Xenofreak Nation, Book Three: XIA

by Conway, Melissa

  He swept a hand to indicate the couches. Bryn and Mia sat with their backs to a large window that overlooked the river. Fournier strode into the kitchen and brought out a silver tray with a cobalt blue teapot and matching cups and saucers. He set it on a glass-topped coffee table fashioned from the tortuous stump of a tree, and then sat facing them on the smaller couch.

  Dundee set Mia’s purse on the couch next to Fournier and went to stand by the door. He was still wearing the surgical mask, his slitted green eyes staring out over Bryn’s and Mia’s heads at the river. Bryn imagined him floating there among the reeds growing along the bank, motionless, only the top half of his face visible as he waited for his unsuspecting prey.

  “I hope you like tea,” Fournier said as he poured.

  “I like answers,” Mia responded.

  “Don’t we all.” He held out a cup brimming with amber liquid.

  Mia took it, but didn’t sip, choosing instead to balance it on one knee. Bryn curled her cold fingers around the cup he handed her almost gratefully, savoring its warmth.

  “Alright,” Mia said. “Enough with the pleasantries.” She gave sarcastic emphasis to the word. “What do you want with us?”

  “I’d like to know how the anti-xenofreak poster child,” he nodded in Bryn’s direction, “and an infectious disease specialist with the CDC became acquainted.”

  “How do you know who I am?” Mia asked. “I used a fake name.”

  He shrugged. “My staff looked through your purse. Normally, they wouldn’t have bothered, but you arrived with Bryn. So tell me how you know each other.”

  Mia shook her head. “Maybe you should be asking why I took time off in the middle of a deadly outbreak to get a xenograft.”

  He laughed. “I don’t need to ask why. It’s obvious you’ve figured out what my colleagues have been trying to tell the mainstream scientific community for years: xenografts protect against certain pathogens. Is the CDC planning to tell the public?”

  “I’ve informed my superiors of my team’s findings.”

  “Have you?” He set his cup on its saucer with a hard clink. “Because I’ve been monitoring the official press releases, and they’ve mentioned nothing.”

  Mia smiled thinly. “We are a bureaucracy.”

  “How very true. Bloated and corrupt like all government. However, that’s beside the point. I ask again: how did you meet Bryn?”

  From the door, Dundee said, “Maybe we should ask Maddy Singh.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Once Scott and Shasta left Nicola in the interview room to stew in her newly outraged mood, he asked, “Was that true? Did Fournier warn the agency?”

  “Warn? No. Threaten? Yes. I assume whatever he told Nicola was meant to pacify her.”

  She opened the door to interview room two, where Savvy was seated at the table.

  Scott took his eye patch off and tucked it into his back pocket. “Savvy, this is Shasta Fox, my boss.”

  Savvy lifted his head, but didn’t look at them. He’d kept himself occupied by hanging bits of twisted plastic wrap around his empty soda bottle.

  Shasta sat and glanced down at the holofile. Scott chose to stand behind her chair this time, arms folded across his chest.

  “Your real name is Felson Ostling,” she said. “Is that Swedish?”

  “I’m American,” Savvy replied.

  “Yes, I see you were born in Michigan. Diagnosed with savant syndrome as a child. What specifically does that mean in your case?”

  “I don’t forget.”

  “Prodigious memory. Okay,” Shasta said. “And how has that been useful for your employer?”

  “I’m unemployed.”

  “I meant your former employer, Dr. Nicolas Fournier.”

  Savvy had been staring at a spot on the table, but now he looked down at his lap, where his hands were clasped. “I can lie, you know.”

  “I don’t doubt that. The question is whether you can lie well enough to fool me.”

  Savvy glanced up at Shasta’s face, but didn’t respond.

  She sighed. “What is Miss Fournier’s relationship to you?”

  “We’re not related.”

  “How did she find you?” Scott asked abruptly. Maybe Savvy’s evasive way of answering was part of his syndrome, but it was annoying.

