Apparently, Vika—along with all the other impossible things she knew—understood the inner workings of the Sabers and European Carbon Police. She claimed if the bodies were burned then the local carbon police wouldn’t notice the missing CPI chips, nor would they be able to quickly identify the bodies. They would then be forced to do a full autopsy to find their identities and the missing chips. Vika explained that it would be a bad thing if they were caught boarding a seabus with someone else’s identity. Her logic made sense. She, on the other hand, didn’t.
With the bodies smoldering in the distance, they left the lab with Eli’s car. Vika drove.
“Where are we going?” Luthor asked, still terse from his tantrum earlier. Michael had never seen him that angry before. When he left the room, he had looked powerful. Like someone important. But there were a lot of things he was learning about his boss, he had never seen him kill anyone before either. Or try to punch a woman.
“The train station. To lose them.”
“How do we do that?” Michael asked, trying not to sound as awkward as he felt talking to her.
“That is easy, now that we have their CPI chips.”
Unfortunately, she didn’t explain how exactly, it would be easy. She just drove in awkward silence the short trip to the train station. Michael shot a questioning look to Luthor, who returned it. She might be hotter than burning magnesium, but Michael felt some serious trust issues developing with Vika.
They parked and walked up to the automated ticket station.
“Each of you buy a ticket with your own chips headed to Paris.”
Luthor hissed his disapproval so the queue couldn’t hear. “What the hell was the point of carving up three people, if we aren’t even going to use their chips! They will know we have been here.”
“They already know we are here.” Vika said. “Let them think we are going somewhere else. We will actually be headed to Marseille.”
Michael realized what she was planning. “This is going to work.” Michael stepped forward and slid his hand under the ticket scanner. The faint, overly efficient screen, displayed payment options. He could use his CPI Chip as cash and have it directly withdraw from his bank account or select his credit card. He pushed the Visa icon; it gave him points he could put toward his energy bill. If he was going to die, at least he could afford to have the lights on at his funeral. A train squealed into the station just as they finished purchasing their tickets.
“As soon as you get on, put a regular Seebee glove on and walk back off the train.”
Luthor nodded, the old codger seemed to be finally catching on. “The system will have recorded us as traveling to Paris, but we won’t be on the train. Smart.”
“Will this work?” Tanya asked. “They are going to expect us to have SeeBees. You could do that trick without a CPI forgery.”
“They might suspect we did not stay on the train, but they will know that we haven’t boarded another one,” Vika said.
Michael continued. “The train scanners don’t check for much except that the ticket and CPI scans match. If our scans don’t show up as purchasing another ticket, we can’t have gotten on another train.”
“So they will have to check here, and they will have to check Paris. But no one will think we have made it back to Marseille,” Tanya said.
“And no one will expect us to go there anyway.” Luthor said, “that’s where we entered the EU in the first place. Good thinking, Vika.”
Two minutes later they stepped back on the train, put their gloves on, and stepped back off. For anyone who looked at the data on the massive CPI servers, Luthor Tenrel, Michael Laramy, and Tanya Hazelwood, were all headed north.
#
Luthor wondered again if his phone conversation had been explicit enough. He hoped he hadn’t said too much. Vika had been clear that any international calls would be overheard, taped, and scrutinized to the smallest detail by the EU’s censors. Whoever had heard Luthor’s original phone call was probably listening to it right now. Luthor had not used Qwiz’s name or any of his alias’s –not that there were many outside of that Vanguard character of his— but who knew what other context clues they would be able to sift out of the conversation. Luthor hoped Qwiz was not yet known to be an accomplice and he yearned to keep it that way. Eli had been shot just for knowing about his discovery.
Besides, what was the 126 after all if not a dead, lifeless thing? It might be important, even a historic fulcrum, but if Luthor had learned anything after fighting and killing people in Antarctica it was that human life had more value than any mere substance. Oil in Antarctica, 126 in a lab, Uranium, hydrogen, natural gas. Whatever. All of it was worthless without human beings to use it and give it worth.
