Xenofreak Nation

by Melissa Conway

  “Good morning.” She came close to the bed as he swung his legs off the side. Her dark brown eyes gazed so steadily into his it unnerved him.

  “How’s Lupus?” he asked.

  “Stable. The bullet missed any organs.”

  “Why’d you dart me?” As if he didn’t know.

  Padme stepped back, but she was still watching him closely. Was she trying to communicate something? He recognized the make of the camera in the corner; it would have a sensitive microphone with voice recognition software. Even a whisper would be picked up and analyzed. Scott took Padme’s demeanor as another warning; probably, as she’d suggested often enough in the past, he still wasn’t fully trusted.

  “Dr. Fournier would like to speak with you,” she said. “Come with me.”

  Scott slid off the bed and stood unsteadily. Padme offered him her arm. It was the first time she’d voluntarily allowed him to touch her, not that he’d ever tried. He needed the support, though, so he took it, grabbing her thin upper arm and trying not to lean too heavily on it as they walked out into a dimly lit, wide hallway. They took turn after turn, passing several sets of double doors like you’d see in a hospital. Scott felt like he was in a rat maze, a cold, underground warren.

  “Where are we?” he asked, without expecting an answer.

  “This is the Clinic.”

  He nodded. The place was bigger than he’d expected, but quiet. They saw no one on their trek. He wondered how Fournier got power, water, sewer and ventilation down here.

  “It’s huge,” he commented.

  Padme pulled him along. They finally passed someone, a man in doctor’s scrubs. Scott thought he recognized him as one of the doctors who’d worked on Lupus.

  “When I arrived,” Padme said. “It looked nothing like this.”

  “How does he keep it secret?” Scott tried to sound only mildly curious.

  “Loyalty.”

  There’d been builders down here, there would be doctors and nurses that came and went. Loyalty on such a scale seemed inconceivable, but it had to exist, because this place existed and after years of looking, the XIA hadn’t a clue where to find it. Scott didn’t have a chance to ask Padme what she meant by ‘loyalty,’ though, because they’d arrived at a wooden door, different from all the others, heavier and more official-looking. She knocked. Scott noted the presence of another security camera.

  The door clicked and Padme opened it. Scott was feeling steadier, so he let go of her arm as they entered. The room wasn’t large, but it was carpeted and the lighting was brighter. A glass-topped desk guarded another door and sitting at the desk was a girl, maybe in her early to mid-teens. Scott stopped and stared. It wasn’t her xenografts, fans of small, grey and white patterned feathers where her eyebrows should be that stopped him, but her face. She looked exactly like his sister May—if May had lived long enough to reach adolescence.

  Padme placed a hand on his arm, as if in warning. “This is Nicola.”

  Pretty, blonde-haired Nicola stood. She smiled and said, “He’s busy so it will be a few minutes. Are you hungry?”

  Nicola’s smile, so like his sister’s, broke through Scott’s carefully concocted impassivity—tears stung his eyes. He knew who she was, or rather, what she was. To hide his reaction, he ducked his head and said, “Starving.”

  Nicola walked to a paneled cabinet and opened it. Inside was a concealed refrigerator. By the time she brought him a plastic-wrapped sandwich and a soda, he’d gotten control of himself.

  “Thanks.” He sat with Padme on a leather couch and devoured the sandwich in less than five minutes, all the while trying not to drop crumbs on the pristine rug. The wait for Dr. Fournier stretched into half an hour before Nicola said, “He’s ready for you.”

  Padme jumped up and smoothed her hands down the front of her shirt, movements jerky. Scott had never seen her nervous before, but it made sense that she was now. Fournier had control over Lupus, who had control over her.

  He had no idea what to expect when he walked through the other door. He recognized the man sitting behind a typical administrator’s desk from photographs, although the older Fournier’s face had deeper lines around his eyes and his light brown hair was thinning on top. Fournier came around the desk, held out his hand and said, “Cougar. It’s good to see you.”

