Flip (The Slip Trilogy Book 3)

by David Estes

  Her fear is gone, replaced with stark acceptance. If this is her end, then she’s satisfied. And looking into the hopeless eyes of the doctor, she realizes that no one needs a purpose to live, not even her. They’re entitled to life simply because they exist. “I forgive you,” Destiny wheezes, and she sees a spark skitter across the doctor’s numb expression.

  He chews his lip, as if contemplating something. The Destroyer says, “What are you waiting for? Do it!”

  His face wet with glistening tears, the doctor offers the slightest of nods to Destiny and they share a secret smile, an almost imperceptible acknowledgement of the connection they share because of their mistakes.

  And then, because it’s what she would do, he does what Destiny knows he’ll do:

  He whirls around and pulls the trigger.

  ~~~

  Harrison had planned to go in quietly. He and Simon had lifted the manhole cover and carried it to the side, resting it gently on the asphalt. An aut-car whipped around them, so close he could feel the breeze, its passenger shouting “Get out of the way, moron!” as it passed. But he didn’t care, because his father might be down there, and Destiny, too, and he wasn’t about to wait until the cover of night to go in. Simon, to his credit, didn’t argue, risking everything for a mission he held very little skin in.

  Now, even as Harrison prepares to ease himself quietly onto the ladder, he realizes how much attention they’ve drawn already. With the lockdown lifted, there are dozens of people on the streets, many of them stopping to gawk at the teenage kid and the enormous man standing in the middle of the road. He wonders if they should’ve waited.

  Everything changes when he hears the gunshot ricocheting through the dank tunnels below. He exchanges the briefest of glances with Simon, and then he clambers down the ladder, his feet ringing out on the metal. He’s dimly aware of the racket Simon makes behind him, but he doesn’t stop, skipping the last three rungs and dropping to his feet with a heavy thud. He takes the steps three at a time, bounding down to the narrow corridor that holds the darkest of memories.

  There are voices in the distance, and then there’s another booming gunshot. His footsteps slap the stone floor and Simon is shouting for him to “Wait!” but nothing can stop him now. He pulls out his gun, the metal cold against his hot, sweaty palm. He slows his stride only slightly when he notices an open door to his right, the space barely lit by a flashlight resting on the ground. The beam cuts a bright yellow swathe along the floor, but turns hazy and orange when it meets an empty chair twisted with ropes.

  He sprints onward, toward the gaping maw of a nightmarish room that nearly became his tomb mere days earlier. Without considering the consequences, he charges into the beast’s mouth with reckless abandon, flashing his gun from side to side.

  The Destroyer is the first one he sees, his face a snarling mask as he wrestles a gun away from some guy he doesn’t recognize. Blood is pumping from the cyborg’s stomach, but it doesn’t seem to be having any impact on him.

  The desire to let his bullets fly without abandon is tempered by the fear of hitting someone who is clearly on his side. He’s about to race to the man’s aid when he spots two dark forms on the floor to the side. A frizzy-haired head pops up and looks his way, her big, brown eyes widening in surprise. “Harrison?”

  Simon smashes into him from behind, but simultaneously steadies him with his massive hand. “Get them out,” Harrison says, motioning to Destiny and the other person whose face he doesn’t have to see to recognize. “Get Destiny and my father out.”

  Simon rushes over and hauls them to their feet, dragging them back the way they came. “Wait!” Destiny cries. “Harrison.”

  But he doesn’t listen, can’t listen, because this ends now. He points his gun at the Destroyer, who, seeming to finally register his presence, rips the gun from the man’s hand and twists him around in front of his body, using him as a human shield.

  Harrison dives to the side as the Destroyer fires, the bullet zinging past. His mind races. He can’t shoot back or he might hit the guy, so he scrambles on all fours back through the doorway as another bullet chisels away at the wall behind him. The desire to flee pounds in his chest. Like before, they could get away. He’d have Destiny and his father again, safe and sound. He doesn’t know the guy in there, doesn’t owe him anything. But he can’t run, not anymore.

