by Tara Tyler
Speeding along I-695, Cooper wasn’t too far behind, but couldn’t believe how jam-packed D.C. was for a Sunday.
The agents responded to Nate, “We see her. The cab is two blocks in front of us stopped at a light. We should be able to flag her down. Wait, she just got out of the cab. Agent Harper is on foot. She entered the community center on the corner. We’re almost there. Tell us where she comes out, Nate.”
“Her QV tracker shows her weaving through the building. Yes, she just exited at the front. Corner of Ninth and Maine. Now she’s getting into a green Honda. She just stole a car!”
“Where’s she going?”
“Sorry. She’s headed southeast on Maine.”
“I see her. She just flew by us. We’re right behind her now on M. Hold on, she cut left and is headed north on Fourth.”
When Cooper got off the highway, he went east on G toward Fourth, hoping to catch up to her. Looking at the map, he couldn’t figure out where she could be going. Nate’s updates sounded like a preschool show with all the lettered and numbered streets. And Geri’s zigzagging was making more of a circle than a straight line. Her confusing pattern made no sense.
The pursuing agents puzzled over her movements too, “Agent Harper is swerving between cars like a machine. It looks like she’s only hitting things to try and slow us down. She seems to be on a mission, but what?”
As Cooper reached Fourth, he saw Geri’s green Honda whiz by and sped into the intersection to catch her, cutting off a sleek black SUV.
Nate gave the agents a warning announcement, “Local law enforcement is getting involved. You all need to reach Agent Harper first.”
“We’re trying, but some idiot in a red taxi just cut in front of us.”
“Try harder. And Agent Kendall is joining you. He’s coming down Independence looking to set up a road block if we can figure out where to head her off.”
Cooper didn’t like the incentive the agents were getting. Sirens grew louder, headed their way. Pulling up on Geri’s right, Cooper honked, trying to get her attention.
She focused on the road in front of her. There was no intensity in her expression. As if she was meeting a friend for coffee. She didn’t look upset or angry, just determined. And she completely ignored him, even when she took a sharp right in front of him, cutting him off.
Luckily, Cooper turned with her. But she still bumped him, making him lose control for a second. Her sudden turn cut off other cars entering the intersection as well, forcing them to slam on their brakes and crash into each other. Cooper was able to correct and stay with her, but a small pile up blocked the way behind them. All oncoming cars were held up by the wreckage, including the black SUV.
“She just turned right onto D,” Nate announced.
“We know. We’re stuck behind a jam,” the first agent said.
“Now she’s going north on Third.”
“Got it.”
After making another sharp left onto C, Geri slipped into a parking lot and hid in the shade of some trees and shrubs.
Cooper followed her and pulled into a spot across the street, waiting to see what she would do next.
When the black SUV careened around the corner, it sped by them up the street, followed by a couple of police cars.
Geri and Cooper pulled out, turned around, and jumped back on Third.
Nate alerted the agents, “You passed her! She’s headed back east on C—”
“We figured she doubled back. We’re turning around.”
“And is now going north on Third.”
“Good. We’ll head up Fourth and catch up with her at Independence.”
Cooper searched for an opening to pull up next to Geri again, but the oncoming traffic on the two-lane road prevented him. After speeding through another intersection, an extra lane opened up. He took a chance and got over, then had to swerve back when a van started to pull out of its parking spot in front of him.
Geri was driving like a maniac, but each turn was calculated and precise. The agents were right, the things she hit fell perfectly to create obstacles for her pursuers. Cooper couldn’t figure out where she might be going, but he stayed on her tail. He couldn’t lose her. Cooper had to reach her first.
“Kendall here. We see Agent Harper headed our way. We’re ready and waiting at Pennsylvania with more reinforcements inbound. But who’s in that red taxi?”
Nate didn’t answer.
The first agents answered for him, “Whoever it is, he’s been right with her the whole time, getting in the way.”
