Taking the Highway

by M. H. Mead

  “Who are you calling?”

  “I just want to see if there’s anybody in the area if we need backup.”

  “Backup?” Her voice shaded between amusement and scorn. Andre understood. If she were on her own, without a disgraced partner in the car, then maybe she could ask for some. As it was, unless things went very shitty very fast, they were on their own.

  Sofia spun the wheel around a sharp corner with an obstructed bend and stood on the brakes.

  The active and passive restraints held Andre tight against the passenger seat, but his head still bobbed forward. Across the narrow road, two derelict cars, burnt-out minivans from thirty years ago, stood nose to nose, their side-mirrors sticking out like handles.

  Sofia swore and was about to move to reverse when a gunshot slapped her window, fogging it white-gray in an instant. She and Andre ducked down, fighting their seatbelts for room just as the window sagged and fell away, followed by the one on Andre’s side.

  “Yes, backup!” Andre yelled over the thrum coming from his implant. Sofia must have triggered the alert and a single, deep note pooled at the base of his skull. Designed to resonate with the hypothalamus, the signal acted like a battle cry, triggering an adrenal surge from the nervous system. Fine if you were on the receiving end, but the person triggering it was usually already panicked enough.

  Sofia fumbled to draw her weapon.

  Andre grabbed her wrist. “Get us out of here!”

  Rounds impacted the doors with ineffectual thumps. The lightweight memory plastic between the panels was designed to absorb and disperse crash energy, but it had the added benefit of making the doors nearly bulletproof. Sofia reached for the shift lever again and flinched when several rounds entered from each side and blew out the rear windows. She ducked in the seat and pushed the accelerator to the floor panel.

  The swoop of elation Andre felt as they surged backward was as short as their movement. They hadn’t gone three meters before they were thrown against their seats and ground to a skidding stop, the left rear of their car now raised off the ground by whatever they’d hit. Fire from the right impacted the windshield. The slight tilt forward pushed them against their seatbelts and left them hanging, helpless. They’d hit hard, but not hard enough to trigger the airweb system.

  Andre tore off the restraints and kicked his door open. He nodded to Sofia as she freed herself and followed him. Using the open door for cover, they scrambled out and around the rear of the car. Both of them had drawn their weapons and crouched against the ruined rear bumper of the Banshee where it angled up and onto the wreck of yet another junker, this one unburnt. Everything about the car—except the tires—looked like it had been rescued from a junkyard. Who put new tires on a car like that?

  Sofia was breathing hard. A cut near her right eye trailed a thick line of blood down her cheek. Fat drops fell from the line of her jaw. “Where the hell did this thing come from?”

  Andre risked a look and saw the driver side door hanging open, a glimpse of something dark and lean running farther along the street they’d turned in from. She ran like a panther, black hair flying, disappearing around a corner. “I’d say that’s the lid on the pot.”

  Gunfire continued to impact the car—cars now—but it had slowed. The three-round bursts had stopped and the attackers, whoever they were, were using single shots, conserving ammunition. Or, Andre thought grimly, trying to make us think they’re low on ammo. He touched Sofia’s cheek and held up his fingers. “You’re bleeding.”

  “Nicked by the windshield glass,” she said impatiently. “I think those are Ingram nine millimeter, the longer barrels for accuracy.”

  Andre was glad Sofia’s mind was still working, analyzing, but her assessment was depressing. Nobody wanted the gunpowder shooters anymore. Everyone wanted light and quiet and odor-free, so Ingrams were everywhere on the black market and clips were cheap. These guys could shoot all night.

  From the implant, the criss-crossing spread of responses to the distress call were filing in. Sofia made a quick report to amplify. “Officers under fire. Two or more assailants armed with automatic weapons—probably Ingram. Wear your body armor.” She clicked off. “They’re still ten minutes away.”

