ALLISON WUNDERLAN

Chapter 9. Up the Coast

Light between the trees / 2022 / Photo By Russell C. Smith

When we returned to Revolution Evolution Underground everything went exactly the way Zak had predicted. Rayne freaked out big time, the same way she had the night he saved me from the Tracker, and they went off together so they could shout their faces off at each other. Teresa stared wide-eyed at the hundreds of kids busy messing with TyperPads, screens, and HoloMaps and such. Plus, all the other technical gee-gaws I didn’t fully get yet, but was starting to understand as time went on.

Miles came up to Teresa and me. “Who’s this?” he asked.

“Teresa,” I said. “Zak and I found her in Pacific Heights tonight.”

Miles turned to Teresa and aimed a too happy smile at her. “Coffee?” he asked.

She grinned back at him. “Of course. Sure.”

I looked sideways at Miles and he just rolled his eyes in a goofy way. I whispered to him, “Can you be more obvious?”

He whispered back, “Should I be?”

Miles led the way to the dining area so we could drink lots of coffee and comfortably wait for Zak to wear down Rayne’s objections, until she came around to his way of thinking, as usual. Teresa appeared to be fascinated by Miles’ every word, or at least every other word, which seemed good enough for him. Either she’d been locked away in her basement for too long, or she saw something in Miles making her go all warm and fuzzy inside.

Miles spent half of the next day running tests on Teresa to put Rayne’s mind at ease about whether she was a GovSpy or a clone, or a plant of some sort. For her part, two nights later, Teresa agreed to lead a mini-caravan of bubble cars to her house in Pacific Palisades. To transport (most of) her food and supplies to Revolution Evolution Underground. And after Teresa’s generous donation was received and stocked in the pantry by Perfecta, Rayne gratefully acknowledged Teresa as the newest member in our expanding group of kid rebels.

Four nights before the Northwest mission, Zak, Teresa, and I were sorting out weapons and supplies in the Weapons Storeroom of DownBelow. We packed away StunGuns, ShoulderBlasters, and dozens of canisters filled with UpForever. Packing them into padded wooden crates.

While Teresa wiped the grime off the barrel of a StunGun with a damp rag, she glanced up at me and said, “Rayne’s a pain at first, but I can see why she’s careful.”

“Easy for a clone to say,” I said.

“Where have I heard that before?” Zak said.

I grinned at him. “Commander Rayne, maybe.”

“One of us needs to have a talk with her, about her increasing paranoia,” he said. “I’m thinking it’s you, Allison.”

“Yeah, paranoid,” I said. “It’s not like bizarre and unbelievable things really happen. I mean who wouldn’t believe I came through an industrial-strength clothes dryer and traveled over 150 years into the future. And I grew up in a time and place far away and long ago, raised by a kooky bearded guy who even had the wild idea he could do something as crazy as building a device to zoom through time? What’s Rayne so weirded-out about?”

Zak reached down and picked up a wooden crate. “Very funny. But I think the way Rayne’s been acting lately is more than careful. She’s developing a massive case of paranoia.”

Almost as if she had super hearing abilities and overheard us from two floors above talking about her, Rayne ran into the Weapons Room of DownBelow and shouted “Allison, Teresa, Zak, get out here, quickly! There’s news from the East Coast!”

We ran through the corridor and to the closest wall of VidScreens. The largest VidScreen broadcast a GovNews report.

“Breaking news…In Newest New York, earlier today, GovTroops captured the leader of a group of self-styled AnarchoRebels who refer to their organization as Revolution Evolution Underground. Several members of the group were killed in a raid, and 14 GovSoldiers died after the entire floor of the group’s headquarters blew up in a massive explosion. This GovAssault was coordinated with a separate raid on a warehouse in Atlantalopolis, but DeepestSouth members of Revolution Evolution Underground were able to elude GovForces, after stunning or immobilizing 23 GovTroops… ”

Next, a photograph of a girl with long brown hair, dark eyeliner, and a black beret slanted over one eye flashed on the screen. “The group’s leader, known only as Dee-Dee, was taken to MaxGovPrisonFacility Sing Sing, immediately following the fatal raid. And in other news…”

“Oh, shit!” I said. “Teresa is that your…?”

