Xenofreak Nation, Book Three: XIA

by Conway, Melissa

  Mia danced away and sidestepped around behind him. This time, she aimed for his head, cracking the bat across the back of his skull. He let Bryn go and roared, staggering around in a half circle to bring Mia into view. She let out a surprisingly primal yell for someone so petite, and swung the bat again, bashing him in the jaw. He toppled to his knees.

  Without a word, Bryn and Mia began to run again. After three blocks with no sign of pursuit, Mia tossed the bat into an alley and they slowed to a fast walk. Mia’s car was a high-end, mid-sized rental. As soon as they got inside, Mia reached out and depressed the pump of a bottle of hand-sanitizer that was resting in the cup holder. As she rubbed her hands together vigorously, the same antiseptic scent Bryn smelled earlier filled the car.

  “Kills germs and doubles as pepper spray,” Mia said. Then she started the engine and drove off, squealing the tires.

  Bryn sat catching her breath and rubbing her arm. It was several minutes before either of them spoke, and then they both started talking at once. Mia said, “What is wrong with…” at the same moment Bryn said, “What the heck is…”

  They laughed, and neither one bothered to finish their sentence because it was clear they’d both been about to go off on a rant about crazy people. After a moment, Bryn said, “I should call Scott.”

  She’d tucked Mia’s holophone into her purse as soon as they’d vacated the apartment, and took it out now. “I doubt those jerks bothered to even shut his front door. I hope no one steals anything.”

  “He didn’t have much to steal. Not even a holovision.”

  Bryn stared at the holoscreen and sighed. “I don’t remember his number. It was floating in my holocloud. Do you have it?”

  “No, but Shasta’s is there.”

  Bryn found Shasta’s name in Mia’s cloud, but when she went to dial it, Mia said, “Wait. Don’t. She’ll want me to come in, but I have to get the graft first.”

  “Why don’t you just tell her you need some personal time?”

  Mia let out a short, scoffing laugh. “I doubt that’s even in her vocabulary. Besides, now is definitely not the time for me to flake, but I just can’t…” she trailed off, a shadow crossing over her face, shades of the devastated woman who’d been sitting in front of Scott’s door last night.

  Bryn had been through a lot with Mia, but she was essentially a stranger and Bryn didn’t have a clue what to say to make her feel better, if that was even possible. Instead of trying, she asked, “Can you drop me off at my godmother’s house?”

  The resulting silence spurred her to look at Mia’s profile. It was hard to make out her expression from this angle, but Bryn thought she seemed disappointed. “What’s wrong?”

  The corner of Mia’s mouth drooped a bit. “I don’t know. I guess I thought you were coming with me.”

  “I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”

  “I could pay you.”

  “Are you serious? Look, I’m scared, okay? We just got chased out of Scott’s apartment!”

  “So it’s safe at your godmother’s house?”

  Bryn looked out the windshield. Up ahead, a burnt-out car squatted at the side of the road.

  “No, it’s probably not safe,” she replied. “Carla lives in a bad neighborhood. Where are you planning on getting the money?”

  Mia flashed her an inscrutable look. “My parents. They live here in New York on the Upper East Side. After what those men said, I doubt ten thousand will be enough to bump me to the head of the xenograft line.”

  Bryn sighed. As they drove past the husk of the still steaming car, she imagined she saw the charcoal remains of a body in the front seat. Mia reached out and pushed the recirc button on the dash, but not before a barbecue-like smell filled the car. Mia grabbed a tissue from a box on the floor by Bryn’s feet and held it to her nose.

  Bryn thought about Jason, recovering in the hospital. He’d been assigned to protect her, had taken her to a safe house, but they’d been attacked. It occurred to her that there was no such thing as a safe place for a xeno, not now, not ever.

  “All right,” she said. “They’ll probably have to give you pain-killers and you won’t be able to drive. I’ll come with you.”

  “Thank you. I owe you one.”

