The hurt flashes briefly in her eyes again, but again, she quickly recovers. She has practice at this. "No, Einstein. Why else would I work for Gatsbro taking care of two--"
I raise my hand to stop her and wince, still feeling the pain in my ribs. "I know. I know. Two spoiled children." I look in the mirror at her arms in her lap and the scars that are vines crawling across them. Even my biochips won't reveal that secret to me.
She grunts. "You got that right. Spoiled as in rotten."
Two spoiled children that she lied to, but she also saved me. Why? My trust teeters. The silence hangs.
"Here we go, Escapees," Dot says. "Cross your fingers." I guess crossing fingers hasn't gone out of style, though I would prefer something a little more scientific. The massive ramp pillars of the transgrid loom before us. Dot enters the ramp, and a jolt shakes the car.
I jump and look out the window. "What was that?"
"Not to worry! Just the hook. We're locked in now until I program where we want to get off."
Miesha stares straight ahead, still silent. Is she hurt? Or perhaps wondering where she can get a better price for valuable merchandise like Kara and me? A wave of guilt hits me, but who can I really trust? I had come to care about Miesha this past year. We always had fun trading good-natured barbs with each other. I enjoyed my time with her. There was an empty part in me that she filled. I thought she cared about us. But she lied. She knew what Gatsbro was up to and never said a word. She even came with him and the goons to take us back.
But she didn't take us back. She did just the opposite. Out of compassion or out of some other motivation? Money? I don't know what to think anymore, but I know she still has secrets.
The car accelerates and my shoulders push back into the seat, but it gets strangely quiet at the same time. We continue to climb the ramp, and soon we are joining other cars on the grid. The hook that guides us seamlessly merges us into the first of three streams of traffic.
"So far so good," Dot chirps. She looks over her shoulder at me. "Topeka, right?"
I nod.
She winks and adds, "At supersonic Escapee speed." Her fingers move over the panel, and various lights blink in quick succession. "I have to do it manually now that I'm not directly hooked into the Star system," she explains over her shoulder. "Done! Topeka, here we come. Hopefully."
The grid doesn't have rails like the old freeways I remember. Since we are hooked in, I guess there is no danger of anyone veering off the side, but it feels like we are balancing near the edge. The view is expansive. The three lanes are wide like those on the old freeways, I guess to accommodate a variety of cars. Speed may not be a choice, but apparently style still is. The innermost lane is reserved for the trains, which Dot tells me move considerably faster than the cars but at the same time have longer delays at stations. I hope there's a long delay in Albany and every other stop along the way. I need to get to Kara before--
"And another thing!" Miesha turns around, coming back to life and shaking a finger at me, her head wagging right along with it. "I know you didn't have a lot of choice when they gave you that newfangled body and then made plans for you, but you aren't the only one with limited choices, not by a long shot, Mr. High and Mighty! So don't go thinking you're the only one who's had a tough break. I've had my share too."
Just a few days ago I would have cowered at Miesha's shaking finger. But it's not a few days ago. How could she possibly compare anything she's been through to what I've been through? So she lost her job. She has no family. I have nothing. Nothing. Not even a legal identity in this world I've been dumped into. How dare she compare her problems to mine? I look at her, keeping my face expressionless. Her eyes are still fixed on mine. "Really, Miesha? What's been so tough for you? Tell me. I'm listening."
Her shoulders lower in retreat and she turns back around. "None of your business."
"Figures." The silence is uncomfortable, but I fight to keep myself from filling it. Let her squirm. I stare at the back of her head. I don't need to feel guilty.
The seconds tick past, and I wonder if Dot feels the tension too, but then I see in the mirror that she is smiling--the biggest, toothiest smile I have seen on her yet. "A newfangled body? You've got a newfangled body? Oh, boy, will I ever have a story to tell now."
