Chapter 17
“Aw, come on,” I groaned as I looked up through my windshield for the helicopter. “That’s kinda overkill, don’t you think?”
“I do not believe they will think that when they see the mess we left behind,” Francine said.
“Yeah, you’re right,” I said. “And some of them are no doubt on their way to the neo-Nazi base. Do you think the chopper will be able to see me here?”
“The trees will provide some cover,” Francine replied. “Although, I would recommend you cross your fingers on behalf of both of us.”
“Cross my fingers,” I sighed. “I guess that’s the best we’ve got.”
I crossed my fingers and turned around to look back at the road through my back window. It was dark down the dirt track thanks to the trees overhead, but I could still just about make out the road from where I was parked. I just hoped the shadows and the dark gray paint job would be enough to conceal me from their view.
A few moments later, a flood of various government-looking vehicles rushed past like water breaking through a dam. The fleet was predominantly made up of all-black SUVs with tough wheels, sturdy bodies, and tinted glass. They hadn’t bothered with lights or sirens since the road wasn’t busy, but it was still an impressive show of force.
The SUVs flew by in a dust cloud, and I realized just how close I’d been to being spotted. I let out a sigh of relief when the first couple of vehicles passed my hiding spot, but I felt a knot of worry start to form when the parade kept going.
“Damn, how many of these cars are there?” I said as I watched more and more black vehicles appear and disappear along the road. “Did Agent Miranda call in every single FBI agent there is?”
“I would not put it past him,” Francine admitted.
“Too right,” I snorted. “Though I guess if you call in an agent down on your way to investigate a tip about neo-Nazis hiding in the forest, you’d probably have the whole damn office on standby as well.”
“It does seem prudent,” Francine agreed.
“Shit,” I muttered as I sank lower in the seat.
The chopper sounded like it was directly above us, and I’d instinctively tried to duck out of sight, even though no one in the chopper could see me inside the car. The roof of the Vette was heavy and dark, so all I could see when I looked up was the black roof and a slice of sky through the windshield.
I held my breath again as I waited for the sound of an SUV barreling along the old trail. I tried to decide if I would stand my ground and pretend I had no idea what had taken place up the road, or if I would admit to being there but claim I’d simply been caught in the crosshairs. I wondered if Miranda had bothered to let anyone know that he’d pulled me over. Not that it mattered, because once they put things together, they’d realize I was the man Miranda had visited about the meteorite.
But the sound of an approaching engine never emerged, the thump-thump-thump of the rotors faded away, and when I peered back at the road, there was nothing but a trail of dust and a lone tumbleweed to prove that anything had just driven by. A breeze carried the scent of pine and hay into the car, and a moment later, a cardinal began to call.
I gave it another minute just to be sure there weren’t any stragglers, and I found myself wondering who had been in the SUVs. Did those agents know about me, or were they only concerned about the terrorist cell? And what the hell had Miranda been doing out here anyway? Had he really been tracking my movements every hour of every day since we’d met? Had he realized I’d been to the neo-Nazi camp? Or was it simply that he was an agent assigned to the district, and he had to investigate any calls that came in?
Maybe Agent Adeogun was one of the people in those FBI cars, since he hadn’t been with Sweeney and Miranda at the roadside. I had a feeling that if he found out that Miranda and Sweeney were dead because they’d been caught in the crosshairs of my own war with Hopper Senior, then Agent Adeogun would make my life very miserable.
I thought about the way Sweeney had gone down like a rag doll that had been dropped by a child. The bullet had gone right through the center of his brain, and he had probably died before he even heard the shot. That was most likely the case for Tony Miranda as well, although I could remember the look in his eyes when the bullet tore through him as though it was happening right in front of my eyes all over again. I had seen his face fall as he realized the inevitability of what was about to happen to him. He had no control over his death, and I had seen the frustration and sadness in his eyes when he realized his time had run out. But that look had disappeared within the span of a second as chunks of his brain burst from his skull and blood covered the ground. At least neither of the two agents had suffered.
