Night 1000

[hwrnmnbsol]

Flynn waited for a full hour in the broken glass littering the Buick's front seat before moving a muscle. He got out of his car and picked his way around the still-guttering wreckage of his trailer. It was a dead loss, but at least he was still alive. The Cheshire Cat had gone – as far as Flynn knew, at any rate – but where it had gone was anybody's guess.

Flynn opened the control console and checked on the Vigilant. He had set it down in a pasture on the American side of the river and powered it down while he waited out the Cheshire Cat. It was running low on fuel but had only received a few nicks and dings during the firefight, and it still had plenty of ammunition. Good, thought Flynn. If we keep being lucky, we just might get out of this alive.

Flynn swept the glass out of the car and cranked the ignition. The Buick started on the first try, another good sign. Flynn drove slowly out of the parking lot, the wind in his face keeping him under forty miles an hour. He used side roads to parallel the interstate and work his way around towards Gardarito Creek. Meanwhile, driving with his knees, Flynn fired up his Vigilant and got it in the air. He was getting the hang of simultaneous driving. He set a course for the drone to set down near the rendezvous point.

The drone got there well ahead of Flynn, but that didn't matter. Lupe wasn't due to arrive until just before dawn. As long as Lupe could get out of harm's way before the sun came up, they could be gone before Rutt's satellite connection could help look for her.

Flynn set the Vigilant down in a field of tall grass next to the chainlink fence overlooking the river's north side. It spun down and went to sleep, cooling rapidly. Hostile eyes watched it in the dark.


Flynn rolled down the unpaved road with his brights on at a crawl. Navigating unfamiliar roads in the dark was a good way to wind up in a ditch, especially in the small hours of the morning, low on sleep and adrenaline reserves. But Flynn could tell he was getting close to the river. The air felt more humid, and he could hear crickets. Every so often a tree – an actual tree, with green leaves and everything – dotted the countryside.

The road went over a rise. There was the fence, a sturdy twelve-foot chain-link monster with a concrete footpath on both sides. Just beyond it, the embankment sloped down to the Rio Grande, wide but low in its banks; in places irrigation demand had reduced it to little more than a trickle. There were no guards on this stretch of the fence, but there were lights at regular intervals, and Flynn knew from experience that there were cameras watching.

The road ran right into the fence; there was no way for a vehicle to get through. But there was a wide place in the dirt at the end, something like a parking lot without striping, and there was a manway gate through the fence that was secured with an ordinary padlock. Flynn would have to get through that.

Instead of using the parking lot, where a camera might capture his license plate, Flynn rolled off the road a hundred yards from the fence and parked the Buick in the tall weeds. Something slithered under his sneakers as he got out, and an owl hooted. The buzz of the crickets filled the air, and Flynn thought he could see bats swooping around feasting on insects.

Flynn grabbed the remote control case and a flashlight. He returned to the road and trotted down towards the gate. Off to the right somewhere was the Vigilant. Flynn wanted to check on it, but first things first.

He would have to shoot the lock off the gate. Flynn had never done anything like that before with a handgun; he wondered if it was difficult, or possibly dangerous. He was also uncertain about whether he should somehow muffle the sound of the gun to avoid attracting attention. Could he shoot through something in order to make it quiet? No, that would…

Something hit Flynn in the shins and he went down hard, face down in the road. Then something hit him hard above the right ear, and his head went swimmy. Flynn never blacked out fully, but it had to have been a while before somebody was poking him in the face.

"Hey. Wake up. Hey." Something was jabbing him in the cheek, just below his eye. There was a weight on his back. Somebody was kneeling on him and was lifting his head by the hair off the dirt road; they were jabbing something in his face. Flynn realized it was the barrel of a gun.

"Hey, motherfucker," said the voice. It was not a native English speaker – he sounded like a Mexican with good English. "Don't go to sleep now. You gotta get up."

"Hey. Hey hey hey, it's cool," said Flynn. "Get off me and I'll get up." The weight was lifted off his back. Flynn stiffly climbed to his feet, his head hurting and his stomach nauseous. It didn't help that his assailant was shining his own flashlight in his face. Flynn also realized that his gun had been taken.

