Chimera (10 page)

“Go to sleep, Michael,” I directed, not ungently. “It’s a long drive.” Especially when you had no idea where you were going. I’d picked a direction and gone with it, not that I had much choice in that. There weren’t many options this far down in the state. For now I was simply running. Determining the destination would come when I was positive there was no pursuit.

He opened his eyes to give me a searching glance. There was no fear, but there was no trust either. “Come on, Freud,” I assured with rueful patience. “You’ve been kidnapped, shot at, and fed cookies. What else could possibly happen? Take a nap already.”

From the skeptical narrowing of his eyes I realized he thought that argument lacking, but he slid down in the seat, twisted onto his side as much as the seat belt would allow, and rested his head against the door. It wasn’t long before I heard the deep and regular respiration of sleep. Looking away from the road, I took in the sight of his loose shoulders and the lax line of his spine under the white cloth.

He was here. He was really here. I could stretch out a hand if I wanted and lay it on his arm. I could touch him, flesh and blood that held genetic hands with my own. I could, but I didn’t. He might have woken up or he might have disappeared . . . a soap bubble popping under reality’s touch. I wasn’t willing to risk either option.

I drove for nearly half the night. Around four a.m. I pulled off the interstate and checked us into a cheap little motel. Shabby and run-down, it had about twelve rooms and a night desk guy a few short chromosomes away from Norman Bates. He grunted, took my money, and didn’t bother to ask for the fake ID I was prepared to fork over with the registration. Within ten minutes Michael and I were behind a locked door and at the visual mercy of ancient shag carpeting and orange and turquoise striped bedspreads. I dumped the duffel bag on the bed nearest the door and asked, “You want something to drink? There’s a machine outside.”

He shook his head and sat on the other bed, his toes digging curiously into the long strands of the carpet. His toes were uncovered. Frowning, I switched on the bedside light for a better look. Was that . . . ? “Ah, shit.” Kneeling on the floor in front of him, I took his ankle firmly in one hand and lifted his foot for a better look. He was in bare feet, not that I’d given that consideration even once as we’d run across dirt and sand, gravel, and shards of rock. The sole of the foot I held was crisscrossed with cuts and abrasions and colored a dark rust by dried blood.

Giving a pained hiss under my breath, I demanded, “You should’ve said something. Jesus.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that his hand was hovering by my head. It was palm down in a fairly harmless position, so I ignored it. He very likely felt threatened; I would’ve in his shoes. This time I moved more slowly as to not startle him further and his hand slowly dropped back to his side. Lifting his other foot with painstaking care, I saw that it was in the same shape.

“Why?” he asked blankly.

He had no idea, literally none, as to why he should’ve called attention to his discomfort. “Because hurting you was never part of the plan,” I snapped despite myself, guilt and self-annoyance bubbling up within. “And neither were feet that look like roadkill.”

Setting the foot down gently, I headed straight into the bathroom and started water running in the tub. Taking one of the tiny shampoo bottles, I dumped the contents in as well. After seven inches of warm and soapy water filled the bottom, I turned off the tap and went back out to retrieve Michael.

As he sat gingerly on the edge of the tub, I had him roll up his pant legs and immerse his feet in the water. “Soak them for a while. I’ll be right back.” Out in the room I opened up the first aid kit and spread it out on my bed. I’d packed the kit before I’d packed anything else, but I had no idea I’d be using it so soon. Shaking out two ibuprofen into my palm, I took them back in the bathroom and handed them to Michael. Running a plastic cup of water, I offered that as well. “Take those. It’ll help with the pain.”

He studied the pills side by side in his palm while I held the cup. Finally, I nudged his shoulder. “Michael,” I prompted, “take the pills.”

“I don’t like pills.” He looked up at me, a mutinous set to his mouth. I could tell that if I’d pushed the issue, he would’ve given in and taken them. He was shockingly obedient for a teenager, at least in comparison to the one I had been. Still, I decided pushing was not the way to go—not on an issue so small. After seeing that basement room, it was easy to believe he had every reason to dislike pills or anything remotely medically related.

Sighing, I thought for a moment, then gave him a crooked smile. “Okay then, pick one.” His expression was understandably dubious, but I persisted. “Go on. Choose one. I’ll take it and you can take the other. They’re harmless, Michael. Honestly.”

The honesty didn’t matter, but my offer to take one did. Hell, I had a raging headache coming on anyway and I swallowed the indicated pill without complaint. Cautiously, Michael waited twenty minutes to see the result before he took his. He was many things, this kid, but stupid was not one of them. The warm water had sluiced most of the dried blood from his feet by then and I finished cleaning the rest of it with gauze and peroxide. Drying them with a towel, I slathered antibiotic ointment liberally on both soles and then presented him with a pair of clean socks from my bag. “Cover them up. God knows what you could catch off this carpet—Ebola, the plague, there’s no telling.”

