by David Estes
This advertisement paid for by the Reorganized United States of America military. Compensation to be provided to service members and their families at standard rates, including medical care for injuries suffered during training or combat.
Chapter Nineteen
Geoffrey hasn’t seen Jarrod in a whole day. Every time he goes looking for him he’s told he’s unavailable. Truth be told, he’s getting a little bored sitting around doing nothing with Check and Rod; he was getting used to the meaningful time he spent with the Lifer leader.
“I’m starting to worry about Gonz,” Check says, dealing a new hand of cards.
Geoffrey glances at his cards, which suck bots, and immediately folds.
“Trust me, don’t worry,” Rod says. “I’ve known him a long time. He’s probably just shacked up with some Lifer chica.” He bets one food pill, which Check immediately matches.
“Wouldn’t he at least check in?”
“Not if he’s busy.” Rod waggles his eyebrows. Geoffrey’s old enough to understand the innuendo, and it warms his cheeks.
“Just show ’em,” Check says, displaying his own extremely strong hand. Rod gawks and Check raises his hand in victory.
“Una momento amigo,” Rod says. “Not so fast.” His expression smug, he lays down his own winning hand.
“Damn, your Mexican luck is really starting to piss me off.”
Laughing as Check punches Rod in the arm, Geoffrey notices a few of the other Lifers crowding around the giant holo-screen. As silence falls, the darkly beautiful reporter’s voice seems to strengthen.
“We can now confirm that at least one member of the RUSA Most Wanted List has been caught and terminated. According to Charles Boggs, the interim Head of Population Control, he hopes it will be the first in a string of terminations to take place in the coming weeks. However, he also urged the general public to continue to obey curfew and the mandated lockdown rules so that he and his people can do their jobs.”
The shot pans away from the reporter, focusing on an area cordoned off with Crow tape and swarming with members of law enforcement. Geoffrey catches a glimpse of Chief Charles Boggs himself, speaking to two of his black-garbed Hunters. The camera continues to move, the image becoming blurry before clarifying on a motionless lump lying on the street. A medical examiner is working to cover the body with a dark sheet, but the camera manages to get a close up of the corpse’s face just before he can finish.
Geoffrey’s heart stops, Check whispers, “Oh God,” and Rod says, “Dios mio, mi amigo.”
The face was that of Gonzo, a trickle of blood curling from the corner of his lips.
The reporter’s voice continues to drone on in the background, but Geoffrey doesn’t hear her talk about Gonzo Garcia, number nine on the Most Wanted List, because he’s watching Rod topple from his chair, his wails choked off by sobs; he’s watching Check drop to his knees to hug Rod, to join his mournful cries; he’s watching as pandemonium rumbles through the rec room as the rest of the Lifers realize that they’ve just lost one of their own.
But Geoffrey doesn’t cry, or fall to the floor, or hug his friends. Inside, he seethes with fury, a raging inferno that licks his heart, boiling his blood. It doesn’t matter who is leading Pop Con, the result is the same. His friends, his family, everyone he loves and cares about dies.
He rises from his chair and marches off to demand an audience with Jarrod. This can’t happen again.
No.
No more.
~~~
The bombed-out remains of Benson’s life seem to be crumbling around him. First the news that his father might be alive, and then the report on Gonzo’s murder?
Ducking and covering seems like the only option left for them. No one is safe. Everyone he touches will die. Everyone he knows will cease to exist.
And yet, he won’t stop now. He won’t be the turtle who pulls his head in his shell to ride out the attack. He will walk the very path that Michael Kelly paved for him. Michael Kelly who might not be dead. Michael Kelly who is supposedly alive on a video sent to the Saint Louis Times, but is yet to reach the public.
At least he feels he can make sense of the Destroyer’s motives. If his father is really alive, then it’s not surprising that the cyborg would use him as bait to get to him and Harrison. The only question is why he hasn’t dangled the worm yet.
