“Was that supposed to hurt?” Casey smiled, pulling the knife from her chest. She licked the blood off the tip before plunging the blade deep into her attacker’s eye. Her skin knit itself shut, leaving a bloodstain as the only sign of their failed assassination attempt. “Anyone else wanna try me?”
One of the three men left standing pulled out his pistol and emptied his clip into Casey’s head, knocking her to the floor. The trio expected to see brain matter and skull fragments splattered across the hangar’s floor, instead; the trio ran as she pried herself from the ground. Her wound healed as she chased after them.
The sun blinded her as she shoved the steel door open, almost toppling off the second-floor platform. “Where am I?”
Overgrown vines covered with razor-sharp thorns created a wall between her and a road out. Casey knew her abductors had thrown her in the back of an SUV, but that was all she could make out before the drugs rendered her unconscious. The stairs leading to the landing below swung loose, leaving her stranded while they fled in a worn-out truck.
“They really don’t get it, do they?” Taking three steps back, she dove into a front tuck.
Her landing wasn’t as graceful as she had expected. A thorn pierced her foot, sending her tumbling into its grasp. On the ground, she found a tunnel system dug out by a small animal. As she pulled her way through the vines, she ripped apart what was left of her blood-soaked shirt. As she approached the dirt road, she heard voices. Casey’s abductors hadn’t gone far.
“You idiots. What part of ‘cut off her head’ didn’t you understand?” The grizzly voice belonged to a pair of shiny men’s Prada leather shoes.
“She should have died from doc’s cocktail,” the deep southern voice wavered. “Men three times her size croaked moments after the shot.”
The Prada shoes paced as a gunshot rang out, landing the southern man on the dirt in front of Casey’s hiding place. His blue eyes bore into her as he choked on blood, trying to warn them of her presence.
“Now you two will find that little bitch before I have a riot in my hands.” He kicked the dead man in the head. “Clean up the bodies. I don’t need any negative press before the election.”
“No, no, you wouldn’t want your failed science experiment ruining your chances at snatching up the faith-based votes.” Casey spit under her breath as the two trucks drove away.
It took three hours of navigating down the mountainside before Casey made her way to the nearest form of civilization. The rural town had a dilapidated market on the outskirts, and just north of an immaculate Baptist church was a rundown hotel with a glowing vacancy sign.
“Well, no shit.” She said to herself, pulling the door open.
The small wind chime above the door brought a sweet gray-haired lady from the back. “Can I help you?”
Although she asked politely, it was obvious that Casey was unwelcome. She had grown used to people being put off by her cybernetic eye, especially when it was trying to focus. However, when the landlady made sure that Casey saw the freshly shined revolver laying across the guest book, it was irritating. Not like the bullet would even kill her.
“Just need a bed and a shower.” Casey dropped a bloody hundred-dollar bill on the revolver, “and a phone.”
The woman snatched up the money and handed Casey the key. “Long-distance is extra.”
“As if there is anything that isn’t.”
Casey ran the water, filling the bath. Steam filled the icy room. She hadn’t expected central heating, but maybe a fireplace or a space heater wouldn’t be too much to ask for. She half expected if she went into the cellar, she’d find a wood fire heating the hotel’s water.
The bath soothed her aching bones and swollen feet. Even with all the modifications the senator had done to her, she still felt pain. Sometimes she thought the twisted bastard intensified it. With how much he enjoyed making his interns watch him commit self-flagellation, it was a wonder how most of them had escaped being at the end of his whip. Casey knew first hand its sting. He claimed it was the only way he could ensure full trust and obedience from his staffers on his road to the White House. It didn’t matter that it was all utter bullshit.
McCormick noticed some staffers weren’t retiring and, more often than not, they were simply changing offices. Soon he chose those staffers to be a part of his team, making them undergo an extensive background check and a full blood panel. He only wanted staffers who carried the 3K mutation. The mutation regenerated cells at a rapid pace that the carriers wouldn’t age or die, thus becoming his cybertronic guinea pig. He wanted an army that would protect him and his legacy. Even though there were rumors that he was trying to integrate the mutation into his body.
