Chapter Twenty-Six

In the middle of the night, Marc was awoken by a big hand shaking his shoulder.

“It’s time.”

He immediately sat up, surging to full alert. His heart pounded. He was going to escape. It was real now.

Willard also gathered Aaron, Clarissa, Max, and four others: a pair of middle-aged women and a soft-spoken father with his young teenage son.

They collected their things and slipped out of the rear entrance of the mattress store, moving quickly and silently.

It was cool and very dark outside; there was no light in the back alley. A large SUV waited. It took time to squeeze everybody in: two in the front seat with the driver, three in the second row, and three in the third row. Modest-sized bags of personal belongings were placed in laps.

“It’s a ninety-minute drive to Ely,” announced the driver. “Sit tight, take a nap, don’t turn on your phones.”

He advanced to the main road.

The passengers were too excited to sleep. They engaged in quiet conversations. There was continued fear over the war that would break out if President Sheridan fulfilled his promise to destroy the international satellite. Marc talked for a while with the female couple, Emma and Nico, and they explained they were fleeing the country because they were gay, and President Sheridan had made allusions to using the chipfeed signals to ‘reshape’ minds that displayed ‘unnatural tendencies’, singling out homosexuality more than once.

“Eighty years ago, people in the gay community were subject to electroshock therapy to ‘fix’ their brains,” Emma said, holding her partner’s hand. “It was barbaric, and all these years later, we haven’t made any progress. People who don’t understand still want to ‘fix’ our brains.”

Aaron and Clarissa sat up front with the driver, studying the road and the very sparse traffic. In the row behind Marc, the gentle father spoke in reassuring tones to his son, trying to calm his nervous fidgeting. Only Max slept – nothing fazed him anymore. He snored.

Eventually they reached a very dark, abandoned Boy Scouts camp. Dozens of small cabins populated the grounds. The main lodge sat on the bank of a broad river. The river identified itself through silvery streaks created by the moon’s reflection. The walking paths had long ago succumbed to wild grasses and natural debris. The entire Boy Scouts organization had collapsed once Dynamica offered a Boy Scout Experience chipfeed. It was just another ‘development’ to create a sinking feeling in Marc’s gut.

Four rugged-looking men, the appointed guides, greeted the arrivals as they approached the river. A husky northerner named Eric explained that each guide would take two passengers in a canoe. “Everyone paddles,” said a guide named Vance in a deep voice. “The trip will take two to three hours, including portaging. We will leave you on the other side and bring back the canoes for the next group.”

As they stepped along the riverbank together, Aaron noticed shapes on the water’s surface coming toward them from the distance.

“Don’t worry,” Eric said. “That’s some of our men returning.”

Four large canoes soon came into view, each occupied by a lone paddler, having dropped off a group of refugees.

“We each do one shift a day,” Vance said. “Technically, at night. We sleep during the day.”

The arriving canoes were secured to posts on a long dock. The tired incoming crew passed along their well wishes to the outgoing crew and their passengers, and then headed off for some rest in the scout cabins.

The four guides for the new shift quickly assessed the carry-on luggage. They made two people – Emma and the father of the teenage boy – reduce their loads. Both did so without argument.

Max had a small, heavy backpack. “What do you have in there?” Vance asked him.

“Guns,” said Max.

“All right.”

Eric began to assign the group to canoes: Aaron and Clarissa together, the father and his son together, Emma and Nico together, and Marc and Max together.

Max beamed at Marc. “Howdy, partner. I got your back if you got mine.”

“Of course,” Marc said.

Everyone slipped into green-and-gray lifejackets. On the hill above the Boy Scout lodge building, Marc could see the SUV departing to return to the mattress store, headlights probing a gentle fog.

The four guides – Vance, Eric, Leon and Gio – each commanded an eighteen-foot, three-man canoe. They assisted their passengers on board, handing out long, wooden paddles.

“I hope everyone remembers their canoeing lessons,” Eric said. “Depending on which way the wind blows, it could get rough.”

Before long, the canoes were untied from the dock and pushed off to begin the long trek to freedom. The wind picked up, chilling the bones of the eight refugees, who fought to stay warm through vigorous paddling.

The moon and the stars provided the only light.

No one spoke, except to pass along directions when the route veered from a straight line. The primary sound was paddles dipping into the water in steady rhythms.

