17. LEAVING DODGE

QUIET FILLED THE HOUSE. The vulture in my chest released its talons and flew away, and I could breathe. I went upstairs and packed as much as I could. I took anything of value, which turned out to be less than I’d thought although Celeste’s jewellery filled a small tote bag and would see me fed for while. I shoved energy bars, bottled water, and NutriSmoothies into a bag and quickly loaded the car, hoping that nosy bastard, Strawberry Merv, hadn’t seen me.

It felt surreal, leaving the home of my dreams and knowing I’d never be able to return, but it also felt resolved. Sophie and Bax were sleeping peacefully, the house was shiny and clean, and the thought of never having to see Celeste again made me grin from ear to ear.

I figured it was a good idea to ditch the car. There were no individually registered licence plates; cars were issued serial numbers by Mobile Production in the same way as toasters or microwaves, and fobs were issued for each vehicle. Because all personal data was loaded onto the dashboards via the CPs, theft was practically non-existent and registering ownership with The Vehicular Bureau was a protocol ignored by most. I just needed a fob and, with it, a new ride.

I parked outside a dive bar to stake out the perfect victim. Two hours later, a bunch of giddy middle-aged women pulled up in three different vehicles. They parked alongside one another and began to shout about all the fun they were going to have. I followed them inside, and it didn’t take long for them to get more than a little tipsy and tottle off to the washroom together and one woman left her purse on the table. I immediately swiped it and left the bar.

Mission successful. I transferred my bags and logged onto the woman’s car as an anonymous guest, thanking my lucky stars that her security was so lax. I’d scored well—the bubble was a deluxe model. I trashed everything I could on the dashboard hard drive apart from the driveable essentials, and I blocked the woman’s home control and tracking app.

Next up, I needed to change my appearance. I picked up a pair of lightly tinted sunglasses, a baseball cap, and supplies from an all-night convenience store, then I stopped to shave my head in a cheap by-the-hour motel. Next on the list was cashing in on Celeste’s jewellery, so I ventured to the outskirts of Blowflyland where pawnbrokers worked all hours and asked no questions. Who knew I was so resourceful? Take note, Mother, I had everything under control.

And thus began my life as a fugitive, living in my stolen car and thinking I’d let the dust settle before I took a stab at what came next.

It took a long time for the SSOs to piece the whole thing together. At first their pieces were like the mismatched leftovers of a SparkleExchange puzzle: some seemed to fit, others didn’t at all. I followed their progress on my CP avidly as though I was watching a series on Jazza’s favourite serial killer channel, EchoSerialFree. Crime had been another of Jazza’s and my fascinations, and we had the complete range of Safety Services apps as well as a bunch of dark channel streams.

Jazza and his apartment caused more furor than the murder of my family. That such a den of filth and illegality could exist within such an innocuous building had the whole city in an uproar. An extermination task force was set up to find Jazza’s furbaby dealer, and Anti-Nature Guards were given carte blanche to enter anyone’s home at any time to check for illegal cargo. Jazza’s animals were ruthlessly deleted. That wasn’t on me. Jazza had killed himself and left them to the mercy of the world. Then there was my dead family and me, gone. And of course, Adwar and Ava and the money. So much disaster, a clusterfuck the authorities had to untangle and solve.

Then Ava died, thank god. And, thanks to Jazza’s revised suicide note explaining how I had been set up from one end to the other, the SSOs did a forensic investigation of the accounts and they saw that the funds had been transferred into Jazza’s bank account before making their way into an account under my name, which Jazza had set up and operated. Although Ava, had she lived, would no doubt still have insisted I’d known about it and was complicit, I could counter that authorizing money transfers was an act of trust and stupidity, not thievery. After all, I didn’t end up with any of the money, did I?

But the money was the least of my worries. The SSOs didn’t buy into Jazza killing my family. They said the timeline didn’t fit, that Jazza had died hours before Celeste and the kids. My fingerprints were all over Jazza’s place, but in my defence, we were work colleagues and friends, so of course I’d visited him. And while the SSOs claimed I took Jazza’s gun and killed my family, there wasn’t a single shred of evidence to prove it. Daddy told the SSOs that it made sense to him that I had fled the scene. I was obviously traumatized by everything I’d been through. Daddy said I didn’t have the gumption to kill a fly.

They found my car, but no one remembered seeing me at the bar and there was no trace of me after I stole the woman’s station bubble.

But the SSOs insisted I had killed my family, and they said they’d prove it.

And I had no idea what on earth to do next.