Super: Underground: Book 2 in the Super: Series (8 page)
She paused for a few moments and spread some sheets of paper out on the small table the three of them were gathered around. Casey glanced over the tiny counter that separated the kitchenette and the table, but then nodded and went back to her cooking as Lex continued to speak.
“I printed these out on the library computer, so I apologize that there’s only some summary information. What I’d like to propose is that we choose a new place to live where we can think about what we want to do next. Lou, I already talked to Riss and Casey about areas of the country we should avoid, based on where people might recognize them, so I eliminated a few places right off the bat.”
“You shouldn’t need to worry about that for me,” he said after having glanced at the papers on the table. “My family is from northern New York, and it looks like most of these places are out west.”
Lex nodded. “I figured it would probably make the most sense to avoid anything on the East Coast, but I ended up avoiding anything east of the Mississippi, pretty much. Also, I figured avoiding the biggest cities was probably the way to go, since they’ll have more of everything, including police and possible publicity. I went with slightly smaller cities instead, figuring that in a city it’s easier to blend into a crowd. Anyway, have a look, and we’ll figure out between the four of us where we want to go.”
All of them looked over the papers Lex had provided over dinner, which consisted of summary information for a dozen or so cities all over the western United States. After they’d finished eating, they all discussed it for a while, and finally went with Riss’ suggestion to have everyone vote by ordering their top picks at the top of a list and their least favorite at the bottom, eliminating several agreed-upon bottom choices every round. After a couple of rounds, Lex announced, “It looks like Phoenix, Arizona, is probably the winner. It’s everyone’s top pick or second pick; nothing else seems to be as popular. Everyone else should look at the results, though, to be sure.”
Lex passed the pieces of paper to Riss, who looked at them and nodded, passing them along to Lou. After everyone had a look, Lex asked, “What do you all think? I visited a friend there once, several years ago, and I thought it seemed like a good place.”
Casey nodded. “I’ve never been there, but from what I’ve heard it sounds like a nice town.”
“Sounds fine to me,” Riss said.
“I’ve heard the country around there is beautiful,” Lou added. “I’m looking forward to seeing it.”
“All right,” Casey said, her hand in front of her face to hide a yawn, “we’ll get some maps tomorrow to help us get there. And we should see if we can find a health food store on the road, too, because I think I’m going to start dying my hair, too.”
Lex raised an eyebrow. “What color?”
“Black, I think,” Casey replied, looking as if she was trying to stifle another yawn.
“Why don’t you two get some sleep,” Lex suggested, looking at Lou and Casey. “Riss and I can do the dishes.”
“Oh, we can?” Riss asked, folding her arms across her chest, but smiling the ghost of a smile.
Lou and Casey seemed happy enough to agree with that and went next door to the second room they’d gotten. Riss and Lex cleaned up quietly, putting the dishes away and straightening everything up. Once they’d finished, Lex turned to Riss.
“How tired are you? I know it was a long day, so if you’re worn out, just tell me.”
Riss shrugged. “I’m actually not tired. I slept a bit in the van, probably just because I got bored. I’m used to staying up most of the night anyway, so I’m feeling pretty awake about now. What’s up?”
“Well,” Lex began, “I wanted to go through the exercises that Mr. Chen put together for me, but I should have someone spot me in case my muscles get too tired. I still can’t quite figure out what my limits are yet.”
“Just tell me what I need to do,” Riss said, sitting on the floor as Lex did.
Riss nodded as Lex explained and then helped her friend work through the set of exercises that Mr. Chen had written out. After what seemed like too quick a time, Riss tapped Lex on the leg, helping the other woman bring it back to the floor.
“I think maybe you should call it a night,” she said, studying Lex’s face. “Your muscles are shaking as you’re doing these. It’s been a big day already; maybe that’s enough.”
“But, I should–” Lex began, only to be cut off by Riss’ voice.
“You know, Lex, you don’t have to do everything all at once. Why don’t you just pretend you’re on vacation for a while and take it easy.”
