by Nick Thacker
Wong was furious for some reason, and Yuri and Grouse were arguing with him. Myers tried to read their lips but was thrown by the group’s strange use of hand motions in place of actual conversation. It was as if they had little need for spoken words for half of their conversation, their hands flying about as every other word they yelled toward one another was followed by some sort of hand motion. It wasn’t sign language, but it was effective enough for each of the men to get their point across.
Birdman eventually tired of the argument. “Just kill the kid,” he heard him yell. “He’s been logged for longer than anyone we’ve seen, but he isn’t going to rise any higher on the Board. Leave him or bag him.”
Myers sat up straighter at the understanding. They were going to kill him.
As if on cue, he watched out the small window as Yuri, the larger man on the left, retrieved a small handgun from a holster on his chest and aimed it at the kid.
“No!” Myers yelled as he stood and rushed the door of the craft. His feet somehow found strength and pushed back the pain of days of barefoot travel as he neared the giant in the doorframe. He aimed for the small of the man’s back and tucked his head downward.
He felt a skull-crushing blow as his head came into contact with the seven-foot-tall giant at the door. The man flew forward, off the ramp and down the fifty or so feet to the hard ground. He didn’t stop to see how the big man had fared.
Myers ran down the hard, cold metal walkway, ignoring the screaming pain from his feet, legs, and body as he aimed at his next target.
The men quickly prepared themselves for the attack, but they weren’t prepared for Myers’ plan. He ran toward Ravi, still on the ground. The men each backed away a few steps to put distance between themselves and the crazed lunatic flying toward them.
Myers ran full-tilt at Ravi, launching himself into the air a few steps later, and aiming at Ravi’s back. He hit the target with precision, knocking the mechanical spider off of Ravi and surprising the young man at the same time. Without pausing, he rolled sideways off of Ravi and pulled him upward. It took all his strength to stand, but he managed to find his feet and prop himself up enough to hold Ravi in front of him, backing away from the gathered crowd of three men.
“Take a step forward and the kid gets it,” Myers said. He held up a claw from the mech-spider and poked it into the soft part of Ravi’s neck. His arm was around the kid’s upper half, pressing him close against his own body, inviting the men to take a shot at them.
“What the hell are you doing, old man?” Ravi whispered.
“I made a plan,” Myers answered, “and it’s ‘don’t die today.’” He wasn’t proud of it, but he stuck to his guns. “And I’m hoping I can save you as well,” he added.
Myers could almost feel Ravi rolling his eyes. “Glad I could play a small role in your master plan.”
“Just shut up and play along.” Myers didn’t know what else to say. He was outnumbered, outgunned, and certainly out-manned. He looked down at the device he held in his hand. The spidery “leg” was no more than a glorified Erector set piece, sharpened at one end and consisting of three “knees,” allowing the leg to be bent almost all the way around its prey. Myers marveled at the simplistic elegance of the device, but only for a moment.
The leg started moving and Myers lost his grip on it, leaving Myers alone with Ravi, now in an uncomfortable embrace. The mechanical critter enclosed into itself and formed a tiny rectangle, which in turn was pulled backward on a hair-thin cabling system into the ship.
Myers squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. I’m way out of my element, here.
“Yeah, that’s a little device that was created by EHM for grabbing objects remotely,” Yuri said. “It’s a handy little thing, no doubt.”
Myers stared at the man. Long blond hair, held back in a ponytail, with pockmark scars covering his face, he looked like an aged rock star.
Myers noticed that Grouse seemed smug; content even. He must be in charge of this operation.
Wong continued. “You’re sitting pretty at no less than 86,000 Current. That’s — by far — the highest we’ve seen, and probably the highest anyone else has seen.”
Myers still wasn’t sure if he should speak, so instead he shifted Ravi’s weight to his other arm. Ravi didn’t resist, but the young man’s weight was now pressed against Myers’ body, and he was growing tired.
