Prototype

by M. D. Waters

  “No, wait,” he says. “You’ll need to shoot behind us.” He inches back on the seat and takes me by the waist. “Face me and wrap your legs around.”

  There is no time to question the arrangement, though I wish there were. A flush heats my cheeks before I get my leg across the top. Noah takes only a moment to help me adjust into a position where I am in no danger of falling before spinning the bike around. The front wheel remains stationary, while the back spins at a high speed in the turn, kicking up white smoke. The bike lurches forward and we speed across the bridge.

  Two cars and three motorcycles trail behind us. “We have company,” I yell over the whipping wind. I am surprised I can speak at all. Icy shivers rack my entire body.

  Noah nods once. “They’re all yours.”

  Great.

  “I’ll get us to the low streets,” he yells. “That should help.”

  The low streets? “You mean to take us into the fog?” I cannot imagine how this will help. How will he see to drive? He must be having a hard enough time with his waterlogged mask and its constant drip of seawater. “Are you crazy?” There is no mistaking the high pitch in my tone.

  He laughs. “Maybe.”

  We cannot get to the low streets from the suspension bridge, so we climb the expressway, tilting from side to side, weaving around cars and semi-trucks. At the peak of the rise, the first shots zip by. I aim my gun at the black car behind us, using Noah’s firm shoulder to steady my shivering arm. Two motorcycles flank the vehicle for a moment before zooming outward through traffic to come around us from either side.

  The wind whips loose pieces of my hair around my head, stinging my eyes. Forcing myself to ignore the annoyance, I aim for the car’s driver, who hides behind the glare of the sun reflecting off his windshield. I shoot. The bright blue plasma fire sings through the air and pierces the windshield, making a perfect circle. Cracks web out around it. The car remains on course.

  I adjust my aim and fire again. This time the car veers off and hits the blue vehicle beside it. The two cars cross the road as if magnetically attached and drive onto the pedestrian walkway before crashing into the railing. The barrier takes the brunt without breaking, saving the cars from ending up in the Pacific miles below.

  Noah angles us around a car. Once past, we meet with one of the motorcycles. The rider aims a gun at Noah’s head. My heart flies into my throat. I shoot at him but miss. The rider has to course correct, though, giving Noah time to race forward and away.

  Seconds later, we are caged in by two semi-trucks. Noah removes a gun from his side and aims forward.

  “Watch behind us,” he yells.

  I hear the rev of a second motorcycle behind me and twist around to look. The bike drives right for us, riding the lane-separating white lines.

  “Are we clear behind?” Noah asks.

  “Yes.”

  He fires at the front tire of the oncoming motorcycle. The bike flips end over end, and a clear, egg-shaped shield shoots out from the sides. The shield protects the rider, but seconds later, he and the bike crunch under the wheels of one of the semis.

  White smoke lifts off the braking truck tires. The motorcycle remains, and two trucks careen dangerously toward us.

  “Shit. Hold on!” Noah yells.

  CHAPTER 24

  Noah brakes hard, and we clear the back ends of the trucks by mere inches. He tilts us to the right, racing for a nearby exit. Cars swerve to avoid us, and horns blare.

  “You are going to kill us,” I tell him through chattering teeth.

  “Not today, I’m not. Just hold on.”

  I wrap my good arm around his neck and lean with the angle of the bike as he maneuvers through a long line of cars heading to the low streets of San Francisco Island. The fog wraps around us and he downshifts. The bike’s fog lights blink on, but with one glance forward I know they do little good.

  “This is too dangerous,” I say.

  Noah reaches back and opens a small compartment. He hands me a pair of yellow sunglasses. “Put those on and keep watch.”

  I do as he asks, and my visibility increases to at least a city block. Storefronts glare with neon lights to pierce the fog, and nearly all the pedestrians wear the same glasses I do. Bright, light-reflecting clothes seem to be the common fashion choice.

