The Forever Man: A Near-Future Thriller (9 page)

He walks swiftly to his hiding place, where the façade of a five-story building has collapsed onto the street. After a careful inspection of tumbled masonry, he uses a splintered stick of wood to dig a tunnel where he can stash the jewelry. Right now, it’s far too risky to keep it on his person. In a funny kind of way, the redhead proved to be a good teacher after all. He’ll come back after dark and move it to a safer location. Before he stashes the bag, he looks inside once more. Now he has the capital he needs to prime the pump. He stuffs the bag into the tunnel and carefully covers it.

When he’s through, he walks past the dead looter once more and looks down the hill. The trolley tracks glow like pink silver in the smoky air.

The obnoxious buzz of Lane’s handheld drags him out of a deep sleep. He answers on the third ring.

“Lane here.”

“Lane, it’s Johnny. I got a problem. A really big problem.”

Lane blinks himself fully awake. Whatever it is, it’s bad. His brother voice is dipped in fear and coated with pain.

“Don’t tell me you’re in jail again.”

“It’s not that simple. Not this time.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m in a motel in La Grande.”

“La Grande? I thought you were going to New York. How in the hell did you wind up in La Grande?”

“Oh shit, they’re here! I’ll call you back.”

“What do you mean? Who’s there?”

The connection is gone. The call is dead.

“Where did he put the van?” Arjun asks as he climbs out of his vehicle and into the motel parking lot in La Grande.

“It’s around back in the alley,” the security man says. “The engine’s still warm.”

“So what happened?” Arjun asks as they stride briskly toward the rear of the building.

“We got a hit when he charged a room on his lobe. We must have just missed him. If he had any time at all, he would’ve taken off in the vehicle.”

“Organize a search. Right away.” Arjun knows it’s most likely futile. This is wide-open country and any real search effort is going to attract way too much attention.

They reach the alley, sandwiched between the back of the two-story motel and a tall fence that masks some kind of milling operation. It fills the dim space with the mindless industrial murmur of machines that never sleep.

A parked van hugs the fence about halfway down the darkened alley. The security man produces a flashlight, and Arjun demands that he hand it over. “Stay here,” he commands.

He reaches the van, swings open the passenger door, and pulls himself up and in. His nostrils are already filled with a singular stink that he knows all too well. He points the flashlight beam into the back to confirm the source of the smell. Obviously dead. As his light glides over the slumped form, Arjun thinks of how horrific it would appear if it ever got on the Feed. Public knowledge would be absolutely disastrous.

He climbs back out into the alley. “Post some people at either end,” he tells the security man. “Nobody gets any closer until the recovery crew shows up.”

Arjun’s handheld rings. It’s the team leader. “It looks like we’ve lost Anslow for now, but I think we found his handheld.”

“Where?”

“On the shoulder of a road on the west end of town. It’s been stomped on to defeat the GPS, and the memory card’s missing.”

“It has a videocam, right?”

“Right.”

Arjun’s head begins to throb. Without the memory card, they can’t trace any calls, at least not easily. Worse, the missing card may contain video from the back of the van.

He returns to the parking lot and climbs into Zed’s armored van. Exhausted, he slumps in the driver’s seat and looks over at the old man. Sound asleep. Head thrown back, mouth wide open, jaw flexing in a spastic quiver.

Arjun sighs and thinks of what he just saw in the back of the van. He visualizes the image recorded on high-res video revealing every awful detail. Then he imagines the possible destinations for such a video, and all the damage that might be inflicted.

They can’t let it happen. They’re too close. They’ve come too far.

Lane barrels through the blackness in the unmarked police sedan past a blur of blacktop and desert juniper.

To get the car, he pulled in every favor owed him by the night shift downtown. Still, he’ll have to replace the gas, which will cost him a month’s pay at standard contract rates. But money’s not the issue right now. Johnny’s the issue. What the hell is going on? He resists the urge to speculate. He has absolutely nothing to go on except the naked fear in his brother’s voice.

The headlights catch a man frantically waving from the shoulder of the road. Behind him, a pregnant woman lies on the ground in front of a pickup partially tipped in the ditch. Lane feels for the shotgun propped beside him on the passenger seat. His peripheral vision catches the man pulling out a pistol as he roars by. He sees the muzzle flash in the side mirror. Fortunately, the round goes wide and the car is spared.

