Two Girls Book 2: One Nation

by Justin Sirois

  Whatever this gesture meant, it wasn’t small. Clint was an asshole, sure. He acted more like a warden than a friend. But this was something she could see him doing with one of his sons and now he was doing it with her. An olive branch. An initiation. Now, for better or worse, she was family.

  “Don’t blame yourself,” he said to the ground. “Prince would have done all that anyway. We had no chance.”

  Penny’s chest stung. The metal socket of her arm throbbed. She reached over with her claw and used every neuron available to gently clamp around the beer can to prove she can do something other than destroy things with the prosthetic.

  Clint didn’t watch. He sipped and winced. Images of Prince thrusting that dagger into his shoulder wouldn’t leave her mind.

  Now that the beer was in front of her, Penny popped it open and rested the cold rim on her lips. She knew her mom was watching. Sweetness and bitter and citrus. She sniveled and swallowed and coughed.

  “We’re gonna get Mason back,” Clint said. “You know that, right?”

  Penny cleared her throat. Spoke slow. “Yeah? How?”

  Clint tossed his empty can, skipping it through the dirty blood and into a collapsed WarWalker. “They took him to trade. They might be interrogating him, but he’s just a kid. They know he doesn’t know anything.”

  Penny strained to keep from sobbing. “Then why didn’t they take me or Sam?”

  “Honestly?” Clint said, cracking open another beer. “Those videos we’re making. That’s the only thing keeping us from being slaughtered.”

  “How’s that?” Penny scoffed. She gulped a few ounces and winced.

  Clint finally turned to her. “I know you don’t want to admit this, but Sam’s work, her videos, they’re keeping us alive.”

  The littlest amount of effort dented the strongest part of the can. Penny wanted to crumple it the way she wanted to crumple Prince’s skull, as easy as an egg. Did he want me to admit my sister is right? “Don’t…”

  A familiar rolling sound made her stop. From where Sam and Jill stood, a solid metal ball rolled to her. It wasn’t her old wrecking ball, but a new one, clean and reflective before it trailed through the blood. Penny watched it almost pass by. Claw out, she called it to her, popping it into place.

  “The footage of the battle, just now,” Alix called, crouched behind Sam. It was her that rolled the new ball. “It’s breaking our view record. Everytwo’s watching it. Millions of people.”

  Penny crushed the beer and stood. Wetness gushed from her closed claw. “You posted that?”

  Clint stood to shield Alix from whatever she might do. “We had to, Penny. People need to see what Gray Altar’s doing.”

  “But…,” Penny said, thinking of how completely she’d incriminated herself by destroying an entire gunship. “Oh my god.”

  Clint held one of her shoulders. “It’s okay. You did the right thing.”

  “Oh my god,” Penny repeated.

  “People are siding with us,” he said. “That’s what matters.”

  Alix stepped forward. “You were brave out there. Millions of people want to know who you are.”

  Penny turned her head away and snickered. “Who I am? I don’t even know who I am.”

  “You’re a hero,” Alix said, louder than she needed to. “For standing up to Prince… twice.”

  Penny met Clint’s eyes. “How the hell is he alive?”

  Clint’s expression made him look weaker than normal, as if he were on the cusp of getting the flu. “We knew Gray Altar could clone people. Emmett Prince… he’s not like us.”

  “He’s a monster,” Jill said.

  “He is,” Alix agreed. “And now the public will know that Gray Altar is illegally cloning their people. Probably not just their executives either. It’s a normal practice for them.”

  “I want him dead,” Penny murmured.

  Clint tapped his index finger against his beer like a drum. “We all do. And I think a lot of other people do too.”

  Sam and Jill approached with Alix.

  “How do we get Mason back?” Penny asked.

  “The public knows he’s been taken. Gray Altar won’t want negative publicity jeopardizing their claim on the cure.” Alix said.

  “They’ll probably try to barter,” Clint said, more morosely than he’d ever sounded. “We can’t.”

  “Can’t what?” Penny said.

  “If they want your mother or the baby…,” Clint explained.