She folded her legs underneath her and let herself sink under the water. “I’ll bury you,” she thought as her pink hair dye surrounded her, “and make you pay for all the other lives you’ve destroyed.”
Casey held the phone’s receiver in her hand as the dial tone finally timed out. She couldn’t remember a single number. She closed her eyes, attempting to access her database, but found it empty. Not only were all her emergency contacts missing, but so were chunks of her memories. Desperate, she punched in numbers, hoping one would pan out.
“Reggie’s Pizza.”
“Yes,” she hissed. “Uh, Reggie’s in Clear View or Fox Barrel?”
“Fox Barrel.”
“Oh sorry, wrong number.” She quickly reset the phone. “Didn’t get all my memories, McCormick.”
Four more mis-dials and she finally reached a contact.
“Jackson, can you access me?” She demanded.
“Cass, you’ve gone dark.” He said, nearly being muffled out as he started his motorcycle. “If you hadn’t, do you think you’d be in this shit hole right now?”
“You’re seven hours away.” She flopped on the bed. “I could run to you faster than you could escape Senator McCormick’s detail.”
“I thought you were dead. Do you really expect me to sit here while that nut job parades around the country as if he’s going to save us from ourselves?”
“Jackson, don’t you dare go off all half-cocked without me or the others to back you up?” She waited until the engine cut off. “I’m going to sleep until sunset and then I’ll try to reach you again.”
“I’ll have Greg work on getting your coms up. I don’t know what they did to you, but they fried all your circuits.”
“Would a bullet to the skull have anything to do with that?” The question wobbled out of her.
“Yes, I’m going to go with yes. Bullets to your skull make you go on the fritz.” The door to his house slammed. “What have you gotten yourself into, Cass?”
“Bringing down America’s most loved mad scientist masquerading as a Jesus freak is far more deadly than I thought.” She quipped. “Why didn’t the nanobots fix the wiring?”
“I’m not going over this again. They only fix your human parts.”
“What about my non-human parts?” She yawned. “Good thing I’m more than a cyborg.”
“No one is arguing there. The cyborg would be following the rules and standing next to McCormick while he wins the latest primary.”
“Don’t worry, I was already close to him today, close enough to hear him call for my head.” A crackly pierced her inner ear. “Is Greg getting into my head?”
“He says he’s close.”
“Well, tell him to knock that shit off. It sounds like a buzzing bee.” She rolled over and saw the sun setting. “So much for my nap. I’ll contact you when I get out of deliverance.”
A church bell rang out through the dead evening. Casey watched from her room’s window as all the town’s people left their homes and made their way to the church. The quiet hotel came alive as all of its patrons left their rooms. She waited until the hotel’s hall stilled before picking the lock to the adjoining room. She needed to find something to wear that wouldn’t draw attention to herself, unlike her blood soaked tattered shirt.
The woman who was residing in the room next door had an abhorrent taste and it wasn’t just in her clothing. Littered about the room were campaign signs to support Senator McCormick.
“Idiots.” Casey said while searching through a suitcase. “Of course you travel with your Bible. Who doesn’t bring yoga pants on vacation?”
Casey threw on an extra long maxi dress and cut it off above her knees. It wasn’t her first choice but, even cybertronics were no match for the other option, a skin tight pencil skirt. It would only take one hop over a fence before her ass would be exposed to anyone she was fleeing.
Political rabble poured out from the church. It was hard to believe that this wretch of a town would be somewhere McCormick would waste his time in, but here he is, where he disposed of his shame.
“You’re going to miss the speech,” said a man rushing past her.
“Oh, we better hurry. Wouldn’t want to miss a night of empty promises and lies. Now that I think about it, I could have experienced this from the comfort of my home in sweatpants, listening to my husband.”
He stopped enough to spit the brown juice from his chewing tobacco onto her feet. “With a mouth like that, I’m surprised you have one at all.”
