by K. F. Breene
“Get it going! But don’t steer. Just get it hovering.” Millicent wrapped the rope around her waist and then tied it to the door. It would really hurt if it went tight, which was better than the alternative of it cutting her in half.
“No promises,” the man said, working at his controls. “It doesn’t always respond like I want it to.”
This is a stupid idea, she thought as she tied another strap around her wrist. “Here we go.”
“Where are you going?” Mr. McAllister asked, holding Marie back from running to her.
“To save the day.” Taking a deep breath, Millicent swung herself out of the craft. The air caught her and pushed, knocking her along the side and up. Her nails scraped against the metal as adrenaline pumped into her body. Her fingers caught the upper ridge, and her body slammed onto the top of the craft before she started floating again.
This was a really stupid idea. What did she think she’d do once she got up here?
She grabbed ahold of the air-conditioning unit as the sound of an engine rolling over assaulted her ears. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Ryker still above, but now a little off to the side. His face was closed down into a hard scowl.
The engine rolled over again.
She lifted a hand so the strap would billow out above her. Then, when there wasn’t a tug, she looked up to see if maybe he couldn’t reach. It was flapping right next to his face.
“Take it, you moron!” she yelled, the words ripped out of her mouth and flung away. She doubted he heard. “Take it!” The strap tapped his cheek as she shook her hand at him.
The motor rolled over again, and this time it roared to life. The craft jerked, and the metal was ripped out of her hand, jarring her shoulder. Her palms slid across scratched metal. She was dumped unceremoniously off the edge of the roof, her fingertips just barely grabbing on. Her body slowed, but didn’t stop with the vessel. Her face bounced off the window, and then she was weightless.
The world careened. Dark-brown metal craft; large body. A thick arm looped around her middle. A hard blow caught her cheek—the craft, sending shooting sparks of color behind her eyelids. Gravity sucked at her. The arm held fast. Her stomach wobbled as everything stopped spinning.
“Holy fuck,” she said, out of breath. When she opened her eyes, she was staring through the window at the terrified face of Mr. McAllister.
“What are you doing, Millicent?” Ryker asked in a deeper-than-normal tone, his voice clearly expressing his disappointment. One of the straps around his wrist was somehow attached to the craft. Not tied, but just . . . stuck on. The other was dangling from the arm wrapped around her. His extendable knife was secured in a holster on his hips.
She clung to the side of the craft. “I’m rescuing you. You’re welcome.”
“I see.” With a loud grunt, he did a one-armed pull-up with the connected strap. He then dragged her up his body, grunting with the effort. Muscles bulged, completely taxed. Horns honked around them. She had no doubt she’d be plastered all over social media. So much for keeping a low profile.
“I got it, I got it,” she said as she clutched on to the edge of the roof. She strained, trying to do a pull-up. She made it about halfway. “Okay, maybe just a little push. One more push.”
A large hand connected with her butt before she was shoved upward. She used the momentum to crawl onto the top of the craft and then clutched on to the air-conditioning unit.
“Don’t hang on to that, it’ll throw off the sensors,” Ryker said as he crawled up beside her. He slapped a strap down and held on to it with a fist. He passed the other one to her. “Tie it around your wrist. Then just slap it down like I did.”
“We can go without air-conditioning,” she said as she hastily followed his instructions.
“This isn’t an apartment, princess. That’s the exhaust manifold.” Ryker helped her get the strap on before slapping it to the roof. “There. Don’t fall off.”
“Oh.” She tightened her grip on the strap while Ryker glanced around them.
“We need to get out of here.”
“Probably should get into the craft first . . .” She tried to pull herself closer to the strap to figure out how it worked, but before she could, Ryker had grabbed it, disengaged it some way, and then pulled her along the top of the roof.
“Hang on,” he said.
“No—waiiiit—” Her body flung in an arch, sailing through the air before the tension on her strap was released. She crashed onto the floor and then bounced into the chair. Her head smacked the seat, which was much nicer than the other surfaces it had come into contact with recently.
