“I think…I might be…” Kendall swallowed hard. “I think…maybe…I’m…I’m…more interested in…men than…”
Susan stared deep into eyes that fanatically dodged her own. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Kendall. You’re trying to say ‘gay,’ aren’t you? Gay, gay, gay. Gay as a pond of otters on nitrous oxide. Queer as a fourteen-carat lamppost. Fruity as a…”
Finding himself in more familiar surroundings with humor, Kendall finished, “Clockwork strawberry?”
Susan smiled. “Hey, that’s good.” Turning the tables, she gripped his hands more tightly than he did hers. “Seriously, didn’t you get the memo at birth? Being gay is no big deal anymore. In fact, it’s trendy. I know a lot of heteros who would donate their left gonad to be gay.”
Kendall managed a weak grin. “Wouldn’t that defeat the purpose?”
Susan laughed. “Only halfway.” She added, more seriously, “I thought hiding in closets went the way of aviator sunglasses and tongue piercing. Why has it taken you twenty-seven years to figure out your…bedroom fantasies?”
As usual, Kendall avoided the discussion with humor. “In all fairness, I didn’t hit puberty until at least…five or six.”
Though the challenge intrigued her, Susan did not have time to psychoanalyze her closest friend. “Okay, quickie diagnosis: ego-dystonic sexual disorder.”
Kendall took over. “Characterized by having a sexual orientation or an attraction that is at odds with one’s idealized self-image, causing anxiety and a desire to either change, suppress, or become more comfortable with one’s sexual orientation.”
Susan rose, drawing Kendall up with her. “How long did it take you to memorize that?”
“The entire trip up and back.”
“Hmmm.”
“I’ve always said most psychiatrists go into psychiatry because they’re secretly crazy and have a deep-seated need to analyze themselves.”
Susan glanced at her Vox, then out the window. The sky had turned a smoky gray, interspersed with the brilliant light of streetlamps. “Listen, Kendall. I understand this should be a moment full of angst and hair pulling, and I promise to even suffer hundreds of anxiety-riddled hours believing the horror of my inept lovemaking drove my boyfriend to homosexuality. But the truth is, in about fifteen minutes, none of that will seem quite so urgent.”
“Fifteen minutes?” Kendall’s brows shot up. “Why’s that?”
Susan headed for the door. “Because that’s about how long it’ll take to tell my story.”
Despite her promise, Susan and Kendall raced down Bond Street, passing myriad steel and concrete buildings, without the opportunity to exchange a word between them. Glide-buses and cars wound through the streets, dodging the vehicles parked along the sidewalks, and the occasional blare of a horn or distant siren pierced the still, cool evening. A few other people shared the streets, most performing the classic Manhattan walk: fast paced, heads down, gazes tunneled ahead, mouths silent, moving ever straight ahead and ignoring passing strangers.
Kendall grabbed Susan’s arm suddenly. “This way.” He headed across the street, threading between a private Toyota and a double-parked delivery van.
“Don’t we want the number 6?” Susan jabbed a finger toward a familiar blue sign marking the route. Every New Yorker learned the public transportation color/number code in childhood.
Kendall darted into the street, earning an angry honk from a checkered taxi forced to slow momentarily. “If we take the 3, it’s a slightly longer walk but we get there faster.”
Leaving traffic negotiation to Kendall, Susan glanced into an upcoming alleyway where a parked Subaru Sapphire caught her attention. She had no reason to believe it belonged to Jake, but it reminded her of the detective. Thoughts of him brought the earlier conversation back to mind, which made her wary. Suddenly distinctly aware of her surroundings, she made a visual sweep of the upcoming sidewalk and buildings.
As Kendall and Susan stepped onto the sidewalk, something small and fast moving hit the bottom of the alleyway fire escape with a soft ping and a brief flash of sparks. What the hell was that? Before she could contemplate it further, the window of a passing bus shattered. Someone hurtled from the alleyway, slamming her violently to the ground. “Get down! Get down! Get down!” The window of the parked car beside her exploded, and glass rained down on her exposed arms and neck. Kendall staggered, crashing into the car, breath driven from his lungs in a rush. One of his feet slipped off the curb, wedging between it and the parked car, and he collapsed as well.
