The stairs were a fun challenge.
Also, after three days of MRE's and a week of no showering after emerging from the wilderness, I got a distinct satisfaction in the fact they had to smell me. Ha. Assholes.
∞ ∞ ∞
I'd hoped to be able to gather more information about where the hell I they'd brought me, but I guess they were going to keep going on the information deprivation playbook. Why fix what works? In addition to the hand and leg irons, they put a blackout bag over my head, then pulled it tight around my neck. Not only could I not see through the thing, I also couldn't look down to catch a glimpse of where we were walking.
This made maneuvering where the two men flanking me wanted me to go extra annoying. It also signaled my current status. Last time, they'd picked me up because they wanted me to return as an agent. This time, my status was unsure. Until they took off the cuffs and hood, call me Rick Keller, the captive lab rat. Wolf. Whatever.
For the first time, I worried they had brought me back simply to be Dr. G's research subject. It hadn't actually occurred to me they might no longer require my services as an agent.
I stumbled but didn't fall. They caught me too quickly. Rather than allowing me to gain my footing, the two men simply dragged me until I got my feet back under me. This did not bode well.
Shit. Fuck. Shitfuck.
After three lefts, a right, a left and some hallway–or maybe the other way around?–I was both completely lost and pretty much done with this crap. Finally, they stopped. The man on my left held me up to keep me from falling when I tripped over the sudden halt.
"Bring him in."
I knew that voice. My handlers pushed me sideways, dragged me a little farther, and plopped me in a chair. It swiveled. I tried a little rocking back and forth.
The blow came out of the darkness, catching me across the cheek. I fell to the side. Helping hands pulled me back into the chair.
"Knock it off, asshole."
Yeah, definitely knew him.
One of the men untied the hood and pulled it off, leaving me blinking in the sudden harsh fluorescent glare.
"Agent Keller." Ramirez, the closest thing to the top of the chain of command I'd met at MONIKER, still wore his lumberjack flannel and loud ties.
He sat at the head of a long, polished wood table, flanked by rows of mostly empty chairs. My comfy swivel chair stood at the foot. Karen and Calix sat across from each other at the middle of the table. I didn't see Dr. Gratusczak. Perhaps he hadn't been invited.
"Retired." All I got was a noncommittal gaze. I tried again. "Retired Not-Agent Go-Fuck-Yourself Keller."
"Manners, Rick. That kind of talk … es geht nicht."
The urbane, cultured tone, brushed with hints of a Russian accent, froze my blood. I worked my jaw but couldn't get anything to come out.
No matter.
A slight man, face lined with too many years, walked around my side. He rested a hand on my shoulder as he passed, squeezing almost imperceptibly before letting go and taking a seat at the table a few chairs down from me.
Dmitri Pietrovitch Nicolaiov. The kindly Russian Grandpapa demeanor belied a sociopath of the highest order. If I hadn't been eating MRE cheese for three days, I probably would have crapped my pants at his touch.
"Rick, Dmitri tells me you go way back?" Karen watched me closely. I didn't know what she knew, or what she suspected, but even with her head not completely in the game, she was smart and perceptive. I'd be watching my step.
"We met." Dmitri had me on his table, too, once upon a time. Not only had he wrung some of the deepest, darkest secrets from my psyche with not more than a few rudimentary tools, but he'd ... No. Thinking of that time opened doors in my memory I didn't want to go through. The notebook he'd kept had somehow made it into Gratusczak's hands. How the hell did he get here?
"All right, we've all met." Ramirez took charge of the meeting. "Rick, last time you were here, we needed an Agent." He sat back in his chair, arm outstretched, drumming his fingers on the table.
In all the walk here, I'd never escaped the presence of silver. It embedded everything. Every single foot in this building had some concentration of the metal coating or covering something, or just plain out in the open. In this room, thin lines of silver lay embedded into the tabletop in a tree of life pattern. It clouded my senses, put me off my game.
