[More Skewed Slightly to the Left, following directly from last time:]
"Fuckshit!"
It wasn't the flurry of emergency workers that caused Jane to cry out, nor was it the fact that they were filling the street, blocking her path, forcing her to bring the motorcycle to another screeching halt.
It was that they included police.
One of them approached the motorcycle. She said, "What are you doing on the streets?"
"His wife is missing," Jane said, gesturing to Cameron, who was doing his best to be invisible, "Last anyone heard she was in the open."
The officer nodded, "Same as everyone else, try not to get-" she saw Cameron's face. "Aren't you Buck Williams?"
Cameron though of a lot of things he could say, but in the end it all boiled down to one simple truth: he wasn't a good liar. "Yes," he admitted.
"We have orders to arrest you."
Cameron was surprised, "They want me alive?"
"Those orders came from the ones who dropped the bomb," Jane said.
"That's not lost on us. Good luck."
"To you as well," Cameron said.
"Cameron, notebook," Jane said. Cameron pulled the small notebook from his pocket and gave it to Jane. She found an empty page and quickly wrote a number on it, then tore out the page and handed it to the police officer, "If you can find a working landline there's non-governmental relief efforts being run from here. If you could coordinate with them maybe together you can save more lives."
The officer took the page. "Thanks."
"If anything official comes of me giving you that number I will personally hunt you down and kill you myself," Jane told the officer.
"Understood," she said. Then she waved them on, "Try not to get in anyone's way."
"Will do," Jane said.
It was easier said than done. Fire and ambulance workers were rushing to and from various buildings, in some places EMTs were just treating people on the pavement.
Jane was able to navigate the ever changing crowd, and soon they were back to mostly abandoned streets and up to speed. She considered shouting, "Carpathia is the Antichrist," as they drove away, but decided it wasn't the time.
Cameron just hung on to Jane, afraid of falling off the bike.
---
Eventually they reached their destination. Chloe wasn't there. Nor was her contact.
Once they were sure she wasn't in one of the nearby buildings, Jane and Cameron met back at the motorcylce.
"If she followed protocol," Cameron said, "which she would, she'd be headed back to her own shelter."
Jane pointed, "That way," and after a pause, "And more territory than we've already covered."
They got back on the bike.
"We need to go slow enough to get a look around from here on out," Cameron said.
"I know," Jane assured him, and so they began the longer journey, going slower. The search for Chloe had begun.
-[Skewed Slightly to the Left Index]
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