riptide_asylum (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
riptide_asylum) wrote2012-03-01 10:20 pm
riptide_asylum) wrote2012-03-01 10:20 pm
Entry tags:
"Simple Reflex" (Horizons, 2004)
Title: Simple Reflex
Rating: PG
Summary: Doing a simple background check for Murray, Nick and Cody stumble into the worst kind of ambush: an ambush of the mind.
There were plenty of reasons to live in Southern California. Driving through the night in snow like this was one of them.
Overall, retirement had been good to them both. They supplemented Nick’s Army pension and their RoBoztics benefits by doing security jobs on the side, if and when it suited them. Like now, for instance: a background check on Gael Weatheroe, one of Murray’s bright young sparks, vying for a top-security clearance job in the Simple Reflex Agent division. Gael had provided a stunning CV, complete with an undergraduate internship at Hewlett-Packard, a summer research position with Lior Pachter’s Feedback Control Theory Group at UC Berkeley, and a PhD in neural networks from MIT. But with a little more digging, Nick and Cody had found the one thing in Weatheroe’s background that didn’t add up.
“Where the hell are we?” Nick groused, staring out the windshield.
Fat lot of good it did him, seeing as they’d been driving through a blizzard for the last two hours. A Saskatchewan Screamer, rushing down from Canada, was scouring the brown and moon-like surface of Southern Idaho with wind and snow and ice.
“We’re nearly there,” Cody answered, just as he’d answered the last four times Nick had asked. I-80 was a long, straight stretch of road when you were cooped up in a rented Chevy Tahoe with a cranky former-Reservist.
Then again, Cody thought, sneaking a look over at Nick, he wouldn’t have it any other way. There’d be no road too long for him and Nick to drive. Not now. Besides, according to Cody’s calculations, Melba, ID (population 513) should be just around the next bend. Or the one after that. Maybe.
“I don’t like this,” Nick said for the umpteenth time. “I don’t like this one bit.”
“C’mon, Nick. Maybe she mis-typed the name of her high school. Maybe all the teachers moved away. Maybe folks in Melba don’t like to give out information over the phone.”
“And maybe she’s lying.”
“Well yeah, there’s that. But surely there’s another explanation. A typo. Maybe she forgot which year she graduated, or she meant to type N and hit D, and we’ll be in Indiana this time next week.”
“Oh yeah? Tell me something, Cody. When was the last time you forgot which year you graduated high school?”
Cody let out his breath in one long rush. Nick was right. There’s no way Cody could ever forget graduating a Mighty Lancer, class of 1968. He remembered feeling powerful, then; his father, finally if not proud then something close to it, and Linda Sue Barone, a year younger than him, a junior still, bringing him flowers at the graduation ceremony, the pink of the hyacinth petals exactly matching her lip gloss. Cody had wondered then if she’d planned it that way. Forty years later, he was still wondering.
“Tell me something, Cody. You’re this chick. You’ve basically one-upped every guy in robotics and artificial intelligence save the great Murray Bozinsky, and you desperately want a job in his shiny new lab, why would you tell the truth about everything except the really basic stuff, like where you grew up?”
“I dunno, buddy. But I guess we’re gonna find out.” Cody leaned forward over the steering wheel, peering out at the snow.
“Damn right we’re gonna find out. What you bet this chick’s got warrants out on her?”
“Aw c’mon, Nick.”
“Hear me out, Cody. It’s the smart ones you gotta look out for.”
Cody huffed into his mustache. Gael was Murray’s top candidate for the open lab director position, and he’d asked Nick and Cody to trace her bona-fides, all the way back to the roots.
They’d done fine at MIT, Berkeley and Stanford, each of Gael’s professors giving glowing recommendations, but they’d hit a definite stumbling block with her high school: the woman they’d spoken to over the phone had been quite clear: MHS had never graduated a Weatheroe, Gael. Not in 1972, nor 71, nor seventies three, four or five. There was no record of Gael ever having been a Mustang. So Nick and Cody had followed the trail back, sifting past her junior high and elementary schools (verified by the Southwest District’s immunization records -- tetanus and meningitis, 1968 and 1965 respectively). In Idaho, they figured they’d start on the ground with Gael’s parents, Don and Wylene, of 3570 Route 7A, listed by the post office as part of Melba, but, according to the travel atlas they’d picked up back at a gas station in Wilson, functionally part of a large wilderness area loosely known as unincorporated Canyon County.
