Lone star standoff, p.11
Lone Star Standoff, page 11
“No?” Persenet asked. “You’d rather burn down the whole barn than sacrifice a few pigs in order to have things the way you want them. Congratulations — you’re more human than I thought.”
She gunned her cycle, screeching the wheels as she tore into motion. Flying down the hall, her hair whipping back, a psychotic grin painted her face. Two seconds went by before Nathan’s brain kicked in beyond the thought — she’s actually charging me.
He couldn’t figure out what she intended to happen. Did she think he would stand there and attempt some marital arts move that would magically save him? Did she expect him to pull out Maggie and open fire? Or did she believe that he would be so shocked by her audacity that he would stand there while she mowed him down?
“Sorry to disappoint,” he muttered as he turned away and shoved open the doors to the stairwell.
Without looking back, he climbed to the second floor and sprinted down the hall. The motorcycle grew louder, deeper as its roar reverberated in the stairwell. He slowed and tried each door he ran by — the fourth one opened. He dashed into the room and slammed the door behind him. He heard a yelp.
A middle-aged woman sat behind a desk situated near the back corner. She stared at him, her glasses hanging from a chain around her neck, a red pen balanced in her hand. “You shouldn’t be here. School is closed.”
No time for subtlety. Nathan pulled out Maggie. “Get down. Under your desk. Now.”
It took the teacher a moment to register that she stared at a gun, that the man before her looked angry, and that her life might be at an end. Tears streamed down to her chin, but she didn’t scream or bellow or even plead. She simply sat and watched him.
“Please,” he said. “The real danger is out in that hall. I’m trying to protect you. Hide under your desk, and don’t come out until we’re long gone.”
Shivering in her seat, she said, “Whichever student is your child, this is not the way to handle your family problems. You’ll only cause them more pain.”
The stairwell doors slammed open loud enough to be mistaken for a gunshot. Nathan gestured downward with Maggie. “If you stay visible, you will die. You understand?”
When the teacher didn’t move, Nathan rushed across the classroom and clocked her on the side of the head. She crumpled over. As he dragged her into a supply closet, he did his best not to bang her up too much against the desks and chairs in the way. Bad enough she might suffer a serious concussion, he did not need to add to her pains.
After setting her on the floor and closing the door, he perched behind her desk and aimed Maggie at the front. No point in worrying about discovery now — with all the noise Persenet had made, the police would be closing in soon enough. Then again, there was the window.
He could jump. Dive down, head first, ensuring that he would die — wouldn’t want to survive with broken bones that left him unable to move — lose the second soul, heal up, and run for the pickup truck. Only problem with that plan — he would be left mortal, vulnerable. As long as law enforcement continued to chase him, as long as Clockwork drove the engine behind his predicament, he needed every advantage he could hold. No sense in wasting a good second soul when he had other options.
The classroom door opened, and a canister rolled in. Of course. She gets the flash-bang grenade.
Nathan ducked, closed his eyes, and covered his ears as the explosive went off. The concussive blast left the room spinning. Sounds were muted. A second canister rolled in, spewing out purple smoke.
Her plan looked obvious enough — disorient Nathan (check), obscure his vision (check), and send a big purple sign into the sky to call in the cops (big check). She would attack soon, swipe the laptop, and be gone before anybody arrived. But Nathan refused to play along.
Persenet opened fire and the short-burst release of bullet after bullet from a semi-automatic rifle changed his attitude. He still refused to play along, but suddenly the option of baling out the window sounded feasible — even desirable. He wouldn’t last long behind this desk, and she would kill him at least once no matter what. Possibly twice, if she thought she could get away with it.
Nathan scuttled over to the windows. A low counter covered in papers and books ran along the wall. The purple smoke billowed out the open window on the end, but it was too far away to risk. He would have to hurl himself through the glass. Taking the time to open the nearest window properly would present him as a huge target.
Before he could take that final leap, however, police sirens cried out and three cruisers flashing their lights arrived in the parking lot. The window plunge option had closed.
With a frustrated shout, Persenet said, “Those idiots are too early.”
Nathan kept silent and still. If he answered anything, he would betray his position.
“Don’t think you’ve won. You’re only delaying me. You will pay for everything and then some. Even if it takes me eons. I give you my word on that.”
At first, he did not understand why she had suggested he had won. But the answer came quick. He heard the rifle clatter on the floor followed by Persenet running through the halls crying Help! Help! Much easier for her to play the fifteen-year-old victim once again than to explain the fifteen-year-old assassin. Besides, if she allowed the police to capture him right then, she would have a hard time absconding with the laptop. Better to stall the situation and come after him later.
No more waiting. With a hand covering his mouth and the other locked around the laptop, Nathan made his way into the hall. He raced to the stairwell on the far end, paused to listen, didn’t hear the police, and rushed down to the main floor.