The canoeing was tough, but the portaging was even tougher, hauling the canoes across dark, bumpy terrain and trying not to sprain an ankle. Marc cursed himself for being out of shape. Aaron and Clarissa were doing fine, more athletic than the others. The guides gave extra assistance to Max, who hobbled on a bad leg.

Marc felt immersed in a surreal dream and recognized the irony because this was probably the most ‘real’ environment he had ever encountered. If he could forget his physical discomfort and mental fears, he could fully appreciate the mesmerizing beauty of his natural surroundings and absorb the organic sounds and sensations. The path unwound through dense woods, dirty and timeless, stubbornly stuck in an alternate universe that knew nothing about computer chips, satellite signals and virtual reality.

Marc felt a chilled perspiration coat his body and a healthy aching reach across his bones and muscles. He actively listened to the soundtrack of buzzing insects, fluttering birds and scampering creatures rustling in the brush. On several occasions, the group spotted deer, along with beavers and otters. Confronting a black bear was not out of the question.

Marc experienced a Zen-like spiritual feeling. An environment like this could never truly be recreated for stay-at-home imagination prompts. To be fully appreciated, it needed to be honestly experienced. It was a true nirvana effect.

No one in the group complained about the cuts, bruises, bug bites or exhaustion. They endured, and they felt better for it.

At the other side of the small forest, they returned to a body of water. Soon they were back in their canoes, paddling together in close proximity across another wide, shimmering lake.

Conversation was sparse. Eric announced they were reaching the halfway point. Then the young teenage boy mentioned he heard thunder.

“Shouldn’t be any rain,” said Eric. “Skies are clear.”

But then the others heard it.

As the rumbling grew louder, Eric said, “Shit.” Then, “Stop paddling.” In the ensuing stillness, they listened to the audible disturbance with rising dread. The thunder no longer sounded like thunder.

“What is it?”

“Is it—?”

“Sounds like—”

“Helicopters.”

The reality of the source struck everyone simultaneously. A fierce pounding filled the sky. The noise came from helicopter blades, hammering a steady rhythm, rapidly growing closer.

Stuck in the middle of the lake, everyone in the four canoes froze in collective terror, with hands on paddles, eyes looking skyward.

THWAP-THWAP-THWAP-THWAP!

“No fucking way,” Clarissa said.

“Son of a bitch,” said Max.

With a monstrous roar, three attack helicopters charged into view. They arrived in a line formation, then split apart to create a hovering triangle directly above their targets. Bright, piercing spotlights beamed down on the canoes and their occupants, revealing them in a bathing illumination of white. It was so blinding that Marc had to shut his eyes.

A booming voice shouted down from a loudspeaker. “STAY WHERE YOU ARE. YOU ARE UNDER ARREST.”

“Like hell!” said Max, and he abruptly sprung up in the center of the canoe, causing it to rock violently.

“Hey!” Marc shouted, grabbing the rim of the canoe, fearing they would capsize.

Max began firing bullets into the sky.

The loud cracks echoed across the lake. They were answered immediately by a rapid return of staccato shots, sounding like the bang of fireworks.

The gunfire cut up Max with a line of bullets across his torso, puncturing his life vest. He fell overboard.

“Holy shit!” Marc said. He dropped his paddle and scrambled for his controller device.

From one of the other canoes, Clarissa lifted a gun and began firing at the nearest helicopter. It fired back, creating bursts of water between the canoes. The canoe with the father and son was hit, sprouting a fast leak. The son cried out for help.

Marc fumbled with the controlling device. He called up the nearest active chips and immediately sent them into sleep mode.

The helicopter hovering directly above the canoes stopped firing. It wobbled awkwardly. Then it slid through the sky in a steady sideways descent across the lake and toward the forest.

Marc braced himself, knowing what was about to happen.

The helicopter crashed into the trees. It exploded into a massive red fireball that illuminated the lake in a wide-reaching flash of light.

The explosion’s powerful force created instant, turbulent waves that rocked the remaining three canoes. The fourth canoe had sunk from the surface, leaving its occupants floating helplessly in the middle of the lake.

With one helicopter destroyed, the other two swarmed in with extra aggressiveness, firing a rapid spray of bullets downward.

One of the bullets struck Emma in the neck, and Nico screamed in anguish.

“Everybody – out of the canoes!” Eric shouted, balanced in a standing position at the back of Marc’s canoe. “Go for shore – get under cover – go as far and deep as you can—”

Then his shouting cut off with a grunt as bullets tore into him from his head to his legs. His body jerked involuntarily before dropping with a thump inside the canoe.

