The train station was packed with commuters and travellers milling to and fro in organised chaos. Their tickets had been bought online, so they just had to be collected before waiting on the platform to board their train. Vincent tried to watch everyone at once, a hopeless task given the crowd, so a length he gave up and concentrated on keeping people back from jostling Catherine. It was the first real test of his control over the Beast in such a public place. Since escaping from Muirfields clutches there had been little reason for the Beast to be pricked awake, but now they were in a crowded space, about to board an enclosed train, with little room to cover up or escape if circumstances caused a situation. They had discussed it and decided that the risk was worth the anonymity and speed of travelling by rail, but Vincent still held onto some misgivings.
At length the train arrived and the crowd around them thinned as passengers dispersed to their different cars, avoiding those getting off, to board the Canadian going southwest, Winnipeg just one of its many stops.
They boarded and were directed to their seats, Vincent glad to be out of the melee, his heart rate and blood pressure elevated, the Beast tickling at the edge of his senses.
"Are you okay?"
He turned to look at the woman beside him and smiled. "I'll be fine. Just not used to big crowds."
Catherine reached across and took his hand, her expression concerned. It was the one aspect of choosing the train that had raised issues for them. Vincent was used to a semi-solitary life, avoiding crowded places, roaming the streets at night, taking care not to place himself in situations that didn't allow him an escape if the Beast made an appearance for whatever reason. Here on the train they were in a compartment with lots of other people, the train a closed box that only stopped at destinations. Vincent's control of his darker side was a hundred fold better, but it had never been tested before. It was a risk they agreed to take, but Catherine still worried it was too much, too soon for Vincent.
"We can always move if something or someone upsets you." Catherine offered, rubbing her thumb over the back of his hand.
"Don't worry, it's unlikely anything is going to happen. We'll be there by tonight, and then it's back into a car." Vincent assured her, her very presence and touch calming him as it always had.
The hours passed slowly, the landscape beyond the windows ever changing, but time for Vincent dragged. He couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right. They'd been so careful, paying cash for everything, leaving no paper trail, using the false names and identities, but still something nagged at him. Catherine sat curled up at his side, covered by a soft shawl, not that it was cold, far from it, but he had brought if for her and she loved it for that reason alone. While she slept, he watched the people moving up and down the aisle, going back and forth to the bathroom or the dining car, his ears picking up snatches of their conversations, hearing nothing but normal everyday stuff. He carefully sniffed the air for any hint of something unusual or out of place, the only returns from the air conditioned atmosphere being perfume, aftershave and people.
There was nothing at all there to alarm him but he still couldn't relax and settle. Certainly no one was paying them any particular attention. Some were sleeping, others talking or playing games, some hooked up to their iPod or playing games on handhelds, or working on their laptops. All normal and routine behavior. Putting it down to a decade of always looking over his shoulder, Vincent put his head back and closed his eyes. His hair had grown long during his captivity and he hadn't asked Catherine to trim it, and she didn't seem to mind it, wild as it was, which was why the agent assigned by Muirfield to check the train managed not to recognise either of them as he passed through their car. Catherine, because her face was partially hidden under the shawl as she slept, and Vincent, because his head was turned away and his hair and beard did their job of disguise to perfection.
The agent might have not recognised his quarry, but Vincent recognised the look and smell of the agent. Keeping his eyes closed, he waited for the man to pass before gently shaking Catherine awake.
"We have company," he whispered. "Don't move until I tell you to." He waited for a tiny nod of understanding before resuming his previous position, closing his eyes but reaching out with is other senses, knowing exactly when the agent passed their seats without pausing and carried on. Beside him Catherine waited tense and wide awake, only moving when Vincent whispered it was okay to do so.
"Are you sure?" Catherine asked, her gaze wide and fearful. Vincent nodded.
"Next station we get off, regardless of where it is. We can find another way to get to or bypass it all together. The train is slowing, so be ready to grab your bag and get off. Okay?"
Catherine didn't answer, merely nodded and started to fold the shawl. Vincent stopped her.
"Wrap that around you head like a scarf, it'll help. I'll use the beanie."
Catherine nodded again and they both went to work. Vincent put on his jacket to hide his long sleeved top, between them altering the look of the clothes they'd been wearing and disguising their hair to avoid reminding the agent of anyone they'd already seen on the train. The train stopped and they rose, moving steadily towards the exit to disembark. The train would only be stopping to let down and pick up passengers, barely ten minutes before it was off again. Vincent hoped that would be long enough for them to disappear, and short enough that the agent would be far enough away not to notice they were gone when he returned to check the car they'd been in.
Vincent put his arm around Catherine, sensing her elevated heart rate as they walked normally into the tiny station at Melville among a small group of passengers getting off there. He strongly resisted the urge to look back, to check if they had succeeded in escaping detection, instead following the others who eventually scattered along the street or to the car park off to the side of the station itself.
At length the train pulled away and left Melville, only then did Vincent stop walking and look back the way they'd come, Catherine doing the same. Apart from a few locals going about their afternoon business, there was nothing to see.
"Were we followed?" Catherine asked, looking up at him.
"I don't think so, but we can't afford to hang about here too long. We need to find transport and quickly. If that agent decides to follow up on us, we need to be long gone. I'll have to wait until we're someplace else to send J.T and update of our plans. Sending anything from here would be too obvious."
"Have we been careless?" Catherine asked as they made their way further into the small town, Vincent looking for a hire car place.