Something about Gonzo’s death, on the other hand, doesn’t feel right. Benson uses his shirt to wipe the lone tear from his face, and begins to distract himself with his latest puzzle. Why would Gonzo have been away from Rod, Check, and Geoffrey? Where were they when he was gunned down in the street? And how could he have been caught so easily? It doesn’t add up. The official report was that Gonzo Garcia stole something from a grocer and made a run for it. A sharp-eyed Crow realized what was happening and who he was and shot first, asked questions later. Terminated—no, murdered—his friend in cold blood.
Benson remembers the last thing Gonzo said to him before they parted ways the last time. I’ll do whatever I can to give you extra time…
He thought the Jumper meant reasoning with Jarrod, trying to convince him of another course or to delay his current plans, but what if Gonzo took a more extreme approach? What if he did something drastic, something that caused Jarrod to punish him in the ultimate way? He knows it’s possible. Jarrod is not a man to be underestimated or trifled with. Jarrod tried to have him killed once, after all, just to make him a martyr for his so-called cause.
It’s like the Lifer leader and Benson are on the same side, but on completely different planets, in completely different universes. Opposite approaches to the same problem.
Although the tears continue to prick behind his eyes, he doesn’t have time for mourning his friend’s death, not when he has three other friends still trapped within the Lifer organization. He doesn’t know if they had any idea of what Gonzo was doing or if they participated in it. Regardless, he has to find a way to get them a message, to warn them of the snake in the house.
And he only knows one person who might be able to help him.
~~~
“What are you going to do?” Minda asks him.
Harrison shrugs. “First I have to talk to Benson about it. This is a decision we have to make together.” He eyes his mother, who’s been sleeping for hours, oblivious to the shocking news about her husband. “Janice too. She should have a say. It’s her husband, for bot’s sake.”
“But if it was just up to you, what would you do?”
Harrison grits his teeth, thinking that perhaps Benson’s isolationist strategy is a good idea right about now. “It doesn’t matter what I would do.”
“It does to me.”
Harrison feels a stroke of anger course through him. “Oh, now you care? But not when you were keeping the secret, right? Not when you were holding the information hostage, like some kind of rumor-terrorist.” Harrison immediately regrets his word choice, especially when he sees the way Minda’s face falls. She’s not a terrorist of any kind and she really was only trying to protect them, even if she went about it the wrong way.
“I’m sorry, I’ll leave you to—”
Harrison bites his tongue. “No. Stay. I’m—I’m sorry too. I’m just frustrated right now. With pretty much everything. Not just you.”
“Oh, good. Glad it’s not just me.”
Harrison forces his lips to smile, though the rest of his face remains flat. “Things are just a little crazy. One of my brother’s best friends is dead, and Benson’s already been pushed to the emotional brink. I don’t know how much more he can take. I didn’t know Gonzo that well, and we had our share of fights, but in the end I think he was a pretty good guy. I think we could’ve become friends.
“And then there’s a chance that my dad’s alive and I might know exactly where he’s being held? Botlickers, I was just starting to accept his death and come around to the fact that he might not be the total monster I’d built him up to be in my mind. Now it’s like I�
�m right back at square one. Or maybe zero. Yeah, more like zero, like I don’t have a freaking clue about anything.”
Minda seems to listen to every word, nodding at the right places. Understanding. She’s a good listener, Harrison realizes, now that he’s let her be.
“We can try to rescue your father,” Minda says. “The mission can wait.”
It’s like a door has opened. All Harrison has to do is get up and walk through it. He looks away, finding a spot on the wall. “I hated my father for so long. I loved him so desperately that it turned to hate when he never showed any real interest in me. The thing is, I never really tried to understand his motivations for working so hard, for never being around. I was selfish. He was my dad, he was supposed to pay attention to me without me having to ask him to. The bleachers could be overflowing at my hoverball games, and yet they always seemed empty without him. I put on a happy face for my friends, maybe for myself too, but I was never really happy. Now, despite everything that’s happened, I’m happier than I was when I was safe and living in my father’s nice, empty house. I have family. I have friends…” He trails off, the spot on the wall seeming to grow bigger before his very eyes.
