Halfskin (27 page)

“We need food,” she said.

Nix didn’t rush his response, sensed she was processing things slowly. “We need money,” he finally said.

Her head turned side to side, as if listening. “Next exit,” she said.

He thought about asking what next, how they were going to pay for anything. They couldn’t use a credit card. Nix, for one, didn’t even have a wallet. He wasn’t sure if Cali had anything in her bag. Camping in a farmer’s field and eating corn wasn’t going to last long.

The next exit was ten miles. There was no conversation. Cali looked no less foggy. Nix was dizzy from looking at the road to the mirror. The car rolled into a Sunoco with a Subway and stopped at one of the tanks. He threw it in park.

Cali’s hand rested on the door handle. “I’ll be right back.”

Nix watched her methodically walk inside, like a sedated mental patient. He kept track of her through the glass wall as she walked down the aisles. He lost her somewhere on the other side. Minutes went by. He thumbed the steering wheel, debated on going in.

He took a deep breath, envisioned her laying on the floor and the clerk calling 911 and the police arriving—

Never should’ve let her go in alone.

He grabbed the door handle. The parking lot smelled like sour beer. One foot on the pavement—

Cali pushed the door open.

It wasn’t a straight line she walked, but she made it to the car. She tossed a plastic bag of food inside the car and fell in the backseat. Her head tilted back, eyes falling shut. “Fill it up.”

“With gas?”

“There’s $30 on the pump.”

He didn’t bother asking how or where the food came from. No one was coming out shouting about a robbery. Nix just filled the tank. When he turned around, Cali was asleep. There was an apple in her hand, a single bite notched out of it. Nix checked her breathing, just to be sure. Then he drove off shoving candy bars and bananas in his mouth, washing it down with water.

Cali slept until they reached the mountains.

62

Marcus was one of the first to board.

The airline assistant wheeled him down the gateway to the plane. The stewardess smiled and tried to help. He just wanted her to get the hell out of the way. He managed to find his first-class seat, sweating through the pain, without bending his leg. There was just enough leg room to lay it out straight.

He sat back searching for refuge in the painkilling haze. Found none. The ache consumed his entire body, pushing into his thoughts like a sliver. He couldn’t sleep, couldn’t get comfortable. Just in it. No escape.

“Can I get you a pillow?” the stewardess asked.

He nodded.

The police officer that arrested him came to his senses about a block from the hotel. At first, he just slowed down. Marcus had been wedged into the backseat with his hands cuffed. He couldn’t lean one direction or the other without twisting his knee.

“Turn around!” Marcus shouted through the agony.

The car slowed. It finally stopped in the middle of the street. No lights, no siren. Just stopped right in the middle of traffic. His mind was trying to find solid footing. Maybe he remembered nothing or just couldn’t put the pieces together, whatever it was, he was stuck.

“Officer,” Marcus said, “there are two fugitive halfskins that made you believe I accosted people back at the hotel and filled you with a sense of urgency to get me out.”

Marcus had to adjust his leg.

“I am a federal agent. I need you to turn the car around and return to the hotel. Everything will be explained.”

The officer looked in the back seat, observed the leg and the clothing. Marcus locked eyes with him.

“Reach into my jacket, look at my wallet.”

Five minutes later, they were back at the hotel. Federal agents and police officers were already at the scene. Someone found a hotel wheelchair for Marcus. Despite getting off his feet, the pain was intolerable. He remained long enough to hear from the witnesses.

They remembered nothing.

No one saw the woman and boy, had any recollection of them entering or exiting. No evidence they even stayed there. All of them described the same experience as the police officer that hauled Marcus down the street.

White static.

The plane began to taxi.

Marcus’s phone buzzed. His wife was calling. He punched the ignore button. He talked to her earlier that morning. The plane was fully boarded. A small woman sat next to him. She plugged her ears with headphones and opened her laptop, didn’t even say hi. His kind of travel companion. As the plane taxied out of the terminal, Marcus’s phone buzzed again.

He put it to his ear.

“How’s the knee?” the Secretary asked.

“Wonderful. I’ll be landing in a couple hours.”

“Good. I’m sure Janine will be glad you’re home. I read your report.”

There was a long pause, like he was still thumbing through it. Marcus submitted a detailed report of the hotel incident that morning. If there were plans to cut him out of the loop, that report would highlight his importance.

“A little over the top, Marcus. A bit hysterical.”

“Sir, you’ll need to turn off your phone,” the stewardess said. The woman next to Marcus closed her laptop and laid her head back, eyes closed.

“Nothing about this is hysterical,” Marcus said. He cupped his mouth over the phone and spoke low. “We’re talking full-scale vulnerability, if this gets out. Do you know how long it will take information of this type to go viral? There are garage hobbyists that can code designer biomites if they get the right protocol. They can seed themselves. They’re all looking for a way to get out of M0ther’s radar.”

“This sounds more like an anomaly. It’s happened before, someone gets lucky, finds a new frequency and M0ther cues in on it. They’ll be back online within weeks, Marcus. I don’t want you releasing anything to the press, nothing that will shake the public’s confidence. This will take care of itself.”

“No.”

“I hope you’re not refusing a direct order.”

“I’m saying no, this will not blow over. Trust me on this, this is big. We cannot sit back and let this solve itself. I want my staff doubled and put on full priority. I’ll need to monitor all Internet chatter, track if she’s leaking out her discovery. And, if we find them, we’ll be able to access their biomites, find out what she did—”

“Sir? You need to shut your phone off.”