"This time, you have a choice," Ramirez continued. "I have two men who require your services."
He nodded at Karen. She pulled out a small, polished box and placed it on the table.
"Doctor Gratusczak is closing in on the final stages of a project for which, he assures me, you are a mandatory attendee." Ramirez rolled his eyes. "I really don't give a shit. He can get a couple vials of blood, cut a little hair clipping, maybe some toenails. It'll tide him over."
So … did I get any say in whether or not the good doctor got to take souvenirs?
"That's Option A. You get to hang out in his lab with him full time," Ramirez added, reading my mind. "Permanently." He quit with the finger tapping and folded his arms across his chest. "Or there's option B."
If Option B involved Dmitri, Option A sounded fine to me.
"The other option you have is come back to work for us." Ramirez stared me down across the length of the table. "Reinstated to full agent status. You'll get a paycheck and everything."
"Corner office, too?" Sign me right up!
"Don't push it Rick." Ramirez pushed back from the table. He nodded at Karen.
Karen stood, opening the box in front of her, and extracting a syringe. She walked toward me. I tried to push myself back, out of reach, but the men behind me held my chair. I whipsawed my gaze back and forth between her and Dmitri. He hadn't said another word since he sat down, just gazed at me with his piercing shark stare.
"Rick." Karen's touch was gentle, but it burned my skin like ice. "Don't move."
Quickly, expertly, she rolled my forearm over, inserted the syringe and sent home the plunger. I felt a pinch and a quick burn, and then it dissipated.
"I've got the change under control." Last time Karen had injected me with something, it turned out to be a compound that had destabilized me from the inside out, forcing me to ride out the change, re-learn how to control it.
"It's a tracker." Karen withdrew the needle and pressed a button, retracting the sharp tip back up into the syringe. "It's coated in a decaying compound. The inner compound is something you don't want to face without the antidote."
"This is some real Escape from New York shit right here," I retorted.
She caught my eye for just a moment, and I caught a flicker of the old Karen.
"Can my code name be Snake?"
"Rick." Dmitri raised an eyebrow. It had an immediate, and chilling effect. I shut up.
"Agent Keller," Ramirez started, then stopped himself. "It is Agent Keller, isn't it? And not Subject Charlie?"
I didn't answer. But I would totally be Subject Alpha.
"Mr. Smith here helped us track you down," Ramirez said. It took me a second to realize he was referring to Dmitri. "In return, he asked the favor of our assistance. And yours."
Well, that explained how they found me. Figured they hadn't just relied on the chance I might check my voicemail. He'd probably been the one to have Karen call me on her friend's behalf. Speaking of which.
"You got anything to say?" I asked Calix. "Everyone else seems to have an opinion."
She shrugged. "You helped me with my sister. We're square."
By my accounting that meant she owed me one.
"Director Ramirez, may I have a moment to speak with Rick?" Dmitri didn't raise his voice, or even use much inflection. Somehow, the question came out like a statement. Nobody argued.
"Do you need–?" Ramirez nodded at the two men flanking me.
"No, no." Dmitri waved his hand, almost languidly. "Rick and I are old friends."
I'm pretty sure I didn't actually whimper. Pretty sure. I held my shit tog
ether while everyone filed out of the room. Calix was the last one out. She turned and winked at me before leaving. I didn't get the joke.
Dmitri waited until the door closed firmly behind her. Then he turned.
"They seem …" He left me hanging while he chose his words carefully. "They carry themselves very specifically."
I didn't know what to say, so I kept my mouth shut.
"It is very interesting, being here with these agents." Dmitri caught my gaze. "And this doctor they have working for them." He steepled his fingers, gazing at me over the top of his fingertips. "He reminds me of certain men."
"Dmitri, you–" I broke off. Tried again. "You're not exactly seeing me at my best."
His gaze flickered down to the silver-encased metal restraining my wrists and ankles.
"I am sorry that your agency has proven itself so … short-sighted." He brushed at a piece of lint on his slacks. "And I am also sorry that I must call in your debt. I have a great need for your assistance."
