Another long ride north dodging potshots and watching the sun cross the horizon. Happy Jack had promised him a two hour head start so he knew he would only have about fifteen minutes before a bunch of dumb muscle wiped the cabin away. If Fernando wanted to have tea, they’d be in big fucking trouble.

He brought the speeder in tight and low, rumbling over the scraggly treetops without much regard for whatever shriveled life happened to be stumbling beneath him at the time. He tapped his fingers on the dash. An hour passed, and then another. Remy spent the time trying to figure out how to get out of New Madison when they got back. Speeders couldn’t just fly to a new city. That would be too convenient. Federation insisted on permit this-and-that just to hop a shuttle over to Milwaukee or Saint Paul, even though they were each well within the range of his personal speeder. Maybe Happy Jack knew a guy who’d do him a favor the next town over. Yeah right, like he wanted to owe a guy like that another favor. It felt like that’s what started this whole mess.

Couple murders didn’t help his case none either. Undoubtedly, some lucky Redcap was checking cameras from across the city trying to piece together his identity. His first lawyer had erased his fingerprints years ago, and wiped away some of his facial records. He just hoped it would hold long enough to get out of town. If not, it’d be a short hop on the shuttle and another short ride down to the jail. Wonder what Kathy would say this time. Bet Tyreese wouldn’t even slip him any cigarettes.

Remy finally crested the last hill and eyed the familiar wooden structure in a clearing ahead. Smoke puffed from the chimney and a low light filled the windows. He set the speeder down where he had just a few days before and trudged through broken snow to the front door. His fingers froze on the handle.

Fernando’s speeder was gone. Underneath the scraggly oak, a depression and a walking trail were all that remained. Sweat beaded under his hat despite the chill. Son of a bitch. Remy burst through the door and looked around frantically for Josie. It didn’t take long to find her in a one room shack.

Josie slumped over the table, where they ad eaten breakfast, cold as ice. She wasn’t latched down as before so Remy lifted her onto her back on the table.

“No, no, no, no.” He muttered tossing his hat and coat to the side. Remy tapped the sides of her face.

“Josie. Josie, wake up. Come on, Josie, stay with me. Josie!” Her head lolled to the side and his fingers brushed red on her cheeks. His fingers worked their way to her throat. No pulse. Remy had never learned how to do heart compressions or whatever it was you were supposed to do when someone stopped breathing. Instead, he kicked a pile of stacked wood and screamed.

He raged. Rage for Josie. For Franklin. For Claire. Fuck, even for Stefanie.

Remy wanted to tear the cabin down piece by piece. In a span of three months, he’d gone from a steady job without much a care in the world, to deeply caring for two wildly different women, to finally sinking to depths he didn’t think he could reach. Remy sank to his knees on the cold floorboards and sobbed. It wasn’t fair. He’d barely gotten in the Inspector’s way. He still managed to complete his own job, why take Josie? Bastard couldn’t let someone else win, even at something like this.

Bleary eyed, he noticed a piece of paper with long, languid strokes and retrieved it. Fernando’s handwriting. Blinking away tears, he read.

“Remy St. Claire, my dear friend. I have heard about the demise of Ms. Adelaide and Mr. Mendez. It is a shame for the world to lose such intelligent individuals but know that it is not your fault and your conscious should not weigh you down. Are wicked things done for good reasons truly wicked? Probably, but it is better than doing wicked for wicked’s own sake. You may think me a man of low character though there are worse than I in this world and you’ve rid us of two of them. Bravo, I say.

I am a man of my word, and I’ll not have anyone say it is not so. The lovely Josephine is not dead, and you are most likely still on time. If I have judged you correctly, you will read this around the stroke of 8 in the evening, yes?”

Remy’s heart raced and he glanced at the clock on the wall. 7:51 P.M. She was alive! The letter continued.

“Her poison is a concoction of my own, and I am quite proud of my work. It is long-lasting, slow, painless, and leaves quite some time to remedy. If you have the proper medications and facilities, of course. I’ve left you a list of medications and dosage in the lovely Josephine’s right pocket. New Madison General should have them available. Else, you could always try to make it to Saint Paul if you thought your presence in New Madison would be…unwelcome. I would urge you to make haste as if it is indeed 8 in the evening, there will be only about 4 hours left before the poison finishes its sinister work. I suggest you get moving.

Until next time, my friend.

Adios,

F.”

Remy shoved the note into his pocket and hoisted Josie off the table. Either she was lighter or he was stronger because Remy made his way across the room in two strides and after a few seconds more was securing her in his speeder.

