Category: Novels

Thirty-Two

“I’m still not sure about this,” Mikaela said.

“This about me driving a bus, or?” Tucker trailed off while taking a turn too wide, jumping the curb and nearly smacking into a stop sign.

“Also that, yeah,” Mikaela said. “But more the us meeting clandestinely smuggled quasi-refugees.”  

“To be fair, what ABC did was more human trafficking than smuggling, and it’s more like we rescued them from kidnappers.”

“That certainly sounds more heroic. I guess I also assumed Bellingham’s airport would be more… podunk. It’s a tiny town. Why does it have a massive airport- an international airport? And apparently the third biggest in the state. I was expecting a single airstrip, with one of those old-fashioned windsocks, and probably a bored cow doing the air traffic controlling.”

“It’s the proximity to Vancouver. It gets a lot of traffic from there, because it’s cheaper than flying out of their international airport.”

“Guess that makes sense. You know where we’re going?”

“The Dean just pinged me. He’s walking them through the front doors.”

“I hate telepaths.”

“We dated for a long time… oh, right. That’s why.”

“Not the only reason,” Mikaela smiled slyly. “But it’s probably controlling.”

Tucker pulled the bus to a stop in front of the airport’s revolving front door, and the Dean stepped inside. “I told you I could manage the bus,” Tucker said.

“I wouldn’t brag too much; I can feel the anxiety dripping off Mikaela without poking into her head.”

“How’d it go?” Mikaeala asked, as a stream of young people, mostly children, flowed past them into the seats.

“It was a little depressingly simple to walk them through the airport.”

“In fairness, you can make security and anyone else see whatever you need them to- including nothing.”

“Still. There are a lot more telepaths around today than there were. It’s only a matter of time before someone abuses the privilege for more sinister means.”

“That depends,” Mikaela said, “if you’re counting the government using them against the rest of us. We know they’ve been pressing technopaths to work for the NSA. Why not recruit telepaths into the FBI?”

“That’s a chilling thought,” he said. “Though not as chilling as the thought of letting Tucker drive us all back to the school. You’re a passenger for the trip home.”

“Aw, man,” Tucker said. “I read that raccoon I hit; didn’t have a family, and I’m pretty sure he wanted to die.”

“That’s not funny,” Kean said.

“It was, a little,” Mikaela said, stifling a laugh.

Thirty-One

Mahmoud was concentrating, navigating the cell towers in search of any clues.  

“Mikaela said she was using burners, if that helps,” Rox said.

“Only if she bought up all the burner phones on the East Coast, and she even is on the East Coast,” he said, trying to maintain his concentration. “But Mikaela also said she was cautious, bordering on paranoid. I’ve found four phones she used once in the last nine months, no connection, other than a lack of connection. Each purchased on a different credit card, some fake, some stolen, from different chains, in different states at different times of day. The one constant is that they either didn’t have surveillance equipment or it wasn’t functioning that day, as best I can piece together through maintenance records. Worse, the phones were always purchased at the least minute, before she burned an identity and left town, so even if I discovered a pattern, it would lead us to where she had been, not either where she is or is going to.”

“Well we know where she’s going, but that-”

“Do we, though?” he asked. “Because statistically there’s almost even odds that he’ll be in New York or Florida, rather than in D.C.”

“Shit,” Rox said. “We need to start thinking like a terrorist.”

“Start?” Anita asked.

“Bugs?” Rox asked.

“You’re clear,” Mahmoud said. “No one’s mics are on.”

“If we were going to attack a President, how would we approach it?”

“Depends,” Anita said. “You just want him gone, or you want to make a statement?”

“Uh…”

“I could slip into the White House undetected, inject him with an agent to paralyze his vocal chords, force him at gunpoint to slash his wrists on the assumption that they can probably save him from that, but not a bullet. You want a statement, you attack the White House, you topple him in his castle in broad daylight with his guards on high alert.”