“Here’s the thing,” Yuri said. “We think you’re going to be the first Relic to peg 100k on the Board. And as you’ve noticed, we’ve got four mouths to feed.”
Yuri walked to the edge of the hill. He peered over it, trying to see the bottom. “Well, at least three mouths —“
The leader of the pack, Grouse, stepped up to Myers’ ear. He was close enough for Myers to smell the sweat on the man’s clothes. “Myers, let’s take a time out. We’re people just like you. We’ve got families, my friend.”
Myers didn’t respond, and Grouse continued. “We have children, and wives, and people depending on us for this mark. You understand? We may have chosen this, uh, line of work, but that doesn’t mean we’re stupid. This can be a lucrative industry, Mr. Asher, as long as we control the things we’re able to control. We can control many things, but we can’t control our destiny, Myers. You know this. Your entire career was spent trying to do this.”
Myers was visibly taken aback, but he held onto Ravi. The kid, to his credit, hadn’t opened his mouth since they’d gotten into this predicament.
“There’s a lot riding on this, President Asher. A lot. And you’re going to help us achieve our goals.”
Grouse stepped back, and Myers stared him down. The man was intimidating, there was no doubt, but Myers stood his ground. “Who the hell are you?”
Grouse smiled. “We’re hunters. Unders. But we’re no different than you now. The Sys ignores us, now, after we decided to live away from its reach. So we aren’t valuable to it — we’re done.” He made a wide, sweeping gesture with both arms. “This is it. This is our life, now, Asher.” Then he laughed. A full, from-the-belly deep guttural laugh. “I never thought this would be it. I had no idea. But it is. And you know what?”
Grouse ran toward Myers and Ravi, quickly closing the distance between them, and cocked his head sideways, his nose almost touching Myers’ forehead.
“I like it this way. It’s a rough life, but it’s my life. And the Sys knows that. The Sys knows I like this, Myers. Ain’t that the best part? We fought it for so long, but it knows us better than we do.”
A piece of spittle landed on Myers’ face, and he took a step backward.
“Fine, Grouse,” Myers said. “Whatever your name is. Kill me then. Kill us both, and ‘turn us in.’ Get your prize.”
Grouse threw his head back and laughed again. “‘Turn you in!’ Yes — that’s what we’ll do. No! No — we won’t do that, Myers Asher. We need you, and we need you to pay your way. You’re pegging on the Board higher than we’d ever thought possible, and you’re only going to rise.”
He sneered at Myers. “No, Mr. President,” he said in a disgusted voice. “We’re going to let you go.”
Myers blinked in confusion. I didn’t think this would ever be part of their plan. “You — you’re letting us go?”
“I am. The longer you run, the more you both mean to me.” He paused, looking at his partners for confirmation. “So go.”
Myers couldn’t hide his shock. This can’t be happening.
“Please, know this.” Grouse once again invaded Myers’ personal space by pressing his forehead into his. “We are watching, Mr. President. And we know where you are at all times.” He pointed back to the ship. “We have you marked, and we’re going to log you every hour until you peg 100,000.”
Myers released Ravi. The kid took a few deep breaths and glared back at Grouse.
“And we’ll be watching you both, but him —“ he pointed a crooked finger at Ravi’s head. “Him, we don’t need to wait for. He’s lucky he’s with you, s
o we’ll allow his luck to continue for a few minutes. So run. And we’ll be right there when the time is right.” Grouse made one of his hand motions, which Myers understood immediately.
Run.
They did. Myers and Ravi launched themselves off the hill, sliding down on their rear ends and bouncing up to their feet at the bottom. They didn’t stop running. Ravi was leading, again, but Myers was only half a step behind.
Myers heard the fading laughter of the men behind them as they raced toward Umutsuz.
SOL
SOLOMON MERRICK KNEW MYERS ASHER well. Extremely well. He knew he’d be working on a plan, calculating his next move and working to implement it before he found him and brought him in.
