Two Girls Book 2: One Nation

by Justin Sirois

  His father stopped at a window. The natural light aged him, highlighting the fragile webbing of wrinkles under his eyes. “Whatever gene therapy Jill Van Best received twenty years ago worked. We’re not sure how it wasn’t detected earlier. I guess she was one of thousands of women who ended up having twins and the clinicians were apathetic after so much failure. I dunno.”

  “A miracle,” Merrick said just above a whisper.

  “It is,” his father agreed.

  Prince waited to ask this question because he didn’t want to seem too eager. Any emotional connection to a mission, especially one this crucial or even historical, would get him kicked off. To deflect their attention, he snapped his StiffArm up with unnatural reflexes and aimed at the moose head—a slow trigger squeeze would mince it to pieces. The urge to kill now was stronger than any other urge in his life. No treasure or woman or property compared to erasing something that no one else would ever see again. He dangled his finger over the trigger, pulling so gently, but not enough to fire.

  Prince kept his sights on the mouse. “You want the girls taken alive?”

  CHAPTER 7

  Penny found the perimeter’s chain-link fence within a hundred yards of the base. Ten feet high with razor wire coiled at the top. She crouched and touched it with her natural hand, unsure if it was electrified. It was cold to the touch. Behind her, the drones circled, but gave no indication that they understood her intensions. She pulled her hood down over her brow. Listened for anytwo approaching. Her claw easily twisted the metal wire like pulling apart the rings of a plastic six-pack and she crawled through the hole, catching her hoodie on the snapped barbed links before tugging it free.

  Chills electrified her arms—her natural arm and the phantom limb—as if that dead-missing piece of her were still there and goose bumps prickled it. She took this as a sign that she was doing the right thing. Freeing herself. The missing arm pulling her closer to something though she didn’t know what.

  Penny ran without looking back, moonlight bright enough to distinguish trees from the ambient blackness. She knew if she kept running there would be a roadway and, if she followed that long enough, a truck stop with a diner. Mason had joked about getting cigarettes from there if they were allowed to leave the base.

  It dawned on her that she had no money, but it didn’t matter.

  With the night’s coolness on her cheeks, she hadn’t felt this free in weeks. Much of that freeness, she knew, relied on a rebelliousness that her sister had always embraced. She could see now how infectious it was once she threw off the unnatural shackles of duality—she could be whoever she wanted to be. This only made her run faster. She found herself leaping over downed logs. She stooped and bashed a rotten trunk with her titanium arm, shattering damp pulp in every direction. A wet chunk lodged between her sneaker and sock. She picked it out and kept running.

  Alone, in the dark, she wasn’t afraid in the way she might have been in the past. Her vulnerability wasn’t physical anymore. She could palm a man’s head like a basketball and pop it as easy as a balloon. It was Prince’s head that she imagined as she came down hard on another rotten log with her claw.

  Twenty minutes later, she reached the highway. Crickets’ chirping filled the black corridor of the road, end to end. Penny slogged over the shallow ditch dividing it from the woods. There was no indication—light or sign—signaling which way the truck stop might be so Penny walked the gravel with the moon as a beacon. Finally, a car sped past, but didn’t stop. She was grateful. Hidden inside her hoodie, she hoped that no two could tell what sex she was. Any predatory creep would regret messing with her and she didn’t want unnecessary trouble.

  When another car passed in the direction she was walking, Penny felt more confident she was walking toward civilization. One Nation picked a fairly remote spot for their secret base, but she knew it wasn’t in the middle of nowhere. The further she got though, the less secure she felt without a plan. It wouldn’t take long for security to figure out she was gone and it would take even less time to find her using drones or whatever else they had.

  Litter dotted the breakdown lane. Soda bottles. An empty pint of vodka. Kids, she thought, which made her think about the normal lives of local teenagers, the twos that were planning summer trips or taking internships to help their chances at college acceptance. If she had tricked herself into thinking she didn’t care about such things anymore, she was mistaken. That old life was exactly what she wanted right now. Even the limitless pressures that came with it.

