Deus Ex_Icarus Effect by James Swallow

Author:James Swallow [Swallow, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Del Rey, PK
Published: 2011-02-06T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINEBaltimore—Maryland—United States of America

Kelso did her best to sink deeper into her seat, turning her body slightly so that her face was concealed from anyone who might walk past. The rocking motion of the express train's passenger carriage tried to lull her toward sleep, but she was caught in a strange kind of middle state between exhaustion and alertness—unable to truly rest or to stay fully awake.

Each time the train clattered over a set of points she looked up to make sure the noise wasn't the sound of the doors at the far end of the carriage opening; but she need not have worried. There were few other passengers, and most of them had chosen seats on the upper deck, where the view was better. Here on the lower level, it was a noisier and less pleasant place to ride the rails. The express from Washington, D.C., out to Boston was the first leg of the journey to Quebec paid into her ticket; Kelso was scheduled to change trains at Penn Station in New York for the northbound Adirondack route, but she had no intentions of doing so. There were a dozen stops between here and there, and she was already formulating a loose plan based on jumping trains in Philadelphia. She'd wait until the very last second, and vault through the automatic doors as they closed ...

Using the ticket was a calculated risk. If she was being tracked, it was likely they'd have people watching the main stations, maybe even someone on the train already—but it was clear that whoever had supplied the ticket, the passport, and the grenade had nothing to do with the Tyrants. Still, until she knew for sure who her benefactors were or what they wanted, Anna decided to treat everyone with the same level of distrust. Right now, that seemed to be the only thing keeping her alive.

There were small screens set in the back of the seats in front of her, and they blinked into life as the train started to slow, the Baltimore suburbs blurring past on the other side of the rain-slicked windows. After the requisite information displays, the screens automatically switched to a feed from a local news affiliate, the ubiquitous Picus News logo framing image loops of global, national, and local events. Anna held her breath as she saw a portion of the same report that had been playing in her house, in the seconds before the assassin had appeared—the same hazy video replay of what appeared to be her indiscriminately killing dozens of civilians. Angrily, she reached forward and stabbed at the screen, darkening it, but the images were all over the carriage, on other displays here and there. Scowling, she drew into the oversize microfleece jacket, letting it swamp her.

Anna's eyes darted back and forth, scanning the area. She couldn't shake the sense of creeping dread that at any second, some citizen might recognize her, some transport cop would make the connection, some camera might get a good look at her face and flag it.

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