Retaliate

by Alex Albrinck

  She glanced down the long straightaway, looking for the ever-present Up/Down sign. But just beyond it was a far more welcome sight.

  The exit.

  She looked into her rear-view mirror again, and saw no sign of her pursuers. Had they actually slowed down? They didn’t seem to be very good at their jobs. She wondered if people got fired here, and what happened if they did.

  And then she decided she didn’t care, just floored it toward the giant exit sign, happy to take advantage of the low skilled security force here. She followed the arrow toward the exit, and extra tunnel without any parked cars. The tunnel curved left, and she followed it, gleefully imagining her freedom, ignoring the haunting image of Ravagers consuming the car and then her.

  The curve ended and opened into a final straightaway. Deirdre screamed in delight and jammed her accelerator to the floor once more, heading toward the darkened space where she’d find the exit.

  Lights turned on as she approached.

  She screamed again, but not with glee, and slammed on the brakes.

  The exit was closed. Heavy metal doors blocked the road leading out.

  Deirdre uttered a word she’d only heard once, a word she didn’t even understand, beyond knowing it was some vile profanity that hadn’t even existed until long after the Golden Ages. It seemed appropriate.

  Just before the doors, she saw a section of the driving surface painted blue with giant white block letters spelling “STOP HERE TO OPEN” inside.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Deirdre shook her head. This was going to be her undoing? A sign painted by the door to her freedom?

  With no other choice, she spurred her ground car forward and stopped in the painted area. She heard the loud rumbling as unseen machines pulled the metal doors apart, half rising toward the ceiling, half lowering into the floor one agonizing inch at a time.

  “Come on!” she screamed, as if the machines would understand her impatience. Or care. “I'm in a bit of a life and death situation here!”

  Her eyes flicked to the mirror. Nothing yet. Back to the doors. Three quarters of the way to the opening she needed to escape. Eyes back to the mirror.

  There they were.

  They rounded the bend, one at a time, and accelerated toward her. Someone leaned out of the passenger window, face hidden by a black plastic helmet and mask combination that matched the rest of their attire, and aimed a gun in her direction. She saw the puff of smoke in her mirror.

  She tensed, closed her eyes, fingers clenched against the wheel… and heard the bullet smash into the rear window.

  The window held. She dared to open one eye. More bullets were fired. Puffs of smoke appeared in her mirror. Loud thuds hit her car, shaking it. But the rear window remained intact, showing not the slightest crack as the bullets struck from an ever closer range. She’d gotten lucky, selecting a vehicle with bulletproof construction. That might turn out to be a more fortuitous feature than the fully stocked mini-refrigerator.

  The metal doors were inches from the separation she needed. She put her idle foot on the brake and slid her active foot over the accelerator, not wanting to waste even the fractional second required to switch feet from one pedal to the other.

  The drivers and passengers leapt from the pursuit cars and ran at her, weapons ablaze, and she thought for certain that the car would finally succumb to the gunfire.

  One of them ran in front of her car, aimed directly at her face, and fired.

  The windshield held.

  The garage doors reached the required separation levels.

  Deirdre leaned on her horn, let go of the brake, and slammed the accelerator to the ground.

  The lone shooter dove to the side as she burst from the garage out into the open. She resisted the urge to celebrate, focusing instead on getting as far from here as possible.

  Then she realized she was driving over Ravagers.

  She tensed up as she drove, wondering if they’d been deactivated, wondering if they’d dissolve the car around her before turning her into some sort of primordial soup, or if they’d seep inside for her and leave the vehicle alone. She drove as she waited, and waited, and waited some more for the end.

  But nothing happened. The all clear hadn’t sounded, but there was no reason for them to wait any longer. Or perhaps they’d received the all clear, but had elected to keep that news in hand until they ferreted out the escaped prisoner. Had they lied to her on the radio, trying to scare her into surrender over her fear of a threat that no longer existed?

  She felt her stomach clench. Did that mean they knew it wasn’t really Miriam who—?

  The car shuddered as a slew of bullets pelted the side. Larger caliber this time, by the sound of it. But the car’s sturdy construction held.

  She glanced up. They’d gotten back into their pursuit cars, having determined that travel outdoors was safe—maybe they didn’t know the Ravagers were now disabled and were happy to have Deidre risk her life testing outdoor safety for them?—and now they were after her again. She noted that they’d taken a moment to mount external guns on each car, so perhaps the delay wasn’t due to a lack of knowledge about outdoor safety relative to Ravager activity.

  She wasn’t quite as lucky as she’d thought. Not out of the woods just yet. Not that there were any woods remaining here to be out of.

  The pursuit cars accelerated, using the extra space available outdoors to launch a more proactive plan for capture. One ground car followed directly behind her; the other two spread to either side and drove as fast as they could, trying to catch and pass her so that they could funnel her somewhere that forced her to stop. That made little sense; the Ravagers had destroyed clumps of trees and other geographic features that would make her continued journey unsafe. The only thing left that might work would be a cliff.

  She frowned. Were there any around here? She checked the instrumentation on her dashboard and noted that she’d been driving due north.

