by Steve Rzasa
She covered the microphone. “I can’t stall forever. We’re coming up on populated areas of Massachusetts. I have to land.”
“I know. But I’ve got a place for you to land.”
Aldo twisted his wrist so she could see the hologram.
Gabriela’s eyes widened. She let her hand drop away from the microphone. “Standby, Four Seven. I am preparing to land.”
“I’m sorry, Gabby.” Aldo patted her arm awkwardly as if he would break her.
“I know.” Her smile was winsome. “But you three had better go strap into the Halcyon.”
Aldo paled. “Aw, man. Not again.”
~
Rome couldn’t see anything except the drab bulkhead through the windshield of the Halcyon. It didn’t stop him from experiencing the twists and turns of Gabriela’s evasion. Everything lurched. Rome’s inner ear protested, as did his stomach. For a second, he had no idea if he was level or if the Condor was inverted.
Aldo stared directly into the displays that emanated from his comm panel. “Okay. Okay, we’re good.”
“I know.”
“Not talking to you.”
Rome’s stomach felt like it dropped out from inside him. Sara yelped from her seat behind Rome and Aldo. She was secured in a web of straps—as were they—with her eyes squeezed shut.
Gabriela’s voiced buzzed from the dash. “I’ve got a nice place to set you down that ought to provide decent cover. I’ll find a way to get to you guys, either when I lose these rookies or by hiking on foot. Godspeed.”
“You’re the best, Gabriela.”
The floor underneath the Halcyon rumbled open. Sunlight poured in. Rome glimpsed treetops at an alarming proximity to the underside of the Condor.
A strip of paving flew into view.
The grapples overhead released. For a moment, Rome and his passengers were suspended in midair. Blue skies and white clouds were on the horizon until legions of pines crowded their field of vision. Condor 33 shot ahead and banked crazily up into a pair of thick white clouds. Two more Condors, identical save for the large “47” and “46” painted on their tails, stayed in pursuit, though with movements far less graceful and speeds that slowed too much as they tried to match Gabriela’s maneuvering.
The Halcyon was below the tree line. Rome slapped the controls to modulate the inflation of all four tires. They hit the road with such a blow he was convinced they tore the chassis apart, but he kept his grip on the steering controls and fought against the car’s swerving as the back end skidded. The tires squealed.
Finally, their path straightened out. The speedometer clocked them at 75 miles per hour.
Rome sagged in his seat. “Piece of cake.”
“Incoming!” Aldo pointed.
Four cars raced toward them from the wrong direction, filling both lines of traffic on what Rome noticed was a narrow road.
Gabriela dropped them on a one-way street? In the middle of a forest?
He had no more time to contemplate the screw-up.
He loosened his grip on the steering column. If they were going to survive the next few seconds, he had to take it on some faith.
Rome dodged left, letting a bright red car as sleek as a fighter plane rush by. An immediate jog right breezed past a yellow truck more suited to hauling cargo. He didn’t bother checking the clearance Aldo’s comp panel flashed—he didn’t want know if the distance was measured in feet or was better noted in inches.
Two more vehicles. One was a Halcyon painted hideous neon green with bold pink stripes. The other was a 40-year-old Andromeda, a discontinued model from the defunct Nissan motor company. Rome cataloged, even as both cars raced up at top speed.
He eyeballed the distance between them. Wide enough? “Aldo, cut the safeties on the coolant.”
“What? Why?”
“Do it!”
Aldo flicked the proper command. Red lights outlined the windshield.
“Rome!” Sara cried.
Rome toggled the left side pressure until the little bar displayed on the dash pulsed white at a towering column of scarlet.
They were so close to the onrushing cars Rome saw panicked expressions on the faces of both drivers… and one of them looked like a skinnier version of Roman Jasko.
A sound like a thunderclap boomed from the left side of the Halcyon. Rome hung onto the controls as the car jerked up, left wheels leaving the road. They bounced the top of the pink-striped Halcyon, squealing along the roof.
