by Tara Tyler
Dawson’s QV buzzed again. This time he didn’t even look at it. “What? Come on, Coop. Diverted from what? What’s going on?”
“It’s no big deal. Nothing for you to worry about, Dawson. I can handle it.” At least, I think I can handle it. His brother’s QV buzzed and buzzed. “Aren’t you going to get that?”
“It’s just Espen checking on me.”
“Don’t want him to worry.”
“Don’t think this gets you off the hook.” Dawson answered the call and spoke with his harried manager.
The slight respite gave Cooper a minute to come up with a credible way to throw Dawson off his case. But he couldn’t put aside the thoughts he’d been dwelling on for the last few hours while he sat in jail figuring out what he should do next. If the Colonel was able to throw him into a remote lock-up in Wells’ jurisdiction, who knew what else he could do? And he probably chose a town without a pop travel dock on purpose to inconvenience him further. Hopefully this was just a warning.
Which reminded him about the other focus of his time in jail—worrying about his friends. He fired a question at Dawson as he closed his QV, “Were you able to reach Geri or Hasan?”
“No. The plantation server is down and no one is answering their QVs.”
“That’s not good.”
“Changing the subject won’t get you out of telling me what you’ve gotten yourself into.”
Cooper shook his head and processed. He hoped Geri was incommunicado on her assignment and fine, but he still wanted to be sure. And he hadn’t really worried about Hasan at his plantation fortress with all the security and guards until now. This news gave him a chill of anxiety.
“I promise I’ll tell you everything later, but right now, we need to get to Hasan’s plantation.”
“Why the urgency? Are they in trouble?” Dawson turned at the next light.
“Where are you going? We can’t drive there in this POS! We’ll never make it!”
“You’re right. We’re flying.” He and Dawson were both pilots, but neither had time to get up in the air like they used to. His brother programmed the closest airport into the old-fashioned GPS that came with the car. It had to be fifty years old. Cooper couldn’t believe it still ran.
“Oh. Good idea. I’m glad Hasan added that runway strip to the plantation. Landing in the outfield of his baseball stadium was a little tricky.” Cooper referred to his last flying escapade when he swooped in to save Hasan at the plantation from the psycho Agent Blake. He hated succumbing to his comic relief instinct, kicking in at times of stress like now, but he couldn’t help it.
It didn’t bother Dawson; he was used to it. He just wanted details. “I bet. Now why don’t you fill me in on what’s going on?”
There was too much to tell him the whole story. Cooper couldn’t concentrate and didn’t know where to begin. Worrying about Geri and Hasan and the new girl what’s-her-name?, Cooper’s mind raced. The worst possible scenarios kept popping into his head. With the server down at the plantation, Hasan was out of contact and the security system would be useless, making him completely vulnerable. And Geri could be lying on the ground dying somewhere.
Luckily, before his brain started to smoke, he noticed he had a message on his recently returned QV.
“Hold on. There’s a message here from Aimee.” That was the girl’s name. “She called ten minutes ago.”
“Who’s Aimee?” Dawson’s voice got more irritated with each bit of new, confusing information.
Cooper didn’t like keeping Dawson in the dark, but he had no time for elaboration.
“I’ll tell you in a minute.”
Dawson grunted.
Cooper mouthed, Sorry, as he played the message.
Aimee seemed to be okay, but she was frantic. Her normally stick-straight, white-blonde hair was frizzed-out, and distress tinged her brown, tear-dampened eyes.
“Cooper, you might be in danger! Hasan and Geri have been kidnapped! I’m at the plantation, and it just came back online. Call me as soon as you can!”
“We have to get down there now!” Cooper shouted. So Geri and the girl, Aimee, had been with Hasan.
“Calm down, man. We can’t do anything right this second. Why don’t you call her back and see if their transport docks are working? The airport might have a pop platform in it.”
Cooper’s hands shook as he called Aimee back.
She answered right away, “Cooper! Oh, good. Where are you?”
“My brother and I are on our way. What happened?”
