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Sky was grimacing in pain. Morgan removed the portal equipment still on her head. The punch she received didn’t leave any physical marks, but the psychosomatic pain was real.
“Why’d you have to do that, Sky? Aviva might have been in that tower.” Morgan cut the restraints holding her wrists to the armrests.
“You don’t think I didn’t try to fight it?” she said, avoiding looking at him.
He walked out of the room, wanting to watch the news to see what they had missed. See if anyone had exited the tower, but before he turned on the display, he stopped to listen to a sound coming from the garage. He paced back to the portal room on the tips of his toes.
“I’m sorry, I—” Sky stopped when Morgan raised his finger to tell her to hush. He used the surveillance cameras to watch the three intruders in the garage, ready to enter through the door that led into the kitchen. How did they get in? The property was surrounded with ten-feet-high fences, and the alarm would have gone off if it had been forced. He checked the front drive camera. The gate was unlocked and wide open where a woman leaned up against a black car, waiting.
This didn’t make sense. He’d changed the security code the night they arrived.
He had to get out of there. He examined Sky, knowing he couldn’t risk bringing her along with him unchained. She was too unpredictable and dangerous. “They want me, not you.” He examined her chained legs and the padlock that held them there. “I’ll try to draw them out. Get yourself to the kitchen when you can. The keys are in the cutlery drawer. Get yourself as far from here as possible.”
“Be careful, Morgan. I don’t—”
The door in the kitchen was kicked open. Morgan watched through the camera two men cautiously entering the kitchen, guns drawn, scanning the room. A woman remained in the garage, covering the door. The portal room was across from the living room and the kitchen. Morgan had partially closed the door, leaving only a crack. He looked around, searching for something he could use as a weapon. The room didn’t have much more than the recliner chairs and the portal hookups. Then, he noticed the speakers built into the wall. The house was equipped with an integrated and expensive sound system.
“Cover your ears,” he whispered, covering his own firmly with the palms of his hands. Using his ability to integrate processes with his mind he set the sound to blowhorn at a volume above the security threshold, hoping he wouldn’t blow out the system.
The blaring sound rattled down into his bones as he ran out of the room toward the first intruder, who was bent over, clutching his ears in pain. Morgan kneed him in the face and shoved him over. Morgan kicked the gun that was on the ground, sending it beneath the couch. He jumped behind the couch and switched off the horn from the sound system so he could free his hands and reached for the gun. He leaned against the back of the couch as he scanned for the other intruders. He shot two rounds at the door to the garage where the woman remained, to make sure she was aware he knew about her.
The couch vibrated from the muffled shots coming from the guy in the kitchen. Morgan hated gun fights in movies and decided he hated them even more in real life. He shot at the cabinet above the guy in the kitchen, shattering dishes and glasses. Who was he trying to fool? He wouldn’t win a gunfight. He needed to get out of there. He checked the front door where two more armed men waited for him outside, their ears propped on the door to hear the action inside.
With another shot, he shattered more dishes to keep them interested.
He had an idea.
The robotic security dog that had attacked him on the day they arrived at the property was still lying disabled in the bush near the entrance. He activated the dog and rolled it back to its four feet. The razor-sharp teeth were drawn out of its metallic jaw. The men, too focused on the action inside, hadn’t noticed the dog’s activation.
Morgan dropped the gun to free his hands and pressed them against his ears again. He set the robotic guard dog to attack the closest man at the door. He set the horn blaring and then ran for the front door.
Outside, there was one man with the robotic dog gnawing his bloody arm. He was screaming in agony for help. His partner was trying to get a clear shot of the dog, but the struggle was making it difficult.
Morgan ran past them, the horn sound filling the property, but in the open the sound wasn’t painful.
“Get down on your knees. Now!” The woman waiting at the car was pointing a gun on him. Morgan placed his hands behind his head and fell to his knees. He shut down the sound of the horn still sounding in the background—for Sky’s sake.
Speaking into a device, the woman informed the others that Morgan was safely in her custody. She instructed them to check the house for others. He waited for her to be done with her instruction before striking her with the car he had taken control of. Nothing too violent, just enough to knock out her knees. As she fell, a shot went off in the sky. She called the others for help.
Morgan jumped onto the car roof of the black car he was controlling. He latched onto the edge of the front windshield. Shots hit the car, and another shattered the rear window. He instructed the car system to take a sharp turn down a side street, almost propelling him off the roof as it turned. He secured his grip and opened the sunroof to slip inside. He disabled the navigation tracking software and set the destination to New Jersey’s pier. Another shot scuffed the driver’s seat. He looked back to see another car was gaining on him. Infiltrating its autonomous navigation commands, he slowed it down to a halt.