  The next time she looked up, Penny could see the subtle glow of electric light at the road’s end. She picked up her pace as another car passed her, headed in the same direction.

  A neon sign lit the edge of an unpaved parking lot. It read Maybee’s, with no description, but she could see the old chrome detailing, hallmark to old greasy spoon diners. She kept her head down, walking out of sight of two older guys smoking by a truck and made her way past the gas pumps to another smaller sign that also read Maybee’s. Under it, there was a door scratched with graffiti and dented from angry patrons.

  Penny had never been in a bar other than a chain restaurant and even there she and mom had sat at a small table along the perimeter. She remembered watching the bartenders shake drinks over their shoulders, smiling at patrons in their colorful uniforms. It looked like a fun job, maybe something she’d like to try one day.

  Low playing country music damped the occasional shout from inside. Through a small window, she could see people watching a baseball game on a large TV over the bar.

  “Right!? Right!?” sometwo yelled, followed by a hearty laugh.

  Penny almost turned around at that very moment, knowing she didn’t belong there, alone, but the two men that were smoking by the truck were behind her now.

  “Lemme get that for ya,” the closest one said, leaning past her to open the door. “Karaoke night’s Tuesday. That what ya here for?”

  Penny kept her head low. “Ah, no. Just meeting somebody.”

  The man stood with his hand opening the door wide. He gestured for her to go first.

  “Thank you,” Penny said and walked in, wondering why this man would assume she was there to sing cover songs.

  “Man, you just wish it was karaoke night,” the other man said to his friend.

  “Cause it’s the only night this place isn’t filled with old turds like you,” the first man said, not really laughing. Penny saw him look back at her as they walked to the bar, but he didn’t leer—friendly enough.

  Penny knew she shouldn’t just stand there, taking in the vintage tin and neon signs scattered over wood paneling. The crack of pool balls snapped her attention to the back of the room.

  “You here for karaoke, love?” a woman called from behind the bar. “It’s Tuesday night. Not tonight.”

  Penny hunched, holding her titanium arm close to her body, hidden inside the hoodie. “Ah, yeah. I just heard about it from a friend.”

  Shrugging, the bartender found it more interesting to wipe down the bar. “You can order food if you want. Kitchen’s still open.”

  Penny took that as an invitation to sit down. She thought it smart to at least pretend to be a customer before leaving. She looked to every person to see if they were looking at her. Two middle-age couples at a table. A few men at another. Two women playing cards, their hair both feathery and hard. There was a new kind of shame in being alone in public, one that Penny had never felt before. Sam had always been at her side. Here, by herself, she sensed people judging her for being without a friend or group or even parent. Their only assumption could be that she might have lost her Set somehow and wouldn’t that be the most pathetic thing in the world.

  She never thought about how scary that might be. Part of leaving the base, even if it was temporary, was to test her resolve. She needed to know if she could be herself, by herself.

  If she let those paranoias steer her decisions, she knew she would get caught. Penny’s stomach gurgled. She e
yed the half-lit restroom sign.

  “Foods good,” the bartender said, still focusing on wiping the bar. “There’s a few specials too.”

  Sitting on a stool at the far end of the bar, away from everytwo else, she opened a thick, plastic covered menu and read. She wondered if it looked suspicious that she was only using her right hand. The baseball game distracted most of the older guys from what she was doing. In the low light, she brought her face closer to the menu, noticing the scribbled out items and prices adjusted by ballpoint pen. Every greasy thing looked good, anything with cheese looked great. One Nation’s cafeteria served similar things, but always with a healthy theme like veggie cheese steaks and Korean tofu sandwiches. They were always good, but rationing made the portions smaller than normal.

  She sighed and looked around the room.

