by S E Anderson
Blayde swore loudly, tossing a handful of inert sand on the ground. “It’s gone. Again!” She turned to me. “Well, congrats on finding the doc. But now he’s loose. Any ideas?”
“I’m not the one who lost him this time!” I snapped. “You did! You figure this one out. You’re meant to be the expert.”
“Dang, I take back what I said about Sally’s snark. I’m getting pretty tired of it. Grow up.” She turned to Smith, licking her lips. “You. You hugged Daisy-May-slash-Winfrey. Caressed her hair. How could you not notice that the hair was fake? It wasn’t even in individual strands!”
“I was scared!” she shouted. “That’s one of my patients you were accusing of being a shapeshifter. I didn’t know what to think.”
“It said ‘our ability,’ so you know what that makes me think? It makes me think there are other shapeshifters here.”
“You didn’t bat an eyelid when your patient turned into your colleague, so you know something.” Zander added, turning to us. “We have to hurry. He’s probably already told the others. We don’t know how many of them are in on it.”
“We can’t rush the process!” Blayde snapped. She took Smith roughly by the scruff of her neck. The woman shivered. Blayde’s fist froze above her face, the hand opening to grab a single hair. Tug. The jet-black hair crumbled to dust before it hit the floor.
“What’s the point of all this?” She gave Smith a sharp shake. “Why scare your own patients? Is it to keep them here longer? Why? Gods, please don’t tell me this is a ploy for more funding. I’m tired of that.”
“Help!” Smith’s skin turned red, cuts blossoming on her cheeks. The skin around her eyes turned a deep purple, so deep it was almost black.
“We’ll tell them everything,” Blayde snarled.
“Who will they believe?” Smith’s hair fell out in patches, big, bloody clumps clinging to her scalp. Her lip split itself in two. “Me, a doctor and their boss, or you, a bunch of loonies?”
“That’s no way to talk to your patients!” Blayde dropped her, and she hit the ground with a soft thump. “We have to get outta here.”
“Window!” I yelled.
Blayde turned to look at me. “Shut up, Sally. No need to tell the world!”
She reached down, pulling her arm back and swinging it full force at Smith’s face. The shapeshifter’s eyes shut, her body going limp. Unconscious or faking like Winfrey? It didn’t matter. Either way, we had to go—now.
Blayde was suddenly on the other side of the wall of windows, arms akimbo, face sullen. Zander grabbed my hand, and we jumped out after her.
“So, outside, anyway?” I asked.
“No open or broken windows. They’ll be confused but probably won’t check the grounds for a while. Not with the way they have the outside locked off from anyone and everyone. Come on, they’ll be after us already.”
“Two shapeshifters in one day.” Zander grinned; I could even detect a hint of excitement. “Finally, this place is getting interesting!”
“What, so mysterious, scary figures in patients’ rooms weren’t enough?”
“Sure. But now’s the point where we find out what we’re up against, yet we have the thrill of coming up with a plan that may or may not work. Best part! That and hand-to-hand combat. I’ve been dying without physical activity.”
“Hate to break it to you, brother of mine, but we have no idea what we’re up against,” said Blayde. “They’re shapeshifters, but why are they here? We don’t know what they want. We don’t even know how they work.”
“So, what do we do now?” I asked, eyeing down the two experts. “No weapons. Up against two shapeshifters—”
“Or more,” Zander said morosely.
“With no idea of means or motivation, believed crazy by the rest of the people who could actually help.”
“Well, not every person who could help,” Blayde said, grimacing.
My heart, as it was, fell sharply. “Oh no.”
“It is their prerogative,” said Zander. He let out a heavy sigh. “Look. Shapeshifters abusing mental patients? This is literally everything the Agency claims to stand against. Maybe alerting them will get us into the Agency’s good graces.”
“But they’ve never done anything!” I hissed.
“That you know of,” he said. “In any case, it’s worth a try. We even have a way of contacting them. Barker should be around here somewhere.”
“But what if he doesn’t believe us?” I asked.