Teresa emitted a scream while pointing at the VidScreen, at the photo of Dee-Dee wearing a black beret, appearing retro-cool and steely-eyed.

Tears streamed down her face, but Teresa was smiling. “At least I know she’s not dead.”

Rayne held onto Teresa’s shoulders, staring directly into her eyes. Rayne leaned over until her forehead touched Teresa’s. “We’ll get her back, I swear.”

Then Rayne walked over to the nearest desk and hopped on top of it. She yelled loud enough to grab the attention of every kid in DownBelow.

“Everyone! Listen up! We just lost a few of our own in a Gov raid on Newest New York. The Gov also captured Dee-Dee, who was the Commander of Newest New York’s cell of Revolution Evolution Underground. A part of our operation has been compromised, but no Commander would ever give up key info to Gov captors, no matter what. Dee-Dee’s sister has just joined us, and I have no doubt she’ll be a SuperWow asset to the cause. Drop by and introduce yourselves to her. She’s heading out soon on the Northwest mission with Commander Wunderlan.”

Rayne jumped down from the desk and ran down the corridor before we could say anything else to her.

Two nights later, just before 11:30 p.m. Zak, Teresa, Miles, and I loaded up two BubbleCars in the greasy alley outside Revolution Evolution Underground Command Center. The alley was permeated with the overpowering smell of a few centuries of sesame oil, caked-on grime, and leftover Chinese takeout. Miles tested the BioFuel cells on our vehicles, and double-checked all the StunGuns and Blasters to make sure each weapon was charged and ready. Teresa tossed sleeping supplies and MedEquipment into the cars. Zeke made certain the dozen canisters of UpForever were tightly secured. I stowed away maps and info packets into the glove compartment.

It felt supremely weird to be a leader on a mission of kid commandos. I still had flashes of remembering afternoons in Golden Gate Park, and wishing I could be lazing in the sun on a summer day back home, in my own version of the United States. No matter what, I knew if all the kids back home in 1970 were threatened with being brainwashed by an evil Gov that wanted to turn them into blank-eyed zombies, I wouldn’t just stand idly by and whistle a happy tune.

We drove across the Golden Gate Bridge, and left the city on 101 North. On sections of freeway outside the city limits, tall trees had taken root in the center of the road, as if they’d always been there. When we’d driven fifty miles north of the city, Zak spotted two Gov HeliChops hovering above a section of the road up ahead of us.

Zak turned to me. “Looks like some nasty business up there. We need to stay away from the main highway for a while.”

Teresa and Miles followed us off 101, and we took a shortcut with our headlights turned off. Our bubble cars rolled through the night—staying on the curving back roads until we could turn our headlights on again.

When Zak thought the HeliChops were far enough behind us we headed back onto the freeway. Too soon, as it turned out. Or, as Miles later put it ‘coulda, woulda, shit-a.’ We sped out onto the main highway and within minutes a missile destroyed a sizable piece of the road ahead of us. Zak slammed on the brakes and spun us in the opposite direction while I screamed my head off. Teresa ran their BubbleCar off the shoulder and nearly into a ditch. Zak drove backwards in a zig-zagging pattern as the black HeliChop swooped in lower and blasted two more holes way too close for comfort.

“What do we do now?” I yelled.

Zak shouted, “Hope Miles is a good shot with the Blaster.”

We zagged and zigged backwards at high speed through several more explosions, while I gripped the dashboard.

About forty feet ahead of us, Miles knelt on one knee next to the front tire, and aimed his Blaster at the HeliChop. When the missle blew out of it, the HeliChop leaned far enough sideways to avoid the blaster’s pulse. While his accuracy sucked with his first shot, number two was a direct hit—tearing a hole in the door of the HeliChop, making sparks and chunks of the military copter rain on the nearby hills, and smash into smaller pieces all over the freeway.

