Vegas Run

by Rachel A Brune

  I couldn't stop fidgeting. Sleep was out of the question. Getting comfortable, next to impossible. Even with the noise and the draft and the cold metal, at least military hops usually had space for me to change and curl up.

  "Rick, quit moving around, you're driving me nuts." Karen hadn't shifted her position or her gaze.

  In answer, I growled a little, more of a grunt than anything with aggression behind it. "I can't get comfortable."

  "Same."

  Startled, my body stilled for a moment. Karen wasn't the sharing confidences type, and the person she had been who'd shared the sort of history that would allow us to meet in casual talk had been gone since I came back.

  "There's a question I've been meaning to ask you." She flitted her gaze over some of the more military-looking haircuts, avoiding turning to look at me.

  "Shoot."

  "When did you know it was time to leave?"

  I didn't know how to answer her question, so I waited to see if she had anything else.

  "What was it that made you decide to draw a line, and get out?"

  "Of MONIKER?"

  "MONIKER. The uniform. Germany. I don't know." She shook her head. "Never mind. Forget it."

  Most of the time, the things that I want to say come out with a thick layer of wisecracks and sarcasm. But even I knew this was not the time. Which was, I thought, some more personal growth and development on my part, but left me choosing my words carefully.

  "I've spent my life searching for a greater purpose," I began. "Which, if you look at it a different way, means I've also spent my life leaving things behind." She didn't give me an answer, so I kept going. "I left my family. My country. My adopted country."

  The words retreated, just out of reach. I shivered. The ghosts of Aleksy and Shin hovered over my shoulder as if, turning, I might glimpse their presence.

  "Times change," I continued. "People change. Even the ones you loved become strangers. One day, you realize your home has become a strange place." I shrugged. "Or, they drug you, toss you on a lab table, and start slicing you into pieces while your friends watch from across the room and don't do anything to stop them."

  Karen blushed deeply, her face going blotchy.

  The pilot's announcement we were landing shortly in Las Vegas interrupted any further conversation.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  We made it through customs and the rental car counter without incident. Thank you, Dmitri. When it comes to getting people and papers from one place to the other with no hassle or questions asked, he remained the best.

  Karen didn't say another word, other than a few brief exchanges as we went through the routine. Even Calix kept quiet. I followed along, obediently, not even making a joke about riding shotgun, even though it was my turn and would have been easy with everyone not speaking to each other.

  By this point, I wasn't overly familiar with the city of Las Vegas, but we'd driven around it enough on this adventure that I started to recognize the roads we took away from the airport. Karen, driving, wasn't taking us back to MONIKER. We were headed straight for the heart of the city.

  None of us spoke a word until Karen pulled to a stop outside a hotel about three blocks off the main strip. She killed the engine and popped the locks.

  "What's going on?" Calix asked the question I'd been thinking.

  Karen twisted around in her seat to face me. "I've got a contact inside, room three-oh-four. You can head in through the front; stay to the left near the lounge and keep your head down, and you'll be out of view of the cameras."

  "What contact?" I bent down to peer through the windshield. The hotel looked like just a normal tourist trap.

  "I'm not taking you back to the agency," Karen said. Calix went to say something, but Karen kept going. "Now that we've helped your friend Dmitri out with the rescue that wasn't, MONIKER is going to swallow you whole. You walk into that facility, and you won't be walking back out."

  "I know that."

  "Then get out of the car, go to room three-oh-four, and get the hell out of here." Karen turned back around, waiting. "I've got one favor stockpiled with this woman. After she helps you, she won't be taking any more of my calls, so MONIKER won't be able to use me to get to you."

  I tried to keep the stupid grin off my face, but lost that struggle. "And what's going to happen to you when you and Calix just waltz back in without me? How are you going to explain that?"

  Karen shrugged. "We'll think of something. Maybe a heroic death fighting the minions of Black Mountain."

  "Think MONIKER will buy it?"

  "I have no idea, Rick, but if you don't get out of this car so we can start heading back, we'll never find out."

