by Ted Weber
“Two, attack from above left. Ram if you can. I’m hitting from the right.” According to Pel’s Comnet research, the Watchers flew using a turbine that sucked air in through the top and forced it out through a skirt along the sides. So the top was the most sensitive place to hit.
In her popup window, Abrasax blew smoke from her nostrils. “Suicide girls, got it.”
Abrasax’s Spitfire climbed while Kiyoko flew straight at the Watcher, approaching faster than she would have thought.
The Watcher darted out of the way. Kiyoko flew past it, turned, and climbed, the Spitfire responding instantly to her virtual control stick.
Abrasax dove at the Watcher but it dodged again, scurrying to the right.
Further away, the other Spitfires flew loops and barrel rolls, making it nearly impossible for the guards to hit them with pistols. They tried anyway, flashes followed by pops.
“Drive the black dragon to me,” Kiyoko told her friend.
Abrasax’s Spitfire rolled and accelerated back toward the Watcher. It tilted away and flew up.
Kiyoko didn’t have her friend’s years of simulating flight, but probably the Watcher’s pilot had never been attacked before. She kept climbing, then estimated an intercept vector.
The Watcher changed course again, but it moved like a jellyfish compared to the Spitfires. Abrasax slowly closed the distance, matching its maneuvers.
Kiyoko dove toward her quarry. Bullets whizzed past her. Within a shallow bowl on the top of the Watcher, blades spun too fast to see. She guided the Spitfire straight for them. The intake bowl filled her vision.
Everything turned black except for the popup windows.
“You got it!” Abrasax shouted, followed by “I just hit it too!”
* * *
Dingo
Striding down the antiseptic MediaCorp hallway, Dingo wondered if he should feel more scared. Pel and Charles darted their heads back and forth, panting like overheated stray dogs. Even Waylee and M-pat moved like zombiepocalypse survivors who’d just been bitten and shit in their pants.
Back in the reception area, a frumpy woman asked, “What’s going on? The phones are down.”
M-pat held up a hand. “Don’t worry. We’re on it. Just sit tight.”
The three receptionists stared at Waylee, hand held against her torn mask. “What’s wrong with you?” one said.
Waylee turned away and led Pel and Charles through the revolving front doors. M-pat followed, Dingo last.
Outside, cold air blasted Dingo in the face. He heard high-pitched engines, then distant gunshots, .45 pistols it sounded like. He glanced in their direction, but there were too many buildings in the way.
He heard a smack above, followed by another. A Watcher fell from the sky, trailing smoke, and crashed somewhere on the other side of the broadcast building. “Sweet.”
M-pat walked toward Luke’s Mazda. “Let’s get out of here.” The others headed for their cars, a little too fast.
M-pat hopped in the driver’s seat, Dingo in the shotgun. They headed for the exit, thick bars in front, tire trap and chain link fence gate beyond, reinforced guard bunker to the left.
The gate didn’t open when M-pat placed his badge against the reader. He tried again. No luck, and the gate was strong enough to stop a fully loaded 18-wheeler.
Dingo glanced over. “’Sup?”
“Should have opened.” M-pat pulled the Mazda into one of the parking spaces behind the guard station.
Pel stopped Nick Smith’s VW a few car lengths behind them. Charles sat in the passenger seat. No sign of Waylee or her blue Mustang.
M-pat held his badge up to the bulletproof windows of the bunker and pointed at the rear door.
The bald guard nodded and opened the door. He stayed just inside. “Sorry, Luke, we’re on lockdown. Heard there’s a break-in or something at the power station.”
“Yeah, well my shift is over. Open the gate, would ya?”
“Are you kidding? Your shift isn’t over ‘til midnight.”
M-pat frowned. He yanked his Glock out of its shoulder holster and pointed it at Baldy’s face. “My shift ends when I say it ends, motherfucker.”
The guard ducked behind the door and tried to slam it shut.
M-pat threw his body against the door, right leg back for leverage. “You supposed to surrender when a gun pointed at you.” His eyes narrowed into homicidal determination.
