by Tarah Benner
“We have to do something,” says Maggie at once, her voice shaking with emotion.
“We will.” I glance back at the closed door, behind which Colonel Sipps is forming a plan.
She knows her duty. Everyone in the air force has a role. But what’s ours? Standing around the base while she mobilizes the air force isn’t doing anyone any good.
“Come on,” I say, turning down the hallway and heading for the door. “We’re getting out of here.”
“How?” says Maggie. “Sipps has the entire base on lockdown.”
I touch my Optix to call us a car, but my command is answered with an “error” message. I swear loudly. It must not have joined the network on Earth since we landed. “We’ll find a way.”
I touch my Optix again to refresh it, but still nothing happens.
Suddenly I hear footsteps coming up behind me, and I cringe at the sound of my name.
“Sergeant Wyatt!”
I let out a groan and turn slowly on the spot. I know that voice. It belongs to Chief Master Sergeant Skinner, and I am not in the mood.
“We’re not doing anyone any good just standing around,” I say, gearing up for the argument I know I have coming. “. . . sir.”
“I know,” says Skinner, his voice completely neutral.
I glance at Maggie, who looks as though this isn’t the first time she’s been caught doing something she shouldn’t.
“Trouble with your Optix?” asks Skinner.
“How did you know?”
His face grows serious. “The network is down again. We think it has to do with the attacks.”
“Great,” I say, turning the stupid thing off. What good is Van de Graaf’s technology if it stops working the minute you need it?
“The base is still on lockdown,” says Skinner. “You’ll need top-level clearance to get out . . . or an order from Colonel Sipps herself.”
I grind my back teeth together but don’t say a word. I’m sick and tired of being Sipps’s prisoner.
“I can help you.”
There’s a long beat of silence as I try to process that statement. Did he just say what I think he said?
“You want to help us?” I repeat.
“I’ll escort you to the gate,” says Skinner casually. “It’s no problem.”
I glance at Maggie. Clearly she doesn’t believe it either. Skinner, Sipps’s second in command, is going to help us escape the base? It just doesn’t make sense.
“Colonel Sipps is very busy,” Skinner adds pointedly. “It could be a while before she gets around to issuing you an official assignment.”
“Assignment?” I wasn’t aware that Colonel Sipps was going to give us any kind of assignment. I figured she’d send me back to Elderon the first chance she got.
“Weren’t you discussing how you planned to track down Mr. Blum?”
I give a noncommittal nod. Tracking down Mordecai was my plan, but I didn’t think Sipps wanted me involved.
“You’ll need a vehicle,” says Skinner, reaching into his pocket and producing a set of keys. He tosses them to me, and I catch them — completely baffled.
“I trust you’ll bring it back fully charged when you’re finished,” he says.
“Y-yeah,” I stammer. Is this really happening?
“You can drive me to the gate,” he says. “I’ll be your ticket out.”
Maggie and I don’t say a word. We just follow Skinner out of the building and across the parking lot.
A black electric Camry is parked in a far corner of the lot. I click the fob and see its lights flash. Skinner would drive a Camry.
The three of us pile into the car — me in the driver’s seat, Skinner in the passenger seat, and Maggie in the back. He points us toward the exit, where a thickset guard is manning the gate.
We pull up, and Skinner gets out. The guard salutes him, and Skinner mumbles a quick “As you were.”
“Sergeant Keel.”
“Sir.”
Skinner steps in closer to the little glass booth. I frown. I can’t make out what they’re saying. Keel looks over Skinner’s shoulder several times and finally nods in agreement.
Skinner meets my gaze, and I give him an appreciative nod. A second later, Keel raises the arm of the boom gate, and Maggie and I coast on through.
18
Jonah
It’s a four-hour drive up the coast to Mountain View. That’s where Maverick Enterprises built its new headquarters, and it’s where the offices of BlumBot International are located.
I’m not sure that we’ll find Mordecai there, but it’s the only lead we have. Mordecai isn’t a normal criminal. He isn’t worried about getting caught. This, to him, is all about revenge, and he’ll likely be hiding in plain sight.
Maggie doesn’t say much as we merge onto Highway 101 and drive through Santa Maria. I can tell she’s still in shock. It’s difficult for a normal individual to comprehend how someone could bomb a building full of innocent people — let alone two.
I’d feel the same way if I hadn’t witnessed so much senseless evil and destruction in the army. Now nothing shocks me.
Two and a half hours from Mountain View, the flow of traffic grinds to a halt. The car is a little jerky in stop-and-go traffic, so I switch it off of auto-drive.
The southbound lane of 101 is pure gridlock — a solid line of cars filled with panicky people trying to put as much distance as possible between them and Silicon Valley. Sirens wail in the distance. I look into the rearview mirror and see a line of firetrucks and ambulances racing toward us. They pass us on the shoulder, and Maggie eyes the line of cars nervously.
She turns on the radio so we can hear the news, and the staticky voice of a reporter fills the void.
— the fifth attack on a Silicon Valley tech company today. At least fifty-four people are dead, and nearly a hundred more are seriously injured. Authorities are saying that they suspect bot involvement, but whether or not the perpetrators are the same individuals who carried out the security-bot attacks in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and DC is unclear.