Casey’s eye focused on the ID chip in his neck. Cleetus Brown, forty-seven, unemployed, and a holy roller, a part of the Seven Brothers motorcycle gang. “You best step inside that church, Cleetus. That’s if you don’t want to find your teeth in the street.”
His hand reached for his pistol, but the MC announced McCormick. “Fucking freak.” He slurred at her as he disappeared inside.
“I swear they would all stay inside a burning building if he told them to.” Casey walked around the building, coming face to face with the tacky tour buses plastered with McCormick’s face.
Four black Secret Service SUVs surrounded it. They were treating him as if he had already won the election and he hadn’t even won the nomination yet. In truth, those behind the rifles were most likely on the lookout for her, but she wasn’t crazy. There was no way she’d take on McCormick in such a small setting. If she was going to risk her life, the world would see what kind of monster he really was.
She locked onto the Secret Service agent sitting in the back SUV. Agent Miller was a forty-five-year-old smoker whose nicotine levels were dropping. It would only be a matter of minutes before he’d stepped away for a cigarette break. He looked down at his watch and back at the empty parking lot.
“There you go.” She said to herself as he stepped out of the car. “Go, chief, on that cancer stick.”
Though she would not kill the senator yet, she was going to make his life miserable. Squeezing in between the narrow space between the hood flap and the SUV, she forced it open. Grabbing a hold of some exposed hoses, she yanked them off and fluids poured out. Just for good measure, she stuck the hose in between a belt and a pulley before closing it.
An old, rusted out Jeep Wrangler sat unattended in a bar parking lot. Casey waited until the last few drunks stumbled into the bar before leaving her hiding spot. Hopping into the jeep, she flipped down the sun visor, and the keys fell onto her lap. “Oh, thank you backwoods creepers for being so predictable.”
The sun was rising by the time she made it into Fox Barrel. Unlike the backwoods town she just left, Fox Barrel was far from sleepy. Commuters packed the highway as they made their way to the overcrowded downtown epicenter. Casey turned down a few more roads before finding a packed supermarket parking lot to abandon the Jeep in. After circling a few times, she found a parking spot away from the excessive amount of security cameras.
“Can anyone hear me?” She asked, turning off the engine and pressing into her com. Even if Greg or Jackson had heard her, she was still in the dark. After wiping her fingerprints off the steering wheel and shifter. She placed the keys back where she found them. Jackson’s house was only a few miles out and there was no reason to lead McCormick or the cops straight to them.
The voters didn’t let the early morning stop them from lining up outside their precincts to cast their ballots. Down the road, solicitors passed out buttons and pens with candidates’ names trying to entice the last minute undecided voter. Littering the parking lot were pamphlets explaining why the only way to save America was to vote for McCormick.
“Ma’am, do you know who you’re voting for today?” Asked an overly chipper woman in her mid thirties. She shoved a pamphlet in Casey’s face.
Casey stuffed it into her pocket. “I’m certain that I will not be voting for the man who is campaigning for the extermination of my kind.”
“You misjudged him. McCormick wants nothing more than to bring the humans and the cyborgs together.” She tried not to stare at Casey’s busted eye. “By the looks of it, your body is rejecting your decision to go against God’s will. Don’t worry, my dear, once those machine pieces are gone, I’m sure most will forgive your transgressions.”
“My mechanical transgressions are the least of my worries on the day I finally meet my maker.” Casey scanned the solicitor’s chip. “Now your three abortions because you didn’t want to take birth control or use a condom might be a little harder for them to look past.”
“Well, I’d never-”
“You most certainly do not.” Casey flipped the woman the bird as she walked away.
Drifting out of Fox Barrel’s bustling downtown and into one of its quieter suburbs was as dangerous as the small town she just fled from. Parents were piling their children into their eco-friendly SUVs, and every single one of them noticed the stranger walking down their streets.
Election signs were proudly posted in front yards, letting every neighbor know who to avoid for the next six months. For Casey, they were letting her know who wouldn’t try to shoot at her. As she took notice of the shiny flaps of plastic, there weren’t many who embraced genetic modifications.