  A Set of young men were playing darts, too busy to notice her. Without her twin by her side, she was as attractive as a mannequin. They traded friendly insults and marked points on a smeared chalkboard. In a way, they reminded her of Mason and Dixon. A little overconfident, but charming enough to get away with it. Maybe they looked her way, but Penny was afraid to turn her head. Attention from any boy, no matter how cute, would end her poorly planned excursion in seconds.

  Mind churning, she figured Mason probably hated her. He didn’t want some damaged and frigid girl. If he had fallen in love with the girl he met before the night they were attacked then there was no way he could love her now. Not like this.

  “Another bullseye?” one of the young men yelled.

  Waiting for the bartender to approach her, Penny watched the door through the mirror behind the bar. If a cop or any type of authority walked in, she knew she’d have to leave quietly or get caught. The vengeful part of her wanted to be hauled away and for the police to make the mistake of alerting Gray Altar so that she could kill every last person involved with the organization. That building rage compounded the more she entertained the idea.

  Her imagination spiraled as she envisioned herself playing the role of a meek invalid. Cops would question her. Silence would be her only answer. She would sit in a cell, waiting for federal authorities to arrive—hopefully generals and commanders of Gray Altar— and when they did arrive she would unleash the full force of her wrecking ball, punching it through every damn person she could find.

  “You see that slider?” a guy yelled, slapping the bar.

  Penny snapped out of her fantasy.

  He watched the TV for the replay. “Look at that!”

  “I knew he was worth the money,” the guy’s friend said. “Woo!”

  Glancing over her shoulder, Penny watched a woman lift a burger to her mouth and struggle to get her teeth around it. The corner of a perfectly melted slice of American cheese sagged at the seam.

  “Know what you want, love?” the bartender asked.

  Penny faked an expression of disappointment. She dug into her pants pocket and said, “I uhh, I left my money at home. I’ll have to come back.”

  “Karaoke’s Tuesday,” the bartender repeated as if it were new news. She was cheery when she added, “Apps are half off all night. Tuesday.”

  Penny nodded, keeping her face down.

  “Usually people your age come in pairs. Duets all night,” she laughed. “Sucks you came all this way for nothin’.”

  Suddenly, a man was behind her. Close enough to touch her. “She’ll take a burger. Me too while you’re at it.”

  Penny could see half his face in the mirror—the Patriots ball cap—the eye glasses and mustache. Clint pulled a stool out and sat himself between her and the rest of the patrons. “A Bud too, please.”

  “You know this guy?” the bartender asked her.

  Penny nodded. “Yeah.”

  The bartender raised an eyebrow at him, her hand already on the beer tap, a glass underneath. “You sure?”

  “He’s my uncle,” Penny said, wanting to add that he was her captor, the man who had dragged them a thousand miles and filmed her and allowed her to lose her arm. Yeah, this is him, here to drag me back to my cage.

  The bartender shrugged and poured the beer. When she delivered it, she asked, “How you want those burgers.”

  Clint looked to Penny. “Medium? American cheese?”

  Penny nodded.

  “Lots of cheese.” Clint smiled. “And she needs a Coke.”

  “You got it,” the bartender said and disappeared into the kitchen.

  Neither of them said a word as Clint leaned both elbows on the bar, the sleeves of his plaid shirt rolled up. His vest was partly unbuttoned and Penny knew he had a pistol hidden inside it. Grenades too, in case they were backed into a corner. He lowered his cap and eyed the bar, making sure no two had identified them, but when a guy sauntered up for another drink, Clint inched his right hand closer to his chest. No matter what, she knew they were at a disadvantage. Republican gun laws guaranteed almost every man in the bar would be armed. Probably every woman too. Clint could take out a few of them, but not all.

  The guy looked over and nodded, but quickly shifted his attention to the TV.

  Clint’s shoulders relaxed. Hand back to his perspiring pint of beer.

  Penny’s stomach growled so loud Clint’s eyes widened. She had desperately hovered over plenty of department store and restaurant toilets. Dealing with an irritable bowel flare up in a truck stop bathroom wasn’t part of her half-baked runaway plan.

