by David Estes
Because seeing them together is so right.
But seeing her husband with two guns, one in each hand, isn’t right. Not at all. Especially when he’s adding to the noise.
His guns explode and the man he’s shooting at—who she instantly recognizes as Corrigan Mars; a man she’s never liked but who they had dinner with many times before Harrison and Benson were born—dives out of the way.
Michael crouches down, his weapons aimed forward, waiting. WinWinWinWinWinWin, she thinks.
“Win!” she screams.
Michael doesn’t fully turn back, but his head twists enough that she can see his handsome profile and the half-smile he offers.
And in that half-moment of silence, she realizes that despite everything, despite the mistakes he made and the hell he put her through, she never, not for one second, stopped loving him.
That’s when three more people pour from the lifter, firing haphazard shots down the hallway.
~~~
Despite the hundreds of times he’s cursed his father’s name, Harrison Kelly doesn’t want him to die.
“Father!” he screams, his shout muffled by the thunder of his father’s gunfire.
~~~
Janice is shouting something. His brother is shouting something. And, Benson just now realizes, he’s shouting something, too. Bullets are whizzing past them, skipping off the walls and floor, and their entire family is screaming at his father, who’s firing down the hallway, outnumbered four to one.
When his opponents duck for cover, he looks back and yells, “RUN!” waving them away.
His legs are like lead, too heavy to lift. Luce is pulling at his arm, screaming at him to “Go go go go!” but he can’t seem to take even a single step.
But then Harrison stops screaming at their father and starts pushing at Janice, forcing her into Benson, whose feet come alive. He knocks into Luce, who’s got the door to the roof cracked open.
He starts to fall through the door, twisting his head to catch a final glimpse of his father, who’s returned to shooting down the hall, one of his attacker’s falling, spots of blood blooming like red roses across her chest. His father’s body jerks, like he’s been punched in the shoulder, and one of his guns clatters to the floor.
And in that moment, his father’s dark shirt tugs free of where it’s tucked into his dark trousers, and a gap appears. And in that gap he sees only red.
Red underwear. Even now, after all these years, his father refused to fully conform to the system.
“No!” Benson screams, but he’s already being pushed/pulled out of the corridor and into the stairwell. “Father!” he screams. “God, Father! God, no, no, no. Please, God. Please.” Strong arms, Luce’s and Harrison’s, are half-carrying him up the stairs.
The heavy fire door closes, transforming the sharp gunshots into muted pops.
Bright daylight shatters his eyes as they spill onto the roof, which is half-shaded with cloud cover.
He feels hot tears on his cheeks, burning streams of fire. Can’t move. Can’t think. Numb. So numb. So broken.
And then Harrison’s face is there, right in front of him, so close. “Don’t let all his sacrifices go to waste, Benson. Please. We have to go.”
Benson knows he’s right, so he staggers after Janice and Luce, who are already halfway across the roof, headed for the far edge. There’s nowhere to go from here.
Nowhere.
But then he sees his mother stop and pick something up off the ground, long and thin. Like a plank.
A hoverboard.
Grinning, she turns back to him and says, “Let your brother teach you how to fly.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The look Harrison gave him before he pushed his stunned family through the door was all Michael Kelly needed.
It was forgiveness. It was I love you, despite everything. It was a vow to protect his brother and mother.
His left arm’s on fire, slick with blood, but with six dead people—one his own, five his enemy—piled up in front of him, he’s still in the fight.
“You’re finished, Kelly,” Corrigan’s voice bellows from somewhere out of sight.
He knows it. His once-friend was always a better shooter than him, and he’s not injured. But seconds could make a difference in saving his family’s lives, and he’s determined to give them as many of them as he can.
“Disgruntled much?” Michael says through gritted teeth. He’s starting to feel lightheaded from the blood loss, his gun-wielding hand shaking. “You were always a sore loser.”
“Loser?” Corrigan says. “I’m not sure you understand the rules of the game we’re playing. It’s life and death, old friend. That’s all that matters.”
