Xvi (27 page)

Eventually he slowed down to just under eighty miles per hour. “Wanted to make sure the engine would do what we modified it to do. Besides”—he grinned impishly—“it’s fun.”

“Yeah, it is! I haven’t felt like this since moon travel simulation in fifth grade.”

He caught my hand and kissed the tips of my fingers. “You’re my kind of gal.”

That kiss traveled to my toes faster than the trannie had taken off. I was blushing, but didn’t care. He made me feel so good.

“Tell me about your aunt. Could she have known my mother?”

“She knew your mom really well. Rita’s my mother’s sister. She, uh ... ‘died’ in high school. Like several people back then, she deliberately disappeared to join the NonCons. Only two people, besides my mom and dad, knew about it—Jade and Ginnie. They helped fake her death. She got a new identity. She has a big farm that’s also an NC.”

“NC? NonCon?” I asked.

“No, it stands for ‘nook and cranny,’ which is slang for a safe place. There aren’t many NCs near cities. Most are in the mountains or deserts; it’s easier to conceal them in rough terrain. This one is right in the middle of Easely Woods.”

“Easely Woods! Doesn’t that belong to a big Media corporation?”

“Sort of. EnviroManagement owns Easely. They’re Resistance sympathizers. There’s even a rumor that they run a rogue radio station from somewhere in Easely Woods. But no one’s ever been able to track it down.”

What was so matter-of-fact to him was hard for me to take in all at once. People—his aunt and hopefully my father—who died, but weren’t dead. There were safe places for NonCons to go. Some big corporations sympathized with the Resistance. There was so much I didn’t know. I felt foolish for my ignorance, particularly because my mother had apparently been right in the middle of it all. Media, government ... my head was spinning.

“Where did he come from?” Sal jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

I looked out the back. A green transport. “That can’t be Ed. Can it?”

“I’m not taking any chances.” Sal reached over, checking my safety restraint. “This could get rough.”

With a quick twist of the steering wheel, we flew across the median strip, then bounced over a fence and into a field. Granted, we were a foot or so off the ground, but at the speed we were traveling the resonance tractor was having difficulty keeping us stable off-road. The seat embraced me like a mother holding a baby. Even so, I thought my teeth were going to rattle right out of my head.

Sal veered into a patch of woods. I slapped my hands over my eyes, bracing myself for the imminent collision with one of the trees. He steered the trannie through more twists and turns than the Martian rocket ride at Lands o’ Fun. I was so scared I didn’t look through my fingers until we slowed down.

“You okay?”

“I think so.” I felt my head, then my arms and stomach. “Yep, everything seems to be in place.”

He gave me a half smile. “I don’t understand; this trannie has an antitracking module.” He turned off the engine. “How’d he find us?”

“Maybe he didn’t need a tracker. He could have been waiting outside my building.”

“Huh? I hadn’t counted on him not using technology. That’s got to be it. All the same, I’d better let John know when we get back.” Sal got out of the transport and walked around it, checking the tractor underneath, and all the outside surfaces. “Dammit!” He swore and kicked the dirt.

My legs were shaking as I joined him. We stared at the scrapes that raked down the side of the transport. They’d cut all the way through to the composite below.

“I’m so sorry. This is my fault. If I wasn’t here ...”

Sal hugged me. “It’s not your fault. It’s a by-product of war.”

“War?”

“Us and them; the Resistance versus the government; good versus evil—that kind of war. You’re safe; that’s what matters to me.” Scanning the area, he said, “If that was Ed, I’d say we lost him. Let’s get out of here.”

While Sal fed coordinates to the GPS, I thought about the Resistance waging war against the government. It was impossible to imagine how anything or anyone could fight and win against something as powerful as the Governing Council. Finally, we emerged from the woods into a field, but my thoughts were still lost in a forest of confusion.

“There.” He pointed ahead.

I couldn’t see anything, but watched the horizon as we continued moving forward. Eventually, I made out a ribbon of black snaking through a field of soybeans. At least, I thought it was a field of soybeans.

“It’s an old construction road, but it’ll do.”

