by Ric Beard
“I had come back months earlier. Being at home, where my mother had died, was lonely. The lack of her presence was too much for me. I would stand looking at the waves through the window and think I saw her out of the corner of my eye. Of course, there was nothing there. Just a ghost. No one else on the island, so I sought refuge in a new place. I found an old house that hadn’t crumbled. It was inland a couple miles, but it had sturdy framing that apparently stood the test of time. So I set up there.”
“I see,” the mayor said, his tone sympathetic, but Lexi felt it was practiced. Still, she played along. She decided it was time for the water works.
“Imagine the joy I felt when the Expeditionary Forces showed up. Human beings.” A tear filled one eye and finally rolled down her cheek. “With my mother as my lone, living image of humanity, the soldiers being young people, people like me, was a miracle.”
“So, was your mother a religious person?”
“Oh yes. Devout.”
“Interesting,” the mayor said. “And are you a religious person?”
“I’m not. I’ve seen the world now.”
“I understand. Thank you for sharing that with me.”
“No problem,” Lexi said, wiping a tear away.
“I just have one more question, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course, Mister Mayor.”
The mayor leaned forward and adjusted his jacket. He deposited his elbows on his knees and looked into her eyes.
“How did you become security chief of the most powerful company in the city in just six years?”
Lexi’s head jerked back but only slightly.
“I’ve asked myself the same question.”
“Then surely you have an answer.” His tone sharpened. The game was afoot.
“Is this an interrogation, Mister Mayor?” she snapped through her crocodile tears.
The mayor contemplated her for a few seconds. “Yes. Of course it is. I want to make sure you are up to the task of protecting my opponent, and my job is to avoid civilian casualties. The Underground has become dangerously active. I will interrogate you toward that end, as is my duty.”
At least he didn’t deny it. He’d called her here, wondering about her background, sure. But it wasn’t to protect Mikael. The mayor wasn’t famous for his compassion. He was little more than a student of history. A man with an understanding of how to lie convincingly and manipulate the public into doing his will, masking it as if he were doing theirs. Lexi suddenly realized that she was the lone reason for this meeting. Had they found something she’d missed? A detail? What spawned the sudden interest in her, leading to their discovery of her immigration status?
She waited.
“So, how is it you went from quarantine and indoctrination into city life to security head in six years?”
“I was lucky. Mikael Jensen took me under his wing.”
“Luck? We make our own luck. So, perhaps you will tell me how you made yours.” He stood and started pacing the room. The vampire goon in the corner hadn’t moved nor taken his bloodshot eyes off of Lexi since he took his post. He was starting to burn a hole in her nerves. “Why would Jensen do such a thing?”
“Perhaps you should ask Mikael.”
“Perhaps I will,” the mayor said. “But for now, I have more for you. Have you ever heard the name Rafael Fleming?”
There it is. Shit.
Lexi looked at the vampire and back at the mayor.
“No, should I have?”
“Well, he has heard of you.”
“Who is he?”
The mayor showed his expression of impatience again.
“He is a prisoner of the city. In your position, I would think you should have heard of him.”
Lexi put a finger to the side of her lip, looked up at the ceiling. “Hmm.” After a moment, she planted her hand back in her lap. “Nope! Never heard of him.”
“He was charged with cybercrime against the government,” the mayor said.
“Isn’t it your practice to try people such as that in closed trials? You know, to protect state secrets from the people? How would I know of him if his trial wasn’t public?”
Hey, that was pretty smooth.
“But you trained with the Cybercrime Division, did you not?”
A puzzle piece clicked into place within Lexi’s mind.
“Well, yes. But it’s not what I do for a living.”
“Right. But you did train there at the same time Miles Copeland was employed there, correct?”
“Are you accusing me of being a member of The Underground?” Lexi said, standing.
“Please sit down.”
“I’ll stand, thanks.”
