Two Girls Book 2: One Nation

by Justin Sirois

  “This is just one of a dozen charges we’ll nail you with, Jason. I’ll personally see that you’re sent to the most violent prison we can find.” Prince looked down and started tracing the tip of his dagger against the floor toward Kev. “You know what they do to UpSets in prison, right? Fucking fake ass twins?”

  Jason’s eyes flicked back and forth on Prince’s face, unable to settle. “What do you want?”

  “Tell me where they are,” Prince said as simply as asking a store clerk for orange juice. “Exactly.”

  Jason squeaked a little laugh. “You think they would trust me with information like that?”

  Prince’s StiffArm snapped the dagger to Jason’s forehead and cheek so fast that neither of them could have seen it. Jason squeaked again.

  “Just because you don’t know something, doesn’t mean you can’t find out, right?” Prince dragged the flat side of the dagger down Jason’s pale face, not cutting, only pressing the cold steel hard against his skin.

  “I…” Jason muttered. “Can’t.”

  “You can, J.” Prince smiled. “We all know how talented you are. Use those talents. Help us.”

  Jason shook. “I can’t.”

  “Cuz if you don’t, I’ll cut you so bad that you’ll never find a freaky UpSet willing to match your scars.”

  As they paused the conversation, Prince reveled in the quiet. Here he had come and crashed their little party—a grim reaper strolling. It made him feel young. He only wished his college friends could have seen the beautiful havoc and the panic on this asshole face.

  The only constant sound was the seeker drones buzzing as they zipped around the old auto body like flies over fresh corpses. By now, they had identified every person in the place, checking for warrants. Prince studied this man’s face now, identifying him as a coward who hides behind a computer screen. A troll under the mighty bridge of America. How could a person like this be considered a hero activist? Was the world that screwed up?

  “You’re wasting my time,” Prince said, pressing the side of the knife and wiggling it to make the blade’s edge razor Jason’s cheek. “You can tell me right now, or we can detain you and make this really ugly. For both of you.”

  A tear slid down Jason’s face. “Kevin has nothing to do with this.”

  “So help him. Easy. Tell me where One Nation is hiding,” Prince said. “Or you’ll never see him again.”

  Jason bowed his head. Prince let his dagger slide away. Another tear tapped the concrete. This was always Prince’s favorite part, when a captive gave the first indication of capitulation. No matter who they were or who they thought they were, anyone that kissed his blade eventually bowed.

  Jason sniffled, placing his hand on his UpSet’s shoulder. “One thing though,” he said, looking up and finally met Prince’s eyes and locked on them. “I’m Kevin.” He smiled wide and glanced down. “That’s Jason.”

  “God damned…” Prince reared his StiffArm back, dropped the dagger, and slugged him in the face. The impact would have shattered the man’s cheekbone if Prince hadn’t held back. Jason or Kevin or whoever he was crinkled onto the floor and steadied himself, trying not to pass out. “Jason. Kevin. I don’t care which one of you is him, you’re both gonna talk.”

  A glob of blood slapped the floor, followed by a thread of bloody spit. Jason held his face with trembling fingers.

  As Prince was about to say something about the simple beauty of waterboarding, police sirens broke the silence. They multiplied and grew louder.

  “You’re so fucked,” Jason coughed.

  Prince laughed and sheathed his dagger before he stood. “You think the cops are on your side? We own the police.”

  Police radios and footsteps from the entrance. “Emmett Prince? You in there?” Prince figured someone had come to the party, spotted the drones, and called 911. It didn’t matter. Gray Altar’s authority trumped any local police.

  “In the back! I have the suspect!” Prince called and looked down at Jason. “Suspects. Get on your feet.”

  Jason spit more blood on the floor, forcefully this time. “You have any idea what you walked into?”

  Prince grinned. “What? A meeting of the minds?”

  “There’s bodies everywhere!” a cop said from the first room.

  “Don’t touch anything,” another cop said.

  Jason mocked his grin. “You know who’s out there? Who you shot up with darts? Fucking journalists. Bloggers. One of them has a Pulitzer. They all watched One Nation’s episode together. Tonight.”