  Andre nodded. It had been maybe two minutes since the first shot and they were already pinned down. In ten more minutes, they would be dead. He glanced out and back. Left, then right. The houses on either side both had large empty picture windows facing the bend in the street. He had to admire their assailant’s choice of location, even as he raged at his own blindness. They were police officers for crissake. Criminals might snap off a shot in sudden fear, but an ambush? Cops just didn’t think of it. He nudged Sofia. “I say we flank these bastards.”

  “What if there are more than two emplacements?”

  As if in answer, the tire behind Andre took a burst and settled with a gusty puff. “We don’t have ten minutes to sit and guess.”

  She nodded and jerked her head to one side. “Cover me left?”

  He hefted the Yavorit and wished for his Guardian. “Go.” He came up in a crouch, sighting through the gap between cars at the yawning window frame on the right side. The slugs the little pistol sprayed out had very little to recommend them for this kind of distance, but they tended to ricochet. Fine with him if they bounced around that decaying suburban living room like deadly little wasps. He was satisfied to note that there seemed to be no fire from that side while he was shooting.

  Sofia’s voice came into his head. “I’m at the house. Go.”

  He heard the small pops of her Guardian and a distant curse of a man’s voice from her side of the street. Then she was laying down cover fire on his side. Andre charged forward and reached the side of the other house, his shoes gritting on broken glass in the waist-high grass.

  Silence descended, disturbing and sudden after the barrage of gunfire.

  Sliding the wall, Andre positioned himself under a window with a shoulder-height sill. The moldy smell of long-abandoned property mixed with the oily metallic sting of gunpowder weaponry. He brought his arms over the shattered sill in a single smooth motion and found himself looking through two adjoining rooms into the front of the abandoned house. All he could see was the top of the gunman’s head as he crouched under the bay window facing the street. “Freeze!” he shouted. The bare walls turned his voice into thunder. “Stand up—slowly—and turn around.” Under the circumstances, an officer was under no obligation to issue a warning, but Andre wanted to see who was shooting at him.

  The gunman stood from his crouch, arms wide, and turned to face Andre.

  Topher Price-Powell.

  Andre’s finger tightened to squeeze if Topher brought the gun around, but Topher’s hand and arm relaxed. Only his eyes moved to take in the sight of Andre standing outside the window with a weapon aimed at his head.

  “Drop it! Drop it, now!”

  Topher obeyed. The Ingram—Sofia had been right—hit the floor with a flat clap that seemed to echo. Topher’s eyes locked on his. He raised gloved hands.

  Gunfire sounded from across the street—the ripping sound of an Ingram on full auto, punctuated by a shriek from Sofia. Andre flinched, and Topher’s lips quirked upward.

  “Andre!” his implant sent. “Andre!” Between gunbursts, he could hear Sofia’s yells for help and his attention was drawn that way for the split second Topher needed to dash toward the back of the house, out of sight.

  “Shit!” Andre withdrew from the window and pressed himself to the wall, feeling the rough brick at his back. No Topher, no gunfire from either side of the house. He could circle the property, but he’d probably still miss Topher, and get himself shot in the process.

  He waited a moment more. Silence. Nothing from Sofia, nothing from that side of the street.

  He ran back to the bullet-riddled tangle of cars in the middle of the road and took cover there. He looked across the street at the house of the second gunman. A heavyset white man was working his way ar
ound the garage. He must have been quicker than Topher and had flanked Sofia in turn. From his position, Andre guessed that Sofia had taken cover in the connecting passageway between garage and house and the only way she’d get out was in pieces.

  Andre pulled the trigger without even considering the distance of his shots. He must have adjusted by reflex. In the silence that followed the gunman pitching to the ground, Andre whirled back to the house where Topher had been. He dashed into the house and found Topher’s gun, but no sign of Topher. The cowardly little fucker had abandoned his partner.

  “Clear,” he sent to Sofia via implant.

  He joined her over the crumpled form of her assailant. The Ingram had clattered a meter out of the man’s hands when Andre dropped him. He probed for the guilt that came from taking a life, but there was nothing there yet. No glory in it, either. Nothing except the knowledge that he was still alive. Sofia was still alive. This man was the price.