As Geri and Cooper crossed Madison on their way to Pennsylvania, some police cars pulled out behind them. Ahead, more police converged from all directions with sirens and lights blaring, skidding to halt and adding to the blockade. Officers and agents jumped out of their cars with their electroguns drawn. This had to be the end of the chase. Cooper doubted his and Geri’s cars were shockproof. A couple of blasts and their engines would die on the spot. There was nowhere to turn, nowhere to hide. Caught in this trap, Cooper would never be able to get Geri alone.
But Geri didn’t slow down. She sped up, finding the path of least resistance, paying no attention to the shots they fired at her, and rammed her little car through all of them. As she passed, she threw something out the window.
Cooper zoomed through after her and watched a QV sail over his car. The wrist imager acted like a lightning rod, attracting all their electroshots.
Then in his rearview mirror, Cooper saw the QV hit the ground and explode just as the first pursuing agents arrived.
Geri swerved onto the sidewalk. People dove out of her way. She drove through the small park, then came out onto Constitution.
Cooper veered side to side to avoid the pedestrians, but stayed close behind her.
When she got in the left lane, he sped up to her again on the right, but a tour bus slowed down in front of him and he had to slam on his brakes.
She passed the bus, and he lost sight of her for a few seconds.
On his QV, he heard the agents back at it. They hadn’t given up. “Where’d she go, Nate?”
“Hold on. Without the QV tracker, I have to zoom in on the satellite. Okay. She turned down Delaware and parked the car. She’s running up the steps of the Russell Senate office building.”
“She won’t get in without her QV. We’ve got her!”
Cooper parked and ran up the steps after her.
Geri got into the building with no trouble. So much for their theory. But Cooper had no idea how he would follow her inside.
Behind him, a guard from the parking gate called out to him, and over his other shoulder, he saw three black FBI vehicles pull over on the opposite side of the busy street.
At the door atop the small mountain of steps, Cooper triggered a friendly female hologram that greeted him.
“Welcome to the Russell Senate Office Building. We are currently closed. If you are a Senator, please present your ID. All other guests must have appropriate ID or a pass for an appointment.”
Cooper took a chance and displayed the guest pass Dawson had given him when he visited his office a few weeks ago, which was in the same building. He thought it would be expired, but had to try it.
“Thank you, Jameson Cooper. The doors will unlock momentarily.”
The hologram disappeared and Cooper heard the door buzz for him. As he pushed through, the FBI agents called to him, almost to the top. He let the door shut on them, locking them out. He needed to see Geri alone first.
After Cooper walked through a security scanner, the two guards stared at him with confused expressions. One went over to double-check Cooper’s pass and scan him again manually. Then he waved Cooper through.
“Which way did the red-haired woman go?”
The guard pointed up one of the marble staircases. Then he joined his buddy, who motioned him over to check out the scene at the door on the multi-framed imager.
Cooper heard the commotion outside the front doors as he rushed through t
he immense, three-story rotunda foyer. An alarm went off. Apparently the agents didn’t bother listening to the hologram and must’ve set off a security lock down. The garbled shouting on the security imager and their pounding on the door startled the older guards, and they called for reinforcements.
Glancing around on his way up, he remembered gawking at the Corinthian columns and paneled dome ceiling the first time he visited Dawson at his office. He never thought he’d be back so soon, or running after his ex through the historic halls.
Once he reached the second floor, he sprinted around the balcony to the hallway and slid to a halt against the wall to listen. He heard voices and peeked around the corner.
Geri was speaking with a guard. She must not have liked the answer he gave her because she reached out to him, and he fell to the floor as she slipped inside.
Cooper dashed down the corridor.
Someone screamed.
When Cooper entered the office, the secretary was slumped over her desk and the door to the inner office was open.
With her back to Cooper, Geri faced a man sitting at his desk, holding his hands up.
Cooper was just in time to witness Geri shoot the guy in the chest with her electrogun, killing him.
