Terminated

Chapter 18

The compound was just coming awake by the time they’d made it to the tree line near the fence; roosters were crowing, people were chattering, and Bryn heard the laughter of kids as they ran close to the ditch where she and Reynolds had spent the night dead.

She wondered if they were used to seeing bodies there. She hoped not. She hoped that was why their surly body-disposal team had been up so early, to avoid letting the kids see that ugly truth.

But she wasn’t really sure Walt would have even taken that into consideration. He was probably of the “they have to grow up sometime” school.

She had no way of knowing whether Patrick was okay inside those walls, or what his plan was to try to get out . . . at least, until the front gate opened, and a dusty, mud-stained black pickup rumbled out. Walt was in the driver’s seat, and next to him . . .

Next to him was Patrick.

Patrick seemed perfectly at ease. They were laughing together. Walt shook a cigarette out of a pack, and Patrick took it and lit up with casual competence. I didn’t know he smoked, she thought. Not that it mattered. Patrick didn’t smoke; the role he was playing did. Even the little motions—the way he sat, the tilt of his head—those were alien to her from the way Patrick normally moved. She’d never realized he was such an expert chameleon.

Funny how that seemed such a betrayal just now.

“Come on,” Bryn said, and grabbed hold of Reynolds’ arm. He was feeling better now, and from the look he shot her, he was starting to think about resisting. She twisted the arm up behind his back and stepped in close. “I’m not feeling like putting up with this, so let’s not dance, all right? Just move.”

“You won’t kill me. You need me.”

“That’s true,” she said. “But I have a really sharp knife, and I promise you, regenerating things that have been cut off is painful and slow. Think about all the things you could lose. I’ll be nice. I’ll just start with an ear.”

That got him moving, willingly. He kept up with her when she settled into a run, though he was out of shape—she wondered how that worked. Did the nanites see his extra pounds as being normal? That would suck. It meant no matter how much he dieted or exercised, he’d never permanently lose a pound. They’d just find a way to put it back on. Another way that medical miracles could screw someone, she thought, and almost laughed. Almost. Luckily, she didn’t really have the breath.

The vehicle trail was full of switchbacks, to avoid too steep a grade for safe braking, but Bryn plunged straight down the slope, with Reynolds running beside her. He wasn’t too sure-footed, but he grimly kept pace until she slowed about halfway down to check their progress. Good. They’d pulled ahead of the truck, and the farther they went, the easier the footing . . . but then, the vegetation was growing more dense as the elevation fell. More brambles, thicker trees. She cut right, trying to keep the switchback road in sight as they ran.

By the time they’d forced their way through the thickest mass at the very bottom of the slope, she was exhausted, and Reynolds was gasping for breath like a man about to expire of a heart attack. He wouldn’t, of course, but he definitely wasn’t looking too good. Was his skin just a little gray, beneath the brown? She thought it might be. And his eyes had dulled, too.

He’d been Revived, not upgraded, like her. The nanites were starting to lose their ability to heal him completely, and unlike her, his couldn’t be recharged through proteins. They were starting to break down into waste products in his blood.

He was in the early stages of decomp. She saw it in the clumsy way he folded up when they reached the edge of the road, clinging to a tree. There wasn’t much time to get what they needed out of him, not without another shot of Returné on hand.

She almost, almost felt sorry for him.

“Please,” he whimpered. “Please let me rest.”

“Soon,” she said. “Just stay put.”

He didn’t have the energy to bolt, even if he had the will, so it wasn’t much of a risk leaving him there. She readied the knife, and watched as the truck made the last set of turns on the access road and stopped.

This was the moment. She had no idea where Walt was heading. . . . If he was going toward civilization, he’d probably go left, and pass near her. If not, he’d go right, and she might miss her chance.

But she saw Patrick point, and the knot in her chest eased. They were turning toward her.

One . . . two . . . on three, she bolted from cover and jumped onto the running board of the truck. Walt reacted exactly the way most people would have, with an instinctive flinch away from her, and so he didn’t see Patrick making a lightning-fast grab for the knife in Walt’s belt holster.

She didn’t have to make a move. Walt slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop, and Patrick jammed the knife into the flesh at the base of his throat—almost exactly the same spot Walt had selected when they were in opposite positions. It wasn’t, Bryn felt, an accident.

“Well, shit, Vaughn,” Walt said. “What kind of special-effects dickery is your dead girlfriend?”

“No CGIs were hurt,” Bryn said. She opened the door and stepped down from the running board as she did. Patrick unlocked Walt’s seat belt—she was mildly surprised a rebel like him was bothering to wear one—and Walt, upon some gentle knife-related urging, eased his way out of the cab. Bryn watched carefully, waiting for the tensing of muscles she knew would come; the second it did, she added her own knife, pressing in just over his kidneys. “This doesn’t have to go badly for you, Walt. Just relax.”

“What happened to my men?”

