The Sleepless Stars

by C. J. Lyons

  “Yes, we know,” Tommaso said. “Which is why we want to hire you to create a family of easily replicated artificial variations to suit our many requirements. We want it to be efficient, fast-acting, with reproducible and predictable effects. And we need an easy-to-administer reversal agent.”

  Leo leaned back and made a show of his skepticism. “Tall order. It will take time, research subjects, money...”

  “All of which are no problem. But we require a trustworthy researcher who can tackle the problem discreetly. Given our families’ historical alliance, we of course came to you first.”

  “Then you’ve found your man.” They shook hands. “It will help me to focus my research if you can explain exactly what you want to use the end result for.”

  “I can do better than that.” Tommaso stood, throwing some euros onto the table. “Let me show you.”

  The scene dissolved to flickering black and white. It took me a few moments to realize that Leo and Tommaso were now in a darkened room, watching old movie footage on a widescreen TV. An old man appeared to be sleeping as the camera approached him. The date at the lower corner read June 3, 1989.

  “Is that—” Leo asked, leaning forward to scrutinize the man.

  “Ayatollah Khomeini, yes. He was poised to break Iran’s cease-fire with Iraq, which would have cost our family billions. We needed to stop him, but we also needed vital information on where he had hidden assets pilfered from the Iranian government’s coffers.”

  A young girl appeared at the edge of the frame. The camera shook as an adult’s hand guided her to the Ayatollah’s sleeping form. She couldn’t have been more than nine or ten years old. Even more interesting—she looked exactly like pictures of me at that age. A cousin? Maybe a half-sibling? If my biological mother wasn’t really Patsy—a fact that still made my brain stutter—but rather Francesca Lazaretto, then anything could be true.

  The girl knelt beside the man, turning her head and opening her mouth as the adult holding the camera placed a drop from a small glass bottle beneath her tongue. A few moments later, her face went slack. The girl placed her hand on the Ayatollah’s just as her body froze. She was in a fugue.

  “I don’t understand,” Leo said. “How did you get past security?”

  “Please. We’ve been doing this for over six hundred years. Our family has infiltrated every major government, religious dynasty, and financial organization on the planet.”

  “And this girl, she took the compound—did it produce her catatonia?”

  “No. That comes from the Scourge. A rare genetic disease caused by prions. Usually, it leads only to a horrific death in the victim’s third or fourth decade. But occasionally a child will be born with a special gift. They are what we call Vessels.”

  “Vessels?”

  “When they enter a fugue—enhanced by the compound as you saw here—they are able to touch the minds of others in similar fugues and access their memories.”

  “Wait. So you poisoned the Ayatollah, put him in one of these—”

  “Fugues. In people not of our family, the compound creates more than a fugue. It’s a coma that becomes fatal. The Ayatollah will never awake again. But the girl will retrieve his memories and recite them to us before she herself dies in a few days.”

  I could feel Leo’s excitement at the myriad possibilities of both the compound and the prion disease Tommaso’s family had inherited. “You people, your family—if you’ve been doing this for centuries, then you must...”

  “Be privy to wealth and power beyond imagining? Yes. Unfortunately, our family is threatened. Recent global upheavals have placed us in a precarious position, and this girl was the last Vessel produced. We are masters of genetic manipulation but have been unable to reproduce her gift.”

  “No drug will re-create it either,” Leo cautioned.

  “What we want isn’t just a drug that can create the fugue states needed to facilitate their gift, but we are also working on perfecting a prion disease that can infect others outside our bloodline.”

  “You want to produce more of these children, these Vessels.” Leo didn’t sound horrified. Rather, fascinated. “How many memories can they hold? Does it matter how old the other person is?”

  “No correlation with age, but most Vessels die soon after their first memory retrieval. Vessels show symptoms of fatal insomnia before puberty and die young, even if they never use their gift.”