“No!” Cooper shouted.
Geri whipped her head around and stared directly into Cooper’s eyes, analyzing him.
Cooper gaped at her and saw her eyes refocus on him like a lens zooming in. That was not Geri. It was a simulation.
He took a step toward her, and she electroshot him in the leg.
As he fell, just before he passed out from the pain, he watched her crash through the window.
Stone Mountain, GA
“Is that me up there?” Geri whispered with a hand up next to her cheek, pointing to the imager projecting from the ceiling in the Stone Mountain Travelport. As she waited for Hasan to set up their pop, she watched the live news broadcast. It showed a picture of Geri in the corner of the screen and a replay of a car chase in Washington, D.C.
Hasan turned to look and his eyes widened. “No. Of course not. Honey, you know, I think you need a sweater. It’s very chilly in here.”
Geri’s eyes were glued to the action, unable to look away. What was happening?
“Sweetie, it’s just about our turn. Let’s head over to our transmission dock.” Hasan scanned the waiting area and tried to get Geri to move away from the imager, which was now gaining more viewers. Luckily, no one noticed her as the person from the broadcast yet.
“Wait.” She resisted. It had to be a simulation of her. That’s what Rajul had been working on. What was she going to do?
“We can’t wait. It’s our turn. We have to go.” Hasan tugged on Geri’s arm.
“But…” Then Geri saw a young man recognize her and point her out to his companion. “You’re right. We should go.” She put a hand up to hide her face.
Before the guy had a chance to snap a picture of her, she bolted with Hasan for the transmission docks.
“Where are we going?” Geri asked as she hopped into the dock seat.
Hasan pushed up his sleeve and chose a code. “Some place safe.”
With the Creator around, emergency anonymous travel was not a problem. And now it was her turn to trust him. “Okay.”
She closed her eyes and was out.
When Cooper blinked his eyes wide open, the EMT attending to him jumped. Cooper was still on the floor in the office where he’d found Geri. Geri!
He hopped up and yelped in pain, then limped over to the broken window, pushing crime scene investigators aside to look out. Nothing but an empty balcony with trees and grass and the rest of the busy city below.
“She’s long gone.”
Cooper spun back around, hearing Aimee’s voice. She had worry and sadness in her eyes, staring at a piece of cloth in her hands. He assumed it was a ripped piece of Geri’s clothes.
Surveying the damage in the aftermath, Cooper lowered himself gently down on a couch in the outer office and rubbed his leg. The body of the man simulation-Geri killed was also gone. Broken bits of glass glittered on the floor, and the curtains blew around in the breeze from the gaping window.
The secretary looked okay. She sat at her desk, holding her head as she told an agent what happened. No one paid any attention to the guard lying on the floor outside the door. It was an android and had been short-circuited.
“Who was he?” Cooper didn’t recognize the man who was killed. He hadn’t stopped to read the name on the door earlier, and wasn’t into politics unless it concerned his brother.
“Senator Jonas Tucker of Georgia. He’d been waiting for a scheduled appointment. Geri must’ve set up the whole thing. She left this on his desk.”
Aimee held up the cloth she’d been staring at. The dingy white rag had a crudely drawn picture on it. A square head with black dots for eyes and bolts of electricity shooting from the ears made it appear to represent an android. The face had a red circle around it with a slash through it. And at the bottom, black writing proclaimed, Humans protect humans!
Aimee shook her head. “How could Geri have done this? What was she thinking? Is she part of some underground movement? I don’t understand, Cooper. You know her. Does she ever go off and do anything crazy? Any indication of schizophrenia?”
“No.” Cooper wanted to talk to Aimee privately. Tell her it wasn’t Geri. It was a simulation. If he blurted it out there, Aimee’s fellow agents would bog him down with a million questions, or call him crazy and tell him to stay out of their way. They’d probably place him under suspicion as well. He probably already was for getting involved in the chase. As soon as he got out, he would try to find Hasan. He would know what happened to the real Geri.
