They came up fast, black smoke belching from their exhaust pipes. Babydolls had a sledgehammer that he brandished over his head. Antlers twisted his throttle and came racing ahead of the pack. He came up even with Whitman, though a full lane away. Whitman supposed he didn’t want to get shot.
Antlers gestured with one hand, telling Whitman to pull over.
Not much chance of that. Whitman shouted for Grace to get the shotgun. Then he veered toward Antlers, thinking maybe he would get lucky and knock the biker off the road. No dice — Antlers just swerved away, a big shit-eating grin all over his face.
That was when Babydolls attacked. Whitman had been too focused on the leader to see the other bike coming up on the passenger side. Babydolls smacked the side of the van with his hammer and the whole frame rang like a bell. Grace screamed, but she had the shotgun off the dashboard, cradled in her hands.
Whitman craned around trying to see what was going to happen next. Babydolls had his head down, below the level of their windows, but Whitman could just see the curve of his back. “Shoot him,” he told Grace, pointing through her window. “Don’t let him get any closer.”
She raised the gun, but Whitman grabbed the barrel. “Roll down your window first,” he told her.
Meanwhile, Antlers took a long knife off his belt. He veered in toward the van, the tip of his weapon pointed not at Whitman’s broken window but at the left front tire. Whitman wanted to swear. If he slashed the tire, at this speed, the van would spin out and probably roll over half a dozen times before it came to a stop.
He waited until Antlers got close, until he could almost have reached out his window and grabbed the bastard’s arm. Antlers lifted his knife and started to bring it down.
Two things happened at once. Grace fired her shotgun, screaming into the noise. Whitman twisted his wheel hard over to the left.
The van briefly went up on two wheels. There was a screeching sound as the deer antlers bit into the van’s paint job. Whitman expected the pirate leader to go flying, to fall off his bike, but apparently he was too skilled for that — instead he recovered, leaning deep into a turn and spinning around until he was riding the other way. When the van’s four wheels touched the pavement again, Whitman glanced over to his right and saw Babydolls receding, slowing down and falling back. There was blood on his face, but he was smiling, blinking one eye to keep it clear.
“I got him,” Grace said, whooping. “I got him!”
Except he was still alive, and still in control of his bike. Whitman expected the two of them to catch up and make another run any second now.
Except — they didn’t. They fell back and rejoined their pack. Kept pace with the van but didn’t try to catch up to it, just stayed a set distance behind. Out of range of firearms.
Antlers still had that shit-eating grin.
“Seatbelts,” Whitman said. “Get your seatbelts on!” Then he poured on the speed, potholes be damned.
They took Philips and Whitman to a waiting room, a pleasant little chamber just off the Senate floor. There was a fridge full of cold water in plastic bottles and a basket full of cookies in individual foil wrappers. After the MREs he’d been eating for the last few years, Whitman just stared at the little snacks, amazed such things still existed. He had the urge to fill his pockets with them. Then he looked back and saw his personal guard standing there, unsmiling. Waiting to shoot him if he went symptomatic. Always watching.
Philips, on the other hand, wouldn’t look at him. The Director curled up in a padded chair, almost in a fetal position. He covered his scarred face with one hand as if he expected Whitman to hit him.
Well, that would probably feel pretty good, honestly. Whitman wasn’t a violent man by nature, but the years since the Crisis had required him to gain some skill in that regard. He could probably break the Director’s jaw before the soldier pulled them apart.
He chuckled to himself.
“I’m sorry,” Philips said. “I’m so sorry.”
“What, for selling me out back there?” Whitman asked. He considered what to say next. What he came up with surprised him a little. “Don’t worry about it.”
Philips uncurled a little. “I’m —”
“They’ll probably be happy with one sacrifice,” Whitman said. He tore open a cookie and took a bite. Oatmeal raisin. Never his favorite, but it was free. “Crucify me. Hold me up as an example. What do you think, a quick firing squad, or will they drag me through New York in chains, first?” He laughed. “Maybe it’ll make some people feel better. That’s what we swore to do, right? As medical professionals? Relieve suffering.”
Philips shook his head. “I have to say — you’re being awfully good about this.”
“I’m exhausted.”
Philips licked his lips. “I’m so sorry . . .”
“I feel sorry for you.”
“Can I ask why?”
“Because if they do just take me, and leave you alive — you’re the one who has to keep fighting. You know the funny thing about the end of the world?”
“I . . . no,” Philips said.
“There is no such thing. The world doesn’t end. There’s always more work to be done, more digging out the rubble. More fucked-up shit to live through. Well,” he said, taking a deep breath, “I’m done. Let me have my ending. Let me have some peace, for a change.”
The senators kept them waiting for a good half hour. Plenty of time to decide questions of life and death, these days.
“What the hell are they doing back there?” Whitman asked. In his rearview, the bikers had fallen well back, barely increasing their speed at all as the van outpaced them.
He needed to concentrate on the road. One bad patch of asphalt, and this chase could end very, very badly. “Grace,” he said, “keep an eye on them. I need to watch —”
“Mr. Whitman?” Bob asked from the backseat.
“Not now, Bob,” he said, a little louder, a little harsher than he’d meant to. The road ahead looked well-maintained, but he knew from long experience that —
“Mr. Whitman,” Bob said again.
Had he seen it coming? It didn’t matter.
Up ahead, a long curving ramp cut away from the highway. Whitman didn’t bother looking at it, being far too busy looking for road obstructions he might have to negotiate. So he didn’t see the truck coming up the ramp at high speed.
It was a semi rig, a big rusting hulk of a vehicle eleven feet high with six bald tires that smoked as they bit into the asphalt. Mounted across its grille was a snowplow blade dented and bent from repeated collisions.
It slammed into the front of the van at thirty miles an hour. If it had hit them a split second later it would have sliced right through the passenger compartment, killing all of them instantly. Instead it just pancaked the van’s engine, blew out both front tires, and turned the windshield into a storm of flying glass daggers.
Whitman flew forward, the shoulder strap of his seat belt cutting deep into his armpit, crushing his chest so he couldn’t breathe. He felt like he’d been picked up and dropped from a height, like he was dangling from his belt as a planet of metal and glass and plastic came rushing toward him. His head bounced off the steering wheel, and a high-pitched scream roared through his head. He couldn’t see anything, couldn’t feel his own body.