Wanted

Homecoming

~ Chapter 14 ~

Luke

The man dropped to the pavement with a muffled thud. Matt casually stepped over the comatose body, barely glancing down. He was never one to waste time and admire his handiwork.

I emerged from the shadows cast by the streetlamp above and strolled past the body myself. Not far behind me was John, who bent down and methodically dragged the unconscious figure over against the side of a run-down apartment complex. John proceeded to arrange the person into a more natural position, hoping that most people would just assume he had passed out after a night of hard drinking.

"You know," John panted, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, "If a 'swift, clean exit' is what we're supposedly going for, I'm not sure this is the way to do it."

"Sorry, Matt, but I'm with John on this one. Remind me again why it's so important we go on this random search and rescue mission? Not to sound heartless, but it seems like we'd be more useful if we stayed in the city instead of going to the middle of nowhere for a handful of runaways."

Matt stiffened, halting mid-stride, "So now our work is too important for, what was it you just called them? Oh yeah, 'a handful of runaways?' Last time I checked, Luke, that's exactly what we all are."

"Jesus, sorry," I took a step backward, unwilling to confront Matt with such fire in his eyes, "Like I said, I wasn't trying to be heartless, just practical. Didn't think I'd live to see the day when you became the one telling me off for being insensitive."

Matt let out a lengthy sigh and wiped the sweat from his brow, "All I'm saying is, you may find that some people there are very worth saving - to both of you. Now, hurry up. Any more delays and everyone will be dead."

I turned toward John, who had made his way to my side. He shrugged and raised his eyebrows as if to say exactly what I was thinking: "What's up with him?"

Matt started acting weird the minute we flipped to the news station and heard that Enforcement had launched a bomb strike on a rural town full of Wanted escapees. I felt for them, of course, but we saw so much Wanted persecution every day that not much shocked us anymore. Matt's visceral response and obvious agitation was way out of character, and John and I weren't sure what to make of it.

I shook my head and let Matt's outlash and strange behavior roll off my back. "How far to the boundary wall from here?" I asked.

"Using the LightBikes? About five hours. But we're going to be there in four. John, I assume you can make that happen."

"Well, it'll be a stretch, but," he pulled out his Touchpad, opening the menu of the LightBike application he programmed himself, "yeah, I can loosen up the speed controls some." He pressed a few buttons and within seconds appeared satisfied with his work.

I reached into my bag, removed three softly glowing tubes about the size of rolling pins, kept one for myself, and distributed the others to Matt and John. We twist-pulled the tubes open and out came our LightBikes, seemingly constructing themselves from thin air. In no time we were well on our way.

Not a single member of Detroit's "Silver Spades" gang was spotted as we crept toward the city's outer boundaries; I made sure of that. I used my power as a cloaking device, bending and morphing the shadows into cover as the three of us slunk alongside towering buildings. With every passing mile, however, man-made structures were becoming more and more sparse, which unfortunately meant my power was becoming difficult to use.

Soon the chain link fence stretched out before us, symbolizing the edge of established civilization for miles to the west. I thought back to one of the few topics I had ever bothered to listen to in History class. After the government signed the infamous Reformed National Administration Pact, they stopped funding states west of the Mississippi River as much as those to the east. As western cities started to deteriorate, people migrated east by the hundreds of thousands, which let government officials strengthen their control of a much larger portion of the population in a much smaller area of land. Sure, there were still a few functional cities and towns on the west coast, but they weren't nearly as populated as they used to be, and between them and the Mississippi, things were pretty much desolate.