18% Gray

by Anne Tenino

  James was silent so long Matt wondered if he was going to have to explain it more clearly. But then James said, “Well, fuck me pink. They put the implant on my retinas?”

  “Seems like something got added in there, doesn’t it? Pink? Really?”

  “How does that not fuck up my eyesight?” James mused. Matt shrugged. It was getting near his special order check-in time. They had to find a secure place to stop for a while.

  “It doesn’t, and we have more immediate problems. I’ve been ordered to com again at 1030.”

  James raised an eyebrow, but started visual scouting. Soon, he pointed out an almost dry creek bed that led up to the bench formation north of the river. “We could probably follow that, stay out of sight, find a good, defensible position not too far from the river.”

  After they started up the narrow valley, James got nervous. He started falling behind, and holding his head funny. Still and cocked, like a dog sniffing the air or listening to some noise out of human hearing range.

  Matt stopped. “Okay, what is it, James?”

  “I think… they’re closing in on us pretty fast all at once. Coming up the river behind us. The echo is different. They seem kind of, I don’t know, satisfied, or gleeful. Expectant.” James looked a little spacey, like he was focused on something not quite there.

  Matt took his word for it. “So, whadya think?”

  “I think we should get up past that bend, let them pass us, then go back to the river and backtrack. Maybe. If I can determine their proximity.”

  Fuckity-fuck. He was working with a faulty psychic. Just when you thought you had the advantage. Judging from the sharp look James sent him, Matt guessed he’d let that sentiment leak out. He sighed, turned, and kept going.

  They were staying to rocky areas, trying not to leave a trail, when James stiffened.

  “What?” Matt felt James’s alarm instantly.

  “Listen.”

  He held his breath, ignored the heartbeat in his eardrums. Okay, insects buzzing, water running in the creek bed, and…, “Fuck!” His voice came out nearly a whisper.

  Dogs. Baying, hunting dogs. Hunting them?

  “Get in the water.”

  “They’ll know we went this way.”

  “Got a better idea?”

  “Fuck.”

  Soon they were slogging at a near run in the water, and Matt’s right quad was burning. It reminded him of why, even when his leg seemed mostly normal most of the time, he hadn’t been welcome to stay in Special Operations Unified Force, even in gray ops. It still just wasn’t quite right. It was good, even amazing compared to what vets got a century or even twenty-five years ago, but it wasn’t the same as the real thing.

  “Hold up here, Matt.” They had come around an oxbow in the creek. James grabbed his short-barreled shotgun from the holster he’d rigged onto his pack, and then shucked the pack into the water. He climbed out onto the bed and up the steep bank. James rolled onto the flat ground capping the bank, looking out over the downstream arm of the oxbow. “Shoot anything that comes around that corner.”

  “Want my pistol? I can handle the twelve-gauge.”

  “Don’t need accuracy,” James said, looking like a sniper to Matt. Well, one with a shotgun. James was lying still on the top of the bank, sighting the gun. Matt decided to shut up and let the man get to it.

  He wasn’t totally prepared when James pulled the trigger. Their pursuers were closer than he’d realized, and it happened far sooner than Matt expected. And damn that thing was loud. The yelping and screaming that followed was almost louder.

  James slithered back down and grabbed up his pack. “Run,” he said tersely. So they ran. Within three hundred meters, the creek valley began to widen, increasing the chances they’d be spotted. Matt made for the small farm he saw ahead to the south.

  “Find a vehicle, any kind.” James ordered. Matt used little caution approaching the outbuildings while James stayed crouched by the creek bed, looking back the way they’d come. His line of sight was truncated by a number of sharp bends.

  Matt found what had to be the oldest hybrid vehicle he’d ever seen in the small machine-shed nearest the farmhouse. It was an old-style pickup that had “Chevrolet” impressed on the tailgate. The thing had to be at least eighty years old. Or older. Chevrolet had finally gone under (for the last time) in about 2030. Jesus, he hoped James had a clue how to operate this thing. There was no time to look for another option. Whatever vehicles were normally parked on either side of the pickup were gone.