He drives on. The miles whiz by and he climbs into some shallow hills. The halo of a nascent dawn spreads across the eastern sky. The sparse lights of La Grande play out in the valley below as he descends.

He sees the motel from the freeway. There may be more than one, but not likely. He takes the exit. The business district appears nearly deserted. Empty parking lots, darkened buildings, damaged signage. Lane knows it probably looks much the same even at high noon. The motel sits next to a mill of some kind that grinds on through the wee hours. The only game in town.

Lane pulls into the parking lot, which holds a half dozen junkers. He strides directly to the office and taps the bell on the desk. After several minutes, an annoyed young woman appears, her hair still creased by sleep. “Yeah?”

Lane pulls out his contractor’s badge. “Portland Police. I need to see your registry.”

“Oh yeah? How come?”

“I’m looking for a guest named Anslow. Dr. John Anslow. He would have checked in sometime last night.”

“I’ll have to look on the computer.”

“Yeah, I guess you will.”

The girl ignores him and clicks some keys. She stares vacantly at the results on her display. “No Anslow.”

“Anyone with a Portland address?”

“No. No one from Portland.”

“No Anslow, no Portland. You’re sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” the girl replies, with mounting exasperation.

Lane pulls out a photo of Johnny that he brought along for precisely this reason. “He might have used a different name. Here’s a picture. You recognize him?”

The girl squints at the picture through puffy eyes. “Nope.”

Lane looks out the window at the decaying business strip. “Where’s your police department located?”

“We don’t have one.”

“You don’t have one?”

“It closed.”

“Then who has jurisdiction here?”

“The county sheriff. But they don’t open until nine. No night shift.”

“So what if somebody wanted to rob you right now?”

The girl comes up with a sawed-off shotgun from behind the desk. “I’d blow their fucking brains out.”

Outside, Lane circles the building. A gravel drive stretches along the back on the side facing the mill complex. No vehicles, only a black cat padding over the crushed rock. He returns to his car and leans back in the seat, exhausted. He suspects that the girl is lying, but he has next to no leverage way out here. Besides, whatever happened, he seriously doubts that Johnny is anywhere near.

He closes his eyes against the mounting morning light. There’s no use sticking around. The sheriff’s office won’t be any help. With the highways and countryside slipping into virtual anarchy, a missing persons report verges on ridiculous. The best move right now is to grab a little sleep in the car and head back to Portland.

Lane starts at a thump on the hood. A cat, the black one from the rear of the motel. It stares at him through the windshield with eyes of predacious yellow.

He ignores it and closes his eyes for a moment. When he opens them, the cat is gone.

He takes note of the news about the plane crash for the first time when he stops for coffee at a dilapidated roadside joint where he’s the only customer. The Feed belts it out over a display behind the counter. A business jet went down on takeoff from Hillsboro Airport, just west of Portland. The plane was bound for New York when it skidded into a packed bus at about four
P.M
. yesterday. Everybody involved was incinerated.

Rescue workers mill around the charred frame of the bus and the plane’s blackened tail
section. Yellow tape restrains frantic loved ones. Smoke and steam still rise skyward. No one can see the hole in the right tire, which is now a mass of rubberized goo. No one will find the lead slug inside, which has completely melted.

Lane stands up at the counter and stares at the images. Johnny’s plane. It had to be. So why wasn’t he on it? Why did he call from out here on the high desert?

“You need somethin’?” the waitress asks from where she leans on some shelving.

“Yes, I do,” Lane says. “I need to get going.”

Outside, he stands in the empty parking lot, where a hot breeze eddies about him. The woman, Rachel, Johnny’s date. He’ll start with her and work backwards. Heinz, was it Heinz? He’s not sure. Then he remembers she works for Harlan Green and the Street Party.

“Street headquarters,” a perky little voice informs him after he’s made the connection on his handheld. “How may I direct your call?”

“Rachel Heinz.”

“And can I say who’s calling?”

“Anslow. Lane Anslow.”

Lane paces as he waits. Up the highway, a vigorous herd of wind turbines spins in the morning heat.

“Rachel speaking.”