“Oh, he’ll believe us. What other option does he have?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
This isn’t Shutter Island, but we’ve got a storm and some shutters so it might do the trick
“Hello, Alliance boy,” said Blayde as she plopped herself down at the foot of his bed. “Did ya miss me?”
The infirmary was practically empty. We had planned to distract the nurse with a booboo, but there was no need as there was nobody here. Was the nurse another shapeshifter possibly? Or just some random Terran caught up in the hunt for us?
Barker was propped up on his cot, eyes going wide at the sight of Blayde as he dropped a battered copy of Marie Claire on his lap. His arm sat in a sling, still recovering from our quick jaunt in the woods from the day before. He seemed as pleased to see us as a lobster to see a pot.
“Oh, no,” he sputtered. “No, no, no. I already told you everything I know. Please don’t touch me.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not here to get anything out of you,” she said, flipping her hair back. “Why does everyone always think that? Actually, we have info for you.”
“You have info … for me?” he repeated. He didn’t seem all that convinced either.
“Yes.” She grinned. “Info! For the Alliance.”
“Stop.” Barker lifted his free hand in front of him. “Don’t come any closer.”
“Seriously?” Blayde plucked up the magazine he had dropped, flicking through the pages with her thumb and forefinger, dropping it on the floor when she was sufficiently disappointed. She held up a hair—a single, wispy hair—and tossed it to me. I let it fall to the floor, her point made: Barker wasn’t a shapeshifter. “Kid, if I wanted to come closer, trust me, I would come closer. But obviously, that’s not what I’m here for.”
“What are you here for?”
“As I said, I have info that’s vital for the Alliance.”
“I’m not in any position to make a trade,” he spat.
“Trade?” Blayde laughed a ridiculously high-pitched laugh of a girl who’s getting exactly what she wants. “I don’t want anything. Well, maybe just one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“I want immunity,” she said, suddenly serious, rising back to her feet. “Just six months off the radar. That’s it.”
His brow furrowed. “You can do a lot of harm in six months.”
“Oh, but you’re going to like my intel.”
“It’s not like I can grant you anything. Who do you think I am? And should I mention … screw you, asswipe! You broke my arm!”
“Fine, then.” She shrugged. “The Alliance will never know what went down here. Oh, and you’ll probably never get your father’s respect.”
“Dad?” He frowned impossibly deeper. “What do you know of my father?”
She shrugged once more. “Oh, I know a lot. It’s all on your face. You’re an open book.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve seen your kind before,” she said smugly. “Rich families. Your father’s embarrassed by what you’ve become. A slob, a brat, someone’s flunky; there’s always something. There’s an unspoken rule that the more you have, the more you want. And he wanted you to be so much more. Isn’t that it?”
He said nothing. I was starting to think I needed to be anywhere but here. There was something strangely intimate in the encounter, like she was somehow reading his mind by the way he squirmed under her gaze.
“So, you join the army, but you’re rich, not much use, too skinny o
r too doughy, your pockets brimming with bribe money. They put you on some forgotten world out on the rim of the Alliance where you won’t get in anyone’s way. Beyond the rim, in this case. Eager to prove you are your father’s son and much more than he expects, eager to make him proud, you sign up for the first seemingly dangerous mission that comes your way, only to be sadly disappointed when you realize it will never live up to your father’s expectations. But today’s your lucky day. You give them this info, you’ll get that danger you wanted. The excitement,” she cooed, circling him, her smile brimming ear to ear. “All you have to do is relay a transmission, and you’ll be able to go home a better man. A man proud to be who he is.”
The boy struggled to keep a straight face. It was obvious he was contemplating Blayde’s offer and seemingly eager to accept.
“Come on. We know you didn’t report your blown cover or the Agency would have acted already. You don’t want them to know about the incident in the woods, and neither do we. What we want is a clear channel of communication between us. We want to help, Barker. And we can start by helping you.”
“I can’t promise anything,” he said halfheartedly. “I don’t think they’ll listen to me.”