Lex just looked at her mutely for a moment before finally relaxing enough to lie back on the carpet with her head on her arms. “I’ll try to relax. I’m just not very good at it.”
“I noticed,” Riss replied with a gentle snort of laughter, then reached a hand down to help her friend off the carpet as she stood up. “Do you want to watch some TV? I was going to go online for a while to see if there’s been any news.”
Lex sighed. “Not really. I’m not that tired, though.”
“In that case, here,” Riss said, handing the other woman a small laptop. “This is the file that Lily left for you. I think she said it’s some kind of manual. Even though nothing happened while we were at the apartment, I think Lily suspected that, since you came through your body event with differences, you might have some changes to your capabilities, too. So she left this with me and asked me to pass it along if you noticed any further changes.”
Riss showed Lex the file before settling on the floor surrounded by computers. Lex sat back on one of the beds and started looking at the manual Lily had sent. “Determining Your New Skills” the cover page proclaimed underneath the MSI logo, and Lex raised an eyebrow before reading on.
After reading for a short time, she realized that it seemed to be an instruction book for figuring out how to identify and use any new talents you were left with after a body event. Lex glossed over some initial chapters about adjusting to new limbs and body types to read in detail the first chapter that explained how to investigate changes that weren’t apparent from the outside.
“You have to think about this as if you were a child, exploring the possibilities of your body for the first time. Be completely experimental, because things you thought you could never do before you might be able to do now.”
Lex rolled her eyes and wondered who had written the manual.
Maybe they have ex-patients working at the facility; I can’t see the people who run the lab farming this work out to anyone who didn’t know what goes on there.
As she read, she mentally discarded some suggestions but made note of some things that interested her (“Your new talents may manifest themselves at times of extreme stress.”) After a while, however, Lex found her head nodding as she read, and ran through a series of short dreams where she was doing all sorts of bizarre things, like shooting rays from her fingertips.
Eventually, the scenes in her mind resolved and Lex found herself sitting at the edge of the river again, shifting uncomfortably as she sat on a large rock but smiling as her breath showed in the fall air, and as she turned to the side, she saw her uncle sitting beside her, enjoying the sunset. He smiled at her in return.
“Congratulations, Lex. I’m glad you made it.”
Unable to help herself, Lex reached out and hugged him. He hugged her back as she laughed.
“I’m so glad to be here. I don’t look the same, though.”
“You’re as lovely as you ever were. Besides, whoever ends up looking the same over the years, anyway?”
Lex tilted her head from one side to the other as she considered that. “I guess you’re right.”
The scene melted away then, and Lex blinked, suddenly looking up into Riss’ eyes.
“Why don’t you get ready for bed and get under the covers? It looks like the file wasn’t too interesting.”
Lex smiled and stretched after handing the laptop back to Riss. “I think it’s going to take some time to go through it.”
After getting ready and tucking herself in, it seemed only moments later that she saw sunlight streaming in through the window and smelled breakfast cooking. As she sat up, Lex yawned and looked over at the kitchenette area to see Lou, Riss, and Casey awake and smiling at her.
“Good morning,” she said with a sleepy wave, then made her way to the bathroom to get ready for another day on the road. By the time she joined everyone else at the table, they had begun to eat.
They ate in companionable silence for a while, and then Lou asked a question.
“I remember when we talked about escaping a while ago, Casey mentioned that someone had worked it out so that our money could follow us. Can you tell me how? I want to be able to help out, but all I have right now is this credit card.”
Riss nodded as she finished chewing on some toast and picked up a cup of coffee. “It’s ready for you to use, with a $15K limit, but we’re going to have to make sure to pay on them in order to have them continue working. If everyone just treats them like normal credit cards, they shouldn’t set off any alarm bells. I have them all monitored, though, in case something weird happens.”
She drank some of her coffee, then continued. “I took the info you gave me and I have all of the money from your account held safely. It’s currently in a bank in Idaho with your new name on it. Once we settle in Phoenix, I’ll transfer it to a bank of your choice there under your new name. You should probably pick something available nationally, though, since Phoenix might not be our last step.”
