by James T Wood
Whoever was meeting me at Powell’s knew a lot about me, and I knew almost nothing about him or her. But at this point there was really nothing to do but see it out. At least Powell’s would offer some cover and witnesses, though the thug-life twins weren’t too concerned about witnesses in Pioneer Square, so maybe that wouldn’t make a difference.
When I got to Powell’s I forgot that it’s huge and my anonymous friend hadn’t told me where to go. The street car dropped me off just across the street, so I circled the block—on the opposite side of the street—seeing if I could find out anything. As I got back to the beginning of my circuit my pocket buzzed again.
“Just come inside. I’m in the coffee shop.”
I didn’t bother to text back. I did, however, walk past the coffee shop windows again to see if anyone looked familiar. No one did, so I went inside as ordered. I hunted through the rows of humor books while waiting for my clandestine rendezvous. I’d just started flipping through a Sedaris book, trying to look casual, when a perky, slightly familiar voice startled me.
“You want some coffee?”
“Yah!” I said suavely while putting down the book and turning. It was the cute red-headed girl from OHSU standing there, still being cute.
“Is that a yes?” dimples flashed on her cheeks as she smiled at me and cocked one eyebrow up.
“Yeah, that’d be great.” I followed her over to the register where we waited to order our drinks from the disinterested barista.
“Hey, how’d you get my number?” I asked.
“You gave it to me…on the form…”
“Oh yeah. Where did you go after that? I was looking for you.”
“Sorry, I had to get out. I’d tipped off the cops and didn’t want to be there when they arrested Dr. Grosskopf.”
“So that was you?”
“You’re quick. Yeah, it was me.”
We walked over to the only empty seats at the window facing Burnside Street. We watched the city walk by as we talked.
“So why did you text me? Why did you think I’d be dead?”
“I really hoped you wouldn’t be,” the dimples came back as she smiled at me, looking sideways through her mahogany hair. She wore an argyle sweater that clung to her fit frame allowing her to be sexy and modest at the same time. It was a nice effect.
Trials
“Can I at least get your name?” I asked.
“Sure, I’m Anka.”
“Thanks Anka, I’m Corey.” I stuck out my hand to shake hers. But she just laughed at me.
“Dude, you already told me your name when I filled out your paperwork at the doctor’s office.”
I was embarrassed, but not defeated. She took the sting out of her mockery by touching my shoulder as she adjusted in her seat to face me slightly. My heart pounded in my throat.
“So, um…”
Before I could devastate her with my charming line, she unleashed the full force of her smile on me. It was like her dimples were wormholes into my soul. She leaned toward me, put a hand on my knee and whispered to me in a husky voice.
“Corey, I really want you to stay alive. Is that okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Good,” she took a moment to think, biting her lower lip slightly and looking down at the counter. When she looked up at me through her lashes she continued, “I know it’s a little weird, but I have a place we can go. You’ll be safe there. The doctor didn’t know about it.”
I wasn’t thinking about the slobbering death-doctor at this point. Not even a little bit. My heart was beating in my ears now too. So I’m pretty sure the rest of the conversation went like this, but I can’t be positive.
“It’s not weird,” I reassured her, “I trust you.”
She smiled and laid her hand on my cheek, “Good. Good.” She inhaled as if there were something else but then she decided against it and said. “We should go. My car’s in the parking garage.”
“Don’t you want to finish your coffee?” I asked in my most debonair voice.
“We can take the cups with us.”
“Oh, yeah.”
So we got up and walked out to the parking garage. If you’ve never been there, you should know that the Powell’s parking garage is old and awkwardly tight. Its wooden support beams and tight corners make for interesting driving and some awkward, parking jobs. But it’s free when you buy something at Powell’s so it’s worth the stress.
We walked out of the stairwell and I lagged a bit behind to see which car she walked to. I secretly hoped it would be the Smart Car, because they’re so tiny and cute, but she pulled out her keys and the silver BMW responded with flashing lights. At the time I wasn’t really in a position to think about the disparity of her age and occupation and this car. My mind was wandering ahead to her apartment instead.
The cool leather interior of the car smelled like new and something else, vaguely metallic. I got in first while she did something in the trunk. As she opened the door I heard shouts coming from the stairwell area.
“Damn, they followed you.”
“What? Who?”
She didn’t answer. She just got in and started the car. I snatched at my seatbelt as she threw the manual transmission into reverse and gunned the engine. I was sure she’d hit the central structure of the garage, but she cranked the wheel just in time to miss both the cars on either side of our parking space and the bits of building behind.
Another quick shift and she was in first gear staring down the burly twins. They both had bruised and scraped faces from our meeting earlier. I was both proud and a little embarrassed. They got out of the way when Anka sped toward them. But I quickly saw that she was going too fast to avoid hitting the cars ahead of us.
With a crank of the steering wheel and a pull of the handbrake, she threw the car into a sideways slide. I heard the engine rev slightly as the wheels spun and screeched and we slid around the corner of the parking structure and down toward the ramp. When we got to the straight ramp, she dropped the brake and straightened the wheel just in time to keep me from smashing into the wall and we sped down the steep path to the exit.