  He started back to tell James he’d found something, but remembered he could send him a mental message. Okay, this psychic thing was kinda handy. He flattened himself on the wall next to the shed opening and sent the info into the ether. Then he covered James—semi-crouched and ass-backward—up to the shed.

  “It must be good, whatever it is. You felt dubious,” James said as he came in, blinking rapidly to adjust his eyesight from outside to low light.

  Matt wondered what dubious felt like. “Yeah, it’s good. I hope you really can drive anything, ’cause this is way beyond me.”

  James whistled when he caught sight of the automobile. “It’s been a while, but I drove an early twenty-first-century pickup once. As long as I don’t have to hotwire it, I’m good.”

  Hotwire…?

  “We’re in business,” James said, peering in the window. “Get in the truck bed. I’ll give you my shotgun and you can cover us when we back out. You know how to use it?”

  “I used one once, so I guess I’m as reliable as you are with the driving thing.”

  “’K. It’s got grenade shells in it.”

  Holy shit. No wonder there hadn’t been any sign of their pursuers yet. “How in the hell did you get those? Shit, James, this tailgate is held on by flexies. Remember that when you’re navigating with me in the back of this thing.”

  James’s lips quirked as he threw their packs in the cab. “I’ll be careful. Traded a blow job for the shells.”

  Matt laughed shortly. His experience had been that some twisted sexual offers were made in the Red.

  James’s definition of “careful navigation” did not really square with Matt’s, at least not when he was the one sliding around in the back of a truck. He spent more time trying to stay in the thing than covering their asses.

  When he got settled again after sliding back (James violently stopped after lurching backward out of the shed), bouncing up and slamming down (hole in the packed dirt drive), and sliding into the cab wall violently (no idea how James managed that), he could just see guys coming out of the creek bed. He had an impression of four or five men, a dog and a bandaged arm before he fired a shell in their general direction. James spun out the tires in the powdered dirt next to the road, then gained traction and leapt onto the pavement.

  Matt hadn’t known that cars could leap, but he was now a believer.

  “Jesus. Fucking maniac.” He flopped out on the bed of the vehicle and watched the clouds race by overhead. He turned his head and watched the road race by through a rusted-out hole in the side of the pickup.

  Nice.

  Chapter 9

  MATT was almost two hours late checking in. Lance himself answered, his lips in a tight line.

  “You’re late.”

  “I was busy.” Matt rolled his eyes.

  Lance rolled his eyes back. “Any problems I need to know about?”

  Matt shrugged. “It was on the more exciting side of the close-call scale. Things are a little easier when your extractee is SOUF.”

  Lance’s mouth relaxed a little, and he even gave Matt a dry mini-smile. “Okay, we’re going with your gut on this, Matt. The retinal scans are inconclusive, but I had an interesting talk with Major General Selkirk. Sounds like there’s reason to justify the changes in Ayala’s scans.”

  “What about the original contract request?”

  “SOUFCOM is investigating. Whoever generated the request somehow obscured their chip ID, and
falsified the chip logs from both ArmySF SubCom and SOUFCOM. The report of Ayala’s being alive and just out of re-education supposedly originated with the Boulder Blue cell, but no one can substantiate that. I have more you need to know, but first, I need to know Ayala’s need-to-know.”

  “He’s psychic. Kind of. And it was engineered by SOUF. I think it’s just a Psi-force experiment.” Matt kept his voice down. James couldn’t easily overhear, but Matt wasn’t sure how comfortable he’d be with the info being shared. Not that Matt would be able to avoid telling James he’d shared it.

  “Made escaping a little easier.” Matt added when Lance just looked at him blankly.

  “I bet. I might have to bring Anais in on this, Matt. Although I’m not sure it makes a difference right now.”

  “We think it’s why his retinal scans were fucked up. They implanted some kind of sensory input organ in his head after he joined Psi-force.”

