How We Found You: A Cyberpunk Kidnapping Thriller (When Tomorrow Calls Book 2)

by JT Lawrence

  While Kate watches in horror, the man sprays the car with a hundred high-velocity steel bullets. There’s the jarring sound of slugs ripping into the car, and an echo as some of the shots ricochet. As he hoists Kate up, ready to throw her over his shoulder, one of the slingshot bullets whizzes towards them, penetrates the man’s mask, and bites him on his cheekbone. He exclaims, rips off his mask, and puts a hand up to the fresh flesh. Kate uses the split-second distraction to break his hold on her and run. She sprints and slides in behind the destroyed cab, scraping her legs and knees on the tarmac.

  Seth is still alive and a silent sob of pain and relief escapes her open lips. With shaking hands she takes the revolver he offers her, and when her fingers wrap around the grip it’s with a grim feeling of satisfaction. When, a split-second later, the man appears beside her, she takes quick aim and shoots him in his bulky tattooed neck. The projectile must have hit an artery because the blood, made black by the night sky, spurts out like an oil fountain. He tries to cover the wound, tries to staunch the bleeding, but out it shoots. He roars in fury and tackles Kate to the ground. Her head slams against the tarred gravel and her vision explodes into stars. The sheer force of his weight knocks the gun out of her hand and the air out of her chest.

  Seth turns his gun on the man but is hesitant to take the shot. Kate knows that in the soupy darkness he can’t see where the attacker’s tank of a body ends and hers begins. She’s suffocating under his bulk. Her throat makes a gurgling sound: she can’t breathe, can’t catch a breath. Her lungs are silent sirens.

  “Get him off me,” she tries to say, but no words come out. “Get him off.” But there is no air to float her words. The blood pours out of the man’s neck and soaks her torso. Hot metallic sap – red liquid mercury. The sensation makes her want to scream. Seth wrestles the dying man, forcing his body off her, and suddenly the dead weight is gone and Kate can muster a wet wheeze. Seth looks for the third man but he has disappeared. Slowly the stars disappear from Kate’s brain. All that is left is the light blue murmur of her injured shoulder and nose. A Sapphire Ache.

  Seth collects the man’s handgun from his hip holster, checks the magazine, and shoves it into the waistband of his shiny slaxuit pants. He helps her up off the tar. His face is lunar.

  “Ready?” He is asking if she’s ready to run.

  Kate doesn’t trust her voice so she nods instead. He takes her hand, but as they’re about to set off, the door of the van rolls open – the sound-memory itself is enough to paralyse them both – and Seth yells “Get down!” and pulls her down to the ground with him. They expect a hailstorm of bullets, but then there is something else. A whisper. A small movement that makes both of them instinctually look up at the vehicle.

  “Mommy!” cries the little girl inside the van. She stands, illuminated by the overhead cabin light – a shining aura – with a look of hope on her face that smashes Kate’s heart. Silver.

  Chapter 69

  Grim Claw

  “Silver!” shouts Kate, before Seth slaps his gun-peppery hand over her mouth. The girl hears her voice and starts saying “Mommy? Mommy?” over and over again as her face folds into tears.

  Bongi comes into view, puts her hands on Silver’s shoulders, strokes her hair.

  “Kate,” she announces, “you’d better come in.”

  The image of Bongi touching her daughter makes Kate so furious she’s ready to kill.

  “We won’t hurt you.”

  The wasted bullet shells that surround the pockmarked cab tell a different story. Kate begins to get up off the ground but Seth pulls her down again.

  “They’ll kill us,” he says.

  “I know,” says Kate, and stands up anyway. She won’t let her little girl die alone. She puts her hands up and walks towards the vehicle. Seth remains down, watching Bongi through the sight of his gun, ready to cover his twin, but then Bongi says, “You too, Seth.”

