by David Estes
After a speedy trial, Boggs and the other two Crows were found not guilty.
“What are you going to do?” Geoffrey asks the man he’s starting to think of as a father figure.
Jarrod’s eyes find his, and he’s surprised at the way they twinkle mirthfully. “Nothing,” he says. When Geoffrey frowns, he explains. “I just mean we’re not changing anything. Pop Con leaders come and go, but we will stay the course. We can’t forget that our mission is right and true. The world is counting on us to fix it.”
Geoffrey smiles. He likes when Jarrod talks about fixing things. He knows it can include him if he wants it to. Jarrod said so, as long as Geoffrey is willing to help him. At first he wondered what he could possibly offer a man with so many resources at his fingertips, a man who seems to scare the President of the RUSA. Then he realized he has a lot to offer. He knows the streets of Saint Louis. He’s young and small and not particularly intimidating. His sister used to tell him he was smart and talented, too, and although he always got hot in the face and embarrassed when she’d say it in front of the other guys, he always knew it was true.
“So my mission is still in three days?” Geoffrey asks, a ball of fear and eagerness growing in his gut.
Jarrod nods. “If you want it to be.”
“I can do it,” Geoffrey says. “I want to do it.”
“But you don’t have to,” Jarrod says. “No one is forcing you.”
“I know,” Geoffrey says. Don’t I? he wonders immediately after saying it. The way the great man beside him speaks of revolution and truth and rightness feels like a soundtrack to his sister’s death. The thought makes him angry. It makes him feel like there’s only one choice for him, and it involves the destruction of Pop Con, regardless of who is at its helm. He hates them all. So even if Jarrod says he has a choice, he knows he doesn’t. He has to do this.
“Before you make up your mind, I have something to show you,” Jarrod says.
“Okay,” Geoffrey says, turning his attention to a holo-screen on the wall that blazes to life.
“One of our Hawks managed to capture this video of someone else, like you, who took on a very important mission.”
“A suicide mission,” Geoffrey whispers.
Jarrod pats his hand. “We prefer to call them Victory Missions.”
Victory Missions. Geoffrey likes the sound of that.
The video starts with a zoomed out shot of Saint Louis. Geoffrey immediately recognizes it as one of the production plants on the edge of the city. He and Luce had worked that area before, Picking hundreds of pockets but only taking what they needed from the LifeCards before destroying them. He hated that they never took more. He hated that everyone else always seemed to have more than them.
The camera moves closer, zeroing in on a bird’s-eye view of a man entering through a gate of one of the factories. He goes through a standard scanning device, and is waved onwards. The Hawk follows his progress until he reaches a door, which he opens, disappearing from view.
“He looks so confident,” Geoffrey says. “Wasn’t he scared?”
“I’m sure he was,” Jarrod says, which isn’t the answer Geoffrey expected. He thought he’d say the man was brave, a patriot—just like he would need to be.
“Really?”
“Of course,” Jarrod says. “I would’ve been scared. We’re all human, right?” Geoffrey nods uncertainly. “Keep watching.”
He turns his attention back to the shot of the facility, which is eerily quiet, only the guards waiting at the gate. “Where are the other employees?” he asks.
“Our guy went to work very early that day to minimize innocent casualties.”
“Oh,” Geoffrey says. He feels lucky to be learning from someone so smart and good.
A few minutes later, Geoffrey is getting bored at staring at the same picture of a silent factory. “When—” His question is cut off as the screen blazes to life, the explosion surreal in its magnitude, vibrant orange and red tongues of fire licking at the remaining debris, massive puffs of smoke being coughed into the sky.
“It was a weapons and munitions factory. They were the primary supplier for Pop Con’s Hunter program. They were as much responsible for the deaths of innocents as those who actually pulled the triggers they’d produced.”
Nearby, the guards lie motionless on the ground. Geoffrey stares at the image, his mouth open wide with awe. “Are they—”
“Dead,” Jarrod says.
“And the guy…”
“He did his duty.”
