Winds of Change

by Christine Pope

  All he could do now was wait for Jeremy to infiltrate the facility’s security system…and pray that it would take a lot less time than two days.

  Hang on, Addie, he thought.

  We’re coming for you.

  4

  My jail was a pretty nice one, as those things went. After Randall Lenz departed — those ominous last words of his about telling the truth still buzzing in my ears — I waited for a few minutes, just to make sure he wasn’t coming right back to torment me some more. However, as time crawled past and I remained alone, I decided it was probably safe to get up and check out my surroundings.

  The “vacation condo” vibe was even stronger in the primary living area, which had a dark beige couch and two matching chairs grouped around a travertine coffee table, along with a coordinating dinette set off to one side. Abstract art in beachy shades of tan and blue and soft coral adorned the walls. No windows, but the largest wall had a photo-mural of a tropical shore installed to keep the place from feeling too claustrophobic.

  Or at least, I assumed that was the intention, but I still felt as though the walls were closing in. Then again, that was most likely my reaction to my current situation, and nothing to do with the suite itself.

  No kitchen, but there was a mini-fridge and a microwave. An inspection of the cupboards revealed some instant oatmeal, hot chocolate packets, and a box of assorted herbal teas. No coffee or regular tea, which seemed like an odd omission. Did Lenz and the other people running the place think caffeine had some sort of effect on supernatural abilities?

  Maybe. Not that I would bother to ask the next time I saw him. I doubted he would give me a straight answer.

  The bathroom was larger than I’d expected, and done in natural stone tile. Expensive. Or at least, it seemed expensive to me, since all the houses my mother had rented either had chipped tile in colors decades out of date, or maybe some stained cultured marble at the most. Obviously, whoever had put this suite together hadn’t been too worried about the cost involved.

  My tax dollars at work, I supposed. I couldn’t even really smile at the irony of the situation.

  The closet contained the meager wardrobe I’d put together for myself after fleeing Kanab. In a way, I had to admire Randall Lenz’s resourcefulness. He’d swooped in to steal me from my rented house, but he’d still found the time to pack my things so he wouldn’t have to source clothing for me.

  Well, except for the black long-sleeved sleep shirt and capri-length leggings I wore. They weren’t what I’d had on when I went to bed the night before — I’d been wearing the same T-shirt I’d bought in Las Vegas at a Walgreen’s there, panties, and nothing else — and I found I really didn’t want to think about who had changed my clothing while I was passed out thanks to the drug Lenz had shot me up with. Most likely, a female nurse or some sort of medical assistant had taken on that task, just because he didn’t seem like the kind of person who cared to have that kind of intimate contact with a test subject, but I couldn’t know for sure.

  Just the mental image made me want to shudder.

  Since I decided I really didn’t want to get caught with my pants down — so to speak — I locked myself in the bathroom and changed into jeans, my favorite pair of flats, and an embroidered blouse I’d bought in Flagstaff when I went shopping with Laurel. I’d showered right before going to bed back in Riverton, so I didn’t see the point in showering again, especially when I didn’t know when someone might come barging into my fancy prison cell. One of the bathroom drawers contained the makeup I’d purchased on that same shopping expedition, so I went ahead and put on something of a face, more because I didn’t know what else to do with myself than because I was trying to impress anyone.

  Once I was done getting myself more or less presentable, I wandered back out to the living room. A TV had been mounted to the wall that wasn’t covered by the mural, and a remote sat on the coffee table. I picked it up, wondering what sort of entertainment my jailers had decided to thoughtfully provide for their prisoner.

  Not Netflix or HBO or Disney Plus, but the menu I scanned through offered a lot of the same stuff, movies and shows I recognized even if I’d never had the chance to watch them for myself. It looked like whoever was running the place had collected an assortment of popular entertainment, enough to keep a person occupied for years if necessary.

  That wasn’t a very comforting thought, actually.

