Bowen stood. If he’d forced himself to sit much longer, he might well have given in and broken Tolbert’s face with the statue. He walked around the desk to the degrees that he had hanging on his wall. Emory. Johns Hopkins. Harvard. Stanford. They’d hang there another year or so, and then they’d be given to his wife. He wondered how she’d feel when he told her, which he didn’t plan to do until closer to time. Probably elated, now that Bowen thought of it. His life insurance plan, which was expensive as hell, covered her even in this case. As long as his suicide was doctor-assisted, Kelly would receive a check for $588,000. Minus taxes.
“You and Simmons should count yourselves lucky,” said Tolbert. “You’ve got a cushy job here in the mountains. All the funding you could ever need. We’ve given you a lot of leeway in hiring who you want to hire.” He grunted. “Probably more leeway than is justified for a project this secret. And you’ve certainly made, uh, good use of that leeway where the nurses are concerned.”
Bowen closed his eyes and thought about all the things Celina might have done to him if he’d made himself vulnerable to her. He thought about Theresa’s face in the dark, and her voice whispering to him, It’s okay. You can have me.
“And you ought to count yourself lucky because, in all the years you’ve had these freaks,” said Tolbert, “you haven’t produced any useful results.”
“General—” began Jones-McMartin.
But Tolbert raised his voice over hers. “Considering all the damn money the U.S. taxpayer has poured into this place and into your pocket, we expected a little more than nothing when we put you into this position.”
It’s okay. You can have me.
The only one on this elevator that you really want is—
Celina working as a spy, forcing men to go down on her while she stole secrets from their minds.
Theresa’s dead, accusing eyes staring up at him.
The senator’s chair shifted. She had stood. Her heels clicked on the floor toward Bowen, who forced himself to turn toward the two of them.
“What the general is trying to say in his usual tactless way,” said Jones-McMartin, “is that now you can focus all your energies on subjects that might prove more fruitful because they’re still young.” She gave Tolbert a side-eye glance as she approached Bowen.
Yes, they were definitely screwing. Bowen suppressed a shudder.
“You’ve got both of the boy’s parents, too,” continued Jones-McMartin. “I’m not a scientist, but I’m guessing it’ll be helpful to have them, too.”
“If not, get rid of them,” said Tolbert.
The senator offered Bowen a placating smile, like a pediatrician with a patient who was resistant to the vaccination that he needed.
“You still have time, in other words,” she said.
Bowen had to stifle a laugh.
With all of the Institute’s new guests—the boy and his parents, the reporter and her girlfriend—settled into their rooms, Bowen headed back to his own suite. He needed a drink. He needed pain medicine. He needed a session with Morgan. And he needed to fall into his bed. All in that order. Tolbert and Jones-McMartin, who didn’t seem to ever need sleep, and Captain Marcus were overseeing the interrogations, anyway, so Bowen had complained of a migraine and excused himself. Two years ago, he might have bristled at government dickwads like the general and the senator taking over his turf, but now he didn’t give a damn. For all he cared, they could use his office to practice taking flying fucks at rolling donuts.
A pill, a drink, Morgan in her Celina Skin, and bed. In that order. Nothing else.
When he got back to his room, he stripped to his boxers, dropping his clothes onto the floor as he went to his liquor cabinet. He poured a glass of bourbon, downed it in one gulp, and then went to his medicine safe. He had intended to swallow another hydrocodone, just something to take the edge off of his headache, but when he saw the blue bottle, he stood looking at it a moment. If he just took one today, he’d still have plenty for next year. And if for some reason Simmons needed him, he’d be able to function competently in an hour or so.
“Hell,” he said. He opened the bottle, dumped a pill in his hand, and downed it with the bourbon.
39
The men and their thoughts. The women and their thoughts. Men spent most of their time thinking about sex. And women spent most of their time thinking about men wanting sex from them. Some of the women thought about sex, too. But mostly they just thought about the men wanting it.
Celina sure did, anyway.
They wanted to think about other things—even the men—but that wasn’t how it worked, was it? They wanted to be Productive, and they wanted to be Useful, they wanted to Contribute To Society and Enable Progress. But they just couldn’t help themselves. In thinking about Progress and Being Productive, they couldn’t help thinking about the One Thing, the Most Important Thing. The Thing that brought people together in the deepest and most fundamental way possible.
Progress.
Change.
Production.
In and out.
The panting and
sweat and
effort
of Work.
What else was there?
They couldn’t help thinking about it even in this place—this sterile place with its cinder block walls and tile floors and security cameras and drones and syringes and IVs and metal furniture secured to the floor and the roomwiththelargeglasswindowthatmadeyoufeellikeyou livedinafishbowl
fishbowl
Iamalittlefishswimmingfortheirpleasure
wet
But she would get out.
Soon.
She had put a thought into Bowen’s head. No, that wasn’t quite right. She could never really put a thought into someone’s head that wasn’t already there. But she had found the seed of a thought and fertilized it, made it grow, turned into something that would bear fruit.
Most thoughts pass into the part of the brain where thoughts go to die or to survive only as ghosts. You forget them because they don’t matter. But some thoughts stay in your consciousness and won’t let go of you. They hold on.
