Learning the Hard Way 3

by H. P. Caledon

  Misery now looked like she understood the severity of their situation.

  “So now you have a lot to learn,” Keelan said.

  “Like what?” she asked.

  “You’re your dad’s daughter and already a killer, that helps,” Mike said.

  “Now we just need to teach you a few more tricks,” Keelan added.

  “So you can become even better at killing people—”

  “—and escape the damn lawmen,” Keelan added harshly.

  “Fly ships.”

  “Make weapons.”

  “Use all other weapons once you’ve learned to disarm people.”

  “Learn what security measures there are and how to get around them.”

  “Learn to destroy them or in other ways put the systems out of business, plus learn the lawmen’s ways of communication, codes, formations, attack strategies, and so on.”

  “And last but not least, how to escape if you’re caught,” Keelan finished the list. He might have missed a few.

  Misery gaped at them. Then she threw out her arms and snorted. “Oh, is that it?”

  “One step at a time,” Keelan said. “Your mom knows I’m a mass murderer. She knows I went looking for you, and that I found you. And she knows I’ll do anything in my power to keep you out of jail because I promised her that.”

  “And all the stuff I have to learn? You know all that, too?” she asked.

  “Mike taught me a lot of it when we were locked up in Delta together. Then a lot of confusing things happened and—”

  “That’s why my sister hates him,” Mike added.

  “There’s just one more thing—”

  “Which will wait!” Mike bellowed and glared at Keelan.

  “Okay, okay,” Keelan mumbled, but he had to agree with Mike—it would be prudent to hold back telling her she was some sort of another race or species.

  “But I can’t learn all that,” Misery exclaimed.

  “Sure you can.” Mike stood. “Come on, time to learn how to deal serious ass whoopings.”

  Keelan got up, too, and was about to follow Mike to the stairs, but Misery didn’t move.

  “All that... all... ” The rest of the sentence disappeared in a mumbled jumble and shallow breathing before she stared emptily ahead. Her eyes grew lifeless, and Keelan growled before glancing at Mike.

  “Tomorrow. We start tomorrow.”

  Mike nodded and went into to the cockpit instead.

  Keelan perched on the couch next to Misery and tried to get her attention, but he wasn’t really successful. He finally lifted her into his arms and carried her to his room. He put her on the bed and scooted in next to her to watch over her.

  She finally seemed to snap out of it, and Keelan turned to put an arm around her. She cried herself to sleep, and Keelan felt incompetent for not being able to remove the threat against her.

  Chapter Four

  After only six hours of sleep, Keelan awoke, but he didn’t want to get up and leave Misery alone. He didn’t want to wake her, either, so he stayed where he was and thought about how they were going to overcome the challenges.

  Misery stirred a few minutes later and shuffled around in the dark.

  “You okay?” Keelan asked.

  “Yeah.” She lay quiet for a while, and Keelan let her think. “Do you really think I can learn all that?”

  “I have no doubt you can.”

  “But I can’t even read properly.”

  “Yet, but you’re already in the process of getting better. We’ll teach you.” He reached to caress her hair. Took a few tries before he found something other than the pillow.

  “You said my mom knows all this?”

  “Yes.”

  “And she knows you have me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I see her?”

  Keelan contemplated it, knowing Alice was just as eager about seeing Misery. He was happy she’d finally shown an interest in knowing more about her mother, and he still felt a huge relief that she’d taken the news about him being a mass murderer and not a law abiding citizen so well.

  “Come on, go get ready, and we’ll call her after.”

  Misery didn’t wait for him to call on the lights or do it herself—she just crawled over him awkwardly, and Keelan held his legs together, fearing she’d knee him in the balls in her eagerness. He escaped that fate and got by with a knee to the flank.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled, as he grunted under her weight. She hurried out of the room, and Keelan got dressed before leaving his room to make coffee. It was almost done by the time she showed up in the doorway wearing a nice set of clothes and her hair done in something close to presentable wisps.

  “You look beautiful.” Keelan smiled as he poured the coffee.

  She returned the smile and wrung her hands.

  Keelan brought the coffee to the cockpit and set it down, then guided Misery outside the camera’s focal range. “Wait here.”

  She nodded eagerly and wrung her hands again while Keelan coded the call address.

  Billy turned up a minute later. “Hope you got good news, the boss is angry.”

  “What happened?”

  “Some idiots were in here three or four hours ago, and we had to close down early to clean up the place. The fucknuts even managed to destroy a part of the counter.”

  “Okay, get her,” Keelan said, grinning. Billy left the screen, and moments later Alice landed on the chair, looking tired. But she managed a heartfelt smile. Keelan glanced at Misery and winked at her, and she hesitantly stepped up next to him. He vacated the chair and let Misery sit.

  Too many emotions for Keelan to keep up with crossed Alice’s face, and she whimpered softly. She finally looked at Keelan and smiled.

  “You’re right, she really does have my eyes... and your ears.”

  “And Dad’s temper,” Misery added.

  “I don’t know about that,” Keelan said. “Your mom and I are pretty alike in that area.”

