He hears a slam.
A door. No. Can’t be.
“The door!” one of the Crows shouts. “He’s escaping.” Heavy footsteps pound across the room. The door slams again and then there’s relative silence, save for the occasional scuffle from above. Crows searching their old place for clues.
Benson peeks through a crack in the rubble. No one’s there.
He almost cries out when a hand grabs him from behind, but his scream is cut off when another hand covers his mouth.
His heart sinks to his feet when he sees who it is.
Luce.
And boy does she look pissed.
She puts a finger to her lips before uncovering his mouth. He wants to push her away, to scream at her to leave him alone, to run for it, but instead he just shakes his head. The smallest sound could alert their enemies to their presence, and then it really would be all his fault.
There’s a heavy thump from the other side of the debris. Benson motions to the crack. They lean in, their heads touching, each with an eye peering through the gap.
Benson freezes, ice water surging through his veins, icicles filling his soul.
Because it’s him.
The one from the holo-screen.
The half-human, half-machine cyborg.
The cyborg cracks his knuckles loudly.
~~~
The cyborg pokes around the room for a few minutes before the door bangs open. “Sir,” a voice says. A woman wearing all black steps into view. Unlike the Crows, however, she has on a full suit of body armor. A Hunter.
“Call me the Destroyer,” the cyborg says. Benson can’t help but notice the way he looks her up and down, like she’s a rare piece of art. Her black armor hugs her curves.
“Uh, Destroyer,” she says. Benson almost wants to laugh. Destroyer? Really? Luce and he exchange a look.
“Status,” the Destroyer says.
“Gone, sir. We think they got into the Tunnels.”
“How?” The question comes out as a low growl.
“There was an alternative exit not marked on the building designs,” she says. “I sent Hardy, Vetter, and Moss after them.”
“On a silver platter…” the cyborg says, shaking his head.
“Sir—I mean, Destroyer?”
“That’s all for now. Keep in touch with the Hunters and let me know the moment they get a lead.”
“Yessir.”
She starts to leave, but he stops her with a hand on her shoulder. “One more thing, Davis. Meet me back at base at eighteen-hundred hours.”
Her eyes wide, she nods, and then disappears from view, the door clanging behind her as she exits. A smile quirks at the cyborg’s lips, but fades quickly when a radio attached to his hip chirps.
“Destovan. Come in. What the hell is going on?” The voice sounds familiar.
“It’s the Destroyer,” the cyborg says, speaking into a headset.
“I don’t care what the hell you call yourself, so long as you’ve got that Slip’s head on a platter.”
The Destroyer sighs. “He got away.”
“What?” The voice through the radio is incredulous.
The cyborg doesn’t answer.
“I gave you his LOCATION,” the voice says.
“Look, Mars,” Destroyer says, gritting his teeth. “I can’t run an operation with bad information. Your schematics were incomplete.” Benson’s thoughts rattle through his head. Mars! Holy bot-balls! No wonder the voice on the other end sounded so familiar. It’s Corrigan Mars. But didn’t Pop Con sack him? The cyborg, too?
“Just get me that Slip,” Mars says.
The Destroyer snatches the radio from his hip and raises it over his head, as if he might smash it on the floor. But then his body slackens, and he re-clips it to his belt. “Yes, sir,” he says.
Standing only a few meters away, Benson can practically feel the rage rolling off of the cyborg’s body. He might not have destroyed the radio, but two seconds later he begins using their old couch as a punching bag, crashing right fist after right fist into its flanks, as if it’s his worst enemy. His metal fist blasts a dozen holes in the couch before he stops and takes a deep breath.
Planting his machine leg first, he leaps, jumping impossibly high and out of sight, landing with a heavy thump somewhere on the level above, where presumably part of the floor remains intact.
Benson and Luce look at each other, their twin sighs of relief mingling in the scant space between their lips.
~~~
With the Hunters focusing on the secret exit into the Tunnels, Benson and Luce sneak down a fire escape and onto the floor below. From there they pry open the doors to the deactivated building lifter, and use the thick, black cables like ropes to slide to the basement. From the roof of the lifter’s cab, they open the escape hatch and hang-drop inside, their movements only illuminated by a thin beam of light from the flashlight attached to a chain dangling from Benson’s pocket.
The whole time he’s hoping his friends managed to escape.
As they wait for the Hunters to clear out, Benson and Luce sit across from each other, their backs to the wall. “Luce, I’m so sorry,” Benson says after a few minutes of silence. He rubs his eyes so he doesn’t have to see the angry expression he’s sure she’s wearing.
“You should have told us,” Luce says.
“I swear I didn’t know what I was—well, at least not for sure. My father never told me the whole truth. Anytime I started thinking too much about it, I pushed it deep inside me, where it wouldn’t scare me. I tricked myself into just thinking I was just…unwanted.” He looks up and, to his surprise, Luce doesn’t look angry at all. It’s worse than he thought. She looks disappointed in him, like he’s let her down.
