by Steve Rzasa
“He’ll what? Who is he?”
Sara kicked the back of Rome’s seat. That neck pain he anticipated flared up much sooner than expected. “You have to let me go.”
“I don’t have to do anything you say, Sara.” Rome switched lanes, cutting in front of a line of freighters. They braked with robotic precision. Three of the automated cargo carriers spread out in the center lane, giving Rome the safe distance to maneuver in the left. Their caution also gave Rome a screen of vehicles between himself and the three FTZ security cars a half-mile back. “You’re the wanted person.”
“So are you!”
“Yeah, and that’s why I’m taking you with us. I want answers.” Rome glared at her in the rear view. “Who’s your boss? The fourth member of your gang—the one operating that android decoy we put down.”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Can’t or won’t?” Aldo said.
“Can’t.” Sara wriggled in the safety harness holding her firm. If Rome had been thinking, he would have had Aldo bind her ankles together, too. “I never saw him.”
“How’s that work?”
“You expect me to just spill everything on them? To betray them?” She kicked again, this blow more vicious than the first, but Rome pulled himself forward at the last moment. “You killed Robert!”
It was Brand who’d gone nose-surfing down the road behind them. That left Cuellar driving. And the fourth. “The man tried to kill me. If you’re looking for me to get on my knees and beg your forgiveness, it isn’t happening.”
Sara sagged against the restraints. Tears welled up in the corners of her eyes. Her jaw could have been set in carbon fiber.
“You’ve got to help us. Someone’s framed me and Aldo, and the bounty on you…” Rome paused.
“It’s gone up. By triple.” Aldo frowned over a raft of data spinning by the map that floated in his holo display. Most of it was highlighted red. “Also, they’re… um… lifting safety restrictions on the methods used to bring us in.”
“Us?” Sara snorted. “We’re not together in this.”
“Far as FTZ is concerned, we are. And they’re willing to break their own rules to haul everyone in. Sara, I don’t know what kind of point you hoped to make with these thefts, but this isn’t a game anymore. You aren’t Robin Hood. That guy, your boss, he killed people.”
Sara stared out the window.
An approaching exit blinked on Aldo’s map. Rome waited until he caught up with the next batch of traffic just under a quarter mile from the exit ramp on the far side of the right lane. The FTZ Security Halcyons sped up the left lane, having circumvented the freighters. They were human driven—Rome could tell by their sloppy lane shifts and the way they drifted over the lane markers before jerking back onto course.
Amateurs.
He stomped on the accelerator and shot the Halcyon across two lanes.
“Easy easy easy!” Aldo held onto the sides of his seat.
Cars all around them either braked or accelerated to get out of the way of what their sensors classified as an illegal driver endangering the lives of their passengers or the value of their cargo. Either way, the gap gave Rome enough room—with mere feet to spare—for the Halcyon to slip through traffic and zip down the ramp.
The FTZ cars were a set of red and blue flashing lights that continued down the Ninety—at least, until they found a place to double back.
Rome smirked. Manipulating comp-controlled cars was one thing. Suckering a live driver? No wonder his heart pounded like a drum line.
“Hey.” Aldo tried to tug at his beard, but scowled when he remembered it was gone again.
“Yeah?”
“Who’s Rob and Hood?”
“Who’s—no, Robin Hood.”
“Yeah, him. Did you bust him for illegal driving back before I joined you?”
Rome just shook his head. He got them onto a state road headed south from Ashtabula and put the Halcyon into comp control. It settled on the road with a half dozen cars around. After the frenetic pace of the Ninety, it was soothing.
“Rome?” Sara’s voice was thick with emotion. Fear? Regret?
“Tell me what you know.”
“I can’t. I want to, but…”
“But nothing, Sara.” Rome disengaged his restraints and turned his seat. “These aren’t your friends.”
“What does that make you?”
“Not your enemy.”
“You don’t understand. If I tell you anything, they’ll—they said they’d hurt someone I care about.”
