by Aric Davis
The younger people gave the cop a wide berth as he stood up, the closest of them saying, “You better stay down, man. You don’t look so good.”
In answer, Darryl lurched the cop forward and used him to retrieve the pistol from the deck. The young man who had spoken gave him a puzzled look, and then Darryl made the cop raise the gun, point it at the kid, and pull the trigger. Darryl watched through the cop’s working eye as the kid dropped and the rest of the people on the top deck began to scream. Darryl made the cop lurch forward, then raise the gun again and shoot a pretty woman in the chest. This time Darryl didn’t watch her drop. He picked the next target, a man wearing a “Big Johnson” shirt with his arms outstretched as though to fend off the suddenly murderous zombie-cop. Darryl pulled the trigger again and shot the man just below the obnoxious design on his shirt, and he folded like an accordion as he fell.
Letting the rest of them run around him, Darryl made the cop walk to the end of the bow and then had him empty the pistol into the cops waiting on the dock. Darryl wasn’t even making the cop aim, just emptying the gun as fast as possible, and it had the desired effect. The boat was full of screaming and running passengers, and the cops on the dock had their heads down. Darryl checked the cop’s waist for extra magazines and found two in a discreet leather holster on the left side of his body. Darryl fumbled with one of the magazines when the Badger bumped into the dock, and then he stumbled backwards as a rifle round punched a hole in the cop’s left shoulder.
Darryl could hear Terry yelling while he worked one-handed to reload the gun, but he was forced to flush his friend’s voice from his mind. The cop was going to die soon—Darryl could feel it, even without the blood running down his side—and as he slid the new magazine in he stood and fired on the closest police officers. The cops ducked again, and then another pair of rifle shots cracked by him, both of them missing. Darryl felt a tug, almost as if Terry were trying to knock him loose from the cop, and he could feel his actual body moving on the boat.
Looking through the battered and bloodied cop’s eyes, Darryl could see a flood of people on the boat running past the police barricade that had been erected to control the situation. Not seeing Terry or himself, Darryl fired into the crowd of people rushing from the Badger, fighting their way off the boat in a frenzy. Darryl dropped the new magazine from the gun and was reaching across the cop’s body for the last spare when he was hit by a deluge of gunfire. Darryl fell backwards onto the Badger’s deck, then roared up above the boat, before plunging into his body.
“Fuck, thank God,” said Terry as Darryl’s wits came back, and Darryl saw that they were off of the boat and Terry had him pinned between himself and the stroller.
Cops were everywhere, but no one was paying much attention to the people flooding the streets. Most of the Badger’s passengers were corralling themselves just past the barricade, waiting for their cars most likely, but Darryl didn’t care if they ever saw Lee’s old truck ever again. He looked sideways as they ran past a couple of geared-up police readying themselves to board the boat, and he fell into Terry as he leapt into the closest cop. Darryl pushed the cop hard, took control, and then raised the M4 the man was holding on to and shot into the chests of the two police officers closest to him. Both of them collapsed, and Darryl turned to the crowd still streaming from the boat and sent bullets there as well. He wasn’t aiming, just firing from the hip, and then it was over.
Darryl fell back into his body, once again having been carried on between Terry and the stroller. He looked over his shoulder and saw his cop lying next to the two he’d shot. The back of his head was blown out. Somebody figured that out quick, thought Darryl, vowing that if he survived this he was going to be sure to watch the evening news.
“Ditch the baby,” said Darryl to Terry as they ran through the crowd, and Terry did, letting go of the stroller and then falling in next to Darryl as they sprinted away from the docks and into downtown Ludington, Michigan.
Darryl wanted a bar, and for the first time in his life, not just because he wanted a drink. They found one a few blocks from the dock and ran inside as the sirens of emergency vehicles shook the windows. There were three men sitting at the bar, no bartender in sight, and Darryl pushed the two closest to the bar. They were drunk and it was easy, and a few seconds later the pair of them were sawing logs with their faces on the bar. Darryl gave the third man a shove, and then he and Terry followed the old man out of the bar to his truck.
The old man laid his keys on the hood and then said, “Got to pay my tab,” and went to walk back inside.
Darryl gave him one more little shove and sent the man behind the bar to make his own drinks for a change.
“Let’s go,” said Darryl as he grabbed the keys and clambered into the truck just as an ambulance went screaming past them down the road. Terry hopped in the passenger side, Darryl turned the key, and they got moving.
The only traffic was emergency vehicles going the other way, and Darryl couldn’t imagine what a mess the docks were going to be to sort out.
“They’re going to blame us for that, Darryl,” said Terry, a little stupidly.
“Well, that’s probably fair enough. Let them blame all they want. We’re getting out of town, and we’re going to figure this out.”
Terry didn’t say anything, just kept staring out the window, and Darryl rubbed his left temple with the palm of his hand.
You’re going to need to let all of that out soon, Darryl thought, and the idea was sickening. He had a whole load of poison to throw into Terry, but he could tell by looking at him that the man was close to his own breaking point. Terry’s topknot was a sick mixture of half purple and half pink, and Darryl watched for a moment as it swayed with the motion of the truck. I need to figure out something, and fast. The idea of getting rid of Terry was dead in the water, at least for now. Darryl needed him as a receptacle for all of that bad juju, but first he needed to figure out how to control him after shooting him full of the rotten stuff.
