Free Lost Causes by Mia Marshall Page A

could catch my breath, he headed for the door.
    Once my knees were again able to support the rest of my body, I followed.
    I’d only been outside a second before I heard a heartfelt “Damn it!”
    I spun in surprise, unaccustomed to Vivian raising her voice, let alone swearing.
    “What is it?” I asked. “Oh, Vivian. Didn’t we agree…?”
    “You agreed,” she said. Her fingers flew across the keyboard, typing commands the rest of us couldn’t hope to understand.
    “Viv?” Sera came running. “What’s wrong?”
    “Damn it. Damn it!”
    “Is it Olivia?” I was almost afraid to ask about Vivian’s ex-girlfriend, the woman she’d left behind to help us find a cure. “Is the council going after her?”
    “No, no, not that… fuck.”
    Now I was worried. “We’re going to need some verbs, Vivian.”
    She glanced up from her laptop for a second, long enough to find Sera. “You were right. They were using satellite maps to track us.”
    Normally, I didn’t understand the numbers and images that scrolled across the screen while she worked. At that moment, I knew exactly what I was seeing.
    It was a low-quality picture of Vivian, a bit blurry around the edges. The sort of quality found on a photo taken in a moving vehicle. It had been badly Photoshopped so it looked like Vivian was holding a tablet. The tablet screen faced the camera, and the screen held a satellite map. The map indicated our current location.
    “What the fuck, Vivian?” I thought Miriam spoke for all of us. “I thought you said they couldn’t access real-time satellites.”
    “None of the ones I was monitoring,” Vivian’s voice rose in a panic. “I think… this shouldn’t be possible, but they accessed Homeland Security.” Her eyes were wild. “That’s not the worst part. They sent this image to me. To my computer. Whoever did this broke through every protection I set up.”
    Miriam shook her head. “Tell me you’re fucking kidding. Didn’t we count on the council barely understanding how to turn their damn computers on?”
    Vivian gnawed on her lip as the flipped through one screen after another. “It was a reasonable guess. Other than their Swiss bank account, there’s no evidence the council ever went online.”
    “You hacked a Swiss bank account?” Luke gave a low whistle.
    If they knew where we were, we needed to hurry. I imagined the council had already formed a plan B after the disastrous confrontation outside Luke’s hut. “The flash of blue.”
    The others stayed silent, waiting for me to make sense.
    “In the SUV. I thought I saw someone when they opened the door. The person wore blue. Then the council tried to run us over and I kind of forgot about it.”
    Vivian slammed her palm against the ground. “They hired their own freaking hacker. I can do this. I’ll anonymously alert Homeland Security and they’ll break the connection for us. As soon as I figure out how they even got in. Simon, get me another battery pack.”
    “Are they on their way? Do we need to run?” Carmichael’s eyes darted around the yard, perhaps expecting the council to leap out from behind a retired limousine.
    Vivian glanced at another window on her screen. “They’re still fifty miles away. Maybe Aidan scared them enough to give us some space, but they’re telling us we’re not getting a lot of space.”
    While Vivian worked, the rest of us grabbed supplies from the Airstream and camper and loaded up the school bus with several duffel bags. We’d already been traveling light. Now we aimed for spartan.
    Miriam shoved a cooler under the dashboard. It was filled with sandwiches and fruit and, if I knew Miriam, several six-packs of beer. I didn’t argue. We all had our own definition of “necessities.”
    “Hide the vehicles over there.” I pointed. “The Airstream can fit between the moving truck and the pile of… whatever those are. If we pull some sheet metal around it, it can stay hidden for a bit.”
    “No.” Mac was