Broken Flyght – Chapter 19

My feet are moving, and before I can register what I’m doing, I’m halfway through the bar and making my way towards this woman. I can’t tear my eyes from her, disbelief slowly bubbling up through my shock. I came all this way to find my brother. I didn’t expect to find her.

People step out of my way or jump to the side as I barrel through the crowds. I can hear Jinzo saying my name, but his voice is far away like he’s underwater. Somewhere in a tiny corner of my brain, I’m surprised he’s following me. I’m surprised he even cares. Didn’t I just break up with him? I’m not sure I did. All I know is my path to this woman.

I approach her as she’s standing in an aisle, and once I’m within a few steps, my nose is filled with the strong scent of cinnamon and lemon. I gasp and cover my mouth with my hand. If I wasn’t sure before, I am now. She’s wearing the perfume my brother had in his apartment.

“Excuse me? Can I help you?” she asks.

I snap out of my head, and the casino comes back to me at full volume. On the lapel of her jacket, a digital name tag reads “Sonia Kopack” then “Ask me how to become a VIP member.”

“Sonia,” I whisper, trying to commit her name to memory. Sonia Kopack. I repeat it five times in my head.

She cocks her head, her eyebrows drawing in.

“Do I know you?”

“You…” I point straight at her. “Where’s my brother?”

People are starting to pay attention. Another casino employee approaches us, and a few players at the table nearby turn around to watch. Jinzo’s hand is on my right hip, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Your brother? Who are you?” She chuckles, and my face heats as I try to keep myself from lunging at her.

“Where’s Tomu?”

His name knocks her back a step. She opens her mouth once and snaps it shut. I would expect her to say my name except there’s no way Tomu ever talked about me to her. Why would he except to disparage me?

Seems he didn’t even do that.

I’m about to tell her that we should go talk this out somewhere — let’s get all the secrets out on the table and tell me what my damned fool brother has been up to — when she takes another step back, turns, and runs.

“Hey!” I call out, blinking in surprise.

She took off!

The nerve.

I can’t let her get away.

My legs pump, and I leave all caution behind as I run after her.

“Vivian!” Jinzo takes up the chase right next to me.

Weren’t we just doing this a few days ago? Except I was wearing better clothes and shoes for that run.

We dodge through people coming and going from poker and baccarat tables. I knock into one woman, and her bag flies into the air, her makeup case splitting open and spilling everywhere. Men in black suits try to join us, to stop us, but they fail as we leave them in the dust. They’re big and meant for subduing people, not chasing after them.

Sonia bursts through the casino doors and into the rain of Rio.

“Oh shit,” I swear as a cramp rips up my right leg. I ditch the heels and keep running barefoot. Better. Marginally.

“We… should… stop.” Jinzo is panting at my side as we come through the casino doors and follow Sonia out into the rain. It’s coming down harder now than it was an hour ago. My hair and shirt are immediately soaked.

I look left and right. There! Down the street, Sonia is jumping onto a hoverbike and starting it up. The bike whines into activation.

Forgetting the pain in my chest and legs, I take off in her direction.

“Vivian! What are you doing?” Jinzo yells as I hop over a curb and take the stairs down to street level two at a time.

“Saving my family!”

I pass my fingers over my wristlet as I run, and yes, that’s as awkward as it sounds. “Ai… Carlos… I’m approaching a bank of rent-a-bikes. I need one. Now.”

Sonia’s bike lifts out of her spot. She jumps on and hovers far up out of my reach.

“Come back! I just want to talk!” I yell at her. I try to jump up and grab her bike, but she’s too far up now.

“No! Leave me alone!” she shouts back. Her face is pale, and her eyes are wide with fear.

I should just let her go. She’s obviously scared for her life.

But dammit, what about my life? Whatever she knows about my brother and what he did is enough to send her running. Am I supposed to be the only one burdened with this bullshit?

No. I refuse.

A bike farther down the line of rentals activates and rises up.

“Captain, bike number eighty-two is yours,” Ai chimes in my ear. In my eye display, a map pops up with current battery charge, credits owed, and traffic information. Not many people are on hoverbikes on a rainy day like today.

