The Gen

Chapter 9

Meilo and he expected to get caught one way or the other. That's why they urged Taila to leave Hagesh and to study somewhere far away. Holy Inquisition, she'd be so mad at them if she ever found out why they kicked her out of the nest.

The roads got lonelier and yet a car kept following him. Cold spread in his stomach. Shit. No, no... not now, not yet. In three, four months they could take him out, he wouldn't care. When his mission was fulfilled, when Taila was in Shilas, but not now, not the fuck yet!

He told his car to make a detour. The other car still followed. He couldn't see into the cabin, the headlights blinded him, he could only tell that there was one person in the car, but he couldn't be sure about that either.

He dived down in his seat. He called Faliz with his hand-held communicator.

"Yes?"

"It's me. I have a tail."

"What? Oh shit."

"I'll try to get rid of him."

"Damn it, Nal, if you got a tail that means they're on to us!"

"Calm down. I'll handle this."

"How?"

"If they take me out, you know what to do."

"Holy Tral, Nal, I... fuck... good luck, man."

"I'll call you if it's a false alarm. Otherwise, good luck to you too, Faliz. You've been a great friend."

"Nal... oh shit, man... oh fuck... take care. Damn, I hope you'll call."

"Me too, bye."

Nal cancelled the connection and put the communicator into his pants' pocket. He'd have to destroy it before they took him down. He opened a storage space next to the steering wheel. All cars still had manual control in case of emergency. He fumbled around inside the storage, opened its secret bottom, and took out a small laser pistol. The other car was still following.

He told his car to drive into the jungle, far away from the meeting place with Faliz. It was against protocol, yes, but he just had to tell Meilo. They decided on a code phrase for this moment that they hoped would never come.

He knocked at Meilo's V-door asking for audio.

"Hey, what's up?" she said a moment later.

"Hey honey, I just thought, can we eat goulash tomorrow for lunch?"

Abashed silence. "Yes, sure, that's a great idea." Meilo's voice quivered. "I'll buy the ingredients."

"Thanks, honey, see you soon."

"Yes, sure, bye, my love."

He cut the connection. His hand gripped the gun so hard he felt the handle warming up. Her voice sounded so shattered, so full of pain. Damn, they had become soft, they had become too used to safety.

They always lived in fear of discovery, but they hadn't been discovered, not in twenty years. A part of them thought they were beyond capture and failure. Nobody ever followed him in all these years.

Meilo thought up that ridiculous goulash code phrase twenty years ago. They were never forced to use it. Until now. Until a few stupid months away from the end of the mission.

Not now, damn it, not now!

Nal drove along the lonely jungle road, the other car more than half a kiloclim behind him but still on his heels.

He ordered his car to duck into a dirt road and it left the path of civilization. He drove on for half a kiloclim, getting shaken through, then stopped the car, left it and waited behind a tree a few clims left of the car with a clear view at the dirt path. He felt for the communicator in his pocket, still there. He'd have to laser the thing before they caught him, otherwise they'd be able to trace calls with the help of the tiny, primitive computer chip inside the device.