  Lance nodded slowly. “Okay. Here’s what you need to know: We’re seeing massive militia movements on the OR-ID border, especially around the Ontario, Payette, Weiser, and Hells Canyon crossing points.”

  “Someone leaked our routes.” Matt felt a cold chill sweep through his abdomen. Gah.

  “Not necessarily, Matt, although they shouldn’t know where you’re from, or where you’re going. Your ID may be leaked—the real or the forgery—and they chose the obvious routes. You’re going to have to make it up as you go, son.” Lance’s eyes were very grave. And worried.

  Good lord, his grandfather was calling him son. It had to be bad. “There’s more?”

  “Are you in the Emmett area?” Lance wouldn’t know, because they never reported an unsecured location in the Red unless it was an emergency. It was possible to triangulate his position from his signal, but hella hard to do in the amount of wave traffic around.

  Matt swallowed. “How did you know?”

  “Most RIA troop movement is heading into that area. Lots of private militia already there, but I can’t tell who. They aren’t trying to hide it, either—moving fast. They really want this guy. Your only open flank is to the north.”

  Great. The arid, rugged, mountainous flank. His leg gave a preemptive twinge. “And I bet it’s only open relative to the other flanks.” He really didn’t need an answer to that.

  “You’re certain about this Ayala?” Lance asked again. This time, he was just being Matt’s Grampa.

  “Yes.” Matt didn’t hesitate.

  Lance sighed. “One more thing. Ayala’s father was told James was MIA. This morning they sent someone to update him on Ayala’s status. His father knows about the re-education camp, now. I know he was in the closet in high school, so….”

  Matt winced. “I’ll talk to him. Thanks, Grampa.”

  “Check-in at your regular time tonight.” The screen went blank.

  Shit. He and James had to talk. Matt put his leg back together and trotted up to the dinosaur vehicle. “See anything?”

  “Lots,” James answered from under the truck. He didn’t elaborate, which Matt was okay with.

  “So, we need to talk.”

  “Give me the quick and dirty.”

  Matt let his mind go there, for just a split second. Sex under life-threatening conditions was always hot…. “Um, they believe you’re you.” Mostly. “But that’s the only good news. SOUFCOM’s investigating who knew you were still alive to issue the contract request and we’ve been ratted out to the RIA, who has apparently shared the info with every private militia and wannabe in the state. They seem to know where we are and where we’re headed. Apparently, you’re well-liked and no one wants to see you go.”

  “They find us together, they’ll string us both up from the nearest tree.” Probably not, actually. Probably they’d just string Matt up. James knew he was a high-value POW.

  “Not a lot of trees in Idaho, anymore,” Matt pointed out. James snorted. It was a new one. It sounded a little disgusted. Matt mentally filed it in his growing lexicon. Snorticon. Whatever.

  “There’s more. Your father was given your current status this morning, including the stint in re-education camp.”

  James gave Matt a blank look. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “James—”

  “Drop it, Matt. Let’s just deal with now. You can bail. They aren’t after you, right? Maybe you need to cover your own ass.”

  “I’m not leaving you here by yourself; it’s not in my job description.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “So am I. We don’t have time for this crap right now, James. We have to figure out how they know where we are.”

  “Those guys who stumbled into our camp last night are probably responsible.”

  “Yeah, but how’d they pick up the trail so fast on the river?”

  “Pretty obvious route.”

  “How did they find us in Emmett?”

  “Trailed us.”

  “You would have seen them, James.” Matt didn’t have any clue where in the hell this unwavering faith in James’s abilities came from. “To trail us, they had to keep us in sight at least occasionally. You would have picked up their intentions.” He’d started out talking out of his ass, but it made sense once he was finished.

  James was silent. Then he turned to look at Matt. “Lucky guess?” He sounded far less certain now.

  Matt didn’t think so. “’M gonna have to scan you for trackers, James.”

  James stared a second, nodded, and got off his belly, leaning against the side of the truck.

  Matt sat next to him. James gave a little shudder when he opened up his leg. “That’s just weird.”

  “Thanks.” Matt glared at him.

