The Trials (The Red Trilogy Book 2) (24 page)

“Delphi is fine,” Jaynie growls, “and you need to calm down.”

She’s right, but I’m not ready. I go back to our room, letting the door slam behind me.

•   •   •   •

I tell the skullnet,
Sleep
, but I wake up when Delphi comes in.

She slips into bed beside me, putting her head on my shoulder, her hand on my chest. I don’t react. “You said it yourself,” she whispers. “It’s going to be like this. We’re going to be frightened for each other.”

Frightened doesn’t cover it.

“He can’t know about you,” I say, keeping my voice low. “We can’t let him know.”

“He knew before we knew. That’s why he had a sniper waiting outside my hotel.”

She means I’m predictable. Predictably impulsive.

“What were you talking to Jaynie about?”

“My place in the squad.”

“You’re going to be our handler, aren’t you?”

“If we can get set up for it.”

“As long as you’re safe.”

“None of us is safe, Shelley.”

She’s right, and it’s going to get worse long before it gets better.

•   •   •   •

At
0500
we’re all gathered in the parking lot again, packing up.

“Are we going to secure the handguns?” Moon asks.

“No,” I tell him. “I want you to hold on to them, just keep them out of sight and let’s try not to get pulled over.”

I’d rather take my chances with the highway patrol than be unarmed if we run into trouble on the road.

Moon hesitates, turning with a worried look to Jaynie. She’s standing a few steps away, her arms crossed as she eyes me with a critical gaze. I catch on: Moon’s question wasn’t directed at me. It was meant for the CO.

“Ma’am?” Moon asks her.

“What Shelley said.” She unfolds her arms, crooking a finger at me as she walks away.

I glare after her, hating the position she’s put me in, but it’s not going to help my case to act like an angry kid. So I follow. We meet by a hedge, just out of earshot.

I take charge of the meeting, reminding her, “I haven’t agreed to anything.”

“Do you doubt my ability to command this squad?”

I take a second to consider her question; then I shake my head. “No. That doesn’t mean this is going to work.”

“You named a mission yesterday,” she says. “If that becomes our first assignment, if we have to go forward with it, I want you along. I need you, especially now that Ransom’s gone. But you’re no use to me if I don’t have your loyalty.”

“You promoted yourself over my head, and you want my loyalty?”

“If not me, then who?” She raises her chin, indicating the squad, milling around the vehicles. “Pick one who’s ready for command.”

It’s a trick question. “You’re the only one.”

“You don’t like it,” she says. “I understand that. But you are not in a condition to hold the responsibilities of CO. You’re not
in command
at all times.”

“If you’re talking about last night—”

“This goes back farther and you know it. Think about Black Cross. Think about why you went outside.”

My glare doesn’t waver, but my confidence does. I went outside at Black Cross because the Red got inside my head and walked me out there like a fucking puppet.

She nods, letting me know my thoughts are easy for her to read. “It’s for the best,” she says. “Now let’s roll.” She starts back toward the vehicles, but after a few steps she turns to me again. “By the way, it’s your turn to drive.”

“Hell, no, ma’am.” I follow after her. “That is a poor idea.”

Everybody’s watching now.

“Why? Have you got a concussion?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Looks like the swelling around your eye is almost gone. You can see okay?”

“Yes.”

“So what’s the problem?”

I look past her. I look at Delphi watching me in concern, at Harvey smirking, at Nolan who’s eyeing me with a puzzled gaze.

“I don’t know how to drive.”

“Come
on
. You have a driver’s license.”

“The army made me get it. I haven’t been behind a wheel since.”

“You drove an ATV at Dassari.”

“That was an ATV. Not a massive truck, packed with live bodies and ammunition, on a crazy-ass interstate at eighty miles an hour.”

Her brows knit as she tries hard to get her head around this. “You went first down the stairs at Black Cross, but you’re scared to drive on the interstate?”

“I didn’t say I was scared. I said it was a bad idea.”

An idea that could put an end to half of the Apocalypse Squad with no help at all from Carl Vanda.

“You’re driving,” she concludes. “Sounds like you need the practice.”

