Kill Switch
Page 11
“Jesus,” Champion let out a low whistle. “Well, that’s a helluva thing. And you got nothing else with you? Just you and your dog?”
“By now, yes. Seems like I’ve been gradually stripping myself of everything. The last thing I ditched was the car. Somebody slashed the tires, most likely to keep me stuck there, so I couldn’t get away. Probably for the best, since they had it bugged. That has to be how they found me.” Chris paused, looking out into the night. “Now I really do have nothing but the clothes I’m wearing, and what’s left of the money in my wallet.”
“It’s like them Native American spirit quests.”
“What is?”
“You never heard of that?” Champion took one hand off the steering wheel to point forward, toward the west. “Out there, some o’ them Native American tribes, I forget which ones—maybe the Cheyenne, but I could be wrong about that. When the boys of the tribe would reach a certain age, they’d send ’em out into the wilderness, bare-ass naked. Can you imagine? Out in the middle o’ nowhere, not even a pair of skivvies to cover your privates. And they had to survive for a few days like that. Not only survive, they had to have a vision while they was out there. It was like, go out there, and come back and tell us what you saw, and what you learned, and if it’s good enough that’ll mean you’re a man. Some of ’em never come back, of course. They starved or died of thirst or fell off a cliff or got snakebit, or whatnot. Some of ’em had to be rescued, and those ones was always kinda second-class citizens after that. But there was the ones as came back into camp on their own two bare feet, and had a story to tell. And those were the men. Those were the warriors.”
Chris looked out into the darkness, listening to the rhythmic thwack of the windshield wipers. Rain was still falling, but more gently now, and there were occasional lightning flashes in the distance.
A spirit quest. Is that what this was? Gradually getting rid of everything that connected him to the larger world? Going out naked into the wilderness, just him and his dog, to see if they can survive, and maybe come back with a story?
Champion’s smile returned. “So, you think you’ll have a vision?”
Chris looked at him for a long time without speaking, and finally leaned back in the seat, stretching his legs. “You know,” he said quietly, “If I can survive long enough, I think maybe I will.”
Chapter 10
They took Highway 75 north and crossed into Nebraska at just before nine at night. Thomas T. Champion was still going strong. Chris, on the other hand, was at that stage of fatigue that bordered delirium.
The trucker shook his head, grinning wryly. “It’s a lucky coincidence I was comin’ through St. Joe on 36 at all. Got a report there was an accident blockin’ up Interstate 29 just shy of the Iowa border, probably on account of the bad weather. Thought I’d avoid that mess, cross into Kansas and then cut north and hit I-80 that way. I got to be in Salt Lake with this lot of furniture in three days. No real need to rush, but I hate gettin’ stuck waitin’ for them to clear a wreck, you know what I mean? I ain’t no good at waiting around. Never have been.”
Chris had his eyes closed. Baxter was already snoozing at his feet. “Lucky for me you didn’t.”
“That’s the truth. And I’d like to get some more miles between us and those guys as was after you. Once we hit I-80, there’s a rest stop, this side of Lincoln. We’ll pack it in for the night.”
“Sounds good.”
Champion said, with a smile in his voice, “Okay, I’ll stop my jawin’ now and let you sleep. Guess even spies gotta get some shut-eye.”
Chris didn’t respond, and the roar of the engine, the swish of cars passing in the night, and the low sound of country music on the radio all faded seamlessly into sleep.
—
He awoke thirsty, hungry, and needing to pee as the first rays of sunshine tinted the interior of the truck cab with crimson. He came to full wakefulness with the abrupt realization that Baxter was gone.
He sat up, his neck cracking as he straightened, heart hammering in his chest. He called once, quietly. Maybe Baxter had gone back into the truck’s sleeping area with Thomas T. Champion. At least that’s what he assumed was in the back of the cab. He’d been too tired to inquire the previous evening, and had never been inside an eighteen-wheeler before this.
No response.
He got up, maneuvered his way between the seats and through a sliding door left partially ajar, into a narrow room with a bed, mini-fridge, television, and an open laptop, with the screen glowing. The bed had a rumpled blanket and pillow, half fallen onto the floor, and the whole place smelled faintly of body odor and beer.
No one there.
He returned to the front of the cab, fighting down a sense of panic, opened the door, and climbed out.
“G’mornin’, sunshine,” came a cheerful voice from behind him. Chris turned, and saw Champion walking toward him from the direction of the rest stop building, Baxter trotting at his heels. “Your old dog seemed like he needed to go out and water the trees, so I took him with me. Hope you don’t mind. He took to me right away. I always had a way with dogs. Helped that I had some day-old roast beef for his breakfast, o’ course. Don’t expect either of you was thinking much of dinner last night, but he was lookin’ at me with those ‘feed me’ eyes, you know?”
Baxter walked over to him, tail wagging, and Chris scratched him behind the ears.
“Anyhow, you can go visit the men’s room and wash up a little. We’ll find a place with some pay showers today, there’s a couple of ’em along the way. One thing about this life is you get used to grabbing a shower when you can find one. Expect you’re hungry. We’ll stop and pick somethin’ up when we get to Lincoln.”