  Scott had never actually met him since he’d been unconscious before, during and after his surgery. He shook Fournier’s hand and then stood there as the doctor examined his fingers, squeezing each one to force the claw out. “Looks great. Having any problems?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Excellent. Thank you for recovering the panda.” He looked at Padme. “Any word on how they knew?”

  “None, but it’s unlikely to have come from our end.”

  Fournier shook his head. “Jacques swears it wasn’t his people, but he’s been clumsy in the past. Ah, well. Did you give Cougar the tour?”

  Padme said, “No.”

  “Well, I think he’s earned it.” Fournier waved towards the door and Scott took that as a dismissal. He followed Padme back out to the reception area. Nicola smiled May’s smile again and he tried to return it, tried to keep in mind the circumstances that brought the girl into the world weren’t her fault. Just like they hadn’t been May’s.

  Padme led him into the main hallway and he found that Fournier had followed behind them. For the next twenty minutes, they toured the floor with Padme as their guide. It was much like what Scott was led to expect it would be, essentially a combination hospital and research facility, only perhaps on a larger scale than the XIA suspected. They had all the equipment on hand that you’d see in a regular hospital, including the newest non-rad body imager.

  Scott met over a dozen personnel: scientists, doctors, nurses, bioengineers and technicians, none of whom seemed normal. They all had xenografts or alterations; some of them were twitchy, like they were on drugs or had a neurological deficit, and one refused to make eye contact or shake his hand. Most were abrupt and moved quickly on, like they didn’t want to stand in Fournier’s presence any longer than need be.

  The floor space was divided into operating rooms, recovery rooms, various storage rooms, and laboratories. Well before they reached the section housing the bioengineered animals, Scott heard and smelled it. He wore his neutral face as they walked past cage after cage of furry and feathered creatures, most balled up in slumber, but some of them bawling or squawking for attention. There was an entire wall of glass cages filled with mice, rats, snakes, lizards and baby alligators and crocodiles. Padme led them past a room with a disturbing sign over the door that read, ‘Vivisection.’

  “The pigs and most larger animals are kept off-site,” she said.

  Scott didn’t see the panda, and Fournier, as if he’d read his mind, said, “The panda has her own special accommodations through that door, but we won’t disturb her after what she’s been through. She wasn’t bioengineered, so she’s not a compatible donor, but her children and hopefully clones, will be. The client is a very powerful Chinese drug lord who is anxious to desecrate one of his country’s national emblems.”

  Scott was relieved when they left the animal rooms behind. Next, Padme showed him the staff living quarters, small rooms with bunk beds that looked like they belonged on a submarine. Again, Fournier anticipated his questions.

  “We have staff from all over the world,” he said. “They understand the need for discretion, so are content to live on site. As incentive, they are paid extremely well. And they do get out on a regular rotation, but only a few know the Clinic’s true location. Many of them are wanted for criminal offenses, so it’s a mutually beneficial arrangement. The Clinic is a secure facility that allows them the leeway they desire to conduct experiments that their governments, and ours, have deemed…unacceptable. We are making huge strides in many areas. It’s unfortunate that none of us will ever be published in the medical journals…unless the laws change.”

  They arrived at a heavy
-duty door on the far side of the floor from Fournier’s office. “I must go,” Fournier said. “Padme will show you the control center.”

  Scott shook his proffered hand again. When Fournier was gone, Padme held her palm under a holobeam security scanner and the door to the control center clicked. He followed her into a room that looked like something out of NASA mission control only on a much smaller scale. There was one office chair, and Padme sat on it.

  “We are safe to talk here,” she said. “This is my territory and there are no bugs.”

  “So, the rest of the Clinic…”

  “Is heavily monitored, as is the Warehouse. The slightest word or gesture out of place is compiled in a report that goes directly to Fournier every day. The loyalty I spoke of isn’t voluntary.”

  Scott looked around. “This is some impressive equipment.”

  “It is state-of-the-art. One of the engineers you met invented the grease you enjoy playing with. Another is an autistic savant who worked with me to develop Fournier’s nanoneuron program.”

