Slip (The Slip Trilogy Book 1) (30 page)

A
body falls from the lifter, spitting blood. Then another, crashing over the first, his gun spouting tongues of flame.

There’s a roar of pain, and Benson’s father’s guard staggers forward, getting off a final shot before collapsing in a heap. The second guy drops like a ton of bricks. Three corpses, surrounded by a pool of blood.

Luce hisses, “C’mon!” but Benson’s eyes are glued to the aftermath of the violence, as a third person steps from the lifter, stomping right over the carnage at his feet, weapon raised chest high. Looks left, away from them.

Benson’s father looks right at them and says, “Stay together. Protect each other. Don’t make the same mistakes I’ve made.”

And then he wheels around and aims both his guns down the hallway, toward the third guy, who looks to the right.

And Corrigan Mars smiles.

~~~

Too much noise, too much noise, too much damn noise!

Janice throws her hands over her ears and huddles against her two sons, who look so perfect and so beautiful and she doesn’t know how they’re together for the first time since they were babies, but she doesn’t care. If it’s a dream, it’s the best kind. If she’s dead then it’s worth it. If she’s hallucinating then thank God for her mental illness or whatever drugs she’s taking.

Because seeing them together is so right.

But seeing her husband with two guns, one in each hand, isn’t right. Not at all. Especially when he’s adding to the noise.

His guns explode and the man he’s shooting at—who she instantly recognizes as Corrigan Mars; a man she’s never liked but who they had dinner with many times before Harrison and Benson were born—dives out of the way.

Michael crouches down, his weapons aimed forward, waiting. WinWinWinWinWinWin, she thinks.

“Win!” she screams.

Michael doesn’t fully turn back, but his head twists enough that she can see his handsome profile and the half-smile he offers.

And in that half-moment of silence, she realizes that despite everything, despite the mistakes he made and the hell he put her through, she never, not for one second, stopped loving him.

That’s when three more people pour from the lifter, firing haphazard shots down the hallway.

~~~

Despite the hundreds of times he’s cursed his father’s name, Harrison Kelly doesn’t want him to die.