What could they say: Murray took his Simple Reflex Agents very seriously.
Route 7A wound up into the foothills, snow gathering on the roadway, crunching under the Tahoe’s heavy tires. The two of them rode in silence, both of them peering intently out the windshield.
Cody cleared his throat. “Lots of reasons she would lie, Nick.”
“Oh yeah? Gimme one.”
“Witness Protection Program.”
Nick looked over at him.
“I mean, what’s she gonna say, Nick? Yeah, my parents go by Don and Wylene but back in 1981 they were Sal and Trish Dominguez, laundering money for the South Florida mob?”
“Oh now you’re an expert on nos familia.”
“No, Nick! That’s not what I meant.” Cody felt himself getting exasperated, and he concentrated on the road ahead. “All I’m saying is, she might’ve had her reasons.”
“Gael. With an ‘e’”.
“Exactly, Nick. Now you’re getting it. There are plenty of reasons this whole high school thing doesn’t pan out. Maybe she was home-schooled.” Cody focused on the white line at the edge of the road.
“Oh yeah? And I was tutored by Cher.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Cody snorted. “That explains your fashion sense.”
Before Nick could respond, Cody slammed on the brakes and the big car hydroplaned, back end fishtailing side to side across the road. It righted with a shudder, dropping Nick and Cody heavily back in their seats. The two of them sat upright with a gasp, Nick grabbing the dashboard in familiar concern.
But then it was just the two of them and the big, heavy metal shell outside, keeping the howling winds at bay.
Nick recovered first, looking to Cody for an explanation.
“Look,” Cody said, pointing out the windshield. “I think we’re here.”
Barely visible through the heavy snow, a stuffed bear stood by the side of the lonely road, mouth open in a fruitless, toothy roar. A light dusting of flakes covered its pelt. And clutched awkwardly in its huge paws was a cracked red plastic mailbox. Dimly visible along the side were the numbers 3, 5, 7 and 0.
For a moment, both men were silent. Outside, the wind continued to howl, and as they sat there, the windshield filled with fat white flakes, mounding like soap powder.
Cody broke the silence. “Well?”
Nick answered with a mute nod, his eyes wide and fixed.
The long driveway was rutted and icy, and the big car jounced and slid at alternate intervals. Cody looked over at Nick. His partner’s jaw was set, his knuckles white on the grab-handle over the door. But what, really, could he say?
They drew up finally in front of a barn, rotting back into the lonesome prairie that had fought its existence every inch, every year. Next to it sat the burnt-out remains of a house, the chimney standing dark and cold against the snow-stung sky. They sat silent for a moment, watching it get gradually eclipsed by the heavy snow as the windshield filled, until only a glimpse of the high, pointed eave was visible.
“You wanna...?” Cody began, but Nick was already out and gone, slamming the door behind him.
With a sigh, Cody retrieved the other flashlight from the glove compartment. It refused to light at first, but a good hard bang against the dashboard and it coughed forth a weak light. That was enough. Cody followed Nick out into the storm.
The second he left the car, the wind tore at him, buffeting him where he stood, lifting his hair and prying at the cuffs of his sleeves, his neck, his waist. Dimly, up ahead, he could see Nick’s shadowy outline, heading into the barn’s dark and gaping mouth.
Squinting against the cold, Cody followed, trying not to trip over his numb feet.
Where the wild Idaho night had been dim, clouds stealing the moonlight, inside the barn it was as if someone had stolen the light entirely, and the diffuse, milk-like beam of Cody’s flashlight was eaten by the vast and cavernous interior.
“Nick!” Cody hissed. He couldn’t help himself. He tasted danger and fear in the air but nothing would ever steal Nick’s name from his tongue.
Right here. Nick scribed a sign between Cody’s shoulderblades. Their signs. Speech born in hell, in a war a half-century forgotten, but living on in the anxious touch of Nick’s fingers.
With a light in his hand, Cody should’ve felt exposed; should’ve felt the enemy homing in on him in the darkness. But Nick had never steered him wrong yet, and forty years was hard to argue with.
“I knew you’d find me, sooner or later.”
Both of them drew guns at the sound of her voice, dropping into firing crouches.
“Bozinsky’s too smart not to send the best.”
Cody trained his light on the source of the voice.