“I’ve got you, Josie. It’ll be okay. We’ll make it.”

He secured the last safety harness and checked her right pocket for the medications. Empty.

Fuck.

Remy ran back to the shack. Maybe he’d knocked it over in his rage, or maybe it had jostled loose from her pocket while she was being carried out. At the table, underneath where Josie had been lain, he found a second folded piece of paper and glanced at it to make sure it was the right one.

“Dear Remy. I thought I might have tricked you with this one but you are clever and found the list anyway. The medications are true. Good luck, my friend.”

Below the note was a list of about a dozen medications that Remy hadn’t heard of and couldn’t pronounce if he tried. Taking only an instant to grab his discarded hat and duster, he raced back to the speeder and surged away over the trees before his door had even closed.

Josie’s head lolled against her window.

“We’ll get there, Josie. Hold on.” His knuckles were white on the controls, overriding the autopilot’s safe speed functionalities. On autopilot, the trip was just a shade under four hours which didn’t leave much room for errors or actually getting any treatment to Josie. Manually, he could do it closer to three if he didn’t mind never driving the speeder again. He’d trade away ten speeders to have her in a hospital bed right now.

Two minutes after take-off, a pair of armored speeders zoomed past him. Jack’s boys come to take the toll. He tapped out a quick message to Jack that the Inspector had gotten away. Jack would be pissed. There wasn’t much he could do about that now though. All of his thoughts were on squeezing an extra bit of speed or cutting a few seconds off their journey.

After an hour of white-knuckled racing over treetops, Remy’s heart rate slowed and he settled into an uneasy daydream. Fucking Fernando. He should’ve known better than to expect the Inspector to be honest with him. But what else could he have done? Charged in with a gun and a Vasc loaded to fight? Fernando had Remy right where he wanted him: vulnerable, outmatched, and desperate.

It was just after the third hour when they poked over a hill and Remy spotted the ominous green glow of New Madison’s ghostfence on the horizon. Remy thanked whatever God or computer simulation controlled their trip back. He roared through the security checkpoints, knowing he’d be followed. There wasn’t time for some Redcap to rummage around looking for strange fruits or vegetables. Josie had under an hour to get a grocery list of medications.

New Madison felt a lot more crowded when cruising at three times the speed limit. Remy skidded around skyscrapers that he couldn’t rise over, and dipped and ducked his way around late night traffic. In his mirrors, he could see red and blue flashes haunting his path.

“Hold on, Josie. Just a little bit more, the hospital’s right there!”

She flopped in her seat like a rag-doll as he pushed their engines to their maximum. He’d give his left nut for a Quant-Vasc right about now. Through another act of God or benevolent simulator, the Emergency entrance at New Madison General was empty when he slammed the brakes in front of its doors.

A single robodoc pushing a bed approached his car as he popped open the doors.

“What is your medical emergency?”

“She’s poisoned. Here’s the antidote.”

“Does not compute. There is no diagnosis. There can be no antidote without a diagnosis.”

Remy lifted Josie from her seat and placed her on the hovering gurney. The robo doc pushed her forward and Remy followed waving the paper.

“Run your test but if you don’t know what it is, try this. Please!”

He knew he looked foolish, arguing with an unthinking robot in the middle of the night, but that was far from the top of his concerns. Josie had only a half hour left before the Inspector’s poison would finish its work.

The robo doc regarded the paper dispassionately and then red beams shot from its eyes to scan the paper.

“Document assimilated. Thank you for your service, citizen. You may wait inside.”

“Will you -”

“Please do not interrupt, citizen. You are inhibiting my bedside manner protocols.”

Remy shut up. It was useless to argue with a robo doc. He watched helplessly as it whipped through automated doors and into the emergency area.

Sirens blared and Remy knew the gig was up. His own speeder was a smoking ruin, it’s engine burnt up and wheezing it fits. At least Josie’d made it. She had to. All of this crap couldn’t be for nothing. If she died anyway, what did that mean for what he had done? He couldn’t think about Georgia now. Three police speeders skidded into the Emergency entrance.

“Hands where I can see them!” cried the first Redcap out of his car. “On the ground, on the ground!”

Remy complied, through exhaustion more than preservation. The concrete was cold on his knees and they ached from hours in a speeder. He held his hands high above his head.

“Vasc! Neutralize!” A second Redcap shouted.

Remy glanced up at his own Vasculator, which was still cloaked by Josie’s modifications to hide his load out from identification. He didn’t have time to explain.

“Oh shit.”

50,000 volts ran through his chest and Remy saw no more.