by Roxie Noir
“I’m really sorry about all this,” she finally said.
“You already apologized,” Zach said.
“I knew he was up to something, but I thought he was just going to get your DNA from a strand of hair or something,” she said. Her big blue eyes began to fill with tears, but she wiped them away angrily. “And I know that’s wrong, but he also told me that if I told you what was going on, I’d never work as an engineer again.”
“Katrina,” he said. He put a hand her shoulder. “You’re not the one who drugged me and put me in the basement.”
“But if I’d been braver that wouldn’t have happened,” she whispered.
“You came back and got me,” Zach said. “That was brave as hell.”
Katrina just shook her head.
“I just wish I’d done the right thing earlier,” she said.
Zach sat on the table and leaned down to her.
“If you’d done the right thing earlier, we wouldn’t be here in this crappy motel,” he said. “We’d both be in our own beds, and I wouldn’t see you until tonight. And, honestly, I’m not sure I’d have made it that long.”
Katrina half-laughed.
“Don’t start,” she said.
“Seriously,” he said. “I’m the one who got drugged and kidnapped. I get to decide how sorry you should be.”
“I don’t think that’s how it works,” she said.
“Sure it is,” Zach said. “And I’ve had great sex twice in the past twelve house, so I’m not inclined to think you should be very sorry at all.”
She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling.
“Fine,” she said, and stood. “Are you ready to head back to Salt Lake?”
“I guess,” Zach said. “You don’t want to stay another night in our grimy love nest?”
“I want to shower,” Katrina said.
“That’s fair,” Zach said, and followed her out the door.
They drove north, going back the way they’d come. The two-lane road was straight, the asphalt bleached nearly gray by the sun, the red Utah desert surrounding them.
It’s amazing how quickly outside of Salt Lake it looks like this, Zach thought. Exactly like Obsidian looks. Like what I’m used to.
Up ahead, there was a line of orange cones across the road and a crew of workmen with an asphalt road roller. The road itself was hacked into chunks, and the men stood around.
Katrina stopped.
“What the hell?” she muttered.
A workman in a hard hat came over, and she wound down her window.
“Sorry, Miss,” he said. “Emergency road repair. There’s a detour. You got to go south a couple of miles, then make a left onto Tumbledown Canyon road, and then a left onto Coyote Meadows road, and then a left onto Creosote — that one’s dirt but it’s nice and it ain’t too far — and that’ll take you to highway 435, and that goes right back up to Interstate 70 after a while.”
Katrina exhaled, her cheeks puffing out.
“Okay,” she said. “I guess it’s good I got gas. Thanks.”
The man nodded, and she wound up her window.
“God dammit,” she muttered, making a three-point turn.
They headed south, past the motel again. Zach kept an eye out for Tumbledown Canyon road, but before they got to it, there was another line of orange traffic cones. The road beyond these was torn up as well, but there were no workers, just a sign that said DETOUR and pointed to a shoddy dirt road on the right. The road went around the side of a hill and disappeared.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Katrina said. “Can I just drive around the torn up asphalt and go on my way?”
Zach frowned. Her car was a small sedan, not exactly made for off-roading.
“Let me see where this dirt road goes,” he said, and opened the door.
Katrina also go out of the car and stomped over to the orange cones as if she might demand an explanation. Zach jogged down the dirt road toward the hill.
He felt like he was flying, every fiber in his being humming with perfect, thrilling happiness. True, apparently his brother’s secret had gotten out, and that was bad, but he’d met Katrina. She’d rescued him, and then they’d had the best night of his life.
Everything else could go to hell.
He rounded the hill and stopped, shading his eyes against the sun.
In the distance, there was a tall column of dust, and Zach squinted, trying to see what was making it.
After a long time, he could make it out: some sort of big, black vehicle.
Zach’s stomach lurched, and he took a step backwards. Then two.
Big black vehicles are never a good thing, he thought. You never hear about those coming to your rescue, or arriving at a children’s hospital full of toys.
Then, he heard a faraway yelp.
Katrina’s yelp.
Zach’s blood froze, and he turned and ran back toward the road, rounding the hill at top speed, and she came into view: still standing by her car, two other black SUVs in front of her, two men standing a few feet away, talking to her.
At the same time, all three of them saw Zach.
“NO!” Katrina screamed. She waved her arms frantically in front of her, like she was trying to warn him off, but the two men grabbed her arms and pinned them behind her.
“ZACH! NO!” she screamed, and then one of the men covered her mouth.
I’ll fucking kill them, Zach thought, pushing himself to run even faster. If they hurt her I’ll kill them and then kill them again just to make sure.
Even with a hand over her mouth, Katrina was shaking her head, and the guy holding her jerked her head back. Behind him, Zach could hear the crunch of tires over a dirt road.
Deep inside him, he could feel something start to unspool, a strange, light feeling he’d never felt before. It was primal and wild, fierce, something completely new to him.
The crunch of tires got louder, and Zach wrung every ounce of speed from his muscles. He was close, almost there—
The thing inside him demanded that he let go, that he reach down deep.
