by David Estes
He’s so handsome, she thinks. Like his brother was.
Alice spills into the room, throwing an apologetic look at Harrison—as if she’s the one screaming—and then turns to Janice. Janice just screams louder, scrabbles at the sheets, wrapping them around her wrists like ropes. When she finally stops screaming, she bites at the thick cloth coils. Sometimes she really acts this way, when the voices inside her make her want to hurl herself against the walls, but now she’s only acting. It’s fun, really. A diversion, just like Harrison asked for.
“Shhh,” Alice purrs. “It’s okay, Janice. Your son enjoyed his visit and will come again soon.”
“No,” Harrison says from behind Alice. “I’m not ready to leave yet.”
“But—”
“I just got spooked, that’s all. I’m okay now. I think I can handle her.” As if to demonstrate, he moves forward and sits on the end of the bed. He smiles at Janice and she has to fight off the urge to smile back. He’s so beautiful. Her beautiful baby boy has grown up to be a handsome young man. Is he real? She forgets sometimes which son is real and which is not.
Alice looks from Harrison to Janice, and then back to Harrison. “You sure?” she asks.
Harrison nods. “Mom, is there anything you need?” He’s a clever young man, too. He gets that from her.
She lets her mouth flop open and closed a few times, her tongue flashing out. Zoran says, Tick, and she says, “Shut up.”
“Are you sure there’s nothing you need?” Harrison says.
Tock, Zoran says. She barely manages to ignore him. “I want to have breakfast with my son,” she says matter-of-factly.
Alice chews on her lip and Janice almost feels bad about misleading her. She’s the only person in this place that truly cares about her. “Okay, but you have to promise to be good. Can you do that, Janice?”
“You first,” Janice says.
Alice raises an eyebrow. “Uh, I promise to be good.”
Janice laughs, high and loud and much longer than is necessary. Just a crazy woman acting crazy. “Not you, silly,” she says. “I meant him.” She gestures to Zoran. Tick tick, he says. Good enough for her. “Okay, he’ll be good. And I will, too.”
Although she still looks very much unsure of the situation, Alice says, “I’ll go get breakfast for two.”
When Alice turns to go and Janice sees the expression on Harrison’s face, she almost wants to clap her hands with glee. Because there’s no mistaking that look: pride. She’s done something right.
The moment passes, however, as Alice leaves and her son springs into action. “We’ve only got a few minutes,” he says. “First, the Eye.”
He extracts a small canister from his pocket. He aims it at the Eye on the ceiling. Mist shoots from the nozzle, creating a cloud of chemical-smelling stink and coating the glass hemisphere with white. “Now they’re blind,” he says. She watches in awe as he unclips his visitor’s pass and slides it under the bed. “Might buy us a few more minutes while they search the room.” Next he pulls out some kind of a tool that looks like a lobster’s pincers. “For your anklet,” he says.
The urge to scream rises in the back of her throat like bile. She doesn’t want the metal lobster pincers anywhere near her. She stuffs her foot under the covers, out of sight.
“Mom, there’s no time for this. If we don’t get rid of your ankle monitor, they’ll be able to follow us wherever we go. They’ll bring you back here or maybe somewhere worse.”
“Nowhere could be worse,” she says, but sighs and removes her foot from beneath the sheet.
“Thank you,” he says. “This will probably raise an alarm, but an alarm is better than them being able to track you.” The light on her anklet shines a steady bright green. When he slides one of the pincers beneath the machine, it feels like cold teeth biting into her. She grips her pillow and slams her eyes shut and tries not to think about it.
She feels pressure against her skin and then…
Snap!
She opens her eyes and the anklet is broken and flashing red. Harrison shoves it beneath the bed to join his visitor’s pass. “Time to go,” he says, grabbing her hand. As he pulls her off the bed and toward the door, she marvels that his hand doesn’t burn her or melt through her skin. She always imagined it would, if he ever touched her again.
