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Chapter 05 Paul wished his trip from San Francisco was more like Thomas’s stories. Paul was stuck driving, where his best friend had spent the trip in the back of a van having sex. Paul even knew most of those involved there well enough sex would also happen. Then there was the lack of conversation. When Shila wasn’t doing her thing on her phone, she was looking out the window. He had no idea what to say to her. It wasn’t like they could compare lives. He was a graduate who hadn’t found work yet, so this side trip was costing him what? A car at the bottom of the bay, dinner with friends and sex. Both of which would happen once he was back. Shila, on the other end, was a magical hacker for whom this trip was because the entirety of her life had been burned down around her. A rare time she spoke was to direct Paul off the highway and to an older mall in Santa Rosa, where they found one of the rare cash machine left in existence. It dispensed money, which he took without arguing. This was theft, but it wasn’t like it was hurting someone. The bank had insurance against these kinds of things. Maybe not magical hacking specifically, but it was still just hacking. They had returned to the car and back to the silent drive until somewhere close to the Oregon border. Paul had seen a sign in the distance, but he was too tired to remember what it said. Which was why he took the exit with the sign for a motel a few miles off. It had already been a long day, with getting up early to pack away the apartment, and he’d never been someone who depended on coffee to remain conscious, so the two coffees he’d grabbed when they recharged the car were enough for him. The clerk at the Back Branch Motel didn’t even twitch an ear when Paul paid with physical money, which made him wonder if more people than the government let on were still using it. The room was the epitome of ‘nothing to write home about’ but it came with car charging, and there was an open convenience store on the other side of the road, even at this late hour. It spoke of more of a night life than Paul had expected considering he hadn’t noticed any other businesses. The clerk there did twitch an ear, as Paul handed her the physical money, even looked disgusted. He’d expected her to tell him they weren’t set up to give change, which he was okay with; it wasn’t his money after all. Instead, she took the bills in the back and returned a minute later with his change. Back in the room, the pangolin was stretched on her bed, watching her phone. She wasn’t typing or looking only this side of freaking out, so things were still okay. “I hope you don’t mind another burger,” he said, putting the wrapped food on her bedside table, “but it’s the only thing they had I know you eat, since you had one at the drive-through.” He added condiment packets. “There’s also juice, fruits, and cookies.” Those he placed on the nightstand between their beds, then took his own burger out of the bag and sat. “This place isn’t going to help me get in to the FBI,” she said, “but their server’s solid enough and I uploaded some protections to it. No one’s going to find us unless they already know we’re in this building. I’ve also installed everything I had to scramble precognition, remote viewing and whatever kind of far-anything someone might cobble together, short of them having access to your cum.” Paul stared at her, about to unwrap his burger. “You do know what someone can do with that, right?” she asked in a tone that wouldn’t accept no for an answer. “Just about everyone I know in the magical community is Society. So, yes. I’m well aware of what’s possible with that. It’s why I’m not in the habit of leaving mine behind.” “The shower’s decent,” Shila said. “You’re going to want to have one.” He smirked. “After I’ve eaten.” * * * * * He was still damp when he exited the bathroom, wearing only his pants. Two motel sized towels did little when it came to drying fur, and one thing that didn’t come with the room was a fur dryer. “If you want to surf the net,” Shila said as he stretched on the bed, “you can do that. I’ve anonymized your phone. But don’t contact anyone. I have no way to know the kind of powers the Chamber has set up to intercept calls to your friends.” “How about messaging?” He took his phone off the nightstand. “I can use a public site with a one time account to let them know I’m okay.” His phone buzzed at the receipt of a message as she said, “Already done.” The message was from a Sheallie Fortune, sent from a GroupTalk channel and the list of names on it was longer than he could count. They were alphabetical, so finding those he knew, including his mother, proved simple. “Is everyone on there real?” “I grabbed them off the site at random. It’d be too obvious if they were all bots, except for those the Chamber is using to look for us. The message’s veiled enough the rest won’t care that much.” “Hey friends,” Paul read out loud, “me and Paulie are off on an adventure after my place was forcefully redecorated, don’t ask. Don’t worry, he’s just as safe as I am, but we’re going to do the off grid thing for a bit, because what goes better with an adventure than the lack of a safety net, am I right? Chat when we come up for air.” “My mom’s getting this message,” he said, not entirely happy about it. “Figured you’d want her to know,” she said offhandedly. Then looked at him. “She does know, right?” “About magic impacting my life? After Henry, there was no way to avoid that, but she wasn’t given a breakdown of what it all meant. By which I mean, she’s not going to have a clue who this Sheallie Fortune is.” Of course, his mother wasn’t exactly clueless about the net. She’d at least check the people on the list. She might not make it to the ‘Ps’ but she’d see some names she knew from what she’d been told. Chima was close enough to the start, and the name unique enough she’d remember him. That would at least cause her to look further. “What happens if one of them calls me?” If his mother called him. “We’re off grid. They’ll leave a message.” That could be a problem. Not getting the rundown of everything that had happened to Paul had been his mother’s decision. Knowing a stranger had been able to give Paul extra fake memories that had taken him months to straighten out enough they both felt comfortable around each other had left her worried about what else was out there that might hurt her boy, and not knowing the details had felt easier on her sanity. It had also led to her trying to argue him out of going to San Francisco Bay for his doctorate, even if they had one of the best Biotech course outside of the Big Names. She’d eventually relented, but he could hear the concern in her voice anytime she called him, even after all these years. “Okay,” he finally said. It wasn’t like he could undo the message. His mother would either dismiss it, which would let him explain things to her once he was back in San Francisco Bay, or she’d investigate. “The odds are she’d going to call the Hertz to find out what this is about. They’ll put her in contact with Thomas, and he’ll know how to coax things so not to freak her out.” Whether that would be enough to convince her Paul was okay…? That was another question. And Thomas was going to have to manage that. Otherwise, she was going to freak out. * * * * * The nos strung together ever faster pulled Paul out of the shower and into the room without caring about the dripping water. “What’s wrong?” He asked Shila, who was staring at her phone, the nos still ongoing. “Shila, what’s wrong?” he repeated, louder. She looked at him, eyes wide as she stopped repeating the word. Instead of explaining, she swiped from her phone to the screen on the wall and it came on with a news segment. “As of two hours ago,” a fox, in a gray suit, seated behind a desk, said somberly, “a state of emergency has been declared for the city of Denver, Colorado. A quarantine has been imposed. Information has been difficult to obtain, but we have Jennifer standing by in Parker, where the military has set up one of the check-points. Jeniffer, what can you tell us?” “Not much, Gregory,” a woman answered, the still of a bovine wearing glasses in a sports jacket appearing over the fox’s right shoulder. “The National Guard is preventing anyone from entering unless they have medical credentials. The CDC is reported to be on site, but I haven’t be able to confirm it. The little I’ve managed to gather is terrifying enough.” “Jennifer?” Gregory prodded when the silence stretched. He looked at someone off camera and open his mouth, when she said. “It’s the Black Death, Greg.”