A moment later, Ryker swung in, landing on his feet. He stood there like he’d just walked in out of a bay.
“Who the hell is that guy, Rambo?” Sticks asked, his jaw going slack.
“Who’s Rambo?” Ryker asked.
“Remake of some ancient two-D.” Sticks waved the thought away. “We loaded? We gotta go.”
“Close her up,” Ryker said to Millicent.
The doors closed before Millicent could get off the ground.
“Why’d you release their hook?” Ryker asked Sticks in a rough growl. “I wasn’t done up there yet.”
“Me? I thought she did it?” Sticks threw a thumb at Millicent.
“I didn’t.”
As one, Millicent and Ryker both turned to Marie. Mr. McAllister’s face turned red. “Oh no. Was that us? I was just trying to explain the different parts of a hovercraft—you know, to try and see if she might eventually be able to affect different areas of a vessel. Who knows, right? I mean, that should be possible given the talents she’s displayed so far, but you just never know what a human brain is capable of. Often it is more or less than—”
“Get to the point,” Ryker growled.
“Oh. Well, I had mentioned that the bad men had us stopped because of a locking system on our roof. And explained that that is why Daddy and Mommy were afraid. She only understands simple emotions, even though—” At Ryker’s impatient lean, Mr. McAllister gulped loudly. “Yes. Ah. So she seems to have figured out how to unlock . . . the locking system. I don’t even know what it is, you see. But she seems to have figured it out. Or at least, figured out what the problem was. I have no idea how, honestly . . .”
Ryker turned away, but not before giving Millicent a look she couldn’t begin to interpret. Not explaining, he leaned over to Sticks, issuing orders.
“To cut the distance to our meeting place, we have to break through the border and get as far as we can before we’re stopped,” Ryker said, turning back. “This craft is a marked vessel anyway. It won’t matter if we break another law. When they close in, we’ll crash and run. It’s about to get hairy.”
“It’s about to get hairy?” Mr. McAllister said in disbelief. “What has it been up until now?”
“Normal operating procedure . . .”
Chapter 19
Ryker settled in beside Millicent as she was retrieving another upper. She stuck the white tab on her tongue and settled back.
“How close are you to dropping?” Ryker asked in a low tone, probably so the others wouldn’t hear. The craft was so small, though, there wasn’t much opportunity for privacy.
“The adrenaline is going to subside soon, so hopefully this kicks in by then. In which case, not close at all. About ready for a party, actually.” She retied her hair into a tighter bun.
“We need to find a place to hunker down until we can get some sleep.” Ryker checked his wrist. “We’ll need to connect with Roe first, though. We only have a small window, and with all these detours, we’re cutting it close.”
“If we do miss it, can you get a message to him?”
“Before Mr. Hunt finds us?” Ryker lowered his wrist. “I don’t know. The way I climbed onto the roof and invaded that security vessel will be all over. He’ll know it was me even if he doesn’t see the posts. But the craft blowing out of the sky? A normal staffer can’t do that.”
; “Yeah. About that.” Millicent bent forward to retrieve the device, only to fall back against Ryker’s big arm. It was uncomfortable. “Move.”
“Make me.”
“Just . . .” She sighed and then pursed her lips when he adjusted so she was leaning heavily against him. “I’m not in the mood.”
“Headache?”
“No, why?” She blinked up at him, recognizing the teasing smile. She rolled her eyes and sat forward. “This thing is just supposed to cut out the craft’s ability to function, not blow it up.” She pulled the device off the gun and ran a finger along its smooth surface. “This is the latest model, too . . .”
“The first time, yes, that’s what it does.” Ryker reached forward to push the gun away. Apparently he didn’t like it pointed at his head. Oops. “But when the user is impatient, she won’t wait for the first trigger pull to work. Instead, she’ll give up waiting and pull it again. Usually it takes four trigger pulls with a smaller-caliber weapon to blow up a small craft. We use smaller caliber because it’s safer.
“However, when the user considers her favorite gun as smaller, because she designs guns that’ll bring down an armored vehicle, she might, say . . . blow up a craft after the second trigger pull . . . Did I get that right?”
