Xenofreak Nation (24 page)

There was nothing phony about the look her father gave her now—a reflection of her own betrayal. She pushed aside the quills covering her ear and pulled out an earbug, displaying it for him between forefinger and thumb. Instead of giving it back to Agent Yang, she flicked the switch to ‘off’ with her thumbnail and slipped it into her pocket. The agents didn’t notice because at that moment, her father stood and made a move like he was going to bolt. A third agent rushed to cuff him. As her father was led away, he tried to catch her eye. A part of her acknowledged there was more she wanted to say to him, but the part that wanted revenge won out and she turned away, looking out the window at the grey day.

Chapter Forty-two

To Scott’s disappointment, Padme directed him to the Warehouse, where he assumed he’d be met by one of the nondescript white vans.

“He’s getting weaker,” he said quietly to Padme’s holo-image as he drove. “I don’t know if he’ll survive a transfer and another long drive.”

She didn’t comment on his estimation of Lupus’ chances. “How far out are you?”

“A few minutes.”

“Drop off Liz and tell her to go to Exam Room Two. You and Chief Joe take the ramp to the parking garage.” She disconnected.

When he turned onto the street with the sprawling Warehouse in all its squalor, things seemed to have gotten back to normal: there were xenos crawling all up and down the block. It didn’t surprise him that the local cops hadn’t bothered to keep the XBestias from moving back in after the raid. There were neighborhoods more worthy of their time.

As instructed, Scott dropped Liz off, pulled up to the security gate and waved to the camera. He waited while the heavy-duty iron bars slowly lifted. Parking in the garage had been restricted to Abel, Lupus, and the vans transporting patients. Overhead halogen lights lit the steep, curving concrete tunnel that led to the underground lot. Scott had been down here before with Abel and it seemed like a huge waste to have built the underground lot with only four spaces. He imagined the previous owner must have cruised around in a luxury vehicle he didn’t want his overpaid, underworked employees to have access to.

There were no other cars in the lot, but Padme was waiting with two men in scrubs Scott had never seen before. He stopped the truck, hurried to open the back doors and began moving dart guns and boxes out of the way to make room for the men to pull in a collapsed stretcher. One of the men, Scott figured they were at least nurses, but quite possibly actual doctors, briefly checked Lupus before they hefted him onto the stretcher and took him out.

Scott jumped down, wondering why the transport van wasn’t here yet. Someone’s head was going to roll for being late.

He and the other man helped Chief Joe move the crate with the panda onto a flatbed cart. As soon as it was done, Padme crooked her finger at Chief Joe and said, “You.”

Besides the ramp, there was only one way out of the parking garage. A freight elevator with doors on either side was used to bring patients on their stretchers down to connect with the transport vehicles. Only someone who knew the code could activate it. Before the warehouse had been raided, Abel had shut it down. Padme entered the code and the doors opened.

Chief Joe clasped Scott’s hand and said, “Nice workin’ with ya.”

“Same here.”

The Indian xenofreak walked to the elevator like a man expecting a bullet in his back, and Scott didn’t blame him. Once Chief Joe had gone up to the Warehouse, Scott moved to sit with his legs hanging from the back of the truck. Exhausted, he rubbed his eyes.

There was now a dark red intravenous bag hanging from a pole attached to the stretcher—blood. Liz had taken Lupus’ body armor vest off earlier, and now the doctor cut his shirt off with scissors. Lupus sucked air in through his teeth when the doctor peeled the dried and stuck-on blood away from his wound. One of the doctors looked at Padme and asked, “Come on, what’s the holdup?”

“Give me one of those,” Padme said to Scott. She was pointing at one of the dart guns, so he handed it to her.

“Is it loaded?” she asked.

He nodded, distracted by the faded numbers painted on the ground for each of the four parking spots: 72, 73, 74 and 75.

“What’s this dial?”

He looked up. “It’s CO2 powered. You adjust that depending on how far away the target is.”