He opens the door, which Alice has left unlocked, which she always does when Janice has visitors. She suspects it’s so the visitors can leave quickly if they need to. It’s a secure facility—what’s the risk?
Everything feels wrong outside her room. There’s no padding on the walls and the lights are too bright, like white suns searing her eyes. She strains against her son’s grip, trying to get back to her safe place. Why did she want to leave again?
The Slip, she remembers. Some other kid about to be murdered by her husband. She can’t let it happen. Harrison tugs at her hand again and this time she lets him. They go left, down the hall, where all is quiet. So quiet.
Alarms shriek and bursts of red light begin flashing overhead. She drops to the floor, throwing her hands over her ears. So loud. So angry. So wrong.
Harrison is beside her, speaking to her, but she can’t hear, can’t hear, can’t hear
anything.
It’s like she’s underwater, the world around her a muffled place, and she’s floating, the voices gone, and she can just drift away
far far away.
With a shudder, the shrieking alarms return and Harrison is yelling in her ear. “Get up, get up, get up NOW!”
And then she’s no longer fighting him, but letting him pull her to her feet—and they’re running down the hall, her ears bursting with alarm bells. Thunder trails behind, and her heart explodes when she looks back and sees them.
Security bots. Five of them in gleaming metal armor, hefting huge, black guns.
They’re going to kill Harrison, she thinks. I have to do something to protect him.
But just as she’s about to make a move, to twist from her son’s grip and sacrifice herself, he stops and turns back, instantly drawing something else from his pocket. A flat ovular device. He places it on the floor, so calm it’s as if he’s merely tying his shoe, or doing something equally mundane.
“This’ll stop them,” he says, once more pulling Janice to her feet and down the hall. Just before they duck into a stairwell, she looks back at the bots, who are about to reach the spot where Harrison placed the device. Blue light bursts into the air, creating a transparent wall. The bots charge through it, electricity streaming over their mechanized arms and legs. Sparks fly and the bots fall, tangling together in a mess of clanking metal.
They charge up the stairs together, hand in hand. Janice is so out of breath that she can’t even question why they’d be going up instead of down.
Higher and higher they go. Eight floors, maybe nine—she loses count, her lungs heaving, her heart beating out of her chest. Then the steps end at a heavy iron door, which Harrison barges through with his shoulder, the metal groaning in rusty-hinged protest.
They’re on the roof of the asylum.
And, for the first time in years, Janice feels the breeze on her skin, fresh air in her nostrils, and sunlight on her face; for a moment, she forgets how tired she is. She wants to stop and just bathe in it, but Harrison doesn’t give them a second to rest. “C’mon,” he says. “To the edge.”
She knows this is it. This is what he came here to do. To get his revenge. She left him, and now she has to pay the price. She doesn’t fight it; doesn’t want to.
They reach a small wall at the edge, and Harrison helps her up onto the thin strip of concrete. She sways slightly, the wind buffeting her hair around her face, but then he’s there to steady her. She barely notices when he does something to the bottom of his shoe.
Alarms blare behind them as the iron door is thrown open. They both turn to see more bots pour from the stairwell and onto the roof. A few kneel and aim their weapons while the others charge towar
d them. It’s over. There’s only one thing left to do. She turns and faces the empty air between her and the street below.
Something catches her attention, whizzing from the side. A bird?
Harrison squeezes her hand, so hard, almost too hard. “Now!” he shouts as the object flies toward them. The chatter of gunfire erupts behind them as they leap from the roof, her breath whooshing out, her heart leaping.
She closes her eyes and wishes her son was anywhere else. She’s failed him in more ways than she can count, and now they’ll both die for it.
But then their freefall stops far too soon, her feet landing hard on something. Her eyes flash open and she’s flying, her arms wrapped around Harrison’s chest, their feet planted securely on a plank beneath them. No, not a plank—a hoverboard! That’s what he was doing to his shoe: activating the connection to his board.
