The Fox Inheritance (11 page)

"How long have I been out?" I put my arm at my side and use it for leverage, trying to hold my breath as I push up. Miesha lifts under one arm to get me to my knees.

"Not long. Maybe two hours. He gave you something. Said it would help stop any internal bleeding. It kept you knocked out, too, while he bandaged you. He said you have some cracked ribs and a deep gash on your side from one of their boots."

I look up at her sharply. "You didn't tell him about me?"

"No. And if he figured it out, he didn't say anything, but he may have seen the BioPerfect beneath the skin if the gash went deep enough. It's blue, you know."

Blue? "No, I didn't know."
Blue
. Like I'm some kind of exotic frog.

I swing one foot forward to stand, and pain grips my chest. I freeze, trying to pull in a breath. I shake my head in disgust. "In my old neighborhood"--another slow, carefully measured breath--"guys took worse beatings than this all the time."

"Locke," Miesha whispers, "they got you good, there's no question about that. But you can overcome this. You can become stronger--"

I jerk my head to look directly in her eyes. "Say it, Miesha! You think I'm just a boy. Isn't that what you always say? Well, you're right--"

"No, Locke! It's not like that at all. Listen to me. There's something else you need to know. I never said much, but I did keep my ears open. I heard things I wasn't supposed to hear."

She has my attention now. I look at her, waiting.

"Gatsbro couldn't leave programming in you if he wanted to sell his technology. Potential buyers are too savvy and wary of that. But he could make sensitivity adjustments from the very beginning in order to control you. Why do you think you welted so badly with the rogue BeeBots? He wanted to keep you weak in some way--dependent on him and uncertain of yourself. You were six feet three inches of perfect muscle and strength for sales purposes, but he had to have something over you. All he had was your pain." She steps back.

It has all poured out of her in one long breath. It soaks into me much more slowly. I stare at the blank wall across the room. "I see." I put pressure on my forward foot, forcing it to straighten. Pain shoots through me, but I draw my other foot up so I am standing. I pull my breaths in slowly, feeling the pain in a new way. A calculated way. Just the way Gatsbro planned it.

Miesha talks louder, as if I can't hear her. "I overheard Hari laughing with Cole in the lab one day. He said Gatsbro was in trouble if you ever reset your sensitivity levels. I don't know what that means exactly, but it must mean you can change it. Your BioPerfect isn't like human cells--it can adapt. Make it adapt, Locke. Figure out a way."

I shift my gaze from the wall to Miesha, her eyes wide and unblinking. For a whole year, she knew this and never told me?
She knew
. "Is there a bathroom, Miesha? I need to clean up."

She shakes her head like she doesn't understand me. "Locke?"

I stare at her waiting for an answer. She points to the corner. "Over there."

It's only a dozen steps to the bathroom, but each one is a bolt of lightning trying to take me down. I feel Miesha's eyes drill into my back. I feel the trickle of sweat on my temple. I feel all the pain that Gatsbro wanted me to feel and some that he never could have calculated.

I reach the bathroom, shut the door behind me, and fall against the sink for support. Sweat winds its way down my cheek. I look in the mirror at my cut lip and swollen cheekbone. The room behind me spins, and I grip the sink tighter. We were only products from day one. I touch my face. I'm a person.
A human
. You can't do this to humans. My head pounds with bloody red rage instead of pain.

Like an egg.
That's what I would do if he were here right now. Crush his skull like an egg and laugh while I did it. Kara was right.
Do it. Do it
. I should have. The manipulation I fell for boggles my mind. A lot of good 500 billion biochips did me. How could I have been so stupid? So naive? Kara never liked him or trusted him. I should have listened to her.

I need Kara.

I lean over the sink and splash water on my face. I will not forget this. Ever.
Do you hear that, Gatsbro? Never.
There is a hesitant tap on the door. "Just a minute," I call. I shake the water from my hands.

Kara never liked Miesha either. What do I really know about her? When I exit, Miesha is waiting for me. I ask only one thing: "Where do the trains go?"

"Everywhere." And then she frowns, understanding my meaning. "She could have gone anywhere, Locke."

