Blackout b-1

by Robison Wells

  But there was nothing she could do about it now. Her only other option was to sit down on a rock and wait for someone to find her.

  “What if we just turn ourselves in?” Jack asked. “You told me the soldiers said this was for our own safety.”

  “No,” she answered firmly.

  He nodded, and Aubrey wondered what he was thinking. They used to be so close. She used to be able to read him like a book. That was less than a year ago, but it felt like a decade.

  They crossed two more long fields, her dress snagging on barbed wire when she climbed both fences. Each time it made her want to cry—the dress had been gorgeous, the prettiest thing she’d ever owned. Stolen.

  “Do you hear that?” Jack asked, stopping and grabbing her arm.

  Aubrey listened, straining to hear anything besides the cold canyon wind. “What?”

  “Voices,” he said, and then carefully climbed up the short embankment to the road. He ducked, and pointed.

  Aubrey was right behind him, and saw the shapes in the distance—three cars across this road. None had their lights on; instead, half a dozen flashlights moved violently around the makeshift roadblock.

  “They’re arguing,” Jack said, but Aubrey still couldn’t hear it.

  Was she losing her hearing along with her sight?

  “About what?”

  He shrugged, and then motioned for her to cross the road to the next field. “Can’t tell.”

  “Why would they do this?” she asked.

  “You think they’re looking for us?”

  “Who else?”

  “Terrorists,” he said, like the answer was obvious. “Whoever hit Lake Powell.” He scrambled down the other side of road. This wasn’t a cultivated field—just rocky undeveloped land. She expected him to offer her a hand, but he didn’t.

  “But what about Nate?” Aubrey asked as she carefully followed after him.

  “You know more about Nate than I do,” Jack said.

  “Hardly anything, really.”

  “I’m just saying—”

  She stopped, suddenly letting out her fear, disguised as anger. “I don’t understand anything about what he did.”

  “I don’t care,” Jack answered. “All I’m saying is you knew him better than me.”

  “Well, I didn’t know . . . whatever he was. Whatever he did back there.”

  “I don’t care,” Jack said again. He started walking, forcing her to follow if she wanted to talk. “I have no idea what happened with him. I’m just saying that the military has their hands full right now. They’d only stop the dance if people were in danger.”

  “What danger?” She wasn’t trying to be belligerent, but part of her wanted—needed—to justify Nate’s actions. If she was anything like him, then he couldn’t be dangerous, could he? Could she?

  “Terrorists hit Lake Powell. Maybe they’re coming here next.” He turned and kept walking away from the road.

  “To do what?” Aubrey asked, exasperated. “Blow up a turkey farm?”

  “They could target Wasatch Academy,” he answered. “The dorms. Or Walmart.”

  “Walmart?”

  “They hit malls last week.”

  Aubrey pulled the oversized coat closer around her. She’d gotten the dress just before the mall disasters on the West Coast. She wasn’t sure of the final count, but the attacks were staggered—three one day, five the next, six more the day after. Nothing in Utah, of course. It was too small to care about. Well, that was what she’d thought until tonight.

  But what about Nate? Did that have anything to do with the attacks?

  “Where are we headed?” she asked Jack. She’d just realized the roadblocks were forcing them away from Jack’s house.

  He shrugged without turning back. “Into town. To the school. It seems like the most logical meeting place.”

  “So we just turn ourselves in?”

  He glanced over his shoulder. “You and I know Mount Pleasant inside and out. We can sneak up close, see what’s going on.”

  She thought about that for a minute. They might know every alley and broken fence, but they weren’t the US Army. They didn’t have night vision binoculars and who knew what else. And she couldn’t turn invisible with Jack.

  “No,” she said, and stopped.

  He turned around, annoyed. “What?”

  “Let’s go to my house. Check the news. Find out what’s happened.”

  “Why?”

  Aubrey started to cry. It was fake at first—something Nicole had taught her to help her get her way—but once the tears came they didn’t stop. “My date just turned into a monster, and then they killed him. It’s the middle of the night and you want us to spy on the people who did it. I want to go home.”

  Jack hesitated.

  “Come on, Jack,” she sobbed. “Let’s go home.”

  SEVEN

  “SLOW DOWN,” ALEC SAID, SITTING up straighter in the passenger seat. His head was throbbing, and he’d been trying to sleep, but Laura drove too fast. They were asking to get pulled over.

  The escape had gone perfectly to plan—better than he could have hoped. Only a few vehicles had tailed them as they flew out of the Glen Canyon Dam parking lot—Dan had shaken the canyon walls and must have damaged the bridge over the Colorado River—and the Bronco had quickly lost their pursuers in the maze of dirt roads to the west. They exchanged the stolen Bronco for a pickup, and then headed north through the Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument, one of the most godforsaken stretches of wilderness in the country.

  Laura drove—she’d had plenty of time that day to rest while the other two prepared for the attack, and both Alec and Dan were worn out and hurting. Dan could usually just sleep off his problems, but Alec’s always resulted in a migraine. Laura, so far as they’d seen, didn’t have any significant side effects. But her mutations were simple—strength, toughness, endurance. She was their tank, their human escape plan.