  Her hand was a vice around his arm. “Fade. Don’t look back.”

  Andre heard the sirens and the ETA update. She was right. He was under suspension. He had just shot and killed with a weapon he was not legally allowed to carry anywhere outside a shooting range. “What are you going to say?”

  “I’m in the goddamned zone.”

  He wanted to laugh at that one, but he couldn’t work up to it. “Vigilantes?”

  “Can they disprove it?”

  “Don’t do this. It’s your career.” It could have been your life.

  She grabbed his shirt front and pulled him toward her. “You were never here. You spent the evening at home, watching your stupid newsnets.”

  “You can’t make that—”

  “I can if you leave now.” She released his shirt and gave him a weak shove. He could hear the line of police cars squalling around corners as they threaded their way through the winding streets.

  He leaned forward and brushed her lips with his own, then moved off at a trot past the barrier cars that had trapped them.

  “Andre,” she called after him. “This is as far as I go. This far, no farther.”

  “You shouldn’t have to go this far.”

  “I go where I want. Now get out of here.”

  ANDRE STOOD IN HIS living room and stared out the front window. Everything was the same—the small square of lawn, the paved driveway with his unharmed Raven in it, the maple tree across the street flaring fluorescent orange in the dawn sunlight. He stood in his snug house, on his familiar street, in his safely generic neighborhood, and he’d never felt more nakedly exposed in his life.

  It would be so easy to place him in the zone last night. Anyone with the slightest motivation, from a journalist to a street sweeper, could track his movements. Signs of him were everywhere—the Yavorit’s bullets, records from his phone implant, fingerprints on the abandoned house.

  Five times, he’d picked up his datapad, scrolled through his messages, almost called Sofia. Five times, he’d put the datapad down without doing a damn thing.

  He put on his jacket, grabbed his wallet and headed for the door. He would go to headquarters. He would find Captain Evans. He would tell the captain everything—more than everything. The shooting, sure, but he’d also tell her that it was his idea to go into the zone last night. In fact, he’d forced Sofia to go. He had put Sofia’s life in danger, had driven Sofia into a confrontation with armed assailants. She was innocent. He’d take the blame for everything. He alone would face the consequences.

  He stopped at the door, slammed his fist into it, and then rested his forehead on the cool wood. He tore his jacket off, threw it on the sofa, and stared out the window. Whatever Sofia had told them, she’d already told them last night. If he stuck his nose in it now, contradicting her story, it would end her career. He couldn’t call her, blip her, or contact her in any way. He’d never even gotten to tell her about Topher Price-Powell. He could only hope that the dead shooter would lead her right back to Topher.

  He also hoped that Nikhil had an airtight alibi for last night.

  Andre plucked at the floor-length curtains framing the view, lining up the folds, making each pleat the exact same width. He pulled too hard at one side of the fabric, messing up his perfect picture, cursed long and loud, and started over. He was glad that no one had tried to call him this morning, that no one had blipped him. Every nerve hummed with raw energy, a simmering power that made him feel dangerous, as if he’d snap the head off the first person he met. At the same time, folding the curtains seemed too much of a task, as if his spinning mind and touchy nerves had sapped all the strength from his muscles. Even moving his fingers over the fabric took effort.

  He turned his back to the window, sunk onto the sofa and stared across the room at the companel, its screen a flat accusation of everything he’d neglected. He closed his eyes. Opened them. The companel stared back, a blinking icon of a dollar sign, reminding him that he still hadn’t looked at his mother’s tax information.

  He walked to the desk chair and slid into it, touching the file to open it. It was just data. Just numbers. Numbers with no ambiguity. No morality. Mom either owed taxes or she didn’t, and they’d deal with the reality of it either way.

  ANDRE ENLARGED THE VISIBLE area of his comscreen until it covered the entire wall. He ran the numbers through the calculator again, knowing it wouldn’t give any better results. His mother’s tax situation couldn’t be simpler. She earned a basic salary growing herbs. That was it. No annuities, no stocks, no bonds, no assets. She did not owe any additional taxes. She hadn’t owed any for a long, long time.

