Sleeper Protocol Read online

“Ready to go in after him. I can be on the ground in the preserve in sixty minutes.”

  As tempting as it was to let the young woman fix the problem she’d helped to create, it was also too risky. He might need her services in the future. Crawley drummed his fingers on the desk for a moment as the plan came together. There was a way they could find Kieran and intercept him before the council did. “You’re in New York?”

  “Landing in ten minutes. I can move whenever we have a lock on him.”

  “Good.” Crawley smiled with one corner of his mouth. Outside, the sun was rising on a beautiful Sydney morning. “We’re likely going to have to go in and get him in a hurry.”

  The lowlands of the Mississippi River basin gave way to gentle hills that sloped up toward the majesty of the Cumberland Plateau as I ran. For two straight days, I pushed east, stopping only for water. I averaged twelve kilometers per hour—faster during daylight—except when I had to swim. The first time, I swallowed more of the Tennessee River than I could stomach. The water was cold, and the current pushed me farther north than I expected. The second crossing, a day later, was much easier. The rubble of the Watts Bar Dam made negotiating the river easy, though the smoldering coalfields between Harriman and Knoxville made for worse territory than I’d seen. My lungs burned with the noxious fumes until I skirted to the south. Even bio-enhancements had limits. The edge of the Franklin Preserve was no more than about eight hours away. After a short rest below a barren ridgeline, I descended into the night and kept running.

  The next morning, I slowed to a jog and a shambling stumble on a winding dirt road along the edge of the Smoky Mountains. My stomach rumbled, and Mally warned me that I needed to consume calories of some type, and soon. There was no word from Berkeley, either. Mally told me that my message had gone through and was read, but Berkeley had not responded. Figures, I thought and kept running. My feelings for her were not returned. Disgust upset my stomach. The harder I ran, the more Berkeley’s feelings for me didn’t matter. What mattered was me. Given what I’d left behind in Memphis, I’d need every ounce of resolve to see this through.

  The day dawned bright and cold. A breath of wind down from the mountains brought the smell of cooking sausage, and I followed it up the road into a dark mountain draw. The sun in that place wouldn’t touch parts of the ground until late spring and maybe even summer. Any snow that fell would lie for weeks if not months. The persistent shade gave the frost-covered hills a grey appearance. A heavy fog layered the mountains, hovering just above the treetops. For the first time in days, I smiled.

  “Foxfire,” I croaked to the morning sky. I hadn’t spoken to a soul since Mick. Is he okay? Do I really want to know what happened when I ran away from Memphis?

  There was no immediate answer from Mally, as usual. Her answers were further and further apart. My cheeks flushed in embarrassment as I brushed away the thoughts of wasted time and futile pursuits. Memphis had been a mistake. There wasn’t any sense in beating myself up about it. I had to forgive myself. It sounded so simple and was anything but that. I’d made mistakes, but I was nearing home. The foxfire called to me as loud as a trumpet and welcomed me back.

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  “The low-hanging fog, Mally. It’s why these are called the Smoky Mountains.” I chuckled and sniffed the wind again, my mouth watering. “We called it foxfire because the wild foxes are making small fires to cook their breakfast.”

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  “More like a story. Something to pass down to children. Young ’uns,” I drawled with a laugh. The accent sounded funny and welcome at the same time. I’d never had much of one, but should the opportunity arise, talking like a native was possible—even three hundred years later, when the region had become a feral wasteland. I stuffed my hands into my pockets and walked up the curving road toward the source of the smell. “Mally, is there a house up this road?”

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  “A house or not?”

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  “Guess I’ll have to take a look for myself.”

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  The spicy smell made my stomach rumble in anticipation. “There’s food up there. I need to eat something substantial, Mally. I’m tired of ration bars.”

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  “What is that supposed to mean?”

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  “Like hell they are!” I swiped angrily at a low tree branch, scattering its remaining leaves on the forest floor. These were my people!

  Setting up the hexhab and getting a decent night’s sleep sounded good, as did a hot shower and clean, dry clothes. But being inside the damned thing would remind me of Berkeley. The scent of food called out to me, and saliva squirted into my mouth. I walked up the road, smiling and confident. This was the kind of interaction I’d been longing for. People close to my own ancestry. Similar values. Similar hospitality. I could trust them. It was going to be fine.

