Exo: A Novel

by Steven Gould

  The eight figures who jumped down from the starboard-side cargo door were dwarfed by the helicopter. It was twice as tall, landing gear to the top of the rotor, as the tallest of them. They began moving across the flat in a familiar shuffling motion and standing taller than I expected in the snow.

  “Snowshoes,” I said.

  Dad said, “Yes. Somehow I don’t think these guys are my boys from Costa Rica.”

  “What’s the plan?”

  “We watch. I’ll probably grab some of them—scare them a little, but we want to leave someone capable of running. Can you follow them? See where they go?”

  “The helicopter? I guess. Hardly orbital velocities. Now?”

  “No.” Dad shook his head. “First we watch.”

  I felt odd when they started picking their way through the debris field, and Dad actually growled when the first of them climbed over the remnants of the front door. I knew how he felt and I expected him to move then, before they walked in our home, but he put his hand on my arm as if I might go after them.

  “Don’t.”

  “Project much? I wasn’t going to.”

  We were whispering. They were about a thousand feet away, but with the air as still as it was, sound carried. We’d already heard some of their spoken words and now I heard something else—a small-plane motor, like a small Cessna.

  Dad pointed.

  It was circling, perhaps two miles out. It wasn’t a Cessna. It was hard to see against the lighted sky and I bet it was invisible with even a small amount of overcast.

  Dad vanished and I searched the ground below, looking for him to appear, or, more likely, several of them to disappear, but Dad was back beside me in seconds, his hands holding Mom’s fancy image-stabilized binoculars.

  He studied the drone and swore.

  “Are you upset that it’s back?”

  “It never left. Look.”

  He handed me the binoculars and I studied it. The long narrow wingspan, the inverted-V tail, the pusher prop. “What am I looking at?” I asked.

  “Under the wings.”

  “Uh. One missile. On the port side.”

  “But not two. It fired the other one last night and it’s been circling wide, waiting for these guys.”

  I lowered the binoculars.

  “They could fire the other missile if they see us.”

  He nodded. “Yes they could.” He looked at me. “I don’t suppose you can crash it?”

  * * *

  The drone was doing about eighty-one miles per hour, an economy “loiter” speed, and it was easy for me to match velocities. I’m sure the sensor suite in the pod suspended beneath the forward fuselage wasn’t looking toward its own wingtip, but as soon as I latched my mitts onto the very end of the port wing, twenty-five feet away from the drone’s body, I’m sure the operators noticed.

  My weight rolled the plane sharply over on its side and the asymmetric drag from my parka-thickened cross section yawed the nose toward the ground. I felt the wing buck and flex as the automatic onboard stabilization systems fought to right the craft and the engine went to full revolutions as they goosed the throttle.

  I was about twenty-eight feet away from the prop and the last thing I wanted was to be thrown into it. That was not my preferred way to crash the vehicle.

  Enough.

  I held on hard and dropped my relative velocity fifteen feet a second. My drag had been introducing yaw before, but this threw the craft into a flat spin, perpendicular to the ground, and threw me out, too much centripetal force for me to keep my grip.

  Still conscious of the prop, the minute the wing slipped out of my hands, I flinched back to Dad at the ridge top. The drone’s flat spin turned into a tumble as the pilot and the autonomous systems struggled to stabilize the craft. For a few seconds I thought that between the remote pilot and the onboard systems they’d succeed and I’d have to go back, but then the outboard half of the starboard wing snapped off and spiraled away. Five seconds later the drone smashed into the thickly forested slopes on the far side of the valley.

  “I hope that cost them a pretty penny,” said Dad. “Good work.”

  The men below hadn’t reacted to the drone but they reacted to the sound of the crash with calls of alarm, and their postures shifted. Then I heard a faint yet familiar sound.

  “That’s an Iridium satphone handset!” I said.

  Dad nodded, lifting the binoculars. “Tail-end Charlie, there,” he said. “Hold these.”

