by Jamie Davis
Cass winced at the description. “Look, I’ll tell you all about anything you want to know later. Now, I just want to talk to Shelby a little bit. When I’m done, I’ll come by your room and we can talk some more. Go get your tablet and bring it back to me, while I put this back on my face, before someone comes in the room and sees me.”
Cass went over to her mirror and started to replace the skin patch while Elena left the room, pulling the door shut behind her. Cass made sure the seals were in place and the dermal adhesive had attached all the way around the patch, then stepped back from the mirror, examining her work.
Her face looked normal again. Cass ran her fingers through her hair to make sure it hung down over her cheek, just in case something peeled up again. Frederick had told her when she bought the patch that it wasn’t permanent. She realized the attachment points were weakening the more she used it and eventually she’d have to get it replaced. How she was going to do that while stuck here in the enclave, Cass didn’t know.
She sat down on the bed and waited for Elena to come back with the tablet so she could call Shelby. There was so much she had to tell her girlfriend. So much had happened and Cass wasn’t sure what would happen next. It all frightened her.
Chapter 13
Shelby Moore sat back and relaxed as her parents’ automated car navigated the way home from the market. Her mother and father had sent her out for groceries after dinner while they cleaned up. They planned on watching a holovid together as a family when Shelby returned.
Enjoying the alone time on the drive back from the store, Shelby had a moment to think about how different life at home was since she’d left school. Her parents’ grief reflected her own, though hers was compounded by having witnessed her brother’s death. She was unable to share that fact with anyone, even her mother and father, which intensified the trauma for her.
Shelby missed Eric, too. The weeks since he’d been killed had been hard on her whole family, as they tried to understand and deal with the void in their lives his death had created. An additional difficulty for Shelby came from her separation from Cass. Not having Cass here to lift her up with her infectious laugh made the somber mood in the Moore home hard to bear.
Cass hadn’t called for several days and Shelby hoped they’d be able to connect tonight. As if on cue, the incoming call alert sounded over her cerebral implant. Shelby’s excitement that it might be Cass dampened when she saw it was a face chat call from a strange number. Shelby was already connected to the car’s systems, so she leaned forward and tapped a button on the dash to deploy a small remote camera and holo-screen. As the screen popped up in front of her, she was surprised to see Cassie’s face fill the screen.
“Cass, I didn’t know it was you. Is this a new number?”
“No, I’m using my sister’s tablet. The firewall here flagged my system tonight and is searching for me on the network. I’m trying to get the protocol one program to work so I can hide again. Until then, I have to stay off the grid completely. That’s why I am using Elena’s tablet.”
Shelby smiled when another face popped into the screen beside Cass. “Hi Shelby, remember me?”
“Yes. Of course, I do. How are you, Elena?”
“Oh, I’m fine. Cass here just showed me her implant and all. She even made her eye glow for me. It’s really cool.”
Shelby grew concerned and glanced towards Cass through the video pick up. “Cass, are you all right? You’re not in any kind of trouble, are you?”
“No, Shel, I’m fine. I happened to let it slip when my skin patch started to peel away and Elena spotted it. She’s all right though, aren’t you, squirt?”
“Yeah, it’s the best secret in the world. I can’t believe I’m the only kid around whose sister is a… um, cyber human.”
Shelby knew Elena had almost said the word sub out of reflex before she’d stopped herself. That was all right, though. Elena had stopped herself before she said it and sometimes habits like that were hard to break.
Shelby worried that Cass’s secret had slipped so soon, but discovery by the enclave’s security firewall was a much bigger concern. “You said they somehow caught you getting through the firewall?”
Cass nodded. “It was my own dumb fault. I was in such a hurry to call you that I didn’t remember to check the firewall for updates first. I opened the connection before I realized they were watching for a breach.”
“How serious is it, Cass? If you need to leave, I can try to come down there.”
Cass shook her head. “No, it’s fine. I shut down my implant’s wireless systems and broke contact. There shouldn’t be any way to trace me now that I’ve powered down.”
Shelby let out a sigh of relief. “You need to be more careful, Cassie.”
“I will.” Cass glanced at her sister, still sitting next to her, giving her a little nudge with her shoulder.
Elena smiled. “Oh, yeah, you two want some private time, don’t you?”
Shelby laughed. The way Elena had said it made Cass blush and scowl at her sister.
Cass pointed towards the door. “You can leave now, Elena. I’ll bring you your tablet when we’re finished.”
“I’m leaving. You can bring it to me in the morning if it’s too late. That’s fine.” Elena waved at Shelby and left the room.
Shelby watched the fourteen-year-old leave and pull the door closed in the background behind Cass.
Cass waited until her sister left, glancing over her shoulder to be sure the door was shut before she continued, urgency coloring her tone. “Shelby, listen to me. I think you might be in danger.”
“What are you talking about? I’m fine. I just came from the market to pick up some groceries. I’m heading towards my parents’ house now.”
Cass shook her head. “No, you need to listen to me. This is serious. There’s a man here visiting my father. I recognized him, Shel. He’s… he’s the man from the stage at the rally. The one who killed Eric and the others. I recognized his voice right away and he has the same tattoo on his arm. It’s the same guy.”