  This ends today.

  There’s the sound of a scuffle and a groan and then the clop of footsteps on stone. Harrison steadies his aim, facing the doorway. A face appears and he almost shoots, holding back at the last second, but a gunshot pierces the momentary silence anyway. The guy stops dead in his tracks, a freaky smile crossing his lips before he drops, his chest blooming with red from the bullet that passed all the way through his body.

  A deep-throated laugh pours from the room. “Who’s next?”

  Suddenly Destiny is by his side, whispering in his ear. “There’s nothing else we can do. Let’s go. Live.” Metallic steps resonate toward them, and Harrison makes a split-second decision, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her away. He can risk his own life, but not hers. Get her out first, then go back to finish it.

  An awful and electric sense of deja vu streaking just under his skin, he forces his legs to go faster than ever before. Destiny races ahead on her hoverskates, careening up the steps just off the ground, using the incline as a ramp. Above them, Simon is muscling his father through the manhole to safety.

  There are loud, unmasked sounds of pursuit behind them, and Harrison stops before the steps to turn and fire. His action seems to have no impact, the Destroyer charging forward, coming into view, his gun exploding with tongues of flame. Bullets spark off the wall a hairsbreadth from Harrison’s head, but he doesn’t back down, firing again, targeting the Destroyer’s head but missing. The cyborg roars and Harrison fires once more, this time lowering his aim.

  The Destroyer grunts from the impact as the slug buries itself in his chest, but he doesn’t stop coming.

  “Holy bots,” Harrison mutters, finally realizing that the Destroyer won’t be stopped by his gun, not in his current deranged state. He turns and gallops up the stairs, not looking back for fear it will give the Destroyer the advantage he needs to catch up. More bullets whizzing past, he grabs the ladder and practically flies up it, stretching for the cloud-filled sky above him. Rough, strong hands grab him and pull him to the street, which is full of people.

  Harrison ignores them as the cyborg bellows behind him.

  “Let go of me,” Harrison says to Simon, ripping free of his grasp, pointing his gun through the hole. The Destroyer is climbing after him, his mouth open, his eye full of rage. The cyborg is so close he can’t possibly miss.

  “Die now,” Harrison says, pulling the trigger.

  The Destroyer’s movement is superhuman, so fast he’s not sure exactly how he does it, swinging off to the side and avoiding the shot. In a flash he pendulums back to the ladder and takes another step up. Harrison fires again, and this time the cyborg simply raises his metal arm, the bullet deflecting harmlessly away.

  Panic setting in, Harrison can’t remember whether he has any shots left or not, but he pulls the trigger anyway. The sound isn’t that of an empty chamber, but the gun doesn’t fire. A misfire, he realizes, pulling back sharply.

  The Destroyer leaps through the hole, snarling like an animal. There are a few gasps and screams amongst the crowd, who shrink back, leaving a hole in their center, enough space for the cyborg and his prey. Harrison pushes Destiny behind him, but she resists, muscling to his side. “No,” he says. “Run.”

  “Not without you.”

  “I got this,” Simon says, stepping in front of both of them, his fully loaded gun aimed at the Destroyer. He pulls the trigger repeatedly, the gunshots joining with the crowd’s screams. Domino Destovan’s movements are impossibly quick, not dodging the bullets, but blocking them with the metallic parts of his body, using his arm and leg like shields. A woman in the c
rowd cries out as a ricochet tears into her leg.

  When Simon’s gun clicks in his hand, his ammo spent, the Destroyer stops. “Game over. In the name of the President of the Reorganized United States of America, I hereby sentence all of you to death for crimes against your country.” Although his words are official, coming from his spit-covered lips they sound more like the rantings of a madman. He raises the gun and Harrison knows all he has left is to give Destiny a chance of getting away. Whether she takes it is up to her.

