Mindstormer Page 9

  “Another raccoon?”

  “Maybe.”

  The sun sinks toward the horizon, and the light turns red, bleeding through the crosshatch of branches above us. A dull ache takes root in my calves and spreads up the backs of my thighs. “I’m starting to think it’ll be night before we—” I stop. “Wait. Is that it?”

  Ahead, something huge and gray looms through the trees. I quicken my pace, and there’s the fence—twenty feet of solid concrete topped with snarls of barbed wire. It stretches in both directions as far as I can see. “Well,” I say, “there’s no way we can climb this on our own.”

  “So what now? We just wait?”

  “I guess so.” I lean against a tree. My legs hurt, so I slide down. The mossy ground is cool and slightly damp beneath me.

  Steven doesn’t sit. He paces, shielding his eyes from the glare of sunset with one hand. Then he stops. “Shit,” he mutters.

  My pulse quickens.

  A flock of crows bursts from a tree and into the purple-blue sky, cawing. The dull thunder of their wings doesn’t quite drown out the drone of machinery, growing louder and louder, closer and closer. I leap to my feet.

  A helicopter.

  ‌

  8

  A bead of sweat trickles down the center of my back, cold against fever-hot skin. In the distance, I can see the helicopter moving toward us, following the line of the wall—a sleek white shape against the dusky purple sky. The border patrol.

  “We need to hide,” I say, breathless. But where? The trees around us are too scrawny to offer any shelter. My gaze darts frantically around, searching for something, anything that can conceal us.

  Steven grabs my arm. “Run.”

  “Where?”

  “Just run!”

  We charge ahead, plunging blindly through the woods. Branches whip my face. Roots and rocks leap up to trip me, and I stumble.

  The droning hum becomes a roar, then a hurricane. The trees sway and rustle as the helicopter appears overhead like a white dragon, huge and terrible. A woman’s voice rings out, amplified to a godlike boom: “You are in violation of the law. Stop where you are. Do not resist arrest. I repeat, do not resist. If you cooperate, you will not be harmed.”

  Like we’d believe that.

  We keep running. The helicopter follows, skimming low over the treetops. I see someone leaning out of the window, aiming a weapon.

  Crack!

  Steven lurches forward. There’s something embedded in his shoulder—a dart, long and thick as a pencil.

  “Steven!”

  Gritting his teeth, he grabs the dart and yanks it out. The barbed end drips with blood. He tosses it away, then sways and falls to his knees. “Drugged,” he gasps.

  The helicopter hovers in the air. A door on its underbelly slides open, and a ladder drops out. Two people in combat gear descend.

  Steven is on his hands and knees, chest heaving. “Lain,” he whispers hoarsely. “Keep running.”

  “I’m not leaving you!” Panting, I hook an arm around Steven’s waist and haul him to his feet. He slides back down, limbs loose and rubbery. I grip his wrist, pulling. “Come on!”

  His eyes roll beneath the lids, whites flashing, lids quivering as he struggles to hold them open.

  The two people let go of the ladder and land in a crouch on the ground, one by one. They straighten and stride toward us, their steps purposeful but unhurried, as if they’ve done this a hundred times before. In a single smooth movement, they both draw their NDs from the holsters at their belts. I haul Steven upright again and break into a run, or try to, but his weight drags me down. He’s a rag doll in my arms. His legs move weakly, this way and that, as if he can’t find the ground. “Gun,” he murmurs. “Take it.”

  I look down at the pistol butt jutting from the waist of Steven’s pants. Can I really shoot someone? This isn’t an ND. If I pull the trigger, it will seriously wound or kill the person at the other end. I tug it out and click off the safety, mouth dry.

  The footsteps grow closer and closer. I start to turn, raising the gun, but I’m not fast enough.

  Something slams into the back of my head, and a loud bzzzzt fills my ears. Stars burst inside my skull, and I’m on the forest floor, my cheek pressed against the cold earth. I will my body to move, but it won’t obey me. The world fades in and out.