“When I told you my secret you could have told me yours,” she says, dropping her gaze to her lap.
“I was a little…distracted,” Benson says, smirking slightly. The memory of her hand squeezing his warms his cheeks.
“And that’s my fault?” Her eyes are like lasers.
“No—I mean, yes. I mean, I don’t know. You can be rather distracting,” he finishes lamely.
It’s her turn to grin. He hopes that’s a good sign. “Oh, really? Enlighten me, Benson. What is it about me that’s so distracting?”
“Umm…” Your smokin’ hot body, your tan skin, the way I sometimes can’t concentrate on what you’re saying because of your gorgeous lips, the strength you wear like body armor, your subtle, sarcastic sense of humor… “Everything?” he says.
“Is that a question?”
“No?”
“It sounded like a question.”
“It wasn’t?” Benson says, realizing too late that, once again, it sounded like a question.
Silence falls once more, and second by second, the moment of unexpected lightness passes. Benson can almost see a cloud of darkness falling over them, thickening the air, making it hard to breathe.
“I’m sorry I put Geoffrey in danger,” Benson says. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t realize who—what—I was. What I am. I know that’s why you’re so pissed off at me.”
“For being so smart, you can be really stupid sometimes,” Luce says.
Benson doesn’t know what to say to that, so he plays with one of his shredded shoelaces. It’s stiff and black, like the fabric of their old couch. How close did he come to being killed in the explosion? Pretty bot-lickin’ close, he imagines.
Thankfully, Luce changes the subject. “What color are your eyes really?”
“What?” Benson says, surprised. Like everything about his past, he tries not to think about it too much.
“Your eyes. They’re brown, but the reporter said your name was linked to a fake retinal signature. Are your real eyes the same color?”
“No,” he admits. “They’re blue. Like yours, only not so sparkly. At least, as far as I can remember. I was young when my father implanted the fake ones.”
“You mean Michael Kelly.”
&nb
sp; “Yeah…him.”
“I can’t believe your father is the Head of Pop Con,” she says. “All this time…”
Great. They’re back on that subject. “Look, I’m sorry. I should’ve told you. My father told me never to tell anyone, so I made up a story and stuck to it until it almost felt real, like it was better than the truth. Does that make any sense?”
To his surprise, she says, “Yes. I understand why you didn’t tell us, but I still hate it.”
Before he can even begin to understand how that makes sense, she says, “And Benson isn’t your real name, right? Your last name is Kelly, not Mack, so Benson must be fake, too.”
The way she says it makes it sound even worse. Like he never told them a single shred of truth, which, in some ways, is accurate. “I don’t have a real name,” Benson admits.
“What?” she says, her eyebrows lifting. The soft glow of the flashlight between Benson’s knees casts a reddish sheen on her skin.
“My father only ever called me ‘Son.’ And Janice only ever said ‘Child.’ I only became Benson Mack when Check first found me and scanned my fake retinas. So I guess Benson Kelly is my real name now.”
“You said Janice helped raise you,” Luce says. “Who’s Janice?”
“I’m pretty sure she’s my mother,” Benson says. A familiar pit opens in his stomach—the same pit he felt when he realized the harsh truth about his screwed up childhood. “Remember when Michael Kelly—I mean, my father—was forced to admit his wife into the asylum?”
Luce nods. “Yeah, it was a major headline. She’d gone completely mad.”
The pit grows bigger. “Something like that,” he mutters.
“Oh crap, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way,” she says, sliding across the lifter to sit next to him.
Of course there’s no other way she could’ve meant it. Benson says, “It’s okay. I think she lost it when I left home. She was always a bit…eccentric.” There’s an ache in his chest. He hasn’t thought about any of this in a long time. Although he knows forgetting is the coward’s way, remembering is too hard sometimes.
Luce hesitates, but then places her hand, palm open, on his knee. He’ll never take such a touch for granted, not anymore. Not after knowing her secret. He takes her hand, relishing her warm skin and the tingling sensation that her touch always brings. “Why didn’t you escape with the others?” Benson asks. “Why did you follow me?”
Luce runs her thumb across his knuckle, sending shivery tendrils up his arm. His heart beats faster. She licks her lips. Only now he notices a smudge of ash on her cheek. “No one should have to be alone,” she says.
He raises his other hand to her cheek, but then realizes his mistake before he touches her. He stops, his hand hovering inches away from her skin. “You have a…smudge,” he says, gesturing on his own cheek where it is on hers. She raises a hand and rubs at her cheek, but she only makes it worse, spreading the ash over a larger area. He can’t help her any more than she can help him.
And as much as it hurts he knows if he wants to save her he has to separate from her as soon as possible.
Because Pop Con—and his father—will never be able to stop hunting him.