The whole car slammed back down onto the road as it left the makeshift ramp. White gases sprayed all along Rome’s side of the car, lapping onto the windshield. He put the Halcyon into a sharp left turn, skidding across the lane and onto the shoulder of the road. The off-road tires engaged, stopping them near enough to a line of trees that Rome swore he heard the fenders scrape bark.
All four cars braked ahead.
“Man-o-man!” Aldo whooped. He pounded both hands on the dash and then punched Rome in the shoulder. He grinned like a maniac. “That was insane! Nobody, not even Thad is going to believe it!”
“You almost got us killed!” Sara struggled free of her straps. “What did you do to the car?”
“Over-pressured one of our two coolant lines.” The white gases petered out into a tepid wisp. “It’s fixable—probably even while we drive—if the self-sealant wasn’t damaged. But I knew it would give us enough lift.”
The silver and green Andromeda pulled near to them—driving backwards. Not too shabby.
The driver, though, was more shocking than the maneuvering. “Dad?”
“Jake?” Rome rubbed his face. Thick whiskers scratched his hand. “What on earth are you doing here?”
“Me? Doing here?” Jake Jasko was the same height as his father, though all gangly limbs and ropy muscle. His hair was the same black as Rome’s was before he’d shaved it, and worn far longer with intricate designs cut into the sides. Hazel’s eyes were wide with astonishment. “Dad, you’re on our track.”
“You’re not making sense.”
“Ah, Rome…” Aldo enlarged his holo display. “Found us.”
Rome stared at the interweaved loops of roads covering eight miles between the tiny hamlets of Windsor and Peru in western Massachusetts. Gabriela had dumped them on the Mass Hike—Atlantic Driver Course Experience, one of a handful of sanctioned motor parks where civilians could gain temporary registration. You paid a fee, and drove for minutes, hours, or days. The pass was good only for the property. Once you left the boundaries, driving was illegal.
Five more cars shot by in a blur of riotous color. Rome saw why it was popular. But as to why his son was here… “I thought you were in trouble for your lame-brained graffiti stunt.”
“Nice to see you too.” Jake rolled his eyes. “But, wheels out! That move you did, Dad! Totally hands-on!”
“Yeah, it was.”
“You’re all over the Net. You didn’t do any of that crap, did you?”
Rome spotted a bruise under his right eye. “What do you think?”
Jake must have noticed his stare, because he probed the discolored flesh. “Got this telling one of the guys the Net’s full of sh—junk.”
Aldo cleared this throat. He pointed at a different part of the state’s geography with a certain flashing red marker.
“Jake, we’ve got to go.”
“Right. I got to go log out, anyway. The concert’s tonight…” Jake trailed off. He waved his hands. “Do you, I don’t know, need some help or something?”
From his teenage son? The same kid with such poor impulse control he couldn’t keep steady employment, not even with Massachusetts’s Infrastructure Rebuild Corps? “You’d better apply again with IRC. Roads and bridges won’t fix themselves.”
Jake snorted. “Okay, sure, Dad. Whatever.” He walked back to his car.
The Andromeda. “Hey, Jake.”
His son turned.
“Nice ride.” Rome couldn’t hide the smile. “And nice moves.”
<
br /> Jake shrugged, but there was a ghost of smile in return. “You too.”
~
Rome stuck with the next pack of cars that came along, driving them all the way back to the Mass Hike’s entrance. Dozens of garages and workshops were crammed together on a huge lot, domes and hexagons packed in like a kid’s toy blocks. A pair of glassed in restaurants, observation stands, and rows of stores were perched above the mad array.
He had to admit, he thoroughly enjoyed powering past the teenagers in their modded rides that tended to herk and jerk around corners. Breezing aside the guys—and some girls—who were old enough to be Rome’s parents was fun too. But there were a few men, whom Rome guessed were in their late 70s, who gave him a run for his money.
All in all, it made for an excellent cover. Even in the chaos of the workshops, Aldo found them a maintenance exit that bypassed the main security gates.
It only fooled the authorities for 20 minutes.
“Local LEOs,” Aldo said. “A pair of black and whites. Not even pursuit drivers.”
“You still got a fix on Cuellar’s signal?”
