James Decker - Fallout

“Shit,” Shuang gasped, dancing like she had to pee. “What do we do? What do we do?”

“Hold on,” I panted.

I went to message Dragan, when I noticed a text message had just dropped into the 3i tray. When I brought it up, I saw it had come from Chong.

“Chong just messaged me,” I told them. “He’s alive.”

I brought up the message.

All clear. I’m at an endpoint inside the rim. Need help.

I fished out my tablet and opened the field. The gate remote had been returned, with a dried, bloody thumbprint on one side of it.

“Yes,” I whispered. Finally, some luck. I removed the remote and held it up so Vamp could see. “Here’s our way out.”

“What about Alexei?” Vamp asked.

“I’m going back for him,” I said, pointing the remote at the brick wall opposite me. I trigged it, and opened a gate. Through the portal, I could see the grime and shadows of the abandoned factory. “You guys go, and lie low until I can find him. Then we’ll figure a way out of Hangfei.”

“Sam, with the gates he could be anywhere by now,” Vamp said.

“I’ll find him,” I said. “I know the route he takes from Dragan’s to Dao-Ming’s. You guys go ahead and wait for me. I’ll—”

“No way,” Vamp said. “I’m coming with you.”

Shuang’s face fell a little, at that.

“Vamp…”

“Vamp, go with Shuang,” I told him. “I’ve got this.”

“No.”

Before I could protest again, he turned to Nix.

“Nix, go with Shuang.”

Shuang’s face fell the rest of the way. “What?”

“I know you can keep her safe,” he told Nix. “Make sure nothing happens to her.”

“I understand,” Nix said.

“Vamp, don’t send me off—”

“Once you’re there,” he told her, “they won’t find you. Use your connections to try to work around the Xinzhongzi substation.”

“I don’t know, Vamp,” she said.

“Please.”

He kissed her, and I saw her resist for a second but then she gave in. She kissed him back, and smiled even though her eyes were teary.

“Please,” he said again. She still didn’t look too sure, actually taking a step back when Nix approached her, but Vamp took her by the arm, gently, and spoke in her ear.

“I trust him,” he told her. “He saved my life, once. You can trust him too.”

“But—”

“Go.”

I started off, and Vamp followed. When I looked back over my shoulder, I saw Shuang still standing there, watching him leave with me. Her eyes looked hurt, or betrayed, as Nix took her elbow and led her through the gate. Nix turned back to me, and I could feel his worry, his fear for me. Then the gate closed behind them, and the signal cut out.

“We can catch a gate five blocks this way,” Vamp said, pointing. “From there we can hit Ping Xi and retrace Alexei’s route. With any luck we’ll pick him up there.”

I only half heard him, as I scanned up and down the street. Vehicles crowded every lane, and had parked up and down either side of the street. At the end of the block, I spotted the red and white of several taxis queued up at one of the stops.

“Sam, are you listening?”

Among the tight row of vehicles parked along either side of the street, one idled while a woman stood behind the open trunk, putting an armload of shopping bags into it. I started toward it, picking up speed.

“Sam!” Vamp called after me.

Before the woman even saw me, I slipped into the driver’s seat and started the emitters up. I heard her shout something from behind as Vamp came around to the passenger side.

“Sam!” Vamp barked. “Shit, what the hell—”

“It’s an emergency!” I snapped, shoving the passenger door open. “Get in!”

Vamp didn’t look too sure but when I brought the car up off the pavement he climbed in. As soon as he did I took us up, the woman screaming after us.

“Watch it…” Vamp said as I zipped into the skylane. The city lights flickered around us for a few seconds, but they stayed on.

“You really think Shuang can work around the new power station?” I asked.

“If she has time.”

At the intersection, I checked to make sure the way was clear, then did a full stop before rocketing straight up toward the skylane above. Vamp pushed against the dash as the streets below began to shrink.

“Sam, slow down.”

I pulled the control stick and we leapt into the air, picking up speed as I took us over the rows of waiting vehicles. Horns began to honk, swelling and fading as we passed along with the curses of the other drivers.

“Sam!”

In the rearview mirror, I saw a single black security car jump up from somewhere across the street to pursue us. It circled over the traffic below, then began to close in fast.

“Hang on.”

I accelerated, then banked at the last second and cut the line to the skyway, clipping the vehicle that had been next to go with a crunch and the squeal of metal. As I locked us into the first available lane the black car followed, flashing its blues as the damaged vehicle caused a backup behind it.

“Sam!”

I looked back out of the windshield where a set of taillights had appeared and I cut the stick, whipping into the other lane and sideswiping the car there before he braked. His horn blared behind us as I wove through traffic, picking up speed.

“Sam, there’s too much traffic—get off the skyway,” Vamp said. He pointed to the left, past the bridge.

“There, go there.”

I banked across three lanes of air traffic, and heard two vehicles collide behind us as we flew out of the skyway and into open airspace. A siren began to wail, and the second we were clear, I dropped us like a stone down toward the streets below.

A hole opened in the crowd beneath us as the people there saw what looked like a runaway aircar headed straight for them, and they all ducked as I stopped our descent about one story off the ground then swooped off down a side street. A second siren joined the first; then a third chimed in as I whooshed out over an intersection and in between the buildings on the other side where something white and billowy appeared in the windshield.

“Watch it!” Vamp barked as I pulled up to clear a line of laundry strung between two windows on opposite ends of the street. I could still see the blue and red lights flashing against the building faces in the rearview mirror, but the sounds of the siren began to fade.

I slowed down a little, just enough to avoid too much additional attention, then disappeared into the sprawl.

“…Reports of strange, often disturbing sightings continue to pour in,” the woman on the radio said. “Governess LeiFang has ordered a curfew of six o’clock pending investigation, while authorities and scientists struggle to find the cause behind the mass hallucinations. Citizens are being urged not to panic, as localized instances of violence have already begun to tax resources….”

I stared at the skyline, only half listening. The city below seemed static, like we weren’t moving at all, even though I’d pegged it as almost twice the allowed speed. “Sam, come on.” I could feel my hand shaking on the control stick when he put his own over it. “Put it on auto. You’re not going to get us there any faster, you’re just going to cause an accident.”

He reached past me, toward the dash console, and I let him cut the controls over to autonav. The stick froze in my hand as the computer took over, and he gently eased my fingers off.

“Your hands are cold,” he said.

He took my hands in his and I pulled them away.

“Sorry,” he said, and I felt bad for letting him see the flinch. “Look, that thing with Shuang…”