by Rachel Caine
“Because I know how much you hate governments and corporations and rich fat cats,” Patrick said. “And we’ve got all three of those things looking for us now. They’re going to find their way to you, eventually, and I need you to do exactly what comes naturally—put up a fight. I’m not asking you to fall on any swords, but just don’t help them. Not right away. If you could forget about the truck, I’d owe you.”
“Owe me what?”
“That half a million you lost on the Stinger deal,” Patrick said. “By the way, that was me. I took it and I burned your weapons contact. Sorry. The job was to close off the dealer, and I did it. And I wasn’t too wild about someone like you having the missiles, either, to be honest. But if you do this for me, I’ll get you the half million back, in cash, untraceable bills.”
“Not enough,” Walt said. “I want a full million. Interest.”
“For doing exactly what you always do, fight whatever comes at you? No.”
“A million, or I pick up the phone and call the cops to tell them my truck’s been stolen.”
“We could just kill him,” Bryn said. Her voice sounded light and cold, and utterly at odds with the beautiful sunrise and the twittering birds in the trees. “Kill him and dump his body in the ditch. Seems like karma.”
“It does,” Patrick said, but he sent her a glance that let her know he was worried by what she’d said. And the way she’d said it. It worried her a little, too, but in a distant, arctic-ice-locked way. “But I think Walt understands there’s a better outcome to be had.”
“There is if there’s a million on the table,” Walt said. Bryn had to admit that she would not have been that calm in his situation, with a knife at his throat and another at his back, and a woman who was evidently capable of resurrection calmly threatening to slice.
Patrick knew when he was beaten, even with the upper hand, and he shook his head a little and said, “All right. One million. Deal?”
“Why would you believe a thing I said? Considering how long you’ve been lying to me.”
“I just do,” Patrick said. “Because I’ve lived behind those walls, and I know you care about those people. And I know you keep your word.”
Walt hesitated, then said, “All right. My word on it. You take the truck, and you get me the million. I won’t tell whoever comes calling.”
“It may take a while on the million. Seeing as we’re on the run right now.”
Walt grinned. It looked maniacal. “I trust you, brother. Tell your bitch to stop poking that in my back unless she wants to buy me dinner first.”
Bryn thought about pushing the knife home. Thought about it a lot. But she saw the clear warning in Patrick’s expression, and finally took a deep breath and stepped back. “I think this is a mistake,” she said, “but if you want to trust him, it’s on you.”
“Then it’s on me,” Patrick said. “Let him go, Bryn.”
Walt gave her a second, very long look. “Bryn. You don’t look much like a Bryn to me.”
“What do I look like?”
“A dead woman,” he said. “Because I don’t forget.”
She laughed. It sounded crazy.
The hackles raised on the back of her neck as she thought, I sound like Jane.
Patrick grabbed the shaking, exhausted Reynolds and shoved him into the truck, then took the passenger seat next to him. “You drive,” he said to Bryn. He nodded to Walt as she took her spot behind the wheel, with Reynolds sandwiched in the middle. “Good luck, brother.”
“Be seeing you, Bryn,” Walt said, and aimed a finger gun at her. She managed not to bite it off. Just barely.
“I liked it better when he called me bitch,” she said, and threw the truck into gear.
They left him, and his compound of maybe-crazies, behind in a veil of dust.
Patrick said, very quietly, “Are you all right?”
“Sure,” she said. “Shot in the heart by the man I love, thrown in a ditch, dragged to the edge of a cliff for disposal, forced to kill four guys to cover our escape. It’s Thursday, isn’t it? Typical Thursday.”
He didn’t laugh. He was watching her; she could sense it without glancing in his direction. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It was the only thing I could think to do.”
“It was the right play for the right time. I’m fine.”
“Bryn—”
“I’m fine. How about you, Mr. Reynolds? Catching your breath?”
He had at least enough to say shakily, “Fuck you.”
She tried to laugh, but it turned to a cough. Her throat felt very dry. Dry as the dusty road. “Pat?”