––––––––
In the city, near the Harbor Ferry, he slowed down just enough to jump out and set the car off to Raleigh, North Carolina, hoping that would throw them off. He decided to take the Ferry from Jersey to Manhattan. It would give him time to consider what had happened. The neighborhoods of Manhattan offered plenty of places to hide.
There was a lineup of pedestrians waiting to board the ferry, which was odd for a mid-afternoon weekday. A woman with a child tucked into her side examined him curiously. Morgan looked away. He must be careful to not get spotted and have the government on his tail too. He had enough trouble with whoever had found him—they were clearly not the government. They were too young, armed, and technologically sophisticated. The situation was strangely inexplicable, but this was becoming his new normality.
Not far to the side from the ferry’s entrance, a long-haired guy was sitting on a bucked strumming a stringless tennis racket as if he was playing the guitar chords from the classic rock blasting from his small portable speaker. In front of the man, was an upturned hat with a CurrencyCard in it. Morgan wanted that hat.
Morgan hurried to a nearby CurrencyCard dispenser and hacked it to dispense a card. He returned to the guy with the racket.
“I’ll buy your hat for twenty units.”
The guy stopped playing his fake guitar and turned down the radio not having heard what Morgan said.
“I’ll buy your hat for twenty units.”
The guy touched his head. “What hat? I got no hat.”
“That one, there.” Morgan pointed at the hat he wanted.
“Ah that. Found that in a dumpster. Why’d you want that old thing?”
“Looks like one my dad had when I was a kid,” he said.
“That’s a nasty hat.”
“I’d really like it.”
“Where will I put my CurrencyCard if I have no hat?” Morgan could hear the call from the ferry announcing departure in two minutes.
“I’ll give you a hundred units for it.”
The guy looked at him with big eyes. Morgan just hoped it was in reaction to his generous offer and not because he’d seen his face on the news.
“You’re crazy.” The man held out his card. Morgan tapped it to transfer the units. The man double checked the new amount, shaking his head in astonishment. “How am I the one working the streets? You’re the crazy folk.”
Morgan pulled the hat over his head. It stank of rotten mildew, but he didn’t care. At the ferry gate, he raised his hand to the hat’s rim to conceal his face and avoided eye contact with the other passengers.
It was a cold gray afternoon with a fine drizzle sending everyone into the ferry lounge, except a few men who chatted among the cars on the lower lever. The front deck was empty, and he crouched down between an air vent and an emergency floatation device storage box. With the ability to infiltrate devices, he sometimes lost track of all the things he could do and how he could use it to his advantage. Settled securely on the ferry, he could now consider his options more clearly. He thought of the car that contained the people who had chased him and listened to what was being said over its communication network.
“He’s on the ferry towards midtown New York.” Morgan recognized the voice he overheard. It was a calm and steady voice he had heard when he was being chased on the MagLev Train the day of his escape. It was the voice he had traced back to Paris.
“You want us to intercept the boat and find him?”
“That won’t work,” replied the man from Paris. “Wait for him at the arrival gate. Be discreet. If he doesn’t expect you, it should be easier. I don’t want him killed. I want that to be clear. He’s too important to me and this project.”
Somehow, they could follow his every move, leaving him nowhere to hide. Disabling their car would have limited outcome. They could always just send out another one that he wasn’t aware of. He decided there wasn’t much he could do. At least they wanted him alive—he reassured himself for what it was worth. He was also curious about the man in Paris. Perhaps, he should let himself be caught to meet this man.
He took a few moments of solitude to calm himself before having to face the unpleasant greeting that would be waiting for him at his destination. He didn't bother to speculate what was to come, knowing it was futile. Instead, he thought of the stories his father would tell him every time they took the ferry together. Like the story about his pregnant mother who had almost given birth to him on the ferry. His father would laugh at the memory of his younger self, who had panicked as Morgan’s mother had started having intense contraction as soon as the boat left the pier. Like a mad man, he had asked every person on the boat if they were a doctor or midwife. He didn’t find one—none were needed. His mother had given birth a week later. A birth that Morgan now realized never really happened. A father who never really existed. Fabrications from the Qintellect, that nevertheless made Morgan nostalgic of his youthful innocence.