She was well-built, with auburn curls tucked under a wool hat, and while a thick down parka hid her torso, her jeansclad legs were coltish and thin. “It’s why I wanted to work with him. If anyone’s going to solve the Interpret-Input loop, it’s Murray. He’s so close. With my help, I know we’ll make it.”
It was then Cody noticed the gun in her hand. Poised and unwavering, pointing in their direction.
“Lady, you’ve made a hash of this job interview so far,” Nick growled. “Drop your weapon.”
Just the sound of Nick’s voice made Cody feel warmer somehow. He grabbed onto that voice, letting it blanket his fears.
“They thought Idaho was far enough,” Gael continued calmly. She picked her way nimbly across the barn, stepping over rusted farming implements in her path. Cody tracked her automatically with his light. “They thought no one would ever look for them here. They were wrong.”
Cody found his voice. “Tell me about them, Gael. Tell me about--” he swallowed hard, “Don and Wylene.”
Gael laughed mirthlessly. “Don and Wylene? I’ll tell you about Don and Wylene. Their real names were Frank and Esther. Frank and Esther Weintraub, of the Long Island Weintraubs.”
Don’t say it, Cody heard Nick think at him distinctly. Just don’t even say anything.
Cody fought back a satisfied grin.
“The government told us we’d be safe. Told us Melba was barely an anywhere. So out of the way, mapmakers kept forgetting to include it in atlases. And if we kept our mouths shut, they’d make sure it stayed that way.”
“But not everyone used a map to find it,” Nick said softly.
“I was fourteen. I had braces,” Gael answered. “I had to take the bus to Guffey to get to an orthodontist. And one day, when I got back off the bus, there were all these fire engines, screaming out of town. And I knew. I just knew.”
Cody didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t take his eyes off Gael’s gun. Off its awful potential to rob him of everything he’d held dear for the last forty years.
“Finally, a neighbor took pity on me, picked me up off the side of the road, drove me the rest of the way home. But it was too late. They were--” Her voice broke. “They were...”
Cody felt Nick’s chest rise and fall against his back. “It was probably too late before you even got off the bus,” Nick said. “Don’t kid yourself. Let it go.”
“Let it go?” Gael screamed like a harpy and Cody resisted the urge to take a step back.
“They were everything to me! I had no one! I stayed out here alone, pretending some make-believe aunt had come to stay with me! For two long years it was just me and these godforsaken hills. All I did was study, all I did was dream about the day I’d make the people who stole my family pay!” Gael’s gun-hand wavered. “And then out of nowhere, I’m about to start my senior year and the same government guys show up, saying I’ve gotta leave with them again. Can you imagine? Can you imagine losing your family twice? Seeing your house burn to the ground and then, after two years of telling yourself everything’s gonna be okay, some guys show up and tell you you’ve gotta pretend again? Pretend you’re someone new, pretend again. But I knew! I knew all along!” Gael sniffled. “I can’t keep going, pretending to be someone I’m not.”
“But why this place, Gael?” Cody tried to make his voice soothing. “Why not go back to Long Island to pretend?”
“You don’t get it, do you? Long Island’s as dead as my parents. I can never go back there, never. This place...” Gael choked back a sob. “We were happy here. My mom, she loved being Wylene Weatheroe. Said she’d never’ve believed ‘Wylene’ was even a name until it was hers. We were happy!” Gael’s voice broke, and in the darkness Cody could hear her raw and wracking sobs. He made to go to her, but Nick stilled him with a touch. She’s still got a gun, moron.
Cody nettled. He wanted to believe Gael’s story. He wanted her to get the happy ending he’d had, the one he and Nick had crafted with their own two hands, the deep and abiding joy everyone should have.
“You know Gael, I get it, I really do,” Nick said. “You and your folks were happy here, so you wanna pretend everything’s okay from here. That since you told us this sad, sappy story, we’re just supposed to believe you and give you a pass on working in Murray’s lab, because we’re nice guys. But here’s the thing: Murray’s a nice guy. Nicest guy you can imagine. But we’re not. We’re the guys paid to keep our nice guy safe.”
Cody could’ve sworn the temperature dropped a good five degrees in the silence that followed.
“So now we know you lied about this, Gael, us not-so-nice guys gotta wonder what else you’re lying about. Because we like to keep our nice guy safe.”
Gael sniffed into the pregnant pause. Outside the barn, the wind howled, still trying to scour the foothills flat. Cody shivered, the cold of the snowstorm settling in his thighs and knees, stealing up his belly towards his chest.
