Ok… so not many questions answered in this one… more raised, though.
Thuraya Known – Ack, I was going to go more into Riley's condition in this chapter, but nooo. Next one, though. Thanks for reminding me about Ben/Dan… that was a mistake but in the next chapter I'm going to pretend it wasn't. You're a good editor!
Raven1994 – Glad you didn't think it was short – you're right, it could have been shorter. Haha. Classes started today and look, I got another chapter out! I am such a terrible student. Gah.
The Randomist – Yikes, be careful. Although that's probably what I'd be doing too… surfin' the net, anything but homework! Glad you deem this worthy of a longer review!
Disclaimer: Do we really need one of these each chapter? I don't own these two…
I really should have guessed. I really should have been more careful. And I really shouldn't have left the house for a minute. Although I'm not sure what I would have done. Just because Jeremy had left the room for a moment to get himself 'some bean soup' didn't mean I had automatically suspected that he was going for a gun. But there you have it; I had a gun in my face.
Apparently he'd just pulled it, too. Riley sat up from his horizontal position, looking shocked.
"Lay back down, Riley."
"Shuttup, Benjamin Gates." So Jeremy knew what was going on. Most likely was part of the whole secret organization that was supposed to be foreign. Jeremy wasn't very foreign. Laudes was hovering worriedly between Jeremy and Riley, looking concerned.
"Jeremy, don't shoot him." Jeremy's face screwed up in anger.
"Mom, this is Benjamin Gates. I've told you enough that you should know the only thing to do with these two is kill them. Just my luck they ended up here." What the hell? Everything that was swarming around in my mind was just getting tied into more knots. Was I supposed to know who this guy was? And whose side was Laudes on? Apparently Jeremy had let his mom in on what he was doing. Jeremy gestured with the gun for me to step further into the living room. I wondered why he didn't just shoot me.
"Jeremy, son, at least don't kill Riley." What? Don't kill Riley?
"Mom, he's the one we're most worried about." After that statement a flash of panic flew across his face.
"Where's his computer?" He looked around wildly. I mentally cursed and praised myself. The computer was still laying in the clump of trees outside, forgotten. I hoped it had survived the rain and mud and everything else. Jeremy glared at Riley but kept the gun trained on me.
"Where's your computer?"
"I have no idea." Jeremy turned to me, looking furious.
"Where's his computer? Tell me or I'll kill you."
"Apparently you're going to kill me anyways."
"I'll kill Riley."
"Most definitely you're going to kill him anyways." What was I saying? Was I trying to distract him? I could do better than that. Although it's a little hard to pull genius out of a mind as muddled as mine was at the time. I was in the middle of the room; there was nothing in reach that could help me. Jeremy had a gun trained on me and he could very well kill me any second. Riley, too. Laudes was being no help whatsoever.
"Jeremy," she pleaded, "Riley could join us. He cares about this place. He reads Edward Abbey!" she finished, as if that solved everything. Jeremy glared at her and I half expected him to aim the gun at her now.
"If Abbey wasn't dead he'd be dying like everyone else will. Just because this guy reads about why the American system can go to hell doesn't mean he'll join us. Mom, he's helping Ben foil our plan. You're not even supposed to know about it, you're hardly in a position to start recruiting people. Besides, he already knows more than your average member. He probably knows more than me." His gaze turned back to me. Unlike what I would have expected, he looked pretty at ease pointing a gun at me. Didn't look nervous or twitchy. Kind of reminded me of his uncle. Blackwell. I wondered whose side he was on. I had to distract Jeremy. Anything for more time.
"How did you know where we were?" I asked, trying to sound defeated. It wasn't hard.
"Shuttup. Don't try to distract me."
"Why haven't you killed me yet?" Most likely the wrong thing to say, but no shots rang out. Not even a reply. Guess pointing a gun wasn't quite the same as firing one.
"What now, Jeremy?" I asked, prodding still further. Well, if Riley wasn't going to say anything dumb, someone had to. Riley was still lying down like I told him to, looking moderately sick. Looking around. To the side. To the table next to him. To the stone coaster on the table. I prayed he wouldn't do anything stupid. Laudes stepped towards her son.
"Jeremy-"
"Shuttup!"
"Jeremy, I just don't want-"
"This isn't about what you want, mom! You wouldn't understand!" Maybe I could get a distraction going now…
"Laudes," I pleaded, "Don't kill Riley. He doesn't know what I've gotten him into. It's not his fault he's here. You're right, he cares about this place." What did this place have to do with anything? I didn't know. Riley looked confused and Jeremy looked furious.