In her peripheral vision, she saw him turn his head away. “You’re right. Typical Thursday,” he said.
And that was the last of their conversation for a while.
Chapter 19
The truck was good for about two hundred miles before the tank signaled it was about to give out; it was good timing, because they were running on fumes when the first gas station appeared on the horizon. It was miraculously in business, and Bryn used the last of the cash Patrick had on him (and the last of what Reynolds had in his pockets when they searched him) to pay for the gas and the entire jar of Slim Jims, plus a jug of drinking water. The attendant didn’t seem to think that was strange at all, but then, he was in a part of the country where it was probably survival instinct to aggressively mind your own business. Once they were fueled, they got off the main road again and angled for another freeway, where the nondescript truck joined convoys of tractor trailers heading north.
“It’s probably time to get some answers,” Patrick said, and shook Reynolds by the shoulder. The man was dozing. He didn’t look any better than before; in fact, he looked worse, which didn’t surprise Bryn in the least. When the nanites started dying, there was no recovery without more Returné, and it wasn’t exactly going to appear on a convenience store shelf.
Reynolds was going to suffer, and he was going to rot, slowly. Bryn supposed she ought to feel worse than she did about that, but honestly, she didn’t really care. Fuck him. Fuck him and his feverish, dishonest greed. He hadn’t cared about how many died in horrible agony; he ought to have a chance to live through it himself.
But first, he needed to talk. He’d been stubborn so far, but with the right pressure . . . the right tools . . .
You’re becoming her, a still voice inside her whispered. You’re becoming Jane. Listen to yourself.
She pushed it aside, because another thought struck, one that rang inside her head like a tuning fork. Returné. He was on Returné, not on the upgrades.
She didn’t think there was a chance in hell that it would work, but on the off chance that hell had rolled snake eyes just this once, she said, “Condition sapphire.”
Patrick sat bolt upright, as if she’d hit him with a cattle prod. “Can’t be,” he said. “Didn’t they factor the command sequences out of the batch of drugs they gave their executives?”
“They lost their best scientists,” she pointed out. “Maybe they couldn’t. Maybe they didn’t bother, because these men—these men would believe they were invincible, wouldn’t they?”
He shook his head. “I think you’re dreaming.”
“We’ll see. Hand me a Slim Jim, Reynolds.”
Reynolds, without hesitation, reached for the jar wedged into the narrow opening between his feet and Patrick’s, and took one out. He extended it to her.
“Unwrap it,” she said. He did, and held out the raw jerky stick. “Now eat it.”
He did, expressionless, chewing like a machine and swallowing until it was all gone.
“Good. Now eat the wrapper,” she said.
He raised it to his mouth. His dulled eyes looked terrified, but he was doing it. He was really doing it. The wrapper crinkled and buckled as it hit his lips, but his fingers continued their relentless progress to shove it in.
“Bryn,” Patrick snapped. “Stop him.”
Reynolds had jammed most of the plastic into
his mouth. She was tempted to tell him to swallow, just for the hell of it, just to watch him choke, but the anger in Patrick’s voice penetrated the lazy fog of cruelty. It was misty red, that fog. Like an aerosolized spray of blood.
“Stop,” she said. “Take the plastic out of your mouth and drop it on the floor, Reynolds.”
He did, and, lacking instructions, folded his hands and just sat. Waiting.
Waiting for her orders.
It had worked. Condition Sapphire, the hidden feature that made Returné victims into slaves . . . it was still encoded in the nanites. Into these nanites, at least. It rendered Dr. Reynolds completely, utterly helpless and at her mercy.
She thought about what she was going to do with him. All the terrible and wonderful and horrifying things.
And then it all collapsed inside her into a black hole of pain and anguish and horror.