  In some distant corner of my mind, I’m aware that I’ve been shocked by a neural disruptor. It’s happened to me once before, but this is the first time I’ve been conscious enough to feel the effects. My fingers twitch, and my legs shake with convulsions. Warm drool slides down my chin. At the edge of my mind, I hear voices, but I can’t make out what they’re saying; the words are meaningless sounds, like dogs barking. I catch my name swimming through the sea of nonsense. A weak groan escapes my throat.

  A pair of black boots appears in front of my face, and a flashlight shines in my eyes, momentarily blinding me. Gold sparks burst like fireworks against my retinas, then melt into a weird swirl of green and brown. Move, I order my legs. Stand up. They ignore me and continue to spasm.

  The flashlight beam disappears, and my vision returns in bits and pieces, interspersed with swaths of black fog. When I strain my eyes upward, I see two figures—a man with a stubble-covered jaw and black shades, and a woman with military-short hair. The helicopter hovers overhead, buzzing like a giant hornet.

  “Well,” the woman says, smiling. The words echo faintly in my skull, and I have to struggle to make sense of them. “Look what we’ve caught.” She holds my gun between her thumb and forefinger, like it’s a soiled dishrag. Disdainfully, she hands it to her partner, who clicks on the safety and tucks it into his pocket.

  The fog is clearing. I can feel my body again; every nerve tingles with fire and ice, but my muscles aren’t responding properly. My arms flop on the ground, useless. I feel like an infant learning to crawl. Quivering, I try to push myself off the ground. A spasm seizes my lower back, and pain radiates outward. For a few seconds, I’m certain I’m either dying or paralyzed from the waist down.

  The barrel of an ND presses against the base of my skull. “I wouldn’t move, if I were you,” the woman says. “I’ve got this on the highest setting. If I pull the trigger, it will deliver a shock to your medulla, stopping your heart for a few seconds. Maybe it’ll start up again, maybe not. A lot of ‘accidental’ deaths happen that way.”

  I don’t move. I’m shaking, nauseous. It hurts to think, hurts to breathe. This is horrible. Aren’t NDs supposed to be humane?

  Steven. Where is Steven?

  “Cuff her,” the woman says.

  Rough hands grab my arms and wrench them behind my back, and a pair of restraints snaps shut over my wrists. I manage to lift my head a few inches, enough to peer over my shoulder. My hands are engulfed in what looks like a pair of metal oven mitts, held together with a powerful magnetic force. I can’t budge them. I try to call Steven’s name, but all that comes out is a mangled, “Nnngh.” Where is he?

  There. He lies on the ground nearby, motionless, already wearing a similar pair of restraints. His eyes are closed. “Steven,” I manage to croak, though it comes out more like Teee-yan.

  No response.

  The woman removes the ND from my head, circles around to my front, and crouches so we’re at eye level. Her eyes are a dull, washed out blue-gray, like water-worn stones. “Did you really think you could just hop across the fence? Just waltz on over to Canada?”

  I grit my teeth.

  “Dr. Swan sent a message to all the patrols telling us to keep an eye out for you,” she says. “We’ve been doing satellite sweeps of the fence all day. They even doubled the usual number of agents on the task. I must confess, I thought it was a waste of time. I didn’t think you’d actually be stupid enough to make a run for the border.”

  I gulp. It takes an effort to form words. “Let us go. Please.” It sounds more like Less go peas.

  Her partner chuckles. She just narrows her eyes.
“Why would we do that?”

  Pleading with her is futile to the point of absurdity—I realize that—but I don’t know what else to try. “Nod hudding any-un.” The words are mushy, slurred. Even through the terror, my head burns with humiliation. This is what the ND does—turns you into an infant, crawling and drooling and struggling to speak.

  The woman’s expression hardens. “You’re not hurting anyone? Is that what you think?” She leans closer. “You leaked classified information on the Net. You were involved in a terrorist bombing that killed two people. You’re officially a Type Five now, which means you’ve been designated a serious threat to society. You’re looking at a whole lot of involuntary treatment. Conditioning, memory modification… maybe even a total mindwipe.”

  My breathing quickens.

  Steven groans, stirring. The man presses the heel of one boot down on his back, pinning him in place.

