Slip (The Slip Trilogy Book 1) (28 page)

T
he outside chance that his father might be—in some indirect way—helping him, only strengthens Benson’s resolve to get to Pop Con, to confront him about the past, about what went wrong.

A Crow raises his hands above his head, shouting, “Your attention please! Your attention please!” The crowd stops trying to get their holos to work, and turns in her direction. “There seems to be a problem with the coms network. There’s no reason to be concerned. I’m sure our backup systems will go online soon, and everything will return to normal while we analyze the problem. Go to your workplaces and await instructions there.”

“Is this a terrorist attack?” someone shouts.

A buzz of fear runs through the crowd, the word “terrorist” muttered like a curse.

The Crow waves her arms up and down to quiet the people. “There is no evidence of that. You’re not in any danger. Now move on. Walk quickly, but do not run. The last thing we want is a stampede.”

Heads bob around, looking at each other, as if wondering who will be the first to move, but then, like a slow-moving viscous liquid, molasses perhaps, the masses begin to flow through the Tube.

“C’mon,” Benson says, pulling away from Luce and heading toward the Tube that’ll lead to Pop Con headquarters.

“Benson!” Lucy hisses. He stops and fires a sharp look in her direction. “Sorry,” she says. “Mr. Blue Eyes.”

He lets her catch up, and then tugs her into a nook in the Tube wall. Four dark holo-screens cover the three walls and ceiling. Typically this would be a place where a commuter could stop to check out the latest products available. Benson leans close to Luce and speaks directly into her ear. “I have no choice. I have to go to my father. I have to know.”

He sees it in her eyes—the indecision. For the first time since this all started, she’s considering a path other than following him. “With the coms down, we could get out of the city. The past is just that: the past. We can get out. We can survive. Find the others. We can be together.”

The temptation whirls through him. Everything she’s saying sounds so good—too good. Too easy. But he knows that’s not the way things will go down. They won’t just fade into history as the Slip and the girl who got away. They’ll be hunted forever. Pop Con will
never
stop. There must be some other way to end this; and it all starts with learning where he came from and why.

“Luce, I can’t,” he says, the words thick on his tongue.

She nods, lifts her chin slightly, kisses him on the cheek. His cheek burns where her lips touched him. “I know,” she whispers. “But a girl can hope, can’t she?”

He nods back, rubbing his head against hers. “Find your brother. Get as far away as you—”

“No,” she says. “You’re not getting off that easily. I’m still coming with you.”

“What? No! You said it yourself—now’s your chance to escape.” Vaguely, he realizes that people are looking at them. Not stopping, but slowing down to see what’s going on, why two people are in a nook with blank holo-screens.

“It’s both of us or neither of us,” she says.

He shakes his head, but knows he’ll lose this argument. Her chin is out, her expression sharp, her arms folded across her chest. Stubborn mode. “Okay,” he says. “Let’s go before one of the Crows notices us.”

They slip into the human flow and take the Tube toward the city center. Benson has to concentrate on not staring at his feet, as this time everyone who passes looks him in the eyes, their expressions a smorgasbord of slight concern, fear, emptiness, and resolve. It’s a complete one-eighty from the indifferent people whose eyes were glued to their holo-screens only ten minutes previous.

But no one tries to stop them. Not even when a half-dozen Crows push upstream through the crowd and Benson feels panic cover him like a blanket, does anyone say a single word to them. The Crows just keep moving; they have more important things to do. Crowd control, presumably. Angry citizens to placate. Gadget-obsessed people to pacify.

They’re just a couple of bees in the hive, relatively unimportant to the overall city. His father’s work. His father’s gift to him.

Twice he jerks his head skyward to look through the curving glass roof of the Tube, as Hawk drones rocket past, but they don’t stop, don’t linger. Could their coms be malfunctioning, too?

Onward they press, until they reach their destination. Thick, black, steel-plated—and probably bulletproof—doors provide entrance to the building. THE DEPARTMENT OF POPULATION CONTROL is etched in block letters on a gold placard above the doors. Beneath, in smaller lettering, it reads
PROTECTING THE REORGANIZED UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. PROTECTING YOU.

Luce offers him a wry smile as they both read it at the same time. When she sees the two guards toting automatic weapons standing in front of the entrance, she raises her eyebrows as if to say
What’s the plan?

His heart smashes in his chest, but he ignores it. Sweat trickles down his back, but he barely feels it. Enough of timidity. Enough of hiding. Enough of the lies.

He strides forward. “I’m here to see Michael Kelly,” he says to one of the guards, the one that looks slightly less intimidating.

The man frowns and he wonders whether he picked the wrong one. Looks can be deceiving, after all. “And you are?”

“His son.” Honesty is always the right answer.

“Oh. Oh crap. Yeah.” The guard’s face changes in an instant, his eyes widening, his lips parting slightly. He almost looks…excited. Maybe he’ll get credit for bringing in the Slip. But wait, how do they know he’s their boss’s son?

The second guard punches a code into a keypad, there’s a beep, and the doors start to open. His partner covers him, his gun at the ready, as if he’s expecting a dozen intruders to attempt to break through at any second.

“We’d scan you, but, well, you know.”

“Everything’s down,” Benson says, keeping his voice even. Inside there’s a mixture of butterflies, fire ants, and bubbles fluttering/scurrying/popping in his stomach.

“Exactly. But I think we can make an exception for Mr. Kelly’s son,” he says, waving Benson forward.

“Can my friend come in, too?” Benson asks casually, gesturing toward Luce. She smiles sweetly.

The guard eyes the bandage on her head, frowning when he sees the spot of blood soaking through. “What the hell happened to her?”