“Five attacks?” says Maggie in disbelief. “How did this happen?”
“Mordecai’s been busy,” I sigh, glaring out at the road ahead.
Five attacks — three more since we left the base. It feels like a nightmare.
“How hasn’t he been arrested yet?” Maggie asks in a helpless voice.
I shake my head. I don’t tell her that men like Mordecai are always three steps ahead — that the authorities won’t be able to touch him unless he wants to get caught.
“What about us?” she asks.
Her question catches me off guard, and I have to slam on the brakes to keep from rear-ending the car in front of us. “What?”
“How are we supposed to find him?”
“We find him by thinking the way he does,” I say. I’ve made a career out of hunting sociopaths. The key is to pay attention when they tell you what they want.
“Maybe we can use Ziva,” I murmur.
Maggie frowns. “Ziva’s on Elderon.”
“Mordecai doesn’t know that.”
As we crawl down the freeway behind the emergency vehicles, Maggie falls into an uneasy silence. I grip the steering wheel and focus on the mission rather than my nagging sense of déjà vu.
It wasn’t long ago that I was barreling down this same highway in my shitty old car. I was on my way to Santa Barbara, and I was looking for a job.
California never changes — the golden haze of smog, the rugged mountains, the traffic. Maybe I haven’t changed either. I’m still chasing after something that’s just out of reach — still grasping for something that doesn’t exist.
Suddenly I feel ridiculous. I’m running a two-person manhunt in my Space Force blues. We have no leads, no backup, and no real authority.
I should be on Elderon, taking orders from Flaccid Greaves and trying to contain the bots. Nothing fancy — just yes sir, no sir. I shouldn’t be trying to play the h
ero. I should just keep my head down and follow orders. The inability to do something so simple is what got me in trouble with the army.
“We shouldn’t have come,” I say suddenly, gripping the steering wheel with one white-knuckled hand.
“What?”
“I shouldn’t have brought you here,” I mutter. “You should be up there . . . reporting on the story.”
I don’t realize how bitter that must have sounded until I see the look of betrayal in Maggie’s eyes. “Why would you say that?”
“Because it’s true. We didn’t have orders to come down here. I should have stayed and followed Greaves.” I shrug. “You should have gone back to the press corps. I mean, you’re not really in the Space Force.”
I look away, but Maggie continues to stare at me. I can feel her anger burning through me, but I ignore it and keep my gaze fixed on the road ahead.
“Now you say I’m not in the Space Force?” she splutters. “After everything we’ve been through?”
I glance over in time to see her shake her head.
“Fuck you!” she bursts suddenly.
“Excuse me?” I’m not sure if I want to laugh or yell. Her response caught me by surprise.
“You heard me!” she snaps. “Fuck you.”
I take my eyes off the road for a second and look over at her. “Fuck me?”
“Yes, fuck you. Yeah, okay. I lied. I joined the Space Force for a story, and I pretended to be someone I’m not. But I’m the one who Buford kidnapped. I’m the one who almost got killed by one of those psycho maintenance bots, and I’m the one Greaves threw in a cell for it. I could be up there chasing the story, but I’m here with you.”
“Well, you shouldn’t be,” I growl, more angry with myself than with her.
“You asked me to come!”
“I made a mistake.”
Those last few words drop like a hammer, and I instantly wish I could take them back. I can feel Maggie’s hurt and rage building like a storm.
“Well . . .” she says finally. “Thanks for clearing that up.”
“Why did you come?” I ask. “You could have said no.”
Maggie crosses her arms over her chest, throwing me a haughty look. “If you have to ask, then you’re not very good at your job.”
I roll my eyes, but inside I want to scream. Why do women have to speak in code?
“I came because this feels bigger than a story,” she says. “This feels important.”
“You want to do something that makes a difference?” I ask. I hadn’t meant for the question to sound condescending, but it comes out that way.
“Is that such a bad thing?”
“For the world, no. For your sanity . . . yes.”
We fall into a heavy silence, and I wish I’d answered differently. The world may have chewed me up and shit me out, but that doesn’t mean I need to make Maggie miserable and jaded.
“Why’d they discharge you?” she asks suddenly.
“Huh?” Transitions are not her strong suit.
“From the army.” Maggie leans forward to force me to look at her, and I feel my skin itch under her gaze. “Why were you discharged?”
For a long moment, neither of us says anything. I’m gnashing my teeth together so hard that I’m in danger of chipping a tooth. Maggie is the last person I want to have this conversation with, but I don’t see how I can avoid it.
“I was in Siberia,” I say finally, “chasing a node of the Bureau for Chaos.”
Maggie doesn’t jump in with a question. I’m sure it’s killing the journalist in her, but she politely resists.
“The entire mission was just . . . wrong. Looking back, I knew it felt wrong. The node was in too deep to be such a small operation. They’d carried out an attack with a bunch of self-driving cars. They weren’t amateurs. But our intel was off, and we walked straight into an ambush.”
I swallow, trying to clear the lump in my throat. It’s been such a long time since I’ve revisited that day that I’d almost forgotten the effect it has on me. “We were underground — seriously outnumbered. We walked into a slaughter, and the tunnel caved in.”