Bryn pulled over to the side of the road with a sudden jerk of the wheel, spewing gravel and bringing the truck to a juddering halt. She bent forward and rested her forehead on the steering wheel, gasping for breath, gagging for it. The wheel was gritty on her skin, coated with the sweaty, oily deposits of those who’d driven it before. It stank of strangers, and she thought of her own skin rubbing off, joining this horrible anonymous mixture of castoff. Thought about rolling down that hillside, ripping into the flesh of a man she’d never seen before. Thought of snapping necks and slicing flesh and the joy, the unclean joy of it made her stomach suddenly twist and try to escape.
“Drink.”
Patrick’s hand on the back of her head, gentle and steady. His other holding the gallon of water, uncapped and ready. She took it and gulped, gulped, trying to wash the taste of all of that away.
All of her away.
The water tasted like tears.
She sat back, taking deep breaths, and said, “Dr. Reynolds, we need to know where to find the rest of the Fountain Group. Please tell us where they are.”
He turned that terribly dull look to her, and she saw him in there, trapped. Maybe not a good man. Maybe a man who deserved every wretched and awful thing that was going to happen to him. But, like Thorpe, she couldn’t look into his eyes and not see herself . . . not understand that human spirit, however twisted, however flawed. He was staring into eternity, and she knew how that felt.
She knew how it would feel, when she arrived there. It was something every single human, even those like her, would eventually face.
She couldn’t look at eternity and not feel small, and frail, and alone. She had to reach out.
“I’m sorry, Martin,” she said, and took his hand. His fingers were limp and cool against hers. Not damp quite yet. The skin still felt firm. A near-perfect simulation of life. “I’m so very sorry. Please. Please tell us before it’s too late. You know what’s going to happen to you. You know how horrible it is. You don’t want that for your children, too. The Fountain Group—what they’re doing is evil. You know that. Somewhere deep inside, you know. Listen to it.”
“Bryn,” Patrick said, and his warm hand cupped the back of her neck for a moment. “He’s conditioned to respond. You don’t have to convince him.”
“I know,” she whispered. Tears blurred her vision. “I want to convince him.”
Reynolds let his breath out in a slow, rattling breath. It smelled of slow death and sickness. “I don’t know where they all are,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“Do you know where any of them are?”
“Yes,” Reynolds said. And that was the moment when she knew she’d reached him, because even as she started to ask for the necessary clarification the conditioning required . . . he went on. “Most of them are going to be gathering in the Trigon offices in San Francisco in a few days. All the ones that matter will be there. The others—the others are like Thorpe. They don’t agree with the program. They were outvoted.” He swallowed. She heard the wet, thick sound, and she remembered how that felt, dissolving inside. Coming to pieces in slow, dreadful motion. “If you want to stop it, stop them. They can give you everything.”
She nodded. “We will.”
He held her gaze very steadily, and said, “Will you kill me now?”
The awful thing was, some part of her was still eager for it. Still hungry for pain and blood and flesh and screaming.
“Do you want me to?”
“No,” he said. “I’d rather live.”
Still. Even now.
How very . . . human.
“Then we’ll find a way to keep you alive,” she told him, and locked gazes with Patrick on his other side. “Somehow.”
She put the truck in gear and sprayed gravel again merging back into the sparse traffic. It was colder up here, and the skies were gloomier. Thick silver-edged clouds threatened rain, or snow, or worse.
“Bryn?” Patrick said. “San Francisco is the other way.”
“I know,” she said. “But we have to go somewhere else first.”
“Where?”
“Alaska.”
He didn’t even ask if she was crazy.
The perfect definition of love.
Chapter 20
They traded the truck for tickets aboard a sightseeing vessel from Seattle to Anchorage. Reynolds’ deteriorating condition was disguised by use of a wheelchair, oxygen tank, and blanket over his lap. Bryn was surprised to see how many similarly impaired people were traveling by water. . . . It didn’t seem like a great idea for people who, by definition, couldn’t swim worth a damn. Still, Bryn had to admit, the cabin they shared wasn’t bad, and neither was the food—open buffet, and she went back for about five helpings of the rare roast beef, every meal. The ship’s store took care of her clothing and toiletry needs, and by the time they disembarked in Anchorage, she looked and felt . . . normal. Patrick looked stronger, too. By avoiding the Canadian borders, they hadn’t had to produce passports, which would have been . . . well, impossible. Patrick’s contacts had gotten them past the necessary ID checkpoints for the ship, on and off—but that was all they could promise.
