Catch and Kill

by J D Lasica

  After finding out about her biological mother and how she died at twenty-three—the same age Kaden was now—she’d decided there was more power in not knowing than in knowing.

  “I’ve made my choice,” she said coolly. Knowing whether Bo was her father was one thing. Knowing whether she was carrying around a genetic death warrant was another.

  She realized for the first time that Bailey wouldn’t have the gene and wouldn’t have to wrestle with the same decision. Bailey’s mother was Eileen, and Kaden’s mother was Deirdre. That’s one thing Bailey and I don’t have in common—a possible death gene.

  She didn’t want to dwell on the subject. “You said you had something to tell me?”

  “It’s about my job at the agency—”

  “Wait. What’s that?” She squinted and saw the afternoon sun glint off a metal object in the water. In seconds she recognized it as a fast-moving speedboat approaching from the mainland.

  A commotion of voices from Redman, Tosh, and Carlos. Redman sprinted to the helm and fired up the engine. “Raise anchor,” he yelled.

  “Gunboat, eleven o’clock!” someone below shouted.

  Seconds later, a rough voice blasted out of a loudspeaker atop the gunboat. “Spies! Prepare to be boarded!”

  She peered over the carbon fiber wall framing the lounge chairs on the top deck and saw the Swift boat. On deck six men pointed semi-automatic rifles at Redman and the others. The boat pulled up alongside and the men began to board while the gunner trained a high-caliber machine gun on their companions, probably a GAU-19/B Gatling Gun Tactical System. She'd seen one mounted on a Humvee during boot camp and knew it could kick out over 1,300 rounds per minute.

  She and Bo hunched down to make sure they weren’t spotted. They could see Tosh, Carlos, Redman, and Judy raise their hands in surrender.

  “What do we do?” Nico came up from below, clutching the fanny pack from her cabin. She checked and all her essentials were inside. She pulled out the SIG Sauer to get it into firing position.

  Bo shook his head. “You can’t get into a firefight with these guys. It’s suicide.”

  “We can try to head out to international waters in the speedboat.” Nico gestured toward the powerboat hanging from the port side of the yacht away from the intruders.

  “We’ll never make it,” she said. They were about a half mile from the island, too far from the three-mile limit. Not that these guys were going to respect an imaginary international boundary.

  She wasn’t about to become a prisoner. She tied the fanny pack around her waist and climbed over the railing. Nico understood. He nodded and followed suit. She teetered on the sheer edge of the deck opposite from the gunmen and turned to Bo. “We’ll find you on land.”

  Bo reached out and squeezed her hand. “Be careful.”

  Kaden and Nico plummeted from the top of Carpe Diem into the warm waters, still sheltered from a view of the Swift boat. She took a deep breath to get as far away underwater as possible. But the moment she hit the water, the injury from last night’s fall into the ravine knifed through her shoulder and into her upper back.

  She began swimming. With each stroke the pain tore through her shoulder with an unrelenting ferocity. She wasn’t sure she would make it.

  39

  Samana Cay

  Bailey Finnerty hurried to her appointment along the familiar path that spilled into the central courtyard of the remote outpost on Samana Cay. Officially, the vast encampment along the eastern end of the island was called Immersion Bay.

  The girls had their own name for it: Camp Resist.

  She made her way down the cobblestone walkway leading away from the beach and her bare-bones bunkhouse through the center of the plaza with its neat rows of picnic tables surrounded by leafy trees and vegetation. Off to her right, girls were racking up points by scrimmaging against each other on the volleyball court and on two soccer fields—ten fitness points for each hour of play, regardless of whether you won or lost.

  To an outsider, at first glance it might resemble a summer camp. But she’d learned the hard way that a modern high-tech prison didn’t need physical barriers.

  “Hey, Ling,” she said as her best friend from high school approached carrying a lunch tray. But Ling averted her eyes and darted left to avoid direct contact. She and Ling had been on the outs ever since Bailey’s score dipped into the red zone.