Here he was again, killing people for a substance. Two men dead by my hand already, two other innocent bystanders too, just from their proximity to my invention. How many lay frozen in Antarctica, put there by his bullets, for an archeologist in the future to dig up? Enough that I deserve to die. Luthor thought, but he was still kicking, and people were dying for it.
Luthor stood by himself in the back of their car, looking out the window. Rolling hills, pock-marked by massive windmills, rumbled by displaying man’s vain attempt to feed and power itself within the vacuum of fossil fuels. The entire train ride to Marseille had been eerily silent, each of them alternately staring at their elicit seabus tickets or out the window. No one dared to question if they had done the right thing or not. None of it made any sense. It felt like a dream. A nightmare.
Michael appeared at his shoulder. He had wanted to talk with Luthor. “Do you think we can trust Vika?”
“I don’t know. Eli trusted her, and I trust him.”
Michael looked behind him furtively. “I don’t care, she’s hiding something.”
“I think she’s hiding a lot of things,” Luthor replied. “I wouldn’t have pegged you to be questioning her after the way you were ogling her last night.”
“She might be fine, but she isn’t right. The shit she knows Luthor… damn. Where the hell does somebody learn how to fake CPI chips?” Michael leaned in and whispered in his ear. “She flipped you like a rag doll and you killed two Sabers!”
“I got lucky…” But Eli didn’t. Because he just happened to be my friend.
Michael shook his head. “Whatever. The point is…this is crazy. We are running for our lives, four people are dead, and now she just happens to come in and have all the answers. Doesn’t that feel a little convenient to you? Why is she helping us, really?”
Luthor frowned. It did feel like more than coincidence. He had tried to suppress the feeling. “Smog it.” He paused, looking the younger man in the eye. “Do we have a choice? We can’t very well stay here. And she has helped us this far.”
“She might even help us get out of the country, but I don’t want to end up floating face down in the middle of the Atlantic.”
“Me neither, but we need her right now. Maybe her motives are pure.”
“And maybe I'm a virgin.”
“Right… regardless, I’m not convinced she is out to kill us. I feel like if she wanted to do that, she would have already.”
“Sure, but there could be something deeper going on here. What if she’s working for someone outside the EU and just needs to get us out of the country?”
“Good thought. Just keep your eyes open, okay?”
“I don’t mind watching her—already made a fool of myself doing that—but if she’s as good as she seems I don’t think it will matter.”
Chapter 8:
Aurora, Illinois, United States of the West
Qwiz had planned to be up all night, but he didn’t need the Mountain Dew coursing through his digestive system to keep him awake. He doubted he’d be able to sleep for days. They had split everything related to the 126 between Bill’s tiny flat and Qwiz’s own apartment down the hall. He hoped his mom wouldn’t mind him having world-altering contraband in his room. He hadn’t planned to te
ll her anyway, for her own safety. The idea was to have it in multiple places, in case one of them was caught. That way they wouldn’t lose everything. They spread the black boxes around, to diminish the gravity. The hard drives, they hid in Bill’s gun safe—after Qwiz copied them to his own backup drive, of course. Qwiz was careful to leave them unplugged so no one could hack in and access them remotely.
Now that they were done hiding the contraband, they walked back through the parking garage entrance into the apartment. There was a suspicious moped Qwiz didn’t recognize parked next to the truck. Vehicles were rare enough that Quiz knew all of the normal ones in the garage by sight. He hoped it didn’t belong to someone tailing him.
Bill shoved his hands into his armpits as he walked through the CPI scanner imbedded in the entry-way. He looked positively ridiculous.
“Why do you keep doing that?”
“Don’t need to give any bureaucrats my location if I can avoid it,” Bill replied. “Did you know that armpits can block mark-scans? If you walk through like this, your signal won’t get to the receiver.”
