by L. B. Carter
“Yep, just down the block. I can show you if you want. After you’re done charging. And I have a spare pair of shoes in my car. You don’t have to owe me anything. I know how rough times are. What with these prices,” he scoffed.
She finally glanced up at him with a little smile. There were people out there who were generous even without her doing something for them. “Yes, please.”
While the kid smiled and finished paying for his water, she tried her hand again. This time, there was a little flicker, and she was starting to gain feeling back.
She looked up as the kid came to stand next to her, untwisting the cap on his water. He took a sip then nodded at the cord. “No car charger?”
“No car,” she returned.
His mouth opened, gaping. “How you going to cross? Or did you just arrive?”
She shrugged. “Just gonna walk, I guess.”
“With no shoes?” He shook his head, his eyebrows nearly hitting his hairline. “Damn, somewhere you gotta be that bad?”
She gave a noncommittal head wobble. “Pretty urgent.”
He didn’t press, which Henley appreciated. “Well, forget shoes. If you want a ride, I’m heading over.”
Henley lifted her working hand to twist her hair as she thought, recollecting Bus’s sarcastic comment about risking hitch-hiking. It was a faster option. She was sure Bus wouldn’t be impeded by her lack of help for long and would be making his own way toward his destination, headstrong as he was and undeterred, from what he put his mind to, by anything. With his long legs, he’d catch up quick, more so if he figured out how to hot wire the car she’d so helpfully laid out for him. And she really needed to get home. On the other hand, her flesh hand, she didn’t know this kid. “I’m fine walking. You can just bring me the shoes here if you don’t mind.”
He grinned, seeing the indecision on her face, presumably. “You’re sure? I’d even let you drive.”
Her hand clutched into a fist.
Finally.
She turned away, pulled out the plug and handed it to the cashier with a comment of thanks then faced the kid. She felt more confident with her secret weapon back. She reminded herself that with that, she could pretty well defend herself. After all, she’d doubled Buster over, whose bone structure was massive. This kid was pretty small—about her height—and really skinny. He also felt kind of like a kindred spirit with his nerd glasses and germaphobia.
“Show me the soap first, and you’ve got a deal.”
He grinned. “Of course—” He let his sentence hang, waiting for her to fill in her name.
Remembering how cagey Buster and the Stanleys had been their names, she gave only a nickname. “Hen.”
He laughed. “Hen? Like a chicken?”
She was no chicken, making a break for it without her accomplices. A small smile tilted the corners of her mouth.
“All right, Hen.” He held out a hand, and she glanced down, worried he was hoping for a handshake she was unwilling to return. He was offering his water bottle.
She took it, parched now that it was in front of her. Really, having no money was a pain in the butt, and they’d left their water supply back with Reed. “Thanks. And you are?” She took a sip.
She must have been more dehydrated than she had noticed in her rush to first find a car with the others and then get away from them to amend her handicap because stars danced in her vision. She didn’t know why they were called stars; it was more like blackness with flashing little lights all around, like the fireflies had in with a night sky background above the cornfield.
“What was your name?” She knew he’d said something, but it hadn’t penetrated, wisping away like smoke. She blinked hard and tried to focus on his blurring face, watching his lips move as he spoke.
“I’m Stewart. And you’re going to help me find the specimen you stole from me.”
Now he sounded like Buster, she thought loopily, her thoughts tangling like… like tangled wire, tripping over each other. That jerk was so cruel as to not call the girl by a name like she wasn’t human. She was simply a product of human modification. By those standards, Henley could be construed as a ‘bot, less human even than Sirena, who was all flesh and blood.
The pretty fireflies swarmed closer. They could also be likened to the flash of a drone’s search light as it made passes across the field.
Determining which analogy best fit became no longer a thought in Henley’s mind as all the lights cut out.
Chapter Ten
Ace was seething. He didn’t really care that Henley was gone. She could have been of use to him at their final destination, but traveling with him, she only weighed him down. Or so he’d thought.
She resolutely slashed a red pen through that hypothesis with her sudden departure. He didn’t even understand what had turned her off of helping this time; she had already boosted several cars. He knew she had strong morals back in BTI where she worked diligently and endlessly. She thought he was research-obsessed when, in reality, he’d seen enough to know she hadn’t squandered her time, effort or mind. It would be shocking if BTI weren’t searching for her; she was a true asset.
And without her, their troupe was stuck.
“You don’t think she left, do you?”
Ace was, for a second, discombobulated by the experiment’s question; they had watched Henley storm off, hugging her arms around her body in a closed, standoffish shield.
“We’d probably hear that thing from a mile away,” Nor answered.
Lindy. They were talking about Lindy. Nor had voiced the idea to find her and coerce her into escorting them across the bridge in exchange for medical attention and supplies for her family once this was all over. It was one idea, barring the insignificant factor that there was no such thing as all over, particularly without Henley to complete one of his goals.
He had to hope they caught up to her. And they’d never do that in the old truck when Henley could just steal any fully-functioning car she wanted.
