Mimics of Rune 02- Surrender

by Aimee Laine

  Maggie trotted to the closest bush with a little saunter in her step.

  Roy tapped his toe. “Now, remember, Lily. You agreed to come with me to verify our blood lines. That’s our story. They know who we are, but they don’t know what else I’ve told you. And they don’t know of our ulterior motive.”

  “To break up the whole system?”

  Roy’s head jerked to the side, a small enough action that Lily would have missed it if she’d not been staring right at him. “Yes. Right.”

  Lily scanned the area, turning her body all around in an attempt to give her team a view of the surroundings despite the black of night.

  “We have your coordinates, Lily. We’ll be local in a few hours. Hang tough,” Charley said.

  No one else commented, which worried Lily. Then again, she worried about most everything except what to wear, how to wear it and how to ensure a disguise worked flawlessly.

  Maggie trotted back over, scratched up dirt onto Roy’s feet when he looked away, and sat at Lily’s toes.

  “Ready?” Roy asked.

  • • •

  With Maggie tucked back in Lily’s arm, they followed Roy toward a set of doors with a red light above the frame. It blinked green as they approached, and they entered to another door. Beyond that one stretched a long, stark white hall with dozens of doors on either side, each with a light over the top frame. Some red. Some green. Some inactivated.

  Roy slid an access card into the second door, just as he had the first, and it buzzed, letting the three of them through.

  Lily froze again.

  Even Maggie stayed silent.

  In Lily’s ear, no one said a word.

  “Come on.” Roy took her hand, guiding her along the corridor to yet another door. A second card swipe, and she continued on through a third opening and onto a balcony that overlooked a room the size of an airplane hangar.

  At least a dozen small, box-like structures with flat roofs, each no more than a single story tall, dotted the center space, each with a variety of textures—brick, thatch, wood—but all of them white, like a miniature city with its color erased. Airconditioning duct work draped across beams and down into each square. Electrical lines ran across and back, a spider web of silver above each of the miniature buildings.

  Do people live in there?

  Maggie’s bark echoed through the otherwise empty space.

  “What is this place?”

  Roy scowled in Maggie’s direction. “This is a testing facility, Lily.”

  “Testing? Like what?”

  “You think it up; they do it. How else are they going to know what we can and can’t do with our bodies?”

  She followed him down a set of stairs to yet another set of double doors. To her left, white brick surrounded what looked to be a giant box. Just in front of it, another had been sheathed in some sort of white metallic lining.

  This place is eerily creepy.

  “How many people—” Lily started.

  Roy shook his head as he swiped his card. “Not right now. I just wanted you to see it. Remember, you’re here on your own. The more they think you’re cooperating, the less risk there’ll be. Just do what they say. Let them get what they need, and take them down.”

  The door buzzed open.

  Lily walked from the testing area into absolute opulence.

  Marble floors, gilded mirrors, deep browns and reds on the walls, the solid colors broken up by Ansel Adams prints. Light, classical music played through the speakers as they advanced through the hall toward a chestnut, double door.

  Roy stopped her in front of it. “You know nothing of what I’ve told you.” He tapped his temple.

  Lily nodded.

  The doors beeped and clicked until they slid into hidden recesses and revealed a space that resembled any home’s entry foyer. That opened into a living room with a huge television set, along with a white leather couch and furniture straight from an Ethan Allen catalog.

  The smell of barbecued chicken had Lily raising her nose, and her stomach grumbled at the flavorful essence.

  A man appeared, his black slacks swishing with his leg swings. His black button down hung open at the collar. “Good evening, or should I say morning.” He reached out a hand.

  Lily took it, warm and soft around her own palm.

  He leaned forward, added a kiss to each of her cheeks, but backed away at Maggie’s growl. “Miss Crane. So nice to see you. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  Lily withheld the shiver. “Um, hi …” She recognized the face, but couldn’t place where or why. A simple niggle of history tickled the base of her neck.

  He opened his arms. “Welcome … home.”

