Slip (The Slip Trilogy Book 1) (25 page)

Finally, they reach the last car. They’re out of room to run and the train is still moving fast, not yet approaching the next station. A door is marked with “Authorized personnel only.” Luce yanks at it, but it’s locked.

The cyborg enters the last car.

“Well, well,” he says. “I guess all good things have to come to an end.”

A sudden and unexpected calm washes over Benson as he realizes what he has to do. “Luce, stay behind me. The second the doors open at the next stop, run and don’t look back. Find your brother. Get out of the city. Leave the rest to me.”

“Benson, no—”

“Just do it!” he screams, pushing her back, turning away from her startled expression. He can’t think about it or he might not do it. And he has to. If nothing else, he has to save her.

He takes a step toward the cyborg.

The cyborg’s smile widens as he takes a matching step, cracking his knuckles, both metal and bone.

Luce grabs him from behind, spins him around, and points upward. “Give me a boost,” she says. Benson looks up to find an emergency exit, a hatch with a red button in the center. A last hope?

He stoops down and cups his hands together. When Luce steps on his interlocked fingers, he lifts upward with all his might. She presses the button and the hatch flies away, clattering along the roof. Wind whips around him as Luce clambers through the hole.

“No!” the cyborg screams, his footsteps hammering toward them.

Luce reaches through the hatch, offering her hand. Benson jumps, grabbing it with one hand and the lip of the hatch with the other. With her help, he pulls himself up, crabbing a knee onto the roof.

Something grabs him from below, crushing his toes through his shoes. “Ahh!” he yells, kicking at the Destroyer, who only tightens his metal grip.

“Going somewhere, Slip?” he says, pulling him down.

Muscles burning, Benson clutches at the roof, while Luce yanks at his other arm. His body starts to stretch, as if they’re trying to tear him in two. Sweat instantly coats his fingers, which begin to slip away from both the roof and Luce’s hand at the same time.

“Enough of this crap,” Luce says through gritted teeth. In one swift motion, she heaves Benson’s arm upward and slides past him feet first, throwing herself back into the car.

Nonononono! Benson screams in his head as he realizes she’s doing the exact same thing he’d planned to do earlier: sacrifice herself to save him. He reaches back, trying to grab onto any part of her he can get his hands on.

What he sees shocks him.

Luce is hanging from the hatch, her face a mask of focus and concentration as she tries to pull herself up. The Destroyer is on the floor, rubbing his forehead, which has a distinct imprint of two shoes smudged on his skin. “A little help,” Luce says.

In awe, Benson grabs her and pulls her onto the roof, even as the Destroyer snaps to his feet, karate-style. “This way,” Luce says, crawling along the roof, the wind spraying her hair behind her. Benson scurries after her, ignoring the agony shooting through his crushed toes, glancing back once to see the cyborg muscling himself up. His smile is gone, replaced by a slash of anger from his fierce black eyes to the hard line of his mouth.

“Go go go!” Benson shouts unnecessarily.

The arched stone ceiling is so low it almost feels like its reaching out toward Benson’s head, trying to rip him to shreds.

“Stay high,” Luce says, which makes no sense at all. High? Shouldn’t they be staying low? “Duck when I tell you to,” she says, in a low voice that only Benson will be able to hear. “Okay?”

Benson’s knowledge of the Tunnels connects with Luce’s words and her plan makes perfect sense. Perfect, perfect sense. They’re approaching the next station. Even as he thinks it, the train begins to slow, its magnetic brakes kicking in automatically.

Despite every instinct telling him to stay low, he lifts his body as high as he dares, the ceiling so close, screaming past him violently. Luce does the same and, together, they block the Destroyer’s view of what’s ahead. “If you give up now, I’ll kill you quickly,” the cyborg says, his voice close behind.

Benson knows it’s a lie. This guy will enjoy pulling him apart, limb by limb. He turns to face the Hunter, forcing a grim smile to his face. He trusts Lucy with every cell in his body. “I hope you die slowly,” Benson says.

The Destroyer’s face flashes surprise just as Luce yells, “Down!”

