Barnes shrugged, “So, that’ll be a yes then. We’re going to… where did you say she was?”
“Mission Home, Virginia,” Mercy answered.
Barnes punched in the name to the GPS tracker. “Mission Home, Greene County, Virginia.” He squinted at the screen, “Well, that’s 25.7 miles from here… by US-33 West and State Route 633.”
“Twenty five miles… that’s doable in a day,” Flynn said, looking at the information on the screen.
Mercy slapped Barnes on the shoulder, “Let’s do it… we’ll take our time. It’s a marathon, not a sprint—”
Barnes grimaced, “Yeah, you can only invoke the forty percent rule so many times.”
“So, I reckon we feed up and rehydrate, then rock out of here within the hour,” Mercy said. “We’ll take the wall map from the office… use it to get us to Mission Home. We’ll need to conserve the battery on the tracking device.”
Tawny slapped Barnes on the back. “Let’s look on the bright side, there’s a rain barrel over there,” she pointed to the rear of the building. “It looks as if it gets the run-off from this roof. We can boil up some water and make some coffee before we head off—”
Flynn pulled a face, “Where are we gonna get a stove and coffee?”
Tawny gestured at the lumber yard. “We’re in a lumber yard, yeah? So, no end of fuel and…” She pulled a fistful of instant coffee sachets from her pocket, “look what I found in the office kitchen drawer last night.”
Barnes’s eyes lit up, “Forget drugs, man, I haven’t had a good cup of joe in weeks. I would quite literally kill for some hot coffee. Lead on you angel—”
Tawny caught Mercy’s eye, a wry smile on her face.
If only you knew Barnes, Tawny is, correction, was, an Angel back in Hell’s Kitchen—
“Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s get this show on the road,” Flynn said.
They boiled up water from the rain barrel and brewed fresh hot coffee. Barnes had a second breakfast and tried to clean up his fatigues.
“I’m gonna need some new clothes. These rags are now officially a health hazard, just putting people on notice,” Barnes said, shouldering his sniper rifle.
“Noted,” Mercy said. “OK people… we’re good to go.”
They left the lumber yard and returned to the railroad. They gave the train a wide berth, crossing the tracks beyond the footbridge. They entered Barboursville and stuck to Spotswood Trail, avoiding the buildings on either side of the road. Two bloody deer carcases lay on a garage forecourt at the centre of town. Six crows were perched on the dead hind and her young fawn, picking at the remaining flesh. More crows called from the nearby trees, their caws harsh and menacing.
Tawny shuddered, “These must be the ones we saw circling yesterday.”
Mercy gave the carcasses a wide berth then stopped. She looked back.
Wait a minute—
Mercy doubled back, putting her hand over her mouth and nose. She reached down and pulled a bunched up headscarf from under the hind’s neck.
Rose—
“This belongs to Rose. I recognise it. She’s… alive, she was here. This was the alphas’ kill. They need fresh meat, if they can’t have human flesh… they’ll eat anything with a pulse—”
“They’re mindless bastards,” Barnes growled.
Mercy raised an eyebrow.
His tone… mindless bastards—
Mercy frowned. She continued walking, her eyes focused on the road ahead. “Hey, Barnes? Yesterday… when you were going through cold turkey—”
She paused.
“Yeah, what about it?” Barnes replied from behind.
“You were out of it, delirious maybe, but at one point you came to and snapped out of the shit. You sat up and said they’ve done it, you said something about… mind cipher? What’s that about?”
Barnes said nothing.
There’s more to this—
Mercy stopped and turned around. She stared at Barnes, reading his face. He turned away. Tawny and Flynn looked on, curiosity on their faces.
“Go on Barnes, spit it out,” Mercy said, her voice low.
He’s holding something back and it’s not going to be good—
Barnes hesitated, looking up at the sky. He frowned and started to speak but then stopped. He kicked at the ground then turned to Mercy. “Mind cipher… it’s a code word for a project Cobalt Biotech were working on. It’s classified. Constantine got wind of it, she briefed me, said if I found out it had been executed I was to tell her. We didn’t get a sat phone back at the Smithsonian so she doesn’t know yet. But when her forces encounter those weaponized alphas and mechs in DC she’ll know—”
Mercy gave the others a puzzled look. “Woah, back up big guy, you’re all over the place. What are you talking about? What’s mind cipher?”
Barnes spat on the ground then looked at Mercy, “Whole brain emulation, mind upload… mind transfer.”
Mercy’s face was blank. She shrugged her shoulders and frowned.
Barnes continued, “When you were sorting out Flynn and Tawny back in the Smithsonian lab… I was talking with Reyes. He filled me in on the GPS tracker and he also told me about mind cipher. It’s the NSA’s… Cobalt Biotech’s code word for their mind transfer programme—”
Mercy took a step towards Barnes.
Mind transfer—?
“For Christ’s sake Barnes, speak in plain English, spill it,” Tawny said, frustration in her voice.
Barnes kept eye contact with Mercy, “President Mitchell. They’ve copied his mind, his consciousness… and transferred it,” Barnes pointed to the sky, “to the cloud. It’s a computer facsimile of his consciousness, his being, his thought patterns… in AI form. He has become the AI that the NSA use to control their organisation. He’s gone digital, he’s in the network, in the satellites and the remaining computers down here on earth—”
Barnes paused.
Mercy closed her eyes, processing Barnes’s words.
“What the actual fuck—?” Tawny said, her eyes wide.
How come I know there’s more—?
“Where is this leading Barnes?” Mercy said, her voice flat.
“Any electronic device… Mitchell might be able to track it… shit… maybe he could find us through this,” Barnes held up the GPS tracker. “Reyes told me this new AI-Mitchell entity thing can track the alpha queen… he, it, can give her instructions