Qwiz overcame the temptation to roll his eyes. This was a new one for Bill and one of his less-believable ones. The truth was the mini-RFID chips imbedded in their hands had no trouble getting through armpits. They were short-range and omni-directional. Short of an absurdly thick wall or a Faraday Cage, it took a dedicated signal blocker, like a SeeBee glove, to stop a CPI scanner. “You have to know that doesn’t work.”
“How do you know?” Bill asked. “I didn’t realize you’d moved to Europe to work in the CPI databases.”
Qwiz sighed, he didn’t have the energy to disprove Bill and climb the ten flights of stairs to his apartment.
He plopped on Bill’s sagging, mite-ridden couch, breathing hard. “How did you do it? I mean, in the war.” Qwiz asked. “How can you function after getting shot at?”
Bill took a deep breath. For some reason he had always been very forthcoming about his experiences from his time in Iraq and Afghanistan; most other people who had fought in World War III never said a word about it. Luthor snapped up tighter than 4096-bit encryption if anyone brought it up.
“It’s not easy,” he scratched his beard, “but the first time is the hardest. Your body just doesn’t know how to react when faced with its own death.”
“How do you move on? My heart is still thumping in my chest and it’s been hours.”
“It’ll do that. I’m sorry you had to experience it; it ain't fun.” Bill put a fatherly hand on his shoulder. “It’ll pass.”
Qwiz took another deep breath. It helped a little. Maybe.
“But as for me, well… you sort of get used to it.” Bill shook his head. “No, that isn’t the right way to put it. It’s more like you get familiar with it. You learn what it’s like to get shot at, to feel the adrenaline pumping, to see your life flash before your eyes. And when you know what to expect, it’s easier to handle. You can even use it to do stuff you never thought possible.”
“Like when you charged that house full of terrorists?”
Bill huffed. “Yeah. Killed every bastard in that place. They sniped one of my friends and I lost it. That’s even worse than getting shot at, seeing your friend die. I hope you never experience that either.”
“Me too.”
“That life-or-death feeling made me start drinking. It took the edge off a little, but don’t. Don’t drink your problems away. It’s just makes more of them.”
Bill didn’t drink any more, but had become a violent alcoholic after he returned from Afghanistan. He lost his wife and his son and just about everything else due to the stuff. Qwiz himself didn’t drink; Bill was a shining example of why.
Qwiz’s father would never approve of trying to escape his problems. Qwiz hadn’t seen him in 20 years, but had tried to live out what he had taught him about being a man. He had been called home to serve in the Chinese block before the war started and Qwiz missed him. Even as a child he’d taught Qwiz about honor, honesty, respect, and keeping your word, no matter what. Qwiz thought his dad would be proud of what he had done to honor his word to Luthor. His father had always said, Courage isn’t defined by your deeds, but by what you are willing to lose.
Qwiz had risked his life.
“Hey, Quency. Wake up.” Bill said. Qwiz’s head jerked backward as he realized he’d dozed off. The sun lay low on the horizon, its rays streaking through Bill’s solitary eastward window. It was beautiful. But that wasn’t what Bill had drawn his attention to. It was the small, energy-saving TV.
“They’re talking about your boss, Luthor.”
Qwiz shook himself to wakefulness and focused on what the USNN anchor was saying. “The blast killed at least 32 people in the apartment, with 17 still missing. We now go live to the scene of the devastation with William Benyard.”
Bill’s breath caught in his throat as a young, good looking, reporter held the mic in front of the smoldering ruins of an apartment building. At least that’s what it had probably been. Smoke drifted up between hunks of brick wall and personal detritus. It looked like the entire right side of the structure had been completely demolished. Rescue workers swarmed over the wreckage like maggots on a dead bird.
Benyard’s flowing blond hair ruffled in the breeze as he began to describe the shocking scene. “According to witnesses, the blast ripped through the Rockton apartments in Aurora a few minutes before 5:00 am this morning.”