“Where did she go?” I ask Jinzo, running up to the kiosk of helmets.

“She’s not far.”

I pass a helmet to him, and he shakes his head.

“You’re crazy.”

He laughs as he pulls the helmet on.

“I’m determined. Let’s go.”

My bare feet slip as I jump on the bike, and Jinzo straddles the seat behind me. I’ll be carrying more weight so catching up to her will be hard, but I drove a hoverbike for most of my college years here on Rio. It was a second-hand clunker that broke down if you breathed on it the wrong way, but it got me where I was going.

“Straight for four blocks and then she turned left,” Jinzo yells in my ear.

“Voice commands,” I yell back. “Pair up with Jinzo Lee.”

A chime sounds in my ear, and then Jinzo is there.

“That’s better. I hate yelling on a bike. Go get her,” he says.

I gun the bike, and with a squeal, we lurch forward and speed away from the casino. Rain pelts on my helmet and runs a river up my arm. With the air now rushing past us, I shudder in a sudden chill. Jinzo tightens his arms around my waist.

I make the left turn, braking at the corner and flinging us around the nearest building. We both lean into the turn.

“There. Five bikes ahead,” Jinzo says in my ear.

“Ai, Carlos, can you track her?”

“Who is this and why are we tracking her, Captain?” Carlos has joined the conversation.

“My brother’s girlfriend. She’s a pit boss at the casino. Sonia… Sonia something. Shit! Why am I so bad with names?”

“Sonia Kopack,” Jinzo fills in.

“We can’t track her. The bike rental has their network locked down. Privacy reasons. I could hack it with time —”

“No time.”

I speed up, twisting the throttle to the limit.

“I’ll keep an eye on traffic cameras, though, in case you lose her,” Carlos says.

“Do you…” Jinzo grunts as I swing the next turn wide to follow Sonia. “Do you know what we’ll do when we catch up to her?”

The hoverbike whines and whirrs, its engine stretched to the max. These rental bikes are barely better than my old clunker. I expect the system to yell warnings at me at any second.

“Nope. We catch up to her, and that’s as far as my brilliant plan goes.”

A red light flashes up the block, and panic coats my brain. I’m supposed to stop for oncoming traffic, but Sonia has blasted through the tail end of the yellow light. She’s way ahead now, and we’ll lose her if I don’t go low.

“Hold on,” I warn Jinzo.

“Wait. Vivian!”

Angling the bike down, I skim across the sidewalk, around a group of people, and come up on the other side of the intersection. Horns blare at me, and another rider flips his middle finger in my direction.

“Shit. When did you learn to fly like this?” Jinzo’s voice squeaks in my ear.

“Today.”

Oitavo is not very large. It’s one of the smallest floating cities on Rio. So it comes as no surprise when we skim the circumference road and angle into outer rim traffic. Sonia is still too far ahead for me to catch her. There’s no way my bike can overtake her at this point. She got too much of a head start, and we’re never going to catch up.

I don’t know how, but Jinzo can sense my disappointment.

“It’s okay. You’re not going to catch her. Just keep following her. She can’t lose you now. She’ll give up, eventually.”

I’m watching her tail when something crazy happens. A bike to the left of Sonia decides far too late to make an exit from the circumference road and knocks into her on his way out.

She slams on the brakes, fishtailing left, right, left again, and within a moment, we’re practically on top of her.

“Whoa!” Jinzo yells, and my ear implant mutes him. He squeezes me tight as we decelerate. “Down,” he commands, his voice lower.

I bring the bike into a dive, signaling first and following the flow of traffic to approach Sonia.

She glances over her shoulder, and I can’t see the look on her face behind her helmet, but her legs clutching the bike shake as she brings her bike up to speed again. This time, though, we’re close enough to be right on her tail.

She swerves left into a cluster of bikes, but I stay out of the fray. They honk and blare their horns at her.

“Keep an eye on her,” I tell Jinzo as I point my eyes straight ahead. This is getting dangerous, and the last thing I want to be is road kill on Rio. My parents would never forgive me.

