by Mich Moore
inadvertently created a Van De Graff effect with her little peep show. He could not have been more turned on.
"I need some fresh air." She smiled suggestively. "How about you?"
Another woman obviously familiar with her whisked by and yanked up the dress's bodice without saying a word.
Karyn straightened up and looked around. "Oh! Hi, Isabelle!" She gave a sloppy wave.
A man with blood running down his cheek stumbled between them shouting, "Jesus! Jesus!"
Karyn turned back to face Broussard.
"Well?" She fondled her left nipple. "I'll show you my bits if you'll show me yours?"
Broussard threw his head back and howled like a wolf. "Best party EVER!"
He looked around at the pure pandemonium. It was beginning to look like recess back at the Hills. And bad things always happened during recess. He gave in. "You're on!" He grabbed her hand.
She stopped. "Wait. I've just got to tell Brett that I've got a ride home?"
"Who's Brett?" He wanted to make sure that he wasn't trespassing on another guy's territory.
"My boss, silly." She wasn't too out of it to notice the sudden shift in his tone. "Are you always this paranoid?"
"It depends on the situation."
That seemed to satisfy her. Or maybe she had forgotten the question. In any case, she left him to speak with a bespectacled man in his forties. They chatted briefly while the man occasionally looked in Broussard's direction. Broussard caught himself pacing the tiny area rug just outside the powder room. He told himself to calm down. You're not in a cage anymore. He took in a deep draught of air to cool down his innards. He needed to get out of there with her. And then he had to get out of Chicago.
A little voice popped into his head. Really?
His brain snapped to attention. Planning on The Escape had not crossed his mind since Walters had turned up empty handed. But now, with all hell breaking loose in the city ... . Now might be the right time for it, with or without documentation.
It had to happen, right?
"Hey, you ready?" Karyn was back at his side. She was sporting a large purse and a sparkly scarf.
He forced a casual smile. "Absolutely. Are you sure you want to go?"
"I've got a bottle of wine and two steaks at my apartment. And I've got to feed Iggy." She flared her hair with her hand. "We can watch the end of the world there."
They eschewed the stairs and rode the private elevator down to the lobby. He started to take the front door exit but was sure that Hillerman and Brady were still camped outside somewhere.
He whistled for the doorman's attention. "You got a back door?"
"There's a delivery entrance. Go all the way down this hall, go through the double doors, and then take the door on your right." The man waited to see if Broussard was going to tip him.
Broussard tapped his pockets. "Sorry. We're in a hurry. Next time."
They practically ran down the long hall, reached through the double doors, and then found the fire door on the right. It took both of them to push it open wide enough for the two of them to squeeze out ... and suddenly they were free.
They were let out on a narrow sidewalk that ran beside a back alley street. There were only a few cars, no rubbish, and just enough light from the street lamps to keep it more romantic than dangerous.
"Which way?" Karyn asked, holding onto his arm.
Broussard looked to his left. Nothing but open road that a way. He looked to his right. And was greeted with the sight of Bautista and Juliana the mobstress, both naked from the waist down, going at it like two jackrabbits.
Broussard clapped his hand over his mouth before it could make a sound and give them away. Oh, my God!
He quickly spun the girl around. "This way!" And they scampered down the empty street.
Broussard woke up early the next morning in a disheveled bed. Karyn was gone. His head hurt. The last ten hours were a mash of disparate images banging up against each other. He clearly remembered tearing into bloody meat, spilling the wine, awkward sex, and staring at an iguana's dry hind legs and toes. And there was something else niggling at the back of his mind. Something extremely shocking and ... weird. He could not dredge it up and soon stopped trying.
Forget it, he admonished himself. Besides, 'weird' was too often the operative word as of late. More 'weird' he did not need. He got up and searched for his clothing. Karyn had neatly folded them on a chair and placed a Teddy bear on top. He smiled. There was a note on the dresser from the young woman thanking him for the "hot" evening. Her phone number was scribbled below her signature. He grabbed the note, threw on his clothing, and headed for the front door, catching a glimpse of a large reptile sunning itself beneath a kitchen counter's bare window. "Iggy, I presume."
