The Flight of the Silvers

by Daniel Price

  David lowered his voice. “Nothing. I’m sure he’s a fine person. But at this stage of his alcoholic recovery, he’s a liability to all of us.”

  “That liability got shot trying to save me.”

  “I’m not asking you to expel him from the group. Just hide the cash.”

  “Fine. You asked. And I’m saying no. Now drop it.”

  They languished in icy silence for several minutes. Zack finished his sketch and let out a loud exhale.

  “Look, I’m as cynical as the next guy. Normally you wouldn’t have to tell me to be nervous about someone. The problem is that we have too many problems already. Rebel and his people are looking to kill us. The Deps want to lock us away. God only knows what the Pelletiers are after. And now we have some twisted little creep following us around like our own personal Gollum. Given all that, I’m in a rather desperate need to trust the people in my tent. Do you get that?”

  “I do,” said David. “Just as long as you understand my concern.”

  “Yeah. You don’t want to lose the money.”

  “I don’t care about the money, Zack. I’m sure Mia could send herself more if she had to. But after reading Peter’s letter, it seems absolutely crucial that we get to New York. Not just some of us. All of us. For all we know, Theo’s the ‘one in particular’ who stops the second Cataclysm.”

  Zack lowered his pad and studied David carefully. The boy was usually logical to a fault, but now he treated Peter Pendergen’s words like they’d come down from Mount Sinai. It was an odd shift for one such as David, but who knew? Maybe the kid needed to believe in Peter as much as Zack needed to believe in his friends.

  “Look, I’ll make you a deal. We’ll leave the cash out for one night. If it’s still here in the morning, we’ll know we can trust him and that’s one less thing to worry about.”

  “And if it’s not?” David asked.

  “Then I’ll dance on the street for money till I can buy you an apology bouquet.”

  David eyed him with furrowed bother until he emitted a dry chuckle.

  “I like you, Zack, but you can be awfully strange sometimes.”

  “Says the kid who eats like a six-foot rabbit.”

  “I just hope you’re right about him.”

  Zack looked to the bathroom door and heaved an airy sigh. “Guess we’ll find out.”

  Once his long shower ended, Theo wiped the steam from the mirror and stared at his chest. An angry red scar ran across his left pectoral—six inches long, five years old, and as jagged as the mouth of a demon. Theo was well acquainted with its voice by now. It had pestered him all throughout the evening, dousing him in noble reasons to break away from the group. They’d get so much farther without your mouth to feed. They’d be so much less conspicuous without an injured Asian among them. They’d have a chance, Theo. Why must you rob them of their chance?

  By the time the steam cleared, the matter had been settled. He’d leave them tonight, after Zack and David fell asleep.

  Ecstatic in victory, the demon took no time to rest. As Theo dried himself off, it broached the delicate subject of severance pay.

  —

  The squad room was a slice of Old London, a dank basement of dripping steam pipes and moldy gray brick. Melissa found it a refreshing contrast to the unrelenting modernism of South California. The whole damn state seemed obsessed with hiding its history.

  Fourteen law enforcers eyed her cynically from their chairs as she paced in front of the screenboard. Half the men were uniformed officers here at the precinct. The other half were her fellow Deps, all summoned to Ramona in the middle of the night for reasons they had yet to process. Even Cahill seemed skeptical as she activated the display. The flat ghost images of all six Silvers loomed behind her. She pointed to one with her coffee-cup hand.

  “Her name’s Amanda Given. At least that’s what she told the local pawnbroker at 11:36 this morning, when she sold him a wedding ring.” Melissa motioned to Zack’s picture. “She was accompanied by this man, the driver of the stolen van and quite possibly the leader of the group. Now there are several factors—”

  “That was fifteen hours ago,” an agent griped. “What makes you think they’re still in town?”

  “There are several factors that lead me to believe the fugitives are still here in Ramona. We can assume they didn’t steal a vehicle. Only two cars were reported missing today. One was recovered. The other was a two-seater, far too small for this crew. We know they didn’t leave by bus, train, or aership. Their facial maps were entered into the Blackguard database. Had they approached any ticket counter, the civic cameras would have recognized them. Excuse me.”

