The Way Out

by Armond Boudreaux

  She kissed his cheek and stood.

  “We’ve got to keep moving,” she said. “There’s a place ahead where I think we can hide. If I’m remembering it right.”

  They splashed on for a few minutes, neither of them saying anything. Instead, Val listened, waiting for the sound of pursuit, knowing that once they started a full-blown search, it wouldn’t take long to find them. Then she heard it. More Dragonflies in the distance, accompanied by what sounded like a helicopter. Police sirens. But no dogs, no drones. Not yet, thank God. She gripped Braden’s hand. Picked up the pace as much as she dared. They couldn’t outright break into a run because the creek bed was made up mostly of slippery rock.

  “It isn’t a bad memory,” she said finally. “That was the day we decided to get pregnant with you.”

  Braden didn’t reply.

  “He was resistant at first because he knew that once I started to show—”

  “‘Show’?”

  “Once I was visibly pregnant, I’d have to stay out of public. They’d have made me abort you if they’d known I was pregnant.”

  “Oh,” he said.

  They walked in the quiet of the woods for a while, listening only to the sounds of crickets, an occasional owl, and the sound of their own feet splashing in the water. On the day she and Kim had walked the creek, they had spotted a large plastic culvert jutting out of a hill that rose from the western bank. That’s where they would go for now. Val had no idea where they would go next, but the culvert would have to do for the moment.

  “What’s it like?” Braden said.

  “What?”

  “Being pregnant.”

  “Oh,” said Val, grateful from the distraction. No doubt Braden was trying to give her a distraction. “Well,” she said after a little thought, “I can’t think of anything to compare it to. It’s long and short at the same time. It’s exciting, but it’s also really uncomfortable. Painful a lot of the time.”

  Braden didn’t say anything for a few minutes. Even in the moonlight she could see his face and tell he had something to say but couldn’t put it into words.

  “I did it because every bit of the pain and discomfort was worth it,” Val said, guessing at what he was thinking. “Yes, an artificial womb is an easier way to have a child. It isn’t uncomfortable. It doesn’t hurt when the baby gets ‘born.’ There’s no huge mess of blood, no water suddenly pouring out of you when you’re sitting at dinner. But I still wanted to have you that way because the other way isn’t... human.”

  “You mean, those babies aren’t human?” said Braden. “The ones born artificially?”

  “No, that’s not what I mean,” said Val. “Yes, of course they’re human.”

  How did you tell something so important to a child? Saying it out loud almost cheapened it somehow.

  “Did you know I would be like this?”

  Val stopped and gripped his hand, pulling him to a stop beside her.

  “Did I know that you would be you?” she said. She tried to see into his eyes, but there were only shadows there.

  He nodded.

  “Of course I didn’t,” she said. “You don’t know ahead of time who your children will—”

  But he turned his head suddenly and looked away from her.

  Stop, Braden thought, projecting it into her head. Listen. Do you hear that?

  “What?” Val said. She realized just how hard she had been squeezing his hand. She let go. “What is it?”

  But now she heard it, too. A Dragonfly. Close.

  22

  In her panic, she hadn’t thought to grab her cell phone. But what would she have said to the police when she called? Hi, my name is Jesssica Brantley. You know, the reporter? Anyway, I’ve discovered a massive conspiracy to control global human reproduction and also eradicate what could be a new evolutionary change in the human species? By the way, I know this because I’ve been looking through classified government files. That were probably stolen. So if you could save me from the government thugs breaking into my apartment, that’d be great.

  She pressed her back against the building, pushing into the ledge with her bare feet. The gritty surface of the concrete threatened to rub her soles raw. Even though it was summer, the night breeze felt cool, and a shiver ran through her legs into her torso.

  A car drove by slowly on the street below. She could see the driver’s arm resting on the door as he cruised by her building and then turned onto Alabama Street. If he had looked up, he would have been able to see a woman with nice legs standing on the ledge of the tenth floor in her underwear and a T-shirt.