Benson thrusts his body downward, flattening himself on the roof, willing his body to meld with it. Darkness bursts past, the roof getting even lower, as it always does as the tunnel narrows at each station.

The Destroyer screams and there’s a vicious crash, like an aut-car colliding with a building, and then the scream cuts off.

The train eases to a stop.

~~~

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P
eriods of absolute darkness trade with periods of light so bright it pierces his eyelids, which are glued shut. There are voices, sometimes muffled and sometimes as sharp as the pop of a firecracker. Although Domino Destovan knows they’re speaking a language he should understand, the pain is so overwhelming that it smothers all else. Like fire in his chest. Like hot steel bullets in his limbs. Like a nest of stinging hornets in his skull.

Half the time he doesn’t know if he’s asleep or awake, dead or alive. Only that he exists, on some level.

The memories are there, but none of them fit, like fragments of a thousand-piece puzzle missing half its pieces. There are snatches of long black hair dusting his face, a firm body on top of him. And then two teenagers running away—a girl and a guy—boarding a train—a train he knows he has to catch. The dark-haired beauty leans down and presses against him, kissing him,
using
him. He doesn’t know how, but he gets on the train, despite the doors having already closed. He’s angry. At the woman? At the teenagers? Both. He’s angry at both, but gleefully so. So angry he can’t stop smiling, the blood pumping through his entire body like boiling hot lava. Davis. He remembers her filthy name. He remembers. She’s using him to improve her standing on his squad. What squad? What standing? Doesn’t know. Doesn’t care.

He throws her off of him, dumping her on the floor like the worthless pile of bones that she is. Still naked, she’s on her feet in an instant, not scared, but royally pissed off, screaming at him, telling him what a half-metal freak he is. He never stops smiling, even as he crushes her to the wall, relishing the fear that replaces her anger, relishing the way her lithe body tries to squirm away from his iron grip. But no, she’s gone again, and he’s chasing the girl and the guy through the train, from car to car. They manage to evade him and climb to the roof.

But he knows they’re only delaying the inevitable, just like Davis.

The life leaves her and he lets gravity drag her to the floor, her dark hair painting a swirling pattern on the spotless white carpet.

Clever, clever…Slip? The word comes to him like a struck match in the dark. Slip. Yes. The boy was a Slip. His quarry. And for the second time, the Slip outsmarted him. Or the girl did. One or the other or both. They ducked at the last second and the roof came out of nowhere and destroyed the Destroyer.

But he’s not dead. Right? Right? He tries to form the words on his lips, but they’re like poison, melting over him, sending shivers of agony through the entirety of his body.

Heavy hands clamp down around him and he gags when something hard is shoved down his throat.

Eyes. Won’t. Open.

Brain. Won’t. Function.

Whywhywhywhy

WHY?

A familiar voice cuts through the fog in his ears. “What can you do, Doctor?” He knows that voice, that man. His whole body starts shaking as he strains to open his eyes. “What’s happening?” the voice barks.

“His body is in shock. It’s fighting the treatment. We don’t have many options left,” says another voice.

“But there are options?”

His throat feels as dry as desert sand. Water, water, I need some freaking WATER! The roar in his head comes out as a weak “Uhhhh” from his lips.

“Yes. We’ll have to use more…machine parts. Much of his organic tissue is destroyed beyond repair.”

“What about transplants?”

“There’s not enough of his own material to support it. Unfortunately, this boy will be more machine than human when we’re done with him.”

“Just do what you have to do,” the man says. The name slices through his screams for water like a rock in a fast-moving stream:

Corrigan Mars.

Darkness falls like a scythe.

~~~

When it rains it pours. The old saying could be the motto for his entire life.

Michael Kelly’s dark aut-car has been driving around the city for hours, aimlessly, programmed to cover every single street, including alleyways. He started the search the moment he was informed of Harrison’s role in his wife’s escape from the asylum.

Blind. That’s the only word he’d use to describe himself at this moment. He was blind when he spoke with Harrison last night—completely ignorant to what his son was thinking and feeling—and he’s blind now. Even as he stares out the dark-tinted windows it’s as if he can’t see at all.

