Xana and Ian did exactly as John suggested and drove into the wilderness of southern Illinois. Xana slept, feet dangling off the gurney, after pulling the bullet from her own steel-like muscles with a pair of pliers. She never yelled. Ian was impressed.
That night, the big woman tossed and turned on the thinly-padded stretcher while Ian sat at Wink’s workstation and tried to remember enough from his old job to remove one of the server blades from the smashed housing and convert it to a standalone PC. After a few hours of sleep on the floor, he managed to get it working and attached to a monitor. He searched the internet for alternate transportation. He sent an email to Carebear137. He watched the news.
“Downtown Chicago was rocked by explosions a week after New York suffered a city-wide blackout.”
Speculation was rampant. None of it was even close to true. Ian turned it off. He cleaned himself up and hiked seven miles to a small, rural used car lot where he stole a windowless brown conversion van.
It looks like something a predator would lure kids into, Ian thought as he phased through the trailer office to snag the keys. But it was all they had big enough to fit his friend, so it would have to do.
He stopped at a convenience store, filled the tank, and got food. The money they had wouldn’t last long. Ian thought about stealing from the store. He looked at the register.
Not yet.
Not until they were desperate.
When he got back, Xana was awake.
“They didn’t have any pizza,” he explained as he dumped twenty-five hot dogs on the narrow desk.
Xana waggled one of the flaccid wieners in her hand and looked at him skeptically. But she ate heartily.
The computer made a noise. Ian wiggled the mouse and the screen clicked on. A message. From John.
FOUND HIM.
There was an address. In Dallas. He was en route. They were to meet there in the morning.
“See?” Xana said. “I told you the captain would have a plan.”
After a short argument, the pair decided it would be better to sleep during the day and drive in the middle of the night, when they would have less chance of being spotted. That evening, they collected what belongings they could carry, then unceremoniously rolled the Mast off the edge of a steep hill and watched it crash into a deep tree-filled ravine.
They stared at the trail of flattened foliage as the armored vehicle reached the bottom with a distant thud.
“I feel like we should play Taps or something.”
Xana scowled.
Ian saluted. “She was a good ship. A light in stormy waters. I’ll miss her.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Godspeed, mon ami.”
“You are the strangest boy.” Xana climbed into the back of the van.
Ian walked to the driver’s seat. “I just hope the plutonium core doesn’t explode down there.” He turned to Xana in the back and mimicked Wink. “That would be awkward.”
Wisper slipped off his shoes and scooted the plush chair closer to the table. The tablecloth was soft. The room was silent. He had no idea if it was light dark in the restaurant, but he knew the motionless, wide-eyed man next to him would never have an unfractured thought again. He knew the mafiosos out front had gouged themselves to death trying to excise a subcutaneous infestation of insects that didn’t actually exist.
Wisper reached across the table and slid the drooling don’s sizzling steak in front of him. He took a bite.
Delicious.
He grabbed the half-empty wine glass and sat back. He shut his eyes, even though he didn’t need to, and he concentrated. He settled in and waited for the end. He could see it all from here. He had a hook now. He could find John Regent anywhere.
Everything depended on the next half hour.
Everything in the world.
“This can’t be right.” Xana peered out the windshield from the back as the van creaked to a stop.
Ian had pulled in front of an upscale house in an upscale neighborhood in the suburbs. There were two broad trees in the front yard and several more in the back. A curving path led to a front door with inlaid beveled glass.
Xana scowled. “Are you sure this is it?”
Ian checked the address again. “Well . . . That’s what this says.”
They waited in silence for a moment. They looked at each other. There was always a chance this was a trap.
But then, they had no way to contact John. And no next move.
There wasn’t much choice.
Ian looked at Xana’s leg. “You okay? You can stay.”
She shook her head but grimaced as soon as she moved.
Ian frowned and opened the door. He walked across the street and up the drive and stopped dead.
He couldn’t believe it.
He stared at the front door. “Oh. My. God.”
“What?”
Ian pointed. “This . . . can’t be good.”
Xana read the sign. “What does it mean?”
Hanging by the door was a brass placard with basic script lettering, available for order at any home improvement store.
It said: The Winklers.
Ian looked at Xan, then walked to the door and raised his arm to knock.
But it opened.
