Crosscut

by Meg Gardiner

  And to hear my dad, I’d gone and blown my grand ivory-tower legal education by kicking free from law practice after four years. For what—to turn myself into a legal journalist, brief doctor, and science-fiction novelist? Even now I heard him: Girl, you’re fixing to stay in debt your whole life.

  But he knew why I did it. The black days when Jesse lay near death in the ICU taught me that you don’t waste second chances. The day he came off the critical list, I quit my job.

  My mom lived in a quaint and beautiful Spanish-style house with oaks shivering overhead in the breeze. The shuttle dropped me off out front. The house was only four miles from where Mom grew up, though worth twenty times what my grandparents paid for their place. She bought it when she took the job in San Francisco. She had invested her modest divorce settlement in a stock portfolio that she cashed out at the right time, at the height of the boom. But then she was a stewardess. Her life revolved around knowing one truth: What goes up must come down. Angie Delaney was a wise woman. This was Palo Alto, and the house was now worth seven figures.

  It was just after three p.m. and she was still at work, thirty miles up the freeway near the San Francisco airport. I let myself in and went out back to sit in the shade by the swimming pool. I sat down on a chaise longue to plan my ambush. It was simple.

  Hug, laugh, eat, and hit her with hard questions about China Lake and Project South Star. Catching her off-balance was key. I couldn’t give her time to plan her cover story. I put my feet up, listening to birdsong.

  “Ev, sweetheart.”

  I blinked. My mother stood above me, arms wide, beaming.

  “Mom.”

  She laughed and pulled me to my feet. “My God, I don’t believe it.”

  Shoot, how long had I been asleep? I glanced at my watch: ninety minutes. I embraced her, smelling the fresh scent of her perfume.

  “You look awesome,” I said.

  She smoothed my hair, smiling as if a pot of gold had just dropped into her backyard. “Flying up here to pull a commando raid on me, this is too much. What a hoot.”

  She was fifty-seven and still a sprite, trim and tan. Her tailored gold suit stopped above her knees. Her heels were kicked off, dangling from one hand. Her hair was shorn to a spiky collage of silver mixed with Coca-Cola brown.

  “What secrets were you going to squeeze out of me? Black projects? Secret weapons? What do you want to eat, a sandwich? Or I have soup.”

  “South Star,” I said.

  “I know, honey. Come inside.”

  She gripped my hand and hauled me into the kitchen. It was photo central. The fridge was plastered with shots of me, my brother, Brian, and especially my nephew, Luke. The walls were a bright mosaic. Her postcard collection spanned thirty years and six continents. Alaska, Rome, Cape Town, the Grand Canyon. She sat me down at the kitchen table and opened the fridge.

  “So.” She waved a hand. “You satisfied that Phil isn’t here?”

  “Guess so.” Mostly I was satisfied that she spoke his name easily, without coldness or rancor. This indicated that they were on the same wavelength at the moment.

  “How’s that man of yours?” she said.

  “He sends his love.”

  “Brian said he looked underweight. Are you cooking for him? Making him laugh?”

  She took a pitcher from the fridge and poured two glasses of iced tea. I felt like a grouchy toddler roused too soon from the playpen.

  “He’s great. We’re great. And it’s status quo.”

  “Just checking.” She smiled. “He’s still the cutest thing on—”

  “Wheels. Yeah. You know how I like ’em. Tall, dark, and paralyzed.”

  She leaned against the kitchen counter, drank her tea, and rattled the ice cubes in the glass. “Gee. I was going to say the West Coast.”

  Red heat climbed up my neck. She set down her tea. Taking a carton of orange juice from the fridge, she poured a glass and set it on the table in front of me along with a trio of pills.

  “What’s this?” I said.

  “Vitamin C and Tylenol. You’re coming down with something. You only get snotty when you’re feeling punk.”

  I found that I didn’t have the energy to stick out my tongue at her. And the only reason I wanted to was because she’d gotten the jump on my slick-as-spit plan to ambush her.

  “Sorry. Thanks.”

  She put the back of her hand across my forehead. Her skin was cool. I felt soothed and safe and five years old.

