Sofia’s eyes narrowed. “People like you are exactly why society needs limits. You’re a hazard to yourself.”
“Where is the antidote?” Kyle asked before Bert could respond to Sofia’s scathing observation.
“Back at Proficere.”
“Wasn’t it part of the price you negotiated with the Rue Marcha?”
“Yes, it was, but Alvin had doubts about what we were doing. The Rue Marcha wanted our research, all of it. They agreed to run field tests on both the chemical agent and the antidote, and deliver the results and data back to us, but Alvin couldn’t stomach the possibility that the Rue Marcha might let people die as part of the experiment. He wanted to hold on to the antidote until he received reassurance on their research protocols.”
Could Bert Reynard possibly be that clueless? Kyle wanted to hit the man. “What the hell do you mean by protocols? The Rue Marcha is a drug cartel, not a research laboratory.”
“Research happens in the field. Theories and hypotheses are useless without actual data, and the Rue Marcha would have given us what we really needed. Proof. Evidence.”
Sofia’s mouth dropped open. “At what cost?”
“Cost?” Bert scoffed. “Don’t talk to me about cost. I understand cost. There’s a cost to everything, but society has been shying away from paying the full cost of scientific advancement for a long time.”
Kyle shook his head and waved Sofia back. He could not let Bert get distracted, not when he needed more information out of the man. “What did you tell the IGEC?”
“Nothing. They think Alvin was the one in charge, and since he’s dead—” He shrugged. Clearly, he was not all that broken up over his research partner’s death. “As long as they don’t find the microchip or the test tubes, they have nothing on me. Our research files back at Proficere are heavily encoded, and without sufficient evidence, no judge is going to issue a subpoena.”
“You’re underestimating human paranoia over genetic research,” Sofia warned. “Your only chance is to come clean before the IGEC gets to the files.”
“Come clean?” Bert’s eyebrows shot so high they vanished into his hairline. “I’ve done nothing wrong. I didn’t create genetic variances. I only found them.”
“You created ways to exploit them.” Sofia pushed to her feet and folded her arms across her chest. “I think we’re done here.”
Kyle nodded. He stood, too.
“Wait!” Bert protested. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to make sure the Rue Marcha never gets its hands on your research,” Sofia said.
“You’re not going to turn the work over to the IGEC, are you?” Bert asked, alarmed. He rose from his seat. “If you do, I’ll sue Three Fates for breach of contract.”
Kyle snorted. “Considering how many laws Zara breaks on a normal day, somehow I don’t think that threat is going to faze her much, if at all. I’d think hard about ‘fessing up to the IGEC. They’re persistent little buggers—take it from me—I spent the better part of eight hours yesterday trying to shake them off my tail.”
“I’ve done nothing wrong,” Bert repeated.
“Only because lawmakers and regulators never imagined anyone would be crazy enough to do what you did. Come on, Sofia.” He stepped aside and gestured to Sofia to precede him out the door. “We’re done here.”
Kyle and Sofia left the interview room. They said nothing to each other on their way down to the lobby, but he could see her distress and unease from the way she nibbled delicately on her lower lip. It was a bad habit, he thought absently. Odd how well he knew her after two days.
Proximity and stress had a tendency to do that to a person. Attraction, too.
A muscle in his smooth cheek twitched. Bad move, Norwood. Attraction had a way of screwing with a man’s good sense.
The elevator door opened on the first floor, and people streamed out. He followed them.
A startled woman’s voice called out. “Kyle?”
Lydia. Damn, busted.
He had run into the one person in IGEC who would recognize him regardless of what he wore or the name on his identification.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sofia walk calmly toward the entrance. In her business suit, she blended into the crowd of IGEC employees. She did not look like a graduate student, and she most certainly did not look like a nightclub waitress.
Instead of leaving the building, however, she sat in one of the chairs arrayed in the lobby. Sofia opened her tablet and idly flipped through its electronic pages with the bored air of a woman waiting for a companion. When I get my hands on her—
Lydia’s sharp voice drew him back to his predicament. “Why are you here, Kyle?”