  Wincing, she reached up the back of her blouse. Several sleepy eyes lurched awake as she pulled a lacy black bra from her sleeve.

  “Sorry. I’ve been wearing that thing for twenty hours.”

  Cahill shook his head at her in dark wonder. With a small grin, she continued.

  “It seems unlikely that a group this size could hitchhike out of town. I also believe they were too fatigued to walk. Given their state and their fresh influx of money, the likeliest scenario is that they’re resting in one of the twenty-one budget motels that are currently open for business in Ramona.”

  She distributed a series of clipped packets, each one containing a list of motels, plus a color printout image of every Silver.

  “Check the numbers on your handouts. I’ve split you into seven pairs, with the task of covering the three circled motels on your list. If the night clerk doesn’t recognize the photos, find out if any double or triple room purchases have been made with cash today. If you get a lead, call me. If you should see any of these fugitives, do not engage them. They don’t look it but they’re dangerous. They already hurt six policemen today and may be responsible for at least two dozen deaths.”

  Melissa took another sip of coffee, then checked the wall clock: 2:45 A.M.

  “I can only imagine they’ll be making an early start out of town. That means we have a limited window to take them by surprise. Does anyone have any questions?”

  No one did. “Good. Let’s move out. And please be cautious.”

  Despite her call to action, nobody moved. The Deps looked to Cahill, who eyed them sternly. “Did anyone have trouble hearing her?”

  The men grudgingly proceeded upstairs. Cahill smirked at the bra in her hand. “You sure like to poke the hive, don’t you?”

  “It was mostly a comfort decision.”

  “I wasn’t talking about the skimpies, hon. You have any idea what you’re risking here?”

  “A pay raise, I imagine.”

  “That and more. It wouldn’t have killed you to wait until these people surfaced again.”

  “No, sir, but it might have killed someone else.”

  On seeing his weary face, Melissa took his arm. “Come on. You can lecture me in the car.”

  Cahill didn’t lecture her. He finally saw the futility in trying to instill political sense in this woman. Melissa Masaad was ultimately her own creature—gifted and reckless and hopelessly strange. Cahill could see why she had an easy time getting into the heads of these six runners. Perhaps on some level they were odd birds of a feather.

  —

  Theo rose from his blanket on the floor and gauged the sleeping breaths of his roommates. After five years of drunken hookups and trespasses, he’d become quite skilled at the art of the stealthy escape. He could move through the dark like a cat, even while his head pounded, his body throbbed, and his sense of worth dangled low enough to trip him.

  He tied his shoes by the light of the moon, then slung his knapsack over his shoulder. Between all his frantic inner debates over staying and leaving and robbing his friends blind, a lone voice gibbered in unrelated panic. Run run run. People are coming. Run run run from the people who come.

  As he sp
ied the glistening currency on the end table, Theo’s demon assured him that the group would be fine without it. Mia Farisi was a temporal cash machine. Hell, her next delivery would probably include tomorrow’s winning lottery numbers.

  He snatched the money, moving two shaky steps toward the door before halting with a guilty wince. He counted eight hundred dollars from the top of the stack and returned it to the table. Maybe now he could slink away as a half bastard, a half wreck of a human being.

  While passing the desk, he noticed Zack’s skillful rendition of Bugs Bunny on a stationery pad. Theo seized it and scribbled on the lower corner of the sheet.

  I’m sorry, guys. I’m just not

  He struggled on the next words until he realized he didn’t need any. It was perfect just like that. As he closed the door behind him, he caught a reflected gleam in David’s eyes, as if the boy were looking right at him. Theo’s heart lurched. He shut the door and fled.

  Soon he returned to his bench at the playground park, his heavy gaze fixed on the one store that remained open. The Genie Mart was embellished with faux-Arabian minarets and sported a cartoon mascot that looked like a sneering devil in a turban. A beer poster in the window hinted at great treasures within.