  At the mention of Seth’s name Silver starts sobbing, then sees Kate emerge from the darkness and falls down under the emotion of it. Bongi yanks her up and she keeps howling. A reluctant Seth surfaces, dusting his hands on his pants. He catches up with Kate, who’s almost at the van, when the third man reappears out of the inky background and points his AK47 at them, motioning for them to drop their weapons. Silver tries to shrug off her nanny, tries to run towards Kate, but Bongi’s grim claw on her shoulder keeps her inside the vehicle. At last Kate reaches her and the girl breaks free and flies into her arms. Her hiccupping body melts into Kate’s, every nook and cranny filled with the sweet sharp smell and sensation of her precious daughter. For a short moment, Kate’s world is restored. The child is at once solid and completely weightless. She’s wearing the soiled candy-coloured dress Kate had packed for her stay at her grandparents’ house; the destination she never reached. The fabric smells of urine.

  “My baby,” she cries into Silver’s neck. “My baby.”

  Bongi steps aside, gesturing for them to climb into the MV. It’s a luxurious cabin surrounded by a hull of smoked glass. The presence of a toddler carseat puzzles Kate.

  “Sit down,” says Bongi. Silver makes herself as small as possible in her mother’s lap – a periwinkle – and Kate hugs her fast. The large door slides closed automatically and the locks click shut. The claustrophobic space sends Kate’s brain whirring with fear. She tries to control her breathing; this is not the time for a panic attack.

  Chapter 70

  Dead Marbles

  “Where are you taking us?” asks Seth.

  The tinted glass partition separating the cabin from the front seat slides all the way open. A throne-like chair rotates to face them.

  Kate is so shocked by what she sees that she gasps out loud, making Silver jump.

  “I thought you’d be able to tell us that,” he says in his sonorous – and familiar – voice. “Hello, Kate, Seth. I’m sorry we have to meet under such … difficult circumstances.”

  Kate’s shock is bright orange: It’s her version of deja vu. She’s been experiencing it more and more lately. As if her life is some kind of loop of bad luck. The restaurant conversation, the abduction, and now this. Hadn’t they been through all of this before? Same-same but different. It’s not Van der Heever who sits before her, although it may as well be. Some duplication, some clone, some glitch in the matrix.

  Lumin?

  Seth launches out of his seat with his hands stretched in front of him, ready to strangle the man. The Resurrector guard drops his automatic rifle to grab him before he reaches the Maistre then wrestles him back into his seat. Seth puts up a fight, but Bongi pulls her pistol out in a practised, fluid movement and aims it at his skull. Seth clenches his jaw and shows them his dirty lacerated palms in surrender.

  The blood on Kate’s chest is still drying. Her nose is definitely broken.

  “They can’t be trusted,” says Bongi, gun cocked.

  “We can’t be trusted?” says Kate.

  “Tie them up,” the woman says, and the guard zips cable ties around their wrists. When he approaches Kate, Silver recoils at his panting shadow. The girl moves away from him as if he’s hurt her and she’s now afraid of him. Kate glares at the man, then at Bongi: the nanny she trusted with her children’s lives. How utterly stupid she has been. There is a hot seething energy just beneath her skin as she clenches her bruised fists.

  “We don’t know where Mally is,” says Seth. “So you’re wasting your time.”

  “Don’t do that,” says Lumin. “Don’t lie. You’ll save us all a lot of time if you just tell the truth.”

  “Fuck you,” says Kate. She can’t help it. She has so much sudden, blind hatred for the man; she feels like she could snuff him out with her bare hands.

  “Perhaps if you let me explain,” says the Maistre, steepling his fingers. “It will become clear to you why we very much need to know where he is.”

  “Go ahead,” says Seth. “Explain all you like.”

  “Nothing,” growls Kate, “no
thing you can do to us will make us tell you where he is.”

  Lumin’s face twitches with a half-smile. “You see, I don’t want to force it out of you. I’d prefer it if we came to an understanding.”

  Kate’s trying to pull her wrists out of the plastic bracelets but all she’s managing to do is scrape the skin off her hands and stop her circulation.

  “You must let us have the boy.”

  “He has a name,” says Kate. “He has a name, for fuck’s sake.”

