Sleeper Protocol
Page 15
Mally, are we being followed?
<
Why? Are we on private property?
<
Can you do something?
<>
Good. The brush became denser as we came across a dry creek bed—an arroyo. I dropped into the bottom and motioned Berkeley to join me. “Stay quiet, and follow me,” I whispered.
“What’s wrong?” she asked in a stage whisper.
“There’s a drone following us.” Everything told me that eyes were on us and had been for some time.
<
I don’t think we’re safe yet.
We pushed east as hard as we dared. Avoiding the ruins of what had once been a metal-roofed structure not much larger than a carport—whatever that was—to the south set our course toward what had once been western Colorado. The feeling of being watched passed within an hour, but we pressed on. We stopped for a quick, silent break in the scrub forest at noon. My self-directed anger surfaced when I struggled to get my water bottle free from my backpack.
Mally? Do you see anything?
<
“You okay?” Berkeley asked. “Are we still being followed?”
“We’re not being followed. But we’re out here without a way to protect ourselves.”
Berkeley squinted. “You mean a weapon of some type? They’re illegal.”
I laughed out loud. “Illegality never stops a criminal from doing what they want to do. Besides, you did a pretty good impression with that microphone handle.”
“A girl has to improvise from time to time. You have your card and your protocol. If we were really in danger, your protocol can summon emergency support within minutes no matter where we are. I don’t have that luxury.”
<
I let it go.
Berkeley sipped water from her bottle and shrugged out of her jacket. “Are we still being watched?”
“I don’t know. I want to find better ground—some place that gives us the advantage.”
“What do you mean?”
A mnemonic device came to mind. “OCOKA. Observation; cover and concealment; obstacles; key terrain; and avenues of approach. We need to find a place that will give us that. I haven’t the foggiest idea where to look.”
Berkeley hooked her bottle onto her belt. “Did your protocol alert you, or was it your gut?”
“My gut.” I shrugged. “I might have been wrong.”
<
I relayed the information to Berkeley, and she shot to her feet. We started walking again, and I was glad for the silence. The opportunity to stick my foot in my mouth again was too great. We climbed steadily for another hour, the mountains on the eastern horizon growing from distant bumps to an intimidating wall. The sun grew warmer, and soon our jackets went into the pack. Across golden hills that glinted with melting snow was the gentle curve of a wide stream, and I wondered if it was safe to drink. I turned to ask Berkeley, but she was already cradling her hair out of the way and lowering her face to the water. Following her lead, I knelt on the wet ground and bent toward the stream.
Cold and crisp, the water tasted unlike anything I could remember. Gasping, I leaned in for another long drink then rose up on my knees, eyes toward the azure sky. “That’s good.”
Berkeley made a sound of agreement as she drank. A sharp buzzing noise moved toward us. A drone appeared to the north, moving low over the stream with small red strobe lights flashing.
<
Stop it, Mally. I wanted her to be quiet and let me think. Along the stream’s edge were rocks. I reached down, collected three baseball-sized ones, and squared my shoulders to the drone. Rearing back, I aimed for the center of the drone and got ready to throw.
The drone sputtered once, and then again, and then fell into the stream with a splash.
What happened?
<
I didn’t mean for you to destroy it.
<
The drone floated on two small cylindrical tanks attached to its H-shaped undercarriage. At the four points of the H, motionless propellers rested. The red strobe lights continued to blink, and what appeared to be a camera pointed away from us.
“Did you do that?” Berkeley asked.
“My protocol jammed its control frequency. She said it will reboot in a couple of hours.”
Berkeley snorted. “Did it see us?”
Mally replied, <
I relayed the message to Berkeley. The look she gave me said everything. I shrugged out of the pack. “I’ll go get it.”
“What?” She gasped. “That water has to be about four degrees.”
<
A flash of memory came. I’d crossed a single-rope bridge, moving hand over hand, through a glacier-fed river. The shock of the water on my chest had taken my breath away. Strength flooded me from the clear memory. “I’ve done this before,” I said to both of them.