  Dammit. She was heading straight for the lake. And they had her pinned on either side and from behind; she couldn’t change direction without ramming one of the very solid-looking pursuit cars. She doubted she’d win any such encounter, but if she didn’t do something, they’d drive her into the water, and whether she entered from a high cliff or via the gentle descent of a sandy beach, she’d be trapped or dead either way.

  She couldn’t let that happen.

  She did the same thing she’d done in the parking garage. She slammed the accelerator down, spraying dormant Ravagers behind her. The pursuit cars kept up the chase, matching her increasing speed. She swerved right, then left, mixing up her changes of direction. The pursuit cars maintained chase lane integrity; the pincer cars nudged her back in line when she swerved, squeezing her driving lane narrower and narrower as they rocketed north. She glanced left, then right, unable to see the drivers through the tinted windows, but she made sure there was a look of fear and desperation on her face.

  Inside, she was smiling.

  The lake loomed up on the horizon. Her instrumentation showed they were within three miles, then two, then one, and she never slowed down. She looked up and saw that they’d been successful in using the geography to their advantage; the ground rose before her, rather than beginning a gentle descent to the water’s edge.

  They’d pinned her and forced her toward a high cliff after all. With a quarter mile left before they reached the edge, Deirdre knew that if she did nothing, she’d plunge off the cliff to her death.

  Deirdre, who’d slowed a bit as she’d tried to slalom away from the pursuit cars, pushed the accelerator down as far as it would go. All three pursuit cars followed suit. It seemed they’d suddenly gotten the nerve to play her game of chicken.

  With a hundred feet to go before she’d fly off the cliff, she moved her car gently left… then slammed on her brakes and threw the vehicle into reverse, ripping her steering wheel hard to the left. Her car reversed direction, and she flipped her gearshift back to forward movement
, accelerating away from the lake.

  The pincer cars didn’t notice what she’d done in time to react. In the fractional second of delay, they’d traveled too far to stop. Deirdre watched the cars fly off the edge of the cliff.

  The trailing car had matched her pace and moved slightly left when she had. But when she’d hit the brakes, the driver had instinctively veered right to avoid the collision. Since the driver had to first avoid the collision before considering braking, the car had already gone too far, and the fractional second delay in braking proved fatal.

  Or had it? Deidre saw the dust and Ravagers churn as the driver tried to reverse course, but it didn’t move. The front tires were hanging off the edge of the cliff, the rear tires desperately trying to get enough traction to pull the car back onto solid ground.

  Deirdre swung around and drove straight at the car. She slowed as she neared it, fearing a sudden gunshot. But the driver remained focused on trying to reverse away from the edge.

  Deirdre moved her car directly behind her pursuer, would be captor, and potential kill.

  And then she hit the gas, smashed into its bumper, and sent them tumbling off the cliff.

  She didn’t even watch it hit the water, instead backing away and using a three point turn to head away from the lake, moving forward once more.

  She took a deep breath, letting the adrenaline of the chase subside, waiting to see if they’d sent reinforcements.

  None were apparent. Not yet, at least.

  She glanced behind her at the miniature refrigerator, put the car in neutral, and turned around in her seat. She reached for the refrigerator door and pulled it open, rummaged around through the meats and cheeses and vegetables and water and juices and…

  A can of beer.

  She smiled and grabbed the can, popped it open, and took a long drink, only then realizing that she'd been sweating and her heart had been racing during the pursuit. She'd never driven while drinking before, but… what could she possible hit?

  She took another swig, then angled her car due west with a slight southward tilt.

  “I’m off to find a bridge,” she muttered.

  And she put her foot down on the accelerator and chased the setting sun.

  —————

  “Is the tracking device working?” Jeffrey asked.

  Desdemona tapped a few keys on the keyboard and pulled up a map. A dot appeared. “That's her.”

  Jeffrey nodded. “Good. Where do you think she'll go?”

  “I'm not sure,” Desdemona admitted. “And I’m not sure it matters. Our monitoring systems are confirming that her mother’s recently deceased—for real this time—in a major accident aboard the space station, which I suspect is Micah’s doing. She’s less valuable to us with only one parent bidding for her safe release. Frankly, if she’d stayed put, I’d argue in favor of executing her over keeping her around.” She shrugged. “I’m hoping this gives us at least some insight as to where the first post-terraforming landfalls might be.”

  “I suspect she’s heading toward another fortress like this one, probably with the belief that she won’t find traitors like us at the helm,” Jeffrey mused. “It makes sense. We know there are other places like New Venice. We just don’t know about all of them. Or which might serve as temporary housing for the elites returning to the surface.” He shrugged. “We’ll know soon enough.”

  Desdemona glanced at the others in the room. “The two of you did well.”

  Miriam nodded. “It wasn't that difficult. She desperately needed to believe that she'd found a weakness in our operation. I just… played to that.” She glanced at the man. “This loon almost messed it up by flirting with me… or her, really.”