“Yeah. Westfield.”
“Westfield? Are you sure?”
Aldo gave him a withering glare.
“Right, you’re sure.”
“What’s wrong with Westfield?”
“Nothing.” Rome didn’t want to say anything. He had a ridiculous feeling that if he spoke his premonition aloud, it would come true.
He drove the entire the distance once they got onto the Ninety. So many warning notices and safety violations lit up the dashboard he wondered if the optics would stay permanently red. Aldo disabled them all, routing the alerts into the comp panel’s memory without having them first appear on the dash.
“Jorge’s not going to run,” Sara said. “He isn’t that kind. He’d prefer to stay and fight.”
“Thanks for the intel.”
“I want you to be prepared.” She checked the magazine of one of the J20s. “Because he will be.”
“Cheery thought,” Aldo muttered.
They followed the signal from the stealth truck off the highway. Just as Aldo intercepted an alert from FTZ, one of their vehicles had tagged the Halcyon.
“FTZ East has Security on us,” he said. “I’d expect a herd of their interceptors any moment now, so whatever we’re planning for Tacazon and his buddy, we’d better be fast.”
“Get me close enough, and it will be,” Sara said.
Rome was too disturbed to contribute to the conversation. There was something about the tree line, the streets, the buildings… He knew them. A few businesses had changed and the road was repaved. There were added traffic sensor posts, standing like slender silver sentinels. But it was all familiar enough.
The school’s appearance around a bend hit him worse than a physical blow. It was a cylinder, two stories tall, with one sixth removed as if someone took a slice out of a giant cake made of blue glass and beige concrete. Cars filled a parking area nearby. They were packed impossibly close for anyone to access. Even as he watched, two rows rearranged with a tight precision to allow a Famtrac to park.
More cars lined both sides of the street, exactly a half-meter apart under rows of juvenile maples.
One of them was the stealth truck.
“I’ve got a pair of Condors incoming,” Aldo said. “Probably fifteen miles out. We’d better move our asses.”
Rome was already out the door. Sara passed him a J20. Aldo took one, too.
The school’s door slid open.
“No.” Rome halted, halfway across the street.
The cars coming down both lanes braked. Passengers inside waved at him, trying to get him to move, but the automated navigation refused to budge. So did he.
Colonel Tacazon and Jorge Cuellar came out the front door, pulling a woman and a child by their arms.
“Oh, great,” Aldo said.
“They’ve got hostages.” Sara held her gun at the ready. “We can still disable the truck…”
“No, we can’t.” Rome’s legs wouldn’t work.
“Why?”
“Because that’s my daughter, and her mother.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
TACAZON TUGGED VIVIAN TOWARD THE stealth truck, but stopped at the curb when he spotted the trio that stood in the middle of the street. “Jasko,” he spat. “You’re insane. The authorities will be here any moment. Get out of our way, and nobody will come to harm.”
Rome’s grip tightened on the J20, as if he squeezed the metal flat. He imagined it as Tacazon’s face.
“Let them be, Reno.” Sara raised her rifle. “You know why we’re here.”
“If you think you’re getting a confession out of me, you’re crazier than he is.”
Aldo walked slowly to the side, but before he got any closer on his arc toward the truck, Jorge Cuellar came around the opposite end.
He had Kelsey pulled in close, with a Hunsaker .45 caliber tucked against her ribs. “Stay put, or the chica gets her innards painted on the road.”
A roar grew on the horizon. Rome recognized it—Condor engines. More than one set. “Tacazon, leave them alone. You and I need to deal with this. It has nothing to do with my family.”
“You see, it actually does have to do with both our families, Jasko. Dragging my daughter off like some common criminal. Does that make you feel better? Somehow make your life more worthwhile, that she gets tagged with a record?”
“She was breaking the law. I’m paid to catch people like her.” Rome heard more engines of a different sort. One was a Panther. If he could delay Tacazon long enough… “That why you boys picked me as the one to take the fall?”