“You bastard,” Gael said softly.
Then the gunfire started.
---
Cody woke some time later and opened his eyes to stare up at a sky still heavy with snow, just itching for a reason to burst. He fussed, thinking of rolling out from beneath its pregnant gaze, but a familiar hand dropped on his shoulder and he stilled, thrilling to its touch. “Nick?”
“I gotcha, Cody,” Nick growled.
Cody became aware of throbbing red lights, painting the worn sides of the barn at intervals. He raised his head, and Nick helped him to a sitting position. Cody’s eyes went to the patch of gauze at Nick’s temple, and his hand soon followed.
Nick waved them both away, but not before depositing a kiss on Cody’s palm. All clear, Nick signed at Cody’s wrist. All clear.
Cody allowed himself a small half-grin. He remembered the first time Nick had lied about that. Cody’d been half-starved and consumed with fever, and unbeknownst to him, the VC had been converging on their position. He’d asked Nick with his eyes, and Nick had scribed that sign on his skin over and over again, one handed, his other fingers on the trigger, watchful and waiting. But Cody’d known nothing of the peril. Nick had made sure of that.
Cody raised a hand and traced the taut gauze pad, marveling at the milimeters that had saved them both, once again.
He didn’t ask about Gael.
They made the long drive back to Boise and the airport while watching the sun drizzle pinkly over the mountains, back-lighting the lingering snow. Neither of them did well sleeping any place other than their boat, and they were long overdue for a trip to deep water, one that lasted a solid week or two. Maybe they’d even do some fishing.
Nine months later, they were both better, or as better as two grizzled old vets like them were ever gonna get. Frowning, Cody clicked on the email from Murray, punctuated, as usual, by four exclamation points. In this case the excitement was entirely justified. The RoBoztics team had taken first place in some fancy science contest or other, with a Simple Reflex Agent who’d solved some problem or other involving a loop-de-loop. Cody skimmed the attached article, eyes glazing at the long words. He stopped near the end, focused on one simple sentence: “The team lovingly refer to their bot as ‘Wylene’.”
Cody breathed in, and out again, taking in the smells of the marina: boat fuel, fish and the heavy salt of the ocean. Then, pushing everything else from his mind, he shut the laptop and rose, headed in Nick’s direction.
Rating: PG
Summary: Doing a simple background check for Murray, Nick and Cody stumble into the worst kind of ambush: an ambush of the mind.
There were plenty of reasons to live in Southern California. Driving through the night in snow like this was one of them.
Overall, retirement had been good to them both. They supplemented Nick’s Army pension and their RoBoztics benefits by doing security jobs on the side, if and when it suited them. Like now, for instance: a background check on Gael Weatheroe, one of Murray’s bright young sparks, vying for a top-security clearance job in the Simple Reflex Agent division. Gael had provided a stunning CV, complete with an undergraduate internship at Hewlett-Packard, a summer research position with Lior Pachter’s Feedback Control Theory Group at UC Berkeley, and a PhD in neural networks from MIT. But with a little more digging, Nick and Cody had found the one thing in Weatheroe’s background that didn’t add up.
“Where the hell are we?” Nick groused, staring out the windshield.
Fat lot of good it did him, seeing as they’d been driving through a blizzard for the last two hours. A Saskatchewan Screamer, rushing down from Canada, was scouring the brown and moon-like surface of Southern Idaho with wind and snow and ice.
“We’re nearly there,” Cody answered, just as he’d answered the last four times Nick had asked. I-80 was a long, straight stretch of road when you were cooped up in a rented Chevy Tahoe with a cranky former-Reservist.
Then again, Cody thought, sneaking a look over at Nick, he wouldn’t have it any other way. There’d be no road too long for him and Nick to drive. Not now. Besides, according to Cody’s calculations, Melba, ID (population 513) should be just around the next bend. Or the one after that. Maybe.
“I don’t like this,” Nick said for the umpteenth time. “I don’t like this one bit.”
“C’mon, Nick. Maybe she mis-typed the name of her high school. Maybe all the teachers moved away. Maybe folks in Melba don’t like to give out information over the phone.”
“And maybe she’s lying.”
“Well yeah, there’s that. But surely there’s another explanation. A typo. Maybe she forgot which year she graduated, or she meant to type N and hit D, and we’ll be in Indiana this time next week.”