If they killed someone, that would be the story, not Waylee’s video. Dingo stormed past M-pat and into the small room.
Baldy pulled a pistol out of his belt holster but Dingo knocked it out of his hand. M-pat pushed his way in.
“Don’t shoot,” Dingo said. He threw a jab combo at the guard but he blocked the blows with his forearms. M-pat circled around them, searching for an opening.
The guard kicked Dingo hard in the shin. Burning pain shot through his leg. Then a fist smacked his jaw. He must have flinched, cause it was only a glancing blow and didn’t knock him down.
M-pat grabbed Baldy’s arm while it was still outstretched, twisted it, and pulled him off balance. He kicked against the back of the man’s knee and down he went.
Dingo stepped forward and kicked a field goal against Baldy’s head. It snapped to the side and he stopped moving.
“That might have been off the charts,” M-pat said.
“Shit.” Dingo felt the man’s neck for a pulse. He was still alive, just out.
Dingo yanked the handcuffs from the guard’s utility belt and snapped them around the man’s wrists.
M-pat searched for the exit gate override. He found it in the center of the control panel. He pressed the button and the gate slid open. “Let’s go,” he said. “You a’ight?”
“Yeah.” Except the pain was really kicking in now. It felt like his shin bone was broken.
He limped his way into the car, and heard distant sirens and helicopters. “Are we gonna make it?”
M-pat didn’t answer. He slapped the start button and slammed down the accelerator. In the mirror, Dingo watched Pel follow them out the gate with Charles.
Where the hell was Waylee?
44
Waylee
Data glasses set to maximum magnification, Waylee watched from the Mustang as Dingo and M-pat forced their way into the guard station far ahead. Pel and Charles sat in the Volkswagen waiting for the gate to open.
After what they did, Homeland would bring down the hammer. It wouldn’t take long, thanks to Amy’s advance warning. Pel and the others needed a decoy. And she had the fastest car.
She had sent Charles with Pel. He was only seventeen, and incredibly smart, and deserved a life.
“But he came with you,” Pel had objected.
She chose not to explain that if anyone deserved to get caught, it was her. This had all been her idea. If not for her, they’d all be living normal lives now. And she owed Dingo and Pel and M-pat for helping her escape the noose in West Baltimore. Even their dog, who had died for her. Time to repay her debts.
Waylee had just kissed Pel’s latex lips and said, “Shut up and get the fuck out of here.”
The gate opened and M-pat and Dingo returned to the Mazda. She heard faint sirens somewhere to the north.
M-pat tore off, Pel and Charles not far behind. She followed them at a discreet distance, passing farm fields and townhouse complexes.
Dingo’s voice sounded in her bone transducers, clear despite the layers of encryption. “Yo, Mustang, where you at?” They must be on an outside network now.
“Shut up and drive faster. I’m behind you. I’m gonna take a different route, though.”
As planned, the others took the first left. Waylee slowed, then stopped at the intersection, a convenience store on the right and shuttered garden center on the left.
She pulled off her ruined mask. So long, Tania. Chilly air caressed her face. She looked in the mirror and combed fingers through her fire red hair. The stapler had left a nasty bruise on her cheek.
>
Seconds later, a Watcher glided toward her, followed by a line of helicopters, their blades barely audible. Here they come.
Waylee stepped on the gas and swung the car to the right. She addressed her glasses, “DG, navigation.” The navigation program appeared over her left eye. “Rendezvous Point Two,” she said.
An arrow pointed down the road, with “Turn left in 3.2 miles” underneath. The helicopters grew louder, sounding like low-pitched lawnmowers. Tilting the side mirrors, she saw three following her. The Watcher too.
She accelerated. She passed a boxy Dongfeng sedan and a double-trailer truck. The old-fashioned speedometer pointer hugged the highest number, 140 miles per hour. Her data glasses said 160. Farm fields gave way to skeletal trees and interspersed houses.
The Watcher fell behind, but the three helicopters drew closer.
Let them. She would outrun the ground pursuit, and once inside the tunnel that was Rendezvous Point Two, she’d hop into the back of Shakti’s van and they’d never see her again.