“The Slip is alive,” he says. “So I win.”
“I have to hand it to you,” Corrigan says, “you fooled me along with the rest of them. Your record, the way you slaughtered UnBees with such conviction…I never would’ve guessed you were a traitor to your own country.”
Traitor. As loathe as he is to admit it, the insult cuts deeper than he’d like. Is doing everything in one’s power to protect one’s family traitorous if it goes against the laws of one’s country?
“The Slip is innocent,” he says. “He’s done nothing wrong except be born.”
“Sometimes that’s enough,” Corrigan says.
And then he’s there, so fast that Michael can barely react, can barely remember to pull the trigger, which click click clicks, signaling it’s out of bullets.
Corrigan smiles before he pulls the trigger.
The blast goes just high as Michael ducks, throwing his gun down the hall and backpedalling as quickly as he can.
Seconds. He has to give them as many seconds as he can.
Corrigan laughs, striding forward even as Michael trips over his own feet, which tremble beneath him.
Seconds. One two three four. He counts them off with the beats of his heart. Two beats equal one second.
Corrigan fires and Michael doesn’t have the energy to dodge the shot. Heat burns through his thigh, bursting from his nerves like a volcanic eruption. He writhes on the floor, unable to control the spasms rolling through him like waves.
His longtime rival could’ve killed him if he wanted to. He’s taking his time.
Good. More seconds. Ten eleven twelve thirteen.
Corrigan Mars stands over him, his gun aimed at Michael’s head.
He closes his eyes and sees his life:
His twin babies being born, so beautiful, so perfect. The doctor providing a legal birth certificate to Harrison. His wife’s smile, so big. Him separating the two, taking the boy with no name back to the house they’d purchased under a false identity. His wife’s tears as he left her.
The years of fear and unhappiness and loneliness and anger and frustration and death. Always so much death, surrounding him like a cold fog, threatening to suffocate him.
The plan coming together in his mind. Hope for his whole family, built on lies to his wife, to both his sons. Lies spoken, and lies of omission.
Benson gone, cast off like a baby bird pushed from the nest. The confused look on his son’s face as he treaded water. The way Michael had locked his jaw and gritted his teeth and forced anger to his face, when inside he was shattered glass.
He hadn’t had to fake the tears for his wife. Benson wasn’t dead, but he might as well have been dead to him.
Watching Janice slowly become unhinged. Rushing her to the hospital when he found her lying in her own vomit, which was speckled with half-digested pills. Taking her to the asylum for her own protection. Lying to himself and saying it was all going to be okay.
Hating Harrison each and every day for being the one who got a normal life, while his other son got nothing.
Realizing it wasn’t Harrison he hated, but himself.
The dark, dark memories pass through his mind in an instant, and when he opens his eyes to look down the gun barrel, it’s on his own terms.
“Take a life to
give one,” he says, thinking of both his family and the Death Match notice he’d received. At least his death will allow another family to have a child—an authorized one.
“I won’t rest until they’re all dead,” Corrigan Mars says.
Then he pulls the trigger.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“Can you ride one?” Harrison asks, handing the hoverboard to Benson.
“I’ve never tried,” he says. He doesn’t take the board.
Luce says, “It’s been a long time, but I can ride.”
“Okay. You and Benson first. You don’t have the right shoes, so you’ll have to be careful not to fall off. Get to the next roof over and leave the board. It’ll find its way back to me. Look for a place to hide and wait for us.”
“No,” Benson says. “Luce and Janice first. Nonnegotiable.”
“Big. Bird,” Janice says.
“Dammit! We don’t have time for this,” Harrison says.
“Luce, take Janice,” Benson says, pushing the board toward her.
“Big. Bird,” Janice says again, more insistently.
“I’m not leaving you,” Luce says. “I know what you’re doing. You’re playing hero to protect us. Either we all go at the same time, or none of us go.”
“Listen, you idiots,” Harrison says, “the board won’t hold all of our weight. Now someone go before I push you all off the freaking roof myself!”