The disturbance with the holo-ads and the underground train took his mind off of Harrison and Janice for a few minutes, but not for long. At least the ruthless cyborg who’s clearly working for Corrigan Mars was badly injured during the chase.

And Benson got away. Almost impossibly, he escaped once more. A pulse of pride beats in his chest. His son has lasted on his own, on the streets, for longer than any other Slip. Well, perhaps not entirely on his own. The witnesses said he was with a girl. A pretty one, too, by the sound of it.

Run, Benson. Run.

Endless streets and endless buildings blur past. His entire family is out there somewhere, the gulf between them seemingly endless.

Glancing at his portable holo-screen’s projection, he checks the retinal scan alerts around the city. A drug dealer. A known thief. No hits on his family, none since Benson and the girl, Lucy Harris, were identified by the holo-ads. And not a single one on Harrison or Janice, as if they simply don’t exist anymore.

His holo-screen beeps as there’s an incoming call. Hodge. “Accept,” he says, and Hodge’s face projects from the screen. There are dark circles under his eyes, as if he hasn’t slept in days. “Yes?” Michael says.

“Still no trace of your son or wife,” Hodge says.

“Then why are you calling?” He’s not in the mood for small talk.

“You asked me to check in every hour, sir,” Hodge says blandly.

Right. Has it really been an hour since the last check in? Yes. Exactly an hour. “Thank you. And Ben—the Slip? Any news there?”

Hodge opens his mouth and then closes it, as if unsure of how to respond.

“What is it, Hodge?” Michael says.

“Permission to speak freely, sir?”

“Please.”

“The approach you came up with isn’t aggressive enough. Mars’s rogue squad is one step ahead at every turn. Maybe two steps. They’re using every means possible to take out the Slip. We should be, too.”

“Maybe you’re not working hard enough,” he retorts.

“I have eleven different Hunter squads in the field. They’re on fourteen hour shifts. They’re tired and frustrated. They don’t like the idea that even if they find the Slip they’re not authorized to terminate on sight. None of them are willing to die to bring the Slip in unharmed.”

“Then perhaps they shouldn’t be Hunters,” Michael says. “The orders stand. The Slip will not be harmed during capture. Anyone who disobeys this direct order will face criminal charges. There’s a bigger picture to all of this, and the sooner you see it the better. This Slip has evaded us for almost two decades. We need to know how.” Without waiting for a response, he ends the call, Hodge’s face giving way to the retinal scan alerts. Still nothing.

“Home,” Michael Kelly says to the aut-car, which hangs a quick left and reroutes.

Michael sighs, wondering how much longer he can hold off Hodge and the rest of the department before they start asking for his head on a platter.

