Denial of Service by Slater Jack

Author:Slater, Jack [Slater, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B09KVH763M
Goodreads: 59634770
Published: 2021-11-19T08:00:00+00:00

27

Roper and Emily drove for hours as the dark of night gave way to dawn in the sky overhead. He followed a meandering route with no set destination in mind—only a desire to put time and distance between them and the horror they’d experienced on the outskirts of Bootjack. The cube that Emily had built to house Oliver’s artificial intelligence brain took up most of the back half of the sedan and lay over the folded-down car’s rear seats. It was operating on battery power, which meant that it barely functioned at all.

One of the device’s fans whirred for a few seconds, as it occasionally had during the journey, causing Roper to glance in the rearview mirror. He saw little, only a rug concealing from view both Emily’s creation and the small arsenal of weaponry and ammunition he had acquired over the past several days. He had all he needed in the way of guns but had pilfered additional ammunition from the bodies of the failed assassins before they fled.

For the first couple of hours, he charted a course back into the San Joaquin Valley en route to Fresno before doubling back when he was certain that they weren’t being followed and heading back toward the Sierra Nevada Mountains. His clothes still stank of smoke, and he had the AC blasting on full to help him forget the heat of the wildfire.

It was about 7 a.m., the morning light still hesitant when the glow of an electronic billboard beckoned Roper’s attention. It was raised on stilts by the side of the highway, and for a moment showed nothing more interesting than an advertisement for a drama show on one of the new streaming channels. His eyes were already losing interest when the image changed.

Suddenly he saw himself. Not as he was now, with cropped hair and growing stubble, but the look he’d worn for the previous several months. The photograph was the same one he’d uploaded to his rideshare profile: neck-length dark hair swept back behind his ears and a slightly vacant expression on his clean-shaven face as he tried not to laugh. Blake had snapped that photo, he remembered, his knuckles clenching around the steering wheel as another wave of grief washed over him.

Roper’s gaze lingered on his own face for a few seconds, then slowly drifted down to the caption underneath, which was inked in glowing red, along with the number for a 24-hour hotline.

WANTED: WILLIAM ROPER

REWARD: $50,000

He glanced at Emily, who sat in the passenger seat, her eyes closed but not sleeping. He didn’t know how he could tell, but he could. Maybe it was the tension in her jaw, or the tautness of her posture. He didn’t push it. For some reason they drove in silence, though perhaps music would have helped. He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. There was no need to burden her with the added stress. It wasn’t like she was unaware of the trouble they both were in.

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