Tether

by Jeremy Robinson

  I do turn my back though, dressing quickly and feeling a little more civilized for it. Sitting on the bed, I tie my shoes and realize I haven’t offered any to Rain.

  “There are shoes in the closet.” I’m about to suggest she get something good for running in, but I’m unsure of how to do that without implying we might not actually be safe. When she steps out of the closet holding Morgan’s mostly unused running shoes, I keep the suggestion to myself. The white sneakers with bright pink Nike swooshes aren’t exactly stealthy, but they’re better than heels, flip flops, or a variety of other footwear not designed for running for one’s life.

  A car door thumps outside.

  At any other time, on any other day, I wouldn’t have noticed. But tonight…with no cars running…

  I step to the window, lifting the light-blocking shade.

  Bright headlights carve a path down the street, illuminating the group of neighbors gathered around Randy’s trash-can fire. They’ve got beers now. Making a night of it. Reveling in the mystery of what caused my life’s deepest pain. For a moment, I resent them all for finding joy in tonight’s tragedy, but then I see two men in dark suits speaking to Randy.

  They’re rigid.

  All business.

  Both of them look like they grew up on Krypton and now have super powers, like they could punch the moon out of orbit, or the front of my face to the back.

  Their conversation is muffled, but the strangers sound serious, and Randy sounds excited.

  Then the pair show Randy a series of photos. He’s shaking his head ‘no’ as he’s shown each one, but even from here, I can tell he’s lying. He glances up at me, making eye contact.

  Too long.

  I duck away from the window, just as the two men look toward my house.

  “Shit,” I whisper, crouching down. “Shit.”

  That’s when I notice Rain staring at me, shoes freshly tied. She looks from me to the window. Then she leans just enough to peek out, and then crouches beside me. She might have no memory, but she’s guided by instincts that suggest she wasn’t always a test subject. “Move!” she whispers. “Now! Out the back!”

  As we scurry down the steps, into the kitchen, and toward the rear exit, a foot kicks in the front door behind us.

  6

  A shadow crosses the kitchen window just in time for me to stop short, snag Rain’s arm, and swing her into the bathroom. Her light weight makes it easy. I’m surprised and relieved when she doesn’t shout.

  She must have seen him, too.

  I dive in behind her, as the back door is smashed inward. Anger swells. These assholes are ruining my house. I’m not particularly materialistic, but there isn’t much about the place that Morgan hasn’t fixed, touched up, or improved.

  I don’t give Rain a chance to ask if I have a plan. I simply open the laundry chute and motion for her to climb inside, which she does without complaint or hesitation. When she ducks inside, I cringe, expecting to hear a yelp and a thump as she falls into the laundry waiting below...if there is any. I’m in a bad habit of not washing clothes until I hear that Morgan is coming home. Then I slip off my bachelor shoes and tidy up.

  Rain’s disappearance is soundless, and I don’t bother waiting to hear if she’s okay. The two men are closing in from both sides of the house.

  I’m not looking forward to part two of my three-part plan. It’s going to hurt. But I know these guys aren’t screwing around. I saw what they did to that kid, and he was just standing around.

  I’m the guy who helped their guinea pig escape.

  I grip the bathroom counter, hoping the closed door will muffle what I’m about to do, enough to make it look legit.

  Ugh…C’mon.

  I hesitate.

  Do it! For Morgan!

  I slam my forehead into the countertop, but miss my target, striking the ceramic sink instead.

  My grip on the counter loosens as I lean myself back.

  When I feel like I’m falling, I hold on tighter.

  I’m barely in control.

  And then... A fog. Unconsciousness, I think. For a moment.

  A shift in pressure. The door opening.

  At the fringe of darkness, voices.

  Two men. Serious, but not angry. “Target one is down, Mr. Frank. Appears to have been subdued.”

  “Asshole didn’t know what hit him.”

  “Lucky she didn’t kill him.”

