"God, no," Raj whispered.
Ander rolled off Megan and came into a crouch. As Megan pushed up on her arms, her sense of time returned to normal. The entire fight had taken only seconds.
Knoll lay with his legs caught under the steering wheel and his body sprawled across the divider between the bucket seats. Hiltman had crumpled in his seat. Neither man was moving. The van hummed down the highway, untouched by the storm of violence that had swept through its deceptive shelter.
The clatter of metal on the floor broke the silence. Megan jerked around to see Raj standing with his arms folded across his torso, his body swaying with the van's motion, one hand protecting the gash in his side. He had dropped his gun, but his hand remained clenched, unable to release its grip.
He spoke in a numb voice. "We have to make sure they're dead."
"I'll do it." Ander rose easily and braced his hand against the roof. Then he made his way to the front.
Megan climbed to her feet. She blanched when she saw the blood soaking Raj's clothes. "You should sit down."
"It looks worse than it is." He kept staring at the man he had shot. His face had a hollow look.
"It was self-defense," Megan said. "You had no choice."
He didn't answer. Watching him, she knew that nothing she could say would fix this.
Ander came back to them. "They're dead."
Raj managed a nod. "So are the two back here." He didn't look at Ander.
"Raj needs a hospital." Megan realized then the upper arm of Ander's pullover was also ripped. Dusky blue lubricant oozed out of a shallow gash. "Did you get hurt too?"
"I cut it when I rolled on the floor." His voice sounded muffled in the quiet van. "I'll be fine. My skin heals fast."
"We have to get control of this vehicle," Raj said. "We can't have much time before it reaches that house."
"We could jump out," Ander said.
Megan looked out the front window. They had to be going at least sixty miles an hour. "You're probably the only one who would survive." She stepped to the door. It took only seconds to verify they were locked in. Even the nightmare bullets hadn't broken through the armor. "We can't get out anyway, unless we break into the computer."
"I hacked it before," Ander said. "I can do it again."
"You work on Hiltman's palmtop," Raj said, "I'll do the van. Megan, can you drive if we free up the computer?"
"No problem," she said, trying to exude a confidence she didn't feel.
They made their way to the front. When she saw where Ander had laid Knoll and Hiltman on the floor, bile rose in her throat. It was the first time she had witnessed any death, let alone ones so violent.
Megan forced herself past the bodies and slid in behind the wheel. She took a breath to calm her surging pulse. Raj climbed into the passenger's seat and turned his attention to the light screen on the dash. His face had gone so pale, the circles of fatigue under his eyes looked dark purple in contrast. Ander sat on the barrel between the two seats, facing backward, the palmtop in his hand. Although he seemed the least bothered by what had happened, Megan wondered. Every few minutes, his head or arm jerked.
While Ander and Raj worked, Megan tried the van's controls. The headlights responded and she managed to free up the windshield wipers, but that was it. Outside, quadra fields rippled by in golden-red profusion.
Absorbed in his work, Raj let go of his side. The flow of blood had slowed, but red soaked his jumpsuit from chest to knee. The fins had ripped the cloth into tatters, and she also glimpsed tatters of skin. She wanted to find a bandage for him, but she couldn't leave the driver's seat. She didn't dare risk losing valuable time by being unavailable to drive if—no, when—he released the controls.
"Have you found out anything about these people?" she asked.
Ander looked up. "They're professionals. They supply weapons or mercenaries to their clients, like the two crackers at that farm house. They want me. They could sell me for billions, or sell the tech that makes me."
"You don't seem fazed," she said.
He shrugged. "I was made to do this. Special operations. Yes, I need more training, but I have what it takes, as you say." His face turned contemplative. "I'd rather make maps, though."
Suddenly Raj said, "I got the doors unlocked." Then: "Megan, can you disengage the cruise system?"
She went to work, trying various switches and buttons while she pressed the gas pedal. The van continued along as if nothing had happened.
