I christened this chapter with a bottle of wine and deemed it worthy to release. Let me know if there's any grammatical errors and I'll have them fixed. Forgive me, I'm going through a lot in my life and while this story is never not in my head, it's been extremely difficult to get out (hence the eight-year wait and all). Anyway, again, without further ado, I give you
CHAPTER TWO
Blacktop Ghosts
01.17.11 7:25 a.m.
Back when this all started—running for our lives from space pirates on an alien planet, that is—and we moved around a lot, like week-to-week, we did everything fast. I'd pump gas while the precocious young ward bought (sometimes stole) a variety of snacks and drinks for the road. I'd fill up the tank to capacity, and in one swift motion the pump would be back in its sheath and I'd honk the car door, telling the little country boy to hurry up. Most times he'd already be halfway to our truck, van, or convertible.
Sometimes I'd honk twice, and he'd still be inside. Or he'd come out to the car and instead of finding me in the car, he'd drive around to the side of the gas station, rest stop, motel to find me dismembering some pale, tattooed weirdo we'd overlooked as destitute and not as an undercover Mogadorian assassin.
Because of the charm, he can't be killed. But he can still be captured, interrogated, and scared. So, one of our earliest rules became, "Move as fast as you can," in just about every situation.
In the ten years we've lived on Earth, a much longer and more complex list of survival rules has accumulated in my mind, and often on paper. Many are Garde-specific, a few new ones are species-wide in light of more recent events. Of all the kids I'd expect to break any rules at this point, I didn't expect it to be my eldest.
"Come on, man," I groan. His pulsating blue blip has drifted a considerable distance from the coast of Peru, but I know he's probably playing it safe. "We're not getting any younger."
"Speak for yourself," spits Number One; she sits in the backseat and looks nothing at all like how I remember her.
"Oh, I am," I reply. "Kudos to you, though, being able to joke about it and all."
"This might come as a shock to you," she says, "but it's pretty easy not to take things to heart when it's not really yours."
I snort and hone in on the dot—or, I guess dots—in Peru. "I'm sure he'll love that."
"I should go after him," she suggests, "make sure he's okay."
"Not happening. Last thing I need is for you guys to take some impromptu vacation while I stay here and get captured again."
"Whatever, Sandor."
"Now you're getting it," I sneer. "You know, if anyone deserves a vacation, it's me."
"Isn't that what you've been doing anyway?"
"What, driving your somber asses across the country for a week just to end up back here?" I ask. "You don't think I'd rather be on the beach getting my feet rubbed by some fine Peruvian—?"
"I can drop you back off there if you want," says Number Eight, his voice as abrupt as his presence. "Just leave me the keys, I'll pick you up in a few days."
"And let you roam the penthouse again," I laugh. "Fat chance, pal. Everything squared away?"
"It's done," Eight grumbles. "Let's get out of here."
"Copy that." I turn the key in the ignition and put the car in drive. "I hate this desert just as much as you do."
We drive north into Colorado. It's skiing season, and the snow is piled down on either side of the highway, the mountains practically glowing under the sunlight that slips through the clouds. While the journey here was rather scenic yet morbid, I am not minding the road home. I miss sleeping in the same bed every night, waking up under the same roof, spending my time crafting in the workshop, or training, or drinking.
Not speeding down a highway to some other hovel to hide in for the night.
"Now this takes me back," I say aloud. "First place Li and I stayed was in Aspen, not too far north of here. Good times."
"Yeah, heard about it," Eight retorts. "You Cêpans and these Earth girls, I'll never understand."
"Didn't you have, like, three girlfriends back in Paradise?" Number One asks him. "In all different grades?"
"Oh, yeah, I remember that," he muses. "Nah, those were all girls who liked me though, but I never pursued a relationship with them."
"Oh, please."
"No, for real." Eight shifts in his seat, so he's talking to both of us. "See, I have a rule. Right now, we're in wartime, right?
"There's a time for war and, well, a time for love." Eight smiles sheepishly at this. "That time passed back when we lost Two."