“I couldn’t ask for a civilian more perfect,” Tacazon said. “My partner agreed. We were making so much money it was worth the risk. Now you’re going to let me drive away to enjoy that money, and by the time I get over the borders, it won’t matter whether people believe you or not.”
The stealth truck lurched from its spot, bashing the tail end of a blue Famtrac. It ripped the fender off, shoved it out into traffic, and trundled toward Rome and Sara.
Cars all around them backed up, driving down both lanes in a close herd, like sheep huddling for safety. Rome targeted the truck’s wheels as it rumbled toward them. Probably a smart move on the nav’s part.
Someone yelped. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kelsey break away from Cuellar. As he drew back his foot, she pummeled him with blows, screaming, seemingly oblivious to the gun he still held.
Aldo rushed in, slamming his J20 into Cuellar’s gut. The two went down in a tangle of limbs and weapons.
The truck was only a couple car lengths away. “It’s projectile resistant!” Sara warned.
“Aim for the front left.” He opened fire.
Sara joined him. The tracker bullets struck the front fender, the armored body, and then found their intended target—the left wheel. By Rome’s count, more than two-dozen shots hit the tire before they penetrated its surface. It didn’t even blow. All it did was sag in rather anticlimactic fashion.
The AI in charge corrected and sent it skidding toward Rome.
Sara shoved him aside hard enough he lost his balance. He tumbled into the next lane.
The truck’s AI must have had some of its safety protocols still in place because it braked hard, swerving to avoid Sara.
Then the back end exploded.
The sound was deafening. Rome’s ears rang. Heat washed over him like an ocean’s wave, drowning him. Flame was everywhere, racing up the truck’s body.
Sara. Where was she?
Black smoke obscured his view.
He glimpsed her arm, fingers still clutching the J20’s grip.
A rush of wind cleared the smoke, accompanied by the sound of a Condor’s engines. Rome saw the aircraft hovering over the school. He smiled…
And then he froze.
It wasn’t Condor 33. The tailfin showed a 47.
Tires spun. A long, gray Fo
rd Altair took off in the opposite direction, breaking five traffic laws. Famtracs and passenger cars got out of the way of the wide vehicle, its exterior covered with huge curved windows.
Driving.
It could be Cuellar, though from what Rome had seen of the Peregrine’s escape from the base, he had no doubt Tacazon was skilled at the controls.
Ignoring the hovering Condor, Rome used his jacket as a shield from the flames. He got Sara’s arm looped over his shoulder. Together they staggered away from the wreckage.
Sara coughed, her face going red. She hung onto him.
“Thanks for keeping me unsinged.” Rome sat her on the hood of the Halcyon.
She coughed again, but nodded through the spasms.
“Roman Jasko.” The voice boomed from the heavens. Not godlike, unless the Creator was a stern lady pilot. “You will stand fast and submit to detainment. You and your accomplices are in violation of—”
The message broke off in a sharp screech. Signal jammed?
Aldo jogged over. “They got away, man. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Get in.” Rome helped Sara into the car. “Nice work blocking the obnoxious transmission.”
The Condor flew in a slow, wide circle around the street and the surrounding buildings. Rome swore the pilot was trying to set up a decent shot with its EMP, but for whatever reason, she couldn’t depress the nose or the wings low enough for the right angle.
“Um, you’re welcome, but it isn’t me.” Aldo glanced down the road. “Great. More trouble? Really?”
Rome didn’t have to wait at all to find out what the “really” was. A Halcyon, similar model to his, was marked up with the FTZ Security logo. FTZ East.
But that wasn’t the engine noise he found familiar. The purr was far too smooth, far too even to be a Halcyon. No, it had to belong to something more high performance.
“What’re we gonna do?”
“Can’t sit here on our butts.” Rome started up the engine. “If we cut over a few blocks, we might beat Tacazon to the Ninety.”
The front end of the Security Halcyon crackled with pent-up energy discharge. EMP.
Rome smacked the controls. With the truck blocking the lane and the automated traffic bottlenecked as their nav systems tried to get everyone out of danger in orderly fashion, he didn’t have a chance to get clear of the blast. EMP resistant or not, it would render his car as inert as a stone.
