The Neo-Spartans: Altered World (24 page)

              “What’s wrong with you?”

              Nico’s intent look demanded an answer. Quinn glared back at him, all sorts of accusations trying to cascade out of her mouth, but she held herself in check and bought time, dusting herself off angrily as she composed some excuses that might sound remotely sane.

              “I thought I proved to you that I was capable and trustworthy. I’ve given you nothing but devotion and loyalty. And all I get in return is lies, nothing but lies. I trusted you, Nico. I believed you were fair, in your own strange way, that you had a code of honor or at least some kind of human decency. I guess I was blind. You’re just another conniving schemer. Nothing more, nothing less.”

              Nico was completely baffled. He couldn’t put together what had really happened that made Quinn so angry. Her words didn’t make much sense. What had he missed?

              “I don’t get it. What are you upset about?”

              “Of course you don’t…” There was a long pause while Quinn prayed for an idea to explain everything. She winced at the only possibility. She didn’t want to resort to playing the jealous girl, but it was either that or revealing her true identity. She put on her best pout and forced herself to blurt it out. “You thought I wouldn’t notice? Bringing her back in all her leather glory? After all she did to me? To the whole gang, for that matter. You just can’t breathe without her, can you?”

              Quinn saw Nico’s eyebrows go up as he gained some clarity on the issue. He had bought the jealousy act; some of it must have been sincere.

              “So that’s what this is all about. Listen, I didn’t exactly bring her back. Tyra has a very specific job, like everybody else in the gang…” Nico couldn’t finish because Quinn pounced on his excuse.

              “Yeah, we all know what her specific job is. Nice try.”

              Nico’s irritation jumped a few notches. He didn’t have time for this. “Will you shut up about it? I thought you were smarter than this.”

              “Oh, that’s what you thought? So how exactly do you expect a smarter person to react when you sneak around and disappear with your sleazy squeeze on a supposedly important mission?” Her words came out as a hiss.

              “I expect her to trust my decision and not stick her nose where it doesn’t belong.” Nico was surprised at his own harshness, but he had had enough for this night, and the shame and disgust with what he had done didn’t mix well with Quinn’s unreasonable jealousy.

              “Oh I see, so, I’m useful as the fight games cash cow, but when it comes to the rest of the gang’s life it’s none of my business?! Fine, consider me removed from any business that has to do with you.” Quinn stomped away, glad for the way out he provided. She hated the fact that their verbal fighting left her angry and aching. She shouldn’t care. If she made the mistake of letting him soften her tough Neo-Spartan heart she should just eradicate the mistake. Pluck it out like a thorn and stay focused on her mission. Clear and simple. But as she dragged her body to her sleeping quarters she couldn’t help but notice how muddled and complicated the Nico issue had become.

              She threw herself on the thin mattress, aware this was going to be a long, sleepless night. The thought that she had failed Kilbert, her brother, and her people burrowed itself deeper into her consciousness. She had developed feelings for a Eugenic, and not just any Eugenic, but for the guy who was responsible for jeopardizing her brother’s life and all the other Neo-Spartan boys’. In the eyes of her community she was a traitor. And yet, she didn’t believe that was true. Quinn realized the days spent with Nico and the boys had changed her. Rules she couldn’t completely accept rattled around her, together with emotions she was unable to put the reins on, and she wrapped her arms around her knees and succumbed to gloom. She didn’t want to be strong right now. She just wanted to wash away the mountain of problems that loomed ahead of her.

              Had she cried for an hour? Two? The whole night? Quinn had lost track of time. Her eyes stung and her head felt like a church bell tolling when Nico noiselessly sat down next to her, giving her a jolt. She didn’t have any strength left to react to his intrusion, so she just let him be. He sat there for a while without saying a word. He gently touched her shoulder, removed a strand of wet hair off her face and she could feel fear in his gesture, a plea for understanding. She wanted to look at him but forced herself not to. A few more moments passed and Nico finally spoke.

              “I’m not lying to you, Quinn. I would never do anything to hurt you. You are valuable to the gang but you’re also different… you have what we all had when we first came here—that strong sense of right and wrong, the determination to live life on your own terms that somehow gets lost in the junk alleys of this place. I guess, I wanted you to keep them as long as possible. And if I haven’t been completely honest with you, it is because I don’t know the difference between truth and lie anymore. It was simple in the beginning. What was good for the gang was good for me too. I’m not sure about that anymore. I keep telling myself that whatever I do, I do it because I have to. This is the way it works here in the Sanctuary, you get the order and you do it. You don’t ask questions and you don’t doubt your marching orders. Simple and straightforward, right?”

              Quinn lifted her head and looked into his face. This wasn’t a make-up conversation, it was a confession. Nico stared ahead into the darkness.

              “So how come it feels as if I’ve signed a deal with the devil? I try to tell myself it’s not a big deal, it’s for the good of the gang and I’ll get used to it. Do it a couple of times and I won’t care, I’ll get numb. The guys did. Tyra did—well, she never cared anyway. But that’s the way it should be. We’re all Bangers, we shouldn’t care. We are all going to be dead soon so who gives a hoot? Right? Wrong! It feels wrong. It just feels damn wrong. I didn’t get numb, I got chewed up on the inside, and now there’s this gaping hole that gets bigger and bigger every time I do it. I didn’t want to bring you into this. I don’t even know what to do myself anymore.”

              Quinn absorbed every single word he uttered as if it were a gift, a pardon for the crimes he had committed. Revenge retreated and all she wanted to do was help him somehow.

              “Just say ‘No,’ Nico,” Quinn whispered.

              Her voice startled him. He hadn’t expected an answer. She made it seem like such a clear and simple choice and it was anything but that. He turned to her, searching for the strength of conviction she always exuded.