Riss stopped then, and the three women looked at each other for a moment, as if they weren’t sure how to continue, but finally Lex nodded at Casey, and the blonde nodded back, then started to speak.
“Actually, we talked before we left about sticking together. We figured that we’d have a better chance of survival together, and I agreed at the time. If you want to do something different, we can move on by ourselves, but I’d like for all of us to stick together, if you can get behind that.”
Lex thought Casey looked like she was holding her breath as Lou stared at his plate a moment, chewing and thinking. Finally, he glanced back up at Casey.
“That’s fine by me,” he agreed. “I think we should stick together. We’ve gotten this far, and I think we can go even farther together.”
“OK,” Riss said, “there’s something you should know, then. When the three of us spoke, we agreed that we should share what we have so that we’d all share in out good fortune. Between the four of us, we have over half a million dollars.”
Lou’s eyes widened, then narrowed a little. Riss shook her head.
“Before you think we stole it, what I did was to transfer our pay out of our accounts. The M Agency pays well, due to all the borderline-legal experiments they do, I guess. Plus, they want to be sure no one tries to leave, so they pay high wages…that remain mostly uncollected, so they simply take the money back into their corporate accounts when they transfer people to the labs permanently. Casey had earned over $200K, Lex had earned about $100K and I threw in the $50K the facility usually gives to the next-of-kin for the person who experiences a body event and subsequently disappears, in her case. I hadn’t earned anything because I was a prisoner, but in all fairness I thought I should earn the same rate as everyone else, which netted me about $200K. So, we should have enough cash to keep us going for a while.”
Lou still looked surprised, but nodded. “That sounds good, but won’t they be able to trace us through the money?”
Riss shook her head. “No, although I’ve already moved the money, it currently looks like nothing has changed in their accounts. It won’t be until sometime in the future, when they get down to a certain level, that they’ll discover that some of that money no longer exists.”
She gave a smirk before continuing. “From what Lex and I figured, it’ll probably be enough to fund all of us for about a year while we travel and figure out what to do next. We both agreed that it would be good to try to keep out of the government’s eye as much as possible for a while, so the money will allow us to avoid things like applying for jobs and such for the next several months at least. Plus it’ll give us the freedom to look around. We figured that we could settle in Phoenix for a while and do some traveling until we all decide where we want to settle permanently, or just stay there until we figure out what our next step should be.”
Lou nodded and looked at Casey, who grabbed his hand and squeezed it once. Riss continued after eating another bite.
“Like I told you yesterday, though, I haven’t seen any sign that anyone is pursuing us or knows where we are. We probably should take the scenic route and act like we’re on vacation, because for once we’re not in a hurry.”
Exchanging looks then, suddenly everyone was grinning like crazy.
“I haven’t had a vacation in years,” Riss added.
“I can’t really count being out of work, so I’ll have to join you in that,” Lex replied, smiling broadly now.
Casey shrugged. “I’ve had vacations, but mostly they were to visit family back in Kansas. Can’t say as I’ve had a vacation just to enjoy myself in years. How about you?” she asked, turning to Lou.
Lou smiled wider as he caught the look in her eye. “No, it’s been some years for me, too.”
Lex laughed as she finished a sip of tea. “OK, Riss, we’ll probably have to use some computer time so we can figure out what we want to see between here and Phoenix.”
Chapter 24: Arrival
“Really, I like this one the best,” Riss said as she opened the thumbnail on the laptop, bringing the picture into larger focus.
Lex smiled as she looked at it. She’d taken it at sunset, from around a corner. She and Riss had both insisted on taking a steamboat ride when they’d reached the Mississippi, so they’d found a small outfit and gone out near the end of the day. During the trip, Riss and Lex had become complete allies in finding it fun to take surprise pictures of Casey and Lou. In the picture, the two lovers stood along the rail of the boat kissing, framed by the sunset and mostly just a silhouette against the remaining light in the sky.
Casey made an uncomfortable noise, shaking her head. “You guys. My favorite is this one.”
