They got into the truck and drove back up A1A to their motel.
Parkowski and DePresti walked into their room and changed into dry clothes, then collapsed onto their respective beds.
The two of them slept until one PM the next day.
Parkowski woke up with her muscles more sore than they had ever been in her life. It was like she had played an entire season’s worth of soccer games in a twenty-four hour period.
She groaned and willed herself out of bed.
After popping a few painkillers and eating some snacks, Parkowski felt a little better.
DePresti snored away in a deep sleep. If history was any indication he wouldn’t be up for a few hours.
Parkowski grabbed a water bottle and some more snacks and turned on the TV, keeping the volume low so her boyfriend could sleep.
She tried a few different channels before settling on a cable news channel.
None of the news was good — South Africa was on its way to a civil war, an earthquake had struck Chile, and America’s internal politics were just as messed up as they always had been. Parkowski watched for a few minutes and was about to turn it off when one of the stories crossing the news ticker at the bottom of the screen caught her eye.
NASA MISSION FAILS, LOST CONTACT WITH INTERPLANETARY PROBE.
She snorted and put the remote down.
A few minutes later, after a commercial break, the cable news network had the story.
NASA had held a press conference that morning while they slept, announcing that they had lost contact with the ILIAD mission on Venus. Both of the ACHILLES units were not responding to commands sent from the ground. The prime contractor, Aering, and NASA were jointly troubleshooting the issue but had no expected response.
Parkowski threw the remote at her boyfriend. “Hey, asshole, time to wake up,” she said over his protest. “There’s something good on TV.”
“What,” he groaned.
The TV feed cut to a young, attractive black woman standing in front of the Aering facility on Imperial Highway — the same one that Parkowski had worked at for the last few years.
The Aering engineer held her water bottle in one hand and pointed with the other. “Hey, I know that place.”
DePresti laughed. “So do I. And we know her, too. It’s my buddy Reggie’s girlfriend.”
Parkowski recognized her as well.
They had just had dinner with them a few weeks ago.
She gave a fairly standard piece on the story, highlighting that the ACHILLES robots had been controlled at this Aering facility in El Segundo, and giving no new information, before handing it back to the main anchor at the cable news network’s flagship location.
“That’s interesting,” DePresti said as the channel went to another commercial break, “but I think we kind of expected that to happen.”
“I know.”
“Well, I think we need to hit the road.”
“You don’t need to tell me twice,” Parkowski said with a grin. “Let’s pack up.”
After a quick dinner at the Preacher Bar in the city of Cape Canaveral, they left at eight on their way back to California.
The two took a different route back, taking I-95 north to I-10 and taking that route all the way west to Los Angeles. From there, they took the same route they had taken weeks before up to Barstow.
Parkowski looked but didn’t see any cars following them.
It was night when they pulled up into the carport at Chang’s homestead. She felt surprisingly rejuvenated despite the long journey.
They had cut an entire day off of their return trip by driving through the first night. One of them drove while the other one slept. They had then slept in a Walmart parking lot in Tucson during the second night and continued their journey the next day. Unfortunately, they got stuck in Los Angeles traffic and didn’t make up to Barstow until just after seven.
Chang’s dog came out to greet them, but there was no sign of the homeowner himself. DePresti’s Subaru was there, looking as good as new. Chang must have had someone come out to fix the bullet holes. The house itself was repaired as well — it didn’t look like it had been through a gunfight just a few days ago.
They walked carefully into it. The lights were off. Parkowski switched them on. From all appearances, the house was deserted. “What now?” she asked DePresti.
“I don’t know,” he answered. There was a brief, uncomfortable pause.
“Should we go check the basement?”
He nodded.
They were just about to reveal the hidden staircase when they heard another vehicle pull up outside.
Parkowski froze.
A moment later, she heard Chang’s familiar boisterous voice outside of the front door, accompanied by two other people, one male, one female, which she didn’t recognize.
Then the door opened. Parkowski tensed — she didn’t know what to expect.
“Hey,” Chang said as he walked in looking no worse for the wear, followed by a man and woman, both in military fatigues.
Parkowski breathed a sigh of relief. If he was walking in that nonchalantly, they were in no danger.