Waylee had to slow at the next intersection. She yanked the wheel to the left. The tires screeched, and she headed north on an empty two-lane road.
The signal icon disappeared from her data overlay, replaced by a flashing ‘Connection lost.’ Fuck. They’re jamming me. How would she call Shakti now? She smacked a fist against the top of the dashboard.
Something caught her eye. One of the helicopters—sleek, gunmetal gray, and bristling with weapons—reached her car and dropped to treetop level just to the left. Its side door slid open.
Dread turned the world to ice. Her hypomanic brain had hugely exaggerated her chance of escape. She mashed the accelerator to the floor.
The helicopter fell behind, then caught up again. It flew alongside her, its rotor downdraft flagellating bare tree branches, bending and twisting them like an electric shock. High-pitched harmonics emerged beneath the quiet whirring of the rotor blades. Waylee couldn’t see the other two. They must be overhead.
Waylee wanted to give her pursuers the finger. As long as the others got away, it didn’t matter what happened to her. Her hands felt differently, though, and wouldn’t budge from the steering wheel, too intent on survival.
“Pull over,” an amplified voice roared from the helicopter.
She had no GPS signal either. She was supposed to turn east again somewhere. “DG, display route.”
According to the map on her data glasses, she should turn at the next major intersection. Maybe another few miles. Then just ten minutes to the tunnel.
“Pull over. This is your last warning.”
Her knees shook but her right foot didn’t stray from the accelerator. She swerved around another truck. Oncoming SUV, closing fast. She darted back into her lane, just in time. The SUV and truck honked in anger.
She left the truck behind. Saw the intersection ahead in the distance.
Something flashed in the open helicopter doorway. A loud bang came from beneath. The Mustang jolted and jerked to the right.
Her heart seized. She pulled back her foot and spun the wheel to the left, but the car had a mind of its own and whipped back and forth along the road.
Another flash, another bang, and then the whole world turned over and over. I’m going to die.
* * *
Pain poked through the haze, sharpened into details, then overwhelmed Waylee entirely.
Pain meant life at least. She was strapped in her seat, facing a tortured web of cracks over gouged dirt. Blood dripped onto the glass and dyed the cracks red, flowing upward and irrigating the soil. Her breath sounded wet and raspy. No air bag had deployed.
Her left arm hurt more than the rest. Her neck was too stiff to move far, but her forearm seemed to jut out at a weird angle. Beyond it, beyond jagged remnants of the side window, the world was upside down, clear, the road angling off to the left.
Bright flares smacked against the inverted road, forming pickets of red flame. A helicopter landed in front of them, blowing clouds of dead leaves. Soldiers in form-fitting black armor and mirrored goggles leaped out the side and fanned out, pointing stubby rifles as they ran. Another helicopter flew past and landed somewhere out of sight.
No sign of her data glasses, no way to call Pel even if she wasn’t being jammed. So this is the end. For me, at least. If there even is a me. My brain’s a hall of circus mirrors. I should have been a Buddhist—they say the self is just illusion.
Cyborg soldiers reached the car. One kneeled next to the open window and poked a slate-gray gun barrel at her. “Just the one woman here,” he spoke in his goggle mike.
Waylee felt no sense of impending depression. Nothing but peace. Maybe she’d snapped her head so hard, the warring homunculi inside had flown out of her mouth and into the roadside ditch, where they’d be devoured by vultures.
Fuck the both of them.
Waylee tried to say “I surrender” to the soldier in her window, but coughed up thick blood instead. I’m fucked. But I gave Authority a bitch slap it’ll never forget. And its docile enablers, the cowed, the distracted, maybe they won’t be so docile anymore.
45
February 19
Georgetown, Guyana
Kiyoko
The rotating pedestal fans did little to alleviate the sweltering heat in Shakti’s aunt’s house. Kiyoko’s undergarments clung to her skin like a clammy blanket. It probably wasn’t any hotter than in Baltimore during the summer, but no one in Guyana seemed to have air conditioning. There was never any relief.