“Father!” he screams, his shout muffled by the thunder of his father’s gunfire.

~~~

Janice is shouting something. His brother is shouting something. And, Benson just now realizes, he’s shouting something, too. Bullets are whizzing past them, skipping off the walls and floor, and their entire family is screaming at his father, who’s firing down the hallway, outnumbered four to one.

When his opponents duck for cover, he looks back and yells, “RUN!” waving them away.

His legs are like lead, too heavy to lift. Luce is pulling at his arm, screaming at him to “Go go go go!” but he can’t seem to take even a single step.

But then Harrison stops screaming at their father and starts pushing at Janice, forcing her into Benson, whose feet come alive. He knocks into Luce, who’s got the door to the roof cracked open.

He starts to fall through the door, twisting his head to catch a final glimpse of his father, who’s returned to shooting down the hall, one of his attacker’s falling, spots of blood blooming like red roses across her chest. His father’s body jerks, like he’s been punched in the shoulder, and one of his guns clatters to the floor.

And in that moment, his father’s dark shirt tugs free of where it’s tucked into his dark trousers, and a gap appears. And in that gap he sees only red.

Red underwear. Even now, after all these years, his father refused to fully conform to the system.

“No!” Benson screams, but he’s already being pushed/pulled out of the corridor and into the stairwell. “Father!” he screams. “God, Father! God, no, no, no. Please, God. Please.” Strong arms, Luce’s and Harrison’s, are half-carrying him up the stairs.

The heavy fire door closes, transforming the sharp gunshots into muted pops.

Bright daylight shatters his eyes as they spill onto the roof, which is half-shaded with cloud cover.

He feels hot tears on his cheeks, burning streams of fire. Can’t move. Can’t think. Numb. So numb. So broken.

And then Harrison’s face is there, right in front of him, so close. “Don’t let all his sacrifices go to waste, Benson. Please. We have to go.”

Benson knows he’s right, so he staggers after Janice and Luce, who are already halfway across the roof, headed for the far edge. There’s nowhere to go from here.

Nowhere.

But then he sees his mother stop and pick something up off the ground, long and thin. Like a plank.

A hoverboard.

Grinning, she turns back to him and says, “Let your brother teach you how to fly.”

T
he look Harrison gave him before he pushed his stunned family through the door was all Michael Kelly needed.

It was forgiveness. It was
I love you
, despite everything. It was a vow to protect his brother and mother.

His left arm’s on fire, slick with blood, but with six dead people—one his own, five his enemy—piled up in front of him, he’s still in the fight.

“You’re finished, Kelly,” Corrigan’s voice bellows from somewhere out of sight.

He knows it. His once-friend was always a better shooter than him, and he’s not injured. But seconds could make a difference in saving his family’s lives, and he’s determined to give them as many of them as he can.

“Disgruntled much?” Michael says through gritted teeth. He’s starting to feel lightheaded from the blood loss, his gun-wielding hand shaking. “You were always a sore loser.”

“Loser?” Corrigan says. “I’m not sure you understand the rules of the game we’re playing. It’s life and death, old friend. That’s all that matters.”

“The Slip is alive,” he says. “So I win.”

“I have to hand it to you,” Corrigan says, “you fooled me along with the rest of them. Your record, the way you slaughtered UnBees with such conviction…I never would’ve guessed you were a traitor to your own country.”

Traitor. As loathe as he is to admit it, the insult cuts deeper than he’d like. Is doing everything in one’s power to protect one’s family traitorous if it goes against the laws of one’s country?

“The Slip is innocent,” he says. “He’s done nothing wrong except be born.”

“Sometimes that’s enough,” Corrigan says.

And then he’s there, so fast that Michael can barely react, can barely remember to pull the trigger, which
click click clicks
, signaling it’s out of bullets.

Corrigan smiles before he pulls the trigger.

The blast goes just high as Michael ducks, throwing his gun down the hall and backpedalling as quickly as he can.

Seconds. He has to give them as many seconds as he can.

Corrigan laughs, striding forward even as Michael trips over his own feet, which tremble beneath him.

Seconds. One two three four. He counts them off with the beats of his heart. Two beats equal one second.

Corrigan fires and Michael doesn’t have the energy to dodge the shot. Heat burns through his thigh, bursting from his nerves like a volcanic eruption. He writhes on the floor, unable to control the spasms rolling through him like waves.

His longtime rival could’ve killed him if he wanted to. He’s taking his time.

Good. More seconds. Ten eleven twelve thirteen.

Corrigan Mars stands over him, his gun aimed at Michael’s head.

He closes his eyes and sees his life:

His twin babies being born, so beautiful, so perfect. The doctor providing a legal birth certificate to Harrison. His wife’s smile, so big. Him separating the two, taking the boy with no name back to the house they’d purchased under a false identity. His wife’s tears as he left her.

The years of fear and unhappiness and loneliness and anger and frustration and death. Always so much death, surrounding him like a cold fog, threatening to suffocate him.

The plan coming together in his mind. Hope for his whole family, built on lies to his wife, to both his sons. Lies spoken, and lies of omission.

Benson gone, cast off like a baby bird pushed from the nest. The confused look on his son’s face as he treaded water. The way Michael had locked his jaw and gritted his teeth and forced anger to his face, when inside he was shattered glass.

He hadn’t had to fake the tears for his wife. Benson wasn’t dead, but he might as well have been dead to him.

Watching Janice slowly become unhinged. Rushing her to the hospital when he found her lying in her own vomit, which was speckled with half-digested pills. Taking her to the asylum for her own protection. Lying to himself and saying it was all going to be okay.

