Valerie

While everyone else is moping about in the holding room, Valerie is sitting on one of the couches, staring out the main hallway window. She’s watching people come and go down the hall, wondering how long they’ll be held before being charged. She’s been zoning out while a million things go through her mind and she is half startled when Cris abruptly comes through the door. He appears to be in a hurry and doesn’t bother to sit down with them.

“Ok folks, some good news, and some bad news. Valerie, you’ve been fired from Werker, and, you’re all free to go.”

She holds her hand up to her mouth in mock surprise at being fired, but then her eyes go wide when he finishes. “Wait, what, free to go? All of us?”

“Yep, I’m having you all escorted down to the truck, and from there, you’ll be taken wherever you fancy.”

“What about…?”

“Look, you guys better take what you still have and be happy with it. Werker is finished. The project is finished for good this time, and you can all just move on.”

“We can’t move on! The others will die if they don’t have support!”

“Not my problem Valerie, they lived their lives, and then some. Sad or not, you’re all still alive now. That’s more than the rats got. Life’s not fair.”

Five’s little burnt face pokes out over the edge of her bunk towards them. “We can go now?”

Valerie bursts into tears and tries to slap Cris across the face, screaming at him. “You gave us your word that she’d get another chance! Look at her!”

He stiff-arms her over onto the couch and yells at her to shut up when she continues to wail. People down the hall are beginning to stare at them. “You’re in a shit spot, but it’s not over.” He throws a black and red steel business card down on the table in front of her. The corner edge of it sticks in the wood top, making it stand up. They can all see the three red lightning-strike S’s on the face of it.

She picks up the card and flips it over to the other side. When she realizes what’s happened, Cris is already on his way out through the door. “They’re fuckin’ gangsters, you bastard!”

The card dings off the door behind him, having ducked behind it just in time. He looks back when it’s safe again. “Our driver will release you in one hour.” He slams the door and locks it behind him.

Down the hall, Cris finds Gabriel standing at the door, looking through the window like someone who’s been there for ten years already. He’s even less cordial with him than he was the others. “You’ve been fired from Werker. I don’t much care what you do from here on out. You’ll be released within the hour.” He hands him the same black metal business card.

Gabriel looks down at the card and then reads Space Security Services out loud on the back of it. “Ah, haha, that makes sense.” He looks up at Cris and sighs disappointedly. “I’d rather have gone to prison really.”

“Name your price. They’ll pay it.”

Gabriel looks down at his feet. “That’s what Paul said when this all started. I think I might go work at a pizza place after this, ya know. Sounds kinda nice, now that I think about it.”

“I’ve got a plane to catch. See you in hell.” Cris slams the door in his face and marches away down the hall.

Valerie is lying with Aaron in one of the bunks when Arma alerts them to an officer at their door. The sound of its opening stirs them all up and onto their feet. They’ve anxiously been waiting for much more than only an hour. She is glad to see someone other than Cris or Gerald this time. It’s the same guy that picked them up out at the farmhouse.

“Cris said you’d take us home.”

“Yep, wherever you need to be taken. I’ll make sure you get home safe. We’re not gonna just kick you out on the curb. Even though you’re free to walk out, I’d not suggest it for any of you. So… where’s home?”

“Can you take us to the same place you picked us, the Knapp farm?”

Mikel butts in before the man can answer. “We aren’t being charged with anything, right? That’s what we were told. The thing is, we had quite a bit of property that was seized. Can we get any of it back? We had a few vehicles and such. Were they impounded here maybe?”

The officer thinks for a moment and then looks up their case number to see if anything has been listed. “It looks like three cars were taken from Evan Adam’s residence, two of them being yours. It looks like they were saved from the fire. I can waive the impound fee and we can pick them up on the way out if you’d like.”

So not draw any attention like the last time, they all follow Rick down the stairs and back out to the truck in the staging area. Surprisingly, Runner is still loaded inside. Apparently, no one could figure out how to get the damn thing out last night, so they left it in there.