  “We’ve been ordered to bring you back to Dr. Swan alive,” the woman says. “You, that is. But your friend—he’s not necessary. If you give me any excuse to kill him, I won’t hesitate. I’ll just write up a report saying he was violent and we were forced to defend ourselves. So why don’t you save us all a lot of trouble and behave?”

  A sickening knot of anger burns in my chest and rises into my throat, choking me. I struggle, pulling at the restraints. When I try to gather my legs beneath me, the woman kicks me in the side with bruising force.

  “I’ll notify the Director,” the man says. He pulls a cell phone from his pocket.

  She places a hand on his arm and says, “Wait.” Frowning, she stares into the forest. For the space of a few seconds, there’s just the drone of the helicopter—still hovering over the treetops a short distance away—and the rapid thud of my own heartbeat.

  A gunshot cracks through the stillness. The helicopter lurches, then spins around crazily in midair. The two border guards watch, mouths open, as the vehicle plummets, roaring like a wounded beast. It seems to be falling in slow motion as it crashes to the forest floor. The ground vibrates under the impact. Black smoke pours from the wreck.

  The male border guard whips out his ND. Crack. A bullet hole appears in his forehead, directly above and between his eyes. He lands on his back, limbs splayed.

  The woman holds out her ND and turns in a circle, screaming, “Who’s there? Show yours—”

  Another shot rings out, and she goes down. Her limp body flops down on top of me, knocking the wind from my lungs. For a few seconds, I lie beneath her, mouth open, lungs empty. I’m too stunned to move, to think. Her body is a warm weight atop mine; hot blood oozes from a wound in her chest and drips onto my face. Then the air rushes back into my lungs, and horror crawls over me like a wave of squirming maggots. I wriggle out from under her, gasping.

  There’s blood on the ground, on my clothes and skin. Something warm, thicker than blood, slides down my cheek.

  The forest is suddenly, unnaturally silent. Smoke stings my nostrils and burns my throat.

  Steven blinks, eyes cloudy. The drugs, it seems, are starting to wear off. “Hey.” His voice comes out thick and cracked. “What the hell just happened?”

  “I don’t know,” I hear myself respond. None of this feels quite real. I half expect the man and woman to get up and dust themselves off, but they remain motionless on the ground. The man’s eyes are open, empty and staring. The woman is curled into a fetal position, blood soaking through her shirt. It looks too bright, too red. Like paint. Like this is a movie, or a dream.

  In the nearby forest, leaves rustle. A tall, slender figure jumps down from a tree, lands lightly in a crouch, and walks into the clearing.

  She’s wearing ragged, dusty jeans and a long black coat, and she carries a black assault rifle which looks far too large and bulky for her slim hands. She has the head of a wild cat, with silky gray fur and brilliant green eyes. A holomask. In the moonlight, she resembles something out of a legend, unearthly and wild.

  I swallow, mouth dry. “You’re… Lynx?”

  She turns to face us. Her gaze locks onto me, and for a few seconds, she just stares. Her pointed ears angle backward. “Obviously,” she replies.

  The helicopter lies on its side about a hundred feet away, a beached whale, still trailing smoke. Even from this distance, I can see the bullet hole in the window, the spiderweb of cracks spreading across the blood-flecked glass.

  She shot the pilot through that tiny window. From the ground. Is anyone’s aim actually that good?

  Lynx glances down at the bodies in the clearing. One of them stirs—the woman—a single breath breaks the silence, wet and raspy. Her eyes crack open, glazed with pain.

  Lynx walks over and calmly presses the rifle against the woman’s temple. The woman whimpers. She starts to raise a hand, weakly, as if to push the gun away. “Please.” Her voice is faint and thin. “Don’t—”

  Lynx pulls the trigger. I flinch. The woman twitches and then goes still. A deep hush hangs over the forest; even the birds have stopped singing.

  “Did you have to do that?” The words sound oddly flat, disconnected, like I’m listening to a recording of myself.

  “She was already dying. I just sped things up.” Lynx walks over to me and pulls something out of her pocket. I tense and start to pull away. “Hold still.” There’s a loud hiss, a brief, searing heat against my hands, and my restraints fall off. I rub my wrists and watch as she slices through Steven’s cuffs using a small laser knife. It glows white-blue, like a gas flame.

