Ross Cuthross's Arc

Chapter 6 of 7

Ross set the phone down and listened to his own breath. The rusted canopy outside framed the wedge of black vehicles like a crooked picture frame. Her wagon sat under it, pinned between the old pumps and the chrome grilles, bright as a coin in a dark hand. He had a price now. They wanted her. They did not yet know what she carried. He walked to the back room. The woman stood with her arms crossed, eyes hard. He told her plain. Three vehicles. One offer. Her, for the lab. He watched her face flatten. Then he told her the rest. They would take her drives. They would erase her footage. Everything she filmed would stop existing tonight. He pulled a spare encrypted drive from the bench. He copied her raw file onto it in under two minutes. Then he walked her to the floor hatch behind the supply shelf. A narrow shaft dropped into a stone passage that ran a long way under the desert. He pressed the drive into her hand. He told her to walk, not run, and to surface at the far end. He climbed back up alone. He picked up the sat phone and told the calm voice she was coming out. Then he opened the front door and stepped into the lot with both hands raised. The man in the black suit and fedora walked forward between the low metal rails that bordered the pumps. Ross kept talking. He stalled. He asked questions about jurisdiction and warrants. He gave her every minute he could buy. The suit grew tired. Two more men climbed out and pushed past Ross into the lab. He heard them tear through the back room. He heard one of them shout. The hatch was open. The passage was empty. They had her trail but not her hands, and the footage was already a mile gone. The man in the fedora turned to Ross with a slow, flat look. He said one word. Mistake. Then he climbed into the center vehicle and the wedge peeled out, leaving the wagon behind like a dropped glove. Ross stood in the empty lot and knew two things at once. The footage was safe. And he had just made himself the target they had promised not to take tonight.