  When the noise of the car had gone, she strained to hear any sound from inside her apartment. Would the men search and then leave? Look through her cell phone? It was locked with both fingerprint and retinal scanners, but if they’d managed to break through her door security, why not her phone, too? Maybe they’d put a threatening note on her kitchen table or her bed.

  But what if they waited around for her to return home? She couldn’t stay out here forever. And there was no way off this ledge except through the building. Brick partitions separated her ledge from the apartments next to her.

  She leaned over and looked down toward the apartment one story below. Her head swam. It was a long way down to the next ledge, and there was nothing to use as a foothold. She sighed. Arrested for breaking into one of her neighbors’ apartments. That would do her a lot of good.

  What felt like five minutes passed. Ten. A few more cars drove by without stopping or slowing. A couple of cats fought in the park across the street. How long should she wait before she tried to go back in? That was the terrifying thought. She had no way of knowing whether or not the men were still inside until she went back through the window.

  Her heart pounding, she turned her head toward the window and leaned over, trying to peer inside through the sheer curtains. She could barely make out the shape of her bedroom door, but that was it. No faces looking out at her, no movement.

  She turned and faced the street again. This was getting ridiculous. They’re probably already gone, and you’re standing out here like an idiot, she thought. She tried to resolve herself to inching back over to the window and going inside, but her feet were planted like trees.

  That was when the window sash slid open.

  “Ms. Brantley?” said a hickish voice in what sounded like surprise. It startled her so much that one of her feet lost its grip and nearly slid off the ledge. She turned to face the man who had held up the badge to the door camera, and she realized she’d read him wrong. He looked about as dangerous as a Salvation Army bell ringer.

  “What in the world?” he said, his eyes wide. He sounded like Jessica’s distant cousins who lived in the Tennessee mountains. His eyes glanced up and down her body. Not the way most men did, but with the look of a man who couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “I’m sorry if I...”

  He glanced back into the apartment, and then he looked at Jessica again.

  “Did you come out here because of us?”

  “I...” said Jessica, feeling her face flush with embarrassment.

  The cop looked humiliated, shy even.

  “I’m...” he said. “I’m Detective Waller. They sent me over to talk to you about that threat you got online.”

  “I’m so sorry,” said Jessica. “Here, let me...”

  She inched toward the window, and Waller offered his hand. She took it. His grip was firm and dry, while her hand was cold and moist with sweat. Waller stepped back and gave her room to climb through. Her heart raced, but not from being outside on the ledge. This was wrong. Cops who had been sent to ask her questions wouldn’t show up at this hour, and they wouldn’t come into her apartment. Not without a search warrant or her permission.

  “I’m sorry,” Waller said, turning to look the other way as she climbed into the safety of the apartment. She shut the window sash behind her, glancing at the strap of the bag. It still hu
ng from the decorative cube.

  “We just wanted to ask you a few questions,” said Waller, who stepped away to give her room. The other man, the bald one, stood with his back to the wall between her bedroom door and the closet. This one had his hands in his pockets. His eyes darted to her legs and then back to her face.

  “Just let me put on some clothes,” she said, walking toward the closet. “Why would they send you out in the middle of the night?” All of her pants were in her dresser, but she didn’t want pants. She wanted her old softball bat, which stood in the corner of her closet behind the hanging clothes.

  “Oh, we just wanted to make sure you were safe,” said Waller. “That was a pretty serious threat you received earlier, and then with the incident at Artemis...”

  “Oh, right,” said Jessica. She opened the closet. The door swung out, blocking their view of her. She slid shirts to the side so she could see the bat. She put on what she thought of as her ditsy voice. “That was crazy, right?”

  Shit. Shit. This wasn’t right. No police department would have sent detectives to her apartment in the middle of the damn night to ask her questions about a death threat that she received on Agora, for crying out loud. Death threats online were part of a reporter’s job description.

