The Warning

by Patterson, James

  I looked back toward the plant’s entrance, where armed soldiers were lined up and facing our way.

  With guns raised.

  “Duck!” I shouted, and we both pitched forward as a barrage of bullets tore through the windshield. With my head between my knees, I felt the truck hit something—whether a person, animal, or barricade, I had no idea—and keep going.

  I sat up again to find Jordan driving with his left hand, his right arm hanging beside him wrapped in my drenched T-shirt.

  “Drive to my house,” I said. “We need my mom, and we need to get there before they get us.”

  I unwrapped the shirt, thinking I’d try to get it on even tighter, when I noticed a glint beneath all the red.

  “There’s something wrong with your arm,” I said.

  “No shit.”

  “No, seriously,” I said. “There is something very wrong with your arm.”

  “What?”

  “Well,” I said, taking a deep breath and fighting off a wave of nausea, “this is the arm you had surgery on, right?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “My arm, my knee, my chest, and my head.”

  “Well, I don’t know how to break the news, but—”

  “What?”

  “Your arm—what I can see of it, at least—your radius and ulna—”

  “What?”

  “It’s metal.”

  “Yeah, I know,” he said, keeping his eyes on the road. “There are some pins and maybe a metal plate.”

  “This is more than pins and a plate.”

  He didn’t answer for a long time, and when he finally looked down, I had his arm wrapped up tight with my shirt again.

  “Look, keep driving to our house, and we’ll look at it there,” I said.

  “Okay, you’re freaking me out now.”

  “Jordan, I know what bones look like. And what you’ve got going on down there is … different. You know how you make your retro Six Million Dollar Man jokes? Well, in fact …”

  “I’m bionic?”

  He looked down at his arm again and brought his left hand over to pull off my shirt wrapping. The truck swerved.

  “Keep your hand on the wheel, for God’s sake!” I ordered.

  “You just told me I’m not human anymore!”

  “No, I didn’t. Take a deep breath, get us home safely, and I’ll tell you what I saw.” I took my own advice and breathed in deep. “Your bone is black and shiny, like obsidian or ebony.”

  “You said metal.”

  “I did. That dog did a number on your arm, but the bone remains smooth and slick and hard to the touch. Okay?”

  “How can that be okay?” Jordan asked, his eyes getting panicky.

  “Jordan, you’ve known something is different about you.”

  “Yeah, but, shit, I didn’t think I actually was bionic. What the hell is happening?”

  “I have no idea, but please don’t flip out on me,” I pleaded.

  “All right, I’ll remain cool, even though the most powerful supercomputer in the history of the world wants to occupy my body. With me still in it.”

  “That is problematic,” I said. “But we got away. And we shot it and Alpha.”

  “Right. Problem solved.”

  I laughed in spite of myself.

  “And then there’s that whole end-of-the-world business,” Jordan continued. “That would be problematic, too. Does Ishango really have the power to do that?”

  “Let’s make sure we don’t have to find out.”

  “Easier said than done, girlfriend.”

  “Girlfriend?”

  “It’s an expression,” he said defensively. “But … true?”

  “Ishango is building itself, herself, with those nanobots,” I said, not about to get into that girlfriend business. “We have to assume she’s programmed to carry out her mission.”

  “But who programmed her?”

  “Honestly, Jordan,” I said, using my forefinger to wipe a bead of sweat off his forehead, “I’m not sure anyone did. This may be the result of AI run amok.”

  Suddenly the back window was blasted to smithereens. We reflexively ducked, and the car swerved till I grabbed the wheel to straighten us out. I looked back, expecting to see army vehicles, but instead it was a police car with lights on and siren blaring.

  “Hold the wheel,” Jordan said, and as I complied, he reached under the driver’s seat with his left hand, pulled out a small box, and swung it onto my lap. As he took the wheel again, I unlatched the box and pulled up the lid to reveal a gun, though it was more like a cannon. “It’s a Magnum,” he said. “Probably loaded. Be careful, because that thing hurts to fire. I mean, look at the bullets.”

