The Deep Beneath (12 page)

She could smell the copious sweat that poured from Lopez like water from a fountain. She could hear the occupants of the other vehicle arguing over what to do about the car carrying another H.A.L.F.

And she knew that 9 looked at her. An irritating buzz filled her mind and she wanted to swat it away. But the humming persisted. Unable to will the sensation to stop, she finally took a deep breath of the dry air and relaxed her mind in an attempt to refocus on her mission. As she calmed herself, the annoying thrum became a voice.

Come with me
, he said.

Come home
, she answered.

We can escape. Together. Our alien cousins are waiting. They will rescue us. Come with me, sister.

Alecto felt a twinge in her chest. Sister. A few short hours ago she had assumed that she was the only one of her kind in the universe. But she had a brother. One who, like her, was a unique blend of two species. Her belief that she was unique had not made her feel special. It had made her feel alone though she had not been able to put a label to the feeling until she had learned that 9 existed.

Alecto had never been given the ability to choose before. She had only to do what she had been told. But now she had options. She could choose to meet her progenitors, the aliens from which her DNA had been extracted. The choice pulled at her and made her feel uncomfortable. Or maybe her discomfort was the incessant hum of 9 attempting to infiltrate her brain.

The memory of Commander Sturgis’ orders lingered in Alecto’s mind. “Bring him home,” she had said.

As soon as she focused on the commander’s orders, her mind felt free. The buzz in her brain diminished and comfort returned to her. Perhaps choice was not something to be yearned for but to be avoided.
I will not come with you. I will follow the orders of my commander. I will bring you home.

No, you will not.

Then you give me no option.
If 9 would not come with her peacefully, she would take him by force. She had no desire to harm 9 or the humans that were with him. But she would do what was necessary to fulfill her mission. She would not let Commander Sturgis down. “Ram them, Sergeant. Run them off the road.”

The Jetta’s engine whined like a sick cat.
Faster, faster,
Erika thought. The Hummer was like a black specter outside her window.

“Better give it some gas, Ian, or this dude with a bad attitude is going to run us off the road,” said Jack.

“I’m giving it all the gas it’s got,” said Ian.

“You better find more, man. It’s coming at us!”

All Erika could do was watch as the Hummer veered into their lane. She quickly scooted herself to the center of the backseat and was slammed into Jack as the black beast rammed them. Ian pulled hard on the wheel and kept them on the road.

Jack drew Erika into his arms and she let him, momentarily ignoring her ‘just friends’ rule. His warmth seeped into her and helped calm her ragged nerves. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“For now,” she said. “But if they crash into us again, the door may give.”

The Hummer kept to its lane, the intentions of its occupants unknown to Erika.
Was that a warning shot?
“Any chance you have the ability to use those mind powers of yours to blow out their tires or stop their engine or something?” she asked.

“I have attempted to stop them, but 10 has blocked me.”

“Great,” said Ian. “She’s using cross-mental-mojo crap against you.”

“What do they want from us?” asked Jack.

“They want you to stop your vehicle so that they can take me back to A.H.D.N.A.”

Maybe we should stop the car and hand him over
. Less than a few short hours ago, Erika had offered Tex a ride north. At the time it had seemed like a fairly simple choice to make. Help him out or see him end up back in the hands of that Sturgis woman. But Tex had threatened to reopen Jack’s wound if they didn’t take him to Sedona. ‘And if that does not motivate you, there are other ways,’ he’d said. He’d choked six men nearly to death. Erika didn’t require more proof that he could make good on his threat. Why shouldn’t they stop and hand him over?

Erika turned it in her mind.
What if Tex is more powerful than 10?
He’d remain free, yes, but would he turn his weapon on them in retaliation for betraying him? And if 10 was stronger than Tex, she may have orders to kill them.
Of course she’ll kill us. Sturgis wanted us dead then, and she’s more likely to want us dead now that we’ve helped him this far.
Handing Tex over didn’t seem to Erika like a viable option for them if they wanted to stay alive.
Best to cast our lot with him even if he is dangerous.

“I may have to give them what they want, Tex. I’m sorry, but I can’t outrun them. And this car isn’t built to take these kinds of hits,” said Ian.