It told him to jump, and he did.
12. Katrina
Katrina screamed through the hand clamped over her mouth, but it didn’t do any good. She knew they wanted him, not her, and she knew she was just bait, even as she thrashed against the guy holding her arms behind her back. Remembering a self-defense class she’d taken once, she stomped down on the guy’s foot, hard, and he muttered curses behind her, tightening his grip just a little.
Get away, she thought. Get away, get away, I’ll be fine.
Zach was close now, his face twisted in rage, the big black SUV just behind him. Katrina wanted to shut her eyes, afraid of what might happen, but she couldn’t.
One second, Zach was running toward them.
The next, his clothes slumped to the ground and an enormous bird was flying straight at Katrina’s head. The guy behind her let her go and she threw herself on the ground, scraping both her knees as she cowered, her hands over her head.
What the fuck just happened holy shit what the fuck was that?
Behind her she heard a piercing cry and then a shout that turned into a scream, and Katrina peeked through her fingers just in time to see the bird rake its talons over a guy’s head, opening a long gash from his cheek up to his scalp. Blood poured out as he waved his arms uselessly against the bird’s enormous wings, the talons opening another set of gashes on the back of his head.
The second guy tried to run back to the SUVs, but he only made it ten feet before the eagle got him, too, opening a wound on the back of his neck that showed bone. The man screamed and fell to the ground, still followed by the eagle.
The car door opened and the sound of a gunshot blistered the air, and Katrina tucked herself even tighter against the ground. There was another shot, and then another, and a huge rush of wings and the eagle was gone, soaring up into the sky, totally unharmed.
Katrina stayed on the ground. H
er whole body was shaking, and she didn’t even know if she could move.
What’s happening, she thought. Where’d Zach go and where’d the eagle come from?
I didn’t even know birds GOT that big. Jesus Christ.
“Shit, he’s gone,” a man’s voice said.
Katrina didn’t move from the ground.
“You said he couldn’t shift,” a different voice said.
“I didn’t think he could,” the first voice said.
NOPE, Katrina’s brain thought. There is no way that Zach just turned into an eagle. They are staging some sort of elaborate gas lighting operation, because they want me to think I’m insane.
I don’t know why, but that’s what’s going on here.
“That’s gonna make this a whole lot harder,” the first voice said, and Katrina heard another car door open. Footsteps walked over to her, and at last, she looked up.
It was Pete.
“You believe me now?” he asked, arms crossed in front of him.
Pete handed a bottle of water and a napkin into the backseat of the SUV. Katrina took them without thanking him, poured the water onto the napkin, and started cleaning her knees where she’d scraped them. It hurt, but she was determined not to let them know.
“Can you see him?” the drive asked Pete. He was a big hulking guy with a mustache, very short hair, and ears that stuck out a little too far.
“No,” said Pete, glancing in his side-view mirror. “That doesn’t mean he can’t see us. Birds of prey have very good eyesight.”
Katrina pulled the napkin away from her knee, the wet paper faintly pink.
“That was sure something, though,” said Mustache. “I’d only ever seen the video.”
“I wish we’d seen it in a lab,” said Pete. “That would be a sight more useful.”
Mustache looked in the rear view mirror again.
“You sure he’ll follow us?” he asked.
“No,” said Pete. “But I’ve got a feeling he’s gonna come for Katrina.”
Please don’t, she thought. Zach, you have to know this is a trap.
Katrina frowned, looking out the window.
Wait, she thought. Does that mean I believe them now?
This is insane.
“I have parents, you know,” Katrina said. “People are going to be asking where I am.”
“We know,” Pete said. He sounded the calmest she’d ever heard him sound, and it alarmed her. “We don’t need you for long.”
He turned around in his seat and looked at her through his prescription sunglasses.
“Don’t worry,” he said, with a smile that didn’t make her feel better. “I’m sure you’ll be fine.”
13. Zach
It was incredible how well he could see. Even though the black SUV was the size of a bug, he could almost make out the faces of the driver and Pete in their sideview mirrors. Every time something moved down below on the desert floor, he could see it.
The wind blasted past him, but he barely felt it. He was completely focused on the cars he was following — particularly on the one with Katrina in it.
Sinking his talons into that guy’s face had felt pretty good. He’d wanted to rip his head clean off his body, but Zach thought that he might need a little bit more flying practice before he could do that. Heads were pretty well attached, it turned out.
Down below, the thick black ribbon of Interstate 70 appeared. A few minutes later, the SUV carrying Katrina stopped, waited for a car to pass, and got onto an entry ramp, speeding up until it was going faster than every other car on the road.
Zach followed, high above, the wind whistling past.
He hadn’t expected them to take her back to MutiGen, but they did. Zach sat in a tree and watched.
There were three cars, all big black SUVs, and six men got out. Two were heavily bandaged, and Zach felt a sizzle of satisfaction zip through him. One was the driver of Pete’s car, and one was Pete.
