Xenofreak Nation, Book Three: XIA

by Conway, Melissa

Chapter Sixty

  They’d never even had a chance. If the soldiers hadn’t for the most part been avoiding kill shots, it would have been a massacre.

  Scott staggered back onto the field, one arm around Shasta and other around Alton. He wasn’t sure who was helping whom; they’d all been hit. Both Scott and Alton had taken rounds in the chest – stopped by their vests – but Shasta had been hit in the lower leg.

  The zook shell had taken out the sand bag barricade as planned, but before any of them had a chance to test the breach, tanks had moved in, forming a barrier of their own. The soldiers hadn’t bothered to fire the big guns, though – didn’t need to. Just as Shasta predicted, they’d simply launched a tear gas canister or two and began picking off the coughing, gagging xenos at their leisure. Scott had fit his gas mask over his face in time, but it hadn’t made any difference.

  He’d like to think things might have gone differently if the xenos hadn’t panicked and started shooting, but the truth was: the army had swatted them like flies. It was a miracle they were still alive. The aftermath left the tunnel and corridor in chaos. Men in orange jumpsuits lay everywhere. He’d only found Alton and Shasta by talking to them through the earbugs. He hadn’t seen Maddy fall, but had no idea where she’d gone.

  He expected to see the detainees on the field running around like someone had stuck a firecracker in their anthill, but most of them were standing still, gazing towards the center of the pier. When Scott saw what they were looking at, he stumbled and nearly fell, pulling Alton and Shasta to an abrupt stop with him. Lo had activated the holosphere again and Bryn’s face stared out at the crowd. She looked terrified, but then she swallowed visibly and began to talk.

  “Hi. Um, I’m Bryn Vega, and I don’t have a lot of time. We don’t have a lot of time. They tell me this broadcast is streaming live on the interweb, and it’s pretty much our last hope, so that’s who I’m talking to now. The people out there who aren’t stuck here on Poppy’s Pier with me and just about every other xeno in New York City. If you saw the news helicopter footage, then you know the army rounded us up and dumped us here. Anyway, I need to tell you two things. First off, and I know this is gonna sound crazy, but,” she stopped and took a deep breath, “they’re going to blow up the pier and kill everyone on it in about an hour. Um, I guess we have a—a clip that’ll prove how we know it’s true.”

  Bryn’s face disappeared, to be replaced by Unger in the UAAV.

  “This is Deputy Director Mark Unger of the XIA. With me is Senior Agent Shasta Fox. Behind me is the body of Congressman Darrell Abbott, who was kidnapped along with me from his car in the Holland Tunnel and brought to Poppy’s Pier, where we are recording this message. Unknown conspirators allowed our attackers to bring us onto the pier, and Congressman Abbott was subsequently beaten to death. This holo is date and time stamped and what follows is the taped statement of Philip Singh.”

  The holo changed to Singh’s face. He was sitting in the UAAV, still dressed in Maddy’s ridiculous suit.

  “State your name and occupation, and acknowledge that you’ve been read your rights,” Unger said.

  “My name is Philip Singh, CEO of Novusimha International. I’ve been read my rights, but I’m offering this statement under extreme duress,” he looked off camera insolently. “It’s not a confession.”

  “Duress?” Unger sounded incensed. “Of your own creation. Go on.”

  “I happen to be privy to a plan to destroy the infrastructure of the pier where the xenos are being detained.”

  Scott noticed he worded his statement very carefully. He’d only admitted to knowing about the plan, when it was very likely he’d had a lot more to do with it than that. He also made it sound like he wasn’t even on the pier.

  “What kind of explosives and detonation?” Unger asked.

  “I wasn’t informed about the explosives, but they’re on timers. Can’t be stopped now. Key supporting pylons will be destroyed and the pier is expected to collapse into the river in a little over an hour.”

  Scott had to give it to Fournier, he’d predicted the method exactly.

  “Who gave the order?” Unger asked.

  Singh lifted his head, but refused to answer.

  “Why is the pier being targeted?” It was Shasta’s voice.

  Again, Singh didn’t respond.