As if to punctuate his statement, the Hummer rammed them again. It sounded as though Jack’s car would come apart at the seams. Erika and Jack bounced and were jammed into each other by the force of the hit into the side of the car. Though whipped around, none of them were seriously injured. Yet.

“You can’t stop,” said Erika.

Ian took his eyes off of the road long enough to turn and give Erika a look of astonishment. “You have a better plan? Maybe one that doesn’t include us ending up as a Volkswagen sandwich?”

“If we give up, they’ll take him back to A.H.D.N.A. and he’ll go right back to being a human lab rat,” said Erika.

“He’s only part human,” said Ian.

Whether he was human or not was irrelevant to Erika. Even if he was a sewer rat, Erika did not want him returned to a life of captivity. But it wasn’t the time to have that conversation. “You don’t think Sturgis will let us go quietly into the night, do you? Nothing has changed since the helicopter. She wants him in the lab and us dead,” said Erika.

Neither Jack nor Ian offered a response. They were hit with another loud crash that sent them all bouncing again.

“Erika is correct,” said Tex. “About everything.”

“Well, whoop-de-doo, she’s right,” said Ian. “Lotta good that does us. We stop and they kill us. Or they run us off of the road and kill us. Either way we’re dead.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic, Ian,” said Jack. “There has to be an alternative. Think, everybody.”

But they didn’t think. Ian and Erika argued about what they should do. Ian was in favor of stopping the car and taking his chances that if they cooperated and handed over Tex, Sturgis would reward them by sparing their lives. Erika was surprised that Tex said nothing in response to Ian’s suggestion. He continued to look forward and did not speak. Erika wondered if he was communicating with the other H.A.L.F. or if he was just ignoring them. She urged Ian to keep driving and try to outrun them.

“What do you want me to do, Erika? I’m already going as fast as I can. Even if I manage to keep it on the road without rolling, we’ll eventually run out of gas. We’re already down to a quarter of a tank.”

There came another loud crash of metal grinding against metal. Erika was thrown forward out of Jack’s arms, hit her forehead on the front seat and whipped her head. Jack quickly grabbed her and scooped her back onto the seat. He unfastened his seatbelt and pulled it across her, strapping them both in.

“Is everyone okay?” Ian asked.

Erika rubbed her neck. “Just a little whiplash. It goes nicely with the black eye and fat lip I’m sporting from earlier tonight.” She felt as though she’d been beaten with a ball bat. Her trailer may not be much to look at, but she would have given about anything to be in her lumpy bed with the covers pulled up over her head. She wanted to sleep for a week and wake to find the whole night was a terrible dream.

“I wish
we
were the ones in the Hummer,” Ian said.

“Why?” asked Tex.

“’Cause we’d be able to run them off the road instead of them running us off.”

Erika had been toasty warm nestled next to Jack, but she now shivered as if ice filled her veins. It was as though she’d been squeezed in a vice and her innards would burst from the pressure. An explosion of intensely bright, swirling colors filled Erika’s eyes then burst into brightness like a nuclear explosion in her mind. She was compressed nearly to nothingness, and then, in an instant, she felt as though she was being ripped apart.

Erika opened her mouth and thought she screamed, but she didn’t hear it. She didn’t hear anything. For a few seconds, the sounds of grinding metal and whining engines were gone. Just when Erika thought she could take no more, her body was slammed with extreme force.

At first she assumed that the Hummer had finally caused them to roll over and that the pain she had endured was what it felt like to die. But her heart beat wildly in her chest.
I’m still alive.
She blinked her eyes and looked around. They were in the Hummer.

Ian was in the driver’s seat as he had been in the Jetta, and Tex sat beside Ian in the front passenger seat. Jack was beside her in the back seat. No sooner had she gotten her bearings, Ian swerved at the last minute and she and Jack were thrown together again.

“What the heck happened?” Jack asked.

Erika expected Tex to provide an answer, but he said nothing. Erika moved herself forward in the seat so she could see him. Tex’s head hung down to his chest.

“Oh no, Tex,” she shouted. Erika ignored his prior requests to not be touched and shook his thin shoulder. “Tex? H.A.L.F. 9? Are you still with us?”

