B. E. V. (14 page)

 

 

"WHAT? WHERE?"

"Back there, with those men –
I saw him!"

We passed the gate.

I hit the brakes. "Bev – stop!"

We shot forward against our seatbelts.

"You could'a given a girl warning!" shouted Bev.

The guard slammed the gate shut.

"I'm going back, hold on."

"You can't – the gate – the guards," gasped Kat.

"I don't care." I yelled at Bev,
"BACK UP."

We hurled forward again as Bev jolted backward. The guard waved his arms for us to stop, and then leaped to the side as we smashed into his gate, sending metal and sparks flying.

Sirens howled and spotlights snapped on, all around us chaos erupted. I yelled at Kat, "Which building?"

She screamed back, "This one! This one!" jabbing her finger at a building with men piling out of it.

We shot past. Kat and I shouted, "STOP."

"Make up your minds."

I ripped off my harness and staggered to the hatch, pounding on the metal frame. "Bev, open up, let me out." The door flew open and I tumbled onto the road.

The prisoners milled about in confusion, their guards trying to force them back into their barracks, while screaming at me at the same time. Searchlights scanned the sky from the roofs of buildings, others tried to center on us, and in the distance, I heard the blare of loudspeakers.

"POP – POP!"

A solid projectile zipped past my head and pinged off Bev's hull. I ducked and scanned the confused faces around me.

"HUNTER!"

A figure broke from the crowd and Pop ran toward me, bent over, shoving men out of his way. He almost bowled me over as we crashed together in a rush and engulfed each other with bear hugs.

Pop pulled away and clutched my shoulders. "Hunter, what are you doing here?"

"Come on." I pushed his arms off me and snagged him by the shirt collar. "Let's get out of this place."

Stun bolts flashed from the guards, striking the prisoners, and sending the men to the pavement withering in pain. Two hit by our feet, casting flashes of blue light. The search beams centered on Bev and laser fire started coming our way. I tugged Pop to the hatch and we fell inside – two more men scrambled in behind us. I shouted, "Kat – Bev – let's go!"

Bev's door shut and the force of her acceleration catapulted us backward against the rear bulkhead. Kat screamed, "They're blocking the road!"

I said a word under my breath, untangled myself from body parts, and staggered to my seat.

Three security vehicles had pulled up to the remains of the ruined gate, lights flashing, and blocked off the entrance. Officers piled out with laser pistols drawn, firing.

"Ouch, they hurt me!" Bev yelped as three bolts hit her nose at once. "You-pile-of –"

"Bev, ram 'em, don't stop now."

"I'll do more than ram those jerks," I heard her mutter. If possible, she sped up even more.

When the guards realized we weren't about to stop, they flung themselves out of the way in panic. Bev hit the center ground car crushing the hood. She bucked, lifted up on one side, and mashed over the roof of another security vehicle screeching up. We crashed down again, flattening the nose of a military jeep, and were in the clear.

Bev slowed. "Keep going," I ordered. "Do you remember how we got here?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Well, head for the hills and forget about the getting lost part, will ya?"

"Sure 'nuff." Bev began weaving in and out of the streets, bulldozing over the occasional vehicle getting in her way, and flattening a signpost or two.

The city's iron gates loomed before us, emergency vehicles flashing red and blue on either side as they closed in. More trailed behind Bev, the officers hanging out of their windows firing at us.

"Hold on, folks," Bev declared, "I'm about to rock your world."

Lasers fired, rockets streaked away, and her Gatling guns chattered. The gate vaporized into molten pieces of metal. Bev hit the remains of the barrier and powered over it, going airborne. She came back to Earth with a crash, bounced, and kept speeding away.

Stopped traffic blocked our path. Bev slammed on her brakes and jerked right, careening over the open field surrounding the city. She hit a drainage ditch, and then another, shaking us until our teeth hurt. "Bev, passenger mode, please?" Kat held her stomach, she didn't sound good.

Bev started singing something about
"Eat and drink and let's be merry, pieces she ate,"
but the rolling and bucking slowed to slight tremors.

"Hunter, will you tell me what in the blazes you're doing here?"

Pop was leaning over me, gawking at the view screen, his hands on the back of my seat, watching the road ahead.