“Asshole,” she muttered, ripping a McCormick sign from the swale of Jackson’s modest colonial home. Casey walked around the house, ripping the hard plastic into tiny pieces before dropping it in the recycling bin. “You can put the gun down Greg, I’m not a raccoon.”
“You never know,” he said, lowering the shotgun. “The raccoons around here are mighty vicious.”
She tackled him into a hug, almost knocking them both over. “Where’s Jackson?”
“Oh, I see who’s more important.” He kissed the top of her head. “Maybe I’ll just scrap all these parts I found.”
“You’ll always come first, baby brother .” Casey smiled before slipping into the kitchen. “I just need my husband for other things.”
“Fixing your busted skull ain’t one of them.” He hollered as the door slammed.
Casey walked through her half unpacked kitchen and into the hallway adorned with pictures of their wedding. Jackson in his dress uniform watching Casey clad in white walking towards him. Their photographer captured every moment perfectly.
“Bless his heart.” She cooed.
“What did I do now?” Jackson asked, sweeping her up in his arms and pulling her into the office. His once brown hair, still close cut, was now salt and pepper.
“Nothing, my love.” She kissed him. “Just risking your life for me when you don’t need to.”
“Would you have me hide our marriage?”
“No,” Her smile vanished as his smile lines sunk in deeper. “Why won’t you take the bots?”
“3K already makes us live longer than most, my dear.” He dropped her to her feet ready to hash out their never ending feud. “I’d like to remain human, unlike someone else who needs the side of her head replaced, again.”
She rolled her eyes and sat on an upholstered bench as Greg rolled a cart full of parts into the office. He looked ready to repair a car or computer rather than operate on a human.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jackson. She acts perfectly human to me.” He stooped and pulled out a coffee thermos from inside a box of wires. Before she could ask, he poured her a cup and handed it to her. “Can’t say I’ve met many borgs who consume a pot a day.”
“I resent that.” She laid back after a few sips of the lukewarm energy boost. “What’s in the shop today?”
“A new com unit and I have an update to the Casey O.S.” He held up a new eyeball with a lavender iris. It looked almost human. “Hair up or I shave it.” With her hair out of the way, Greg unscrewed a back panel behind her ear.
Casey injected a local anesthetic just below her left eye and waited until it went numb. “I’m ready, doc.”
His gloved hands pushed her brass cybertronic eye into her skull. Slowly, he pulled on the frayed wire and disconnected it from its socket.
“Every time you do this, my sinuses drain.”
“For the love of God, do not spit.” He groaned. “It’ll get all over your wires and we do not have time for that today.”
“Don’t tell me those are my new mixing bowls.” Casey pleaded as her eye clanked into the metal bowl.
“Casey, stop moving.” Greg asked, threading a thin wire through the opening in the side of her head. “If I don’t set this on your cochlea, your com unit will be completely shot.”
She remained still and the low hum that had started after the gunshot vanished. Greg grabbed the fresh eye off the table and plugged it into its socket. A loud screech filled her head as soon as he snapped it in.
“You did that on purpose.” She hissed, covering her ear with her hand, which only amplified the sound.
“I’m hoping it’ll make you be more careful.” He pulled off his bloody gloves and attached her cables to the computer.
“You’re right. Getting shot in the face was so much fun. I think I’ll do it again tomorrow.” Casey’s eye flickered off. “Excuse you.” She plugged the cable back in to finish the updates. “Jackson, can you turn on the news, please? I want to see how McCormick fared last night.”
“Casey, what did you do?” Casey, what did you do?” he teased, flipping through channels until they saw the unnaturally white smile of Senator McCormick on their screen.
He stood next to a pretty blonde reporter who had a glazed over look on her face as he spoke. “We’d like to thank the town of Fettit for their hospitality last night. I know they weren’t expecting so many visitors to their tiny town, but that’s what makes this country so great. It’s the people in places like this that are the backbone of the American people.” McCormick grabbed a hold of the diner door. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I heard the biscuits and gravy here were the best in the south.”
Jackson switched off the TV. “Casey, you let him linger in our backyard?”