But she didn't. There's only one place Kara would go.

Chapter 27

"California!"

Miesha is already annoyed with Dot, insisting she is not an Escapee every time Dot uses the term. "I'm a fool is what I am!" she says, and I try to understand how that is better than being on the run.

Miesha sits in the front seat with Dot so I can lie down and rest if I need to. How can I rest? Seeing where I'm going is more important. We're on a deserted country road that leads away from the warehouse.

"Are you sure that is the girl Escapee's destination?"

"No, and we--"

"Yes." I override Miesha's response. "I know that's where she'd go. And her name is Kara."

Dot nods. "Kara. Then we might find her in Topeka if we hurry."

"No! Not Topeka.
Calif
--"

"All roads lead to Topeka!" Dot and Miesha say simultaneously, and they both laugh, which only makes me uneasy. Their mutual understanding instantly shifts me to outsider status.

Dot sees that I am not smiling or laughing. She explains that the major transgrid network is like a giant X crisscrossing the country with the major Train Depot Interchange at its center in Topeka. Smaller grids fan out from there. The small gridline in Boston goes to the major line in Albany, and from there it's a straight shot to Topeka. The trains move fast, but so do the cars that travel on the same grid. Dot says with Kara having to find her way around at the Albany station and then waiting for the next train, we might be able to get to Topeka just ahead of her. If not, we can go straight from there to California.

"No! We have to stop her in Topeka. Whatever it takes. Speed! Just do it! She can't get to California before me."

Dot looks at me in the mirror and then, removing her hands completely from the steering bar, swivels around to face me. Her customary smile is gone. I think she doesn't like my tone. She crosses her arms on the back of the seat and looks directly into my eyes. The car continues to maneuver on its own. "You must understand, Customer Locke, that I will do anything I can to help an Escapee. This is my chance to be somebody too--the most I can ever hope to be. I will have my own story of Escape to share with others like me. And if ... if for some reason I am unable to share my story, then stories will still be told
about
me. I will always be known as Officer Dot Jefferson, Liberator. I have crossed the line, and for me there is no going back. Because I have tampered with Star Cab property when I retooled this vehicle, I am beyond a simple temporary Release now. I will be recycled. So your success is my success. But there are obstacles that even I can't overcome."

I clear my throat. "Okay."

"The Topeka transgrid lane has a fixed speed of three hundred fifty kilometers per hour. I cannot go faster or slower."

I nod.

"And if my Retool left any traces of Star Cab ID--they can be very inventive in how they embed it--we could be rerouted at any Security Tunnel. And if--"

"Dot, okay, I get it. You don't need to tell me more. It's going to be tough, but--" I shift in my seat. How can I begin to explain something I don't really understand myself? And should I be explaining to a Bot at all? This whole world is crazy--I never asked for it. Neither did Kara. I thought we had escaped one hell, but maybe we were only transported to a new one. For 260 years, we've had only each other. Maybe we didn't touch or hold each other, but we had our thoughts. Kara's voice held me when there were no arms to do that. A voice, even a tormented one, is something, when it's the only thing you have outside of yourself. Kara kept me sane. I have to get to her before she makes a mistake like mine, one that can't be undone.

Dot is still looking at me. She patiently waits for me to finish, like I haven't lapsed at all but have only inhaled an extra breath. "I trust you, Dot. But please hurry as much as you can. It's important."

Her smile returns. "I know, Customer Locke. I know."

Chapter 28

One thing that hasn't changed in all these years is spring. The landscape around us is just beginning to burst into lime greens and feathery blossoms. I find it strangely comforting that some things stick to the same rules century after century, eon after eon. I guess the universe got a few things right the first time around. Shoes, on the other hand--along with roads, houses, laws, countries, and people--always seem to need improving.

I think about what I told Dot. Trust. It's ironic that I trust someone, some
thing
that isn't even human. I am trusting a machine. I think that's what she is. And yet she has
hopes
. That's what she said. How can a machine hope for something? My success is her success. I am the last person in the world anyone should pin hopes on. Or maybe she is pinning her hopes on a machine too.