"Pop, we were searching for you." I struggled up and threw my arms around him. "We've been tracking you down for months."

"Mr. Greene, are you all right?" Kat asked. "You're all skinny."

Pop's face was gaunt, his black beard painted with long grey streaks, and his clothes hung off him. He stared at Kat in surprise. "You are here too, Kat?" He swung about and scrutinized the cargo bay. "Is your dad here, did he mastermind this?"

"My dad's back in town," she replied, "We – Hunter, watch out!"

Whoever was in charge of our pursuit figured out we were by ourselves, and stun guns, lasers, and ground vehicles weren't about to stop our headlong flight out of the city. An old helicopter was in the air, thumping toward us. Two lines of smoke streaked from the copter and landed behind Bev, throwing up dirt and shoving her forward even faster. The helicopter banked in a wide circle and pounded back for another pass.

"Oh, shoot, I forgot," I exclaimed. "Bev, go into stealth mode, now – full power."

Our view of the night sky and the city around us changed as we disappeared from view. Bev switched into auto drive, her view screen brightening, distorted by the radar overlay. Each display battled for supremacy on the wall before us, making it impossible to see what was occurring.

"Bev, what's happening," Kat asked. "Is there something wrong with your screen?"

"Little glitch, no problem," came her annoyed reply. "I'm working on it."

"Hey kid, how can you see where you're going?" shouted one of the men in the cargo bay. He tried standing, slipped as another missile struck us, and studied the cabin nervously from the floor with his mouth hanging open.

Pop wanted to know the same thing. "Who is driving this, Hunter, where did you find it?"

Everyone talked at once, and I was becoming confused. Bev's screen still acted up, a roar echoed through the cabin, rising and falling. It sounded as if she was clearing her throat.

"It's a long story, Pop," I shouted over all the noise. "We're on auto pilot right now." I glanced at the screen. The outside came into view, disappeared and the radar replaced it. "Bev, are you seeing anything I'm not seeing?"

"Nothing, handsome." She paused and asked, "Who are these adorable men you picked up? Am I running a taxi service now, or are you having another party I wasn't invited to?"

"Oh, this is my pop and –"

Another explosion rocked us. The copter couldn't see where we were, but shot ahead of our dust trail hoping for a lucky hit.

"Your POP? Oooh – this means he's my pop, too. Hi, Dad."

Pop froze and clutched at my seat even harder. "Who's saying those words? Hunter, you have to tell me –"

"Hey, is anyone going to –"

"Hunter, what's on Bev's –"

"QUIET."

Everyone fell silent.

"Okay then," I huffed. I could think again. I took a deep breath and said, "Pop, it's this way . . ."

I came clean, filling him in quickly, starting from the beginning where Kat and I snuck off to the lab and found Doctor Krumboton, to our signing on at the construction camp. When I finished I couldn't tell if Pop was mad or happy. His face was a blank mask.

"Anyway," I added, trying to act as if it was no big deal, "You're rescued, Mr. Brennan's rescued, we even found Hank and saved him. We'll go back to Paradise Cove, rebuild, and pretend this never happened."

"There is more to this than you think, Hunter," he said at last.

Kat was tugging on my sleeve trying to get my attention. "Hunter, the helicopter is still following. What are we going to do?"

Bev was running flat out, so was the helicopter, tailing her twists and turns. It dove in low to shoot another rocket.

"BEV – REVERSE!"

"What?"

"Now."

Even in passenger mode, we surged forward as Bev switched gears and hurled backward. The rocket swished past her to rip a huge hole in her path. Dust, grass, and earth heaved upward.

"Bev, swing back onto the road, quick, before the 'copter circles around."

"Got my meter running, boss, anywhere you want to go." Bev swerved again and ran back up onto the highway.

"Bev, stop, don't move now," I ordered.

"Are sure of this?" Kat asked. "We're sitting ducks here."

"Yeah, I hope you're not trying to make me a dead duck," Bev said. "I wasn't built to be a target. I think you're trying to weasel out of paying your fare."

"Trust me," I replied. "I know what I'm doing." I didn't, but I'd seen something such as this on an old movie; if it worked for the heroes in a submarine . . . .