“That’s… actually a fair point,” Rui said, “if meandering. But I don’t think anything they’ve done to this point suggests they think they can siege the White House. Not even in a quick, smash and shoot style raid.”

“Unless they’ve powered up,” Rox said. “We know part of what they’ve been doing globetrotting is recruiting. If they got their hands on a heavy hitter, all bets would be off.”

“True,” Ben said, “but then, if they did recruit a heavy hitter, we probably couldn’t do much to even slow them down.”

“So I guess we’re left with the choice between assuming we’re fucked, or guessing they keep on the subtler track they’ve been on.”

“Or plan C,” Rox said. We pick our target, and hope we’re right. And to cover our bases, we call the Secret Service to tell them there’s an imminent threat. It’s halfway to a hail Mary, but half a loaf is better than starving.”

“I still say my plan is solid,” Anita said. “I can slip in. I’ve cased the place every few years when I swing through Washington. They’ll never even know I was there.”

“We’re trying to thwart an assassination, not do one,” Sonya said.

“Right,” Anita said. “I forgot we’re in the boring draft.” Ben’s head swiveled towards her. “You have no idea how kinky alternate you gets,” she told him.

“So any other insights, then?” Rox asked. Anita’s face lit up, and Rox put up her hand, “Insights not about anyone’s alternet reality sex lives.”

“Pooh,” Anita said. “The problem is they’re doing the exact same kind of guessing game as we are. Probably. Unless this is one of the timelines where… heh, yeah. I have insight. You know how nobody in this administration even bothers using appropriate channels, they’re all on public email and using unsecured phones? Mahmoud.”

“Shit,” he said. “Feel dumb I didn’t think of that- of course, I’ve missed most of what she’s talking about, because I’ve been trapped in an information-free hole. But still, his schedule is on an unsecure phone. Or twelve. Jesus. It wouldn’t even take a skilled technopath to crack this. I’ve got his schedule. Access to his taxes. Bank records. I really think we should have a talk about selectively leaking some of this before November…”

“For now,” Rox said, “we’ve got an idea of where their target will be, and the timeframe, so it should be fairly simple to figure out some approaches.”

Thirty

“I kind of feel like we should have stayed,” Demi said, as Seattle shrunk in their rear window.

“I get the sentiment,” Mikaela said, “but I need a shower. And a change of underpants. And outerpants, for that matter.”

“I reverse them,” Iago said, “Then it’s like I’m wearing a whole new pair.”

“He better not be back there with his underpants on the outside,” Tucker said, “or I’m burning the upholstery.”

“There are other ways to agitate for change,” Drake said. “Marching in Seattle isn’t the only one.”

“Maybe not. But you can’t tell me that wasn’t… something,” Demi said, her voice light.

“Oh, it definitely was,” Tucker said, glancing at her in the rearview mirror. “But you can’t get caught up chasing that feeling, either. Sometimes change is marching through the streets of your podunk little college town, protesting police some nonlethal discrimination on a Tuesday. It’s the little, seemingly insignificant shit along with the big, important shit.”

“That’s profound shit,” Mikaela said.

“Oh, bite my brother’s inside-out underpants.”

“Not even with your teeth.”

“Ew.”

“I think I’m going to go back,” Mayumi said. “You’re right, that change is cumulative, and what happens in smaller towns impacts the bigger picture, too- but this is different. Because Seattle is the biggest city close to the school, itself he biggest collection of Breed- it’s a flashpoint. I think the cops and the city know it, too- I think that’s part of why their response was so aggressive so quickly. It got there in basically every city, but it added fuel. I need to be here, right now.”

“I think I’m going to come, too,” Demi said.

“I can’t,” Mikaela said. “The Breed Rox liberated from Cuba are already in the air, on their way to Bellingham. I promised I’d watch over them.”

“That’s okay,” Mayumi said. “I don’t think this is an either or thing. I think both are important, and necessary. Just because I feel like I need to go back, doesn’t mean anyone else should feel compelled to. Plus, I, too, need a change of underpants, too.”

