Kim Robinson - Fifty Degrees Below

She pulled back and looked at him. Even in the dark he could see that her nose was red, her eyes red-rimmed.

She sniffed, shook her head. “Sorry. It’s been a very bad day.” She handed him another paper sleeve of CDs. “Here. This is more of their shit. It’s a new superblack, working between Homeland Security and DOD. Another strategic support branch.”

Frank took the disks, put them in his jacket pocket. “What happened?”

“We had a fight. I mean that used to happen a lot, but this time it was—I don’t know. Bad. Scary. I’m sick of feeling this way. Really, being around him— it’s bad for me. I know better. I can’t stand it anymore.”

“He didn’t find something out?”

“He didn’t say anything directly, but I think he did, yes. I don’t know. If he found out about me taking the election program …” She shuddered, thinking about it. Then: “It might explain some things. I mean he chipped me again, since I last saw you. New kinds that he thought I didn’t know about. They hop on you. When I found them I left them in until today, but I took them out, and then I used his code to get what I could about this superblack onto disk. I don’t know how much it’ll tell anyone. Then I left.”

“Are you sure you found all the chips?”

“Yes. The bastard. He is so … He spies and spies and spies.”

“So, I mean, can you be sure you found everything he’s doing?”

“Yes, I ran all the diagnostics, and I saw what he had on me. Now I’m out of there. He’ll never see me again.”

The bitter twist to her mouth was one Frank had not seen before, but it was familiar in his own muscles from certain moments of his own breakup with Marta. The wars of the heart, so bitter and pointless.

“Where will you go?” he said.

“I have a Plan B. I’ve got an ID all set up, a place, even a job. It’s not too far away, but far enough I won’t run into him.”

“I’ll be able to see you?”

“Of course. Once I get settled. That’s why I set it up this way. If I were on my own I’d go, oh I don’t know. Tibet or something. The other end of the Earth.”

Frank shook his head. “I want you closer than that.”

“I know.”

They hugged harder. In the darkness of the park it was almost quiet: the sound of the creek, the hum of the city. Two against the world. Frank felt her body, her heat, the pulse in her neck. The scent of her hair filled him. Don’t disappear, he thought. Stay where I can find you. Stay where I can be with you.

Frank felt her shudder. It was cold again, not as cold as in the depths of last winter, but well below freezing. The creek rang with the tinkling bell-like sound it took on when all its eddies were frozen over. Caroline’s body was quivering under his hands, shivering with cold, or tension, or both. He held her, tried to calm her with his hands. But he too was shivering.

Downstream on the path he saw a brief movement. Black into black.

Involuntarily he pulled her to him and around to the other side of the oak next to them.

“What?”

“Look,” he said very quietly, “are you sure you aren’t still chipped somehow?”

“I don’t think so, why?”

“Because I think there’s someone watching us.”

“Oh my God.”

“Don’t try to look. Here, I’ve got the scanner you gave me.” He thought it over, images of one scenario then another. “Would he have other people helping him?”

“Not for this,” she said. “I don’t think so anyway. Not unless he figured out that I copied the vote program.”

“Shit. Let’s check you right here, okay?”

“Sure.”

He pulled the wand from his pocket, so much like an airport security device. Bar codes in the body. He ran it over her. When he had it against the top of her back it beeped.

“Shit,” she said under her breath. She whipped off her jacket, laid it on the ground, ran the wand over it. It beeped again. “God damn it.”

“At least it isn’t in your skin.”

“Yeah well.”

“You checked before you left your place?”

“Yes I did, and there wasn’t anything. I wonder if there’s something about me leaving the house. A tick, they call these. Set to jump when motion sensors go off. Something stuck to the doorframe or someplace. God damn him.”

Frank was trying to see over her shoulder, down the path where he had seen movement. Nothing. Feeling grim, he pulled out his FOG phone and called up Zeno’s.

It rang twice. “How does this thing work? Hey, Joe’s Bar and Grill! Who the fuck are you?”

“Zeno it’s Frank.”

“Who?”

“Frank. Professor Nosebleed.”

“Oh hey, Nosey! What’s happening man? Did you spot the jaguar?”

It sounded like he’d downed a couple of beers. “Worse than that,” Frank said, thinking hard. “Look Zeno, I’ve got a problem and I’m wondering if you could give me a hand.”

“What you got in mind?”

“The thing is, it might be kind of dangerous. I don’t want to get you into it without telling you that.”

“What kind of danger?”

“I’ve got a jacket here that people are using to tail me with. People I really need to get away from. What I want to do is have them follow the jacket away from me, while I clear out of here.”

“Where are ya?”

“I’m in the park. Are you at your usual spot?”

“Where else.”

“What I was hoping is that I could run by you guys, like I’m playing frisbee golf, and hand off the jacket to you and keep on running. Then if one of you would hustle the jacket out to Connecticut, and leave it in the laundromat next to Delhi Dhaba, I could turn the tables on these people, pick them up when they follow the jacket, and then tail them back to where they came from.”

“Shit, Noseman, it sounds like you must be some kind of a spook after all! So you been out here hiding among us, is that it?”

“Sort of, sure.”

“Harrrrrr. I knew it musta been something.”

“So are you up for it? While you’ve got the jacket you’ll have to move fast, but I don’t think they’ll do anything to you, especially out on Connecticut. It’s more a surveillance kind of thing.”

“Ah fuck that.” Zeno brayed his harsh bray. “It won’t be no worse than the cops. Parole officers stick that shit right into your skin.”

“Yeah that’s right. Okay, well thanks then. We’ll come through in about ten minutes.”

“We? Who’s this we?”

“Another spook. You know how it is.”

“A lady spook? You got a lady in distress there maybe?”

Sometimes it was alarming how quick Zeno guessed things. “Are the rest of the bros there with you?”

“Of course.”

“Good. Maybe they can add to the confusion. When we pass through and hand off the jacket, have them—”

“We’ll beat the shit out of them!”

“No no no.” Frank felt a chill. “They could be armed. You don’t want to fuck with that. Maybe just go off in two or three groups. Give you some cover, create some confusion.”

“Yeah sure. We’ll deal with it.”

“Okay, thanks. See you soon. We’ll come in from the creek side and just pass right on through.”

Frank pushed the end button. He looked at the chip wand. “Could this wand be chipped itself?”

“I don’t know. I guess so.”

“We’ll leave it here. You said in the elevator you were training for a triathlon, right?”

“Yes?”

“Is your husband a runner?”

“What? No.”

“Okay.” He took her by the arm and led her off the path, up into the trees. “Let’s run. We’ll go past my park friends and give them your jacket, then take off on the ridge trail north. He won’t be able to keep up with us, and after a while he won’t know where you are.”