“You insisted I was in trouble with the IGEC, so I thought I’d come by and see just how much trouble I could get into. You know, just to help you make your case.”
She grabbed his arm, swung him around, and pushed him face-first against the wall in the elevator lobby. Handcuffs snapped close around his wrists. “I’ll bury you so deep in the vaults of the IGEC, Zara and your damned NSA friends won’t be able to find you.” She pulled him away from the wall and shoved him toward the guard desk. “You didn’t come alone, did you? You brought her.”
Shit. The guard would be able to identify Sofia and—
Kyle had both Lydia and Sofia in his line of sight when it happened. There was no denying what he saw, no passing it off as serendipity or chance. Sofia’s hand moved against her tablet in a gesture that could not possibly have been related to manipulating the electronic device. In that instant, the strap of Lydia’s handbag tugged sharply away from her shoulder, as if yanked by an invisible, malicious hand—a hand that mirrored Sofia’s movements. The contents of Lydia’s handbag scattered on the ground, among them, her Glock.
Lydia gasped and lunged for it, but it skittered away from her, as if tugged along on an invisible leash, a lure for an impatient puppy.
The handcuffs around Kyle’s wrists clicked and fell away.
Across the lobby, a short, attractive woman in a business suit put away her tablet and walked out of the building.
Sofia!
Instinct and training kept him moving in spite of the shock that punched into his stomach and the curse words that set up a muffled roar in his head. A mutant. Sofia’s a goddamned mutant!
The Glock had stopped moving. Her face mottled, Lydia reached for the gun. Kyle lunged forward and kicked it out of her reach. It spun across the polished tiles. “Gun!” he shouted, drawing everyone’s attention to Lydia as she dove for the weapon.
He darted in the opposite direction and raced out the door. The plaza outside the IGEC building was crowded—perfect for his needs. He vanished into the press of bodies, Lydia’s outraged shouts and orders eventually lost in the noise of the crowd.
It was easy for a man with his experience to make his way to a large office building several blocks away from the IGEC headquarters and catch a cab back to the general vicinity of Sofia’s house. From his innocuous drop-off point two and a half blocks away from the town house, he carved a roundabout path to ensure he was not followed before returning to her home.
He prayed only that his caution had not cost him too much time.
He flung the door open and stormed into the house. “Sofia!”
Her voice, small and thin, called out from the second floor. “I’m up here.”
He took the steps two at a time, and within moments, found himself standing at the entrance of her bedroom, staring at a woman he thought he had known.
Her hands moved steadily over the contents of the Proficere Labs cooler. She tucked the plastic-encased microchip into the lining of the case. Her fingers traced the slim outline of the test tubes containing the chemical agent created by Bert Reynard.
She was packing up the case. She was going to turn it over to the IGEC.
Kyle opened his mouth and said the first thing that came into his head. “You’re a goddamned telekinetic.”
>
Sofia stiffened. She straightened and turned to face him. “What is it to you?”
“You didn’t tell me.”
Annoyance flashed over her face. “We’ve known each other for two days. You don’t know my mother’s name or my father’s name. You don’t know what kindergarten, grade school, middle school, high school, or college I went to. You don’t know my best friend, my favorite color, or my favorite music. You don’t know anything about me.”
He stalked up to her.
She did not recoil, though she had to tilt her head back to look at his face.
The woman was not frightened of him. If she were, she would have left the IGEC headquarters at the first opportunity instead of waiting around to see if he needed help.
She’s a goddamned telekinetic. He ground his teeth. “I hate mutants.”
His words took the stiffness out of her spine. Her eyelashes fluttered down to conceal her eyes. “I know.” Her voice was small, so tiny, like the voice of a child.
“You don’t know why.”
She shrugged and turned her back on him. “Does it matter? You obviously think your hate is justified since you’re clinging to it.”