  “This is huge,” I shouted over the siren as I lifted the gun. “And heavy. But who am I supposed to shoot? The police? We don’t know if they’re in on this.”

  “I don’t think they are, but someone just shot out our back window and meant to hit more than glass. And they’re on our ass now, probably reloading.”

  I looked back again, and the cop car was gaining ground, though I couldn’t see what was going on inside. It occurred to me that a bullet could hit me in the face at any moment. I opened the gun’s chamber—yep, fully loaded.

  “Here’s the case against the cops being involved,” Jordan said. “An article I read about conspiracy theories said the main reason they’re almost always fake is that people talk. A conspiracy has to be a small group. I mean, even my dad told me about Ishango. Loose lips screw things up.”

  “That’s not the saying.”

  “Whatever.”

  “I don’t know. Gimme a sec,” I said as I turned back to brace the gun atop my car seat while aiming it out the now-nonexistent rear window. “If we believe Ishango and Alpha, this has been going on for decades.”

  “Right,” Jordan said. “You might want to put a bullet in their engine, by the way. Or their tires.”

  “Shouldn’t I just aim for the driver?”

  He cocked his eyebrows at me. “Are you ready for that?”

  I shook my head.

  We sped along in the darkness. Jordan wasn’t shaking the cop car but also wasn’t losing ground.

  “What do we tell my mom?” I asked.

  “The truth,” Jordan said. “Not sure we have a choice at this point.”

  “My mom will think I’m a crazy conspiracy nut.”

  “Look, presumably she just stitched up Troy, who was attacked by possessed raccoons and was taken to her by Tico, who got slashed by Mr. Sword Arm. So she may be inclined to believe you at this point.”

  “Right. Jeez,” I said, and squinted in the reflection of the cop car’s brights, which had been switched on as its driver gunned it and gained on us fast. “It’s making a move. Looks like he’s gonna ram us.”

  “Are you ready to shoot?” he asked. “Lay your seat back so you can face them.”

  I did—and got a clear view of the police car. “It’s guys in suits. That Mu dude, I think, and a new one. Should I fire?”

  “Aim for the engine. But seriously, hold on to that gun because the kick will make it fly out of your hands otherwise.”

  I got the front grill in my sights, exhaled like I’d been trained to do in video games, and squeezed the trigger slowly.

  BANG!

  Holy crap! I knew it would be loud and strong, but I wasn’t expecting that.

  “You okay?” Jordan asked.

  I grunted, checked the window, and saw that the car was still coming. The guy in the passenger side reached his arm out the window and fired. I ducked down while Jordan, still steering with one hand, serpentined the truck back and forth.

  “I can’t get off a shot like this!” I cried. “And you’re gonna make me barf.”

  “Okay,” he said, “I’ll count down from five and then move onto the centerline and hit the brakes.”

  “Got it,” I replied, taking a deep breath.

  “Five.”

  A bullet pinged off the back
of the truck.

  “Four.”

  He placed a hand on my calf as I knelt on the seat.

  “Three.”

  Ping ping ping—and one bullet pierced the windshield between Jordan and me, creating vision-blocking spiderwebs in the tempered glass.

  “Two,” he said.

  “Just do it already!”

  Jordan braked hard, and I fired the enormous pistol.

  “Damnit!” I said as the gun almost tore from my hand. I didn’t see where the shot went, but I aimed again and, with a loud boom, punched a big hole in their windshield.

  “Go go go!” I yelled, firing one more round into the cop car’s hood.

  Jordan swung his bloody arm at the cracked windshield and knocked it onto the hood and over the front bumper. He jammed his foot down on the gas pedal, and the truck lurched forward. I looked back, and no one was in pursuit.

  “You hit their engine!” Jordan cheered.

  “No,” I said, wiping away hair plastered to my forehead with sweat. “I killed the driver.”

  CHAPTER 50

  Jordan

  MAGGIE’S MOM WAS scrubbing blood off her hands as we dashed into the office.