  Theo pulled the money from his pocket and studied it. Nestled between two twenties was a scrap of paper he’d been carrying since Sunday, the phone number of Bill Pollock. He was one of Quint’s older physicists—a husky, white-haired genius who could have passed for Santa Claus were it not for his eternally dour expression.

  As the only recovered alcoholic on staff, Bill had been put in charge of Theo’s rehabilitation. He’d wasted no time professing his unsuitability for the task.

  “I honestly don’t know how to help you,” he’d told Theo, as the young man thrashed and screamed in withdrawal pain. “If I were any good with people, I wouldn’t have become a scientist. The only argument I can make is a mathematical one. It seems you’re one-sixth of your world’s remaining population. You’re the living marker for a billion people. Given the numbers, I suppose it’d be especially tragic if you threw your life away now. It wouldn’t just be suicide. It’d be genocide.”

  As the weeks passed, the two men grew into their roles as counselor and patient, improving in synch until Theo finally became clean. When Bill learned that Theo was leaving with Zack, he came to work on a Sunday just to hand off his phone number.

  “Look, I think your departure’s premature, but you’re strong enough to make your own decisions. Just call me if you ever feel weak or tempted. I won’t tell Quint a thing.”

  Now, forty-two hours later, Theo felt weak and Theo felt tempted, but he couldn’t call Bill Pollock because Bill Pollock was dead. Good people kept dying and yet Theo kept on living. The karmic balance of the universe was fatally broken.

  He squeezed the money in his hand and took a teary-eyed glance at the Genie Mart. Whether it was suicide or genocide or something else entirely, the living marker for a billion people was ready to drink enough for all of them. He rose from the bench.

  “Finally.”

  Theo spun around in surprise. Twenty feet away, a ginger-haired man leaned against the swing set, casually examining his cuticles. He was dressed like Theo from head to toe—same jeans, same sneakers, same gray sweatshirt. It was a surreal and discomfiting vision, like staring at a true dark genie.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  Evan grinned. “You’ll figure it out in a minute.”

  “How long have you been standing there?”

  “As long as you’ve been sitting there. I saw you wrestling with your conscience and I wanted to see which way you’d go. Now, while I respect your decision to party like there’s no tomorrow, I’m afraid it was all for nothing. You can’t buy liquor. Not without one of these.”

  Theo squinted as Evan flaunted a small blue photo ID. He held it up as he approached.

  “They call it a wet card. You can apply for one when you turn eighteen. Just take a one-day class, a one-hour test, and then ta-da! License to drink. You have to be careful though. You get caught in a drunken misdemeanor, the card’s suspended. Get caught in a felony, the card’s revoked. And if you serve alcohol to someone without a wet card, even in your home, you’re in for some hefty fines, fella. The civil liquortarians shit a blue pickle when they heard about this plan. But when they saw what happened to cigarettes, they suddenly became a lot more flexible.”

  Now he stood close enough for Theo to read the card, which featured Evan’s cheery photo next to a cryptic pseudonym.

  “Gordon Freeman?”

  “The card’s a fake,” Evan explained. “So’s the name. Zack would get the reference. He’s awesome that way.”

  The pieces finally came together in Theo’s head. “You’re Evan Rander.”

  “Ding ding ding! Told you you’d get it.” Evan laughed. “Oh, that Farisi and her spoilers.”

  Theo tightened his grip on his book bag and took a hasty step back. “Listen—”

  “Oh relax, guy. I’m not so bad. In fact, I come bearing gifts and valuable info. Just hang a bit. You won’t regret it.”

  He hopped over the bench, then motioned for Theo to join him. After a few silent moments, Theo took a wary perch on the far end.

  Evan shined a soft grin at the Farsight Professional Augury. “You know, folks here are nutty about the future. Obsessed with it. Corporations have their own augurs on staff. Politicians rely on them like pollsters. It’s still a bunch of crap. All cold readers and educated guessers, spouting flowery babble that could be twisted to mean anything. None of these people are gifted like our sweet little Mia. And she’s not gifted like you.”