  • • •

  “That’s Kevin.” Charley’s memory never failed the team. She would hear what none of them could have seen. “Why is he there?”

  “Someone get Stuart on the phone,” Wyatt said, his voice more bark and bite than his normal calm. “And get me my records from our trip last month.” Wyatt typed away on his laptop, pulling data as fast as the air would allow. “Why isn’t our video working? And how did Kevin … from my Montreal op, get where Lily and Roy are?”

  Cael needed to pace. He wanted to stomp, hit and punch something, but the cabin of their seven-seater barely let him stand. “What if Kevin remembers her?”

  “He won’t,” James said. “She was in the other room, watching by monitor, when we took him down.” James handed Wyatt the phone. “Stuart’s on and briefed.”

  “How is he connected to this?” Charley asked for the fourth time.

  Wyatt and James held up their hands silencing her.

  “So, like I said to James … Kevin Barber was one of my contacts for the US and Canada child trafficking project we broke up a month ago.”

  • • •

  Home? Whose home? His? If he lives somewhere in the middle of the ocean, I can’t have met him before. Right? Why do I think I know you?

  Maggie growled in Lily’s arms.

  Kevin’s blue eyes sparkled, as dangerous as Cael’s could be. “I’m sorry to have asked you to join me so late … or rather early in the day, but safety precautions were necessary.”

  “Oh … of course. It’s okay.” Lily eyed Roy, hoping for support, encouragement or something.

  Roy’s brows moved to the center just enough that Lily noticed, but she didn’t understand the expression.

  “We have a lot to do before we begin,” Kevin said.

  • • •

  Charley held up a finger. “There was a third guy in the bar … he never gave me his name.”

  “Jagger,” Stuart said. “He’s a pussy, excuse my French.”

  Both Cael and Charley jerked back at Stuart’s uncharacteristic language. “That’s not Fr—” Charley started.

  “I know. So, anyway …” Stuart’s voice broke in and out as their satellite phone connected and disconnected. “Jagger was the guy who blabbed and started the whole mess that brought you guys up there.” A thump came before Stuart sighed.

  “What happened?”

  “Just hit my head against the wall. I should have seen this. I mean the guy was a prick. A genuine dickhead.”

  “Wow, Stuart, you’re all about the colorful language today,” Charley said.

  “Well, as much as I wanted to bust Wyatt’s chops over getting me in so much trouble, the truth was, I hated working that gig. Two years I spent walking in Jagger’s wake, though I swear, I didn’t know about Kevin until about six months ago. And you guys know I never would do anything to put Lily in harm’s way.”

  “We know,” Charley said.

  “Right …” Another sigh bled through the air.

  Cael stood. “I need to walk.”

  “You’re going to have to hunch a little or lose about four inches,” James said.

  Cael stood, propped his head against the ceiling and reduced his own size until he could safely storm his way through the cabin—all twenty feet of it. “Keep going, St
uart.”

  “So … we were always picking up kids from shelters and orphanages, and Jagger handed them over to me to ‘deal’ with, as he put it, depending on what he found. Generally, I placed them in the hands of the Feds who did whatever they did, but always said ‘keep going, Stuart, this is exactly what we need—evidence.’ Then Kevin shows up to take over that one route, and I was supposed to train him so Jagger could do something else. Two years!”

  Cael went back down the single person aisle. “Didn’t Roy tell Lily he’d been working on this for a couple years?”

  Wyatt’s head popped up from behind his laptop. “Yeah, he did.”

  James tilted up from his study of whatever materials. “I’ll be damned. There’s no way this is a coincidence.”

  “Could Jagger and Roy be the same person?” Cael’s fists clenched. “How does Lily fit in, then?”

  “I thought you said Roy always kept his eye color the same.” Wyatt waved a pen through the air.

  “Supposedly, he does,” Charley said. “And Jagger definitely did not have purple eyes or his signature freckle. I’d have noticed that right away.”

  “What color eyes did he have?” Cael asked.