She wants to scream, but not like before, not like usual. A different kind of scream. Not the kind that she uses to chase away the voices and the memories and the dark, lurking shadows. And she does. “Wooooo!” she shouts.
Harrison looks back and smiles, and then the hoverboard drops.
“Crap!” he yells. “We’re too heavy!”
The board is losing altitude rapidly, shaking slightly as if fighting gravity with all it’s got, like an earthquake beneath their feet. Janice holds onto her son with all that’s left of her strength, but even still, her grip is weakening.
Harrison steers them left, around a building, and then right, into an alley. The street seems to come up to meet them as the board shudders to a stop, throwing them off, directly into a pile of garbage.
She’s free at last.
~~~
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Chapter Twenty-Six
“What the hell?” Check says, staring at the screen.
Benson’s mind is blank, his mouth open. He doesn’t understand what he’s seeing. There must be some mistake.
“The sixteen-year-old, known in the Pop Con system as Benson Mack, is believed to be armed and dangerous,” the reporter is saying.
Benson blinks. He’s vaguely aware that Luce’s hand has drawn away from him, into her lap.
“What the hell?” Check says again.
“That’s so weird that there’s another Benson Mack your age,” Gonzo says.
Rod smacks Gonzo on the head. “You bot-brain. There aren’t two of them.”
Gonzo looks at the screen, then at Benson, comprehension slowly dawning on him. “You mean…”
“Benson’s the Slip,” Luce finishes for him. She stands, seems to purposely move back a few steps to create a space between her and him, much like she did the previous night when she was telling her horrific tale.
“No,” Benson says. “I swear I’m not.” Denial pricks at his heart, but his father’s words from the last night he saw him washes it away. “I mean, I don’t know.” The way Luce is looking at him, like he’s a dangerous animal, curdles his guts.
“What do you mean you don’t know?” Check says. “The whole thing’s ridiculous. Tell them Benson.”
“I’m not…” He trails off as all his father’s words he’s ignored for so long line up inside him, like silent accusers. The thought he’s been avoiding for years comes together, built on a series of facts about his past: his sheltered childhood; never being allowed to leave the house; his father teaching him to swim and then rejecting him, admonishing Benson to never tell anyone where he came from, who he really is; the fake retinas, attached to a name that’s become his, despite the fact that he’s really the boy with no name. It all makes sense. Horrifyingly awful sense, as he always knew it would.
“Benson?” Luce says, her hands on her hips. Although it doesn’t seem possible, her expression has become even harder, a deep frown.
“I—” All his friends’ eyes are on him, and he can’t bring himself to tell another lie, or even a half-truth. “I think I’m the Slip,” he says.
“What?” Check’s eyes are wild. “You think you’re the Slip? What does that even mean? Either you are or you’re not.”
His past roils inside him, seeming to burn through him like a poison for which the only antidote is the complete and utter truth. “My father is Michael Kelly,” he blurts out.
No one speaks. No one breathes. Benson shifts his leg, which is falling asleep, and the scuffle is louder than an explosion.
Finally, Check laughs loudly. “Ha ha. Joke’s on us, I guess. Good one, Bense.”
Benson doesn’t laugh. Luce looks like she wants to kill him, her eyes dark and brooding. “I can’t believe this,” she says, stalking away. Benson’s eyes track her to the other side of the room, where she slumps in the corner and rests her head in her hands.
Geoffrey says, “Wow.” If anything, he looks almost excited about the whole thing, in the way that only a young boy can.
“Bienvenidos a nuestro mundo,” Gonzo says, raising a fist for Benson to bump. Welcome to our world.
Benson just stares at it, unseeing, his mind spiraling into a dark place.
The reporter drones on in the background. “We’ve yet to receive comment from Michael Kelly; however, a press conference has been scheduled for later today.”