He’d sat military straight on the bed while I’d performed the first aid and watched my every move. Furrowed brows said that care such as this wasn’t exactly what he was expecting, but he said nothing as he straightened and pulled on the socks.

“Go ahead and crash, kiddo.” I cleaned up the first aid kit and shoved it back in my bag. “We’ll sleep a few hours before we hit the road again.” It wouldn’t be much of a rest, but I wanted to make sure those assholes weren’t going to pick us up somehow. If they had government ties as we suspected, it would be easy enough for them to have a finger dipped into the local authorities’ pie as well. There could be an APB out for Michael at this moment. No one had seen my face or Saul’s, but it was safe to say they had an excellent description of my brother, both inside and out.

Once again I saw a glimpse of a shadowy and jaded humor as the last word passed my lips. “You really have no idea what I am, do you?”

I was going to have to adjust to his denial, at least for a while. Doing my best to massage out the pang of tension stabbing at the base of my neck, I answered with weary quiet. “You’re my brother, Michael. And I’ll prove it to you, I swear. Now get some sleep.”

Bicolored eyes were as opaque and vigilant as those of a wild animal, but he stood to turn down the blankets. Sliding under them, he pulled them up to his neck and shifted over onto his side. It wasn’t too long before he drifted off, his hair a brown tangle on the pillow. He was tired, I knew, but as had happened in the car, questions were passing through my head. He didn’t trust me; as far as I could tell he didn’t trust anyone, including those with whom he’d lived. Even factoring in exhaustion, it was unsettling how quickly he dropped off. It was as if he were so used to a life filled with menace and uncertainty that it was the norm for him.

I stood by the bed and watched him sleep for a long time. To look away seemed like the worst invitation to fate . . . as if he were only a dream conjured by nothing more than years of guilt. Stupid, but my gaze lingered on him as I turned off the lights and went over to recline in the garish orange chair by the window. I left the world inside the room and turned my attention to the one outside the window. If I wanted to keep my brother, I had to act like the professional I was. Arranging the blinds until a small space showed between each slat, I kept watch on the parking lot until the sun came up.

It was about then that I realized what Michael had said before he’d gone to bed. “You really have no idea who I am, do you?” That’s what I’d assumed he had said, but my assumption had been wrong. It hadn’t been the word “who” that sat in the middle of that sentence. No . . .

It had been “what.”

The mention of the cookies went over much better than my other offerings. Blankets pooled on the floor as he climbed out of bed to give me a demandingly expectant look. “Good morning to you too, sunshine,” I said, snorting. Within minutes Michael was munching his way to hopefully a more communicative mood. At seven he’d been a morning person, but then again, who wasn’t at that age? There were lands to explore, dragons to slay, worlds to conquer.

“I’m going to grab a shower.” I hesitated. “You’re not going to take off, are you?” He wouldn’t have gotten more than three steps outside the door if he had, but I wanted him to feel as if he had choices. He’d been a prisoner so long that I didn’t want him feeling the same way with me.

“Is that even an option?” he asked with a marked lack of faith. My question was as glass to him. My intentions didn’t matter, and he saw all too clearly what my actions would be.

I might as well be honest. Whether it was whatever psychology course he’d been fed or merely natural talent, he would be a hard kid to fool. It could be both. Lukas at seven had been both innocent and wise . . . and an impressive judge of character for such a young child. “Not really, Michael.” I rubbed a hand over a bristly jaw and said regretfully, “Sorry.”

He shrugged. “This is no worse than the Institute.” Finishing his last cookie, he went over and began to make his bed, hospital corners and all.

I’d heard the capital I in institute. That must be what they called the compound. Filing it away for a later subject of questioning along with his odd use of the word “what,” I took a change of clothes into the bathroom and showered. I left the door open to hear if Michael changed his mind and decided to make a break for it after all. The trickle of lukewarm water did little to drive the fatigue from my body or mind and I hurriedly soaped up. Climbing out ten minutes later, I dried off and wrapped a towel around my hips. The open door had kept the mirror from fogging and I shaved with a few quick strokes. Slipping on jeans and a sweatshirt, I pulled my wet hair back tightly. Before we left I would stuff it up in a baseball hat. I hadn’t been seen, yeah, but it didn’t hurt to change the look. If we were somehow traced to this motel, they could easily get a description of me from the desk clerk.

“Michael, you’re up.” I walked back into the room and gathered some of my clothes for him. “Here’re some sweats and more ointment for your feet. And I think I packed some sneakers that’ll do. They might be a little big, but I don’t think we’ll be doing much hiking.”

He accepted the bundle wordlessly, went into the bathroom, and closed the door behind him. I guess he had no fear that I might make a run for it. By the time he returned with damp hair and sweat clothes that bagged on him, I was nearly ready to go. Handing him the tennis shoes, I took the white pajamas from him. Taking out my penknife, I began to methodically shred the cloth to small, easily flushable pieces. “How are the feet?”

