Forever Until Tomorrow (War Eternal Book 5)

by M. R. Forbes

  "I need you to open the door," Mitchell said.

  "What are you planning?" Lyle said. "You have a look in your eye."

  "Just open it."

  Lyle moved into position. "I'm starting to second guess the crazy part again."

  "Do it."

  Lyle yanked the door open. Mitchell pivoted away from the wall, taking quick aim at each of the soldiers. They were like a stone wall, out in the open, their aim disrupted by his surprise assault. He hit one in the face, another in the chest, rushing out into the open air to meet them, bullets chewing up the ground and passing by his ears so close he could hear their screams. The soldiers toppled over like dominoes, their lack of strategy and willingness to die confounding him.

  Then he was free, through the mess and out into the night. "Lyle," he shouted back, kneeling down to examine the soldiers.

  Lyle came running out of the room, shooting back into it, at the same time Mitchell found what he was searching for. He pulled the puck from the soldier's belt and threw it into the room, ducking away from the following explosion.

  "Oh man," Lyle said. "What the hell is going on here?" He knelt down beside one of the soldiers. "This is Campbell. He's S.W.A.T."

  "These are police?" Mitchell said.

  Lyle looked stricken. "Yeah."

  An incoming whine stole their attention, reminding them that they weren't safe yet. Mitchell turned and raised his rifle, getting a bead on the drone. It was diving straight at them, only a few hundred meters away and closing fast. It didn't have another missile, but it was a missile.

  Mitchell opened fire. Bullets peppered the drone, finally hitting the central fan. It snapped with a loud crack, and the machine lost control, rolling over and tumbling. Mitchell felt arms around his waist, and then he was on the ground. The crashing drone passed a foot over his head before slamming into the ground and smashing into the building behind them.

  "Thanks," Mitchell said as Lyle let go of him. "There are still two more."

  Lyle crawled on his hands and knees back to the downed soldiers, grabbing another rifle. The remaining drones were dropping toward them, trying to make up for the failure of the first. Lyle was motionless on one knee, holding the rifle remarkably steady as he tracked them.

  A crack echoed across the sky, and the first drone plummeted like a stone. A second crack and the other one joined it, crashing to the ground four hundred yards away.

  "Nice shooting," Mitchell said.

  "I won the National Corps Rifle Competition three years in a row," Lyle replied, getting to his feet.

  "Lucky for me. Let's not frig around here."

  They ran toward the street, making a beeline for the unoccupied black cars, reaching the first in line.

  "I don't think that's a good idea," Lyle said as they drew near.

  "We don't have a choice. They'll send reinforcements."

  "Not that way," Lyle said, pointing back down the street to where his car was waiting. "No AI in that one."

  They changed direction once more, sprinting for the vehicle.

  "Odds are they'll send more drones," Mitchell said as they reached the car. "We need to get them off our asses."

  "We'll go somewhere that they can't follow," Lyle replied. "I have an idea." The car came to life, and he spun it into a sharp u-turn. "When we get there, you can try to convince me why I shouldn't kill you myself and put an end to this madness."

  25

  Lyle's idea was to drop the car on a street corner outside of the St. Louis Metro station, a combination hyperloop and maglev depot sitting right near City Hall. The drive was easier than Mitchell anticipated. No new unfriendlies joined them on the streets or tried to slow their progress.

  They didn't speak much during the ride, as they both tried to process what had happened. Mitchell knew there had to be a reason for it. A reason for everything that had occurred. Police who were members of the AIT? Who stood in the open and let themselves be shot? Who shot one another? The suggestion was that they were disposable. Tools instead of people. But how had they come to believe that about themselves? Was the AIT brainwashing them that thoroughly?

  He imagined Lyle was wondering the same thing. When he looked over at Lyle, the Marine's face was stone, a look Mitchell recognized instinctively. A man who had a lot to feel and think and say, but couldn't find an approach to expunge any of it. He knew he had been there before, even if he didn't know when or why.

  They abandoned the car on the street, keeping their eyes on the air as they crossed over to a massive escalator down into the underground station, spilling out onto a floor filled with hundreds of travelers and eighteen different ways they could move.

  They had escaped.

  Had they been allowed to escape?

  "I set up a flag on my stream manager," Lyle said as they reached the bottom. "We're in deep shit."

  Mitchell could tell the man was angry with him. That he wanted to blame him. Why not? He was an easy target, and he couldn't prove that this wasn't in some way his fault. He shouldered the blame with an ease he found disturbing. He had lost people before.

  Billions.

  "What kind of shit?" Mitchell asked.

  "Those cops that were back there? They've issued a bulletin for your arrest in connection with them." He paused, working to contain his emotions. "And mine."

  "Are you serious? What about the rest of the soldiers? What about witnesses? It can't be that simple."

  "It doesn't need to be simple. Someone saw us there. Maybe someone saw you shooting the S.W.A.T. guys. I don't know. The bulletin is going out federally. That means FBI, Homeland Security, the whole deal."

  "He's manipulating the system."

  "Watson?"

  "Yes. If he has access to Police computers, he could have sent the team after us. He could be pushing the bulletin out." Mitchell glanced at a small lens on top of a translucent billboard. "He could be watching us right now."

