Dead Water

The red light blinked. Once. Twice.

It was small. Maybe the size of a cigarette cherry. It hovered in the chaotic weave of hemlock branches, suspended by four buzzing rotors that sounded like a angry hornet trapped in a jar.

"Don't look at it," Gage said. He didn't shout. He didn't have the air for it. He grabbed the back of David's jacket and shoved him forward. "Move."

"Is that... are they watching us?" Sarah asked. Her voice was thin, stretched tight over panic. She was slipping on the wet pine needles, her expensive boots finding zero traction.

"Yes. Keep moving. Get under the canopy."

Gage didn't look back at the drone. He knew what it was. A DJI Mavic or something similar. Consumer grade, but modified. The range on those things was decent, but in this canyon, with the rock walls interfering with the signal, the pilot had to be close. Or they had a repeater.

The gorge was steep here. It wasn't a trail. It was a deer run—a narrow slash of mud cutting through the sword ferns and salal. The rain had turned the dirt into grease. Every step was a calculation. Plant the foot. Test the weight. Push. Hope the mud holds.

David stumbled. His knees just folded. He hit the ground face first, his cheek smacking into a patch of wet moss.

"David!" Sarah grabbed his arm, hauling him up. He was dead weight. His eyes were glassy, unfocused. The hypothermia was digging in deep. He wasn't shivering anymore. That was bad. Shivering is the body fighting. When the shivering stops, the body is surrendering.

"Leave me," David mumbled. His words were slurred, like his tongue was too big for his mouth. "Just take the drive."

"Shut up," Gage said. He grabbed David's other arm. " nobody is leaving anyone. We're walking."

Gage hauled the kid up. David smelled like river water and fear. He was light, skinny. Probably spent his whole life behind a screen. He wasn't built for this. He wasn't built for the cold or the wet or the fact that people were hunting him.

The drone buzzed louder. It dropped altitude, cutting through a gap in the branches. It was tracking them. Herding them.

"Why isn't it doing anything?" Sarah asked, panting. She wiped a streak of mud from her forehead. Her hands were red, the skin raw from the cold.

"It's a spotter," Gage said. "It doesn't have a payload. It's just eyes. They're waiting for us to break cover."

"Who?"

"The extraction team. Martin wasn't alone. He never is."

Gage looked up. The sky was a bruised purple through the trees. Night was coming. If they were still in the gorge when the sun went down, David would die. The temperature would drop to freezing. His wet clothes would turn into a coffin.

"We need to get to the logging road," Gage said. "Top of the ridge. Two miles."

"Two miles?" Sarah looked at David. "He can't make two miles."

"Then carry him. Drag him. I don't care. We move or we die."

Gage felt the itch again. It started at the base of his neck. A hot, prickling sensation. His body wanted a fix. It wanted to numb the pain in his ribs, the burning in his legs, the cold that was seeping into his bones. It wanted the white noise of a pill.

He gritted his teeth. He focused on the pain. The sharp, stabbing pain in his side where he'd hit the cooler. It was grounding. It was real.

One step. Two steps. Breathe.

They hit a switchback. The terrain got steeper. The mud was ankle deep. Gage slipped, his hand slamming into a devil's club stalk. The thorns punched through his glove, biting into his palm. He swore, ripping his hand back.

Blood. Bright red against the gray mud.

Good. Pain is information.

The drone was still there. Hovering. Watching. The little red light blinked. It felt judgmental. It felt like a countdown.

"Batteries," Gage muttered.

"What?" Sarah asked.

"Those things have a twenty, maybe thirty-minute flight time. Especially in this wind. It has to go back to swap batteries soon."

"So we wait?"

"No. We sprint. When it turns around, we run."

They pushed on. The trees grew tighter. The undergrowth was a tangled mess of rhododendrons. It was like walking through a net. Branches whipped their faces. Water dumped from the leaves, soaking them again and again.

David groaned. He slumped against a tree, sliding down the bark.

"I can't," he whispered. "I can't feel my feet."

Gage stopped. He crouched down in front of David. He slapped the kid's face. Not hard, but enough to snap his head back.

"Hey," Gage said. "Look at me."

David's eyes rolled lazily toward Gage.

"You steal corporate secrets, you deal with the run," Gage said. "You wanted to be a hero? This is the hero part. It sucks. It's cold and it hurts. Stand up."