Shelby froze at Cass’s words. She wanted to scream in a combination of rage, sorrow, and joy all at once. She’d been fantasizing about all the ways she wanted to kill that man if she ever discovered his identity. Now, she found out he was visiting Cass’s home as a family guest.
A chill fell over Shelby’s voice. “What’s his name?”
“Simon Cantwell. Dad called him a troubleshooter for the movement. The tattoo on his arm makes him a member of the Sapiens First militants.”
“Has he let on that he knows you recorded the video? How do you know I’m in danger?”
“He was talking to my father. He’s helping the movement track down the origin of the video and they found a link between the man I pushed off the roof and the location where it was recorded.”
“You didn’t push the man off the roof, Cass. He fell off all on his own. I was there, remember? Besides which, he was going to turn us in. Who knows what would’ve happened to us if he did that?”
Cass shook her head. “That’s doesn’t matter now.”
She glanced over her shoulder at the bedroom door once again then back at the screen. “Shel, I think he knows it was us. He just said some things to me after dinner that led me to believe he knows all about you and I being together and he’s tied the fact that Eric’s your brother to the release of the video.”
Shelby paused for a second, her mind whirling through possible scenarios. If Cass was right, she wouldn’t put it past those bastards to come looking for her. They’d already proven they were willing to kill for their twisted beliefs. What would she do if they came for her?
“Look, Shelby, is there someplace you can go? Someplace that’s safe where no one will know where you are?”
“I have a cousin that lives back down your way. We haven’t visited or even talked to her in a long time, but that’s probably a good thing.”
“I think you should go visit her, Shel. I think you
should go really soon.”
“Cass, everything here is fine.”
“Shelby, you need to trust me. I have a really horrible feeling about all of this. I don’t know how, I just know that something bad is about to happen and Simon Cantwell is behind it. He was too smug in the way he talked to me.”
Shelby tried to come up with another excuse. She was sure Cass was overreacting. Just as she was about to answer her girlfriend’s concerns, the automated car turned the corner onto the street to Shelby’s home. That was when she saw the first of the blue flashing strobes of police vehicles. There were several police cars parked out in front of her house. Some of them blocked the street ahead.
“Oh, my God. Cass, I have to go.”
“What’s wrong?”
“There are police all around my house. Something is wrong.”
“No, Shelby. You can’t trust anyone. You need to leave. Now. Just keep on driving past and don’t stop. Remember how we got locked up before. The police could be in on it.”
“Cass, the police aren’t all corrupt. This is another state, another city. Just because the police chief back there was working with your father, doesn’t mean all the police are bad.”
“Shelby. You have to listen to me. I don’t know how I know it, but this is all wrong. Somehow what’s happening at your house is related to Simon being here at mine.”
Shelby reached out to touch the button next to the screen that would cut the connection off.
“Cass, I have to stop. I have to know what’s going on with my parents.”
“Shelby, please don’t.”
“I have to. Don’t worry, I’ll be careful.” Shelby tapped the virtual screen and closed the holographic window. The car was already slowing as it approached the emergency vehicles filling the street ahead.
She could tell the automated robotic driver was perplexed by the jumble of vehicles arrayed in front of it. Shelby reached out through her implant, activating the connection to communicate with the car.
She spoke aloud. “Pull over here and wait. I’ll walk the rest of the way.“
“Very well,” the disembodied voice of the robotic car said.
The car pulled to the curb and Shelby climbed out. As she exited the vehicle, the automated voice spoke again. “I detect items in the storage compartment. Do you need them? I can open the trunk for you.”
“No, leave them there. I’ll be right back.” Shelby started to walk down the street towards her house. She resisted the urge to run, remembering what Cass had told her. She took the warning to heart and opted to be cautious. The last time Cass had a bad feeling about something, Erik had died.
Shelby almost reached the sidewalk in front of her neighbor’s home, when a police officer standing on the lawn nearby turned and came over to stop her.
“Sorry, Miss. You can’t come through here.”
“What’s the problem, officer?” Shelby asked.
The uniformed woman hooked a thumb over her shoulder at Shelby’s home. “There’s been a situation in this house behind me. I don’t know all the details, but we’ve been told to cordon off this part of the neighborhood for now.”
Shelby nodded as she glanced past the officer at the collection of vehicles. There were four police cars with blue and red light-bars on top, lit up and flashing their strobes into the night’s darkness.
Next to the marked police vehicles, there was also a larger black van pulled up in front of the police cars by the driveway. It, too, had a flashing light-bar but this one was not on the roof. It was sitting on the dash inside so it flashed out the front window.
Shelby hid a gasp, turning it into a fake cough when she saw a familiar emblem on the van’s rear window. There was a small, black sticker of a white circle with a black clenched fist inside it.
She looked away and back at the officer as soon as she spotted it. That van belonged to Sapiens First or at least belonged to a police officer who sympathized with the militants. Cass was right. The police here near Boston, or at least some of them, were working with the terrorists who’d killed her brother.
