Deadline

“The only place I think we might have half a chance of breaking into that’s going to have the resources to tell us where we’re supposed to go next.” I looked challengingly at Kelly. She didn’t look away. Instead, she nodded, acceptance blossoming in her expression.

“We’re going to Memphis,” she said.

I wanted to be a sport reporter. I wanted to report on sport. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Rhymes a little. “Mahir Gowda, Sport Reporter.” I’d watch the cricket matches and the obstacle courses and the stockcar races, and I’d write pithy little articles about them and make buckets of money, buy a huge house somewhere on the outskirts of London, and raise a family big enough to field a cricket team of my own.

Enter Georgia Carolyn Mason. She knew I’d never be happy reporting on sporting events and the lives of professional athletes. “The news is in yur blood”: That’s what she said to me, and she hounded me until I agreed to give it a shot. A year later, when she struck out on her own, she hired me. She was right too much of the time. She was right about me, and about what I was meant to do.

I have to say as I rather wish that she’d been wrong.

—From Fish and Clips, the blog of Mahir Gowda, June 21, 2041

Nineteen

It’s a little over two thousand miles from Weed, California, to Memphis, Tennessee. That would have been about a two and a half days of solid driving pre-Rising, complete with miserable traffic jams and lots of rest stops. Distance is less of a barrier these days, since the average highway speed is between eighty and ninety miles per hour, and the average traffic jam involves having three cars on the same three-mile stretch.

Our problem was simpler: getting there without getting ourselves killed. Travel that crosses more than one state line needs to be registered with the Highway Commission, so that your movement can be monitored. Your updated location gets added to your file every time you stop for gas or check into a motel. It’s a nifty system. George did an article on it once, and I didn’t think it was completely boring. That’s saying something. The trouble was that if we couldn’t trust the CDC to be secure, we sure as hell couldn’t trust the Highway Commission, an organization whose databases have been hacked so many times that they might as well put out a welcome mat and stop pretending they’re secure.

I was the subject of a highway ambush once before—an ambush that landed me, my sister, and our friend Rick in the Memphis CDC, ironically enough. The three of us got out alive. The other two members of our group, Georgette Meissonier and Charles Wong, didn’t. If we assumed the people responsible for the destruction of Oakland were waiting for another opportunity to take a shot at us, the last thing we wanted to do was put ourselves on the open road, where accidents could—and doubtless would—happen.

Trouble was, we didn’t have a choice. We couldn’t take the train; the few passenger lines still in existence are luxury-oriented and would take a week to get there. Flying with Mahir and Kelly wouldn’t work, since one of them was legally dead and the other was in the country under the sketchiest of legal pretenses. What’s sad is that I didn’t know which was the bigger concern.

Maggie’s bedrock streak of practicality came to the rescue around the time Mahir and I were starting to brainstorm about stealing a crop duster and somehow riding it across the country to Tennessee. “Why don’t you idiots take my van and get it over with?” she demanded, flinging her keys down on the table. “The VIN’s registered to Daddy so I don’t get stopped when I have to cross the border to Canada, and nobody’s going to risk nuking it if they think there’s even half a chance that I’m inside. Kill the heir to the Garcia pharmaceutical fortune while my parents are still alive to destroy them? No government conspiracy is that stupid.”

Privately, I thought she was being a little complacent—anyone whas willing to nuke a city wouldn’t hesitate before killing a pharmaceutical heir and would have the resources to make it look like an accident—but I didn’t say so. I just scooped the keys into my pocket. “You really have no qualms about abuse of power, do you? Thanks, Maggie. You’re badass.”

“Not a single one,” she said amiably. “Believe me, I know how badass I am. You’ll have to leave the bike behind, you know.”

I’d been trying to avoid thinking about that. The idea of leaving George’s bike when I didn’t know if we’d ever make it back was almost physically painful. “I know.”

“Good, just so long as it isn’t going to be a fight. Now you’d better get moving. I want my guest rooms back in time for this weekend’s film festival.”

“What are you watching?” asked Mahir.

“All thirteen Nightmare on Elm Street movies, back to back,” Maggie replied. “We’re starting with the original and going from there.”

I shuddered. “I’ll take my chances with the CDC.”

“I thought you might,” said Maggie, and smiled.

After a day of arguing about what to pack and how many bullets we’d need, Maggie’s van was loaded and ready to go. She didn’t normally drive on run-flats—something about the way they changed the steering made them too much trouble for her to deal with—but one of the faceless security men we normally never saw walked up the driveway with a brand-new set and installed them before I could even ask if it was an option.

She’s been expecting this for a while, said George.

I said nothing.

Kelly and Mahir were coming along, naturally; they’d both come too far and been through too much to do anything else. Becks was coming, too, despite our mutual misgivings about spending that much time crammed into a van together. We’d need another Irwin on hand if things turned bloody, and after what had happened to Dave, this was almost as personal for her as it was for me. Alaric and Maggie were staying behind.

“I’m no good in the field. I don’t even have my licenses yet,” said Alaric, not meeting my eyes. I think he was afraid I’d start yelling—or worse, that I’d somehow talk him into coming with us. “You’ll be better off if I stay here.”

“You’re right.”

That wasn’t the answer he’d been expecting. He glanced to me, eyes gone wide.

I shrugged. “We can’t pretend we’re here if we’re posting reports from the road, and we can’t all go silent at once, either. Like that’s not going to look suspicious? So we’ll bounce them to you, and you can post everything from here. Same IP address. Business as usual.”

“Right.” Alaric smiled, either not bothering or not managing to hide his relief. “I can do that.”

“On it,” he said.

There was nothing to do after that but leave.

Maggie packed us a cardboard box of sandwiches and potato chips on the morning we finally started for Tennessee, along with a cooler full of sodas. She loaded everything into the backseat with Kelly before turning around and handing me two things: a large envelope packed with cash, and a debit card. “Don’t use the card unless the money runs out. It draws on the company account. Seeing charges from it that match the van’s movements shouldn’t set off any red flags, and my parents won’t care unless you buy a submarine or something.”

“And here I always wanted a submarine,” I said.

“Where would you put it?” asked Mahir.

“I’d have to buy a lake.”

“Well, that’s reasonable, I suppose.”

Maggie laughed—a short, sharp sound that had a lot in common with the confused yipping of the teacup bulldogs milling at her feet—and threw her arms around my shoulders, hugging me close before I had a chance to step back. “Come back,” she whispered, voice small and tight and right next to my ear, so only I could hear it.

We’ll try, said George.

“Don’t worry about us,” I said. I hugged her back, feeling awkward until she let go and stepped away, turning