“Maybe you should hear us out before you write it off.” Zander took a step forward. Blayde spun around, glaring at him.
Zander continued anyway. “Let’s just say that there’s a danger here no one has seen for decades. A danger that, if eradicated, would make you the savior of over a hundred Terran civilians. Enough to earn you a medal for aid to an underdeveloped world.”
Now that definitely got his attention. “What kind of danger?”
“Off-worlders taking advantage of underdeveloped species for personal gain,” Zander asserted. “Which goes against protocol 113—”
“131,” corrected Blayde.
“Yes, 131 of the Laws of Treatment of Non-Contact Planets Inside of Alliance Control,” Zander continued.
A protocol no one seemed to have told me about before. The acid in my stomach rolled over again. So, they did have a prerogative to protect and defend us. They were just choosing to ignore it.
Also, who had the right to call us underdeveloped?
“I’m sorry, but what on Earth are you four going on about?” asked the last doctor I hadn’t met yet—the one they called Drew, if I remembered correctly—as he emerged from the shadows, a copy of Encyclopedia Britannica Volume 10 in his hand, his finger serving a bookmark for the moment. He scanned us each over, large bugs under a microscopic microscope.
“Oh, Dr. Drew!” I exclaimed, jumping between him and the siblings. “How are you? Doing well? I don’t think we’ve met yet, I’m—”
“Sally Webber, yes, I know who you are,” he said. “You’re not supposed to be in here.”
“Well, we got worried not seeing our favorite guard out today,” I insisted. “We were the ones who found Barker after he got injured yesterday. We just wanted to be sure he’s all right.”
“That doesn’t explain how you got here. Who let you through?”
“I take it you haven’t talked to your colleagues for a little while, have you?”
“Me?” He smiled. “No, I’ve been here all morning. Engrossed in this book, actually. Did you know the—hold on, why? Did something happen?”
“You’ll want to sit down,” said Zander.
“I’d rather stand.”
“I’d rather you sit,” Zander said so sternly that the man felt compelled to follow his instructions, plopping down on the empty cot behind him without looking.
“Now,” said Blayde, “I’ll run you through the basics. Dr. Smith and Dr. Winfrey are shapeshifters who have been feeding off the patients of this institute.”
“That’s it?” Barker scoffed.
“What?” Drew scoffed as well, though with much more panache, his mustache bristling.
“They’ve been doing something with their minds,” Blayde continued. “Faking scenes to induce terror then stabbing their victims through their skulls.”
“You’re telling me off-worlders have infiltrated the highest ranks of this institution, and the Agency had no prior knowledge of this? Ha. They probably have a permit.”
“The hell?” I stammered, pushing myself forward. “You can get a permit to abuse Terrans?”
“Sally,” said Zander, extending his hand forward to keep me from strangling Barker. I hadn’t even realized my hands were at his throat before Zander pulled me back.
“Please tell me that it’s not true,” I stammered. “Look, I knew the Agency was shit at protecting Terrans from off-worlders, but goings so far as to give out permits?”
“He’s an idiot,” Zander said. “That’s not how the permits work.”
“You knew about this?” I spat. “Shit. You should have told me. I had a right to know that.”
“Shut it! This is not the time nor the place,” Blayde shouted, before turning to Barker. “Kiddo, if these off-worlders had Agency permit for doing so much as breathing, you would have been told about it when they placed you here. Were you briefed on anything like that?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Then it just goes to tell you these off-worlders are doing something frashing illegal, am I right?”
“Will you please calm down?” Dr. Drew was back on his feet now, forehead aglow with sweat. “This is all absolute hogwash. I will not enable this shared delusion. I’ve been working with my colleagues for years now. They never took advantage of their patients. They’re some of my closest friends. They could never.”
“And yet we’ve seen them,” Blayde insisted, coolly. “They’re shapeshifters. We haven’t identified their homeworld, yet, but we don’t have time for the small details. We just have to stop them.”
“Do you hear yourself?” Drew put his hands to his skull, pressing in. “Just … stay here. I’ll be right back.”