Check slides over and grabs Benson’s arm, snapping him out of the fog. “Wha—what?” Benson says.
“Tell us everything,” Check says. “Don’t leave out a single detail.”
~~~
When he finishes, there’s more of the awkward silence Benson is starting to despise.
“Imposible,” Rod says, standing and pacing to the window. Benson has never seen him look so sad, his long face a far cry from his usual upbeat demeanor.
Gonzo looks like he wants to follow his friend, but then settles into a slumped posture, staring at the floor.
Check’s hand is hiding his expression. Benson has the urge to tear it away from his face, so he can see his friend. Say something! he wants to scream.
“What does all this really mean?” Geoffrey asks innocently.
A sharp voice carries across the room. Benson had almost forgotten Luce was there. “It means our friend is a lying bot-licker with a murdering psychopath father,” she says.
Benson’s heart hammers in his chest. How did everything get so screwed up so fast? “I swear I didn’t—”
“Right,” Luce says. “You didn’t know. And you didn’t think telling us your father was the Head of Pop Con—our freaking archenemy—was important? Give me a break.” Benson almost wishes she would get up and scream at him, rather than using such a sarcastic unemotional tone. It hurts all the more because he knows she’s right. Of all people, he should’ve trusted his closest friends with the truth. “I should’ve never opened up to you, Benson,” she adds, a final spike shoved deep into his heart. Moisture burns his eyes.
“Your father is trying to kill you,” Check says, as if Luce hasn’t even spoken.
That’s when the room explodes.
~~~
Up is down and down is up and the floor doesn’t exist anymore, crumbling beneath Benson’s legs. He bangs his knee and skins his elbow, but lands more softly than he expected to.
He’s aware of dim voices, muted shouts. His ears are ringing. The acrid burn of smoke licks at his throat, forcing heavy coughs from his lungs. Can’t breathe, can’t breathe, can’t—
A strong hand grabs him and hauls him to his feet. “We’ve got to go now! Escape route.” It’s Luce. Through the smoke and rubble-strewn debris, he can just make out other human outlines. Geoffrey. Rod and Gonzo, who are both shouting
something in Spanish. And Check. They’re all okay. At least for now. They’re already moving away, slaloming around piles of junk. It stuns him when he realizes it’s their junk, fallen through the floor: their couch, scorched with heat; their holo-screen, spider webbing cracks on its face; their scant food supplies, scattered like confetti.
“C’mon!” Luce says, pulling him after them. What happened? his brain asks. He feels numb, confused, like he’s taken a nasty knock on the noggin. Did he hit his head during the fall? He can’t remember.
Shouts erupt from above, amidst the chatter of gunfire. He hears the tinkle of broken glass hitting the floor. Finally, his brain grows a…well, a brain. They’re after me, he realizes. I’m the Slip and they’re trying to catch me to…terminate me.
And his friends are caught in the middle.
She’s caught in the middle.
Still being pulled by Luce, he crashes into the side of the couch and stumbles, his mind whirling. Now he understands why Luce was so pissed off. He’s put them all in danger, including her brother, the only family she has left. If nothing else, he has to protect them.
His friends are already disappearing through a door, likely heading for the escape route they mapped out back when they first decided to live in this place. There’s a side stairwell that doesn’t exist on any building schematics, one that’s plugged directly into the Tunnels.
But if his friends are going that way, then Benson can’t, not when there are Crows—maybe Hunters, too—chasing him. Just as Luce charges through the door, he twists his arm hard to the side, wrenching himself free from her grip. She cries out, but her momentum carries her away.
He slams the door.
Moving fast, he ducks behind a pile of rubble just as two dark shapes swoop down from above. He’s trapped in the room with them. The Hunters will expect him to make a swift exit, not move further into the room. If he wants to keep them away from his friends, he’ll need to do the unexpected and draw them away. He moves deeper into the space, along the edge of the room, hiding behind piles of broken concrete and splintered floorboards.