  Penny looked to Jill and Sam. Neither of them said a word.

  “So what? We just let him rot?” Penny yelled. “What’s this all for? To give the cure to some corporation that we like? To people we don’t even know?” She felt that uncontrollable rage simmering again. What used to bubble in her intestine and constantly threatened to embarrass her in from of friends had clotted into coal. Within the rage, there was a physical stability she hadn’t felt in years. She could tap it—ignite and stoke it—tempering herself in fire. Now all she had to do was release that energy.

  “Alix!” Sometwo yelled from down the corridor. He was waving a tablet and running. “It’s him!”

  Penny was sure the him was Prince, but as the man approached, she could see that a pic of Mason was on there screen. Smiling. Greasy ball cap and tired eyes.

  “What?” Alix called.

  “They’re on their way back,” the man said, handing the tablet to Alix.

  “Let me see,” Clint grunted, taking the tablet. Tears filled his eyes. “Is this a joke?”

  The man reached and tapped on the tablet to open a series of messages. “They want to exchange.”

  “For the baby?” Penny said, sharing the screen with Clint. She touched the glass, the face of the boy who would do anything to get back to her. “Or for mom?”

  “You won’t believe it if I told you,” the man said.

  “For what then?” Alix asked.

  “Emmett Prince,” the man panted. “He wants the video. The one of him dying.”

  “What?” Sam said, mouth slack open. “Why?”

  “My guess is,” the man said, “He doesn’t want it to get out.”

  Jill leaned to reader the messages on the tablet. “They could have demanded it weeks ago. Why now?”

  “Weird,” Alix said. “Maybe Prince didn’t know about it?”

  “This must be a trick.” Clint scrolled through the messages. “Have we sent anything back yet?”

  The man looked to Alix. “Not yet. Prince says he’s coming alone and unarmed. With Mason.”

  “When?” Penny gasped.

  The man pointed to the tablet as a new message appeared. “Now.” He handed Alix a small handheld radio. “Emmett Prince opened a frequency for us to talk on.”

  Alix passed it to Clint. “You want to negotiate? Mason’s your son.”

  Clint gave a nod and a silent sigh.

  “It’s a trick,” Penny agreed, turning to Clint and Sam and Jill. “It must be, right?”

  “I dunno,” Clint said, rereading the message.

  News was getting around the base. Voices from the hallway.

  Everytwo that wasn’t wounded, even some that were, were gathering to the front gate. Alix’s team clustered by her side. Penny wouldn’t take her eyes off the pic of Mason—her Mason. Alive and smug in the pic.

  “If he’s bluffing,” sometwo said. “We’ll blow him to pieces.”

  Clint, reluctantly, turned to Penny and nodded.

  It wasn’t a shock to Prince that, as son of the founding CEO of Gray Altar, that he could commandeer a private gunship with his own pilot, free of commanding supervision. He was the heir of an empire after all. Merrick though, along with countless analysts and specialists and private consultants, would be monitoring his moves down to the nose pick.

  Inside the gunship, he sat next to Mason who he had decided to free from his cuffs. The boy had a mixed up look of disbelief and joy, but mostly fear. He had no reason to trust Gray Altar.

  “Re
lax, man,” Prince said. “Just relax.” He opened a compartment under his seat and got out two energy drinks. He cracked one open and handed it to the boy.

  Mason took it, one leg jittering.

  “So you’ll drink Monster, but not Pappy Van Winkle?” Prince chuckled. “You’re showing your age.”

  Mason flicked the pull tab with his index finger. “I haven’t taken a drink yet.”

  Prince rolled his eyes. “Yeah.” He opened his own can and drank.

  Their pilot pushed the gunship to its maximum velocity. Merrick made it clear he wanted this transaction complete within the hour—less chance of the public finding out. Prince had laid out the plan: In return for the mother, Gray Altar would stand down and return control of the base to One Nation, declaring them non-threatening and no longer a terrorist organization. Clint and his sons would be pardoned along with Penny and Sam. It was a win/win, clearly. It was also a huge lie.

