by Hilari Bell
"So no money either?" The tears were falling now. Her breath began to catch.
"Not for days," Raven confirmed. "Though that doesn't need as much energy as changing a whole body does."
"So we're stuck here. We're fracking stuck here, and you're helpless, and those bikers are coming, and ... and..."
"Are you crying?"
"Of course I'm crying, you moron! I don't want to be murdered by bikers! I want..."
She wanted to heal the ley. She wanted to heal the whole world, and her relationship with her mother, and—
A pair of warm arms came around her from behind. How could this grip be so different from the one that let him hang on to the motorbike?
"I can't do it," Kelsa wept. "I don't want to get killed! I can't save the world. I couldn't even save ... save..."
"Save what?" he asked.
"My father."
She was crying so hard, she barely felt him lifting her and turning her so she sat sideways on the bike. Leaning against his chest she cried for fear, for exhaustion, for her father, for the whole damn mess.
He held her till her sobs began to subside.
"I can't do everything, either," he finally said. "I'd never have gotten this far without your help. So if you're finished, could we get moving again?"
A giggle interrupted the sobs. No matter how solid and warm his body felt, he wasn't human. And she was beginning to accept that. Even to be all right with it. Some of the time.
"Get moving how?" Kelsa fumbled in her pocket for at issue.
"Didn't you once say you could charge these things with sunlight?"
"Maybe." Kelsa blew her nose. "Assuming that pack holds solar charge sheets. And that the sun comes out. And that you're willing to wait a full day—a sunny day!—for a charge that will take us about a hundred miles."
"Do we have another choice?"
They didn't.
***
Thrusting her hand past various lumpy objects to the bottom of the bike's storage compartment, Kelsa's groping fingers finally encountered the crinkly mass of solar sheets. By the time they'd walked the bike past the swamp, to a place where they could pull off into a drier stretch of forest, the sun was rising.
"We can't stop here," Kelsa said. "We've got to find a sunny place that can't be seen from the road."
On the assumption that the bikers would be at least several hours behind them, they pulled the bike onto the road's shoulder and set out exploring. It didn't take long to find a place where the denser woods gave way to bog once more.
By day, the mop-topped pines Kelsa had noticed before appeared even more sickly. Not only scraggly, but a yellowish color that looked like the early stages of tree plague.
"Are they supposed to look like that?" she asked.
"What? Oh yes. The Russian settlers in this part of the world called that kind of boggy forest taiga, 'land of little sticks,' because the trees are so spindly."
"They still call it taiga," Kelsa said. "I didn't know it looked like this."
At least the thin trees that covered the ice-bottomed bog would let light through to the solar sheets.
They wheeled the bike through the woods, swearing as they rammed it over humps of grass and tree roots. To Kelsa's amusement Raven muttered "carp" several times, as well as "consarn it!"
When they finally reached the grove they'd selected, she looked at Raven with concern. His pale face was covered with sweat, and there were dark circles under his eyes.
The storage compartment also held several gallon jugs of water, and some energy bars that Kelsa was hungry enough to dig into immediately, and without complaint. She even wished the gangster who'd owned this bike had carried peanut butter, but no such luck. There were also three bottles of beer, which she set aside without comment, and a sleeping bag, which Raven promptly appropriated and rolled out on the ground.
"You don't need me for anything else, do you?"
"No." Crying had left Kelsa tired, but strangely at peace. "Why are the solar sheets always on the bottom?" She lifted out a big leather satchel with a magnetic seal, closed by a DNA lock pad. "I wonder what they've got in here?" She set it aside. "Probably their—aha!"
She did need Raven's help to unfold the flimsy black sheets and spread them over the open ground, angled toward the sun. Kelsa plugged their thin cords into the small ports on the bottom of the battery. Raven, who had found the charge meter on the bike's display, stared at it impatiently.
"It's not going up," he said after almost a minute had passed.
"It won't even start going up for over an hour," Kelsa told him. She wished the bike had carried another sleeping bag, but if she unzipped the one Raven had taken and spread it out they could both lie down on it. She might not feel as tired as he looked, but it was close.
"We'll have to wait at least half a day before it charges enough to give us any chance of reaching a town."
Surely there would be some sort of charge station in the next fifty miles, even in the Yukon.
With a resigned expression, Raven watched her take over half his bed. "So what's in that leather bag? It looked heavy when you dropped it. Food maybe? Or some blankets?"
"Not with that kind of lock," Kelsa said. "That's the kind of lock you see on briefcases full of diamonds or top-secret documents. It's programmed to open to only one person's DNA."
"Why would bikers carry diamonds?" Raven asked.
"They wouldn't. I'm afraid it's illegal drugs," said Kelsa. "And that's something I want no part of."
"We should see what it is," Raven said. "There might be something useful in there."
Kelsa wasn't surprised when he knelt beside the bag, examining the lock and seal. Excessive curiosity was one of his many bad habits.
And who knew? There might be something useful in there.
"Can you open it, like you did the storage box?"
"No." Raven ran one fingertip down the magnetic seal. "This is designed to stay closed, not to open. Its energy is all wrong."
"Then we can't open it?"