  “Get ready to run,” he hisses.

  “You too,” she says, and he gets the feeling her plan is similar to his own.

  “He killed Corrigan Mars,” someone in the crowd says.

  The Destroyer whirls around, scanning the faces of the people. “Who said that?” he demands.

  “This guy’s crazy,” someone else says, from the other side.

  The Destroyer spins back. “He deserved to die,” he growls. “Just like these criminals. I was serving my country. My president.”

  “You made a holo of you cutting off someone’s head.” Another voice, hidden behind angry faces.

  “That’s sick!”

  “Screwed up!”

  “Freak!”

  The crowd presses in, and Harrison suddenly realizes that some of them are carrying weapons—knives and hammers and even a few firearms. They seem far more like a mob than the curious group of citizens they were a moment earlier. “You are all sentenced to termination for your treason!” the Destroyer yells, but his words are swallowed up in the roar of the crowd. Harrison is jostled from behind, and he protectively ropes his arms around Destiny, who presses her head against his chest. He searches for his father, who he knows is in far worse shape than any of them, but then he sees Simon, a head above the rest, carrying him against the human flow.

  There’s a gunshot, then another, and then grunts and screams and the sickening thud of fists and feet slapping against human flesh.

  The Destroyer roars, the agonized cry of a dying lion.

  Harrison just holds Destiny as tightly as he can, feeling only the warmth of her body against him as the rest of the world fades away.

  PART 3: FLIP

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Janice is tired of the news. Tired of seeing the blurry glimpse of her husband in the video shot by some amateur holographer. Tired of waiting. She can see that Harrison’s new friend, Lola the BotDog, is tired too, her chin pressed to the carpet and her eyes closed.

  The news has been repeating the same information for at least two hours, and yet no one will turn it off, all staring numbly at the images dancing from Minda’s holo-screen.

  “The people have spoken,” Minda murmurs.

  Benson says, “But surely they wouldn’t have let them go.”

  Janice knows who them is. Her family. Destiny. Simon. Wanted criminals, like her. Janice is sad for Benson, because he has no hope, his logical brain unable or unwilling to give him comfort or faith. She knows he’s smarter than her, but maybe being too smart isn’t a good thing sometimes. Not if it takes away your faith.

  “It’s not on the news,” Minda points out.

  “Pop Con has probably told them to keep quiet until they can make an official statement,” Benson says.

  Which makes sense, even to her, Janice thinks. And yet, “Wrong.”

  Benson’s eyes flash to hers for an angry moment, but then drop to his lap, the spark doused. “Mom,” he says.

  She pats his leg. “I know some things,” she says. “And I feel even more.”

  “I know you do, Mom, but—”

  “Not finished,” she chides gently. “I feel things in here”—she taps her chest, where she feels her heart beating like the tick of a clock—“that you only think up here.” She points to her head, but then also points to Benson’s in case he thinks she means her head when she really means his head. She drops her hands, feeling confused.

  Benson takes one of them and squeezes. “Thank you,” he says.

  “For what?”

  “For being a mom again.”

  She wrinkles her brow. “I never stopped.”

  “I know. I know.” He ropes an arm around her and pulls her into his side, and she closes her eyes.

  Lola’s eyes flash open and she starts barking a moment before the back door thuds open. “We need help,” Harrison’s voice pleads.

  Janice is on her feet even before Benson, dodging around the couch to get to her son, to throw her arms around him (and Lola, who is all over him, her tail and tongue everywhere), to release him just as quickly, to pepper the father of her children’s face with kisses, ignoring the dried blood and dark bruises that make him look like a different person. It feels good not to hate him for a few shredded seconds. “You made me right,” she whispers into his greasy hair.

  When she pulls back to look at his face, his eyes flicker open, and though they’re only half-moons, she can see the twinkle in them, one that hasn’t been there for years. “I found you,” he says.

  “You found yourself,” she says, knowing it’s probably both.

