Chapter 2 – Lunch Time Traffic
Dr. Fox, still quite fit for his fifties, approached his radiant wife, already seated at a table near the fountain in an overly floral restaurant. He looked around, impressed. "Wow, they really work hard on this place," he said.
Mrs. Fox smiled and nodded, "I told you it was nice." Her eyes sparkled in the diffused sunlight, reflected off the water and chromed surfaces of the restaurant.
"I love you." Dr. Fox leaned in to kiss her.
"I love you too," she answered.
"Sorry about earlier," he apologized, running a hand through his light brown hair.
"Sorry for what?" she asked.
"On the phone, when I hung up, I forgot to tell you that I love you."
Mrs. Fox blushed and smiled. "You don't have to say it every time."
"Well, what if something happened?" he argued. "I don't want my last words to you to be... something else." He looked down at his napkin-wrapped silverware and adjusted its position on the patterned tablecloth.
"Thank you." She smiled and reached out to his hand, lying on the table. "If you'd stop driving like a lunatic you wouldn't have to worry about things like last words," she chided him.
"I've never even set off any proxies, well except that one time," he smiled.
"And that one other time," she countered.
"Oh, yeah. Well... Fine. But we both know that today's countermeasures prevent any serious sort of life-threatening injuries during vehicular collisions."
"But you aren't driving a vehicle that has those life-saving countermeasures."
"Yeah, but everybody else is," he answered.
In an effort not to give in and laugh, Ana silently drank from her water glass. She knew she best frustrated her husband's arguments by not arguing.
The waiter arrived with menus. Dr. Fox unwrapped his silverware and used the napkin to wipe his forehead.
"What's going on?" his wife asked.
He looked up and smiled, "We did it."
"You did what exactly?”
Fox didn’t answer, he just continued smiling.
“The What you told me you weren't going to do? The big What?"
Dr. Fox tempered his pride with a dash of humility, "Yes, that one."
"You said you wouldn't." She was beyond frustrated.
"I didn't do it. It did me," he attempted.
"That's such a load of shit," she replied. "Is this really what you want?"
"We're not going forward with it, if that's what you mean," he answered.
"You're not?"
"We all agreed."
"Who else knows?" she asked.
"Just Charles and Frank. And Tom," he replied.
"Jesus," she exclaimed.
"No. We left him out of this one."
"We'll have to move again," she sighed.
"I've been thinking about that. Do you still want to get away from all this?"
"I don't want to go on the run." she answered.
"No, I mean retire, for real this time, somewhere away from the whole mess, somewhere out in the country."
"Like we talked about?" she asked.
"I wasn't sure when we'd have a breakthrough, so... I bought some land out in the Dakotas a while ago." Dr. Fox smiled. "I only just worry about Ash and Geoffrey?"
"They would love it," she said. "The cat could have a proper back yard."
"It's all set up. Everything is ready, waiting for us. We can go whenever we want."
Ana smiled, her eyes wet and shining. "Let's go tomorrow."
Her husband leaned forward, his elbows crowded the silverware and water glass. "Everything ready for Ashley's party tonight?" he asked.
Ana nodded. "Pretty much. The house and presents are done, I just have to pick up the cake this afternoon."
"She didn't say anything this morning?"
"Not to me. I'm sure she doesn't know."
"You're probably right." He smiled and looked out the window.
Outside the building, a weaving vehicle distracted Andrew. It caused and narrowly avoided accidents in the surrounding antigravity lanes.
"Speaking of countermeasures, look at this guy," he said.
"Shouldn't they have kicked in by now" Ana asked, horribly fascinated by the vehicle as it careened toward them. The vehicle ricocheted off several others, triggering their jerky autopilot maneuvers. Cars skidded to a hovering stop in nearby loading and emergency lanes as the offending coup careened along the side of a building.
Instead of slowing down, it accelerated.
Dr. Fox cynically calculated which of the malfunctioning safety devices might allow the vehicle to keep moving while so obviously out of control. He put the odds around five thousand to one against the possibility of legitimate accident.
That meant this was deliberate.
Behind the several sheets of glass and steel, he and everyone else believed themselves to be perfectly safe. No one panicked. The terillium-alloy walls, charged and bulletproof, provided more than adequate protection from a lunatic rental.
As it approached, a massive thunderclap of energy exploded from the vehicle. The lights of the restaurant blinked out. Several vehicles dropped like stones from the sky. The out-of-control car headed directly for the restaurant. It smashed through the window over their table.
Then it detonated.
The ensuing explosion ripped a three-story hole in the complex, killing forty-five citizens that afternoon, including Dr. Andrew and Mrs. Anastasia Fox.
In the observation lab, Mr. Reid and his colleagues panicked. Mrs. Fox's monitors had gone black, her vitals non-existent.
"They're both dead," Mrs. Fox's supervisor, Sanders, said.
"Accident?" Reid asked.
"That was no accident." Mr. Samuel hopped out of his chair. "That was an explosion, their fail safes went off."
Ortiz gestured for Samuel to return to his seat. "Let's think about this. If that wasn't an accident; they will be on their way here directly."
The commanding officer of the lab, Colonel Ross, was ex-special forces. The rumor was that he'd taken a spot in the lab as a favor to Dr. Fox, in some Faustian bargain involving revenge and each other’s immortal souls. Ross didn't say anything, despite the glances from his subordinates.
Mrs. Fox's operator, Wash, looked back at Sanders. "We can't let them take the lab. Not after everything that happened last time.”
Colonel Ross nodded and stood up. "We have protocol."
While working the civilian post, the colonel dressed in civilian clothes; a sharp suit, tailored to conceal his sidearm. Without the slightest hesitation, he fluidly drew the weapon and shot each member of the team in the head.
He then moved to each man and put two rounds into their chest cavity.
