“You okay?”
“I think so.” I felt my head, then my arms and stomach. “Yep, everything seems to be in place.”
He gave me a half smile. “I don’t understand; this trannie has an antitracking module.” He turned off the engine. “How’d he find us?”
“Maybe he didn’t need a tracker. He could have been waiting outside my building.”
“Huh? I hadn’t counted on him not using technology. That’s got to be it. All the same, I’d better let John know when we get back.” Sal got out of the transport and walked around it, checking the tractor underneath, and all the outside surfaces. “Dammit!” He swore and kicked the dirt.
My legs were shaking as I joined him. We stared at the scrapes that raked down the side of the transport. They’d cut all the way through to the composite below.
“I’m so sorry. This is my fault. If I wasn’t here…”
Sal hugged me. “It’s not your fault. It’s a by-product of war.”
“War?”
“Us and them; the Resistance versus the government; good versus evil—that kind of war. You’re safe; that’s what matters to me.” Scanning the area, he said, “If that was Ed, I’d say we lost him. Let’s get out of here.”
While Sal fed coordinates to the GPS, I thought about the Resistance waging war against the government. It was impossible to imagine how anything or anyone could fight and win against something as powerful as the Governing Council. Finally, we emerged from the woods into a field, but my thoughts were still lost in a forest of confusion.
“There.” He pointed ahead.
I couldn’t see anything, but watched the horizon as we continued moving forward. Eventually, I made out a ribbon of black snaking through a field of soybeans. At least, I thought it was a field of soybeans.
“It’s an old construction road, but it’ll do.”
No matter what kind of road it was, its surface was smooth as Telite compared to the detour we’d just made in the trannie. As we zipped along, I kept checking over my shoulder, watching.
XXXII
Sal drove up a narrow gravel road lined with trees. At the end was a clearing and a sprawling house like nothing I’d ever seen before.
“What are those?” I asked. The golden-hued sides of the structure appeared to be made of trunks stacked sideways. A porch ran the entire length of the front; hanging planters with the remains of flowers hung between the posts. One or two faded red blooms still survived.
“Repro logs,” Sal said. “Recycled wood and paper.”
“A log cabin like Abraham Lincoln.”
“How’d you know that?” Sal asked.
“I’ve always been kind of curious about Lincoln. Ginnie had a book about pre-Governing Council history. There wasn’t much of it.”
“Ever wonder why that is?” Sal asked.
“No,” I admitted, and colored a bit, thinking back to the last time he and I had talked about life before the Governing Council, when I’d falsely claimed how much I knew. “Ginnie tried to get me to study it further, but I preferred L & L to History.”
“Some of the ideas people had were really good. Individuals’ rights such as freedom of speech, equal rights for everyone, reproductive rights for women—stuff like that—all wiped out of the history books. That’s why your dad got in so much trouble with his debates. If he’d just decided to become a pre-GC scholar in some university, no one would have bothered him. But he wanted to change things. He wanted all those freedoms back.”
Sal pulled up in front of the house. Outside of the transport it was cold, but the air smelled different.
“Mmmm,” Sal said. “Take a deep breath. This isn’t city air.”
I breathed deep, filling my lungs like I was drinking water. After two deep breaths, I felt light-headed. Sal grabbed my arm to steady me.
“It’s not like that filtered stuff in Chicago. You’d better take it easy.” He laughed. “Aunt Rita will think I gave you a shot of Grindy’s home brew. By the way, I forgot to mention, Rita’s pretty straightforward, not much small talk.”
The front door opened and a woman walked out onto the porch. She looked about the same age as Ginnie, except for some gray streaks in her hair. She wasn’t much taller than me and wore jeans, sturdy boots, and a bulky sweater. A clip held her long hair to one side; the rest cascaded down her back. I could see the family resemblance between her and Sal.
“Aunt Rita!” Sal crossed the porch and threw his arms around her.
“How’s my favorite nephew?”
“Good.”
“This must be Nina. I’m Rita Dugan.” She took my hand firmly and looked me straight in the eye. “You look a lot like your father.” First Sal had said that to me, then the Jenkinses, and now Rita. It was odd meeting people who knew my father. I liked the idea that I resembled him.
I met her gaze—those same deep dark eyes as Sal’s.
“I’m glad you came today. I’m so sorry about your mother.” She looked out across the treetops. “Personal sacrifice lies at the center of change for the better.”
Sal was certainly right about his aunt being blunt. “The police said the murder was random,” I said.
“Ginnie sacrificed a normal life with her daughters, and her happiness and peace of mind. She gave everything to the cause—everything.” She touched my hand, in a surprisingly gentle gesture. “I don’t believe her death was random at all.”
That was the same thought I’d had. I wished Rita had been with me the night of the murder to make Officer Jelneck listen to that idea.
While I was pondering this, Sal said, “We had a little problem on the way here. That guy Ed, the one I told you about, was following us. I gave him the slip, but… the paint job got kind of messed up.”
“Oh, honey, that can be fixed. You’re both okay?” She searched our faces.
“Yes.” Sal put an arm around my shoulder.
“I’m going to take my new dualie for a spin. You two go inside and make yourselves at home. We’ll talk more when I get back.” After a cursory walk around the trannie, stopping for a moment in front of the scratches, Rita got in and drove off.
“You okay?” Sal asked.
“I suppose.” I didn’t even sound convincing to myself. “My life hasn’t been anything like what I believed it was. Everything that I’ve thought was true was a lie.” I rubbed my hands together—it was cold outside. “You knew all this?”
I sensed that he was reluctant to answer. He pulled me down to the top step. “I knew some of it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” As if I didn’t know. After my outburst at the oasis, I couldn’t blame Sal for not saying anything.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t believe me. That you would’ve still thought the only reason I was hanging around was because of your father.” He cupped my face in his hands. “Nina, I want to be with you because of you—not because of Alan. I didn’t dare take a chance by telling you what I knew. I couldn’t have stood it if you’d walked away from me again.”
“Sal, I—”
He kissed me and I kissed him back. It was different from our other kisses. We were generating an inner heat I’d never felt before. I couldn’t have stopped kissing him if I’d wanted to—which I didn’t. My fingers twisted his hair as I tried to get closer to him than my own skin. When we came up for air, he buried his face in my hair—his breath like hot spurts of steam on my neck.
Whispering my name, he traced his tongue along the edge of my ear. I slung my leg over his, straddling him; his hands grabbed my butt, pulling me close. It wasn’t close enough. We kissed more, completely lost in each other. There was nothing else in the world but the two of us. His hands moved up under my jacket, touching bare skin. A tiny moan escaped me.