Rubicon

by B. C. Tweedt

  “I understand,” he said, hiding his guilt and facing Ankeny. “If I passed the test, you guys want to kill Plurbs, too, right?”

  “Kill, maybe. Stop, yes,” Drake said, an urgency replacing his sobriety. “And we don’t have long.”

  “Long before what?”

  “Before they try to kill us.”

  Chapter 32

  The teenaged girl watched the other prisoners trying to sleep in the corners of the cell. Though she was thankful she wasn’t in the adult cells, especially with the men who looked like real terrorists, she felt even more horrible being with kids her own age. Their innocence made her feel her own.

  “I always thought, you know, before being here, that people in jail deserved to be in there,” she whispered.

  The boy who had called himself Cael continued gazing into the stars, watching the drones buzz overhead.

  “I figured the government was here to protect us, so they took the bad guys off the street. I thought all the laws were good, even the ones that spied on people or the VSA. What did I have to hide, you know?”

  Cael didn’t respond, but she didn’t mind. She had to keep talking. Occupy her mind with something.

  “Is it wrong that I sympathize with the bad guys now? Well – not bad guys – but people like you and me – you know what I mean. Maybe you don’t. But I see everyone in here and wonder if they are actually good guys, like us.”

  “I ain’t good,” Cael said to the slit of stars beyond their tin roof.

  She pondered what to say. “I don’t know what you did – and you probably won’t ever tell me – but I bet you did it because you thought it was right. There’s bad people out there that do bad things because they’re bad, but I don’t think you are.”

  “You don’t know me.”

  “I’m just saying. I see people different now. I assume the best of those in the prisons and the worst of those wearing the uniforms. Isn’t that sad? Is it wrong?”

  Cael finally turned to her. “Maybe you should assume the whole human race is bad. ‘Cuz we are.”

  She smiled. “No. There are good people. The ones who try to stop violence. Stop the killing. Peacemakers.”

  Cael scoffed. “What about the ones who use violence to make peace?”

  She paused, reading into his question. Maybe he is a Plurb… “Only if it’s, like, necessary. The only way.”

  “It’s going to be necessary. Might as well do it first. Get a head start.”

  “Like going back in time and killing Hitler when he’s a kid?”

  Cael’s scoff was almost a laugh. He could almost be handsome with a haircut and a bath.

  “But then I’d be a child killer,” she explained, “Even if I knew I saved millions, I’d still be a murderer, you know? Maybe there was some other way. And maybe I accidentally started another war with a different Hitler, and I’m still a murderer. What would you do? Would you kill him?”

  The boy was pensive, staring at a younger prisoner curled up, drawing in the dirt. “I’d do it.” But he didn’t sound sure of himself.

  “Then I’d go back in time to stop you.”

  “You’d save Hitler? Maybe you deserve to be in here after all.”

  “I’d do it to save you,” she said.

  “From what? Baby Hitler?”

  “From the guilt. And punishment. God tells us not to murder – and he doesn’t give us any exception.”

  “He wants to do the judgin’ himself, that right? Wants to keep all the fun to ‘imself.”

  She shrugged with a half-hearted nod. “I guess. I figure he knows better than we do.”

  Cael did a sweep of the other cells. “Well, he best get his act together. Seems like the shepherds are wolves and the sheep are eatin’ each other.”

  “And the wolves?” she asked.

  “What about ‘em?”

  “Are they the sheep?”

  -------------------------------

  Three doors. Sydney scanned the empty hallway ahead, the living room behind. No one. She was the only one awake at 3AM. At least she hoped she was. One of the three doors was Jordan’s. She was most afraid of waking him, though Mr. Tomlinson was bigger and more dangerous.

  The door to the garage was her destination, and it loomed past Jordan’s door. Would it squeak when opened? Would the home’s air pressure rattle the other doors in the house? Had Mr. Tomlinson booby-trapped the garage or placed a motion sensor inside?

  The questions pressed against her lungs as she padded closer in her socks, silent except for her labored breathing and the voice that whispered in her ear.

