else can this car do that Zapo couldn’t?”
“I’ll give you the full specs when we have a free moment,” Mitya promises. “For the time being, let me focus on my driving.”
As though to illustrate Mitya’s request, the limo wobbles, and I can tell my friend is trying to regain control of the vehicle. This means he can’t repeat the maneuver he performed against the rightmost thugs. I decide to deal with them myself, or at least the front-most one since my window is closest to him. Knowing these people are shooting at pregnant Ada leaves me with few qualms about their fate. Yet, out of morality or hypocrisy, I don’t shoot my target in the head. Instead, I place the line from the aim-assist app o
n the guy’s right wrist and pull the trigger.
Since my target was effectively driving one-handed, he loses control of the bike and somersaults through the air. His bike skids across the asphalt, sparks flying everywhere, and in the satellite view, I see some bystander’s Toyota Camry hit the bike and swerve into the freeway wall.
“Okay,” I say into the virtual conference. “Now we only have to deal with the one remaining biker asshole on the right.”
“And the truck behind us,” Ada reminds me telepathically.
“And the people ahead of you,” Muhomor adds.
They’re both right, of course. The truck is still on our tail, and according to the satellite view, we’re going to pass the ramp leading onto the freeway in a couple of seconds.
Another shot rings out from the truck behind us. I use the camera inside the limo to see that Carter got hit, and his neck wound looks bad.
Joe and Caleb, the guy on his left, both dive for the unprotected back window. This is when I notice that Joe is shouldering the portable missile launcher.
“I think that’s Russian,” Muhomor says. “RPG-7.”
“What are you talking about?” Mitya asks telepathically. “Don’t distract me with video-game talk. Now that I’ve evened out the car, I’m going to do that maneuver again.”
In a flash of insight, I realize Mitya isn’t seeing what’s happening inside the limo at the moment, and he thinks Muhomor is talking about Role Playing Games instead of the Ruchnoy Protivotankovyy Granatomyot. In that same flash of insight, I see a big problem with what’s about to happen and mentally yell, “Wait—”
Mitya either doesn’t hear me or my message arrives in his brain a moment too late, because the car swerves right—exactly as Joe shoots his rocket/grenade.
The last motorcycle guy, the one with the skull painted on his helmet, slams into the back of the limo and cartwheels backward in a mess of metal and meat.
Unfortunately, Joe’s missile doesn’t even scratch the truck as it flies by and explodes against the freeway wall. The bang is so loud it blows out the remnants of glass from the window in front of me and turns Mr. Spock’s aura black.