"Gage, stop," Sarah snapped. She knelt beside her brother, rubbing his arms vigorously. "He's freezing."

"He's dying," Gage corrected. "If he sits here, his heart stops. The only way to warm him up is to make him work. Metabolic heat. Get him moving."

Sarah glared at Gage. Her eyes were hard. She hated him right now. That was fine. Hate is a fuel. It burns hot.

"Get up, David," she said, her voice dropping into a lower register. "Get up or I burn the drive."

David blinked. That got through. "No."

"Then walk."

They got him moving again. It was a slow, agonizing shuffle. The drone buzzed overhead, then suddenly, the pitch of the rotors changed. It banked sharp left and shot back toward the ridge line.

"Battery," Gage said. "Go. Now."

He grabbed David's arm and hauled him forward. They abandoned caution. They crashed through the brush, ignoring the branches whipping their faces. They needed to cover ground while the eye was blind.

Gage's lungs burned. His legs felt like lead. But the absence of that buzzing sound was a relief. Silence in the woods. Just the sound of their breathing and the squelch of boots in mud.

They reached a scree slope. A slide of loose gray rock that cut through the forest like a scar. It was exposed. Open sky.

"Cross it," Gage ordered.

"It's slippery," Sarah said, looking at the shifting rocks.

"It's the fastest way up. Go."

They scrambled up the loose stone. For every two steps forward, they slid one back. Rocks clattered down the slope, bouncing into the treeline below. It was loud. Too loud.

Gage scanned the ridge. The logging road should be right there. Just past the crest.

He checked his watch. Ten minutes since the drone left. It would be back soon. Swapping a battery takes seconds if you're good.

"Almost there," Gage wheezed. The air was thinner up here. Or maybe he was just out of shape. ninety days clean meant his body was still rewiring itself. His dopamine receptors were screaming for a hit, trying to convince him that lying down in the rocks was a good idea.

Not today.

They crested the ridge. The trees opened up. An old gravel logging road stretched out in both directions, overgrown with alder saplings and grass. It was a lifeline.

"The road," Sarah gasped. She dropped David onto the gravel. He curled into a ball immediately.

"Don't get comfortable," Gage said. He walked to the edge of the road, looking for tracks. Tire marks. Footprints. Anything.

The gravel was undisturbed. Just deer scat and windblown branches. No trucks. No extraction team.

"Where's your car?" Gage asked.

"Mile marker four," Sarah said. "By the old bridge."

"How far is that?"

"I don't know. A mile?"

Gage looked at the sky. The light was failing fast. The gray was turning to charcoal.

Then he heard it.

The buzz. It was back. But it sounded different. Multiple tones. Harmonics.

Gage looked up.

Two drones. The first one had brought a friend. They crested the tree line, their red lights blinking in unison. They hovered fifty feet up, staring down at the exposed road.

"They found us," Sarah said. She sounded defeated.

"Get in the trees," Gage said. "Off the road."

"It's too late, Gage! They see us!"

"Get in the damn trees!"

He grabbed David's collar and dragged him into the ditch, shoving him under a thicket of blackberry bushes. Sarah followed, crawling into the thorns without complaint.

Gage stayed low, peering through the brambles.

The drones didn't follow. They stayed over the road. Hovering. Waiting.

"Why aren't they coming closer?" Sarah whispered.

"They're marking the spot," Gage said. "GPS coordinates."

He looked down the road. In the distance, the sound of an engine cut through the quiet. Not a drone. A combustion engine. Heavy. Diesel.

"Someone's coming," Gage said.

"Is it police?" Sarah asked. Hope flared in her voice.

"Police use sirens," Gage said. "And they don't use drones to hunt people in the woods without a warrant. This is private."

The sound grew louder. Tires crunching on gravel. The low rumble of a heavy truck.

Headlights swept across the trees. Bright, blinding LEDs. A matte black pickup truck rolled into view. It was modified for off-road. Lift kit, winch, brush guard. No license plates.

The truck stopped exactly under the hovering drones.

The doors opened. Two men stepped out. They weren't wearing tactical gear like the ones at the river. They looked like hikers. North Face jackets, beanies, hiking pants. But they moved like soldiers.

One of them held a tablet. He looked at the screen, then looked directly at the patch of blackberries where Gage was hiding.