Thinking I was prepared was my first surprise. The second was that about three feet from the edge of the stream, I stepped off into a man-made canal I hadn’t seen. And it was deep. Sputtering, I came to the surface and sucked in a quick breath. Cold! I started to swim, expecting my arms and legs to tingle with blood loss and become heavy. Instead, I swam through the icy water as though it was midsummer in Esperance. The drone was about four feet wide. As I approached, I located the wiring that ran from the camera to a small attachment on the crossbar frame. I grabbed the drone and flinched.
“Shit!” The fingers of my left hand were numb from a quick, powerful electric shock.
<
“You could have told me that!” I sputtered and treaded water. “What do I do?”
<
The flickering red lights were off. I reached for the frame again with my teeth gritted. There was no shock. I tore the camera from its mount and ripped the wire and the canister away then dropped them into the canal.
<
The temptation to sink the damned thing rose. Damaging it was one thing, but destroying it could bring the wrong type of cavalry. I let it go and swam for shore. As soon as the concrete bottom was underfoot, I stood. The air temperature made the water feel warm by comparison.
Berkeley handed me a towel and pointed to my pack. “Get into dry clothes as soon as you can.”
I didn’t need any more encouragement. My wet clothes went into a bag that Berkeley stuffed into my pack as I pulled on pants, shirt, jacket, and the boots I’d had the presence of mind to take off. The chilled feeling faded as I dried my hair and slipped a tight cap over my head.
“We’d better get moving,” Berkeley said.
“Why?”
“All of this water legally belongs to California. Tha
t may have been the source of the drone.” Berkeley filled her two water bottles quickly and motioned that I should do the same. Mally said nothing. “It would slow us down to be caught and questioned.”
Shaking my head, I asked, “Aren’t you from California?”
“I am.” She squinted at me. “But you’re not. Get it?”
“Oh.” I wondered what that meant. She is from California, right?
Mally responded instantly. <
She’s a reporter? I had the feeling the whole trip, including the kisses that morning, were more for a story than for me.
<
What? I’m just a guy who doesn’t know his name. I’m not even sure what I’m doing.
<
I can’t do that. Not out here. As much as it made sense, I enjoyed kissing her, and there was something about her I could not place. Being around her, whatever misgivings I had, beat the alternative of traveling alone.
<
The water bottle overfilled in my hands. What can you tell me about her, Mally?
<
I was asking for your help specifically.
Mally was silent for a moment. <
No, I thought immediately. Her business was her business, but I would ask when the time was right. That didn’t mean I had to tell her everything going on in my head, either. Berkeley threw a fist-sized chunk of rock at the crippled drone. The rock hit the undercarriage squarely at the tanks, snapping one off. There was a quick mist of pressurized fuel, and then the drone capsized. A moment later, it was gone.
“You said we weren’t going to destroy it.”
Berkeley nodded. “Better safe than sorry. We need to get going before another drone takes its place.”
Standing up, I slipped into the familiar weight of the backpack and helped Berkeley into hers.
“You all right?” she asked.
“Fine.” That she’d destroyed the drone did not bother me. The greater risk would have been in letting it go. We needed to find a place to hide, even for a few hours. I pointed toward the northern end of Monument Valley, past the tall red mesas and buttes. “Let’s get up there. We can decide about going up the Divide or going straight out to the east from there.”
“We won’t make it all the way up there today,” Berkeley said as we started walking. “Especially if you plan on keeping that pace, Sleepy.”
Walking mad never helped things. I stretched my neck by raising my chin as high as I could and slowed slightly. Another set of clouds hung across the western skyline as if hurrying us along in front of it. “Sorry. You were the one who destroyed the drone.”
Berkeley fell into step behind me, and we curved away from the gentle stream and up onto a slope thick with vegetation. There were no other drones or signs of anyone for the remainder of the afternoon. We also said almost nothing to each other. Given Mally’s reluctance at my request, I’d have to figure out why I’d allowed myself to be suckered into being the subject of a documentary. This was certainly going well. A raindrop hitting the top of my head brought me out of my thoughts. The sky behind us was a deep slate grey. The clouds rolled toward us in the shape of a bow and hung low over the horizon.