  If I’d tried to use the binoculars I would’ve missed it. The farthest man, the one who loitered at the edge of the debris field, had one arm held up in the classic talking-on-the-phone pose, and then he was gone.

  That seemed fast, even for Dad, but then I realized it was the camouflage. He’d been there but I hadn’t even registered him against the snow before he’d snatched and left.

  He appeared beside me five seconds later, the Iridium handset in his hand, studying its display.

  “Where’d you drop him?”

  “The beach.”

  “Australia?”

  “Oh, no. My beach. That one I made off Costa Rica.”

  Ah. The little rocky island where I’d practiced twinning.

  “I didn’t have time to sweep him for electronics but at least I have this—” He held up the handset. “—and there’s no cell service out there.”

  “I’d have thought you would use the pit.”

  He shrugged. “It’s too close to the Eyrie.” He gestured below, at the remnants of the cabin. “If you haven’t noticed, we’re running out of space.”

  I smiled sadly, but of course he couldn’t see it under the balaclava. Space is the one thing we aren’t running out of. “Was he armed? Are they?”

  “He was and waving it around as soon as he fought his way out of surf and that wet parka, so let me deal with him. Don’t know about them. I suspect they’re just temps, especially the way this guy—” Again he held up the satphone. “—was hanging back.”

  “Huh?” I thought the guy was just squeamish, worried about finding bodies or pieces of bodies. “How do you figure?”

  “Well … he was at the edge of the debris field, right? If they had found something—a survivor, opposition—he would have been outside the blast radius of the other missile.”

  “Seriously—they would’ve fried their own guys? You’re not just being … you?”

  “I am being ‘me.’ But I’m still serious. How do you think I got so paranoid in the first place?”

  The day before I would’ve thought he was crazy, but that was before someone implanted a tracker in my grandmother’s hip and then fired a missile to kill her and everyone in her vicinity.

  “It’s sad that I agree with you,” I said. “What are you going to do with them?” I gestured at the men below.”

  He considered them.

  “I think your Royal Canadian Mounted Police idea has merit. I really think these guys are day labor, hired for this.” He vanished and reappeared a few minutes later with a five-pound sledgehammer in his hands.

  “You just said they weren’t the bad guys!”

  He acted hurt. “It’s not for their heads, it’s for the tail rotor on the helicopter! I just want them to still be here when the RCMP arrive.”

  “Ah.”

  “I’ve got this,” he said, gesturing at the valley, the helicopter, and the men standing among the pieces of the cabin. “But you might want to check on the others.”

  “Mom and Grandmother?”

  He shook his head and held up four fingers.

  “Joe, Tara, Jade, Cory.”

  * * *

  The suit team had finished the fifth suit two days before Joe’s semester started. Tara had another week before dear old Beckwourth High School resumed, and because Jade wasn’t doing the Smith interterm minicourse in January, she wouldn’t start for another two weeks. Cory tentatively suggested they could use Joe’s last two days for testing, but this offer had a uniform response.r />
  “Fuck no!”

  Cory took the revolution good-naturedly. When I phoned him after finding his office, lab, and apartment empty, he said, “I’m reading at a coffee shop. Why?”

  I didn’t want to panic him but I also didn’t want to leave him dangerously uninformed. “They made an attempt at me and my parents. Keep your eyes open, okay?”

  “An attempt? Like they tried to kidnap you?”

  “Something like that,” I said.

  “Well, which was it? They did or they didn’t?”

  I sighed. “They blew up our house.”

  I heard his chair scrape across the floor as he shifted abruptly. “Is everyone all right? Your parents?” I decided not to mention that Grandmother was back on the respirator, weaker than ever. “We got everyone out first.”

  “That’s not how you kidnap someone.”

  “Thank you for pointing that out. I think they’ve given up on trying to use us.”

  “I thought they didn’t know where you live?”

  “We are not having this conversation over the phone. I need to check on the others.”

  “Yes! Sorry.”

  “Eyes open.”

  * * *

  Jade and Tara were at Krakatoa, hiding from both sets of parents, but not, unfortunately, the press who were camped out downstairs.