“I wanted to stop him from getting too far before Greg could fix me.”
“I may have repaired your parts, but there’s no fixing crazy.” He left the room, pulling his rattling cart behind him.
“What do you have up your sleeve, wife?”
“Only some overdue murder and mayhem.” She answered sweetly. “Would you care to join?”
“As if I would miss out on an assassination.” He swept her into his arms, dipped her and kissed her.
The oppressive summer heat did nothing to deter the last minute voters. Jackson had to navigate through the throng of people pouring into the streets.
“This is ridiculous.” Casey said, scanning the crowd. A few borgs stood in line, but none matched her level of modifications.
“This is nothing.” He scoffed. “Once McCormick announced he was making his acceptance speech here, people camped outside the convention center.”
Casey flipped through the radio stations. Every American news outlet was covering the elections.
“Come on. There’s gotta be something else going on in the world.” She sighed.
Jackson punched a few buttons on the steering wheel, and a British newscaster came across the speakers. “While the States are entrenched in their political cycle, no one has offered to comment on the mass graves unearthed in Senator McCormick’s hometown of River Basin, Massachusetts. Some bodies uncovered were beheaded and mutilated, while others were obviously scavenged for parts.”
“Isn’t that where McCormick brought his staffers?” Jackson asked.
“Yeah. But on paper, it’s his family farm.” She said, staring out the window. People were making their way in droves to the convention center. “How did he get an entire nation to drink the kool-aid?”
“I thought being one of his lackies gave you insight into that.”
“Don’t you dare for one second think I worked for that monster willingly. You know his office was next on my rotation.” She knew he was teasing but was in no mood. “He would send everything to do with the experimentations to his business partners. Anything political he shoved our way, keeping us staffers so busy that leaving the Capitol was completely out of the question.”
“There’s no need to remind me of the hours he had you keep.” He kissed her hand. “But was accepting every modification he handed out a part of your rotation? Sometimes it’s hard to tell where my wife ends and the machine begins.”
“Okay soldier boy.” Her new eye allowed her to scan over Jackson even without an identification chip. For the first time, she could see what the army had done to him. “Remind me to thank Greg for letting me in on your secrets. And no more teasing, mister. You’re less human than I am.”
“What other new things did your genius brother give you to use against me?” He groaned.
“Haven’t played with it much, but I’m learning all sorts of new fun facts about you.” She smiled at her husband’s mild irritation. “So many classified files are filling my little head.”
“That pretty little head of yours doesn’t need to be filled with my wrongdoings.”
“Nope, none of that. You were following orders and stayed alive.” She reminded him. “Did you pick out my eye?”
“Yes. I thought it matched better than the brass one they had shoved in.”
“You mean you didn’t like me looking like something from one of your video games?” Casey batted her eyes.
“I can hardly handle the everyday, Casey.” He laughed. “Super soldier spy Casey keeps me on my toes and makes it hard to sleep.”
“Don’t you dare blame that on me.” She poked him in the nose. “That’s all on you, buddy.”
Casey grew quiet as they pulled into an overcrowded parking lot. Huge picketing signs with crudely altered pictures of dead babies with borg parts filled her view. Men and women, to support natural life and death, spewed out words of hate while carrying images of Christ. A child, passing out flyers, stood next to a man using a megaphone to shame those who had gone under the knife.
“My love,” Jackson said, trying to distract her. “Did you see your birthday present?” He pointed to an oversized beach bag in the back of the cabin.
“What did you get me?”
“I’m not going to tell you.” He said while taking two 380 Rugers from his glove box and attaching suppressors to the end of them.
Eagerly, she pulled a sweater from the top of the bag. “Oh, Jackson.” She squealed, seeing a red bow tied to the end of a new bullpup rifle. “What no scope?”
“Greg took care of that this morning.” He said, kissing her eye. “Ready?”
“Always.” She stuffed the sweater back on top of the gun.
The polls were now closed and constituents were flooding the streets, trying to get as close as possible to the convention center. The front had been decorated with banners and balloons to welcome the winning senator. At this point in the game, today’s vote was merely a formality. There was no way for the other two to gain the necessary amount of delegates to stop McCormick from gaining the nomination.