“I— You should have told me.”
Sofia shook her head. “Why? So that you can lump me into the category of big bad mutants like Danyael Sabre, who can kill with a touch? I’m not a council-trained mutant; I’m not one of their enforcers. I’m not an alpha-level telekinetic. Hell, I’m so low on the totem pole my powers don’t even register on those machines they build to track mutants.” She held up her hand, snapping her thumb and forefinger together like pincers. “This is the extent of my telekinetic abilities. Good enough for carnival tricks and not much else, so forgive me if I don’t feel like being tossed, by people like you, into the category of ‘most hated humans’ just because I have a smidgen of psychic ability that I would much rather not have.”
She slammed down the lid of the cooler and turned around to face him. “You’re an ass, you know that, Kyle?” Her voice quavered. “The least you could have done was to say thank you before you ripped me apart.” She seized the cooler, holding it to her chest like a shield, before marching past him and heading down the stairs.
“Damn it, Sofia. Not telling me you’re a mutant is like not telling me you’re HIV-positive before sleeping with me.”
Her footsteps halted on the steps. “You bastard! Go to hell.” Pain and rage quivered in her voice. The sound of her footsteps grew fainter, and he heard the sound of the front door opening. “And just for the record,” her voice shouted up at him. “I’m not infectious!”
He slammed his hand against the wall and left a small dent. “You fucking lied to me!”
It all made sense now. The items on the dressing table that she had flung into his face. The toilet door that he thought he had locked. Carnival tricks, she called them, but those small carnival tricks had been enough to make a difference.
She had saved his hide.
Oh, sure, he would have gotten out of his predicament with the IGEC sooner or later, but she had done so with such ease and flair.
She’s a goddamned mutant.
And she didn’t tell me.
It was not just lying through omission. She knew, everyone knew, that genetic heritage was as important—hell, it was more important than anything else. More important than race, than class and social standing. It mattered if one was human or just a human derivative—a clone, in-vitro, or mutant.
Kyle’s upper lip curled. She was a derivative.
The memory of Sofia’s voice ricocheted through his head. “I’m not infectious!”
She was a mutant. Like Danyael Sabre.
She wielded psychic powers as effortlessly as others wielded charm or good looks. Mutants were inherently manipulative, untrustworthy. They were thoughtless, selfish bastards, who sought only to further themselves, winning trophies and securing triumphs they could not have won any other way.
There was no place in the world for mutants like Sofia and her kind.
Yet she had stayed. Instead of leaving as she should have, as he had told her to in the event of any trouble, she had stayed.
And she had saved him.
Kyle squeezed his eyes shut. Damn. Tension vibrated through him, causing his clenched fists to tremble. Why? Why had she stayed?
She was only a minor telekinetic. He had seen alpha telekinetics hurl cars and raise psychic walls real and solid enough to deflect bullets, but Sofia, by her own confession, did carnival tricks. Dragging handbags from shoulders and unlocking handcuffs probably strained the outer limits of her abilities, yet she had guts enough to challenge IGEC agents.
Sofia had stayed to fight for him, to save him.
He raced down the stairs and out the door, just in time to see a cab, with Sofia in it, turn the corner. “Damn it!”
He jumped into the first available taxi he saw at Dupont Circle. “A cab just turned down Connecticut Avenue. It’s probably going to the IGEC headquarters on Constitution Avenue. Follow it.”
Keeping sight of Sofia’s cab in the perpetually heavy D.C. traffic was not difficult. The car Kyle was in was two and a half blocks behind when Sofia’s taxi pulled up in front of the IGEC building. She stepped out, cooler in hand. God, she looked so small, so fragile and vulnerable, with her coat pulled tight around her and her shoulders hunched against the bite of the wind.
He hoped she had not been crying, but if she had been, it was his damned fault.
She turned toward the IGEC headquarters, but before she had taken two steps forward, six men leapt out of two cars idling in front of the building.