Note: Jesus Christ, we’re already back full circle. Well, like I said two weeks ago, I’m going to try and keep going, til the wheels come off. Might start taking Saturdays off, just so I can have a little more me time (by which I mean family time, and not literally me time- nothing gross should be inferred from this); I think I’ve been de facto doing that unintentionally because I keep getting caught up over the weekend and missing a posting. Also, just a note on continuity, I think the chapter with Mahmoud is going to be first, so 29 brings us back to Rox’s group, and we’ll be going back and forth going forward.

Twenty-Nine

Rox couldn’t sleep. They drove all night to get over the border into Texas, but now that they were back in the US, she couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being pursued.

Mahmoud felt it too. At least, that would explain the way his breath kept hitching, and the way he was twitching. He was sharing the other Queen bed with Rui and Ben, nearest the Queen she was sharing with Sonya and Anita. Suddenly, he sat bolt upright, screaming. The lights went off, the alarm, the television- every electronic in the room shut down at once. Rox was already on her feet, running to the window, and watched as a shockwave washed through the nearby city, killing every light in its path.

“Goddamnit,” Mahmoud muttered, standing beside her.

“I don’t blame you- I don’t. But you just lit a signal flare even the Drump Administration dummies could see from space. We can’t be here when they get here.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice dripping with self-loathing.

“Shut up.”

“Sorry. You don’t need my whining right now.”

“No. I mean shut up,” she grabbed him aggressively and his instinct told him to fight, to get away, hit her if he had to. His fists were balled, without even thinking about it; a wave of shame shook through him when he realized she was hugging him. “You have every right to be upset, to be traumatized. It’s going to take time for things to even approach a semblance of okay. So don’t take it out on yourself. I want to collapse into a weeping ball just thinking about what you’ve been through- and I know I can’t truly understand it without having lived through it. So if you need to freak out sometimes, if you need to cry, if you just need to be held,” she squeezed his ribs tighter for emphasis, “we’re all here for you- at least as best we can be. We’re all dealing with this open wound of a world, and we all have days and nights like the one you’re having. But the absolute last thing you need to do is apologize. We’ve been there. We are there. We’ll be there again tomorrow. But we’re here for you, whatever you need, whatever we can do to help.”

“Yeah,” Rui said, yawning, “what she said.”

“Shit,” Mahmoud said. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“If it makes you feel any better, Rox was the one who woke us up,” Ben said from beneath a pillow. “Just as well,” Rox said. “We need to be in the van in 5-” she was interrupted by Sonya, snoring loudly. “And somebody wake Sonya.”

Twenty-Eight

“What can I do to help?” Rox asked.

“I just spoke to Mira,” Mikaela said.

“You what?”

“We talked. Not the first time. She’s conflicted. Still more of who we knew than I, at least, might have thought. But that’s why she came to me. She wasn’t sure what to do, and wanted my help. So I’m helping. She needs to be stopped.”

“Agreed.” Rox thought a beat. “You mean something specific, don’t you?”

“They’re going to try to kill the President.”

“Of the school?” Rox asked.

“Of the country.”

“Oh.” She pondered a moment. “So?”

“Okay, I know what you mean. But if one of us kills him, we go from being that minority he oppressed for years because of his massive insecurities to that dangerous group who martyred him and need to be oppressed indefinitely to save society.”

“Oh, right,” Rox said, “because we live in a world where even when a rare good thing happens, the consequences render it actually bad.”

“You know the Secret Service is definitely listening into this call by now, right?”

“Yeah, but I’ve been off their Christmas card list for a while, anyway. But hopefully you have more to go on that that. Because otherwise I don’t see how we can actually help- especially since we can’t exactly move freely about in D.C.” 

“You can help because you know Mira., and that should get you close enough for your luck to take hold. If you can find her, you can stop this, Maybe even stop that bloated asshole from saying so many bigoted things about us.”

