Seeming to sense his mood, Cassidy remained silent after that, getting dressed quickly and pulling her hair back in the same clip she’d worn the day before. The sun began to rise, burning off some of the morning mists that had settled around them, and Derek could feel the beginnings of what promised to be a damp, hot day. He wondered if Cassidy had any experience with humidity.
Of course not. Up until now, every place she’s lived has been rigorously climate-controlled.
It crossed his mind to warn her, but he decided against it. She had enough to worry her, and maybe the day wouldn’t turn out to be as hot as he feared. Besides, the heat would only be a problem when she went outdoors, as their rented vehicle had very good cooling control.
They climbed into the ’car, and he turned off the self-navigation system. He wanted to be in control in case they came across anything the vehicle’s admittedly limited computerized brain couldn’t handle. It was designed for a multitude of road and weather conditions, but armed pursuit was something quite outside its programming.
Cassidy remained silent for some time, watching the green landscape outside pass by. At length she remarked, “I’d thought it would be dry and dead.”
“It was, once,” he replied, keeping his eyes on the road, which had narrowed down to one lane in either direction. This was all the area required, as hardly anyone came this way anymore. “The Cloud devastated the vegetation in the area as well. But it’s bounced back better than we’d hoped. It’s helping to clean the air just as much as our equipment is.”
“If that’s the case, why is it all still empty? I’d think that if there’s enough decent air here to support plants — ”
“Well, the plants want CO2, not oxygen. Besides that, there are still some heavier elements around that can play havoc with human respiratory systems if they’re exposed to them for too long. Even those of us stationed here couldn’t be here indefinitely — we had to be rotated in and out every eighteen months.”
A nod, and she fell silent again, watching the landscape pass by. The bright green of the semi-tropical vegetation had to look even more alien to her than the desert landscape outside Tucson or the scrub junipers and live oaks growing around Barstow. At length she asked, “Is that why you’re not worried about running into Liam? The eighteen-month rotation?”
He shook his head even as he slowed the vehicle slightly to navigate around a two-meter sinkhole that had opened up in the road. Aircars could manage some ground perturbations, but it was always better to give them a wide berth when possible. No one was coming toward them in the other lane; in fact, he hadn’t yet seen a single vehicle. That didn’t strike him as particularly unusual, as sometimes days would pass before any visitors came to the GARP facility where he’d been stationed. The Consortium actively discouraged traffic in this part of the world. The stray thought reminded him that they’d be coming up on a checkpoint in an hour or so. The personnel there were switched out often enough that he doubted they’d run into anyone who might recognize him, but he still wasn’t looking forward to running that particular gauntlet.
Eyes still fixed on the road, Derek replied, “My mother told me that Liam had requested a transfer while I was awaiting trial. Too many bad memories at the facility, I suppose. Anyway, last she’d heard, he’d gone to the monitoring station in the Antarctic.”
“Well, that’s one way of getting away from it all.”
“You might say that.” Under normal circumstances, Cassidy’s wry tone might have made him smile, but now, doing so only would seem to mock Liam’s pain at his husband’s death. Derek could only hope that Liam had managed to move on during the intervening years. “Even if he’s not in Antarctica anymore, it’s safe to assume that he won’t be anywhere near the GARP station, or the processing plant. In fact, I have a feeling that they reassigned everyone and brought in new staff, just to be certain there wasn’t anyone around with any connections to me or the work I was doing.”
“Typical scorched earth, I guess,” she commented, before lifting her pouch of water from where it sat in the center console and taking a sip.
“Exactly.”
They fell into another silence after that, and sometime later she reclined her seat slightly and shut her eyes, dozing as they ate up mile after mile. He supposed that was for the best, although he knew, were their situations reversed, that he wouldn’t have been able to do the same. It could have been the cheap caffeine still coursing through his veins, but he was keyed up, tense. He’d come from the edge of the Solar System to this place, and now their destination was less than half a day away.
But there was still that checkpoint to get through….
* * *
Cassidy awoke as she felt the ’car come to a halt. Had she really slept so long that they’d made it all the way to the GARP facility?
Blinking, she focused on the landscape outside the vehicle’s windows, then realized they still seemed to be out in the middle of nowhere. The only signs of civilization were a cluster of prefab huts, far too small to house a group of scientists and engineers — let alone all the equipment required for their various projects and tests — and, on either side the road, another pair of even smaller huts. A shimmer across the road showed where the electronic fence had been set up, and approaching the vehicle was a hard-faced woman wearing the drab gray-green of Consortium ground forces.
Cassidy shot Derek a frightened glance, and he gave her the barest shake of his head, murmuring, “Checkpoint. It’ll be fine.”
Somehow she doubted that, but there wasn’t time to reply, only to get her seat up to a more dignified position and to tug at her clothing so it was more or less lying where it needed to be. Luckily, she’d pulled her hair back that morning, and it seemed to have stayed in place. She could only hope nothing about her appearance would raise any alarm bells.
Derek pressed the button to roll down the window, had his I.D. and credentials showing he was with the network ready. As the guard stopped outside and looked at him expectantly, he said, “Good afternoon, officer.”
