Blackout

by Robison Wells

Page 57

 

  “So we go to Mexico,” Jack said. “Any terrorists there?”

  Aubrey shrugged.

  “Do you guys have any place you can hide here?” Laura asked. “Any contacts?”

  “We’re from the same town,” Jack said. “They’re armed, and I bet they’ve formed a friggin’ militia to try to get their kids back, but I don’t trust the town to keep a secret long. It’s too small, and everybody knows everybody else. ”

  Aubrey nodded. “We can’t go back. ”

  No one spoke for a long time. Jack thought about Mexico. It sounded awful. He knew that Aubrey had taken a class or two of Spanish, and she almost certainly got A’s, but that didn’t mean it was going to be easy to flee there and live in peace.

  Besides, betrayal or no betrayal, he didn’t want to just run away and watch while America burned to the ground.

  “I know some people,” Laura said. “I haven’t been totally honest with you guys. But I’ve been aware of my powers for a long time—like you, Aubrey—and a couple of my friends have, too. They hid out better than I did, I think. We could see the writing on the wall and we started to get ready for the government to come after us. We built bomb shelters and things—well, not bomb shelters, but you know—storage. ”

  “What kind of storage?” Jack asked.

  “Just food and stuff. We didn’t get as much as we wanted, because we were only in college. We didn’t have a lot of money. ”

  “So,” Aubrey said, “you’re saying we should find these storage places? Would they be enough for us to lay low and hide?”

  “Probably not,” Laura said. “I’m saying that we should do exactly what we’ve been doing—infiltrating the enemy—but Aubrey, I think you should get into the military base—where we were yesterday?”

  “What?” Jack said, before Aubrey got a chance. “If you haven’t noticed, every single one of these ‘infiltrations’ have been disastrous. ”

  “And what would I be looking for, anyway?” Aubrey said.

  “If we can find these guys, then that’s five of us instead of three. And for all I know, they’ve been working more on storage. They might have a safe place we can go. More important—we need to find out how to get these bombs off our legs. ”

  “Is this about the rebellion you were talking about?” Aubrey asked, suddenly sounding suspicious.

  “Not really,” Laura said. “We weren’t part of the rebellion, and I don’t think they would be now. They definitely wouldn’t be part of a violent rebellion like the one that attacked us. I’m just saying that I don’t think this is all black-and-white: that we’re either on the run as criminals or we’re helping the army catch Lambdas. There has to be a different way to live. ”

  Jack looked at Aubrey and she stared back at him. She didn’t appear at all convinced. Neither was Jack, but it wasn’t like he had a better solution. He definitely had no interest in a rebellion, and even though he didn’t mind the prospect of spending all his time with Aubrey he wanted to be legal. He didn’t want to be on the army’s list of most wanted. He didn’t want to have an explosive tied to his foot for the rest of his life. He didn’t want to live in fear, marked as a terrorist.

  “What if we do something easier?” Jack said, still looking at Aubrey. “What if we just infiltrate the army base, find out why the order was given to kill us, and see if we can make things right?”

  Aubrey was clearly discouraged, though it looked like she was trying to hide it.

  Jack continued. “I’m just thinking that if we know why they’re after us, then maybe we can make things good? Maybe we won’t be criminals if we can give them what they want?”

  Aubrey spoke. “I screwed up breaking into a demolished school full of homeless people, and you think I can make it into a military base?”

  “You didn’t screw up,” Jack said. “You got in. You assessed all of the dangers and gave an exact account of the guards. Then you got down to where the girl was, and when the Green Berets couldn’t take her down, you did. It was a huge success. ”

  Aubrey exhaled long and slow. “It felt like a failure. ”

  “And today wasn’t your fault,” Laura said. “You saved my life. He was going to take another shot at me. ”

  Aubrey stared straight ahead.

  Jack spoke. “You’re good with computers—you get straight A’s in everything—and they’ll probably be everywhere. Just get into one of them. You probably won’t need to hack a password—use a computer while someone else isn’t watching. ”

  “And it’s not even a real military base,” Laura said. “It’s a Marriott. There will be a lot of soldiers everywhere, but there shouldn’t be too much security. There’ll probably only be the cameras that the hotel already has. ”

  Finally, Aubrey sighed and looked over at Jack. “You’ll have my back?”

  “I’ll follow every step you take. And if you get caught, I’m coming in there with you. I’m not going to let them split us up. ”

  “But you’re not going to get caught,” Laura said.

  “What are the names of the people you want me to find?” Aubrey asked.

  “Alec Moore and Dan Allen. They’re both from Denver, like me. I’ll write it down for you. ”

  FIFTY

  JUST AS LAURA HAD PREDICTED, the main benefit of having a makeshift army command center set up in a hotel was that a hotel wasn’t designed to be an army base. It was close to other buildings, and there were a lot of entrances to guard. In the case of the Marriott, it was on the waterfront, so that vantage was blocked, but it wasn’t hard to move from building to building, climbing over barricades, slipping around vehicles, moving from bush to bush, column to column.

  The place was prepared for World War III. Aubrey hadn’t realized that the first time they’d arrived. In addition to the jeeps and armored vehicles there were trucks loaded with surface-to-air missiles. Aubrey had no idea what they’d be needed for—she’d only seen the one Lambda who could fly—and could a missile really track a flying person?

  The entire street, Alaskan Way, was blocked off, and the marina in front of it was emptied. It took Aubrey a long time to get all the way from the first roadblock to the hotel. She’d hoped to find some kind of large fern or patch of trees to hide in and reappear—to give her a chance to get her energy back—but the only trees in front of the hotel were planted into the sidewalk.

  So instead, she waited at the front entrance for someone to open the door, and then slipped inside.

  The entrance was beehive of activity, and Aubrey didn’t know where to look first. But she knew she needed to keep moving—the lobby had to have security cameras.

  She hurried toward the back of the hotel, following signs that directed her to the ballrooms. She didn’t have a lot of experience in big hotels—the biggest place in Mount Pleasant probably had twenty rooms, and she’d never stayed there. But, she figured that the best place to not be seen was the kitchen. Their room service hadn’t been cooked, which meant most of the staff was gone. There’d be no reason to set up much of a military kitchen if everyone was still eating MREs.