  [Heat signatures are all accounted for in their rooms,] came Jeremy’s voice in her ear buds. [Give us a visual.]

  She reached in her pajama bottoms’ pocket and removed her phone. She pointed it at the hallway.

  [Good. Run it along the edges. See if I can see anything.]

  She passed by Jordan’s door, her heartbeat thudding up to her chin. But nothing moved. Nothing made a sound.

  She then did as she was told, only looking over her shoulder twice.

  [Looks clear. Go ahead and open it, nice and slow.]

  Her hand turned the knob. It was smooth and silent.

  So far so good.

  The door opened clean as well. The musty garage air pulled at the door, but she held it firm as she stepped inside. His SUV was inside. And his wife’s SUV. Both were identical.

  Brushing off the future worry, she surrendered to the one at hand – closing the door. She curled the knob and pulled it shut a fraction of an inch at a time. Finally, it was closed. She was inside.

  [Good. You’re doing good, Syd. Give me a sweep of the garage door.]

  The dark garage played tricks with her mind, and haunting shapes appeared on the shelves – in the corners. But she took intrepid steps along the SUV until the phone could shine its light on the garage door’s outline.

  [Just as we thought. Either I talk you through disabling the alarm – which could take ten minutes and has much greater risk – or you place the bug in his vehicle.]

  “You know my answer. Which one is his?”

  [That’s my girl. Look at the plates.]

  She pointed the phone at both.

  [The far one is his. Hold on; I’ll unlock it.]

  Taking a deep breath, she knelt by the back bumper and leaned against it.

  His SUV’s locks clicked undone.

  [Sydney!] Jeremy’s whisper was so urgent Sydney nearly fell over. [His heat signature is moving. You have to hide. I’ll unlock her doors as well. Hold on.]

  She jerked up, the adrenaline surging through her veins. She watched the door to the garage, willing it not to open. As seconds ticked by like minutes, she searched for other hiding spots, but there were none. She couldn’t even fit underneath the vehicles.

  And then she saw it. His SUV’s interior lights were on. The unlocking had turned them on.

  “Where is he?” she asked, her voice wavering.

  [Living room. He’s coming. Almost done!]

  “No, wait,” she said. “The lights.”

  He’d see them on, and it would be over.

  Without waiting for his answer, she swung around the bumper, opened his back door, and dove in. She reached around the front and jammed her finger into the lock button. The locks clicked closed. The lights turned off. The door to the garage opened.

  Chapter 33

  Drake slowed his run and led the group in a nonchalant walk into camp, hiding his heavy breathing. He waved at a few other campers and meandered to the fountain where he cupped a handful of the fountain’s water in his hand and slurped it without concern for the sound. Two rows of braces filled his smile. “I’m gonna miss this.”

  “The giant drinking fountain?” Greyson asked.

  “Nah – well, kinda – but the night runs. The city. The excitement.”

  Greyson nodded knowingly. He had missed this feeling
while at camp. There was something special about risking one’s life for a cause that made him feel truly alive. It was like dust had been washed from his bones, leaving him vibrant.

  “We need sleep,” Ankeny noted, eyeing a group of men and women huddled by a streetlight, scouring a map.

  Greyson examined her. Pint-sized, but her stance spoke of her balance and agility. She had taken him down like it was an after-thought. Who is she? Rubicon was looking into it, but hadn’t found anything out of the ordinary.

  “True,” Drake agreed, taking the first steps toward Greyson’s tent. “Did we miss anything?” he asked Greyson.

  Greyson ran Drake’s story through his mind again. Drake’s squad had long suspected Plurbs were infiltrating the protestors. When PatriARC began calling the shots over social media, and no one could confirm his real identity, they had grown more suspicious. They staked out the tent cities’ exits and Ankeny followed a suspect to a dumpster, where he threw a destroyed cell phone. The next day, the same dumpster. Every day, the guy “burned” a new cell phone, covering his tracks. And then she began following him. He used the sewers and she lost his trail day after day. Finally the group pitched in and tracked him to a warehouse on the edge of the city where they saw him meet PatriARC.

