Shock of War

“How the hell did you get back here?” Zeus said, crawling toward him. “Win, come on. We gotta get out of here. There’s a road.”

Christian raised his head and turned toward Zeus. He blinked his eyes.

It wasn’t Christian — it was the bus driver.

Shit, thought Zeus, backing away.

“Christian?”

“I’m here.” Christian rose from the stairwell near the driver’s seat. “What the hell?”

“Yeah, what the hell. That’s my feeling exactly.”

“Where are we?” muttered Christian.

“In deep shit, and headed deeper,” said Zeus. “Come on. We gotta get out before they find us.”

“Where?”

“There’s a road up there. We’ll find someplace to hide or something.”

Zeus waited by the open window as Christian clambered toward him.

“Here’s your gun,” said Christian, handing over the pistol. He’d found it on the way.

Zeus grabbed it. “You’re lucky I don’t shoot you with it.”

* * *

Zeus left the driver — there was nothing he could tell the authorities that they wouldn’t already know.

They crossed the highway, walking in the direction of lights about a mile farther north. Zeus had only the vaguest idea of where they were, and no real plan on what to do next. They had no equipment, no phones, no GPS, no secret decoder ring’s or Enterprise communicators that would beam them up to safety.

Beijing and the embassy was probably their best bet, but getting there would be next to impossible. They had their passports, but those would surely identify them as the criminals who had caused such havoc in Beihai. They had only American money, and not all that much of that. Neither Zeus nor Christian spoke Chinese, and from what he’d heard and had seen already, it was unlikely they’d find many people who spoke English, at least until they got to a large city.

“You think we can find a car or something at one of those houses?” asked Christian as they got closer to the lights.

“I dunno,” said Zeus.

“Can you hot-wire a car?”

Zeus could hot-wire a car, as a matter of fact, bypassing the key solenoid; it wasn’t that hard on most cars. At least not on the older cars that he had worked on and restored since he was thirteen. But could he do it to whatever little econobox rice-burner they found? And could he do it in the dark, without anyone seeing them?

Those were the more pertinent questions, and Zeus had no answer to them.

Stealing a car made sense, or would have, if there had been cars near any of the three houses and two farm buildings clustered around a fork in the road. The only vehicles they could find were bicycles, parked neatly against the side of the smallest of the three houses. Christian complained about his ankle, wondering if it would be up to pedaling.

“Suck it up,” said Zeus, whose entire body was covered with bruises and welts. He took one of the bikes and pushed it as quietly as possible from the house toward the road. Christian eventually followed.

They rode along the dirt road for a few miles, moving roughly north. After about fifteen minutes, Zeus spotted a long highway overpass ahead. The highway crossed over the local road, veering through the hills. He rode under and beyond it, vainly hoping there would be an access ramp. When he realized there wasn’t, he turned and went back to the stone and rubble embankment below the overpass. There he got off the bike and began hauling it up the hill toward the highway.

The bicycle was a heavy Chinese model, built to withstand the rugged roads of the Chinese countryside and small cities; it was not light. Christian groaned as he slipped sideways up the hill.

A truck whizzed by as Zeus reached the top. The highway was a two-lane national road, recently repaved. There was a wide shoulder next to the guardrail, and at the moment at least no other cars or trucks in sight. Zeus put his bike on the pavement and began pedaling.

“Are we allowed to ride on this?” said Christian, huffing as he caught up.

Zeus didn’t answer.

“Hey, are we going to get stopped?”

“Do I look like a traffic cop?” snapped Zeus.

“I’m just asking.”

Zeus concentrated on pedaling, pushing down his legs in long strokes. His kneecap was feeling odd. Not hurt, exactly; it was more like someone had taken it off and put it back on wrong.

After they had been riding for about ten minutes, they saw the glow of lights in the distance. Zeus lowered his head and began pedaling in earnest, pumping his legs and ignoring as much as possible the stitch developing in his side. He focused only on the pavement immediately in front of him. The world narrowed to the rush of wind around his head. Finally, the pain at his side was too much. He eased his pace and looked up, gazing into the distance at his goal.

It wasn’t a city as he had thought. It was a pulloff, a truck stop, similar to those in the States. A small, well- lit building sat on a slight rise to the right in front of a sea of cement. Brightly colored fuel pumps stood like buoys near the building.

Four semitrailers and six large, open, and canvas-covered trucks were idling at the side of the road.

Opportunity knocks, Zeus thought.

Zeus rode along the side of the road until just short of the rest stop. Gliding to a stop, he picked up the bike and dropped it over the rail into the scraggly grass on the other side of the shoulder. He glanced back and saw Christian, puffing with exertion, some thirty yards away.

There was no reason to wait. Half-crouching, half-trotting, Zeus went to the last truck in the line. He climbed up on the running board, and put his hand to the door. It was locked. And not only that: the driver was dozing behind the wheel.

Zeus dropped quickly to the ground, bumping into Christian and knocking him to the pavement.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Sssshhh.”

Zeus checked each of the trucks. The drivers were sleeping in all of them. Dejected, Zeus trotted went back to his bike.

“My leg is killing me,” said Christian, trailing him. “I think my ankle’s going to fall off.”

“You’ll live.”

“No, look at it.” He held his right leg up. Even in the dim light Zeus could tell the ankle was swollen. “I don’t know how much farther I can go.”

“Damn.”

“I know. It sucks.”

More than you’ll admit, Zeus thought, considering this mess is all your fault. But he kept his mouth shut; the last thing they needed now was another outburst of insanity.

“We’ll hitch a ride on one of the trucks,” said Zeus.

“What about carjacking one?”

Zeus considered the possibility.

“I don’t know,” said Zeus. “If we keep the driver with us, he’ll be a problem. If we kick him out, he’ll be sure to call the police.”

“Just shoot him.”

“For Christ’s sake.”

“Fuck him. This is a war.”

“We’re not at war, Win.”

“Like hell we’re not! We just blew up some of their landing ships. And a patrol boat.”

“He’s a civilian.”

“Crap. What do you want to do? We can’t just walk to Beijing. Why don’t we just turn ourselves in and let