“Who?” He didn’t have time for this. People hunted him. Who knew how long his truce with Thad would last, or even if it had worked? And his family—the thought that he’d have to stay farther from them killed him.
“You, moron!” Sara folded her arms.
Rome stared at her. Whatever he expected, this wasn’t it. They’d parted friendly enough, but he’d assumed their relationship was done. No contact. Nothing.
“Awkward,” Aldo muttered.
“Sara…” Rome reached for her hands, still bound, and put them between his. “You don’t have to worry about me. Don’t let their threats frighten you. We need your help. Those people out there, the ones you’ve robbed and hurt—you can help them, too.”
She wouldn’t look them in the eye. She watched the trees and fields blur past.
“Uh, Rome?”
“Hang on, Aldo.”
“No, really. We need to talk.”
Rome blew out a breath. “Aldo? Not. Now.”
“Yes, now.”
Proximity alerts chimed. Rome spun around. Proximity? There weren’t any cars around, not near enough to trigger the warning.
Aldo cleared his throat. He enlarged one of his displays, and pointed at the roof.
Oh no…
The distinctive whine of a Condor’s engine vibrated through the car.
“I told you!” Aldo slashed through the holos, distorting all the imagery. “She tracked us down!”
“How?”
“Well it could be some complex search algorithm and her own dogged persistence—or, I don’t know, maybe our buddy Thad told her what we were driving!”
“But you switched the registration numbers again!”
“Shut up and drive!”
Rome switched to manual control and spun them down the nearest side road. The Halcyon dove into a wilderness area thick with trees, interrupted with ponds and pathways. A pair of does sprinted from their path the second before Rome would have rammed into them.
The Condor dropped down between the trees, wingtips snapping off branches. The turbofans lashed at the woods all around.
Rome hit the brakes, but even as he did, he knew it was too late.
A flash of light exploded around the front of the Halcyon. Aldo threw up his arms and cried out. His holos winked and died with the rest of the car’s displays. Every system shut down.
EMP.
Rome got out, the J20 in his hands. The Condor settled to the ground. Its hatch opened. Gabriela was out, striding across the road before leaves stopped swirling.
“Gabriela, listen.” He lowered the gun. No way he could shoot her. “We don’t have time for—”
She slapped him. The sting stunned Rome. Not the blow itself—he’d been punched worse—but never by Gabriela.
“I can’t believe you ran, you idiot.” She bit her lip. Then she hugged him.
Rome hugged her back, his cheek still stinging.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“The head of our group goes by the name ‘Reno.’”
They were gathered in the cockpit of the Condor, soaring out over the Great Lakes. Gabriela had demanded a destination but Rome didn’t have one for her, not yet. Instead, she plotted a loop among the clouds, keeping clear of the regular commercial flight routes.
Sara sat in one of the extra seats. Aldo was at his usual perch, feet up on the console. Every bounce of his shoes sent tremors through the raft of holographic di
splays that surrounded him like a set of sunroom windows.
Rome leaned against the bulkhead behind Gabriela’s seat. “Reno.”
“Like the city?” Aldo asked.
“I’m assuming it’s after the first successful train robbery gang,” Sara said.
Aldo made a face. “Pretentious.”
“Start running a search for anyone using that alias, or anyone who has it as part of his or her real name.”
Aldo jiggled a foot. A long list warped around it. “Duh. What’d you think I was doing?”
“Sitting on your ass and screwing around, per usual.”
“Okay, see, that’s just hurtful.”
Sara rolled her eyes. “I can’t tell you if that is his real name, or her real name, or even what Reno’s face looks like, because I’ve never seen him. Or her. All of our contact is on the Net—or through drone android proxy.”
Aldo mimed shooting with his thumb and forefinger. “Don’t suppose this Reno goes in for facial reproduction. You know, a drone that looks like him. Her. Whatever.”
“No. Why would he do that?”
It was Rome’s turn to frown. “That’d be stupid.”
“Hey, I didn’t know! Criminal masterminds make mistakes. Don’t they?”