No matter what kind of road it was, its surface was smooth as Telite compared to the detour we’d just made in the trannie. As we zipped along, I kept checking over my shoulder, watching.

Sal drove up a narrow gravel road lined with trees. At the end was a clearing and a sprawling house like nothing I’d ever seen before.

“What are those?” I asked. The golden-hued sides of the structure appeared to be made of trunks stacked sideways. A porch ran the entire length of the front; hanging planters with the remains of flowers hung between the posts. One or two faded red blooms still survived.

“Repro logs,” Sal said. “Recycled wood and paper.”

“A log cabin like Abraham Lincoln.”

“How’d you know that?” Sal asked.

“I’ve always been kind of curious about Lincoln. Ginnie had a book about pre-Governing Council history. There wasn’t much of it.”

“Ever wonder why that is?” Sal asked.

“No,” I admitted, and colored a bit, thinking back to the last time he and I had talked about life before the Governing Council, when I’d falsely claimed how much I knew. “Ginnie tried to get me to study it further, but I preferred L & L to History.”

“Some of the ideas people had were really good. Individuals’ rights such as freedom of speech, equal rights for everyone, reproductive rights for women—stuff like that—all wiped out of the history books. That’s why your dad got in so much trouble with his debates. If he’d just decided to become a pre-GC scholar in some university, no one would have bothered him. But he wanted to change things. He wanted all those freedoms back.”

Sal pulled up in front of the house. Outside of the transport it was cold, but the air smelled different.

“Mmmm,” Sal said. “Take a deep breath. This isn’t city air.”

I breathed deep, filling my lungs like I was drinking water. After two deep breaths, I felt light-headed. Sal grabbed my arm to steady me.

“It’s not like that filtered stuff in Chicago. You’d better take it easy.” He laughed. “Aunt Rita will think I gave you a shot of Grindy’s home brew. By the way, I forgot to mention, Rita’s pretty straightforward, not much small talk.”

The front door opened and a woman walked out onto the porch. She looked about the same age as Ginnie, except for some gray streaks in her hair. She wasn’t much taller than me and wore jeans, sturdy boots, and a bulky sweater. A clip held her long hair to one side; the rest cascaded down her back. I could see the family resemblance between her and Sal.

“Aunt Rita!” Sal crossed the porch and threw his arms around her.

“How’s my favorite nephew?”

“Good.”

“This must be Nina. I’m Rita Dugan.” She took my hand firmly and looked me straight in the eye. “You look a lot like your father.” First Sal had said that to me, then the Jenkinses, and now Rita. It was odd meeting people who knew my father. I liked the idea that I resembled him.

I met her gaze—those same deep dark eyes as Sal’s.

“I’m glad you came today. I’m so sorry about your mother.” She looked out across the treetops. “Personal sacrifice lies at the center of change for the better.”

Sal was certainly right about his aunt being blunt. “The police said the murder was random,” I said.

“Ginnie sacrificed a normal life with her daughters, and her happiness and peace of mind. She gave everything to the cause—everything.” She touched my hand, in a surprisingly gentle gesture. “I don’t believe her death was random at all.”

That was the same thought I’d had. I wished Rita had been with me the night of the murder to make Officer Jelneck listen to that idea.

While I was pondering this, Sal said, “We had a little problem on the way here. That guy Ed, the one I told you about, was following us. I gave him the slip, but ... the paint job got kind of messed up.”

“Oh, honey, that can be fixed. You’re both okay?” She searched our faces.

“Yes.” Sal put an arm around my shoulder.

“I’m going to take my new dualie for a spin. You two go inside and make yourselves at home. We’ll talk more when I get back.” After a cursory walk around the trannie, stopping for a moment in front of the scratches, Rita got in and drove off.

“You okay?” Sal asked.

“I suppose.” I didn’t even sound convincing to myself. “My life hasn’t been anything like what I believed it was. Everything that I’ve thought was true was a lie.” I rubbed my hands together—it was cold outside. “You knew all this?”