  “Should we?”

  I keep my eyes closed, trying not to panic as they talk to someone not present. I came up with this plan without really thinking it through. I suppose it was instinct. And instinct, in all its non-wisdom, forgot to consider that these men might simply murder their ‘unconscious’ target. Of course, it wasn’t instinct that hit the counter hard enough to knock me out. That was my brain, figuratively, and literally—gray matter colliding with skull.

  When one of the men chambers a round, the answer is clear. I need to do something, but what?

  It’s not like I’m whatever a male version of La Femme Nikita is... Jason Bourne? I can’t just fight off two men with guns, especially not after being knocked on my ass.

  Couldn’t win if I tried.

  So I don’t.

  I gasp and sit up like I haven’t been listening to the two men casually debate ending another person’s life. I open my eyes wide, like I’m surprised to see them, and I do my best to look relieved, despite the gun already pointed at my head. “Out the back! You just missed her!”

  The two men snap their heads toward the back door, perfectly synchronized. I can’t help but see them as my own personal Agent Smiths, from The Matrix. They’re not wearing sunglasses—probably because they’re human and it’s night—but they have that same inhuman, soulless gaze.

  The shorter of the two answers an unasked question in the vaguest terms possible. “We’ll come back.”

  And then they’re gone, rushing out into the backyard.

  My head spins as I try to stand. I need to head to the basement, find Rain, and get the hell out of Dodge. Hopefully she’s not injured. That would make getting away even more difficult. Going to be hard enough already. I probably gave myself a concussion.

  Before I can stand, the laundry chute door pops open. From my low point of view on the floor, I can see Rain, legs splayed against the chute walls, keeping herself from falling. She emerges from the door the way that creepy chick from the Ring movies crawls out of a static-covered television.

  I doubt she knew she could do that. The question is, how much else does her body remember how to do that her mind can’t recall? Those men didn’t doubt for a second that Rain had clubbed me. And they believed she was capable of far worse.

  I look at her small form. Probably half my size and weight.

  Is this woman dangerous? Is that why she was a guinea pig? Hell, maybe she’s a serial killer on death row. Maybe instead of being executed, she donated her body to science. It’s a horrible thought, but it’s easier to consider than the possibility of Morgan being party to human experimentation against the subject’s will.

  Even if Rain volunteered, though, it’s still an ugly pill to swallow.

  She stands and moves to the bathroom door, ready to bolt. When I don’t follow on her heels, she glances back at me. The only light comes from the candle I lit in the living room. Deep in the hallway bathroom, I should be hard to see, but when she double-takes, I know she’s seen the wound on my head.

  “I didn’t hear them strike you,” she says, reaching down to help me up.

  When I’m on my feet, I confess, “I kind of did it myself...to make them think you had.” I motion toward the backyard. “They went that way. Looking for you.”

  “Then we go this way,” she says, and she yanks me toward the front door. On the way past the living room, I snag the candle. Hot wax spills onto my hand, but I don’t know how much fluid is left in my stolen lighter, or how long we’ll be trekking through the dark.

  The flame burns out as
we pick up speed, barreling out the front door and into the bright beams of a still-running, black SUV.

  “Get in!” I tell Rain, who sprints around the back.

  “Saul, man, what the— Whoa!” Randy catches my arm. “What happened to you?”

  “Get in your house. Get your family inside. Those men are killers.”

  “Said they were FBI,” he explains.

  “You see that?” I point to the distant hill where SpecTek used to be. It’s lit by a dozen spotlights now, some still furiously circling the neighborhood, some much higher up. The news helicopters have arrived. “Last time I checked, the FBI doesn’t do that!”

  My wife does.

  “But they said...”

  “Get. In. Side.” The intensity of my glare backs Randy up. He looks to my house, and then the people gathered by his trashcan fire. He waves them away. “Everyone back home! Go!”