  I leaned back in the seat and crossed my arms. "And what about you?" This question for Calix. "You're all right with this plan?"

  Calix narrowed her eyes. "It would help to know about the play before I'm supposed to back it, but yeah. Get out of the car. We'll figure some shit out."

  "Nope."

  "Rick. Get out of the car." Karen's hands tightened on the wheel, knuckles white.

  "No way." Now I didn't bother trying to hide my glee. "I've been waiting for you to wake up, or at least get out of my way. MONIKER is going down–I'm taking it down–one way or another. You two can get in on this if you want–or you can stay the fuck out of my way." I grinned, letting just the hint of the change sharpen all of my teeth. "Either way, I'm not walking there, so you might as well drive."

  Karen and Calix exchanged looks, an unspoken question passing between them. Calix glanced back at me and her face split into a wide smile, almost terrifying in its eagerness.

  "Was wondering when you were going to come to your senses," she said to Karen. "I'm in."

  "Then let's do this." Karen started the vehicle up, threw it in gear, and peeled out. "But if we're going in together, we need some sort of plan."

  Of course we did.

  "What were you planning?" Karen directed the question to me, even though she kept her eyes on the road. She traveled several–about twenty-five–miles over the speed limit, causing my stomach to lurch with every lane change.

  "They're expecting us back," I answered, trying not to flinch as she blew by two lumbering tractor trailers, swerving in and out of them with inches to spare. "I was going to walk in, kill Doctor Strangelove, and …" That was about as far ahead as I'd thought it through.

  "That's as far as you got?" Calix asked. She, too, actively avoided staring directly out the window.

  "Yep," I admitted.

  "Your plan needs a little work." Calix's voice was as dry as the surrounding desert. Seriously, how do people live so far away from rain?

  "That's because Rick doesn't have plans, he just Leroy Jenkins his way through life-threatening situations."

  Huh? Calix must have gotten the reference, because she chuckled. "All right, so what's the real plan?"

  "We'll walk Rick in," Karen answered. "Tug his sleeve down, and no one will notice right away that he's not wearing the cuff."

  "The place is like one giant cuff," I offered. "Silver everywhere."

  "The full moon rises in about three hours." Karen slowed to make a turn off the highway. We were heading into the mountains, not far away now from the facility. "We'll rely on nature to take its course. Anyway, Calix takes you down to the lab. You take care of business. I'll head to the data center."

  We hit a bump in the road. At the speed we were going, it wrenched the wheel to the side and Karen fought momentarily to get the vehicle back under control.

  "If we survive the Karen 500, what next?" I muttered.

  "I still have access to the server, including the remote connections." Karen stepped her foot down even further on the gas. "I've got a little something a friend coded for me that should turn their networks into giant bricks."

  "And what am I doing while you're playing girl hacker?" Calix broke in. "Tell me I'm not just babysitting MONIKER's pet werewolf while he pisses on their carpet."

&
nbsp; "Of course not." Karen took her eyes off the road momentarily to catch my glance in the rearview mirror. "I'm going to give you the combination to the arms room and explosives locker."

  "This is the best plan ever." Calix cackled with glee, a deeply unsettling sound.

  I still didn't think Karen's plan had any more details than my plan, but I still got to kill Gratuszcak, fuck up MONIKER's life, they were going to help me burn the place down–all the basics were there.

  And in any case, we found ourselves out of time. With a screech of the brakes that threw us all against our seatbelts, Karen stopped in front of the facility.

  We're home. Time to get to work.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  We made it just past the front door, and then everyone's plans turned to shit.

  The welcome committee, for one, consisted of Ramirez and about a dozen really large things that looked human, but gave off the scent of rank otherness that did more than remind me of the creatures in the Black Mountain lab. My eyes were telling me they were human, but my other senses told me my eyes were lying.

  Then again, Calix and I didn't show and tell on the first date, either.

  "Dr. Willet." Ramirez didn't bother to acknowledge me. Or Calix.