  A lot of the other girls seemed standoffish today, too. She couldn’t put her finger on it. Only Katarina Gorka—the English-speaking girl from Belarus, a year younger than her—looked up and rose from her spot at the table. She had long, straight brown hair and kind eyes.

  “Bailey, I’m so sorry about your mom.” Katarina wrapped her arms around her shoulders and gave her a hug.

  “My mom?” Bailey drew back, alarmed.

  “You don’t know?”

  Katarina led her past the last table and into the Commons with its benches, fountains, workout equipment, and grassy knoll fronting the amphitheater and its leaderboard screen that dominated everything. The Commons was where most of the girls spent their days racking up points by working out or taking acting lessons, with the leaderboard serving as a constant reminder of which girls had rung up the highest point totals along with inspirational sayings or pithy blurbs about how they’d earned their achievement points.

  But Bailey’s knees buckled at what she saw. On the large digital screen towering above the stage, the leaderboard was live-streaming a video. A video of her mother slumped against a building in New York, clutching her chest. As Bailey watched, paramedics arrived on the scene, placed her mother on a stretcher, and transported her into the back of an ambulance.

  Across the bottom of the screen, a red strip with white letters blared the message: BAILEY BROKE HER PLEDGE—HER MOTHER PAYS THE PRICE.

  Her heart sank. They did this to my mother. And it’s my fault.

  Katarina reached out to touch her shoulder in support. Katarina’s neckband glowed scarlet, indicating she was a rebel, someone to be avoided.

  For the first time in weeks, Bailey’s own neckband no longer glowed a bright green. Instead, it radiated a scarlet red after yesterday’s escape attempt. The neckbands were officially called “safety necklaces,” while the girls called them for what they were—dog collars. As hard as she tried in the beginning, the microthread material with tiny LED lights couldn’t be cut with regular scissors or shears. She hated her dog collar with all her soul.

  “I—I need to go.” She turned away from Katarina and swept along the pathway, fighting back tears as she passed more girls with their judgmental looks. I can’t be late for my appointment. That would be a fifty-point deduction on top of the 500-point penalty from yesterday.

  She reached the walls-free Open Offices area at the edge of the Commons. The entire enclosure was set beneath a translucent plastic layer with tropical landscaping that let in air and natural light but camouflaged Camp Resist from orbiting satellites and passing planes. The covering gave the entire camp the vibe of partly cloudy skies even on sunny days.

  Stretched out before her on a natural-wood double chaise lounger was her acting coach, Rachel Torres. The seats were facing opposite directions yet attached, and she nodded for Bailey to take the adjoining seat so there’d be no way to avoid eye contact.

  She got right down to it. “My mother. I just saw her on the leaderboard. What did they do to her?”

  Miss Torres frowned. “I’m afraid I don’t know. But you know the rules.”

  Bailey wasn’t sure whether to press the issue. After all, they’d done exactly what they’d promised to do if she broke her pledge.

  “What can I do to make it right?”

  “Bailey, listen to me. You’re one of the lucky ones. The world is about to change, and there’s no safer place than Immersion Bay. But you need to build up your points again. You know you were in the top five percent on the leaderboard right up until your transgression. Community chores, workouts, volunteering in t
he kitchen. Sad to see all those points lost.”

  The day-to-day reality of their situation soon became clear to the Disappeared. Girls had two options. They could play along, earn points, and save loved ones from the coming Transition. Under Option Two, they could refuse to cooperate and face the consequences. She’d heard some girls were shipped off after they’d used rocks and underbrush to form a giant SOS on the beach.

  By the end of month one at Immersion Bay, Bailey had shifted her focus from gaining her freedom to protecting her parents. She shot up the leaderboard. She volunteered at the Dance Studio and Arts Barn. Everyone liked Bailey because she was always helping out with cooking, workout routines, laundry, washing dishes, a million little things. She did it partly because she liked to help people but partly to score points.