"But," I cut in, "what does that have to do with anything, man?"
"I mean, it's the whole shift of mindset, for instance," my eldest young ward continues. "You were just chilling in Chicago until Nine—Li, whatever—met that, uh…?"
"Yeah?" I take my eyes off the road, glance at him carefully. "The one…?"
"Uh…," says One, but we ignore her.
"The M who will not be named," we say together. Eight continues, "Anyway, love was what brought bro's attention to the unnamed M," he rolls his eyes, "which was ultimately the same reason she got him snatched into Hawks Nest. For loving her parents. Shit, and that love got them killed. Could've got you killed too, if I hadn't saved your ass."
"Hey," I take my hand off the wheel to shove him a little. "You're lucky I was there or we'd have never got the…."
Something catches my attention away from the conversation. It's a faint vibration in the steering wheel, accompanied by a subtle chirp that I know all too well. I glance at the dashboard, at the GPS, and the red icon reading off genetic radar.
Or should I say icons?
"Yeah, your bro moment's over, weirdos," Number One hisses, pointing a pale finger at the tracking system. "We're being tailed!"
"You've got to be kidding." I glance at my mirrors, at the back camera. For a moment, I really don't understand. But then I see the fucking semitruck about a mile down the road, its headlights glowing in the shadows of the Rockies. I'm used to black or white vans, the occasional jeep of pale tattooed assholes with knives or clubs. But a semi… What in Lore's name could they have in there? "We just got out of the state! How would they know what we were—!"
"I told you this months ago, they're probably watching the areas around the stones," Eight cuts in. "Nothing we can do about that, just work around it and be prepared for things just like this."
He sounds just like his dad when he talks like that. A cool, collected Loric with the wisdom of an elder. That's why I can trust him in situations like these. Hard decisions, last-minute calls. It's how we met, making the biggest gamble of our nearly extinct species.
"We're nowhere close to home anyways, right?" he asks me. "They definitely don't think we're aware of them."
"No." He's right again. "They'd have tried to run us off the road by now."
"Slow us down."
"Huh?"
"Slow us down by about," Eight's not even sitting next to me anymore; he's in the backseat with Number One, "twenty mph."
"What are you going to—?" I ask him the same time One does, but he's not listening to us, just staring out of the back window of the Mustang as the truck's headlights grow ever closer… and the vehicle starts slowing down! "Joey, I swear!"
"Trust me, guys," Eight continues, "I've got this."
Times like these are where my oddly inherent instincts as a keeper take over. I really don't want him to risk himself or any of us over some thugs in a truck. We just dealt with death squads and snipers for the past three months. A truck is not what I want him getting recaptured for.
But at the same time, it's like he said, and like One and I both know.
He's got this.
I catch him say, "Just like old times," or something like that to One, right before he phases out of the backseat and into the street—right in front of the semi.
His strong, sturdy silhouette stands tall as the truck's headlights envelop him.
I keep driving.
There's a deafening crash, and I keep driving, my eyes glued to my rearview mirror as I watch the show.
One of the truck's lights goes dark, and even though we're making good distance from the damage, I hear screams and roars and pneumatic discharges of cobalt blue energy blasts. It's broad daylight, but we're surrounded on all sides by snowcapped mountains, and thanks to the weather, there isn't another vehicle around for miles. Eventually, the truck's engine explodes. I swear I hear a piken's shriek before absolute silence.
Nothing remains where the truck "crashed," just icy bits of tire rubber, scorched metal, and ash.
Number Eight reappears in the backseat beside One, not a scratch on him. Well, not his flesh. His shirt's ripped up, his hair and beard partially frosted over—strangely enough—and the skin from his hands to his lower biceps is blue.
Like, frostbite blue.
It's a side effect of his major Legacy. Nothing to do about it except keep on him with that crystal from his Chest.
"You okay?" I ask him.
But he doesn't answer immediately. He's grasping Number One's hand, the blue energy in his veins basically seeping into her own. I notice the lines in her bruised pale wrists glow with the same power. Eight's not good at masking when he's surprised by the people he loves. In fact, he's so bad at it that he laughs it off, like right now. He lets go of One's hand and pats her on the shoulder, pulling her to him like she's some column of heat.