  The shrieking of a young child broke the idyllic morning around me. I moved faster as the screaming continued. What in the hell? Jogging around a sharp corner in the dirt road, I skidded to a stop. Fifty meters ahead, a downy-haired boy—no more than ten years old—lay squalling, stark naked, in the road. Bones were clearly visible under his skin, and his distended belly showed all the signs of malnutrition. He shrieked a jumble of sounds and groans as he screamed and kicked. I started to walk toward him when movement caught my eye. Out of what appeared to be a rusted-out cylindrical camper, an old woman wearing a filthy floral-print dress stomped toward the boy in ill-fitting boots without laces. She spat a long rope of tobacco juice and proceeded to scream something equally incoherent.

  Standing over the child, the old woman swatted his bony legs with a bare hand and then grabbed a flailing ankle. She dragged the naked boy off the road, through a cold mud puddle, and left him squalling at the rotted door of the camper. I didn’t know if she’d seen me or not, and it really didn’t matter. I was frozen to the spot in shock and disgust. The boy rolled out of the cold mud and tottered up the steps to the camper.

  I took a step. “What in the hell is going on here?”

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  Continuing forward, I called out, “Hello? Can you help me?”

  A rifle barrel came out of the small window of the trailer. A booming male voice screamed something that I couldn’t quite make out.

  Raising my hands, I kept moving. “Been walking a while, and I’m hoping you could—”

  The rifle barrel swung toward me, and I ran. The crack came as I crossed the road, and a bullet whistled past my head and into a pine tree. As I ran up the hill and into the brush, a second crack echoed through the woods, and a bullet whizzed past my right ear. I crested the small hill and descended the opposite side at full speed. All thoughts of breakfast vanished as I fled. I wondered about the boy and what fate he would meet in this harsh new world. Compared to Australia, this continent seemed on the edge of barbarism and civil collapse with nothing of worth outside the massive farming operations.

  The rest of the world is not like this, is it, Mally?

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  At that moment, I got what Allan, Berkeley, and Mally had all been trying to tell me. I would find nothing here worth fighting for—nothing that would make any of this easier. Nothing that could make me want to stay, and nothing that would make me want to return to Integration. I ran flat-out for half an hour along the ridges before I came to the fe
nce.

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  Where are the nearest gates?

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  How the hell am I supposed to get in there? I stared at the fence, easily three meters tall and topped with a row of razor wire that glowed a soft blue. Is there a way to get under it?

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  The fence appeared to be almost brand new. The soft blue glow caught my eye. Is it electrified?

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  The fence followed the ridgeline as far as the eye could see, to the northeast, but dropped down off the mountain and into a tight draw to the west. An outcropping of rock, moss covered and slick, shot up from the ground, twice as tall as the fence and a good thirty feet away.

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  I scrambled up the outcropping, confident that there was enough space along the top to get a running start. If my body was enhanced enough, the jump would be possible.

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  But you said—

  <> Mally sounded irritated. <>

  For a brief moment, I replayed Chastity collapsing to the floor. Mally had taken care of her, too. Down the mountain, I walked in the deep leaves of early winter and saw the gate. A black bar across the top of the gate blinked with red-and-blue lights. A small antenna rose up through the trees. Aside from a small trash receptacle resting beside the fence, there was no sign of footprints or human activity. “That’s how people know who goes in and out of the preserve?”

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  And that’s not what I have.

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  What are you trying to do?

  <> Mally paused. <>

  A hundred feet from the gate, I waited and put my hands in my pockets. My stomach rumbled again, and I was daydreaming about food but not the atomically reconstructed food from a hexhab galley. The thought of Allan’s fish tacos and cold beer made my mouth water.

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  I closed the remaining distance quickly and passed through the gate. A shrill chirp pierced the silent morning. Red lights flashed along the top of the gate. Oh shit.

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  What happened?

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  I sprinted down the mountain into a tight, rocky draw. The steep slope gave way to rolling hills before I found myself climbing again. On the top of an almost-flat mountain ridgeline, I looked across the wilderness of the Franklin Preserve.

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  Kneeling on the ground, I listened to the woods for several long minutes, hearing nothing but the breeze and the distant sound of running water. I moved toward it. Down below, a thin grey ribbon snaked through the terrain. I listened carefully and felt myself moving toward the sound of rushing water. What river is that, Mally?

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  I ran for a half hour before I came upon the river. Is this far enough?

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  The forest on the far side of the river looked thicker—better for concealment. Let me cross the river first. The terrain is better over there.

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  The river was frigid and clear. I drank from it and splashed water on my face before I tightened the straps on my pack. With a deep breath, I stepped into the river and immediately realized I could be making a terrible mistake. The rushing water was cold and higher than I expected, which made fording the Nolichucky more difficult than crossing the wide, deep Tennessee River. As the icy water encircled my chest, I struggled for breath and felt my warmth rushing away with the swirling rapids. My feet slipped several times. With one particularly scary misstep, the water came up to my chin, and then my feet could not touch the riverbed at all. The pack on my back pulled me down like an anchor. Fatigue crashed over me in waves. For two days, I’d done nothing but run, and I’d consumed virtually nothing. I had no more energy. My head slid below the surface.

