Brian O'Grady: Hybrid

Amanda smiled at Kurt, and she had the attention of every atom in his body.

“You a student here?” he asked awkwardly while slowly making change.

“Yes, I am. I transferred here from Texas this semester.” She used her sweetest voice and projected the image of an innocent, carefree small-town girl who had no idea just how attractive she was.

Kurt could hardly breathe. Nearly twenty-one, he was, and would always be, the quintessential geek, and beautiful women didn’t give geeks the time of day. At least, none had ever given Kurt the time of day. “Um, I’m in. . computer engineering,” Kurt said. “I got this job because I can fix just about anything in here. Besides, it’s quiet enough that I can write my code.”

Amanda glanced over his shoulder; his laptop was paused on a fantasy role-playing game. Kurt followed her gaze. “Oh, that’s the latest version of The End of Time —”

Before Kurt could explain all the secrets and intricacies of the game, and conveniently slip in the fact that he was the first person ever to become The Grand Executioner, Amanda cut him off. “I think games like that have led to the dissolution of American society.”

Crestfallen, Kurt’s eyes dropped. “Seven-fifty is your change.”

Amanda took the money from the sad college student. She didn’t like embarrassing him, but it was important that he remember the image of a twenty-year-old sociology major, five foot two, with short brown hair and stunning green eyes. In twenty, maybe thirty minutes, Kurt was going to get a visit from the FBI, and they would have a seven-year-old photograph of a five-foot-seven blonde with blue eyes who would now be thirty-seven. They would try to convince Kurt that the stuck-up bitch was actually Amanda. In the end, they would conclude that Kurt was an unreliable witness or that Amanda had used a standin — either way, the confusion would work to her advantage.

“’Bye,” she said politely and walked out the door, swinging a book bag over one shoulder. Outside, Boulder, Colorado, was cold, quiet, and asleep. Constitution Avenue, the university’s main drag, was completely deserted, and Amanda’s clogs echoed off the storefronts. She continued up the street as far as the main campus. Comfortable that her deception was now complete, she turned onto Peak Street. Her five-year-old Jeep Grand Cherokee was parked in front of a Starbucks, and she quickly got in.

“Damn him,” she said after strapping in. Her breath frosted the windshield. It had been a mistake to contact Martin, a mistake to believe that an ass like him could ever change. Now more than ever, she would have to cover her tracks, which meant leaving her apartment, her job, and ultimately her car behind.

She started the car, and as it heated up, so did she. For more than three months, she had cooperated with them. She had submitted to dozens of their intrusive follow-up exams and had answered thousands of pointless questions, but it never seemed to be enough. They wanted something she couldn’t give them. “That’s not entirely true,” she whispered. She could have given them something; she could have given them the whole truth. It wouldn’t have answered any of their questions, but it would have told them that they were asking all the wrong questions.

It was Martin who first suspected that she wasn’t completely forthcoming. “Bastard,” she said, without fogging the windshield. “He’s responsible for all this.” That wasn’t entirely true, either. He simply wouldn’t let it go; he wouldn’t let her go. He refused to accept the fact that he would never have his answers. It was more than just professional responsibility. Somehow it had become personal challenge. He would know her secret or he would destroy her life. As it turned out, it wasn’t her life that had been destroyed. She had no regrets about what she had done; she was well past feeling regret by that point. They had put her in a no-win situation, and they were the ones who had lost. For six years, they had hunted her, and up until this morning, the trail had grown decidedly cold. She put the car in gear and pulled out into the empty street, passing a deli on the left. Above the door was a large sign with the words Martin’s Deli painted across it.

“Can’t shake you, can I,” she said while turning south. There was no point in returning to her apartment; she had planned for this eventuality and had everything she needed in the backseat. Her life in Boulder was over, and so were six years of relative normality.

She drove in silence; radios only annoyed her. When the car was warm, she shimmied out of her parka and tossed it onto the crowded back seat. She had one stop to make, and then she would be on her way back to Colorado Springs, a place she had hoped never to see again. She wondered halfseriously if it was the karmic center of the whole universe, or just hers. She had grown up in Aspen — not the famous resort, but a small farming community east of both Boulder and Denver — but it was Colorado Springs where she had lived and been happy. She had gone to school there, met and married her husband there, had a son there, and finally buried them both there.

The car bounced over a frozen mound of snow, and the wheel jerked in Amanda’s hand. Even her car was reluctant. “Easy girl,” she said. “We still have to see Auntie Em before we go.”

Regency Care Center was the only medical facility in Thompson County, and the only place Emily Elizabeth Larson would consider living. At 72, she was Amanda’s oldest living relative; in fact, she was Amanda’s only living relative. She had retired from her professorship, sold her home in Enid, Oklahoma, moved back to Aspen Springs, Colorado, broken her hip, and had surgery all in the span of one very stressful month.

Amanda made the sixty-mile drive from Boulder back to her hometown several times in the last few weeks despite the obvious risk. Normally, it took less than an hour over the new highway, but this morning she took the old route. It was a shorter distance, but took a half hour longer because most of it was over one-lane roads that wound down Kenner Pass. She had avoided these roads for eight years; bad memories lay ahead, but she had to face them before she faced the future.

The road finally began to level off and Amanda could hear the swollen Kenner River as it flowed parallel to the gravel road. A few more bends in the road and then there it was, looming above her: the bridge. It was an old steel structure with dark rust stains at each rivet site. It hadn’t received a lot of attention in the eight years since she was last at this spot, but it still appeared solid. The river had become popular with kayakers as it plunged more than a hundred feet in the last quarter mile before passing under the span; Amanda could see several cars parked in the makeshift gravel lot just to the left of the bridge. It bothered her that people were here now, and that this place, which had become a nexus for her family, had now become a recreation destination for others.

She let the Jeep coast into the lot and it finally come to rest in front of a tree that was perched precariously over the narrow gorge. By all rights, she should have this place to herself; she shouldn’t have to listen to the sounds of yelling and laughter while she faced her past. It was not quite dawn so no one had entered the rapids. It wouldn’t take much to make them leave , she thought. She could feel the six people crawling through the trees down to the water’s edge; they were so full of life and excitement in a place where she had only known death and misery. She climbed out of the car and walked out to the road and up to the bridge. She saw the kayakers carefully climbing down the path, each carrying a small boat and dressed in a thick wet suit.