  “What about you?” I ask. He must need the glasses more.

  “If I take the mask off, Burke will see my face on camera. It’s not safe even in this fog.”

  And the glasses will never stay on over his mask. “Then I will turn around and guide—”

  “Emma, a little trust, please? Just watch—”

  At that moment, he lets loose a string of curses and veers sharply off the road onto the sidewalk. Car horns bleat in our wake. We nearly topple over, and it is a good thing I have him around the neck or I would have fallen off. People jump out of our way as he takes us back up to speed and off the sidewalk.

  “Not a word,” he says.

  “I trust you,” I tell him, failing to keep a smile off my face. “Until you kill me, of course; then all bets are off.”

  His eyes crinkle in the corners and I wish his smile was not hidden under the mask.

  Plasma fire through the fog sobers us. Noah takes an abrupt turn up a steep hill that forces my weight into him. I use his shoulder to hold my arm steady while I aim and fire the moment two motorcycles appear. Another sharp turn and we race up a set of stairs heavy with innocent bystanders, who jump over railings to avoid us. I close my eyes and pray he does not hit anyone, while holding on to him with a death grip.

  The bike soars off the top step and over a sidewalk. Noah swerves into traffic and tilts around vehicles that take the low streets at a much safer pace. We turn into alleys and take a couple of more streets before ending up on a road that becomes bumpy, jostling my aim. Giant cracks in the street break up the road, explaining the sudden lack of cars. We drive through a residential neighborhood with townhomes lining the steep street on either side of us. No car could possibly make it over the road, broken up the way it is.

  After seventeen misses, one of my shots hits one pursuer and he topples over. One more to go.

  “Hold on tight,” Noah yells, then looks at me. “You might want to close your eyes.”

  Close my eyes?! “What? Why?”

  Our speed increases and I hug Noah to me with my good arm. The ground disappears beneath us as the bike becomes airborne. My breath catches. Below us, the remains of the road lie in broken patches in another abandoned street.

  My stomach drops as we land on the other side of the crumpled overpass. The motorcycle tilts precariously from side to side, and the tires catch loose gravel and skid. A warning bleep signals from the bike’s emergency system. Noah cannot recover balance or traction and we start to go down. I tighten my hold, and one of Noah’s arms braces around my waist.

  Moments before the bike touches down, the clear crash shield flies free of the left side and catches us in its egg shape. I land on my injured arm and pain overwhelms me into breathlessness. Gravel and cracked earth skate under us while we lie in a tangled heap inside the protective shell.

  We spin and slide to a stop. I lie still, blinking tears from my eyes. I did not think the agony could get any worse, but it has.

  Noah rolls up to an elbow over me. “You okay?”

  I shake my head, unable to speak. If I do, I will cry.

  The rev of a motorcycle in flight rends the still air, and I know our last pursuer is on his way. Noah scrambles up and helps me to my feet. Everything spins and I fight the urge to be sick. He swings me up into his arms and runs across the road to the ripped-up sidewalk. He sets me down safely beside an abrupt drop-off to an area too fog heavy to know where it ends. Could be another street. Could be a deep ravine. Could be the depths of hell. There is no way of knowing.

  Noah
turns with his gun raised as the motorcycle lands. The rider sticks the landing perfectly but does not see our abandoned bike through the thick fog. The two pieces of machinery collide. The bike flips. The rider soars free before the shell has a chance to catch him and lands with a thud in the cracked street. He lies very still.

  “Stay here,” Noah says. “I’ll be back.”

  My legs cannot hold me up and I sink to the ground the second he walks away. My body must realize we are as safe as we are going to be for a while, because exhaustion begins to take over. I am only slightly aware of what Noah is doing. He kneels beside the body and feels for a pulse. He must not find one, because he stands and tucks his gun away a moment later.

  He returns with his hand outstretched. “Come on. We need to find a safe place to hole up for the night.”

