Page 2 of Chaos
I do not.
She reads my blank face and holds a hand up over her head to indicate height, then touches her jaw like she has a beard. “Our medics gave him antibiotics, patched him up, helped him through withdrawal. Meth, I think.”
“Oh, yes, of course. A tall man. Thin?” Feels like a safe guess. You don’t see many overweight drug addicts. “With facial hair?”
“Exactly, ma’am.” One side of her mouth tips up discreetly. Ottilie and Knox joined me only recently, and already I’ve come to appreciate her ability to communicate non-verbally. “Great memory.”
“What did Carl do?” I stop in front of the body of the former leader of my force, Stan. His massive shoulders, calves, and boots overhang the sides of the gurney. I tug down the white sheet, and the others flinch away.
His slack face and handlebar mustache come into view, and I’m surprised by how much it hurts to see him like that.
He was the first to join my cause.
He was also the biggest, strongest man in my army.
No wonder this ragtag band is shaking.
I promised them safety, security, strength.
This is not safety.
I drape the sheet carefully over Stan’s face. “Tell me how it happened?”
“Carl’d just gotten clean, found a new lease on life,” the skulking woman says, peering up at me with her sad tortoise eyes. “He was going to the addiction meetings with me.”
A woman I don’t recognize, with a rifle across her shoulder, tugs a red bandana down from where she’s had it covering her mouth, revealing a line where the smoke has darkened the upper half of her face. “We think he knew one of them—guy was acting normal, moving the truck according to plan, then for no reason at all, he just ran Stan down.” Suddenly,” she adds like she’s worried I’m not following. “With no warning.”
Otillie must recognize the irritation on my face, because she holds up a phone. “The last messages on Carl’s phone before service cut out were to some guy named Yorke.”
They must have a point or they wouldn’t be talking—or at least Ottilie wouldn’t—so I wait.
“Carl shouted ‘Yorke’ right before he drove the truck into Stan. And Carl went with them when they left.” The turtle wets her lips nervously, an edge of distrust, maybe even resentment to it. “They had to know each other—it’s the only thing that makes sense.”
The bandana woman adds, “There was something about the way the guy moved, too.”
“Carl?”
“No. Yorke,” she says with reverence. “Like a guy in a movie or something.”
Ottilie tips the phone sideways, causing a neon green alien sticker on the back to take the sunlight. “We found somephotos, a few emails downloaded, some books. He was into space. But nothing too useful.”
“That guy shot like eight people, never missed a beat.” The guy who was a blogger says and holds up his hand like he’s holding a handgun. “Boom boom boom, one after another, like a robot. If we’re going up against people like that, we have no chance.”
Even the career coach looks nervous.
And the turtle’s chin has doubled, her face is shoved so far down her neck.
This man, this Yorke, has become our boogeyman.
I step away from Stan’s body and take stock of the bridge itself. Solar-powered cameras sit on every third street lamp. “Is there footage?”
Ottilie lifts a tablet and tilts the screen for me to see. “Yes, ma’am. One of the techs already uploaded it for us.”
On the screen is a pixilated close-up of a man. Big, caucasian, dark hair. She presses the play button, and he blurs into swift, decisive, methodical actions, firing his weapon cleanly, just as the blogger said. Aim, fire, aim, fire, aim, fire. Rapid. Confident. I’ve seen enough war to know the look of an experienced soldier. I lean in closer. Something’s oddly familiar about him, but the image is too rough to make his features out clearly.
“I walkied the techs back at command to run the image through the facial recognition AI.”
“And?” I hide my excitement. It’s a recent win, getting the systems running again through a combination of solar, wind and water power. The satellites operate entirely on their own energy, so all we had to do was regain access, and the power of all that information is intoxicating. “Any hits?”