Luce steps forward. “This awful man freaked when his holo-screen broke,” she says. “He threw a tantrum and was pushing everyone around him. I got knocked over and hit my head.”

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,” the guard says, shaking his head, “people are animals.”

“I know, right?” Luce says.

Turning back to Benson, the guard says, “Sure, kid. She can come in.” Something’s not right, Benson thinks. This is all too easy.

Luce offers him a grin, and says, “Thanks. This is a real thrill, sir.”

Benson hides his smile with a hand.

Once they’re inside, the guard tells another set of guards, “Mr. Kelly’s kid and his friend to see the boss.”

“Body scanners are down,” one of the new guards says, a short, fat guy who seems to be working on his third chin.

“A light pat down should do the trick,” the guard says, closing the door and returning to his post.

The fat guard focuses on them. “Arms out, legs apart,” he says. Benson and Luce comply, and the two guards go to work. The fat one says, “A lot of people have been looking for you, ya know? I’m glad you finally came to your senses.”

He exchanges a narrow look with Luce.
Huh?
If they know who he is, why is he still alive? he wonders. Because they think he’s turning himself in? Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea after all.

“All clear,” the other guard says, finishing with Luce.

“Him, too,” the chubby one says.

They’re led through a large white-metal booth that would have scanned them for anything from metals to chemicals to poisons. It looms over them like a giant mouth and then spits them out the back.

Another set of thick black doors awaits them. “Welcome to Pop Con,” the fat guy says, just as the doors start to open.

~~~

Her son is a bird. He can fly so high and so fast and can even fly her along with him.

He doesn’t have any wings, but he’s a bird just the same.

Janice clutches him around the chest from behind, thinking one of the many buildings flying past on either side might jump out and bite her.

There are so many people, like ants, moving along the streets and through the giant glass-enclosed walkways. Tubes, she remembers they’re called. The human ants are pouring from doors. Some are stopping and look like they’re angry, their mouths open and shouting. Men and women with long sticks jab them and poke them, blue sparks flying like fairies, and the people fall to the ground. “Ooh,” she says.

“This is bad. Very bad,” Harrison says. Ever since they spoke to her husband, Michael Kelly, her son has seemed rather stressed. Because of the lie Michael told them?

I didn’t kill your brother…your brother’s the Slip.

She tried to tell him. She yelled the word “Lies!” so loudly and so many times that the word started to burn her throat. When she told Harrison, he gave her some water and said they were going to see his father. Her husband. The liar himself.

She didn’t want to go, but she also didn’t want to stay with the kid with the messed up hair and the blinking lights in his room. She’d almost rather go back to the asylum than stay there.

Almost.

Instead, she went flying with Harrison.

They careen past one of the glass Tubes full of people, and then shoot up the side of a building—dark and encased in steel, like a fortress—gravity threatening to tear her from her son’s back. But she hangs on tightly, until they level out on the roof, which is hazy with fog cover. Impossibly high, like a mountain. The air feels thin and it’s hard to catch her breath.

Harrison lands them on the black-painted steel roof, and she steps off, gasping for breath. “The devil lives here. The devil lives…the devil,” she says.

“It’s okay, Mom,” Harrison says, holding her hand and patting her back.

There’s a creak. “He’s here,” she says, wondering why she feels like the walls are closing in when there aren’t any walls at all. Are the clouds trying to suffocate her?

“Janice? Harrison?” her husband’s voice says.

“Over here, Dad,” Harrison says.

The edge of the building is so close. A half-dozen steps, maybe. She could make it while Harrison is distracted by his father. She could end her misery.

But then the Slip would die. The Slip who’s not her son, but who might be just like him. Scared and alone and trapped in a life he doesn’t deserve. If she can help this one, maybe her son can forgive her.

“Thank God,” Michael says, appearing from the fog. “I was so worried. Why would you do such a foolish thing?”

“You tell me, Dad,” Harrison says.

“For attention,” Michael says. “I missed another of your games.”

Janice frowns and leans forward, stepping toward her husband. His face looks so…
wrinkly
. His eyes look so…
red
. He looks…
old
. “Michael?” she says. “Why did you change?”

Her question seems to hit him in the gut, and he grabs his stomach. His lips part, but Harrison speaks before he can.

“Attention? You think this is about some stupid
game
?” Harrison shakes his head. “You don’t get anything, do you, Dad? You’re up here in your castle in the sky while everyone else is running around getting squashed.”

“Son…”

“No. It’s my turn to talk. I broke Mom out of that horrid place because you didn’t. I did it as an apology. For not visiting her, for abandoning her because I was ashamed of her. My ego was too freaking big and I couldn’t
not
be popular at school, could I? I had to be the hero, the one everyone looked up to. And you can’t be one of the cool kids with a crazy mom—at least not one you cared about.” Janice’s eyes dart to Harrison’s when she realizes he’s talking about her, but her son’s eyes never leave his father’s. “I made fun of her,” Harrison says, his voice cracking slightly. “I joined in with the other kids and they laughed and laughed and laughed and they patted me on the back like I was doing something so good. But you know what? I was a coward and a bully who wouldn’t stand up for a mother who’d been through hell. I didn’t know why, and I still don’t exactly, but I shouldn’t have done what I did.”

Finally,
finally
, her son turns toward her. “Mother, I’m so incredibly sorry for how I treated you. Will you ever forgive me?”

There are tears in his eyes and on his cheeks and though she can’t go to hug him—he looks all scratchy and wet—she says, “The wind is in my bones. Can we go inside?”

~~~

She might not have said it, but Harrison could see in his mother’s eyes that he was always forgiven, simply by being her son. And now he can forgive himself. Now he can move on with his life, or whatever’s left of it.