  Alice looked closely at Misery. “Are you... are you happy?” she asked, looking a bit flustered. Keelan found it adorable.

  “Yeah. It’s good here. Even though it’ll be difficult.”

  Keelan put a hand on her shoulder to show her he was right there and had no intentions of leaving her. She still seemed shook up by all the information the day before, so he figured she’d need the comfort.

  “Alice, if anyone asks about me or Misery then tell them I’m just some reject you never want to see again. And that you know nothing about her and don’t want to know.”

  Alice sighed and hung her head.

  “Does this fence just get bigger and bigger?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Fence?” Misery asked, looking up at Keelan.

  Keelan squeezed her shoulder. “I’ll explain.”

  “Promise you’ll take care of her. Anything it takes. Anything!”

  “Of course.” Keelan nodded.

  “I’m so happy to finally see you.” Alice smiled at Misery—her eyes blank, and her voice strained. Misery smiled back, all teeth, and Alice let go of a sob. “You’re so beautiful when you smile.”

  * * * *

  Sitting on the edge of his bed, Mike wondered if he should go make coffee or if he’d wake Keelan and Misery. She probably needed the rest after the news they’d broken last night. But if he was quiet, then only Keelan would wake since he slept so lightly. Mike decided to tiptoe out. As soon as he was in the hallway, he noticed a dim light in the cockpit where Keelan and Misery sat talking quietly.

  Well, no worries about waking her then. “Good morning!” Mike shouted and went to the bathroom.

  Upon finishing, he found the cockpit empty. Keelan and Misery were making breakfast in the kitchen.

  “Good morning,” Misery said, smiling.

  “Good to see you in a better mood,” Mike said.

  “I just talked with my mom.”

  Mike glanced at Keelan. “Did you tell her... ”

  �
�Yes. Misery is still nowhere to be found in the databases in conjunction with either me or Kaleb, so that’s good.”

  “Beautiful. I found Cecil Hallett, but I think we should stay far away. Let’s just keep our eyes and ears out for anything about Andy Thompson’s team, because we don’t wanna be anywhere near them, either.”

  “Did you search them?” Keelan poured coffee for both of them and handed Mike a mug.

  “Yes, but they’re hiding pretty well. I didn’t locate them.”

  “And our plan is? Where are we supposed to hide? Here in the middle of nowhere and hope no one finds us before our supplies run out?”

  “You don’t have to be so pessimistic.” Mike chuckled. “I need to make new retina lenses for Misery, because we only have men on the shelf.”

  “No younger men?” Misery asked.

  “No, why?”

  “Because my hair is still short enough for me to look like a teenage boy.”

  “And your hips aren’t wide enough yet to ruin that look, so it’s a possibility,” Mike mused out loud. Misery pouted mockingly, but amusement danced in her green eyes.

  “And that breast compress is a bad idea,” Keelan said. “You can’t use the full capacity of your lungs when you have it on, can you?”

  “No.”

  “If you have to flee, you need to be able to outrun them. Collapsing after two hundred yards to gasp for life-saving air is not an option. Mike, the disguise Ratkins made for you when you caught Cecil—”

  “Can’t make anything close to that, the man’s an artist.” Mike flung out his arms in defeat. Mike chuckled. “Do you know what else he wanted to disguise me as? A woman. In a tight, red dress.”

  Keelan cackled, and Mike held up a fist.

  “And the hips?” Misery asked. “Yours aren’t exactly of a feminine width compared to your shoulders.” She outlined a curvy woman’s figure and wiggled her eyebrows.

  She had a point. Mike would have to put more thought into new identities.

  * * * *

  Keelan had finally collected the information he thought he needed so he could talk with Misery about something regarding her friend Tommy. He found her in the common room with her feet up on the table, reading the last of her book. Her determination caused hope to rise in him. She had been ready to give up after the first ten pages because there were words she didn’t understand. Mike had even relayed how he’d found her cussing the book far into the Glacier System—loudly enough for Mike to hear it and pop his head into her room. He’d advised her to write down the words so she could look them up in the dictionary

  But he had to interrupt her reading now and promised himself he’d help her look up the words later. And maybe learn a few more himself.

  He sat next to her, handing her a pad. “Is what Tommy told you something in the line of this?”

  She put the book down and took the pad. On it were several notes holding anything from poems to short stories and descriptions.

  “Yeah, the colors sound like the ones he described. Hey, this one even says something like Tommy explained when transferring our loot. No one ever taught him, and he’s not a good reader. He said it was like the program showed him what to do, and he just trusted it. He said it was like some of the coding stepped away from the background.”

  “One of the stories in there tells of a program that wrote itself using a person as the tool. The person says she didn’t even know what it would be able to do, but it turned out to be something that could hack her school’s files. Did Tommy ever say something like that?”

  Misery thought for a minute. “He once said he got all the way into a person’s bank account from the M-card. Then something happened, and—”

  “And that’s why he’s in jail for hacking. He’s in for a small breach on a bank’s security. I looked at his case, but it’s too technical for me to understand.” Keelan took the pad again and got up. “I’m gonna try, though.”