  "Ramirez." Karen nodded at the troops surrounding her boss, each of which overshadowed her by at least three or four inches. Now I knew what a hobbit felt like. "What's with the shock troops?"

  "Standardizing our security protocol." Ramirez turned on his heel and started heading down the hallway. Karen fell into step behind him, and we fell into step behind them, mostly because the giant walking brute squad fell into step around us. "Based on the data you pulled from Black Mountain, we're upping our anti-incursion measures."

  "Wait," I interrupted, forced to skip a step to keep pace with the inhuman basketball team Ramirez fielded. "We were the ones who incursioned them."

  Ramirez didn't even roll his eyes. Or acknowledge me. "We've got a debriefing room ready for you."

  "I was hoping to stop by the analysts," Karen said evenly. "See where they were with the data we sent."

  By now we were drawing closer to the conference room where, the first time I'd been introduced to the facility, Dmitri had been waiting. Ramirez didn't answer right away. Instead, he drew near the door, then paused and gestured for Karen to go first.

  "There'll be plenty of time for that after, Dr. Willet."

  After what? Didn't sound like anything I wanted to wait around for to find out.

  I growled, and the change came rushing toward me, faster than usual as the moon rose outside.

  But not faster than the sledgehammer fist that descended on the back of my neck, shutting out the lights.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  I didn't dream, although I wouldn't have minded a little mystic vision spirit advice from Aleksy if he'd been lurking about. Instead, my eyes opened and I vomited my brains out. Strapped down to the lab table as I found myself to be, this mostly meant I spewed all over myself and choked on it. Not the most auspicious start to facing down the bad guy.

  Gratusczak regarded me with a sneer, one corner of his mouth wrinkled in a mien of disgust.

  Another wave of nausea bowled me over. Spots danced in front of my eyes. I recognized the symptoms. Wasn't the first time I'd had a concussion.

  Yanking against the chains only brought on another vomiting fit. This time, I turned my head as far to the side as I could, aiming as best under the circumstances at Dr. G's shoes as possible. He stepped back, out of harm's way.

  "Fascinating."

  "Mild head trauma will do that, Mister Spock." The words sat thick in the back of my throat. It had gone bone dry. How long had I been out? Couldn't have been more than a few minutes. With the moonrise imminent …

  The realization hit. The real reason I felt twisted at both ends like a wet shop rag. The moon had risen, but something blocked the change. The Überwechsel.

  After five minutes, I guess Gratusczak felt safe enough to risk stepping up to the table without the chance of getting splashed by barf. He rolled a cart up next to the bed, a multi-tiered extravaganza of things to do science with.

  The doctor poked and prodded, focusing on an intravenous line that had been run into my left arm. Someone had done a sloppy job; instead of a neat loop and clean entry, the tube was secured with a piece of medical tape stained dark with the blood that pooled around the entry site. The good doctor palpitated my arm around the needle, then tapped on the line. Whatever the saline bag dripped into me, it wasn't hastening any sort of healing process.

  "The silver-benzotriazole compound shows great effectiveness at stabilizing this form," Gratusczak explained, almost absent-mindedly, as if he were making a note to himself rather than telling me anything. "Compound shows promise as a morpho-inhibitor." Here, he checked his watch, then continued in a less formal tone. "Note, the moonrise of the full phase occurred exactly thirty-five minutes ago, and he still shows no signs of change."

  I twisted my head around, trying to look around the lab, figure out who he was talking to. I didn't find anyone else there. Either he really enjoyed talking to himself, or the good doctor had set up a recorder.

  Sure enough, at the edge of the bed, I spotted a spindly tripod with a small video recorder perched atop. And I had been worried about Dmitri's notebook. My guess, with the cat–or dog–out of the bag, and MONIKER's shiny new shock troops all buff and ready to go, they weren't too concerned about their favorite mad scientist documenting his experiments.

  Speaking of which, the last time he'd had me strapped to his lab table, there'd been a guard at the door. They'd at least not let him roam around unsupervised.

