“No, I’m thirsty because the son of a bitch didn’t give us water.”
“Quiet,” Viv cautioned. “He hears everything we say.”
Bethany adjusted the bill of her cap, shielding her eyes. “The sun’s so bright, my contact lenses feel like they’re cooking. Hey, you out there! Are you listening?”
No response.
“At least, you could have given us sunglasses!”
Still no response.
“Maybe the bastard isn’t listening.” Bethany looked around. “Do you suppose there are cameras out here?”
Amanda took for granted there were. But before she could say it, Bethany asked, “Where? In those trees we’re heading toward? Or long lenses watching from the house? Or on posts somewhere, scanning the valley?”
They slid down into the gully. Dust rose under their boots. The gully was about five feet wide, higher than their heads. The shadow at the bottom cooled them.
“I used to love sailing, couldn’t wait to get on the water with nothing around me except the horizon.” Bethany shuddered. “It made me feel like something inside me was reaching out toward God or something. But after two weeks in that rubber boat, all that open space sucked the soul right out of me. I haven’t been near the water since. It’s hard to get people to buy sailboats when the thought of being on one terrifies me. ”
Amanda dug her boots into the slope ahead, raising dust as she climbed. The dust coated her lips and tasted bitter. Emerging into the heat of the sun, she looked back and saw Bethany peering up from the shadow of the gully.
“It’s nice and cool down here,” Bethany said.
“This isn’t the ocean,” Derrick emphasized. “At least, it’s steady under your feet. It doesn’t ripple.”
“Maybe not to you, it doesn’t ripple. But my legs haven’t felt steady since I woke up. At least, in that building, I had walls around me.”
“Think of the mountains as walls.”
Bethany looked bleak. “Mouth’s drier.”
“The voice said there was water at the coordinates we were given.”
“No!” Bethany objected. “The voice said we’d find something we needed. Whatever that means. He didn’t say anything about water. We added what we wanted to hear.” She pulled her headset from beneath her cap.
“Climb out of there,” Viv said.
“We’re not going to be any stronger than we are now.” Bethany stared at the headset in her hand. With disgust, she dropped it.
“No,” Derrick said.
“What can the bastard do to me?” Bethany spread her arms, making herself a target. “Shoot me? How? He can’t see me down here!”
Amanda looked around and felt a naked spot between her shoulders. Above the gully, everything was a potential sniper site: clumps of sagebrush, the row of trees they were headed toward, the rocks next to it. In the open, we’re all easy targets, she realized.
“Take your chance now,” Bethany urged. “If we all run in a different direction, how’s he going to keep track of us all? How’s he going to be everywhere at once to stop us? He can’t.”
The logic’s so tempting, Amanda thought. While we’re together, we don’t have a chance. She almost told Bethany she was right, almost slid down the dust to join her, but something made Amanda hesitate, a limbic suspicion that things weren’t as simple as Bethany believed, that escaping couldn’t be as easy as five people fleeing in five different directions.
Then Amanda did slide into the gully, not to join Bethany but to try to stop her. She put a hand on Bethany’s shoulder. “I’ve got a bad feeling. Don’t do this.”
“Hey, the voice said he wanted us to be self-reliant, didn’t he?” Bethany tugged Amanda’s fingers away, took a deep breath, and walked along the concealing gully. Her pace increased. If the gully maintained its direction, it would lead toward the exit from the valley, Amanda saw.
Running now, raising dust, Bethany disappeared around a curve. Amanda heard the receding noise of her boot steps in the dust, then stared up at Ray, Derrick, and Viv, uncertain what to do.
“Are the rest of you going to join her?” the voice abruptly asked.
The intimate sound in Amanda’s ears made her flinch.
“There’s always a chance that she’ll succeed,” the voice said. “Do you want to take the same chance?”
No one replied.
“What about you, Amanda?”
“How the hell does he know what Bethany’s doing?” Ray murmured.
“In that case, keep moving,” the voice ordered. “Don’t waste the little time you have.”
Amanda turned toward the curve beyond which Bethany had disappeared.
“It’s unfortunate that she took off her headset,” the voice said. “That prevents me from trying to reason with her.”
“How does he know she took off her headset?” Ray demanded.
With a chill, Amanda picked up the headset and blew dust from it. She brought it close to her eyes, examining the headband, the ear buds, and the microphone stub. “The microphone.” Her words were filled with despair.
“Brava,” the voice said.
“The microphone?” Derrick asked from the top of the slope. “What about it?”
Amanda could hardly speak. “It’s not just a…”
Viv tore off her headset and stared at the microphone stub. “My God, it’s a camera.”
She dropped the headset and stumbled back.
“Derrick, tell your wife to pick it up,” the voice said.
Derrick looked paralyzed.
“Tell your wife to pick it up,” the voice emphasized.
“Viv, he wants you to pick up your headset.”
“No.”
“Everyone step back from her,” the voice said.
Derrick’s dark features tightened. “What are you going to do?”
“Teach you not to make me repeat myself. Step back.”
In a rush, Derrick grabbed the headset from the dirt and made Viv take it. “Put it on.”
Seeing the fright in Derrick’s eyes, Viv trembled and did what he wanted.
“Amanda, climb to the top of the gully,” the voice ordered. “Join the others. Look toward the east.”
“East?”
“The exit from the valley,” Ray said.
Amanda felt something cold squeeze her heart. “That’s the direction Bethany went.” She scrambled up the side of the gully. Dust crumbled under her hiking boots, but she kneed and clawed and reached the top. She straightened, focusing her gaze toward the continuation of the gully. Amid grass and sagebrush, the gully meandered toward the distant pass. Amanda saw glimpses of Bethany’s gray cap and the gray shoulders of her jumpsuit as she hurried.
The voice sounded too resigned, Amanda decided. “Wait! You said it’s unfortunate she took off her headset. You said you wanted to reason with her. If I can catch her…” A terrible premonition made Amanda breathe faster. “If I can stop her…”
“Yes?”
“Will you let me bring her back?”
The voice didn’t answer.
Before Amanda realized what she was doing, she ran. “Bethany!” she yelled. “Stop!” The vast openness swallowed her words.
Amanda charged across the brittle grass. She passed sagebrush, a knee-high boulder, and a stunted pine tree.
“Bethany!”
But Bethany kept racing along the bottom of the gully. Her gray cap and the gray shoulders of her jumpsuit were more visible. She never looked back.
“Stop!”
Amanda increased the speed and length of her stride. “Listen to me!” she managed to shout between hoarse deep breaths that burned her throat.
Ahead, the gully became less deep. Bethany was visible to her waist now, rushing toward the far-away gap in the mountains.