“BIG! BIRD!” Janice shouts, pointing skyward.
Finally, Benson turns to her, following her finger to where it’s aimed at a dark shadow overhead, approaching them.
A Hawk.
“Crap!” Harrison shouts. “Change of plans. We’re all going at the same time. Get on the board.” He drops the sleek board to the ground and steps onto the center. Janice follows, hugging him tightly around the waist, like she’s done it a million times. Luce follows, on the other side.
Benson doesn’t move. “Wait,” he says. The Hawk is no more than fifteen-hundred meters away, he estimates.
“We don’t have time for this, bro!” Harrison says.
Benson ignores him, focused intently on the Hawk, thinking hard. The drone’s weapons are deadly accurate from at least twice that distance. And it’s coming in at a strange angle, forty-five degrees perhaps, like its aim is to land on the roof, rather than fly over like he would expect.
Weird.
The hoverboard lifts off the roof, wobbling slightly under the weight of three riders. Harrison tries to grab Benson’s arm and pull him aboard, but he dodges away, still thinking.
And anyway, the com network is down; how would the Hawk know to head straight for the roof of the Pop Con building?
There’s a heavy clang as the roof door bursts open. Benson whirls around to see Corrigan Mars stalking toward him. His gun is drawn but pointed at the ground. There’s blood spattered on his face, but Benson knows it’s not his.
He chokes out a breath, his father’s face flashing in his mind.
Corrigan Mars raises the gun and points it at Benson.
Automatic weapons fire chirps from above, plowing a path of sparks across the roof toward Corrigan, who ducks back inside the door, blocking the bullets, which chatter off the thick metal.
The Hawk. Does his father have other allies willing to take out Corrigan Mars ahead of a wanted fugitive?
“Ooh,” Janice says, as the drone swoops in, hovering directly overhead. A woman wearing thick plastic goggles mans a huge gun, presumably the one that sprayed the roof and saved Benson’s life.
A rope ladder drops from an open door, and a familiar face pokes out, sending a hollow thrill through Benson. Impossible, and yet…
It’s Check, throwing him a toothy grin. “You guys miss me?” he shouts. “Get in!” His face changes from grinning to frowning in an instant, as he sees Harrison and Benson together. “What the hell?”
Benson doesn’t have time to explain. He also doesn’t know how or why his best friend is in a Hawk, but he couldn’t care less, his intellectual curiosity thrust aside as he grabs the end of the rope ladder and shoves it to Janice. “Climb,” he says.
“Big bird?” she says, one eyebrow raised.
“Big bird,” he says.
“Benson, I don’t know if this is such a good id—” Harrison starts to say, grabbing her arm.
“It’s okay,” Benson says. “Trust me—I know him.”
Harrison hesitates, but then releases her. She looks up, the hugest smile ever on her face, and starts to climb. “Make sure she doesn’t fall,” Benson says to Harrison, who starts up next.
“Ladies first,” Benson says to Luce.
“And they say chivalry is dead,” she says, grabbing the end of the ladder, which is swaying under the weight of the first two climbers. She clambers up, shouting a question about her brother to Check, who confirms he’s okay. Temporarily relieved, Benson looks back at the door. It starts to open, but sparks fly immediately as the gunner unleashes another barrage of cover fire. The door slams.
Benson climbs the ladder, which bucks and sways and gets stuck around his feet. But the challenge of getting to the top is nothing compared to what he’s faced in his life. He watches as first Janice, then Harrison, then Luce all scramble into the door of the drone, disappearing inside.
Check sticks his head out again. “Benson?” he says.
“It’s me, Check,” Benson says, grabbing his friend’s outstretched hand. Check uses his other hand to grip him under the arm and pull him into the Hawk. Benson doesn’t know what to say, heavy emotion welling in his chest and head.
He hugs his best friend, feeling tears tugging at the corners of his eyes. He blinks them away quickly so he won’t have to hear about it for years to come.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” Check says.
“You, too,” Benson says.