"Can't find it," Raj muttered. "That one—no, not there ... Pah. What a kludge. Okay, Megan, try it now."
This time when she gunned the van, it leapt forward with gratifying acceleration.
"Yes!" Raj gave her a thumbs-up. "Get us out of here, pilot."
"Oh, shit," Ander said.
"What?" Raj asked.
"I found a log of their Internet communications." Ander's voice was grim. "They had time to warn their people about us."
Megan slammed her foot on the brake. The van skidded to a halt, swerving in the road. The highway stretched out in both directions, with the distant specks of approaching cars glinting in the early morning sunlight. She careened across the divider in the center, jolting over the uneven ground, and headed back to Alpine, praying they had time to reach the real FBI agents.
The computer spoke. "Good morning. You are driving outside allowed safety limits. Please release control of this vehicle to my guidance system or reform your driving."
"Go blow," Megan muttered.
"I have more of their Internet log," Ander said. "According to this, another van left to meet us when the shooting started."
She floored the accelerator and they jumped forward. Sixty. Eighty. When she hit one hundred, someone drew in a sharp breath, Raj probably. She doubted Ander cared how fast she went. At 110, she stopped accelerating, afraid to lose control of the van.
After about five miles and an inordinate amount of nagging from the van's computer, her surge of adrenaline eased. She let up on the gas, dropping down to ninety.
Raj was staring at her. "Where did you learn to drive that way?"
"Montana."
"Remind me not to go to Montana."
"A van is headed toward us from Alpine," Ander said.
Megan saw it coming down the mountain, its glossy black body reflecting the sky. Could this be the real FBI? She had expected the kidnappers to come from the other direction.
"It might be innocent," Ander said.
"Right," Raj said. "That's why it looks just like this one."
A window was opening in the other van—
"No!" Megan hit the brakes and the tires screeched as they lost rubber. She couldn't be sure from this distance, but that "window" in the other vehicle looked like a gun port. She had only seconds to decide: try to outrun them or leave the highway and go through the quadra fields. If she stayed on the road, she could go faster but so could the other van. She might lose them in the quadra, but there was far more uncertainty about what could happen.
Megan had no time to weigh the risks. She shoved down the gas pedal and swerved off the highway. The van roared through a flimsy fence and onto a dirt road between two quadra fields. It shook as it sped over the ridged ground, tearing up stalks of grain on either side.
"If they have guns, this van probably does too." Raj was bent over the computer, his fingers flicking through its holos as if he were a pianist who played images in the air instead of keys.
Ander clicked his wrist jack into Hiltman's palmtop. As the van rocked back and forth, he needed his hands to hang on to the barrel where he sat, and verbal or wireless commands could interfere with Raj's work.
"There!" Raj said.
Megan glanced over. All four screens on the dash now showed views of the surrounding land: one ahead of the van, one on either side, and one behind. The other van was lumbering after them, jouncing along the rutted lane they had torn up with their passage. Mounted guns projected from either side of
its hood, swiveled forward in their ports.
Gripping the wheel hard, Megan accelerated again. The van hit a rut and swerved into the grain, smashing the big stalks. She managed to pull back into the lane without losing too much speed, but they were going too fast now for her to maintain full control on a road this bad. They had no choice. She couldn't slow down; that lurch into the quadra field had let their pursuers gain on them.
A resounding crack thundered through the van, accompanied by a wave of vibrations. Several more cracks followed, making the vehicle shudder even more. Megan gritted her teeth. So far the armor had protected them, but it couldn't hold up forever.
"I can't find the code that activates our guns," Raj said.
"This palmtop has backups." Ander had turned forward, straddling the divider between the two seats. Holding on to the dash, he stared out at the fields. Grain rippled everywhere, like a solution to the wave equation in physics.
"Can you send the code to my computer?" Raj asked.
"Yes. It's coming now—" Ander's voice cut off as another shot hit the van, jolting its body.
