“There it is!” I shout. I point to the hangar. Dr. Macintosh skids to a stop and cuts his lights. They’ve probably heard us already, but if the plane’s engines are on, they might not have.
“What now?” he asks.
I reach down to open the glove compartment. I rummage around until I find the spare gun I know Jake keeps in there. A cop in this city can never have too many weapons close at hand. And since he hardly ever took us girls in the car, he didn’t have to worry we might find it—until now.
“Here,” I say. I pass the gun to him.
“I don’t know how to use a gun,” he says.
“It’s not that hard. I can show you.”
It’s probably a surreal experience for him to have a ten-year-old girl show him how to use a pistol. I give him the basics about how to turn the safety off and cock the weapon. “It’s totally not hard,” I say. “Didn’t you ever play video games?”
“Not really. I’m a child psychologist.”
“Well, do your best.”
“Right.” He opens the door. “I’ll go get her. You stay here.”
“Sure.” Before he can get out, I lean over to kiss his cheek. “Good luck.”
I watch as he creeps towards the hangar. I wait until he’s a good fifty yards from the car before I reach into the backseat for the tire iron. Then I get out and run.
***
I don’t run straight to the hangar. A little girl all in pink would be pretty damned easy for anyone with eyes better than mine to see. I go around another hangar to take a circuitous route. I cut across the back of this hangar to head for the one where Ling’s plane waits. I hope there’s a back door I can use to get inside.
By the time I make it to the hangar I’m covered with sweat and panting worse than a dog that’s been locked in a car with the windows up on a summer day. My short legs aren’t used to running this much, nor is my potbelly. “I really need to work out,” I grumble.
There is a back door to the hangar. Unfortunately it’s locked. I stare at the door for a moment before I heft the tire iron. I strike the door handle as hard as I can. That isn’t very hard. I barely scratch the metal handle. I hit it again with the same result. “Come on!” I tell myself. I gotta get in. I gotta do it for Madison. She needs me.
I hit the handle again and let out a groan as I put all of my weight into the blow. This time I hit the sweet spot so that the handle drops to the ground with a clang. I hope I haven’t made too much noise or else this will be hopeless.
The door must not be used much; it creaks as I push it open. I crouch down so I’m less visible and so I don’t get a face full of engine exhaust. I hear a shot. It’s far enough away that I know it must be Dr. Macintosh or someone shooting at him. Either way, there’s not much time to spare. I have to get on that plane.
Though I’m exhausted, I force myself to run as fast as I can towards the plane. There’s no one between the door and the ramp of the plane. Apparently Dr. Macintosh has their full attention. I hope he can keep them busy long enough.
I scamper up the ramp, into the plane. Right away I see Maddy. Except it’s not the Maddy I left a couple of hours ago. She’s shrunk into a baby, an actual baby probably no more than a year old. Her yellow dress has become so big that all I can see is her pudgy face, crowned by a sparse cap of black hair. Her fat cheeks are red; tears stream down them. There’s tape over her mouth that muffles her cries. Ling has her buckled into a seat, but her tiny hands are too weak to unfasten the seatbelt.
I hurry over to her. It’s not hard to free her from the seat. “This is going to hurt a little,” I say. I grasp one edge of the tape. “Try not to make any noise, OK?”
She nods to me, which tells me her mind isn’t that of a baby. I pull the tape off in one swipe. More tears bubble up in Maddy’s eyes, but she doesn’t scream. “It’s all right,” I whisper to her. “We’re going to get out of here now.”
“Stacey,” she chirps as I pick her up. Even though she’s a baby she’s still heavy, probably because my muscles are so weak. It’s tough to cradle her in my arms, but there’s no way she can run under her own power.
I turn around and start for the door I came in through. I skid to a stop when I see someone in the doorway. It must be Dr. Ling, though I can’t be sure. He looks like the Invisible Man, his face wrapped in gauze and sunglasses on despite that it’s dark. He also wears a suit with gloves that cover his hands so that all I can see are his lips.
“This is a pleasant surprise,” he says. His voice sounds rougher than before. “I thought I would have to arrange for your disappearance separately.”