  No news programs, though, or even documentaries. From what I could tell, the point was to keep people entertained, but also to make sure they didn’t have any access to timely information about what was happening in the world outside. Once again, I thought of the dossiers Jake had found, how some of the people at the facility had been kept there for months or even years. Did they have any idea how long they’d been held in this place? Or did they watch the canned shows provided for them and not notice how the fashions in them changed, how the cars and the phones and other bits of technology grew more advanced?

  Maybe…or maybe not.

  I turned off the television without selecting anything from the menu. It wasn’t as though I had any desire to actually watch something — I’d just wanted to see what was being offered. For some reason, it felt as though I was surrendering if I sat down and allowed myself to be entertained by the prepackaged fare Lenz and his people had provided.

  After putting the remote back down on the coffee table, I went to the door. It was guarded by some kind of sophisticated lock, something with a keypad and a small screen. For scanning a thumbprint, or maybe a retina? That seemed like the sort of security measure they’d have in place there, although I honestly didn’t even know whether retinal scans were a real thing or just a device I’d seen in the movies.

  Even as I stood by the door, staring at the keypad and the smooth, blank screen above it, a chime sounded. I jumped, my heart beginning to pound, until I realized that the chime was only some kind of doorbell.

  A female voice emerged from a hidden speaker. “Ms. Grant?”

  I didn’t answer right away. Instead, I scanned the room around me, trying to figure out exactly where the speaker had been installed, but I couldn’t find any obvious signs of one. It was creepy, knowing that disembodied voices could address me any time they wanted. And that probably wasn’t all; as much as I didn’t want to acknowledge such a thing to myself, I had to believe I was under surveillance, that there were also hidden cameras placed around the suite to see what I was up to.

  For all I knew, that was exactly why this unknown woman had spoken up at that particular moment. If they were watching me, then they’d know I was up and dressed, was wandering around the suite and taking stock of my surroundings.

  A little shiver inched its way down my spine, but I ignored it as best I could and said, “Who’s there?”

  “My name is Dr. Michelle Richards,” the woman’s voice said. “I’m a researcher here at the facility.”

  “You work with Randall Lenz?”

  Just the slightest hesitation before she replied, “Yes, he’s the director of this program. However, I handle most of the day-to-day work with our guests.”

  Guests. There was a joke. I had a feeling they used that euphemism because no one really liked being referred to as a “subject,” and calling us “prisoners” would have been just a bit too on the money.

  I didn’t respond — mostly because I didn’t know what I was supposed to say — and she went on, “Would you mind if I came in?”

  Of course, I did mind, but I doubted my feelings counted for much around there. I said, “Be my guest,” and took a couple of steps away from the door.

  It opened a second or two later, swinging inward like your usual garden-variety door. For some reason, I’d thought it might go whooshing into the wall like something from Star Trek, but apparently, they weren’t quite that high tech at the SED.

  The woman who entered the suite looked as though she might be in her early forties, crisply attractive, with sandy brownish-blonde hai
r in a shoulder-length bob and dark eyes. For some reason, I’d expected her to be wearing a lab coat, but instead she had on tailored dark trousers and a light blue collared shirt. Actually, with her silver hoop earrings and high heels, she looked more like a real estate agent than a researcher in a secret government facility.

  She smiled at me. “It’s good to see you up and around, Adara.”

  “Addie,” I corrected her, an automatic response. While I liked my given name, was glad to have something unusual and pretty, my mother had always called me Addie, and it felt strange when someone addressed me by the far more formal “Adara.”

  “Addie,” Dr. Richards repeated with a smile. “How are you feeling? Any side effects from the drug you were given?”

