“He never said anything about that. He hid his . . . proclivities . . . from both myself and our children.”
“But you used with him,” Liane said, watching the widow stiffen. “Leopard serum has an odor that tends to linger on the mods. They stop noticing it after a while, but others don’t.”
“I beg your pardon,” snapped the widow, her back straightening.
“And I caught a glimpse of a recent injection on your shoulder as you sat down. So please,” Liane leaned against the arm of the couch, looming over the woman as she said, “No more lying.”
“He made me,” hissed the woman, her perfectly painted face contorting into a grimace. “I didn’t want to, but he said if I didn’t . . . that he would find someone else. So I went along with it.”
“And did anyone follow you after the meetings? Anyone seem unusually interested in the science behind modding?”
“No,” the widow snarled, standing. “Now get the hell out of my house.”
When they were out on the pavement by the car, Seth whirled on her to snap, “Nice job. You want to rip out the next widow’s heart and rub salt in the wound?”
“She was withholding,” Liane said with a shrug.
“I don’t give a damn; you can’t talk to people like that, especially not victim’s families!”
Liane tilted her head, confused. “Why not?”
“Because she lost a husband, the father of her children! She’s not—you can’t just thrash his memory and think that she won’t be upset.” Seth ran a hand through his curly hair, muttering, “Maybe this was a mistake.”
Liane felt a twinge of remorse, and said haltingly, “I don’t . . . talk to others much.”
“Yeah, it shows,” Seth snapped. “Look, you’ve got an eye for details, I’ll give you that. But let me do the talking on the next one.”
“Fine.”
They walked back to the car, and the drive to Victim Two’s residence was made in silence.
It took them all day to visit the families and closest friends, and the sun was down by the time they reached the home of Victim 5. He had been the university student, barely out of adolescence. His parents were soft-spoken and weepy, so while Seth handled them, Liane wandered out to the asphalt behind the house. There were no fences between the yards, and several older boys were standing along the edge playing with a game station.
Liane went over to them, asking, “Did you know the boy who lived here?”
“Aiden?” said the oldest. “Yeah. We grew up together, didn’t we?”
“Did you know he was a mod?”
One of the younger boys was quick to demand, “You a cop?”
Liane shook her head. “I don’t care what laws he broke; I’m just looking for those who killed him.”
Slightly mollified, another said, “Aiden just wanted an edge, that’s all. Reptile serum is supposed to make you sharper, you know?”
“But he was trying something new, too,” said the youngest boy.
Liane frowned. “What does that mean, ‘something new’?”
“Dunno. He just said it was better stuff. None of the side effects like peeling skin and growing fangs.”
Liane went back to the front of the house just as Seth was coming out. He looked exhausted and fell into the driver’s seat without even looking at her.
“That’s the hardest part of the job,” he sighed, rubbing his eyes. “The mothers crying for their dead kids.”
“This victim was searching out a different kind of serum,” Liane said. “New, with fewer side effects. Have you heard about anything like that?” He shook his head, and her hopes fell a little.
Seth drove them back to Shoreditch, parking his car near the alley where she’d hidden her cycle. As she climbed out, he looked over at her and asked slowly, “I know you don’t like questions, but I have to ask; what made you decide to help me?”
Liane sighed. “I heard about the little girl. I saw her parents on the news, begging for the killer to give them back the rest of her.” She looked at Seth, her mismatched eyes fierce as she said, “Someone like that, a person who would leave a child in a garbage heap . . . that’s the kind of person worth killing.”
The look in her eyes, the conviction in her words, made Seth shiver slightly as he said, “Remind me never to get on your bad side.”
“I’d recommend against it.” Liane turned away from him, her hands in her pockets as she walked off into the night.
Chapter 5
Damian rubbed his eyes as he walked down the hallway to the offices of the Administrators. He had already been working for twelve hours, and there was still more to do. There always was when it came to assignments. Details; endless details. He tried to hide the irritation he felt at being pulled away from his tasks as he entered the room.
The interior was in near-darkness, the only light coming from a line of computer screens along a long table. A dozen or so Administrators sat behind them, not even acknowledging Damian’s presence when he came to a halt in front of them. He watched them for a moment, marveling at their pale, translucent skin, their slender frames. He knew that they once been Handlers, and before that Agents. But it was hard to believe, looking at them, that they had ever existed anywhere but in that room.
Without looking up, one of the Administrators said curtly, “You are to divert all work to a new assignment.”
A hologram rose up from the floor, a shimmering facsimile of Vienna. The city had been left virtually untouched by the war, and its government was justly proud of the historic buildings and palaces. Damian watched impassively as the view zoomed through the streets to a modern building that he didn’t recognize.
One of the Administrators looked up, the light from the screen reflecting off of her glasses. “Several Party members have been captured by a group of radicals. They need to be reclaimed, and their assailants terminated.”