•   •   •   •

Moon is in charge of the first SUV. I manage to follow him onto the interstate without getting involved in a major accident. Jaynie is shotgun, coaching me on how to change lanes, while Delphi is alone in the back. Everyone else is riding with Moon in a precautionary measure to minimize casualties if I really fuck up.

I’m nervous as hell, especially when we catch up with a long convoy of trucks and I have to pass them all. “Just follow Moon’s lead,” Jaynie tells me. “But not too close.”

We creep past the trucks, one by one, while I imagine the huge trailers swaying, swinging into us, the gas cylinders exploding. . . . My heart is racing, but we get past them without incident. I move into the right lane. Ahead of us is open road.

We’re rocketing past a small town whose name I didn’t catch when my overlay picks up a network connection. An upload link opens in my display. I know it’s not my archival program, because that only runs when I’m asleep. I puzzle over it, concluding it must be Joby’s program transmitting data on the performance of my legs—but the link stays open. Seconds pass.

“Shelley!” Jaynie shouts.

I look up, startled to see that I’ve swerved onto the shoulder.

“Turn the display on your overlay
off
,” she growls at me.

I try, but I have to keep looking up at the road and every time I do, the process aborts.

From the backseat, Delphi says, “We’ve got flashing lights behind us.”

I check the rearview and she’s right.
“Fuck.”

Jaynie reaches into my jacket, pulls out my pistol, and passes it, along with her own, to Delphi. “Secure these.”
Then to me, “Pull over. And once you’re stopped, get your license out.” She switches to gen-com. “Moon, drive on to the next exit, then wait.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I bring us to a controlled stop. The upload link is still open in my overlay. While the patrol car pulls in behind us, I check the system log. It’s not Joby’s program. It’s the video of the Manhattan bombing that’s uploading—to an address that’s just a random string.

Not forgotten.
That’s what I think. And I’m angry it’s back, now, after the silence in New York, but fuck me, I’m relieved too.

Jaynie is still focused on the cop. “Shelley, get your license out!”

“I don’t need to,” I tell her as the upload finishes. “I’m chipped.”

“More machine parts?” she asks with a note of disgust.

“I used to lose my wallet a lot.”

We watch the patrol car, using the rearview camera. I watch the traffic too, but I keep my gaze averted as cars shoot past us. I don’t want to advertise my face.

“Look across the freeway,” Delphi says. “That’s the highway patrol’s drone.”

I see it. It’s an old model—white, cross shaped, flying slowly at a low altitude, keeping an eye on us.

The officer gets out of his car. Jaynie tells me, “Put your window down. Then put your hands on the steering wheel.”

As the window goes down, spring warmth rolls in. I watch the rearview screen as the cop approaches. He’s a man of average height, chunky, wearing a khaki uniform, his opaque gray farsights like blind robot eyes, and he’s got an arsenal around his hips.

I switch my recording function on, and then I turn to look at him. A tiny green light at the corner of his farsights
is glowing, indicating he’s recording too. We stare at each other for two seconds. His name badge says “Munroe.” He’s enough of a public figure that my encyclopedia recognizes him and tags him as Terence B. Munroe.

Of course, he’s running facial recognition too.

“
Shit
,” he whispers when it lets him know who I am. Then he remembers himself, and in a formal voice he says, “Let’s see your driver’s license, Mr. Shelley.”

“Implant,” I tell him.

He sighs—“Should have guessed”—and reaches for his shirt pocket, extracting a three-inch-long wand. “Moving slowly, place your hand on the door.”

I do as he says. He holds the wand over my wrist, frowning over the report that appears in his farsights. Then he looks at me again. “Do you have a weapon in the car, sir?”

“Yes, sir. I do.”

Not the answer he was hoping for. His cheeks pinch and he takes a step back.

I add, “They’re secured in the back cargo area.”

Jaynie leans over. “They’re legally permitted for interstate transport. I have the paperwork.”

His forehead wrinkles. “The weapon in question is a police-issue revolver reported missing by the New York City Police Department. Is that in your possession, Mr. Shelley? Ms. Vasquez?”

“No,” I say. “That is not in our possession.”

He nods. “I heard you tried to chase down that cop killer. NYPD wants to talk to you about that.” He waits for my reaction. When I don’t give him one, he shrugs. “There’s no warrant. You’re under no obligation to return.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you planning to stay in this area?”