“Hah. Thanks I needed a laugh, after all of that. Oh, and do me a favor. There’s going to be a bunch of new students coming to the campus. Help them adjust- because it is going go be one hell of an adjustment. And take care of them. This can be an awful, lonely, shit-filled world. Don’t let them drown in it.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“You know if you don’t I’m coming home and kicking your ass, right?”

“Almost makes me want to half-ass it, just to get you home. You deserve that, you know? You were kids when you left. Nobody deserves to be exiled from their homes like this.”

“We’ve got each other. That’s almost the same thing.” “Yeah,” Mikaela said. “Almost.”

Twenty-Seven

“You have friends in Cuba?” Rox asked, wiping strawberry milkshake from her lips.

“The Bureau of Breed Affairs didn’t exist a decade ago. When it started, it started in a hurry, recruited from other U.S. Agencies.”

“You were a spook,” Anita said. “I knew there was a reason I didn’t like you.”

“Takes one to know one- or is that why you also hate yourself?” Laren asked.

“Dick.”

“That’s a lousy reason to hate yourself,” Laren said, touching Anita shoulders. “You’re beautiful no matter what genitalia you have.”

“But the other refugees?” Rox pressed.

“The Cuban government was happy to take them, at least for now, just to show up the U.S. Gives them a black eye and a half; they didn’t just turn them away, no, they spirited them away to a black site, then lost them into the welcoming arms of the Cubans. Not that we can assume things will stay hunky dory. For now, the Cubans will keep them safe and happy because it fits their propaganda. But hopefully come November we can permanently settle them in the U.S. Though ironically, if we can get Cuba to give them permanent status here the US will welcome them as refugees with open arms.”

“And the Americans?” Sonya asked.

“Those we can take straight back to the states. I’ve arranged a flight directly into Bellingham. Two, actually- one into Seattle- that’s the one on the books, so if Drump does try to intervene, he’ll be at the wrong damn airport interdicting an empty plane. We’ll be going directly to the campus. They’ll be safer there, at least in the short-term. I called the Dean, and he’s offered to give them all honorary status at the school until they can figure out their next steps.”

“How you liking your shake?” Ben asked.

“Well,” Mahmoud said, stabbing his straw into it, “for the last year or so, I’ve eaten nothing but nutritional pastes, first force-fed, then eventually through a hole in my side.”

“Oh.”

“But this tastes way better. Plus, it isn’t prison food.”

“How’s that taste?” Rui asked.

“You ever had a dream that felt like it lasted years, and when it took a turn you just felt this heavy, pervasive, suffocating dissatisfaction, like life wasn’t worth living anymore?”

“Yeah.” Rui said.

“And then you wake up. And everything awful- well, maybe not everything, but at least the worst of it, the shit you thought you couldn’t handle- it’s gone. And your life is back, and normal.” A tear slid down his cheek. “I still kind of can’t believe that I’m not going to wake up back in that cell. And that’s everything.”

Twenty-Six

Ben was out of breathe, nearly doubled-over from the exertion of running to their position on the beach. “You want the good,” he paused to inhale jaggedly, “or the bad news?”

“Well, you’re here,” Rox said, “which means you aren’t trying to slow down the Army anymore. Can’t imagine what the good news even would be.”

“I finally stopped throwing up.”

“He’s lying,” Rui said, landing beside him. “He just ran out of things to throw up.”

“And I say that still counts.”

They heard the sound of a bullhorn keying, then a voice blared at them across the sand. “This is Colonel Samuel Peters of the United States Army. You are all under arrest. Lay face down, hands laced behind your head, and you have my guarantee none of you will be harmed.” The colonel and a handful of his executive staff stood at the front of a column of soldiers and armored vehicles.

“Rox?” Sonya asked.

