He takes me out one of the rear doors. The front will likely have more men, he reasons. The back of the building is pretty well fortified too, but there are no armed men there. A tall concrete wall separates the back of the building from the street beyond, which is elevated and on an angle.
“Stop!”
Even if the shout didn’t come from behind us, it would be obvious that we’ve been discovered. The sound of heavy bootscoming down the hall behind us is really fucking loud. They’ve worked out Simon’s ruse, and they’re coming for us. No. Not us. Me. They want to stick me in a lab cell and breed me and now it’s way more scary than it is hot.
The world slides by suddenly as Simon picks me up over his head and hoists me to the top of the wall.
“Run,” he says.
“What?”
“I’ll hold them off. You get out of here. You’ve got your phone. I’ll message you with a safe location soon. Don’t go to your house, or mine.” He boosts me up and I pull myself over the ledge, finding myself on the street beyond the building.
Behind me, men are pouring out the door. I have to run, because I know they’ll be scaling that concrete wall like it’s not even there and then I’ll be caught and this will all be for nothing.
The last thing I see is Simon being swarmed by guys and trying to block them. I run through traffic and by some twist of fate, there’s a group e-bike just sitting on the other side of the road. I am on that thing in an instant, putting miles between me and my pursuers.
I don’t know where to go. I don’t know what to do.
I feel hunted.
I’m worried for Simon.
I’m terrified for myself. I have to stay away from everything familiar. So I go to a gym. I have a membership I’ve been paying for, for almost a year, but I only went once. They’ll never think to look for me here.
I’m not dressed for the gym, but there’s a café there, so I sit there and I scroll on my phone hoping that Simon will call me soon.
I’m so glad I’m at a café. I get something to eat. I get something to drink. I wait. And then I wait longer. And then I start to freak out a little. More than a little. What’s taking him so long? Have they taken him prisoner?
The gym is 24/7, so I have that going for me. Then I think about maybe seeing if internet cafés still exist. They do in Japan. Maybe they do here.
* * *
It is 3:00 in the morning when my phone rings. I am half asleep at the table. There are a few people here working out. I can hear the distant squeak of an elliptical trainer that needs oil.
“Sorry,” Simon says. “It took some time to convince them to leave us alone.”
“You convinced them?”
“Meet me in the park at 6:00 a.m.,” he says. “By the newsstand.”
“Why? If Veronica’s chill, why can’t I just go home? Why can’t you just come and get me now?”
“Chill would be an overstatement,” he says.
There’s a weird glitch for a moment. It sounds like he coughed, or said a word wrong. Something about it makes me feel weird. And suspicious.
My brain is sleepy and slow, and that’s probably why it took me so long to realize why the hair on the back of my neck is standingup in a classic uncanny valley reaction. I am not talking to him at all. They’ve trained a machine on his voice and now they’re using it to lure me in. I am impressed and horrified in equal measure.
“Okay. I’ll see you at 6:00 a.m.,” I say. “At the newsstand.”
At 5.30 a.m., I am up a tree near the newsstand, and there are several groups of people milling about trying to look casual and failing. Bunches of men in long shorts and polo shirts and baseball caps that all look too new, and trainers that also look like they’ve never been worn are conspicuous as hell, as is the way they’re spaced out around the newsstand like they’ve taken up twelve, three, six, and nine on a clock. Veronica has called in tactical teams on me.
She’s not going to catch me that easily.
CHAPTER 12
Simon