A smiling, red-faced man with a receding hairline and spare tire around his waist answered the door in a V-neck sweater. “You must be Professors Tendo and Jace.”
“Uhh . . .” Ian glanced to Xan. “Were you expecting us?”
“Of course!” The man eyed their unusual clothing, then stepped aside and motioned them into the house.
A wide, carpeted staircase led to the second floor. There was an old grandfather clock in the corner. Brass lighting, shaped like a candelabra, hung from the open ceiling of the foyer.
“I’m Marty. Marty Winkler.” The man extended his left hand.
Ian held out Stubs.
“Oh.” The man lowered his arm and stood straight. “Oh, my. I’m so sorry. He didn’t tell me.”
“He?”
“Your colleague. Professor Regent. We’re in the living room just there if you’d like to come in for coffee.”
“Uh, sure.”
Ian and Xana walked across the hardwood foyer and stepped down into the carpeted formal dining room. To the right was a recently remodeled kitchen and then an open living space that faced the back yard through a wide bay window.
Ian saw John and a woman and—
He stopped and Marty ran into him.
“Oh!” the man laughed. “Excuse me there. Let me just sneak around you.” He walked to the kitchen counter. “Can I get you all anything?”
Xana ducked to keep her bushy ponytail from dusting the ceiling. Then she stood speechless behind Ian.
Wink was sitting on the couch. She wore jeans and a T-shirt and her sandy hair was in a ponytail. She looked like any other eleven-year-old. She stared at the floor.
The woman smiled and walked to the kitchen with her left hand extended toward Ian.
“Ah, honey.” Marty got her attention and gave a polite signal for her not to bother.
The woman seemed confused. Then the smile returned. “Please, sit. Welcome to our home. I’m Emily.”
Emily, Ian thought. Awesome.
“You met my husband, Marty. We’re so glad you could come talk to us about Eunice.”
Ian stopped again. “Eunice?” He turned to the girl.
She wouldn’t look at him. Her skin was burning red.
“Yes,” Emily said, confused. Then she smiled. “Ohhh, don’t tell me she’s going by that silly name again.” The woman looked at her daughter. “Eunice was your great-grandmother. She went overseas and fought in the war.”
“Eunice Winkler?” Ian was dumbfounded. He had no idea what was going on. He looked to John, but the soldier was stoic.
Ian walked to the bay window and sat on a cushioned reading ledge. Everything in the room was flower-print and smelled like potpourri.
Xana eyed the seats warily, as if they wouldn’t support her, and opted to stand in the corner.
“We were just talking about Prophet,” John said to his friends. “You know, P-R-O-F-I-T. Profit.”
Marty beamed as he brought a tray with two more cups of coffee to join the others on the little table. “Are you all interested in the Profit Program as well? It’s really a rather fascinating invention. Most investors are pretty good about masking their strategies. They’ll even take losses to throw people off the scent. ‘Shading,’ we call that.”
He set the tray down and offered a cup to Ian, who took it absentmindedly.
“Instead of trying to piece that together from market data, which is what most of the high-end firms try to do, our little genius there came up with an algorithm that looks at the metadata, the data on the trading data, and uses that to extrapolate an optimal position. It’s like using second-order information to see a few seconds into the future. Extraordinary. Eunice keeps telling us it will have all kinds of wonderful applications.”
“You don’t say?” John was flat.
“She really has quite the inventive little mind,” Emily added. She had bright red lipstick and perfect hair.
Marty stood in the room and explained with his hands, just like his daughter. It was like watching a douchebag older version of Wink.
“The key of course is you have to have a cycle time inside the predictive window. We solved that problem a while back, didn’t we honeybun?” He turned to his daughter.
“How?” John asked. “If you don’t mind me asking.”
“We were able to—that is, the investment firm my wife and I founded to run Eunice’s model was able to purchase some remaindered ultraprocessors from the University of Texas. Supercomputers, basically. Not top of the line, but good enough.”
“But we should stress,” Emily interjected, “that because of the uncertainty, we operate in microtrades—”
“To minimize risk,” Marty added with a nod.
“Right, and so the payoff, net gains over losses, is slow but across enough channels, it’s near-certain. It’s an excellent diversification option for any robust portfolio, and we expect to see a 300% increase in institutional investment next year alone. You know, hospitals, universities, municipal pension plans. We can’t compete with the big firms’ high returns, but we do offer low-risk dependable growth. And safety is key for most regular folks investing their life savings.”