Turned out they didn’t need to worry, because when they docked, sitting at the exit to the ship terminal was a big black limousine, and it had a sign that read DR. REYNOLDS & PARTY.
Bryn looked at Patrick, and then at the driver. He was a tall, good-looking young man with a military buzz cut; his livery uniform fit well.
He turned over the sign. It read COURTESY OF PANSY.
Bryn almost laughed. She steered the wheelchair in that direction, and the driver smiled and opened the back door. “Allow me, ma’am,” he said. He had a pleasant Southern twang, long vowels and musical lifts. He helped her lift Reynolds out of the chair and into the easiest accessible seat. As he straightened, he handed her a slim cell phone. “Miss Pansy would like you to call her when you have a chance.”
Bryn blinked at him, nodded, and pocketed the device. She and Patrick slid in the other side of the limo, and sank into the luxuriously soft leather upholstery. The driver loaded the wheelchair, and they were on the road in under a minute.
“I know I’m going to be stating the obvious when I say this, but . . . what the hell?” Patrick said. “A limousine. Really.”
Bryn shrugged. “It got our attention, didn’t it?” She took the phone out and scrolled through the address book. One number in it. She dialed it as the limo crunched through snow—snow, already—and headed in toward Anchorage proper. The sun was out, glittering on glass and steel and thin patches of snow, turning everything into fairyland.
Until it turned into an ice palace, at least.
“Bryn?” It was Pansy who picked up on the other end. She sounded breathless, but it was definitely her, and the sound of her familiar voice made Bryn suddenly feel shaky inside. “You’re okay?”
“Relatively,” she managed to say, and cleared a throat that was suddenly too tight, stuffed with emotion. “How are you and Manny? Is my sister okay?”
“Yeah, everybody’s fine. We’ve run through just about our entire DV
D collection, though. We may be facing a serious rerun problem.”
“Joe and Riley?”
“Yeah . . . They made it to us. We have them locked down in a separate wing, though, because Manny—well. You know. But he’s working on the formula they brought. Pretty scary stuff.”
“How did you know—”
“Hang on. I’ll conference.”
There was a click, and then Joe’s warm baritone said, “Sorry, that was me. We were pretty desperate to keep track of you. I know most of Patrick’s contacts, so I focused on the ones closest to where we lost you guys. That led us to the shoot-out up in Paradise at Dr. Reynolds’ place, and I thought about Walt as a possible place for Patrick to go.”
“You called Walt? And he just . . . told you where we were going?”
“Nope. Never talked to him. But he’s on some federal lists, and there’s an eye in the sky that takes a look at his compound twice a day. We saw—well, I’m not going to sugarcoat it, we saw your body in a ditch. Pansy was pretty upset.”
“Not you? Joe. I’m crushed.”
“I’ve got more faith,” he said. “But yeah. It was unsettling. We tracked the truck from the compound. When it was obvious where you were going, Pansy hired the driver.”
“I’m guessing the driver isn’t just a standard wheelman?”
Patrick was gesturing for the phone. She handed it over. “Hey, Joe. I’m assuming this is a secure line. . . . Yeah, of course. I want you to double-check on your family and move them somewhere double secure. No, nothing specific. It’s just that I know Jane, and we’ve kicked her ass twice in a row now when she expected it to be a walkover—three times, if she runs right into the Walt buzz saw. She’ll go for the throat now, and that means what’s close to us.”
His glance went to her, and she swallowed, suddenly catching his unease. Her sister was safe, and she had assurances from Brick that he was on guard for her mom and other brothers and sisters. But that didn’t mean they wouldn’t get hurt. Jane would . . .
Jane would do anything to hurt her. Bryn felt a shiver of dread pass over her like falling silk, and then it was burned off by anger. Then we have to keep her busy, she thought. We have to keep her focused on us, not on our families.