  Her big move up the leaderboard came when she received a five hundred point bonus for signing the Immersion Bay Opt-In Pledge. In it, she pledged to go along with the augmented acting classes and the In-World simulations and all the other crazy stuff in the fine print that went with being held prisoner on an island teeming with visitors—tourists who were just a few miles away from Immersion Bay.

  That was what got to her—how tantalizingly close freedom seemed to be. And yet the dog collars prevented them from getting anywhere near the tourists.

  Miss Torres read something on her tablet, then met her eyes. “I’m not here to scold you today. I’m here to offer you a fresh start. Your performance yesterday received a positive score on believability, empathy, and vulnerability. But the AI detected several negative micro-expressions it had to correct on the fly. Facial expressions of anger, fear, sadness, and disgust were all detected in one-twenty-fifth of a second increments. So you earned no points for the VR ‘bathtub’ simulation. As far as the AR ‘picnic sunset’ session—well, you’ve seen your adjusted totals on the leaderboard.”

  She had. She was now dead last at Camp Resist and in danger of being shipped out. There were rumors the girls who left the island were sold as sex slaves. So there were worse things than pretending to be submissive and accommodating.

  “I just don’t want my mom to pay the price for my mistake,” Bailey said.

  “Good. Then let’s keep things positive.“ She looked up. “Here comes the nurse.”

  “Nurse? I’m not sick.”

  “Everybody needs a flu shot.”

  The nurse set a small plastic container on the ground next to their chairs. She clicked open the latch to reveal two batches of glass vials. Three-quarters of the vials had the letter “V” marked marked on a yellow plastic top while a quarter had the letter “C” marked on a green top.

  The nurse withdrew a vial with a yellow top.

  “What are the the green vials for?” Miss Torres asked.

  “Never you mind.” The nurse frowned and turned to face Bailey. “Roll up your sleeve.”

  “Something going around?” Bailey asked.

  The nurse drew liquid from the vial into a syringe. “This may sting.” She swabbed her right biceps with an alcohol wipe, and the strong smell conjured memories of her crying as a little kid when she got her shots.

  “Ow!”

  The nurse applied a small bandage. “You’ll live.” She returned the items to the container and marched off.

  “Don’t piss off Nurse Ratched,” Miss Torres quipped. She looked down and scanned her tablet. “I see you’re turning eighteen today.”

  “Oh, really?”

  Is it my birthday? I didn’t even know what month it is, never mind the date. Digital devices were banned at Camp Resist, and keeping track of the days seemed pointless after a few months.

  “Happy birthday.”

  “Thank you.” She never imagined spending her eighteenth birthday in prison.

  “I can offer you a hundred-point bonus for your special day. But only if you agree to an In-World simulation tonight.”

  She found the whole idea of the acting classes baffling and kind of gross. But she went along with all the “performance art” and “mixed reality” and being shuttled to the Fantasy Theater’s “In-World Playspace.” It took days to prepare for a simulation and study the background materials for a Fantasy Live guest.

  “With Andrew again, so soon?” she asked.

  “No,” Miss Torres said. “Not Andrew. A very special guest. This won’t be a typical Fantasy Live simulation. No prep work. You just need to do whatever he tells you to do.”

  She stared at Miss Torres, trying to control her micro-expressions. What choice do I have?

  “Thank you for giving me another chance. Can you try to help my mom?”

  Miss Torres flicked off her tablet and stood. “The shuttle leaves at seven. Good luck, Bailey.” She flashed a quick smile before strutting off, and Bailey thought she detected a microexpression of regret around her lips.

  Bailey rose and retraced her steps back to the Commons for lunch. Up ahead, she saw the girls crowd around the leaderboard. She hoped to God they weren’t doing something else to her mother.

  She reached the grassy field in front of the leaderboard and looked up. It was another live video. But this time it was coming from the island. The giant screen showed a boat docking at Samana Harbor. Guards led a procession of a half-dozen people at gunpoint.

  She was shocked to see the lead prisoner. Her father, Bo Finnerty.

  “No!” she screamed. “No no no no noooo!”