Hating Harrison each and every day for being the one who got a normal life, while his other son got nothing.

Realizing it wasn’t Harrison he hated, but himself.

The dark, dark memories pass through his mind in an instant, and when he opens his eyes to look down the gun barrel, it’s on his own terms.

“Take a life to give one,” he says, thinking of both his family and the Death Match notice he’d received. At least his death will allow another family to have a child—an authorized one.

“I won’t rest until they’re all dead,” Corrigan Mars says.

Then he pulls the trigger.

“C
an you ride one?” Harrison asks, handing the hoverboard to Benson.

“I’ve never tried,” he says. He doesn’t take the board.

Luce says, “It’s been a long time, but I can ride.”

“Okay. You and Benson first. You don’t have the right shoes, so you’ll have to be careful not to fall off. Get to the next roof over and leave the board. It’ll find its way back to me. Look for a place to hide and wait for us.”

“No,” Benson says. “Luce and Janice first. Nonnegotiable.”

“Big. Bird,” Janice says.

“Dammit! We don’t have time for this,” Harrison says.

“Luce, take Janice,” Benson says, pushing the board toward her.

“Big. Bird,” Janice says again, more insistently.

“I’m not leaving you,” Luce says. “I know what you’re doing. You’re playing hero to protect us. Either we all go at the same time, or none of us go.”

“Listen, you idiots,” Harrison says, “the board won’t hold
all
of our weight. Now someone go before I push you all off the freaking roof myself!”

“BIG! BIRD!” Janice shouts, pointing skyward.

Finally, Benson turns to her, following her finger to where it’s aimed at a dark shadow overhead, approaching them.

A Hawk.

“Crap!” Harrison shouts. “Change of plans. We’re all going at the same time. Get on the board.” He drops the sleek board to the ground and steps onto the center. Janice follows, hugging him tightly around the waist, like she’s done it a million times. Luce follows, on the other side.

Benson doesn’t move. “Wait,” he says. The Hawk is no more than fifteen-hundred meters away, he estimates.

“We don’t have time for this, bro!” Harrison says.

Benson ignores him, focused intently on the Hawk, thinking hard. The drone’s weapons are deadly accurate from at least twice that distance. And it’s coming in at a strange angle, forty-five degrees perhaps, like its aim is to land on the roof, rather than fly over like he would expect.

Weird.

The hoverboard lifts off the roof, wobbling slightly under the weight of three riders. Harrison tries to grab Benson’s arm and pull him aboard, but he dodges away, still thinking.

And anyway, the com network is down; how would the Hawk know to head
straight
for the roof of the Pop Con building?

There’s a heavy clang as the roof door bursts open. Benson whirls around to see Corrigan Mars stalking toward him. His gun is drawn but pointed at the ground. There’s blood spattered on his face, but Benson knows it’s not his.

He chokes out a breath, his father’s face flashing in his mind.

Corrigan Mars raises the gun and points it at Benson.

Automatic weapons fire chirps from above, plowing a path of sparks across the roof toward Corrigan, who ducks back inside the door, blocking the bullets, which chatter off the thick metal.

The Hawk. Does his father have other allies willing to take out Corrigan Mars ahead of a wanted fugitive?

“Ooh,” Janice says, as the drone swoops in, hovering directly overhead. A woman wearing thick plastic goggles mans a huge gun, presumably the one that sprayed the roof and saved Benson’s life.

A rope ladder drops from an open door, and a familiar face pokes out, sending a hollow thrill through Benson. Impossible, and yet…

It’s Check, throwing him a toothy grin. “You guys miss me?” he shouts. “Get in!” His face changes from grinning to frowning in an instant, as he sees Harrison and Benson together. “What the hell?”

Benson doesn’t have time to explain. He also doesn’t know how or why his best friend is in a Hawk, but he couldn’t care less, his intellectual curiosity thrust aside as he grabs the end of the rope ladder and shoves it to Janice. “Climb,” he says.

“Big bird?” she says, one eyebrow raised.

“Big bird,” he says.

“Benson, I don’t know if this is such a good id—” Harrison starts to say, grabbing her arm.

“It’s okay,” Benson says. “Trust me—I know him.”

Harrison hesitates, but then releases her. She looks up, the hugest smile ever on her face, and starts to climb. “Make sure she doesn’t fall,” Benson says to Harrison, who starts up next.

“Ladies first,” Benson says to Luce.

“And they say chivalry is dead,” she says, grabbing the end of the ladder, which is swaying under the weight of the first two climbers. She clambers up, shouting a question about her brother to Check, who confirms he’s okay. Temporarily relieved, Benson looks back at the door. It starts to open, but sparks fly immediately as the gunner unleashes another barrage of cover fire. The door slams.

Benson climbs the ladder, which bucks and sways and gets stuck around his feet. But the challenge of getting to the top is nothing compared to what he’s faced in his life. He watches as first Janice, then Harrison, then Luce all scramble into the door of the drone, disappearing inside.

Check sticks his head out again. “Benson?” he says.

“It’s me, Check,” Benson says, grabbing his friend’s outstretched hand. Check uses his other hand to grip him under the arm and pull him into the Hawk. Benson doesn’t know what to say, heavy emotion welling in his chest and head.

He hugs his best friend, feeling tears tugging at the corners of his eyes. He blinks them away quickly so he won’t have to hear about it for years to come.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Check says.

“You, too,” Benson says.

Check lowers his voice to a whisper. “When did you get cloned?” he says, motioning to Harrison.

“He’s my brother. It’s a long story.”

They pull apart and watch Geoffrey, Gonzo, and Rod hugging Luce while Harrison looks on awkwardly. Janice’s face is smashed against a thick glass window, where she’s gazing at the clouds whipping around them as they soar across the sky.

“Ooh,” she says, and Benson laughs.