“Not many. Hence the ‘mastermind’ part.” Rome ran his hand over his scalp. “Where’s the new base of operations? I assume FTZ is still watching the business center.”
“They are. Completely shut down. Fortunately—well, for us at the time—the truck was off-site. Only Reno knows the new location. He sent a command for it to drive to him. He said it was for upgrade purposes.”
“When was that?”
“Less than 18 hours before you two showed up.”
“That’s convenient.”
“I wondered about it… before we were questioned… and during. But I knew Reno would come back for us. We’re a team.” She slumped her shoulders. “We were.”
“Not much of a team when the boss leaves you stranded.”
Rome glowered at Aldo.
“What? I’m just saying.”
“What’ve you got on the search?”
“Big fat nothing so far.” Aldo reached into the display, and pulled apart two screens of text and images that spun by at an alarming rate. He drew out a single long column of blue wording. “There’s a ton of Reno out there—never mind narrowing the search to exclude historical people and place names. I’m scrubbing for Net chat, but if this boss of theirs is any good, he—or she—is going to watch their words. Employ a bot-writer to mix up phrases and figures of speech so that when Reno talks online, it doesn’t sound like the talk he’d actually use in person.”
“Right. We can’t identify he or she based on what his or her public profile goes by.”
“Also, I vote we call Reno ‘he’ unless proven otherwise. This gender bender is killing my brain.”
“Agreed. The immediate problem is finding the truck again.”
“That would be no problem, actually. Still got their signal marked, remember? Next time they try to take over another car’s system, we got them.”
“Yeah, except if they don’t and go into hiding instead…”
“Oh. Right.” Aldo rummaged in his pocket. The fruit bar that emerged was blood red and half eaten. He crammed the remainder into his mouth. “Mmph. Lemme work on that.”
“Just because I’m glad to see you doesn’t mean I’m going to let you make a mess out of my lander.” Gabriela swatted at his shoulder. “Clean up.”
“Yeesh! Picky.” Aldo swept up as many crumbs as he could. He glanced about for a refuse port until Gabriela gave him a disposable bag. He dumped the crumbs. She tucked the bag into the port by the hatch leaving from the cockpit. The smell of burning biodegradables wafted out.
“I don’t understand. Finding the truck won’t find you Reno. It will lead us to Jorge, but…” Sara shrugged. “The truck is untraceable. That’s the point of a stealth vehicle.”
“Not entirely untraceable, as Aldo demonstrated.” Rome drummed his fingers on his arm. “But that wasn’t what I meant. We know from where it was stolen, and we know its theft was kept off searchable records at Bacevich. Which means either security was taken offline for its removal—”
“Or that data was partitioned away where Bacevich personnel couldn’t get to it,” Aldo said. “Either way, intentionally hidden.”
“Right. Who could do that?”
“Tech like me.”
“The base CO would have top authority,” Gabriela noted. “And some of the guys I served with had both the know-how and access to keep watch on the data. Saves on personnel needed to operate the base.”
“Okay then. We need to go there.”
“To… where? I need a more specific course than ‘there,’ Rome.”
“The base. We have to get the data ourselves to prove personnel were involved with the theft, and hopefully find something more that leads us to Reno.”
“A military base.” Aldo stared at him. “You want to break in. During… daylight?”
“We don’t have a lot of options for time.” Selfish as it was, he could see in his mind’s eye a clock ticking down the hours until Vivian’s concert. Having Gabriela on hand made for much swifter transport—and much more clandestine. She kept the Halcyon off the roads. Once FTZ got wind of her unauthorized activities, that window would close. Had to be narrow enough now. “Aldo will feed you the coordinates, Gabriela. If this is going to be a problem for you…”
“As far as FTZ knows, I’m transporting Thad to his next patrol, on the hunt for you.” Gabriela smiled. “What’s funny is the difficulty I’ve been having with my transponder. You know, the one the Condor uses to mark the registration of every vehicle I take back and forth so that FTZ can bill the contractors for transit costs. Just one of those problems I can’t seem to fix on my own, and the bot crawlers can’t deal with a comp error. It has to wait until I get back to FTZ West headquarters.”