When she hears Dr. Ling’s voice, Maddy starts to wail like a fussy baby. I pat her back, to try in vain to comfort her. “What did you do to her?”
“I gave her a booster,” he says. He reaches one gloved hand into his pocket. It comes back with a needle filled with dark red liquid. “Now it’s time for you to take your medicine.”
I try to run, but being little and with a baby in my arms, I’m not very fast. Dr. Ling isn’t very fast either; he lurches after me like the Frankenstein monster. His longer strides catch me as I reach the galley. One hand seizes the hood of my sweatshirt and yanks me back hard.
Somehow I manage to keep hold of Maddy as I hit the floor. I even roll to land on my side so she’s not hurt. She still screams; her face goes from red to purple. “Stacey!” she wails as Dr. Ling tears her out of my hands.
I claw at him, but it doesn’t do any good. I’m too weak. He bats my hands aside and holds me down with one arm. All I can do then is whip my head from side-to-side to try to avoid the needle. It’s only a matter of time before my luck runs out. I feel the needle plunge into my neck.
The pain is just as intense as back in Ling’s dungeon. It feels like my entire body is being squeezed in a vise. Something different happens this time: my teeth fall out. Ling lets me go, which allows me to roll over so I can spit out a mouthful of teeth. Through a red haze, I see glossy white teeth dotted with blood on the carpet.
As if that’s not bad enough, my gums burn with pain. I know what this is: my baby teeth are coming back in. I’m becoming a baby again, like Madison. Through the red haze, I see my hands shrink until they retract into my sweatshirt. It won’t be long now until I’m just as tiny and helpless as Maddy, not that I was much good to her anyway.
When my arms become too weak to support me, I collapse onto the floor; fallen permanent teeth press against my cheek. I twitch on the floor while Maddy continues to scream. There’s nothing I can do for either of us now.
And then it’s over. The pain turns off and leaves only numbness. I try to move, but the only muscle that responds is my tongue. I probe my mouth and find most of my baby teeth, all except my front ones. I’m not a baby, just a little girl maybe seven years old.
Dr. Ling grabs me by the hood of my sweatshirt. When I stare up at him, my eyes tingle. My glasses have become too strong for my younger eyes. I can see well enough to see Ling study me, though I can’t read his expression behind the bandages and sunglasses. “Perfect,” he says. “Now, young lady, it’s time to go for a ride.”
He drags me by the sweatshirt while he carries Maddy with his other hand. She continues to scream until he finds the piece of tape to stick over her mouth again while I’m left on the floor, still too numb to move. I feel tears run down my cheeks as I know in thirteen hours or so Maddy and I will be in China, little more than lab rats until we’re finally executed and dissected.
Dr. Ling straps Maddy back in. Then he grabs me by the front of the sweatshirt. He tosses me onto another seat as if I’m a rag doll. I feel like a rag doll, like my limbs are filled with stuffing right now. There’s nothing I can do while he arranges me in the seat and buckles me in. He stares at me again and then tousles my hair. “Be a good girl until I get back.”
I don’t have much choice about it. Ling limps over to the door. As he pulls it up, I hear gunshots. Dr. Macintosh is still out there. He can save
us. That seems unlikely; he’s a child psychologist, not a Navy SEAL. He’s never going to make it in time.
Ling seals the door and then heads into the cockpit. He screams something in Chinese at the pilot. The pilot says something back in a softer voice. The discussion continues for a minute until Ling finally shouts, “Take off, now!”
The plane lurches forward. There’s a metallic crash that must be the steps hitting the ground. Apparently Ling won the argument and we’re going to take off right now. He’s going to leave his minions behind to make sure he gets us back to China.
I desperately want to get out of here while I still can, but my body won’t respond. The numbness has become a gentle tingle, like when your foot starts to fall asleep. Feeling is coming back to my limbs now that my nerves and veins have compacted. It won’t be too long until I can move, but by then we’ll be airborne.
Even over the plane’s engines I hear a familiar rumble. I’d know the engine of Jake’s Fairlane anywhere. Dr. Macintosh must plan to run the plane off the tarmac.
