Strangers in Danger

Chapter 20: Cara

I didn't completely trust Diane, but I hadn't been able to tell him that. She was our only connection to some kind of safe haven and I couldn't cut the shred of hope Lucas had been clinging to. I hadn't been completely honest with him either. I knew more about what was happening than I let on. I was able to put together some small pieces of a much larger puzzle that I couldn't gain access to. I was a good hacker, but I wasn't some kind of genius and my skills had limitations. I needed access to her network if I wanted more.

"I need a place with public WiFi," I said, as I clicked around on my laptop. "Like McDonald's or something."

Lucas started to protest and I interrupted him. "Please. Just get us to McDonald's. I know I saw one nearby."

He went silent and I could tell he was irritated. I took a deep breath and sighed. "Your ex is lying," I said and waited a moment for a response. None came. "I needed access to her files and I couldn't get it without accessing their network directly. So I built myself a way in using their guest network."

Lucas remained quiet as he pulled into the parking lot and got on the drive through line. "Might as well, right?" He said and rolled down the window.

I opened up my laptop and got to work. I was certain I hid my tracks well, but I had no way of knowing how long I had before the hole was patched and I was again locked out.

"Is this why you wanted to come with me?" Lucas asked as he unwrapped a cheeseburger. "So you could hack into a government network?"

"I don't trust your ex," I said, not looking away from the screen. "She's hiding something from us."

"Like what?" He responded with a full mouth and clearly upset with my accusation.

"I'm not sure. That's why I needed access to her computer." The energy around him had changed and it started to permeate into my body. My heart started thumping faster and my fingers started to shake. I pressed on, saving the files that I thought might be helpful. I worked in silence for another 15 minutes, ignoring the food and coffee beside me. The more time I left the hole open, the more vulnerable I became and I didn't want to leave a trail that could put us in more danger.

I quickly opened up an email with a large file attached. "Bingo," I muttered. I saved everything, cut my connections, and closed my laptop.

"What did you find?" Lucas asked.

"Everything," I pressed my head into the seat and closed my eyes to alleviate some of my eye strain. "Let's go back to the hotel first and grab our stuff. The safe house is probably bugged."

I opened my eyes and saw Lucas staring at me. He looked worried, confused, and angry. I took his hand and squeezed it gently. "I think we're going to need alcohol for this."

—

I poured myself a large glass of red wine. Knowing we may have to run at a moment's notice, we spent the entirety of our escape stone sober. It had been tempting to pick up a case of beer or a bottle of wine as we shacked up in a dingy motel in rural West Virginia, but we had too many close calls to risk it. But today I opened a bottle of moderately priced merlot and emptied a quarter of it into a hotel glass.

I took Lucas for a beer guy, but he said if he was going to die soon, he may as well spring for a good Scotch.

"Luke, what did your parents tell you about your abilities?" I asked, sitting down in a chair in the corner of the room.

He sat on the bed across from me. "Nothing. They just said I was extra intuitive or something."

I took a sip of my drink. "We weren't born with these abilities," I said bluntly, ripping off the bandaid.

Lucas tilted his head slightly and narrowed his eyes. "What?"

"There's hundreds of us, all around the same age. We were enrolled into some government clinical trials as infants. Given a cocktail of drugs that altered our brain and body composition, and everyone in the trial developed abilities of some sort. And then we were observed and studied until the program was scrapped around the time we were in preschool," I paused to let him take it all in, but his face sat like stone. I could tell he was squeezing his glass a bit more tightly, the liquid and ice starting to shake.

"There's a list. Hundreds of us on it. That's the data that's being used by the bounty hunters to take people. They're tracking and kidnapping people on the list. People who were part of this program. The bounty hunters are collecting people for a private organization called EM Nine, who are giving them the Winter Soldier treatment and using them as a personal army for things that are incredibly problematic if not straight up illegal."

I paused again to take another large sip of my wine. I could feel it mixing with my anxiety medication, but I kept my focus and control.

"They're not grabbing everyone, though. Only those who could go missing for a long period of time without anyone really noticing. People without close family ties or live in rural areas where the police departments are too understaffed to take on a missing persons case. They seem to be covering their tracks by falsifying data so the kidnappings don't seem to be raising any red flags yet."

Lucas looked down into his glass. His face in heavy contemplation. "How is Diane involved in all this?"

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. "She's not working directly for the US government anymore. She's employed by EM Nine as its government contract liaison. EM Nine is contracted by the military to do research on non lethal weaponry and spyware. They are trying to revive the old program for the military. Thankfully they don't seem to be testing on babies anymore but they're using us as worker drones and studying what happens."

He continued to stare into the amber liquid.

"Luke," I said quietly. "Every one of our closest calls came after we checked in with Diane. That's not a coincidence. I don't know how she did it, but it wasn't chance."

He sighed deeply and brought the rim of the glass to his lips, swallowing the remainder of his Scotch in one gulp.