  “Why aren’t they up here with you?” I asked. Jade had warned me over the phone so I’d arrived back in the corner, out of sight of the first floor.

  “The management put a ‘mezzanine reserved for private party’ sign up. That’s us. Wish it would work for our parents,” said Tara.

  “I thought your mom was okay with this,” I said to Tara, gesturing between the two of them.

  “It’s not the relationship,” Tara said. “It’s the publicity. The press keep pestering her and—” She glanced at Jade and rolled her eyes toward the ceiling.

  Jade finished for her. “Tara’s dad resurfaced, awful as ever. She and her mom tried to renew the restraining order, but Tara turned eighteen last month so it’s no longer a child protective services issue.”

  Tara shook her head. “We should’ve pushed for prosecution back then but Mom thought that getting custody permanently revoked and that restraining order was hard enough. Since the domestic-violence charges weren’t made and the incidents were more than five years ago, the judge we saw only wants to consider current behavior in justifying a restraining order.”

  I hadn’t told them about the cabin but my anger about that bled over easily. “He would have a hard time bothering you from Perth,” I said. “Say the word.”

  Jade smiled, but Tara said savagely, “Why should he get to go to Australia!”

  “True,” I said. “Um, how would you guys like to spend a week there?”

  Jade’s eyes lit up. I could tell she liked the idea.

  “How’s your Mom?” I asked.

  She held out her hand and rocked it. “She’s trying, but that’s almost worse. She and Dad are seeing a therapist and it’s bringing up … stuff. I’m really glad they’re doing it, and I think it will be really good when they’re further along, but just now … it’s a bit painful. Especially when they drag me along for ‘family’ sessions.”

  Tara put her arm across Jade’s shoulders. “Fun times, eh?”

  I bit my lip. “You have no idea.”

  They looked at me. Tara said, “A breakthrough with Joe? A break up? Something?”

  I almost smiled. “No. Joe’s the next call, though, because they—” I blurted it out. “They tried to kill us last night. They did blow up the cabin.” I leaned forward and told them the whole thing.

  “Wow,” Jade finally said after the silence that followed my story. “That makes my troubles seem petty.”

  “These might be your troubles,” I said. “They could still come after you. I was serious when I said you could spend a week in Australia. Or France. Or how about St. Martin in the Caribbean? They speak French there.”

  Tara said, “Is this on the company? I kinda blew my savings on France.”

  “Yes. A cottage with a kitchen, say?”

  “What?” said Jade. “No room service?”

  Tara elbowed her in the ribs and said, “A cottage would be lovely. What’s the weather there?”

  My phone connected to the coffee shop’s WiFi. “This week, high of eighty-two, low of seventy-five. And unless you’re going to hang out at Club Orient, you’ll only need swimsuit bottoms.”

  Tara’s eyes got big. “What?”

  “French—all the beaches are topless.” She looked like she was rethinking her answer and I said, “Topless isn’t required. Just allowed.”

  I jumped them to each of their bedrooms, but waited with Jade.

  Since the secret of how Joe had managed frequent travel back and forth to Stanford was out, he was spending the last two days of vacation in New Prospect with his family. Well, with his family and some trailing press.

  I was worried about the press. It was a good way for them to get close.

  Them.

  I was starting to sound like Dad.

  On the other hand, unless they replaced all the reporters with operatives, the pack of journalists were also witnesses.

  I used Jade’s phone and texted him.

  Me: ¢ here. WRU@?

  Joe: Luncheon Junction w/fam 4 post-fb feast.

  Luncheon Junction was the restaurant in the old converted train station where we’d had our first date. They had really good pie.

  Me: Watch out.

  Joe: WTF?

  Me: Old Friends.

  Joe: ?

  Me: Like Jason

  Jason ran the local drug ring and had been used by them to try and catch us. He’d snatched Jade and Tara to pull me in and he tortured one of his own gang members when she wanted to quit.