"You okay back there?" I ask again.
"Fantastic," he replies. The blueness in his skin begins to fade back into his regular dark copper brown.
"You had fun, did you?"
"I wouldn't call it fun," he exhales, his breath misting in front of his face, "but it felt good."
"Elaborate."
"Well," he catches his breath, "they usually expect us to be on the defensive, not to come at them head-on in a fight. They didn't expect it at the Nest, and they damn sure didn't expect it just now.
I whistle like he's crazy even though I'm proud of him; I'll tell him later.
"What about you, Freaky Friday?" I ask One. "You good?"
"As gravy," she smiles with that innocent-looking face, "asshole."
I exclaim in Loric and honk the horn. "Then there's no need for us to stop!"
Right when I turn on the radio to some horrible country song that both of them will have me change in a second, a caller ID populates my car's monitor. Five letters annoyingly spelled in Anglican human translation…
GUARD
"I'm not answering," is my immediate response.
"You've got to answer," says One, "or she'll send a team of hicks to block the road."
"Can you…?"
"She will."
"I'd love to meet this woman at some point," Eight adds. "She sounds cool."
"Answer, Sandor," One says to me.
"Fine!" I lift my hands in the air before bringing them back to the wheel. "I'll talk to your goddamn den mother!"
But not where they'll hear it.
I put in Bluetooth headphones. State of the art, they're way ahead of their time. Something humans will be pining for in the next few years to come. I connect them to my car's phone receiver and answer the call.
"Hey, babe," I say coolly, "I trust you're calling to know that the Pachamama mission was a success."
"Sandor," the freaking tall, hot eccentric ass lady who stole my sweet ride says in her fake robot voice, "don't call me babe. Are you guys okay? I saw some shit on the sat-feed on your route into Colorado."
"Oh, that?" I blow it off. "Some soldiers were just tailing us and I sent Joey out to dispatch them. Literally took a total of thirty seconds."
Eight sucks his teeth. "Thirty? I was back in the car before the truck blew up—!"
"Anyway," I continue, "nothing worth us spending an extra night out here on the road."
"Right," replies GUARD, "except now there's a ton of activity coming out of both Dulce and the Nest out where you're headed."
My stomach turns with frustration. I glance in the rearview at Eight. He's rolling up.
"Uh-huh," I grumble. "What do you recommend, ba—uh, mademoiselle?"
"Oh, that's so much worse," she beep-boops back. I hear Eight repeat mademoiselle in the backseat to the click of a lighter. "Go to my undocumented in the Rockies. Actually, hang on. Let me just route it for you."
"You know, you could also just send me an address."
"Perfect, it's about twenty-eight minutes away from you. Get back on the road at about three a.m. tomorrow and you should be at the John Hancock Center by midnight."
"Did you send me an addr—?"
"Good luck."
The call cuts out.
"Did you—dammit!" I curse. "God, I hate that…woman."
"Clearly," Eight says, a puff of smoke rising to the front seat. "You know we can hear phone calls, right? Heightened hearing…."
"I know, man. Leave me alone for a sec."
One coughs on the weed with her new lungs, but still manages to spit out, "She's not gonna fuck you, Sandor."
"Shut up and pass that to me," I snap. She reaches a slender, pale hand over, the wrist and forearms covered with purple bruises that resemble hefty fingertips. "I can't even drive now. She programmed the self-driving app to take us there remotely!"
"I can see the appeal," says Eight.
I kick my bare feet up over the wheel and take a pull of what must be Eight's secret stash of Peruvian weed—no wonder he was taking so long—because for the next thirty minutes, I'm relaxed and proud of how well Eight just vaporized those soldiers who were coming to kill us. When I pass the blunt back to him, I say, "Good job."
DISCLAIMER: THIS IS NOT THE END OF THE CHAPTER! THERE IS MORE, COME BACK SOON!
