A Better World

CHAPTER 31

He’d hit the door to the vestibule at a sprint, adrenaline overriding the pain from his bare feet. Burst out into the parking lot under bright blue skies and saw his wife staring at him.

“Ethan?”

“Run!”

A thousand questions in her eyes, but she packed them away and started running, their daughter clutched to her chest. They raced out of the parking lot and onto the sidewalk, heading north, a direction picked at random. Cuyahoga Falls was one big strip mall, a town sponsored by chains. A drugstore up ahead, a restaurant to the left, the logos for both familiar. State Street was four lanes, traffic in both directions. No sign of police, but that would come next.

As they ran, Ethan counted cameras. They were everywhere. Cameras on traffic poles, cameras in parking lots, cameras on the corners of buildings. He’d never realized how many there were.

And all of them were pointed at his family.

Every single camera swiveled to follow them as they ran.

His skin tightened and shivered.

“Ethan,” Amy said, punctuating the words with pants, “why, are, we—”

“Trust me.”

She nodded, and they continued north. It would take at least a few minutes for the DAR to reach out to the local police. They’d have to pull rank, tell them a fugitive—my God, we’re fugitives—was running up State Street. Another minute or two for a cruiser to get here.

Still. How far could they make it? And what difference did it make if the cameras tracked them?

“This way.” He turned down a side street. His breath came fast and hot, and every step pounded up his skeleton. They ran past a broad parking lot, dodged around two staring kids on skateboards. Another block and they were on a strip of small homes, bungalows and frame houses nestled close together. Lawns gone to yellow-brown and faded American flags. A dog barked and snarled on the opposite side of a fence. Ethan turned right arbitrarily, went another block, then went left, deep in a neighborhood now. Hardly safe, but at least away from the cameras.

Amy said, “I have to stop.” She was pale, clutching Violet in both arms. Their daughter was bawling, not loud howls but steady unhappiness that rang through his core. He nodded, dropped to a fast walk.

“What’s going on?”

“Amy, I know this sounds crazy. But I think the DAR is trying to arrest us because of my work.”

“You’re right. That’s crazy.”

“Is it? Remember the drone? The National Guard?”

“Yeah, but . . . come on.”

“When I was in the bank, the phone rang. It was Quinn, the agent who came to our house. He was watching me on the security camera.” He turned to look at her. “Why would he be doing that?”

They passed a series of faded brick houses, the lawns growing wider as they went farther from town. It wouldn’t be long before they were back on golf courses and forests. Cornfields. He winced at that, his feet bleeding again.

After a long pause, Amy said, “You know, for more than a year I respected your commitment to the nondisclosure agreement. I thought it was silly and excessive, but it mattered to you, so I accepted it. But it’s time you told me what you and Abe are working on.”

He looked over at her. It had killed him not to be able to share the project with her, not to be able to tell his wife about their success. But Abe had made it clear: no one, absolutely no one could know. Anyone who broke that policy was done. Fired, stripped of patent rights, blacklisted, cooked.

Ethan had thought the old man paranoid, but he’d gone along to get along. If that was what it took to work in a private lab with limitless funding alongside the greatest genius in the field, well, cost of doing business. Now he was starting to wonder.

Was it someone telling their wife that led to the DAR finding out?

And do you give a crap anymore?

“We figured out how to turn normals into brilliants.”

She stopped like she’d run into a wall. Stared at him. “Are you kidding me?”

“No. And the DAR doesn’t want that to happen. I think they kidnapped Abe, and they’re after us.”

“So—what do we do?”

The billion-dollar question.

And then, up ahead, he saw the answer.

“Wait here.”

A digital bell binged as he walked into the place. Candy and soft drinks and the essentials, the same as before. Ethan walked to the middle aisle, picked up three packs of Huggies and both tubs of baby formula. He set them on the counter. The clerk looked at him, ran his hands through his hair. Lank strands of it fell around his neck. “You again?”

Ethan turned and went back to the aisles, loading his arms. A flashlight and a pack of D batteries. All the jerky on the rack. Band-Aids and ibuprofen. Added it to the pile.

The clerk said, “Come on, man.”

Next was a box of Snickers.

A carton of eggs and two gallons of milk.

Eight liter-bottles of spring water.

Four lighters from the display by the register.

A roll of duct tape.

“Dude, I have to put this all back.”

“No, you don’t. Bag it.”

“Fine. You want to do it like that?” The clerk reached for the phone. “I’ll call the cops.”

“Don’t worry,” Ethan said, “I’m leaving. Just one question first.”

The guy stared at him with the wary expression of someone being panhandled. “Yeah?”

Ethan reached into his waistband and pulled out the revolver. He raised it and pointed it right at the clerk. Watched the guy’s expression change just the way he’d thought it might. It felt as good as he’d imagined.

“What kind of car do you drive?”