  “His name is problematic,” says Lumin. “It makes him seem more …”

  “Yes?”

  “More human.”

  Kate feels Silver’s body tense up.

  “He is human, you bastard,” says Seth. “He is 100% human.”

  Lumin looks pained. “Well,” he says, extending a palm, “the scriptures don’t see it that way.”

  “Scriptures?”

  “The Book of Light,” says Bongi. “The Prophecy.” Kate can see from the luminosity in her eyes that she is absolutely brainbleached.

  “The Book of Light says that the last living Genesis Child will lead us to the ledge.”

  “The ledge?”

  “The End of the World. He’ll destroy the planet, and everything you know. Mass destruction.”

  “A little boy, Lumin, really?” says Kate. “You’re afraid of a little boy?”

  “If that boy survives into his fourth summer,” says Lumin, “then he’ll live to be sixteen. And that will be the End of Days.”

  Kate looks at her Helix. 31/10/2024, 21:58. Spring ends in a few hours. Tomorrow it will officially be summer.

  “How can you?” says Kate. “How can you purport to be this incredible man of dignity and moral fibre when really you’re nothing more than a child-killer?”

  “You’re just on the wrong side of the fence, dear,” he says. “To you, I may appear to be a killer, but to the rest of the world I’ll be a saviour. You’re trying to save one manufactured boy. I’m trying to save the whole planet.”

  “So that’s it,” says Seth. “You want to be a hero.”

  Lumin shakes his head. “No,” he says. “I couldn’t care less if I live or die, as long as I fulfil my duty in this matter. In fact –” He laughs. “No one will know either way, will they?”

  “I knew about the prophecy before the boy was even printed,” says Lumin. “We studied it fervently, not knowing that the boy hadn’t even been produced yet. But then the Genesis Project scandal hit the news – the pictures of all those babies in their incubators, courtesy of you and your friends – and we knew. Everything clicked into place.”

  Click, click, click Betty/Barbara had said, clicking her fingers too close to Kate’s face. Like dominoes they fall.

  “I knew then that it would be one of those infants that would threaten to lead us all to destruction. But now – ”

  “It’s taken almost four years,” says Bongi, “and only Mally is left.”

  “Why did you wait?” Kate asks Bongi. “You could have done it months ago.”

  “The scripture says that it’s the last living Genesis child who will lead us to the ledge. We singled Mally out with Celestia’s guidance and got rid of the others. Besides, the boy’s life is not for me to take. Maistre Lumin is the one who has been called.”

  “Everything is on course,” says Lumin. “Everything is as it should be. All we need from you, now, is to know where the boy is.”

  “And, what? You think you’d just appeal to my good nature and I’d hand him over?”

  “I wanted to try to make you understand,” he says. “I thought there was a chance that if you knew what was at stake, then you would help us with the solution.”

  “The solution?” says Seth.

  “The only thing I know for sure,” says Kate, “is that you’re delusional. More dangerous than that: you’re delusional and charismatic, and that is a very dangerous combination.”

  “You’re wasting your breath, Lumin,” says Seth. “Nothing you say is going to make us give up our son.”

  A searing stab in the soul for Kate, hearing Seth call Mally their son for the first time. It would have been a clean shot of joy if the circumstances were any different. Instead of what it is now, where she can’t see any of them surviving the night.

  “I don’t want to resort to force,” says Lumin. “Are you sure we can’t come to some kind of agreement? Perhaps, if you change your perspective on the situation, and look at it as saving your daughter, and everyone else you know, instead of sacrificing your son? Because if we don’t switch the Genesis Child off tonight, then we will all die. Do you see that? Everyone will die.”

  “According to you,” says Kate.

  “According to the Celestia Prophecy.”

  “You’re wasting your time.” Seth is restless in his seat.

  “May the record reflect,” he says to Bongi, sighing, “for all it’s worth, that I did try to come to a mutually agreeable arrangement.”

  Bongi nods at him. She moves her feet a little further apart, as if to ground herself. As if she’s preparing for a fight.

  “I’ll die before handing my son over to you,” says Kate.