  “He has long, brown hair pulled into a man bun and a tattoo of a wolf’s tail on his neck,” Ankeny had said, remembering her glimpse of him through a window.

  And that had been two days before Greyson had arrived. Since then, they’d been unable to find the dumpster dumper – and the warehouse had been empty. PatriARC had disappeared.

  “I can’t think of anything,” Greyson added, “but we need to find him – fast.”

  “Roger that,” Drake agreed. “But until one of us thinks of anything, let’s grab some winks.”

  Greyson wasn’t planning on sleeping. If there was an attack in less than ten hours, he had to do everything he could to stop it. Everything else was secondary – including sleep.

  But he unzipped his tent anyway, planning to let Kit out. Instead, Grimes and Windsor rushed past, holding something between them as if they were in a rugby scrum. They sided up to Drake and Ankeny outside, whispering and glancing over their shoulders at him. When Greyson met eyes with Grimes, he knew something was wrong.

  Scared, Greyson scanned the tent as Kit pawed at him. What have they taken? His backpack was on his sleeping bag, opened – its contents spilled out. Frick! He knelt and rummaged through the items. It’s gone.

  They’d taken his DOC.

  He suddenly hated himself. How could he leave his bag behind? How? How could he not think of that? How many times would he make the same mistake? Why can’t I just remember?

  He’d left a backpack behind in Camden, Georgia, forfeiting the only picture he’d had left of his father. But that wasn’t the worst he’d done.

  Shaking his head and fighting down the urge to cry, he resettled himself. It was okay. Get over it. Stick to the mission.

  They don’t know what it is. It’s encrypted.

  Act the part. Be angry.

  He turned around and marched outside his tent.

  “What the heck!” he shouted with a curse, rushing toward Grimes – the weakest of the bunch. The curse had come out easily this time. He ignored the pang of guilt. “You stole my tablet!”

  He reached to push the boy, but Grimes curled into a ball and shuffled away with a screech. “Don’t push!”

  And Drake stepped in, putting a hand on Greyson’s chest. “Hold back, dude.”

  “But he…”

  “Just cool it.”

  Behind Drake, Grimes whimpered, “He’s violent! And this…it’s not…not just any tablet. It had sophisticated encryption.”

  Greyson balked. Had?

  “It controls…” Grimes began. Then he stopped, checked the surrounding tents for people, then whispered. “Drones.”

  In a matter of seconds Drake’s squad had dragged him into the tent and zipped it shut with all of them inside. Kit had growled, but Greyson had calmed him, keeping him close. Now Drake stood over him, mentally pacing in frustration. “Is it true?”

  Greyson fidgeted. “I stole it. I don’t even know what it does.” He looked to Grimes, knowing they would trust everything the nerd said. “It flies drones? That’s cool.”

  Pathetic. He eyed Kit. The dog was awaiting a command. A bark would startle them. If he ‘sic’ed him on one of the kids, he could escape.

  Windsor elbowed Drake in Greyson’s defense. “Can’t you fly drones from like any device? Just need the right app.”

  Grimes chimed in. “Not this type of drone. There’s one synched with this device now that has a processing speed I haven’t seen. Quite fascinating! I’d venture out to take a look on my own, but it’s two whole blocks away.”

  The group turned to Greyson, and he knew the situation had turned hopeless. He wasn’t a good enough liar for this. He badly wanted to lift his goggles to his eyes to see what Forge had to say, but he knew that would turn them on to his goggles as well.

  Drake stared him down one last time before passing judgment. “I’ll give you one last chance. Tell us who you’re working for and why you’re here, and maybe we won’t send you to the other side of Griffith.”

  Descending into thought, Greyson knew what he had to do. They were his allies. They had the information he needed, the knowledge of the city, and the same passion to prevent an attack. He knew Rubicon would disagree, but he had to trust his intuition. He had to tell them.