A woman with an anti-borg sign bumped into Casey. “Human lives are the only lives that matter.” She shouted.
Casey grabbed her arm and pulled her close. “Then take out those bots that are keeping your blood flowing.” She sneered.
Shocked, she clutched her sign and fled.
“Was that necessary?” Jackson asked, holding her hand so she couldn’t assault anyone else.
“I can deal with hypocrites, just not heretical ones.” She tried to pull away but Jackson held on tight, guiding her to the side door. “Some of the loudest voices here are only alive because of nanotech.”
Opening the side door was a smartly dressed agent. “Credentials?”
While Jackson fumbled with his pockets, Casey did her best to keep eye contact. She was projecting new identities into the agent’s database.
“Steve,” Greg startled the agent, clamping a hand on his shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell me my sister was here?” He laughed, turning to Casey and Jackson, “these new guys. They don’t train them like they used to.”
“You’re late.” She hissed at Greg as he pulled them inside.
“You could have warned me, your coms work again, remember?” They rushed quickly to the stairwell. “I couldn’t get the hall cleared, but no one in your way has a family. Do what you need to and get out.”
They cleared the bottom of the stairwell and in moments. Jackson and Casey were walking in the hallway towards the production booth overlooking the stage. Before the agent guarding the door noticed them, Jackson dipped into a side hall.
“You can’t be up here.” Barked the agent.
“But I was told there were extra bathrooms up here.” Casey said cluelessly. “The line downstairs was completely unruly.”
“I’m sure it was.” He said, grabbing Casey by the arm and escorted her away.
Jackson came from behind, shoving his Ruger into the base of the agent’s skull. With a click, the agent’s skull fragments fell onto Casey’s shoulder. Catching the body, they pulled it into the hall and Casey acquired the frequency the agents were using. Adjusting her com she listened to the chatter.
“We have fifteen minutes until the antichrist takes the stage.” She relayed the message to Jackson, who was handing her a clean shirt.
“That gives us plenty of time to figure things out.”
“What’s to figure out?” Casey pulled the agent’s key card out of his pocket. “We’re in.”
The production booth was teeming and filled with twice as much noise as the convention floor below. The technical director was barking orders into his headset for McCormick to test his microphone.
“Can I help you?” The production assistant, holding a clipboard, moved Jackson and Casey aside as two men dressed in black moved quickly climbed ladders to their post at the spotlights.
“We’re here to kill the Senator,” Jackson said coolly.
She looked down at her clipboard and to the clock glowing above the team. She pulled the technical director aside, and he eyed Casey as she took out her gun to assemble.
“We start to earn over time in twenty minutes. If you can wait until then, I don’t care what you do.” He moved a stack of papers off a table in front of where the window opened. “You’ll be out of the way over here.”
Jackson scratched his head as the technical director put Casey’s purse on the table. “Are you fucking with us?”
While Jackson stared, perplexed, Casey had already scanned the crew. Every single one carried the 3K mutation. Casey saw that the camera operators on the floor below had their eyes altered and the audio engineer to her left had his ears modified. The spotlight operators had hawk vision that matched the scope Greg had equipped her with. They equipped everyone behind her with the equivalent of owl eyes to operate in the dark room.
The production assistant handed Casey a headset. “He can count you in.”
“No need.” She tapped the side of her head. “I’m already punched in.”
Jackson hovered near the production switcher and accidentally pressed a few buttons, lighting them up.
“If you aren’t going to shoot anyone, could you step aside? We still have to go on air unless you’ve planned to kill him while we’re off.” The director said from behind the switcher, correcting Jackson’s mistake. The countdown above the monitors switched to one minute. “It’s about time someone did something about that hypocrite.”