We sped past the fiery remains of the crashed HeliChop, and I rolled down the round side window and breathed lungful’s of the cool night air while the next 200 miles blurred past.

As we rolled through a small ghost town called Eureka I spotted something by the side of the road that made me hysterical. I pointed, laughing and coughing, until Zak slowed down.

“Stop! Go back and pull into the Drive-In for a second, “ I said. “We can use a break.”

“What’s a Drive-In?” he said.

Zak made a U-turn and waved out the window for Teresa and Miles to follow us. We pulled into the long abandoned Drive-In Movie and parked in the middle of a sea of rusted metal speakers. They looked like hundreds of strange alien beings worshipping a giant blank screen out in the middle of nowhere.

Teresa got out of the driver’s side and stretched her arms. “What’s this place?”

“Used to be what was called a Drive-In,” I said while walking over to her. “Couples came here and watched movies on that screen from their cars.” I pointed in the distance at the big screen, painted on a concrete wall. “Couples listened to the movies on metal speakers stuck on the windows of their cars. Sat close to each other to snuggle and make out.”

“Make out?” Miles said.

“Yeah, you know,” I said. “Kissed, locked lips, smooched, and…other stuff.”

“I read about these outdoor massive VidScreens in one of my parent’s books,” Teresa said. “People came to a flat gravel field to watch a movie. The book didn’t document any kissing and touching while the movie played. I’d be interested in finding out more.”

Miles spoke up. “People from your time enjoyed their primitive automotive rituals, didn’t they Allison?”

“We may seem like a more backwards time than your world, but sitting in a car and making out during a movie isn’t exactly primitive behavior…”

Zak smiled at me. “Going to get light soon. We should look for a place to sleep and hide the cars. Sound good, Allison?”

“That’s my name,” I said. “Don’t wear it out.”

Teresa giggled. “You just uttered a historical verbal fragment from the HistoryChip database.”

Miles raised his eyebrows. “She did what?”

“Allison just said something school kids used to say to each other in a joking context from the historical period she lived in,” Teresa said. “Not a very funny joke, but a joke nonetheless.”

“If you guys are done putting me and my time period under a microscope, we should find a spot to sleep,” I said.

We got back in the cars and drove north on Highway 1, and just before dawn we spotted the top of a farmhouse off to the side of the highway—set far enough away from the road to be safe. After making certain the house was deserted, we parked our BubbleCars under an overgrown vine that had practically swallowed the side of a leaning sideways barn.

Grabbing sleeping bags, blankets, and food and water, we entered the house and closed the ripped drapes. Zak and I picked the biggest bedroom in the house and fell into our sleeping bags.

In the early evening, I woke to the view through the ripped curtains of a moonlight lighting up a rusting tractor left in an overgrown field. After a few minutes, Zak stirred and yawned.

“Good driving last night,” I said.

He shrugged. “Maybe so. But I should’ve known not to get back onto the freeway so soon. We could’ve been killed.”

“Don’t blame yourself. You can’t know everything.”

“Besides figuring out a chemical way to deal with the Olders problem, knowing how to stay alive is a big part of my focus,” Zak said.

We rolled back onto the highway just past sunset. I drove first, since I pointed out to Zak it made sense for me to learn now rather than some future time. Would be much better to be a mission leader who could drive if she had to rather than a helpless passenger who stalled out the revolution. Due to her lack of driving skills. Teresa and Miles worked out their own BubbleCar dynamic. It was decided that she’d drive and Miles navigated. I was discovering that part of leading was knowing when not to butt in.

Night crept up on the hills to our right, and the amber sun disappeared into the Pacific Ocean behind us. Our bubble cars sped up the Highway toward Cannon Beach, Oregon, the town where we’d turn and head to Portland to locate our first Pacific Northwest Revolution Evolution Underground contact.