  Perhaps those things that had met us at the door were his goodwill token. Perhaps with some shiny new supernatural toys, MONIKER had decided on Dr. Gratusczak as their new point man.

  I reached once more for the change. Nothing. No buzzer, no pain, just–nothing. As if that part of me had been neatly excised.

  "Those walking meatheads, I take it they were your invention?" I tried again.

  Gratusczak didn't bother to even adjust his gaze from his work. "Of course, Rick."

  "So, MONIKER sucks your cock and you give them supermen?"

  This time, the palest of flushes on his dead cheeks rewarded my crudeness. He didn't reply, simply met my eyes with his intense gaze. The emptiness in there frightened me. The blood running from the rough IV site slicked around my left wrist, chafing under the silver-laced steel of the manacle.

  "Once upon a time, you held great interest for this organization." Gratusczak's voice remained mild. He could have been discussing the weather. "Now you are an obsolete toy, broken, with all the shine rubbed off."

  "Ouch. I must have touched a nerve."

  Gratusczak chuckled, a thin, humorless sound. "You have sworn oaths to so many, and yet kept so few." He ignored my reaction, reaching for a thin, sharp knife that rested with several similar objects on a tray on the top tier of the cart standing to the left of the lab table. "Are you then so surprised when those you serve do not keep faith with you?"

  The doctor rested the blade against the skin of my upper arm, then sliced cleanly and precisely.

  At first, I felt nothing. Then, a burning sensation arose around the wound. My vision blurred with the pain.

  "As expected, the solution dampens both the change reaction, as well as the subject's rapid recuperative powers."

  Thrashing, I pulled against the chains, seeking some give or play in the restraints. Gratusczak ignored my efforts, until they threatened to dislodge the IV line. Then, he shook his head and gently placed his hand along my ribcage. Without any leverage or sign of outward exertion, he pressed down with his fingers and cracked two of my ribs.

  Holy crap. The pain had screwed up my perception, but no way should the good doctor have been strong enough to do that. I ceased my flailing and concentrated on trying not to scream from the pain.

  "Good boy."

  I would
have growled, but I had no fight left in me. Gratusczak had the right of it. I hadn't kept my oaths.

  MONIKER had been a refuge, and more so, Karen's friendship, and I had left them both behind without thinking twice. I had forsaken my family–my flesh and fur–and risked their discovery and extermination in order to join in the service of a country. A country that offered not much more than a chance to die for a scratchy uniform and perhaps this new dream of a unified Germany.

  I'd stayed far longer than I should have, taking and re-taking oaths. It wasn't long until I couldn't tell if I were fighting for my country, my comrades, or because fighting turned out to be all I knew. And then, one year, as the uniformed men around me shucked off their oaths to the bloated Weimar Republic, and pled allegiance to the rise of a strong man who promised glory and power, I chose to break ranks with the last tatters of honor rather than take that oath.

  First had come the whispers. Then the Night of the Long Knives. Then usurpation of the military by the Nazi Party, and Hitler. By that time, I wore my uniform by day, and spent my time off duty finding ways to assist any shred of resistance I could find. And that one night a month …

  "Yes, you were some big hero."

  By this time, I'd almost gotten used to Aleksy popping in whenever my consciousness went paisley.

  But it wasn't my partisan friend sitting next to me, cracking wise. Instead, Shin stood over the table, arms crossed. His skin had an unnatural, deathly pallor, but he showed no sign of the wound that had ended his life.

  "So?" He raised an eyebrow.

  I didn't know what he wanted me to do. I couldn't do anything. I didn't want to. I simply wanted to curl up around the pain in my arm and go to sleep. And wake up back in the pack I'd abandoned.

  My friend did nothing, said nothing, just shrugged. I turned away from his gaze. His eyes continued to burn into the back of my head.

  Well, fuck him. If he wasn't going to help, he was as useless as he was dead at the bottom of a foxhole in the winter.