  “Well, you’re not feverish.” She gestured to the juice, indicating, Drink, drink.

  I swallowed the pills. “Achy and tired and a killer headache.”

  “Is this PMS?”

  “Why do people keep saying that?” I slumped, and conceded, “It’s PMS extreme. It’s so bad it should be an event at the X Games.”

  She turned back to the sink. “Is that why you chased your cousin out of your house, hissing like a cobra?”

  I pushed the heels of my hands against my eyes. “I’m taking out a hit on Taylor.”

  “You can’t.” She turned around. “Then who’d keep us posted on Kendall’s divorce? Or Mackenzie quitting business school to make vegan clothing?”

  “True.”

  Taylor spread useless information faster than a computer virus. The family counted on her for gossip.

  She came over, stood behind me, and wrapped her arms around my shoulders. “Fine. I’ll stop prying.”

  “Excellent.”

  “Once I’m dead. Then the foundation takes over. It’s in my will.”

  I laughed, but felt the headache roaming around the back of my skull. She went and began taking things out of the fridge. I rubbed the muscles in my neck, rolling my head.

  “Mom, I’m the one who’s here to pry. I presume you’ve figured out that I flew three hundred miles because I need some straight answers.”

  She set cherry tomatoes and a head of lettuce on the counter. “I know. Let’s make some dinner. I have a good Napa Valley red in the wine rack; we’ll crack it open.”

  “Please don’t stonewall me.”

  Her face was taut. “I won’t. This has been coming for a long time.”

  “It has?”

  “About twenty years.”

  Coyote stood at the window. The view from the hotel room was panoramic. The sky was striated red, the skyscrapers downtown flecked orange with light. Smog provoked superlative sunsets, though they were increasingly rare. Pollution had decreased here. You could just taste it on your tongue, barely smell the hydrocarbons when you lifted your face to the breeze.

  Down on Hollywood Boulevard, traffic droned. The sidewalks crawled with people. Tourists, players and whores, predators and prey. Wanting fame, wanting to get laid, selling themselves one way or another. They thought this was a hard town. Moneygrubbing and professional backstabbing—in their world, that was what they considered hard.

  He fingered the amulet, thinking.

  The skull X-rays from the Lezak woman had been scanned and uploaded, along with his notes on the operation. He had documented everything. Lezak’s response to the procedure had been textbook. Fight—stabbing him. Feebly, yes, but she made an attempt. Then screaming, squirming, attempting to flee—classic flight response. That, however, was not the exciting part. The exciting part occurred approximately ten seconds after he yanked the scaling implement through the flesh of her lip. She blanked. The look in her eyes, the way she fell still, told him everything. She went numb. The rest of the procedure was merely pushing and prodding. She did not respond. She didn’t scream when he drove the sharp tip of the scaler into her eye socket. Muzak and her ragged breathing didn’t obscure the sound of the scaler penetrating her eye. Blood and vitreous humor ran out and poured down her cheek, but Ceci Lezak lay there, perplexed, stunned, and vacant.

  The thirst began building. A dry taste on the tongue. The mission called to him.

  Turning from the window, he removed his medical kit from the suitcase. He applied anti
septic ointment to the minor wound Lezak had inflicted with the curette. Then he injected: chemo first, the enzymes that ensured deaggregation, so the wave didn’t swamp him. Nandrolone after that. He would throw the disposable syringes in the hotel Dumpster later. He checked that his other drugs were well stocked, those he kept in reserve for use on subjects. They were mainly tranquilizers—Pentothal, ketamine, and benzodiazepines. He closed the kit. In the bathroom he washed off the tan makeup and removed the green contact lenses. He never allowed the world to see the real eyes, Coyote eyes. The blown pupil spooked people, and it was memorable.

  He returned his attention to the suitcase. The clothes, the shoes, the wigs, the cosmetics. Men’s things on one side, women’s on the other. Becoming female was occasionally necessary. Some targets responded more willingly to the anima than the animus. Still, that meant that he needed long sleeves to disguise his musculature. He clenched a fist, seeing the veins rise on his arm. He would wear a high collar, of course, to cover the scar.