Pinned by what she now recognized as Jake Carson, Susan squirmed. “Is someone throwing stuff at us?”
“Shooting,” Jake corrected, shoving her across the curb and under the car. The concrete abraded her skin, driving bits of glass deeper into her arm. Metal jammed against her back, the area beneath the car breath-stealingly small. Kendall attempted to squeeze in beside her. Jake flung himself over the hood.
Susan had heard nothing that sounded remotely like gunfire. “Who—?” she started.
But Jake shouted over her, “Stay down! Sniper, second story. Corner.” He returned fire over the hood, and the report of his pistol could pass for nothing else.
Susan could hear screaming, and running feet pounded past the car. Vehicles screeched to a halt. Something slammed into the metal above her head, punching through it, and she doubted the car could do much more than conceal them for a few more minutes. Jake was swearing a blue streak, sounding more fearful and desperate than angry. Useful words emerged between the curses. “The feds followed you, too.” He paused to peek over the hood and fired another shot, then ducked back down. “White van across the street.”
It all solidified in that moment. Susan rolled from beneath the car and nearly into the street. Through the fleeing people, around the sudden stack-up of traffic vomiting passengers, she spotted the delivery van she had seen double-parked across the street. Uncertain whether they understood what was happening, she did the only thing she knew would gain their attention. “Yo, Cadmium! Sniper! Second story, corner building!”
Men in bulky coveralls, carrying rifles, burst from every door of the vehicle. Something smacked into the street, flinging chips of asphalt that stung Susan’s face. Swiftly, she ducked back under the car as a relentless bang of gunfire sounded over the shouts and screams of the running bystanders.
Jake scooted to Susan and seized her arm. “Come with me. Right now!” Hunched low, he made a sudden dash for the alley with her in tow. The once-normal scene had devolved into chaos. Abandoned vehicles zigzagged in crooked parodies of what had once been lanes, dents and crunches marking where they touched. People scurried in all directions in a mindless, uncertain panic. A few lay on the ground; most huddled in tight balls with hands uselessly covering their heads, as if they could stop a bullet. The federal agents closed in on the corner building, keeping up a steady spray of gunfire that did not allow the sniper to raise his head.
Kendall charged after them. “Should we be doing this? Is this safe?”
Jake ripped open his passenger’s door, half throwing Susan onto the leather seat. “Of course it’s not safe. It’s dangerous as hell!” He plunged around the car and into the driver’s seat. Unwilling to waste time checking for locks on the back doors, Kendall scrambled over Susan as Jake roared out of the alley and away from Bond Street.
Kendall rolled into the backseat and scrambled below the level of the windows. He loosed a string of expletives that rivaled Jake’s, then added, “What in holy hell is going on?”
Susan’s heart pounded, and her breath rasped in her chest. She could not have answered, even if her mind allowed it.
Jake sped around the corner and onto a main avenue. “I’m taking both of you someplace safe.”
“Safe,” Kendall repeated. “You mean, like the police station?”
“No, I said someplace safe.”
Low in her seat, unable to see out the window, Susan had no idea where Jake was taking them. �
��You were right about one thing: The feds do want to keep me alive.”
Jake spoke without taking his eyes off the road. Driving way too fast, he needed to pay heed to traffic. “Maybe not anymore. You just blew their cover.”
“We needed their attention,” Susan pointed out. “They weren’t doing anything.”
“They were donning body armor. Pulling rifles. They had to target off me.”
Susan did not understand. “What do you mean?”
Jake took a sudden turn that threw Susan against the door. Only then she realized the buzzing in her ears had nothing to do with the aftermath of screams and gunshots. She fastened her safety harness.
“From the size of the holes, the perp was using a suppressed thirty caliber. I’d guess either Blackout or six-point-eight from an M4A1.”