  Because Mom was broke.

  How long had she been broke? He compared documents, lining things up year by year. Information from ten, fifteen, twenty years ago filled the wall with numbers.

  Once, Dad had earned seven figures. Then he was jobless, pulling in exactly zero. Three long years without income as he drank himself to death, and then a tiny insurance payout when he succeeded—a payout so small as to be worthless. Andre addressed the computer. “Command: show me the life insurance policy on Henri LaCroix.” Numbers scrolled across the screen—premiums and payouts. Payouts? He checked more files. Ah. His parents had borrowed from their life insurance, using it all before they really needed it.

  And he never knew.

  He’d been in high school when Dad lost his job, in college when he died. Certainly old enough to be told the truth. If Mom couldn’t tell him, Oliver should have.

  College. Andre yelled at the screen. “Back! Back! Go back, damn it!” He needed Mom’s tax returns from fourteen years ago, his junior year of college, the year Dad died. He backspaced through files until he found the information he was looking for. Or rather, lack of it. Mom hadn’t claimed any tax credits for his college tuition. She couldn’t have afforded college if she wanted to.

  He pounded his fist on the table. “Damn you, Oliver!” His fist stung, and he hit it harder. He hit it a third time and yelled again, this time in pain. Had he heard something snap? He stood, kicking his chair over and used his left hand to open the freezer. No ice. Screw it. He stuck his entire right hand in the freezer and held it between a bottle of vodka and a bag of frozen peas.

  The Challenger. It was as simple as that. Through the fiasco at Quensis, even through Dad’s losing battle with the booze, Andre had never worried about his parents’ financial situation because of the goddamned car. Mom had never worked while Dad was alive—he thought she never had to. But really, it was all about the car. He remembered telling himself that if things were bad, they wouldn’t still have the Challenger. Dad would have sold it. It would have paid a lot of bills. Probably all of them.

  He shouted at the kitchen companel, commanding it to call his brother.

  Oliver’s e-secretary bloomed to life on the screen. “Oliver LaCroix is not taking—”

  “Screw that. Get me Oliver.”

  “Hello, Mr. LaCroix.” The e-sec smiled prettily. “Is there something I can help you with?”

 
; “Override. I’m only talking to Oliver. Get him.”

  “I’m sorry. Oliver LaCroix is not available for—”

  “Make him available.” Andre used his police code to override the e-sec, making emergency lights and sirens blare into Oliver’s house, his datapad and any other tech he might have. Oliver would respond in three, two, one . . .

  The image of the e-sec blurred and faded, revealing his older brother, standing in his living room in a suit and overcoat. “This had better be good, kid.”

  “Did you tell Mom to send me that stuff?”

  “What stuff?”

  “She had some story about taxes, some lame excuse to have me look at her finances.”

  “Oh, that. Don’t worry about it.” Oliver shrugged out of his coat. “I told her to wait until after the economic summit and I’d take care of it. Mom doesn’t owe any taxes.”

  “I know she doesn’t. She sent me everything.”

  Oliver’s face froze for an instant, then sagged. “I can’t talk about this now. I just got home and I’ve got to change to get back to the—”

  “She sent me everything, Oliver! Stuff going back twenty years. Every tax return, every supporting document. I’m surprised she didn’t send me the receipt for your baby shoes!”

  “Aw, shit, Andre. You weren’t supposed to—”

  “You paid for my college. You paid for everything, and you never told me. What were you saving it for?” Andre slammed the freezer door and marched at the companel. “How far along in life were you going to let me get before you threw it in my face? When it was politically expedient for you?”

  “A little gratitude, here. I took care of you, kid.”

  “You never gave me a choice!”

  “There was no choice.”

  “Bullshit.” Andre wanted to pound his fist on the table, but his pinky and ring fingers were already starting to swell. “God, Oliver, can you please stop handling me? For once in your life quit treating me like an idiot. You did what you wanted to do, what was easiest for you.”