Marc scrambled to call up more chips on his controller device, but the canoe was rocking wildly, disrupting his ability to tap out commands. More bullets struck his canoe and then it began sinking.

“Oh God, no, no, no!” he said, fumbling with the controller, desperately trying to bring down another helicopter.

Then the controller device slipped out of his hands and fell overboard. It sank into the inky, black waters.

“Fuck!” he screamed. His voice echoed across the lake and into the shadows of the surrounding forests.

In the distance, small pairs of lights appeared on the water’s surface. They rapidly grew closer, accompanied by a layered roar. After a moment, Marc recognized the sound: motorboat engines.

Aaron and Clarissa jumped overboard. They began swimming toward the shore, escaping the direct beam of the helicopter spotlights.

Marc decided to take their lead. He jumped out of his sinking canoe, splashing into the cold, rough waters. The life vest kept him afloat, and he immediately began swimming for land.

As he swam, he looked back for a moment and witnessed something he did not want to see: Nico remaining in her canoe, cradling her dead lover. She sobbed, and Marc wanted to yell out for her to swim to shore, but then it was too late.

The canoe was hit with a missile and exploded to pieces in a booming flash of red and orange, kicking up a huge spray of water.

Marc frantically thrashed through the waters, away from the violence. He passed a lifeless body in a life vest, bobbing in the waves, but couldn’t identify who it was. The patrol boats zoomed toward the sinking and broken canoes. Marc couldn’t tell how many people were dead and how many had survived.

As Marc got closer to the shore, he entered a thickening haze of black smoke coming from the burning helicopter. It had landed about a half mile inland, igniting the trees to start a full-fledged forest fire.

Out of the frying pan into the fire, he thought, but he wasn’t laughing.

The smoke grew worse, and by the time he crawled onto the shore, he was coughing and clutching at the ground as his chest heaved. He staggered to his feet and ripped off the wet, heavy life jacket. He began to move down the shoreline, away from the fire.

As he stepped quickly in the dark, stumbling over terrain he could barely see, he looked back for a moment and saw several others reaching the shore in their life jackets – more survivors. They were vague shadows, but he thought he saw Aaron, Clarissa and possibly the young teenage boy.

He was relieved for them, then alarmed. A helicopter spotlight rediscovered the trio, beaming a wide net of piercing white light to reveal their presence once again.

A voice on a loudspeaker announced their location: “ON THE SHORELINE. THREE FUGITIVES. ON LAND. THREE FUGITIVES.”

The patrol boats in the distance were getting closer, advancing at breakneck speed. Marc could see the outlines of soldiers with guns standing in the backs of the boats. He shuddered and fought his way forward.

The wind shifted and a thickening haze of smoke rolled his way. He began coughing again. His lungs hurt, every muscle in his body hurt. He didn’t know where he was running to. He didn’t know who from his group would survive, if any of them. He was no longer armed with the one thing that protected him. And his bag of money was gone.

The pounding of helicopter blades continued relentlessly, like a jackhammer. As Marc ran with wet shoes over the bumpy ground, his foot struck a thick root, and he fell. He hit the ground hard, striking his head on the side of a big rock. He saw a flash of stars. He rolled over on his back in pain and felt a wet trickle of blood move from his hair to his cheek.

Marc briefly slipped out of consciousness.

He awoke to a firm command.

“Don’t move.”

He opened his eyes. He could see someone standing over him in the dark, outlined in the lingering smoke and swaths of helicopter searchlights. He could not see the person’s features. He could only see a long gun – pointed at his face.

“You move, I shoot.”

“I won’t move.”

“You’re under arrest.”

“I figured.”

“I am a regulation officer with the authority to kill you on the spot.”

“Great, then just do it,” mumbled Marc. “Why talk about it?”

“Because killing you lets you off the hook too easily.”

Marc didn’t like the sound of that. “Great.”

“Turn around.”

“What?”

“On your stomach.”

“Stomach?”

“Do it.”

Marc twisted his torso until he was on his stomach, facing the dirt. His head throbbed from where it had struck the rock.

“Okay, now what?” Marc murmured into the ground.

“This,” said the regulation officer. He pressed something to the back of Marc’s neck.

Marc knew exactly what would happen next. It was the inevitability he had resisted for so long.

With a hard, sudden jolt, Marc received the chip.