The female officer in front of Shelby pointed back up the street. “Look, Miss, I’m going to have to ask you to go back to your car. Do you live on this street somewhere or are you just passing through?”
Shelby’s mind spun with possible responses. “Um, yeah… I mean, no, I don’t live here. I was using this street as a shortcut home from the market. I live a few streets over that way.”
“Well, you’d better turn around and go back the long way. I have a feeling this street’s going to be closed for some time, while they bring the bodies out.”
Shelby halted in the middle of her turn to go back to the car. Her mind spun through the possibilities based on what the officer said. She resisted the urge to ask another question.
With the mention of bodies in her home, Shelby knew right away that the Sapiens First team disguised as police had killed her parents. There was no way her elderly parents had killed anyone and that meant only one thing.
Shelby wanted to scream, to cry, to do anything but turn around and leave. She knew she could do none of those things. They’d capture and kill her as well if they discovered who she was.
“Thank you, officer.” Shelby hoped the police woman couldn’t detect the quaver in her voice. “I’ll go back and turn around like you said. I hope you catch whoever did this.”
The woman didn’t answer Shelby. She merely nodded and watched as the girl turned and headed back towards the automobile. The door popped open automatically as Shelby approached, recognizing her implant.
Shelby climbed in and sat down in the seat behind the steering wheel. Her mind was numb with grief. The dashboard controls lit up as she somehow managed to reach out to turn on the engine. The fully electric vehicle had been completely charged when she had left the house.
Shelby knew she had to get away. There was no time to grieve. She double-checked the readout on the dash through the blur of her tears. She had to make sure she had enough of a charge to get away from the Boston area before she stopped again.
Shelby entered a waypoint on the interstate south of Boston and engaged the autopilot. It wasn’t going to take long for that officer to talk to someone who knew more of what was going on. When that happened, she’d realize the girl who’d left in the car lived in that house. Shelby had to be far away by the time that happened.
She turned and looked out the back window to see if anyone was following her as the car headed back up the street towards the market. This time, though, it continued past the store, driving towards the interstate. Shelby had only been half kidding about going to visit her odd cousin in Pennsylvania. Now, that distant cousin seemed to be the only family Shelby had left.
Chapter 14
A few minutes later, as Shelby’s car pulled onto the interstate heading south, she pondered her options. She was now officially on the run. She had to assume the Sapiens First thugs would be tracking her any way they could.
It was a struggle to organize her thoughts. She kept spinning back to trying to picture her parents. Why couldn’t she see their faces?
Shelby shook her head, her hands clenched into fists. “Get your act together, or you’re going to end up dead like everyone else in your family.”
Shelby went down the list of things she’d done to escape so far. She’d already disconnected her personal cerebral implant’s interface and unique identifier from the Mantle. Even though those people weren’t supposed to be able to use the Mantle in that way, she wouldn’t put anything past them in the accomplishment of their organization’s goals.
She’d also started the car on the road south. Her initial plan to head south to visit her cousin, Ramona Roche, was based in part on the fact that Ramona was known in the family as a pretty decent hacker. She’d always bragged in the few meetings Shelby had with her about how “The Roach” could get into anything.
Shelby hoped that was true because her current situation was about
to test that claim.
The one good thing about visiting Ramona had to do with something the hacker had said the last time she had come up to visit Shelby’s family. Ramona claimed to have scrubbed all evidence of her existence from the Mantle, including the broader national databases and network. If she’d really accomplished that, Shelby needed her cousin to teach her to do the same thing.
She decided it was better to let Ramona know she was coming. Shelby opened up a closed connection on the car’s comm system via the old wireless cell tower network. It was possible this idea wouldn’t work, but it was the only way she could think of to remain off the grid and still communicate. If she understood the process and executed it correctly, the conversation would never reach the broader network or the Mantle. The archaic cellular phone network was a relic of the previous century.
The connection rang three times before Ramona picked up, her grainy black and white image hovering over the dashboard. “Geez, Shelby. What are you doing calling me on this old cell network? It doesn’t even have a decent video connection.”
“I’m in trouble, Ramona. I’ve got to get somewhere to hide. I think…” Shelby blinked back a fresh surge of tears. “Uh, no, I’m sure Sapiens First killed my parents and are looking for me now, too.”
“What? They killed your parents! What are you talking about, Shelby? You’re not making any sense.”
Shelby wiped at her eyes. She didn’t want to go through all this with Ramona right now. “You just have to trust me on this. There were police all around my house. They were bringing the bodies out as I got there. I know it was them, Ramona. I knew I had to get away or I’d be next. I spotted a secret symbol on a sticker. It was on one of the police vehicles. They were with Sapiens First.”
“A secret symbol… you have proof that Sapiens First exists? That’s huge, Shelby. Why haven’t you published it and gotten the word out? People need to know.”
Shelby lost her temper. All the stress finally broke through. “Because the evidence that connects Sapiens First to the symbol comes from that video I released about the Saturday Massacre. If I put it out there now, it’ll link the video back to me.”