Chapter 61 – Angel City Devils
Thursday, July 30, 2308
Ross was gone. Now Ashley and Geoff were completely on their own. Geoff tuned the scanner to the police band. The lack of pursuit was unnerving.
"They don't see us!" he said. "They must have been tracking Ross. They didn't know we were there. The whole time you were upstairs, they kept saying that they couldn't get a reading. It must have been the Micronix!" Geoff sat bolt upright. "Where is it?" He was panicked. "I left it on the table!"
Ash pulled the device from her pocket.
"It must be jamming their scanners.” Geoff said. He looked at her. "Are you using it?"
"No. It freaks me out. I don't want it in my head."
Geoff smiled. "I don't know how to say this, but I think it thinks."
"What about?" she asked, holding out at harm’s length.
"It's very angry." Geoff looked at his sister, "That's why it likes you so much. You think about the same things."
Ashley raised an eyebrow.
"It wants revenge."
Ash smiled. "What does it want revenge for?"
"Same as you and me, for what they did to dad. And for being separated from its brother."
"Its brother? What are you talking about?"
"There were two of them," Geoff said.
"Who got the other one?" she asked.
"I guess whoever got Dad.”
Ashley smiled. She knew their names, Stanwood and Von Kalt. "If we're not careful, they're going to get us too."
"Then let's be careful," Geoff said.
Ashley pulled up the sedan's pre-programmed destinations and selected the nearest transfer car. She double-checked the black remote key Ross had given her and pulled the lever to recline her seat. Ash and Geoff slept until the autopilot gave its distinctive three rings, announcing that they had arrived at their destination.
Ashley sat up and looked around. They were in another parking structure, but much busier, more upscale. Ash looked over to the car next to them, a black armored hatchback. She triggered the key; the monster came alive, its lights winking, acknowledging the unlock command.
"Geoff, we're here," Ashley woke her younger brother.
Geoff looked around. "Here, where?"
"A mall I think."
"I'm so hungry," Geoff said.
"I know. I am too. We have to get some money," Ash said.
"We could try using Mom's cash station codec," Geoff suggested. "This is an emergency."
"This is definitely an emergency, but if we use it, we'll have a whole new set of them. That’s always how they get caught on the vid streams."
"They won’t catch us! We should go to a transit port," Geoff said.
"What are you talking about? You’re asleep."
"No. One time, on Simon Timex, they had to get cash and didn't want to be followed, so they waited till five minutes before a shuttle for Vegas and then used a cash station."
"We're not going to Vegas."
"Neither did Simon," Geoff explained.
"Ha." Ashley laughed.
"But the bad guys spent twenty minutes trying to figure out where he went. They split up, and he was already long gone."
"We're not going to a transit hub, Geoff. Maybe that works on vid streams and cartoons, but this is real life. Transit hubs are full of cops, it’s a bad idea."
"Not to hide out, just to get cash. That way, if they do pick up on us, they'll have to scan all the carriers to see if we even got on a shuttle. If we just go to some regular old bank, they're going to be all over us."
"Okay, okay. We'll try it. But the first sign of anything and we're out."
"The first sign of anything and it'll be too late," Geoff answered.
Ashley smiled. "As long as we're clear."
Geoff smiled back.
Reid joined Major Ross on overwatch, silently keeping an eye on the children from a few hundred meters above. Ross worried that, much as Geoff had said, at the first sign of anything, it may indeed be too late.
Two hours later, the siblings had parked, staked out and approached a cash station set next to a transit hub. People crowed the terminal. Each shuttle discharged a multitude of passengers and then sucked up the new fares, leaving the platform nearly empty.
Ash and Geoff spent fifteen minutes circling, watching the terminal from different locations. There were a dozen automated ticket stations, each doubling as a cash station. This particular platform also happened to be empty of uniformed policemen.
Geoff and Ashley both noticed other orphan children who had begun stalking them, but considering recent events, they weren't worried.
As soon as they stepped onto the platform, a tall, lanky boy confronted them. "This is the Devils' station. You want to use it, you have to pay the Devils' tax."
The Angel City Devils were a notorious street gang. Everyone had heard of them, many who had no affiliation claimed to be members. Ashley suspected the boy in front of her was of the later group.
All true members of the Angel City Devils bear the Devil's mark. At fist glance, she didn't see his mark. Ashley stepped toward him. "Unless you want to bleed red blood, you'd better step back."
Geoff noticed that Ashley's right hand was held behind her back, as if keeping Geoff away from the bully, but then he saw the black rectangle.