Chapter 29
We hadn't told Dot a whole lot about who we were and why we were escaping. It seemed better that way. Just the word escape seemed to cast a spell over her and get her on our side, but now that Miesha has blabbed our secret in her fit of anger, I have no choice but to share the details so Dot knows how important it is that she not tell others about us. She never interrupts or takes her eyes off of me as I explain who Kara and I are and how we came to be on the run. I can tell by the way her head nods over and over again to everything I say that this new information has instantly elevated our status. But when I get to the part about not telling anyone, she stops me and her face is solemn.
"You never need to worry about the Network. We are trustworthy. We store information in hidden files that not even our Servicers can find. We're smarter than they think."
I nod. "I knew that already, Dot."
She leans as far over the seat as she can from her fixed position on her console and looks at my legs. "You're the whole package," she says, smiling. "And that girl. Kara. She's not so bad either." She turns around and looks at the panel. "Let me see if I can get us shifted into the interior lane. It moves the fastest." She touches several lights on the panel, and they blink. "For now, our destination is Los Angeles. That will speed us up. And later, as we get closer, I'll override it and switch us back to Topeka. It's against the rules to do that purposely, but we're not under Star Cab radar anymore ... and today I'm a rebel with a cause!"
I notice a slight shake of Miesha's head. I don't know if she is amused or annoyed, but she remains silent.
"How long?" I ask.
"At four hundred kilometers per hour, we should make it to Topeka in another two-point-seven hours."
We can make it halfway across the country in about the same amount of time as it takes to watch a movie, and yet it still doesn't seem fast enough. Where is Kara now?
I close my eyes. I turn down dark tunnels. Drifting. Searching. Kara. Can you hear me? I'm here. I'm here.
But there is no response. Zero. Only emptiness.
Chapter 30
That's what it all started with, a Friday night with nothing to do. I wanted to be with Kara and Jenna so badly, and not always be the follower. I had always been like a puppy trailing behind them, eager to do their bidding. I would have done anything for them. But I wanted to grow up in their eyes, too. Not that a few months younger is a big deal, but it still seemed like I was always one step behind them. For once, I wanted to be a step ahead.
And maybe it was something else, too.
My brother had come by the new house that day. He always made sure he came before my parents got home from work. He didn't have a key, but I let him in. Even though he was twenty-two now and had been gone for four years, I always had this stupid hope that maybe he would come back for good. Our mom still cried. I'd hear her in her room before a big family gathering, trying to hide it from the rest of us. Even though I had played the good child role for years, she still had a hole that only her firstborn could fill. So when he came, I let him in, even though I shouldn't have. He barely said hello.
"Hey, kiddo. Another inch taller." He brushed past me to the kitchen. I was sixteen and almost as tall as him. I was no kiddo. I followed him, and he pretended like he was hungry and opened the fridge. He looked over his shoulder at me. "You going to watch me eat?"
"It's not there, Cory. They moved it after the last time you came. Why don't you just get a real job--"
He slammed the refrigerator door shut and pounced on me, pinning me against the wall. "Then where is it?"
My parents kept money in an old cheese tin in the refrigerator--a habit left over from the days at our old house.
"Mom and Dad were right. You are messed up." I thought he was going to punch me, but instead he got a disgusted look on his face and let go, like he couldn't even stand to touch me.
"You think I'm messed up? Look at you. A parrot for Mom and Dad. That's all you are. You're a big fat zero. A nothing. That's all you'll ever be." He turned away and began rummaging through drawers and cupboards, slamming them when he couldn't find the tin.
I searched for a comeback, something that would cut into him the way his words cut me. "Oh, and you're a big somebody? Look at you. Stealing from your parents." But even I could hear the weakness of my reply. It wasn't the words, it was the delivery.
He turned and looked at me, his nostrils flaring and his upper lip pulled up like I even smelled bad. "Grow up, Locke."
He didn't search the rest of the house, just grabbed an apple from a bowl on the counter and left.