  “Just give me a second while I cover up,” she said.

  “No problem,” said Waller.

  But if she were wrong... if she attacked two cops, or government agents, or whatever they were...

  “Who did you say you’re with?” she said. She moved some clothes in the closet, letting the hangers make as much noise as she could.

  “Atlanta PD,” said Waller. “What were you doing at Artemis today, Ms. Brantley? Covering a story? You’re a reporter, right?”

  She gripped the bat with both hands, her heart swelling up like a balloon. God, was there a way to do this that kept her alive and didn’t involve her killing or maiming these guys? She wasn’t sure she could actually swing the bat at a living, breathing person, even at risk of her own life. She closed her eyes tight. She could just imagine how Merida would respond to this kind of thinking: Kill those sunsabitches!

  “I’m an opinion journalist, yes,” she said, unable to stop her voice from quavering.

  Shit.

  “One of the doctors there sent you home with a device,” he said. He still spoke in the hickish accent, but now there was something else there, too. Accusation?

  Now or never, she thought.

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” she said. She turned toward the door.

  The first hit had to do the job. Square in the knees? Shins? If she didn’t disable the bald guy right away, this wouldn’t end well. It probably wasn’t going to end well, anyway.

  “Yes, you are,” Waller said. Now the hickish accent was completely gone.

  Go.

  She kicked the door as hard as she could so it swung against the wall, the knob striking the sheetrock with a loud thump.

  Knees?

  The bald agent reached under his coat.

  Gun. Oh, shit. Face.

  She swung the bat as hard as she could. In high school she’d played on the All-State team three times and could hit the hell out of a softball. She struck him right in the face with a sickening wet crack. He fell to his knees, but his hand still groped for the inside of his coat.

  shitshitshitshit

  She swung the bat again, striking the back of his head this time. Now he crumpled to the floor.

  Without hesitating she turned to swing at Waller, but his leg was already flying up in a wide arc. The blow struck her skull behind the ear and made her vision go black for a few seconds. She swung wildly with the bat, but another kick struck her on the other side of her head.

  “Stupid bitch,” growled Waller.

  A third kick struck her wrist, and the bat went flying. She tripped over something big, probably the bald man’s body, and went to her hands and knees. Dull pain radiated from her head down her spine into her lower back, and she couldn’t help groaning. But then Waller grabbed a handful of her hair and dragged her to her feet.

  “Where is the computer?” he said. He threw her face-down onto the bed. Before she could scramble away or scream, she felt his knee in her back and his hand clawing at her head. He pushed the side of her face against the bed and put his weight on the knee. She tried to wiggle free, but a sting in the side of her neck made her yelp in pain.

  A hypodermic needle.

  “This stuff acts fast,” he said. “And just a little bit will knock you out cold, so don’t think you can wiggle out of this. If you even look like you’re going to scream, I’m going to put you out. Okay?”

  He pushed the needle a little deeper into her neck. She let out an involuntary noise, sort of a half-squeal, half-groan. Tendrils of pain like plant roots reached from her neck all the way into her legs.

  “Say, ‘Yes, Agent Waller.’”

  Jessica ground her teeth. With shame, she thought about her dream of working in the more dangerous parts of Africa or Central America. Jessica Brantley, Daring Journalist.

  “Okay,” she said through her clenched teeth.

  “Say, ‘Okay, Agent Waller.’”

  The needle penetrated just a little deeper into her flesh—probably a millimeter or less, but it felt like he had stabbed her with an ice pick.

  She groaned again. “Agent... Waller...”

  “That’s better.”

  He pulled the needle back just a little.

  “Now look,” he said. “I know that woman gave you a laptop. We’ve been watching her and the other bitch and that stupid, bleeding-heart Hayden for months now. The computer had classified information on it. Just possessing it is illegal. But if you go ahead and give it to me now, I won’t have to use this on you.”