  Human. Alec smiled tiredly. He was better than human now.

  He turned on the radio again, the noise sending electric bolts of pain through his forehead.

  “. . . expected to be a complete loss, though the damage could have been far worse. The brunt of the explosion took place fairly high up on the dam; had it been lower, the hole would be growing significantly faster and the evacuation process would be that much more difficult.”

  “Dammit.” He sat quietly, watching the darkness out the windows. The evacuation process. He had thought that breaking the dam would be like popping an inflatable pool, sending all the water—and boaters—flushing down the Grand Canyon. But for hours they’d heard news anchors talk about the slow descent of the water, like bathwater slowly draining out of a tub.

  He punched the dashboard. “Dammit. Dammit. Dammit!”

  “It was a stretch,” Dan said quietly and defensively. “You knew that. I was working with concrete, not natural rock; it was over a hundred feet thick.”

  Alec didn’t say anything, though of course it was all true. He’d known it going in.

  “We killed the dam,” Laura said, her hands tight on the steering wheel. “I don’t see what the big deal is.”

  She never saw what the big deal was, Alec thought, but he kept his mouth shut. Not because he couldn’t have out-argued her, but because he had a headache and it wasn’t worth his time. Something caught his attention and he turned up the radio again.

  “. . . want to emphasize that the suspects in this bombing are three young people, between seventeen and twenty-five years of age. They were last seen heading west on Highway 89 in a late model Bronco.”

  The newsman gave their basic descriptions, which were vague enough to give Alec a little peace.

  “So you want solid rock, huh?” he asked.

  Dan, lying down in the backseat, grunted a yes. Dan always did better with natural stone than with synthetics.

  Alec pulled out his smartphone and began scrolling through lists he’d made over the last several mo
nths.

  “. . . We have breaking news from Michigan—the power grid in Detroit has been on and off all night, and there have been reports of damage to electrical substations throughout the city. We also have had unconfirmed reports of blackouts in the northeast, including many portions . . .”

  “Attacking substations?” Alec said back to the radio. “Weak, guys. Weak.”

  Laura laughed. “That’s why we’re the best.”

  That’s why I’m the best, he thought.

  He continued flipping through the list on his smartphone. He had potential targets researched all over the area—good targets, too. Railroads, mines, even a handful of power plants. And being in the middle of nowhere in Utah hopefully meant there wouldn’t be too many guards.

  “Hey,” Laura said, and pointed ahead into the darkness.

  Alec peered forward. Bright floodlights illuminated the highway and made his headache even worse. Two vehicles were stopped across the road.

  “You ready?” Laura asked.

  He didn’t answer. Of course he was ready.

  She slowed as they approached. The lead car was marked as the Wayne County Sheriff’s Department. A portly man with a thick mustache walked around the front of the cruiser.

  “You know what to do,” Alec whispered, suddenly nervous. Local authorities were always a wild card—he wasn’t sure how paranoid they would be, or how strictly they’d follow guidelines of police protocol. The only thing Alec needed was time, but he wouldn’t get that if the officer had a “shoot first, ask questions later” approach.

  Laura stopped the car and shifted into park. She unrolled her window.

  The officer clicked on his flashlight and began walking toward them, his hand resting on his holstered gun.

  Alec wondered how alert Dan was in the back. That’s where the stolen rifle was, under a blanket, and Dan was probably still too weak to use it. Alec had the pistol under his own seat.

  He tried to push all of those thoughts out of his mind. He focused on the officer.

  “Where ya headin’?” the officer asked, peering in the windows. He shone his light in Laura’s face, then Alec’s, then at Dan.

  “Home,” Laura said, her voice scared. “We were camping down in Kodachrome Basin, but we heard about the dam on the radio. We figured it was time to go.”

  “License?”

  Laura fumbled for it, digging in her jeans pockets first, and then leaning over to the glove compartment. She wasn’t really looking for it, Alec knew. She was wasting time.

  The memory he was trying to place was a simple one—that the officer had heard the suspects had been spotted at roadblock in St. George—four hours to the west. It was the easiest kind of memory to plant. Just a simple fact. The officer could build the rest of the story in his own mind.

  Laura turned to the window and handed the truck’s fake insurance card. “Here’s this. Still looking for the license. Sorry—we left in a rush and I’m not sure where I put everything.”

  “Take your time,” the officer said.

  Dammit. A second man was walking over from the cars. Alec could only work on one mind at once.

  Laura’s eyes met Alec’s as she turned back to dig through the glove compartment again.

  “Where’s home?” the officer asked.

  “Denver,” she answered.

  “That’s a long way to drive.”

  “We were just trying to get away from everything,” she said, finally grabbing the license and handing it to the officer. “We left right after the stadium came down last week. Figured we’d go somewhere safe.”

  Alec switched his focus to the second man, but he had to be more careful now. The memory had to be perfect—it had to match the first officer’s exactly.

  It was quiet for several seconds as the men looked at the driver’s license of Laura Hansen, the all-American blonde from Lakewood, Colorado. It wasn’t even a forgery—she’d lived there for ten years with her sleeper-agent parents, groomed and prepared for this as all of them were. All Colorado natives, all graduates of Colorado public high schools.