  • • •

  Noah and I walk through the fog, clinging to each other and shivering. Neither of us has dried much since our time in the freezing ocean, and now there is no sun to warm us. The residential area looks abandoned, and with good reason. Most of the homes on the precipitous street have cracks bisecting their foundations, and the frames perch with one side rising higher than the other. Roofs have caved in. Porch awnings block doors. The entire row looks precarious enough to topple over like a deck of cards in one good gust of wind.

  Noah stops in front of one and squints through the fog at it. “This looks okay.”

  The home sits on a corner and curves around from the street we stand on to the road perpendicular. The building rises three stories and most of the windows are broken. I do not know what color the house used to be, but the outside is now a moldy shade of green and brown. Plants either sprout from behind the siding or thrive outside it. The entire lawn is as overgrown as a jungle.

  “It looks haunted,” I say.

  He chuckles. “With any luck, by a kindly old lady serving something hot to drink.”

  I think I would give both my legs for something hot at this point and moan with pleasure over the idea. “Hot tea.”

  “Hot coffee.”

  “Hot chocolate.”

  “Hot apple cider.”

  Now he is speaking my language. “Sounds perfect.” I tug him forward while glancing up and down the street. All is quiet; the neighborhood is completely deserted.

  We break in through the back door and into a musty-scented kitchen. Cabinets and counters are warped as if holding additional weight, though they are bare of everything but inches of dust. The tiled floors connect to a hall with a dark hardwood floor covered by a faded red runner.

  Noah pulls off his waterlogged mask. He looks pale and his lips have a blue tinge. His hair sticks up until he runs his fingers through it. “We must be the first people in this house for years.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  He points to the footsteps I have made in the thick coat of dust. Mine and his are the only ones.

  “Guess that hot drink is out of the question,” I say, and a cold shiver punctuates the statement.

  He takes my hand. “Come on. Let’s see if we can get you warmed up.”

  Inside the spacious living room, Noah turns slowly as if searching for something in particular. After what seems an eternity, his eyes widen and he points to one of the walls. “There.”

  Instead of asking, I watch him activate a panel in the wall. Inside the four-by-four-foot recess sits a stainless steel box with dark brown stones on top. Noah opens another panel and smiles. He pulls out a white plastic bottle with green lettering. I catch only one word on the outside before he sets it down beside him: OIL.

  He glances over his shoulder. “A lot of these older homes have ethanol fireplaces tucked into the walls.”

  “Why hide them?”

  “A way to keep the historic look of the house.” He looks around again from his kneeling position. “This place looks pretty well cleaned out, but look around and see if you can find anything useful. I’ll get the fire started.”

  If “cleaned out” means stark and empty, he would be right. I doubt I will find a single thing in here.

  “Watch out for weak floors,” he adds as I head for the staircase.

  One look at the stairs and I decide to make the upper level my last resort. I cannot imagine the steps are safe. But it does not take long to search an empty dining room, small bathroom with cracked and broken fixtures, and what might have once been a small office to see I have no other choice.

  I take the stairs at a slow pace, analyzing every step before testing my weight in minute increments. The second floor has a full bathroom in the same condition as the half bathroom downstairs, with the exception of a few personal items left under the sink: a roll of dental floss, a cylinder too rust covered for me to read the contents, and a broken black comb. In one of the two bedrooms, I find yellowed white drapes lying in a heap and attached to a black rod. The dusty material is not as good as blankets but will do. I cannot get them off the rod one-handed, so I drag the entire thing to the stairs and toss it over the side, where it clatters below.

  Noah peeks over the railing, hands clamped on the wood banister. “Giving me a heart attack won’t make this situation any better.”

  A smile twitches the corners of my lips. “Oh, I see. You are all good with death-defying motorcycle stunts . . . but drop some curtains and—”

  “Hey. Don’t knock the curtains’ potential.”

  “Oh, right. I forgot. They are the greatest threat mankind has ever faced. Just shake them out, will you? And try not to hurt yourself until I get back.”

