“Noo,” she says, drawing the word out. “They gave me a medal. Called me a patriot.”
She pauses, but Benson can see she’s not done, that there’s more, something dark and deep. The reason why Harrison would hate her. He waits patiently.
“They killed my boyfriend.”
Benson freezes, his blood running cold.
“Unknown to me, he’d already contacted a black market doctor. They had proof. Records. They said his crimes were unforgivable. Sentenced him to death and killed him.” Although her eyes fill with tears, they’re like dark pools of fury.
“I’m sorry,” Benson says. “I’m so sorry.”
“I loved him,” Minda says. “Both of them. They aborted my baby before I could carry him to full term. They killed my little Rajesh, named after my boyfriend. He was beautiful, perfect. I know he would’ve had his father’s big eyes. His big ears, too. I still picture him with my nose and chin. They kept me locked in a facility until after the procedure. They knew I would run, even as they poured accolades on my head. I played along. Tricked them. I knew they’d kill me, too, so I didn’t fight back, accepting the compliments gracefully. I made them think I was okay with it. I let my unborn son go silently into the night so I could keep on living.”
“You had no other choice,” Benson says.
“There’s always another choice,” Minda says. “I know that now. That’s why I’m a Lifer. That’s why I’m fighting for change.”
Benson looks away. He’s never been sure he agrees with the Lifers’ methods—the bombings and destruction—but he can no longer deny their spirit. They’re trying to help give people like him a better life. They were even harboring dozens of wanted fugitives. Maybe he’s been too hard on Jarrod.
“Minda?” a voice says from behind, pulling his thoughts back to reality. Simon approaches in the dim lighting. “You’re awake.” Benson can hear the relief in the large man’s tone. Clearly he cares about Minda’s well-being.
“I’m okay, Simon. I’m glad you are, too.”
Benson rises to leave, to let the friends speak privately, but Minda stops him. “Thanks for checking on me, Benson Kelly.”
“Sure,” he says.
“Do me a favor?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t tell Harrison what I told you. I need to do it in my own time.” Simon gives Benson a strange look, but doesn’t ask what she means.
“No problem,” Benson says. Suddenly all he wants to do is talk to Harrison, even if his brother has nothing nice to say. Now’s not the time to hold grudges against family.
~~~
After leaving Minda and Simon to talk, Benson asks a few of the guards if they’ve seen his brother. The third one he speaks to says, “He went to the top floor with that worthless Slip who got everyone killed.”
Somehow he’s not surprised that Harrison and Destiny are still together. He starts for the stairs, but a voice stops him. “Benson?” his mother says, somewhere in the dark.
He makes for her voice. He finds her propped up on one elbow, right where he left her. “You need to sleep, Mother,” he says.
“Your brother is very sorry,” she says.
“Harrison?” he says, as if he has more than one brother.
“He wants golden sunrises and rainbows for the both of us,” she says, her eyes lighting up. “No, that didn’t make sense.” She taps her fingers on her skull. “Harrison wants straight arrows and umbrellas on rainy days. For you. For me. That’s better. Much better.”
Benson thought the first analogy made more sense, but he doesn’t comment. Instead, he asks, “Why is Harrison sorry?”
She scratches her head. “He didn’t say.”
“Wait. Wait just a minute.” Benson needs a moment of quiet. Something isn’t right. Well, something other than the fact that he’s travelling with a band of government fugitives. Something else, specific to his brother.
Harrison went with Destiny to the sixth floor.
“Umbrellas on a rainy day,” Janice muses softly.
He’s very sorry for something.
“Straight arrows, pointing at my heart,” she says.
We have to kill Benson’s dud. His old Death Match has to die so he can live.
“Oh no,” Benson breathes.
Benson rushes back to the guard who told him where his brother went, leaving Janice muttering to herself. “Did he have his hoverboard?” Benson asks.
“Your brother?” the guard asks.
“No, bot-lickin’ Santa Claus,” he says, his patience gone. “Did. Harrison. Have. His. Hover. Board?”
The guard looks like he’d rather punch Benson than answer the question, but he says, “Yeah, so what? And that girl was wearing her hoverskates. They were probably going to do some stupid hoverdance together when they were supposed to be watching the perimeter.”
The guy keeps talking, but Benson is already gone, flying across the room, into the stairwell, bounding up the steps, his heart pounding, his breath heaving.
He throws open the door to the large space on the sixth floor.
Silence.
“Harrison?” he says. “Destiny?”
A breeze ruffles his wavy hair, cooling the sweat on his face.
The window is wide open.
Harrison and Destiny are gone.
~~~
Article from the Saint Louis Times:
Nuclear Testing in the Pacific
Government satellites have picked up a large mushroom cloud in the Pacific Ocean, two hundred knots north of what used to be the Hawaiian Islands. Drones were dispatched to the site, immediately confirming the presence of radioactive material, both in the air and in the sea. Clusters of dead fish have begun washing up on the shores of the California Islands.
So far neither the United Asian States nor the Russian Confederacy has claimed responsibility. The Island of Australia has been silent.
Citizens of the RUSA are cautioned not to panic, as nuclear testing isn’t evidence of an impending attack.