“No!” Kyle pushed the car door open and raced down the pavement.
Sofia’s small body was buried in the bulk of the men surrounding her. Kyle heard only her screams as they dragged her into one of the cars.
It screeched away from the curb, and the other car followed. Kyle caught only a glimpse of the license plate, but he did not have to run it to know that the Rue Marcha had taken Sofia.
Chapter 12
Kyle rushed back to the cab he had abandoned and lunged into the front passenger seat. “Follow those cars!”
The taxi driver shook his head. His hands gripped the steering wheel. “Did you see the size of those guys?”
Yes. They looked larger than gorillas and they had taken Sofia.
Kyle ran around the front of the cab, pulled the door open, and yanked the driver out. He jumped into the driver’s seat and slammed his foot down on the accelerator. The car shot away from the curb, leaving its owner, screaming on the street. “You didn’t pay your fare!”
“You’ve got bigger issues than that,” Kyle muttered. He, too, had a hell of a problem. Following a car through Washington, D.C.’s traffic was not difficult, unless, of course, it was a black sedan. Washington, D.C., was full of diplomats, most of them driven around in black cars. He kept an eye on the two black sedans as they turned a corner and sedately flowed through traffic.
They were heading for the freeway.
He swung the steering wheel to direct the car up the ramp and onto the freeway. The two black cars were a hundred feet ahead of him, one still trailing the other.
A large eighteen-wheeler changed lanes, blocking his view. Kyle leaned against the horn, cursed under his breath, and swerved out of his lane. His gaze searched the freeway ahead of him. His eyes widened in alarm. His quarry had moved out of its linear formation. The cars had split up and now blended into the mass of cars on the freeway. He had to choose which sedan to follow.
He accelerated, weaving through traffic to catch up with a black sedan. Damn the tinted windows. Teeth gritted, he swung his steering wheel and rammed into the car.
The sedan swerved out of its lane.
Loud car honks pierced the air as drivers all around him objected to the dangerous driving.
For a moment, the sedan and Kyle’s cab raced alongside each other before the sedan accelerated sharply. Kyle pushed
down on the pedal and shot forward. The taxi’s frame, or its engine—something—rattled loudly; it was not made for high speeds. His options narrowed to the category of “stupid and dangerous.”
“Come on; don’t fall apart on me yet.” His cab shot past the sedan. He twisted the steering wheel, swinging into the sedan’s lane. The other car spun to avoid a collision and screeched to a halt on the shoulder of the freeway. The front of the car pointed toward on-coming traffic. Kyle scrambled from his cab, reached for his handgun, and ran toward the sedan.
He swung the driver’s door open.
A young black man, dressed in a neatly pressed suit, blinked up at him. Slowly, he raised his hands to show he was unarmed.
Damn. The Rue Marcha was South American. It did not hire blacks and its thugs sure as hell did not wear suits.
Kyle pulled open the back door. In the rear seat, a small child trembled in his mother’s arms. Both were well-dressed and dark-skinned. A small and colorful child’s backpack was nestled at the woman’s feet.
He did not doubt that the headline news tomorrow would report that the wife and child of an African diplomat were rudely attacked and accosted while returning from the child’s kindergarten program. Damn it! He slammed the door shut on them and looked up.
Two black sedans joined the traffic pulling off the highway at exit sixty-three.
Within moments, he merged into traffic before racing down the same exit. The two black cars stayed together, comfortably cruising down quiet neighborhood streets.
Which one had Sofia?
Trusting his instincts, he accelerated past the second car and broadsided the first.
It rammed back. The impact swung his cab onto the sidewalk, sending a mailman diving for cover. Kyle cursed under his breath. Too close. Hell, what he would give to have his finely tuned BMW instead of this piece of worn-down machinery masquerading as a car. Only his driving skills had kept him, and everyone else around him, alive thus far.
Myths & Magic: A Science Fiction and Fantasy Collection Page 61
