Chapter One: Best Intentions

“The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together. Our virtues would be proud if our faults whipped them not, and our crimes would despair if they were not cherished by our virtues.”

—All’s Well That Ends Well, Act IV, scene 3, lines 68-69

Tapping his fingers on the table to a frantic rhythm, Elliott glanced at the digital display. In another ten minutes, he had to meet up with Lara. He was cutting this too close.

The menu flickered and flashed a message, “COMPLETE.” Elliott breathed in a sigh of relief and gestured to the holographic display to eject his flash media. Whatever he’d downloaded, he hoped it was worthwhile. His past two attempts at gathering data on where the true records Project Alexandria had hidden were unsuccessful. His grandfather’s “Veiled Sun” program sent them to a secure location, but Elliott had no idea where that was. This time there was also a genuine chance he would get caught.

He checked the camera feed he’d sieged into. It displayed the manifestation of his worst fears—a pair of dark vehicles sliding into parking slots from the mag-lev highway. The Feds had found him. 

Found them both, actually. Lara was several blocks away, talking to her mom on a special mobile Elliott had designed for her. It could only be used every so often, but it let her have brief, unmonitored chats with her mother. At least unmonitored from their side. The authorities, if slick enough, could listen in on calls from Lara’s mom’s side. But they would have to know to surveil her conversations, and after laying low for three months, Elliott doubted she was being watched.

Four agents, three men and a woman, deployed from the vehicles. All dressed in dark outfits. All bearing sleek, silver mini-rail guns. They were about two minutes from crashing through the door to Elliott.

Fortunately, he had planned for this possibility. In half a minute, he had stowed everything he needed in his backpack, including the mysterious device his grandfather had given him at his death. Checking the camera feed once more, he noted the positions of the agents and opened the door. He hesitated half a second to take in a deep breath. A sharp crack, as of wood being split, shattered the quiet as shards of the door were launched down the hall.

Elliott stumbled backward and hit the ground hard. His heart thudded in his chest. The automated door swung shut again, the holes left by the mini-rail gun slugs giving off faint swirls of smoke. How had the agents gotten there so fast?

Elliott looked over at the display. It showed the agents motioning to one another, preparing to advance. But they were still blocks away, by an Italian restaurant. There was no way they made that shot. That’s when he saw the reflections in the window. Or rather lack thereof. He was in the midst of a live deepfake. Someone had caught his camera access and sieged the stream. Whoever had done it made the agents appear farther away than in reality. In seconds, they’d be on him.

Taking that steadying breath he needed, he offered a simple prayer. 

Lord, help me!

Scrambling to the door, he tore off its biometric scanner panel and ripped out some wiring. He had to hope he had disabled it.

Elliott sprinted to the windows and opened one. He was on the second floor of the town hall. The only thing near enough to climb down on was a shaky-looking serviceberry tree. A loud thump startled Elliott as he threw a leg out the open window. At his back the automated door was wildly opening and shutting instead of staying closed.

Oh, boy.

Definitely not the plan. There were some low muttered curses from beyond the door, and Elliott realized one of the agents had been struck just before entering. Better than his plan.

He didn’t stick around to see how they felt about it. Leaping to his feet after dropping the last three feet out of the tree, he wiped the blue serviceberry juice onto his pants and took off running. 

Two blocks down, he ducked into an alley. From nearby, he heard an agent call out, “Fan out and check the next three blocks. We should have access to the area’s camera feeds any moment.” 

The agents out in the streets looking for him were a problem, but once they had the remaining video feeds, it was all over. He had to make a getaway plan. Fast.

Elliott felt a vibration in his pocket. Frantic, he grabbed for it and hoped the agents hadn’t heard it. Or what he was about to say. 

“Hey Julie,” he said just above a whisper. Though silly to hide it from Lara, he tried to sound calm.

“Rome, are you okay?” 

Her use of their aliases let him know she knew he wasn’t. They were utilizing short-link communication devices that worked something akin to Bluetooth. He’d designed them for keeping in touch since normal mobiles were out of the question. At least if they wanted to keep from being caught. The devices only worked within a certain distance of one another. About a quarter mile or so. He had run away from her position instinctively, that she had called meant she was already en route to him. 

“Just living my best life as usual.”

He hated the phrase, but it was a common old expression. If their signal was picked up it would seem benign to surveillance algorithms. 

“Oh, too bad. I thought I’d swing by and brighten your day,” she said, a natural tinge of snark to her comment. 

“I’ll never say no to having you around. The brightness is like the sun to the moon.”

There was silence on the other end. Whether it was because she could hear the sincerity in his voice and was touched or was annoyed it was hard to say. No one talked as floridly as that anymore. Which would send a possible alert up. Elliott couldn’t help it. The choice of code names drawn from Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers was apropos for them. And if he was about to be captured, he wanted their last words to be genuine and tender.

“You would’ve been enjoying that brightness sooner, but you weren’t at the usual hangout,” she commented at length. 

Oops.

If she had already tried their meeting place then he had badly misjudged the timing. Which meant he’d either have to lie to her now or spill his secrets.

The sound of a boot sole crunching across loose stones caught Elliott’s attention. One of the agents was almost on him. 

Elliott turned down the volume on his mock-mobile. He took a breath and stood. Reaching into his pack, he produced an apple, their last bit of fresh produce. Almost a treasure, while on the run. He lobbed it across the street and struck the side of a parked car. Gunfire immediately tore into the side of the vehicle. 

Elliott ran the opposite direction, rounding the corner and dashing under an awning at a full sprint. 

The gunfire stopped. They must have figured out his simple trick and were converging on him. He couldn’t spare a glance back to see. All he could hear was his heart’s frantic thumping in his ears and his deep breathing. Ahead there was another street corner, and he had to get to the crosswalk before a car reached it and threw up the electronic gates along the sidewalk.

Five strides. Still clear. Four. Clear. Three. Clear. Two. He wasn’t stopping no matter what.

One. A car zipped into the intersection.