  “It’s under the mattress,” Jessica said. “I slid it... under the mattress before... before I climbed out there.” Her head still spun from the kicks.

  “Get up,” he said, lifting his knee from her back. He didn’t remove the needle, though. “Don’t move too fast. Lift up the mattress. Don’t put your hands under it.”

  Jessica stood, wincing as the needle dug into her, but she didn’t reach for the mattress. In her mind, she ran through several of the self-defense moves her sister had taught her. She could jerk her head away from the needle, elbow him in the gut, hit him in the groin and mouth with her knuckles, all followed by a back kick. But doing those moves with a teacher wasn’t the same as doing them with the tip of a needle jabbed right into your throat.

  “It’s...” she said. “It’s not under there.”

  The man breathed in through his teeth and let out a long, disappointed sigh. And then the blow came. He cracked her in the temple with the knuckles of his hand, and she staggered, dropping to one knee next to the bed. The needle came out. She tried to get him in the groin with her elbow, but her aim was off. The blow struck him uselessly in the hip.

  “Where is the fucking computer?” he said, dragging her onto the bed. Now she lay on her back, and he fell on top of her. She thrashed beneath him and beat against his chest, but she might as well have been hitting him with a pillow for all the good it did. “Where is it?”

  He put his left forearm on her chest and pressed his weight on it, pushing all the breath out of her. Jessica felt her face swelling. With his right hand, he jabbed her in the throat with the needle.

  “If you don’t tell me now, I’ll have to just put you to sleep and tear this place apart looking for it. And if you make me do that...” He put his face close to hers and kissed her on the tip of the nose. His left hand cupped her breast. “I might have to take something extra while you’re having a nap.”

  23

  The two of them ran now, the water splashing in wide fans ahead of them. The creek made their feet heavy and slow, and twice Val slipped down on the wet rocks that lined the stream bed.

  There’s a culvert ahead, she thought, s
aving her breath, knowing Braden would hear her. That’s where we go. We can hide inside it.

  The whining noise made by the Dragonfly’s lift engines came closer, but slowly. It wasn’t pursuing. It was searching. There was that, at least. But if they didn’t leave the creek soon, they’d be spotted. And simply hiding in the woods wouldn’t cut it. The Dragonfly’s drones would find them there and put them to sleep with sedative darts. She’d wake up in a prison cell and never see her son or her husband again.

  They rounded a curve, panting. Val’s chest burned, and her heart thumped.

  God, help us, she thought.

  The sound of the Dragonfly was louder now. Any second she expected to see a burst of white shine down on them and wind from the lift engines bathe them as the craft settled into a hover over their heads.

  But then she spotted it. A large black tube jutting out of the bank of the creek.

  “There it is!” shouted Braden.

  “Go!” said Val.

  They picked up their pace as much as they could and hurried to the opening. The black hole yawned at them, a steady trickle of water pouring from its mouth into the creek.

  Val unslung the backpack, took out a flashlight, and shone it into the culvert opening. The bottom was caked with mud, rocks, and bits of trash. But the passage was clear as far as her light would shine.

  “Climb in,” she said. “Spread your feet wide so you straddle the mud. Don’t leave any footprints.”

  Braden didn’t like cramped spaces, but he heaved himself into the culvert without hesitation.

  I don’t deserve him, Val thought, hoping he didn’t hear her. She glanced back upstream toward a curve in the creek and felt fear close its grip around her throat. White light pierced the darkness over the tops of the trees.

  “Go!” she said, sliding into the culvert behind Braden. “As far as you can!”

  About thirty yards in, the culvert made a forty-five degree turn up into the hill. A tangled mass of branches, trash, and mud had collected there.

  “Right here,” Val said. A few brown rats scattered from beneath the mass. Their wet coats glistened in the light of the flashlight. She had covered the light with her fingers so it shone only a pale pink glow. “That’ll be good cover for a few minutes.”