  She sounded so matter-of-fact about the whole thing, as if it wasn’t any kind of big deal that Randall Lenz had broken into my house and administered some kind of knock-out drug to make my kidnapping that much easier. For just a moment, I thought about calling her on the whole thing, then decided it was probably better not to get on her wrong side within a few minutes of our first meeting. I had no idea what she had planned for me, but I realized it was most likely smarter to go with the flow for a bit until I had a better idea of what my future might hold. If I antagonized Dr. Richards right from the start, she’d be more on her guard, and I might have fewer chances at escape.

  “I’m fine,” I said, which was only the truth. While I’d been a bit dizzy when I first woke up, once some time had passed and I’d been able to get up and walk around, I felt pretty much normal. Whatever that drug had been, it seemed clear that it was designed to ensure a quick recovery for whoever it was administered to.

  Another smile, and she made a quick notation on the iPad she held. “Good. I need to take you for a few tests, but I promise it won’t take long.”

  “Tests” didn’t sound very appealing. “What kind of tests?” I asked.

  Her smile didn’t waver. “Just a few standard things. Nothing more than you’d do in a normal physical.”

  I’d never had a physical in my life, so I had no idea what that might entail. “Needles?”

  “We’ll take a blood sample, but I promise that our phlebotomist is very good. You’ll hardly notice.”

  For a second or two, I didn’t respond. I didn’t have a phobia about needles; I’d donated blood before and didn’t mind. However, I thought there was a huge difference between volunteering to donate blood at a community blood drive and having people at a secret test facility take it whether you wanted them to or not.

  Problem was, even though it seemed Dr. Richards was doing her best to act pleasant and put me at ease, I knew that when you got right down to it, she was in charge and I wasn’t. If I refused, I’d probably get hauled into the lab by a couple of orderlies and forced to comply.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Perfect. This way.”

  She led me out of my “apartment,” and into a hallway that was vastly more industrial-looking than the suite we’d just left. No nonsense about travertine and mellow beach-toned furnishings there; the walls were painted pale gray, and the floor under our feet was gray vinyl. Cold-hued LED fixtures blared down from overhead. We passed several doors, all of them guarded by the same keypads and biometric scanners that watched over the entrance to my suite. However, the hallway wasn’t that long, and soon enough we stood in front of an elevator, which also had a scanner mounted on the wall next to it.

  Dr. Richards pressed her thumb against the scanner, and immediately, the elevator doors opened. It was as gray and industrial as the hallway we’d just traversed, the pale light overhead making my companion look downright sickly, even though otherwise she appeared healthy and rosy-cheeked enough. She leaned forward and entered some kind of code in a control panel just inside, and the doors shut behind us.

  A moment passed, and another, and then the elevator stopped. There was no indicator to show how many floors we’d ascended; I assumed that the code she’d entered had specified our destination, which seemed to me like a good way of ensuring that the facility’s test subjects didn’t know for sure how many levels underground they were housed.

  Not a question I could ask, however. Instead, I followed Dr. Richards out of the elevator and down another hallway, this one painted in the same gray tones as the one where my suite was located. She brought me into what looked like a standard examination room, with one of those elevated exam tables and a blood pressure monitor and a scale. The sharp scent of rubbing alcohol hung in the air.

  A woman who appeared about a decade older than the doctor came into the room. Her dark hair was pulled into a tight twist at the back of her head, and she wore a set of mint green scrubs. A nod from Dr. Richards, and she came over and wrapped a blood pressure cuff around my arm, took a reading, and noted it on a tablet she’d brought in with her. A temperature reading from a digital thermometer she placed in my ear, and then she said, “On the scale, please.”

  Under different circumstances, I might have taken off my shoes before stepping on the scale. This wasn’t about my vanity, though, and so I went ahead and stood on the thing, and waited while she moved the little weights around to get an accurate reading. After that, she asked me to sit on the exam table and proceeded to extract a total of three vials of blood from me. By the time she was done with the third one, I was wondering if I needed to revise my opinions on needles. She’d been careful, but having to sit there with a needle stuck in me while she kept filling up vials was definitely no fun.