  Scott had been keenly interested in everything he’d seen and heard thus far, but now he felt a curl of excitement in his gut. “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yes. Our nanoneurons are not like the ones used elsewhere. Most function simply as the intermediary between the brain and the xenotransplant. Ours are a little more complicated.”

  Scott reached out to touch the controls on a holo projector, pretending to be listening with half an ear. Padme slapped his hand away and said, “Pay attention. This is important.”

  She already had his full attention, but now he looked at her so she’d know it. Her eyes had that intensity he’d been seeing all afternoon and she had streaks of pink high on her cheekbones. She said this was her territory. All the clues he’d picked up about her technical abilities led here.

  She said, “You’ve probably been told that nanoneurons use the brain’s electrical activity as a power source, similar to the microtransmitters I told you about, the ones that use gastric-acid as a battery. Like the microtransmitters, our nanoneurons use cell towers, but instead of sending signals to the towers, they receive them. In this way, we can change the programming at any time.”

  “I don’t get it. Why change the programming? It’s pretty specific to each person’s xenoalteration, right?” He flexed the fingers on his left hand, extending his claws.

  Padme pressed her lips together. “The cerebellum, which as you know controls motor function, is the only structure in the brain thus far that accepts nanoneuronal implants. No one has ever been able to influence higher functioning. But the cerebellum has other functions…cognitive functions.”

  Scott struggled to understand her meaning. “And—you can affect those?”

  “To some extent. Nanoneurons are infinitesimally small, therefore they are limited as to how much programming they will accept.”

  Scott wished there was another chair for him to collapse into. As unbelievable as it was, Padme was talking about mind control. “What cognitive functions are you referring to?”

  “It’s how Fournier keeps his people loyal,” she said. “We can manipulate the two most basic emotions housed in the cerebellum: pleasure and fear.”

  She turned to her holo keypad and typed something. Then she stood, grasped his shoulders and guided him to her chair. He obliged her by sitting, but as soon as he did, she shocked him by climbing onto his lap and straddling him. He said, “No,” and his hands closed around her waist to lift her away, but she reached out and tapped a holo key.

  He barely had time to register that she’d activated something in his brain before she kissed him and his body responded against his will with a rush of desire.

  Chapter Forty-five

  Just as Bryn was pulling out of the garage, a black sedan parked itself at the end of the driveway, effectively blocking her from leaving. Agent Yang got out and strode up the walk. Bryn rolled down her window.

  “I won’t delay you for long,” Yang said. “Just need to serve this warrant. We have to go through your father’s things.”

  Bryn took the folded document and tossed it onto the dash. “Great. Feel free. Can I leave now?”

  Yang waved to the driver of the sedan, who backed up. Bryn pulled out and headed straight for the bank, where she deposited the check. The funds wouldn’t be available right away, but she’d planned for that by doing something unprecedented—taking her father’s emergency credit card from its hiding place in his desk drawer.

  She drove to the mall and bought four bra and panty sets, a hip-length leather jacket, a pair of low-heeled boots, sunglasses, and a great bomber hat that covered most of her quills. When she walked into the food court, she felt like a dark Amelia Earhart. She bought a freshly baked cinnamon bun, but after a couple of bites the gooey, overly sweet confection turned her stomach. She closed the box; maybe Carla would eat it.

  Summer was ending and families crawled the mall searching for school clothes. Everything around her was normal, and yet she felt like she was on an alien planet. She halfway expected to run into one of her friends, and thought about walking over to the public holophone by the information desk to call Maria. She decided against it; it would take too much energy to answer all the questions her best friend was sure to ask.

  On the way out, she stopped by her holoprovider’s booth to pay her past due bill and found herself exchanging her basic phone for a state-of-the-art holophonepad and full service Internet. Once her new holophone was up and working again, she found she had over two thousand texts and emails. She read the first ten or so before concluding that most of them were from strangers who’d seen her story on the news and somehow gotten her email and text information. She deleted them all.

  When she got to the apartment complex, Carla came downstairs and showed her where to park.