A few blocks down the street, they pull into the impound lot and retrieve Valerie’s truck and Clarice’s car. With so many of them, they have to all squeeze tightly into the two rigs.

Being as big as he is, Aaron has to ride shotgun in Clarice’s car while Mikel drives it. Marek, Alexis, and Clarice have to scrunch together in the back seat. With Arma hanging her shoulder out the window again, and Five in the middle, they take her truck. The last thing she wants to do is stop anywhere, or go near Werker, but they have to. Marco had hidden copies of Five and Arma’s original drives at his home, and they cannot afford to let them sit. Vagrants are usually very efficient at raiding the homes of people they know have recently passed. If a person’s death is reported on the news, there’s a high likelihood of their property being stolen soon after, especially if they lived alone.

At Marco’s apartment, everything seems to be left intact. There are no signs of disturbance or evidence the police have been there. Detectives know better than to string up tape anywhere near where rats are known to be active. Around the back of the house, she has Marek break into the place. There’s a closed-circuit security system, but he makes quick work of it. The first thing she notices is that Marco’s bonsai trees are still out on the back porch. He never had the chance to bring them back inside.

It breaks Valerie’s heart to see the things he loved so much, all alone, having spent the night out in the cold because he never came home. They are dry, but they’ll still make it. Instead of looking for the data drives first, she immediately packs all eight of them inside and soaks them in the sink one at a time. Everyone gathers around to look at the wondrous specimens as she sets them out on the table.

With her eyes welling up, she hands a potted tree out to each of them. “These little guys have lost the man who loved and looked out for them. They were very special to him. There are eight of them and eight of us now. We will all take care of them in remembrance. We owe that much to him.”

As she points to each of the locked drawers, Aaron pulls and forces them open. She hefts the big, heavy, black data drives and hands them to Five and Arma. Their old names, Five-One and Five-Two, are on them. These only contain the original raw brain-scan data, but it’s not something they can ever afford to lose. She looks at the two of them, and then to Aaron. “You’re basically mortal again, so don’t get yourselves into any trouble, ok? I can’t save you again after this. If you die now, it’s over.”

Back out on the road, everyone has a potted plant in their lap, and some more than one. It’s a quiet ride while they all fawn over their miniaturized trees. With Five driving this time, Valerie carefully pulls the thin steel business card Cris had given her out of her pocket and looks at the number on the back of it. She fiddles with it between her fingers and swipes it through the air, pretending to cut at something. She considers calling the number but instead decides to wait. She’s not ready for her life to take another hard turn just yet, and neither are the others. They can wait.

In celebration of having at least survived, and not going to prison, they make a small fire in Ray’s back yard and pack all of the liquor in the house out with them. It is hard, being right back where so much pain had started, but they’ve learned to become numb to it. Clarice and Aaron figure they can at least go back to their old jobs without anyone giving them too much trouble. All in all, it’s not the end of the road for any of them, even though it can feel like it sometimes. She thinks about the investigators selling them out as they did but doesn’t dwell on it. The Five-Series project might be ending up in the wrong hands, but it’s far from finished. She smirks, wondering how nasty things are going to get now.

For fun, Five and Arma drink the cheap vodka, and even Aaron obliges with them. They swear they can tell the difference between it and water. To cheer up the mood, he brings Runner out from the garage and lets everyone take turns riding it around the backyard in the dark.

Alexis insists that she’s going to buy one of her own when she can get a job and start saving. Marek can’t help but go on about what else he could do to it like Aaron has done with Runner. When they finally let the fire die down to coals, they all look up at the stars together. Neither Marek nor Alexis have ever seen them this clearly before. Almost like the Milky-Way, all the satellites form huge bands across the sky in broad rivers of shimmering light. When Aaron makes a toast, some of them hold up glasses, and some hold up bottles. “The really tough times only make the tough times seem not so bad.”