The Mississippi was breathing. A thick, rhythmic fog rolled off the water, swallowing the bottom of the bluffs and turning the world into a grayscale blur. I had the GS in "Blackout Mode"—lights killed, traction control dialed to the dirt setting.
But I wasn't hearing the river. I had my helmet speakers pinned. Stuck Mojo was roaring in my ears, the opening riff of "Pigwalk" hitting like a sledgehammer. It was the only thing keeping the adrenaline from turning into a cold sweat. Bonz’s vocals were barked directly into my skull, matching the rhythm of the tires on the wet limestone.
I was so locked into the "redline" headspace that I didn't notice the signal jammer until the music warped. The heavy bass notes began to stutter, the audio tearing apart as a localized, high-frequency digital pulse flooded my headset.
I killed the throttle, the sudden silence making my ears ring. I coasted the heavy GS into a stand of dead sumac and reached for the Sig Sauer on my hip, flicking the safety off. In the "Skynet" era, this kind of noise meant someone was actively hunting.
I rounded a jagged outcrop of rock and saw it. A shimmering shape detached itself from the fog ten feet away. It wasn't a shadow; it was a glitch. A six-foot-tall mass of vibrating, multi-colored static was standing there, holding a directional Yagi antenna toward the Dam.
I leveled the Sig. "Freeze! Drop the rig or I’ll put a hole in the static!"
The shape spun around. It was a ghillie suit designed by a lunatic—shredded, neon-pink and purple tutu fabric interwoven with silver Mylar and old burlap. It looked like a rave that had died in a swamp.
"Cronauer! Don't shoot the hardware!"
I lowered the gun, my heart hammering. "Jamie? Reverend? What the hell... what are you wearing? You look like a technicolor nightmare. I almost clocked you because I couldn't hear a damn thing over the Mojo."
Jamie Lowden pushed back a hood made of shredded tulle, his face-paint cracking as he grinned. "Stuck Mojo? Still? You're a dinosaur, Cronauer. But 'Pigwalk' is a fitting soundtrack for a man walking into a slaughterhouse."
He looked at my bike, then back at his ruggedized tablet. "Refractive noise, brother. The DHS thermal rigs look for human signatures. They aren't programmed to look for a shimmering pile of garbage. I’m a glitch in their matrix."
Jamie’s expression darkened. "I heard you were playing 'Pirate King' back in Viroqua. I’ve been out here digging graves for six months just to feel something real under my fingernails, but then the river started talking back. What are you doing here, Cronauer? This isn't a supply run."
"I have to get to the other side," I said, nodding toward the dark expanse past the spillway. "There’s a community over there. Someone I have to find. But the Dam is the only way across without a boat."
"You're fucking nuts," Jamie whispered. "That’s a hardened data-hub with a platoon of response teams. You aren't 'passing through.' You're just choosing the location for your own unmarked grave."
"I'm not asking for a lecture, Jamie. I'm asking for the back door."
He sighed. "Fine. You want to die? Let's talk physics. You can't take the main road; it’s paved with acoustic 'clapper' sensors. You're going to have to 'Cold-Roll' the bike—engine off, manual push—through the drainage culvert at the base of the bluff. It leads to the maintenance catwalks under the main deck."
Jamie checked a countdown timer. "I’m flooding the Dam's internal security loop with a 'Ghost Packet'—a looping video of an empty hallway. You'll have exactly six minutes of invisible time before the system runs a checksum and realizes I’m lying to it."
I dismounted and began the grueling task of pushing the GS into the mouth of the concrete pipe. The mud was like grease. Halfway through the tunnel, Jamie’s voice crackled in my ear—low and panicked.
"Cronauer, stop! Freeze! Don't move an inch!"
I locked my boots, the 600-pound bike straining against my muscles. Above me, I heard the heavy, mechanical thrum of a DHS "Spider" drone—a multi-legged sentry that crawled the underside of the dam.
"The Ghost Packet only covers the visual feed," Jamie hissed. "The drone has a thermal sniffer, and your engine block is sitting at two hundred degrees. You’re a glowing sun in a cold pipe."
I looked at the bike. The heat shimmer was visible even to my naked eyes. The drone's red scanning laser swept the mouth of the culvert, missing my front tire by inches.
I grabbed a discarded, water-logged burlap sack from the tunnel floor and draped it over the cylinder heads, praying the wet fabric would mask the signature. The "Spider" lingered, its mechanical legs clicking against the concrete right above my head. I held my breath until my lungs burned.
After an eternity, the clicking receded.
"It’s moving off," Jamie exhaled. "But the checksum is coming. You’ve got four minutes left to hit the catwalk and vanish into the fog on the other side. Move, Cronauer. Before the machine wakes up."
I dug my boots into the slime and pushed. The river was waiting
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