  Bryn looked back down at Mia’s holophone. She couldn’t call Scott, but he’d sent Mia the xenosurgeon information, so she settled for replying back to that text. It took a while to compose a message that covered the basics of the attack, but that hopefully wouldn’t freak him out too much. By the time she hit ‘send,’ Mia had pulled up in front of a brick apartment building with a long green canopy over the front entrance. Two men in uniform stood waiting as they got out of the car.

  Mia said, “Good morning, Brunson.”

  “Nice to see you again, Miss Padilla,” one of the men replied, eyes skimming over Bryn’s quills with no change in the pleasant expression on his face. “Your parents didn’t mention you were coming.”

  The other uniformed man took Mia’s car keys and the twenty dollar bill she slipped him. Bryn figured he must be the valet, since he got into Mia’s car and drove off. Brunson, who had spotless white gloves and shiny black shoes, had to be the doorman. Outside of holovision, she’d never experienced this kind of service.

  “I wasn’t expected,” Mia said. “Are they home?”

  “I believe Mrs. Padilla is in.”

  “Would you be so kind as to let her know we’re on our way up?”

  “Certainly.” He opened one of the double doors and held it as a blast of warm air swirled out. Neither Bryn nor Mia had stopped to grab a coat when they vacated Scott’s apartment, so the warmth was welcome.

  Inside, a crystal chandelier hung from the center of a high, arched ceiling, its soft light reflecting off the veined marble flooring. As they waited for the elevator, Bryn couldn’t help but compare this ostentatious lobby with the utilitarian one in Scott’s building.

  The Padillas’ suite took up the entire fourth floor. When the elevator doors opened onto the apartment’s luxurious entryway, a plump Asian woman in a brightly patterned silk kimono hurried to greet them, exclaiming, “Mia! What a pleasant surprise.”

  Mrs. Padilla placed her hands lightly on Mia’s shoulders and kissed the air on either side of her head. Then she pulled back and beamed at Bryn. “And you brought a celebrity with you! How marvelous.”

  Chapter Six

  Between them, Scott and Lo managed to shove the sheet of corrugated metal roofing along the ground until the roughly three-foot diameter hole was revealed. The aluminum sheet was heavier than Scott expected and the process of moving it produced scraping and screeching noises galore.

  “If there’s anyone down there, they know we’re coming,” he said.

  Lo squatted next to the rim and ran her fingers over the broken concrete. “I’m no demolition expert, but does that look like a chisel mark? Like from a jackhammer?”

  “Yep. Someone made this hole because they wanted in.”

  “Why? I thought Fournier’s facility was destroyed and any evidence removed.”

  Scott shrugged. “Why don’t we go ask?”

  She made a face. “After you.”

  He took the flashlight off his belt, switched it on, and straddled the hole to get a better look. There wasn’t much to see, just a packed dirt floor at the bottom, maybe six feet down. Several months ago, he’d walked the entire length of the crudely constructed tunnel, but it had been dark and he and Kareem Williams had been carrying a panda at the time, so he couldn’t say what else might be down there.

  He sat at the edge of the hole with his feet dangling inside. “Cover me.”

  Lo shifted so one knee rested on the ground and drew her weapon. When Scott dropped into the hole, he halfway expected someone to rush him, but nothing happened. He stepped out of the circle of light and shone his flashlight around. No surprises, just support beams and dirt walls. He couldn’t see to the end of the tunnel, but hadn’t expected to.

&
nbsp; “All clear,” he called.

  Lo responded cheerfully, “Incoming!” and landed behind him with a grunt of effort. She switched on her flashlight and said, “What a pleasant place.”

  Scott led the way. The air was cold, damp, and in addition to the fetid chemical odor permeating the place, smelled of smoke. At the end of the tunnel, what had once been a closet with a false back wall was now a gaping hole. Lo took up a defensive position against one wall as Scott stuck the flashlight through the opening and briefly poked his head around. There wasn’t much left of Fournier’s facility. The drop ceiling was mostly gone, although the scorched and twisted infrastructure hung precariously from the bottom of the slab above them. The majority of the walls that had once neatly partitioned the former parking garage had either burned away to ash in the fire or been knocked down during the search for evidence afterward. The flooring seemed to have mostly survived, but it was covered with burnt and broken refuse.