“That sounds good.” Chris gave his dog a look. “Baxter, you go with Mr. Champion, now. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Baxter trotted over to Champion as if they’d been best friends for years, his tail still doing the slow wag that indicated calm good cheer.
As Chris walked to the men’s room, he reflected that his dog’s reaction, more than anything else, had convinced him that Champion was okay. Baxter was generally a pretty good judge of character. But then, the more paranoid side of his brain chided him for being simple-minded.
Some dogs will trust anyone with a doggie biscuit, and Baxter was one of them. He couldn’t fall for the “dogs have a sixth sense about people” bullshit. He had to stay on guard. He didn’t know if Champion was all right, yet, but there was nothing wrong with remaining cautious.
He went into the restroom, which was otherwise empty, and after a much-needed visit to the urinal, went to the sink to wash his face. He was looking pretty scruffy, with three days’ dark beard, peppered with gray. He’d always been clean-shaven, He rubbed his rough chin, and decided the hobo look kind of suited him. And after all, that’s what he was at the moment, wasn’t he? May as well look the part.
After washing his face, he made a cursory attempt to getting his hair to lie flat, but gave that up when it became apparent that without a shower, he wasn’t going to get any cooperation. He went back out into the sunshine, and looked out over the rolling Nebraska hills, with alternating patches of brown and green showing where the center-pivot irrigators were doing their job of watering perfectly circular fields of wheat, corn, and oats.
They were back on the road ten minutes later, and the miles slid by in a constant stream of conversation, underscored by the low, intermittent crackle of the CB radio. Perhaps because he spent so much time alone, Thomas T. Champion turned out to be an eager conversationalist. Chris was happy to have someone to talk to and take his mind off the omnipresent worry about whether he was going to be killed.
After a forty-five minute monologue about the twentieth high school reunion he’d attended the previous year, Champion finally took a breath. “Sorry I’m yakkin’ at you so much. You give me a thermos o’ coffee, a bag o’ potato chips, someone to talk to, and put me behind the wheel of a truck, I can go
all day long.”
“It’s okay. It’s nice to have a pleasant conversation. I haven’t had one of those in the last two weeks, since all of this nonsense started.”
“Yeah, you know, I was thinkin’ about all that last night, right as I was tryin’ to get to sleep. You really got no idea why these guys are after you?”
“Not really, no.”
The trucker shook his head. “Helluva thing. How did the FBI find out they were after you, so they could warn you? I mean, if you want to talk about it. You don’t have to get into all of the gory details with me. I’m just curious.”
Why not? What else did he have to talk about these days? “No, it’s no problem. Some people I knew in college had already gotten killed. Me and one other were the last two left.”
“Seriously? That’s like somethin’ out o’ one o’ them, you know, Agatha Christie novels. People gettin’ picked off, one by one. And you and some other guy are the only ones left? What was it, people who were in a frat together or something?”
“No, people in the same biology class. And it’s a girl. She’s the only other one who’s still alive.” Chris hesitated, afraid to reveal too much. But there was something about the truck driver’s manner that engendered trust.
And as if reading Chris’s thoughts, Champion grinned. “Now, you got no reason to tell me anything more. After all, I’m still a stranger. ”
“Well, you saved my life last night, and you didn’t kill me in my sleep.”
Champion burst out laughing. “Yeah, I guess that’s true enough. And for the record, I got no intention of killin’ you. I’m not one of the Bad Guys.”
“I think I believe you.”
“Well, after what you been through, that’s the best I could hope for.”
“And actually, I was thinking—I’d like to try to get in touch with the other survivor. We’ve been emailing each other every so often, just to…” He trailed off.
Champion’s face became serious. “Just to say that you’re still alive. That they haven’t got you, yet.”
“Yes.”
“That’s gotta be scary. The two of you, waitin’ to see which one gets got first, hopin’ all the time that you’ll both escape in the end.”
“That’s it exactly. And she’ll probably be worried. I haven’t written since yesterday morning.”
“Aren’t you afraid of… you know, them being able to trace your emails? You said they had something tracking your car.”
“I don’t know. I got rid of my cell phone yesterday because of that. Is it possible to tell where an email originated?”
“I dunno.” Champion squinted as though thinking hard. “But it wouldn’t surprise me at all if they could.”
“Do you have an internet connection?”
“Yeah.” His hesitancy sounded clearly in his voice. “I use it to keep in touch with my brother and his family. I got a satellite modem last year. I’m connected anywhere there’s cell service.”
“Could I use it to check my email?”
Champion looked dubious. “Look, Chris, I’m not gonna tell you you can’t, but seems to me you got away by the skin o’ your teeth last night. You might want to find a way to leave no tracks for a while.”
He knew the driver was right, but he suddenly felt a desperation to see if Elisa had written to him. The sensation bordered on physical pain. Despite being in the company of an apparently friendly person who seemed to have no problem giving him a ride for as long as he wanted, Chris suddenly became aware that he was, more than he ever had been, entirely alone. Out on the roads of this spinning globe, cast adrift like a shipwrecked sailor, and Elisa was the only one who truly understood, who shared that isolation. Thomas T. Champion could, when his load of furniture was delivered to Salt Lake City, go back to his home and his friends and his life.