She looked to her left, at the throng of refugees, most of them children, all of them looking worse for wear even after Cris had seen to their worst injuries, then to her right, and a contingent of American forces. As if to hammer home the contrast, a pair of tanks pulled up to either side of the colonel. “We can’t win,” Rox said. “But we can buy them time to get away. I’m going to do that. Anybody who doesn’t feel like facing down a tank, I’m sure they could use someone leading them away.”

“They’ll figure it out,” Ben said. “Because we’re not going anywhere.”

“Duh,” Sonya said.

“I was just going to fly away,” Rui said, “but Tombstone was always one of my favorite movies.”

“And here I was thinking I wasn’t going to get a chance to hurt anyone after what they did in that base…” Anita said, a disturbing grin growing on her face.

“Okay, we were having a moment until that,” Sonya said, wrinkling her nose. “That smile is really creeping me out.”

“Do we survive this?” Rox asked Anita.

“I was so excited,” Anita said, reaching for her holster, “I nearly forgot to- oh. Damnit.” Her hand dropped limply to her side.

“That bad?”

“No. Wait for it.”

“United States forces, you are hereby ordered to stand down by the sovereign nation of Cuba,” they heard, over a second, crappier bullhorn.

“Wait,” Ben said, “is that-”

“Yes, it’s her.” Anita said, scowling. Laren was marching across the sand with a handful of officers from the Cuban Army. She motioned for Rox and the rest to join them.

“Should I?” Mahmoud asked.

“Wouldn’t be a party without you,” Sonya said, motioning for him to follow.

As they approached, they could hear the Colonel yelling. “We have air support, numerical and technical superiority, and the full might of the U.S. Federal Government. You’ve got a bunch of prepubescents, half of which can barely stand up straight.”

Laren looked up at the sky as a drone buzzed them, then turned to Mahmoud. “I want that drone at my feet.” Rox tensed, uncertain he was up for it.

The drone turned to make another pass, but this time kept angling, until it was pointed at the ground. It struck land ten feet from them, digging a trench and throwing sand until it came to a stop just in front of Laren, who put her boot on its hull.

“Do you have any idea how much those cost?” the colonel bellowed. He turned to his men and ordered, “Arms at the ready.”

“Radios,” Laren said, “no permanent damage.”

Mahmoud pinched the air and twisted, and their radios shrieked in unison through the earpieces, loud enough to be heard even ten feet away. Soldiers fell to their knees, or dropped their weapons, before turning off their radios.   

“Now,” Laren said, stepping towards the colonel, “you gentlemen seem to have brought all manner of flyswatters to this thing, but what I think you even to this moment don’t get is this: you’re the flies. Tanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Mahmoud said, raising his arms.

“No way,” the colonel said.

The tanks rolled to an angle, blocking the colonel and his staff from Laren. Their turrets turned towards him and his men, backstopped by the opposite tank.

“Now, given that the U.S. is congenitally prone to swinging its dick around, regardless of the circumstances, even that might not be enough to dissuade you. But let me be clear, boys, we aren’t alone here. Nor are we invaders. We’re refugees, officially welcomed by the Cuban government. You might recognize our welcoming committee coming over that hill, a company from the Cuban military. They’re here, of course, with a dual mission, to welcome us, and to escort you back to your base, which you have clearly mistakenly wandered away from. Because if this isn’t an accident, it’s an armed incursion into sovereign Cuban territory. And that can’t possibly be what happened here.”

“What the fuck is the CIA even doing here?” the colonel gasped.

“I’m sure Langley is on the phone asking your superiors the opposite question as we speak. Now run along home, before we decide to keep your toys, or maybe leave them in Cuba for whoever might want them. Don’t forget your drone.”

Twenty-Five

“You should have left me,” Mahmoud said, halfway to tears. He couldn’t be sure if it was because he was worried about his friends, or because for the first time in way too long he could feel the ocean breeze through his hair, feel the warmth of the sun on his skin.

“Obviously that wasn’t happening,” Rox said. “And if we’d known you were there, it wouldn’t have taken us this long to come for you. I’m sorry for that.”  