Kiyoko stared out the living room windows down to the flooded street below. All the houses had their living quarters on the second floor, with a concrete block garage and storage space on the first. A good thing, since everywhere she could see, the city sat in several inches of foul-smelling water.
“Happens all the time now,” Shakti’s aunt had explained in her Caribbean accent when they arrived three days ago. “The pumps or the generators fail and since we’re below sea level, everything floods.”
Kiyoko turned back to the garish living room, with its long paisley rug and perimeter of sofas and chairs with scarlet slip covers. Nyasuke slept curled on the coffee table. Pel hunkered in the corner sofa, invisible from the screened windows. Dingo and Charles sat next to him, their eyes lidded with boredom. Shakti and several of her relatives occupied plush chairs and discussed the upcoming wedding.
“Stay away from the windows,” Pel said from the corner.
“What, is someone gonna shoot me?” Kiyoko said. Except to visit embassies, Pel hadn’t left the house since they arrived, and even then he wore fake dreads, dark makeup, and sunglasses. He got angry every time she and Charles accompanied Shakti to government offices or the market or friends’ houses.
“Shoot or kidnap,” Pel said. “We’re worth a lot of money. We’ve gotta be careful.”
Dingo looked over. “Damn, Pel, you full-on freaked, yo.”
Pel’s eyes narrowed. “Easy for you to say. For me and Charles, the CIA’s either en route or already here.”
Shakti’s relatives ignored the exchange. “You simply can’t have a proper wedding on such short notice,” Shakti’s grandmother told the others. “The preparations to be made, the food and clothes we need, the flights from U.S. America and Canada…”
Shakti waved a hand and spoke in the singsong voice she’d reacquired. “I’ve tried to explain, we just need to file the legal paperwork. There’s plenty of time for ceremony later.”
M-pat had returned to Baltimore, and as far as they knew, hadn’t been picked up by the cops. Shakti had Guyanese citizenship and had been assured she wouldn’t be extradited. Dingo either, once the two of them married. Shakti hadn’t committed any extraditable crimes, and Dingo left no proof of his.
Kiyoko, Pel, and Charles, none of whom had passports, would have to move on. Guyanese authorities had granted them temporary asylum while they reviewed their case, but they wouldn’t resist the U.S. government for long. Neighboring Brazil, on the other
hand, was too powerful to be pushed around. And they had a vibrant music scene.
They would visit the Brazilian embassy tomorrow and hope for the best. To her great disappointment, Japan and China turned them down yesterday, saying they needed valid passports. But Brazil, Shakti’s relatives insisted, delighted in tweaking their northern rival. If they got in, maybe Paulo could help set them up, pass along some friendly contacts.
Dingo turned to Pel and Charles. “You gotta throw me a stag party before you leave, yo.”
Pel sighed. He hadn’t smiled since they boarded the charter boat in Miami. “With what?”
They’d spent the rest of their money and traded their truck and most of their electronics, after wiping, to guarantee the crew’s loyalty. The trip lasted forever, it was cramped and hot, and Kiyoko was seasick the entire time.
Dingo poked Pel in the arm. “Since when do we need money to have fun? Money is nothing but chains.”
“Fun? Are you kidding? I can’t believe we’re sitting around here talking about a stag party and a stupid wedding.”
Pel’s collapse was a serious problem. Kiyoko stomped her foot. “Look. This marriage will keep Dingo out of jail. Case closed.”
His eyes glistened with moisture. “We never should have left Waylee.”
When Waylee didn’t show up anywhere or respond to messages, they searched the Comnet until they discovered she’d been captured. Homeland had confirmed it in an announcement, “Terrorist leader apprehended.”
Kiyoko kneeled in front of Pel and held his hand. “We’ll free her.”
Charles held up a fist. “Yeah. You broke me out, we can break Waylee out.”
“I was thinking more like setting up a defense fund,” Kiyoko said, “and getting people and foreign governments to apply pressure—”
“Are you kidding?” Pel interrupted. “When has that ever worked? Peltier, Abu-Jamal, Manning, Assange, they’re rotting in jail or died there despite all the pressure.”
