Static Shock by Eilis Flynn

Author:Eilis Flynn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction, fictionromance, fiction sci fi
Publisher: Eilis Flynn

CHAPTER 12

“Let me drive,” Ran said weakly.

“Don’t think so.” I glanced at him. His eyes were unfocused, and he was having a hard time keeping them open, let alone keeping his head up. “But I don’t know your car. Tell me what to do.”

That last statement took on new importance since I’d seen the Hunters exit the diner and continue their search for us. “What do I do?” I said, a little sharper than I intended.

“Grab the shift…that thing.” He pointed. “Pull it until it’s at D. The pedals on the floor. The right one controls the gas. Left one controls the brake. Don’t confuse them.”

“No, not that. You’ve got stuff in your instrument panel I’m not familiar with. What do I do? What’s this one?”

“That’s for the automated drive,” he puffed out, his tongue dipping out. “Ignore them until we get to the freeway.”

“Okay,” I muttered. I had my doubts whether this was such a good idea, since I could see the Hunters in the rearview mirror, but we didn’t have much choice.

I jammed my foot down on the gas. The car surged forward.

“Your belt! Put on your seatbelt!” Ran managed to shout.

I gripped the steering wheel. “Yeah, but not right now.” There was a sign to get back on the freeway, so I went for it. Turning the wheel, I misjudged and nearly crashed into a garbage can. After I righted the wheel too much, the car jumped onto the sidewalk. I hadn’t tried this since I went on the straight and narrow. That was another good thing about being in the city; I didn’t have to worry about driving.

“Keep going,” Ran said. He looked sick. I couldn’t blame him.

He struggled to look over his shoulder. “I don’t see them anymore, but keep going.” He sounded almost lucid. He leaned back and took a deep breath.

“How far? We’re going back on the freeway, right?”

That seemed to wake him up. “No. Keep going until we’re almost at the entrance onto the freeway, and then we’ll take the back road.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I should have gotten us out of there as soon as I started to feel dizzy.”

“No, it was my fault,” I said, looking around. “We would have been lower profile if we’d gone fast-food. And that woman at the diner…” I stopped, a flood of resentment distorting my vision momentarily. “I hope I wiped out all the programming in her register. She didn’t even know us, but she assumed we did something wrong.”

“Norms do that. They don’t trust us, Jeanne,” Ran said, blinking. He took a deep breath. “We wreck their TVs and their mod tech and their computers, and we do it without thinking. We’re a threat to them and more important, we’re a threat to their possessions.”

Terrified as I was, the emotion in his voice hit me. “You sound bitter,” I said. “You’re one of the highest-profile Readers in the world, spouting all those platitudes about Norms and Readers working together, and you sound bitter.

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