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Part 3-15: Void
She typed something into her phone, which unlocked the Lotus’ doors. We piled in, me riding shotgun.
“Keyless starter ignition,” said Deluxe.
“Command initiated,” replied the Lotus, in a weirdly human, female voice. “Determine password array.”
“Alpha thirty,” said Deluxe.
“Alpha thirty. Confirmed. Requesting password sixteen. You have two attempts.”
Deluxe cleared her throat and said, “Ribosome, elephant, castellan.”
There was a soft click then the engine purred and all the dash lights glowed bright. I mentally adjusted my cash appraisal of the Lotus and smirked back at Dack.
“Does it drop spikes and shoot flames too?” he asked.
“Need to know basis,” said Deluxe, and rolled us out of the parking lot and after the cops. We’d given them about a five minute head start, so she kept the speed down lest we over-ambitiously caught up. Their cruisers didn’t appear on the horizon, and when we reached the dirt road Deluxe pulled over on the shoulder right before the turn. As we stopped, her parking angle captured the intense orange rays of the setting sun in the rearview.
“Monitor?” I said, tilting my head out of the reflection.
Deluxe tossed it on my lap as she pressed a bunch of buttons on her steering wheel. Before I could find my headphones, the sounds of a rapid Geiger counter tocking filled the air: thp-thp-thp-thp-thp!
“Bluetooth,” said Deluxe, tapping the monitor. “Signal’s strong at the office. Really strong. Persi, the comms gear?”
I twisted the stereo knob down so the metronome wouldn’t give me a headache, as Persi shoved a big yellow bag through to the front. I helped Deluxe unload a bunch of electronic equipment. Some of it was loose, some of it was still in packaging.
“See if you can pick up any other chatter?” I asked, passing back the fat smart phone. The idea of this Walkerby business being a distraction for a much bigger play did not escape me. Was Eden or The Minder wily enough for that kind of thing? It felt foolish to put it past them.
“I didn’t have time to fully configure these,” said Deluxe as she snapped little watch batteries into four thin headsets. They reminded me of the ones that tech support people in stock photos wear, with the little ball mic. “But I can probably get a dedicated channel rolling through the Lotus. Try one on.”
A thought struck me as I fitted the headset on. “Should we stake out the Walkerby house instead of playing reverse cops and robbers?”
“If Jimena’s in trouble, she’ll need our help,” said Dack, as popped an earbud in to listen to the monitor.
“Same goes for the family that Eden means to murder,” I argued.
“If I recall the geography, this service road is roughly halfway between the household and our encounter with the forest vines,” said Deluxe. “An ideal staging point to address both concerns. The terrain is not too overgrown, you can move there by foot easy enough.”
I nodded. Fine enough of a compromise, I supposed. Unless this was indeed a diversion.
“Anything on the monitor?” I asked.
“Static. It’s usually just quiet when the police band is silent, no?” said Dack.
“Correct,” said Deluxe, and hit the radio button on the dash.
The LED display for the station showed us all zeros. She twisted the volume knob back up, and the speakers hissed at us.
“Shit, shit,” she said, as I tried to change the station. It was zero-zero dot zero FM (You’re listening to Dubya Tee Eff, The VOID!) all the way through.
The trunk popped as Deluxe yanked down a thin laptop from the visor over her head. “Dack, get the portable router out of the back, please. I think we’re being jammed, folks.”
I tried to keep my breathing even as a pickup truck ambled down the road. Witnesses to our disobedience. The Lotus stuck out like a shiny condom wrapper in a bowl of plain cereal. The truck slowed to take in the oddity and I put my thumb on my wrist to try and control my pulse. Without thinking, I shifted my wrist onto the Queen’s Band and felt its familiar tingle—more now like a vague coolness actually. It soothed, felt proper, felt ready, and my heart did in fact relax a notch.
“Thank you,” I said softly, and gave the ring a tiny kiss. It left a pleasant sensation on my lips.
Dack returned with something that looked like a remote control with a small satellite dish on its end. Deluxe reached back and grabbed it without looking, as her attention was focused on the screen on her lap. Her left hand’s fingers typed in a blur as her thumb operated the trackpad.
Then she stopped, blew hair out of her face, and shut the computer.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Eden’s signal is jamming most frequencies within range of a new point source. Said source is a wifi router—located in the Walkerby home.”
“Is their router the size of a barn?” said Dack. “How can it reach this far?”
Deluxe shook her head. “It’s ridiculously amplified. I don’t know how it’s possible from a physics standpoint.”
“Physics are something of a bystander in this game,” I said. “Does that still work?” I jabbed at the remote control device. She pressed some buttons, then squinted at it.
“Barely,” she said. “It’s picking up cell tower signal, but the interference is heavy. We’ll need to clear the range, or dampen or eliminate the jammer for max effect. Voice and SMS are probably limited too. Check for me?”
“It’s fucking learning,” I whispered, as I tried to send Deluxe a text. I had two bars of third rate cell signal. The text floated in limbo.
“If the signal is at the Walkerby home,” said Persi, “then I think Alena’s idea of heading there first makes more sense.”
I looked at Dack, and our driver turned with me. The car was very quiet as he searched our faces. I knew he knew it was the right choice, and now that it was still I could feel the seconds slipping by in the silence. They seemed to drop away from us like flickering portholes on a sinking ship. But something told me he had to make this decision. Deluxe perhaps felt the same. Persi seemed to be growing impatient, her eyes darting between us. Dack’s stare tracked past my face and locked onto Deluxe.
His throat worked, and as he open his mouth to speak, a strange pap-rr! noise came from the woods to the left.
Then again: prap-rr! Prap-prap-rr!
Dack leaned back and paled. My roommate grabbed my shoulder.
“Pistol reports,” she said. “Gunfire.”
I pushed her toward the steering wheel and pointed down the road. “Go, go!”
The Lotus sprayed dirt and we blasted down the path.
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