“Oh yeah? Tell me something, Cody. When was the last time you forgot which year you graduated high school?”
Cody let out his breath in one long rush. Nick was right. There’s no way Cody could ever forget graduating a Mighty Lancer, class of 1968. He remembered feeling powerful, then; his father, finally if not proud then something close to it, and Linda Sue Barone, a year younger than him, a junior still, bringing him flowers at the graduation ceremony, the pink of the hyacinth petals exactly matching her lip gloss. Cody had wondered then if she’d planned it that way. Forty years later, he was still wondering.
“Tell me something, Cody. You’re this chick. You’ve basically one-upped every guy in robotics and artificial intelligence save the great Murray Bozinsky, and you desperately want a job in his shiny new lab, why would you tell the truth about everything except the really basic stuff, like where you grew up?”
“I dunno, buddy. But I guess we’re gonna find out.” Cody leaned forward over the steering wheel, peering out at the snow.
“Damn right we’re gonna find out. What you bet this chick’s got warrants out on her?”
“Aw c’mon, Nick.”
“Hear me out, Cody. It’s the smart ones you gotta look out for.”
Cody huffed into his mustache. Gael was Murray’s top candidate for the open lab director position, and he’d asked Nick and Cody to trace her bona-fides, all the way back to the roots.
They’d done fine at MIT, Berkeley and Stanford, each of Gael’s professors giving glowing recommendations, but they’d hit a definite stumbling block with her high school: the woman they’d spoken to over the phone had been quite clear: MHS had never graduated a Weatheroe, Gael. Not in 1972, nor 71, nor seventies three, four or five. There was no record of Gael ever having been a Mustang. So Nick and Cody had followed the trail back, sifting past her junior high and elementary schools (verified by the Southwest District’s immunization records -- tetanus and meningitis, 1968 and 1965 respectively). In Idaho, they figured they’d start on the ground with Gael’s parents, Don and Wylene, of 3570 Route 7A, listed by the post office as part of Melba, but, according to the travel atlas they’d picked up back at a gas station in Wilson, functionally part of a large wilderness area loosely known as unincorporated Canyon County.
What could they say: Murray took his Simple Reflex Agents very seriously.
Route 7A wound up into the foothills, snow gathering on the roadway, crunching under the Tahoe’s heavy tires. The two of them rode in silence, both of them peering intently out the windshield.
Cody cleared his throat. “Lots of reasons she would lie, Nick.”
“Oh yeah? Gimme one.”
“Witness Protection Program.”
Nick looked over at him.
“I mean, what’s she gonna say, Nick? Yeah, my parents go by Don and Wylene but back in 1981 they were Sal and Trish Dominguez, laundering money for the South Florida mob?”
“Oh now you’re an expert on nos familia.”
“No, Nick! That’s not what I meant.” Cody felt himself getting exasperated, and he concentrated on the road ahead. “All I’m saying is, she might’ve had her reasons.”
“Gael. With an ‘e’”.
“Exactly, Nick. Now you’re getting it. There are plenty of reasons this whole high school thing doesn’t pan out. Maybe she was home-schooled.” Cody focused on the white line at the edge of the road.
“Oh yeah? And I was tutored by Cher.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Cody snorted. “That explains your fashion sense.”
Before Nick could respond, Cody slammed on the brakes and the big car hydroplaned, back end fishtailing side to side across the road. It righted with a shudder, dropping Nick and Cody heavily back in their seats. The two of them sat upright with a gasp, Nick grabbing the dashboard in familiar concern.
But then it was just the two of them and the big, heavy metal shell outside, keeping the howling winds at bay.
Nick recovered first, looking to Cody for an explanation.
“Look,” Cody said, pointing out the windshield. “I think we’re here.”
Barely visible through the heavy snow, a stuffed bear stood by the side of the lonely road, mouth open in a fruitless, toothy roar. A light dusting of flakes covered its pelt. And clutched awkwardly in its huge paws was a cracked red plastic mailbox. Dimly visible along the side were the numbers 3, 5, 7 and 0.
For a moment, both men were silent. Outside, the wind continued to howl, and as they sat there, the windshield filled with fat white flakes, mounding like soap powder.
Cody broke the silence. “Well?”
Nick answered with a mute nod, his eyes wide and fixed.
The long driveway was rutted and icy, and the big car jounced and slid at alternate intervals. Cody looked over at Nick. His partner’s jaw was set, his knuckles white on the grab-handle over the door. But what, really, could he say?