She had seen ideas like that in everyone she’d known. Dr. Simmons had the idea that one day, if she held on to this shit job, she would make it to a position in the Department of Human Screwing. Become some kind of big shot there. Become known as the Woman who helped genetically engineered babies Find Their Way in the World. She wouldn’t ever make it out of the Institute, of course (Celina knew this because she had read the minds of Tolbert and Jones-McMartin), but the thought that she might kept her going. And it was good that Simmons deluded herself with a Dream of Future Success beyond this place. If she knew the truth, that she was condemned to this place forever, she might turn into a monster.
Others were driven by frightening thoughts. Nurse Cathy, for instance—hers was about her husband Screwing Around On Her while she worked at the Institute. She was gone to work for weeks at a time, so of course her husband was seeing some other woman. Probably women. Men didn’t go for a month without sex, and Cathy was pathetic for even entertaining the thought that he would be content to sit at home and wait for her to come back and service his knob once a month.
But it didn’t matter whether or not Simmons really would Make It One Day or Cathy’s husband really was Sleeping with Other Women.
Simmons worked with a fiery intensity because that was what the thought made her do. Cathy went about her day tortured by the image of her husband and Another Woman and drank at night because the thought had shaped her into That Person.
Now Bowen.
Bowen had a desire, hidden from him at first.
Celina had encouraged it.
Given it life.
Now
things are going to be more
interesting
for everyone.
It would probably kill Bowen, of course.
That was okay, though, becau
se he was dying anyway.
40
What difference did a year sooner make? Really. He could do the thing that he desperately wanted to do. The last thing. The most important thing. So what difference did it make whether he went now or next year on June 17 at 9:00 a.m.? Here. Or at Dr. Benton’s office. All the same thing. Here. There.
Screw it.
He hadn’t slept. It had been an hour. Maybe two. No, it was just one. The clock said so.
He dressed slowly. Carefully. The feel of slacks on his skin. Of the cotton shirt on his arms. Shoes that slid easily onto his feet. The leather creaking. Afternoon sun shone onto his skin. Through the window. Like liquid gold. God, living was so good. If he had to do it, why not a day like today? Here in the pleasure of being alive. Here. Doing the one thing that mattered.
It’s okay. You can have me.
Oh, Doc. We both know who you really want.
Theresa’s eyes, green and dead. Accusing. Dead.
Once in the past, yesterday or last year, he might’ve had a choice to make. But now the path was clear to him. He couldn’t choose both. He could only choose one. And the choice was clear. Celina would be happy as a spy.
Dressed. Now he put on his lab coat. Smoothed it. Opened his pill safe. Thumbprint scanner cold on his skin.
It’s okay.
Two bottles. One blue and one amber. He put both of them in his coat pocket. Then he went to the liquor cabinet. The flask that his first lover had given him. Brushed stainless steel with a tiger emblem. Now he filled it with bourbon. Liquid. Slid it into his back pocket. The sound of metal against cloth.
He looked outside. Toward the Administration building. A single nurse in blue scrubs walked toward the door. Sunlight and the shadows of window blinds on Bowen’s face. Warmth.
It’s okay. You can have me.
We both know.
“Reno,” he said. “Record a video message, to be played later for Dr. Simmons.”
A.I. voice. “Of course.”
He sat down in his chair. Faced the computer that sat on the coffee table. Red LED indicator. Recording.
“Hi, Simmons,” he said. “If all goes well, you’re going to think that I’ve lost my mind. But I’m not crazy. I’m just dying. I hadn’t planned to tell you that until next year.” He paused. Red LED shone at him. Like an eye. “What difference does it make if I do it now or then, right? But I’m going to go out doing what I want to do. That’s what life is for, right—doing what you want to do?”
Pause.
“It was good working with you, Simmons.”
He stared at the light. The same color as a traffic light. Or the sun just before dusk.
“I told you,” Bowen said. “Both of you are needed at the Admin building. I’ll stay here with her.”
Morris and Jacobson. Theresa’s nurses. Women. They both stared at him from their chairs at the nurses’ monitoring desk. One had a hand on her coffee. The other held a clipboard. Red hair. Freckles on pale skin. Brown hair. Dark complexion. Green eyes. But nothing like Theresa’s.
“Both of us?” Skeptical. Morris. “Usually we get a call.”
“Look,” said Bowen. Putting on a mock commanding tone. “Do I have to get tough and reprimand you both?”
Smile. Just enough charm to disarm them.
“No, no.” Jacobson this time. Smiling, but still unsure.
“Dr. Simmons needs you to help with the new Anomaly,” said Bowen. “He’s kind of a handful. All the others are tied up with the interrogations.”
“You’re the boss.” Morris again.
“Thank you.”
Jacobson looked at him. “You okay, Doctor?”
“A little hung over,” he said.
She knew. Immediately. The look in her eyes said so. Green. Sad. Perfection.
He stood in the doorway to her open cell. The smell of a metal bed frame. Books. Cotton cloth. She sat on the side of her bed.
