Breaker

Chapter 2-1

Chapter 2

Eddie

Eddie smiled at the roof of the cab, knowing that his pleased-with-himself attitude was probably odd, considering his plans, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. In a few hours, or a few days, or a few whatever-the-hell-he-decided-on because to hell with schedules, the bullshit and the chaos were going to be gone forever.

He’d told his mother back in November, a month or so after he’d figured out what he wanted to do with his surprising windfall, and a good three months after receiving the transfer of deed, that he’d only be gone a year at the most. There were a lot of things that needed to be done to his late uncle’s beach house on Grand Manan Island, and he’d lied about how awesome it was going to be to fix them with his own two hands. A summer paradise, he’d told her in a placating tone, and a winter wonderland, that would attract buyers with hundreds of thousands of credits that they’d be willing to throw away to own it.

Sure, she’d whined about how he should be starting his career and doing something productive with his costly new degree, and when that guilt trip hadn’t worked, she’d insinuated that he might get careless so far outside his comfort zone and how that could cause his “issues” to become “troublesome.”

But in the end, he hadn’t needed to work too hard at convincing her. The house back in Madison and the home decorating business she loved so much were slipping from between her fingers, and she was in desperate need of credits to keep her afloat. When basic human needs like clean air and food came with a hefty price tag, luxuries like hiring someone to do interior decorating weren’t high on most people’s list of priorities. If he didn’t fix up his uncle’s beach house and sell it for a decent sum, there wasn’t a chance she’d be able to keep the business. Or her house. Or her fancy friends.

So Mother had agreed and Eddie had begun making his plans. Bizarrely, or maybe not, his mother hadn’t been the only person who’d demanded explanations about why he was leaving the relative safety of the Metro Center and setting off for a lonely island where god-knew-what could happen. Neighbors, business acquaintances, friends from school; they all seemed to think they had a right to know what was going on in Eddie’s head. By the end of the Winter Civic Holiday and the New Year’s celebrations, he could have written a book on how to lie to people who thought they knew best. I’m just looking for a quiet place to reflect on artistic endeavors. I’m introspective; this will be good for me. I want to pursue the possible benefits of natural farming.

But the reaction he got for his more creative replies, the: I’ve joined a seminary, and I need to take a vow of silence for a year; the spirit of my dead father came to me in a dream; I’ve been meditating and the blue god in my head told me to go west, young man, had been worth the effort. His father had always said Eddie’s ability to come up with the absurd was a gift.

The climate control system of the cab clicked on, and the recirculating air assaulted him. No matter how hard they tried, cologne and perfume couldn’t compete against the stink of body odor and dirty clothes. Not everyone in Chicago was concerned about cleanliness; not everyone had the means to obtain it, even if they were worried about it. While he understood the problem, even felt a few pangs of sympathy, that didn’t mean he wanted to experience it secondhand.

Eddie waved a hand in front of his face and wrinkled his nose. “Climate, off,” he told the vehicle, and the fan instantly shut down. If no airflow meant he’d have to contend with the heat radiating through the window, well, that was nine hundred times better than having to smell every traveler’s ass since the cab’s creation. He’d never been a fan of public transportation, and this particular cab was no exception. Not that he had any choice, though, unless he’d wanted to walk. It’d been years since Eddie’s family had been able to own a personal vehicle. Fuel cells were ungodly expensive. Now the only person in their district who could afford it were the Hamptons. Hell, they even still had their horses. f*****g horses. People didn’t even own dogs anymore.

Eddie caught a quick breath and shook his head. For just a second Eddie let memory take him, and he followed it out of the cab and into the sunny confines of the Hampton’s stable. Gillian, the Hampton’s son, grinned beside him, and Vivian, the Hampton’s horse, trundled beneath him. It was only memory, nothing more, but it was so vivid he could feel the heat of the stable on his skin. He could smell the scent of the dust lifting off the ground, the sweat of the horse, and the rich scent of Gillian’s cologne. That guy had always smelled so damn good.

Gillian had been an interesting kid, with a great smile and an even better laugh. He’d played the part of Eddie’s sidekick until they got old enough to realize that the groping they occasionally did while playing had probably been excuses to touch each other. Then he’d become Eddie’s first s****l experience. And his second, and third. It had been a damn good summer for a couple of sixteen-year-old boys who preferred each other’s company to the fairer s*x. More than once Eddie had wondered if he and Gillian might have had a chance at something more than experimentation in the stable.

It was pointless speculating, though. Things changed a lot between the years of sixteen and twenty-five, and who knew where life might have taken them? Besides, Gillian had been gone for eight years. When it became obvious that Gillian’s talents with the horses went above and beyond mere understanding, Mr. and Mrs. Hampton had panicked and bundled their one and only baby off to…well, wherever. Eddie had never heard another word about him.

Not that Eddie had asked. Not that he would he have been given any answers if he had asked. People didn’t talk about anomalies like Gillian unless they were behind closed doors. Even then, it was best to be careful. One never knew who was listening.