At the bottom of the ramp traffic from 11th street blocked us in. We waited for a moment, but I could already hear the tire squeals of the twins in pursuit of us. Anka glanced at me, checked behind the car and backed up a few feet before pulling out onto the sidewalk and heading south. People dove out of the way as we came to Burnside, after a moment’s hesitation, she punched the accelerator and sent us left down the main street in Portland.
I thought we were clear, driving away, when Anka slammed her hand against the steering wheel.
“Damn them!”
“What, how did they follow us?”
“See for yourself.”
I looked back to see the Smart Car rapidly gaining on us with the burly twins crammed inside. There was barely enough room for both sets of shoulders within the tiny vehicle. If they hadn’t tried to attack me yesterday I probably would have laughed at the scene. Okay, I chuckled a bit. Until the passenger burly—I’m pretty sure he’s the one I roundhouse kicked—pulled a gun out.
I’d never had a gun pulled on me to that point in my life. I’m not proud of how I reacted, but it’s what actually happened.
“Oh my God, he’s got a gun, he’s going to shoot us, we’re going to die!” with each phrase my voice jumped an octave or so. Anka looked at me for a long hard moment before sighing and turning back to the road.
“They won’t shoot us in public.”
“Oh,” I can’t say I was mollified by that assurance.
She used her e-brake magic powers again to slide us through the corner at 6th and send us north suddenly. I glanced behind and saw the twins overshoot the intersection.
“We lost them.”
“No. Not even a little.”
“But…” then I looked back to see the tiny car come back into view, “Oh.”
Anka sighed again. I felt like she was deducting man-points from me
for every sigh I elicited. She slid the Beemer between bikes and other cars on 6th and quickly outpaced the Smart Car, but when she turned on to Glisan heading west, traffic suddenly slowed. The two lanes clogged up with overly-courteous drivers. Tweedle-burl and Tweedle-burly were right on us again.
“Hey,” I said in my most reassuring voice, “what can they do when, or if, they catch us? They’re in that little car.”
In response to my asinine statement, the side mirror shattered. For a moment I thought we’d hit something and I kept looking for the downed biker or parked car that we’d clipped. I figured it out when the next gunshot sounded from behind us. Next to me Anka inhaled as if to sigh again.
“Yeah, yeah, I get it. You’re good at this stuff and it’s my first day.”
She looked sideways at me for a moment before smiling tightly and weaving the car to the left just in time to miss another bullet.
“Once we get on the freeway we’ll lose them, they won’t be able to keep up.”
“Why are you going this way if you want to get on the freeway?”
“The 405.”
“Not today, the bridge is closed for repair.”
“Shit. What about going south instead?”
“I suppose that could work, but if we hit traffic from 26 we’re in the same boat.”
“You know, traffic in this city really sucks.”
“But at least people are nice to you while you’re all stuck in traffic.”
“Great. So what do you suggest we do?”
“Um. Why don’t we just deal with the twins? You have that awesome brake-y-turn-y thing you do. Spin around and run them off the road so they won’t be able to follow us. We’ve got to have, like, a ton or so of weight on them.”
She grunted. I think that means she liked the idea, especially since she again popped the e-brake and sped around a corner. But this time she turned again and again and again until we were coming up right behind the egg with a burly center.
“Ever heard of the PIT maneuver smart guy?”
“Um…”
With that she came up just to the left of the Smart Car and put the right, front fender of the BMW on the back, left fender of the twins’ car. Then Anka jerked the wheel hard to the right forcing the back tires of the Smart Car to slide out and then the whole car started spinning out of control. The clinical precision she used to disable our pursuers made my hyperventilating panic seem even worse by comparison.
“Where to now?” she asked.
“Um…”
“I’m going to need something more than that.”
“Sorry, uh, head north to Lovejoy and then go east. You’ll cross the Broadway Bridge and you can get on I-5 from there.”
“Great.”
If she hadn’t just deftly destroyed two trained henchmen, I’d say her voice had a quaver in it. I chalked it up to the acceleration of the car instead.
Anka's Place
Anka took us on the freeway north toward my neighborhood, so I thought she might be taking me home, but she passed by all the North Portland exits and kept going. When we got to the I-5 bridge I had to ask where we were going.
“No one from Portland will think to look for us in Vancouver.”
I had to laugh, “You’re right. That’s brilliant. Portlanders think that Vancouver is just the place you have to explain isn’t Canada.”
She got off the interstate almost immediately after we crossed the bridge and quickly pulled in to the parking lot at the Red Lion. As I stepped out of the car my legs were a bit on the wobbly side, but she strode away confidently. I hurried to catch up.
“What were they doing? Why were they shooting at us?”
Like a viper she spun on her heel, grabbed the front of my shirt with one hand and the back of my head with the other.
“You will shut your mouth until we’re in my room.”