  ~~~

  Despite all he’s lost, Benson can’t help the giddy feeling in his chest. His father’s injuries, dehydration and malnourishment are serious, but not enough that he won’t recover. Minda practically promised it.

  Michael Kelly. Janice Kelly. Harrison Kelly. And him, Benson Kelly. Once scattered like dust on a gust of wind, now reunited under seemingly miraculous circumstances.

  With his father heavily drugged and sleeping on a cot in the corner with Lola at his feet, Benson feels his breaths coming so easily, not sticking in his lungs like they have since this all started. His mother sighs beside him, and whispers something to her Zoran watch. Minda tends to Destiny’s wounds, supervised by Harrison, who gets in the way more than he helps.

  Simon watches the holo-news, pointing each time he sees himself on the screen. “Do I really look that big in real life?” he asks.

  “Well, they say the holo adds five kilos,” Harrison says, “but for you it subtracted about ten. You’re way bigger in real life.”

  “Hilarious,” Simon says, but he smiles as the shaky video shows the Destroyer blocking his gunshots. “That dude was insane.”

  Wincing as Minda presses a cold compress to her shoulder, Destiny says, “How did you know we were there?”

  “The freak leaked a video of my father in his torture chamber to the press,” Harrison says.

  Destiny raises her eyebrows. “So you came to save your father?”

  “And you,” Benson says. “Harrison came for you.” It’s a point he has to make. He’s seen the lost look in her eyes, has seen how far she’s fallen from the spunky hoverskating girl he first met.

  Destiny looks at Harrison. “But I wasn’t in the video. You couldn’t have known I’d be there.”

  “I knew,” Harrison says. “The girl I know would protect those she cared about, even at the risk of losing her own life.”

  Destiny goes quiet, allowing Minda to finish up with her in silence. Benson can sense there are a million words left unsaid between her and his brother, but either they’re not meant for the rest of them to hear, or they’re not ready to speak them.

  As the late-afternoon shadows press through the frosty windowpanes, Harrison tells them how they managed to escape in the confusion, how the mob scene was so chaotic, their violent intentions so focused on ending the Destroyer, that they simply slipped away before the Crows arrived to get control of the situation. If not for their disguises and Michael’s beat-up, barely distinguishable face, things might’ve been different. Or maybe the citizens of Saint Louis have finally figured out who the real enemy is. In any case, they fled into the Tunnels and took a train most of the way back to the safe house. Though they received a lot of strange looks, especially considering Michael was unconscious and Simon and Harrison had to hold him up, no one said anything or tried to stop them.

  When Harrison finishes, Benson whispers a silent th
ank you to his people, the lower class, the poor and the downtrodden and the silent. They may not have money or flare or full bellies, but the people he associates himself with know how to keep a secret.

  Benson’s not exactly sure how to broach the next topic, so he just dives right into it. “The mission,” he says.

  Minda pulls her holo away from Simon and switches it off. The room falls deathly silent, broken only by the sound of aut-cars whirring by outside and the heavy rise and fall of Michael’s breathing in the corner.

  “The mission doesn’t change,” Minda says.

  “I know,” Benson says. “But my mom doesn’t have to go anymore.” He hates that he has to say it, to risk one parent’s life to protect another’s, but it’s the right thing. This was always his father’s mission. And now that he’s alive and with them…

  “He won’t be ready by tomorrow,” Minda says.

  “How do you know?” Harrison says, meeting Benson’s eyes in a moment of solidarity before boring into Minda’s.

  Minda sighs and runs a hand over her bald brown head. Tiny black hairs are just starting to sprout on her scalp. “I don’t. But you need to be prepared for the fact that he might sleep for a week straight. Your mom—Janice—would still have to go.”

  “She doesn’t have to do anything,” Harrison says.

  “I think I’m right here,” Janice says, looking around the room as if waiting for someone to confirm her statement. “I think I know how to speak.”

  “Mom—” Benson starts to say but she immediately cuts him off.

  “I know best. For a while maybe I didn’t, but I do now.” Benson goes quiet, waiting for her to continue. “Ever since I got my two boys back, the chaos in my head hasn’t exactly quieted, but things do seem to fit together now, lining up in uneven rows. Do you know what I mean?”

  Although the thought of anything lined up unevenly makes him cringe, Benson nods.

  Janice continues: “All the powerlessness I felt when I was in the asylum has fallen away like an old wrinkled skin”—she crinkles her nose as if in disgust at her own comparison—“and now my life is mine to live again. I won’t waste it.”