They were nearing a road that intersected their own. Megan veered into it, finding a lane even narrower than the last. They sped down an aisle of quadra. Golden stalks towered on either side, taller than the van now, blocking the sun. She wondered what genetic tricks had produced this monster grain.
She couldn't see out the opaqued windows in the back, but the screen on the dash showed the trampled ground they had left in their wake. The other van tried to follow them and overshot the entrance to the lane. As it plowed into the grain, Megan gave a grim smile.
"Are you receiving my download?" Ander asked Raj.
"It's garbled," Raj said. "I'm trying to untangle it."
Megan glanced back and forth between the lane ahead and the screen on the dash. The other van fired again, this time at the wheels of the van she was driving. She thought they were trying to cripple rather than destroy. They needed their prizes intact, both Ander and the scientists who made him work.
Suddenly the van hit a rut and gave a violent lurch. Raj gasped, and Megan swung around to him, alarmed. The jolt had thrown him to the side, slamming his injured waist against the arm of his seat. As he pulled away, she had a clear view of his wound. Again she saw the tatters of Raj's torn skin—
Except it wasn't skin.
It was a circuit filament.
*23*
Phoenix
The van rocked wildly as it foundered along the rut, forcing Megan's attention back to her driving as her adrenaline surged to a new high. Swerving on the uneven ground, the vehicle spun out of control. They veered off the path and plowed into the quadra. Hardy and thick, the stalks formed a forest, one packed together far more densely than trees. The van ground to a stop, stalks of quadra tangled in its wheels, its engine grinding in rough protest.
Clenching her teeth, Megan tried to back up. The wheels spun, digging a deeper rut, while the tangled grain plants held the van in their unforgiving grip.
"Not now!" She slammed her fist on the steering wheel.
Ander was already on his feet. He grabbed Hiltman's gun and shoved the weapon into his jacket. Raj and Megan threw open their doors at the same time. As she scrambled out, Raj and Ander jumped down from the other side. She took off, zigzagging her way through stalks much taller than her head. Ander and Raj were running ahead and off to the left. As they angled into her path, Ander pulled out in front. Raj followed him in a limping run, favoring his right side, his hand over the wound at his waist.
Megan caught up with him. "Your side—" She gulped in air.
"I'll make it."
"Blast it, Raj!"
His face furrowed. "What?"
Ander shot a look over his shoulder, then turned his attention back to choosing a path through the grain. But Megan knew he could hear everything she and Raj said.
"Of course you'll make it," she gasped as they ran. "It's easy to fix those filaments."
Raj came to such a sudden stop, she ran into him.
"How long did you think you could hide it?" She heaved in breaths. "Was this all a game to you?"
"Come on!" Ander said.
Megan set off again. She heard the crackle of Raj pushing through the quadra. As he came up next to her, he said, "It was never a game. Never."
"Who are you? What are you?"
"I'm Chandrarajan Sundaram." Then he said, "All that's left of him."
"There's a road up here," Ander called. "Hurry."
Catching up with him, Megan and Raj ran onto a narrow path, almost a tunnel through the quadra. They set off down it, jogging deeper into the fields. She had no time to react to Raj's bombshell.
"We need to hide." Ander didn't even sound winded.
"They probably have detectors that can find our body heat," Raj said.
"Here." Ander stopped at a fork in the lane. Instead of taking either path, he stepped in among the grain, this time slipping between the stalks instead of thrashing them aside. Megan and Raj did the same. The quadra swayed above them, then stilled, leaving no trace of their passage.
The grain had grown thick here, with sturdy, fat stalks and nodding crowns. Ander moved like a shadow and they followed. Raj's last words went around and around in Megan's mind: I'm Chandrarajan Sundaram. All that's left of him.
Finally Ander stopped. The grain blocked the sun, and without the nourishment of light, almost no weeds grew under the canopy of monster quadra. Squeezed in among the plants, they knelt in the dirt. Raj bent over, straining to breathe, his arms folded across his torso. Megan crumpled next to him, a stitch in her side making it almost impossible to gulp in air. Ander wasn't even breathing hard.