“I’m going to be sick,” he said, doubling over.

“Yeah, ocean’ll do that to you,” Sonya said, “and Ben.” Ben was still bent over the side of the ship, throwing up loudly. But he raised his middle finger back at her.

“No,” Mahmoud shook his head, “at the thought of anything happening to you. Any of you.”

“Even Ben?” Sonya asked.

“Well, we’ve had years of feeling sick over what happened to you, and I guarantee that would pale if we left you in that hole a second longer than we had to.”

“Sorry to interrupt,” Anita said, “but I need a minute. Mahmoud seems to be the most lucid of the technopaths. And I have to ask.”

“I can’t shut down their communications,” he said. “They have redundancies built in, which probably wouldn’t be enough, if I didn’t feel cross-eyed and stoned, and like I’ve spent years chained up in a basement having my nuts stomped in- wait…”

“Figured they weren’t going to make it easy to keep the genie in the bottle. I just wanted an update.”

“They can’t come for us by sea- seem to have had trouble with their shipyard. They’ve got drone support, but haven’t been able to get permission to go weapons hot; seems like even they don’t know how many of us are U.S. citizens. But they’re shadowing us from the coast, close enough they’ll hit the beach within minutes of when we do. And we may be lucky if the boats make it that far.”

“Why’s that?”

“They’re overloaded, and straining.”

“Damnit,” Rox said. “Rui?”

He jumped up from where he was sitting next to Ben, who was still vomiting loudly. “Yeah, boss?”

“I need you airborne. Start air-lifting people to the beach. Start with our people, Tso first. Disrupt the roads if you can. Sonya? ‘Nita. See if anybody else here can fly, teleport or otherwise move people to the beach. We need as much of a head start as we can get.”

“I thought we were home free once we hit the beach,” Anita said.

“Legally, yeah. But since when has that ever stopped the US Army?”

“Speaking of government folk, did we leave Laren behind? While that might be funny, I’d feel a little bad… that I didn’t get to throw a pie in her face before we left.”

“She said she made other arrangements.”

“And you were going to tell us when?” Anita asked.

“She only told me when we landed. It was go or no go, at that point. We were going. I didn’t figure you’d just want to wait for us. Besides, you’re the last person who can complain about compartmentalizing- unless you’re ready to lay all of your cards on the table.” “Fair point.”

Twenty-Four

Cris was sweating like a hog. It wasn’t the climate; this was enough like Guatemala to feel homey, but he’d never put his ability through this kind of a workout before. He wasn’t sure where the upper limit of his healing ability was… but he could feel himself edging closer to it. Worse, he could see how the girl holding the guard at gunpoint was getting more anxious, and she was the only thing between the rest of them and an entire base of military personnel.

“Glad to see you’re still in one piece,” he nearly jumped at the words beside his ear. “Sorry,” Rox said, “didn’t mean to startle you.”

“She’s lying,” Anita said. “On the way over she would talk of nothing but.”

“That’s fine,” he said, standing. “But I know who to ask for help bleaching my underpants.”

“Bleach?” Sonya asked. “I’d just let Rui torch them.”

“I’m pretty sure that would just aerosolize-” Anita stopped herself, “nope, not following you down that rabbit hole.”

“I prefer ‘foxhole,’” Cris said. “Because I date foxes. Also, it lets me make jokes about everyone being gay in a foxhole.”

“How’re we doing?” Rox asked.

“Through the most serious. Some of these injuries… these people would have been maimed for life. They were just letting wounds fester. Leaving broken bones to mend unset. I’m livid, even though I’m too weak to properly express it.”

“Good, because our distraction literally flew the coop,” Sonya said.

“Was that literal?” Anita asked. “They flew, yes, but there was no coop.”

“You’re the fake English teacher,” Sonya said, punctuating it with a dismissive shrug.

“What about Mahmoud?” Rox asked.

