I looked at J.J., who appeared completely stricken, looking with paralyzed horror up at Friday. Abby was slightly cooler, but there was a sense of panic hiding in her eyes, one which I couldn’t find myself too sympathetic to, given how many times they’d pulled this geek love PDA trick to get us out of the office.
“We shall,” I said. “Later, kids.” And I walked out with Augustus, leaving them to their fates.
“Uh, Reed?” J.J. called after me.
“Just lock up when you guys leave, okay?” I called over my shoulder, and disappeared into the short hallway that led to the lobby. Augustus walked at my side, trying to keep a straight face.
“Okay,” Friday said after we left, “let’s get this party started. I’m thinking you can start by kissing her, like down the neck, and then you, girl whose name I can’t remember—”
“It’s Abigail,” she said coldly.
“Whatever. You bite his earlobe. Like you mean it. Like a raccoon with rabies, you know? And then—”
“This isn’t an adult movie, Friday,” Abby said. “We don’t need a director.” There was a short pause. “Oh…oh, God. Why did I even have to explain that to you?”
“I’m thinking severe brain damage has something to do with it,” J.J. said.
As soon as Augustus and I were out the front door, Augustus dissolved into a fit of snickering. Jamal and Scott were waiting just outside, watching the door like they knew we were coming. The sky was black like poured tar, a few streetlights scattered around the parking lot holding the night at bay around us. It was a warm summer night, one of the few in Minnesota where it felt like it wasn’t going to get cool at all, maybe.
I came to a stop, feeling a little like I’d walked into an ambush. “Why do I feel like you guys are about to draw guns and shoot me down right here?”
Augustus shifted nervously next to me. “Dude…you were dead silent in there, for like…hours.”
“We were just wondering if you were okay,” Scott said, and his lips creased with a supportive smile.
“I’m fine,” I said, folding my arms in front of me. “I’m not the one being chased by John Law on another continent.”
“It’s okay to worry about her,” Augustus said.
“Didn’t know I needed permission for that,” I said as lightly as I could given the subject matter, “but thanks.”
“He just means that what you’re feeling, what you’re thinking—it’s all normal,” Scott said.
I tried not to be a dick, but I probably missed the mark. “It’s normal to have your sister be the subject of an international manhunt? Interesting. I should look into support groups for that, then. Find some people who understand.”
“Reed…” Augustus started.
“Guys,” I said, pre-empting what I was sure was going to be a very kind set of thoughts that I’d end up somehow throwing back in their faces, “it’s okay. I’m okay. And I’ll see you all tomorrow.” And with that I turned to walk away, a gnawing pit of worry still writhing in my stomach.
4.
Sienna
I didn’t have much time, so I tried to focus. Worry was the enemy of intelligent action, because it used brain cells that you needed in order to be on the top of your game. I slipped through the Scottish underbrush, bushes barely touching me as I went past, heading for the voices ahead and the road I’d left behind when I’d crawled this way the night before.
Moving like a metahuman meant running at speeds most people couldn’t really conceive of. It was like being an Olympic sprinter times two, my legs pumping so quickly and crazily that when I’d seen myself filmed running, it looked absurd, like someone had kicked the video into high speed. I was doing that now, leaping over a sapling here, dodging under a low branch there, assessing the threats to me and avoiding them quicker than the human eye could normally even process them.
The smell of rich, green forests was thick in the cool, morning air. The fresh air would normally have been an incentive to—I dunno, go for a run or something if you were into that. And I was certainly running this morning, but the incentive in this case was to bust the living crap out of an officer of Police Scotland before he got a chance to broadcast my location to anybody and everybody this side of—oh, I dunno, Scotland, pick a frigging city. Inverness. That one was big back in the day, wasn’t it? Macbeth took place there, didn’t it?
Up ahead I could see the vegetation clear; green branches and light brown boughs gave way to grey skies beyond. I was sprinting up the embankment below the road, and I heard a male voice start to speak, following a hiss of static as he thumbed a microphone. He must have heard me coming, though, because he hesitated before saying anything.
I burst out of the trees and hit him like a freight train. I wasn’t aiming to kill him, but I assaulted that police officer hard, keeping on after I kicked his legs out from beneath him. They flew up, leaving him as my violent sweeping kick landed, and I was moving on to the next target, figuring hesitation was my deadliest enemy in this fight. I grimaced and said, “Sorry,” as I rammed into the second officer. He’d been grabbing for a baton the moment he’d seen me, but he didn’t have a prayer. I’d only had to cover about ten feet once I left the cover of trees, and that was simply too much for human reflexes to deal with. He’d needed to draw his baton, deploy it, and then raise it and bring it down on me. He’d gotten to about halfway through deploying it when I jacked him in the jaw. The light went out of his eyes and the strength went out of his legs, and he sagged. I caught him and let him down slowly, then turned my attention back to the guy I’d cut the legs from beneath.
He was moaning, but coming back to himself, so I took a couple quick steps over to him and punched him right in the forehead. It hurt me, it hurt him, but it put his lights out and I didn’t break his skull, so I considered it a win overall. He was probably going to wake up concussed, but he’d wake up, and that was important for reasons of his health and my conscience.
I looked around. We were down in a ditch just off the roadway, probably about ten feet down the slope. I could hear a car or two coming by, but I couldn’t see them from where I was standing, and that was damned good luck, the first piece I felt like I’d had in a while. I stood there for only a second catching my breath after the run and the—uhm, assaulting a police officer—and reflected that it was already time to go back to work.
It only took me about ten seconds to load a cop over each shoulder and then carry them back into the woods. I didn’t want to go too far, so I stopped about ten feet in, where there was enough cover that they wouldn’t be immediately visible from the road, but they weren’t totally out of sight, either. I figured a helicopter with thermal gear would be coming this way once their higher ups figured out they were missing, probably go along their patrol path. Here they’d find them, if a passing motorist didn’t hear the screams first.
These were the judgments I made in seconds, and I defy you to figure out how to make better ones.
I took the clothes off the shortest one, including his boots and that stupid reflective vest. I rolled up the cuffs of his pants and put them on, then did the same to his shirt. I laced his boots up tight, and sucked it up as I pulled his belt as tight as it could go. Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately, given that my waistline allowed me to wear a man’s belt), that fit fine.
“Guess I need cardio after all,” I muttered under my breath. Usually that was the sort of line that would provoke a good gout of laughter and commentary from the voices in my head, but…
I didn’t have any more voices in my head.
Shit.
I put the stupid cop hat on after cramming all my hair up underneath it in an unrestrained bun. The hat did a fine job of holding it back, fortunately, and I only hoped that it’d changed the look of me enough that people wouldn’t be shouting, “That’s Sienna Nealon!” as I passed. It was the most I could hope for at this point.