“And each notch represents..?”

“Five meters.”

As soon as he said it, he realized she wasn’t displaying idle curiosity. She rotated the dial, stepped back and shot him in the leg. He felt the drug hit his system rapidly and didn’t fight it. He knew why she’d done it: he’d passed muster and was about to be taken to Fournier’s lair. But in a flash of insight, he also realized she hadn’t darted him to keep him from seeing where the transport van was taking him. Scott’s newly blurry gaze drifted towards the cement wall as he toppled to one side.

If the numbers on the parking spots were any indication, the original garage had been much bigger at one time. Fournier had sealed it off. If you knew the code, the elevator doors would open on the other side…

Chapter Forty-three

Bryn had done the XIA a favor and they followed suit.

The stern black agent’s name was Shasta Fox. She told Bryn, “The court-order’s been vacated. You are now free to go home. Keep in mind your father might be given bail, so if you have somewhere else to stay, I suggest you go there. But that won’t happen for a few days. Provincial Mutual has cancelled the check and will be reissuing it payable to you by courier this afternoon.”

The orderly led a stunned Bryn back to her room, but only so she could change into the clothes she’d arrived in. He left the door unlocked this time, so after she changed she wandered back into the hallway without waiting for him to return. At the far end, she saw Agent Yang and Shasta Fox having a conversation. Impulsively, Bryn flicked the tiny switch on the earbug she’d pocketed and reinserted it.

Right off, she heard Agent Yang say, “-in deeper than we thought.”

Bryn barely heard Shasta’s reply; the older woman must have taken her earbug out and Bryn was hearing her voice through Agent Yang’s. “He used the word ‘pandemic.’ Jesus, if he’s talking about the typhoid…interview him—hard.”

Bryn was standing by the door to her former room, pretending to be waiting for the orderly and trying not to look like she was watching the two XIA agents. From the corner of her eye, she saw Agent Yang look over at her. “What about the girl?”

Bryn strained to hear Shasta’s response, but a noise from that end of the hall drowned it out. All she caught was the end, “-Harding’s off grid, but we have to assume his cover’s still intact.”

Harding…Harding, Bryn thought. Where had she heard that name? She was concentrating so hard she didn’t notice Dr. Forrester.

“Ready to go?” the psychiatrist asked.

Bryn jumped, suddenly aware that if she could hear Shasta through Agent Yang’s earbug, then Agent Yang probably heard Dr. Finnegan. Sure enough, the agent’s head whipped around and a hand flew to her ear. Bryn turned away when the two agents began marching in her direction so they couldn’t see her take the earbug out and slip it back into her jeans pocket. Bryn smiled nervously when they reached her, but Agent Yang didn’t look amused. She held her hand out and said, “Earbug.”

“Oh, yeah.” Bryn pulled it from her pocket and handed it over.

Agent Yang examined the earbug before turning it off and closing her fingers around it. “I had mine in the entire time, but I didn’t hear you until just now.”

“Was it on? Sorry. I guess it must have accidently switched on when I changed clothes.” Bryn tried not to look as pleased as she felt with the lie.

Dr. Finnegan, ignorant of any undercurrents, said, “I’m sure you’re anxious to get home, Bryn. I’ve arranged a ride for you. Again, please accept my apologies for…well, inconvenience seems like an inadequate word.”

“Nightmare?” Bryn suggested. But even with a nightmare a person could wake up and go on with their life with only a residual bad feeling—and relief that it hadn’t been real.

When she got home, her car was in the garage, still packed. She found her dead holophone inside and plugged it in to charge; now she’d be able to pay the past due bill and get it reconnected. She’d be able to do a lot more than that with her mother’s insurance money. Go to college, for one. There had to be a way to get her quills under control so she could get a decent job after obtaining her teaching certificate.