It didn’t matter. Soon he would never have to worry about who might overhear his darkest secret. Once he got to the island and put his plans to work, he wouldn’t have to worry about anything. Some quiet time with the sky and the wind and a couple of sunsets (or maybe it was sunrises on that side of the world?), and then he’d follow his father into the…Eddie frowned and tried to remember the quote he’d stumbled on a couple months ago—something about the quiet darkness? Or was it going quietly into the darkness? A dark night? Not the Dark Knight, although to the fair, if fiction could somehow be made fact, he’d definitely follow that particular Dark Knight just about anywhere. He’d always had a thing for the brooding hero…

The cab slowed. It was one of many moving along the six grid lanes that would take them into the airport, and Eddie eyed the fading afternoon sky through the dirty windshield. The sun always seemed to set so fast in the metro centers, and Chicago was one of the worst when it came to heavily polluted metropolises. At home—in any of the rural developments, really—it was easy to forget that large stacks had once puffed unfathomable quantities of filth into the air, and had damn near poisoned the entire planet. Here, though, on what the books used to call Interstate Ninety, and what they now called Gridline Ninety, where the damage had lingered and everything from lungs to concrete finishes had suffered, it wasn’t hard to believe in the slightest. The entire city wore the scars of humanity’s abuse.

The airport loomed to the right of the grid lanes like a giant gray beast. Its old fashioned concrete exterior had a faded, dismal appearance. Not worth the trouble to tear down, a large tower still stood in the middle of the property, but it was no longer used for air traffic control. When he’d taken an interest in air travel a few years prior, the ‘Net had cheerfully told him all about the computer programs and grid-style management that the airlines had developed back in pre-Cure days.

Post-Cure advancements were vague. The ‘Net had advised him that most of his questions were of a classified nature. “Security management”—Security breach—search failed, please try again—and “Proprietary development”—Classified information, please try again with a different search—were not discussed.

Gillian had not been the only person on the planet with extra special talents, everyone knew that. And on more than one occasion Eddie had wondered if those “afflicted” people now ran the airlines. Someone with the right power to control heavy machinery. Someone who could save the airlines, which were all government controlled, some serious cash when it came to pilots and equipment maintenance. A human slave who carried the title of “Estranged” and worked under the scrutinizing eye of government officials.

Of course, his mother had told him the idea was ridiculous, that nobody used the Estranged for anything good. Ever. That was why they had to keep Eddie’s little “issue” a secret. No one could know. She’d make sure she kept him safe and out of the sights of the government if it killed her. If for no other than she couldn’t bear the thought of her friends finding out one of those belonged to her.

He heard her speak as though she sat next to him, “Do you want to end up like Gillian?”

Sounds and sensations began to crawl through Eddie’s head, and for a minute they intertwined with his mother’s voice. First came the suck of soft muck trying to hold on to something being pulled from it (they’ll put you in a cage, Eddie…), then the thrum of an elevated heartbeat (they’ll do crazy things to you…), followed by the squirm of a million maggots digging into flesh. The noises and feelings were so familiar, so vivid, that Eddie could almost see another brain climbing inside his head to share the space. It was not his mother’s.

Eddie’s heartbeat accelerated and his skin began to prick with life.

It took a second for Eddie to realize the cab had stopped. Another cab faced him from the left side of the intersection ahead. It was also stopped. Behind him, two other cabs idled as well, at the safe and mandated distance of thirty feet away. Stopped traffic made him nervous. Slow traffic, sure, especially at a place like the airport where the grid had to make several calculations about approaching pedestrians and other cabs, but with the grids running properly, there was absolutely no reason for the traffic to stop. That was the whole point of the grid—automatic shifts in speed and route made most trips seamless.

A light on top of the cab in front of them began to blink. Icy fear dumped into his belly.

Was it him? Was the cab stopping because of him?

Eddie’s throat tightened. Time slowed and his ears popped. The internal, invisible intruder—the brain that was now occupying space with his own—took over, and even though Eddie could see the sky, the traffic, and the people, now he could hear the sounds of people in line, shoes scuffing on carpeting, voices grumbling at one another about delays and how the security line had stopped moving.

But it wasn’t the strangeness of the event—of hearing somebody else’s surroundings, of riding shotgun in someone else’s head—that had him sweating. Oh no. It was the malevolence he could feel in every nerve of his body—of the other’s body. Raw hate poured into Eddie. It wasn’t his. All he felt was cold dread. But the other…the other person was seething with rage and sharing every second of it with Eddie.

He dropped his gaze to the white button at the middle of the car’s dash, doing everything he could to fight away the intruder in his head. Get out, get OUT.

Distraction. Eddie needed a distraction fast. If he wanted to, he could lean forward, activate the Commu-link, and in an instant he would be connected with the cab company’s dispatch. A soothing, professional, and almost always feminine voice would come online and advise him of all the pertinent information regarding his trip and location that she would be allowed to dispense.