  “Oh, I know that,” says Lumin. “That’s why I came prepared.”

  Kate’s heart, already hammering away, increases its speed, forcing her lungs to pump with nervous breath. She tries to keep her nerves steady, her hands steady, but the adrenaline is fizzing inside her, confusing her thoughts and making her shake.

  “Put her in the chair,” says Lumin.

  At first Kate doesn’t understand what he means. She’s already sitting. But then Bongi lunges for Silver and steals her away from Kate’s lap. The girl squeals and kicks and tries to fend off the nanny but Bongi is strong, and she manages to force the child into the toddler carseat.

  “Give her back to me!” shouts Kate, and struggles to get up, but the guard kicks her in the stomach and she collapses, gasping. The explosion of pain obliterates her thoughts. He hauls her back into her seat and shakes a finger at her in warning. Next time he won’t be so gentle.

  Bongi is battling with the safety straps because Silver is arching her back, pushing her body out of the bucket shape, and flailing like mad. Her squeal is a needle of ice. Every time Bongi almost gets the mechanism to lock, Silver squirms just enough to unclasp the keys. The nanny’s mouth is set in a hard line. Perspiration starts to pop on her forehead.

  “Leave her alone!” shouts Seth, and moves to help Silver but is stopped by the sight of the AK47 pointed at him.

  “Stop it,” Bongi hisses at the child, and pushes the girl’s body into the chair with force, causing her to scream even louder. The woman looks at the guard for help but he gestures that he can’t take his sight off Kate and Seth. Her jaw muscle ripples as she grinds her teeth and tries to clip Silver in again.

  “Silver!” she shouts. “Silver, stop that right now. Keep still! It’s time to go into your special chair.”

  The girl ignores the request and launches into a full-blown tantrum.

  That’s my girl.

  There is a loud crack. The sound reverberates through the vehicle’s cabin. Then there is quiet. Bongi has slapped Silver so hard across the face she’s silenced by the shock. Her eyes glaze over as a bright red welt appears on her tender cheek-skin.

  A smack, a swarm. Kate’s rage travels like poison in her veins.

  “You fucking bitch,” she says to Bongi through clenched teeth. “You fucking bitch. She trusted you!” Tears of fury roll down her face. She fights to get free, tries again to escape the cable ties but all it does is lacerate her wrists.

  Bongi finally clicks the carseat lock into place and steps away, wiping the sweat off her face with her forearms. Silver’s face begins to swell where she’s been struck. She just stares ahead as if she’s had her consciousness cut off.

  “Silver,” says Kate, her throat constricted, “Mommy’s here. Mommy’s here.” She’s tied up and she doesn’t know what else to sa
y. Silver doesn’t register. Her eyes are dead marbles.

  Chapter 71

  There Are No New Hearts

  Themba brings Keke a mug of hot tea. She doesn’t take it. She can’t bear to lift her hands off Marko’s skin. Two of the three cops have left, taking her SnapTile with them; a guard remains at the door. A weird kind of house arrest, but in ICU. He’d taken pity on her, removed her cuffs when the hospital counsellor had come to see her and had not put them back on. Perhaps he can tell that there’ll be no running for her: that she won’t leave Marko’s side.

  “I know what you’re going to say,” says Keke to Themba. They regard each other with grim faces.

  “Do you?”

  “That it’s time to let go.”

  “I gather the counsellor has come to see you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Talked you through it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think it’s time?” asks the nurse.

  Keke looks around at all the beeping and humming machinery that’s keeping Marko alive.

  “We had an agreement,” she says, her nose stinging with the beginning of tears. “An understanding.”

  “What’s that?”

  “After the Genesis episode.”

  “The what?”

  “Never mind. You don’t need to know the details. But I was taken…used as bait. They withheld my insulin – for leverage – and I went into sugar shock. I almost died.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  “After that, Marko and I agreed that if it had been worse…if I had gone into a hypoglycaemic coma and not recovered, if it looked hopeless, that the life support should be switched off.”

  “A living will,” says Themba.