Have a comment on this article? Speak them into your holo-screen now. NOTE: All comments are subject to government screening. Those comments deemed to be inappropriate or treasonous in nature will be removed immediately and appropriate punishment issued.
Comments:
HappyGoLucky: This sounds like it’s just a test. Nothing more. I, for one, won’t lose sleep tonight.
JennaFairmont: Great, all we need is another excuse to divert taxpayer money to the military.
PoeNorris: We should hit them before they hit us!
Chapter Twenty-Two
Destiny is a damn good hoverskater.
Harrison already knew that, after seeing her running from the AttackDogs, but still, seeing her in action is something special to behold. Despite how talented a hoverboarder he is, she keeps up with him the entire way, zigging around trees, zagging around bushes, leaping fallen logs and ducking low-hanging branches.
Speeding through the forest is eerie at night. He managed to snag a couple of pairs of night-vision goggles from the Lifers’ supplies, which cast everything in a spooky green hue, almost as if they’re trapped in a video game. From time to time he sees animals scampering through the undergrowth, away from their path.
For the few hours they spend racing away from his entire family, Harrison can almost forget why they’re running, as if he’s left it behind, too.
But he knows that’s as much a lie as the one he told to Benson, when he said that Luce was just some chick. Great, he thinks. First I lied to my brother and now I’m lying to myself. I’m more like my father than I thought.
A pang of regret hits his gut. The more he thinks about it, the more what he did to Benson reminds him of Michael Kelly. For his entire life, he’s thought of his father’s life and his as two separate lines, running parallel to each other, never touching. But now, he can almost see the diagonal lines connecting them together. One here, one there. One for his mother, one for his brother.
One for his lies.
And he realizes:
What he just did to Benson is exactly what his father did to him.
Holy.
Bot-lickin’.
Crapballs.
He knows it’s true. His father wasn’t absent from Harrison’s life because he didn’t love him. No, as much as he wanted to think that, it was never true. It was the opposite.
His father stayed away because he loved him.
Which makes them the same. Harrison had to distance himself from Benson, make him hate him, so that he could help him, protect him. Hopefully, save him. Because he loves Benson. He might have only met him, but he loves him, as only a twin brother can.
Like Harrison, his father had to take drastic actions to protect his family. Whether those actions were the best course can be argued, but it’s what he thought he had to do. So he sent his illegal son across the Mississippi River and ignored his legal son. He created a buffer between him and them because of what he thought he had to do. So that when the inevitable happened, and he was caught, he wouldn’t destroy them in the process.
Michael Kelly wanted his sons to hate him.
It worked for one, Harrison, but failed for the other. Benson still loves their father, despite everything.
And now Harrison is planning to kill someone to save his brother. If that doesn’t make him similar to his father, he doesn’t know what would. Like his father, he knows he’ll do anything to protect his mother and brother, even at the risk of his own life. He’ll take drastic measures to achieve drastic results.
Which makes him hate his father just a little less.
When they finally slow to a stop, the forest is long gone behind them and the towering Saint Louis skyline is rising in the distance, catching the first rays of sunlight blooming in the east. Almost as quickly as the sun provides much-needed warmth to Harrison’s extremities, dark clouds smother it, leaving dawn feeling gray and empty.
Beside Harrison, Destiny sniffs the brisk air. “Snow is coming,” she says.
“It’s too soon,” Harrison says.
“Not this year,” Destiny says. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it snowed for the next twelve months.”
Harrison suspects she’s using the weather as a metaphor. Even still, the thought makes a tremor run down his spine. “Are you cold?” he says, to cover the chill that’s running through him.
“Frozen solid,” she says.
“We could, you know, huddle together for warmth,” he says, grinning.
She can’t meet his eyes, which he doesn’t think is a good sign. But then her hoverskates carry her closer, close enough that he can reach out and wrap his arms around her. She shivers into him, sighing slightly. As cold as he is, his body’s generating more warmth than hers, which feels like ice. “For body warmth,” Destiny says. “That was still a terrible line,” she adds, managing a half-moon smile up at him.
Harrison smiles back. As strong and capable as she looks when she’s hoverskating, her body feels tiny when folded against his. “It wasn’t a line,” Harrison says. “I’m just using you for your body warmth the same as you’re using me.”
She’s silent for a moment, her cheek pressed against his chest. He can feel his heart thudding. It feels so strong he can almost hear it, like a drum pounding out a steady beat.
“We can’t kill someone,” Destiny says, after a while of watching the sun try, and fail, to push its way between the clouds.
“You’re right,” Harrison says. “But I can.”
“How?” Destiny says, her arched eyebrows inquisitive.
“I don’t have the slightest idea,” Harrison says. “I guess I’ll figure it out when we get there.”
“How will killing someone give either of us redemption?” she asks. “It seems like it would do the opposite.”
Harrison laughs. “You mean, like, damn us again? Can someone be double-damned?”
“I guess not,” Destiny says. “But I don’t see how it would redeem us either.”
“It might not,” Harrison admits.
“But you said—”
“I know what I said,” Harrison says. “I lied. I said what I needed to so you wouldn’t kill yourself.”