  40

  Samana Cay

  For the last fifty yards, Kaden let the pounding surf push her body onto the sandy shoreline. She pushed through the shoulder pain and made it onto Samana Cay by shifting her usual technique and generating a catch movement with vertical forearm action and shorter strokes.

  “You okay?” Nico said from his knees a few yards up the beach. He seemed out of breath.

  “I’m good.” She checked behind her and was relieved to see her fanny pack still intact.

  They settled into a sandy spot below a palm tree to get their bearings.

  “We must be on the south shore.” She recalled the map of Samana Cay they reviewed during the ride on Carpe Diem. “Samana Harbor and Village are on the western shore. Most of the rest of the island is unmapped. Where do you think they’ll bring the prisoners?”

  “Hard to say.” Nico scanned the beachfront in both directions. “What’s that object reflecting on the sand?”

  He walked down the beach ten yards, reached down, and scooped something into his hands. He walked another five yards and did the same. He returned and showed her.

  Two of the downed drones.

  “These guys don’t fool around,” Nico said. “The machine gun on the Swift boat was proof of that. We should get to a populated area and get out of these wet clothes.”

  She stood. “I agree. Let’s cut north to a main road, then head west to Samana Village. We can get a change of clothing. Maybe even get ahold of Annika and Sayeed, back at the mother ship.”

  Nico retrieved a SIG Sauer P226 Scorpion from his pocket—like hers, also courtesy of Bo—and shook off the water. “I hope this thing still works.”

  Bo Finnerty tried to maintain his balance on the slab of metal seating in the back of the dusky van. The ride had gotten much bumpier in the past five minutes.

  “How far do you think we’ve gone?” he asked Tosh and Carlos, seated across from him.

  “Four, five miles,” Carlos said.

  They all had their arms tied behind their backs. But they weren’t gagged and the guards were riding up front.

  “What do you think they’ll do with us?” Paul Redman asked.

  “Hard to say.” Bo was considering this very question during the drive from the harbor. “Me and my team, we’re off the grid. If we disappeared, maybe nobody raises a fuss. But you three.” He eyed Redman, Alice Wong, and Charlie Adams. “You’re a problem.”

  “Why?” Alice asked.

  “A billionaire news site owner and Axom’s editor and two reporters, Charlie and Alex? People will r
aise a fuss if you all go missing.”

  “Unless they make it look like an accident,” Judy Matthews offered.

  “Thanks for the idea,” Charlie snapped.

  “The agency should be coming for us,” Tosh said. “Protocol is to devote all available resources to finding a field agent who doesn’t report in. Right, Bo?”

  He scowled and peered into the shadows. This was the conversation he wanted to have when he found the right time, first with Kaden and then with the others. But he never found the time and now he’d have to come clean. Had he gone too far?

  “They won’t come looking for us,” Bo said.

  “Why not?” Carlos asked.

  “Because I took a leave from the agency three months ago.”

  “You what?” Carlos looked like Bo hit him with a gut punch.

  “Wait.” Tosh was trying to piece this together. “How is that possible? You’ve been paying us. I’ve got pay stubs. We get assets, equipment.”

  “It’s all a cover.” Bo struggled to free his hands. Might as well lay it all out. “It’s not hard to set up a bogus company when you’re running an off-book operation. I left the agency three months ago. Had to sell my house to cover the costs of our operation.”

  “And the drones, the equipment?” Tosh was always a stickler for details.

  Was it wrong to lie to them about receiving authorization for this mission? Was it wrong to bring them here and put their lives in jeopardy? Maybe. But those bastards have my daughter! He answered Tosh this way:

  “After twenty years, I still have some juice inside DIA. Still have my contacts at the European intelligence services. A lot of people are bending the rules to get us what we need since they’re being headed off at the top levels. But they’ve made it clear they can’t do anything else for us. We’re on our own.”

  They went quiet for a moment. Then Carlos broke the silence. “You son of a bitch.”

  Bo stared him down. “I’d do it again.”