The hologram shifted, showing the various security measures at work in the building. Damian walked around it to get a better view, noting, “It would be easier just to cut your losses and destroy the entire building. It could be disguised as an accident.”
“The Party members have information of a . . . sensitive nature. They need to be brought back and questioned to ensure that we can follow the trail of the information to those who would use it to harm this country.”
Damian nodded. “This will require a team.”
The Administrator handed Damian a computer tablet, saying, “Here are the Agents and Handlers that you will be working with. You will be running this mission, and your Agent will be your team leader.”
Damian took the tablet, feeling a small rush of excitement. He and Liane had completed team missions before, but they had never led one. That they had been entrusted with this one was a sure sign that they were moving up in the Agency.
The Administrator eyed him, asking, “Is your Agent ready for this?”
“Of course,” Damian answered. “You have her progress reports and mission record. She’s better than anyone else in the field.”
“We know that she is physically capable, but how is her mental state? Have you seen any signs of hesitation or distraction?”
Damian thought back to the night at the opera, at the eager face of the officer speaking with Liane and her own desperate plea to Damian afterward. Why can’t I have one friend if it’s what I want . . . Damian hadn’t reported the incident; the moment had passed, the weakness dealt with. To bring it up now would just cause their new mission to be revoked, set back their progress. And they were so close to having everything that Damian wanted . . .
So to the Administrator, he said, “No. She’s as focused as ever.”
The Administrator nodded, her eyes lowering to her screen once more. “Dismissed.”
As Damian left the office, h
e felt the familiar exhilaration of an approaching mission. The risk of death, the danger of failure . . . none of it frightened him. All he saw was another challenge that they would overcome. Because this was what he and Liane did; this was what they lived for.
|| | || | | || |
It was, quite possibly, the strangest relationship Seth had ever had with anyone. Liane never called or messaged him, nor did she ask permission before invading his home and life. She would just be there; climbing in through his living room window or waiting next to his car outside the station. She never bothered with small talk, and even greetings were often forgotten. She would just launch into the latest development in the case or offer a suggestion as to their next move. Then they would go to work.
It took them a little over a week to finish their interviews, and it was after dusk when the two of them slid into Seth’s car after the last one. Seth undid the top button of his uniform, sighing, “Well, that’s the last of the families. At least unless we find another victim.”
Liane was silent, staring out the rain-streaked window and lost in thought. To herself, she said, “That’s two victims now that spoke to their families of a new serum, something stronger but more difficult to find.”
“You think that’s the connection between them all?”
“It’s the only one I see right now.”
Seth nodded, pulling the car into traffic and heading back to Shoreditch. He glanced over at Liane as he drove, asking her, “Do you do that at work? Find patterns in things?”
“Something like that,” she answered vaguely.
Seth’s lips pursed, and with a jerk of the steering wheel he veered out of traffic. The cars around them honked and swerved, but he ignored them and came to an abrupt stop next to the curb. Liane tensed, hand drifting to the gun at the small of her back. But Seth only twisted in his seat to look at her as he said frankly, “You’ve got to give me more than that to go on. I can’t work with a partner I can’t trust, and you can’t trust someone unless you know something about them.”
She eyed him distrustfully for a moment, then asked, “What do you want to know?”
“Tell me something about yourself. Anything. Where are you from, why the interest in this case—”
“I can’t answer that,” Liane shook her head. “And if you keep asking, I won’t be able to help you anymore.”
Seth slumped back in his seat, giving a deep sigh before saying, “So you can’t talk about what you do or why you’re helping me. Then tell me what you do when you’re not at your job or working this case.” She looked over at him, her eyes blank, and he explained, “What do you do for fun?”
The various mods she’d encountered had asked that. Liane had a canned response for when they did; exercise, clubs, shopping. Things she’d done before, but nothing she truly enjoyed. But she hesitated in telling that to Seth. It seemed . . . wrong. False.
Seth watched her closely, at the way she glanced down at her hands, fiddling with the zipper on her jacket. There was something vulnerable about her at that moment, as well as how she hesitated as she said, “I like to learn things. New tech, history . . . anything, really, as long as I get a chance to push myself.”
Seth smiled. “I thought you were going to say attending balls and private concerts, hobnobbing with London’s elite.”
Liane gave him a withering look. “Is that what you think I am? Some spoilt, upper-class snob who mods for fun?”
“Hey, if you don’t want people to assume that, you should stay away from box seats at the Royal Opera.”
“Damian chooses where we sit,” she muttered, eyes on the window again.
“That’s the toff you were with?”
She snorted. “Don’t let him hear you say that.”
“Is he your boyfriend?”
“I—no,” Liane said, her voice stilted. “He’s a colleague.”
Seth nodded. As he turned and steered the car back into traffic, she caught him smile and say, “Good.”
Liane swallowed down her unease, trying to convince herself that it was only due to Seth’s persistent questioning.