It was because of this plan that Sol could outthink the man. He understood how Myers worked, thought, and planned, and he could use that to his advantage. He wasn’t nearly the planner Myers was — in fact, he hated planning, in general. Solomon Merrick was a man of action, and he valued those same quick judgement and fast-moving qualities in other people. Still, Myers had a gift. He might be slow to move, but he moved only when he’d decided the course of action was absolutely the best decision and path he could take.
Myers would be trying to get out of the city. He was out in the open outside the gates of Istanbul, but that could also work to his advantage. Myers didn’t know about the Unders. He didn’t think there was anyone out there, just a guy trying to kill him in here.
So Myers would be heading for the desert. He’d want to get out of town and out into the open where he could see an attack coming. He’d probably start walking toward Umutsuz, following the natural terrain and urged along by the wisps of smoke in the distance from the city. He’d get there in another day or two, depending on how many times he would stop to rest.
Solomon hadn’t gotten a satisfying read on the man when he’d tried to subdue him earlier. He couldn’t tell if Myers was injured, tired, scared, or all of the above. All he knew was that Myers Asher was alive and he hadn’t slowed down.
So the hunt was on. There would be plenty of other hunters, and probably Unders, as well, descending on the area in a matter of hours. Sol needed to find the man and take care of the situation well before it got out of hand. There was only a small part of Solomon that recognized the greed of wanting to wait for Myers to post even higher than he already was.
How high can he go? He wondered. He’d never seen someone posting at these levels, and he had no doubt Myers would keep pushing higher. But how high? Could a man really fetch numbers over 100,000 Current?
It wasn’t an exercise in critical thinking that would lead to anything productive, so Sol changed direction. He thought through the different scenarios Myers would likely be considering. Stay in the city, wait for help, run as fast as possible. The plans all had their flaws. They all will have their flaws. Any plan worth making is going to be imperfect somehow. Myers could stack plans on top of plans, creating a tapestry — a web — of plans that allowed for contingencies and backups and failsafes. It all made Sol’s head pound, but Myers was good at it.
The plan, now, was to make sure Sol was ahead of Myers. He didn’t need to make a thousand plans, he just needed one. One plan that would bring Myers where he needed him, and one plan that would place him one step ahead.
That plan was simple. Myers was no doubt leaving the city — or had already left — and was making his way toward Umutsuz. He would have no way of knowing the area, so Umutsuz was a natural direction. Usually you could see the smoke from the large industrial complexes inside Zone 4, even though the rest of the city would be hidden behind a long, sloping rise between Istanbul and Umutsuz.
So Myers would walk that direction, and Sol would walk faster. If there were hunters or Unders in the way, he’d take care of them as he had many other times. Any threats would be eliminated, and when he felt safe enough to make the hit, he’d do it.
He wouldn’t hesitate, nor would he second-guess himself when the time came. He was a man of action.
MYERS
MYERS RAN LIKE HIS LIFE depended on it, realizing that it probably did. Ravi was in front of him, close but purposefully keeping his speed down so that Myers could keep up. His back was bleeding, cut and swollen from the spider-machine’s attack on the hill, but it didn’t seem to affect his stamina.
Myers, on the other hand, was a mess. If he’d had any question before about his age, those questions were answered. He was old. Too old to be messing around with a twenty-year-old kid and running through a desert with more than one person trying to kill him. Too old to be running at all. His run was more of a “falling forward” than an actual run, and he had the suspicion that anyone else, merely jogging, would be able to easily keep up.
His mind shifted backwards, a memory sneaking back in. He was the President now, and he could remember the day strongly. When Ravi told him he was the ex-President of the United States, it must have kickstarted or strengthened this memory somehow. He was giving a speech, right at the beginning of his first term. Outside, on the lawn, he was speaking to the press. The words were jumbled, but he remembered what it was about.
This.
It was about the System, and EHM, and all of this. He remembered the speech well enough to know what it was about, and the general purpose of giving it on this day, but he didn’t remember the exact words. He’d wanted the nation to stand beside him as they ushered in a new era of computer and human interaction, but there was pushback.