She pulled her suitcases out of the back seat and went to take a shower. Under the hot spray she struggled to put her thoughts in order and make sense of her conflicting emotions. She was grimly pleased that her father had been caught, but a heavy guilt weighed her down. If it weren’t for her actions, he wouldn’t be in jail. And now that she was no longer on the run, she would probably never see Scott again. Had he really been a cop, or had his pull of attraction been so strong she’d unconsciously invented a more acceptable persona for him in order to justify her feelings? It was likely she’d never know, and the thought induced that awful squeezing sensation in the region of her heart. She didn’t want to cry anymore, so she got out of the shower and briskly dried herself off.

The stitches on her backside hurt and were beginning to itch just like the ones Dr. Fournier had so lovingly placed in her scalp. The psychiatric center had given her a supply of large adhesive bandages. She placed one over the stitches, thinking of Scott’s gentle touch when he’d patched her up in the school break room. The intern who’d given her the stitches had commented on the baking soda paste, saying, “That was smart. Made my job easier.”

She dug through her suitcase until she’d sorted out her best pair of panties and her newest bra, which was still a few years old, but hadn’t yet suffered the wear and tear of her other undergarments. She dressed in her most comfortable jeans and a stretchy black t-shirt she barely managed to drag over her quills.

She was sitting on the couch numbly watching holovision and eating sunflower seeds when the doorbell rang. It was the courier Shasta Fox told her to expect. Bryn showed him her ID, signed his holopad and accepted the envelope. With check in hand, she sat back down on the couch.

Being home gave her a disconcerting feeling of normalcy. Her body sank comfortably into her spot on the couch, the place where she’d done her homework, read trashy novels, and watched her favorite shows growing up. She should be rushing to the bank to deposit the check and making arrangements to move out, but all she wanted to do was sit and absorb the last vestiges of home. Once she left, she couldn’t imagine the circumstances that might bring her back.

The talk show on the holo wrapped up and the local news came on. Bryn watched to see if there was any mention of Scott still being on the loose, but there wasn’t. There was a report about a young woman outside of Poughkeepsie who authorities believe went on a jealous rampage and shot her boyfriend and his three friends with a dart gun before accidently shooting herself. Bryn started to laugh until the name of the boyfriend was released: Kareem Williams.

“Mr. Williams and his friends refused to press charges and refused to cooperate with police by releasing security tapes of the attack,” the reporter said.

There was no mention of a panda, which told her Scott had removed it from the premises before police arrived. She felt ambivalent about the news. On the one hand, it meant Scott was probably back in Lupus’ good graces and thus safe from retribution. On the other hand, the panda was now back in Fournier’s clutches.

She thought about what Scott said, “What makes a panda different from any other animal?” She’d been quick to attribute a more acceptable meaning to his words, but what if he really didn’t care? He’d denied being a cop and the more she thought about it, the more she realized how foolish she’d been to ever think he was. Both Carla and Dr. Finnegan suggested she was suffering from Stockholm syndrome. It occurred to her that she didn’t really understand what that meant, so she decided to look it up.

She went into the spare room, with plastic storage bins stacked on one side and her father’s desk and old computer setup on the other. He was not a tidy person. There were loose papers and sticky notes everywhere and the gloomy space smelled a bit like a locker room.

Once she got online, she read an article on Stockholm syndrome and had to admit she fit the criteria. Kidnap victims misinterpret a lack of abuse as kindness and become attached to their captor. Scott hadn’t abused her, but now that she saw his behavior in a different light, she realized he’d never been kind, either. He’d seemed indifferent the majority of the time. He was doing a job, just like with the panda. The only emotion he’d shown was when he’d kissed her…or maybe that, too, was her own feelings reflected onto him.

She rubbed her eyes and sighed, wishing she could turn those feelings off.

The holophone rang and she went into the kitchen to squint at the unfamiliar holo ID. It was a little white mouse sitting on its haunches nibbling on something. Carla.

Bryn sat in front of the hololens and pressed the answer button.

“Bryn!” Carla practically shouted. “I’m so glad you’re okay!”