part0113

A nja had been the one to alert him that the car was now reported as stolen from the scene of a crime. They were inside the city of Portland now, and the police would obviously patrol the areas with far more intensity. If they found a stolen car associated with a robbery, their capture would be inevitable.

They would be penned and caught. Savage wasn't sure what would happen to Jenna in this case since she was very literally innocent of all charges. He would be locked up for breaking and entering, but she would probably be signed into the hands of a social worker or something.

It depended on how old she was, really. He remembered details in the paperwork he had briefly looked at, and they probably included her birthday, although he hadn’t thought to check.

He merely hadn't seen it for some reason. It hadn’t been his best moment of being sharp and clear-headed. Grateful for the hacker’s warning, he eased over to the side of the road, stopped the car, and stepped out quickly.

"So, you're like this super-cool super-spy?" Jenna asked as they began to walk down the street. "Like Jason Bourne, or James Bond?"

"I like to think I'm a little better at my job than James Bond and certainly better than an amnesiac killer from the cold war," he retorted, his eyes narrowed.

"Since when is he from the cold war?" she asked. "The movies have him all CIA and very, very modern in a 1984 kind of society. You know, with Matt Damon?"

"Oh...no, I was talking about the books," he said. "OG Jason Bourne was a CIA-sponsored assassin to hunt an actual dude called Carlos the Jackal. It was a good book but ended up being bullshit and Carlos merely a fat dude with considerable luck and as many connections."

"OG?" Jenna asked. "What are you, a fan of nineties rap or hip hop?"

"As a matter of fact, I do like me some Notorious BIG and a little Tupac too," he said with a nod. "But that's not the point right now. It is my turn to ask a question, right?"

"Right," she said and took a couple of rapid steps forward to stand in front of him, then walked backward to face him as they moved. "What do you have for me?"

"You seem really upbeat about this whole thing," he pointed out casually.

"I haven't had the opportunity to talk to people aside from the scientists who ran tests on me," she replied. She seemed to manage her backward walk without colliding with anything, although it unsettled him. "You're damn right I'm upbeat about this."

"All right," he said. "What kind of shit did they give you in there to do? Someone your...approximate age would be bored to tears in a place like that."

"Most of my time was spent being tested on," she said. "They did give me time off between tests, though. A couple of days. That's when they wheeled the TV in on the other side of the glass to let me watch movies or the news. I had no Internet access, which I guess should have been another major red flag in my mind. They worked overtime to keep me isolated from the rest of the world."

"Which kind of segues me right into my next question, but it's your turn," he said and reached out without thinking as she approached a nasty crack in the sidewalk.

She was about to trip over it when he caught her arm and turned her to face the right way. Her little stunt had been enough to set off all kinds of anxiety flags in his head.

"Oh, okay," Jenna said and sounded like she wouldn't have minded another question from him. "Okay, so why did you leave the military if you still wanted to work at saving people? I don’t know much about it, but they probably don't make you retire if you don't want to—it doesn’t seem very logical. They spend money training you and they like to have people with your kinds of skills working for them. It tells me you chose to leave of your own volition, which begs the question of why?"

Savage paused to consider this for a moment before he increased his pace to make sure that he didn’t lag behind her. There were enough problems with their situation now, and losing her was not one that he wanted to deal with. If she wanted to leave, she could. He wouldn’t drag her around against her will.

But if she did want to stick around, he needed to make sure she didn’t get herself into more trouble. She was his responsibility at this point, and he intended to take that very, very seriously.

"Jeremiah?" she asked when the silence threatened to drag on interminably.

"Oh," he said and shook his head to bring himself back into the moment. "Sorry, I was distracted. You can call me Savage, by the way."

"Your name is Jeremiah Savage?" Jenna asked and raised her eyebrows. "Your parents must have hated you. That's not even fair."

"Maybe, but that's a question for another time," he responded with a small smile. "Regarding your question... Well, I did retire from the military, but suffice it to say that it wasn't entirely my choice. I worked in black ops all around the world and they needed me to step away when keeping me around would cost more than they thought I was worth. So, I stepped away."

"You simply did it without any questions?" She sounded incredulous.

"I can’t go into the details but there were certain carrots offered as well as certain sticks," he said. “The US government doesn't really take kindly to people who threaten their bottom line."

"I can see that. Although, again, most of my experience revolves around movies, so that seems like what they would do."

"It was a little more complex than that, but okay," he said with a shrug. "My turn for a question, though. Why did you follow me when I said that I was there to get you out, and why were you so calm and…well, composed when the breaking out became dangerous?"

Jenna shrugged her shoulders. "I heard you talking from the outside. Also, when you broke in, you told me what you were going to do, and asked me to follow you. You didn't insist that it was what was needed and you didn't keep anything from me. In my eyes, that made you far more trustworthy than the people who had been around me for the past couple of years. I had begun to think that I needed to get out anyway, and I had half made my mind up that if you tried anything, I could break away when you were distracted and do my own thing."

"That seems fair." Savage grinned. "Although, in the interests of full disclosure, I wouldn't have been totally against dragging you out. Having said that, given that it was only me with no support and the necessity to get out as quickly as possible before the proverbial cavalry arrived, I kind of needed you to be on board with the whole rescue. It wouldn't have worked otherwise."