Sitting on the edge of the bed, he put on the shoes and tied the laces neatly. “Fine,” he said. He still didn’t know how to react to the concern, and it showed in the faintly mystified glance that he shot my way. It made me sincerely wish that Saul had used a real gun instead of the stun variety on that son of a bitch in the back of the van. That something so simple and basic as concern had been lacking from Michael’s life, it didn’t do much for the inner fire that had been smoldering since I’d seen that first room in the compound basement. “Let’s go, Misha,” I said gently. “There’s greasy food out there with our name all over it.”

“Misha?” He stood in shoes that surprisingly seemed to fit. Big feet had always run in our family.

“Michael is a mouthful,” I lied. If I couldn’t use the name I’d known him by since the day that he’d been born, then I wanted a name we could share . . . a name that wasn’t one those bastards had given him. The diminutive for Michael would do. “Misha is a nickname for Michael.” I cocked my head, deciding to go into our Russian heritage later. “That okay?”

He thought about it, then nodded. As always, he wasn’t exactly swimming in enthusiasm, but I counted it a win regardless. He did as well, I imagined, getting to keep at least a portion of the name he was attached to.

After disposing of the pajama remains down the toilet, one less thing to use to trace us, I hefted my bag and we headed out into the pastel dawn light.

Even the soft yellow and pink illumination stabbed at my eyes and I put on a pair of sunglasses the minute I entered the car. The brim of the baseball cap helped as well. After the nearly constant adrenaline rush of last night followed by no sleep, I had what was as bad as any hangover.

“Sleep deprivation can cause a significant decrease in performance and concentration,” Michael said absently as he watched a portly family of five through the passenger side window. Early risers as well, they were unremarkable in all but size, shockingly loud tourist wear, and a large chocolate cruller wrapped in each pudgy hand. And I knew for a fact which of those three had caught Michael’s attention. The kid had a jones for sugar like I’d never seen, and I had no one to blame for that but myself. With an almost wistful sigh, he turned back to me. “You didn’t sleep last night, did you?”

“No, I didn’t.” I liked that he was beginning to ask questions . . . waking up to the new world around him. I also hoped it meant he might be willing to listen to a few questions of my own. “I wanted to keep watch. But I’ll sleep tonight.” I wouldn’t have much of a choice. By tonight I would be too exhausted to fight it. Puzzled, I added an observation. “You’re full of fun little facts, aren’t you? Like the sleep thing. What kind of freaky classes did you have in that place?”

We were on the road again and had gone several miles before Michael finally spoke. “I’ve never talked with anyone outside of the Institute. I don’t know what to say.” It was hard for him to admit, as evident in the strained patches of white beside his mouth. “If this is a test, I’m doing badly. So badly.” He shook his head.

“And if this isn’t a test?” We had to get this misconception out of the way before we could make any progress, but Michael was hanging on to it hard.

“What else could it be?” There was a defeated note to his voice.

I tried for a reassuring smile. I doubt I succeeded. My job hadn’t required that look very often. “Like you said, maybe I’m just some crazy guy who thinks he’s found his brother. Sometimes, kiddo, you just have to go with the flow. So, tell me what they taught you. I think I’m sensing a theme.”

Tracing a finger along the dashboard, he considered as more miles passed and then he began to talk. I listened to every word, hoping to hear the key that I could use to unlock the mystery of my brother. He talked about multiple classes. There were the usual basics such as history, math, chemistry, and others, but they were supplemented with psychology, law—both domestic and international—languages, and acting. There was a theme all right; a very definite one.

“And how are you in acting?” I flashed him a more natural smile as I reached up to adjust the rearview mirror. If he could pull a De Niro, I hadn’t seen any signs of it yet.

“According to the Instructor, the worst he’s ever seen,” he replied without concern. Impressing the Instructor with his Oscar-winning ways apparently didn’t interest Michael whatsoever. Once again I heard a capital letter where normally none would be. If Michael had any idea what the acting instructor’s name actually was, I would be astonished.

“No big deal. There’s more to life than Hollywood.” Not that Hollywood had anything to do with the acting classes he had been taking. Spotting a sign indicating heart-stopping cholesterol at the next exit, I decided to make a stop. “They were training you to be a spy, weren’t they? Espionage.” Maybe Saul had been wrong about this not being a government project. It sounded more like a project better suited to the old Soviet regime of the Cold War, but all ruling parties had their secrets, even here.

“Spy?” He laughed too, but without humor. “No, not a spy.” And with that the subject was closed. Crossing his arms, he closed his eyes to indicate this particular conversation had soured for him.