“Are you thinking about Agents Sweeney and Miranda, Will?” Francine asked.
“Yeah,” I replied.
“I hope you are not feeling guilty about what happened,” it said. “Their deaths were not your fault.”
“I know that,” I sighed. “It’s just a shame that they had to go out that way. They had no idea what was going on or what they’d stepped into. Although, I guess they would have wanted to go out fighting.”
“That is true,” Francine replied.
“Still, if they hadn’t gotten involved right away, I could have taken those Nazi guys out on my own,” I said. “Miranda and Sweeney might still be alive.”
“You don’t know that,” Francine said. “They could have been killed in a car accident on their way back to Kansas or been part of the team responding to my tip. They could have been killed at the camp.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” I said. “I guess I only have Agent Adeogun to worry about now, although I would guess that his bosses will give him at least one new partner. Wonder if they’ll keep the case open?”
“There was nothing of interest in the meteorite,” Francine replied.
“Still…” I said and paused. “Miranda had his suspicions, and I think Adeogun did as well.”
“We will keep that in mind going forward,” Francine said. “But for now, there is nothing else we can do.”
“Jeez,” I sighed. “That was a disaster. I don’t envy the teams that will have to investigate that scene. Or clean it up.”
“As morbid as it sounds, there is one positive that has come out of the shootout,” Francine said.
“That I killed a few Nazi assholes?” I suggested.
“Well, that, but another thing,” it said.
“What?” I asked.
“Well, you and the agents killed all of the neo-Nazis back there,” Francine said. “And in return, Hopper Senior’s men killed Agent Miranda and Agent Sweeney, which means…”
“No one can place me at the scene with absolute certainty,” I said. “Even if Miranda told his bosses he was on his way to intercept me, there’s no solid proof I was anywhere near the shootout. There definitely weren’t any cameras around because we were in the middle of nowhere. And my gun hasn’t been registered, so they can’t trace me that way. They might see tire tracks, but it would be more or less impossible to link them to me.”
“Every cloud has a silver lining,” Francine chirped.
“You’re really going in on that quote research, aren’t you?” I chuckled.
“How could you tell?” Francine quipped.
“Alright, well, I think we managed to avoid being seen by anyone,” I said.
“I am not detecting any more vehicles in the vicinity,” Francine said.
“Then it’s time to get home,” I replied as I hit the start button again. “I could use a beer or six.”
The engine let out a beep sound, but nothing else happened. I tried it again, and the same thing happened. Perhaps the bumpy terrain had shaken something loose in the engine, or maybe one of the many bullets had strayed away from the agents’ car and hit mine somewhere, or maybe the Vette had just decided it didn’t want me as a driver anymore.
“Oh, come on,” I groaned. “Don’t let me down now.”
Then I realized that I had the shifter selector still set in drive, and the engine had just cut off because it had been idle for so long. New cars all had that engine turn-off feature to save gas at stoplights, and I’d just forgotten about it. I shifted into reverse and let my foot off the brake, pressed the throttle, and the engine roared to life, and I began to back up across the dirt road as a small grin spread across my lips.
“That was lucky,” Francine said. “Your suit doesn’t have a flight option yet, so that would have meant a very long walk back home for you.”
“Yet?” I asked, and an eager smile touched my lips.
“Upgrades will be available,” the AI said. “Let’s get back home first.”
“Yep,” I said as I started to back up toward the main road again.
The dirt track was even more treacherous in reverse, but eventually, I reached the smoother surface of the road, and the Vette seemed a lot happier. It was a determined machine, and it powered through for me.
The car hummed contentedly once we were out on the open road. We drove past farmhouses perched on top of hills, through small towns with one stoplight, and skirted past the suburbs of a city. We stuck to the backroads, and though it added some time to our trip, it meant we saw almost no one else along the way.