He closes his eyes, hating the thought of facing his empty house alone.

~~~

“She’s a bit older than what you usually go for, isn’t she?”

“She’s my mother,” Harrison says. “Look, Chet—”

“Wire,” he says. “If you want to use my services, you’ll call me Wire.”

If Harrison wasn’t so desperate for help, he’d laugh in his face and leave right now. But he has no one else to go to, so he says, “Look, Wire, we need your help.”

Wire leans back in his swivel chair, placing his hands behind his head. “My help, huh? I like the sound of that.” The chair nearly topples over and his arms wave wildly as he tries to get his balance.

With two agile steps, Harrison catches him and steadies the chair. Wire’s gray eyes are wide. His red hair is sticking up in every direction, like he hasn’t combed it in weeks. Perennial bed head. Splotches of acne coat his chin, nose, and forehead, a classic example of the teenage T-zone. A ridiculous attempt at a goatee hangs in wispy threads from his chin.

I’m desperate
, Harrison reminds himself.

“Why is your mother touching the wall?” Wire asks.

Harrison’s eyes dance over to where, sure enough, his mother is running her fingers over the plain plasterboard wall, like it’s a rare artifact. It’s the only wall in the small, cluttered room that’s not blocked by electronic equipment of some sort. “So smoooooth,” she murmurs.

“I guess the stories are true then,” Wire says. “She’s…” He makes a circle with his finger around his ear.

“Shut your damn mouth,” Harrison says, standing as tall as he can over Wire’s chair. Despite the fact that he’s been thinking the same thing since the moment he laid eyes on his mother almost twenty hours earlier, no one else is allowed to say it—or even gesture it.

“Okay, okay, geez.” Wire raises his hands above his head. “Touchy subject, eh?”

“Can you help us or not?”

“Breaking someone from the asylum isn’t exactly something I’d planned on getting involved in…”

“Fine. We’re out of here,” Harrison says, knowing full well Wire is just posturing. “C’mon, Mom.” He grabs her arm and pulls her away from a wall of red, green and blue flashing lights.

“Wait,” Wire says, just as Harrison knew he would. “Maybe I’ll help. If the price is right.”

Harrison stops, but takes his time in turning around. “
Maybe?
”

“Alright, alright. I’m in. Yeah, I’m in. All the way. An anchor heading straight to the bottom of the ocean. No, wait, that’s stupid. A, uh, a bird flying straight to the sun. Yeah, really, really high.”

“You’d burn up in the atmosphere,” Harrison says.

“I’m wearing a—”

“Even if you’re wearing a spacesuit, the sun will incinerate you.”

Wire chews his lip, stumped.

“This isn’t about my mother,” Harrison says. When Wire raises an eyebrow, he says, “Well, not entirely.”

“Care to elaborate?” Wire says, picking at a scab on his nose.

“No more Slips can die,” his mother says, once more gazing at the panel of flashing lights. “No more sons and no more daughters.”

“Harrison, what the crap is she talking about?”

Harrison nods, more to confirm his thinking to himself than for any other reason. There’s no turning back once he says it out loud. “We need your help to save the Slip.”

“Get out,” Wire says.

~~~

It takes a whole lot of words and a whole lot of pride-swallowing for Harrison to convince Wire to help them.

And more importantly, a whole lot of money, transferred from Harrison’s LifeCard through a device that Wire swears will remove the link to Harrison’s identity and make the transaction anonymous. If he’s lying, the authorities—and his father—will likely show up at their doorstep within minutes.

“Transfer complete,” Wire’s holo-screen says. Wire removes Harrison’s LifeCard from the slot and hands it back to him. Every last dollar he’s been saving over the last four years. Gone in thirty seconds.

“I better not regret this,” Harrison says, feeling slightly ill.

“You won’t, man.” When Harrison frowns, Wire rushes on. “I’m in. Like I said, I’m a bird and—”

“You’re headed on a one-way trip to the sun, I know.”

“Ha ha. Funny. But really, I have no love for Pop Con. Hell, they’ve blown up some of my best programs over the years. But they’ve never caught the man. Not once. I look forward to sticking it to them, to screwing with their capture of the Slip. By the time we’re through with them, they’ll look like fools. Your father will look like a child wearing a turkey outfit. He’ll be flapping his wings and squawking and—”

“I get it,” Harrison says, tiring of Wire’s rambling analogies. “Let’s get started.”

Wire rubs his hands together. “Okay. But first, can you, like, turn off your cray-cray mom? I’m afraid she’s going to break something.”

Harrison—barely—manages to ignore Wire’s reference to his mother’s insanity, turning to find her under a table, tapping on a metal box. “Hellooo!” she says.

“She’ll be fine,” he says. “Trust me.”

Wire looks skeptical, but he doesn’t push any further. “What first?” he asks.

Harrison smiles. “First we screw with their tracking systems.”

Wire returns Harrison’s smile with one of his own, full of crooked teeth and red gums. “Screwing with stuff happens to be my specialty,” he says, turning to the largest of several holo-screens he has positioned in front of him. “Luckily, I’ve been saving some of my best programs for just such an occasion. We could start with this nasty snake algorithm I’ve been perfecting since eighth grade. I call it Anaconda and I’ve been itching to take it for a spin. Or perhaps we could go with Iron Wall? If it does what I expect it to, Pop Con will be running in circles for days before they can break through all the lines of code. What do you think?”