              “Saying no is not an option in the Sanctuary.” Admitting it made Nico feel his defeat, final and irreversible.

              He got up and left, unable to bear his own helplessness and afraid Quinn might say something that would unsettle his universe even more. She watched him get swallowed by the night, and the strange sense of fatality she hadn’t experienced since her father had left her with Gabriel to go after the fires, crept into her. What upset her more than his role in Gabriel’s kidnapping was the disconnect between her and whichever man it was leaving her out in the cold. Why couldn’t they explain? Why did they have to be so set in their convictions? She was a child when her father left, and she didn’t know how to fight for what mattered to her; she was afraid to go against his will. But now, too much was at stake and there was no room for fear. What mattered was that she should find Gabriel and save him, that she should grab Nico’s hand and pull him out of the sink hole of being a conduit to somebody else’s demonic plans.

              She had to convince him that saying no was an option. She had to take the risk and tell him who she really was. He was the only one who could lead her to Gabriel. She had witnessed his moral dilemma and she hoped that deep down he felt something stronger for her, and that the combination of both would make him ready to hear she was a Neo-Spartan. It was a big step and the enormity of it seemed daunting, but she was determined to do it. Her resolution to take action made her feel better, and Quinn finally went to sleep, her mind as clear as the sky after a storm.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

              So this was life, thought Gabriel, as he lay on his cot in the infirmary feeling like puking. He’d been lucky with the apple; his system had gone into anaphylactic shock, like what some unlucky kids got when they ate peanuts, but one of the IVs they’d given him had had epinephrine in it, which had curtailed the response to the apple enough to allow him to start recovering. He’d succeeded in getting himself off the instant take-my-organ list, but had found himself instead as Dr. Mallory’s guinea pig. Every day the good doctor appeared with another potion designed to push the limits of Gabriel’s system. And every day Gabriel shocked and amazed the doctor with an array of allergic responses. Even the doctor had to admit that Gabriel was the most sophisticated litmus indicator he’d ever encountered. Sure, overall it made Gabriel feel like heaving, but there was no way he was going to reveal that to Mallory.

              He really hated helping them in any way, but at least he was alive, and the longer he stayed in this infirmary room, the more he managed to scrabble together what they had in mind from the bits and pieces he’d observed and overheard. They were intending to use the organs of Neo-Spartans on somebody important. They needed multiple Neo-guys because the body of whoever it was they were replacing might reject the first organ so they had to have back-ups. Plus, the sense of urgency around Gabriel made it clear their patient was running out of time. Gabriel had no idea who it was, and he really didn’t care, because the other upside of being here was that security was less stringent. This room didn’t even have a ceiling; it was just a walled-off cubicle.

              So when midnight came and the place grew deathly quiet, Gabriel leapt to his feet, despite the residual feeling of wanting to heave, and vaulted over the ten foot wall and into the infirmary hallway. He skulked along, quiet as a cat. Up ahead, a guard strolled past and Gabriel darted into a darkened doorway nook. He poked his head out; the first guard had joined a second. Man, this was never going to work. He looked to the heavens and did a double take. The ceiling wasn’t a ceiling: it was a vaulted series of criss-cross metal beams. A smile crossed his face. They really had seen him coming this time. He leapt toward a supply room door, his foot hitting the door knob, and propelling him upwards onto the narrow infirmary hallway wall. He glided smoothly along it until he came to the end of the wall, about eight feet from a cross beam. He backed up, got a running start and launched himself across the gap.

              Here among the beams, Gabriel felt as at home as a squirrel monkey, leaping, sliding, climbing and jumping. True freedom, except for the fact that he was still within the walls of this establishment. He got down to the serious business of searching for an escape. He travelled the entire perimeter of the building via his freeway of beams, and indeed located several exits below, all of which were presided over by guards with tasers. Maybe Gabriel could use sheer surprise to drop in on one, get a taser, and shoot his way out. Somehow, he didn’t like the odds.

              He was about to head back and devote some further thought to the matter, but a light reflecting off the beams from around a hidden cove promised hope. He swung his way toward the light. He was just a few yards away when he heard what sounded like music. A steel guitar was joined by the sound of breakers at the ocean’s edge. Curiosity piqued, Gabriel crept toward the sound. He arrived at a second level hallway, flattened himself against a wall and continued on. Ahead was an open door and through it he could see lights flickering. There was something about it he recognized, as crazy as that seemed. He eased his way toward the dancing light, which he now recognized as that which a television produces. A small hallway opened up into a huge open space. One entire wall was green, the kind of green he’d seen in vids about making vids. Gabriel knew they could shoot somebody in front of the green wall and later put in whatever background they wanted to. Stored against the walls were cases of camera equipment and lights. But what was it all doing here?

              At last, his eyes grew accustomed to the light and he realized that there was a hospital bed parked in a corner of the room. He moved toward it, and as he did he was able to see what the flickering vid light was: it was that advertisement that Quinn had commented on, the one that showed Grant Hughes’s wonderful adventure in the Maldives. It played over and over, as if on a loop, and apparently for a single audience member. Gabriel ventured closer to the hospital bed. An array of devices blinked and beeped around the occupant. Despite their cacophony Gabriel heard a slow, rhythmic wheezing sound coming from the devices’ guest of honor. Some of the sound was high, some of it low. He couldn’t help thinking of a bagpipe, the dreadful droning nails-on-the-blackboard aural sensation it gave him. He moved closer and discovered a white-haired man, his skin the chalky color of paper but smooth, hardly a wrinkle to be found. Gabriel inspected more closely and as the realization he landed on collided with logic, his eyes grew wide and he audibly gasped