What did he have? His dog, his clothes, and the remaining $732 from his thousand. In other words, not very fucking much. But he was willing to run a risk to contact the one other person in the world whose fate resembled his own.
“I’ll read my email, I won’t respond.” It was a lie, and they probably both knew it, but it was something he had to do.
Champion shrugged. “Okay. Your decision, my friend, and I understand it’s gotta be hard not knowin’ how she is. But I gotta say that in your place, I’d be scared to take a piss for fear they’d track me down by the flush.”
“I think I haven’t stopped being scared since I first found out about those people I knew in college dying. But being alone is worse than being scared, I think.”
“I get it. Laptop’s in the back, in the cabinet next to the bed. If we got cell service out here, it should work just fine. Gets a little spotty further west, but I think around here there shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Thanks.” Chris stood and squeezed his way into the living quarters. The laptop was right where Champion said it would be, and he pulled it out, lifted the cover, and turned it on, sitting on the edge of the bed with the computer balanced in his lap.
Opening up a web browser, he signed into his Gmail. He had several new emails—two, he saw, from Elisa.
“Yes,” he said under his breath, feeling relief wash over him. One of them had been posted only ten minutes earlier. Ignoring the other emails, and skipped right to the older of Elisa’s messages.
Chris,
I’m so glad you’re still okay. I am too. I really don’t know how they’d find me here, unless they could somehow trace where my emails are coming from. I’ve done some research, and it seems like the most that could tell them is that they’re coming from my laptop, not where my laptop actually is. So I think I’m safe. Please don’t worry about me.
But your mention of scary near misses has me afraid for you. How are they finding you? I don’t imagine you’re being careless, not after what’s already happened. Please take every precaution you can. I’ll be waiting for your reply.
Elisa
The second message, posted that morning, was much longer:
Chris,
I’m really concerned that I haven’t heard from you, and I am hoping that it’s only that you haven’t had a way to get to an internet connection. But you know me; when I care about someone, I worry.
To pass the time, since I haven’t been able to do much else that’s productive, I decided to do a little online research. I thought that I might be able to figure out what we had in common—the seven of us—besides having been in Field Biology together, thirty years ago. I don’t know why I thought I’d find anything, because after all, the FBI men who contacted you didn’t seem to know what was going on, right?
Well, if they gave you that impression, I think they must have been lying, or at least not telling you the whole truth. I spent the better part of yesterday evening online, and I came up with something that seems to be another significant link between us all. And if I could find it with a little bit of online digging, I can’t imagine that they don’t know.
Did you know that all of us are involved, in some way, in astronomical stuff? I found right away that you were the president of an Amateur Astronomers’ Club. I do paintings of deities connected with the sky and stars. It’s been a passion ever since college. I have read everything I can find on it. I don’t recall ever thinking about the subject when I was a kid, or even an undergraduate. But after graduate school, it became as near to an obsession as I have. Maybe you’ve looked at my gallery website and seen some of my paintings. I am in love with the mythological creatures of the skies.
Well, we’re not the only ones. Each of the seven of us has a different twist on it, but it’s true of all of us. Gavin was all over UFO websites. I found him on Reddit. He’s got over a thousand posts on subreddits like “Conspiracy” and “UFOs” and “Ancient Aliens.” Not much of a surprise, maybe—remember how he always was into that stuff? Maybe he was the only one who already had a seed of the interest before, prior to whatever it was that happened in class. But, Chris, it’s all of us!
Lewis took award-winning astronomical photographs. Deirdre had volunteered to be on the team of consulting physicians for the astronauts on the International Space Station. She even had research proposals out there for experiments to be run in space. And you probably know that Glen taught at a community college, but do you know what he taught? Despite a master’s degree in biology?
Astronomy. He must have gone back and gotten a second advanced degree, after we knew him.
This has to be significant. I don’t know how, but it has to. What’s the likelihood of seven people as different as the seven of us, and all of us have some kind of passionate interest in space?
It’s like whatever happened, up there in the Cascades, gave us some kind of post-hypnotic suggestion. Maybe there was an alien ship in that cave, or something. I know that sounds ridiculous.
Write when you can. I’ll be waiting for your response.
Elisa
Chris reread the message twice. He sat, uncertain, finger poised above the touch pad to click on Reply. Both Elisa and Thomas T. Champion had brought up the possibility that he could be tracked by his emails, but then Elisa had added that she didn’t think it was possible unless They knew the location of the computer where the emails had originated. Chris remembered reading something a while back about ISP addresses and the police using them to nail people involved in child pornography rings. He didn’t remember much about it, if they identified each computer uniquely, could tell specifically where that computer was located, or did something else entirely.
It didn’t seem likely that they could figure out where a computer was located from an email. If they could do that, they’d have caught Elisa by now. Chris rationalized that if they were monitoring Elisa’s emails, and she got one from his Gmail account, sent from Champion’s computer, they wouldn’t know that the computer was on a truck in the middle of Nebraska.