  He grabbed a bottle cap from the concrete and flicked it from his fingertips. Theo watched it sail toward a light post, knocking a fat moth out of the air.

  “Once Mia makes it to New York, if she makes it to New York, she’ll get out of the note-passing business and find a better use for her portals. You’ll inherit the keys to the spoiler shop. You’ll be a lot better at it.”

  “You talk like you can see the future yourself.”

  Evan chuckled. “Me? Nah. I’m no augur. I’m just a guy who’s been around the block a few times.”

  He flicked another bottle cap. Theo watched with grim fascination as it killed another moth.

  “How do you know so much about us?”

  “Well, T’eo me lad, it’s a wee bit complicated. I’m certainly familiar with your storied past. My goodness. Graduated high school at twelve. Got your undergrad degree at fifteen. The youngest person to ever enroll at Stanford Law and, subsequently, the youngest to drop out. When people ask why you quit, you insist that it wasn’t the course work. It wasn’t the pressure. ‘No,’ you say, with a wistful sigh, ‘I just got tired of being special.’”

  Theo felt a cold lurch in his heart. He used to say that often, exactly the way Evan described.

  “I also know what happened five years ago,” Evan added. “How you got that scar on your chest.”

  He pantomimed a driver flailing at the wheel. His cartoonish screeching sounds ended with a spittle-flecked crash.

  Theo brusquely stood up. “Go to hell.”

  “Come on, man. How long you gonna keep punishing yourself for one little car accident? Folks have done worse. Hell, I know three people who destroyed a whole planet on purpose. They sleep just fine.”

  “Thanks for the perspective,” Theo replied, while walking away. “Enjoy your night.”

  A bottle cap sailed by his head, just a half inch from his cheek. Theo stopped.

  “Is that some kind of stupid threat?”

  “Nope. Just a stupid trick to get you to turn around and look at your gift.”

  Theo turned around and watched Evan procure a sixty-ounce bottle of vodka from his knapsack.

  “What do you want with me?”
<
br />   Evan hunched his shoulders in a shrug. “Just passing the time, brother.”

  “Maybe you should find a hobby.”

  “Maybe I already have. Oh, hey, that reminds me. Has Hannah started flirting with you yet?”

  Evan laughed at Theo’s dim expression. “Guess not. Well, she will, but don’t get a big head over it. You’re just her default choice. She knows by now that David isn’t biting and Zack’s got eyes for Sister Cherry Pious. She used to have a fourth option, but I removed it. Poor Hannah. Simply can’t exist without a man to wrap around her little finger. Are you going to take your present or not? I went to a lot of trouble here.”

  Theo returned to the bench, examining the bottle from every angle. A frightening new voice in his thoughts suggested a darker use for it. Hit him. Kill him. Kill him now. Trust me.

  “Well, I hope you enjoy it,” Evan said. “You and I don’t cross paths very often. You’re usually busy with other stuff. So while I wouldn’t hang your photo in my locker, I can’t say I hate you. Mostly I just pity you.”

  “Why? Because I’m a drunk?”

  “No, because you’re special,” Evan replied. “You are special, Theo, even among us freaks. You’re only scratching the surface of your weirdness now. When you find out what you can truly do, man oh man, your life will change. Everyone will want a piece of you. Your friends. The Pelletiers. The U.S. government, eventually. And Peter Pendergen. He’ll be the worst of all.”

  Evan laughed. “I love the way he says your name. He’s got an Irish brogue, so to him you’re not Theo Maranan, you’re T’eo Maernin. And he’ll say your name a lot. Oh yes. He’s got plans for you, my friend. To him, you’re Jesus, Neo, and Frodo rolled up in one tortilla. The minute you get to Brooklyn, he’ll set you on a great and impossible task. You’ll spend the rest of your life trying, and you’ll die knowing you failed. There’s your future, Mr. Self-Punishment.”

  He leaned over and tapped the tattoo on Theo’s wrist.

  “There’s your karma.”

  While Theo reeled over all the new information, Evan stood up and let out a stretching groan.