CHAPTER EIGHT
I did owe Dmitri a debt. And I'd known he would come calling to collect. I just always thought it would be later. Like, maybe he would die before he would come looking for me to help him out with something he couldn't handle. Because whatever he couldn't handle scared the shit out of me.
"Rick, I have a daughter."
Didn't see that one coming.
"She's involved with something, and I don't like it."
If Dmitri needed me to go track down an errant boyfriend, I was all for it. Get me out of the office.
"It's not that simple." Dmitri frowned at me, like he had actually read my mind. After the time we had spent together, he could read me well enough he didn't need telepathy. "The organization she's involved with … it would be as difficult to extract her from them, as it would be to do the same with you. From here."
"Dmitri," I said, as respectfully as possible, just in case he was hinting at an offer. "I'm paying off a debt here. Not incurring another one?"
He smiled, as reassuring as a wolf smiling at a lamb. And I would know.
"My friend, I simply need your help." He shrugged. "This task must be done … the right way. And you seem to have useful friends."
"Friends." I lifted my hands to demonstrate the shackles. "They're just the very best kind."
Dmitri turned to face me, placing his hands on the table palms down slowly and deliberately.
"I am about to tell you something that nobody else knows." He looked at me and slowly tapped each finger on the table. "You find yourself embedded in this organization?"
"That's a good word for it."
"I, too, have found myself unable to extract myself from a situation. And an organization to which I once owed allegiance. But which sank and disintegrated under the weight of its own corruption."
"And your daughter?"
"Russia is a new country," Dmitri answered. "But some parts of it stay the same. Just polished over and painted with some new slogans."
The realization hit me. I had more in common with my old enemy than these new friends. It chilled me to the bone.
"If you cannot help me, my friend…"
"I repay my debts." I held Dmitri's gaze. "Let's do this."
∞ ∞ ∞
MONIKER was satisfied to think I'd agreed, once again, to stand in as their resident cannibalistic biomorph. Dmitri–well, who knew what Dmitri thought? He'd let me know eventually.
At the end of the day, I would have done anything to get the silver off my body and out of my lungs, and to figure out how to escape the Las Vegas facility. But before I did, I decided there were going to be some caveats on this deal. First, no matter what I did, MONIKER would never learn about the Change. I didn't care what I had to do, but under no circumstances would I be anywhere near them on a full moon.
Second, I would pay my debt to Dmitri and never see him again, and definitely never, ever again ask him for a favor. Unless I really had to.
And last but not least, it would not be enough to just get Karen and Calix out and head off into the sunset. The organization was infected, and the rot spread through and through. If I ever wanted to be free of the machinations and scheming of the agency, I'd have to burn it to the ground.
Wasn't sure how I'd accomplish all of these noble goals, but I'm not above making things up as I go along. It works most of the time. Sometimes.
Like most of my plans, this one started off by failing. After agreeing to come back on the payroll and help Dmitri and the gang, I expected them to take off the cuffs, issue me a shiny badge, and we'd get started again.
No such luck. Instead, they'd fitted me with a bracelet that locked around my left wrist, made of a thin band of silver–just enough to keep me from changing–surrounded by enough steel coating to make it bearable. Some joker had engraved little Scottish terriers around the band. It looked like someone's grandma's costume jewelry. Oh yeah, this place was going down.
The two men who'd marched me to the conference room also escorted me to the intake where all this fitting took place. I'd expected Karen to take care of all of this. The nameless men made me think even though I'd been invited back as an agent, MONIKER still didn't quite view me as such.
After everyone satisfied themselves that my collar fit nice and snug, the two men escorted me back into the hall.
"What's next?" I looked from one to the other. "Can I get an outfit like yours? Maybe a TASER? I always wanted one of those."
The first man ignored me. The second one prodded me out the door.
Two more MONIKER staff met us in the hall, a man and a woman. The two of them flanked a familiar face.