The reptile ignored him.
"Catch you later."
And with that, he left. He was downstairs and standing outside five minutes later and experiencing a rare good mood. He wondered how that could be. Taking into consideration the baffling events of the past twenty-four hours, he should have been making a beeline for the nearest nervous breakdown. Instead, he felt fine. More than fine. He felt good.
He sucked in some air and took a couple of seconds to puzzle out this unusual state of being.
Well, the first thing that struck him was that the world seemed brighter than it had the day before. Literally. He gazed upwards.
Oh.
The thick, depressing layers of toxic mist weren't there. Instead the sun shone brightly through an atmosphere bearing only scant amounts of the pervasive airborne scum.
Well, that was a nice turn of events.
The second thing that struck him was the radical thought: I am free. He skipped across the empty street. No one followed him. There were no shadows at his elbows. He tested the premise further by winding himself in and out of several coffee shops. He did this for three blocks and stopped. No doubt about it. He was alone.
He promoted the premise to that of temporary fact. Temporary for the time being, he added. While he was still in Chicago and within the reach of Chang, he was in danger of being sucked back into his postmodern slavery. Imperial slave? Even now he felt the heavy weight of Chang's thoughts reaching out to him across the city like those great arms of fire last night. He and the others were undoubtedly looking for him, wondering where he was, and worried that he might not be voluntarily coming back. A considerable burden of guilt to be borne in time for sure. But still. It all added up to explain his elevated emotions. For the first time in six years he almost believed that he was at the helm of his own life. It was an exhilarating moment.
He opened his wallet and counted the bills. He had three hundred dollars on him, not enough to get him anywhere really. He would have to gain access to his bank account right away before Redstone figured out that he was on the lam and shut it down. That is when his phone buzzed. He did not recognize the number and almost didn't answer it. When the caller rang a second and third time, he picked up. It was Candy, the would-be jumper from last night, politely demanding the five thousand dollars that he had promised to give her. He asked for her bank account information and then told her that he would call her after he had transferred the funds. He then purchased a new cell phone. Afterwards he realized that he was quite hungry, so he stopped at the bar of an outdoor bistro and ordered a ginger ale and a basket of chicken wings. While he waited for his order, he activated the new phone that he had just purchased and threw away the other. Van and Eric's paranoia aside, he had no doubt that Redstone could track them electronically; the trick now was to fall off of the grid. He would have to purchase a new ID and use only cash until he could get to Canada. Which, of course, was now a whole lot harder to do after that stupid Superman stunt he had pulled last night. He blamed Bautista and the marijuana that the tech had been smoking all day yesterday; he must have inadvertently become as stoned as Bautista had been. That was the only explanation for him giving away five thousand dollars in cash to a perfect stranger. He mentally
kicked himself.
When his food arrived, he took a few bites and surreptitiously checked out his surroundings. The place was doing brisk business. All manner of people were there, their eyes either glued to their phones and computers or to the various televisions secured to poles every three meters or so. All of the news was the same: There were purported sightings of a giant creature, or Titan as the popular media were now calling them, over much of Chicago. It had first appeared over O'Hare Airport yesterday at sunset, vanished and then later reappeared over the Magnificent Mile.
Of course, rumors about building-size aliens and other such craziness had been slowly pushing into the team's water cooler chatter at Redstone with a peculiar voltage. As professionals who had cut their teeth on hard science, no one took the stories seriously. Like many others, he had believed it to be some kind of mass freak out. Possibly contagious. But exactly what had he seen last night? Real or imagined? Could he honestly provide a rational explanation for it? He picked a bone clean, set it down, and drank a slug of soda. His mind meandered back to last night's events. Advance South pyrotechnics? Northern lights? According to Van, they were popping up everywhere lately.
He finished off the rest of the wings.
The Northern Lights. Perhaps ...
Images from one of the nearby televisions showed chaotic images of footage shot last night by news helicopters over the city. A male voice spoke with authority. "At