Having received more from him than I expected, I gave him a break. As I took the exit and hit the first generic fast-food place I saw, I decided against asking him what he wanted. I would hate to get my brother back, only to lose him to terminal dental caries in the first month. A breakfast sandwich, biscuits and gravy, and orange juice should be enough, I thought, before weakening to add pancakes to the order. I personally hated drive-through breakfast crap and ordered nothing but a large coffee for myself. I’d make up for it at lunch.

Back on the interstate, Michael took no prisoners on that bag of grease. The sandwich he tolerated, the gravy he loved, and the pancakes lifted him unto Heaven. They’d been labeled a new addition on the order menu: chocolate chip with a gallon of pseudo maple syrup. As I watched, he devoured every bite and then licked the fork. This kid, grave and educated in damn peculiar ways, was going after every molecule of sugary goodness like a five-year-old with a bowl of icing.

“What the hell did they feed you in that place anyway? Bread and water? Gruel?” I asked.

“Nutritious meals to keep our bodies at the peak of health,” he replied. It sounded like a quote. I could picture it now . . . straight-edged grim words emblazoned on a wall above a pear-shaped cafeteria lady doling out boiled chicken, boiled potatoes, and boiled cabbage.

“All right,” I said with determination. “For supper we have pizza, a liter of Coke, and a shitload of ice cream. Rocky road. So what if our teeth rot out? It’ll be worth it.”

“I know those are all very popular. Do they taste as good as chocolate chip pancakes?” There was definite interest in the question.

“Better,” I promised. I wondered how it worked in that concrete prison. I imagined heads bowed over test papers. Circle A if pizza tastes good. Circle B if it does not taste good. Speaking of not good, that entire picture left a foul taste in my mouth—all those children leading the lives of small prisoners of war. I’d listened to the radio for any news on a police raid on the compound. Nothing. Big surprise. Either the entire police department was in their back pocket, not a very realistic proposition, or the Institute had been evacuated. Either way, the kids were gone.

Since the full stomach seemed to have relaxed Michael some, I decided to try more questions. “Misha, you said you were taught languages. Do you know Russian?”

“
Da, ya govaru pa russki
,” he responded absently as he involved himself in returning all trash to the large white bag and carefully folding the top down, once then twice.
“Vy gavarite?”
So he must have known Misha was short for Michael, not that he’d shared the information.

“A little.” I took the last sip of nearly cold coffee as I steered with one hand. “Probably less than you since you’ve studied it. What I picked up isn’t exactly for use in polite company.” It was a fairly good bet that he knew more proper Russian than I did. I could get my point across, but it would be a hard, ungrammatical road. My fluency was in the language of the job and those were not pretty words. “Our father’s from Russia. Our mom was too.”

“Was?” he repeated neutrally.

“She died.” I crumpled the cup and let it drop from my hand. “A long time ago.”

He considered that with eyes on a distant point; then he shook his head. “Your mother, not mine. I never had a mother or a father.” His gaze moved to fix on me as he went on implacably. “Or a brother.”

Hey, square one . . . How you doing?

It shouldn’t have hit me as hard as it did. Since we’d pulled him out of that place, I’d known it was going to be an uphill battle. I’d known and I still knew, but . . . ah, fuck. “Eyes like yours aren’t a dime a dozen, Misha,” I said quietly. I didn’t know if he was listening to me or not as he sat beside me as still as a stone, but I pushed on as best I could. I was working without a script, flailing in unknown territory. My line of work hadn’t done much to train me in the ways of gentle persuasion. Now I had to learn the hard way, and at a time it had never been more important that I not fail. “They took you when you were seven. We were on a beach riding horses, and this man”—I swallowed against a nightmare that was as fresh now as it had been then—“this goddamn son of a bitch with a gun took you.”

“Horses.” It wasn’t said in a questioning tone, but more in one of contemplation.

I didn’t care how it was said. He was listening. He was hearing me. I grabbed on to the sliver of optimism and refused to give it up. “Yeah, we had horses. They were Christmas presents.” I didn’t think it was necessary to tell him they’d both died the same day he was taken. It was a detail that wouldn’t help him to hear. It wouldn’t do much for me either.

“What kind of horses?” He was curious despite himself, poor damn kid—my poor goddamn brother.

It’d been so long that I couldn’t recall if they’d been Morgans or Quarterhorses. “Harry and Annie. Annie was yours. She was a sorrel mare, a tiny and frisky thing. Harry was a bay gelding, a big lovable guy.” It might’ve been that Harry loved apples like all other horses, but Annie liked only carrots. Could be Annie wanted the soft, sweet velvet between her nostrils rubbed while Harry liked his ears scratched. I never had the opportunity to find out the small details of affection before they lay dying on the sand. “We rode them to the beach. We talked about . . . oh, hell . . . kids’ things. Who was the hero and who was the sidekick.” I flashed him a look of mock annoyance. “Somehow you were always the hero. Go figure.”