~~~
Past article from the Saint Louis Times:
Ideal Population Reduced
A new study has determined that due to continued sea level rises, the U.S. landmass will continue to decline. Taking the new information into account, The Department of Population Control announced today that the ideal population level has been adjusted down by twenty million, to be implemented over a ten year period. Existing Death Matches will be honored, but all applications going forward will be matched against two aging members of the population. Both members must die before the applying parents will receive a birth authorization. In addition, a limit of one birth may be authorized for each family during the transition period. These changes will remain in effect until the population has reached the ideal level.
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:
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PART 3: FATHER AND SON
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Michael Kelly hasn’t left his office for hours, since the reports of the explosion on the outskirts of the city and the rumors of a failed attempt to apprehend the Slip. His face is hot, flush with anger and frustration, even as his hands are cold and clammy with anxiety.
How did they discover the fake identification he’d given his son? It was the best, most sophisticated fake ID money could buy.
He knows Corr is behind it. When he catches a scent he’s like a bloodhound. Not sleeping. Not eating. Not resting until he finds his prey. He would’ve diverted all of Pop Con’s resources to unraveling the convoluted trail Michael had created. The only thing he can take solace in is the fact that there’s no way it can be traced back to him. Which gives him the slightest of edges.
In all truth, he knows exactly how Corr and his team would’ve discovered his son. The auto-scans get more sophisticated and effective each year. A random scan would’ve identified Benson’s photo in the system as “unreadable,” meaning poor quality, grainy, and not particularly useful. It’s a photo that Michael, using computer aging technology, has updated every two years since he let his son go, in order to comply with laws requiring that all citizens maintain a current photo on the system.
He’s been using a dead boy.
He got the idea on a fateful night nine years ago. He’d been working late when he saw the news story. Nothing unusual. Even with all of the groundbreaking safety features of the aut-cars, tragedies still happened. A young boy, only seven years old, chased a ball out into the street. The aut-car stopped with more speed than if it had been controlled by a human; and yet, not fast enough. According to the medical examiner, the boy died on impact. No one’s fault. An accident.
But it wasn’t the boy’s death that caught Michael’s attention. It was his uncanny resemblance to his son. Same color hair, same color eyes. Similar height, weight and build.
The boy’s name was Benson Mack.
With his level of clearance, getting into the right parts of the system was easy enough. Unfortunately, the medical examiner had already recorded the details of the death, including the boy’s photo, in the system. The file had been transferred to Pop Con, but the next birth authorization had not yet been matched. So Michael simply hijacked the file and took the birth authorization number.
The rest was easy enough. First he edited the boy’s file, creating a sad story of an orphaned boy with a rocky early life. Next Michael had fake retinas made by a black market dealer named Eyeball. He assigned the birth authorization to the new retinal ID and presto!—Benson Mack was still alive.
Once the random scan identified the “suspicious photo,” an alert would’ve gone to an analyst, who would’ve used photo reconstruction technology to improve the quality of the image, quickly realizing the photo had been altered. That’s when the rumors about a potential Slip probably started, leaked to the press by Corr. They’d already had the false name and approximate age of the Slip, based on the information attached to the photo, but until they confirmed the truth, Corr would’ve withheld that information from the public, using the time to build public support for the investigation.
Then they probably found the medical examiner’s death file. Using advanced facial recognition software, the “clean” original photo of the boy as a seven-year-old would’ve been matched with the photo of the boy who died. Slip confirmed.
Freaking Corrigan Mars.
The news even has a shot of a cyborg entering the build
ing. There’s no mistaking Domino Destovan. The brother of the last Slip is trying to catch the latest Slip. There’s something cruelly poetic about it, Michael thinks to himself.
He should have known there’d be repercussions for tossing Corr onto the streets. But what’s worse, a snake in your bed or a snake in the house?
His portable holo has been ringing nonstop, until he finally switched it to silent. Where the hell is Lacey, anyway? She couldn’t have picked a worse day to skip work.
The entire department will be waiting for his orders. They’ll be confused as to why there are other Hunters out there looking for the Slip. They’ll think they’re being purposely kept out of the loop; which, of course, they are.
Michael buries his head in his hands and tries to focus on the future, bleak as it may look, but can’t stop dwelling on the past.
His son wasn’t allowed to be born. Or, at least, not allowed to live once he was. But try to tell a parent to give up their child and they’ll go from civilized to wildcat in an instant. He got creative, found a back-alley doctor who would deliver the child without authorization papers. The doctor wasn’t in it to help—he was in it for the money, which Michael happily paid from his rainy-day fund. A million bucks was a small price to pay for his kid’s life and his wife’s safety.
When they brought the baby home, just a tiny bundle of pink skin, they were scared. But not scared enough to not come up with a plan. A separate house, registered under a fake name. A separate life. Janice would take care of Harrison, but also help raise their unauthorized child, but as a nanny, not a mother. They would hide him for as long as they could, try to give him everything to live a happy life. Michael knew all the tricks to keep Pop Con away, and, as the Head of the department, he’d be able to manage.