  Eventually, though, we were finished, and Dr. Richards said, “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  I wanted to tell her to donate three vials of blood and see how she felt about the whole thing. But I figured it was probably best to act cooperative. Until I had a better idea of exactly what was going on in Randall Lenz’s “program,” I needed to make them think I wasn’t going to cause any trouble.

  “It was fine,” I said shortly. “What now?”

  “Would you like to get out and take a walk?”

  For a second, I could only stare at her. Was she joking? Trying to gauge my reaction to promised treats, and my reaction again when they were taken away? It seemed like the sort of maneuver Randall Lenz and his compatriots would pull.

  “‘Get out’?” I repeated. “Get out where?”

  “We have quite a nice park here,” she replied. “We want to make sure our guests get plenty of fresh air. Wouldn’t you like to see a bit of the sky?”

  Of course, I would. Because if she really was going to take me up where I could see clouds and the sun, then maybe I could use my gifts to call a storm and get myself the hell out of there. Yes, Michelle Richards had seemed pleasant enough so far, which meant absolutely nothing. It seemed much more likely that she and Randall Lenz had some kind of good cop/bad cop scenario going on, and if that was the case, I wouldn’t hesitate to call down the thunder if necessary. No, I didn’t like resorting to violence, but at least I knew that Lenz seemed to have survived my attack just fine.

  Because the Wilcox healer made sure he was okay, I reminded myself, and for a second, I hesitated. How could I be sure that Dr. Richards would come out of such an encounter mostly unscathed?

  But since they had nurses working at the facility, I guessed they must have doctors on staff as well, and anyone I attacked with my powers would get immediate medical attention. Besides, why should I worry about their well-being when it was clear they didn’t give a damn about trampling on my rights?

  “That sounds great,” I said, hoping she hadn’t noticed the way I hesitated. “It would be good to get some fresh air.”

  “Then we’ll head outside.”

  Back out into the hallway, retracing our steps to the elevator. This time, it felt as though we were in it a bit longer than we’d been during our trip down to the exam room, although once again, I couldn’t be sure how many floors we were passing. Eventually, though, the elevator slowed to a stop, and we came out into a hallway that felt wider
and brighter than the ones I’d seen previously. Up ahead of us, I spied a set of glass doors, and beyond them, a flash of green.

  “Here we are,” Dr. Richards said, once again using a thumb scan to open the doors.

  Warm, damp air met me as I walked outside, blinking at the contrast of the bright, sunny day to the cold artificial light indoors. The air smelled of fresh-cut grass, and I took a quick glance around, noting that the “park” she’d described was really more an enclosed courtyard, with walkways traversing the lawn and a number of trees breaking up the space. On all sides were the glass-fronted walls of the structure we’d just left. Honestly, if I hadn’t known better, I would have said I was in the courtyard of a professional building, the kind of place that housed the offices of insurance agents and mortgage brokers, something like that.

  Well, in a way, that made sense. Jake had said Agent Lenz’s headquarters were someplace in Alexandria, Virginia. I didn’t know much about Alexandria, but I knew enough to guess that the area was pretty built up, and therefore the facility would have to look completely innocuous to the outside observer.

  “It’s nice,” I said, since Dr. Williams was watching me, apparently expecting me to make some sort of comment. “A little humid, though.”

  Was it my imagination, or did her pleasant expression suddenly seem just a bit tight? “Well, that’s Virginia in June for you,” she replied. “I suppose you’re not used to it — you’re from the Southwest, aren’t you?”

  I supposed that was as accurate a description as any, considering I couldn’t call any particular place home, not with the way my mother and I had moved so often. If circumstances in the form of Randall Lenz hadn’t intervened, maybe Flagstaff could have been my home, or even Riverton, although I understood now that had been only a pipe dream. Jake and I couldn’t have been safe that far away from our clan, not really. It had been a mistake to leave me alone — I should have gone with him, to a place where the Wilcoxes could have protected me.