Millicent glanced at her gun. “Any less of a gun and what’s the point?”
Ryker chuckled. “Touché.”
“But this device shouldn’t have enough power to blow something up. Even with a high-powered firearm. I didn’t see those modifications cross my desk . . .”
“It’s a glitch that hasn’t been spoken of outside my department. A useful glitch, when used properly. It’ll get the job done, but it won’t be our fault for blowing something up. Mr. Hunt would assume I did it on purpose.”
“Anyone could make the mistake of pulling the trigger more than once.”
“We ain’t that stupid, lo-yo. No offense,” Sticks called back. “You don’t kill security. Then all their security chums put a notice on your head. You’re as good as dead. Not caught, dead. Lucky me, they got your pictures all over that. I crash this craft, and I’m in the clear. My name ain’t on this rig.”
“How’s our implant defense?” Ryker asked. His head dropped against the window, and his chest rose and fell in a slow rhythm. He was relaxing after a high-energy, life-and-death situation.
In contrast, her heart pounded like she was at a full-out sprint. Her mouth was dry, like cotton had been stuffed in it. Her fingers tingled, and her foot was tapping on its own. The upper had kicked in before all the adrenaline had dripped away.
“Oh, fuck me.” Millicent jumped up and bounced in the aisleway. “Party in my body.” She swung her arms as her head got light. “Whoa!” She fist-pumped the air for no real reason.
“That’s the last one, Millie. You’ll kill yourself.” Ryker regarded her lazily.
“We’ll see.” She turned to the console and clapped, her attempt at focus. Then she clapped a few more times, kind of digging the beat. “Yow.” Her shoulders shrugged to the clapping. Her body was reacting independently of her thoughts.
Good. One less thing to operate.
“So let’s check out the situation. See if they’ve contracted my sister to block me out of my file yet.” She logged on to the net, dancing with the beat of her heart. Sneaking through the security, she figuratively tap-danced into her file and then physically tap-danced in place. She clapped, making Marie smile and Mr. McAllister frown, before turning back to the console. “I’m feeling good. Really freaking happy, bro-ho.”
“That’s a different thing,” Sticks called back.
She had a new flag on her profile—retrieve at all costs—and the correct description and image. Nothing else, though. No defense code that she couldn’t unravel like a ball of yarn with a loose end. “If she’s been contracted, she hasn’t started working yet. I see nothing out of the ordinary—just the security department getting involved. Simpletons. I’ve got their smartest member with me. Boo-ya!” She fist-pumped.
“What does all that mean?” Ryker asked in calculated disinterest.
“Uh-oh, I’ve got him worried. Why, I wonder.” She switched out her picture for that of an orangutan before muddling the profile. Why not? It was a little “get bent” from her to them.
“You haven’t done much of that before, I gather?” Ryker asked.
“What’s that? Uppers?” She laughed. “They froze my accounts—what’s left of them. Why they never noticed I was filtering money out in huge quantities this past year, I do not know.”
“Because I assigned myself to monitor that part of your profile, and I didn’t put it in my report,” Ryker said. “And yes. Uppers. Downers. Hallucinogens. Alcohol. Caffeine. Anything.”
“Hey, you got any of that stuff?” Sticks asked.
“They didn’t question you?” she asked, logging in to Ryker’s profile. It was quite a bit harder because she couldn’t think straight. She just wanted to run. Just run really fast. Then maybe fly. “Flying would be awesome,” she said out loud.
“They question me all the time, but it’s usually about my colorful life choices. I made sure to keep them on their toes while you mucked about with preparing to screw the system. Colorful life choices, but my work was pristine. That usually keeps the micromanagers away.”
“Who are you people?” Sticks asked in a wispy voice.
“They’re both directors, natural borns, and at the top of the Curve,” Mr. McAllister said, putting his hand out to Millicent. “Can I have an upper? I’m about to pass out.”
“No.” Ryker’s voice held a hard command that froze Millicent in the act. “You are in charge of watching my daughter and doctoring us if something goes wrong. You are the lifesaver, and as such, will remain sober. Get some rest right now if you need it.”