  “Not only rare but short-lived. Yes, I can see your problem. Very interesting. I think I can help. Perhaps with both the pharmaceutical compound as well as the prion disease and a delivery system. Have you considered creating a form of vaccination? Only, instead of introducing immunity, it will introduce the prions, start the abnormal proteins forming?”

  Tommaso smiled at Leo’s insight. “Yes, exactly. There is a breakthrough in genetic editing we developed several decades ago that is beginning to show promise.”

  “You mentioned wanting to establish a lab in my hometown. Is that because Kingston Enterprises is based there?”

  “Your father suggested Cambria City as a testing center. We are in the process of establishing cohorts located around the world, trialing different combinations of our prion DNA. But Cambria City is of particular interest to me because there’s someone there I’ve always wanted to meet.”

  “Who?”

  “My sister. My father stole her from the family, abandoned my mother as well as generations of tradition.”

  Anticipation surged through Leo as he parsed Tommaso’s words and expression. “You’re not looking for a happy family reunion, are you?”

  Tommaso’s smile was half grin and half grimace, but his eyes were filled with hunger for vengeance. “Family first. Family always.”

  “Omnes nominis defendere. Above all, defend the family,” Leo recited the family motto Daniel had hammered into him all his life.

  “Exactly, my friend. Exactly. Her father is no longer around to pay for his crimes, but Dr. Angela Rossi is. And pay she will, with her very blood.”

  Chapter 33

  DEVON HUNG UP from updating Flynn with Ryder’s intel only to glance up and see that Randolph’s mother, Veronica, had approached along with several other mothers, all with frightened expressions clouding their faces. Two of the mothers were in their early twenties, the youngest of the group, but they also appeared to be the least cowed by their experiences.

  It was clear they’d overheard his conversation. Louise, sensing something was going on, emerged from Randolph’s room and joined them.

  “They’re coming here?” one of the mothers demanded. “I thought you said we’d be safe. Isn’t that why we left the Tower?”

  “Who’s coming? How many?” the other asked. “Are we leaving?”

  Devon made his decision. “No. We’re staying. Standing our ground.”

  Beside him, Louise stirred. “Are you certain that’s the safest course of action? Perhaps—”

  “Do you think we can safely move the children in less than ten minutes, Dr. Mehta?”

  She glanced across the hall at Randolph. “No. Not all of them.”

  “And I’m not leaving anyone behind. So we stay.”

  He led the group of women into the larger dormitory. Best to have this out once and for all so they could stop wasting time and start preparing for war. “Attention, everyone. The men behind your children’s illness are on their way here. Now, we’re not sure that they know our exact location, and we’re taking steps to defend our position here—”

  “What’s to keep them from sabotaging the water or shutting off our air?” a middle-aged man, his eyes cloudy with cataracts, shouted.

  “I chose this section because it has access to the bunker’s power station. It also operates the air filtration systems. We control the power. That gives us an edge.”

  Another woman, one of the grandmothers, flung another question at him. “How long do we have to live down here like rats in a maze?”

  “As long as it takes
. We have food, water. Maybe not the comforts of home, but we can protect ourselves. Which is why we’re staying put, sheltering here.”

  “That’s easy for you. If things go south, you can always buy your freedom, take your precious daughter and your precious doctor friends, and fly away on your private jet. What about the rest of us? We can’t buy our way out of this, and we sure as hell can’t fight our way out. How do we save our children?”

  Louise stepped forward. “Devon didn’t have to risk everything to bring you here and rescue you in the first place. He could have left with Esme any time he wanted. But he stayed to fight for all of you. Just like Angie did. Just like I am. Save your anger for the men who deserve it, the men who gave your children this disease. We’ve no hope at all if we can’t focus on what’s important and pull together.”

  Her calm, British accent added weight to her words. The parents nodded, slowly coming around to what Devon had already decided: They had no choice but to stay and fight.

  Could he trust them with weapons? What assurance did he have that one of them wouldn’t break ranks, try to negotiate their own truce, betray the rest? He controlled access to the tunnels beyond their bunker, but if the enemy breached their walls...