“Sorry.” She wasn’t. He turned his head just enough that she saw the hateful gleam in his eyes. “Didn’t have much of a choice. They weren’t going to just let us go.”

“You were dead. I know you were. . . .” Walt’s voice trailed off, because he’d caught sight of Reynolds clinging to the tree. His mouth opened, as if he intended to say something, but nothing came out.

“Yeah, we were,” Bryn said. “Call it a miracle.”

“Not from any god I’d worship.”

“I’d be surprised if you ever worshipped any god except your own ambition,” Patrick said. He was no longer being Vaughn, and the cigarette was gone, stamped out on the road. He looked taller now, and straighter. “Taking the truck, Walt. Do you want to live to make it back to your compound?”

“If you’re offering.”

“I am,” he said. “But you have to make me a promise.”

“Why the hell would I do that? Vaughn?”

“Because I know how much you hate governments and corporations and rich fat cats,” Patrick said. “And we’ve got all three of those things looking for us now. They’re going to find their way to you, eventually, and I need you to do exactly what comes naturally—put up a fight. I’m not asking you to fall on any swords, but just don’t help them. Not right away. If you could forget about the truck, I’d owe you.”

“Owe me what?”

“That half a million you lost on the Stinger deal,” Patrick said. “By the way, that was me. I took it and I burned your weapons contact. Sorry. The job was to close off the dealer, and I did it. And I wasn’t too wild about someone like you having the missiles, either, to be honest. But if you do this for me, I’ll get you the half million back, in cash, untraceable bills.”

“Not enough,” Walt said. “I want a full million. Interest.”

“For doing exactly what you always do, fight whatever comes at you? No.”

“A million, or I pick up the phone and call the cops to tell them my truck’s been stolen.”

“We could just kill him,” Bryn said. Her voice sounded light and cold, and utterly at odds with the beautiful sunrise and the twittering birds in the trees. “Kill him and dump his body in the ditch. Seems like karma.”

“It does,” Patrick said, but he sent her a glance that let her know he was worried by what she’d said. And the way she’d said it. It worried her a little, too, but in a distant, arctic-ice-locked way. “But I think Walt understands there’s a better outcome to be had.”

“There is if there’s a million on the table,” Walt said. Bryn had to admit that she would not have been that calm in his situation, with a knife at his throat and another at his back, and a woman who was evidently capable of resurrection calmly threatening to slice.

Patrick knew when he was beaten, even with the upper hand, and he shook his head a little and said, “All right. One million. Deal?”

“Why would you believe a thing I said? Considering how long you’ve been lying to me.”

“I just do,” Patrick said. “Because I’ve lived behind those walls, and I know you care about those people. And I know you keep your word.”

Walt hesitated, then said, “All right. My word on it. You take the truck, and you get me the million. I won’t tell whoever comes calling.”

“It may take a while on the million. Seeing as we’re on the run right now.”

Walt grinned. It looked maniacal. “I trust you, brother. Tell your bitch to stop poking that in my back unless she wants to buy me dinner first.”

Bryn thought about pushing the knife home. Thought about it a lot. But she saw the clear warning in Patrick’s expression, and finally took a deep breath and stepped back. “I think this is a mistake,” she said, “but if you want to trust him, it’s on you.”

“Then it’s on me,” Patrick said. “Let him go, Bryn.”

Walt gave her a second, very long look. “Bryn. You don’t look much like a Bryn to me.”

“What do I look like?”

“A dead woman,” he said. “Because I don’t forget.”

She laughed. It sounded crazy.

The hackles raised on the back of her neck as she thought, I sound like Jane.

Patrick grabbed the shaking, exhausted Reynolds and shoved him into the truck, then took the passenger seat next to him. “You drive,” he said to Bryn. He nodded to Walt as she took her spot behind the wheel, with Reynolds sandwiched in the middle. “Good luck, brother.”

“Be seeing you, Bryn,” Walt said, and aimed a finger gun at her. She managed not to bite it off. Just barely.

“I liked it better when he called me bitch,” she said, and threw the truck into gear.

They left him, and his compound of maybe-crazies, behind in a veil of dust.

Patrick said, very quietly, “Are you all right?”

“Sure,” she said. “Shot in the heart by the man I love, thrown in a ditch, dragged to the edge of a cliff for disposal, forced to kill four guys to cover our escape. It’s Thursday, isn’t it? Typical Thursday.”

He didn’t laugh. He was watching her; she could sense it without glancing in his direction. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It was the only thing I could think to do.”

“It was the right play for the right time. I’m fine.”

“Bryn—”

“I’m fine. How about you, Mr. Reynolds? Catching your breath?”

He had at least enough to say shakily, “Fuck you.”

She tried to laugh, but it turned to a cough. Her throat felt very dry. Dry as the dusty road. “Pat?”

In her peripheral vision, she saw him turn his head away. “You’re right. Typical Thursday,” he said.

And that was the last of their conversation for a while.