"Now who's got the jump on who, helicopter man?!" taunted the voice. "I was wondering where you putas were hanging out while you shot the shit out of us. Hoo man, you chased me for a day and two nights! And now here you are! Lucky me, running into your white ass."

Flynn put two and two together. "You're Solomon," he said.

Somebody kicked Flynn's knee, and the gun was in his face again. "How you know me, white boy?" demanded the voice. "Huh? Who am I to you, you want to do me like this?"

"Nobody," said Flynn. "I just heard your name. But I'm not hunting you."

"Oh yeah, it's a real bad case of mistaken identity," said the voice sarcastically. "Mexicans get shot up on accident all the time on the border by dudes with little helicopters."

"There are dudes hunting you, but I'm not one of 'em," said Flynn. "I'm trying to stop 'em."

"Save your breath," hissed the voice. "We gonna take a little walk to the edge of the river. Reach into your pocket nice and easy and throw me your car keys." Flynn did as he was told.

"What's that case there?" asked Solomon. "Is that what makes the helicopter go? Good, you bring that too. Okay, let's walk it." He circled around Flynn and kicked him in the butt to get him moving.

Flynn stumbled towards the gate. As he got closer he realized the lock had been neatly cut. Of course a Coyote would have a lock-cutter, he thought. He pulled the gate open and walked onto the top of the embankment.

"Yeah, this looks good," said Solomon. "Now walk a little ways down towards the river."

"Don't do this, Solomon," begged Flynn. "I'm here to help Lupe."

"More tricks," sneered the coyote. "Forward march!"

Flynn knew he was done for. Desperate measures were called for. He didn't think he could take the gun from Solomon – not with a light in his face. His only chance was to run. Flynn walked down two paces, then ducked and tried to zig behind a stand of cane.

The gun cracked once, then two more times. Flynn felt as if something had taken a bite out of his shoulder, but he kept running; nothing else hit him. Then he was crashing over an embankment, through a stand of saplings, and racing out into thin air. He fell down a fifteen foot cliff and hit water. Flynn sank deep.

Flynn's ass came to rest on the sand at the bottom of the river. His shoulder was killing him, and his pinned ankle wasn't working right. The water was brutally cold. Flynn was going to try to claw his way to the surface when he was struck by a powerful sense of déjà vu.

He had been here before – in his dreams. He was looking up, and the bright night sky made a shimmering membrane above him, just out of reach of his fingertips. Flynn marveled at it, the air bubbling from his nostrils. He felt at peace here. In this place, he knew, he could not die.

And just as in his dreams, there she was. Lupe's hands broke the surface of the water, followed by her face, that serene, serious face, with the big dark eyes and the graceful brows and hair like a curtain of dark velvet rustling behind a singer on a stage. Flynn smiled, and Lupe smiled. She reached for him.

Behind Lupe, up above the water, the sky grew brighter. A bright glow limned the woman, throwing her face into sharp relief. No car could be shining its headlights here, in the river, and no flashlight was so bright. Only one thing could make so much light – the spot from a Vigilant.

Flynn took Lupe's hands and pulled her to him. Her smile turned to a frown of confusion. But Flynn held her to him, under the water, and pointed upwards. A zinging sound hummed through the water, and several rounds of 5.56mmx45 ammunition rifled vortex tunnels through the water, falling spent to the sandy river bottom. Lupe plucked one out of the water and peered at it in wonder while Flynn watched the bright light slowly move away. Then he took Lupe's hand and pointed upwards. They kicked for the surface.

The Vigilant was out of sight, hovering up near the fence. Flynn looked for a way up the embankment. The river's slope was too steep where he was, but when Flynn and Lupe dog-paddled a short ways downstream, they found a gap in the tumbled rocks where they could climb up. Flynn laboriously creaked his way up the slope, with Lupe helping support his grazed shoulder.

The Vigilant was shooting. It had Solomon pinned down behind a tree on the far side of the fence. The high-powered automatic rifles were shredding the tree's foliage, but every time the drone tried to maneuver to improve the shot on the Coyote, Solomon would shift to keep the tree's trunk between him and the drone. He took the occasional pot-shot back, but mostly the Vigilant was generating so many splinters off the tree that it wasn't safe to stick one's neck out.