The helicopter circled back, hovering over the spot where their rocket hit. It darted forward, trying to pick up our trail again, paused, and started casting about, bloodhound fashion, to find a scent.

"They lost us," muttered Pop. He said to me, "How did they lose us?"

"We're completely invisible," I whispered back, although I knew the pilot above couldn't hear me. "They've been tracking us from the dust we left – when we returned to the road and stopped – no trail. Simple."

"Hey, Greene, mind telling us what in blazes is taking place?" The two other men in the cargo bay had calmed down enough to question what was happening.

"Roy, Josh, this is my son and his friend," Pop called back. "Somehow they got a crazy idea to come here and rescue me." He patted my shoulder. "If I had known, I would have forbid it, but apparently I've taught him better than I thought."

"Glad you did, son," the man named Bill yelled out. "Good work." The other joined in.

I felt my cheeks burning hot.

We waited in breathless silence as the helicopter made wider and wider circles around the outskirts of the city, searching in vain for us.

"Bev, start moving, but slow – I don't want to raise a bunch of dust, but I don't need some jerk driving along and hitting us," I said. "Take it easy, and if the helicopter returns freeze again."

Eventually our pursuit disappeared from our screen. Bev bounced off the road and started in the direction of Paradise Cove.

She stayed in stealth mode well into the night until we put a hundred miles behind us. When we stopped, the men built a fire, and made camp for the evening. Pop and the others brought Kat and me up-to-date on what happened after their capture at the reorientation camp.

"As soon as Morgan's men discovered I was an engineer they took me," Pop said. He gestured to the other former prisoners. "We all have some kind of technological background. Morgan is desperate to lay his hands on as many of us as possible."

One of the men, Roy, put in, "I'm a commercial chemist. He wanted me to make gunpowder for him." He made a face and spat into the fire. "Can you imagine? Gunpowder, in this day and age?"

"I know all the machinery we used on the construction crew was out-of-date," I said. "Most of it had sat in garages for a century. One of the supervisors even took me to a junk-yard and told me it was our supply department." I nodded to Kat for agreement. "In order to fix something we had to build an old tool to make a new part, right?"

"We had machines delivered from every town we passed, didn't matter how old, or what condition," Kat confirmed. She hunkered closer to the fire for warmth. "If it was made from metal, they would use it for something."

"I think it's all going to change," said Bill, darkly. "I heard a rumor Morgan's made an alliance with the Greys."

"What?" Kat and I said together.

"It's true," replied Pop with a grimace. "I am guessing, of course, but a group of us were brought to his main research lab to see if we could start a power generator running for him. When I examined it," he shook his head, "I swear it was never built on Earth – did not have a Lithium core, nothing for steam. Either he found it or someone gave it to him. The latter I think. The unit appeared brand new."

"Why wouldn't it work?" Kat asked. She scooted closer to me, shivers running through her body. I draped my arm around her and she snuggled closer.

"We couldn't figure it out," admitted Pop. "It was a type of matter-to-energy convertor."

"Built in obsolescence," piped in Roy. "Runs great for a short time and dies." He picked up a stick and threw it on the fire. "Same as this; burns for a while and then you have to acquire another."

"About what we thought," replied Pop. "Give Morgan equipment which lasts for six months so he must depend on the Greys to obtain another. Makes sense if they are putting him in charge of a section of this planet."

I didn't believe what I was hearing. The aliens backing Morgan? Why? They destroyed us. It was nonsense to build us back up. "The Greys can't be behind Morgan," I blurted out. "If they were, why would they annihilate our cities in the first place? Let's admit it, we were already in bad shape with the oceans rising. They could'a invaded and crowned him king or something."

Pop shook his head. "No, it would not have worked. The nations of the world were still too strong to conquer and place a puppet in charge of the planet."

I listened in horror. It couldn't be true, it wasn't. Pop was wrong. He saw the skepticism on my face.

"Listen, Hunter, Kat, it is this way," Pop said. "Before we had space travel we did not know what the Greys were up to, right?" He pointed toward the stars and waved his hand in an arc. "Then we started flying into space ourselves and discovered they were using Earth as a transfer point from one part of space to another, a sort of Suez Canal, to shorten the distance they traveled."