Dawson pulled into the airport parking lot and whispered, “Ask about the transport docks.”
Cooper nodded. “Is the transport house up and running?”
“Uh, lemme check.” She paused and talked to someone in the background. “Security will let me know when it’s ready. They had to reset the whole plantation. It’s going to take a few more minutes.”
As they entered the building, Cooper relayed the message.
Dawson nodded and pointed at the pop travel counter.
Cooper’s eyes lit up and he motioned for Dawson to go ahead and set them up to pop.
Aimee kept talking, “Cooper, you’ll never believe it. Two huge delivery guys shocked Hasan and Geri and took them away!”
“How? There are so many reasons that shouldn’t have happened.” Cooper paced in the small waiting area.
“Security said while they were checking on an unscheduled delivery, the two guys rammed their van through the metal gate and then on past the laser fence, using mirrors along the sides to block the beams. Security sent droids and guards to chase after them, but the delivery guys shot their way to the house. Nothing fazed them. Every shot bounced off their van like they were protected by some sort of force field or something. We had no idea they were coming. Hasan, Geri, and I were in the dining room figuring out who our John Doe was when they burst in. And you’ll never believe it. Turns out our remains are from Congressman McFarland Wells!”
Her hand shot up to clamp her mouth shut as soon as she said it, knowing she had revealed too much in her excitement.
Cooper looked over his shoulder to double-check Dawson’s whereabouts. He was still talking to the pop travel agent. Stepping further away from him, Cooper continued in a lower tone, “I knew it. I went to Wells’ grocery store opening this morning, but I wasn’t able to ID him.” He didn’t want to get into the details of his incident with her.
Aimee gave a half-smile. “So Representative Wells is your suspect. I knew our cases had to be linked. We saw him giving a speech on the imager and Hasan could tell he was a simulation. That’s when those brutes stormed in and took Hasan and Geri. And they destroyed all our evidence. Poor Hasan. He worked so hard on decoding the DNA.”
“Representative Wells? Simulations? I demand to know what’s going on!”
Cooper jumped at Dawson’s surprised shouting. He stood behind Cooper, staring at him with his mouth hanging open. But there was still no time to explain yet. Cooper held up a finger for him to wait a little more and Dawson threw up his hands.
Cooper shrugged. “How did you escape, Aimee?”
“I hid under the table and used my camouflage. Wait a sec.” She listened in her earpiece. “Okay. They said you can pop here now. Here are the codes.” She opened a sub frame and sent them to Cooper.
“Thanks. See you in a few minutes.” They disconnected.
As they got ready to pop, Dawson asked again, “What the hell is going on? And who is this Aimee? She looks like a teenager.”
“I told you, it’s a long story. I’m sorry, bro. I promise I’ll tell you everything when we get there. And Aimee is Geri’s new partner.”
“Fine. She seems nice.”
“Yeah. And she’s very bright. Geri hates her.”
Beasley Hills Plantation
Albany, GA
“Nice to meet you, Senator Cooper.” Aimee shook hands with Dawson after a quick medscan once he and Cooper arrived at the plantation’s transport ho
use.
“You too, Aimee.”
Cooper got to the point as he rushed them out the door. He didn’t have time for niceties. Geri and Hasan needed to be found.
“What do your people know? Have they located Geri?”
When they entered the security house, the place was crawling with agents. Hasan’s security guards were pissed and uncomfortable, submitting to those professionals of condescension.
“Yeah, you guys are good at finding people, right?” Dawson gave a weak smile. He joked under stress too. But he wasn’t as good at it as Cooper.
“Of course.” Dawson’s bad joke flew over Aimee’s head and she spoke to her QV. “Nate, what have we got?”
The three of them focused on Aimee’s imager, with Nate relaying the status of the case. Cooper remembered Nate as Geri’s go-to juicer. His brain organized and decoded like a computer, but his slovenly appearance and flippant attitude made him all too human.
“Well, they must’ve taken or broken Geri’s QV because no one is responding and the tracking isn’t functional. We are reviewing the satellite data over the plantation for the time frame of the incident.”