  He pulled back for a moment and then stuck his head in again to look in the other direction. His flashlight was strong, but didn’t reach the furthest walls. Someone had cleared a path through the refuse, however, and he thought whoever it was might as well have put up a neon sign saying, ‘This way.’

  He shone the flashlight in his own face so Lo could see him jerk his head to indicate he was going in. He heard her follow him; their footsteps echoed in the cavernous space. It didn’t take long for him to lose his bearings as the cleared path turned this way and that, finally coming to an end at another tent. This one didn’t appear to be made from solar fabric, which made sense down here in the dark. The tent opening was zipped shut, but a faint glow from inside indicated that someone was either home, or had left a light on.

  “Tent occupant!” Scott called, for lack of a better descriptive term. “We’re with the XIA. Come out where we can see you.”

  A muffled male voice replied sullenly, “Leave me alone!”

  “We just want to talk,” Lo said.

  “I’ve said everything that needs saying,” the man replied.

  “Not to us.”

  “Then you weren’t paying attention.”

  “Are you Savvy?” Scott asked.

  “Obviously.” Savvy’s voice hadn’t lost any of its petulance. If it weren’t for the deep timbre, Scott would swear they were talking to a child.

  “You’ve been stirring things up out there,” Lo said.

  “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “Uh, I beg to differ. Hate speech with the intent to incite violence.”

  “Hate? More like truth, and good luck proving my intent.”

  Lo took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Whatever your intent, there are a lot of scared people out there.”

  “They’re not scared enough.”

  Scott decided he’d had enough. “Come on out. Don’t make us come in after you.”

  “You said you just wanted to talk. We’re talking.”

  “You know, Savvy,” Lo said in an exaggeratedly patient tone, “We’ve been tasked with identifying you. My partner doesn’t care whether we get that ID pre or post mortem, but since I just killed a man yesterday, I don’t have the heart for it today.”

  If Lo had intended to intimidate him, it didn’t work.

  “If you killed someone, shouldn’t you be on administrative leave?”

  Scott was beginning to see where Savvy got his nickname. He was smart and a smart aleck. Scott couldn’t see Lo’s face very well in the dim light from their flashlights, but he thought she rolled her eyes.

  “Usually, yes,” she replied. “But everyone’s on high alert, in part because of the nonsense you’ve been posting.”

  “It’s not nonsense,” Savvy said, but the light inside the tent went out and Scott heard him rustling around. The zipper on the tent slowly rose and he stepped out, holding a hand over his eyes when they both spotlighted him.

  As soon as Scott got a good look at the man’s high forehead and heavy-lidded eyes, he revised his assumption that Savvy’s nickname came from his smarts. Savvy was thin, middle-aged, and stood before them with shoulders hunched, head hanging so low his chin nearly touched his concave chest. Even with the scraggly beard hiding his lower face, he was familiar to Scott because he’d recently described Savvy’s face to an XIA agent trained in recovering latent memories. Scott had met Savvy once, only briefly, but he hadn’t been given his name – just that he was a ‘savant’ and a valued member of Dr. Fournier’s team.

  Scott and Lo had just stumbled upon one of the XIA’s most wanted criminals.

  Chapter Seven

  Bryn didn’t often find herself overwhelmed by a personality, but Mrs. Padilla, from her perfume to her opinions, could only be described as ‘strong.’ Mia indulged her mother for maybe ten minutes as the older woman prattled on, bouncing from one inane subject to another with hardly a segue, and then Mia said baldly, “I need money.”

  “Oh.” Mrs. Padilla looked affronted. “For goodness sake, Mia, what a crass thing to interrupt me with. And in front of our guest, too.”

  “Well, I apologize, Mother. I realize you’ve insulated yourself from the world, but even you couldn’t have failed to notice the riots.”

  “Of course I noticed. You don’t need to be insulting. However, I’m at a loss as to what the state of the world has to do with your needing money.”

