Amped (19 page)

“Yeah, he is lucky,” I retort. “His retinal recorded everything. We’ve got video. All your faces. And it’s going straight to the police or the FBI or whoever will listen.”

A wave of chuckles erupts around me.

“Oh, that’s precious. I’m the
sheriff,
numbnuts. Billy Hardaway at your service. And any evidence you want to share, well, I’d suggest you stick it straight up your ass.”

The group breaks into guffaws.

Lyle joins the laughter, chest heaving. Expressionless and standing straight-backed, he barks out a repetitive cackle. The sound is mechanical and grating, and it goes on for a long time.

The circle of men seems to shrink away from us like shadows from a campfire.

“I know this amp,” says Billy, pointing at Lyle. “I know you.”

Lyle keeps on barking, and I notice his hands are closed into fists now.

“No,” I say. “Don’t you fucking do it. Let’s run.”

Billy steps forward, closer to Lyle. I tighten my grip on the cowboy’s shoulder. But I can feel the black hole forming, the light sucked into it, too deep and old to stop.

“You’re the one who ran off my deputy the other night. Where’s all your little buddies now, huh? Not so tough with just your girlfriend here.”

“Respect,” mutters Lyle.

“What the fuck you say?” asks Billy. His eyes gleam, boring into Lyle’s face. He steps back and pulls the shotgun up across
his chest. A hand curled under the forestock and a finger on the trigger. Its barrel-mounted flashlight stabs a ray of light into outer space.

“Respect,”
says Lyle, clearly this time. And when he moves it is inhuman. The cowboy shrugs out from under my hand and just goes. I hardly see any movement from him yet he’s already flying forward. A prairie king snake gliding through the grass, disappearing in plain sight.

Lyle’s worn boot heel catches Billy dead square in the sternum like a lightning bolt. Snaps his collarbone audibly. His shotgun goes off and a tubby guy standing a few feet away loses his hat in a spray of buckshot.

“Ah
fuck,
” shouts somebody in an oddly high-pitched voice.

Billy carps his mouth, stunned. Drops heavily onto his ass. Next to him, the fat guy who used to own a hat pulls a finger out of his own ear. It’s bloody.

“Goddamn, Billy,” he whines.

But Lyle has not stopped. His fists are slashing and those tattooed crows are in a frenzy as he leaps to the next man in the line. And then the next. I can hear him breathing hard, making little grunts with the effort of each tight swing. Moving quicker than an electrical current. Punches coming in flurries, three- or four-strike combinations, the dull smack of calcified knuckles on soft body tissue. Throats, eye sockets, temples.

Whole hog.

Three men drop before I notice Billy has got his bearings and has the black eye of his shotgun staring me in the face. We make eye contact and I see the way Billy’s jaw tenses. His upper lip curls into a snarling murder look and I dive to the ground. The shotgun booms, and I feel the shock wave wash over my neck. Speeding shrapnel rips through the air over my head.

I’m on my hands and knees now, and there’s no hope. I’ve already heard the
schlick-schlock
of Billy’s shotgun cocking and its
flashlight is throwing my shadow out in front of me. Three guys have got hold of Lyle, and from the yelling and cussing it sounds like the cowboy is already down to biting people. It won’t be long before I feel that lead shot burrowing under my skin. Even so, I keep crawling as fast as the loose dirt will let me.

Spotlighters in front of me are scrambling the hell out of the way, and I feel the hot presence of that shotgun on my back.

“You’re fucking dead,” Billy says, and I don’t doubt it.

I dive forward just as the shotgun goes off, and it’s like somebody shot out the lights. The field goes dark. A spray of dirt tattoos my neck, the sandpaper grind of tiny rocks. My body hits the ground with a rubbery thud. For an instant I’m wondering if this is death. Then there’s a high-pitched ringing in my ears. The tail end of a breath caught on the back of my tongue. I’m alive.

Somebody killed the generator is all.

A half-dozen flashlights flicker toward the silent machine. Across the black field, I see a pale face peeking over the rusted generator. Eyes shining, Lucy looks like a possum caught in car headlights.

“Get that bitch!” someone shouts.

Shotguns start to belch flame. Pounds of lead buckshot hit the generator in a hellish symphony. Lucy’s face drops out of sight between flashes.

Lucy.

I don’t remember deciding to stand.

I’m stalking, head down, toward the nearest spotlighter. My right hand is out, three fingers splayed and my eyes are half closed. I’m picturing the Zenith in my mind huge, the way a floating gray zeppelin is enormous in the sky, trailing tethers in the wind. It’s time to see what I’m capable of.

Three. Two. One. Zero.

And the amp speaks to me.

It’s a startling, synthesized voice in my head:
Level
one.
Diagnostic access. Battlefield situational awareness. Mission essential fitness. Mobility and survivability. Do you consent? Do you consent?

The amp is inside me and speaking directly to me for the first time after lying dormant for all these years. This piece of plastic is alive in a terrifying new way, yet the voice I hear is as natural as my own thoughts. Just a part of me, after all.

My eyes are closed now and somehow so are my ears and my skin and nostrils. I’m completely inside. The darkness of my own mind. And in this still womb, there is nothing except for the question. So I answer.

Yes,
I say.
Oh, yes.
And I can feel again. I open my eyes.

Exhilaration. Air surges into my nostrils, and I swear I can feel my blood being oxygenated, the liquid fuel coursing into my limbs and making them strong. My skin embraces the breeze, sweat evaporating into the atmosphere. The threshold between my body and the world evaporates with it.