  The man who'd led Deidre-as-Miriam out of the prison wing raised his hands in mock protest. “How often do you get to flirt with a filthy rich celebrity?” He grinned. “I think she liked me.”

  “Dream on,” Miriam replied.

  Desdemona snapped her fingers, and the two stopped their banter. “The two of you need to leave before there’s new foot traffic outside. We don’t need to be seen having too many private meetings. It might raise suspicions among those who really would have helped Deirdre escape, and who would have shot all of us in the process.”

  Miriam and the guard nodded, accepted a final thank you from the New Venice heads of security, and scurried out of the couple’s quarters, heading their separate ways as if they’d never spoken to each other before.

  Jeffrey pulled up the video from the driverless pursuit cars they'd sent after Deirdre outside the facility. “We didn't lose anybody. The cars that fell into the lake are bulletproof and semi-aquatic. They'll get back to shore and be back in the garage before anyone notices.”

  That didn’t wipe the concerned look from his wife’s face. “People will notice the missing ATV.”

  Jeffrey nodded with a sigh. “That’s possible, but it's a risk we have to take. It'll still be awhile before we're called to help with the terraforming. And by then? We may have full control of this facility, through persuasion or… other means.” He grimaced. “The power is growing in me. I did things on the hike back from the Lakeplex that I haven’t been able to do in centuries.” He looked at his hands, then back at his wife. “You’re feeling it, too, aren’t you?”

  Desdemona nodded, her face tightening. “Our options for control are growing. But if Roddy doesn't survive his trip, or loses Mary or either of the kids… I can't say I care enough to try anymore.”

  Jeffrey put his arm around his wife. “I know.” He paused. “We'll need to tell Roddy about Deirdre, you know.”

  Desdemona's lips pursed together. “What, exactly, do we tell him?”

  Jeffrey's mouth twitched. “We tell him exactly what he gave us permission to tell him.”

  —24—

  RODDY LIGHT

  HE DIDN’T KNOW he’d fallen asleep until he was awakened by the incessant chirping sound of an incoming communication. He yawned, stretched, and shot a quick glance at the map, noting his location on the western half of the giant southern landmass claimed by the East. In a few moments, he'd reach the minor ocean surrounding the island from which his wife and children had recently departed… and then he'd reach the island itself.

  That would start his search for his family. The thought of seeing all of them had him instantly on full alert.

  He activated the communications link. “Roddy here. I’ve got another hour or so of flight time before I reach the island.”

  “We're tracking you,” his father said by way of reply. “We called to pass along some new information.”

  “Did you find them?” He knew the general futility of finding a ship with little more than a starting point in an ocean—even a small one—but the people looking were among the few who could manage the feat.

  “No, not yet.” His father paused. “Micah's managed to hack into the communication networks aboard the space station, and he’s using his flying sphere to transmit data back to the surface. He didn’t say how it got there, but until just a few minutes ago his ship had been trapped in one of the docking bays up there.”

  Interesting. Micah was quite mysterious, and though Roddy wanted to know what the man’s ship was doing in space without Micah himself, there were more pressing matters to deal with. “What did he find out?” He watched as the browns and greens and purples of the land below morphed into the continuous blue of the sea, and it felt like he’d reached a major milestone on his way to his reunion with his family.

  “He'd managed to insert one of his people there with some old Golden Ages-era tech that let her move about undetected.” Roddy found himself nodding; if he’d sent one of his people up in his ship, that explained how it had gotten there without him. “She's the one who flipped control of the Ravagers to our side. She planted a few dozen timed explosive charges throughout the interior and… well, it's causing quite a bit of mayhem up there.”

  Roddy laughed. “It couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.�
��

  He could hear the faint smile in Jeffrey’s tone. “I know. It even happened to the ones who don't really know what they're doing. The ones who call the machines Cleansers because they think they're helping rid the surface of carriers of a virus that will destroy all life on the planet. The ones who believe what they're doing is an altruistic service rather than an act of genocidal cruelty and convenience.” Jeffrey's tone was resigned; that viewpoint, so deeply ingrained in the workers of New Venice, kept them from taking full control of the facility and turning the workers there against the evil group. “One batch of explosives went off right by the entry to the brig.”

  “No!” Roddy couldn't keep the delight from his voice.

  “Yes!” He could hear the smile in Jeffrey's tone. “And Micah's accomplice had raided the armory before the explosion, so not only are our allies running free… they’re armed and able to defend themselves.”

  “The retaliation in space begins in earnest,” Roddy murmured. “Any other good news?”

  “Well… there's good news, bad news, and… well, more bad news.” His mother took over the narrative. “Micah managed to free his ship from the tractor beam and it's on the way back to him. I think he's planning to head East to try to stop the now-active Ravager swarm there.”

  “Wait. I thought he said he had control—?”

  “They only got control of the Ravagers planted in the West. Phoenix split control along territorial lines. Oswald controlled the Western batch; Delilah controlled the East.”

  “Well, that makes a lot of sense, because…” His voice trailed. “Wait. Delilah? As in… Delilah Silver? Deirdre's mother?”

  “The one and only.”

  “But she's dead!”