  So he did. They listened for several minutes, interjecting questions, inspecting his goggles and petting Kit. He half-expected Diablo to tear down the tent to extract him, but there were no intrusions. Finally, after he had finished, Drake unzipped the tent, letting the others out. He turned back to Greyson.

  “We’re going to discuss this. Don’t move.”

  As soon as he was gone, a wave of regret and anger crashed over him. He turned to his overturned backpack and grabbed its fabric in his fingers, curling it and shoving it in the ground. His teeth clenched as he straddled it and pressed it down, like it was responsible for failing the mission. He shouted at it in silence, the veins in his neck and forehead bulging. He wanted to rip it at its seams, throw its pieces and tear them again, but he knew that it wasn’t the cause of the failure.

  He was.

  Again he had left something behind. Again. On top of the bag he’d left in Camden, he’d left more important things. More important people. He had left Liam in the observatory, in the terrorists’ lair. Though that had turned out in their favor, he had left him again. He had left him to die.

  He’d left Sam in a house, knowing well that the terrorists would be the ones to knock on his door next. He’d left him. And then he’d left Sydney to find his father. Abandoned his best friend to find a traitor. He’d left her.

  Greyson sucked in a few long breaths and slammed his bag’s belongings back inside, zipping it up. Then he curled into his bedding and pulled Kit close.

  He woke to the sound of his father’s angry shouts. His heart pattered against his ribs and he threw the covers off. What was wrong? But then he knew. A wave of nausea overtook him. He’d forgotten.

  His father swung open the door, the full trash bag swinging like a pendulum from his large fist. “Really? Really?!”

  “I’m sorry!” he pleaded, the anger and disappointment in his father’s face pushing tears to his eyes.

  “We asked you to do one thing while we were away…”

  “I forgot! I – I – I’ll…”

  “If it was one time, I’d believe you.”

  Greyson had risen to grab the bag, but he sat on his mattress with a thump.

  “What is it about the trash? You do all your other chores. Do you just not care about what our house smells like?”

  “I just forgot,” he pouted, letting a tear dribble to his lips.

  “If you can’t take care of the smal
l things, can I trust you to take care of bigger ones?”

  He sat silent, grasping the edge of the bed until his fingers hurt. He couldn’t bear to look at his father anymore, and there was a long pause before he left, closing the door with a slam.

  Two days later his father said he was leaving for Sudan.

  Greyson’s lip quivered the same as it had that night over two years ago. Kit whimpered next to him, but he knew not to lick at times like these. Greyson had a temper just like his dad had. And he was like him in more ways than he wanted to admit. He used to wear those similarities with a badge of pride – but now they were haunting flaws etched into his character like a fate he couldn’t avoid.

  His father had left him.

  Leaving things behind was in his blood.

  Zzzzzzzzip!

  The door unzipped and Drake stepped in as Greyson rubbed his face against his pillow, attempting to wipe any evidence of his crying away.

  Drake opened his mouth to speak, gave Greyson a look, then started again. “Listen. Grimes keeps your tablet. He gets control of the drone. You never leave my side. And when all heck breaks loose in a few hours,” he began, dropping his head as if relinquishing to an opponent, “you take us with you.”

  Greyson cleared his throat and pondered the deal. “I’ll need to ask them.”

  He raised his goggles, but waited for Drake’s nod to proceed.

  {Tell him it’s a deal.}

  Greyson lowered the goggles. He knew what the message meant. Forge hadn’t said that it was a deal. He had said to tell them it was a deal. But Greyson had no choice.

  “Deal.”

  Drake gave him a small smile, but turned serious again. “No more lying, ‘kay? Don’t push your luck.”

  There was a squeal outside as Grimes was listening in.

  Greyson and Drake smiled together.

  “I won’t.”

  -------------------------------

  Sydney’s eyes were fixated on the SUV’s ceiling. There wasn’t much else to see from her position on the floor in the back. Her ears gave her enough to imagine and enough to fear; she didn’t need her eyes.