"Heat signatures," Gage whispered. "Thermal."

"Oh god," Sarah breathed.

"Run," Gage said. "Back into the woods. Down the other side."

"David can't run."

"Then carry him."

Gage didn't wait. He grabbed David's jacket and pulled. They scrambled out of the ditch, crashing through the brush away from the road.

"Hey!" one of the men shouted. "Stop!"

Gage didn't stop. He didn't look back. He focused on the ground. Roots, holes, mud. Don't trip.

A pop. Then a whiz.

A tranquilizer dart hit the tree trunk next to Gage's head. The yellow feathery tail vibrated.

"They want us alive," Gage yelled. "Keep moving!"

They plunged down the far side of the ridge. The slope was steep. They were sliding more than running. Mud coated everything. Gage tasted dirt.

David was sobbing now. A low, broken sound. He was done. His legs weren't working.

Gage grabbed him around the waist, practically carrying him. His own back screamed in protest. The pain was blinding.

Just let go, the voice in his head whispered. Sit down. Let them take you. They have warm blankets. They have drugs.

"Shut up," Gage grunted.

They hit a flat section. A dense grove of old-growth cedar. The canopy was thick here, blocking the thermal view from above.

"Stop," Gage gasped. He dropped David against a massive trunk.

Sarah collapsed next to him. She was hyperventilating. "They're going to catch us."

"Not yet," Gage said. He leaned against the tree, trying to slow his heart rate. It was hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.

He checked his pockets. Knife. Lighter. That was it.

"Give me the drive," Gage said.

Sarah looked up, eyes wide. "What?"

"Give it to me. If they catch us, they search you first. You're the client. I'm just the help."

She hesitated. Her hand went to her pocket.

"Trust me," Gage said.

She pulled out the plastic bag. The USB drive looked so small. So insignificant. People were dying for this piece of plastic.

Gage took it. He looked around. The cedar tree had a hollow near the base, rot eating away the heartwood.

He shoved the bag deep into the rot, covering it with a handful of dead needles and mud.

"If we get split up," Gage said, "it's here. Marked by the three trunks."

"We're not getting split up," Sarah said.

Branches snapped behind them. Close. Fifty yards.

"They're tracking the footprints," Gage said. "Mud leaves a trail a blind man could follow."

He looked at Sarah. She was terrified, but she was still standing. She was tougher than she looked.

"Take David," Gage said. "Go left. Follow the contour of the hill. Don't go down, don't go up. Just keep moving level."

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going right. I'm going to make some noise."

"Gage, no."

"Go!"

Gage didn't wait for an argument. He turned and sprinted to the right. He stomped his feet. He broke branches. He made himself a target.

He heard the men behind him shout. They took the bait.

Gage ran. He ran until his lungs tasted like blood. He ran until his legs were numb. He wove through the trees, sliding over logs, ducking under branches.

The terrain changed. The trees thinned out. The ground turned to rock.

He burst out of the treeline and stopped.

A cliff. A sheer drop. Maybe sixty feet down to a rocky creek bed.

Dead end.

Gage spun around. Two men emerged from the trees. They weren't running. They were walking. They knew he had nowhere to go.

The man with the tablet smiled. It was a professional smile. Void of emotion.

"End of the road, Mr. Gage," he said.

Gage stepped back. His heel caught the edge of the cliff. Loose stones tumbled into the void, clattering down, down, down.

The drones hovered overhead, their red lights blinking in the twilight, capturing the moment in high definition.

"Where is the girl?" the man asked.

Gage looked at the drop. Then he looked at the man.

"Gone," Gage said.

The man sighed. He pulled a taser from his belt. "We'll find her. We have all night."

Gage looked at the taser. Then he looked at the creek below. It was shallow. Too shallow to jump. He was trapped.

But then, a sound.

A low rumble. Not a truck. Not a drone.

The ground beneath his feet vibrated.

The man with the taser frowned. He looked at his partner. "What is that?"

Gage felt it through the soles of his boots. A deep, geological groan. The cliff edge he was standing on wasn't stable. The rain. The mud. The weight of the spring melt.

The earth shifted. A crack appeared in the mud between Gage and the men. It opened like a zipper, black and jagged.

Gage smiled. It was a grim, reckless smile.

"Erosion," Gage said.

The ground gave way.