Although, she wouldn’t. She had refused to do so. The vehemence with which she delivered her rejection gave Ace certainty that she would uphold her decision; it was not a matter of being unwilling at his behest though he knew she resented him for that. It was an emotion of which he could not divine the origin. As a student working for one of the most powerful academics in the country, it was inconceivable that she would have issues heeding authority.
Maybe it was that—that she did not view Ace as authority; the Bus, as she had referred to him more than once, was not a likeness that inspired great confidence and reverence. Then again, she had also given him the accolade of the smartest at BTI, and her depiction of him as a bus was induced in relation to his ability to “plow” over others, in Henley’s terms. Would she not expect, then, that he would be confident, determined?
Ace stepped up next to a firework stand as Nor and his specimen continued to argue about the worth versus risk of walking south where Lindy had stopped to gather water. Ace had already calculated how long it would probably have taken her and deemed the extra trip pointless.
Fireworks was a poor choice in goods to sell. First of all, they were in a drought—there were extreme fire bans, to the point of preventing smokers. Henley probably didn’t realize the little fires she’d built for her fuel production were illegal or she wouldn’t have been quite so upset about the car. Second, it was not one of the core essential items all humans needed, like nourishment, clothing, housing and… companionship.
“That truck doesn’t go fast,” the experiment said to Nor. “You’re overestimating.”
Did she even know how to drive? Jen had raised her in a lab, she said. Ace saw her as more like one of his computers, or Henley’s devices… albeit with a function he could not fathom himself. She was built for underwater.
Ace looked out across the heads of the crowd at the sparkling sea, its banks teeming with bodies filling up water tanks, loading onto boats, removing cargo from barges. He conceded that being able to
travel underwater might be useful now. He doubted the experiment would go without Nor, attached as they were. Companionship was an impediment, a handicap, he reminded himself. Regardless, two hundred miles underwater would take even longer than walking subaerially.
“She was just getting water. It wouldn’t take that long.” Nor was arguing still.
Ace missed Henley. She would’ve broken up the argument with reason and logic. “Nor is right,” Ace tried. “Sorry, you are incorrect.” The girl’s lip curled. Evidently his attempts to pacify and be courteous to both parties in the argument went poorly. Ace gave up. “We’ll have to take a boat.”
“Oh, helm, no.”
“Helm?”
Sirena spoke over him, loudly, her eyes squeezed closed, hands waving like a traffic controller. “No, no, no. I am not getting on a boat.”
“I’ll be with you,” Nor promised, flipping roles from their disagreement not moments before.
Humans were so volatile, even lab-grown ones, it seemed. He and Henley could agree on that; she’s worked with the external side of computers and he with the internal.
“It won’t be like the last one.” Nor bent down to look in Sirena’s eyes.
She snorted, looking up at Ace who was appalled to see tears streaking from her eyes. “I can’t,” she whispered. Her green-blue eyes darted to the side as if she could see the water through the hordes of hungry and dirty people milling around them.
Ace wished he could simply leave them all here. “Fine. No boat.” He stormed down the street, snagging a few of the fireworks as he passed. The seller didn’t even call out, too depressed, slumped behind his wares.
“What’s that for?” Nor was suspicious.
“Signal. When we get to the other side.”
“Do you think that’s safe?”
Ace spared a glance at Nor. He wasn’t being facetious. He was honestly concerned.
“We’re in a drought.”
He wasn’t the slowest person Ace had ever met, simply ignorant. “The other side is more lush,” he told Nor.
“When you were last here, right? Which was how long ago?”
Ace took a deep breath. “We’ll have to take the current conditions into consideration when we arrive. There is no way to know until then.” As far as he was concerned, the discussion was over.
“What if it’s not? What if everything you’re taking me to isn’t there anymore?” The experiment was jogging behind the two long-legged men to keep up, so her voice was breathy and broken up. Henley asked questions all the time. Somehow this was more annoying than when she did it. Ace didn’t bother to reiterate his statement.
“We’ll have to walk. We need to move fast and spontaneously. So we’ll have to split up and meet on the other end of the bridge.” Ace was looking forward to that peace.
“What?”
“It makes sense,” Nor explained on behalf of Ace. “It stops us from being targets from overhead prey.”
“You think the drone will catch up to us?”
“I think they’ll send more.” Ace’s tone was dark. It was a certainty; “think” was putting the probability mildly.
Sirena blinked. “Then, why don’t we just wait here where we have cover.”
“You want to stay here forever?” Ace’s retort was sarcastic and intended as rhetorical.
“Maybe,” the experiment replied. “There’s food, and we can hide, and… and water to wash in.”
Ace stopped and turned, startling some people who’d been following in his wake. He finally noticed his ability to be an obstacle as irate scowls adjusted course to detour around him like a stream around a rock. “You want to stay.”
The girl was looking up at him calmly, resolutely. “Yes.” She nodded. “Yes, I think so.” She gazed around her. “The smells of the fisherman and the… being around people, but none of them know me. It’s the kind of place where I’m comfortable.”
Ace glanced around in disgust, definitely smelling the grotesque odors of low tide and dead fish, seeing too many grimy bodies all mashing together. His brows raised. “I thought you said it was bad to split up when we left his brother behind.” He tilted his head at a speechless Nor.