  I throw myself into the SUV’s driver side, slam the car into drive, and hit the gas. Wheels squeal over pavement and we’re off. For a moment, I feel the exhilaration of escape. Then windows shatter around me. Cubes of jagged glass pepper the back of my head.

  The bullets stop flying when we put a block between us and the shooters.

  That’s when I notice how hard my heart is pounding...and the three helicopter spotlights growing larger in the rearview.

  7

  I’ve lived in Cambridge for ten years. Moved here when Morgan and I got married. My life as a bachelor was lived in Boston, from my time at B.U. to my first assignment as a writer for the Globe. And as a writer, I’ve traveled every nook and cranny of the city and its surrounding suburbs, from Plymouth to Gloucester, and all the way out to Worcester. My knowledge of street layout fades the farther from Boston I get, but here, I’m a human Google Maps.

  Without thought, I can plot a course to anywhere in the city and traverse it on autopilot. I’ve made several trips while daydreaming, unable to remember the journey upon reaching the destination.

  Morgan used to say I could run over an old lady and never notice.

  Tonight, I’d notice.

  I’m noticing everything.

  And daydreaming is impossible, because there are three helicopters closing in behind us. The biggest impediment to our escape route is that I don’t currently have a destination.

  I can’t go to a friend. That would be reckless and would endanger people I care about.

  I no longer have access to the Globe’s building.

  I need someplace secure. Someplace I’m not publicly known to frequent, like the Dunkin’ Donuts on Church Street. If these guys work for the government, and I’m sure they do, we need to go someplace off the radar, or someplace they’re not welcome.

  “What?” Rain asks, looking at me from the passenger’s seat. She’s seen the realization in my eyes before I’ve expressed it with a gasp.

  In response, I crank the wheel hard, counter-clockwise, and I cringe as the tires squeal around the bend. I’m a safe driver. A boring driver. I was pulled over just once, because I forgot to register my car. Thanks to modern technology, in the time it took the officer to write up a court summons, I’d registered the vehicle on my smartphone and was free to go. Hell, I play Mario Kart conservatively, so we’re about thirty miles per hour outside my comfort zone.

  Dark thoughts gather in the corners of my mind, a swarm of spindly legged monsters, ready to impale, gnash, and sever synapses.

  They whisper to me.

  Your wife is dead. You will be soon. Running is pointless. Fighting, for anything, is purposeless. Just give up.

  But the revving engine, shrieking tires, and G-force adrenaline are helping fight back the emotional invaders.

  A quick glance in the rearview mirror reveals an empty sky behind us.

  Did we lose them?

  Too easy, I decide. The SUV is fast, and maneuverable, but the helicopters aren’t bound by the confines of streets, which they prove a moment later when a spotlight bathes the SUV in a twenty-foot-wide circle of light. In the pitch dark of Cambridge, we are a beacon.

  I’m not sure why, but the scads of people we pass, their faces lit by firelight, cheer as we pass. I wonder if they’d be reveling in the night’s mystery if they knew the men in the Black Hawks are murderers, the woman in the passenger seat is a victim of human experimentation, and the driver is a widower whose wife was responsible for said experimentation.

  “Stop the vehicle, or it will be stopped for you,” a booming voice commands from the helicopter. There’s no ‘This is the FBI,’ or ‘Boston P.D.’ Just a demand and a threat. Which means these guys aren’t law enforcement. Which means I don’t need to stop for shit. But I don’t doubt his threat.

  “Hold on,” I say.

  Rain grasps the vehicle’s ceiling-mounted ‘Oh Shit’ handle. “What are you doing?”

  “Finding some cover.”

  Another left turn, this one so sharp that the SUV’s driver side wheels leave the pavement for a moment. The vehicle bounces, and when all four wheels are planted back on the pavement, it lunges forward.

  The helicopter swings far out to the side, disappearing behind tall trees and houses as it comes back around. We have seconds before they’re on top of us again. And then…how many bullets will it take to disable the engine?