  “She was running away and wanted to see if her old room had survived the fire. I was hiding out at the Warehouse facility because I thought it was the last place Fournier would look for me.”

  It was the first time Scott had heard Savvy string more than a few phrases together, and the answer immediately struck him as coached.

  “Who told you to say that?” he asked.

  Savvy may have been able to lie, but he was terrible at it. He blinked several times and his upper body began rocking back and forth in small movements. “No one.”

  “Because Nicola said the exact same thing.” The lie rolled easily off Scott’s tongue. “I think maybe even word for word.”

  Savvy’s rocking increased; a physical barometer of his agitation. It struck Scott that all they had to do was ask the right questions and Savvy’s unconscious body movements would answer for him.

  “Why were you hiding from Fournier?” Shasta asked.

  “He scares me.”

  “If that’s true, you should be willing to help us capture him.”

  “No.” He stopped rocking.

  “Why not?”

  “He scares me.”

  She took a breath to ask another question, but a tone sounded from the holofile, indicating that new information had been added. Shasta accessed it, and Scott read over her shoulder. The tech guys had finished going over Savvy’s stuff. The hologame system was clean, but the portable 3D printer had piqued their interest. It was state-of-the-art and very expensive, with the ability to construct complex objects out of multiple materials, including nanoscale electronics. They’d tried, but were unable to access the printer’s hard drive.

  The other items among Savvy’s ‘stuff’ were a holophone without a battery and a mishmash of things apparently scrounged from the debris at the Warehouse facility. The birdcage was exactly what it appeared to be. The techs concluded that whatever had set the alarm off when Lo had driven in wasn’t among the items Nicola and Savvy had on them.

  Scott stepped out from behind Shasta’s chair and leaned forward to rest his palms on the table, extending his claws to scratch its surface lightly. Savvy seemed to be trying not to look at the claws, but his eyes kept flicking back and forth from the floor to the table.

  “Your 3D printer,” Scott said in a severe tone. “Can it make nanoneurons?”

  Savvy recoiled against the back of his chair. “I – I can’t tell you.”

  “Do you have a copy of Fournier’s nanoneuron program?” Shasta asked. Scott could sense her barely concealed excitement.

  Savvy said, “No,” but he began to rock again.

  “What’s the printer’s password?” Scott asked.

  “I can’t tell you.”

  Shasta nudged Scott’s forearm with her elbow and he backed off, stepping away from the table.

  “Have you been conditioned like Lupus?” she asked. “Are you worried that Fournier will flood your nervous system with fear?”

  Savvy shook his head. “I don’t have nanoneurons.”

  “Why not?”

  “He didn’t want to risk damaging my brain.”

  Before Shasta could ask anything else, a light began flashing in the room. Scott squinted up at the overheads before locating the fire alarm unit on the wall behind him, where the white strobe light had been activated. A mechanical voice told them this was not a drill, that there was a fire in the building, and advised them that evacuation was mandatory.

  Lips pressed together angrily, Shasta shoved back her chair and strode out of the room, pulling her holophone from her pocket. Scott was two steps behind her. At the end of the hallway, what little staff had been in the building were exiting the
floor through the stairwell door. Shasta accessed a phone number, muttering, “I got a bad feeling about this.”

  The head of building security appeared on her phone. His hair was dripping wet. Shasta asked brusquely, “Where’s the fire?”

  “Parking garage. Car fire.”

  “What’s the threat level?”

  “Depends. Fire department didn’t even answer when we called. Sprinklers went off and my men are trying to put it out with extinguishers, but if it explodes, things could get dicey fast.”

  “We have prisoners up here and severely limited staff!” Shasta sounded unusually rattled. “Can you spare anyone?”

  “I got two guys on the fire and two waiting for your staff to get to the lobby. Building’s surrounded by xenos and they won’t be able to evacuate. Don’t know how you’re going to get your prisoners out.”

  Scott leaned over Shasta’s shoulder and asked him, “Whose car was it?”

  “Uh,” the guard looked down at something, “It’s one of yours. Assigned to Tina Lo.”