I sensed that he was reluctant to answer. He pulled me down to the top step. “I knew some of it.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” As if I didn’t know. After my outburst at the oasis, I couldn’t blame Sal for not saying anything.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t believe me. That you would’ve still thought the only reason I was hanging around was because of your father.” He cupped my face in his hands. “Nina, I want to be with you because of you—not because of Alan. I didn’t dare take a chance by telling you what I knew. I couldn’t have stood it if you’d walked away from me again.”

“Sal, I—”

He kissed me and I kissed him back. It was different from our other kisses. We were generating an inner heat I’d never felt before. I couldn’t have stopped kissing him if I’d wanted to—which I didn’t. My fingers twisted his hair as I tried to get closer to him than my own skin. When we came up for air, he buried his face in my hair—his breath like hot spurts of steam on my neck.

Whispering my name, he traced his tongue along the edge of my ear. I slung my leg over his, straddling him; his hands grabbed my butt, pulling me close. It wasn’t close enough. We kissed more, completely lost in each other. There was nothing else in the world but the two of us. His hands moved up under my jacket, touching bare skin. A tiny moan escaped me.

Sal pulled back. “We’d better stop. Before we do something neither of us is ready for.”

I hid my face in the crook of his neck. I was so ashamed. I’d been not just willing, but eager to go further. That line between love and lust was thin as a whisper. And I’d been ready to cross it without hesitation. Typical sex-teen. If he hadn’t stopped—I didn’t want to think about that. What was going on with me? Where was Ginnie when I needed a mom to talk to? For a millisecond I was furious with her for dying. If I’d let that feeling last longer, I’d have been furious with her for a whole lot more.

When I finally got up the nerve, I lifted my head ever so slightly from Sal’s neck and said, “You must think I’m—”

“Amazing, Nina Oberon—absolutely amazing.”

I slid off his lap onto the step beside him. I was too embarrassed to even look at him.

He reached over, pushing my hair aside, and kissed my cheek. “We should go inside. Aunt Rita will be back any second.”

As if on cue, the dual transport flew into the driveway.

“I love it!” Rita strode up to the porch. “You and John are trannie geniuses. And what are you two still doing outside?”

I looked at the porch floor, sure that she must’ve known exactly what we’d been doing. I kept my head down as we followed her inside.

She ushered us into a sleek spare room. It was modern and airy, with a vaulted ceiling and skylights. The sun poured in, bathing everything in warmth and light. There was a cheery fire in a fireplace that formed part of the wall between that room and another.

“Sal, sweetie, you get some snacks for the two of you to take along on the express.”

When Sal left the room to do as his aunt suggested, Rita sat down on a mammoth sectional that curved around in front of a panoramic view of the valley. She motioned for me to sit down next to her. “We need to talk.”

I sat down, not knowing what to expect.

“There’s not a lot of time for explanations, Nina. I know Ginnie sheltered you from the truth about her life. She was a NonCon. I’m sure you’ve figured that out by now.”

I nodded.

“Do you know much about Ed?”

“He’s a Chooser, Dee’s father, and a horrible person.”

“He’s also an ex-B.O.S.S. agent who’s been trying to prove that your father’s alive ever since that night he allegedly drowned in the Chicago River. Ginnie took up with Ed to keep Alan’s secret safe. And to keep you from any harm.”

Relief flooded through me. “I knew he was alive. I knew Ginnie wouldn’t lie to me about that.” I blinked back the tears that rose up. “And I knew Ed was a government agent, but I didn’t know he was ex-B.O.S.S.”

“It was B.O.S.S. who put your mother on the machine at the hospital. As soon as we found out B.O.S.S. was putting Ginnie in the Infinity machine, our operative at the hospital fixed the audio so that nothing your mother said was recorded. But someone was listening and told Ed what Ginnie said to you. Do you remember anyone there in the room with you?”

“A nurse.” I nodded. “A nurse was in the doorway when Ginnie told me that my father was alive. Even though Ginnie had me sing to her so no one would hear what she was saying.”

“What else did she say?”

“That all the answers are in a book I’m supposed to give to my father.”

“Where’s the book now?”

“In a safe place.” I’d been so eager to hear about my father that I’d let down my guard and was blabbing everything Ginnie’d told me to a woman I’d just met. But there was no turning back. I had no more secrets, not anymore.