“Captain.” Ai is in my ear again. “Police have been dispatched to your location. They’ve spotted two reckless drivers, and I’m guessing you’re one of them.”

I swear under my breath. This is getting out of hand.

“She’s going down again,” Jinzo says. “On your left… No, under… Wait. She’s… shit, she’s heading for land.”

“Land? I need a city map,” I say as I brake and drop. Another round of horns roar at me as I cut people off.

I consult the map as we shoot down through four levels of traffic and cut across to the exit. I almost miss it. I have to brake, drift, and practically drop us off the bike to make it. Jinzo pulls me away from the wall we coast past with only a centimeter or two to spare.

“Where is she going?” I ask no one in particular.

Where where where?

This is no-man’s-land. This is a skyway used by people delivering goods to and from the mainland. The only things down here are more skyways and roadways, farms, and beaches.

“No,” I breathe out, watching Sonia speed for the nearest beach exit.

The beaches? She wouldn’t dare. Is she really that afraid to face me?

Well, come on, Vivian. I have been chasing her for the better part of thirty minutes now. Whatever information she has, she’s willing to risk her life for it.

What do I do?

I hesitate as she descends past the beaches exit and the sand stretches out before us. A well-worn road skirts the jungle on the left, a conduit to the distant port. Only the fishermen come down here, and never in the rain when the mammoth jellies and jumping carnivorous fish roam the sands.

“Oh God,” I mutter as we get close enough to see the sand writhe and shimmer. They’re out in force today, and my stomach turns over watching Sonia skim the top of a snake and jelly colony. It’s weird the way they pair up like this. I’ve often heard the xenobiology students at school talk about wildlife on Rio and how it evolved in pairs — snakes and birds, squid and jellies, raposquirrels and those giant fuzzy insects I can never remember the name of.

A chill runs through me remembering how people used to come to the shore for fun in the early colony days until kids got eaten by these things.

“She’s going out to sea, Vivian. It’s over.”

Jinzo is trying to talk sense into me, but anger has returned to sit in my chest. This woman has led me all over town. She’s tried to kill us a few times now with her crazed driving and high-flying antics. And all I want to do is talk to her.

“It’s not over,” I growl, letting my anger guide me. This time I’m not calming down.

She’s going to talk to me. She’s going to listen. And I’m going to get to the bottom of this mess. She’s my only link to my brother now, and I’m not letting her go.

Sonia must have figured out that the beach on a rainy day was not the most brilliant idea ever because she swerves a few times to avoid jumping sea snakes. I stay far above them, and they still try to jump up and grab me.

“Higher,” Jinzo urges me. “We need to go back.”

Sonia veers wide, coasting out over the water, and circling back towards the city. Not a great idea either. While the jumping sea snakes don’t gain as much height out here, we’re still in danger from other sea life. I follow her, staying on her tail and as high as possible. I don’t look down. I don’t want to know what’s going on in the water beneath us.

“Vivian…” Jinzo’s voice is insistent. “Vivian, listen to me. If we don’t catch up to this woman, it’s okay. Just let her go. There will be other leads. I promise. I’ll help you hunt them down myself. I’ll support you, however I can.”

“Ha,” I spurt out through a film of tears. Not that I can tell them apart from the rain soaking me from head to toe. The map in my vision blinks red a few times as I sweep out over the waves and into the silent waters of the ocean. “No. You’re going back to Cressida. As much as I like you, I can’t risk it. You watched that last vidcall five times. She still means something to you.”

I speed up, trying to get away from the blinking red area of the map.

Jinzo sighs. “I watched it because I wanted to make sure…”

“What?” I demand.

“Driver, you are out of range and in violation of the renter’s contract,” takes over in my ears. “Forward movement has been disengaged. Please await pick up from the authorities.”

“That you were the real thing,” Jinzo says. “That you were worth more than Cressida’s empty apologies and promises. And boy was I right.”

I twist the throttle, and nothing happens. Sonia speeds away, angling upward and taking the on-ramp off the beach to the city above.

“Viv? Why aren’t we moving?”