“In English, please.” Kendall’s disembodied voice floated to the front. He remained at least as low in his seat as Susan did in hers.
“It’s almost movie quiet…” Catching himself slipping into jargon again, Jake explained. “Nearly as quiet as bad action movies portray silencers. Cadmium couldn’t have known anything was happening until the window shattered, and, even then, they probably had no idea where it came from until I fired back.”
Kendall saw the flaw in that logic before Susan did. “So, how did you know?”
Jake had a ready answer. “I was watching the feds spy on you. I picked that alley probably for the same reasons the perp did, but it was you choosing to cross the street that saved your lives.” He took another quick turn, then settled to a more normal speed. “He probably had you sighted; then you changed the geometry on him. You got inside his OODA loop, and that forced him to move, to expose himself slightly, which is how I spotted him. The M4 family has a large offset, which he must have forgotten or not thought about, because he hit the bottom of the fire escape. That deflected the bullet slightly upward, which is how it hit the bus window.”
Kendall sat up a bit. “Discarding the whole OODA-loop and offset thing, which is gibberish to me, are you saying you figured out the mind-set of a killer and the flight of a single bullet in the middle of all that chaos?”
“Our lives depended on it,” Jake pointed out. “But Cadmium couldn’t possibly have seen the first deflection, so they had no idea where it came from. Now, the second shot—”
Susan interrupted, “Would have gone through my skull if you hadn’t jumped on me. Instead it hit the car window.” She realized she owed him something. “You saved my life again, Jake. Thank you.”
“Again?” Kendall’s tone harshened. “What the fuck is going on?”
Jake ignored Kendall. “The third and fourth went into the car. The size of the holes is how I knew the caliber.”
Kendall nodded. “Now I get the attraction. He’s you as a cop. Isn’t he?”
Susan and Jake spoke the same words simultaneously: “Gay as a nightingale.”
Not wanting to leave the conversation hanging on something so confessedly uncomfortable for Kendall, Susan added, “I imagine most cops and soldiers learn to instinctively do what he just did. In our line of work, if you’re not one hundred percent observant, it may delay a diagnosis, and when an actual life is on the line, we all nearly always come through. In his line of work, if you’re not one hundred percent observant, you’re just dead.”
Kendall accepted the explanation. “That probably weeds out the careless ones.”
“Not always.” Jake shook his head, still remaining fully focused on the road. “Often, it’s the observant ones who act first. When you hurl yourself onto targets, you sometimes become one. I’ve seen more heroes lost than sloths.” He continued under his breath, “Damn it.”
Kendall finally sat up enough to look around them. “We could be in New Jersey by now.”
“Good guess.” Jake rolled the Subaru down a familiar street. Despite his comment about safety, they had come nearly full circle to the police station. “But wrong.” He pulled into an empty space along the road and shut off the lights. “I’m going to report in, more to get information than divulge it. Before we pull into the lot, I need to give you your instructions.”
Susan no longer harbored any doubts about Jake’s intentions. “What do we need to do?”
“My car may, eventually, draw attention, but it’s still safer than trying to smuggle you somewhere else. I’ve driven all over town and had plenty of time to drop you off while they sorted out the situation. They won’t expect me to come here, especially while you’re still with me, unless I bring you inside, which I’m not going to do.”
“Why not?” Kendall asked, still lacking the background to grasp the full situation.
“Way too dangerous. The SFH isn’t constrained by law, and Cadmium barely is, especially when they’re desperate.” A ray of lamplight striped Jake. In it, Susan could see beads of sweat on his brow, an expression of alarm and uncertainty he was struggling to hide. He had twice, unflinchingly, risked his life for hers with a cool detachment she now felt certain he feigned. It reminded her of a Mark Twain quotation: “Courage is the mastery of fear, not the absence of fear.”
Jake continued, “You both need to snuggle down low and tight to the floor. Remain still. I know you have a lot to talk about, but not a single word passes between any of us until we’re out of the police lot and on our way again. And, for God’s sake, keep Vox off.”