“Haven’t seem him,” Cris said. “Maybe… he said he was a ‘ghost in the machine,’ right?  What if he uploaded a sliver of his consciousness, and that was what you were talking to,” as they started towards the exit.

Rox stopped. “Guys- guy, and dolls,” Rox started, “anybody try that door?” Barely visible in the wall was a seam.

“I didn’t even notice it before,” Anita said.

“Yeah,” Sonya said, “looks like a draft must have pulled it out, ever so subtly, so it’s noticeable. Can we safely assume that’s your luck working overtime?”

“I usually do,” Rox said. “But to be on the safe side, let me take point.” Rox got her fingernails into the edge of the door and pulled with all of her weight. Slowly, the door started to creak open.

“This is unsettling,” Cris said, his speech coming faster than usual. “Am I the only one unsettled?”

Hanging in the center of the room was Mahmoud. He had an IV hanging from the ceiling, spittle flowing freely from his slack jaw. His eyes were glassy, his entire body limp, dangling from what looked like a straight jacket chained to the ceiling.

“This is really gross,” Sonya said.

“Yeah,” Cris plugged his nose. “They just have him go where he’s hanging…”

“No,” she said, pulling an IV out of a slit in the jacket exposing his arm, “I mean he’s in a medically induced coma, or close to it, but there aren’t any monitors, no way for them to know if the cocktail of drugs they’re keeping him on is depressing his heartrate or keeping him from breathing. This is how you fucking kill people. It’s sick.”

Anita was shaking with rage. “You okay?” Rox asked, gently touching her arm. “This is bringing is bringing it back, isn’t it? What was done to you?”

“I really want to hurt someone. Can we make a quick stop to hurt some people?”

“Our priority needs to be getting these people out of harm’s way- making sure the people who did this can’t keep doing it. That okay?”

“Yeah,” Anita said, taking a deep breath. “That’s the right call. But if we see anyone on our way out, no promises I don’t cripple them.”

“We’ll try not to let that happen. “

“Not a, coma, ‘xactly,” Mahmoud mumbled through bubbles of spit and snot.

“Jesus,” Cris said.

“We’re here to take you home,” Rox said, speaking gently to him.

“You’re not here, at all. You’re just my, fucked-up, brain, fucking with me.”

“Nope.” She pinched his cheek. “We’re your friends. Finally breaking you out of this hellhole.”

A tear slid down his cheek. “No. You’re not. I have had this, this drug-induced hallucination- and this exact fight, more or less, before, and I’m not interested in whatever it is you’re selling- hope or just not wishing for the capacity to kill myself for five minutes.”

“Cris? You got one more detox in you?”

“I think I do. The problem is he ain’t the only technopath in here…” He motioned for her to follow him through a door in the corner. There were rows more of young men and women restrained just like Mahmoud.

“Fuck…” Rox said. “We gonna need a bigger boat?”

“I think we’ll fit, if just,” Sonya said.” Boat may not make it more than fifteen miles before sinking into the ocean, but that should put us squarely in Cuba.” 

“Nita, round up any stragglers. We’re going to need all the help we can get moving these people onto the ship. Sonya, go with her- make sure she doesn’t murder anybody.” She waited until they were out of earshot. “What can I do to help?” “I’m going to try and heal as many of them as I can, but I already feel like I’m going to pass out and piss myself. So stick close; I’m going to need all the luck I can get.”

Twenty-Three

One of the inmates poked his head out of a hole in a crumbling wall. “Damnit,” Ben muttered, pointing both his hands at the wall, sending shockwaves through the ground. The wall collapsed the rest of the way, trapping the inmate under a pile of rubble.

Ben hadn’t worked this hard since he lived on the reservation with his brother. He wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. “I’m working too hard, here. I look best when I’m glistening, not drowning in my own tropical ball sweat.”

Rui landed beside him and clapped him on the back. “On the one hand, the U.S. Army is shooting at us. On the other, they apparently went to Stormtrooper School of Marskmanship, because they’ve been missing by a country mile.”

