Villain (Gone 8)

“What did you think of Astrid?” Dekka asked Armo.

He shrugged and looked more serious than his usual easygoing smirk. “She’s smart. Beautiful, too. Not that I would ever . . . I mean, that Sam dude has a reputation. He’s a warrior, and basic warrior code, you don’t try to move on a fellow warrior’s woman.”

Dekka blinked. “Sometimes you’re just downright odd, Armo.”

“Just sometimes?” He grinned.

“What about her idea?”

Armo screwed the gas cap back on. “You mean go totally public and all? Isn’t that what Shade is doing?”

“I assume. What do you think of that?” Dekka had come to like Armo, though she did not have a very high opinion of his intelligence, or his weird obsession with Danes, Vikings, and whatever warrior code he thought he was following. But his answer surprised her.

“I guess it’s harder to kill someone you know.” He shrugged and looked away as if expecting to be humiliated for having said something stupid. “I mean, someone says, ‘Let’s kill all the mutants,’ that’s one thing; ‘Let’s kill Dekka and Armo,’ that’s a whole different thing. You know, if we’re real people to them.”

“Mutant Lives Matter?” Dekka said wryly. “You’ve got a country where half the people can’t get their heads around black folks or Latinos or gays or trans people being actually human. Now we’re going to get them to care about people who turn into freaks? I don’t mean to sound cynical, but it comes with being black, female, and lesbian: this country hasn’t exactly been kind to people like me.”

“Well, some is better than none, right? I mean if even some people don’t think we need to be wiped out . . .” Then, shaking his head, he asked in an undertone, “How did my life turn into this?”

Dekka smiled. “I know, an easygoing, cooperative guy like you? Ending up in a shitstorm?”

Armo laughed. “I know, right?”

“Okay. So what do we do? How do we take this public? I can tweet and Instagram like I have a couple times, but there are so many spoof accounts. . . . Some fake Dekka has three times as many followers as I do.” She shrugged. “Anyway, the big TV networks and newspapers will be on the government’s side. They’re all owned by billionaires who just want to make money. We are bad for business, we Rockborn freaks. People don’t shop when the world is blowing up.”

She swung her leg over the Kawasaki, and Armo climbed on. But Dekka did not fire up the engine. She stood there astride her bike with Armo behind her, lost in thought.

Finally Armo said, “What is it you want to do, Dekka?”

“What do you want to do?”

“I asked you first.”

“What I want to do is something stupid,” Dekka admitted.

“You mean, go give Shade some backup even if she says no?” Armo asked. Dekka’s silence was affirmation, so Armo said, “Yeah, me too.”

“If we go back up the 5 or the 101, they’ll be looking for us. How about a long detour? We could come in from the direction of Yosemite. From out of the east.”

“One thing, though,” Armo said. “I think it’s time for me to get my own bike.”

Dekka twisted around and said, “Your own bike?” Then she noticed Armo’s gaze fixed on three motorcycle gang members just parking by the gas station’s convenience store. Part of her would actually kind of miss having the big goof seated behind her. Not that Armo was much for conversation, but he was good for an occasional sentence or two. But it made good sense: the police BOLO (be on lookout for) would be for two people on one bike, one black female, one white male. Even experienced police tended to see only what they expected to see, and two bikes with one rider each was not one bike with two riders.

“Advice?” Armo asked. “I’ve never owned a motorcycle before.”

Dekka peered at the three motorcycles, all Harley-Davidsons, all customized, all with ape-hanger handlebars. Then she looked past them to a motorcycle mounted on a trailer behind a pickup truck. She pointed with her chin. “If it was me, I’d go for that yellow Yamaha there. Plus, anyone owns a bike that expensive probably has theft insurance on it.”

Armo swung off Dekka’s bike and sauntered across the lot.

“Need help?” Dekka called after him.

Armo turned, walking backward, and made a face that said, Me? Need help? He ignored the bikers, who prudently ignored him back, then hopped up on the back of the trailer. The driver climbed out of his seat and came rushing around, yelling.

And then he stopped

running. And froze. And stared slack-jawed at the creature now sitting astride his bike.

“You have theft insurance, right?” Armo asked in a voice twisted by low growls. “I don’t want you to suffer. But I need your motorcycle.”