“As your official nominee,” He smiled smugly. “I promise that I’ll bring an end to the genetic modifications that have been plaguing our once successful nation. Why should one small group of people hold the power over the majority? Our win here tonight is just the beginning. I’ll bring America back to its roots as a great Christian nation. We’ll bring an end to-”
Casey tuned out the calls from the director and the busy control room turned into a steady hum. She shifted the butt of the gun into place and her eye clicked until she was reading his vitals. Though the senator spoke clearly, his heart rate was rising. McCormick wasn’t focusing on the teleprompter in front of him. Instead, he kept checking the crowd. An agent to his left gave him a signal and he nodded in approval. Sweat trickled down his face.
“Pig.” She exhaled, pulling the trigger.
The bullet escaped from the barrel, soared above the crowd, and pierced through posters. The audience didn’t have time to react before it exited straight through his right eye and out the back of his skull.
“I don’t understand.” Casey said, breaking down the gun.
Instead of collapsing to the stage, he staggered back, covering his face. A crowd of women shrieked as agents flanked the stage, pulling him off. People rushed closer, trying to capture pictures and videos of their senator who managed to stay upright with minimal blood loss.
“An assassination attempt has brought chaos to the convention floor.” Shook the voice of the reporter covering the event. As more agents tried to create space between the stage and the growing crowd, they pushed Casey aside.
“Thought you said you were a good shot.” The director barked at Casey before ordering the shoulder camera operator to follow the body.
The control room door swung open with Greg hollering. “You two need to leave now. They are locking down the building.”
The production assistant’s face shimmered from the hall light. “If he doesn’t die, you just proved that he’s God’s choice.”
“No, she didn’t.” The director pointed to the monitor above. Before the senator could cover his face, the camera one operator had caught the flesh being torn away and the bloody, glistening metal being exposed. “Breathing or not, she did kill him. Get this out to all the outlets as fast as you can.”
“What the hell kind of mods does he have?” Jackson clung to Casey’s hand as they exited the stairwell. Their look of shock and distress did not have to be faked. “I’ve never seen anything absorb a bullet like that before.”
“None of this makes any sense. He only carries a fraction of the 3K mutation. He’d have to be a full blood for that amount of nanos to work.” She clung tightly to the bag. There were two agents scanning bags near the exit. “Why did Greg send us this way?”
“You worry too much.” Greg said, sneaking up behind them and clamping his hands on their shoulders. “As if I’d send my big sister to an early grave.”
“I wouldn’t put it past you.”
Greg pulled them through the crowded hall and into a more spacious, but still panicked, backstage.
“Bettmann, you can’t have anyone back here.” A small woman with a clipboard snapped at him.
“Cool it Christina. We’ll be gone before you know it.” He gently moved her out of the way for Jackson and Casey to pass by.
Christina locked eyes with Casey and began flipping through the giant stack of papers on her clipboard. Scanning her chip, Casey noted that the mother of three’s pulse was racing. Christina’s file read like every other fundy. In her teens she had botched body mods and family members died from nanobots rejections. She was part of a group of fundies that took credit for a bombing at a 3K treatment center last year. Christina faced incarceration for perpetuating the falsified undercover videos where 3K doctors were selling aborted fetuses for experimentation.
Casey caught her hand before she could tap the call button. “If you’d like to see your kids grow up, you might want to think twice.”
“Don’t threaten me, non-human. I know you’re responsible for this one way or another.” She sneered.
“If I was he’d be dead.” Casey said, as she yanked the cable connecting Christina’s headphones from the call box.
“He’s not dead because God has chosen him.” She said, clutching her lanyard printed with Senator McCormick’s name and the quote Isaiah 11:6 with the misquote “The lion shall lie down with the lamb.” “He’ll make your kind pay for what it has done to our country.”
Casey left the woman flustered in the chaos erupting around them. It wasn’t long before she was slamming the truck door shut. “They are certifiably insane.”
“Hey, hey, hey! No need to take it out on the truck.” Jackson held onto her. “Focus on your pain here. It’s not your fault. How could you have known about the mods?”
“It doesn’t matter. He should be dead. I want him dead.” She sniffed. “I’m not stopping until his head rolls.”
“I’ll be by your side if you dive into hell or even if one day you decide to walk away.”