It was easy to work his way around them. Persenet held their interest and concerns. They would be questioning her, investigating the classroom where the attack had taken place, and helping the teacher out cold in the supply closet. During it all, Nathan had a simple time of getting to the pickup trucks. A little more luck came his way — the first of the two trucks he tried, the keys worked.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Nathan drew upon every last drop of willpower to keep from speeding off in the pickup. His foot itched to plow the accelerator into the floor and get as far away as possible. But his brain urged him — insisted, really — that he stay at the speed limit. Snagging police attention because he was ripping up the road would be stupid. Eventually, he would have to ditch the pickup and find other means to keep ahead of the police, but for the moment, he had to drive on as if nothing threatened him.
Sweating, eyes stinging, ears ringing, he tapped his ear-comm. “Robin?”
“I’m here and I’m following you. Got temporary control of a satellite. Also, I’ve got the police calling in the attempted abduction of a fifteen-year-old girl. I assume that’s Persenet.”
“Yeah.”
“Add that to Altman’s report on you, and you might have the entire country looking for you pretty soon. I’ve intercepted a few messages to the media outlets which buys you time, but I can’t stop them from eventually finding out.”
“I’ll worry about a nationwide manhunt later. I need to survive all this first.”
“Let’s see if I can alleviate one of your problems. You’ve still got the laptop, right?”
“I didn’t go through all of this just to leave it behind.”
“I’m not saying you would. You know me better than that. Y’know, my mother used to say to me that —”
“I was being sarcastic. Yes, I have the laptop.”
“Oh. Good. Turn it on and set the phone next to it. I’ll take it from there.”
With one hand, Nathan reached across the bench seat and slid the laptop closer. He flipped up the top, pressed the power button, and placed the phone at its side. “It’s booting up now. I put the phone down, and you’re on speaker, if you need me for anything. Mind if I turn on the radio?”
“Go right ahead. This might take time.”
Nathan flicked on the news. Of course, he knew that Robin would be monitoring any mention of him — even as she worked to crack the laptop — but he wanted to hear it himself. Or not hear it, if he was lucky. He wondered if Robin rolled her eyes at his relieved sigh when the national news ended without mention of his exploits.
A light rain fell as the sky darkened. Nathan moved to change the station in search of some classic rock when the emergency broadcast system let out its ear-grating, high-pitched buzz.
“A hurricane warning has been issued for the following counties …”
Turning the volume down, Nathan said, “Robin?”
“I heard. I’ve been monitoring the National Hurricane Center. Let me pull it up.”
“You don’t already have it?”
“I only have three laptops here. Get me home and I’ll have enough screens to cover all your immediate needs. You act like I’m a genie or something. I mean I admit I’m damn magical but allow me to be human for a little bit.”
Nathan choked back further comment. The grin that had begun to rise as she ranted dropped at the end. She was right. She was human. No getting around that fact.
“Hurricane Gretchen,” Robin said. “She’s been coming up the Gulf and was originally set to make landfall in Louisiana tomorrow — didn’t we hear about that on the radio?”
“Yeah, but we’ve been a bit busy since getting back to the States. Unless you’ve been following it closely, I don’t think any of us know enough about what it’s doing. Last I heard it turned toward Texas.”
“It’ll hit the coast soon. But don’t worry about it. You’re heading west on a highway. You’ll be fine. There’ll be some storms, no doubt. Heavy winds and such, but you’ll only be getting touched by the edges of the hurricane. Not to worry. This laptop, on the other hand, is not being cooperative. The 4G I’m using won’t connect. Hold on — yeah, I’m checking the maps. You’ve got an exit coming up in about fifteen miles. There’s a McDonald’s and they’ve got free Wi-Fi. Go there. We’ll have to get into this old laptop with some old school methods.”
Twenty minutes later, Nathan sat in a booth in the back of McDonald’s with the laptop opened on the table and his cellphone in hand. He bought a coffee, and its raw heat felt good in his stomach. Fast food held little appeal, but the coffee — he refused to be a snob when it tasted this good.
He chuckled. Not too long ago, he hated coffee. In a thousand years, what other things might he develop a taste for?
“Damn,” Robin muttered in his ear. “I had hoped that this would be easier since the laptop is so old.”
“Octavia did warn me that the encryption on this thing was so tough you and Clockwork might never crack it.”
“That’s bull. It’s definitely going to take me longer, but I’ll get it. Now shush, so I can work.”
Nathan eased back and stretched his legs into the aisle. He inhaled the rich, coffee aroma and watched the strange mix of people coming and going. Standing in line, a man with an extensive beer belly arched back to read over the menu. Nathan wondered how he could not know what he wanted? This is fast food. The menu has been essentially the same for his entire life. Heck, three lifetimes from now, Nathan expected it to be mostly the same.
Behind Mr. Indecisive, a harried woman wrangled three rambunctious kids while getting her money out to make the ordering process that much faster. Sitting at a table near the exit, a college-aged couple bent over their phones, munching fries and burgers without lifting their heads. Several tables to the side, an older gentleman wearing a suit, an expensive suit, indulged in a fish sandwich as he tipped the contents of a hip flask into his coffee. And coming out of the men’s room behind him, Nathan heard — then smelled — a homeless man meandering along, looking for leftovers to scarf down before anybody complained.
Nathan grinned. This was humanity. Not the best, not the worst, but the average and everyday version. This was who and what he fought for. All that variety flowing together over one simple commonality — food.