“Why couldn’t he place the bomb and then exit?” Geoffrey’s been wondering this for a while, but was too scared to ask. The more time he spends with Jarrod, the more he feels at ease.
“Too suspicious,” Jarrod says. “And too risky. A lot can go wrong with remote-detonated incendiaries.” Geoffrey nods as if he fully understands, even if he doesn’t. He likes the way Jarrod treats him like an adult.
Silence falls for a while, each of them watching the structure burn.
“Geoffrey…” Jarrod says.
Geoffrey looks at him, setting his jaw to prevent it from shaking. He knows what’s coming next. “Yeah?”
“Are you sure you still want to do this?”
He doesn’t give himself a chance to think about it, answering immediately. “Yes. For my sister.”
Jarrod nods. “She would’ve been proud. I’ll be proud.”
Blinking furiously, Geoffrey manages to fight off the tears. He turns away, thanking the Lifer leader for his time. He exits into the halls of the facility that they’re using as their base of operations.
A shadow falls over him and he almost bumps into someone. “Whoa, little buddy,” Check says, grabbing his arm. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Where’ve you been?”
“Here and there,” Geoffrey says mysteriously. “Some of the other Lifer kids had some board games out.”
“Oh yeah?” Check says. “What games?”
The question is innocent enough, but it sends a spike of fear through Geoffrey. Is Check just making conversation or does he suspect something? “You know, the usual,” Geoffrey says, willing his cheeks not to go red.
“Cool. Want to hang with me and the boys for a while? We’ve been training all morning, but we’re off duty now.”
“Sure,” Geoffrey says, falling into step beside Check. “What are you training for?”
“A super-secret mission,” Check says, winking one of his narrow eyes at him. After being treated like an adult by Jarrod, the gesture makes him angry.
“Fine. Don’t tell me,” Geoffrey says, crossing his arms over his chest. And he won’t tell Check about his mission. The real mission. The big mission.
Check stops and puts a hand on Geoffrey’s shoulder. “Hey. Are you okay?”
Geoffrey refuses to look at him. “I’m fine.”
“You know, you can tell me anything,” he says. “You can trust me.”
“I know that,” Geoffrey says, which is exactly why he can’t tell him about what he’s planning with Jarrod. There’s no doubt in his mind that Check would try to stop him. “But I’m fine.” He pushes as much fervor into his voice as possible. “Really.”
“Good,” Check says. “You’re a tough kid. Tougher than I was when I was your age.”
Although he doesn’t want to, Geoffrey feels a touch of warmth in his chest at the compliment, accepting it begrudgingly. It’s true. He is tough. He’s a survivor. He’s the master of his own destiny, as Jarrod told him. “Then you should be able to tell me about your super-secret mission,” he says, emphasizing the ‘super-secret’ part.
Check laughs. “I guess you’ve trapped me. Look, I can’t tell you everything because it really is confidential, but I can say that something big is coming down the track.”
Geoffrey knows exactly what’s coming, but he didn’t realize Check knew too. “What’s coming?”
“Just…a major blow to Pop Con. That’s all I can tell you.”
; “And you’re involved?” Geoffrey says, unable to keep his voice from rising. If Check’s involved, he could screw everything up, stopping him from completing his mission at the last minute.
“Not exactly,” Check says, and Geoffrey allows himself to breathe again. “We’re more of the cleanup crew. A whole lot of us will have to go in afterwards to restore order and make sure things get going in the right direction again.”
Fix things, Geoffrey remembers Jarrod telling him. That’s the point of all of this. They’re going to rebuild the country the right way. The way that Luce and he and the others always dreamed about. The way it should’ve been rebuilt the first time. Although Geoffrey feels sad that he won’t be there to see it happen, he knows his role is the most important of all.
He won’t fail Jarrod. He won’t fail his sister.
The thought pulls a smile to his lips as they enter the makeshift recreational room where other Lifers are playing cards, telling jokes, and watching the holos pinned to the walls. Rod greets them at the door. “Hola, Geoff. Como e’sta?”
“Moi bien, gracias,” he answers. “Where’s Gonzo?”