Rain started to pour down as Seth drove them back to his flat, and they were both soaked after walking the short distance from the car park to the building. Seth wanted to debrief, so they went back to the chaos of the loft. He lay on the sofa, tossing a baseball up and down above his head while Liane stood staring at the evidence board. They went over the new evidence yet again, and when they were done Liane was scowling.
“I don’t like puzzles to which I can’t find the answer,” she announced irritably.
Seth laughed, tossing the ball higher. “You shouldn’t have tried to tackle crime, then. A lot goes unsolved in this city.”
“Our progress has stagnated,” she said, “And enough time has passed since the last victim that another will be killed soon.”
“So what do you want to do?” Seth asked, not lifting his head from the couch cushions.
“The full moon is tomorrow. I’ll go back to the ruins, see what the mods know.” She started to gather up her things, saying, “They’ll know more than your informants, and be far more willing to talk than the families.”
From his seat on the couch Seth said, “You shouldn’t go in there alone.”
“I’m not taking you,” she said flatly. “You’ll just get yourself killed.”
“I could trail you, watch your back,” Seth suggested, sitting up.
Liane shook her head in irritation. “If you get caught again, you’ll blow my cover completely.”
“And when you try to question them and botch it, where will we be?”
Liane glared at him. “They trust me right now, so let me use that to our advantage. It’s not as if we have many other options.”
“How do you know where to find them?”
“The map in my head,” Liane answered. When he just stared at her blankly, she explained, “I remember the times the different mods visit the ruins, where they like to go . . . I just pick a time and can picture which groups will be where.”
Seth shook his head, saying, “You really aren’t normal, are you?”
She thought for a moment, then conceded, “I guess I’m not. I’ll come back when I can.”
Liane made it as far as the door when he called out, “Liane . . . take care of yourself, alright?”
She looked back at him, her cheeks flushing as she said, “You do the same.”
|| | || | | || |
The air was cold when Liane left her flat the following night. She took a new route to the appointed location, one that took her into the ruins faster than usual. Once she reached them, Liane stood for a moment looking up at the sky. It was a clear night; occasionally there would be a gap in the clouds of smog and dust, and the stars shone bright in the sky when it came.
The meeting was held in an abandoned arena, the flood lamps casting shadows on the remnants of the stands. Liane jogged down them to the track, waving to a few mods she knew. Crispin was holding court in the lower seats, and he gave her a slightly leering smile. She spent an hour or so running with the others, racing up the stairs and taking flying leaps off of the crumbling upper wall. Some of the newer mods were too scared to jump above ten feet, not yet trusting their new abilities. Liane was never afraid of getting hurt, so she usually led the charge. But she had come to get information, so before long she joined the spectators sitting on the edge of the ruined field.
As Liane sat down alongside Jeanelle, she asked the older woman, “Did you hear the latest news about the mod murders?”
A dark looked passed over Jeanelle’s face. “The last I heard was about the little girl. What kind of a person hurts a kid?”
Quietly, Liane answered, “The kind of person who needs to be stopped.”
There were several
murmurs of agreement from the mods, but no one offered any further comment.
Liane leaned back, saying, “I heard her parents were trying to find some sort of new modding serum. Police think that might be connected to the murders, somehow.”
One of the experienced mods grinned over at them, suggesting, “Maybe they were looking for the Titan Strain.”
Jeanelle laughed shortly. “Sure.”
The other mod smiled, his canines long and sharp. “Stranger things have happened.”
“The Titan Strain?” Liane repeated, frowning. “What is that?”
“The next step,” said the mod knowingly. “A serum without side effects, one that offers a perfect genetic modification.”
“The dream of every mod,” Jeanelle rolled her eyes.
Liane’s frown deepened. “Has anyone ever actually found it?”
Jeanelle laughed, tossing back her long, dark hair and glancing over her shoulder at Ox, “Hey Ox, you found the Titan Strain, right?”
He grinned at them. “Oh sure, everyone does, don’t they?”
Liane’s eyebrows rose as she asked, “Are you going to tell me or not?”
“Babe, there is no Titan Strain,” Jeanelle said with a smile. “It’s a myth, a rumor, an urban legend. You can look all you want, but you won’t find it ‘cause it was never there to begin with. And it has nothing to do with a kid getting killed.”
“An odd topic of conversation,” said Crispin as he walked over to them. “Why the curiosity, Liane?”
Liane looked stonily up at him. “I need a reason to care that mods are dying?”
“What if they are?” Crispin raised one perfectly groomed eyebrow. “If a few weaker specimens get picked off, it only strengthens the pack.”
“Your analogy is flawed,” Liane said. “Most wolf packs protect their young and old.”
Crispin crouched down, looking closely into her face as he said softly, “We aren’t wolves. We’re mods. And it’s kill or be killed in this world.”
The Titan Strain Page 7