  Depends on what they’re shooting, my old reporter’s voice replies. I’ve been to a lot of crime scenes. I’ve seen what various calibers of bullets do to the human body. To walls. To vehicles. Unless they’re firing 9mm rounds, which I doubt, we’re screwed. If they’re firing a big .50 caliber, mounted machine gun, which is likely given that they’re Black Hawks, we’re more than screwed. A single round to the engine would kill it. A five second burst would be enough to turn us to paste and the vehicle into a flaming wreck.

  The hell am I doing? I wonder, and I pin the gas pedal to the floor.

  The SUV roars down the road. I honk my horn for good measure, flashing high beams to let bystanders know we’re coming. I can’t stop, or even slow down, without risking our lives.

  Rain twists around at the thump of helicopter blades cutting through the air. “Here they come!”

  The spotlight finds us again, and in the reflected light, I see the unmarked Black Hawk swing sideways, its side door open, a gunner manning the mounted machine gun.

  Morgan used to say I ‘negatuted.’ That I needed to ‘positute’ more. It was her cutesy way of calling me a pessimist. She might have been right about my attitude, but my worst-case imaginings often come true, making me more of a realist…which is depressing.

  The next left turn is three hundred feet ahead. I’m not sure we’re going to make it. They must see it. Must know what I’m trying to do.

  Rain opens the glove box. The light kicks on, revealing a holstered handgun. She snags the weapon, draws it from the holster, and chambers a round—like she’s done it all before. Muscle memory again.

  A thundering boom sounds behind us. Pavement to our right sparks into the air. I swerve left around a car that’s been abandoned in the street. The machine gun fire saws it in half, kicking off an explosion that the Black Hawk flies straight through.

  It closes in again, and this time I have no doubt that the gunner will hit his mark. One hundred feet to go.

  I’m frantic for a solution, wracking my mind. The best I can come up with is plowing into a home or a business, and if we survive the crash, we sneak away in the maze of structures. But that’s hardly a solution, and would put other people at risk.

  The sound of an automatic window whirring down pulls my attention to my passenger. Rain almost looks calm as she clutches the gun, waiting for the window to complete its descent.

  “What are you—”

  Rain twists out of the window as a second helicopter flies into place behind us, already turning sideways, ready to light us up. Instead of ducking back inside like any normal person afraid for their life, she pulls the trigger. Over and over.

  Sparks ping off the helicopt
er. The odds of her disabling the vehicle are slim, but when I see a man tumble to the road behind us, I realize she was really just buying us time…with highly accurate, unflinching gunfire from the open window of an SUV moving at high speed.

  Who are you?

  “Shit!” I shout, when the turn catches me off guard. I yank the wheel, squealing tires once more.

  Rain’s feet fling up. She’s falling out the window!

  With my left hand on the wheel, struggling to keep us on the road, I clasp her ankle with my right hand. With my limited grip on the wheel, I’m not able to take the turn as sharply as I’d like. We swing out to the far right side of Cambridge’s Mt. Auburn Street, a downtown area fringing Harvard’s campus, which is lined with tall storefronts and parked cars.

  With a shout, I yank Rain back. She bends her body and slides inside the SUV just as we sideswipe a line of powerless vehicles. Shrieking and crunching metal marks our passing, making us an easy target. Two helicopters appear behind us, but the four-story buildings on either side of the street, criss-crossed with power lines, keep them at bay. They could open fire from high above, but not accurately. With the streets full of people, it would be a bloodbath.

  It would expose them, I think. Whatever branch of the government is behind this, they don’t want the oversight that might come from slaying a large number of Harvard students. I’m sure they’ve covered up the kid’s murder already, and they could probably disappear me and Rain, but if bodies are lining the streets…

  The helicopters pull back a bit, continuing the chase from a distance, patient predators. I’ve seen enough car chases to know how this ends. There is nowhere to hide a car without being seen.