  “I know this place looks iffy,” Carla said as she helped Bryn haul her suitcases and bags from the mall up three flights of stairs, “but there’s a pretty aggressive neighborhood watch.”

  She unlocked her apartment door, and as they walked into the living room, asked, “By the way, do you have my gun?”

  “No,” Bryn replied, dropping the bag with her new lingerie on the couch and setting her suitcase upright next to it. “Scott took it.”

  “That’s good to know,” said a male voice from behind her.

  Bryn spun around. So much for the neighborhood watch. Kareem stood in the doorway to Carla’s bedroom. He wasn’t holding a gun himself, but she suspected he had one on him. He looked at Carla. “Shut the door.”

  Carla slowly complied. “Who are you?”

  “Bryn knows,” he said. “I’m a very ticked off guy who’s got some questions.”

  “I don’t know where the panda is,” Bryn said.

  “Oh, I think you do.” Kareem sauntered further into the room.

  “How did you know I was here?” Bryn asked.

  “Same way I knew the panda was coming in at Coney Island. Got an anonymous call.”

  That didn’t make sense. Bryn hadn’t told anyone where she was going. “I really don’t know anything. Couldn’t you tell I was practically a bystander? I had no idea we were even bringing a panda to shore. I thought it was drugs or something.”

  Carla had moved to stand next to her. “Since you’ve broken into my home,” she said. “I think introductions are in order.”

  “This is Kareem Williams,” Bryn said. “Commander of the ARA.”

  “Well, Mr. Williams, can I get you something to drink?” Carla made a move for the kitchen, but Kareem held up a hand.

  “That’s very hospitable of you, but I’d rather you stay where I can see you.” He turned to Bryn. “Whoever left that message was right about the panda in the first place, so it’s logical to assume they must be right about you knowing where it is now.”

  “I don’t. I swear. Do you still have the message? Can I hear it?”

  Kareem pulled out his holophone and tapped. A generic text-to-speech robotic m
ale voice said, “If you want the panda back, you can find Bryn Vega at her godmother’s house in Brooklyn at 1602 Saint Martindale Drive, Apartment 304.”

  “Godmother?” Bryn asked, turning to Carla.

  “Well, yeah, of course I’m your godmother.” She shrugged. “Don’t you remember?”

  Bryn shook her head; it had been so long ago. “How did the caller know, when I didn’t even know?”

  A look of dawning realization swept over Carla’s face. “I told Lupus and Padme. I had no choice, Honey. I spilled the beans about everything that happened. About you coming to see me, about what your father did, about Cougar helping us escape from Nosferatu. Lupus was furious about the cops crawling all over the place.”

  “Yeah, but Lupus wouldn’t have sent that message,” Bryn said, “so it had to have been Padme. But how did she know I’d be here? She’s the one that took me to the psychiatric center.”

  Carla snorted. “She knew they wouldn’t hold you after the truth came out.”

  “None of this makes sense!” Bryn exclaimed. “Why sic Kareem on me?” She looked at him and said, “No offense.”

  “None taken.” Kareem had sat on the arm of the couch and was listening intently as Bryn tried to figure out what was going on. “Maybe whoever called me,” he said, “doesn’t know that you and I are acquainted. Maybe they assumed I’d shoot first and ask questions later.”

  “What I don’t get,” Carla said, “is why Padme would call the ARA to steal the panda in the first place.”

  Bryn stared at Carla, thoughts spinning. Why had Padme done it? Bryn sat on the couch and dropped her face in her hands, rubbing her temples and wishing Scott was here. Chances were he’d know what the Pakistani girl was up to. But Bryn had overheard Shasta Fox say Scott was ‘off the grid,’ which she assumed meant the XIA couldn’t contact him.

  “I don’t care why this Padme tipped me off,” Kareem said. “And I believe you when you say you don’t know where the panda is, because I don’t see why they’d tell you something like that. I do think you know where I can find the sons-of-bitches who hit us last night, though. Security tapes were too grainy to make anyone out, but we got a description of one of them; my girlfriend shot him.”