  “What is this, an emergency room?” she asked, taking in my blood-soaked, shirt-wrapped arm. She looked horrified, and that was before she caught a look at her sweaty daughter standing there in her bra and shorts, a thin streak of blood running across one shoulder. “Well,” she added with a nervous laugh, “looks like you two had quite the night.”

  “Mom,” Maggie said, exasperated, and went upstairs to get another shirt.

  “Is Troy okay?” I asked.

  “Poor guy—I’ve never seen so many raccoon bites on one person,” she said. “Some of them were deep and nasty, and I gave him the start of what will be a painful series of rabies shots.”

  “Ouch,” I said. “That dude stepped up. So did Luke.” The bloody, lifeless image of my sometime-enemy but always-teammate flashed through my mind and sank into my gut. If I thought too much about any of this, I’d be paralyzed.

  “Well, Tico and Suzanne took him home about ten minutes ago. I’m not sure what his parents will think when he shows up looking like the Mummy, but he should be all right. I stitched up Tico’s back, too, and thought I was done with my triage work.” She took a deep breath and looked like she was trying to maintain her composure. “Okay, now what happened to you?”

  As I started to explain, Maggie bounded into the room wearing a crisp yellow King Vitaman T-shirt. I talked and talked, trying to include every relevant detail, though I’m sure if I’d been unfolding this story for my English Composition class, Ms. Shea would have written “Streamline!” in red ink across the first page.

  Maggie’s mom just stared at me the whole time, then turned to Maggie, who nodded.

  “So the power plant is all for Ishango,” she said.

  “Right,” Maggie replied.

  “Who’s the most powerful supercomputer in human history.”

  “Right.”

  “Who’s controlling an animal army.”

  “Yes,” I chimed in.

  “Who has plans of world domination.”

  “Right,” Maggie said.

  “Who is altering people’s physical makeups.”

  “Right.”

  “Whose chief minion appears to be a burnt-faced skeletal guy with a sword arm that keeps slashing and killing.”

  “Correct.”

  “And who wants to take human form in your boyfriend here.”

  “He’s not my—”

  I shot Maggie a look. She smiled.

  “That is correct,” she said.

  “And you’re not impaired by alcohol or any mind-altering drugs.”

  “No.”

  Dr. Gooding took a deep breath. “Okay, Jordan, let’s take a look at that arm.”

  We went into the first exam room, and she arranged a light to look at it closely, then carefully unwrapped the sopping T-shirt.

  “You might want to prepare yourself, Mom,” Maggie warned.

  Dr. Gooding winced at her daughter. “I’m a doctor. I’m always prepared. I … oh, my God!”

  “My bones are black,” I said wonderingly as we all got a good look at the wound.

  “Told you,” Maggie said.

  Maggie’s mom just stared. “Can you make a fist?” she finally asked.

  I did. It hurt, but less than I expected.

  “You’ve got a bigger issue than your bones,” she said.

  “What?” Maggie asked.

  “You’re not supposed to see bones here. They’re supposed to be covered up by muscles. Muscles and tendons—they make stuff work. You shouldn’t be able to move anything without muscles, but they’re not in here. Surrounding these black bones is some sort of … red goo. I can stitch you up, but I don’t know. We should get some X-rays.”

  “No time, Mom. They’re after us, and I think we just killed a driver who was chasing us.”

  “Oh, you failed to mention that little detail in your story,”

  Dr. Gooding said. “Golly, that’s not too nice.”

  “This is serious, Mom.”

  “There’s nowhere to go, Maggie,” her mother returned. “If what you say is even remotely true, we need to see what we’re working with and then come up with a plan. And try to keep you out of jail, it sounds like.”

  “Wait,” I said, “does your phone still work?”

  It did, and I called the station where Ears was headquartered. If something was going on, he’d know about it. He heard everything that came through. I had a feeling others would be hearing everything that came through this phone as well—and I didn’t know whether Ishango might have gotten to Ears by now—but I had to take the risk.