  His acting skills would cover his revulsion. As long as the mission was on track, he could stomach becoming a woman. Until the end, when the anima could be relegated to eternal shadow.

  He ran his fingers over a black wig. The hair was coarse, shoulder-length. With brown contacts he could become suburban. A breeder. Yes, that was it.

  Coyote flipped on the wig and looked in the mirror. She would wear conservative pink lipstick. She’d have a perky smile. Tight movements, thoughts of hubby and kids. Menstruation, separation anxiety, PTA, Scouts and ballet. Honey, have a brownie. I’m going to Pilates.

  Soccer Mom, pathetic icon of the modern mythos.

  Turning to the Tumi briefcase, he opened it and perused the weapons inside. Blades, C-4, grenades. He took out a serrated knife. The five-inch blade shone bright. Coyote opened his palm and pushed the tip of the knife into his flesh, along his lifeline. A balloon of blood rose through the skin. He watched, dispassionate. The sensation of pain was nonexistent. A smile lifted his lips.

  The blood pooled on his palm. It shone under the light coming through the window, pulsing in rhythm with his heartbeat. The sun hissed through the glass. It lit the blood to iridescent red and set it jumping off his palm, springing up like a tiny wet flame. He watched it writhe, fascinated, feeling no heat. But the wound was burning. The blood flame turned and beckoned to him. Telling him, giving him the answer.

  A vacuum cleaner banged against the wall outside in the hallway, jerking him back. He blinked, feeling his head spin and settle. He looked at his hand. Blood was creasing along the lines of his palm. The knife had fallen to the floor.

  That was a glitch.

  Angry, he picked up the knife, cleaned the blade, and returned it to the briefcase. This was the third time that had happened in the past six weeks. He had to get it under control. Did he require heavier chemo? He glanced at the medical kit. He had only three doses left.

  The growl was in his head. He shut it off. He sat down at the desk with the Dog Days Update, the Paw Prints yearbook, the notes and journal, and began to cross-reference. There were only a few left of these worthless unworthy people. These nothings, ignorant of the power that lay dormant inside them. Who failed to recognize it bursting to life, until the moments before death. That was why he had to take them. They were . . . glitches. He pored through the reunion book, finding the name he wanted. MapQuest gave him coordinates to the address, and he began to get a sense of the mission. It would require careful planning, because he had seen the end, in his dream vision.

  Fire this time.

  Mom sat down beside me at the kitchen table. Her face, with those wise eyes and that evergreen spark, looked apprehensive.

  “That field trip your class took to Renegade Canyon. This has to be about what happened that day,” she said.

  “The explosion.”

  Again I saw the flash, felt the shudder in the air, and watched the cinder-block buildings disintegrate into flame. Saw the Jeep gunning up the hillside, coming after me and the others.

  “Nobody would ever tell the parents. But I’d bet the farm that was South Star.”

  “What happened?”

  “An accident? An experiment gone wrong?” She shrugged. “All I know is, you were treated reprehensibly.”

  Even now I could hear the engines of the navy helicopter whumping off the canyon walls. The downwash blew sand viciously in all directions. Valerie sat on the ground, her nose pouring blood from my punch. She was silent with shock. Me too. Ms. Shepard came running to check on her.

  The soldier came for me.

  He smelled of dust and gun oil, and the barrel of his rifle had a dark gleam that scared me cold. He hauled me by the elbow onto the bus. My classmates stared at me with confusion and maybe fear.

  The soldier glared at the driver. “Go.”

  The door wheezed closed and we lurched back toward the highway. Nobody spoke. The soldier stood in the door-well, rocking as the bus picked its way over stony ground.

  Jeeps and a van raced past us going the other way. They screeched to a stop near the helicopter. The back doors of the van burst open and people jumped out.

  “They wore biocontainment suits,” I said.

  Olive green, with hoods and faceplates. They handed the pilot a gas mask. They carried medical equipment cases like paramedics do. One climbed in the bay of the helicopter and bent over, going to work. The helo was carrying casualties.