It turns out he has something more desperate in mind. There’s a roar, followed by a crash. The plane lurches. The entire fuselage drops sharply; my glasses are catapulted from my face. I see them land by the cockpit door. For the first time in five months, I can see clearly without the glasses. At the moment all I can see is Maddy screaming against the tape on her mouth as the plane skids.
The plane begins to go around and around in a flat spin. It’s only a matter of time before we flip over or wind up in the ocean or crash into another hangar. No matter what, there won’t be much Maddy and I can do about it, not like this. It’ll be a contest to see whether we burn or drown.
As far as I can tell, none of that happens. The spin begins to slow until finally the plane stops completely. Then there’s silence except for Maddy’s whimpers. We’re still alive, at least for the moment.
I get to savor that for two seconds before I smell smoke. I’m not sure where it’s coming from; probably the engines if they’re still attached. With a full tank of gas, it won’t be long until the plane goes up in a fireball that will turn Maddy and I into cinders. Like Qiang, the police will probably never be able to identify our remains, what little will be left of us.
The tingle in my limbs gets stronger. I close my eyes and will my body to move. There’s a little twitch in my right arm. I concentrate harder to convince my arm to swing into my lap. I have to coax my fingers out of hiding in the sleeves that are too big for me. Slowly, an inch at a time, my fingers emerge. I feel the cool metal of the buckle. I have to focus really hard in order to work a simple mechanism that would take me two seconds to operate any other time.
But then I’m free. I open my eyes and see smoke begin to drift into the cabin. I have to get Madison out of here. She needs me, her big sister. I concentrate to move my legs. It’s not easy to stand since my sneakers have become like clown shoes now. I wobble for a moment as if I’m a baby like Maddy.
When I see her swamped in that dress, her purple face stained with tears, it provides all the motivation I need to take those few steps over to her seat. “It’s all right,” I say, my words slurred a little. “I’m going to get you out of here.”
I promised that before and didn’t deliver, but this time I’m determined to do it. The tingling is almost gone now; I can move more or less normally. I still fumble a little with the buckle; I need a full minute to get Madison free.
There’s no way I can carry her this time. I’m too little and my muscles much too weak from the transformation. “You gotta walk,” I tell Maddy. “Can you do that?”
She nods. I take her hands and help her slide off the seat, onto the floor. She rests there for a moment. Then, while I still hold her hands, she levers up to her feet. She’s even unsteadier than I was, but she manages to stand.
We toddle over to the door. I let Maddy lean against the wall while I try to open it. Of course it won’t give. I’m too weak. I try not to panic, so Maddy won’t start to scream again. “It’s all right. We’ll find another way out.”
The smell of smoke is stronger. It’s good we’re both so short now, so it’ll take longer for the smoke to scald our tiny lungs. I tow Maddy back towards the galley. We’re almost there when the cabin door bangs open. I hope it’s just the pilot, but of course we aren’t that lucky.
The bandages on Ling’s face are torn, so that I can see bits of red flesh. Blood stains the gauze in other places. Yet he’s still alive. Not only that, he has a pistol in his hand. “Get back here!” he says.
“No!” I shout, although it’s a feeble comeback. And there’s nowhere to go. Even if we can find another exit, Ling will catch up to us.
I start to drag Maddy. Ling moves slower too; blood drips from tears in his pants after the crash. Ahead of us I see another door outlined in red, the emergency exit. That’s our ticket out of here, not that it will matter.
I give the handle a tug. It’s no good. I’m too weak for this door too. I turn and see Ling’s reached the galley. He could probably shoot us, but he doesn’t want to damage his prizes. I give the door another tug with all my might. Nothing happens.
There’s only one thing left to do. I pull Maddy into the very back of the plane, into the lavatory. I leave her on the floor, while I sag against the door and turn the lock. Since I probably only weigh sixty pounds, I doubt I’ll be able to keep Ling out for long. Even if he doesn’t break in, the plane will probably explode in a couple of minutes.
“I’m sorry, Maddy,” I say. “I didn’t want it to end like this.”