John was calm through the sales pitch. “And Profit lives on these servers, these supercomputers?”
“Well . . .” Emily Winkler looked to her husband and back to John. “It doesn’t live anywhere. It’s a program. A very complicated program but—”
Ian set the coffee down. “I think what Professor Regent is asking is, is that the only instance of the program? Does it exist anywhere else?”
“I—I don’t think so. It doesn’t, does it, sweetie?”
Wink shook her head. But she didn’t look up. Her hands were folded in her lap.
Her parents glanced at each other again.
“Pardon us for asking.” Emily walked around the couch and sat next to Wink. “I know it’s a highly unusual school and enrollment is by invitation only and we shouldn’t think of it like a traditional ‘university’”—she made quotes in the air—“but you all . . . well, shoot, you’re just not what we expected.”
Wink’s father shook his head as he parroted his wife. “Totally not what we expected.”
“Don’t get us wrong,” she added quickly. “We support all types and preferences. We’re very open-minded.” She looked knowingly at Xana.
The big woman scowled.
“But we were wondering . . .” Marty began.
“Yes, we were wondering, what are you professors of, exactly?”
“I teach business ethics,” Ian said from his perch.
“Is that so?”
“Yeah, my specialty is the use of child labor in the 21st century—”
“Ian, that’s enough,” John interrupted.
Wink’s father got indignant. “Excuse us? Was that supposed to be some kind of insult?”
Ian stood up. “You don’t care for her. You don’t even have any pictures of her.” He waved around the room. “Zero. None. You have pictures of a trip to Fiji dated last year but no pictures of your daughter. You’re just using her to make money.”
Emily was aghast. “Our little funny bunny doesn’t like to have her picture taken, isn’t that right?” She shook her daughter’s leg.
Wink didn’t move.
“Neither did I!” Ian objected. “But my mom did it anyway. All the frickin’ time. There’s no school, lady. No ‘invitation-only’ university for geniuses. She made it up. Probably hired actors. Rented a space. So she could disappear for weeks on end. Not that you would even notice or care.”
“Ian.” Xana tried to stop him.
“No. You carry around a picture of AJ all the time. It was the first thing you looked for when you came out of surgery. They had to know something was fishy. They’re just being willfully ignorant.”
“Ian,” John raised his voice. “You’re not one to talk. None of us are.”
Ian stopped. His stomach sank. “What do you mean?”
John just looked at him.
“So . . . there’s no Prophet. It’s a predictive program. And a persona she used in the world. So what? I mean, it makes perfect sense. She’s still with the Faction.”
“Is she?”
Ian turned to the little girl. “Aren’t you?”
Wink didn’t look up. Her face was pale. Her hands were shaking. Her shoulders were hunched. She looked like she was about to be mauled by a bear.
Ian raised his hand to his head. He even raised Stubs out of habit. “Oh my God . . . Nonononono. You didn’t!” He stomped his foot. “No, you didn’t!” He yelled.
“That’s enough.” Marty stood. “I need to know what this is all about and I mean right now. Who are you people?”
“Sit down,” John said softly.
“I will not. I—whoa.” Marty Winkler stepped back when he saw John remove his side arm and hold it in his lap. He raised his hands. “Whoa whoa whoa, now. Listen here, mister—”
“Sit. DOWN!” John boomed.
Wink’s dad did as he was told.
Ian was staring at the little girl. His eyes were red and welling. “Oh wow . . .” He squinted. “I didn’t think even you could be this cold.”
Wink hunched further and shrank from her friend’s gaze.
“Jesus . . . It was all a lie,” Ian breathed. “Wasn’t it?”
Silence.
“All of it. You used us. Just like you used me in California. So you could get what you want. Jesus fucking Christ. That’s it, isn’t it?”
“Ian,” Xana objected to the curse.
But Ian didn’t take his eyes from the little girl.
Wink didn’t answer. She kept her head and shoulders and eyes pointed to the floor.
“And the money. For all this. For plutonium and missiles and God knows what else. It came from them, didn’t it? From their slow, steady mutual fund, or whatever. You stole it. From a bunch of investors. People’s pension plans and shit.”
Wink looked up. “I was gonna put it back.”