Rod smirks. “Who knows? Chasing skirts, I guess. Or maybe he got lost.”
“Sounds about right,” Check says, and they all have a good laugh at the expense of their ever-hopeless friend.
For a single shard-like moment, Geoffrey almost feels like they’re back in their old hideout after a long day of Picking, shooting the breeze, and he’ll look up…and there will be Luce with her serious expression and the death stare that tells him he’d better take off his shoes before he comes all the way into the room.
When he looks up, the moment shatters like broken glass.
All because of the enemy.
All because of Pop Con.
They stole his happy moments.
He wishes the mission was today, but he knows they have to wait for the night when Pop Con will least expect the attack. The moment their enemy feels safe and secure, they’ll strike like a cobra.
~~~
Gonzo made a promise, one he intends to keep.
Benson asked for some time. Just a day. Gonzo thinks he can give at least that much, maybe more. It’s not necessarily that he doesn’t believe in what the Lifers are doing—because he does—it’s that he trusts Benson implicitly. And it’s just a day. Twenty-four hours. One-thousand-four-hundred-and-forty minutes. No big deal. If Benson isn’t able to follow through, the Lifers can still carry out their big mission to take down the Pop Con building.
Of course, the weapons room is locked. Jarrod trusts his followers, but not enough to give them unrestricted access to explosives and automatic weapons. Locks are no problem for Gonzo, but they take time to trick, so instead he Picked the key from the pocket of the lead weapons tech when he “accidentally” bumped into him in the hall. The guy was clueless. He was more worried he’d injured Gonzo, who faked a bad fall even as he slipped his hand into his pocket. Just like the old days. Like taking candy from a bot.
Now Gonzo—after glancing up and down the hallway a few times—takes that same key and twists it in the lock. The door clicks open and he pushes into a fevered darkness, easing the door closed behind him and relocking it. He flicks on a small flashlight and gets to work.
The gobs of gunk in his pockets are ABC gum. Ever since their meeting with Benson, he’s been chewing as much gum as he can get his hands on. Luckily, gum is one of the many small pleasures afforded to the rebels by the Lifer leader. Chew a cube thoroughly, shove it in a bag in his pocket. Repeat. After a few days of nonstop chewing, he thinks his teeth might fall out before he’s twenty, but he’s now got enough raw material to gum up the Lifer weapons. As he grabs the first gun from the rack on the wall, he laughs internally at his own groan-worthy joke.
He stuffs a clump of the minty sticky stuff into the barrel of the first weapon, sure to leave a clear trail from the tip into the gun. He wants it to be noticed. He wants the weapon techs to realize their weapons cache has been tampered with. That way they’ll be forced to check and clean each and every weapon before using them, a monumental task that he hopes will buy Benson that one extra day he needs.
And then life will go on as normal for the Lifers. No harm, no foul, right?
Gonzo replaces the first rifle and grabs the second, wondering how he’s gone from poor Mexican, to Jumper, to Picker, to Gummer over the course of his short life.
Destino. Fate.
Perhaps it’s fate, or perhaps the world is just a weird place, one where predicting the next day is as difficult as predicting the weather. Either way, he’s determined to suck as much enjoyment out of life as he can, for he knows tomorrow isn’t guaranteed for anyone. Especially for an illegal on the RUSA Most Wanted List like him.
Contemplating life’s little mysteries is slowing him down, so he grits his teeth and tries not to think of anything but his work as he picks up the third weapon, the barrel and stock cool against his hands, which are beginning to sweat. One at a time, he pats his palms dry on his pants before reaching in his pocket for more ABC gum.
He jumps half out of his skin when the lights flash on, blazing with stark white illumination. He loses his grip on the gun, which clatters to the floor. When he turns, he’s staring at the blue tip of a stun gun, which is crackling with electric energy.
“Mierda,” Gonzo says.
“Yes,” Jarrod agrees. “You’re in plenty of mierda.”
Blue lightning streaks from the gun and Gonzo feels his entire body convulse before he falls to the ground and everything goes black.