She shoved me away, spun and kept walking. I guessed that the car chase might have her stressed out a bit, that’s why she wasn’t being as nice to me. We got to her room and she immediately opened the curtains and looked out over the Columbia River. The gray water reflected the gray skies under the Interstate Bridge. Across the water we could see the old Red Lion’s burned out shell staring at us.
I was afraid to say anything after her last reaction, so when she turned back from the window I was even more scared. Anka was crying silently. She wouldn’t look at me. She just stood there, staring at the ground and crying. Every once in a while her shoulders would shrug up as she gasped for breath, but she made no noise. I felt the tears fill my eyes as I watched her.
I approached her slowly. My confused fear at her anger in the parking lot battled my instinctive response to comfort her. Carefully I put one arm around her shoulder, ready to snatch it back as if she’d bite me. She stiffened, but didn’t resist. The next time her shoulders heaved with her mute sobbing I gently pulled her into an embrace. Her rigid posture held. Her arms remained at her sides. For several minutes we stood there, me holding her and her stiffly weeping.
Without warning she pulled back, pushed my arms away and stalked off to the bathroom. I looked after her, but she didn’t turn or offer any sign that I existed. I heard her splash some water and blow her nose before coming back out to the main area.
“Right, now tell me what you know about Dr. Grosskopf.”
Her face showed all the signs of her extended crying, but her voice was iron hard. She strode toward me, sat down on one of the beds and motioned for me to sit down on the other.
“Are you okay?”
“What do you know about Dr. Grosskopf?”
“Oh, um…not much. I just responded to that ad. The first time I met him was after you did my interview. He just did some tests and then offered to pay me double to come back. I was planning on it too, but then I saw him on the news and it seemed like a bad idea.”
“So you’ve never met the doctor before or had any involvement with neuron-enhancement therapy?”
“Anka, I don’t even know what that means.”
“The men who were following us, have you ever met them before?”
“Not before they attacked me downtown.”
“And how did you know they were going to attack you? You were ready for them.”
“I didn’t know they were going to attack, but I did know they were following me.”
“How?”
“Well, they stand out in a crowd. I thought they might be following me so I changed MAX trains a couple times. They always stuck with me and stayed in my car. I was going in circles but they stayed with me.”
“Very observant of you. How did you overpower them?”
“Um…I used a wrist lock on the first one, then I head butted the second before finishing him off with a roundhouse.”
“And when did you study martial arts?”
“Oh, when I was a kid.”
“So as a child you picked up jujitsu, kung-fu and karate to the level that you could, years later, fight trained attackers?”
“Um…”
“How did you really learn that stuff?”
“I learned it from watching TV, okay?”
“Amazing,” she said it to herself before continuing to question me, “What did you watch? When did you watch it?”
I supposed I should have been a little more wary of how much Anka already knew about me and my “power” but too much had happened for me to hold back the truth.
“I watched some Walker Texas Ranger, The Matrix, and just before I got off the MAX I watched a YouTube video on my phone of that wrist lock.”
“So you can actually mimic what you see?”
“As far as I know I can. What’s happened to me?”
“That’s classified.”
“Bullshit! It’s happening to me. You can’t classify my brain.”
“Oh, but we can, Mr. Tosh.”
Anka using my last name made me feel like I was back in school with my fourth grade teacher Mrs. Grundy. She always called th
e students by their last names. It seemed like the way she maintained an emotional distance between herself and the students. Anka appeared to know the technique.
“Fine. Then everything I know is classified. I’m sorry, but you don’t have the clearance to ask any more questions.”
One of her eyebrows shot up and I could see the pulse in her jaw as she clenched and unclenched her teeth. Maybe that wasn’t the nicest thing to say to someone who’d just saved my life, but I was mad. All this mess wasn’t worth the fifty bucks, which I still hadn’t had time to spend. As I watched her slowly get control of her anger, I felt my frustration subside too. When she smiled at me, I returned it.
“Look, Corey, I’m doing my best to help you here. I actually don’t have all the information though. So when I say ‘it’s classified’ what I actually mean is that I don’t know. I’m not that high up the chain. My job is to bring you in, do a field debriefing and get you prepped for my bosses. I’m not trying to jerk you around. I’m trying to be your friend.”
“Who are your bosses? How do I know that I want to go and talk to them? Your boss, Dr. Grosskopf, didn’t turn out to be too nice.”
“He was never my boss. I was sent there to keep an eye on his research. I work for…the government. The doctor was working on something that the government wants…contained. You’ve seen yourself how powerful a tool it is to be able to instantly learn something. My bosses want to make sure that ability is used in the best interest of national security.”
Listening to Anka I heard flashes of genuine honesty mixed in with canned phrases that could show up in any campaign speech. I decided to keep going along with her, at least until something changed. She, at least, seemed to want me alive and healthy, so that was an improvement over the twins.
“So what do we do now?”
“We need to get to Seattle where my office is. My boss there can explain more and you’ll be safe from the people trying to track you down.”