  “Sorry.” James reached out and patted his shoulder a little awkwardly. James’s touch left little tingling fingerprints on Matt’s shoulder blade.

  The recoder had bad news. “You have nano-trackers.”

  “You’re fucking kidding me! They would have had to inject them! When would they have done that?”

  “It had to be after we left Boise. The recoder would have picked up anything systemic when I did your leg chip.”

  “So, our nocturnal visitors. But I never let the fuckers near me. Even if you’d fallen asleep on watch—”

  “I didn’t fucking fall asleep.”

  “—I would have felt it if they even got near me. I’m not that out of practice. You don’t lose instincts like that in POW camp, or re-education. I even woke up when I swallowed that bug.”

  “Oh.” Matt looked at him in dawning comprehension.

  “Shit,” James muttered. “I didn’t swallow a bug, I swallowed a bug.”

  Matt checked further with the recoder. The nanos were infesting James’s digestive tract. They couldn’t procreate, but they didn’t die off, either. It would take days to eliminate them all.

  “We have to kill the fuckers.”

  “It’s not a virus,” James snapped.

  Matt only just kept himself from sticking out his tongue. “Sometimes they behave like them. Gramma Anais developed some nasty biotech nano-viruses in her day. She makes us each carry parasitic bio-nanos in case we get infected. That might kill ’em. They work better in the digestive tract than the bloodstream, anyway.”

  “How come QESA has parasitic nanos and the military doesn’t?”

  Matt shrugged. “Still experimental. She’s retired. She just does shit like this for fun. I’m dosing you with them.”

  “That woman has a fucking weird idea of fun.”

  “Yeah, no shit.” Matt pulled a titanium case out of an inner pocket of his pack then resealed it. He coded in Anais’s password. All her “creations” were password protected, and everyone kept the passwords secret on pain of death. She’d deliver on the threat too.

  James paled suddenly when Matt uncapped the hypo. “A needle? You have to stick a needle in me? There’s no spray version or something less… less….”

  “Penetrative?” Matt offered innocently.

  “Invasive.” Ja
mes substituted. “I hate needles.”

  “C’mon. You got an HIV vaccine, right? That’s by needle only.”

  “I was twelve. Dad had to…,” he mumbled the rest so quietly Matt couldn’t catch it.

  “Huh?”

  “He held me down,” James said in exasperation. And with some panic in his voice.

  Matt stopped messing around with him. “James. Chill. The dose is loaded into a needle, but you have to take it orally for this, anyway. Open up.”

  “Shit.” James glared then let Matt give him the nanos.

  They waited a few minutes. Then Matt started tracking progress with the recoder. “Your nano load is dropping.”

  “Good.” James still sounded a little pissed. They didn’t talk; Matt just occasionally swept him with the recoder. He slipped an arm around the back of James to check his kidneys.

  “James, you have blood on the back of your shirt, I think.” It wasn’t always easy to see on the black all-weathers, but Matt had seen enough blood to pick it up. “Take off your shirt and let me look.”

  “Is that a line?” James raised an eyebrow at him.

  Apparently he wasn’t annoyed anymore. Matt grinned. “No.”

  James whipped his shirt off over his head.

  Mmmmm. Nice, muscley chest. He may not have been working out regularly since being captured, but he got something done.

  Matt flicked his eyes over all the newly exposed skin, cataloging it quickly. James had lost some definition in his abs, maybe. It would be a stretch to say he had a six-pack, but he definitely had abs. His shoulders and pecs, though, they were defined and large, the kind of beefy, dense strong-man muscles that were the opposite of the wiry leanness Matt always managed. And the light-gold hair dusting between his nipples and down the center of his chest to his abdomen—and treasure trail, incidentally—was a nice touch. Matt got lost, visually tracing James’s clavicle, getting hung up where it disappeared into the deltoid.

  “Isn’t it on my back?” Matt jerked and pushed the recoder into James’s kidney. It made one of his pecs flinch. Matt turned away quickly to adjust himself, and put the recoder down.