  • • •

  “Begin?” Lily asked. “Now?”

  Kevin nodded in Roy’s direction. “We have a whole series of events planned for tomorrow and need to ensure you get the most rest possible before then.”

  Rest. Okay. Rest I can do.

  Two men stepped from the shadows and grabbed Roy’s arms.

  “What the fuck?” He struggled against their hold but failed to budge their grip.

  Kevin sidled closer to them. “Calm down, Roy. I thought you were smarter than this.”

  Lily shivered at the menace in his tone.

  Roy glared at Kevin, his grey eyes deepening toward near-black as he fought for release.

  “Take him to his suite.”

  The two men dragged Roy backward toward a set of doors, Roy kicking out and jerking his arms right and left the whole way.

  Maggie stayed silent through the interlude, her ears pricked, eyes narrowed.

  Lily kept a hand on Maggie’s back, soothing herself more than anyone. Why did they take him so abruptly? Are they going to do that to me?

  Two women appeared from nowhere Lily had seen. She spun and scooted backward away from their outstretched hands.

  Kevin caught her elbow. “Ms. Crane. There is nothing to fear. We’re happy to have you here.”

  “Then why?” Lily started.

  “Why take Roy so forcefully? Surprises aren’t Roy’s favorite thing. They’re just … necessary for your privacy. Do you think he would have left you on your own otherwise?”

  Lily had no idea if he would have. They’d come as partners, though she’d been forewarned about Roy’s ulterior motives to everything.

  “Take Ms. Crane to her room. We don’t want anyone interrupting either of them.” Kevin reached for Lily as though to shepherd her toward the waiting arms of the two women. “You understand, I’m sure?” At an impressive growl from Maggie, he yanked his hands back just as fast.

  What do I do? Why isn’t the crew on the plane talking to me?

  The two women, dressed in surgical scrubs, took Lily by her arms and guided her in the opposite direction as Roy had gone.

  “Until morning, friends.” Kevin’s smile etched itself into Lily’s mind.

  • • •

  The only sounds emanating from Lily or Maggie’s microphones came in the form of Maggie’s barks and muffled voices. Cael counted his blessings that Maggie hadn’t barked in a three-in-a-row succession—the sign they’d agreed to for an absolute emergency. When she’d chimed in with two, Cael’s heart had sped up. That had been about the time Lily and Roy met up with Kevin.

  “Lily’s video feed is horribly grainy and coming in intermittent spurts … and the connection is breaking all the time. I’m guessing the building they’re in is fortified,” James said. “Maggie’s collar isn’t giving us much, but some. Until we get on the ground and see it with our own eyes, we’ll be stuck listening.”

  Thirty-thousand feet in the sky while Lily is toughing out whatever torture they dish on her, on an island in the Atlantic.

  “Okay. New game plan. Stuart,” Wyatt said. “I have all your files on Kevin, but not on this Jagger guy. Go back to your Director from before you switched over to me. Get those files and authorization codes to unblock them. Have them sent directly to me.”

  “Why wasn’t Kevin put in jail if he was ‘caught’, so to speak?” Stuart asked. “I know my ass got reamed, but they knew I was undercover.”

  “They wanted more data,” Wyatt said. “But they never asked about the other guy. He’s not in any of the records, and I assumed, wrongly, that he was just a peon. A minion.”

  Cael shot a glance at Charley. She bristled as she closed her eyes. “Thinking about his eyes?” Cael asked.

  Charley nodded. “They were a blue, but I’m trying to focus on the details to determine if they were a Mimic blue or just regular. So far, I can’t tell.”

  Cael pointed a finger toward his friend and boss. “We know the government is behind this. We know our own kind have their own agenda. Now with Kevin and Jagger in the mix … I don’t know. It’s just so—”

  “Convenient,” they all said.

  Cael stopped his pacing, let his body return to his favored size and sat behind Charley. “What now?” He leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees.