  Prince’s first thought was so fucking what, but then his mind was a pingpong of panic. He hadn’t considered the idea that Jason Herz might have influential friends or that he might be expecting the authorities any day. He gave no thought to how damn smart this guy might be.

  “They all know you labeled One Nation a terrorist group to cover up your own actions. Everytwo knows.” Jason cleared his throat and got to one knee. “I fucking lured you here.”

  Police rushed into the room. “You good, sir?”

  Prince nodded.

  “You don’t have anything on us. There’s no evidence. None. We wiped everything.” Jason shook his fake twin, trying to wake him. “C’mon.”

  “Should we cuff’em?” a cop asked.

  Prince turned away and nodded again. “Yes.”

  Jason put his hands behind his back and sneered. “You think people don’t understand what Gray Altar is doing? You’re creating resistance groups in areas of the country you want to control.” His voice got louder. “You kill one twin and leave the other alive! One Nation’s releasing proof in the next episode. There’s nothing you can do to stop it.”

  Two cops cuffed him and dragged him to his feet, one of them saying, “That’s enough.”

  The other asked Prince, “We processing them?”

  Processing, Prince thought. Like meat or cheese. A commodity like anything else. “No. We’re bringing them back to Fort Walters.”

  Head down, Jason scoffed, but the panic in his voice was clear. “I can’t bring you to One Nation…”

  Prince leaned into his face as the cops dragged him by. “Where they’ll talk.”

  This was true. They would talk. He would personally dump a thousand gallons over their faces if he had to. It would only take a few gagging sessions of water over Jason’s mouth and nose before he would lead them to One Nation. Maybe Prince would do them both at the same time to make sure they were interrogating the right one… or two or maybe he’d make one waterboard the other.

  “Brilliant,” Prince said to himself, walking out of the room and over the tranquilized man that had been hiding behind the washing machine.

  “Sir?” a cop asked.

  “Nothing,” Prince said, tapping onto his forearm, recalling the gunship to his location.

  Janet was quick to answer. “En route. Successful?”

  “Affirmative, “ Prince said. “Lower three cables and two harnesses for the prisoners.”

  “Emmett,” a different voice interrupted on a separate frequency. “We need you to get out of there. Now.” Merrick was uncharacteristically alarmed.

  “I’m out,” Prince said, stepping into the open room with the kitchen. What he didn’t expect to see was the groggy people he had darted not just coming to, but anxious to document. A woman sat on the arm of a couch with her cell phone pointed, recording the scene of passed out bodies. A man was doing the same as a cop asked him if he was okay.

  “You can’t be seen there,” Merrick said. “Leave.”

  “That’s him!” the woman yelled, aiming her phone at Prince.

  Though the drones were still blocking cell and wifi signals, he knew anyone could take pictures and video. Prince covered his face knowing his cloaking armor would be useless in such a well-lit room. “Everyone here is a suspect!” he yelled. “Confiscate all recording devices!”

  “No!” the woman yelled, clutching her phone as a cop tried to swipe it. She stumbled off the c
ouch’s arm and recorded more of the room, the collapsed bodies of friends and colleagues. And of course she had to start crying.

  “Leave now,” Merrick commanded through Prince’s earpiece.

  “I want all of these people questioned for aiding the terrorist group One Nation,” Prince said to the police at the entrance.

  “Ah, sir. All of them?”

  Wind rushed into the room from the lowering gunship. “YES!”

  Outside, half a dozen latecomers were recording on their phones. One had a actual video camera. “There he is!” one of them called.

  Prince didn’t have to be told by Merrick that this was a PR disaster—that his covert operation had been processed into a perfectly digestible product for One Nation loyalists to swallow. The six or so videos taken by these people would show wind-whipped cops shielding their heads as they escorted innocent people out of the building. They would show Prince in full armor, a belt of darts dangling from his holstered pistol. As two harnesses lowered from the gunship, they would capture Jason and Jason’s twin being strapped in and sucked up onto the belly of a black destroyer. This accumulative footage would be used in videos to support One Nation’s effort to smear Gray Altar’s mission to get the cure into the most capable hands possible, not some ragtag militant group.