The field is singing.

Strange flashes of light streak over my vision. Nonsense lines and pinwheels. I blink them away. Things go black and then erupt into almost unbearably intense flashes of white. The shotgun blasts.

Between flashes, my fists fall gracefully through space in a way that feels inevitable, guided by fate. A gurgling choke as the palm of my right hand smacks into a random man’s bearded throat. As he falls, I grab the shotgun out of his hands and hurl it out into the darkness. It tumbles end over end far into the night, like a UFO.

“Where’s the cowboy?” shouts Billy. “Keep shooting!”

I can see only faint outlines of the grass, clouds twisting overhead, and frantic shapes of men around me. Infinite fingers of white light sweep the field.

I snatch another shotgun and toss it away.

A dark blur lurches past. Lyle is dragging a mob of four men. One of his arms breaks free and it cuts the air like a scalpel. More screaming.

Another shotgun coughs into the night. One of the spotlighters shouts in alarm. “Did I get ya?” asks another. “Shit, buddy.”

A couple of dark shapes are running away. Hustling and limping toward the row of houses on the other side of the field. “Fuck this,” mutters somebody.

“Come on, y’all!” shouts Billy. He’s wheeling around, strafing the scattered men with the light mounted on his shotgun. “Get your asses back here.”

Then Lyle strides past me, knifing straight for Billy. Slides right up behind him and pauses. Before I can stop it, he sinks a bony fist into Billy’s kidney. And I mean he really sets his feet and follows through.

Billy’s knees go slack and he drops into the grass, writhing and trying to breathe. His shotgun drops, its attached flashlight illuminating a small round patch of grass in exquisite detail.

Lyle stands over him, a slump-shouldered shadow, black on black.

“Come down with me, Owen,” whispers Lyle, gesturing at the stumbling shapes fleeing into the night. “Come down in the dark and let’s go hunting. Whole hog, buddy.”

Down, down, down. I want to go. This Zenith feels stupendous. The tingling awareness of the world flooding through my eyes and nose and dancing over my skin. I can see my eyes seeing. Happiness. Madness. I’m falling into myself. And as my thoughts drop back to the Zenith, I see her silhouette stumbling my way.

Lucy.

“No,” she is saying. “Come back.”

I’m swimming up to her from deep water. Bursting through the surface.

“Lucy,” I breathe. I stumble and she catches me. Hugs me desperately and in the dim light I run my hands lightly over her face. She’s fine, she’s okay. Crying a little. She shoves me away and turns to Lyle.

Dropping to his knees on the other side of Billy, the laughing cowboy looks up at us. His black eyes catch the light from the fallen shotgun. Reflect it. I don’t know where he is right now. Some piece of efficient machinery is intercepting his experience of the world, making his decisions with stern, unblinking precision.

Billy coughs, rolls over. His elbows dig into the dirt and he cocks his head up. One hand over his collarbone, he is snarling at us, his canines peeking over wormy lips. “You’re going to pay,” he says. “You fuckers are going to pay for this. We know what you’re planning. Your little army.”

Lyle watches Billy with vacant curiosity.

“Think we sit out here for fun?” Billy coughs. “It’s my
job
. We know you. Pure Pride knows you. Ask your little friend in Detroit. What’s his name. Valentine.”

That gets Lyle’s attention. His eyebrows drop.

I grab a fistful of Lyle’s shirt and pull him away from Billy. Dazed, the cowboy stumbles. He’s still coming up from whatever deep place he’s been. Blinking away the cobwebs. His hands are open, knuckles crusted with dark bloody cuts.

“Valentine?” Lyle asks. “What about Valentine?”

Frantic sirens howl in the distance.

“We got eyes on your boy and he’s a talker.” Billy laughs. “Whole file on him. About the smartest amp we ever saw, but we can take him anytime we want. Any goddamn time, amp. Bet on it.”

Lucy is next to me. I push Lyle toward her.

“Get him home,” I say. “Away from here. Okay?”

She takes one of Lyle’s limp hands and pulls him away. As she moves into the darkness, I reach out and touch her shoulder.

“Thank you,” I say.

She blinks at me, sad. Wipes her nose on the back of her forearm. “Don’t thank me,” she says. “I came here for my brother. You were supposed to keep him out of this. You were supposed to be different.”

“Lucy—” I’m trying to say.

But she turns. Recedes into the darkness with Lyle. Leaves me here in the torn-up field, my face throbbing with blood.

“You got woman trouble,” Billy says with a laugh, still lying in the dirt.

I squat down next to him.

“No, what I’ve got is a question,” I say. “How do you know Joseph Vaughn?”

Billy grins at me through his beard, breathing hard. Shakes his head.

I pick up his right hand, force it toward his face. Work my fingers between his knuckles so that Billy whimpers and spreads his hand. And there’s that tattoo, buried in the web of his thumb.

EM.

“What’s Elysium?” I ask him. “You and Vaughn have a little club?”

At first he doesn’t say anything. Together we listen to far-off sirens getting closer. I dig in my fingers until my forearm is flexed solid, long tendons tugging my skin into hills and valleys. He takes the grinding pain for a few seconds, then lets out a burst of breath and finally speaks. Tells me one last thing before I have to run.

“My family,” says Billy. “That’s a family crest. And real soon, amp, my family is gonna eat yours up.”