  Mom’s eyes were hot. “Later, we found out they took the school bus out of service. The navy bought it and took it away, out on the base somewhere, to burn it.”

  My voice felt croaky. “What about us?”

  “They sent everybody to the showers in the gym. Had all the kids wash and change into PE clothes to wear home. They took everyone’s street clothes and sent them to the laundry on base.”

  “I don’t remember that.”

  “Because they didn’t take you with everybody else.”

  I nodded. “I had to wait for Dad. They put me in . . . I want to say an equipment room in the gym.”

  “They talked to you separately. You four who had run off.” Her cheeks were burning. “Do you have any idea how that incensed me? Taking a group of thirteen-year-old kids who were horsing around, and isolating you for interrogation. And they wouldn’t let me in. You had been exposed to God knows what and they wouldn’t let your mother in to see you. Those fucking security assholes.”

  I took a breath. Mom always drew the line at the F-word.

  “Jackboot SOBs. I feel sick just thinking about what it was like for you.”

  “Mom, at the time I thought that was because I punched Valerie.”

  “Oh, my God. Evan, no.”

  The equipment room was hot and dingy, a claustrophobic space with shelves stacked with athletic equipment. Blood was caked on my face and on the side of my hand. The air felt close, as if I had to breathe faster to get enough.

  The police would be coming any minute, I knew it. They were going to arrest me for hitting Valerie. They’d put me in a lineup and she’d point me out. She’d cry and tell them I didn’t even look sorry after I did it.

  What if they sent me to Juvenile Hall? My throat tightened. Juvie was in Bakersfield. That was a two-hour drive from China Lake.

  Then I heard my dad’s voice in the hallway, rough and low, punctuated with remarks like cannon fire. He opened the door.

  “Come with me, Kit.”

  I rushed out like a cat freed from a box, taking big breaths. Soldiers were in the hallway, and Mr. Mickleson, the high school principal.

  He pointed his finger at me. “Two weeks’ suspension, starting immediately. Are you listening, Miss Delaney?”

  I stared at the linoleum, cold and light-headed, trying not to pee my pants. My fingers felt numb. I wasn’t under arrest, but Dad was furious. He said nothing, just led me down the hallway. He had my backpack in his hand.

  Behind us came footsteps, three or four people. “Captain Delaney.”

 
; My father didn’t stop.

  A woman called to him. “Phil.”

  Dad pointed me at the gym. “Go shower and change.” He handed me a brown paper bag. “Put your street clothes in this. Wear your gym clothes home.”

  He marched back up the hall, boots racking against the floor. A woman strode toward him. She had red hair and a strong voice.

  “Strict protocol on this one, Phil. Don’t think of violating it.”

  “My daughter’s coming home with me. You’re out of bounds.”

  The redhead glanced at me. “Didn’t you hear your father tell you to get going?”

  Dad turned. His eyes were dark. “Kit, now. Go.”

  The words came fast and hard, like buckshot. They tore the air and I couldn’t get a breath. The next thing I remember, I was sitting on the floor with cramps in my arms and legs, and Dad was holding the paper bag over my nose, telling me to breathe slowly.

  Hyperventilation, one more embarrassment. I looked at Mom.

  “What were we exposed to?”

  “Corrosive chemicals. The high school told us they could cause skin blisters and asthma.”

  “Didn’t parents go ballistic?”

  “Hell, yes. Then the base commander sent us a report from this woman Maureen Swayze, director of special projects for some nebulous Office of Advanced Research. It said the explosion involved an experimental fuel. A new propellant—JP-5 mixed with caustic additives.”

  “Did Swayze have red hair?”

  “Like an oil well fire.”

  “She was at the gym that day, arguing in the hall with Dad.”

  An eyebrow rose. “Arguing. Really.” She pursed her lips. “Good.”

  “Mom?”

  Her eyes went sharp and broke from mine. She drew back from whatever she’d been about to unload.

  “I used to see Swayze at the Officers’ Club,” she said. “She was a cold-faced bitch. She ran South Star.”

  “How do you know that?”