“We’ll figure it out, Terry,” said Darryl as another ambulance ripped down the road, headed in the opposite direction. “We’ll get over the border, or drive south and get a flight. We can do this, man. It’s going to be good.” Terry nodded, not saying anything in response. The world rushed by them, but all Darryl could think about was how much longer they could possibly keep going. We’ve been burning bridges from Mexico to Michigan, and we’re about out of highway. Darryl’s hands tightened on the wheel as two sheriff’s cars drove past them.
“They’re going to be so pissed off,” said Terry, his words slow, his voice hitching. “When they figure out what was wrong with those cops, we’re fucked.”
“They can’t know that, not even if they filmed the whole thing.”
“You really think you’re so special?” Terry asked. “You think you’re the only person to hang on to this shit past puberty? I guarantee you the FBI or ATF or CIA or somebody has a lab full of you creeps, and when they figure out what happened back there, they’re going to go apeshit. Your little trick has gotten us out of a lot of shit, but I think the house might be coming down. All they need to do is find some bender stronger than you, and we can kiss our asses good-bye.”
“That’s not going to happen,” said Darryl after a moment of silence. “There’s no lab like that, no think tank of assholes in coats studying people like me. There’s us and the road and a whole lot of pissed-off folks. Trust me, Terry, we’re going to get out of this, one way or the other.” Terry nodded, staring out the window and watching the trees zip by on the other side of it. Three more cruisers whipped past them, and Darryl said, “We just need a little bit of luck, and we’ll be fine.”
CHAPTER 43
“Just put the fucking thing down!” Jessica screamed into the cockpit at the two pilots. They’d already missed the landing the first time due to wind, and she wanted off of the plane. Darryl and Terry were loose somewhere in
Michigan, and if the FBI reports that she’d been given in transit were even half-correct, they’d killed a lot of people to stay that way. She blamed herself for not being there, though she’d done everything she could to try and see the capture through. They’re out there, though, and now bringing them in is going to be impossible.
“At least three dead cops,” was what the FBI agent had told her, and Jessica expected the number to rise. Darryl and Terry were in pure survival mode, just like the story Dad had told her years earlier when Frank had tried to kill him, even though that meant Frank was likely to die, too. The way Dad had told it, Frank would have happily risked his own life for just the slimmest chance of escape. Frank was right, too, thought Jessica bitterly. Look at what happened to him after he was caught. The man had been locked up ever since, through president after president, through three directors and nearly fifty years.
The thought hit her like a brick to the head: Frank. She needed Frank. He had been the key to Pat’s plan before any of this shit had ever gotten stirred up, and he still could be. She needed to go back to the TRC, convince Frank by whatever means necessary to help with the sting, and then put things into play. Looking through the windshield in the cockpit of the Learjet, Jessica could see green fields as the plane finished the wide turn needed to right itself for the approach to the little airfield. The wind had died enough for them to land, now that it was too fucking late.
“How much fuel do we have?” Jessica asked no one in particular, and the copilot responded.
“About three-quarters of a tank.”
“We’re going back to Hartford immediately,” said Jessica. “Radio the tower.”
Neither member of the flight crew said anything. They just began to follow orders, both of them well aware of the ridiculous power this woman’s station afforded her, even when it came to the FAA.
“When you’re done with that, get on the horn with the tower there. I want the company chopper ready to get me to the TRC.”
The copilot nodded as the captain swore under his breath. Jessica didn’t begrudge the man his frustration. The two pilots had been mustered at a moment’s notice, been forced to scramble a jet in an impossibly brief time, and then had attempted to land at an airport so small that both of them had tried to talk Jessica out of the maneuver.
All of that was moot now, and she didn’t care, she couldn’t care. Frank was all that mattered.
Jessica walked off of the helicopter on the lawn of the TRC feeling like she’d been put in a bottle and shaken up. The trip had been a blur, a waking nightmare that was still going. She walked into the TRC, saw Westley working the desk at the front, and casually said, “Gun,” before drawing the Glock and dropping it in the lockbox that he made appear on the counter. Jessica left before the box was even closed, passed the dioramas without a glance, and ran her fingertip on the scanner. It wouldn’t be long now.
She collected herself as she walked through the steel hallway, used the retinal scanner, and took the elevator to the TK floor. Time was of the essence for them, and Frank would know it and want to take advantage of it. He couldn’t read her like he could anyone else, but he was a genius, and he’d know from the most basic body language cues that she needed him more than he needed her.
Jessica swallowed thickly, wishing she had a glass of water but not wanting to waste even a minute before seeing him. The elevator dropped, plunging her past the floor that housed her research team and then finally stopping at the TK floor. She slid through the doors as they opened, waved at the receptionist as she passed the desk, and then ran to Frank’s room.
She was breathing hard when she got there, decided it didn’t matter, then used another retinal scanner and punched the keys to get inside.
