“What?”
“I can’t ask you to come with me to that building. I have no idea what I’ll find there.”
“You don’t have to ask; we’re coming with you.” Alice’s voice was ragged with sleep but hardening with each word.
“No. I’ll get one of these boats set up for you guys, and you’re going to get on it and take it out into deeper water and anchor. I’ll go to Genset and come back here when I’m finished.”
“Screw that noise. Look at me, Quinn,” Alice said. He did. “After what just happened back there, you want us to split up again?”
“That had nothing to do with this. That was beyond anyone’s control. But I’m choosing to go to that building. I need to know what my father was doing.”
“I understand that, but you’re going to have to get used to the idea of us coming with you.” She crossed her arms and stared at him, unblinking, impassive.
“I want to come with,” Ty said. “And so does Denver.” The dog let out rumbly woof. “See?”
Alice tipped her head to one side and raised her eyebrows.
“See?” she echoed.
“Damn it, this is not negotiable. Of all the things that happened to us, most of them weren’t avoidable, but this is. You don’t need to be put in harm’s way again. You need to be somewhere safe.”
“Like I said before, nowhere’s safe. The best thing we can do now is stick together.”
Quinn glared at her, fiddling with a loose string hanging from the steering wheel cover. “I never thought I’d hear you say that,” he said finally.
She shook her head and sighed, but smiled. “Me neither.”
Quinn looked out over the gray water lapping at the boats. He closed his eyes.
“Okay.”
~
They spent a half hour searching the marina for a boat that had adequate fuel and room for the three of them and the dog. They located a sleek, twenty-foot yacht at the farthest end of the marina that fit their needs. In the bottom living area below deck, he found the dried remains of a man in a bed, only his underwear and some fillings were left within the sheets. The keys to the boat were in a pair of pants lying on the floor, and he found a nine-millimeter pistol in the bedside drawer, its magazine a little over half full. After disposing of the remains, they brought their bag of food and blankets on board, and Quinn test-started the engine, its chugging rumble answering as soon as he turned the key.
“Why are we taking a boat from here?” Alice asked when they were finished and returning to the truck.
“I have a hunch that they don’t care much for water. We haven’t seen any swimming or crossing lakes anywhere. I think it might be safer traveling the river for a while.” His voice must have betrayed something because she watched him for a long time before looking away.
Genset headquarters was located in a business complex outside the city of Hastings, only a fifteen-minute drive from the marina. They consulted the smart phone’s map judging the best route to take before pulling away from the docks.
The streets they traveled on were empty. Water streamed along the gutters and dropped into grates, houses reflected their passing in dark windows, everything quiet. No one spoke and even Denver seemed to be waiting.
They turned into the business complex and spotted the Genset building at once. It was a high, two-story structure, its front plated with reflective glass that mirrored the ashen sky. They drove across the asphalt parking lot and stopped before the entrance. The genetic lab was surrounded by stretches of cleared land, several business buildings in the distance rising up from the ground like the heads of buried giants. Quinn surveyed the area and drove in a circle in the parking lot before stopping again before the door.
“Looks clear,” Alice said.
“That’s what worries me.”
“We definitely left that large herd behind. Even going full speed, it would take them another four hours or so to get here.”