Aldo blinked.
“Atta girl.” Rome squeezed Gabriela’s shoulder and smiled.
“I still can’t believe you shot me down.”
“Hey, in all fairness, you shot at us first.”
“Like three times!” Aldo insisted.
Gabriela shook her head. “The last time was after you guys made me crash.”
“Listen up,” Rome said. “We’ve got another problem.”
“Bigger than having FTZ hunting you and trying to break into military base?”
“Yes. It’s the car.”
“What about—oh.” Aldo polished off his bar.
“Yeah, ‘oh.’ Without Marcy to run through the protocols, I can’t generate a new set of false registration numbers. Can’t do a re-color, either. If I tried it by hand, it could be… bad.”
“How bad?” Sara asked.
“Bad as in, the core could go into permanent shutdown, or the comp—the bits left over that weren’t part of Marcy’s operating system—could fry.”
“Madre dios,” Gabriela said. “There’s got to be someone else who can help you.”
“Well…” Aldo rubbed the back of his neck.
“No,” Rome said.
“Come on, man.”
“She’s a criminal.”
Sara cleared her throat.
“Not you,” Rome said. “This is different.”
“Yeah, okay, but Rome, it’s our only option. Can’t deny she’s amazing at her job. We’d be in and out of her shop—” Aldo snapped his fingers.
Rome sighed. Knee-jerk reaction aside, he knew Aldo had a point. Unless they did something drastic, they weren’t going to get into that base. Their proof of collusion between this Reno and the base commander—or whomever had helped him steal the truck—hinged on it. “We’d be adding another illegal action onto our record, you know.”
Aldo shrugged. “You shot at a contracted pursuit driver. Twice.”
“And downed one of FTZ’s aircraft,” Gabriela said. “Don’t for
get.”
“Yeah, thanks, Gabby,” Aldo muttered.
“This is going to take hours away from us,” Rome said.
“Yeah, I know, but I still say going in daylight is stupid.”
“I’m going to agree with your partner here.” Sara’s tone was even and quiet. “Night gives us a lot of advantages.”
Rome frowned.
“Not that I’m taking sides, but it makes thing easier for me, too, if I have darkness as a cover,” Gabriela pointed out. “Since I assume we’re going to sneak out. Or at the very least, need a fast escape and avoid pursuit.”
“We can go at night. But as for Jocelyn…”
“There’s no other way, Rome.”
Rome ground his teeth. This was not going to be pleasant. “Fine. Give Gabriela the coordinates for the shop.”
Aldo grinned. He swiped through screens on his implant. A flash of light from Gabriela’s console drew her attention back. “Done and done.”
“Shouldn’t take us long to get there,” Gabriela said. “Two hours, tops. What is it?”
“A mod shop,” Rome said.
“Oh. You know the lady who runs it?”
“Lady is a stretch. And yes. We brought her in. Three times.”
“You’re saying she won’t be looking forward to our arrival.” The pitch of the Condor’s engines rose as Gabriela steered it onto the new course.
“We’ll be lucky if she doesn’t run us over,” Rome muttered.
~
Gabriela dropped them deep in the Appalachians, far from the major FTZ routes, on back roads that were pockmarked with grass. Whether they were in West Virginia or Kentucky, Rome didn’t much care. Sure, the scenery was beautiful if he looked where the pines still swathed the mountains in green. He just had to ignore the dull brown tops shorn of forest and sloughed off for the mines, and the patches scorched black by the spring fire season. A pall of smoke hung heavy in the valleys through which he drove.
“I sent another signal.” Aldo glanced up and down from his displays. Then again. “Okay. Nothing back yet.”
“Aldo.”
“Yeah?”
“Hold still or I will punch you.”
“Hey, excuse me, but the last time we saw Jocelyn she said she’d skin us both and dump us in an acid reservoir. Remember? After we busted her for illegal driving along the Eighty cargo routes.”
