The Operator
Page 83

“Would it help if I got out and pushed?” Jack asked, his arms draped over the seat.
“Maybe,” she said, but her smile never dimmed even as Silas’s face paled.
“Well, they’d better hustle,” Jack complained. “This car doesn’t have enough power. We should have taken the BMW.”
“Will you get off my case about the BMW!” Peri jerked the wheel to give the WEFT car pulling up beside them a little love tap. The five men in it looked affronted, and she hit them again when one of them pulled a weapon. Don’t you dare shoot at me.
“Peri?” Silas warned, but the cops had finally caught up and people were pulling their cars to the side, making it easier to maneuver.
“Wait for it. Wait for it . . .” she muttered, smacking the wheel in success when the WEFT car chasing them began to quickly decelerate. “There they go!” she exclaimed, trying to coax a few more miles per hour from the choking Pinto as the WEFT car stalled, a victim of technology. If Jack had an app to steal it, it was a good bet the cops had one to bring it down.
Exhilarated, she looked behind them and the four cop cars swarming over the WEFT vehicle. Two more followed her, the unchanging distance between them saying they had something to slow her down, something more mundane than remotely shutting off the car’s computer.
“Okay,” Jack said moodily. “You were right. The BMW was a bad idea.”
“Man, I hope I remember this,” she whispered, wondering just how far they’d get before the TV helicopter showed.
“Park coming up,” she said, spotting the sign. “Silas, grab what you want to keep.”
“We’re going to outrun them on foot?” he questioned as he felt his pockets. His eyes were wide, and she felt a pang through her.
“Oh, look,” Jack pointed out casually. “Two cops on the exit ramp and one on the overpass.”
“Not using the exit ramp,” she said, alive as she sent tendrils of thought out into the universe, reading the currents of time, nestling a hole in it that she could use. “Ready?”
“Oh. Shit,” Silas whispered, hands braced on the dash. “She’s going to do it again.”
“Spike strip!” Jack shouted as it slid out from behind the overpass. Hands clenched, she swerved.
“Too tight!” Jack called out. “Too tight!”
“I can see that!” she exclaimed, losing control as one wheel hit the spike strip and they skidded, the back end sliding majestically into a pylon.
They rocked to a halt, and Peri looked up, heart pounding. Outside, the cops screeched to a halt, weapons pointed and the men screaming at them to get out. Her nose wrinkled. Gas?
“This is one of the retrofitted Pintos, right?” Jack asked.
And then the back end exploded.
Instinct jerked into play. Peri’s vision shifted blue, and she cried out, a stab of pain slicing through her forehead. And then . . . she drafted.
 
 
CHAPTER

TWENTY-SIX
The Pinto’s engine sputtered, exhilaration filling her as they sped down the expressway, headed for the overpass and the unseen spike strip. “Let’s steal the Pinto,” Jack said mockingly as the WEFT vehicle was left behind, swarmed by the cops like ants on a caterpillar. “I love a car that explodes when you hit it.”
Face white, Silas watched the chaos go distant through the rearview mirror. “Watch for the spike strip,” he said as he braced his arms. “Right side. If you slow down at the exact moment, it will pass in front of you.”
She’d put them five, maybe six seconds back, not wanting to lose chunks of time. But with Jack in the car, it might not matter. The spike strip was the least of her worries, and her sweat went cold. She couldn’t jump without opening her mind, making it vulnerable.
“I swear, Jack, if you scrub me, I will kill you,” she threatened, and Silas’s eyes widened, echoing her new fear. “You hear me!” she exclaimed. “Silas is an anchor, and he’ll know! If you touch my mind, I will kill you twice!”
“Spike strip!” Silas reminded them, pointing.
“Screw it!” she yelled, jerking the wheel again as the strip slid out.
“Yeee-haa!” Jack shouted as the tires skipped, narrowly keeping them on the road as they sped around it. His exuberant cry seemed to bounce against the dash and explode into red sparkles. She breathed them in, hands clenched in fear. If he touches me, I’ll kill him, she thought.
And then she exhaled, and forgot.
Her head seemed to split apart, and she gasped as the world snapped back into place.
“I didn’t touch your mind!” Jack exclaimed, one arm clamped over the seat to put his face next to hers. “You swerved to avoid a spike strip, hit the wall, and drafted.”
Dizziness swam up from the sound of the racing engine, and she looked at Silas, who nodded. She glanced behind them, seeing the cop car hit the strip instead. The car behind it swerved to miss him, overcompensated, and hit the wall. Two down.
Jack retreated into the backseat, content for the moment. “Damn!” he whispered, clearly happy. “I missed you, Peri. We have got to get off this road, though.”
Three high-powered Fed drones swung into place overhead, their stronger charge maintaining the eighty miles an hour the Pinto could manage. They were passing the park, but two more cars had filed in behind, closing the gap. They had maybe seconds between them, no more. “We’re ditching the car. Hold on,” she muttered as she yanked the car off the road, bouncing over a ditch, through a wire fence.
Pain thundered in her head and neck, and she realized she’d hit her head on the ceiling. Dizzy, she aimed for the parking lot. Dead grass and icy clods of mud spurted up behind them. LB would be there. He had to be.
“There!” One hand on the ceiling, Jack pointed between them out the front window. “LB’s trident!”
Her head still hurt, and she blinked fast to focus. Suddenly she realized she was going to pass out.
“Peri!” Silas shouted as her body went slack. “Take your foot off the gas! Take it off!”
Eyes closed, she distantly heard the Pinto’s engine race. Jack swore, and then her head swung forward as they hit something. Arms limp, she let go of the wheel. The engine choked and died. “Ow,” she whispered, squinting at the sudden flush of cold air.