“I don’t know, man. If a dude was on fire and flying over my head… I wouldn’t want to shoot him. Because who’s to say shooting him does anything more than piss him off and get him to pay attention to you, specifically.”

“That’s a good point. I just figured they’d got lazy, living on a beach and sipping Mojitos.”

“Dude, Army men don’t sip Mojitos. They chug.”

“Mojitos?”

“It’s green. That’s a manly color.”

“I’m really going to miss this,” Rui leapt back into the air, shooting flames at a fire team that had been trying to flank Ben moving through the tall grass along the hill, “when you inevitably get yourself shot.”

“Right, just because we decided to take a five mid-combat to banter doesn’t mean everyone else is honoring our time-out.” Ben spun, shaking the men off their feet, sending them rolling back down the hill they’d been climbing. One fired a wild shot over his head as he fell. “I kind of get the impression they think we aren’t on their side.”

“We aren’t.”

“Well, yeah, but it’s not like we’re on the other side, either.”

“The terrorists seem to have figured it all out quicker. Or maybe they’re just assuming anyone not explicitly with them is probably explicitly against them. Or maybe it’s just that I tried to set them on fire, and you collapsed a few walls on them.” He paused. “Terrorism suspects? I don’t know, maybe it’s not okay to just take the government’s word for it that they really deserve to be here. I mean… this government isn’t exactly renowned for its honesty.”

“Most of them have been here through more than one presidency,” Ben said, focusing on knocking a wall down to block some fleeing men.

“I’m Brazillian, dude; Drump might be objectively worse, but not by as much as some of you seem to think. The U.S. Government, whoever happens to be President, isn’t exactly a beacon of transparent and guile-free administration. Bipartisan, they get up to some shady shit. I’m not denying crap isn’t bad in Brazil, especially right now, but we don’t have nearly the kind of impact on the world stage, either.”

“That’s fair. And it’s certainly not like there weren’t some questionable detentions out of this camp, some released after a decade without charges.” The walkie on Ben’s belt squelched twice. “That’s our cue to get the hell out of Dodge.”

“Give me your hands.”

“Wait. I had a thought. Can you fly me over the compound?”      

“Like carry you by the hands, like we did to get here?”

“No, I need my hands free.”

“Ugh. By the armpits? Dude, you just got done describing the River of sweat trickling down you.”

“I did not make it nearly as homoerotic as you just did. And it’s just a little pitstank. It won’t kill you. Just make you nonviable with women for a few months- which seems like it will only extend your current streak.”

“All right. Fine. But let’s get it done, now, before I decide to just drop you.”

Rui lifted the both of them off the ground. “If I strain something, I’m drop-kicking you into the Caribbean.”

“I thought it was pronounced cuh-rib-ee-an.”

“If you’re a tourist, maybe.”

“So wait, when you said you were going to kick me in the Caribbean, did you mean into the body of water, or is ‘the Caribbean’ some kind of Brazilian slang I should definitely be made aware of?”

“If you keep this up I’m definitely going to kick you in the Caribbean.”

“Now I want an answer even more,” Ben said.

“Even as the cost of the question goes up.”

Rui swooped them both higher to avoid a bout of gunfire from a pocket of military personnel. Ben extended his shockwaves through his entire body, pushing them out towards the ground, shaking the soldiers and inmates off their feet. He kept going until a thunderbolt crack spread across the building.

“Uff, I’m pooped,” Ben said, his body going limp.

“So long as that’s not literal.”

“I know, if it is you’ll kick me in the Caribbean.” He exhaled. “But that might even be enough to get them to leave us out of the official story, if they can blame all the fuss on a natural disaster. Give them a massive chance to cover their asses.” “Yeah,” Rui said. “Cause the alternative only works if they can spin it so they’re the only thing standing between Karen Q.  Public and the dark, scary Breed threat. Doesn’t work so well when they get their asses handed to them.”