With that, he rushed from the infirmary, clutching his book tight to his chest. No doubt to gather some backup.
“Right. We don’t have much time,” said Blayde. “The shapeshifters know that we’ve flagged them. We’re counting on the fact they haven’t pegged you for an Agency plant yet. You need to get your people down here now or this place might very well explode.”
“With what evidence?” Barker stammered. “It’s your word against … everything. All this. For all I know, for all anyone knows, you’re just trying a creative ploy to slip out of our grasp. Let me tell you this now: There is no escape. They have you.”
“Ah! So, the Agency is planning on an extraction?” said Zander. “Well then, they’re going to have to hurry up because we’re running. Barker, you have done a terrible job, your charge is on its way out. Peace.”
Which would have made for a badass exit, if it wasn’t for my terrible timing.
“Is it getting dark?” I asked.
Indeed, it was.
Chuck. Chuck. Chuck.
Hurricane shutters were sliding down the windows, squeezing all sunlight out of the room until there wasn’t one drop left. Barker seemed as confused as we were.
“What’s happening?” Blayde pointed at the window with a sharp jut of her chin.
“Hurricane shutters,” I said.
“Is there a hurricane coming?”
“Unless you’ve heard of one that I haven’t,” I replied marching forward to try the handle of the window. It was latched shut. “Also, February in Florida. A little early for hurricanes.”
Zander rushed past me, grabbing for the infirmary door. Locked.
“I mean, just our luck. Drew is probably one of them too,” he said. “Just who here isn’t a shapeshifter?”
“All mono-morphs here,” she said. “Zander, get us out of here.”
“Gladly,” he said, kicking the lock. The door swung open.
The hallway beyond was just as dark as the infirmary. The shutters must have come down on the entire building, effectively trapping all of us in.
The fluoresc
ent lights flickered on one by one.
“Well, this is just dandy,” said Blayde. “Believe us now, soldier boy?”
“Believe what?” he stammered.
“Look, you either believe what we’re saying about the shapeshifters abusing the patients and trying to kill us, or you think that we’re trying to escape. Either way, shouldn’t you get your Agency buddies on the line?”
He muttered something under his breath I couldn’t make out. I wasn’t sure it was meant to be anything at all. But he swung his feet over the edge of the bed and ripped his sling from his arm, stretching out the joint.
“I don’t quite know what I believe,” he said, “but I have orders not to let you out of my sight. “
“That’s not worth much, seeing as how you spent the past day hiding out here,” said Blayde, before turning on her heels and taking off down the hallway.
Screw it. More running.
Barker followed us back to the rec room where nurses and patients alike sat around on the sofas and tables, watching the barred windows as if it was their own personal show. Calm, thankfully.
“Oh, you three!” Daisy-May exclaimed, rushing forward from her perch on the arm of the old Lazy Boy. “Where were you? Did you see what happened?”
“Doctors Drew, Smith, and Winfrey are in some kind of a conspiracy together,” I said. “So, that’s been a little time-consuming.”
“A conspiracy?” she asked, wide-eyed. “What kind of conspiracy? I love conspiracies!”
Not this kind, I wanted to say. How many times had she been met with a doctor pretending to be Jeffrey, only to be roofied into ignorance? “We found out a secret about them. Now they want us dead.”
Half of the room had been listening in, so half of the room gasped. Most of the staff simply rolled their eyes. The rest of them were finding it hard to keep a straight face.
“No need to worry.” A burly lumberjack-built man rose to his feet, his hand raised in dismissal and head shaking in a reassuring refusal of our theory. “Just an unexpected hurricane. Everything’s just in place for when the storm hits.”
“Then why have we all been brought in here?” Peter muttered. He slid off the table, turning to face the crowd with a sudden courage I had never seen in him. “Why aren’t we going back to our activities? Don’t lie to us; something’s going on, isn’t it? Why doesn’t the rest of the staff know about the storm so they could reassure us? Isn’t that the point, keeping us from panicking?”