  Bryn’s face reappeared and she looked startled for a moment before composing herself.

  “The second thing you need to know is about the super typhoid. It’s true it’s spread through the air by xenos, but only those with—” she turned and Mia’s face appeared in the background. Mia said quietly, “Crocodilian, which includes alligator, but that’s unsubstantiated.”

  “Right,” Bryn continued. “We’ve been told that any xeno with a crocodile or alligator graft might be a carrier. It doesn’t mean they are, just that they might be if they were exposed. Xenos with other grafts don’t appear to spread it. So please…stop the violence.”

  Scott urged Shasta and Alton to keep walking. He thought Bryn would end the transmission now that she’d delivered the message, but she seemed to have gathered her courage, and kept on talking.

  “I think a lot of you know who I am. The girl whose own father…well…” she gestured to her head and a sprinkling of xenos in the crowd laughed. “But knowing my story doesn’t mean you know me. And seeing someone with a xenograft doesn’t mean you know what kind of person they are. I’m not going to lecture you on tolerance. You either have it, or you don’t. I grew up with the most intolerant parent ever, and yet, somehow I—I try not to judge. Maybe I never would have chosen this life, and for sure my donor didn’t give its life willingly or knowingly, but my graft has given me a—a gift.

  “Xenografts aren’t just an extreme form of body art. That’s how it started out; as a fad or a statement, but it turns out there’s more to it, and us being immune to the typhoid is only the beginning.

  “Thing is…there are people who didn’t want me to know that. People I should have been able to trust. But I’m no scientist – I have to rely on experts to explain the complicated stuff. And I have no way of knowing if they’re keeping information from me or lying for their own benefit. The only thing I can do to protect myself from misinformation is to question what I’m told and keep an open mind. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that I have to find my own truth.”

  The crowd nearest Bryn was thick, but they’d left a big open space around her. Scott, Shasta and Alton pushed their way through to the front. Bryn saw him and her eyes shone with unshed tears.

  “Anyway,” she said. “In case we don’t get out of this, at least you know what really happened here. Thanks for listening...”

  The holosphere disappeared, the crowd burst into applause, and Bryn ran into Scott’s arms.

  Chapter Sixty-one

  The first indication that the broadcast had been seen was the news helicopters. This time there were five of them, maneuvering for space above the pier.

  Fifteen minutes later, the first boat showed up. It was a privately-owned tugboat, and the captain and his two crewmen wore blue face masks. They took as many xenos as they could carry, with the exception of anyone wearing an orange jumpsuit. After that, boat after boat appeared; barges, tour boats, ferries and trawlers. The evacuation of the detainees was unscripted and unauthorized, but the army did nothing to stop them.

  Half an hour after the broadcast, special units had been mobilized and soldiers swarmed onto the pier. The prisoners, including Bluto, were rapidly and efficiently shuttled into the prison transport buses and driven away, while the remaining detainees were herded off the pier and onto the Hudson River Greenway.

  The UAAV, driven by Lo as usual, with Boardman in the passenger seat, took Shasta, whose gun-shot leg had been field-dressed by Mia, as well as Fournier, Singh, Dundee, and Congressman Abbott’s body. The rest walked behind as it drove off the field and onto the street beyond the pier.

  Bryn laced her finge
rs with Scott’s, Jason stayed close to Mia’s side, Nicola walked between Carla and Savvy, and Unger took up the rear with Padme.

  Maddy had disappeared.

  Lo pulled up next to the surveillance vehicle Shasta had been driving. The keys had been taken from Shasta, but luckily the vehicle had keyless entry and start capability. Unger got into the driver’s seat, Jason sat shotgun, and everyone else piled in. There weren’t enough seats for everyone, but they made do by doubling up or sitting on the floor. Nicola cried out happily when she saw Perky’s birdcage. Scott lifted a black box from one of the seats and set it on the floor to make room for Bryn.

  Soldiers directed them north along West Street, but they’d only gone a couple hundred yards when a series of muted booms resonated through the ground and shook the vehicle. No sooner had the tremors subsided when a throbbing roar began to build, shuddering through the air and the street like an earthquake.