  Dad broke his arm and jaw.

  He’d deserved it. He was serving twenty years for aggravated assault in the first degree.

  Joe: FFS

  Me: (.)(.)

  Joe: Tits?

  Me: Try again.

  Joe: Eyes open?

  Me: Yes. Or I can extract you. J&T taking that option.

  There was a pause. Was he distracted? Was he wondering if I was inviting him for something more? Was I inviting him for something more?

  Joe: No. Mom pissed about bn gone last 2 wks. Making up4it.

  I thought about telling him he was putting his family in danger by hanging around them, but I didn’t know. I was probably the one putting them in danger. They could be monitoring his phone or Jade’s phone.

  Me: OK. B4N

  Tara called her Mom and told her she was going out of town. Jade left a note.

  The one-bedroom cottages on Rue de Grande Caye normally ran fourteen hundred dollars a week but that was with an advanced reservation. I figured we would have to pay double on such short notice, but a tropical storm near Miami had disrupted flights and there’d been several cancellations.

  We secured a cottage away from the beach for seven hundred dollars. I left Tara and Jade with all the unused cash, for groceries, shopping, and restaurants.

  “No plastic, right? And no cell phones. Not only will they track you with it, it’s expensive as all get-out. Stick to e-mail. The WiFi’s free.”

  “Yes, Mother,” said Jade.

  “You think you can survive this?” I was looking out the louvered windows at the palm trees. You couldn’t see the ocean from this side but the Baie du Cul-de-Sac was less than a hundred yards away.

  Compared to the icy bite of New Prospect’s air, the breeze which pushed the curtains was like a caress—warm, slightly humid, and laced with the scent of tropical flowers. Inside, the cottage was tile floors and wicker furniture with brightly colored cushions and a king-sized bed.

  Hell, why wasn’t I staying there?

  Tara said, “We’ll tough it out.”

  I hugged them and jumped.

  * * *

  Things were not so goo
d in the vault.

  “—awfully weak,” Seeana said as I appeared.

  Mom nodded at me, acknowledging my arrival, but turned back to Seeana who was kneeling on the mattress next to Grandmother.

  Grandmother was on the Resmed ventilator and seemed so small, curled up in the middle of the mattress.

  Seeana used her thumb to pull up Grandmother’s eyelid. “I don’t like the color of her sclera.”

  Mom said, “A bit yellow, yeah.”

  I didn’t like the fact that Grandmother didn’t flinch or even seem to notice that Seeana had pulled the lid up. “Unresponsive?” I said.

  “She’s exhausted,” said Mom.

  “Should we take her to a hospital?”

  Mom said, “It may come to that. We drew some blood. Your father is having her levels checked. We’re a little concerned about liver function.”

  “‘A little?’” I said.

  Mom looked away. “This has not been a good day.”

  Dad popped in, a sheet of computer printouts in his hand. “Liver enzymes are slightly elevated but it’s looking more like a flare up of the polymyositis. Her CK and aldolase levels are up. Do you want me to fetch her neurologist?”

  Mom bit her lip. “If we hospitalize her, sure.”

  “What’s CK and aldolase?” I asked.

  Seeana said, “Muscle enzymes. More muscle damage. Not good. She was responding so well to physical therapy before the last break. I was hoping to move her into aqua exercise but there’s no way she’d handle that now.”

  “Swimming?” I said.

  “No. You wear floats that keep you upright, with your head above water. You can walk, jog, and do other exercises without putting any weight on your bones. But the water pressure pushes in on your chest and makes it harder to breathe. Later that’s great. Helps you exercise your diaphragm and chest muscles, but right now—” She shook her head. “Even with the respirator she’s having trouble fighting gravity.”

  Mom and I locked eyes.

  Dad said, “Son of a BITCH!”

  Seeana was looking around, confused. She was the one who’d said it but she didn’t get it.

  I said to her, “It’s the one thing I can do something about.”

  * * *

  Despite his initial reaction Dad said, “It’s an insane idea. It could kill her.”