They drew up finally in front of a barn, rotting back into the lonesome prairie that had fought its existence every inch, every year. Next to it sat the burnt-out remains of a house, the chimney standing dark and cold against the snow-stung sky. They sat silent for a moment, watching it get gradually eclipsed by the heavy snow as the windshield filled, until only a glimpse of the high, pointed eave was visible.
“You wanna...?” Cody began, but Nick was already out and gone, slamming the door behind him.
With a sigh, Cody retrieved the other flashlight from the glove compartment. It refused to light at first, but a good hard bang against the dashboard and it coughed forth a weak light. That was enough. Cody followed Nick out into the storm.
The second he left the car, the wind tore at him, buffeting him where he stood, lifting his hair and prying at the cuffs of his sleeves, his neck, his waist. Dimly, up ahead, he could see Nick’s shadowy outline, heading into the barn’s dark and gaping mouth.
Squinting against the cold, Cody followed, trying not to trip over his numb feet.
Where the wild Idaho night had been dim, clouds stealing the moonlight, inside the barn it was as if someone had stolen the light entirely, and the diffuse, milk-like beam of Cody’s flashlight was eaten by the vast and cavernous interior.
“Nick!” Cody hissed. He couldn’t help himself. He tasted danger and fear in the air but nothing would ever steal Nick’s name from his tongue.
Right here. Nick scribed a sign between Cody’s shoulderblades. Their signs. Speech born in hell, in a war a half-century forgotten, but living on in the anxious touch of Nick’s fingers.
With a light in his hand, Cody should’ve felt exposed; should’ve felt the enemy homing in on him in the darkness. But Nick had never steered him wrong yet, and forty years was hard to argue with.
“I knew you’d find me, sooner or later.”
Both of them drew guns at the sound of her voice, dropping into firing crouches.
“Bozinsky’s too smart not to send the best.”
Cody trained his light on the source of the voice.
She was well-built, with auburn curls tucked under a wool hat, and while a thick down parka hid her torso, her jeansclad legs were coltish and thin. “It’s why I wanted to work with him. If anyone’s going to solve the Interpret-Input loop, it’s Murray. He’s so close. With my help, I know we’ll make it.”
It was then Cody noticed the gun in her hand. Poised and unwavering, pointing in their direction.
“Lady, you’ve made a hash of this job interview so far,” Nick growled. “Drop your weapon.”
Just the sound of Nick’s voice made Cody feel warmer somehow. He grabbed onto that voice, letting it blanket his fears.
“They thought Idaho was far enough,” Gael continued calmly. She picked her way nimbly across the barn, stepping over rusted farming implements in her path. Cody tracked her automatically with his light. “They thought no one would ever look for them here. They were wrong.”
Cody found his voice. “Tell me about them, Gael. Tell me about--” he swallowed hard, “Don and Wylene.”
Gael laughed mirthlessly. “Don and Wylene? I’ll tell you about Don and Wylene. Their real names were Frank and Esther. Frank and Esther Weintraub, of the Long Island Weintraubs.”
Don’t say it, Cody heard Nick think at him distinctly. Just don’t even say anything.
Cody fought back a satisfied grin.
“The government told us we’d be safe. Told us Melba was barely an anywhere. So out of the way, mapmakers kept forgetting to include it in atlases. And if we kept our mouths shut, they’d make sure it stayed that way.”
“But not everyone used a map to find it,” Nick said softly.
“I was fourteen. I had braces,” Gael answered. “I had to take the bus to Guffey to get to an orthodontist. And one day, when I got back off the bus, there were all these fire engines, screaming out of town. And I knew. I just knew.”
Cody didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t take his eyes off Gael’s gun. Off its awful potential to rob him of everything he’d held dear for the last forty years.
“Finally, a neighbor took pity on me, picked me up off the side of the road, drove me the rest of the way home. But it was too late. They were--” Her voice broke. “They were...”
Cody felt Nick’s chest rise and fall against his back. “It was probably too late before you even got off the bus,” Nick said. “Don’t kid yourself. Let it go.”
“Let it go?” Gael screamed like a harpy and Cody resisted the urge to take a step back.