“Well, there you are,” said Frank as she entered, her prediction of his ability to read her becoming true in an instant. “What took you so long?”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Of course you have,” said Frank. Was it possible he was bigger yet since the last time that she’d been to see him? “Why are you so flushed?”
“I need your help.”
“That goes without saying,” said Frank in his thick, wet rasp. “Why else spend time with the freak?”
“Frank, I don’t think you’re a freak. I’m sorry that it’s been so long, but I’ve honestly been busy, and—”
“You’ve finally found one?”
Jessica raised an eyebrow. He’s just guessing. He can’t get to you like that, you know this. Don’t let him throw you.
“Yes and no,” said Jessica. “We’ve been hunting two men—two bad men—but they managed to get away.” She paused and then said, “That’s where you come in. I need you to help me catch them.”
“Where am I going?”
“Nowhere, Frank,” said Jessica slowly. “I need you to help me catch them from here.”
“Not possible,” said Frank after a moment. He almost looked as though he was affirming that Jessica wasn’t making fun of him. “I am very powerful, but I cannot reach someone from down here. Even if you shut off all of your little tricks—your walls and hats and everything else—I would have a hard time seeing aboveground, much less to wherever your little runner is.”
“There’s a young man here with an idea about that,” said Jessica. “He’s a computer expert, and he has a theory that someone like you could connect with a person through the lines that electronically connect computers.”
“We tried phones, tried that trick forever ago—Edith and I both did,” said Frank. “It didn’t amount to a hill of beans. Tell your boy that he’s wrong, it won’t work. He needs a new tree to bark up.”
“It will work,” said Jessica, knowing it didn’t matter, because if they failed then there wouldn’t even be a TRC. “We’ve done the testing, Frank, but we need a high-level TK to make this work. We need you.”
Frank just looked at her for a long moment, then said, “Say I believe you, what’s the point? Why do you want to get in someone’s head through a wire?”
“As I’ve said, there are two very bad men on the loose,” said Jessica. “Neither is as powerful as you, and what they’ve been up to is nowhere near as smooth as your Ham and Egger routine, but they’re young TKs, and I need them.”
“The last time you needed a favor, you promised me Katarina,” said Frank. “You promised that you were going to catch her and bring her to me.”
“I still am, Frank. This is the start of bringing in a lot more TKs. I just need your help to get the program rolling. Katarina is the next step, but I can’t get there without this.”
“And what if I’m a fool and say that I’ll help? How does your computer expert think this will work?”
“It will work,” said Jessica. “It’s really pretty simple. Our expert goes into a chat room—a place on the Internet where people can speak to strangers—and you go in with him. You lie back, leave him the ability to do his thing. He’ll be making a spectacle of himself, making himself a big, fat worm on our hook. He’ll be a blowhard kid, maybe the son of a banker or the son of a CFO. When our targets start working the kid to access daddy’s cash, you’ll save Pat—my computer expert—from any push that tells him to commit suicide to cover up the illegal acts, or anything else of that nature. While you do that, we trace the account that our marks are using to talk to the pair of you.”
“What if I say I’ll help but instead I warn your fish away?”
“Then I lose, Frank,” said Jessica, feeling the same triumph she had moments before the rug was yanked from beneath her in the skies above Michigan. “I lose, and Darryl and Terry—our marks—win. But you lose, too.”
“How do I lose?” Frank asked. “I get to pull the wool over your eyes, I get to enjoy a nice belly laugh for throwing a monkey wrench into the system that keeps me in a cage, and I get the satisfaction of a job well done.”
“
Trust me, Frank, you would lose,” said Jessica. “I’ll do whatever I can to ensure that whoever has been feeding you is fired before I am, and I guarantee that whoever takes this place over after Howard and I are forced out will be given a pretty simple mandate. And I doubt that order will involve keeping any of the lions alive.”
Frank nodded, a grotesque maneuver that sent ripples shifting down the loose skin that covered his face and neck. “All right,” he said. “I’m in. When do we start?”
“Today,” said Jessica, and Frank nodded. If he was surprised, it wasn’t showing. “One more thing,” she said. “We’re going to get you out of this room for a day or two, get you on up to the unsecured floor. Can you play nice?”
“Just so long as I can play,” said Frank with a smile.
CHAPTER 44
Cynthia sat at the table in Mrs. Martin’s apartment. The two dogs slept on the couch, having already received their ration of pets.
“Ready?” Mrs. Martin asked, and Cynthia nodded, and the two of them linked hands.
Cynthia closed her eyes, and when she opened them a fraction of a second later, she was above North Harbor again. The colors were exactly as they’d been before, and Cynthia would have smiled at the familiar sight if she’d been able to. Instead, she zipped down to street level and began to take in the world around her.
When she was weaving, Cynthia felt like she was as strong as any adult and just as smart. This was her world, even though she wasn’t even really here at all. Next, Cynthia did as Mrs. Martin had said and zipped back out into the sky. All it took was a little push, the desire to be there, and she was. Cynthia had only ever sparingly played video games, but couldn’t help but compare the two things. She was tethered to that odd version of her in the sky, only it was her mind and not her fingers on a controller that were providing the instructions.