  “We back track,” Wyatt said, shutting the laptop. “We take Kevin’s details and search Jagger to see where it started. Get a connection to Roy beyond just what Roy told Lily and find out who else is behind this.”

  “Could Kevin be a Mimic?” Stuart asked. “Or Jagger?”

  “Did you ever see him change form or adjust his eye color, or anything?” Cael asked.

  “No. Never. But I wasn’t with them twenty-four seven. Kevin was with Jagger, supposedly for the last year, maybe a little less. That’s about all he’d tell me.”

  “I’m guessing Kevin’s not one because he was really easy to subdue in Montreal.” Cael ran a hand through his hair. “But Charley was the only one to see the other guy.”

  “We need to figure out who’s running the show,” James said.

  “We have to stop what’s going on.” Charley’s voice broke. “But we have to know what it is, first.”

  Cael reached around and took her hand. “We’ll figure out both.”

  Wyatt took her other hand as Cael let go and rested against his seat back. “Remember what you told me when I asked you why you weren’t in a lab being tested by the government?” Wyatt asked.

  “I said ‘who says I haven’t been’,” Charley said.

  “Did you mean you, or did you mean Lily?” Wyatt asked.

  “I meant Lily.” She squeezed his hand. “If I’d been a hundred years younger, I’d probably have gone through the same thing as Lily, but I’m that much older, so I bypassed it all. I missed it, thanks to the convenience of age.”

  “I’ve never been in one, either,” James said. “Missed the beginning of the program by forty years.”

  “Twenty for me,” Cael said.

  As a quiet descended upon the plane’s occupants, Maggie barked three times.

  20

  As the two women held Lily in front of a door, Maggie jumped to the ground and took off. Lily wrenched herself free and launched after Maggie, having no clue why she’d made the emergency call.

  Worse still, she hadn’t heard anything from the team in the plane—or wherever they landed. If they did.

  Does Maggie know something?

  Lily raced after her dog, passing only four doors before her two escorts caught up with her and yanked on her arms, stopping her in the middle of the walkway. “I need to get my dog.”

  The little, white fluff ball continued running, the clickety-click of her nails on tile echoing off the sparse walls.

  “
We’ll get your puppy. But you’ll need to stop here.” They turned Lily toward a door marked ‘A’.

  With a swipe of a key card, the door slid open. Not just a room waited for Lily, but a whole suite. A home away from home, much like the larger version where she’d met Kevin. Plush carpeting in a deep green, accented with blues and red, blended into a second room of light maple and neutral browns.

  “This is your room. This is your key.” The one on the right handed Lily a plastic card. “Someone will come get you in the morning.”

  “I need to get my—”

  “We’ll see that she’s taken outside and cared for.”

  I bet you will. Neither had shown Lily any malice, but her gut churned at the way they talked. Had Maggie figured that out? I wish I was better at this … even as good as Charley is without her shapeshifting abilities. I’d take just that.

  “Sleep well,” one of the two said.

  “There are water bottles and snacks in the kitchen …” the other started as the first one dragged her back toward the door, which slid open as they approached. “We have an eight a.m. start.” Once they’d stepped out, the barrier closed.

  Lily followed, but the door didn’t budge when she reached it. She tapped it with the flat of her hand.

  Nothing.

  A series of switches to the right took her attention. She pressed the round one.

  Desk lamps illuminated the space, giving it a soft, warm glow.

  Lily flicked two other switches and lights came on over a small kitchen area with a separating bar and stool, as well as over a sunken living room with couches and a television. The red button she left alone, fearing it would send the entire place into a fit of alarms.

  She closed her eyes for a moment and tried to imagine herself inside a regular house, not a huge lab facility made up to look like one. If they have Leigh in one like this, I might not get as mad at them.

  The couch faced a wall of windows, which in the pitch black, Lily hadn’t noticed overlooked the ocean. Waves crested, crashed and retreated no more than fifty feet from her room, separated only by a patch of grass. For a moment, she forgot about her confinement and imagined herself sitting on the sand, dipping her toes into the water with Cael at her side.