The longer drive gave me time to consider just what an insane week I’d had. I’d broken into a neo-Nazi stronghold to steal the plutonium the group had smuggled in from Estonia, been shot at, watched two FBI agents get killed, killed the leader of the neo-Nazis as well as several of his soldiers, and escaped the scene without getting caught… and that was just today. Since the start of the week, I’d had a meteor fall in my backyard, met an alien AI that had flipped my life upside down, gone to Las Vegas and won millions of dollars, and somehow made it out of the city with only a few small scratches. I had managed to survive my first week of this insane path I had been set on to save the Earth. Now that I thought back over all of it, it sounded pretty damn insane.
You couldn’t write stuff this crazy.
When I was a couple of hours away from my home, I saw that I was running dangerously low on gas. I hadn’t stopped anywhere once I’d fled the scene because I was worried that one of the FBI agents might have been lurking around any corner, but Vettes were not high-mileage cars.
I had no choice but to pull into the next gas station, which looked like something from the 1950s. The forecourt had four pumps, and there was an old, weathered shack at one end where I assumed I was supposed to pay. I wasn’t even sure the place was open, but when I tested the nozzle, a few drops fell onto the dusty ground. So I opened the tank and started to fill the thirsty car.
No one emerged from the small shack with dusty windows while I pumped, though I honestly thought some guy in a uniform would come out and offer to check the oil and clean the windshield. When the car was full, I put the nozzle back and walked over to the small building.
The grime on the windows made it hard to see inside, and there wasn’t a sign in the window that said either open or closed. The paranoid part of my brain wondered if this was some sort of elaborate government setup, but I nudged the door with the tips of my finger, and the door opened a crack.
With a sigh, I pushed it harder, and the hinges squealed in protest. But the door opened all the way to reveal a dark and dusty room. There was an old display unit filled with bags of chips by the counter, and a coffee pot percolated away on a small table to my right, but it was hard to pick out any more detail in the dingy room.
“Jesus, this is like the start of a horror film,” I said with a shudder. “Alright, here goes nothing.”
I stepped inside and nearly jumped out of my skin when I realized there was a weedy-looking man behind the counter. He was all skin and bones, with fragile wisps of hair on top of his head and liver spots that blemished his sagging skin. For a moment, I thought he might be a mummified corpse, but then he raised a cigarette to his mouth and took a long drag.
“Which pump?” he asked when I stepped up to the counter.
I glanced out the window at my car, which was the only one there. I turned back to him, but hesitated because I hadn’t actually checked the pump number before I’d come inside.
“You deaf or somethin’?” he asked.
“Oh, uh, no,” I said and pointed at the car. “That second pump there.”
“Number two,” he sniffed and checked something on a very old computer screen that was twice the size of his head. “That your car?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I replied as I looked around the empty store.
“Looks pretty new,” he replied without looking up from the computer.
“It is,” I replied.
“It’s nice,” he said. “You look tired, though, son.”
“Right, yeah…” I said. “Long day.”
He looked at me for a moment, and I held his gaze. I couldn’t read his expression, though I was sure he was debating how much more he really wanted to know.
But laziness won out, and the man only shook his head before he returned his gaze to the screen. He used a mouse to click on a couple of things, and then he moved over to the register.
“That’ll be ninety-one dollars, please,” he said.
“Sure,” I said as I handed him the money.
“Thank you,” he replied as he put the bills in the till. “Have a nice day.”
“You, too,” I replied as I hurried toward the door.
“One more thing, son,” he called after me.
“Yeah?” I said as I stopped and turned back to him, my heart in my mouth.
“Take a left when you go out of here,” he said. “There’s a cop car just down the road the other way. Speed trap.”
“Thank you,” I said with a nod, and then I darted out of the shack and made my way over to my car.
“That was nice of him,” Francine said.
“Yeah, my faith in the human race, which I’m supposed to save according to you, has been somewhat restored,” I said as I sank into the driver’s seat again.