“And now you’re afraid that if your father is really alive and you rescue him, that it will go back to how it was before, when you were so unhappy,” Minda says.
Harrison’s head snaps around and his eyes meet hers. “Yeah. That’s exactly how I feel. But that’s ridiculous, right? I mean, he’s not who I thought he was. It won’t go back to that, will it?”
Benson’s voice cuts into the conversation. “We should tell Mom,” he says, sitting on the bottom step. Harrison was so caught up in his conversation with Minda, he didn’t even hear his brother come down.
“Bense, I’m sorry about Gonzo. We’ll make Pop Con pay. Somehow.”
Benson shakes his head. “There’s a lot of blood on Pop Con’s hands, but not Gonzo’s,” he says.
Harrison frowns. “Did you see the same report that I did? They shot him in the streets. There were witnesses. There’s no doubt who killed him.”
Benson tells them about what Gonzo said to him, about how he’d try to buy them some time. As he relays the story, Harrison’s frown deepens. “You think Jarrod turned Gonzo over to the Hunters?”
“If he was caught doing something to sabotage them? Bots yeah he would. Jarrod won’t let anything stop him from reaching his goals. He’s killed civilians. He tried to have me and Mom killed just to garner support against the government. He did this. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
Harrison looks at Minda, who only shrugs. “It’s possible. I knew Jarrod for quite a while longer than you guys, and everything that Benson is saying fits.”
“He’s a murderer,” Harrison says.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Benson says.
Just then, Janice stirs, stretching as her eyes flutter open. Her lips quirk up at the edges before slowly broadening into an enormous smile. Harrison wants so badly to smile back, but his mouth won’t move. Can’t move. “Mom,” he says. “There’s something we have to tell you.”
Chapter Twenty
Michael Kelly has screamed his lungs out, but it’s as if he doesn’t exist. The murmured voices on the other side of the door ignore him. They are either indifferent to his plight, or staunch allies of his enemy.
The strangest thing, however, is that he hasn’t had a visit from the cyborg in what seems like days. He knows he was supposed to be the bait—his video would’ve been streamed on millions of holos across the country for days on end—but if Benson or Harrison came to rescue him and were killed, surely the Destroyer would’ve killed him by now, too, his usefulness expired.
Stay away boys, he thinks. But no, it wasn’t only a thought. The whispered words slid through his cracked lips, coming out ragged and shredded, spoken with such fervor he knows it was closer to a prayer than a hope. Michael’s never been a religious man, but now he finds himself wishing he was. At least then he’d have something to hold on to, to give him faith. Instead he feels only empty, and not only because he hasn’t eaten anything in days.
His biggest regret in a long line of mistakes was making his wife memorize the codes, telling her she was the key. At the time he thought he was being prudent, trusting only the most trustworthy of souls. Plus he never thought he wouldn’t be around to complete the mission. He was so stupid, he realizes now. More than that he was thoughtless and reckless, bringing a broken woman, a woman he’s supposed to love, into his dangerous plans.
Surely the consortium will find another way, he tells himself. They’ve proven themselves resourceful many times, and he trusts the inner leadership implicitly. They’d leave Janice out of their plans, wouldn’t they? Not their plans, he reminds himself. My plans. And no, he knows they won’t have an alternative solution, because he didn’t give them one. He backed them into a corner, and now they’ll fight their way out of it using any means necessary. Including his wife. Including his kids.
He screams, fighting fruitlessly against his bindings, which cut deeply into his raw skin, drawing blood, painting hot streams down his flesh.
When he hears the voices coming closer, he stops straining, listening in the dark.
“We can’t just leave him in there,” a high-pitched male voice says.