  "What the hell have I gotten myself into?" Lyle said.

  "War," Mitchell replied without thinking.

  "I'm not in the service anymore."

  "Once a Marine, always a Marine," Mitchell replied. "Whatever is going on here, it isn't good for innocent people. How many do you think were killed or injured when Evelyn's apartment got hit?"

  "Evelyn, for one," Lyle said. He paused. "Damn."

  "What it is?"

  "I set a hook to alert me to anything coming out of Norfolk, or anything having to do with Major Asher.".

  "You just got something?"

  "Yeah. Hot off the wire. Seems there was a firefight in a hospital there." His eye flicked back and forth as he read. "Six dead, including two soldiers nobody could I.D."

  "They went after her?" Mitchell said.

  "It sure seems that way. The question is, why?"

  "Maybe they want her dead for the same reason I want to talk to her. She knows something that I'm not supposed to find out."

  "She wouldn't be able to tell you anything if you were dead."

  "You think they tried to hit me and failed, and that Major Asher was plan B?"

  "Don't you?"

  "It makes sense, but I'm not convinced it's that straightforward. This is the second time they've attacked her, and the second time they didn't manage to finish her off. Is she just that lucky, or is there more to it than that?"

  "You think there's another player?"

  "I don't know. If my memories were wiped intentionally, someone had to do it."

  "You're sure it was intentional?"

  "I'm getting more convinced every time someone tries to kill me."

  "Me too. It's one thing to hack a car. It's something else to send a military unit into a civilian living complex and blow the shit out of it without anyone batting an eye. Whoever Watson is, he's in deep. I wasn't sure about his connection to the AIT before, but I am now. Two separate attacks at almost the same time? It isn't coincidence, and someone has to be at the top of the stage, pulling the strings."

 
"I'm sorry you got mixed up in this."

  Lyle shrugged. "Me, too. My wife is going to divorce me for this."

  "Maybe she would understand?"

  "Assuming we figure all of this out and I don't die?"

  "Yeah."

  Lyle laughed. "You haven't met my wife." He stopped in front of a ticket kiosk. "We need a ride to Norfolk. We can grab a maglev to New York City, and then transfer in Grand Central."

  "How are we going to buy the tickets? The second you use your account they'll know exactly where we are."

  Lyle produced a card from his pocket. "Why do you think I was gone so long? I had a feeling that if the cab AI wasn't safe, the banking system might not be either."

  "I thought nobody uses physical currency?"

  "Nobody uses money, but not everyone has access to AR glasses, or wants to wear them. This is a secured link to an online vault where currency is registered. Useless on its own." He turned his wrist over. "There's a chip under my skin that's been paired with it. If you wanted to steal money from someone, you would need to get his card and cut off his hand. That's a little too much blood for small-time crooks, and more professional criminals prefer digital attacks."

  "So the card is anonymous?"

  "Pretty much. Though now that you mention it, I think New York to Norfolk is going to be too suspicious. We should take the long way around."

  "Long way?"

  "St. Louis to Chicago. Then a ride from Chicago to L.A. Then a car to San Francisco, and another ride somewhere on the East Coast. Maybe Boston or D.C."

  "How long will that take?"

  "It would be better if we could fly, but security is too tight on air travel. A couple of days?"

  "We don't know if Major Asher has a couple of days."

  "They're going to have so much security on that base, I don't think even Watson could get through it."

  "You may be underestimating."

  "You may be overestimating. We have to take our chances. We take too straight a shot, I guarantee there will be a welcome party waiting for us when we get there. The only question is whether or not it will be AIT terrorists or Federal Marshals."

  Mitchell wasn't happy with the idea of taking such a long route, but Lyle had a point. A good point. If Major Asher were in trouble, it wouldn't help to get captured or killed before they could reach her.

  "You don't think an anonymous card will stand out?"

  "Ten percent of transactions," Lyle said. "Even if they guessed we came here, even if they guessed a pretty accurate range of time, there are three thousand people here at any given moment. That's three hundred similar purchases. They would have to investigate all of them."

  Lyle put the card against the kiosk.

  "How can I assist you?" the AI asked.

  "Two tickets to Chicago," Lyle said.

  "Of course. One moment. Do you have an AR transfer id?"

  "No. Solid state, please."

  "One moment. This transaction has been written to your card. The shuttle leaves on track twelve in thirty-five minutes. Have a nice day."

  Lyle put the card back in his pocket. "See? No problem."

  Mitchell nodded. He wanted to believe things would be easy, but he wasn't convinced.

  Not when he could feel the growing silence of a billion dead souls as if it were an inevitability.

  26

  The Hyperloop was relatively quiet, the weekday and late night combining to make it that way. Katherine wound up as one of only three people in the pod, joining a couple in business casual that was getting a little too amorous with one another on the short hop to the Chinatown station.

  Katherine hadn't spent much time in the capital, having come and gone on different occasions for various military functions and duties. Those never afforded her time to explore, and so every place and experience were new. She wasn't nervous about being alone in the underground late at night. Hardly anything made her nervous, and while crime in the area was still above the national average, that average had been getting lower and lower for decades.