  Police waved off the newcomers, asking them to stop recording, but they refused. Jason’s twin’s eyes fluttered as the cops dragged him to the dangling cord. Prince clipped him in.

  Jason screamed. “I’m being arrested for no reason! Gray Altar stormed in and attacked us!”

  Prince grabbed him by the collar and turned him away from the recording phones. “It’s going to be really fun for you, not being able to touch a computer for the rest of your life.”

  Jason laughed. “You’ve got nothing. And that’s not the saddest part.”

  Prince tapped his forearm to make Jason’s twin ascend into the gunship’s open hatch. “Please tell me the saddest part. I need a good cry.”

  Jason watched his UpSet zip up into the ship. “You think One Nation’s the star of all this. You think the girls and the baby,” he swallowed and spoke loud enough to be recorded. “You think they’re the focus, but they’re not. It’s you. The prince of the whole stinking pile. You’re the star, asshole.”

  “Right,” Prince scoffed and tapped his forearm, sending Jason up. The hacker’s neck whipped with the sudden tug.

  Hands cuffed behind his back, Jason spun, but he kept focusing on Prince. “When the spotlight gets turned on you, Emmett, you’re not going to like what you see!”

  Prince wanted to shoot the loudmouth prick out of the sky. Turning, he saw dazed people being escorted outside by the police. His two attack drones flanked him like protective birds of prey and he knew the sight of this, to somebody who didn’t understand the nuances of his work and the national infrastructure he swore to protect, would make him appear like a monster.

  “Get outta there, Emmett,” Merrick commanded over the radio.

  Prince clipped into the last cable and ascended. The drones followed. All recording devices aimed at him.

  He knew the Gray Altar was already leaking their version of the incident to national news organizations, crafting their own footage to show Prince as the hero apprehending a terrorist-aiding hacker. The spin would be that he used non-lethal rounds to sedate an unruly group of One Nation sympathizers to quickly capture his target without injury or property damage. What worried him as he stepped into the gunship’s belly and watched the hatch close like a stage curtain was the people below were just as clever with media. Independent voices could compound into a roar that drowned out corporate news.

  With the gunship on autopilot, Janet secured their prisoners. Prince circled his finger in the air at her like a propeller and she nodded.

  “Well,” Merrick radioed. “That was a cluster.”

  Prince turned away from the prisoners. “It was a success.”

  “Sure,” Merrick said. “Just get back to base.”

  Turning back to Jason and his twin, Prince smiled. “Just fill up a few buckets of water for me, k? I mean, make sure everything ready for these two.”

  Merrick was silent for a few seconds. “No joking. Just get back.”

  Jason consoled his twin and glared at Prince. “You don’t have to touch him. He has nothing to do with this.”

  “I don’t have to touch either of you if you agree to help us locate One Nation,” Prince said as he slid off his backpack and inserted the collapsed attack drones into it. He took off his gloves and unsheathed his dagger, pointing it at them. “Because I’m going to start on you right now.”

  The two UpSets deliberated in whispers. Jason’s twin started to sniffle.

  Janet accelerated, making Prince and the fake twins jerk backward. Prince held onto the wall and crept toward the pair.

  “If you hurt us,” Jason’s twin finally spoke. “The whole world will find out.”

  Prince sighed. “No they won’t.”

  “Okay.” Jason said, hands up. “Okay. Okay.”

  Prince glanced out the side darkened window. The world below rushed by in a blur. “Okay what?”

  “Don’t,” Jason’s twin said, scowling.

  Now that Prince was sure that this UpSet sitting on the right was indeed Jason, he focused on him. “For every minute you delay, I’m going to have a year added to your sentence.”

  Jason nodded. “Okay. I get it.”

  Prince took out his datasheet from his pockets and snapped it, making it stiffen flat into a thin tablet. He handed it to Jason and stood over him, making sure he didn’t click on anything he shouldn’t. “Write down everything you need. Hardware and software. I’ll have it ready when we land.”

