Suddenly Zack let out a chain of profanities, a machine-gun blast of foul exclamations that only a native New Yorker could properly achieve. For a moment, Amanda thought she was the target of his wrath. Then she noticed everyone aiming their hot attention past her, through the missing back doors.
The police cars had come back. They rapidly approached the van from behind, then lit their flashing colors.
FOURTEEN
As his limbs turned to stone and his fingers clenched like hooks around the steering wheel, Zack took an anxious trip down the many branching futures. He knew there were no good outcomes left. Just a tightrope path to the least catastrophic.
His heartbeat doubled as he stomped the gas pedal.
Hannah grabbed his sleeve. “Zack, what are you doing? They want us to stop!”
In lieu of spinning roof lights, the twin cruisers were covered with lumic panels. Every inch of the chassis now flashed red and blue. Once Zack accelerated, the sirens blared. A gruff voice boomed through the speakers.
“PULL OVER! NOW!”
Theo veered his wide gaze between the police cars and Zack. “I’m seriously questioning your plan right now.”
“Me too!” Mia yelled.
Zack spotted a sign for Highway V. He’d learned from his preparative map studies that all the interstates here had roman numerals. V stretched all the way north to Sacramento.
“Okay,” he said. “I’d like everyone to listen to me while I explain the shitty situation we’re in. We have no identity here. Whether we’re suspects or perps or just people of interest, those cops will ask us our names. They’ll look for us in their databases and they will not find us. Working under the correct assumption that we’re hiding something, they’ll hold us. Once they find out what happened to the original owners of this van, I imagine they’ll hold us a good long time.”
“But if we explain—”
“Explain what, Hannah? That we’re from a parallel Earth? That we popped into the world six weeks ago and have been staying at a hotel run by physicists until we were attacked by people with swords and guns?”
Zack rushed through a red light. A garbage truck and a commuter bus both screeched to a halt as the van cut between them.
“PULL OVER BEFORE SOMEONE GETS HURT!”
Mia shook her head. “But there are still people who can vouch for us . . .”
“Who, Quint’s people? Do you really think we’re safe with them after everything that happened?”
“Zack’s right,” said David. “We have to keep going.”
Theo gestured at the cracks and broken hinges. “I’m not arguing your reasons. I’m just saying we’ll never be able to outrun them in this thing. It’s falling apart.”
That was indeed a problem. In addition to the wisps of white smoke that snaked from the engine, a dashboard gauge casually informed Zack that the vehicle had enough power left for 25.2 miles. The last time Zack breathed, it was at 28.
Hannah turned in her seat, her hair blowing wildly from the wind of her missing door. “Look, they’re going to stop us one way or another. Let’s just tell them the truth. They’ll think we’re nuts, but we have proof. I mean the things we can do—”
“No.”
The objection came from behind her. Amanda had taken her own bleak trip through the future. She envisioned them all in a government lab, some antiseptic Guantánamo staffed by scientists even crueler than Quint. They’d probably hold them for six months in barren cells before making full use of their scalpels.
“No more authorities,” she said. “We keep going on our own.”
Hannah gaped at her. “What are you going to do? Blast them away with your tempis?”
“THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE!”
Zack steered the van up the entry ramp and onto northbound Highway V. He was relieved to find traffic sparse on both the ground and aer level.
David threw a pensive glance at the police cruisers as they split into a side-by-side formation.
“I have a way,” he offered. “It’s not pretty, but I think it’ll work.”
“Will it hurt them?” Mia asked.
“Most likely. Yes.”
She swallowed her objections, even as her thoughts fell back on Krista Bloom. Mia wondered how many slippery-slope incidents it would take before she and her friends were apologizing to their own murder victims. I’m so sorry. There’s no other option. This’ll be quick. I promise.
Zack glanced at David in the rearview mirror. “Look, I trust you. Do whatever you can to stop them without hurting them.”
“Do everything you can to avoid hurting them,” Amanda stressed.
“You guys are insane!” Hannah shouted. “This is insane!”
David flashed a palm at her. “Your objections are noted. Now please be quiet, all of you. I need to concentrate.”