Susan quickly switched off her Vox, then slid down the front of the leather passenger’s seat to scrunch into her footwell.
Jake restarted the car, flicked on the lights, and pulled forward slowly. Shortly, he made a right turn, and Susan felt the bump of the tires over the low-curbed entryway. Lights intermittently rolled across the interior as the car moved past overhead streetlamps. Jake pulled deep into the lot, then shut off the engine. Without hesitation or a single word to his passengers, Jake exited the car. Susan heard the click of the locks, then nothing more.
Claustrophobia swam down on Susan, and every part of her seemed to develop a cramp or itch simultaneously. She bit her lip without making a sound, remaining utterly still and silent, turning her mind to anything other than the discomfort. Jake had parked them in darkness, so Susan squeezed her eyes shut, trying to force all her focus on smells and sounds. If she strained, she could just barely hear the faint cadence of Kendall’s breathing, a distant wail of a siren, the chirp of myriad crickets blending into a single rising and falling chorus.
It felt like an eternity before Susan heard a single set of footsteps approaching. The driver’s door lock clicked open and Jake slid inside, shut his door, and started the engine. A moment later, they cruised out of the parking lot and back onto the familiar streets.
Jake’s voice sounded thunderous. “You’re safe now.” He added, less reassuringly, “Relatively speaking.”
Kendall clambered off the floor but remained low in his seat. “What in God’s name did you two do? Steal the Declaration of Independence? Threaten the president?”
Jake gave him the short version. “Certain parties believe Susan has a code that deactivates the Three Laws of Robotics. The Society for Humanity wants to kill her so she can’t share it. The DoD wants it so they can weaponize positronic robots.”
That silenced Kendall long enough for Susan to ask, “Where are we going?”
“No idea.” Jake continued driving. “Officially, I’m supposed to find Susan and bring her in ASAP.”
“And unofficially?” Susan pressed.
Jake sighed. “You and I need to disappear off the face of the earth until we get this whole thing settled. Any thoughts on where we can do that? Because I’m tapped out.”
Neither Susan nor Kendall had an immediate reply, so Jake expressed his thoughts aloud. “Any of our places is a no-brainer. Anything police related, no matter how safe, is right out. I don’t think high-profile public places will suffice. Neither of them seems to care about collateral damage.”
Susan discarded several ideas to focus on one. “How abo
ut USR? It’s well secured, and I know Lawrence would support us. I’ll give him a call.” She reached toward her Vox.
“No!” Both men screamed at once. Jake even managed to grab her left arm in midmotion.
Susan nearly jumped out of her seat. “What?”
“Keep your Vox off,” Jake commanded. “The feds will have a track on it by now. Any incoming or outgoing activity will tell them exactly where you are.” He raised his bare right wrist. “I’ve hidden mine, so I’m not even tempted to use it.”
Susan knew tracking them violated the terms of the Mobile Communications Privacy Act of 2027, but realized it did not matter. A federal organization that did not officially exist could probably cast aside many provisions of the law. Crying foul would not keep them alive. “Fine, but USR’s the safest place I know, and I have no way to access it without Lawrence Robertson.”
“Use Kendall’s. He’s probably not on their radar.” Jake added, “Yet.”
“You mean I could still get out of this alive?” Kendall said hopefully.
Jake did not know Kendall as well as Susan did. She knew he was kidding. He had not shied away from assisting her and Remington when they chased after bomb-wielding psychopaths injected with nanorobots. In fact, he had singlehandedly thwarted the one considered most dangerous, a brute of a sociopath who had already overpowered his security detail.
Jake responded honestly, “I’m planning to get all of us out of this alive. I can drop you off, if you want, but I think you’re safer with us. Both sides now know Susan has a companion, in addition to me, and it won’t take them longer than a day to figure out who.”
Susan thrust a hand toward the backseat. “Give me your Vox.”
Kendall complied, and Susan punched in Lawrence’s number. While it buzzed, she explained, “We need to make a quick stop along the way.”
“Anywhere,” Jake replied. “As long as it isn’t one of our homes.”
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