Aimee caught Cooper and Dawson up on the local intel.
“The internal network for the plantation was shut down, so Security has no record on their video system. When the droids and guards did a sweep of the grounds, they found a jamming device the kidnappers must have shot over the fence when they arrived. That’s why Security couldn’t warn us after their initial call to Hasan. The communication systems were knocked out. Nothing worked. On their way out, they set off a couple of EMP bombs, disabling every electrical system and vehicle on the plantation so they couldn’t be followed.”
“They were thorough,” Dawson added.
Aimee nodded.
Cooper pressed on. “So how are we going to find them?” He looked over everyone’s shoulders at their imagers as he paced the room. When Nate spoke again, Cooper rushed back to see what he displayed on Aimee’s QV.
“The satellite feed of the roads around the plantation shows the van drove to a small, local airport/transport hub. According to the hub’s travel records, the deliverymen shorted out the hub’s video surveillance, but not the Qnet. It looks like a party of four people popped to a local travelport in Decatur.”
“That’s where Rajul’s garage is,” Cooper said.
Aimee’s eyes widened. “That’s right!”
“What are we waiting for? Let’s go get them!” Cooper hated to pop, but he was ready to get right back in the dock.
“Who’s Rajul?” Dawson asked.
Aimee gave Dawson a quick summary.
After some typing, Nate gave them some more info, “Hold on. That was a few hours ago. You don’t want to pop and not find them. I’ll open up their required webcams and zoom in on satellite images there.” Nate went into another typing flurry and displayed his frames for the eager group at the plantation to see.
The required-by-law webcams at Rajul’s garage were useless. The outside cam showed the empty driveway in front of the fence, and the inside cam pointed at a lonely car with its hood up. Obviously staged. Rajul met the minimum standards and kept prying authorities out of his real business.
“Here’s the satellite. I rewound it and zoomed in on the Decatur transport station.”
On the imager, two big guys each carried heavy loads that looked like rolled up carpets out to a waiting van in the loading zone. Nate fast-forwarded as he followed them to their destination, Rajul’s garage. The big men brought their awkward bundles inside.
“Those better not be dead bodies.” Cooper was going crazy. He wanted to take action and felt completely helpless. All he could do was watch it unfold. He kept reminding himself it had already happened.
“Surely they didn’t kill them. They could’ve done that here,” Aimee said. But she looked just as worried.
Again Nate fast-forwarded until there was movement outside. From the satellite vantage point above, a couple of guys in blue coveralls rushed out. One of them, a redhead, pushed over some tires in front of the door.
Cooper knew it had to be Geri. She was alive! She got out!
A bunch of guys, looking like ants flooding out from the front of the garage, chased after the first two, who jumped into a big black truck. The truck drove around, then tore out of the back fence and three vehicles flew out after it. The pursuers shot at the truck with no visible effect. Then one of the chasers swerved off the road. The chase went on through one intersection, causing a couple of crashes. But when the black truck reached a major intersection, the remaining vehicles turned around and went back to the garage.
The black truck kept going.
“What was that all about?” Dawson asked.
“That was them, right? In the black truck? They escaped.” Cooper was ready to pop there and help them.
Aimee threw another wrench into his plan. “But why did Rajul let them get away?”
“This doesn’t make any sense.” Nate scratched his head.
“Have we caught up to real time yet?” Dawson asked.
Nate pulled it up. “No. Here’s where the truck went.”
They watched the truck merge into heavier traffic. It was hard to follow. They lost it completely when it entered a parking garage.
Cooper was losing his mind, seeing them, then losing them again and not being able to do a damn thing. He raked his hand through his hair.
“Now what? If they got away, why haven’t they contacted us? It’s been a couple of hours.”
Aimee shrugged. “Maybe they were afraid the kidnappers would locate them if they called anyone and wanted to stay off the radar. Those guys found us pretty easily at Hasan’s.”
Nate spoke up, “Hold on! I just got a link on Geri’s QV! She’s at the Reagan Washington Travelport in D.C.!”