"I appreciate your honesty." Her chuckle contained real humor. "I guess we're both lucky we were on board with what the other wanted when the time came. Okay, my turn?"

"How the hell does someone get a name like Jeremiah Savage?"

"You remember how I told you about the armed forces basically telling me to drop off their radar or else?" he asked and she nodded. "Well, in that package, they offered a decent amount of money in exchange for my disappearance and they needed me to change my name."

"So, you changed it to Jeremiah Savage?" The girl stared at him as if waiting for him to tell her it was a joke.

Savage could hear Anja laughing though his earpiece and he narrowed his eyes. "Well, yeah. Jeremiah was my first name anyway. I thought the name Savage seemed appropriate at the time. It still is, honestly. There was context."

"I'm sure there was," Jenna commented. "Still, though. I don't think I'll call you either of those. Do you have any nicknames? Like...Jer?"

"Damn, not you too," he said with a sigh.

"What?" Anja protested. "No, Jer is my name for you."

"I'm sure you didn't trademark that shit," he said and tapped his ear to indicate who he was talking to.

"Nope, but it's still my name for you," she insisted.

"Anja says you can't call me Jer," he explained to the now somewhat bewildered girl. "That's her nickname for me."

"Well, you can tell Anja she can come over and tell me that herself," she replied with a grin.

He paused and waited for the hacker to respond. After a few long seconds, he realized that none would be coming.

"Did you hear that, Anja?" he finally asked.

"Yes," the Russian grumbled and sounded less than happy.

"You're not buying tickets for yourself to fly out to Portland, are you?" he asked warily.

He doubted that she would, but you could never tell with Anja. She was capable of doing something crazy about the whole situation merely to prove that she was right. Although he was still about ninety percent sure she was simply playing around.

Mostly sure, anyway.

"No, that would be stupid," Anja said. "But know that the moment that Jenna gets a phone or some other method of communication, I'll fill her in on what she can and can't call you."

That would definitely not end well.

"Anja says that this isn't over," he said for Jenna's benefit.

"Sounds good, Jer," she said with a cheeky grin.

"Either way, do you guys plan on merely walking around the city all night, waiting for cops to notice you, or do you have a plan about what to do next?" Anja asked.

"I’ve mostly been improvising ever since we went off schedule at the lab," he said. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, in case you want to look into finding a place to stay for the night, I'd suggest you guys find a car and get off the streets. The guards talked to the cops, and they have a full description of you. and should already be on the prowl."

The city was usually busy during the day but it was rather dead at night. If there were any cops in the area, the two of them would stick out like a sore thumb. The hacker was right. They needed to get off the road.

"I have to ask, though," he said. "If Pegasus isn't supposed to help us to escape, why are you still around on the line helping us?"

"Come on, you know I don't work for Pegasus," she said with a laugh. "There are enough problems for you guys to deal with without questioning why I'm helping you. Besides, it's not like they can actually prove that I’m involved anyway. I'm better than that."

"I guess you are," he said and shrugged. "At the same time, how would Monroe feel about you helping us? I don't think she really approved of what I did back in the lab."

"Well, no, she didn't approve," Anja replied honestly. "But she understood. And actually, she felt that it was the right thing to do, so you don't have to worry about too much backlash from her on that. There might be backlash from other sources, though—merely a heads up."

"Right, I think I know what those sources might be. But back to the matter at hand. Since you can help us, is there any way to get us a car out here?"

"I’m already working on it," she assured him. "Not many of the cars parked out in the open are accessible for me, so I'll let you know when I have something for you."

"That sounds like a plan," Savage said. "In the meantime, we should probably stay off the street, right?"

"I'll let you know if there are any cops on the way," she said.

"Don't you think it's a little weird how quickly the word has spread?" he asked. "I realize that someone breaking into a lab can't be a great thing, but they should have better things to do than hunt us, especially since we haven't actually taken something they would openly admit to having."

"You know, just because I'm standing here doesn't mean that I know the context of the conversation," Jenna pointed out. "With that said, saying I'm something that was taken really doesn’t endear you to me."

"She's as sassy as fuck," Anja said.

"No shit." He grimaced and rubbed his eyes. "Still, you don't think it's a little suspicious how quickly they were onto us?"

"And the fact that they had armed guards on standby waiting for someone to break in?" the hacker asked. "But yeah, I'm looking into that shit already, so you don't have to worry about it. You only need to worry about getting the fuck out of sight. Speaking of which, I've managed to get your picture that's been circulating."

"I thought you erased all the images that they might have of me," he said.

"I did. Seriously, the lack of faith around here is disheartening. No, I meant the sketch they made of you for the cops."

Savage's phone buzzed and he pulled it out of his pocket and studied the picture that had been sent to him. "Well, that's a sketch, but I don't think it’s one of me. Do I really look like that?"

"Let me see," Jenna said and peeked at the screen before she narrowed her eyes and peered at his face. "I don't know. There are some things they got right, but the hair and the jawline are all wrong."

"How will they find us using this?" he asked.

"Well, it doesn't really matter, does it?" Anja pointed out. "Cops are still on the lookout for you, and that means you need to keep moving. I'll let you know when I have a car for you."

He stepped forward quickly and Jenna caught his hand to help her keep up with his pace. It was an odd thing, one that made something warm settle into the pit of his stomach but not a bad sensation, he decided. Rather, it was something he had been missing and he never actually realized it.