I had a whole afternoon to stew, but I tried to slough it off. He was a jerk. A deadbeat. No brother of mine. I tried to turn my thoughts back to Kara and Jenna and what we could do that night. I wanted to take charge for once. So later, when I overheard my sister writing down directions to a party that sounded wild--and maybe just a little out of our league--I paid attention. This was something that would impress Jenna and Kara, and maybe my brother too. My sister ended up not going to the party. But because of me, Kara and Jenna did.
Chapter 31
At this speed, the landscape changes rapidly. We've passed through forests and small towns that, at least from a distance, don't look much different from the towns I knew. We passed one large city that Dot said was Columbus. Again, like Boston, it was surrounded by a bird's nest of transgrids. When I ask if all cities have this grid work around them now, Dot tells me no, only the larger cities that were frequent targets during the long Civil Division.
I had already forgotten about the division of the country into two nations, and now I worry about the problems that may pose in our travel. "Will we have to cross any borders?"
Miesha and Dot both glance in the mirror at me.
"Borders?" Dot asks.
"There are no borders," Miesha says.
"I thought there was a Civil War and there were two countries now."
"There are. But everyone chooses which country to be a citizen of. You can change once every eight years."
"Unless you're a Non-pact," Dot says. "Once a Non-pact, always a Non-pact. Just like Bots."
"No," Miesha corrects her. "Non-pacts are not just like Bots. They were once full citizens." I note the immediate edge in her voice. She and Dot forget about me and begin correcting each other on the particulars of the Division. I already knew Dot was well versed in a lot of subjects for the purpose of entertaining tourists in her cab, but I have to wonder why Miesha knows or cares so much about historical details when she is tight-lipped about so many subjects. Between the two of them, I learn that the Division was not along regional lines the way the first Civil War was, but along philosophical lines. After years of civil unrest and violence, two new countries were established. But it was more like a divorce, and citizens could choose the parent country of their choice no matter where they lived. A few citizens would not conform to the new "pact" and refused to choose. They were labeled Non-pacts and excluded from all public services, which included education. Some of the Non-pacts were wealthy and could afford private education at first, but eventually their businesses all suffered and they became the invisible poor.
"They have the opportunity to become citizens, though," Dot says.
"How?" Miesha asks. "They can't go to school, and with no education, they can't pass the exams, not to mention pay the fees. And maybe some of them still think it should only be one country instead of two."
"Is that what you think, Miesha?" I ask.
She frowns like she is annoyed that I have entered the conversation between her and Dot and then turns away, looking out the window to her right. "It doesn't matter what I think."
She's wrong. I have a fabricated body. I am in a world that is completely different from the one I was born into. What I think is all I have left. My mind is the only thing that makes me different from a fancy toaster. What we think does matter--it's all we truly have. But I know the conversation is over.
Up ahead in the far distance a glimmer of yellow in the flat landscape catches my attention and I think we are approaching wheat fields. But then I wonder--it's spring and too early for golden wheat. As we get closer, I see sharp glints of light sparkling on its surface. It is not wheat. The yellow glimmer grows in mass and extends to the horizon. It looks like it will swallow us up if we stay on this path. In a matter of moments, we are in the middle of it, the transgrid speeding above a vast yellow pond with millions of white sticks protruding at close regular intervals from it, like plant stakes, except there are no plants. The stench is immediate.
"My God, what is that smell?"
"Sorry!" Dot says. "Forgot about you Breathers." She touches a few lights on the panel, and the air in the cab becomes clear and breathable again.
"Are those algae ponds?" Miesha asks.
"You've never seen them?" Not that I have, but I at least knew about them and had seen some Vgrams that showed the process of creating algae-based fuels. I just didn't realize how enormous the ponds were--or how smelly.
"I've never been out this way," Miesha answers.