Morgan stepped forward. “Miss Shaw, the mayor has asked you to be seated. Please show him the courtesy of complying.”
Lexi tapped her glasses, feigning a time check. “Is this going to take long?”
The mayor’s eyes were lasers now. She’d pushed his button. Vaughn didn’t like being disrespected. She was talking to the most powerful man in the city, and he wasn’t likely to take kindly to the belligerence of a fresh-faced girl.
“Perhaps you would like to take the conversation downstairs. If you’re not feeling cooperative, I can surely arrange for less comfortable quarters.”
“Ah! The dungeon then?”
The mayor’s face reddened.
“Mister Mayor,” Lexi said. “I’m the chief of security for your opponent’s campaign. I have no criminal past. I have the respect of the community. Surely you don’t think you’re going to intimidate me.” She took a step toward him.
This spurred the vampire into action. He was at the mayor’s side in a flash, holding up a hand of warning. It brushed the cloth of Lexi’s blouse.
“Please sit back down, Miss Shaw,” the goon said in his eerie, throaty whisper.
“Fuck you, Count Dracula.” She slapped his hand away. Morgan’s eyes narrowed, and his mouth hung open. “Touch me again and I’ll break your hand.”
Lexi turned her eyes back on the mayor.
“She shows spunk,” the mayor said. “Assault on a city official, wouldn’t you say?”
Morgan seethed instead of answering, but Lexi read a flash of something on the man’s face.
He looks like he’d rather be somewhere else.
“I might be belligerent,” Lexi said. “I might even be spunky. But I also might be capable of taking your boy’s hand and shoving it up his ass until one of his finely manicured fingernails punctures his colon if he doesn’t keep it out of my face. ‘City official’ my ass. He’s a lackey. A minion of the real city official whose corruption is becoming infamous.”
Then Lexi realized he had gotten exactly what he wanted. He’d wanted a reaction. He wanted to see who he was dealing with. Her whole historical fabrication had been for naught, though she’d delivered it so eloquently.
“Thank you, Miss Shaw. Guards?”
Lexi heard the doors open behind her.
I should’ve just killed him and left the city. It would’ve been easier.
“Please arrest Miss Shaw. Assault with the intent to kill.” He stepped back, close to the wall. “Now!” The mayor said, spurring the two men forward.
Lexi mapped it out in her mind. Fleming had ignored her warnings to keep quiet. That or he’d been tortured. She wouldn’t put that past Vaughn. They’d run a background and figured out she’d trained around Miles. Vaughn convicted people on less, and he could try her under the guise of state secrets so no one could attend.
Driven by instinct, Lexi stepped back into a fighting stance. The cops froze. The black officer on the right whom she recognized from the Digit held up a hand.
“Lexi. What are you doing?”
“Protecting myself from the games of a tyrant. Did you want to play, too?”
“Shoot her, if you have to,” the mayor said.
The door was blocked, and though she believed wholeheartedly that she could take out the two cops, break Mor
gan’s neck, and gouge out the mayor’s eyes for good measure, the whole Security Services force would be on her in minutes. The city was a veritable surveillance nightmare. But it was a thought of Mikael that spurred Lexi to step forward, hold her wrists together and thrust them out.
“You heard the man.”
The familiar officer walked up tentatively, placed cuffs on Lexi’s wrists, and wrapped his hand around her bicep.
“Thank you for the talk, Mister Mayor,” Lexi said as the guard led her from the room. “It was enlightening. See you on the campaign trail.”
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Who Is Miles?
His name was Stevens, and he was a big fella. Lexi stared up at him from the bed in her six by nine cell figuring this was the guy Vaughn sent when he wanted a tough nut to feel intimidated. His form dominated the entry to her cell as he stood just inside the bars looking down at her.
“The mayor thought maybe we could have a talk,” Stevens said. “Seems to think you have something to say about what he calls the ‘scourge’ that is The Underground. I don’t personally subscribe to drama. I tend toward the practical, don’t like to get worked up if it ain’t necessary. So, I’m gonna spare you the drama and just tell you the truth.”