Marcus held up a finger. The stewardess lost her happy face.

“I’m not sleeping until this over.”

He hung up, turned off. Held the phone up so the stewardess could go on her way, before others started looking and staring. Marcus stared at the wall in front of him the entire flight. The pain kept him awake. But that was good.

He didn’t want to sleep.

63

Cali ate the last chunk of cantaloupe, chewing slowly. Let the juice fill her mouth before swallowing. She sat back, looked off the veranda at the view of the mountains, remembering something someone once said.

Sour makes sweet.

She’d had plenty of sour, to the point she didn’t taste the sweet. But now, one chunk at a time, she savored the release of sticky goodness. She’d been sitting at the table since the kitchen opened, one of the first to arrive. The morning was cool, nipped her cheeks. She held a coffee cup with both hands just below her chin, the steam on her cheeks. The sun came up as a hot coal beyond the valley, throwing shadows over the verdant turf as it fought through the low lying clouds.

It was her idea to stop in North Carolina.

We’re far enough,
she said, from the back seat.
Find the Asheville exit.

Nix didn’t argue. Exhaustion had depleted him. But when she told him to find the Grove Park Inn, he threw a fit.
Too public,
he said.
Need to find a dive, somewhere crack dealers sleep.

Trust me.

She remained in the backseat while they drove another hour in silence. It was dark by the time they found the Inn. Nix wasn’t surprised there was a room waiting for them, didn’t ask how she’d done it. Maybe he was too tired.

He fell on the bed, asleep. Cali stayed up. She pulled open the curtains and sank into a cushioned chair, watching the stars pop out of the sky. To anyone watching, she looked like someone enjoying the view but it was quite the opposite. Inside, she was surfing the Internet, playing the information on her mind’s eye. It was effortless, like a second language. She’d never need a computer again. Currently she was using the hotel’s wireless Internet connection but soon she’d set up a Verizon account under a false name and configure the new breeds to behave like a cell phone. She’d have access at all times.

She was thinking like a computer, speaking a binary language. She placed the reservation at Grove Park Inn long before they reached it. She went back to Hertz Rental Car and deleted all records of the car they were driving. Not only had it not been leased to a customer at the Red Roof Inn, it never existed. No one would ever look for a white Ford Focus.

And the ATM at the gas station? She simply withdrew from the last customer’s account.

It was stealing, she was aware. And guilty. But she wouldn’t continue. Just until they were settled and could create new identities. New lives. Make their own money. It shouldn’t be hard.

They spent two days in the room, mostly sleeping. It took awhile to get back to normal.

Or as close to normal as Cali could get.

It was the third morning that she went to the veranda and ordered cantaloupe. Nix woke up about 10:00. Cali sensed it. She followed his movements to the bathroom as he looked for her. She sent a thought.

[Come for breakfast. You’ll love the view.]

He wasn’t thrilled she was hanging out in public, but the tone of the thought gave him hope. She had teetered on the edge of an emotional abyss for days. There was still sadness in her voice, desperation in her thoughts. She could work through her realization.

Surviving was the first step.

Nix sat down across from her, a plate of eggs and bacon waiting. He was hungry but stopped and looked to gauge her condition. When she nodded, he filled his mouth. He was halfway through the food before saying anything.

“Why are we out here?” he asked.

“No one knows us. And no one is looking for us. The incident never really became a story. The feds are keeping this one quiet.”

“Someone’s looking.” Another bite of eggs. “
He’s
looking.”

Cali blew across her coffee. Marcus Anderson would always be looking. She would be proactive on that front. She needed something to convince him they weren’t worth the effort. They weren’t hurting anyone.

They just wanted to be left alone.

“He’ll stop,” she said.

“How do you know?”

“I know.”

She didn’t mean to say it like that, it was just… she didn’t have a whole lot of space for emotions, she was quick to snap. There was still a lot to sort out.

She sipped. He ate.

Truth was, she didn’t know a lot of things. There were no easy avenues. There was much grief to process, she couldn’t just turn off the thoughts and hope it would go away. She needed to feel the depth of her loss, grieve for the loss of a beautiful daughter and wonderful husband. The loss of so much. And the guilt for, once again, surviving when so many didn’t.

So much work to do.

But, for now, there was waking up. There was her brother pushing the plate away and downing a glass of orange juice. His eyebrows had returned along with an inch or so of hair on his head. There was even the hint of whiskers. Just an eighteen year old boy. A hungry one. A healthy one.

That’s all she wanted.

“Thank you,” she said.

He slid an empty glass onto the table, wiped his mouth. “For what?”

She nearly smiled. “I asked a lot from you, when I built the illusion of…
Avery.
”

Her name was a lot harder to say than she expected. She pinched herself for showing emotion like that in public. Like that in front of Nix.
Not now. Not yet.

“You still supported me, even though you knew it was wrong.”

Nix folded his hands on his lap. He looked out across the mountains. There were no tears, no glassy eyes, but his voice was weak. “I miss her, too.”

She almost lost it, hid her quivering bottom lip in the coffee cup. She sniffed, held it together. Didn’t want to make a scene, not that anyone would recognize them. If she opened that gate, it would be difficult to close.

Cali didn’t have to pretend Avery was there, she didn’t have to remember that she had died while she spoke to the illusion.

Nix did.

“It hurts, brother,” she whispered.