  I help Steven to his feet, and he leans against me.

  Lynx glances at him. “Is he wounded?”

  “Tranquilizer dart,” I say.

  “Can he walk?”

  Slowly, he straightens. “I can walk.” His voice is still weak, but there’s an underlying firmness.

  She nods. “Follow me.” She strides forward, into the woods.

  My head is spinning.

  “Well?” Lynx calls. “Are you coming?”

  I breathe in, trying to focus my thoughts. There are other helicopters patrolling the border, and they probably communicate with each other. It won’t be long before they realize that this particular unit isn’t responding and come to see what the problem is. Then they’ll see the wreckage, the dead bodies. We shouldn’t be around when that happens. Ian sent this woman to help us, I remind myself. We’re supposed to trust her.

  I meet Steven’s gaze, and he gives a small nod.

  We follow Lynx into the dark woods, leaving the corpses in the clearing behind us.

  ‌

  9

  Lynx walks with the brisk, measured stride of an experienced hiker. A glossy brown braid trails down to the center of her back, swaying lightly with each step. As we walk, my mind slowly surfaces from its shock-haze, and I notice the tiny scar, white and puckered, on the back of her neck. She had a collar, like Steven. She hasn’t even made an attempt to hide it.

  “You look different than you do on TV,” she says.

  I assume she’s talking to me. By now, I’m sure I’ve been on the news, but the photos they’ve shown of me are probably from before the explosion at IFEN headquarters. In a short time, I’ve transformed completely. The fresh-faced, hopeful, pigtail-wearing girl has become a pale, hollow-cheeked creature with haunted eyes.

  “I thought your hair was stupid,” she says. “It looks better now.”

  “Thank you. I think.” I’m sinking back into the haze, thinking about myself in the third person. Subject is entering a disassociative state, likely brought on by acute emotional trauma. Symptoms include numbness, disorientation, and a sense of detachment from reality.

  I place a hand against my temple, as if that will help steady my brain somehow.

  Steven’s arm is still bleeding where he ripped the dart out of his shoulder. Blood soaks through his sleeve in a dark, wet patch. “Shouldn’t we do something about that?”

  “Here.” Lynx hands Steven a small blue bottle. “Use this.”

  Steven rol
ls up his bloody sleeve, exposing the ragged puncture. He pulls the cap off of the bottle with his teeth and squeezes the transparent blue gel onto the wound. It comes out in loops and coils, like toothpaste. “What is this stuff?”

  “Blue goo,” she replies.

  “Well, yeah, but what is it?”

  “That’s the brand name. BlueGoo. Painkiller and antibacterial agent. It hardens to form a seal over the rupture. It’ll wash off in a few days, once the wound has closed.”

  “Oh.” He pokes at the goop, which has already turned firm. “That’s handy. It’s already stopped hurting.”

  “I use it a lot.”

  The conversation is so mundane, it’s surreal. There are dead bodies behind us, and they’re discussing a medical disinfectant. I suddenly feel like we’re in a commercial for BlueGoo, and the absurd urge to laugh flutters in my chest again. I press a hand over my mouth.

  Steven leans closer to me. “Hey… you all right?”

  I lower my hand and watch as it trembles. “I’m perfectly fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  He frowns but says nothing.

  Lynx stops, examining a nearby tree. I notice a green zigzag painted onto the trunk—the sort of thing you could easily mistake for a splotch of moss, if you weren’t looking for it. She raises one boot and stomps on the ground three times. Then she moves a few feet forward and does it again. This time, there’s a hollow thump, as if she’s struck wooden planks. She crouches and brushes dead leaves from the edges of a trapdoor, cleverly disguised with a shaggy carpet of fake grass and moss. With a grunt, she yanks the door open, revealing a rough circular hole lined with stones—a deep well descending into blackness. A set of rusted iron bars juts from one side of the curved wall, like rungs of a ladder. Lynx slings her rifle onto her back, tightens the straps of the leather holster, and says, “You first.”

  I stand motionless, staring down into the darkness.

  The whiskers of her lynx mask twitch. “There are no monsters down there. I promise.”