"Ben-"
"Jeremy, son, please. We don't have to kill them. Especially Riley, did you hear what Ben just said? Riley doesn't know. He can still-"
"No! Ben's lying! Just… just shuttup. Don't listen to him." I put on my desperate face.
"Laudes, please." She was torn, I could see it.
"Stop talking, Ben, or someone's going to get shot," said Jeremy, much venom in his voice.
"Someone's getting shot anyways, Jeremy."
"Son-"
BANG.
Not exactly the same as being in an exploding building, but for some reason this was much scarier. Jeremy's gun was aiming at his mother.
Laudes was forced a step backward as the bullet ripped into her shoulder. She stared down at the hole in her shirt, the quickly spreading circle of dark blood. Returned her gaze to her son, now aiming the gun back at me. Why would he shoot his own mother but show hesitation when it came to shooting us? Laudes slowly sank to the ground, hand over the hole.
"Son?" she asked. So many things that could have followed that. Jeremy didn't look very sorry.
"If you have to ask me why I did that, then obviously you don't know as much as you think you do. You'd rather die a slow, miserable death? I'm doing you a favor here." The guy actually thought he was doing his mother a favor by shooting her.
"Jeremy," I asked, wondering what I was doing even bothering trying to ask.
"Why did you just shoot your mother?" The look on his face was mild surprise.
"Don't you know already?"
"No, actually, I have no idea why you'd do that, and frankly I don't think you could possibly come up with a plausible explanation." Jeremy was thinking, I could almost hear the gears turning in his head. Internal conflict or just really confused? Maybe both?
Sudden movement. Riley chucked the coaster at Jeremy's head. I hadn't even seen him pick it up. The coaster, to my surprise and delight, careened into Jeremy's left ear, making him jerk and swing the gun arm around wildly, and he could have shot Riley, he really could have. He had about one second before I lunged for him and tackled him to the ground, but he didn't use it to shoot Riley. He kept a firm grasp on the gun as we hit the ground, and I struggled for it, reaching, knees on his chest. He socked me across the face with his other fist and I saw stars for a moment, which he used to raise the gun and fire wildly, missing. Now he was serious and lucky for me he was also a bad aim up-close and in combat. I tried to knock his nose in but he shifted suddenly, and despite him being much smaller than me, he was magically behind me. He grabbed me around the torso, and using some kind of ninja move threw me to the ground quite violently. I lunged for his legs, bringing him down, also bringing his gun into a spectacular position to blow my brains out. He raised his arm and took aim and a hand came flying out of nowhere and knocked the gun from his hand. It went flying into a corner, like every gun invariably ends up in the movies after a power struggle.
Jeremy didn't really miss a beat, taking the additional attacker in his stride. He reached over and grabbed Riley's retreating hand, yanked it, Riley suddenly jerked to within two feet of Jeremy's face, severely off-balance. Something bad was about to happen but Jeremy kicked out at my own face, and as I felt the warm and unwelcome trickle of blood start up in my nose he reached out with his now gunless hand, grasped a handful of Riley's hair, and smashed his head into the ground with a force I wouldn't have thought possible. Riley didn't get up. He's dead. He couldn't be dead. Jeremy's foot connected with my ribs and I couldn't breathe. Footsteps running away. A door slamming. Not the front door. Jeremy had gone out the back.
My vision started to clear as I crawled to Riley's side and rolled him over, kind of expecting that his face would be smashed in. To my utter surprise I couldn't see any marks at all, and to my utter joy he wasn't unconscious.
"God dammit," he muttered, holding his head.
"Bless you and your thick skull, Riley." He was alive. Everything else seemed to be going wrong but he was alive, and that was enough to make me smile. I crawled over to Laudes. She had simply been watching us. Her eyes looked sad. Hand still pressed to the bullet wound, blood had drenched her shirt. Riley's voice behind me.
"Ben, the police are here." I could see flashing lights against the drawn curtains. We had to get out of here.
"Laudes-"
"Run, Ben."
"What's going on? Why did he shoot you?" Her face looked pained, and I suspected it wasn't all from her wound.
"I'm not supposed to know, but Jeremy's told me a lot of it…"
"A lot of what?" I felt bad pressing her. I knew she was in pain, tired, probably going into shock.
"He killed me to protect me." Somehow I doubted that.
"He didn't kill you, you should be fine."
"Ben!" Laudes's voice raised a pitch. She looked frantic. She continued.