“Bill, that was Luthor’s apartment!”
“I know. That’s why I woke you up.”
Benyard continued. “The explosion was felt by residents over a mile away. It destroyed half of the building, instantly killing 32 innocent people who hadn’t yet risen for their morning commute.”
The screen panned to a line of white body bags, as the rescue workers pulled another limp body from the rubble.
“There are still at least 17 people unaccounted for, as firemen and other first responders search tirelessly for survivors. But even in the midst of this terrible tragedy, there are signs of hope.”
The screen flashed to a gray-haired woman in a soot-stained night gown. “It was like someone picked up my bed and shook it around. I fell and then the whole wall crashed right down on top of my bed. But my neighbor heard me screaming and managed to get me out.”
“Its stories like these that keep the brave men and women searching, hoping against all odds to rescue someone who is still trapped,” the reporter said. He walked toward the mobile command center the carps had set up. The camera followed smoothly, allowing him to stare into the camera with his piercing blue eyes—eyes that reminded Qwiz of Bill—and continue talking.
“While rescuers work to save residents, the carbon police have been working on another problem: the source of this explosion. What they are finding points to a conspiracy that spans two continents, with possible ties to a notorious terrorist organization.”
“That’s the sedatives talking, the bastards don’t even know they’re taking them,” Bill said.
“Sedatives?”
“You know the ones they put in the water to keep everyone from rebelling against the government? It’s working well if you don’t know you’re taking them either.” Qwiz ignored him.
The camera focused on a balding man wearing the same black and green uniform of the other carbon officers. He stood behind a podium in what looked to be a makeshift press conference area. A subtitle informed Qwiz that it was the Chief of the Aurora Carbon Police.
“Our team of investigators has confirmed that the explosion originated on the second floor of apartment 231, belonging to Fermilab Scientist, Luthor Tenrel.”
“We barely escaped in time.” Qwiz said. “We would have been vaporized.”
“I think they blew it up because we escaped,” Bill said darkly. “Listen.”
“…residue analysis confirms the presence of large quantities of highly volatile materials used in bomb-making.”
“What a pile of burning hogshit! Are th
ey are going to frame him for this?” Bill asked.
“We are using every resource available. We are working closely with the Federal Carbon Enforcement Agency. They have revealed that Tenrel was last seen in Geneva, and had planned to attend the International Energy Conference. Their sources have found a strong connection between Tenrel and the 2180 terrorists.”
Bill slammed his fist against the couch. “Those goddamned bastards!”
The stern face of the Chief grew even more serious. “They believe this explosion is part of a larger terrorist plot by 2180 to bomb the IEC itself. It is also suspected that Tenrel was involved in the murders of two carbon police officers in Geneva earlier today.”
“That must have been what Luthor was talking about on the phone,” Qwiz said.
Bill shushed him as the screen showed an image of Tenrel. It looked like it had been taken from his Fermilab ID badge.
The Chief continued. “We won’t know any more until we can bring him into custody. Please inform your local carbon enforcement office if you have seen Tenrel or have any information leading to his capture. Thank you.”
A small crowd of reporters blurted questions, but the police chief raised his hands. “No questions at this time.”
Qwiz stared at the screen, disbelieving the words popping out of it. “I can’t believe this is happening. Luthor would never bomb innocent people.”
“He wouldn’t.” Bill replied matter-of-factly. “I saw his house, there wasn’t so much as a firecracker, let alone a lab that could make a bomb that size. Trust me, I’ve seen bomb making labs. That ain't one of him.”
“How can they do this?”
“My best guess—and this is just an old codger throwing crap against the wall to see what sticks—is that he pissed off somebody big enough to publicly frame him on two continents.”
“Big enough that they can just murder dozens of people?”
“Big enough that they don’t even care about murdering dozens of people.”
Qwiz took a deep breath. “He’s in deep, Stone.”
“We’re in deep, boy. Like you said, never leave a man behind.”
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