  On the second ring came that familiar voice: “One Hundred Twelfth Battalion Headquarters. Sergeant Perkins speaking.”

  “Ears,” I muttered, instinctively cupping my hand over the mouthpiece to make clear that this call was on the down low.

  “Jordan?” he said. “Dude, they’re looking for you.”

  Whew. Ishango’s soldiers would never say “Dude.”

  “What do you know?”

  “I could lose my head for talking to you.”

  “Just tell me where they’re looking.”

  There was a long pause.

  “Okay, not looking. They know where you are—you and your girlfriend and her mom.”

  “Are they coming for us?”

  The pause lasted so long that I wondered whether we’d been disconnected, but then he spoke: “They’re monitoring everybody, tracking everybody. They’re not going to go into town to get you. They figure you can’t do much damage there. They’ll just stop you when you’re on the move. That’s all I can say. Don’t call back.”

  The line went dead.

  “Okay, let’s do those X-rays,” I said as I put down the phone.

  Maggie and her mom took me to the back room and made me take off anything metal, which wasn’t much. Over twenty to thirty minutes, they X-rayed almost every part of me. If I hadn’t been irradiated by the power plant, I’d gotten more than my share here.

  When it was over, we returned to the office to examine the images on the computer. We moved upward on my body: my feet were fine, but then my knee—I don’t know what it was supposed to look like, but it was bright white on the X-ray. Dr. Gooding said that meant it was made of metal. The whole knee had been replaced plus part of the femur.

  There was more normal stuff as we moved up—pelvis, intestines, stomach—but, wait, my right kidney was bright white. And my pancreas, and spleen. Then six ribs, all on the right side. And my right arm. Wherever there was a scar, there was white, indicating that something had been replaced.

  “Check my head,” I said. “That’s where the last scar is.”

  There it was, a wicked-looking thing: a heavy base at the top of my spinal column and then spindly arms reaching throughout my brain.

  “No one could
take that out,” Maggie’s mom said. “I have no idea how they got it in.”

  “It must be what’s giving you all the special skills,” Maggie said. “Like how you know how to fight and all that.”

  I took Maggie’s hand and held it. “The flaming skeleton in the woods,” I remembered aloud.

  “What flaming skeleton?” her mom asked.

  “The creature I chased into the woods after the fire. I’m not the only one who’s been—whatever I’ve been. Converted? Someone ran out of my house when it was on fire, and it looked like a burning corpse. Most of the flesh was singed off, and I could see its organs flaming inside an intact rib cage. That’s all he was left with.”

  Dr. Gooding stood speechless for a moment, then said, “This is seriously fucked up.”

  “Mom, you and the swearing!” Maggie said.

  “Are you arguing with my professional assessment, dear?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, then. We need to get out of town.”

  “But that’s when they’ll catch us,” Maggie said.

  “One more thing,” I interjected. “There’s an X-ray that shows how they’re keeping tabs on us.”

  Maggie pulled up the image on the computer: her upper arm with a little white spot.

  “What’s that?” her mom asked.

  “We think it’s for tracking and perception manipulation,” I said. “A mental implant like mine is supposed to command my brain to do anything, but when I got hit in the head at football, all of a sudden I saw the world as a mess—a disasterland. That perception didn’t last, but it came back when I took another hit at the fire, and then it came back for good when I got smashed in the head today, and this time it isn’t going away. I’m seeing our reality: We’re living in a radiation nightmare right now. You guys’ perceptions are being manipulated through another device. I bet if you took that thing out of Maggie’s arm, she wouldn’t be seeing the illusion anymore, either.”

  “You’ve got one, too,” Maggie said to her mom. “See the scar? They implanted us when we first got to camp, saying they were giving us flu shots. It sounds like it makes things look the way we want them to look. Some kind of wish fulfillment.”

  Maggie X-rayed her mom, and then Dr. Gooding had Maggie on a table with a surgery light trained on Maggie’s arm. The doctor made a small incision and probed for the pellet, and it came out.