“No, sir.”

Relief floods his face and he gives me a tight smile. “Good.
God knows we’ve had enough trouble around here since Coma Day. I’m going to issue you a warning for inattentive driving and let you go on your way.”

“Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.”

One of the tools on his belt is a thumb printer. It spits out a yellow strip of paper, which he tears off and hands to me. “That’s your warning. It also has a contact number for NYPD, if you’d care to talk to them.” He takes a step back. Then he visibly gathers himself, straightening his shoulders, settling his lips into a determined line. “One more thing, sir.”

It’s like some lame line from a movie, spoken right before the smiling assassin pulls his weapon. Fear shoots through me and I tense, my gaze locked on his gun hand while I rehearse in my mind what I’m going to do if he goes for his weapon.

Jaynie puts her hand on my shoulder. “Take it easy,” she whispers.

“For the record, Mr. Shelley . . . the Red . . . is it bullshit? Or is it real?”

Not a question I was expecting, but easy enough to answer: “It’s real.”

He nods. “Around here, a lot of people want it to be real. They’d rather have an out-of-control AI running things than the human nut jobs who let a nuclear bomb go off in Chicago. You ask me, I’ll say no to either choice.”

I don’t think that’s an option, but I keep my opinion to myself.

He nods again. “You’re free to go on your way.”

As he walks back to his cruiser, I end the video recording, and then start the engine. From the backseat, Delphi says, “Every police department between here and Wyoming is going to instruct their drones to look for us.”

Jaynie shrugs. “Good. With the cops watching, hitting us gets a little more risky.”

“We can’t assume every police department is going to have our best interests in mind.”

“You’re right about that. Pass those weapons back up here.”

I get back on the road, rejoining the westbound flow of scattered traffic. After a few minutes, we link up with Moon, and then it’s another ten miles before Jaynie asks the inevitable question. “So what distracted you back there?”

She deserves the truth. All of it.

I tap the corner of my eye. “I thought my part was done, but the video I took of the bombing—it uploaded on its own.”

“To where?”

“Some anonymous relay.”

“Are you carrying leftover software from the army?” she asks, without much hope.

“So far as I know, they’re out of my head.”

I tell her about the digital footage that went out every night on the cellblock when I was supposed to be locked down, and about my conversation with Joby, who insisted the army no longer had access to my overlay. She already knows about our meeting with Koi Reisman.

“You watched the new episode last night, right?” I ask.

“Yeah, we all did. It streamed while you were outside.”

“Koi Reisman said our part in the story was over. Did it look that way to you?”

She considers this for a few seconds, then nods. “Yeah, it did. But things haven’t exactly been quiet for you since you left DC—and if the Red’s done with you, if you’re not King David anymore, then what the fuck is going on?”

I don’t know, but it’s meaningful to me that there are two more shows.

“Maybe it’s just a leftover process,” Delphi suggests from the backseat.

I look in the rearview mirror and briefly meet her gaze, wondering if she really believes that, or if she’d just like to.
“We’re planning on going after Carl Vanda’s nukes,” I point out.

“
You’re
planning on it,” Jaynie counters. “You’re the one who wants to do it. You need to think about that.”

And Delphi reminds me, “It’s not our mission. I reported what we know. An official agency
will
take it.”

Jaynie turns to me, channeling sincerity in her voice and her expression as she says, “You’re being manipulated, Shelley. You need to get that wiring out of your skull.”

I stare at the back of Moon’s vehicle, sixty meters ahead. “No. That is not going to happen.”

Delphi plays reinforcement on Jaynie’s side. “You could go back to using a skullcap. You know the effect is essentially the same, but if the Red endangers you like it did at Black Cross, it doesn’t require surgery to take the cap off.”

“Come on, Delphi. You were my handler. There’s a risk, sure, but you know the skullnet is a hell of a lot more advanced than a cap.”

Jaynie hooks her elbow on the back of her seat, turns to Delphi. “He doesn’t want the option of taking off the cap. He doesn’t want anyone else to have that option.” She looks at me again. “That’s what you’re worried about, right, Shelley? That the cap could be taken away?”