I chance half a glance at Maggie and immediately wish I hadn’t. That look on her face makes my stomach twist, and I drag in a hurried breath.
“My entire squad got buried. I was the only one who survived.”
I don’t tell her about the boy in the hoodie. That part I’ll take to my grave.
“I’m sorry,” she says after a moment. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
“It’s fine,” I say, taking a deep breath to shake off the cobwebs of old ghosts I thought I’d lost.
There’s another long pause, and I sense Maggie burning to ask another question. She draws in a sharp breath, as though she’s decided not to, but then her curiosity seems to get the better of her. “They blamed you?”
“No.”
She waits, and I know I’m going to have to explain.
“I could have just shut up, accepted my commendation, and stayed in the army,” I say. “But it never sat right with me, the way we were sent down there. They should have known there were more people than that. I should have known, too. I kept digging . . . asking questions. I couldn’t just move on with my life . . .” I trail off and stare out at the mountains wavering behind a veil of smog. “Maybe I should have.”
“But it felt like a lie.”
I let out the breath I’ve been holding. “Yeah. It felt like a lie.”
Maggie waits for me to continue, and for some reason it starts to pour out of me.
“I started doing stupid shit . . . getting into fights, drinking too much. My CO sent me to the army shrink.”
Maggie nods.
“I didn’t need treatment. I needed to know what happened. But it didn’t matter how many times I asked that question. No one could give me an answer that made sense. And the more I pushed, the worse things got.”
I glance over at Maggie, who’s still listening attentively. “I think it made me a little paranoid. I started to distrust my chain of command . . . started questioning every call.”
“Bet they didn’t like that.”
“Oh yeah. In the army, they really don’t like that. And when they couldn’t decide how to deal with me, the shrink slapped me with a personality disorder.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that I’d be labeled unfit for duty. It means they wouldn’t have to pay disability because it’s considered a preexisting condition. In the army it means they can wash their hands of you.”
“And you were out . . . just like that?”
“Just like that.”
Maggie falls into thoughtful silence, and that silence is absolute torture. I keep glancing over, waiting for her to give me a look — that face that says she’s done with me. But she doesn’t make that face.
“How did you hear about the Space Force?”
“My old captain approached me about it . . . said they were looking for someone with my skill set. And since the Space Force is private sector, they were able to overlook my record.”
When Maggie doesn’t ask any follow-up questions, I get suspicious. She’s staring into her lap, chewing on the inside of her cheek.
Shit. There it is — the look that tells me I’ve said too much. I knew this would happen. It’s why I never tell anyone. It always ends with an awkward separation — a breakup, the end of an interview, the classic “we’ll be in touch.” How could I have been so stupid?
“Jonah?”
“Yeah.” The word comes out harsher than I’d intended, and Maggie gives a little jump.
“When Buford had me in the restricted zone, he said something . . .”
“What?” I growl, distracted for a moment by my hatred for Buford. “What did he say?”
Maggie swallows. The look on her face isn’t pity or avoidance. It looks almost like guilt. “Your old captain . . . Humphrey . . . He was the one who offered you the job?”
“Yeah . . .”
Maggie makes a face. I can tell that whatever she’s thinking, it can’t be good news.
“What?”
She shakes her head. She doesn’t want to tell me.
“Maggie . . . What do you know?”
Her name sounds strange on my tongue. It might be one of the only times I’ve said it out loud.
“I think Buford is the reason you came to Elderon,” Maggie whispers. “He saw what you did in Siberia. He knew he needed someone like you to program the bots. I think he got your old captain to offer you the job.”
For several seconds, I don’t feel anything. My body is numb all over.
But as the meaning of her words sink in, they hit me like a punch to the gut. Buford knew Humphrey. Buford had been watching.
“I’m sure your captain didn’t know,” says Maggie quietly.
I shake my head. I don’t need her to tell me that — her or anyone else. Just because Buford knew Humphrey doesn’t mean that Humphrey was in on it.
Humphrey was one of the good ones. If I accepted that he might not be the man I thought he was, I’d be forced to question everything.
Traffic slows and comes to a standstill again as we near Mountain View. It’s impossible to see more than a few yards ahead. There’s a semitruck two cars in front of us, and none of the lanes are moving.
“Road block?” asks Maggie, rolling down the window and craning her neck to look around the line of cars.
“Maybe.”
I follow the flow of traffic exiting the freeway. From the interchange, I can see a line of immobile cars stretching as far as the eye can see. If I had to guess, they’ve closed the northbound lanes and are funneling traffic to 82 and 85. They want to redirect cars south to 280 — away from the chaos in Mountain View.
I turn off to find a detour that will get us where we need to go and immediately hit another wall of traffic. We spend the next forty-five minutes fighting our way back toward the bay. Police cars are situated at quarter-mile intervals, directing traffic and telling families of workers which hospitals to check for their loved ones.
An ambulance squeezes by the line of cars, and Maggie’s gaze follows the chaos with the look of someone encountering destruction up close for the very first time. I have this urge to shield her from what we’re about to see, but it seems impossible to avoid.