  Shasta growled in her throat and disconnected abruptly, glaring at Scott. “I presume our guests left an incendiary device in the back seat?”

  “The tech guys said we set off some kind of alarm when we drove in. That’s why they were checking Savvy’s stuff. None of us thought he might have left something in the car.”

  She sighed and gestured to the interview rooms. “Get them. Alton and I will take care of Lupus. Meet us in the parking garage.”

  Scott didn’t question her. The parking garage was the source of the fire, but they couldn’t very well walk out the front door with Lupus. They would have to pack the staff and prisoners into cars and drive out – even if they had to mow the protesting xenos down.

  It occurred to him that this might be the ‘something big’ Shasta had been expecting: an attack on the XIA itself. She’d sent Lo and Boardman off to guard Unger, but what if Fournier’s plan had been to take advantage of the city’s overwhelmed law enforcement and military and break Lupus out?

  As Shasta disappeared down the hallway, he opened the door to interview room two.

  Savvy didn’t resist when Scott grabbed his upper arm and urged him to his feet. The savant’s face was turned away as usual, but when Scott caught sight of his profile and realized he was hiding a smile, he jerked his arm roughly.

  “You think this is funny?”

  “Chaos is always funny,” Savvy replied.

  Scott shoved him towards the door with a little more force than necessary. In the hallway, he kept a close eye on him as he opened the door to interview room one. Nicola rushed out, saying, “It’s about time! I thought you were going to leave me in there!”

  Scott almost said, “Don’t think it didn’t cross my mind,” but stopped himself. There was still a possibility she might open up to him, which wouldn’t happen if he was a jerk to her.

  He walked between and a little behind them as they headed for the exit. When he opened the door at the end of the hallway, Nicola balked at entering the stairwell.

  “Do you smell that? Is that smoke?”

  The air in the stairwell did smell faintly of smoke. Scott said, “It’s the only way out. The elevators won’t work in an emergency.”

  “Where’s Perky?” she demanded.

  Scott suffered through a moment of déjà vu, remembering the girl’s stubborn refusal to abandon her bird and her ‘mother’s’ books when the Warehouse facility was under attack.

  “He’ll be fine,” he said.

  “She! She’ll be fine – but she won’t.”

  With no warning, Nicola bolted in the opposite direction.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Bryn felt as if the temperature in Fournier’s living room dropped about ten degrees when he asked, “Maddy Singh? What about him…or her, or whatever?”

  Dundee took several steps closer, crocodile eyes narrowed like he was smiling under the surgical mask. “The chatty germ doctor let it slip on the ride. Said Maddy’s one working eye was photosensitive.”

  Fournier looked at Mia with a shake of his head. “Is this true? You know Maddy Singh?”

  “They both do,” Dundee said helpfully.

  Fournier turned his penetrating gaze on Bryn. “What have you been up to?”

  She certainly couldn’t tell the truth, but a lie would get complicated fast. She thought about keeping silent, but was afraid of what Mia might blurt out. She settled on, “We met once. I don’t know her.”

  “And you?” he asked Mia.

  “She kidnapped me. Her people were dying of the typhoid and she thought I could help.”

  “So this happened recently.”

  “You should know,” Mia replied, “since you’re the one who sent the carrier to infect them.”

  Bryn closed her eyes briefly. Mia just couldn’t resist goading him.

  “Ah,” Fournier said. “You must be referring to Junk.”

  “His cause of death was blunt force trauma, in case you’re curious.”

  “Nothing less than what he deserved for getting caught.”

  “More like what he deserved for killing a bunch of innocent children.” Mia was getting worked up, and Bryn laid a cautionary hand on her arm that she immediately shook off.

  “Innocent?” Fournier asked. “Maybe. I won’t get into a debate with you about the wisdom of preventing the children of one’s enemies from growing up and becoming enemies themselves. Regardless, my intention wasn’t to kill anyone, but simply to spread the infection among xenos.”

  “And create carriers.”