“They were everything to me! I had no one! I stayed out here alone, pretending some make-believe aunt had come to stay with me! For two long years it was just me and these godforsaken hills. All I did was study, all I did was dream about the day I’d make the people who stole my family pay!” Gael’s gun-hand wavered. “And then out of nowhere, I’m about to start my senior year and the same government guys show up, saying I’ve gotta leave with them again. Can you imagine? Can you imagine losing your family twice? Seeing your house burn to the ground and then, after two years of telling yourself everything’s gonna be okay, some guys show up and tell you you’ve gotta pretend again? Pretend you’re someone new, pretend again. But I knew! I knew all along!” Gael sniffled. “I can’t keep going, pretending to be someone I’m not.”
“But why this place, Gael?” Cody tried to make his voice soothing. “Why not go back to Long Island to pretend?”
“You don’t get it, do you? Long Island’s as dead as my parents. I can never go back there, never. This place...” Gael choked back a sob. “We were happy here. My mom, she loved being Wylene Weatheroe. Said she’d never’ve believed ‘Wylene’ was even a name until it was hers. We were happy!” Gael’s voice broke, and in the darkness Cody could hear her raw and wracking sobs. He made to go to her, but Nick stilled him with a touch. She’s still got a gun, moron.
Cody nettled. He wanted to believe Gael’s story. He wanted her to get the happy ending he’d had, the one he and Nick had crafted with their own two hands, the deep and abiding joy everyone should have.
“You know Gael, I get it, I really do,” Nick said. “You and your folks were happy here, so you wanna pretend everything’s okay from here. That since you told us this sad, sappy story, we’re just supposed to believe you and give you a pass on working in Murray’s lab, because we’re nice guys. But here’s the thing: Murray’s a nice guy. Nicest guy you can imagine. But we’re not. We’re the guys paid to keep our nice guy safe.”
Cody could’ve sworn the temperature dropped a good five degrees in the silence that followed.
“So now we know you lied about this, Gael, us not-so-nice guys gotta wonder what else you’re lying about. Because we like to keep our nice guy safe.”
Gael sniffed into the pregnant pause. Outside the barn, the wind howled, still trying to scour the foothills flat. Cody shivered, the cold of the snowstorm settling in his thighs and knees, stealing up his belly towards his chest.
“You bastard,” Gael said softly.
Then the gunfire started.
---
Cody woke some time later and opened his eyes to stare up at a sky still heavy with snow, just itching for a reason to burst. He fussed, thinking of rolling out from beneath its pregnant gaze, but a familiar hand dropped on his shoulder and he stilled, thrilling to its touch. “Nick?”
“I gotcha, Cody,” Nick growled.
Cody became aware of throbbing red lights, painting the worn sides of the barn at intervals. He raised his head, and Nick helped him to a sitting position. Cody’s eyes went to the patch of gauze at Nick’s temple, and his hand soon followed.
Nick waved them both away, but not before depositing a kiss on Cody’s palm. All clear, Nick signed at Cody’s wrist. All clear.
Cody allowed himself a small half-grin. He remembered the first time Nick had lied about that. Cody’d been half-starved and consumed with fever, and unbeknownst to him, the VC had been converging on their position. He’d asked Nick with his eyes, and Nick had scribed that sign on his skin over and over again, one handed, his other fingers on the trigger, watchful and waiting. But Cody’d known nothing of the peril. Nick had made sure of that.
Cody raised a hand and traced the taut gauze pad, marveling at the milimeters that had saved them both, once again.
He didn’t ask about Gael.
They made the long drive back to Boise and the airport while watching the sun drizzle pinkly over the mountains, back-lighting the lingering snow. Neither of them did well sleeping any place other than their boat, and they were long overdue for a trip to deep water, one that lasted a solid week or two. Maybe they’d even do some fishing.
Nine months later, they were both better, or as better as two grizzled old vets like them were ever gonna get. Frowning, Cody clicked on the email from Murray, punctuated, as usual, by four exclamation points. In this case the excitement was entirely justified. The RoBoztics team had taken first place in some fancy science contest or other, with a Simple Reflex Agent who’d solved some problem or other involving a loop-de-loop. Cody skimmed the attached article, eyes glazing at the long words. He stopped near the end, focused on one simple sentence: “The team lovingly refer to their bot as ‘Wylene’.”
Cody breathed in, and out again, taking in the smells of the marina: boat fuel, fish and the heavy salt of the ocean. Then, pushing everything else from his mind, he shut the laptop and rose, headed in Nick’s direction.