“I wonder where Hasan is.” Aimee said, as if reading his mind.
“I’m surprised no one has located him yet.”
“Security at the plantation said they heard from him and he is safe, but wouldn’t say any more than that.” Aimee’s frown deepened. Her voice lacked her normal spunk.
“That’s odd. I’ll have to give him a call. When do you think I can go?”
Aimee stared at the glistening floor in thought. Still in a daze, she blinked at Cooper’s question and finally answered, “Um. Let me find someone to take your statement, and I’ll check with the lead agent. You’ll also have to let the EMT clear you. This must be a shock for you too.” She let out the tiniest hint of a smile. “No pun intended.”
Cooper smiled back. “Yes. It is. Thank you.”
He watched her slowly walk through the confusion of people doing their various jobs at the crime scene. Cooper felt sorry for her and her misconstrued loss. While the med tech finished scanning him, Cooper tried to be patient and still, but he was anxious to leave so he could start looking for the real Geri. Or find out the truth.
Though Cooper’s leg throbbed where that thing shot him, the med tech went ahead and cleared him. He wondered why the simulation had spared him and the secretary. Her directive must’ve been to kill the man only. Senator Jonas Tucker. Why him?
And why make a simulation of Geri? Cooper got a chill remembering those eerie, distant green eyes. So unfamiliar and empty. Geri’s eyes sparkled with excitement and mischief. Cooper always saw passion there of one form or another. No one can manufacture passion.
“Cooper, you can give Agent Cross your statement. He and his partner will take you to the travelport.” Aimee sulked as if she’d lost her best friend. Even though she’d known Geri for a short time, she must’ve gotten pretty attached to her. Cooper could understand that, Geri had a dynamic personality people either loved or hated. The incident had to be a huge let down, having her mentor leap over to the dark side. Cooper wished he could tell her the truth, but it would have to wait. The poor girl’s perkiness dove out the window after her partner.
“Don’t worry, Aimee. I’m sure we’ll find Hasan. And Geri.”
“And send her straight to the pod.” A tall, brown-haired, overco
nfident confidence man stepped up to Cooper with his QV at the ready to record his statement. “Mr. Cooper, I’m Agent Cross. Please go through the events of today.”
Cooper hoped no one like this guy was on Geri’s jury. He’d already convicted her based on circumstantial evidence, though it was very convincing. Especially the video footage.
Thinking back to where he’d been since he left his apartment that morning, he marveled it was still Sunday. What a long, horrible day.
“It all started when I got thrown in jail this morning. I swear I didn’t do anything…”
Mumbai, India
Monday, June 22, 2082
can’t believe I’m wanted for murder!”
Geri paced in Dr. Rastogi’s kitchen. Hasan’s uncle had been kind enough to take them in.
The news broadcast played the video of her simulation’s chase scene in D.C. over and over, with the newscaster telling everyone to notify authorities if they spotted her, and to be careful because she was armed and dangerous. Geri threw her hands at the imager. Ridiculous! Preposterous!
Hasan agreed, “This is terrible.” Sitting at the table, he lowered his head and pouted.
“I know. I’m not a ruthless killer!”
He looked up at her. “No. They don’t say anything at all about me being missing. Does no one care about me anymore? It’s all about you.”
Geri gaped at him.
“Oh, yes. And you being wanted for murder is a real problem too. This is exactly why simulations are illegal. We will have to sort that out. They will easily see the imposter is… an imposter.”
“No, they won’t.” Geri rubbed her temples, tired of having to explain the simplest things to everyone all the time. She was always surrounded by genius idiots.
“They won’t have a clue that a simulation is a possibility. They’re illegal and they’ve been out of the news for ages. No one will be checking to see if it’s a simulation, so they won’t be able to tell it is one. It’s too real. Illogical and insane, but so real! No wonder Rajul let us go. Every law agency in the world is looking for me now.”