“Stacey,” she chirps again. She crawls forward, to hug my leg. “Wuv you.”
“I love you too,” I say. I tousle her short hair.
Ling bangs against the door. “Come out, little ones,” he says. “Come out before I have to break down the door.”
“You go ahead and try,” I shout back.
“I’ll give you to the count of three. One.”
Maddy snuggles up closer against me, like when we shared a bed. “It’ll be all right,” I tell her. “Everything will be fine.”
“Two.”
“We’ll go to a better place. To Heaven,” I say.
“Three.” I close my eyes. There’s the sound of a gunshot. I hear a thump outside the door as something hits the floor.
I still have my eyes shut when I hear a knock on the door. It’s not the angry pounding of someone who wants to break the door down, but a gentle tap. “Stacey? Madison?” Dr. Macintosh says. “Are you all right?”
“We’re fine,” I say.
I scoot away from the door and push Maddy along with me. The door opens and I see Dr. Macintosh in the doorway. His hair is mussed and face stained with blood from a cut on his forehead, yet he still has that air of calm from his office. His eyes widen when he sees us.
He doesn’t let this bother him too much. He reaches down to scoop Madison up; he cradles her to his chest. She coos softly at this and wraps one pudgy arm around his neck. He holds out his hand to me. I take it and he helps me to stand. “Can you walk?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“Good. We have to get out of here very quickly.”
“OK.”
On the way out, we pass the body of Dr. Ling. There’s no coming back for him this time, not with a bullet through the chest. Dr. Macintosh is a pretty good shot for someone who never used a gun before.
In the movies we would make it off the plane seconds before it explodes, our bodies thrown through the air by the blast before we land unharmed. In reality we make it off the plane with a few minutes to spare. The crash has tilted the door down enough that we don’t need the steps. Dr. Macintosh leaves Maddy and me in the doorway before he jumps down. Then he takes Maddy and sets her on the tarmac. I’m the last one off; Dr. Macintosh grabs me around the waist. I collapse against him and feel safe for a moment.
Then he lets me down to pick Maddy back up. We run across the tarmac, over to where the Fairlane—what’s left of it—re
sts. The front of the car looks like someone smashed it with a really big hammer. That hammer would be the front landing gear of the plane.
The car’s doors still work fine. Dr. Macintosh climbs in the front seat, Madison cradled against him. I get in on the passenger’s side. Dr. Macintosh puts an arm around my shoulders. I’m more than happy to scoot over until I’m snuggled up against his warm body, where I feel safe again.
The same time the plane explodes, every nerve in my body does too. The pain sends me rolling off Dr. Macintosh, onto the floor. Maddy starts to scream again; from the way she thrashes around, she feels the same pain. Dr. Macintosh sets Maddy on the seat. “Madison? Stacey? What’s wrong?”
I’d like to answer what’s wrong is my body feels like someone lit it on fire, but I can’t because every muscle cramps all at once. I manage to get out one scream before everything goes dark.
Chapter 42
The first thing I notice when I wake up is that my throat is sore. It feels like someone’s filled my mouth with cotton. I try to work up some spit. It doesn’t do a lot of good. My tongue is thick and heavy, but as I flick it around, I feel all of my teeth. How old am I now?
I start to sit up, but I don’t get very far. Something holds me down on the bed or table or whatever I’m on. I manage to turn my head to the side and see a beige blur that I assume is a wall. At least there’s no chalkboard or factory equipment so I’m not back in one of Ling’s prisons.
“Hello?” I call out, though it’s more like a whisper. But even from the sound of it, I know I’m still a girl. “Is anyone there?”
I hear a door open, followed by the squeak of rubber soles on tile. A face appears over me. It’s a turquoise-and-brown blob at first. As it gets closer, I can make out Dr. Palmer’s face. She wears a surgical mask and a shower cap, but I can recognize her eyes. Her gloved hands touch my cheek. “Welcome back,” she says. To my relief she inserts a straw into my mouth. Water courses down my throat, to expel the dryness. “Is that better?”
Chances Are Omnibus (Gender Swap Fiction) Page 56