  Mia inhaled deeply and let it out in a slow sigh. Bryn knew that tactic well; it was always best to pause and regroup after a parent pushed your buttons, especially if you wanted something from them.

  “You’ve heard about the super typhoid?” Mia asked.

  Mrs. Padilla’s head went back. “That’s why you’re here. I should have known you wouldn’t come to New York just to see me.”

  Mia flinched a little, but let her mother’s dig slide. “Yes, my team was called in to identify the pathogen, which we have, but my job isn’t done. We need to find a way to stop it, and until we do, I have to protect myself. That’s why I need the money.”

  “Protect yourself how?”

  “Xenos are immune.”

  “Xenos..? You’re not thinking about getting a xenograft, are you? Because that’s out of the question.”

  Mia clasped her hands together, bowed her head, and pressed her knuckles to her lips. In a tightly controlled voice, she said, “Mom. Every single solitary non-xeno who gets this thing dies, but not xenos. Whatever it is that affords them immunity has got to come from their grafts. Getting a graft after you catch it doesn’t help – I know, because I watched a man who’d gotten it done die.”

  She lifted her head. “This is not just for me. You and Dad need to do it, too, and you need to do it fast. There aren’t enough bioengineered animals for everyone in the world to get grafted. Demand is high right now, and as far as the public knows, the super typhoid is still only just a rumor. Imagine what will happen when the government is forced to admit the truth.”

  Mrs. Padilla didn’t respond right away. Bryn watched her face as she processed Mia’s words. A wrinkle of worry between her eyebrows smoothed out as doubt gave way to stubbornness in a brief thinning of the lips.

  “I suppose you can confirm which rumors are true, then, right?” Mrs. Padilla asked. “For instance, the news reported that a xenofreak knew he had it and was spreading it on purpose, but that he was dead now, and the likelihood of getting infected was really low.”

  “The risk is low now,” Mia said, “because not all xenos are infected and the majority who are, aren’t contagious. But like I said, everyone’s rushing out to get grafted. That may reduce their risk, but it increases the xeno population in general as well as the odds that someone you pass on the street might be a carrier.”

  Mrs. Padilla sighed dramatically. “I don’t speak for your father, but I’m certain he’ll agree that he and I are not in danger. However, given your profession, I will concede that you should probably protect yourself. How much money do you need?”

  Mia looked at Br
yn, who shrugged. Scott told Mia ten thousand would get her a small graft, but that was before they knew everyone was trying to get one. Plus, she’d have to bribe her way to the front of the line now.

  “A hundred thousand?” Mia said.

  Mrs. Padilla’s jaw dropped open. “What? Isn’t that a bit steep? I assume you need cash. I don’t think your father keeps that much in the safe.”

  “Whatever you have then, and I’ll have to hope it’s enough.”

  Mrs. Padilla shook her head, but bustled over to a painting on the wall. Within a short amount of time, she’d opened the safe behind the painting and removed a thick envelope. She took a moment to thumb through the bills inside before handing it to her daughter. “Fifty thousand. Best I can do on short notice.”

  Mia gave her a quick hug. “Thanks, Mom. It’ll have to do.”

  “Honey…are you sure you’ve thought this out? I mean, is it going to bother you, having something foreign permanently attached to your body?”

  Bryn had wondered the same thing given Mia’s germophobia.

  Mia’s lips twisted wryly. “I hope not, because I’ll be stuck with it.”

  Xenografts were meant to be permanent, but technically, they could be removed. Bryn flashed on the horrific memory of seeing Carla’s bloody xenograft after it had been ripped from her body.

  She and Mia started to leave, but Mrs. Padilla stopped them before they called the elevator. She opened a nearby door and stepped into a walk-in closet. After a minute or two of rustling around, she reappeared with two garments draped over her arm. She handed a classic wool overcoat in a sedate navy blue to Mia, and turned to Bryn with a shorter coat in a heavy black fabric with an attached hood.

  “This was in fashion for about two seconds a decade ago,” she said. “But it might come in handy in case you need to be discreet.”