Check lowers his voice to a whisper. “When did you get cloned?” he says, motioning to Harrison.
“He’s my brother. It’s a long story.”
They pull apart and watch Geoffrey, Gonzo, and Rod hugging Luce while Harrison looks on awkwardly. Janice’s face is smashed against a thick glass window, where she’s gazing at the clouds whipping around them as they soar across the sky.
“Ooh,” she says, and Benson laughs.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Benson’s still in shock.
They’re in some sort of a bunker, deep underground he suspects—based on how long it took for the lifter to reach their destination after the Hawk dropped them off in the middle of the junkyard.
In a cold, dimly lit metal-walled room, they sit on the floor in a circle. On one side is Luce, whose knee occasionally rubs up against Benson’s, and he has to constantly remind himself not to reach out and touch it with his hand. Because Check is on his other side, and he doesn’t know about them yet. The right time to tell him—that’s what Benson needs. But what are they really? A few times holding hands, a kiss on the cheek, and an exceptionally long fake kiss? Does any of that really count?
Completing the circle are Gonzo, Rod, Geoffrey, and Harrison, who sits directly across from Benson, which is so freaking crazy. Benson tries not to look at him, but his gaze seems to constantly drift to his twin brother, almost by some subconscious instinct.
Janice sits alone in the corner, occasionally mumbling incoherent words under her breath. As hard as Benson tries not to look at Harrison, he tries even harder not to look at the distraught and changed woman who raised him. The woman who was always his mother.
Check has been explaining everything for the last hour, in his usual, animated way. For once, the story seems to go perfectly with his friend’s level of enthusiasm. After they were separated, Check, Gonzo, Rod and Geoffrey used the Tunnels to get as far away from the city as possible, well outside of what they expected would be the search grid.
To Benson’s complete surprise, it was Gonzo’s idea to try to find the Lifers. The anti-Pop-Con group responsible for a multitude of bombings over the la
st few years was almost impossible to locate. But eventually they managed, using a friend of a friend of a friend through a network of Rod and Gonzo’s trusted Jumper connections. First they made contact with someone on the fringe of the Lifer network. That led to a meeting, which led to another meeting, until their story combined with the news coverage forced the Lifer leader to take them seriously. They met with the Lifer leader, who agreed to help them find Benson and Luce.
To Benson, the way his friends managed to join the Lifers seems impossibly fast, but according to Check it all came down to them having “true-blue Jumpers with connections.” Apparently having illegals on your side is the quickest way to prove to the Lifers that you’re anti-government. If it wasn’t for Rod and Gonzo, Benson realizes, he, Luce, Janice, and Harrison might all be dead. He’ll have to thank the crazy duo later.
As Check takes them through the story, Benson tries to ignore the shadowy men and women scuttling in and out of the room. Who are these people and how in the hell could they possibly have access to a Hawk drone?
When Check reaches the part about the Lifers receiving a com that something big might be going down in the Pop Con building, Harrison interrupts him. “Wait. How did you get a com? Everything was down.”
Check smiles. “Nice trick,” he says. “The Lifers loved that, by the way. They’d been saving those viruses for a rainy day, but you managed to convince Wire to set them loose. And I’m damn glad you did.”
“Wire?” Harrison’s brow wrinkles in confusion, the same way Benson’s does when he’s trying to work something out in his head. Benson still can’t stop looking at his twin brother. Weirdest. Thing. Ever. “How do you know about him?” Benson’s brother asks.
“Who do you think sent the com to the Lifers? Wire isn’t exactly a full-fledged member yet, but the Lifers pay him to carry out various tech-related activities.”
Harrison shakes his head, his eyebrows raised. “I’ll be damned,” he says.
When the briefing is over, the Lifers who have been observing them exit the room and Benson can feel a palpable difference in the air, like the tension has left the room with them. While Luce breaks off to catch up with Gonzo, Rod and her brother, Harrison drifts to the corner where Janice is sitting by herself, poking the hard wall every few minutes.