“They want you to put me to sleep,” she said, “like we had to do with my cat when she got sick.” Her voice was soft. Still the little girl who had wanted to save her parents. But he was going to protect her, save her.
“No,” he said. He stepped into her cell. Left the door standing open. “No, I’ll never do that to you. But there isn’t much time.”
Pause. Her beautiful green eyes peered into him. The sight of them and of the braid, which curved around her throat onto her chest, made him ache inside. Was this what love felt like? He couldn’t remember. A few stray hairs reached out to touch the soft skin of her throat. He could already taste that soft white skin. So beautiful. He would have tried to hide these thoughts. Before. But now he needed her to know.
Her voice in his head. No, there isn’t much time. Not for you.
He spoke back. Or for you. We have to move now if you’re going to get out of here.
“Out of here,” she said. Her lips moved slowly. For him.
He stepped toward her. Slowly. His feet moved almost on their own.
“Yeah. Out of here. I’m going to help you get away.”
Just a few more feet. His pulse in his hands. Fingers throbbed. To touch her face.
“You can see inside me,” he said.
His hands reached. Touched the smooth skin of her cheek. Flesh and bone. Warmth. She bit her lower lip. God. He wanted her. So bad.
“And then I’ll be grateful to you.”
His hand drew back. Trembling now. But not only from nerves. He wished he had taken the medicine for that.
“You’re dying,” she said.
Truth. Straight from the eyes that he wanted to see hovering over his in the dark. From the lips that he wanted to touch him.
You’re high on some kind of pill.
“Yes,” he said. “But I’m still here. It makes me better. Faster. And we need to get out of here before they realize what’s going on. I smashed both of the hallway drones on the way here, but they’ll send more. And they’ll shut down the elevator before we even get out if we don’t move.”
You have more of them in your pocket.
“Please, Theresa,” he said. Pleaded.
Her eyes. Looking right into him. He knew now that this was what he had wanted. All his life. The thing that he had chased as long as he could remember. To be exposed. Completely exposed to someone else. She could see. Everything inside him. Everything he wanted. All. Just once. And then he could take his pills and die.
Yes. Please. That’s what you want to say to me. It’s what you want me to say to you. Please.
He grasped her hands. Pulled her gently to her feet.
You’re not going to live through today.
No, but I’m going to get you out of here before I die.
And I’m going to be grateful.
Oh, please.
Please.
When he took her through the door on the back side of the building, she shielded her eyes for a moment. Even with the sun low in the sky, it was too bright when you’d been underground for years. Green against yellow.
It really ought to be the other way around. It’s a wonder her green doesn’t blot out the sun.
This was the back of the campus. Trees and mountains. A breeze. Late afternoon sun. He threw off his lab coat. Dropped it on the ground. He wouldn’t need it again. Cool light on the skin of his arms.
“I want to show you something before we go,” she said.
“But we have to hurry,” he said. She didn’t understand. He tried to take her hand and pull her down the hill to where the trees would welcome them. Two miles to the fence. You could get lost in those woods. He could hide her in there. They would find her eventually, but she would be able to use her powers to escape. And if not, he had enough pills.
“It won’t take long,” she said.
She turned toward him. Her face moved toward his. Her lips parted slightly. Mouth pressed to mouth. She tasted like the strawberry drink that the cafeteria sometim
es served with lunch. Warmth. Her tongue touched his. He let his hands grasp her hips, slide around to touch her lower back where it sloped into the swell of her ass. Pressed her hips against his. Made her feel him stiffening. Somewhere far away, an alarm started to sound.
I’m going to show you what I can do.
Suddenly everything changed. Bowen’s senses dulled. It felt like jumping from a diving board into cool water on a hot day. He still felt, still saw, still heard and tasted and smelled. But now everything was a shade darker, the dusky light a little dimmer, the glow of her green eyes, so close to his, less unearthly than before.
Theresa pulled back from him, pulling on his lower lip with hers until it broke free of her mouth with a sucking sound. Electricity pulsed through his body like static on a cold day, and a buzzing sound filled his head.
“What are you going to do?” he whispered.
“I’m going to show you what your people want to destroy,” she said. Her jaw muscles flexed. Tears welled in her eyes. Those perfect eyes.
“Theresa,” said Bowen, his head buzzing. He reached out to take her hand, but she drew back. “Look inside me. You know I don’t want—”
But suddenly the buzzing rose to a drone and then a scream. His head felt like it was inflating. Wind blew in his ears. Something wet poured from his nose. Blood. His hands went to his temples and pressed, trying to relieve pressure.
“Please,” he said, shutting his eyes. “I was trying...” But he couldn’t finish. The sound in his head had risen to an impossibly high pitch, like the huge circular saws at the lumber mill where his father had once worked.
In his head her voice rose over the noise. You want to die. But you want to have me before you die.
No, no, I was trying to let you go free, he thought, pleading with her to understand.
And trying to make me grateful.
Please, Theresa.
But suddenly the sound in his head stopped, and his will and his mind weren’t his own anymore. She was there, inside him, touching every thought and memory. Kelly. The diagnosis. Celina. His last conversation with his father. The dream he’d had about her last night.
The Way Out Page 22