"I didn't say that." He pulled out the big knife, and before Kelsa could do more than open her mouth to protest, he punched through the leather beside the closed seal and slit the bag with one expert swipe. He opened it, and his brows rose.
"Drugs?" Kelsa wasn't sure she had the energy to go over and check it out herself. That sleeping bag looked really good.
"No." Raven sounded amused. "But now I see why they go to so much trouble to sell them."
He lifted the bag and tipped it so Kelsa could see. It was crammed with neat bundles of money.
"Oh my God!" She was on her feet, with no memory of having risen. "They'll kill us. They'll track us to the ends of the earth, and kill us in a heartbeat, to get that back."
"They've already tracked us to the end of the earth." Raven was rummaging in the bag. "Or pretty nearly. And they already intend to kill us, so I don't see that we've lost much by solving our money problem. And we now have this for when they show up."
The solid black shape was something Kelsa had only seen on vids, but she recognized it instantly.
"A plastic gun," she groaned. "That's all we need!"
Raven looked at her curiously. "You don't sound like you mean that. Why is having a weapon a bad thing?"
"Because that's more illegal to carry than any drug," Kelsa told him grimly. "We finally managed to get guns out of criminal hands, because all modern guns have a DNA lock on the trigger."
"What does that mean?"
"It means no one except the person a gun is registered to can fire it. Unless they cut off the owner's finger, and it's hard to aim a handgun while pulling the trigger with a foreign object. A dead foreign object."
Raven studied the gun in his hand curiously. "I don't see a scan pad on this trigger."
"That's because it's an illegal gun," Kelsa told him. "It's made out of plastic, so it won't trip border scanners, or make consistent ballistic marks on the bullets it fires. It will work for anyo
ne, and it's completely untraceable. Which is why being caught with one in your possession means a mandatory ten-year prison sentence, with more time added on if they can figure out why you wanted it. Get rid of it. Break it. Bury it. Right now."
After a moment of fiddling, Raven clicked the load out of the gun's handle and studied it. "Only five bullets? And they're plastic too. To go through border scanners? Are you sure about getting rid of this? With those bikers after us—"
"I'm sure," said Kelsa, "because there's another little problem with plastic guns."
"What?" Raven looked disturbingly comfortable with a weapon in his hand. Guns had been common, Kelsa knew, in the last several centuries of this continent's history. She still didn't like it.
"The problem with plastic guns," she said, "is that they're made of plastic."
"So?"
"A plastic barrel deforms a bit each time the gun is fired. That's why there are no reliable ballistic marks, even if enough of the bullet survives to take them. The first shot will be as straight, as accurate, as with a metal gun. The second shot is almost as good. The third through sixth shots are probably OK, but you'd better be close to the target. The seventh and eighth shots, anyone who isn't standing behind the person firing is in danger because there's no accuracy at all. And on the ninth shot," she finished grimly, "about one in forty of those guns blows up. That's low enough odds that some people are desperate enough to take the ninth shot. Or even the tenth, though there's a one-in-six chance the gun will blow up then. No one ever takes the eleventh shot. Not ever."
"Hence five bullet clips." Raven nodded understanding. "But that still gives us two good shots, and at least three decent ones, so—"
"Unless," said Kelsa, "it's already been fired five times. Or three. Or seven, and just loaded with a fresh clip. We have no way to know how many times it's been fired."
"Ah." Raven eyed the gun more dubiously. "Then we probably shouldn't rely on it. Are you really going to take half my sleeping bag?"
***
They slept all morning, and Kelsa didn't wake till the clouds started blowing across the sun. Some of the hard bumps had poked through the sleeping bag's inflated pad. She sat up, rubbing a sore spot on her ribs.
Raven had already unplugged the solar sheets and was folding the crackling plastic.
"The battery gauge shows a little charge, and it's getting cloudy. I think we have to try."
It was past one by the time they'd repacked the storage compartment. Raven used the point of the big knife to break the latch so he wouldn't have to waste magic opening it next time. And despite Kelsa's arguments, he'd put the plastic gun back into the money bag.
"It must have at least a few shots left, or they wouldn't have kept it. And while we shouldn't use it unless we get desperate..."
He didn't have to finish. The police were looking for them, the bikers were hot on their heels, and if Raven's enemies didn't know where they were right now, they would the moment Kelsa healed another point on the ley. She and Raven might well become desperate enough to need that plastic gun.
The clouds were thick, but high enough for Kelsa to see the top of the snow-capped peaks as they moved on down the road. She kept one eye out for the bikers. Who knew how far behind they were by now? Or even ahead? She kept the other eye on the battery gauge.
A little over an hour later, when the indicator was nearing the bottom, they pulled into a charge station at Beaver Creek.
"We don't dare go in," Kelsa said sharply as Raven started for the store. "Not looking like you do now."
She hoped the drivers around them would be too busy charging their vehicles, taking care of their own needs, to pay close attention to the two teens on the bike. At least Kelsa looked somewhat different from the picture they were broadcasting, and the bike was completely different.
Except for the missing black eye, Raven looked exactly like the picture on the vidcast.