Chapter Seventeen
The voices fade in and out, like a malfunctioning speaker. Sometimes the words are so loud it’s like they’re being shoved into the Destroyer’s ears—“WE NEED TO SEDATE HIM!”—while other times it’s as if they’re whispered from a great distance, muffled and barely audible—“He’s pretty banged up, is there really anything we can do?”
Periods of numbness, where he can’t seem to feel his arms or legs or anything, trade off with moments of excruciating pain, where he’s acutely aware of every single human cell left in his body, each of which feel as if they’re on fire.
“His robotics systems are half-fried,” one of the voices says. He’s numb now, and his hearing is relatively normal, save for a strange echo in his ears.
“I think I can repair most of the damage to his brain, although I might have to replace portions with polymer tubing. Are the latent systems repairable?”
“I won’t be sure until I try. Why are we doing this again?”
“As a favor to our mutual friend.”
“I’m assuming you use ‘friend’ sarcastically?”
“You assume right. For me, it’s better just to cooperate. He’s the most powerful man in the country.”
“But you saw the video, right? This cyborg has more than a few screws loose, and I’m not just talking about physically. Who knows how much blood he’ll spill next? That will be on our hands.”
“And yet, it’s better than the alternative, don’t you think?”
“I guess.”
The words fade again and the Destroyer feels himself slipping away. The blackness turns to fuzz, like an interrupted signal on a holo-screen. He doesn’t feel like he’s anything anymore, almost as if he doesn’t exist. Not dead. Not alive. Not human. Not robot. None of the labels apply to him.
The words come a moment before the pain: “Making initial incision.”
ShockShockPainPainStabStabStabStab!
The Destroyer feels his teeth chattering against each other so violently he’s afraid they might break to pieces. The voices are shouting now, something about the sedative being ineffective and strapping him down, but they are nothing but meaningless words compared to the intensity of the daggers in his head, radiating through him in agonizing waves.
~~~
When Destiny startles awake, she’s covered in a thin layer of snow that’s managed to leach through the strips of cardboard she u
sed to shelter herself. She hadn’t planned to doze off, and in doing so greatly increased the chances of her being caught by a Crow or Hunter. Waking up on this particular white morning, she’s literally lucky to be alive.
She knows she can’t make that mistake again, not if she’s going to carry out her mission to kill the Destroyer.
Peeking out from her makeshift shelter, she realizes what caused her to awaken. The manhole cover clanks back into place, muscled by one of the men she saw entering the Destroyer’s lair last night. What was he doing in there? And where is the other dude? Did he already leave, while she was sleeping?
For her, the weirdest thing is that he looks like a normal guy. Mid-fifties, thinning gray hair, a thick mustache, glasses. Even his mannerisms and the way he walks and moves screams “intellectual!” Not a criminal. Not someone who would be in league with a bloodthirsty cyborg whose system has clearly been stuck on “MURDER” for far too long.
An aut-car races past and pulls up to the curb, and the guy gets in, leaving no trace of him behind.
Destiny knows she has another choice to make. Go in now or continue her surveillance. If she goes in now, her element of surprise might be lost due to the fact that she faces two foes rather than one. But if she waits, she might miss her best opportunity. She’s already proven that maintaining surveillance is at least a two-person job—she needs to sleep, after all.
As cold and hunger gnaws at her, she realizes there is a third choice: leave. Although she knows she could leave and get food and warm up and still come back, she’s afraid her nerve will be gone. She can’t let that happen, not when the lives of those she cares about might depend on the choices she makes here and now.
For now, she decides to suffer the elements, relocating to a more secure position behind a Dumpster, piling trash around her to mask her presence. While she watches the manhole cover from a distance, she nibbles on a cold, hard piece of bread and slurps down slushy snow that she melts in her mouth.
The day is long and fruitless, the street deserted. The only vehicles that pass are Crow cars, their blue lights flashing. Something has happened, she realizes. This isn’t normal. The streets should be bustling with activity. A few times she catches eyes peeking from windows, the accompanying faces shrouded in shadow from curtains drawn tight.