“Afternoon,” she replied briefly. “Your business in the Zone?”
“Documentary for NBN,” he said. “Here’s my I.D.”
He passed the card to her and she took it, then scanned it through the reader hanging from her hip. From where Cassidy was sitting, she couldn’t see the light on the reader glow green, but since the guard nodded and handed Derek his I.D. after a brief pause, she had to assume everything was all right.
“Credentials?”
Derek handed those over as well. They were actual paper documents, barcoded with the particulars of their fake “documentary” assignment. No reason why they shouldn’t pass muster as well, but Cassidy found herself trying not to bite her lip in worry as the guard scanned those, too.
“And you?” the hard-faced woman asked, peering past Derek to where Cassidy sat. “I.D.?”
She gave it to Derek, who relayed it to the guard. A repeat of the scanning process, during which Cassidy made sure she remained quiet, expression bland, as if she did this sort of thing all the time in various locations around the globe.
Then the guard said, “All right, looks like you’re good to go, Mr. Chung, Ms. Whitcomb. Have a good one.”
Derek nodded at the woman, who stepped out of the way and gave some sort of signal, as the crackling energy fence across the road abruptly lifted, granting them access to the region beyond the checkpoint. After releasing the brake, the vehicle moved forward smoothly, slowly, as if Derek didn’t want to attract attention by appearing too eager to get out of there. Then the ’car began to pick up speed, but gradually, and within a few minutes, the checkpoint had dwindled to a few specks on the landscape behind them.
Maybe she hadn’t exactly been holding her breath, but Cassidy found herself breathing a little more easily once they were completely out of eyeshot. “Any more of those we need to worry about?”
“Not on this road. From here it’s more or less a straight shot.”
She nodded, then glanced outside. Here, the vegetation didn’t look much different from the small treed area where they’d slept, although it did seem a little thinner, a little weedier, not quite as lush. And she was certainly no expert on the many moods of Gaia’s sun and sky, but something about the quality of light seemed to have shifted, grown slightly yellow and dim.
“Are we in the Zone now?” she asked.
“Yes. At least, this was one of the worst-hit areas. But of course the entire continent…and more…suffered.”
Suddenly the air tasted acrid in her mouth, harsh against her throat. “Do we need any kind of breathing equipment?”
He glanced over at her then, reaching out to lay a reassuring hand on her knee. “We’re fine. Every vehicle in China is equipped with heavy-duty atmospheric scrubbing filters. Even without that, we’d be fine unprotected for a while. If you’re going to be out in it for more than an hour or so, then yes, it’s recommended that you wear a light filtration mask. But we’re okay.”
His tone sounded calm, casual, and she told herself to relax a bit. After all, he’d lived and worked here for some time, and hadn’t suffered any ill effects.
Well, except for getting framed for murder and being sent to Titan to rot.
Even so, she found it hard to let go of the tension, which seemed to be ratcheting up along her neck and shoulders with every mile that passed. If Derek suffered the same nerves, he showed no sign of it, expression cool, serene almost, as he guided them down the deserted highway.
For him, this was the culmination of a quest. For her…she wasn’t sure what it was for her. She only knew she had to let him do this, had to allow him to place an end cap on the cover-up that had so irrevocably changed his life. It took more strength than she had imagined to allow him to go on driving, to keep herself from putting her hand on her wrist and saying, Stop. Just turn around so we still have a chance to get out of here and be safe.
Denying him this, though, would be grossly unfair. She’d said she’d see this thing through with him, and she would. If only it didn’t hurt so much, the thought of losing him, of losing what they might have together, if the universe would only give them the chance. Before Derek, she’d never thought of a future with an “us” in it. She hadn’t planned on falling in love.
And that was the craziest thing of all. Could you love someone you’d only known for a few days? If anyone had asked her that question even a week ago, she’d have said that of course you couldn’t. You could be attracted. Infatuated, even. But in love, to the point where you were willing to risk your own life to help the person you cared about achieve the thing they wanted the most?
No way.
Well, that’s what she would’ve said then. Now she knew differently. Oh, the second he’d taken off his helmet, back when he’d been hijacking the Avalon, she’d been struck by Derek’s good looks, even though at the time she’d thought he must be a mass murderer or serial rapist or something equally horrible. It wasn’t the first time she’d been attracted to someone at first sight, although she’d never felt that certain pull quite so forcefully before Derek. And after she’d gotten to know him, had understood everything he’d gone through, why he needed so desperately to prove the Consortium’s culpability in both Theo Karras’ death and the truth of what was going on at that processing plant…somewhere along the way, admiration had turned to affection, then love. She couldn’t imagine having to live without him.
He turned toward her, dark eyes warming as his gaze met hers. But then he frowned slightly. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” she said, although she knew her voice sounded too tight, too strained. “Just thinking.”
“About?”
“You.”
Seeming a little taken aback by that, he replied, “Is that a good or a bad thing?”
“Good…mostly.” She swallowed, forcing a smile. “Something about you reminds me of a piece I read once.”