There was always pushback — something else he could remember. For every great idea, perfect plan, and infallible piece of logic, there was always a large group positioned against it, or at least a vocal minority. A fringe. Those who didn’t agree. They hated him, or publicly stated that anyway. They hated what he stood for — the future, the technological innovation that would lead them to the stars and beyond. How can they not agree?
Some people, he knew, just needed convincing. They weren’t ‘backwards,’ or ‘unintelligent,’ like so many of his counterparts in politics wanted to believe, they were just scared. And that was okay — he was scared, and they should be. They didn’t know —
The memory suddenly retreated. He was no longer allowed to experience it as if it was his own. Instead it was like he was being told a story, someone else’s memory, and they’d simply stood up and walked away, ending in mid-sentence.
Come back, he urged the memory. What was I talking about that day on the lawn? Why was it important enough to hold on to after… what had they called it? Getting ‘scraped?’ Why was it crucial enough to my presidency that my subconscious decided to hold onto it?
But none of that mattered now, in the present. Right now, somewhere outside of Istanbul, somewhere outside of his wandering memory, Myers Asher needed to run. He pushed his legs and his lungs as hard as he possibly could. The deep, constant drone of the heli-machine somewhere behind him died out, and he thought he could no longer hear it at all, but there was still the feeling. The feeling of being watched; hunted.
He knew they were behind them. They had let them loose like game onto a hunting reserve, meant to give them a head start before they —
The shot rang out from somewhere behind him, and he fell to the ground. There was an agonizing second while his brain scrambled to determine if he had, in fact, been shot. The wind picked up, replacing the hollow, ringing pop that had reverberated through his skull. He lay prone on the ground, face in the hard-packed sand, tears welling up in his eyes.
It was too much.
He picked his head up, realizing he hadn’t been shot. His body hurt like it had never hurt before, and he wondered — briefly — whether or not it would have been better, or at least easier, if he had been shot. He considered standing up, screaming, begging for them to shoot him.
His skin started crawling. He couldn’t place the feeling at first, it was as if his mind was on a three-second delay from his body. Then he knew.
Ravi.
He looked to the right. Ravi’s bo
dy was there, just out of arm’s reach, but there. His loose-fitting shirt was billowing in the wind, and his hair was disheveled at the back of his scalp. He’d never noticed the kid’s hair before: long, dark, and slightly curly.
He crawled forward, not trusting his body with much else. Ravi’s foot was now reachable, but Myers waited.
Something told him to stop, to give the kid space.
To let him die.
That revelation was one Myers wasn’t prepared for. The tears came now, fully, and he smashed his face back down into the dirt.
They told us they’d give us a head start. They told us they were coming.
He screamed, the sand below his face immediately getting stuck inside his mouth. He spat, more out of revulsion than in the interest of keeping the gritty earth out.
Myers sat up, inching toward Ravi.
“Ravi!” He could see the wound now, a simple hole in the center of the kid’s back. A slow trickle of blood had started pooling just above his waist, but Myers could see a larger spread of crimson just under the young man’s body.
That was it.
One shot, and he was gone. Myers was in shock. He waited for a second shot, but it never came. Instead, the feeling he’d had — the prodding inside him that told him he was being watched — changed back into actual sound. The heli was approaching.
Myers forced his exhausted body to stand up, but he didn’t turn around. Let them take me down from behind, like they got Ravi.
He knew they could — they’d proved that to him only seconds ago. He wondered what it would feel like, to be shot. If he really had been the president, he would have worked with men and women who had been.
Did I ever ask them what it was like? Did I care?
The shot never came.
The heli grew closer, and he thought he could sense its presence directly behind him. He wondered if anyone — Grouse, maybe — was hanging out of the open door, aiming a gun at him this very moment. He wondered if they’d shoot him and leave him there to bleed out, or if they needed his body for whatever sick game they were playing.