  The surveillance van was solid along its sides, but Bryn was seated to the rear of the vehicle with a clear view out the back windows. She gaped at the pier, lit quite dramatically by spotlights from the news helicopters.

  The remaining windows in the structure surrounding the pier shattered as the infrastructure collapsed. The walls crumbled and the roof of the building – the parking lot – caved in. Billowing dust rose into the air, mingled with steam from the bonfires, rapidly extinguished by rushing water. The side of the pier parallel to the river sank rapidly, and displaced water created a mini tsunami that radiated out from the epicenter. Waves crashed into the seawall and flooded the road.

  “My God.” Mia sounded awestruck and humbled. “It really happened.”

  Soldiers they’d driven by moments before caught up to them on foot. As one of them ran past, he waved his arms wildly and shouted, “The road’s collapsing! Move it, move it, move it!”

  The UAAV took off, and Unger pushed his foot down on the electrigas pedal, squealing the van’s tires and driving down the street until they encountered another road block. He pulled up next to the UAAV and they just sat there, stunned, as the dusty aftermath of the pier’s collapse drifted through the air and blanketed the vehicles.

  After a few minutes, a man in fatigues appeared out of the haze, cut across the front of the vehicle through the headlight beams, and made his way to Unger’s window. He rapped his knuckles on the window, and Unger rolled it down. Bryn didn’t recognize him at first because of his face mask, but when he spoke, his voice gave him away as the colonel who’d addressed the detainees through the holosphere.

  “You are Deputy Director Unger of the XIA, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Colonel Jeremy Carter. Sir, on behalf of the United States Army, I’d like to thank you for your warning. This would have been a terrible tragedy if you hadn’t gotten word out. Is Philip Singh in your custody?”

  “I’m not releasing him to you.”

  Colonel Carter’s white eyebrows shot up. “I’m afraid that’s not your call. And…need I remind you that members of your team attacked a National Guard unit this evening? Some of my men were injured. I’d be well within my rights to arrest all of you.”

  Mia stood and made her way to the front of the van, pulling her face mask down to hang around her neck. She reached across Unger to stick her hand out the window. Colonel Carter shook it as she introduced herself. “Doctor Mia Padilla with the CDC. My team was dispatched to identify the pathogen and verify its mode of transmission, which we’ve done. Patient zero is in that vehicle.” She jerked her thumb at the UAAV. “Philip Singh is sitting next to him, which normally wouldn’t be a problem, because Singh is protected by a xenograft. However, if you listened to the broadcast, you’ll know that we strongly believe the carriers of this disease are xenos with crocodile or alligator grafts. Unfortunately, Singh has one such graft. Being as how he’s definitely been exposed to the bacterium, the CDC will be quarantining him for an indefinite period of time.”

  The colonel didn’t look convinced, but Unger jumped in before he could respond. “We have several injured agents and witnesses who need to get to a hospital. I respectfully request that you back the hell down.”

  Bryn wasn’t sure swearing at the man was the best tack for Unger to take, but Colonel Carter surprised her.

  “Look. I don’t like to admit this, but I’ve been second-guessing orders all day. My superior officer told me specifically that your warning was a hoax. If my men hadn’t seen a SEAL dive team enter the water several hours ago, I would have followed his orders and ignored it. But nothing that’s happened today was sitting right with me, and I couldn’t do it. Damned glad I didn’t, either, because I probably would have blown my brains out if I’d been responsible for all those deaths.

  “I don’t know what the deal is with Singh. I’m supposed to take him into custody, but I’m not going to. The piss is going to trickle down all over me no matter what I do at this point, so I’m just going to keep doing what I think is right.”

  He stepped back and signaled to his soldiers to let them pass. Unger offered a jaunty little salute and then accelerated past him. Bryn heard his sigh of relief all the way at the rear of the van.

  As soon as Mia sat back down, she rummaged through her purse for the hand sanitizer. Then she asked Jason to use the van’s equipment to contact her team. However, it wasn’t until they’d driven within the sphere of a working cell tower that he was able to get through. Mia directed her people to assemble at Middleborough Hospital, advising them to initiate quarantine protocol. After that, she contacted the coroner’s office about Abbott’s body.