“We need to set up my tent,” I said. “How much space are we going to need?”
Her brow furrowed. She obviously thought I was either playing with her or simply stupid. Mally did not answer, either.
“You seemed to know all about the damned thing.” I tried to grin and failed.
“Are you mad at me?” Berkeley asked.
“No. Yes. Hell, I don’t know.” But I did know. Everything was wrong. With constant urgency, I searched behind us, around us, and over our heads for more drones. Two hours passed before Mally chimed to life in my head.
<
What about the one we destroyed?
<
We climbed into the thickening forest. The rain began to fall in earnest, wide heavy drops that smacked as they fell. Dropping my pack, I dug for the tent and tossed it to Berkeley. “You want to tell me what’s so special about that damned thing?”
“I’ll just show you.” Berkeley grabbed the brick and looked quickly around and found a generally flat area. On one end of the hexhab was an unobtrusive red button. Berkeley pressed it, laid the brick in the center of the space, and stepped back. Thirty seconds later, a six-sided reddish-brown tent silently inflated.
Berkeley smiled in the dreamy way I was beginning to enjoy. “Like I said, you got the Expedition series. This thing is a complete home. It has its own entertainment links, full-spectrum communications, a sensor array, and an eco-fuel system. All it needs is a few hours in place, a little organic fuel from the surroundings, and humans, and its galley can conjure up just about anything from the atomic level. Stand back and watch.”
The hexagonal tent was about seven feet tall and easily fifteen feet across at the corners. The rain was falling harder at that point, and I was thoroughly soaked as I followed Berkeley into the shelter’s vestibule. Inside, a brightly lit nanopad appeared on the wall. Berkeley brought the temperature up to a solid twenty-eight Celsius in a matter of minutes. Another wall display captured every piece of data we could need about the habitat. Not surprisingly, satellite entertainment selections were minimal as the storm bore down and began to roar outside. The room was ringed with couches—inflated beds that connected to four of the walls, the other two walls being the entrance vestibule and the nanopad.
Berkeley cued up some music, or at least something that was supposed to be music, and I made for the entrance.
“Where are you going?”
“Outside.”
She furrowed her pretty brow. “For what?”
“I have to go to the bathroom.” Heat tinged my cheeks.
She laughed again, and my blush reached the temperature of molten lava. “Over here.” She pointed to a curved receptacle already emerging from the nanofibers of the tent. In a matter of seconds, it took the shape of a standard porcelain urinal, save for it being made of the same material as the tent walls. “It will use our organic waste to help produce food. The hexhab is a completely enclosed system.”
Something about the potentiality of eating what I wanted to get rid of nauseated me. Berkeley turned her back to the receptacle, and I did my business quickly.
Are you angry, Mally?
<>
And it was, Mally. I don’t know about this.
<
I can’t do that. It
’s not right.
<
No, Mally. I smiled despite myself. You really are quite perturbed at me, aren’t you?
<
No answer came to mind, so I tapped the nanopad and switched off Berkeley’s music. The drumming of the rain on the tent was an insistent, comforting beat.
“You don’t like that?”
“I want to listen to the rain instead.” Unzipping and getting out of my jacket, I looked at Berkeley. “I suppose this thing can dry our clothes?”
“Wash them, too—given enough water. The rain will fill up the reservoirs enough that we can even take a shower in another hour or so.”
I gaped at the inflatable furniture and bare orange walls. I couldn’t tell where the water could be stored or where the electrical system for the whole thing was housed. It was like something out of a movie. I caught a look in her eyes as I stripped out of my shirt. Her words were not completely lost on me. “An hour, eh?”
She stepped closer to me, her hands encircling my waist. “Should be just enough time.”
“For what?” I asked as she pressed her lips to mine, and I wrapped my arms around her.