"They really believe! They're fanatics! And they can do it! They have the money, the resources, the secrecy! I thought…" she stopped a second, voice hitching. "I thought they were right. That they were doing the right thing. I see it now, though, Ben, you and Riley have to stop them, you're the only two who know."
"Know what? How are we supposed to stop them?" She looked at me curiously.
"The only reason he didn't kill you was because he didn't know if you knew. If… if he knew that you truly knew… what was going on, he would have killed you. But…" she seemed to be having a bit of trouble thinking. "Your deaths… people know you, Ben. Your death would have brought on a lot of investigation. He didn't want to kill you if he didn't have to."
Knocking on the door, police voices demanding to be let in. There was something I wanted to know before we left, had to.
"Laudes, who are these people? Where are they from, what are they doing?" Kind of a broad topic, but every hint she gave us was precious.
"They're anyone who believes. They're from everywhere…here, there…" She seemed to be getting a little delirious. The knocking got harder, shouting got louder.
"Why do they want everyone in the US dead?" Laudes's eyes got wide and she stared at me.
"You don't… Ben, it's not just the US. It's everybody. It's…" her face creased in a grimace and when her eyes opened they had a familiar distant look about them.
"What are they doing, Laudes? What are they planning? Stay here! Stay with me! What are they doing?" The front door was knocked in and Riley and I were forced to our feet, but as I struggled through the pain in my torso, hoisted Riley upright, I thought I heard her say 'ghost dance'.
Together we popped out the door, Riley moving a lot faster than I would have expected, and certainly a lot faster than a concussion victim should be, and we were hit once again by the chill wind and rain. Where to go? No doubt the police would be trying to find the back door any second now, no doubt the entire town would be crawling with all the authorities they could muster. What a night. A garage and the clinic blown up, two gunshots, criminals running around everywhere… probably more excitement everyone in the town had ever seen in their lives combined.
We paused. I teetered on the brink of indecision. There was nowhere to go. Probably should be heading inconspicuously towards the drug store or the hotel parking lot, try to meet up with Blackwell, although I didn't even know what to think about Blackwell at this point. He hung out with the very people that were trying to kill us. Had he known that?
He had called me Ben.
It occurred to me just then, probably the world's slowest reaction time. How had he known? The only way he could have known was if Laudes or Jeremy had told him.
Speaking of Jeremy, he was running around out here somewhere too, and I didn't know if he had is gun. I'd forgotten to look for it when we left.
Riley fell over. Sudden blood rush to the head? Probably not the best thing to be doing to a concussion victim.
"Riley," I began, as I knelt by his side, "you can't do this now. We have to look normal if we have any chance of getting out of here. We're going for a walk. Come on, get up." The look on his face was pure misery.
"Ben, I can't… I can't see…"
"You don't have to see, you just have to walk." I pulled him to his feet and he managed to somehow not fall back over, although he looked like a moderate wind might be able to blow him over.
"Ben, where's my computer?" I cursed in my head. We kind of needed that. It was across the road, other side of Blackwell's house. Where all the police were. I started walking him away from the house, to the right. Through someone else's yard, not nearly as nice-looking as Blackwell's.
"Ben and Riley?" Another mysterious voice, this time from the little sparse forest of stunted trees behind Blackwell's house, and excellent place for someone like Jeremy to hide. But this was a woman's voice. I whirled around. Riley took his time turning. Before we could even see who she was or hear her say anything else, Riley opened his mouth.
"Wow, I am so done with surprises. Ben, after we get out of this, I think I'm finished with Christmas and fireworks and all those surprising things people are supposed to like."
"Shuttup," I said quietly. A figure was hurrying towards us out of the brush and rain. It was another old woman.
"Aren't we supposed to meet beautiful young babes when we go on adventures like this?" whined Riley. I shushed him, glad he still had enough wits to crack jokes, annoyed that he picked now to do that.
"Hello, I'm Mrs. Blackwell. I left with my husband when we heard the clinic explode, and he kind of disappeared on me… he texted me just a minute ago and told me to hide, and if I saw you two to help you?" Poor old woman. She looked more confused than I felt. I almost laughed when she told us her husband had texted her. Nothing could be more out of place than an old couple living in the middle of no-were texting each other with cells. I also almost laughed, thinking about an old woman crouched in the woods in the pouring rain for an hour. I don't know why I thought that was funny. The situation must have been wearing on me.
"Well," I said, deciding on the spot to trust her, because I no longer had any time to think, "We'd love some help but I don't really know how you can. We need to get his computer back, we need to find Blackwell, and we need to leave."
"Where's the computer?"
"In the middle of that little clod of trees across the street. In the mud."