  There was always an expectation of deceit within Gray Altar. Nothing was black and white, Prince loved to joke, knowing that his organization dealt in between international law and Geneva conventions. There were no good guys or bad guys. That terminology was for simple people who voted and paid taxes and believe their ballot counted. That jargon made people believe in something solid and pure in a world made of flattened shit.

  The Set Mutation, ironically, occurred in the same year that Gray Altar perfected their cloning technology. For him, the ethical puzzle of having access to immortality had been convoluted by the proliferation of twins. How could everyone automatically have a perfect double of themselves in the same way he could now have an identical duplicate? It was as if nature itself was revealing its disgust in genetic tampering. Or maybe it was god trying to overpopulate and destroy a world of ungrateful children.

  He used to not care.

  He could live between and above this flattened shit world and be the last real man alive. Now that was over. Emmett Prince was neither alive or dead. To Gray Altar, he was as much a piece of property as the Van Best girls.

  Prince sipped his sugary drink. Wiped his lips. “God, this is gross.”

  Mason smirked.

  Prince kept his eyes on the boy as as he turned the can upside-down and let the green liquid slap the floor. Splashes against his boots. Prince dropped his can. “You don’t have to drink yours,” he told the boy.

  Mason had no idea what to make of this. He smelled the open can and grimaced and tilted it upside-down too. His spilled soda mixed with Prince’s. The can clanked to the floor.

  “There,” Prince laughed.

  “Is that something I should be concerned about?” the pilot yelled back. “That smell?”

  “No!” Prince yelled. “What’s our ETA?”

  “Fifteen minutes!” the pilot said through his headset.

  Prince ground his boot into the green slosh and kept his head low. He turned off his radio. Lowered his head and voice. “Hey. Lemme ask you. You believe in one god or two?”

  Mason took off his ball cap and leaned back. If the boy was nervous, he was decent at hiding it. “Why? Does it matter?”

  Prince shrugged. “No. It doesn’t.”

  Around them, screens flashed updates from Fort Walters. Merrick’s messages appeared on his forearm display, but Prince ignored them all. New footage of the battle repeated—the same video that One Nation released only an hour ago. Both of them watched it, seeing the first gunship nosedive into the field, the flames overtaking, Janet probably dying on impact. And Penny Van Best. The human cannon. All focus on her. One Nation knew what they were doing, sculpting a mysterious hero for the public to rally behind.

  “She’s a marvel,” Prince said. “I can see why ya like her.”

  Mason said nothing.

  “I,” Prince continued, slapping the energy drink puddle with his boot, “think we are all gods. Everybody. Me and you.”

  Smug and smiling, Mason gave a single nod. “Yeah. Me and you.”

  “You’ll see,” Prince said, standing.

  The simple gesture made the boy flinch.

  Prince reached into a velcro pocket. “Relax,” he said again and snapped his datasheet flat with a flick of his wrist. He opened the secure line and sent a message to One Nation: We’re approaching. I’ll land and exit with the boy. Do you have the video for me?

  He watched the screen, watched the clock’s second counter creep up. The base’s perimeter so close. The place where a new America had been born. He walked to the cockpit and waited as the base’s squat roofline appeared.

  “Put us down in the field, there.” Prince pointed to one of the few clear spots of grass. The downed gunship still smoldered. WarWalker legs and crumpled turrets were strewn in every direction.

  “You sure? That’ll fully expose us,” the pilot said, eyes off the console.

  Prince turned back to Mason. “Just do it. And point the ship’s nose away from the base. I don’t want to threaten them.”

  The pilot swiveled around slowly back to his controls. “Okay…”

  Prince hated this man already.

  Pressing his forearm display, the side door slid open. Wind splashed the spilled soda onto his leg and knee. With the battlefield still smoking, burnt plastic and electronic smells filled the cabin. Prince gestured for Mason to stand. “I’m leaving my pistol here.” He unholstered the gun and set it inside an open compartment. “No StiffArm. No knives.” He extended both arms outward. “You can check me if you want.”

  Mason stood and held onto a side-mounted trap. “Somehow I believe you.”