The Immortals were different. Despite the enormous variety of experiences gathered over the course of human history, the Immortals all blended together. Nathan wondered if living so long blunted the edges, smoothed them all like stones in a river, leaving behind variety of color and shape, but ultimately, making them all feel the same. Because no matter which Immortal he encountered, no matter what differences they possessed in life, they all ended up with the same conclusions. Would that happen to him? And how long would it take?
“Whoever wrote the security code on this thing was good,” Robin said. “I’ve been trying all the basics but nothing’s even touched it. Not that I expected it would, but usually you can at least manage to pull up a command prompt.”
“You can’t get access to even issue commands?”
“Oh, I got the command prompt, it just wasn’t through the basic methods. And it’s taken me all this time. I don’t want you sitting still too long. Not a good idea for getting away.” She smacked her forehead loud enough to hear. “I need some rest. I’ve forgotten the simplest thing we can do. I’m going to copy the entire laptop onto an external hard drive so that we can ditch the hardware you have, and I can still work to break into this thing.”
“How can you copy it when you can’t even access —”
“Honey, please, you’re talking to me.”
“Fair point. How long will it take?”
“Enough time for you to get another coffee.”
Nathan glanced up at the security camera mounted near the ceiling. “Are you watching me?”
“Almost always.”
As he walked up front to refill his coffee, always maintaining an eye on his table, he caught a police car racing down the road with lights blazing. It could have been for anybody. Nathan was hardly the only criminal out there. But he felt the adrenaline pump through his veins nonetheless.
When he returned to his seat, Robin said, “This is like whack-a-mole, and I’m the mole. Every single thing I try gets smacked back at me. Though I guess you must feel a bit like that all the time.”
“Huh?”
“As an Immortal, I mean. Although maybe you haven’t lived long enough yet. I think about Octavia and all those others — when you’ve lived through a war and you think that you’ve survived this terrible event and thank goodness it’s over. But then a generation later and you’re right back in it again with another war. It’s whack-a-mole. If not war, then some other tragedy or plague or despot or whatever. Human history is this cyclical Buddhist nightmare where we keep going through horror after horror and only make little incremental improvements. But as a human, I only have to suffer through my iteration of it all. You — all the Immortals — I mean how many times can you watch mankind do the same stupid crap over and over before you decide we’re not worth it? Heck, in America alone, we can’t seem to figure out how not to elect crappy people into office and we’ve got over two hundred years of experience with it.”
Nathan sipped more coffee, his caffeine agitation bringing a shake to his fingers. “Well, you’ve gotten a bit morose.”
“Not at all. I’m just trying to understand what you’re going through. I don’t mean it from the curiosity angle, either. I mean I know I ask a ton of questions, and I am curious, but also I feel a responsibility to you.”
“What now? Responsibility?”
“If I hadn’t hired you way back in Colorado, you’d never have known about me.”
“That’s because you probably would be dead.”
“Exactly! I owe you my life, and you’ve entrusted me with a secret that could threaten your very existence. So, I want to understand you as much as I can in order to help you, to repay you. I can’t live forever, but while I’m here, I’m going to make sure I’m worthy of working with you.”
“You already are worthy. Besides, it’s the other way around. I have to prove that I’m worthy of having this immortality, that I’m worthy of working with you. “
“You’re probably right about that. You should be honored that I bother helping you out.”
Nathan snickered. “I’ll do my best.”
“That’s all I ever ask. And on that note — whoever designed the security on that laptop is really smart. I can’t even make a solid copy. It keeps figuring out what I’m doing and corrupts the data. I’ve ruined two hard drives while we’ve been chatting.”
“So, it’s on to Plan F?”
“Let’s call it a modified B or C. We still need to get you out of Texas, but now I absolutely need that laptop. No other way around it. So, enough relaxing. Get back on the road.”
Nathan shut the laptop, pocketed his phone, and stood. When he glanced toward the door, he grimaced. “I might be delayed a bit.”
“Is that junk food sending you to the toilet?”
“Worse than that. Persenet just walked in.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Persenet’s eyes clicked straight to Nathan. The threat radiating off of her silenced the children nearby. Grateful for the sudden quiet, the mother didn’t notice their fear. But Nathan did. He noticed and understood — with that one look, Persenet had made it clear that she would harbor no issue murdering everyone in the building, if necessary.
Moving slowly, non-threateningly, Nathan leaned back in the booth. He placed both hands on the table in full view. As she approached, Persenet noticed the man with spiked coffee watching her, paying particular attention to the curve of her breasts. She paused and turned her entire body to face him directly. Lacking all dignity, the man fumbled together his things and left — making sure to carry his coffee close to his chest.
“Well, well,” she said when she reached the corner of Nathan’s table. “You were stupid to stop running.”
“What can I say? I like the coffee.”
“Do you understand how unnecessary all of this has been? The people who have died, the damage to property, the risks you’re putting others in — all of it, for what? You won’t be able to hack into that thing. And even if, by some miracle, you and your human friends manage to do it, what good will it do you? Whatever clues you find to locating Russo are old by now. Useless.”