  He went into the kitchen and worked his way through more of the descriptions and information. Fifteen minutes later, Misery joined him, bringing another pad.

  “Do people even use words like unambiguous?”

  Keelan snorted into his coffee. “Hope not, what does it mean?”

  “Uhm.” She sat across from him and tapped away at the pad before scooting it to him. “Here it is. Unmistakable. Why not use that word?”

  “Don’t know—”

  Mike yelled for Keelan, and the panic in his voice sent Keelan out of the seat so fast he knocked over his coffee as he dropped the pad and ran from the kitchen.

  “Something’s wrong with my profile, come look!” Mike shouted from the cockpit, waving his arm. Keelan hurried into the cockpit and realized Misery had followed.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t get through to SWIS’ server by using my codes. It just says we’re out of reach from our current location. But since our last visit, something changed. Details, but still.”

  “Try mine.” Keelan waited impatiently for the Kaleb-identity to show up on the screen. He looked over the details. “All good, it’s still the same bunch of lies.”

  “Yeah, but check out Keelan’s.” Mike performed the search and pointed to the bottom of the screen.

  “Child?”

  “That box is never there unless you manually go in and tick it and then it has to link to a child’s profile. But no name, so why is it even visible?”

  Keelan stood feeling angst settle in his bones.

  “Okay. Where... who the hell knew? Someone has to have talked!”

  “Everything from Lewis to the Churchburrow couple. Ratkins did lean on them pretty hard for us to get intel. But why isn’t there even a mention of a gender in your profile? Churchburrow informed Lewis you had a daughter.”

  “Log onto SWIS using Kaleb’s codes,” Keelan said, crossing his fingers. Mike tried, but got the same bullshit answer about their position diminishing their reach.

  The frame of the screen blinked red, and Mike jumped into action, ripping out seven connectors, a control panel from under the navigation console, and a hard drive from the console next to the screen.

  “Lockdown, we’re star jumping!” Mike sped out of the cockpit. Keelan glanced at Misery who looked frozen in time. He quickly guided her into a seat and buckled her in before he ran after Mike to help lock down the skip. Minutes later they buckled in, too, and Mike took them to the edge of the frequency-border.

  “Check on Misery, I’ll make us a ghost ship. And find the holographic map—we need to find a triangle to hide in until I find a new signature.” Mike was already finding tools and pulling off panels before he finished flinging orders at Keelan.

  Keelan looked at Misery and had no idea what to do for her, so he began with finding the holograph before he took the seat next to her. Her breath was still a bit rapid, and she gripped the armrests tightly.

  “What was that? What’s happening?”

  “Uhm,” Keelan said, not really knowing enough to answer her.

  “Our bearings were marked via our signal through the network. Only SWIS can do that, since it was their network we were on. Our profiles are templates, facades, temporary lies to have us believe we were looking at our true profiles. Now we’re exposed, and we have no idea what those bastards know when we can’t even log onto our own fucking profiles!” Mike shimmied out from under a panel and closed it before hiding the tools in a drawer. He took a seat in the pilot’s chair again and plotted routes.

  “Can we do a search on Misery?” Keelan asked.

  “No, the screen blinked because they hacked our system. They could have downloaded all our files. They might know everything we’ve been looking at and saved intel on. And her profile... ” Mike turned the chair to face them. “What VID did you call Alice from?”

  “That one.” Keelan pointed to the screen Mike had just dismantled. “Highest security.”

  “Shit,” Mike exclaimed and punched a few buttons. “Common room.”


  The ship tilted as they went, and Keelan stopped to identify why.

  “Autopilot,” Mike explained and continued. “We’re tiptoeing the border and need to call Lewis when we’re in ping.”

  “In what?” Keelan asked.

  “Ping. Where the satellites cross in three signals, and we can’t get pinged, therefore called ping. It’s a code for the satellite’s blind angles,” Mike explained while continuing to his room.

  Keelan and Misery stayed in the common room.

  “And what’s a border?” Misery asked.

  “Where the satellites overlap, I think. We’re not completely invisible to them, but we flop around on their screen, and they can’t pinpoint our location,” Keelan said.

  Mike returned, carrying two boxes and a kitbag. “Get the rest on my bed.”

  Misery grabbed Keelan’s arm and looked up at him, nervous.

  “It’s okay. He knows what he’s doing. We’re gonna get out,” Keelan said. But whatever had just happened, Mike was more rattled than usual.

  * * * *

  Mike sat on his haunches at the end of the table in the common room where he’d set up his equipment and a portable VID. He looked between it and the holographic map still hovering over the console in the cockpit. The most important details still escaped him, so he wasn’t able to make a good plan or even a secondary plan. It frustrated him endlessly. And sitting there and gawking at a screen knowing he had only seconds of a perfectly timed chance did not help. Knowing whether Lewis would leave them on their own after that mess or if they could still get help was crucial information for any planning from that point on. He almost held his breath as they closed in on the ping.

  Finally there, Mike called Lewis and left a short message since he couldn’t waste valuable time waiting for Lewis to pick up. The man might not even be in his office.