She sat back in the seat. “Is this your way of telling me to let go?”
“No,” he turned the key to start the engine. “Not until we get our daughter back.”
Except for the random passing of police sirens, the drive was disturbingly quiet. Every so often Jackson would look over to her, waiting for her to say something. But she suffered in silence, tightly holding his hand as she watched the perfectly manicured neighborhood pass by.
“It’s strange to be home.” Casey muttered, crawling into bed.
Jackson pulled her into him. “It’s all I’ve been thinking about since you got your orders.”
Casey nuzzled closer into him, trying to mask her sniffles. “Have you heard anything about Caroline?”
“No, Greg said there’s been no sight of her.” He kissed the top of her head. “Don’t worry, we’ll find her.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there to protect her.” Casey said, trying to match his breathing pattern to calm herself.
“Cass, you can’t beat yourself up over this anymore. Caroline was safe. She was with my sister. No one knew McCormick was twisted enough to take a child.”
“I should have known, though. He was far too invested in my pregnancy and paid even more attention to her after she was born.” Casey rolled away and picked up her phone.
The night was turning into morning and soon she’d be walking back into her ordinary life, where people on the hill will be up in arms about tonight’s events. No one will ask where she had been, only where her daughter was. Casey wasn’t sure how she was going to handle questions without breaking down. Only some of the 3K carriers knew what McCormick had done, and they kept themselves hidden in fear of retaliation.
“If you plan on doing something to him, you only have four months left.” He took her phone and turned off the bedside lamp. “Come back to me, Casey. We can’t do anymore tonight.”
Casey waited until Jackson’s snores were loud enough to shake the house before crawling out of bed. She found Greg illuminated from the glow of the computer screen. A bit of drool hung at the corner of his mouth.
“Silly brother.” She giggled, lifting his jacket and tucking an actual blanket around him.
Coordinates flicked across the screen. They were the locations of anyone who had passed under checkpoints, with over twenty percent of nanobots running through their system. Casey opened the terminal and reset the parameters to eighty-five percent. Only two sets of coordinates stayed on the screen. One was in Tuscany, Italy, and the other was just 400 miles outside the nation’s capital.
“Casey?” Jackson flipped on the light to the office. “Woman. You need sleep. You aren’t a full cyborg yet.”
“Come here.” She waved him over without looking away from the screen. “We found her.”
The small Cessna Citation sat on the tarmac fueled and waiting for their arrival.
“Oh, look, they actually moved the plane this time.” Casey teased Greg. “Guess you didn’t leave the brakes on.”
Jackson pulled the truck through the gate and parked next to the tail of the plane.
“One time in sixteen years and you still hold it against me,” Greg grunted from the back.
Casey turned around wide eyed. “We were being shot at!”
“This is Virginia, not South America.” He reminded her. “Besides, they have the spare key just in case.”
A perky, dark-haired, ramp hostess met them at the truck. “Any newspaper or ice for today’s trip?”
“Not today, Harper, just coffee, so this one doesn’t crash.” Greg attempted to cover his goofy grin by pulling out his duffle bag.
“It’s already on board, Mr. Bettmann.” She winked. “I did a special Starbucks run when I saw your tail number was being pulled out of the hangar.”
“This is why I’ll never leave you.” He pulled out his wallet and handed her a fifty. “You know what to do with the truck.”
“What truck?” She took the keys from Jackson. “You own an Acura SUV and no one can tell me otherwise.”
She drove the truck through the gate and out of sight. Two-line service techs were removing the chalks while Jackson finished his walk around.
“Hey co-pilot, are you ever going to get the nerve to ask her out?” Casey asked, tipping the third tech who had just finished loading their bags into the plane. “You could at least take her to dinner since you keep having her risk jail time.”
“Not the time or the place to remind your brother he has no game,” Jackson baited him, climbing into the cockpit.
Greg ignored Jackson and, after a few quick exchanges with the control tower, they received clearance for takeoff. As they taxied down the runway, Casey poured herself a cup of coffee, and settled down into one of the plush seats.