“Oh, please. I could use the truth from someone around here for once.”
“Good. Because you’re gonna get it.” He stepped into the cell and waved someone who stood out of sight toward him. A guard with pimples and a wiry frame stepped forward, handing Stevens a long black cylinder that was tapered on both ends, with a hand guard and a squeeze trigger beneath.
A shock stick. ‘Little chat,’ my ass.
Stevens took the device and shook it a couple of times. It hummed as it cut through the air. “I know you’re combat proficient and all that, Shaw. But I guarantee you, you’re going to take this stick the hard way if you waste my time. See, your guy Miles, he killed my partner. Killed him dead like a dog in the street. Someone’s going to pay for that. It’s up to you whether you do the paying or he does the paying. He stepped closer.
Lexi jumped up.
“That’s a mistake, princess,” Stevens said. He jabbed the end of the stick at her. She reflexively swiped it away and sent a shock through her arm, causing it to instantly fall asleep. A foot came flying at Lexi and slammed her back against the wall, sending the wind out of her lungs and causing her to fall back onto the bed, the back of her head banging into the concrete brick wall. “I guess you got used to those combat suits. Not much absorption in jail scrubs, is there?” He swung the stick again, catching her hard in the shoulder and causing Lexi to cry out. As she swung her torso toward the wall to protect her arms in front of her, he hit her in the back, holding the stick there for one final, drawn- out shock.
Lexi’s muscles spasmed from head to toe. She felt warmth running down her legs as she lost control of her bladder. Stevens grabbed her by the collar, pulled her up, and brought a roundhouse across her jaw. The lights went out.
A sudden shock brought Lexi out of the darkness. Stevens, a nightmarish smile on his face, handed the shock stick back to the guard. He leaned over her.
“Where do I find Miles?”
“Who is Miles?” she asked in a whisper.
Stevens grabbed the lapels of her jail uniform and yanked her off the bed and into the air, where he held her limp body before slamming her back into the cinderblock wall and dropping her ass first onto the bed, the aged springs complaining as she landed.
“You finished with the games?”
Lexi’s back screamed, her face screamed, her muscles twitched and did some screaming of their own. Her arms promised no strength whatsoever. They were like rubber bands. He stepped in again and her mind screamed at her in horror, begging her to stop this.
“Fine!” She screamed, surprising herself with the sound. “Fine, you fucking ape piece of shit! You fucking dark asshole! He’s outside the city. I don’t know where he went. How the hell would I know? I don’t know Miles. Everyone knows he left the city! How the hell do I have anything to do with him?”
“Because everyone knows who Miles is by now, sweetie,” Stevens growled. “And you smart-assed me and asked ‘Who is Miles!’” He leaned in fast, putting his nose to hers. He grabbed her breast and pinched hard.
Though her arms and legs were essentially useless, Lexi felt a little range of motion in her back, and she seemed okay from the neck up. So, she swung her head forward and cracked Stevens on the nose with her forehead. He fell backwards and dabbed his nose with his finger. Blood ran down the center of his face.
“Now, I’m gonna kill ya.” He swung at Lexi, but she turned her head so his fist caught the back, left side of her skull. She couldn’t lift her arms to block the follow-up swings, but she kept her head low, hoping it would be over soon.
Go ahead and kill me, but you don’t get shit.
There was a crackle in the air, and the punching stopped. She heard a thud as she struggled to stay conscious, to force her eyes open. The pain was searing through her nervous system, threatening to shut it down. Pushing her back against the wall, Lexi finally got enough purchase to slide upward a few inches, so the back of her neck felt the wall’s cool surface. Her eyes fluttered open, and she blinked away the red blur of blood. Stevens lay on the ground, twitching, shivering, one leg kicking outward. The wiry guard in the doorway held the shock stick in his hand, shaking it repeatedly. It was out of charge. He looked at her, and as their eyes locked, he dropped the stick and threw his hands up in distress.