Destiny squirms out of his arms, pushes him hard in the chest. “I trusted you!” Her voice drops from a shout to a whisper in an instant. “You said there was still a reason to live. But there’s not, is there? We’re all just dying a slow death, one way or the other, so what’s the point?” The distress in her voice, on her face, is heart wrenching to Harrison. This strong, capable, good-spirited girl has been broken in half by Pop Con. No, worse than that. Chewed up, swallowed, vomited back up, and spit out. For once, it makes him more sad than angry.
But he can’t lie to her anymore. Not one more lie. Not even to make her feel better, to give her hope. Honesty is what she needs.
“I don’t know,” he says. “Maybe there is no point. Maybe we’re just random collections of atoms doing random things in a random, meaningless world. But my love for my brother and mother are not random. They’re as real as it gets. And I will save them, one way or another.
“People think that everyone living is alive. But that’s not true. I’ve been the star hoverball player and gotten the girl and had more friends than the President of the Reorganized United States of America, and yet I didn’t live a single day. Not one. I was a dead man walking, pretending to live. Pretending to be happy. Pretending to care.
“The first day I really felt alive was when Mom screamed at the sky as my hoverboard whisked us away from the institution. The second day I felt alive was when I met my twin brother. And the third day I felt alive was when I met you.”
He sees her breath catch and he knows he’s said the right thing. Which is funny, because he didn’t plan it, didn’t think about the perfect words to make a girl’s heart go pitter-patter, didn’t laugh with his friends about what lines would work best on a girl. He just spoke from his heart, something he’s rarely done in his life.
And then her gasp turns into a scornful laugh and she says, “You don’t even know me, Harrison Kelly. If meeting me makes you feel alive then you’re as dead as I am.”
She skates off in the direction of Saint Louis, leaving him feeling cold and embarrassed, and something else that’s so foreign to him that he can’t quite place it.
~~~
“Have you heard?” Check asks, flanked by Rod and Gonzo.
Benson raises his chin from his bowl of soup. “Heard what?”
Gonzo slaps Check on the back. “The Lifers are hitting Saint Louis all over the place, in retaliation for the attack on Refuge,” he says, grinning.
“Hitting them where?” Benson says, furrowing his brows. The last time the Lifers “hit” Saint Louis, a lot of innocent people died. He had Picked the suicide bomber just before he blew up the U-Bank building. Later on, he’d witnessed the aftermath and it wasn’t pretty: charred corpses, rubble, and a group of protestors that quickly became a flash mob.
Rod chimes in. “A dozen spots, all linked to support for Pop Con.”
“The mayor’s office,” Check says, raising a finger. He continues to raise a finger for each place he rattles off. The list includes various businesses, from weapons manufacturers to makers of high-tech spyware. But it’s the last one that surprises Benson the most. “The Jumbo Food Company,” Check says.
“They attacked a food company?”
Check says, “The Saint Louis Times said, and I quote, ‘Food pills rained like confetti from the sky.’”
“How is The Jumbo Food Company linked to Pop Con?” Benson asks.
“They provide the food for the Pop Con cafeteria,” Rod says. “Pretty brilliant, don’t you think?”
“No,” Benson says. “I don’t think. That’s not a connection to Pop Con. That’s a company just trying to sell food. Any food company in the world would’ve taken that contract.”
“Not anymore,” Gonzo says. “Now everyone’s going to think t
wice before dealing with Pop Con. Any contract they sign could literally blow up in their faces.”
Benson shakes his head. This is exactly why he didn’t want to get too close to the Lifers, even after they let his friends use their Hawk drone to save his life. He’s quickly coming to realize that the Lifers, with Jarrod at the helm, always have an ulterior motive. And not always a good one.
But at least they’re fighting back, right? he reminds himself. Someone’s got to. Someone has to stand up to Pop Con. But not this way. Not by bombing a food company. Surely innocent people died—people who had no part in the contract with Pop Con. People who had families. People who were just trying to get by, like everyone else.
“It’s not right,” Benson says. “There has to be another way.”
“How can you say that?” Check asks. “Have you forgotten already? They tried to kill your entire family, Bense. Then they did kill your girlfriend. They killed Luce.”
Benson is so sick of crying. His tears feel like acid burning through his eyes, through his skin, eating him alive. Check’s trying to fight off his own tears, but he can’t, and they overflow, streaming down his cheeks and dripping off his chin. He hugs Benson and they clutch each other tight, like brothers.
“I haven’t forgotten,” Benson whispers. “But more killing isn’t the answer.”
Check pushes back from him, fire in his eyes. “Hell yes, it is. It’s time to take back our lives. Your brother had the right idea—I only wish he would’ve invited me to come. I would’ve killed for you, Benson.”
Benson sees the truth of the statement in his friend’s eyes. And yet, he can’t accept it. “I didn’t ask you to.”
“You don’t have to ask,” Check says. “Friends don’t have to ask.”
Benson bites his lip, considering whether he means what he’s about to say. “I’m going after Harrison,” he says.
Check blinks twice, his dark eyes clearing. “Seriously? Now you’re talking. We’ll get our things and then—”