"I don't like this." He too was glancing around the charge lot. "They're closing in. We're only about thirty miles from the border and I can't shift. Not for days yet. I don't know what to do."
Kelsa had been thinking about that for several miles, but she still had to hold hard to her courage when she spoke. "If we're that near the border you'd better get off here. When you can change again, you can fly over and find me."
"But what about—"
"It'll take the bikers a while to stash their drugs before they cross." Kelsa tried to put more confidence into her voice than she felt. "Elizabeth Stayner's PID should take me right through."
She pulled out the card as she spoke, just to make sure. The picture still showed her, with her short black hair. Did the "1" in front of her age look a bit more blurred? No matter. It only had to last a few more hours.
"I won't trust any more little old ladies," she added. "I'll find somewhere to lie low, to keep safe, until you find me."
"I don't like leaving you." Raven was scowling in a way that might have attracted attention, but his concern was so sincere Kelsa didn't have the heart to scold him.
"It's just thirty miles to the border. I'll be OK. And I'll get the dust across. I finish what I start. Remember?"
Raven sighed. "I can't think of a better plan. Be careful. And Kelsa?"
"Yes?"
"When you said you couldn't save the world ... You've already done more than I dreamed a human could."
Before she could begin to come up with an answer, he turned and walked away, past the station store and into the woods beyond. Watching him vanish, Kelsa realized that he'd become a friend—despite the fact that his comments about "humans" were still a little condescending. The fact that she could make friends again was probably another sign of healing, but right now it only added to her worries.
Would he be safe, from grizzly bears for instance, without the ability to change his shape?
He could work minor magic, Kelsa consoled herself. He could probably protect himself from anything but another shapeshifter.
And away from the medicine pouch, he was probably safer from them than she was.
Kelsa unplugged the bike and got back on the road. Despite the gathering clouds there was no rain, and shafts of sunlight lanced through the gaps, illuminating tree-clad slopes and brushy tundra.
The taiga bogs, with their twisted trees, had become common beside the road. Raven had assured her they were healthy, but Kelsa couldn't help but think that this was how all forests would look if the tree plague reached the north.
She had to go on. The ley had to be healed, no matter how dangerous it was for her. But that didn't mean she would try to cross the border with a plastic gun in her storage compartment.
A ten-year minimum sentence.
About eight miles out of Beaver Creek, she passed a local road heading away from the highway. There was enough traffic this close to the border that pulling off to bury the gun seemed like a good idea.
Kelsa turned the bike and started down the side road. She hadn't gone a hundred yards when she saw two bikes coming toward her. The riders were anonymous in their helmets and heavy jackets, but all four tires gleamed with newness.
She put her bike into a skidding spin and laid rubber on the asphalt as she raced back to the highway.
Two more bikers were coming up the highway toward her. There were still stretches of potholes, but Kelsa stepped on the accelerator pedal and kept her foot down.
They'd been waiting for her, watching for her. Had Raven's enemies learned to track the medicine pouch?
However they'd done it, they had her now. With power streaming from the newly charged battery, the bike she rode could hold the distance between her and her pursuers. But where were the other five?
Kelsa discovered part of the answer when two more bikes appeared on the road coming toward her.
The darkened helmet shields concealed their faces, but the thought that they might be innocent travelers never even crossed her mind.
The cutaway slope of the hill closed off one
side of the road, and if she swerved into the forest the thick brush would stop her in minutes. Was that what they wanted?
Kelsa headed straight toward them. How could they stop a speeding bike? Besides shooting her. Or shooting one of her tires. Or driving her into a tree, or off a cliff, or...
Just before she reached the bikers she swerved off the smooth surface, too swiftly for them to intercept her, riding not into the woods, but up onto the slope where the hillside had been carved away.
It was almost a forty-five-degree angle—too steep, the dirt too loose—but she was going so fast that sheer momentum took her several yards up the slope, with rocks and dirt spitting from under her tires.
The handlebars bucked as the front wheel began to turn, but Kelsa fought with all her strength, holding the wheel straight as the bike skidded and slithered back down to the road—beyond the oncoming bikers.
She shouted aloud in triumph, in gratitude at still being upright, in motion. Her heart was hammering in her chest. Her father would have killed her for pulling an idiotic stunt like that.
All six bikers were behind her now, and she sent power screaming into the wheels and shot ahead, ripping around the corner...
Then slamming on her brakes as the border post appeared.
It was almost a quarter mile away, so Kelsa had time to slow to a speed that wouldn't trip the sensors. She had little to fear from the bikers here. U.S. state border stations were formidable; the national stations were full of armed, trained guards. She was safe from mayhem, as long as they were in sight.
She was also riding a vehicle that wasn't registered to Elizabeth Stayner, carrying a large bag of cash she couldn't account for, and a highly illegal plastic gun.
She would almost rather have faced the bikers.
Kelsa took her place in one of the five lines of cars waiting for the scanners. The station was busy—there were seven cars in front of her, and the line of RVs and trucks waiting for the big scanners was even longer. Not many people were waiting to pick up walk-across passengers. Whitehorse was a long way back, and there were no large cities near the Alaskan side of the border either, but a handful of cars occupied the designated parking lots on either side of the walk-through gate.