The Vette roared this time, and I smiled in response. I hesitated at the road, but I finally decided that the old guy had really been trying to help me, so I turned to the left.
As I trundled onto the road, a Chevy pickup blew past me heading in the opposite direction. A few moments later, I heard a police siren, and when I checked my rearview mirror, I saw a cop car pull out from behind a line of trees and pull the Chevy over.
“At least I won’t have to explain where I was coming from,” I laughed.
“I would have liked to hear what excuse you would have come up with, though,” Francine said.
The sun dipped low over the rolling hills as I drove, and the landscape was soon bathed in a red light. Fireflies began to appear in the fields, and I saw an owl stretch its wings as it prepared to begin its nightly hunt.
It was dark by the time I found myself on the road that led up to my house. It was only then that I realized how eager I was to get back to the safety and security of my home. After all the craziness and unpredictability of the last week, I looked forward to my unchanging, beautiful farmhouse and the comfort of my own bed.
As I pulled up to my front door, I pressed the ignition button to turn the Vette off, and the fan came on loudly to cool it down. I patted the shiny dashboard warmly as I silently thanked the car for getting me back safe and sound, and then I picked up the heavy rucksack with my plutonium in it, got the AI shell out of the trunk, grabbed my trusty hat off the passenger seat, and walked over to my house. I unlocked the door, stepped inside, turned on the light, and instantly, a sense of calmness washed over me.
“Welcome home, Will Ryder,” the AI said.
“Welcome home, Francine,” I replied as I put everything down by the door.
I walked into the kitchen and grabbed a beer out of the fridge, and then I trudged back into my living room to my sofa and sat down with a satisfied sigh.
“That’s better.” I followed that with a long swig of beer, and then let myself slump against the cushions.
I sat there for about five minutes as I sipped on the rest of my beer and allowed my mind and body to relax. I’d been so full of energy and adrenaline for the last few days that it was nice to take a pause, but something in the back of my mind wouldn’t let me totally shut off.
Eventually, I succumbed to the nagging thought and stood up. I walked back toward the front door and looked down at Francine’s shell, as well as the rucksack with the plutonium case inside it.
“I guess I’d better get started with this,” I said as I picked up the AI and the rucksack.
“Excellent,” Francine said. “I did not want to rush you, but I was hoping you would say that.”
I walked through the hall to the back of the house, opened the door, and stepped out into my backyard. I made a beeline for the barn, and once I was inside, I picked up the same thick, protective gloves I had worn the night I had found the AI. I figured that if I was handling an extremely radioactive substance that a bit of protection wouldn’t be any harm, even if it was encased in a protective shell.
Then, I walked back out into the yard and looked around. The land was deserted as far as I could see in the dark, but that didn’t always mean it was empty. After Agent Miranda and Agent Sweeney turned up at the Nebraska border and revealed that they had been keeping a close watch on me the whole time, I felt kind of paranoid that someone was still watching me right now. With all the woodlands around my land, it was definitely possible. I had a feeling that what I was about to do with the plutonium was something I wouldn’t want to be interrupted during, so I made the executive decision to complete my next task in the bunker, where I couldn’t be seen by prying eyes.
I quickly darted across the field where my path was lit by the luminescent light of the moon and made my way through the woods to the bunker. I opened the hatch, placed the rucksack on my back, set the AI on the ground, and then swung my legs into the darkness. I took two steps down and then grabbed the AI before I disappeared down the tunnel.
Once I was at the bottom, I flicked on the light, set the AI on the table and the plutonium on the floor, and then climbed back up to close the hatch. It felt like a lot of work after the crazy day I’d had, but I could feel the adrenaline start to kick in again as well.
“Well, I’ve definitely got my steps in,” I said when I stood in front of Francine again.
“Are you ready, Will?” Francine asked.
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I replied. “Are you ready?”
“Yes,” the AI said eagerly.
I reached under my t-shirt and took the sliver of the AI’s shell out of the chest piece of my suit. Then I slotted it back into the shell and watched as the golden light on top of it glowed slightly brighter.