“But she’s responsible for keeping us alive,” Mr. McAllister whined.
“That’s my job. She is responsible for running interference and blowing things up. She can do that stoned.”
“At the top of the Curve. This all makes so much more sense,” Sticks said. “I got money, though. Can I buy a fix?”
“So if you weren’t on my side, you would’ve caught me?” Millicent asked, changing Ryker’s picture out for a white butt in the act of mooning the screen.
“I had reasons to watch you more closely than most. If you were just an average woman . . . I would’ve questioned your spending habits. That’s about it, though. You excel at what you do.”
“Why, thank you.” Millicent fist-pumped. “You’re flagged, too, by the way. I can’t take it off. Not without studying how they go about flagging things. That’s deeper in the security pool, and they’ve spent a lot of time and money fortifying it.”
“Shoot to kill?” Ryker asked, not at all bothered for some reason.
“No. Bring in for questioning. Mine is ‘at all costs,’ though, so shooting is a possibility. Keep your head up.” She sighed. The fist pump wasn’t necessary. She was starting to calm down, thank Holy. On to Mr. McAllister. “He’s got a questioning one, too. No shoot-to-kills among us. Not yet.”
“That was before you blew up their security,” Sticks said.
“Different company. They won’t care,” Ryker said. To Mr. McAllister he said, “You said that other coder was Millie’s sister. Why did Millie end up in defense?”
Mr. McAllister shrugged. “She’s great at it, right? So that’s probably why. Who knows why the other one didn’t. I don’t have that data. She’s with Gregon.”
“But how are we related and working for different companies?” Millicent asked, logic telling her to sit down, but her body telling her to laugh so hard she would throw up. She settled for random chuckling. “I think this dose is way stronger than the first one.”
“She is a novice,” Sticks said.
“Buying or trading stock isn’t that rare,” Mr. McAllister said. “Ryker’s semen was sold once. That was before they realized what an asset he was. His
late teens were . . . eye opening, I think. They weren’t going to breed him. Just sell his semen with the test scores. But then he leveled out, so they changed their minds.
“I think in this case, however, the mother was rented. Our lab wanted to try an enhancing serum, like we did with Marie, so they needed to have complete control from conception until birth. From the records, I was able to deduce that the serum was largely ineffective. They couldn’t tell if you would’ve been that smart anyway. As you’ve realized, your sister is just as intelligent. Or nearly anyway.”
“Why would they sell one of their chief assets?” Millicent’s lip curled, basically calling herself an item to barter.
Mr. McAllister shrugged. “Money. Plus, there is a limited stock of extremely smart individuals. To prevent inbreeding, we need fresh gene pools. Had they known what you’d become, I doubt they would’ve done it. Their loss.”
“Why has all of this never struck me as odd? Ha-ha-ha!” Millicent frowned with the laughter. She couldn’t stop it, though.
“Sometimes it’s easier not to question,” Ryker said, watching her.
“Case in point, right?” Mr. McAllister said, making a circle with his finger, indicating their frantic plight. “But really, when the human race is under threat, like when overpopulation drained the resources and affected the environment, it clutches on to the first piece of driftwood it can find. From my notes, what I gather . . .” Mr. McAllister accessed his wrist. Text scrolled along his skin. “It seemed logical at the time—to allow a trusted source to try and gain control over the chaos.”
He glanced up. “I did a lot of research during the times of natural birth, to try and find clues regarding developing traits and so forth.” He nodded, like anyone cared, and glanced back down at his wrist screen. “In this case, the chaos was the overpopulation. The rich were purchasing lab births, but the poor were still naturally breeding, willy-nilly. At the time, the rich basically bought the laws. So their answer was to pass control to the creators and perfecters of lab births. People would need to get licenses to breed. I think . . . yes, here. Insurance companies paid for up to two children. After that, the person had to purchase a license and birth on their own. The rich could buy more, but they often didn’t. The poor, those who could afford insurance, could only have two. So that was the start, from what I can gather.”