"I'll get the computer. You two, meet at the intersection with lights. Garrison will be there to pick you up." She took off to get the computer, a little more sprightly than I would have imagined."
"Ok, you heard the woman, Riley, let's go. The intersection with lights."
"Do you think she'll make us some bean soup?"
"I'm sure she will. Come on," I said, and we walked up to the sidewalk. Certain capture and possible death awaited us, I was sure. There were police up there. There was a Jeremy somewhere. Even if the police weren't there, how could we possibly make it two blocks down without being seen? Riley was leaning on my arm for support and I walked with a pretty good limp, too. Something must have jabbed me pretty good in that burning wreckage. I had to look at that soon.
We got to the other side of the house and to my surprise, no-one was out there. Only one police car sat outside, and no-one was in it. I guessed any police that may have been around were in the house with Laudes. We started down the sidewalk. I had a slight buzzy feeling in my head and everything felt surreal. I felt like anything could happen at any time. And the only thing to do was not think, just get to the corner. What were the chances Blackwell would even be there? No, don't think. Walk. The semaphore was getting closer. Riley was leaning on me heavier with each step, and once he stumbled and I had to grab him around the middle to keep him upright. In a few steps he was walking himself again but it didn't look like he would last long.
There was a car ahead, coming towards us, and it wasn't a police car. I looked around for Mrs. Blackwell and saw her on the other side of the sidewalk, holding something square and muddy. Bless her. Although she did look alarmingly concerned as she watched the car getting nearer to us, approaching the presently red light with a bit too much speed than was necessary. She stepped off the sidewalk, into the yard to her right.
"Move, you two, that's not Garrison!"
"What?" Riley asked in annoyance, and I wondered what could possibly be happening right now. I, for one, had no idea. What, was the car going to hit us? Why, yes, it was. I heard Mrs. Blackwell shriek as it barreled towards us, high beams blaring in what would have been a very loud manor had they been making noise. I shoved Riley away, sincerely hoping he wouldn't end up under the wheel instead of over the hood with me. I jumped, rolled, over the car, off the back. It happened quickly, like the first time you do a wet exit in a kayak. Seems so scary, but really, it's not that bad.
I hit the ground with a hard bump, shoulder making a weird popping sound. Struggled upright. Unlike a wet exit in a kayak, I now had to worry about if my best friend had been run over. Luck was either being a bastard for trying to get us run over, or a lady for sending Riley far enough away to come out of that unhurt. He was looking towards me with the same concern that must have shown on my face, and once we both realized each other was alive, we looked back at the car, which was making its rapid way down the street. Ah, there was the second police car, also barreling through the red light, a high speed chase down the main drag of Henrytown. Another car approached from behind the police car, which whizzed by so fast that the flashing lights left streaks of green and orange across my vision.
"Get up, you two," yelled Mrs. Blackwell, who was running across the street. She reached Riley before I could, hauling him up by his arm, making a beeline for the car that was mercifully slowing down for us. I struggled upright, hobbled after them. Mrs. Blackwell had shoved Riley into the backseat, leapt into the front seat, slammed the door by the time I was even starting to get in, trying to push Riley over to the other side so I could sit. I shut the door and the car started moving, making it a bit difficult for me to shift my weight off of Riley, who I had been partially sitting on. I looked out the window and we were already on the outskirts of town. Blackwell no longer had his headlights on, and as we hurtled through the darkness I had the distinct impression we were on one of those old space shows, flying through the universe.
I can't tell you how good it felt for someone else to be driving. Driving anything. The car, the situation, deciding where we were going. I couldn't think anymore. I don't know why producers think they can make their movie heroes go tearing through complicated situations and always know what to do, what to think, how to save the day, and then come out of everything all heroic and ready for more. Our particular complicated situation had made good time in chewing us up and spitting us out and so far not letting any questions get answered. This was like a philosophy class I'd once taken. They'd told us the answers weren't important, it was the questions that mattered. And so throughout the semester the questions had just piled up and piled up and when the class was over I no longer had any idea what to think. I had just wanted to leave the thinking to someone else.
Could I afford to stop thinking now? No, probably not. Probably not until this whole thing was over. Meaning constant thinking until we either reigned triumphant over who knew what or who or how, or until we died. The second option almost seemed easier.
So there you have your struggle-over-the-gun scene, your cheesy dying-character-who-tries-to-tell-our-hero-what's-going-on scene, and the car chase scene. All in one! Bork bork! And I know I've been kind of ignoring Riley a little… we'll definetly find out what's up with all his drugs and diseases next chapter, don't worry.