Colonel Ross opened his desk drawer and removed an unlabeled glass bottle. He poured the acid onto the face and hands of each of the agents. It took a moment, but soon pale white smoke began to rise as the acid ate away at the soft tissue.
Back at his desk, Ross took a deep breath before dousing his own hands and his face with the acid. As the smoke began to rise from his skin, he raised his handgun to his mouth.
He bit down on the barrel and pulled the trigger.
A few moments later, gas jets set into the floor ignited and proceeded to incinerate the command center.
Ashley sat in sixth-hour English, drenched in sunlight, laced with perfumed breezes. Just after lunch and siesta-warm, it was quite possibly the sleepiest class of the day.
The boys tried to repress their drowsy love for the young teacher, as Ms. Timmerman, one of the sexiest instructors in the school, read aloud from Watership Down. The ancient classic told the story of a small group of orphaned rabbits and their search for a new home.
The intercom screeched to life and released a contagion of yawns through out the classroom. "Is this 208? Is this Ms. Timmerman?" the unseen Administrator asked.
Ms. Timmerman answered in the affirmative, but the inte
rval for her to answer was so dangerously short she doubted they heard her.
"Please send Ashley Fox to the Administration Office. She can bring her things, she won't be returning to class. Thank you."
Ms. Timmerman looked over to Ashley and nodded.
Ash stood, returned Ms. Timmerman's nod, Mandy's wave, and walked to the door.
Outside in the locker-lined hallway, once the door closed, Ashley stood for a moment. Ms. Timmerman began reading again, continuing the adventure.
Ash leaned against the wall, listening to Ms. Timmerman's melodic voice. She wanted to know what happened to Hazel, Big Wig and the other rabbits. She missed a few sentences of the muffled story and couldn't regain the thread. Frustrated, she turned away.
The halls stood bright and vacant. Ash moved with exaggerated slowness. She arrived at the door to the administration office without encountering anyone. She leaned against the doorframe, hearing little from inside the office.
She waited, watching the shadows moving behind the frosted glass, trying to catch a hint of what lay in store for her.
Three full minutes passed while she waited and listened. There were several people in the office, two men standing, just on the other side of the door, big men who made the floor creak when they moved.
No one spoke, which seemed strange.
Ash adjusted her books and reached toward the knob. She heard sniffling, someone crying. Ashley opened the door; revealing two uniformed Angel City Police Officers. Behind them, her brother sat on the counter, his eyes wet with tears.
Geoff sprinted past the officers and jumped into his sister's arms.
The taller officer stepped forward. "Is your name Ashley Fox?"
Ashley nodded.
The officers moved their mouths. She understood their words but later couldn't recall hearing them. From somewhere underwater, they told her that her parents had been killed in a traffic accident. She understood, but she didn't hear their voices. She didn't hear the sounds.
Geoff sobbed her name like a prayer. She couldn't, or didn't, breathe. Her mind clung to worthless details. The officer talking was the taller one. On his arm, three stripes. The other stood shorter, younger, two stripes, his hand resting on the butt of his weapon. They had badges, but no nametags.
Ashley felt trapped; she checked the hall behind her.
It remained empty.
Three Stripes continued talking. He moved past the siblings and stepped into the hallway. Ash and Geoffrey followed, two stripes behind them. Three Stripes looked up and down the halls, watched doorways and constantly looked over his shoulder, but he didn't watch her. Two Stripes kept his hand on his weapon.
They went to Ashley's locker. They told her to take everything she wanted to keep, but to leave the books. She wouldn't be coming back here again. She dropped off her English text and packed her bag.
Ash closed the locker and looked at the officers. Unseen, the black metal prototype lay nestled between her palm and the bag strap.
The Micronix had once been her father's. It had fallen to her the last time he was killed, over two years ago. When he returned, he hadn't asked for it back. Now she kept it with her at all times.
She relaxed, feeling its weight in her palm.
Geoffrey was capable of using it as her father had, a liquid-core computer, capable of projecting the cyber-verse directly into the user's mind. Ashley wasn't interested in that aspect of it at all.
If something happened, Ashley would engage the device's more mundane function, it doubled as a lethally sharp switchblade.
Outside the school, the officers led them to the cruiser. The sergeant opened the hatch. The corporal pulled out his handcuffs and stepped toward the children. Ashley stepped between him and Geoff; the scowl on her face making her intentions clear.
Geoff thought she'd gone crazy. Even she couldn't take on two cops. Then he saw the Micronix, hidden behind her back, and stepped to the side.
The corporal frowned, raised an eyebrow and took another step forward. Ash let her pack slide off her shoulder and defensively raised her empty, left hand, curled in a loose fist. She brought her right around to hang loosely over her stomach.
The corporal was stunned. He didn't know what to do.
The sergeant looked over at the confrontation. "What the hell are you doing?" he asked his partner.
The corporal answered by yelling over his shoulder. "Any civilian traveling in a department vehicle will wear restraints. You know the regulations."
"Get onboard, corporal," the sergeant ordered.
"It's a regulation, sergeant," he countered.
"Get onboard, jackass!"
The corporal rolled his eyes and returned the cuffs to his belt, bowing low and gesturing for Ash and Geoff to freely pass.
Ash picked up her bag and Geoff smiled at her. She winked in reply.
Inside the transport, Ash gave the sergeant their address, and they suffered the remainder of the ride in silence.
Geoff leaned forward, his head pressed against the terillium-tinted glass. The air outside the transport reached one hundred percent humidity; raindrops drenched the vehicle and ran down the windows, their shadows trickling across the inside.
The Angel City traffic crept along in that cautious, panicked, and slow-as-molasses way that only Angel City traffic does, whenever confronted with the awesome malevolence of mother nature, in the form of a bit of drizzle.