  Prince nodded and looked to the approaching ground. A discarded mag-vest laid in the dirt, clumped with chunky blood.

  The gunship touched down, jolting both of them. The rotors slowed.

  Prince waved the boy forward. “You can go first.”

  Mason shot him a skeptical look. He probably thinks I’ll shoot him in the back of the head in front of his father. Why wouldn’t he?

  “Go,” Prince yelled. “Tell your people to bring me the video. I need to see it.”

  Mason shuffled past him and onto the grass where he ran. Head down, he looked like a ballplayer stealing home plate. The base’s heavy gate slowly rose. More messages from Merrick scrolled over Prince’s forearm display. He powered the screen down and made sure nothing on the gunship could record what was about to happen.

  “Power down the chopper,” he yelled to the pilot.

  “You sure?” he asked.

  A hundred yards away, the Van Best family appeared inside the gate.

  “Yes.”

  Penny crouched at the door so she could be the first to see him running. How could this actually be happening? Mason had only been gone for a few hours. Seeing him now, sprinting, hat clenched in his hand, she stood and stepped forward, but Clint held her shoulder back.

  “Just wait,” he said. “We don’t know what Prince is planning.”

  Every unwounded guard had their rifles trained on the gunship. The few WarWalkers that weren’t destroyed aimed everything they had at Prince.

  “I’m unarmed,” Prince said through the radio, his arms out and fingers spread. “I’ve returned your boy. Unharmed. Good as new.”

  “We see,” Clint said the handheld radio. “We’ve no reason to trust you. How do we know this isn’t a trick?”

  “You don’t, I guess,” Prince said as he stepped out of the gunship.

  Penny could hear Mason’s steps now, could see the expression on his face. He rushed to her and squeezed so hard that they spun and he held her tighter so they wouldn’t fall. She held his face and he kissed her with his arm reaching for his father. “Dixon…?”

  “He’s okay,” Clint said with the radio by his thigh. He hugged his son as more guards appeared from the corridors.

  “He’s approaching,” one of them said.

  Everytwo stared at Prince—the zombie son of a king.

  Clint put the radio to his mouth. “You’re good right there. Don’t move any cl
oser or we’ll end this right now.”

  “No need,” Prince said. “Just bring me the video. You know which one.”

  Clint looked to Alix. Her eyes narrowed.

  “Ask him why,” she said.

  Even with Mason holding her, Penny couldn’t take her eyes off the undead man who had come to see his own death. What kind of thing was he? And why were they entertaining his wishes now that they had Mason back?

  “Why are you so interested in it?” Clint said into the radio.

  Penny felt Sam at her side. Her sister hugged Mason and then her, but Sam couldn’t hide that she was shaking. Prince’s presence—his prowling voice—turned her hardened twin into a mouse. On the battlefield, Penny hadn’t had time to absorb the psychological effect this man had on her sister. This was the tough and defiant rebel girl that she always admired for her strong-willed individuality. Even when they fought, Penny was in awe of her sister’s fortitude. Now that girl was gone.

  “You slaughtered dozens of our people,” Clint said, gesturing to the battlefield. “Why would we let you go?”

  Prince chuckled. “Because it’s in your best interest. Believe me. The video please. And I need a guarantee that it’s the only copy.”

  Alix held out her hand for the radio. Clint handed it to her. She spoke without inflection or emotion. “We’ve erased every copy except for the one we’re handing to you.”

  Prince rubbed his chin. “I’m having a hard time believing that.”

  “If we lie,” Alix said. “You’ll come back and kill us, won’t you.”

  Prince’s body jostled like he might be laughing, but he made no sound.

  “Yes,” he said.

  Penny didn’t expect those words to shake Sam, but they did. Pale-faced, her sister looked like she might pass out. She held Sam by the waist. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” her sister said. “I’m fine.” But she held tight to Penny and stared out into the night where Prince stood like a black ghost.

  Mason cleared his throat and wiped crusted blood off his nose. “Turn off the radio.”

  Penny snapped her head to Alix. “Why are we giving him the only leverage we have left?”