"Doctor." I nodded. "Hope you die and rot in hell."
He laughed in response. The sound reminded me of a cat scratching on a post. His team prodded him forward.
Mine prodded me into step behind him. Did not like this one at all. I slowed my steps, but the guy behind me just kicked the soles of my feet. Stumbling, I regained my footing and glared at him.
"Cut the crap, asshole."
Damn. Now he hurt my feeling.
For one split second, I thought about cutting and running. Or at least doing something other than walking where they wanted me to without even putting up a fight. Then I thought of Dmitri, and Karen, and how I appeared to be in some sort of labyrinthine maze. Even if I ran, I'd be completely lost, and a facility MONIKER designed to keep me in would likely do just that.
I settled down like an obedient hound–not a damn toy terrier–and followed where they led.
∞ ∞ ∞
When we hit the basement corridor, the lights started to do something funky. They were on some kind of motion sensor. As we walked, they clicked on overhead, clicking back off as we passed by. It was disorienting. Couldn't see where we were going. Couldn't tell where we'd been.
It shouldn't have been so bad. The tracks we made, scent paths and the other sense I relied on, should have shone clear behind us even in the darkness. But even down here in the concrete, there were sharp shards of silver metal to keep me confused, burning my sinuses.
We came up on the double metal doors before I even realized it. They were painted in a color I guessed was red from the dark gray I saw, windowless, and accessible only with an eight-digit code. One of the men escorting the good doctor punched a bunch of numbers into a keypad. As the doors opened, I tried to ignore the giant biohazard symbols painted in black, one for each door.
The man and woman escorting Dr. G. peeled off. Looked like they were detailed to stand guard–possibly to make sure nothing got in. More likely to make sure none of us went for an unauthorized wander around the property.
"Rick, in here." Calix stood by a table near the center of the room. Karen sat next to her, swinging her legs. Was she drinking a … beer?
I wanted one.
Seeing me, Karen hopped down. She smiled at me and patted the table next to her. "Climb on up."
No, thank you. The table had straps. I don't get on tables
with straps. It's basically my philosophy in life.
"Rick, don't be an asshole. Get on the table, or I'll make you get on the table."
"What are you going to do, beat me with a beer can?"
"Mr. Keller, MONIKER has sanctioned this action." Gratusczak's voice, like his laugh, scratched my nerves like a cat. "Please get on the table. If we make this as pleasant as possible, it will be over quickly."
Inside, the change perked its head, baring its teeth. I rolled my head, cracking my neck. The minute this cuff came off, I would finish where we left off with the agency's resident mad scientist.
I couldn't help myself. I snapped at Gratusczak as I passed him. Calix stepped to the side as I hefted myself up on the table.
"Lay down." Gratusczak didn't bother turning around as he gave me the instruction. He busied himself at a long table covered in various pieces of equipment. His desk stood a few feet away. Everything was meticulously placed, scrupulously clean. Not one paper dared slip out of place.
Then I saw it. Carefully squared up on the desk next to the computer keyboard. Dmitri's notebook. Fuck.
"Why?" I didn't care why. I needed to stall, so I could think about the notebook, and what it might contain.
"We need several vials of your blood," Karen said. "This could take a minute, so it's easier if you're in a reclining position."
"I thought I was back here to rejoin the team," I said, trying to catch her eye.
She lifted her head and looked me straight in the face. "You spent seventy years as a science experiment. We're revisiting that portion of your service. Lay down."
I followed orders. Every once in a while, I caught a glimpse of the Karen I knew. But down here, this new person had completely taken over. I found it profoundly unsettling. Like meeting Mr. Hyde after falling in love with Dr. Jekyll.
Karen strapped me down at the hands and feet. Didn't know why until Gratusczak turned back around. He handed a tray with a syringe and several vials to Karen, who came around to the other side. With quick, efficient movements, she tied a tourniquet, coaxed a vein, and inserted a syringe. Removing the tourniquet, she began drawing vial after vial.
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