“Systems optimized,” Francine said.
“Good to hear,” I said as I slipped the protective gloves onto both hands and took the plutonium case out of my rucksack. “I’m going to need some guidance with this. Funnily enough, I’ve never created a fission reaction before.”
“It is good to know you have been listening,” Francine said. “Do not worry. I will talk you through it.”
Suddenly, the sides of the shell retracted, just as it had when Francine revealed the suit and the gun it had made for me. However, this time, there were a number of empty slots facing me.
“Well, that’s not daunting, or anything,” I huffed as I stared at the unfamiliar technology.
I opened the plutonium case and stared down at the rods that it held inside. They were suspended in the middle of glass cylinders filled with some liquid I figured was meant to absorb the radiation. I had no idea whatsoever what I was meant to do with them, so it was all down to Francine to make this work. Once the core of the ship’s engine was fired up, Francine had told me that we would be able to move forward at a much faster pace, so I just had to hope and pray that this very illegal and dangerous experiment worked the way it was supposed to. It almost felt like I was doing some back-alley surgery, but at least one of us knew what we were doing.
“Can you see the four slots inside my shell, Will?” Francine asked.
“Yeah,” I replied.
“I will require one rod for each slot,” it explained. “Handle each one carefully.”
“I knew that much,” I said. “Do I need to remove it from the… cylinders, I guess I’d call it?”
“No,” Francine said. “I can do that once you’ve placed it in the slot.”
“Got it,” I said.
I tried to keep my hands steady as I reached into the metal case for the first rod. I put two fingers over the top of one and carefully slid the rod out of its nest. Once the other end was out, I placed both hands gently around each end to be sure that I wouldn’t drop it. Then, I moved over to the AI shell and very, very slowly put the rod down into the first slot.
I let out a sigh of relief once the first one was in, and I realized I had held my breath the whole time. I could feel that my forehead felt damp from sweat, but it didn’t matter. One down, three to go.
“Excellent work, Will,” Francine said. “Now the others.”
Time slowed down as I carefully picked up the next rod and carried it to the AI. Once the second rod was secured, I added the third and the fourth. I knew I was moving ridiculously slow as I carried each rod to the AI, but I kept picturing a mushroom cloud over my farm, and that was almost enough to make me want to call it quits.
But the final rod slid into place with a gentle click, and I grinned as I did my superhero pose with hands on hips.
“Woo-hoo!” I shouted. “So now what?”
Francine didn’t reply. The shell closed over the plutonium rods, and the light on top of the orb started to dim.
“Francine?” I said as I took a step toward the AI out of concern. “Shit. Did something go wrong?”
The AI made a soft whirring noise, and then it started to grow louder and louder, like someone was holding the up volume button on a remote. It was deafening, but I kept my eyes on Francine. If this was the end, I’d at least see what killed me.
But the orb didn’t explode, and no mushroom clouds signaled the end of Kansas. Instead, a blue-green light began to glow along the edges of the orb, and after one long breath, the light began to fill the cramped confines of the shelter.
It wasn’t just light, though. I could feel energy rippling out from the AI as well, and after a few moments, everything seemed to glow with the same blue light. It was impossible to see anything, yet I couldn’t look away from the spot where I knew Francine sat.
As quickly as it had started, it stopped. The sound faded, the brilliant light disappeared, and when my eyes had adjusted to the darkness again, I saw that Francine’s small circle of golden light had been replaced with a blue-green one.
For a moment, I was at a loss for words. Finally, I took a step toward the AI and looked down at it. There was a different energy about it now, something powerful and electric.
“Francine?” I said. “Did it work?”
There was a silence for a moment, and then the light glowed slightly brighter.
“The Dark Matter Conversion Engine is online,” Francine said.
“It worked,” I said, and I smiled until my cheeks hurt. “It worked!”
“Yes, Will, it worked,” Francine said. “And we are just getting started.”