“Stole?” Emily turned to face her child.
“I said not a word,” John chided from under his brow. He lifted the gun.
No one spoke.
“Shit.” Ian turned to the window.
There was a long moment where nothing made noise except the crystal clock on a shelf in a glass-and-mirror curio cabinet. It was surrounded by floral figurines.
“It makes perfect sense, really.” Ian snorted and shook his head. “It totally explains everything. Like the feeling I always had. And how we were never the good guys. Ya know? I mean, look at us.” He turned back to his friends. He was trying to stay calm as he ticked off a list on his fingers. “John’s wanted by the government. Xana’s in trouble back home. I’m a suspected terrorist. Shit, we all broke out of jail at one point or another. Wink and I robbed an ATM. She stole an ambulance. And imported military weaponry. What else? Breaking and entering. Destruction of property. Grand theft. Embezzlement.” He motioned to Wink’s parents. “We duct-taped those people at the vet. That’s, like, kidnapping, right? We hacked a private network. That’s cybercrime. We even caused some legit terrorism, if you count blacking out the entire New York metro. Is that all? What am I missing?” He moved his eyes around the team and waited for an answer.
“New York? That was yo—” Marty stopped himself. He looked at John and then down.
“We’re not the good guys of the story.” Ian snorted. “That’s the Minus Faction. The shitty thing is, we’re not even the bad guys. Not the A-game. We’re the benchwarmers. We’re not bringing about a new world order. The highlight of our depravity is, like, petty larceny. Or Cap ruining someone’s day. Or you bankrupting a business.” He motioned to Wink. “Based on recent events, Xan and I might, on a good day, be down for a solid civil disturbance. But that’s about it. And it’s not like we even have anything to show for it.”
“I don’t understand.” Xana was scowling.
“Yes, you do,” Ian said. “You’re not stupid. You just don’t want to believe it.” His face drained. He didn’t either.
Xana swallowed. “You mean . . . there’s no visa?”
Wink started to sob. She couldn’t look at her friends.
Several moments passed.
Ian laid it out. “Prophet doesn’t exist. Okay? We’re not working for the Minus Faction. Or anyone. We never were. Ol’ Eunice here just wanted to get in with the cool kids.” Ian sat down on the ledge again. “Isn’t that right? You wanted to join Axl and her friends, the super-secret, ultra-cool hacker collective. The Resistance-with-a-capital-R. Shit, I did, too. I asked yesterday! Ha. But they wouldn’t let you. Would they? ’Cuz you’re just a kid. So you cooked up—”
“Ian,” John said softly.
“What? What, John?” When the soldier didn’t respond, Ian turned to Wink. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
The little girl spoke for the first time. It was soft and weak. “i just wanted to have friends. no one will play with me.”
“Did you ever think that was for a reason? Huh? You’re the genius. Did you ever wonder why that is? I dunno, maybe it’s because you keep USING PEOPLE!” he yelled. “Like we’re fucking MACHINES!” He screamed the word at the top of his lungs.
“But you know the worst part? The worst part is how you just sat there this WHOLE TIME and let us spin this whole story around it. About how we were here to stop them. Or whatever. What orders did you have Prophet give us? Hack their supposedly unhackable network. Well, we did that. That’s why there was no more plan. That’s why you bailed. You hadn’t worked out anything else because that’s all you ever wanted. So you could buy your way in. Impress them. Never mind what happened to your pawns.” He motioned to the girl’s parents. “We were never gonna go to China. There was no ‘retirement’ plan for us. You were just gonna bail. Like in California. When you let Deadbolt almost kill me so you could go get pink cowboy boots. That was it, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it?”
John wanted to say something, to get Ian to shut up. But he couldn’t.
Xana was silent. Stunned. What had happened? To her life? To the constant giggling of the river and the chatter of the insects in the trees? Why was she here? In America? “And the money you promised . . . For a lawyer. It is stolen?”
The little girl sniffed. Two tears ran down her cheeks.
“How do you expect me to take—” She stopped. She looked up. She took a very deep breath and let it out. What had just happened? She looked at her friends. Was this a practical joke? “I gave up everything to come here,” she said softly.
Wink pressed her hands between her knees and stared at the floor.