  He sighed. If the enemy got that close, then it would be the same as any war: every man for himself.

  <<<>>>

  MY MIND SPUN in the silent void, and I yearned for my music to help me make sense of the chaos. Being inside Leo’s memories, like Daniel’s, there was no music—it was as if they were more than tone deaf. They simply refused to register any sensory stimulation not necessary to complete their goal. No wonder both had been able to also amputate their sense of empathy.

  I needed more from Leo’s memories, but I was already overwhelmed. It had finally sunk in: Tommaso, the man who killed himself rather than let me touch him was my brother.

  Were we all products of Francesca’s genetic manipulations and artificial inseminations? Had any of us ever been cherished as anything other than test subjects? Wanted for who we were, not simply the vagaries of our DNA?

  Slowly, music leached into the darkness, surrounding me like a warm cocoon as I floated. Not just any music: my dad’s concertina.

  The song began, low and sad. I didn’t understand the words—when I’d heard them, I’d been too young, only a baby, to realize they were another language. He sang, and I stopped crying. I’d never experienced this memory before. We were riding in a boat. The waves were choppy, and diesel stank up the air. I was sweaty and seasick and scared.

  All that vanished with his music. When he finished, he cradled me in his arms, so close I could smell that he was frightened as well. But his arms were so strong around me, holding me so tight, I knew everything would be okay. And I slept.

  When I woke, we were far away. We were safe, Daddy promised. We were on our way home.

  I blinked, the fugue releasing me. Had Patsy known the truth? I’d sent her and the rest of my family—her side of the family, the only family I’d ever known aside from my father—away for their safety. What if the Lazarettos found them? Or found Ryder? Or Louise and her family or the children...my litany of worst-case scenarios seemed never-ending.

  Suddenly, the warm darkness of the isolation chamber was no longer a comfort but a threat. Claustrophobia choked me as I scrambled my palms against the walls, searching for light, for the exit.

  The hatch opened, but not by my hand. A slit of light shattered the darkness, and Flynn craned her head inside.

  “They got Ryder. He escaped, he’s fine,” she added before I could ask. “But they’re coming. I’m going after Ryder. Will you be all right here alone? I’ll be back in a short while, but I need you to stay here.”

  Her voice softened at the last as if she was speaking to a child. Given that I was naked, shivering, hyperventilating, still wide-eyed with terror from my panic attack, and my brain was basically functioning at a primitive, reptilian level, it was a good thing.

  I nodded.

  She held my gaze, didn’t move. “You will stay here?”

  It took me a moment to find words. “Yes. I’ll be fine. Go.”

  Finally, she saw what she wanted in me and left. My time in the tank hadn’t invigorated me. Instead, I felt as if I’d finished a twelve-hour shift in the ER. Guess that made sense. My mind had certainly been working overtime. Slowly, I climbed out of the tank, the thick, salty water sluicing from my body, and walked naked to the shower stall, hoping I’d feel better once I was clean again.

  It didn’t work. As I stood beneath the streaming water, all I could see was that little girl who looked like me, so trusting as she opened her mouth as if taking Communion. Did she know they had led her to her death? That they’d turned her sweet innocence into a murder weapon? For what? Power and profit.

  That was my family, my real family. And their unholy legacy.

  Now they wanted me. Daniel said I was the key to spreading the prions. Clearly, I was also one of these Vessels—only a new, improved mutation who could handle more than one set of memories trapped inside her brain.

  What if I’d also passed that ability to the children, along with my prions? Any family who sacrificed their own young so callously would not think twice about using a stranger’s child.

  I sank down to the tiled floor of the shower, not caring that it was gritty with the salt I’d washed off. Cupping my face in my palms, I let the water pummel me, drowning out the sounds of my sobs.

  I had no answers, only more questions. No. That wasn’t true. There was one answer I could think of, one way to prevent the family from using me. My tears morphed into a strange laughter as I remembered my silly fantasy of flying to Tahiti and ending it all before the fatal insomnia turned me into a driveling, mindless, living corpse.