  Plus, she knew how to take care of herself.

  The Chinatown stop came quickly enough. Katherine was only a little surprised when the amorous couple stood with her, and the three of them departed the pod together. She stepped out into the brightly lit station and scanned the platform. A police officer was walking along the recently polished floor, his eyes flickering behind AR goggles. They stopped dancing when he noticed her. Then he readjusted his course and headed her way.

  Katherine froze. Had Trevor tipped the police that she was looking to buy a gun? That son of a bitch. She was going to break his arm the next time she saw him.

  "Major Asher?" the officer said, drawing closer.

  Katherine glanced past him to the station's exit. She could escape if she needed to.

  "Yes," she replied.

  "My name is Sergeant Jackson. We have a mutual friend."

  Katherine let herself relax. "Sergeant. A pleasure."

  "If you follow me, we can get this taken care of. The less we speak, the better it is for both of us."

  "Understood."

  "I'm not in the habit of helping criminals get their hands on weapons," Jackson said, turning and heading toward the exit while he immediately went against his own advice. "Unlike our government, I do believe that citizens should always have the right to self-defense."

  "Of course."

  "I just don't want you to think I'm crooked. Or a bad cop. I'm not. Someone like you, you need to be able to protect yourself, and I think it's bullshit that you aren't given any recourse but to meet me in a deserted Loop Station to do that."

  "You don't need to explain yourself to me, Sergeant."

  He stopped walking and turned to face her. "I do. The people I'm taking you to meet, their scruples are a little less defined. For me, it's a marriage of convenience."

  Katherine nodded. She didn't care about his conscience or the obvious guilt he was feeling about his side job. "I only want to protect myself," she said. "You're doing me a service by coordinating that."

  "Yeah, that's what I'm trying to say. My squad car is just outside. I'll have to give you blinders so you can't see where we're going and, oh shit."

  He grabbed her with one hand, pushing her down while his other hand went for his sidearm. Katherine didn't see the shooters, but she heard the reports as they fired.

  The bullets hit Sergeant Jackson in the chest, sending a spray of cloth fibers away as they punched into his protective vest. He fell backward, his firearm falling from his grip and onto the ground beside him.

  Katherine reached for it at the same time she gathered her legs and broke for cover, scooping the weapon up on her way past. More gunshots echoed in the enclosed space, the bullets missing her as she tried not to move in a straight line.

  She hit the steps and started climbing, away from the station and up to the surface. She dared a single glance back as she ascended, unable to get a clear view of her assailants. Who were they, and how did they know where to find her?

  She reached the street. It was late enough that there weren't many people around, and all of the storefronts along the avenue were closed. That didn't prevent their signs and advertisements from lighting up the area in reds and greens and golds, giving Chinatown a distinctly colorful flair.

  Sergeant Jackson's car was there. She hurried to it, trying to open the door. It didn't give, and she wasn't going back for the key. She kept moving, quickly crossing a deserted street and heading toward a small alley. She had always been a fast runner, a track star in High School. She reached the break in the buildings as her attackers cleared the steps down to the loop.

  She recognized them immediately. The amorous couple from the pod. She had intentionally ignored them on the way over. Now she saw that the woman had dark hair and an exotic face and that the man's appearance was similar. Eerily similar. They were close enough in looks that they could have been siblings.

  As disgusting as that thought was,
she was more disgusted by the bloody knife the woman was holding in her hand. Sergeant Jackson might have survived the gunshots thanks to his vest. He hadn't survived that.

  They looked up and down the street in search of her. They must have figured out there was only one place she could have gone to avoid them and started heading her way.

  She cursed herself for lingering when she should have been escaping. Then she cursed herself for thinking she should run. The alley was almost clean, but it did have a few larger composters resting on either side, breaking down garbage into liquids to pass through the sewers. She ducked behind one and checked Jackson's gun. She didn't recognize the model, but it had good weight and balance in her grip.

  She waited, listening carefully for her attackers to approach. A minute passed. Then another. She didn't hear anything. Had they decided to leave her alone?

  She was going to wait a little longer, but she began to question her strategy. What if they were calling for backup? The alley didn't exit out the other side. Was she trapping herself in it?

  She crouched low, ready to swing around the corner and shoot at whatever was there.

  A whooshing sound behind her distracted her. She turned as the male fell from the sky, landing on the ground behind her, knees bending only slightly to break a thirty-foot fall.

  "Katherine," he said. "You should have left things alone. Accepted your honorable discharge with honor, and stayed discharged."

  "Who are you?" Katherine asked. And how had he survived that fall? She knew there were bio-enhancements that could improve the human body's performance, but she had never heard of or seen anything like that.

  She felt the presence of the woman right before the gun was knocked out of her hand, and she was taken in a tight hold with her arms behind her back and the knife to her throat.

  "An old friend you've never met," the woman said. "At least, not in this recursion."

  "Recursion?"

  "She doesn't know us," the man said. "How could she? Origin hasn't found her yet."

  "Origin?"

  "If this doesn't bring her out of hiding, I don't think anything will," the man said.