Xana saw it. “So.” She nodded. “Ian is right. It was all a lie. How . . . ?” Her eyes welled. When she spoke again, she choked on the words. “How am I supposed to get my son back?”
Wink sobbed louder.
“How am I going to get back to AJ now? How will I ever see him? How will he know me?”
The girl shook her head in tiny jerks.
“SAY SOMETHING!” Xana boomed. The walls shook.
Wink’s voice was a nose-choked whisper. “i’m sorry . . .”
“Sorry? Sorry is what you say when you spill juice on the rug, or—or say a bad word in church or cheat on your homework! You almost got everyone killed. On purpose! So that you could be . . .” Xana searched for the word. “POPULAR. You can’t treat people this way. Like things. We are not tools. We are not minions.”
Wink was meek.
“Ian lost a hand.” Xana pointed, but Ian had turned toward the wall. Whatever was on his face, he didn’t want the others to see. His arm was tucked under his chest. His shoulders shook. “It is gone forever.”
Wink looked at him, sitting there unable to face her. Full of rage. She wiped the back of her arm across her face, but more tears came. They wouldn’t stop. She was near hyperventilating.
“I don’t have a heart!” Xana screamed at the little girl from across the room. It was painful for everyone to watch. Wink started bawling. John clenched his jaw and dropped his eyes to the floor.
“I had it cut out of me! It’s in a jar. I don’t even know where anymore. I lost it. And you put something in me.” She tapped her chest. “It’s not mathematically better. Or whatever excuse you gave to justify it. It’s inhuman. And there’s no visa and no AJ and I can never go back. I can never see my country. My home.” Xana’s eyes bulged. “Do you understand that? I’m a fugitive. I’m here illegally. I have no passport. No money. No—” She stopped and turned away.
“There’s money,” Wink corrected with wet, squinted eyes.
“That you stole! From innocent people!” Xana screamed. “I don’t want to take someone’s retirement. Their savings. It is wrong to steal. Do you understand?” Xana’s voice boomed through the house. “Do you know anything about what is right? What is good? Did these people teach you nothing? It is wrong to lie. It is wrong to steal. It is wrong to cheat others.” She swallowed a lump. “You can’t do those things. You don’t just get to do whatever you want. Even if you can. Even if you’re able. Even if you’re smart enough or rich enough. You don’t just get to go around hurting people.”
Wink nodded. Her eyes were nothing but slits drowned in tears. “I know. I’m sorry . . .” She breathed. “I’ll make it better. I promise. I just need time. To do the math.”
“No. No more of your ‘math.’ You have ruined everything. Our lives. I can’t see how more of you will make anything better. The captain will never walk again. Do you see? He’s been fighting for us. For a chance. To walk. These people think we’re their greatest enemy, child. They will not stop . . .” Xana’s voice trailed off. She saw the futility of yelling at the bawling girl. Her hands fell to her side. “Whatever he could have been, whatever he could have done with the rest of his life, it is gone. Forever.”
No one would look at John. John wouldn’t look at anyone.
After a long, cool moment, Wink’s father spoke. “I think you people should leave.” When no one responded, his volume increased. “I don’t know what you’ve gotten our daughter into—”
“You mean what she got us into.” Ian corrected without turning. His voice was hoarse. He was clutching Stubs over his sleeve. He sniffed.
Marty stood. “Well, what did you think? I mean, seriously. Did you really think that a geek, a dyke, a kid, and a cripple were going to . . . what? Save the world?
“She is a child. You all are the adults. You’re supposed to know—”
John’s gun erupted in a battery of fire. Bullets hit the mirror-backed curio cabinet—one and another and another and another. Shining shards flew across the room as John emptied his clip.
“Jesus! Christ! Shit!” Marty ducked and covered his head as everything around him disintegrated and fell to the carpet.
The gun clicked empty.
John glowered at the floor.
Right then, the full weight of it hit Xana in the chest and she recoiled as if dying.
Everyone turned, half expecting her to fall wide-eyed to floor.
The big woman clutched her heart that wasn’t there. Her skin turned pale. Her eyes sunk into their sockets. “I killed . . .” She whispered.
Wink buried her face.
Xana covered her mouth and her heart. “I am going to hell. I killed people. Men. Soldiers.” She slammed her eyes shut and squeezed the tears free. Her shoulders shook.
And that was it.
Xana left.
