Peter Clines - Ex-Patriots

I drank some more water. My mouth was feeling better and flexing random muscles was helping the stiffness. As far as I could tell all I needed was a couple Advil for the headache and I’d be good to go.

My splitting, painful headache.

It must’ve shown in my eyes, because Sorensen was about to say something and stopped. Monkey-boy took a step back. They were both watching me.

My free hand, the hand that wasn’t chained to the bed, reached up. The back of my head had been shaved. I brushed the wet threads in my scalp and winced. I put a bit of pressure on the raw skin and felt part of my skull shift underneath.

“What did you do?”

“It’s a shock at first, I know,” said Sorensen. “I’m cer—”

“WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY BRAIN?!?”

Looking back on it, I admit I lost it for a minute. Which I think he planned on. I lunged out of the bed. Monkey-boy tried to grab me and I knocked him halfway across the recovery room. I heaved the doctor out of the chair and his glasses fell off.

“What did you do to me?!”

Sorensen was very calm, even though I had his coat wrapped up in my fists. “That’s not the important question, Staff Sergeant Kennedy.”

Name and rank was good. Chilled me down, made me stop. I almost cried, but girls cry. I’m a soldier.

“The important question,” said Sorensen, “is how did you get out of the bed?”

It took a moment to sink in. I looked away from his eyes, down to my wrists. One had a piece of surgical tape and some blood where the IV had torn loose. The other one had a single handcuff with two links of stainless steel chain dangling from it. The last link was twisted apart. I could see a bruise forming where the cuff had bitten into my wrist.

I looked over my shoulder. The hospital bed’s railing was bent a good four inches out of line toward me. The other handcuff swung back and forth in a deep gouge. Its last link was broken and stretched long. It looked more like a thick hook than a piece of chain.

Oh, hell yeah. Look at me now, Dad.

“Hey, St. George,” someone called out. “You got a minute now?”

A skinny man trotted toward Roddenberry, waving his hand. St. George settled back down to the ground and swung his jacket over his shoulder. It took a moment to recognize the young man at night. He’d never noticed how few lights there were around the central building and garden. “Cesar, right?”

“Right.” They shook hands. “Look, I really need to…ummmm, confess something.”

“You still haven’t killed anyone, right?”

“No, dude, this is serious.”

“Okay,” he said, “what’s up?”

Cesar glanced around. “Can we walk or something?”

“Why?”

“Just feel kinda nervous standing right here, y’ know? In front of her building? Especially at night.”

St. George felt the corners of his mouth twitch. “Yeah, I know what you mean,” he said. “A walk around the garden work?”

“Yeah,” he said, “that’d be cool.”

He led them across the north edge of the garden. A few years earlier, when the Mount had been a film studio, the garden had been a gigantic pool that could be filled with water for movie shoots. The north edge was a huge mural called the Blue Sky. They walked along the narrow path between the base of the mural and the garden.

Cesar took a breath and steeled himself. “Probably should’ve told you or Cerberus or one of you guys months ago, but…” The former Seventeen looked left to right and back, never meeting the hero’s eyes. “I’m the Driver.”

St. George cocked his head and waited. “The what?”

“The Driver.” He gripped an invisible steering wheel in the air before him, and the hero realized the young man’s fingerless handgear was a pair of cheap driving gloves.

“The driver of what?”

Cesar sighed. “D’you remember there were a bunch of carjackings and smash and grabs a couple years back? About a year before the exes showed up?”

St. George nodded. “Down in the Wilshire District? Yeah, I always meant to look into those.”

“That was me.”

The hero raised his eyebrows and smiled. “As I remember, the cops caught the guy,” he said. “A big, fat white guy. Blew out the tires of his Mustang with a spike strip. He tried to run and the police laughed themselves silly.”

“Yeah, right,” nodded Cesar. They turned the corner of the garden and started heading south. “Wayne. He was my partner.”

“Partner?”

“Look, what if I just show you, ‘kay?”

St. George shrugged. “Okay.”

Cesar jogged ahead a few yards. The garden had a thick wall protecting it on the east side, and there was a small parking lot where they kept the scavenger trucks. Mean Green . Road Warrior . The twins were Big Red and Big Blue . Off to the side, against the back corner of the Zukor hospital, stood a few stacks of spare tires. Luke’s people had pulled them off other trucks on the lot, plus some they’d found in the other studios.

The young man took a few more quick steps to put himself in front of Mean Green ’s grill. He waited for St. George to catch up and gestured the hero to the side. “No one in the cab, right?”

“Nope.”

“No keys, right?”

St. George pulled the door open and glanced under the steering column. “Nope. Should be in Luke’s office.”

“‘Kay, then. Watch this.”

The young man pulled off his glove and held up his bare hand. The palm was covered with a flurry of half-faded scars. He pressed his fingers against Mean Green ’s grill and the metal sparked. The flashes grew into long arcs that wrapped around his hand and twisted up his arm with electric crackles.

Cesar vanished in a flash of light and Mean Green ’s engine roared to life. A wisp of smoke spun in the air for a moment, and then it was sucked into the grill by the truck’s fan. Mean Green ’s headlights came on. The engine revved three times in a row.

St. George dropped his jacket. His eyes flitted between the empty space and the growling truck. “You’re kidding me.”

The horn let out two quick blasts. The headlights flashed back and forth like winking eyes. The engine growled again and the truck’s front wheels shifted left to right. The hero took a few steps back and Mean Green rolled a few feet forward. He walked to the left and the truck turned after him.

“Okay,” he said, “I believe you.”

There was another crackle of electricity, a flash, and the engine cut out. The headlights faded and Cesar stood between the hero and Mean Green , his hand pressed against the grill. The young man swayed for a moment, shook his head, and grinned. “What you think of that?”

“So,” said St. George. “The Driver.”

“Damn straight.”

“You possess cars?”

“Not just cars,” said Cesar proudly. “Big rigs, jeeps, SUVs, anything that’s self-powered, y’know? I did a generator once on a bounce house. And a golf cart. Motorcycles are tough because I can’t balance that good in ‘em.”

“What about a walkie-talkie or a radio or something?”

He shook his head. “Too small. I get…I dunno, cramped. I can’t fit inside.”

St. George studied the young man. He didn’t have a scrap of green on him, but most of the former Seventeens went out of their way not to wear the old gang color. The ornate 17 on his left shoulder was the only sign he’d been one of the bad guys less than a year ago. “How long have you been able to do this?”

He shrugged. “About four years.”

“You’ve been part of the Mount for eight months now. Why didn’t you say something before?”