The tall boy laughed. His hair stuck up at odd angles, and he looked as if he hadn't had a shower or a picked up a brush in years. "You don't understand. We have to collect the tax. You don't pay us, we get beat."
Despite his unclean appearance in all other respects, the boy's teeth glowed a brilliant white. They were clean and straight and perfectly out of place in his filthy mouth.
"We're not paying, so get lost," Ashley said, moving back half-a-step, just enough to appear scared and push Geoff back a couple more.
"Oh, you're paying all right. You're paying."
He mistook Ashley's retreat for cowardice and stepped toward her, raising his hand to strike.
There were four other boys and Ash noticed that the others didn't seem as into it. They were all leaning back, turning away, hardly even watching. Ash was familiar with dangerous groups of bullies, and these guys weren't participating.
There were also several adults nearby, ignoring the incident entirely.
The boy with the pure white teeth swung at Ashley. He caught her right across the cheek. The CRACK, the volume of the slap, brought the entire room to a complete and sudden pause.
No one said anything, everyone looked over to Ashley and her aggressor. Lots of the adults were now watching.
Ashley recognized the same older Chinese man across the hall. He was the same man she'd seen in the park and the library.
Dirty face giggled. "Five across the eyes bitch!"
Ashley had allowed herself to be distracted. Her face burned, the skin raised where his hand had made such abrupt trespass. She felt violated. She felt helpless.
She felt fury, and then she moved.
Stepping forward with a powerful front kick, she caught him square in the groin. His sudden intake of air and silent, pained look confirmed her accurate impact with the target.
Ashley stepped back, letting him collapse to his knees.
She tried to resist the urge, but couldn't, and delivered several savage strikes to the boy's exposed face.
Over and over again, she brought her fist down into his nose and mouth. Blood exploded from beneath her hand.
After the flurry of punches, the boy collapsed to the station floor. His hands clutched at both his crotch and face.
Between the fingers, under the red ripped flesh, two rows of perfectly white teeth. Ashley hoped she'd chipped at least one but refrained from kicking him in the head.
Most people were watching, except for the Chinese man, who appeared to be studying the schedule board.
Ashley scanned the faces of the boy's friends.
None of them seemed interested in taking revenge against her, t
heir eyes all found other things to look at.
The adults, who hadn't done anything when the boy hit Ash, likewise didn't do anything now. They turned back to their original conversations, and the busy air of the station picked up once again.
The boy had gotten into a sitting position, his right hand investigating the damage to his nose.
Ashley saw a nearby cash station and led Geoffrey over to it. She punched in her parent's code and took out five hundred republican talents.
No one noticed. No one came rushing over to arrest them.
No one cared.
Ashley looked for the white haired Chinese man again, but he wasn't in the terminal anymore.
Ashley and Geoff wheeled a cart through a massive grocery store. Ash had gotten a backpack from the Back to School aisle, and it sat in the center of the cart. Ashley had gradually filled it with camp supplies and less-perishable foods; a variety of fruit, nuts, and granola.
Geoff was frustrated because his sister kept nixing his requests for candy, soda and chips. He wanted to get two backpacks full of stuff, but Ash had objected to that as well; so the single backpack remained open in the center of the cart, gradually being filled with what Geoff referred to as birdseed and other slowly rotting biomass.
"Sugar's not good for you," Geoff mocked. "Soda's too heavy to carry. Chips take up too much space. No matter what I want, you're going to say No," he complained.
Ashley almost blurted out, 'No, I won't' but realized that would prove his point. "I'll make you deal," Ash offered. "How about instead of coke, we get juice."
"Whatever, Mom."
“We need to think long term. After this, we are done. Total underground, understand?”
“What do you mean?” Geoff asked.
“After this we are not showing our faces in Angel City again. No more shopping. We get the evidence, and we leave. Deal?”
“Well, when the new comics come out, we could just wear masks.”
“Ha! No.” Ashley rolled her eyes, and the cart, deeper into the store.
Ashley’s Journal, Thursday, July 30, 2308
At the moment, everything is okay. Geoff and I are having a picnic, eating burgers and reading comics. Well, Geoff’s reading comics and we just finished the cheeseburgers. They were awesome. I swear I could live on cheeseburgers.
This morning we bought backpacks and sleeping bags, all the comics Geoff wanted and set off no alerts. We were using the secret emergency account, and it seems clean. We bought whatever we wanted.
I was looking through Geoff’s comics. He shoved one at me; it was a western - cowboys versus ninjas and pirates. I’m not sure how pirates and ninjas could end up in the old west, but I guess that’s the point of the story.