I sigh and pull off my helmet. “The bike is locked down. I think we’re about to end up at the police station.” I close my eyes and let the rain fall on me. “Jinzo, I’m tired of people promising me stuff that will never come true. I don’t need that from you as well.”

I turn in my seat so I can look at him. His helmet is in his lap, and the rain runs down his head and meanders in tiny rivers along his face.

“I keep promises, and I don’t want to let you get away.” His fingers brush my face. “You have a bit of a temper —”

I laugh at this, and it lightens my mood, even as I see the flashing lights approaching from shore.

“— But I think we’re made for each other.”

“Well,” I begin, leaning into his fingers.

Then I feel it, and I freeze. A creeping sensation, sliding, slipping up my leg. A tug throws me off balance, and I squeak and grab for Jinzo. I tear my eyes from Jinzo’s, and the tentacle wrapped around my leg is unmistakable.

“Get it off! Get it off!” Panic squeezes my chest as I slide away from the bike. Everything is wet and slippery, but I wrap my hands around the bike’s footrest and squeeze with all my might. The only problem? I’ve been riding the bike for almost an hour now, and my hands are weak with fatigue.

My whole body is weak with fatigue, and this thing is stronger than me.

“Vivian!” Jinzo is on his stomach now, trying to keep me above the water. His grasp on the tight shirt I stupidly decided to wear is firm, but the seams are ripping.

“I can’t hold on.”

Another tentacle weaves up my other leg. This squid knows when it has a prize in its grips.

I lose one hand on the bike and scream.

I’m sorry, Mom. I’m sorry, Dad. I’m going to lose this fight, and it’s not going to be pretty.

Jinzo grabs my free hand. “If you go under, take a deep breath and kick.”

With his other hand, he grabs the outer body of the bike, right next to the manufacturer’s logo, and pulls. It grinds open, exposing the inner parts of the bike.

And just then, the squid yanks, my grip loosens, and water comes at me fast. I inhale a big lungful of air as I enter the ocean and sink with my killer wrapped around me.

Kick, Jinzo said. I kick hard, furious thrashes that fling the squid side to side. I weigh a lot more than this squid though it’s pretty strong. It’s hanging on even as I’m swimming against it. I’m a tasty meal for it, so I have to stay up in the top meters of water, or I’m dinner. I pump with my arms and kick, gaining a few centimeters. Off in the distant murky water, a whale swims along lazily. Help me!

I jerk in surprise as Jinzo swims past me with something in his hand. I look down, and he grabs a tentacle, and with a strong swipe, he cuts it off of me. A shriek echoes through the water, and the other tentacle lets go. I’m free!

I pump and swim hard upward. I must be losing consciousness because the silvery surface right above me twinkles with lights. Pretty, pretty lights. So… pretty.

An arm grabs me, and we break through the salty water to a rainy afternoon. Air rushes into my lungs, and I gasp.

“Got you.”

Jinzo’s arm is around me, and he kisses my temple before pumping his own legs and moving us closer to the hoverbike. I hack ocean water from my lungs, and my head screams in pain. I almost died!

“You there in the water!” A voice booms out at us. Wait. Those pretty twinkling lights below the water were… Yep. I turn my head and look at the two police cruisers hovering over us. “You are under arrest! Climb aboard the hoverbike and await retrieval.”

Shit.

How the mighty have fallen.

My lower lip trembles as I return to the hoverbike in Jinzo’s arm. He hauls himself up and releases the emergency ladder that plops down into the sea beside me. With its assistance, I’m able to climb aboard again.

I lunge for Jinzo’s embrace, wrapping my arms around him tight. He’s comfortingly solid and sturdy. My God, he just saved my life.

“Thank you,” I whisper. My teeth chatter as the wind from the police cars whips around us.

He holds me tight. “I can’t let some sea creature kill my girl on the second date. That just won’t do.”

I dip my lips to his neck and rest my head there as I struggle to get air into my lungs and brain.

“What are we going to do?” I whisper as the cop cars edge nearer. A door opens, and an officer on a hovercraft begins to lower down.

“Don’t worry about it,” Jinzo says. “I’ll take care of it.”