The floor shook as she shuffled to the door without a word.
Everyone watched.
No one knew where she was going.
No one knew what to do.
No one knew what to say.
Wink turned and ran upstairs as fast as she could.
“Eunice? Sweetie?” Her mom risked John’s wrath and walked up the stairs after her daughter. “Eunice?”
The men downstairs listened in silence, unable to look at one another, as the woman walked through the house. After a minute, she came back down. “She’s gone.”
Her dad stood. “Gone? Where could she go? This is the only way out.”
“Well, I don’t know! She’s a genius.”
Ian nodded. “She does that,” he said softly. He looked to John, but the soldier was lost in his own world. The only signs of life were the slight movement of his chest and the occasional twitch of searing pain that crawled over his burned and mottled skin.
But the look on his face . . .
Ian heard the engine on the van start. It pulled away with screeching tires. “There she went.” He laughed. “With my ride. She stole my life. Then she stole my stolen car.” His face was deadpan.
He walked into the kitchen. “Excuse me,” he said softly to Emily as he passed. “I hate to bother you, but I wonder if I could borrow some pepper.”
Wink’s mother look horrified and confused. “Pepper? Um. Sure. It’s in the cabinet. Next to the fridge.”
“Thank you.” Ian shuffled over and found the plastic canister with a red flip-top. He shook it up and down.
“Where you gonna go?” John asked, staring ahead.
Ian shook his head. “Does it matter?” His shoulders trembled. He sniffed. “We can look after ourselves now, you know. You gave us that.” He headed for the door. “Time to take care of yourself. Go see the doc. Or something.” He stopped. “Take care of yourself, Cap.”
John nodded. Ian walked out the door and John heard him sneeze.
And then he was alone.
Again.
John Regent looked at the empty gun in his hand. He tossed it to the floor. The electric motor of his chair hummed as he rolled around the couch. He stopped.
“I’m sorry for the damage.”
Then he rolled out the door to the street. A gentle breeze blew across his face. He looked around. At the trees and the houses and the nice cars. Everyone was gone.
It wasn’t what the old man had said would happen. It wasn’t what he had told John at all. What else was a lie?
John looked down at his legs. Motionless. All but dead. He looked at the unused running shoes that adorned his feet. White. Clean. Unscuffed.
John choked on his own spit and swallowed bile.
He was going to be this way until his body gave out.
He rolled down the street, oblivious to everything.
The worst part, he thought, was that he should have known. Should have known better. He could see through the secret machinations of spies and governments. Why not the play of a child?
John rolled and rolled through the remainder of the day and into the evening. He rolled until the battery on his chair beeped at him in warning. He rolled along the sidewalk, never turning, never stopping, until he reached an overpass and the battery finally gave way. John used his good arm to turn the wheels of his chair. His tiny prison. He stopped in the center of the overpass and watched the oncoming traffic on the highway below. It was rush hour, and there were so many cars that the sound of each was indistinguishable over the rumble, like the roar of a river.
Move fast enough and everything blends together, he thought. Even the pain.
It rolled over him in waves. It bit. It clawed. He felt phantom limbs he’d never had, twisted near breaking.
John grimaced as he sat by the railing and watched commuters pass, one after the next, on their way home. To their families.
Wisper had told him things. About himself. About the others. Even about the future. But John had read the old man well enough to know not to trust him. John had learned all about liars from his stepmom. A liar doesn’t just tell falsehoods. A liar omits. A liar smiles. A liar tells just enough of the truth to leave people with the wrong impression.
But this wasn’t what he had said at all. And now the old man had left John with a genuine dilemma.
He gripped the railing with all his strength as needlepoint pains danced over his scalp and phantom spasms gripped his legs.
He wasn’t going to get his legs back. And the pain would never stop. Ever.
Until he was dead.
Time to make a choice.
Barricade twisted the telescopic sight into place with a click and hefted the long sniper rifle over the rooftop wall. His railgun was damaged, but this would work well enough. He looked through the lens and found the overpass a mile away. He adjusted for the glare from the sun at the horizon and then centered his cross hairs on the back of the electric chair. The man inside it wasn’t moving. He was staring over the edge like he wanted to jump.
The cyborg spoke to his radio. “I have the shot.”
Psyphire didn’t hesitate. “Take it.”
[end episode five]