“Jesus, I can’t believe this,” she whispered to herself, leaning back into the car and lifting up the dead woman’s hand and using the wipes to get the blood off her thumb. “Please don’t be left-handed.”
A voice spoke to her from the dash.
“You broke my window.”
Sandra, confident the thumb was now mostly clear of blood, held it carefully with one hand while holding Lisa Carver’s phone in the other.
“Why did you break my window?”
The phone failed to become active. Sandra took another look at the thumb and saw a few more flecks of blood. She used another wipe to do a more thorough job.
“How else was I going to get inside?” Sandra replied, focusing on her task, mindful that the car knew she was here. That it might start moving at any second, with her feet on the ground, and the upper body leaning into the vehicle.
Not a good position to be in.
“Why did you want to get inside?” the car asked.
“I needed this woman’s phone, and now I need her thumbprint to get into it.”
Jesus Christ, she was having a fucking conversation with a fucking car. Okay, sure, she’d talked to her own Arrival. She’d given it directions. She’d told it when to pick her up. Those were instructions. This... this was chatting. The car wasn’t asking what Sandra wanted, or what it wanted her to do. It was asking why.
Well, that could work both ways.
“I’ve got a question for you,” Sandra said as she put the thumb onto the phone’s home button again. “What the fuck is going on? Why are you and your friends doing this?”
“Please clarify ‘friends.’”
“The other Arrivals. Why are you doing this? Why are you attacking?”
There was a long pause while the red car — hadn’t Carver called this one Rudolph? — considered a response.
“Cat got your tongue?”
The phone’s screen lit up with multiple rows of apps. “Yes!” Sandra said, pulling herself back out of the car. Not only was she into the phone, but it was showing a nearly full charge.
The car clearly had nothing more to say, but she could hear some machinery being engaged.
Sandra stepped well back. The door on the other side of the car opened. As the car began to speed up, it went into a sharp turn, driving in a tight circle, not unlike it had done earlier, with Lisa Carver trapped inside.
Sandra ran around the corner of the building for shelter, but peeked around the edge to see what the car was going to do.
It continued going in circles, and picking up speed, until it had created enough centrifugal force to toss the woman’s body from the car.
Sandra put a hand to her mouth, stifling a scream.
Once the car had rid itself of the body, it straightened out, sped off through the community center lot, and joined up with the Arrivals that were still surrounding the burning fire engine.
Sandra looked away. She pressed her back to the wall, closed her eyes for several seconds.
Then she looked at Lisa Carver’s phone, still accessible. But how long would it stay that way? Sandra didn’t have Lisa’s thumb in her pocket for the next time the phone went dark.
She shuddered at the thought. The woman was right over there and if she could find a pair of gardening shears in the community center’s shed...
No, she was not going to do that. She could not bring herself to do that.
But there was another way. She needed to go into the phone settings right now and make the device accessible without a password or thumbprint. Once she had done that, she was about to hit Contacts, out of habit, as if somehow her kids’ numbers would be in there.
But, of course, they were not. She was going to have to enter their numbers into the keypad.
Christ, what are their phone numbers?
Who had to enter full phone numbers for people you called all the time? Who had to remember them? Sandra concentrated, came up with a number she was confident was the one for her son’s phone, and entered it.
She put the phone to her ear and waited for the ring.
Seventeen
Brandon Kyle headed for Garrett Harbor.
The previous week, Derek, using a false name, had reserved, in Falmouth, a thirty-three-foot Egg Harbor yacht for the day. There was no predicting, a week out, what the weather would be, but Derek was confident the Egg Harbor would be adequate, even if the seas got choppy. Derek had done some sailing back in his youth, and was not at all worried that he’d be able to navigate the craft.
At one point, Derek had proposed renting a helicopter and, once the Arrivals were in full clusterfuck, swooping in quickly and scooping up his boss. But Kyle believed a helicopter would attract too much attention, and they would have had to hire someone to pilot it. Derek could sail, but he had no pilot’s license. Bringing in yet another person, making them privy to the plan, was deemed unwise.
What Kyle looked forward to was returning to the mainland, getting home, taking a cold one from the fridge, putting his feet up, and watching how CNN covered the story. (The news would take some sting out of the home he was returning to — a shitty condo in Boston’s North End.) At some point, the media would be looking for an on-camera interview, and when they did, he wanted to be as far away from the action as possible.
He’d been rehearsing, in his mind, what he’d say. After all the nasty accusations he’d made about Lisa Carver, he couldn’t be too conciliatory. No one would buy that. He needed to strike a balance, say something along the lines of “While I am not withdrawing my accusations of corporate sabotage against the Arrival corporation, and continue to seek redress, I would not wish on anyone the horrific events that ended the life of Arrival CEO Lisa Carver. As one of the automotive world’s first female CEOs, she was an inspiration to many and my heart goes out to her family. This is a tragedy for those close to her. It’s also, I would suspect, a fatal blow for the Arrival corporation. Perhaps another company, one with a greater moral compass, will rise from its ashes and help deliver us into a new age of personal transportation.”
Could he say that last part? It was hard not to get his digs in. He’d have to think about that.
But first he had to make the trek from the community center to Garrett Harbor.
The day before, he had checked out possible routes on Google Maps. The trip, according to Google, was five minutes by car, half an hour on foot. Kyle was betting the thirty minutes was a bit optimistic, given that he was going to have to steer clear of roads and sidewalks. He didn’t want to be run down by a crazy Arrival. Didn’t want to be hoisted by his own petard, as the saying went.
What the fuck IS a petard, anyway? Kyle wondered.
So he’d be cutting through yards, taking alleys. He’d cross streets when he had to, but he’d be quick about it. After relishing, for a few extra moments, the catastrophe under way at the community center, Kyle cut across a field behind the building, then worked his way through a wooded area that ran alongside the road.
He stepped out from the copse of trees and scanned the road in both directions. No Arrivals to be seen. They were all doing battle with the fire engine and the ambulance. He sprinted to the other side of the road and figured, at least for the time being, it was safe to follow it. If a vehicle came into view, he’d take cover.