“D.C.?” Cooper shot out of the room and headed back to the transport house.
Aimee was right behind him.
Dawson chased after them, his face twisted with concern. “Cooper! Tell me what the hell is going on! What would Geri be doing in D.C.?”
Before Cooper could answer, Nate updated them again, “I’m watching her on the cams outside the travelport. It’s definitely her, and she’s alone. She just got into a yellow cab.”
“Aimee, you bring Dawson up to speed on Wells. I’m going to D.C. Nate, get me a code for the Reagan Travelport, and hook me up to your feed when I arrive.”
“You’re not leaving me behind. I’m going with you!” Aimee called.
“I need to go back too. And I still want to know what all this is about.” Dawson shook his head, trailing after them.
While they waited for Nate to give them the codes, Aimee efficiently explained to Dawson about the two cases, which had merged into one.
“We have determined in various ways that Congressman McFarland Wells is a simulation.”
“You’re joking!” Dawson shouted.
“And get this. Wells is being controlled by Colonel Hamilton,” Cooper threw in.
Aimee continued, “The unidentifiable human remains from the case Geri and I have been investigating came from the original Wells, killed recently. Hasan decoded the DNA contamination to prove it, but the kidnappers destroyed all our evidence.”
“I bet those goons were androids, not real guys,” Cooper said from his dock. Though he hated to pop, he couldn’t get there fast enough.
Aimee agreed, “It wouldn’t surprise me.”
Nate came back with the codes and instructions. “I called the emergency gate. They’re expecting you. I don’t know why Geri won’t answer her QV. Maybe it’s not completely functional. I will keep tracking her and link to Cooper and Aimee when you all get there. Kobel, out.”
As they prepared for the pop to D.C., Cooper closed his eyes. A bad feeling took root in his stomach and continued to writhe and grow until he was out.
Washington, D.C.
Sunday, June 21, 2082
ooper h
oped to wake up without the nagging doubt he felt at the plantation. Though popping relieved most physical ailments, his stomach continued to ache with worry. He knew it had to be Geri and Hasan who escaped in that truck. Why wouldn’t she contact anyone? And why would she be in D.C.? Had she cracked? Too many alarms rattled in his head. He had to get to her.
As soon as they cleared the post-pop medscans, Aimee and Cooper received Nate’s call. They rushed after Dawson, who knew his way around D.C.’s Ronald Reagan Travelport. He led them out of the terminal and over to the taxi line while Nate updated them.
“Geri is headed for Capitol Hill. Since she isn’t responding to her QV and is way out of her region, our agents are taking no chances. They’ve been dispatched to intercept her.”
Great. Now Cooper had competition in his race to get to Geri. He shouted at Dawson, “Pick up the pace, bro!” He wished Hasan had given him some kind of jetpack or flying contraption. He would have to suggest that for his next invention.
With travelport security’s help, the three of them pushed their way to the front of the line waiting for cabs.
Cooper held a door open for Dawson and Aimee, and they hopped in. He closed the door and banged on the roof, sending them on ahead. Then he ran up to the next cab and offered the driver a hundred bucks to let him take the wheel. When the driver hesitated, Cooper yanked him out of the car, jumped in, and took off. He had to get Geri alone before all the others. Before all the madness and confusion separated them. Something was horribly wrong.
Speeding past Dawson and Aimee’s cab, he spoke to Nate, “Talk to me, man.”
“Well Coop, I’ll do my best. I don’t know what’s wrong with our girl, but I hope you find out quick. I need to link up with our agents who have a head start on you. I’ll keep your line open so you can hear, but don’t speak or they’ll be able to hear you too. Good luck.”
Cooper nodded, appreciating Nate for letting him listen to their chatter. Nate went way back with Cooper and Geri, and he didn’t want anything to happen to her either. She better have a good explanation for all this erratic behavior. Cooper muted his QV and listened.
“Agent Harper is in a yellow cab. She just took Exit 4 off the highway and turned east onto G Street.”