Lane matches the voice with the face. He has the right person. “It’s Lane, Johnny’s brother. Have you heard about the plane crash out in Hillsboro?”

“Don’t tell me that was him. His trip to New York?”

“Hard to say. Very hard to say.”

“You mean they haven’t informed you yet?”

“I mean I need to talk to you. In person. I can be there in a couple of hours.”

“Well, we have a pretty full schedule, but, yeah, of course.”

“See you then.”

Lane disconnects. He looks out at the stunted hills of wrinkled brown and the huge sky.

Johnny, you’ve really gone and done it this time
.

***

The man on the roof with the RPG launcher spoils the illusion, but just for a moment. He quickly ducks back out of sight and visual calm descends once more. The Street Party’s national headquarters regains its respectability, with its clipped hedges, its new storm windows, its walls of sandblasted brick.

Lane manages a wry smile. You could almost forget that it sat deep within the urban confines of Birdland, and operated as a protectorate. As a cop, he knew the security was massive, yet discreet. All the houses in the surrounding neighborhood were occupied by Bird operatives. They mowed their lawns, they painted their porches, all with weapons in easy grabbing distance.

Lane remembers when the building was still a high school, albeit a deteriorating one. That was back when there was still a school district over here. It shut down when the graduation rate sank below 25 percent. No longer worth it. Now the curriculum is defined exclusively by the street and the Feed.

He stops at the double doors and wonders how many cameras are tracking him. At least one is probably a neural model that picks your face out of a crowd a billion strong.

“Good afternoon,” a woman’s voice says over an invisible speaker. “How can we help you?”

“I’m Lane Anslow, and I’m here to see Rachel Heinz. I believe she’s expecting me.”

“One moment.”

A solenoid clicks. The doors swing open. He ascends a short flight of steps, where a cheerful young woman meets him. “Mr. Anslow, do you happen to have a Street Card?”

“I’m afraid not.” Lane knows the drill. Everyone formally associated with the party carries one of the digitized cards. It’s your ticket of admission here.

“No problem. Would you mind if we did a lobe scan?”

“Go ahead.”

The woman runs a device the size of a handheld over the lobe on Lane’s ear. Several armed individuals hover in the wings awaiting the outcome. The woman looks at the device’s display and smiles. “Very good. Rachel is tied up for a bit. Mr. Green is giving an address in the auditorium. She asked if you’d like to attend. She’ll be free as soon as it’s over.”

“Sure. Why not?”

Lane follows the woman down a hall to a large auditorium, a place once given to basketball games and pep rallies. But no longer.

“And so friends, I ask you: What stands between you and a good life, a decent life, a secure life? Only one thing. And that one thing is you, friends. Just you. Nothing else, really. Now, unless each of you stands and marches in the same direction, you will not be heard. You must make that promise to yourself that you will stand, that you will be counted, and that
you will be heard!

“Yes, there will be sacrifice. Yes, there will be suffering. But God knows, there’s already been plenty of suffering, hasn’t there? You’ve seen your lives slip between your fingers. You’ve seen your children’s lives slip between your fingers. Remember the America your parents lived in? And your grandparents? Remember the new cars? The private homes? The free schools?
Well, I’m here to tell you:
You must not forget
. Because that is your
heritage
. That is your
right
.

“But now look. Look around you. Who’s worked for a year straight? Let me see the hands. I count maybe a half dozen. That’s some depressing arithmetic, friends. It just doesn’t add up.”

Lane Anslow listens to the thunderous tones of Harlan Green as they roll out of the big sound system and spill across the interior of the auditorium. Green stands above and behind him on the stage, protected by the bulletproof podium, and sways to the rhythms of his own oratory. The crowd periodically roars when Harlan hits a high point, then sinks back to take on the next load of vitriol.

Lane checks out Green’s personal security people, the palace guard. They wear identical green blazers and slacks, and black ties, and represent an egalitarian mix of racial types. All gaze benignly yet alertly at the crowd, which seems oblivious to their presence. Many in the folding chairs are overweight, with big bellies thrusting out of cheap blouses and T-shirts. But many others appear leaner, smarter, with a kind of shabby dignity about them. And their numbers are growing rapidly. Lane is sure Green understands that these people are the unprocessed fuel of incipient revolution.