34

Switchblade’s words were a kick in the gut. Chase was afraid. Maybe more than he’d ever been before in his life.

“I can’t go on like this,” he told the man who’d just destroyed his chance of getting back the only thing useful about being a transhuman. “I’m done.” His arms and legs were weights he couldn’t lift. His mind replayed the sight of the laptop coming apart as the bullets hit. And Mel’s expression as she left him there. What happened to all her talk of forgiveness? What was it she said? Seventy times seven. The Bible got a person just so far, he guessed. She’d had enough of him.

Switchblade jumped up and grabbed Chase by the arm. “I will carry you if I have to. I’ll knock you over the head and drag you out of here.” He pulled Chase to his feet. “Or you can walk. Your choice.”

Chase shook off the big hands that held on to him and trudged toward the mouth of the cave. “The WR couldn’t keep me from running and neither can you.” He found Mel squatting beside the laptop, picking through the pieces. She glanced at him, but wasted no time looking away.

Switchblade hurried behind him. “Come on, Miss Melody. Load that mess in the duffle bag if you want to. We gotta go now.” He reached into the driver’s side of the car and pulled the trunk release.

Mel gathered the broken shards of her laptop and stuffed them in the bag. She had nothing to say before she started walking up the road.

Switchblade lifted the bag over his shoulder and went after her. Chase tried to follow but his legs seemed heavy as lead. He stopped in front of the smoking drone. A flicker of fire still rose from the center. Grabbing a broken branch from the ground, he held it to the flame. Then he carried it to the car, pulled the lever that opened the hood, and lit fire to the electrical system. He went to the open car door and threw in the branch, starting a second fire. His legs found the strength to walk away before flames engulfed the vehicle.

Switchblade and Mel turned around and watched the car burn as Chase caught up with them.

“You got rid of the car but you lit up the sky,” Switchblade said. “That is not gonna keep the Feds away.”

“Doesn’t matter. They know by now that the drone exploded. What difference does a little more smoke and flames make?”

Switchblade shook his head and continued walking. “If it doesn’t make any difference, you didn’t need to do it.”

“I’ve decided to make it my trademark. When I leave one of my screwed up messes behind, I start a fire.” Chase followed Switchblade.

Mel still hadn’t said a word.

“Oh yeah, you’ve done this before,” Switchblade said. “I heard about Underground Atlanta. What’d you set on fire down there?”

“Six cyber-guards and two dead men.”

“Sorry I asked,” Switchblade said.

They walked in silence as the sun disappeared. Leaving the road, they headed into unfamiliar woods with no technology to lead the way. Mel and Switchblade each carried a sleeping VPad. They didn’t dare wake them up, even though they were undetectable. At least, they were the last time Chase ran a check. Things had changed.

“I don’t guess you know where we are or where we’re going,” Chase said to anyone who cared to answer.

No surprise—it was Switchblade who responded. “In the daylight, I might be sure we were headed northeast. In the dark…”

“How far were we from town the last time you checked your VPad?”

“Little less than six miles to the museum.”

“Six miles on the road,” Chase said. “It could be ten miles through the forest. That is, if we even knew we were going in the right direction.”

The moon lit the night well enough for them to see where to take the next step. Chase and Switchblade agreed they should go back and stay within sight of the two-lane byway, but remain near the dark edge of the woods, hidden from view. Mel didn’t have anything to say about the plan. She just followed. Chase stayed clear of her.

Three vehicles passed several minutes apart. Self-drives—small ones. Each time one of the hydro-powered cars neared, Chase and his traveling companions ducked into the trees. So far, if any monitors picked up on them, the people in the cars didn’t seem to care.

Maybe they should try hitchhiking. Chase had relied on the kindness of strangers before. They were so far past their expected arrival time that the believers at Blue Sky Field must be worried. They might have already sent somebody out to look for them. An old pick-up truck might be coming down the road to bring them in.

But there weren’t any supporters left up top in Herouxville. “Yeah, and whose fault is that?” Chase tipped his face to the sky. It’d take hours to summon a vehicle from farther away.

“Who are you talking to back there, Charlie?”

“He talks to himself,” Mel said. “Ignore him.”

“For your information, I was talking to God,” Chase told her.

“Oh, really?” Mel stopped at the edge of a drop-off—they’d followed the road but the terrain was higher now. “My mistake. Most people who talk to God have a little more faith than you do.”

“What would I know about faith, huh?” He lunged at her. “I don’t know anything about this faith you all share. Because none of you bothered to tell me about it.”

“Charlie…Chase, back off,” Switchblade said. “It’s been a little intense since you arrived, and none of us is too good at talking about this. The law sort of tied our tongues.”

Chase whipped around to face him. “Who in the underground cares about the law? That’s no excuse. I had dreams, and your God said that you would tell me how to…do whatever you people do to connect with Him. But you’re all too busy running from the Feds and bringing in enough stale bread to get through another day.”

He seethed again at Mel and slipped closer, his face inches from hers. “But never mind the rest of them. You had all the time in the world before all this started. Before I died and got reborn. And you should have told me.”

She stepped back. Her sorrowful eyes grew wide. And then she dropped out of sight.

“Mel!” Chase dove to his stomach and reached down the steep slope as far as he could. His hands grasped for her but found only stones and dead grass. The moon gave enough light for him to see her clinging to a root that protruded from the hillside. “Hold on, Mel. Don’t let go. Don’t let go.”

Large rocks lined the road beneath her. From the corner of his eye, Chase caught sight of a vehicle—bigger than the self-drives that had passed—headed their way. A light band of blue and green flashed across the top. The colors of the WR.