"We can wait here," Ander said in a low voice. "They might pass by. I'm trying to damp our IR by producing a random pattern that looks like heat radiating off the ground. Also, I picked up radio waves in the area. That might indicate a source of help for us. But I can't get a good fix."
Megan spoke numbly. "The people in that van have no idea what just escaped them."
Anger sparked on Ander's face. "You had better start explaining, Dr. Sundaram."
At first Raj said nothing, just stared at the ground, still struggling for air. When his breathing quieted, he looked up and spoke with difficulty. "Seventeen people died in the Phoenix explosion. Not sixteen."
"No." Megan's voice was almost inaudible. "Not Raj. No."
He lifted his hand to her cheek. "Megan—"
She flinched away. "Don't touch me."
"I'm the same man I was before. I haven't changed."
"It doesn't add up," Ander said. "You can't be a Phoenix android."
"I'm not. They all died, except for Grayton." Raj rubbed his arms as if to protect himself against the cold, though the day was hot. "That was the day Raj had his first tour of the android labs. Arizonix called the explosion an accident. I had no idea, until we read that report, what really happened."
Megan tried to slow the turmoil of her thoughts. "You look like a younger version of Raj Sundaram."
"He built me."
"Then he was involved with Phoenix."
Raj shook his head. "No. He made me on his own."
"With what resources? What funds?"
Ander answered. "His personal worth is in the billions."
"Was," Raj said. "He used most of it to make me."
Megan swallowed. "You sounded so real."
"I am real. I'm Chandrarajan Sundaram. He scanned his brain, then downloaded the result into me." His words had an aching quality, as if he feared that speaking them would destroy their reality.
"He updated himself?" Ander asked.
Raj seemed unsettled by the suggestion. "I would never presume to compare myself to him. He had one of the greatest minds of this age." Softly Raj added, "He also had Alzheimer's."
Lord no.
"But he was only forty-two," Megan said.
"It was early onset, like his fath
er. Sundar responded to the treatment, but Raj never did." He turned up his palms as if offering a part of himself. "So he made me."
"That's why you look younger," Ander said.
"Yes. Thirty-five."
"You're better designed than me," Ander said. "I can't detect anything unusual even this close to you."
"That was why Raj took the Arizonix job. They were farther along in the research and development than Mind-Sim." Sorrow shadowed his eyes. "He had so little time and he wanted to do so much."
With anyone else, Megan would have been incredulous at such a strange plan. With Raj, it made sense. But the injustice felt like a blow. After decades of pain and self-doubt, he had finally healed. He had fought his way out of his devastated childhood—only to discover he was losing his intellect the very same way he had lost his father when he was a small boy.
"I don't understand," Ander said. "Why are you going through with his plan? He left you with nothing: no money, no friends, and a world that thinks you're crazy."
"I gave him my word," Raj said.
"Even worse," Ander went on, as if Raj hadn't spoken, "you have to pretend you're human."
"I want to be human."
Ander stared at him blankly. "Why?"
"I don't know. I just do."
Megan took a breath. "At NASA—"
"It was me that you met," Raj said.
"And in the VR conference room?" she asked.
"Me." His voice sounded heavy. "The real Raj had died by then."
"The avatar you used in VR—the way you appeared—older, thinner, more drawn—that's how he really looked, isn't it?"
"Yes. Before he had surgery to make us appear identical."
Megan tried to absorb it, but the shock was too great. Her mind felt like a dry sponge with water running off it instead of soaking in. "He took you to Arizonix with him."
"He had to." Moisture showed in the corner of Raj's eye. "He had trouble operating on his own by then."
"It's crazy," Ander said. "What if someone had found out?"
"I was willing to risk it." Raj spread his hands apart. "It was all I had to give him—the chance to see his dreams come to fruition before he could no longer comprehend their success."