  Unger spent the rest of the ride on the phone conducting agency business. Bryn tuned him out while Scott dozed next to her, snoring lightly.

  Nicola was sitting cross-legged on the floor with the birdcage on her lap. She had a hand stuck through the door and the grey bird sat on her hand while she rubbed the feathers on its head with her thumb. She looked up at Carla.

  “You seem familiar.”

  “She should,” Padme said.

  Carla shot Padme a warning look, but Nicola had already latched onto the hint and come to the correct conclusion. “Are you Mouse?”

  “My name is Carla, but yes, they call me Mouse.”

  Nicola beamed. “Hi.”

  Carla smiled back, shaking her head fondly. “You look so much like her.”

  Nicola set the bird on its perch, took her hand out of the cage, and deliberately shut and latched the little door. “I know her name was Miranda McKim…but who was she?”

  Carla made a regretful face like she wasn’t going to tell her, but Bryn spoke up. “She was Carla’s best friend. And my mother.”

  Nicola swung her head around, eyes wide. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “That’s…” Nicola stopped and considered it. “What does that make us?”

  Bryn laughed a little. “I have no idea.”

  “But family, though, right?” Nicola asked. “I’ve never had a family. It was always just Dad and me.”

  Bryn still didn’t know how she felt about the situation, but she didn’t want to be responsible for crushing the hope in Nicola’s eyes. She reached out and put a hand on the girl’s shoulder.

  “Definitely family.”

  Chapter Sixty-two

  When they arrived at the hospital emergency bay, Mia’s team met them decked out in hazmat suits. Mia got out of the van first, and one of her team members helped her into a suit of her own. Only then did she direct them to let the passengers out of the vehicles – all but Boardman, Dundee and Singh.

  Fournier and Shasta were taken away in wheelchairs. Scott and the others were escorted into a large room marked ‘Quarantine.’ Against one wall, there was an empty hospital bed with a blue curtain hanging from the ceiling on a pull-track. The rest of the room was just an open space with plastic chairs, except for a small table in one corner with bottled water and snacks on it, and a holovision mounted on the wall. A line quickly
formed to use the one attached bathroom.

  Nicola set Perky’s cage down on the snack table and refilled the bird’s water dish.

  “Well, this is nice,” Lo said, looking around at the sterile white walls. “Homey.”

  Carla opened a packet of crackers and stuffed one into her mouth, speaking around it. “Better than the pier.”

  “Let’s can the chit-chat,” Unger said brusquely. “I’ve got some pretty big gaps in my knowledge of what went down today.”

  He grabbed the back of two chairs and dragged them to the far corner of the room near the bathroom door, then went back to get two more. He switched the holovision on and said, “You four.” He indicated Carla, Nicola, Savvy and Padme. “Sit over here so I can talk to my agents in private. You can watch holovision.”

  Bryn obviously wasn’t an agent, but Unger seemed to want to include her. Scott sat wearily next to her with the 3D printer in his lap. He’d taken it from the UAAV because Shasta wouldn’t want him to let it out of his sight.

  They spent the next half hour filling the deputy director in on their eventful day. In the background, the holovision had been tuned to a news channel. Every once in a while, they stopped talking to watch coverage of the disaster at Poppy’s Pier.

  It was during one such break that Scott caught a glimpse of someone familiar standing on the deck of a tug boat. He jumped up and strode over to the holo, sweeping his hand to reverse it.

  “Well, what do you know,” Lo said. “Maddy Singh, on the run.”

  Scott looked at Padme. She seemed neither surprised nor betrayed that Maddy had left her behind. Padme glanced at Nicola and answered Scott’s unspoken question. “It was my decision not to go. Just in case Fournier was telling the truth.”

  Not long after that, Mia arrived with two women in white lab coats and a man in blue scrubs. She was no longer dressed in the Hazmat suit, but they all wore face masks and gloves. The man pushed a portable device on wheels over to the hospital bed.