“Do you have a death wish? If that…thing…in there wakes up and finds his prisoner gone, he’ll hunt us down and kill us.” A different voice this time, deeper, speaking slowly and methodically. An educated man, Michael guesses.
“Not if we kill him before he wakes up,” the high voice says. “He’ll be helpless for hours still, until the drugs wear off and the system reboot completes.”
“Are you mad? Our orders came from the highest levels. We were to do what we could for him, and leave. That’s it.”
“We could tell them there was nothing we could do. That he was already dead.”
“I can’t listen to this anymore. I’m leaving. And I’ll be reporting that when I left the patient was recovering nicely but that you were still here. Anything that happens from here on out is on you.”
“Wait. Just wait. Okay. I’m sorry. I’m just a little tense. This is too much.”
A loud sigh. “I know. For me, too. But we have to be smart and keep being smart.”
“You’re right. I know you’re right.”
“Let’s go. Our work here is done.”
Michael’s about to start screaming again, making as much noise as possible to hopefully change their minds, but the other guy speaks first:
“We should at least give the prisoner some water. Maybe some food. If he dies before the patient wakes up, there will be hell to pay.”
There’s a moment of silence as the deep-voiced guy thinks it over. “Okay. But he doesn’t see our faces. Use those bags you brought in earlier.”
Michael’s heart beating furiously, he waits, listening as there’s rustling behind the door. The sound of cutting. The groan of the unoiled door opening. Hollow light filling the entrance to his prison. Two shadows stepping in, their heads the shape of square blocks. Their flashlights blind him, and he slams his eyes shut.
“Sorry,” one mutters.
“Don’t speak,” the other chastises him.
Michael feels the light move away and he eases his eyes open to blessed darkness. He can barely make out the men with the bags over their heads. Through the cut-out holes, their eyes look wide and fearful as they take in his battered and bloodied body. “Please,” he croaks. “You don’t have to do this. Whatever trouble you’re in, I can help if you get me out.”
“You can’t help us,” the one with the high voice says.
“Shut up,” the other one hisses. “Drink.” He tips a bottle to Michael’s lips.
Michael slams his mouth closed, twisting away, and some of the water spills in his lap.
“Dammit! This is crazy,” the guy mutters.
“You have to drink or you’ll die of dehyd
ration,” the first guy says, and this time his partner doesn’t reprimand him for speaking. “Surely you can feel it. The thirst, the fatigue, like your body is shutting down. You won’t last much longer.”
“What, are you a doctor or something?” Michael says, barely opening his lips. He tries to moisten them to prove the guy wrong, but his tongue is like sandpaper.
Silence. He guessed it. “So we’ve got a doctor and someone else,” he says. “Let me guess—a robotics specialist?”
“Screw this,” the second guy says. “Let him die for all I care.”
“Fine, but give me the water,” the other guy says.
Grudgingly, he hands over the bottle, and then leaves, his footsteps echoing away.
“Drink,” the guy says, the word sounding more like a plea than a command.
“No.”
“I know who you are,” the guy says. He cocks his head slightly when the sound of feet on metal resound through the hall.
Michael Kelly says nothing, wondering whether the revelation will help his cause, or hurt it.
“You’re supposed to be dead.” Metal shrieks somewhere in the distance.
“Then let me die.” He doesn’t really mean it, but thinks his hopelessness could play on this man’s apparent compassion.
“I can’t do that. Not in good conscience.”
“Then let me go.”
“I can’t do that either.”
“Yes. You can,” Michael says. “All you have to do is loosen these straps and leave the door ajar. Just give me a fighting chance. You can walk out of here, and if I’m strong enough, maybe I manage to escape on my own. Whoever’s pulling your strings won’t even know you had anything to do with it.”
The man is silent for a moment, and Michael hopes that means he’s considering the logic of the plan. “He’ll know,” he finally says.
“Who?” Michael asks.
“Trust me, you don’t want to know. Let’s just say the Destroyer has at least one friend in a high place.”