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  I did as Mally said—three times in all—and finally stood in the river again. I sputtered a thank-you through trembling lips. As soon as my feet and legs could bear more weight and run, I ran deeper into the woods. Enhancements or not, hypothermia was a real concern. My shivering increased as my body tried in vain to warm itself. I had to get into the hexhab. Tossing off my pack, I grabbed the hexhab, found a spot in the trees, and pushed the button. While it filled with air and established its connections, I stripped out of my wet clothes. On the slightly warm rocks, I sat with my knees under my chin and rubbed my chest, hoping my clothes would dry a least a little. I gave up a minute later when the hexhab was fully inflated. Even in the mountains of Colorado, I hadn’t been so cold. I went inside the tent before I could succumb to hypothermia. I threw my wet clothes into a receptacle and curled up under a generated blanket while the hexhab filled with hot air.

  Lying on the floor, I questioned everything about my journey, especially the part after Berkeley disappeared. Why am I not back in Australia? What am I still doing here?

  Sleep came before I found an answer.

  The dreams came again. I welcomed them and hoped for a sign—something, anything to tell me I was on the right course and my travels hadn’t been for nothing.

  The humid summer evening descended like a wet blanket. The sun slid toward the western horizon, bathing the veranda of the old house in a warm yellow glow. Sitting on the wooden deck with its slats painted dull grey, I drank sweet tea from an artful glass ringed with bubbles and lipped with red. Condensation ran down the glass, cold and inviting, as I cradled it in my hands. I could smell the black walnut tree overlooking the garden just above the ever-present stench of tobacco from farther out in the fields.

  “Kieran?” The old woman wore loafers with white socks under worn blue jeans and a flannel shirt despite the summer heat. A baseball cap, its lettering and brim sun bleached and worn looking, crowned her head. She smiled and patted the empty space on the wooden swing next to her. “Come sit next to your Aunt Ada.”

  The smell of cut grass came up from my feet. My white shoes were tinged with green from mowing the yard after baseball practice. Driving to the farm by myself for the first time had excited me beyond belief, but the quiet home always calmed me down. I sat on the swing and rocked with her, the rhythm of it comforting as a mother’s heartbeat. The mountains covered the southern horizon and appeared blue in the late-evening sun. I’d forgotten how beautiful it was here. I’d forgotten too many things.

  “You can’t remember everything.” She patted my bare knee with a gnarled hand. “Just remember the important stuff.” Her accent was thick enough to be a brogue, the way the Scotch-Irish of Appalachia spoke. “That’s why you’re here.”

  “Here?�
�� The tea was strong and sweet and good. “I don’t know where I’m supposed to be.”

  “Family, Kieran.” She chuckled. “That’s what you are looking for, but it’s not what you’re trying to find.”

  She was right. My heart sank, and tears came to my eyes. “There isn’t anyone else, is there?”

  “Sure. There is family, but it’s been too long. Things change, and the family trees twist into thickets and briars. You can keep digging, but it’s painful, and you ain’t going to find what you want to find.”

  The chant of cicadas came from the big trees on the other side of the barn. “They want me to fight. I don’t know if I can.”

  “Because there’s nothing here?” she said. “Honey, everywhere you look are places where your ancestors may have walked or slept or just dreamed about. If you’ll look at it that way, everything here is familiar and worth fighting for, especially that girl you’re sweet on.”

  The dream cut away to show Berkeley and the sun glinting in her hair. “I loved her, and she left me.”

  “She had her reasons. The time is going to come when you can ask her about them.”

  “But…” I paused. “Won’t it be too late?”

  Ada laughed and patted my knee again. “Kieran, it’s never too late.”

  Heat rose up my neck and into my face. “I wasn’t there when my mom died.” The tears flowed again, and one drop raced down my cheek before Ada’s finger swept it away. “I didn’t say goodbye.”

  “Did you really want to say goodbye?”

  “No. All I wanted to do was tell her that I loved her.”

  Ada nodded, the smile fading from her face. “She knew that, Kieran. So did your father and everyone you ever loved. You say you want to find family, find a reason to fight, but you really want love. Berkeley had that for you.”

  The sun began to sink into the horizon, and the light began to fade. The evening breeze came up like a cleansing breath and began to cool the air. “She did,” I said with a sigh of acceptance.