I try not to allow myself these thoughts. From the moment I woke up with a body, I've avoided even thinking about it. I had freedom, at last, when I had lost hope. I had arms to hold Kara. Real arms. I didn't care if they were made out of pigs' ears and putty. They were a gift. But now I have to wonder what kind of gift. I look at my hands in my lap, my left hand bandaged where I slashed through the iScroll. I unwrap the gauze and look at the jagged lines with bits of dried blood still clinging to them. I close my hand into a fist and open it again. My dad always used to say never look a gift horse in the mouth when something good and unexpected like free tickets to a Red Sox game came our way.
Don't look to see which section they're in, Locke. A gift is a gift
. I wrap the gauze back around my hand. I always trusted what my dad said, but some gifts aren't really free.

"We're almost at the transgrid," Dot announces. "Then we can really fly."

I notice that Miesha briefly closes her eyes and shakes her head.

"You don't have to go, Miesha," I say. "We can drop you off somewhere. Maybe that would be better for all of us."

She looks up at me in the mirror, and a brief second expands like I'm watching her move in slow motion. I am seeing things in a way I didn't see before. It's as though, without the coddling of the estate, my 500 billion biochips are finally waking up and doing what Gatsbro wanted them to do all along, something exceptional. A microsecond becomes a blink, a wrinkle around the eyes, a tightening of the lips. I see the hurt on her face. And then, just as quickly, she covers it with a scowl.

"And where would I go? I have no life to go back to now."

"You must have family. A home. Something." I am instantly ashamed that I've never asked Miesha about her life outside of my closed, privileged world on the estate.

The hurt flashes briefly in her eyes again, but again, she quickly recovers. She has practice at this. "No, Einstein. Why else would I work for Gatsbro taking care of two--"

I raise my hand to stop her and wince, still feeling the pain in my ribs. "I know. I know. Two spoiled children." I look in the mirror at her arms in her lap and the scars that are vines crawling across them. Even my biochips won't reveal that secret to me.

She grunts. "You got that right. Spoiled as in
rotten
."

Two spoiled children that she lied to, but she also saved me. Why? My trust teeters. The silence hangs.

"Here we go, Escapees," Dot says. "Cross your fingers." I guess crossing fingers hasn't gone out of style, though I would prefer something a little more scientific. The massive ramp pillars of the transgrid loom before us. Dot enters the ramp, and a jolt shakes the car.

I jump and look out the window. "What was that?"

"Not to worry! Just the hook. We're locked in now until I program where we want to get off."

Miesha stares straight ahead, still silent. Is she hurt? Or perhaps wondering where she can get a better price for valuable merchandise like Kara and me? A wave of guilt hits me, but who can I really trust? I had come to care about Miesha this past year. We always had fun trading good-natured barbs with each other. I enjoyed my time with her. There was an empty part in me that she filled. I thought she cared about us. But she lied. She knew what Gatsbro was up to and never said a word. She even came with him and the goons to take us back.

But she didn't take us back. She did just the opposite. Out of compassion or out of some other motivation? Money? I don't know what to think anymore, but I know she still has secrets.

The car accelerates and my shoulders push back into the seat, but it gets strangely quiet at the same time. We continue to climb the ramp, and soon we are joining other cars on the grid. The hook that guides us seamlessly merges us into the first of three streams of traffic.

"So far so good," Dot chirps. She looks over her shoulder at me. "Topeka, right?"

I nod.

She winks and adds, "At supersonic Escapee speed." Her fingers move over the panel, and various lights blink in quick succession. "I have to do it manually now that I'm not directly hooked into the Star system," she explains over her shoulder. "Done! Topeka, here we come. Hopefully."

The grid doesn't have rails like the old freeways I remember. Since we are hooked in, I guess there is no danger of anyone veering off the side, but it feels like we are balancing near the edge. The view is expansive. The three lanes are wide like those on the old freeways, I guess to accommodate a variety of cars. Speed may not be a choice, but apparently style still is. The innermost lane is reserved for the trains, which Dot tells me move considerably faster than the cars but at the same time have longer delays at stations. I hope there's a long delay in Albany and every other stop along the way. I need to get to Kara before--