“What’s that?”
She shifted in her seat. “Oh, you’ll probably think it’s silly.”
“I doubt I’ll think it’s silly.”
No, he wouldn’t. He took her seriously, asked for her opinion, treated her like an equal, even though his background and education had given him far more standing in Gaian society than her own spotty upbringing as the daughter of a freighter captain. Not quite looking at him, she said, “I never really went to school. My father taught me some math, the astrogation I needed to pilot a starship, but when I was younger, I used computers to learn how to read, to write. So I read a lot. I was always poking around in the free libraries, because the newer stuff you had to pay for was pretty much out of our budget.”
“Don Quixote,” Derek said.
She blinked at him. “What?”
“You made a reference to Don Quixote a while back…now I understand why.”
“Right. So anyway, there was this poem I read once. I don’t even remember the whole thing, but there was this line that stuck out for me. ‘I could not love thee, dear, had I not loved honor more.’ Anyway, it reminds me of you. Why you’re doing all this.” Belatedly, she realized the line she’d quoted had the word “love” in it, and so far Derek had never said that word to her. Acted as if he cared, sure. But loved her?
For one long, agonizing moment, he said nothing. Then, voice so quiet she could barely hear him over the hum of the engine, “It’s not entirely accurate. I’m fairly sure I love you more.”
Heart swelling, not knowing what to say, she reached out to him, and he lifted his right hand from the steering wheel so he could clasp her fingers in his.
“So maybe it’s unfair,” he said, still in those soft, intense tones. “Maybe I should stop now and turn around. It’s not too late.”
Part of her wanted to say yes, to tell him that was the right thing to do, that it was more important for the two of them to be together than for the truth to be revealed. However, far more of her knew that it wasn’t, that they couldn’t live with themselves if they didn’t do whatever they could to reveal the truth of what was going on in Hunan Province.
“No,” she told him, clinging to his hand and wishing they weren’t separated by the console so she could be closer to him. “I know you have to do this. I want you to do this. And I want to help you.”
He lifted her hand to his mouth, kissed the backs of her fingers so gently that she could feel tears begin to prick at her eyes. That was no good, though. She knew she had to keep it together, for both their sakes.
“Thank you,” he said, and that was all, but she thought she understood.
Then he released her hand, placing his back on the steering wheel, and she knotted her fingers in her lap. After a long pause she asked, “How much farther?”
“An hour or two.”
She nodded. What else could she do? She loved him, and he loved her…and in a few more hours, she’d find out if that love had any kind of future at all.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Derek gripped the steering wheel so tightly he could see his knuckles stand out, white against the golden-brown of his skin. It was the only thing he could think of to do to prevent himself from turning the ’car around, taking them back to safety. He’d known what he felt for her — or at least, thought he did — but he hadn’t been sure of exactly how much she cared in return. Now that he knew she loved him, how he could he continue with this mad dash toward…what? Vindication? Absolution?
But somehow he kept driving, because Cassidy had said she believed in him, would do this thing with him. She seemed to understand that if he left this unfinished, it would hang over him for the rest of his life. On the other hand, if anything happened to her….
He would never forgive himself. Even a lifetime of solitary confinement on Titan wouldn’t be enough to atone for that unpardonable sin.
You’ll just have to make sure nothing does happen to her. Easier said than done, of course, but telling himself that seemed to make it a little better. After all, the
y’d survived against all odds this far. That luck just needed to hold a little bit longer, and then he’d be able to give the Consortium the black eye it so richly deserved, and he and Cassidy could move on to explore the rest of their lives together.
On the side of the road was a rough signpost, now scarred by the weather, telling him the GARP facility was now ten kilometers away. No mention of the processing plant, of course. GARP was the public face of the Consortium’s rehabilitation of the Asian continent. The processing plant — and any others like it — was a dirty secret it hoped no one would find out about.
But he knew that road, knew if he passed the turnoff for the facility that had been his home for almost a year, then drove a few more kilometers, he’d come to the processing plant. Would it be choked with traffic the way it had been that fateful day two and a half years ago? Maybe. It was hard to say, as he didn’t know how often the convoys went there with their grim loads of human remains. But he had a feeling it had to be a daily occurrence. Otherwise, it would take centuries to process those corpses, rather than merely decades.
Part of the reason he’d rented this particular vehicle, however, was that it had beefed-up ground-effects equipment, and could navigate terrain far tougher than a man-made road. They’d go past the GARP facility, then turn off into the rough so they could come up at the processing plant from underneath, avoiding altogether the road the convoys used.
Up ahead he could see the right-hand turn that would lead him into the GARP compound. They drove past, not speeding, since he didn’t want to draw any attention to the ’car, or at least no more than any vehicle going by might attract, since there was so little traffic here otherwise.
Cassidy’s gaze flickered toward the facility as they passed the turnoff, but she didn’t say anything, apparently sensing that he wasn’t in the mood to talk about his time there. She only stared out the window, jaw tense, then resolutely shifted in her seat so she could keep an eye on where they were heading.
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