She nodded. “But we won’t be split up. We’ll all stay.”
“Rena—”
“Except Buster,” she added, cutting off Nor.
Ace’s chin jerked back. When he’d been the one deciding to leave them it hadn’t felt so… so… cruel. The girl raised in a petri dish didn’t have Henley’s tact.
“You’ll go on ahead until you get to… wherever it is we were heading. And then you send help back for us before sending it on to Reed and Jen. It makes sense. I—I stand out too much. And Nor can protect me while we’re here. You’re the only one who knows what’s on the other side anyway. What if we split up on the bridge and never find each other on the other side? This way, we stay put; no one gets lost.” Her hand scratched at her collar bone. Was that a nervous tic? She needn’t be worried. She had laid out her argument beautifully, and Ace could see little fault with it, at least when compared with his meager idea.
“Rena—”
“She’s right.” Ace was the one to cut Nor off the second time. “You’re smarter than I thought.”
“Um, thank you?”
“You’re welcome.” Ace looked around. “All right, let’s set a meeting point, and each day at noon when it’s likely the busiest, you’re to come out and stand—” He stood taller looking over heads.
“At the firework stand,” Nor suggested. He shrugged at Ace’s look. “A signal, right?”
Ace nodded slowly. “All right. The firework stand. I’ll come—”
Suddenly there was screaming and shouting. Ace looked around wildly, but it was a sea of scrambling bodies and limbs, people running every direction; he couldn’t even pinpoint the source of the fear.
A loud grumbling engine that was all too familiar rose over the screams, followed by the sound of a swarm of bees. It wasn’t bees though. If Henley had been there, they’d have heard the drones earlier. As it was, they careened around the side of a nearby grocery store, at least a dozen of them, startling those below who were also darting out of the way of the truck as it trundled to a stop just down the road from where they were now, near the fireworks man who had ducked behind his stall.
“In here,” Ace said, herding Rena and Nor into a store just behind them. The chaos on the street was only barely muffled through the thin windows, most of which had been taped up where they’d been smashed, likely by previous looters.
“Don’t take anything,” the cashier said as they moved past the counter, gun pointed at them.
“Wasn’t planning on it,” Ace said absently, taking stock of the small room, in search of another way out. “Back door?” he demanded when he couldn’t quickly identify one—the place was a mess, poorly cared for.
“I said, don’t take anything.” The cashier came around the edge of the counter, and Ace stopped moving, raising his hands slowly as the barrel approached.
“We intend you no harm nor theft. We simply want to pass through, empty-handed.”
Rena whimpered. Ace wasn’t sure if it was in reaction to the gun or in smothered contradiction to his words. He was thirsty and hungry. She must be, too.
“Don’t move.” The gun wavered slightly with nerves, which was not good. If he pulled the trigger, there was no surety which target the bullet would penetrate.
Ace glanced at the door where bodies were now running uniformly away from the direction they’d arrived, heads covered as though the drones were dropping something. With all the dust everyone’s feet was kicking up, Ace was uncertain if there was some biological or gaseous agent being used to subdue or even harm.
“It would be safer for you to let us go, calmly and peacefully,” Ace told the guy.
“I know what happens when everyone goes mad on the streets,” the guy said, wildly, eyes popping.
In support, someone thumped int
o the window as they were shoved by the stampede.
While the gunman’s eyes were averted to the scene, Ace took a step away from Rena and Nor, who were frozen as the gun swiveled back and forth a few centimeters each way.
“I’ve seen the movies. Looters. Thieves. Vandals. People just take. It’s my livelihood; how do you—”
His words stopped short as Rena darted under his outstretched arm and delivered first a rapid punch to the nose then a knee to his groin. He folded over groaning, and Nor jumped in wrenching his arm behind him until he relinquished the weapon.
Flat on the floor, he spat to the side and tried to roll over to throw Nor off his back.
Nor pressed his knee harder into the guy’s spine, leaned over and said, “Sorry. I promise we won’t take anything.”
“Much,” Sirena corrected.
Nor spared her an unimpressed glance then brought the butt of the gun handle down into the guy’s head, which dropped with a hollow-sounding clunk to the tile.
“Rena, we don’t really have time—” Nor started, glancing out the window while standing fluidly and putting the gun into the back of his pants.
“Already got it,” Rena said, returning quickly with a few waters cradled in her arms.
Nor gave a pitiful head shake to the cashier. “Poor guy. Your punches aren’t gentle.”
Sirena laughed. “Think I bruised my knuckles though. No boxing gloves, and his nose is a lot bigger than yours.”
Nor grinned back. “I knew you’d be great to have on my side. Let’s go. There must be a back door somewhere here.”
Sirena headed around the counter, nonplussed.
Nor turned back to Ace. “Coming?”
Ace slowly lowered his hands. Having a team had just saved his life. No matter how prestigious the degrees from BTI, of the knowledge they filled his brain with, self-defense was not one of them. He gave his head a shake to re-center on their task and took a step over the prone body.