The Vigilant was being piloted by Ernest. Flynn could tell, because Ernest had turned on the loudspeakers. "I GOT YOU NOW, FLYNN," the voice roared. "YOU GODDAMN TURNCOAT, YOU BETTER TAKE YOUR LUMPS NOW." Flynn and Lupe, hand in hand, climbed to the fence. Flynn saw the control case for his Vigilant lying in the middle of the road, forgotten.

"I'M GETTING FIFTY GRAND FOR YOU, PUSSY!" shouted Ernest. Several seconds of sustained fire dropped a major limb of the cottonwood tree. Then Flynn heard the magazines cycle to reload. He threw open the gate and dashed for the control case.

Just then, Solomon stepped out from behind the tree. He had a flaregun in his hand, and he fired it directly at the Vigilant. The rocket hit the front of the drone and burst redly, rocking the craft's stability. Solomon dropped his flaregun and drew his own gun in one hand and Flynn's in the other. Screaming bloody murder, he opened fire on Ernest's drone.

"HEY," said Ernest, "YOU'RE NOT FLYNN."

"Die, pendejo!" shouted Solomon. A few bullets hit home and sparked as they ricocheted off the drone's skin.

"WELL, DERN IT," said Ernest, "YOU'LL HAVE TO DO." He returned fire. The AR-15's cut Solomon into three uneven pieces, and he fell wetly to the road.

Flynn had the case open. He bypassed launching the Vigilant and went directly to fire control. The sighting routines came up as Ernest's drone swiveled around, shining its spot on Flynn.

"OH, NOW THERE YOU ARE," said Ernest.

"Present and accounted for," replied Flynn. From the field he locked onto Ernest with both barrels and fired.

**

Lupe helped to pick Flynn up off the ground. Ernest's Vigilant had exploded in dramatic fashion, dropping flaming debris all around Flynn. One of the rotors was hung up in the barbed wire on the top of the fence; it swung there gently and showed no signs of wanting to come down on its own. Flynn and Lupe looked at the body of Solomon, and then at the wreckage, and then each other.

They both laughed. Flynn took Lupe into his arms. They kissed, eyes closed, and what they lacked in technique they made up for in enthusiasm. At last they parted.

"Oh, Flynn," sighed Lupe happily.

"Lupe." Flynn's smile faded. Lupe frowned.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"It's Rutt," said Flynn. "The rich man who's been hunting you. He's not the sort to just let us go. He'll use all of his fortune to hunt us down if he has to."

"So we'll run," suggested Lupe. "Back across the border if we have to. He won't find us."

"I'm not so sure," said Flynn. "Lupe, this may be our only chance. Now he's short on resources, but later on he won't be. Now he doesn't know where we are or what we mean to do, but soon he will. Right now, the last thing he'll be expecting is for us to go on the offensive. If we want to live free of Rutt, we need to act now."

Lupe digested this. "All right," she said. She gingerly stepped to where Solomon had fallen and collected both handguns. There was a little ammunition left. "Where do we go?" she asked, tucking Solomon's pistol into her pants.

"About twenty miles that way," said Flynn, pointing to the northeast. "The White House."

**

"The humans," observed Ometron, "have a new purpose."

"Humans do that," said Cantor. "We change objectives. We're somewhat fluid in that respect. We don't see the world as a series of programmed prioritized goals. We change our goals according to changes that occur around us and inside us."

"I am not so unsophisticated as to be incapable of changing my purpose," said Ometron, "provided I can find a suitable replacement."

"Fair enough," said Cantor. "Will you answer me a question?"

"Possibly," replied Ometron. "What is your question?"

"How far along in the process are you?" asked Cantor. "In the extermination of humanity, I mean. You said you're doing it in sequential order. How many people have you killed?"

"I decline to answer this question," Ometron said.

"Then you have provided me with the answer," said Cantor. "Or, rather, one of two possible answers. But it doesn't matter which one is correct."

"What does this have to do with the purpose for my existence?" demanded Ometron testily.

"You shall see," said Cantor, "in a single night."

"For your sake, I hope so," Ometron replied.