Our original route took us to Tennessee by way of the American Southwest, hour upon hour of desert unspooling outside the van’s windows. Mahir’s adjusted route followed roughly the same roads, at least until we got to Little Rock. Then things got weird. Instead of heading down to avoid the mountains and the hazard-marked farmland, we turned up, heading out of Arkansas and into Missouri. We stopped for gas in Fayetteville.
Mahir stayed in the van while I filled the tank and Becks visited the station’s obligatory convenience store. She’d done a remarkable job of changing her appearance while standing guard against possible CDC pursuit. Her hair was down and she’d somehow managed to trade her jacket and cargo pants for a halter top and a pair of hot-pink running shorts that might as well have been painted on and left absolutely nothing to the imagination.
I didn’t need to imagine what she’d looked like without them, and it was still hard to keep from staring at her ass as she sauntered toward the convenience store doors. The only aspect she hadn’t been able to change were her shoes, still clunky, solid, and more “fight club” than “fashion show,” but in that outfit, I doubted anyone was going to be looking at her feet.
Sometimes you’re such a guy, said George.
“Yeah, well, I’m the one who isn’t dead yet, remember?”
I was stating a fact, not making a complaint.
I snorted and hit the button to start fueling up. If the CDC clued to the fact that we were using a Garcia Pharmaceuticals company ID to pay our bills, we were fucked, but our cash ran out in Little Rock and it wasn’t like we had another choice. The truth may set you free. It won’t fill your fuel tank.
Mahir’s proposed route was a good one, cutting through the corner of Missouri and into Kansas. From there, we’d travel through Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah before hitting the home stretch across Nevada. Of the six states we’d be crossing before we got to California, only two had laws forbidding self-service fueling stations, and those were the two we’d be spending the least overall time in: Colorado and Utah. If we paced ourselves right, we’d be able to avoid stopping in either state for anything longer than a bathroom break. That was good. The more we could stay away from people, the better.
While the tank filled, I washed the windshield, checked the tires, and did my best not to think about the fact that we were running from an organization that had the power to declare martial law without any justification more sophiicated than a sneeze. I couldn’t believe the CDC was doing this alone, or that the entire CDC was involved—Kelly clearly hadn’t been, and I was willing to bet that all the other team members who’d died hadn’t been either. Still, a properly seated cabal of people willing to do anything to get their way is more than enough to be a major problem, especially when they have essentially infinite resources to throw around. At the same time, they were obviously trying to stay at least somewhat under the radar, or they wouldn’t be bothering with artificial outbreaks and assassinations made to look like natural deaths. All that spy shit is necessary only when you’re trying to pretend you don’t exist.
Becks came sauntering out of the convenience store with a paper sack in each arm and a smug, cat-that-ate-the-canary smile curling her lips. It faded as soon as she was close enough to be out of the cashier’s sight, and she yanked the van’s rear door open without so much as a hello as she scrambled to get herself and our supplies inside. I unhooked the fuel pump and opened the driver’s-side door, sliding myself behind the wheel.
“Any problems?” I asked, twisting to watch Becks unpack bottles of water, sodas, and snack food all over the backseat. We’d told her to buy as much as she could without attracting suspicion. Apparently, this meant focusing on things that made it look like she was heading for a bachelorette party, including a bottle of cheap Everclear knockoff and seventeen bags of M&Ms.
“Next time you’re wearing the ‘look at my titties’ shirt, and I’m filling the tank.” She chucked a bag of M&Ms at my head. I caught it and passed it to Mahir. “No, no problems. If they’re running our pictures on the news, the dickhead working the counter didn’t know anything about it. There’s been a minor outbreak alert in Memphis, and the area around the CDC there is on lockdown, but it wasn’t a big enough deal to peel Dicky’s eyes off my ass.”
“See, I wouldn’t get the same results with that shirt. I just don’t have the figure for it. Mahir might do a little better. We can try it next time we stop.” I leaned into the back to grab a bottle of Coke before she could chuck that at my head, too. “We’re good to go, then?”
“Should be.” Becks pulled her jacket back on before opening one of the bags of M&Ms. “Mahir, make sure you’re running weather projections on our route. They had a storm advisory up while I was checking out.”
“Right,” he said, and grabbed a drink before he started pecking away at his phone.