He lifted his head slightly but gave no verbal response.

Ian pulled hard to the left, then swung the wheel right and slammed into the Jetta, now being driven by the military man. Erika thought the man looked like one of the soldiers that had surrounded them earlier in the evening, but it was hard to tell in the dark. As she looked into the Jetta, the driver looked at them coming and his face wore a look of sheer terror. Ian rammed the Jetta. Erika was jostled, but the impact was not as great as it had been when they were in Jack’s car.

“Sorry about your car, Jack,” Ian said. He rammed it again. Erika could hear the Jetta’s tires running over the rumble strips on the side of the road.

“Tex, did you somehow move us to this car?” asked Erika. It was the logical conclusion to the question of how they had gone from one car to the other, but she still felt silly asking it.

Tex nodded.

“I didn’t know you could do that,” said Ian.

Tex raised his head again. “I did not know that I could do it either, Ian.” His voice was low and slow, and after he spoke, his head bobbed down toward his chest again.

They were all knocked about as Ian again jammed the Hummer into Jack’s Jetta.

“What the hell are you doing?” asked Jack.

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m trying to get them off of our tail.”

“There’s a military guy in that car. If you kill him, we’re all in deep shit,” said Jack.

“In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re already in deep shit.”

While the guys argued, Erika looked into the Jetta. All she could see of the passenger was a long, thin, pale hand resting on the center console. There were no hands on the steering wheel.

“She has control of the Jetta,” Erika said.

“Well, that explains how my Jetta is keeping up with this monster.”

Ian choked hard on the steering wheel and landed a solid shot across the driver’s side of the Jetta. He kept the Hummer’s side locked against the Jetta. The air was filled with the sound of metal grinding against metal. Sparks flew outside Tex’s window. Ian turned the wheel slightly to the left then hard to the right and hit them again. The Hummer was now in the right lane, and the Jetta bumped along on the rumble strips on the shoulder.

“Ian, look out!” Erika screamed. Ian’s eyes went back to the road in time to see that he was about to run into a guardrail. He swerved left in time to miss it.

The Jetta was not so lucky. Erika looked back and watched as Jack’s Jetta hit the barrier and flew into the air. It toppled end over end in midair and came down with a loud crash. The Jetta rolled several times with a sickening sound of metal scraping pavement. Erika was relieved when it finally stopped. But her relief was short lived. The Jetta burst into a ball of flame. “I hate to tell you this, Jack, but your Jetta …”

Jack looked back. “Dammit.”

“I am sorry, Jack,” Tex said. His voice was thin and weak.

“Me too. Me too,” said Jack.

Erika touched his arm lightly, and he turned to her and forced a weak smile. It may have been an old piece-of-crud car, but Erika knew that Jack was proud of it. He’d bought the car with money he’d worked for and saved.
The longer this night goes on, the more I want a redo.
They were alive, but it was unlikely the two in the Jetta survived. Erika’s stomach churned at the thought of two more dead bodies. It had been a long time since she had eaten. Her stomach acid threatened to rise up her throat and burn a hole in it.

“What do we do now?” asked Ian.

“We keep driving,” said Jack.

“We’ve basically stolen a car and maybe killed a soldier and –”

“A piece of government property?” said Tex.

“That’s not how I was going to put it,” said Ian.

“I’m thinking we need to put as much road between us and your Commander Sturgis as we can,” said Jack.

No one argued with him. Ian eased back in his seat and pushed the accelerator down as the black Hummer drove north through the night.

Within seconds of finding herself in the small, white car, Alecto knew that she stood no chance of completing her mission to bring 9 home that night.

Alecto concentrated hard as she attempted to perform the same maneuver that 9 had done. She tried to command the molecules in her body to discorporate and reincorporate in the Hummer. She thought she got close once. Her cells vibrated, which caused a tingling sensation throughout her body. But her molecules did not obey her command. Despite great effort, she could not accomplish the task of switching herself back to the Hummer, let alone take Lopez too.

Alecto did not understand how 9 could achieve something that she could not.
Commander Sturgis said that I am stronger than 9
.