"I don't think so. They might have just sent their agents out as a precaution, maybe they always have agents travelling on the train to check for any number of reasons, who knows." Vincent spied a sign and made to cross the road. "There's a car hire place, lets get that sorted first."
Within an hour they were back on the road again and heading away from Melville, north to Yorkton where they would find an internet cafe, update J.T
Director Reynolds surveyed the ruined section and smiled grimly. Initial reports had failed to turn up a single clue as to the whereabouts of their missing chimera and his lover. In the grand scheme of things, losing Vincent and his offspring was a crimp in his plans, but with all the data and specimens they'd accumulated in the time Vincent was with them they had more than enough to be going on with. Early tests were revealing potential offshoots of research previously unexplored, and human trials were only months away, not years. Still, it galled him that what they thought was a geologically sound area had decided to throw a curve ball and chose just the wrong time to indulge in a fifty year event. The damage could be repaired, the lives lost; replaced. But the thought that he'd lost yet another specimen, hell that couldn't go unmarked. It had taken him the best part of twenty years to track down Gabriel Lowen, chimera five – one of their most promising specimens and their most spectacular failure. Being dependant on drugs to remain undetectable undermined the very purpose of the project. They wanted soldiers that could control themselves, not have to pop a pill every day. Vincent showed the potential for a super soldier, even his disappearing act proved how far he outstripped all other efforts.
Patience had never been his strongest virtue, but Reynolds suspected that patience was the only way to recapture Vincent, only this time it wouldn't take a decade to return him to Muirfield's fold.
They only stayed long enough in Yorkton to send a message to J.T, then headed out, turning south once more and heading for the U.S Canadian border. They had picked up maps and had chosen a route to take them through a rural backwater with a low key border crossing near Turtle Mountain. It was the most direct route south avoiding major centers of population and traffic. It wasn't at all where they'd told the car rental they were going. Vincent intended to ditch the car as soon as they crossed the border, and find another form of transport to get them to Minneapolis for their rendezvous with their friends.
Vincent worried about Catherine, but she insisted she was doing fine and the baby was as active as ever. While he drove, she slept on the back seat, making sure that Vincent woke her to take her share of the driving. It was dark when he pulled over into the forecourt of the Moosomin Country Squire Inn, an unlikely name for an unpreposessing place. He left Catherine in the car and checked them in, the room turning out to be as plain as the building, but clean and the linen fresh. Too tired to tramp about the town, they ate at the in house restaurant, then returned to their room to plan the next day.
Catherine sat on the bed and spread the maps around her. She had already used the shower and was waiting for Vincent to emerge, which he did towelling his hair as he sauntered into the room and sat down on the other side from her.
"Have you found a route for us?" he asked, tossing the towel to land across the back of a chair.
"We can keep following route eight," Catherine pointed with her finger, following the line, "right to the border and beyond. It's a minor road and the crossing will be small, which will suit us just fine. I only hope the paperwork J.T created is up to the scrutiny."
"I don't know how he did it, but we have passports, drivers license's and birth certificates, as well as a marriage certificate. If he didn't already have a job at the University, he'd make a fortune as a forger." Vincent joked, laying on the bed on top of the maps.
"Vincent! I was using those. I guess we'll find out just how good he is when we face the border crossing. They've tightened up on security since nine eleven. Shame we can't just crash the barriers and shoot on through."
Vincent laughed. "Very Dukes of Hazard, but we're trying to keep off the radar, not light it up like a christmas tree!"
"Hah...what is the penalty for trying to sneak across with forged documents?" Catherine asked, looking mock serious.
"Probably life...or at worst, we'll have to stay in Canada."
"Or find somewhere to cross without the car."
Vincent folded his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. "There probably are places where it's possible to cross. I mean, they can't patrol the whole border it's hundreds of miles long."
"That would involve hiking, and I've only just recovered from our last overland adventure." Sweeping the rest of the paperwork off the bed, Catherine lay back and folded her hands over her stomach.
"If we do make it out of Canada, and we do meet up with J.T and Tess, what are we going to do then? It's not like I can go back to my old job, even if I wanted to. We can't live off J.T and Tess forever, but without an income how are we going to live?"
Vincent frowned. The same thoughts had been turning over in his head. "We do like you wanted before I was taken. We find a little town, out of the way, and we settle there. New names, new life, we raise our kid, we'll find work, we'll keep our heads down."
"You make it sound easy, but it won't be that simple, surely?"
Vincent rolled on to his side and leaned over her, his eyes meeting hers. "We'll find a way to make it happen, I promise you that." He rested his hand on the bump and stroked it through her t-shirt. "We have to make it work, some way or other. It's not just us now."
Catherine watched his hand move over her body, the enormity of what they faced making her feel tearful, scared and hopeful all at once. Vincent glanced up and saw her distress.
"Hey, hey don't cry...please, I know it seems impossible, but we've done the impossible already. We can do this...together, we can do anything."
"Ignore me, I'm not really upset, I just can't seem to stop crying." She wiped her face, but the tears continued to flow. " I was so stupid with all my talk of normal, there is no such thing. What was normal about my mother being who she was, about me not being my father's daughter; growing up believing a lie, of you being experimented on. Nothing I know is normal. God, even Tess and J.T have had to forget anything normal; chasing up the country to meet us and then what?"
Unable to answer what were largely rhetorical questions, Vincent offered the only comfort he knew; himself. After offering her a bundle of tissues from the box on the night stand, he pulled her into his arms and rocked her, his cheek resting on the top of her head.
He had a feeling that this emotional outpouring was long overdue. The answers to the questions would have to wait.