  My last-ditch way out was still my best option. I just had to find a way to trade my death for the children’s lives.

  Chapter 34

  RYDER FINISHED MAKING his final phone call as he pulled into Good Sam’s parking garage. It was almost two in the morning, and he’d just left not-so-nice belated Christmas presents for the FBI, ATF, Homeland Security, police, and fire departments in the form of bomb threats directed at Good Samaritan. He hoped they wouldn’t have to disrupt patient care too much, but he needed the diversion, and given what he’d seen up at the mine, he couldn’t rule out an actual attack on the hospital.

  After parking the truck diagonally across three spaces near the elevator, where it couldn’t be missed by the authorities when they came to investigate, he left the cell phone on but abandoned it along with everything he’d taken from the man he killed. Except the pistol, a Taurus 92. That he kept, hidden beneath his suit jacket at the small of his back. Shivering without his overcoat, he glanced around in the yellow-tinged light of the garage. No signs of anyone following him, but that’s what vehicle trackers were for.

  He was more curious about how Tyrone and Grey intended to track him now that he was on foot. The phone was the obvious choice—too obvious.

  Pretending he was on a single-minded mission for the sake of the security cameras, he strode to the elevator and pressed the button. The doors opened. A dark-skinned woman in a nursing uniform was already inside, along with a cart stacked with scrubs and lab coats. She didn’t seem to notice Ryder, caught up in her cell phone, head bobbing in time with music piped through her earbuds.

  He pressed the button for the top floor. As soon as the doors slid shut behind them, he turned to the woman with a smile. “You got my message. Thought you’d be waiting in the ER.”

  Flynn reached past him, using an elevator key to stop the car between floors without the alarm sounding. Then she turned to Ryder. “I spotted a bunch of cops out of uniform up there. Figured they were looking for you.”

  “I may have phoned in a few bomb threats,” he said as she moved her phone over his body, scanning for tracking devices.

  “Didn’t look like they were worried about bombs. They were the same cops
watching Louise’s house last night.”

  Exactly what he’d feared. Whoever Grey and Tyrone worked for, they’d totally compromised the police department.

  Flynn ran her cell phone up and down Ryder’s body, listening intently. She suddenly alerted, pressing her hand against Ryder’s back. She removed the Taurus, throwing it onto the cart, then slid her fingers along his left leg down to his pants cuff. Flynn spun him around to face her, holding a small black circle the size of her fingertip and smiling in triumph.

  She finished her scan and nodded in satisfaction, then turned the elevator key and hit the button for the next floor. They exited the elevator. A janitor was running a floor waxer back and forth along the hall. Flynn pushed her cart past him, casually brushing his shoulder and leaving the microtracker stuck to his navy work shirt.

  Ryder followed her past the patient rooms, around the corner to where she turned into a supply closet. Once inside, she handed him a pistol—a nine-millimeter Beretta, along with two magazines and a holster. She also had a patrolman’s jacket, ballistic vest, and cap for each of them as well as a new cell phone.

  “Let’s go, partner,” she said, grinning as she adjusted her cap to a rakish angle. Didn’t matter that they were being chased by a force that had them outgunned and outnumbered, or that they had no good plan to defeat the enemy and even less chance of success, nothing was going to stop Flynn from enjoying the moment. Ryder couldn’t help but grin back at the girl’s carpe diem attitude.

  Flynn led the way down the back stairs. They made it to the basement without encountering anyone.

  “What’s the plan?” he asked as he followed her through the basement corridors to the tunnel entrance.

  “We gear up, take the high ground, and pick off as many as we can to buy Devon time. If we can keep them in this section of the tunnels, they’ll be trapped between Good Sam’s and St. Tim’s.”

  “The section of tunnels that the Royales used to stash their drugs.” He nodded. “I’m guessing you didn’t remove all of their booby traps.”