“Well, I couldn’t let him kill you!” His eyes were pleading beneath a forehead of acne scars dotting a furrowed brow. “He would’ve killed you!”
“You probably should have,” Lexi grunted, spitting blood. But she doubted he understood a word of it.
Part Sixteen
The Badlands
Chapter Sixty-Nine
We Aren't Alone
Day 7
Monday, Mar 25, 2137
The Badlands
“Yeah, let’s follow the directions of some random stranger!” He rolled his eyes.
“No,” Jenna said. “We need to do it.” She glanced at Scruff. “If it came to my Tab, it must be someone I know. I have a few connections throughout the area.”
“Sara regularly scans ahead, right?” Reagan asked. “At least we can know a little about what we are driving into.”
“Okay, let’s roll.” Jenna double-slapped the side of the tank and mounted her hover bike. Scruff had already returned to his.
“Sara.”
“Yes, Sean?”
“Get us out of this muck and take the road to the right, over there.” He pointed as if the machine could see him and shook his head at himself.
Let’s “roll”… right into a trap!
“I hope Jenna’s making the right call.”
“Sean, from my experience out here, driving into some kind of shit-storm is inevitable, no matter which way we go.” Reagan began studying the user manual they’d pulled out of the storage compartment in the cockpit.
After a few miles of silence, as the tank rumbled back onto broken asphalt, Reagan chirped in excitement.
“Holy shit! This thing even has a mini!”
Sean jolted out of a trance filled with apprehension at the uncharted course.
What’s that?”
“It’s a tiny drone. Short range.”
“Where’s it stored?”
She pointed toward the front of The Beast and dropped the manual in Sean’s lap. He slowed the vehicle to a stop
Jenna pulled alongside and rapped on Sean’s window. He opened the door.
“What’s going on?” she asked, her blonde ponytail dangling down over her shoulder as she bent down. Sean made a concerted effort to focus on her eyes and not her generous cleavage.
It has been too long.
“We’re testing something out,” Sean said. “Might be safer than riding in blind.”
“Here, let me see,�
�� Reagan said. A finger tracing down the open page, her lips moving as she read silently. She turned her attention to the dash console and pushed a button there.
“Please validate. Finger scan not recognized.”
“Validate,” Sean said.
“Acknowledged.”
“Security,” Reagan said, with a shrug. “Go figure.”
Scruff knelt next to Jenna and watched.
The dashboard split in the center, and a black handle with a leather cover swung out. Sean grabbed the handle as the turret raised from the front of the tank.
“You’re not going to fire the—” Jenna said.
“Launch in three, two, one.”
“I guess you are.”
A small black disc zipped out of the slot from which the turret extended and zoomed toward the horizon. After a second, transparent waves washed across its frame until it matched the sky behind it.
“Stealth,” Reagan said. She looked around the tank. “I can’t get over this thing.”
A PIP window unfolded from a single line displayed on the compression glass, and the road ahead appeared from the perspective of the drone.
Sean jerked the handle, and the drone banked right.
“Does it have auto?” he asked.
Reagan fingered the manual again. “Yeah, just say ‘mini-auto.’”
“Please validate, voice imprint not—”
“Validate!” Sean barked. The machine did not vocally confirm, and Sean wondered if it was due to the annoyance in his tone. If so, that was really cool.
Reagan showed him the commands so as not to force Sean to validate every one she read to him.
“Follow terrain,” Sean said. A second later, the drone complied, dropping lower to the ground and hovering parallel with the terrain beneath.
“Life forms detected by drone.”
“Stop!” Sean barked. Jenna leaned against Sean’s hip from outside The Beast and watched the HUD.
The drone stopped. Sean fingered the image on the glass. Heat signatures of human forms started popping up on the screen.