  I start to turn and he calls after me. “You aren’t done yet?”

  “I still need to check the attic.”

  The attic is a treasure trove by comparison to the rest of the house. Not that we need an upright piano covered in several inches of dust. Gray light breaks into pie-shaped beams through one large hexagonal window. Wood crossbars brace the roof and walls. A double mattress sags against a wall, and I find upon closer inspection that it has become a home for mice—I refuse to believe anything larger resides there. Boxes sit open in one of the corners. One holds nothing but wire hangers. Another has old, hardbound books. Beside it are crumbling sheets of music for the piano.

  I kneel beside the box of books and begin pulling them out, reading names on their worn spines. Tolkien. Shakespeare. Brontë. Poe. Bradbury. Tolstoy. Austen, which is where I pause and finger the gold title across what I believe used to be a hard, red cover: Emma. A faded pink ribbon marks a place somewhere in the middle of the gold-edged paper.

  The floor creaks behind me. One look over my shoulder reveals Noah, who is just reaching the top of the stairs. He has removed his black jacket and T-shirt. I cannot tear my eyes from the dips and curves of his muscles. Dark blond hair coats his pectoral muscles and trails down the center of defined abs. Surrounding the sculpted lines of his chest lies his life in a road map of raised scars. One might call these imperfections. I see only proof of life. A life I once shared.

  I tear my gaze away to look at the novel in my lap. My mouth has gone dry, and I find it difficult to speak with any show of normalcy. “I found a box of books.”

  He kneels beside me and starts lifting a few by the corner to read the spine. The scent of ocean has replaced his usual musk. “Classics. You hate classics.”

  Yes. I remember Her voice in my head telling me not to request any classics from Dr. Travista, which is why I stayed away from them until Peter. “What about you?” I ask. “Do you hate classics?”

  One side of his mouth lifts ever so slightly. “No. I don’t know how many times I tried getting you to pick up just one book that wasn’t some kind of out-of-this-world fantasy. And I mean literally out of this world. Spaceships. Other planets. Anything that didn’t take place on Earth.”

  This does not surprise me. “A way to escape Her life, maybe?”

&nbs
p; He meets my eyes, a line deepening between his brows. “Her?”

  “What?”

  “You said ‘her.’”

  I cannot believe I said that any more than he can. But what he speaks of does not sound like me. I do not want to read books that take place anywhere else. My life is not perfect, but I do not want to escape it so completely.

  I lift the book in my hand. “I think I will read this one while we wait.”

  He takes the novel and gives me a hand up. “Come on. I have the fire going.”

  CHAPTER 25

  Downstairs in front of the fire, Noah has used one of the drapes to clean away the dust from the floor. His shirt lies in a wet heap with his jacket.

  Noah sets the Jane Austen book in front of the fire, then takes up the discarded curtain rod to brace across the staircase banister. He had the forethought to bring a handful of hangers from the attic and begins hanging his shirt and coat to dry. Once done, he walks with sure steps toward me, his tone casual as he says, “Let’s get your shirt off.”

  I blink rapidly in surprise. He wants me to strip off my clothes? Here? Now?

  Noah cocks his head. The fire beside us casts shadowed flames across his bare chest. “What’s the matter?”

  You are a grown woman and have done far more racy things than strut around in front of a man in your bra.

  I swallow hard and shake my head. “Nothing.”

  He waits in silence, but I cannot bring myself to begin the process. Maybe he has seen more of me than I like to think about, but I have no memory of this. Intimate moments in which we held each other? Yes. But I never saw his face.

  “Do you need help?”

  I nod because I have only one usable arm and am in too much pain to attempt jostling myself free just because I feel shy. But the second he reaches out, I step back automatically and bite my lip. “Wait. Sorry.” My voice is tight and shaky.

  His lips quirk up. “Come on, Emma. It’s not like I haven’t seen—”