  Keep talking, Laura.

  But she was quiet, the officers several feet away, back from the window so they could watch everyone.

  Dan sat up in the backseat and stretched. Probably trying to show he wasn’t a threat, that he wasn’t attempting to hide anything.

  Alec was pouring the information into the second man’s mind. Three suspects, all matching the description of the terrorists, were spotted at a roadblock just outside of St. George. Three suspects. The call came in on the radio. The sighting only happened half an hour ago.

  What were the men doing back there? It wasn’t the first time that Alec wished he could read thoughts as well as influence them.

  Were their minds resisting the new memories? The whole reason for the roadblock was probably to watch for suspects, so the notion that the suspects had been seen half an hour ago would be hard to reconcile in their minds. Why were they still stopping cars? Who were they still looking for?

  The officer reappeared at the car window, his flashlight blocking Alec’s view of him.

  He handed Laura’s license and insurance back to her. “The bad news is that you’re going to run into a lot of traffic a couple miles up the road. Everyone’s doing the same thing you are, coming up outta Bullfrog. How far are you fixin’ to drive tonight?”

  “Until we get tired,” Laura said.

  The officer stepped back and patted the hood of the truck. “Well, be safe. Stay awake.”

  Laura stuffed the license and insurance back into the glove compartment, thanked the officer, and then steered the car through the roadblock.

  “That was a close one,” Dan said.

  “Easy,” Alec answered. “Have I ever failed you?”

  “I could have taken them both,” Laura said.

  Alec ignored that. It was her answer for everything, and it would leave a huge trail for police to follow.

  He pulled out his smartphone again. “Dan, you want natural stone?”

  Dan yawned. “You find something?”

  Alec opened a picture and handed the phone back to Dan. “How’s that?”

  “Where is it?”

  “Maybe an hour and a half away. Depends on the traffic.”

  Laura turned to look at him, the grin on her face illuminated by the glow of the phone. “Two in one day?”

  Alec looked in the rearview mirror. “Better get some sleep, Dan.”

  EIGHT

  “IF ANYONE WAS THERE, WE’D have seen them by now,” Jack whispered.

  Aubrey knew he was probably right, but he didn’t have as much to lose as she did. Jack wasn’t a freak. The army hadn’t shown up at the dance to take him.

  As Aubrey and Jack waited in the tall, dry grass behind her trailer park, the disaster at the Gunderson Barn kept replaying in her mind. One thing was nagging at her.

  A soldier had referred to Nate as a “possible Lambda.” What was a Lambda? She knew lambda was a letter in the Greek alphabet, she’d heard about it in physics—a lambda particle—and she’d seen lambda used in math before. But it wasn’t really what it meant that was nagging her; it was that it meant something. Whatever Nate was, he was a possible Lambda. The army knew about Lambdas. They knew about freaks.

  Am I a Lambda?

  The thought both scared and exhilarated her. Whatever made Aubrey invisible had a name. Someone was researching it. Maybe someone was looking for a cure.

  Maybe. Or maybe they were looking for Lambdas to exterminate them.

  “It’s been fifteen minutes,” Jack said, looking at his watch.

  There were lights on in a few of the mobile homes, including hers, but nothing had moved. A car drove down the highway every minute or two, never slowing to glance at the run-down trailer park.

  Cautiously, Aubrey stood and then squeezed through a break in the fence as she’d done a thousand times before. Jack hurried behind her and they slipped quietly down the dirt road
to the second home on the right. It was filthy, more so than it used to be, now that Aubrey had a life other than helping her dad. She felt a twinge of embarrassment.

  No, it’s just Jack. He’s been here almost every day since we were little.

  The door was unlocked, as usual, and Aubrey stepped inside. Jack followed her.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Her father’s voice was slurred and loud, breaking through the small amount of calm they’d felt out in the darkness. He stood in the kitchen, fiddling with a can of something.

  Aubrey stepped to her father and gave him a hug. “Just here to change clothes, Daddy.”

  “What happened to your dress?” he nearly shouted. He had about ten days’ worth of unshaven beard, and his long gray hair was out of place as if he’d been sleeping.

  “It’s been a long night,” she said.

  Jack spoke up. “Do you mind if I turn on the news?”

  “Go ahead,” her father replied, his hands and voice shaking. “It’s all crap.”

  Jack sat on the well-worn couch and found the remote for the old TV.

  Aubrey helped her dad as he fumbled with the can opener, cutting the top off a small can of generic chili.

  “. . . those reports from a few minutes ago that the Glen Canyon Dam terrorists had been apprehended are now being called false. Officials are urging everyone—including those on blogs and social media—to not spread unconfirmed rumors.”

  Aubrey paused in front of the TV. She saw for the first time the footage of the collapsed dam—the crumbled cement clinging to the canyon walls as a torrent of water spewed into the Grand Canyon. There were still boats on the lake, kicking up a stream of churning white foam as they fought the current to reach the marina. It had still been light when these videos were taken; she wondered how much worse it was now.

  “I’m going to change,” she mumbled, and headed to her room.

  She closed the door behind her and leaned against the wall, taking in a deep breath.