  Jason said nothing as his whole body wilted.

  His twin looked away.

  Prince showed no emotion though he wanted to. Tapping his forearm, he texted Merrick: I’m sending a list of hardware and software Jason Herz will need to hack and locate One Nation. He didn’t take long to crack.

  Pleased with himself, Prince knew that he could have multiple gunships ready to deploy once they had One Nation’s secret location. The show of force would have to be overwhelming, though they couldn’t risk killing the mother or infant. Even the two girls might be off limits now that they were internationally recognizable. He wondered if One Nation was dumb or arrogant enough to fight back, again. Prince’s forearm vibrated.

  Merrick: At a price we’re not sure we can pay.

  Prince: What do you mean?

  Merrick: Bloggers beat us to it. They’re posting footage of what you just did.

  Prince grit his teeth and turned away from Jason to type.

  Prince: Can’t you have them removed? Blocked? Arrested?

  Merrick typed for a while. Either thinking or deleting before he pressed send.

  Merrick: No. This is beyond our control.

  Prince turned back to Jason and crouched He moved the tip of his dagger down the datasheet to the first knuckle of Jason’s index finger. “If we don’t know where One Nation is hiding by the end of the night, I’m going to kill your friend.”

  Jason’s twin started to sob.

  Calmly, without a hint of fright, Jason looked up. “Why do you do it?”

  Prince wasn’t about to entertain this treasonous geek, but he couldn’t help himself. “What?”

  “You let them use you. For what?”

  “Shut the fuck up and type,” Prince said, tapping the screen with his dagger.

  “I’ve see what you’ve done. I know some of the Sets you’ve split up—killed. They work for One Nation now. Why wouldn’t they?”

  “I said shut your fucking mouth.”

  “Jason…” Jason’s twin said. Cheeks striped with tears.

  Use me, Prince thought. For honor and the homeland and to make sure weak Set-lovers like you aren’t the ones writing laws for the next fifty years.

  “Listen to your sissy Set over there,” Pr
ince warned, leaning his weight onto the dagger to press the tip into the datasheet. “Get me to One Nation.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Walking away from Alix, Sam worried if the recording device would get caught in her intestine like the way people used to say gum would. She imagined it stuck to her fleshy tubing, recording every stomach groan and fart. If she had gotten it down her throat without gulping water then it would probably pass easily through her digestive system. Would it hurt coming out? Probably not, she thought. Could Alix make her get her stomach pumped? Good luck with that. She imagined Alix assigning a team of people to sift through the base’s sewage to find it. Yes.

  Sam checked her phone for the time, seeing that it was late. Few people would be up, but she was too anxious to be alone.

  “I hope this doesn’t mean you’re giving up on our mission,” Alix said from behind her. “We can’t afford to lose you too.”

  Sam said nothing as she entered the recreation room and snagged a granola bar from the shelf, pocketing a second. Dixon sat at a table with his brother. Neither brother looked over at her.

  “Critical hit,” Dixon cheered. “You see that?”

  “Yes. Yes. Yes,” Mason said. “Again.”

  Sam pretended to read the granola bar’s label. “Can you just leave me alone while I eat?”

  “I realize what I did,” Alix said, voice hushed. “It was wrong. I mean, Morally and ethically.”

  Sam unwrapped and chewed. Semi-stale granola and raisins. “Yeah. Both.” She walked away as Alix opened her mouth.

  “There’s no way your sister’s ever going to trust us if we spy on her. It wasn’t fair of me to pressure you to do that.”

  Sam wasn’t sure if Alix was being honest or manipulative, but it didn’t matter. The issue was over with. Sam pushed past her headed for the exit.

  “I was… just excited about the progress we’ve made,” Alix added.

  “You need to stay away from my sister,” Sam warned, swallowing her last bite. “Far away.”

  Alix nodded. “I will. I promise.”

  “Good,” Sam said, as dismissively as she could.

  “Again, I’m sorry.”