After a moment, Katrina got out of the backseat of Pete’s SUV.
She looked pissed, and she glanced over her shoulder, as if seeing whether there was some way she could run.
There really wasn’t.
The men led her in through a side door, and then Zach couldn’t see them any more. He shifted from foot to foot for a long time, sitting in the tree. He knew two things:
One, he had to get Katrina out of there.
Two, they were expecting him.
As he sat there, trying to come up with a good enough plan, Zach heard a buzzing noise zip overhead and looked up in time to see a flash of something against the sky. Silently, he took off, making his way through the trees and then soaring up, the whole world spread below him.
It was a drone, hovering over the top of the forest, darting back and forth. Probably looking for him.
Zach flexed his talons and watched it for another moment.
Then he dove, plunging toward the forest as pure adrenaline screamed through his veins, the biggest rush he’d ever gotten.
This is fucking amazing, he thought.
He grabbed the drone in one talon and stopped his dive, spreading his wings and soaring again, this time hovering just above the forest, the drone’s blades whirring sadly. Finally he landed again and looked at the thing that he held in one claw.
It was pretty simple: a quadcopter with a camera on the bottom. Whoever was on the other end of the camera would never know what had gotten it.
Zach broke off each set of blades with his beak and then hurled it to the ground, far below.
Then he took off again and circled the building twice. He’d had an idea.
14. Katrina
Katrina sat in the robot hand lab, one of the few windowless rooms in the building, and fumed. She was terrified for Zach, of course, and a little less terrified for herself, but she was pissed that she couldn’t do anything, just sitting there like a princess in a tower, waiting to get rescued.
“He’s not coming,” she said to Pete, standing patiently by the door.
Pete just shrugged.
“He’s not an idiot,” she said, nudging a circuitboard with her finger. “He knows it’s a trap. He’s probably getting the police right now.”
“I’m sure,” Pete said.
She sighed, looking at the scattered electronics in front of her, trying to figure out how to engineer a way out.
If I could get a power source big enough, I could make a kind of stun gun, she thought. Maybe.
Or I could program one of these hands to squeeze the life out of someone. Or just grab their balls.
It was wishful thinking. The things took weeks of careful trial and error to program at all, and Katrina didn’t have weeks, she had hours, maybe.
Also, Pete wasn’t about to let her power up a computer. Whatever else was wrong with him, he was pretty smart.
Katrina got off her chair and started pacing around the room, and Pete snapped to attention, watching her carefully as she walked between tables, studying intricate pieces of machinery. She didn’t care.
There’s gotta be something here, she thought. Just think. There’s some way to be smarter than this situation, some way to think yourself out of it.
“Okay, that’s enough,” Pete said. “Sit down.”
“What if I say no?” Katrina asked.
Pete rolled his eyes.
“Then one of the guys from the hallway comes in and makes you sit down,” he said. “You know, you’re a good engineer, but you can be pretty dumb sometimes.”
For a split second, Katrina was pleased that he’d called her a good engineer.
Then she remembered what was happening, and she was pissed again.
“This is stupid,” she said. “Why couldn’t you just ask him if he can help you run some tests?”
“He’ll say no to the kinds of tests we want to run,” Pete said.
“You sound pretty sure,” Katrina said, suddenly feeling uncertain.
“We are pretty sure,” Pete said. “
Would you let us break your bones to see how you heal?”
A shiver made its way down Katrina’s spine.
“I didn’t think so,” he said, and leaned against the wall. “You know, I spent our ride back coming up with a pretty good villain speech, but you haven’t even asked why we’re doing this.”
“You said yourself I wasn’t an idiot,” she said. “People who could turn into animals would make you billions of dollars, just from the Department of Defense contracts.”
Pete sighed and pushed his glasses up his face.
“Yeah, that was the gist,” he muttered. He looked at the floor. “There was something about pushing forward scientific inquiry, but that was the gist.”
15. Zach
Zach landed on the roof. Nothing happened. He tensed, ready to take off again at a moment’s notice, but everything was eerily calm and still.
The roof had two things on it: a door to a stairwell and a big air conditioning vent. Near the door was a single Smoker’s Outpost, stuffed with cigarette butts and surrounded by cups, bottles, and the other detritus of anywhere people tended to go.
The door itself was shut, but when Zach looked closely, he could see the lock had been taped over, leaving the door open.
You can have the world’s best security, but if people want to smoke on the roof, they’re gonna find a way, he thought smugly.
He looked from the door to the vent and back, then walked to the vent, grabbed it in his talons, and beat his wings as hard as he could until it tore off with a sound of shrieking metal. He grabbed cans and bottles and tossed them down the vent, one by one, listening to them rattle down.
Then Zach pulled open the door to the stairs and headed down. When he reached the first floor he could hear the elevators rush upward, and he smiled.
16. Katrina
Men started shouting outside, and Katrina could tell that something was going on. Footsteps pounded past, and she got out of her chair and walked toward Pete, trying to figure out what was going on.