  Fournier sat back against the couch cushions. “You are well informed, aren’t you? Is this your own insight or Maddy’s? Oh, wait – the CDC is working with the XIA on this one, am I right?”

  Even though it was a logical conclusion for him to make, Bryn began to silently panic. In Mia’s agitated state, she might slip up and mention Scott. According to Padme, Fournier still didn’t know he was an agent. Thankfully, rather than answer him, Mia looked up at Dundee and demanded, “Why is that man wearing a mask? Is he a carrier?”

  “He is indeed. And in case you’re curious, your graft won’t begin to protect you until several weeks after it’s fully healed.”

  Mia didn’t respond other than to stare up at Dundee from beneath knitted brows. Bryn was frankly relieved that something had shut her up before she revealed anything that could get them killed – assuming she hadn’t already.

  A gentle tone sounded, and Fournier blinked to activate the holopiece over his ear. No one but the wearer could see who he was talking to, but she heard his side of the conversation. “Why not?” “Then use the truck!” Slowly, like he was speaking to a child, he said, “Drive it through the front entrance.”

  After he ended the call, Bryn tried her best to sound respectful. “When are you going to let us go?”

  He leaned forward to take another sip of his tea, regarding them intently over his cup. “I really just brought you here out of curiosity, but I have serious reservations about turning you loose now that I know about your connection to the Mad Eye. My organization has suffered some severe setbacks thanks to their leader.”

  “But we aren’t connected to them,” Bryn protested. “We don’t want anything to do with them.”

  Mia was still staring at Dundee as if his crocodile eyes had mesmerized her. She tilted her head to one side and murmured, “Junk had a crocodile graft, too.”

  The moment the words left her mouth, she gasped and all the color leached from her cheeks. She turned to Fournier. “Is that it? Do all the carriers have reptile grafts?”

  Fournier chuckled. “That would be ironic, since you just got one, wouldn’t it? But no, it doesn’t appear to be all reptiles, just crocodilians. And unfortunately, now that you’ve figured that out, I really must continue to detain you.”

  “Why?” Bryn exclaimed. “I thought you wanted the government to tell the public the truth.”

  “Did I say that?” He looked at
her derisively. “It doesn’t matter what the government tells them. Everyone gets their information from the interweb. Besides, I doubt anyone as young and attractive as Ms. Padilla has much sway within the CDC. Why do you think they sent someone so inexperienced on such an important mission? So she would fail.”

  Mia’s cheeks turned pink again. “I’m hardly inexperienced, but I don’t keep my résumé in my purse, so you wouldn’t know.”

  For the first time, Fournier’s mask of politeness slipped. “What I know is that as we speak, the legislature is hearing testimony in yet another futile effort to regulate xenoaugmentation, while at the same time, some very powerful people are determined get it outlawed entirely – people who have significant influence over the decision-makers in this country, including those at the CDC.”

  “You’re suggesting the CDC is withholding information that could save lives?” Mia asked.

  “I’m not suggesting it; I’m saying it. I’m sure they justified it by claiming they didn’t want to panic the people, but it’s too late now, isn’t it? The riots changed everything. People aren’t sitting on their hands waiting for answers; they’re actively searching them out.”

  Bryn thought about the men who’d chased them out of Scott’s apartment. One of them had referred to the jacker Scott was out tracking down, saying, “Savvy says all xenofreaks are immune, and once the contagious ones kill off the rest of us, the world will one big xenofreak show.”

  Shasta had said Savvy’s messages seemed to be originating from someone with specific inside knowledge of Fournier’s involvement.

  “It was you,” Bryn said, suddenly understanding. “You’re Savvy, aren’t you?”

  “Oh, you’ve heard of him?” He looked pleased. “Savvy is what you might call my mouthpiece.”

  “I don’t get it,” she said. “You’re turning people against xenos.”

  “I prefer the term ‘polarizing.’ For or against. A necessary first step to accomplish my short term goals. I find that when things are particularly chaotic, the ones who don’t panic can accomplish quite a lot.”