So, what is your name?
Walter didn’t speak at first. The whole situation seemed so crazy that he was afraid that if he did speak, it would become true. But there was a girl in the truck with him, and he had already seen some weird stuff earlier. If he was afraid of validating the craziness, he was much too late for something like that.
“Hello.”
Oh, you sound older than I imagined you would. Well, “hello” isn’t a name, or at least I hope it isn’t. You’ll have to excuse me, in my current situation, humor is all that gets me out of bed in the morning.
“Walter.”
Walter, old name, strong name, a simple name as well, for a simple fellow. I’m not calling you stupid. I’m guessing that when you got out of bed this morning, you didn’t expect to be in the middle of all this. I can empathize. So Walter, what’s the plan here? I’m guessing that Becca is still recovering from her NaU usage earlier, so I’m just talking to you at the moment. She hasn’t killed you . . . yet, that is. I will warn you, though, she did kill her father about twelve hours earlier. She didn’t shed a tear for him, and I doubt that she would hesitate to kill you if she was given a choice.
So what’s the deal here, Walter, what are you going to do?
“Why do you want her?”
Do you really want to know? Ignorance is bliss, as they say, and I’m sure that you would much rather have preferred to stay ignorant on this entire topic. So why would you want to learn more? Do you want to get more involved, or do you want to make peace with us, and hand the girl over?
To be clear, we can take her if we want, but we want what’s best for you here as well, Walter. If only Matt could speak to you now and tell you of our plight, I’m sure you wouldn’t even hesitate to hand the girl over. It is that heart throbbing. I can guarantee it.
Walter looked over at the girl next to him. What did he really know about her? Nothing really, save for the fact that she did threaten to kill him about ten minutes ago, or about as far as he could imagine it was.
He looked out the window.
The snow fell hard, and he hadn’t seen a plow drive by in a while. Maybe they decided to throw the towel in or something like that. With the weather being as bad as it was, they might figure that there were more important places for the plows to go to then the New York state thruway. If so, then no one would notice the ruined Stop 17 for some time, possibly not until after the storm ended. When they asked him what happened, he would say that he never got around to checking it or that he did, and when he left, everything was in order. Gas leaks happened all the time at establishments that have food in them, and he could blame it on that. Walter doubted that they would believe that a man crashed through the ceiling and then fought a girl with a white blade coming out of her arms.
I’m waiting, Walter.
“I’m bringing her to Stop 15,” he said. “After I bring her inside, then we can all talk this through.”
That’s the best news I’ve heard today. I will let the relevant parties know of your very wise choice.
The radio cut out, and the truck was filled with nothing but silence.
“Stop fifteen isn’t exactly the border,” Rebecca said.
“One of you is going to have to tell me what’s going on,” Walter said. “I don’t know what happened back there at the stop seventeen, and I need to hear some answers. You said to bring you to shelter, and that’s what I’m doing.”
Rebecca stayed silent. Walter looked back at the road ahead of them, watching the snowflakes pound onto the windshield in front of them.
The two of them arrived at Stop 15 a few minutes later. Walter had to turn through the small road in-between the northbound side of the thruway and the southbound side, the road that was usually only used by state troopers and utility vehicles. The trees ahead kept most of the snow off the little stretch of road, for which Walter was thankful. Those giant plows wouldn’t have been able to get into these spots with how large they were. If the trees weren’t there, then there would have been no way for him to get back to the northbound side.
The two of them got out. In the distance, Walter saw the light up in the sky.
“Get inside,” Rebecca said.
“We’re going to talk to them first.”
“You can do that from inside. As for this . . ..”
Rebecca’s body grew bright purple. Every vein and artery in her body was filled with light. Walter shielded his eyes for a second.
The air around them grew very still. The stillness seemed to spread, creating a dome around the rest stop. Flakes of snow landed on it and melted away, running down the side of the dome in droplets.
Walter looked over all of it.
“What is that?” he said.
“Kinetic disturbance field,” Rebecca said, turning around to him. “No one will jump on us this time, and Jolie can’t use her NaU on it. My father’s NaU is very flexible and adaptable.”
“Rebecca, who are these people, truly? Why are they after you? Did you really kill your father?”
Walter had so