  Inside her hoodie pocket, Penny aimed her claw at Clint, wondering if there was enough force behind the wrecking ball to rip through the fabric and break every one of his ribs. That would surely kill him. Maybe it would toss her along with it like a cannonball in a sling. Is that what this man deserved for betraying her privacy? For putting her whole life out for the world to judge.

  When the bartender came back, she poured the guy a drink and marked it on his tab. Then he walked away. Clint seemed to relax as he ignored Penny and watched the TV.

  The bartender laid down napkins and silverware, ketchup and mustard. Penny’s Coke fizzled. She wondered why the bartender had left a little bit of paper left on the top of her straw. Taking it off, she sipped and watched the TV along with Clint. “You mad at me?”

  Clint chuckled. When he finally brought his beer to his lips, the foamy head painted his mustache. He closed his eyes for a few seconds and smiled. “You know how long I’ve wanted to sit at this bar and watch a ball game?”

  “No,” Penny said, gazing into her lap.

  “Like a regular damn person,” he added.

  “No,” Penny said. She sipped her Coke and watched people through the mirror behind the bar. “How’d you find me?”

  Clint hushed his voice. “Drones followed you the second you left. You knew that would happen.”

  Penny nodded.

  He hushed even lower. “Do you know how dangerous this is, sitting here right now?”

  “I guess,” Penny said.

  Clint picked at the edge of his beer coaster. “They find us, they aren’t going to kill us. We’ll be locked in a little box for the rest of our lives.”

  A ballplayer on the TV cracked a fastball and sent it rocketing into the stands. A group of people sitting at a table were the first to shout. The guys at the bar snapped their heads toward the TV and cheered. “That’s right! That’s right!”

  Clint raised his beer at himself in the mirror—the twin image and only person to toast.

  “What do we do?” Penny asked.

  “Nothing,” Clint said. “Enjoy it while we can.”

  Penny slid her hand in her hoodie pocket and felt the tip of her closed claw. “Right.”

  A few minutes later, their food arrived. The bartender placed hot sauce in front of Clint as it he asked for it. “Anything else?”

  “Another beer and the check,” Clint said as he lifted his burger. Juice dripped and saturated the lower bun.

  As much as Penny had wanted a greasy meal, she wasn’t hungry. She lifted a limp french fry and chew
ed.

  Clint savored every bite, washing each down with a swig. Teeth snapped into his pickle spear. “Man. I’m serious. This is paradise.”

  “I’m glad sometwo is having a good time,” Penny grumbled, wondering if Clint was trying to make her feel bad with his boasting.

  His chewing slowed and he put his burger down. He swallowed and wiped his hands and sipped his beer. “Penny. I want you to know how much I hate what we did to you. What we let happen.”

  Penny said nothing.

  “I feel more responsible for that than any… anybody else,” he said. “That’s on me and you can hate me for that. I would hate me, too.” He hushed when the bartender approached.

  She laid down a to-go box with their check on top of it. “There’s ketchup packets in the box.”

  Clint nodded and waited for her to walk away. Penny could barely hear his whisper. “This web video crap. I understand what One Nation needs to do with it and it sucks. It puts you out there. Sam, your mom, my kids. We’re all exposed.”

  “I don’t want any part of it,” Penny said.

  Clint sipped his beer and wiped his upper lip dry. “I don’t blame you.”

  He doesn’t blame me, Penny thought. Does he really hate all this as much as I do?

  She felt the quaking urge to cry.

  Clint cleaned off his hands with his napkin and pushed his plate away. Then he downed his second beer with two long gulps. Cleared his throat and looked to her. “You can’t run away from something this big.”

  “I wasn’t running,” Penny said.

  Clint nodded in a patronizing way as he packed her uneaten food into the box. When no two was looking, he wiped his glass with his napkin and then did the same with hers. “Did you touch the door handle when you came in?”