"But didn't you learn about them in--"
School. They can't go to school, and with no education, they can't pass the exams. Is Miesha a Non-pact? Like one of those land pirates? Is that why she's so secretive? I don't finish my sentence, and she lets it drop too. But she has to know what I'm thinking.
I shift in my seat. The cab is small, fine for short trips around the city, but for long stretches like this, I feel all six feet, three inches of me, especially since my jaw still throbs and the gash in my side sends shooting pains through my back and chest every time I move. Dot's doctor didn't work wonders, but at least I'm not tasting blood in my mouth any longer. I work to hide my pain as I change positions. I don't want any suggestions that we stop for a rest. When I'm with Kara, there will be plenty of time for that--maybe six hundred years' worth of resting. We pass over the last algae field, and I lean forward. "How much longer?"
"Twenty-two minutes. I will change our destination back to Topeka in fourteen minutes."
I sit back and close my eyes. We're almost there. It won't be soon enough for me.
Run, Jenna. Run. Precious, privileged Jenna. Jenna.
My eyes fly open.
Miesha and Dot are silent, staring straight ahead.
Jenna. Jenna. Jenna.
It's an angry, deliberate beat. I look around me, out all sides of the car, grunting in pain as I twist around, and then I see it. A train is passing on our left. I press up to the window.
You left me.
"Put the window down! Put it down!" I yell to Dot.
"What are you doing?" Miesha yells back.
"At this speed I am unable to lower the window," Dot says. "It would be too dangerous for--"
"Put it down!" But the window remains up. I frantically search the windows of the train as it passes, a blur of faces staring back. A little boy sticks his tongue out at me. More faces turning away, or not noticing me at all. Moving past, away, faster than us.
Jenna. Jenna.
I pound on the window. "She's there! I know she's there! Kara! Can you hear me? Kara!"
Jen--
Passengers stare back at the maniac pounding on his own window and quickly look away. And then I see her, her shoulder pressed up against the window, her face hidden by a curtain of black hair. In seconds she will move ahead and out of view.
Kara! I'm here! This way!
Her head jerks, the tiniest movement, like she is going to turn, her hair moving in slow-motion waves, but then she stops, the waves subside, and she is gone.
Did she hear me? Why didn't she turn? I know I could hear her. Kara. But now the sound i
s gone, and a part of me has vanished too. She is all I had for so long. Without her, the Locke I was doesn't even exist.
"At least you know you were correct," Dot offers. "She's headed to California. And it looks like we will be at the Topeka station in time for you to meet her."
"Thank you for hurrying, Dot."
"My pleasure! When we--" Dot's eyes fly from me to the control panel. "We're moving over." She hits several lights, and then hits them again, repeating the same pattern.
"So? Didn't you say you were going to change our destination back to Topeka?"
"I haven't changed it yet."
We're now in the middle lane and moving toward the far right one. Alarm spreads across Dot's face as she pounds light after light.
"What's happening?"
Her hands drop from the panel. "They've found us. There's a Security Tunnel four kilometers ahead. They are maneuvering us over to dispatch us into it." She turns to look at me. "I am so sorry, Customer Locke."
"Can't you do something?"
"There has to be a way...." Miesha pounds at the panel.
I pull myself up over the seat and pound too. "Are they going to zap us?"
"No," Dot answers. "If they had that capability, they would have done it by now. We are extreme risks. But they have found at least one hidden signal that has allowed them access to the controls."
"Look out!" I say. "Move to the side, Miesha!" I pull myself up and sit on the back of the seat. I use the headrest behind Miesha to leverage myself, and I kick against the panel. It doesn't even crack. I'm not going down any Security Tunnel. I pull back and throw every bit of my weight into my leg, and my shoe crashes into the panel, shattering the glass. I stomp again and again at the circuits beneath the panel. "Turn the steering bar, Dot! Get off at the next exit! Turn!"
"I'm turning, but it's not moving! We're still on the hook."
I continue to stomp. Glass and circuits fly. The car slows substantially and then moves into the exit lane.