John Barnes - Directive 51

She’d fired that missile and risked all this so that Aaron and the other phony Daybreakers could kill one of the most sympathetic, decent politicians the pathetic old US had managed to produce. And it would be blamed on Daybreak.

She felt dirty, but she felt more like a fool. For the first time in her life, her fluent Spanish was a drawback; the federales had already interrogated her. One of them had big kind eyes, and nodded like he understood her, and gently explained about the diversion and Vice President Samuelson being killed in a cloud of dirty chemicals that were smearing all over beautiful desert right now; she could feel how sad that made him.

She’d wanted the kind-smiling, warm-eyed guy to understand that she wasn’t like this, that she’d made an awful mistake, contaminated herself with evil power-people armed-struggle hater macho games. And trying to help him to understand, she’d told the kind-eyed federale more than she meant to.

I swear, if I ever get out of this horrible mess, I will never look a man in the eyes again. I’ll get a big dog with big dark eyes and long, shaggy facial hair, and talk to him all day long. Please God, that’s a serious offer.

She couldn’t back out of the things she’d already admitted. Furthermore, she knew she’d be asked a lot more, soon, because they were just waiting for a truck convoy to take her to Tijuana, where she’d be handed over to the US authorities at the border.

She could see through the cell door to where her pack was sitting; if she just had that, and was on the outside for just a few minutes, she’d so get away.

Unfortunately, not even a body length away from her so-close pack, she could also see the local cop and his gun. Her efforts to engage him in a conversation in Spanish had been met with a curt Callate, fleje . Not a lot of negotiating you could do with that.

She didn’t know where she’d find it in herself to say, Dad, it just seemed like I ought to fire this Stinger missile at that blimp—I mean aerostat. Or maybe Aaron lied about that too and it really was a plain old blimp.

At four o’clock in the morning, not much moved in Raton, New Mexico; a few lighted signs had been on through the night, and the first few of the morning were just coming on as sleepy workers flipped the switches inside on their way to warm up grills, lay out sales charts, work through the night’s e-mail, or set up chairs.

Jason, sitting in the cold dark in Zach’s passenger seat, lonely, scared, and determined not to show it, watched the first guy at the Greyhound station enter by the orange glow of the all-night lights. The man immediately flipped on the old fluorescents, lighting up the plate-glass window with cold glare; a moment later, the little neon-tube lights that said BREAKFAST SPECIAL, HOT FRESH DONUTS THIS MORNING SO GOOD!, and FRESH COFFEE all flickered to life. The man began loading a coffee urn.

“I guess that’s my cue,” Jason said.

“Wait till he turns on the OPEN sign,” Zach said. “He looks like the mean type that’d leave you to freeze your butt off on the sidewalk till he was good and ready. And besides, the coffee’s not ready, and you’re going to need that. Might as well sit in here till they’re ready to serve your breakfast.”

“Thanks.”

“Hey, it’s been one long crazy twenty-four hours, you know? We’re somewhere between bonded and crazy-glued.” Zach sighed. “This was not how I pictured Daybreak.”

“Me either. You think they’ll catch us? All of the Daybreak people, I mean, or most of us?”

Zach leaned back and considered. Jason liked that gesture, as if something he’d said was valuable. “I think they’ll try. More than we planned on. We figured by the time anyone knew about Daybreak, the Big System would be dead, and they’d have no way to find us or put out the word.

“Now people are going to find a lot more of us than they would have if whoever it was hadn’t murdered the vice president. How did that slip through our filters? Why didn’t the peers stop that ? I mean, I personally quashed at least ten stupid, cruel ideas.”

Jason nodded. “I saw a bunch of notes from one guy who thought modern medicine was the biggest, evil-est part of the Big System, and he was trying to find people to help him wreck hospitals. Everyone I knew hug-mobbed the guy to chill him, focus him on acting for living things—but then he drifted away. What if he just found another AG to join, where they were even crazier? Are we gonna hear tomorrow that someone poison-gassed a whole hospital?”

“Peer guidance was supposed to prevent that.”

“Yeah, but every AG got to pick their own peers.” Jason slugged his fist into his palm. “We had the same problem my stupid-ass brother and father did, putting all our faith in procedures and organizations and our own good intentions, which is how Dad and Clayt end up supporting every stupid war and seeing the positive side of every ecocide. Yuck. I thought we were supposed to be different , you know?”

“Yeah. ‘Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.’”

“I’m guessing that’s your guy Jesus.”

“No, Psalm 146. Big one for Stewardship Christians. But what I meant it to say was, hey, haven’t we all said, all along, we’re animals like the other animals? I wouldn’t expect the dog to do everything perfect, either.”

“Yeah.” Jason thought. “But the real question is still, are they going to catch us?”

Zach said, “Yeah. I know. I was avoiding the question too.”

A bakery truck pulled up, and the man carried two racks into the bus station.

“Just now I bet the doughnuts are warm,” Jason pointed out, “and the guy in there is pouring himself coffee.”

“Yeah, you’re right, it’s time, and I should be getting home to Trish anyway, she’ll be worried silly. Got my number in case of trouble?”

“Yeah, but I’ll be fine. Thanks for the ride, and the company.” He reached for the door handle.

Zach said, “Just one thought, Jason. Don’t stop at home, grab your girlfriend and just take off— don’t stick around to see what your gun-crazy survivalist neighbors do. I have a bad feeling.”

“Yeah. You take care too. Happy Daybreak.”

“Happy Daybreak yourself,” Zach said, not sure why he felt so afraid to drive the three miles to his house.

To Jason, the fluorescent lights on the linoleum and Formica looked cold, but it was a lot colder out here in the dark. To the far, cold stars, he thought, soon, soon. After all, what was more natural than things getting dark and cold, just before Daybreak?

Many of the far-bedroom commuters, who lived twenty or even thirty miles from downtown Cincinnati, in towns like West Chester, Jericho, Bethany, Gano, and Tylersville, liked to leave work early, to return to the big house with a view of a golf course or a jogging trail, in time to go to the kids’ after-school stuff. For most office workers, leaving work at three thirty required starting at seven thirty, so by seven in the morning, southbound traffic on I-75, even here, well north of the city, ran heavy: a mix of sturdy family-friendly minivans, first-good-job new subcompacts, and I’ve-settled beaters. A few bright stars remained, and low in the sky, a crescent moon bowed to the east, pointing to the sun that was still an hour away. The horizon was a line of blue-black, and the trees along the highway, mostly stripped of leaves in late fall, broke the dim twilit sky to the east into myriad panels, slices, and wedges.