“Skip the apologies and tell me what you want. And remember, information ain’t free. In this world, very little is.”
Quentin could have demanded the information first to see if it was worth paying for. But this man, who Quentin knew only as Snake, usually provided worthy information and Quentin did not want to alienate him.
Quentin pulled a fistful of fifties from his trench coat pocket, and handed them to Snake.
Snake said, “What-cha need?”
“There’s a girl. I hear she’s quite young. She has a way with technology. Computers, to be specific.”
Snake nodded. “I know who you mean. What you want her for?”
“I was thinking about interviewing her for possible recruitment into our merry little band. Her abilities, if they are what people say, might prove to be very useful.”
“What they say is true. She can talk to computers. Kind of the way you can get into people’s heads. She can do the same thing with a computer. Any kind of computer.”
“Would she agree to meet with us?”
“I doubt it. She’s a product of the State. An orphan. Bounced around from one foster home to another. Abused. Kicked around. She ran away a couple years ago, and has been livin’ on the street ever since. We all kind’a take care of her.”
“Well, if she won’t agree to meet with us, where can I find her?”
“Come with me. I’ll take you to her.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Chloe’s hair was dyed a jet black, and she had a tattoo of a dragon that began at one shoulder and trailed down her back to the opposite hip. She had dated a guy a year earlier who was living in an abandoned building, and did tattoos to help pay for food and occasionally a bag of pot. He had done the tatt for free. He liked to draw on her, and the dragon was the result. He also liked his pot a little too much, and sometimes mixed it with other stuff that would induce a serious trip. She left because she felt if you were going to survive on the streets, you needed your wits about you, and a guy like that could quickly become a liability.
She never had to worry about starving to death, or resorting to whoring like some of the other girls did, because she had a unique ability. She could make a computer sing or dance just by looking at it. This came in handy at ATM’s.
She stood in front of one now. It was after two in the morning, and a cold drizzle was falling from the darkness up beyond the streetlights. The concrete was slick and wet, and the breeze was cold.
She wore a leather jacket that totally covered her tatt, and a scarf was wound about her neck. Her black hair was wet, and lying flat against her skull.
She faced the ATM. Come to Mama, she thought. Maybe a few twenty twenties. She didn’t want to carry too much money, as such a thing could make you a target on the street. She needed only enough to eat on. And there were a few others like her, people with abilities, living under a bridge on the other side of town. She would help them out. Spread the wealth a little.
She reached out with the power of her mind. She really didn’t how she did it, just that she aimed her thoughts at the computer and sort of turned a switch on in her head, and wrapped her mind around the computer’s programming. For a few moments, it became a part of her.
Commanding it to spit out the twenties was a simple thing. However, she needed to reach in a little deeper to make sure there was no record of the transaction, so anyone inclined to watch security footage would have no idea of what time of night the money was taken. She also wanted to make certain the money didn’t come out of anyone’s account. Simply from the bank itself.
The ATM spit out twenties. Twenty of them, all crisp and new. She grabbed them, and said, “Nice doing business with you.”
That was when she became aware of three men standing behind her. She turned suddenly, thinking, Oh crap oh crap oh crap.
But they weren’t cops, and they didn’t look like they were gang-bangers. Trench coats. A baseball cap. One guy had a slouch hat. That one she thought she knew.
“Snake,” she said. “That you?”
He nodded. “These two guys, they want to talk to you.”
“Who are they?”
“They’re like us.”
She looked to the one without the cap, somehow sensing he was the one in charge. “What do you want with me?”
“Perhaps,” he said in a gentle British accent, “to offer you a job. Is there somewhere we can talk?”
The baseball cap guy said, “Around here? This time of night? We’d be better off takin’ her to headquarters. Get out of this rain.”
Chloe said, “Look, I’m not going anywhere until I know who you guys are or what you want.”
“It’s okay,” Snake said. “I vouch for them.”
Headquarters was a building on a side street in a forgotten corner of Boston. It had been erected in the 1920’s during better times, but was now falling into disrepair. The brick siding was cracking and crumbling. Painted on the side in faded letters was the word FOSTER’S. It had once been a hardware store with apartments on the second floor, when this part of Boston had belonged to the middle class. Times change, and now this area was mostly low rent housing and condemned buildings.
Quentin knocked on the door. Behind him stood Chloe, and behind her was Cosmo.
“Who is it?” a deep baritone boomed. Peter LaSalle.
Quentin reached with is mind to touch that of the neanderthalish LaSalle, who liked to call himself Power Man. “IT IS US.”
Quentin waited while tumblers clicked, and the door was pulled open.
They stepped into what was once the back room of the hardware store. A table stood in one corner with mismatched chairs. A living room set, which had long since seen better days, filled the center of the room. On one old wooden stand was a television.
“So,” Peter said, a bottle of Coors in one hand. “This her?”
“No,” Quentin said. “I am in the habit of bringing home teen-aged runaways when we can barely afford to feed those already here.”
Peter stared at him. Deadpan. It was not that he did not appreciate sarcasm, it was that he simply did not understand it.
“Yes,” Quentin said. “It is she.”
“Pleased to meet you, dude,” Chloe said. “Man, you’re a big one.”
Peter smiled and nodded. “Strong, too.”
She said to Quentin, “Can you make this quick? This place kind of gives me the creeps.”
“It’s not much, but we call it home.”
“You guys all live here?”
Quentin shouldered out of his wet trench coat, and tossed it onto the table. “Us, and one other.”
“You all like me?”
Cosmo said, “Yep.”
“You all live pretty well. Electricity, and everything. Most of us have to live in old, condemned buildings. A few of us live under a bridge.”
Quentin said, “The electricity is pirated. And the city water is, also. It is only a matter of time before that matter is rectified.”
She was growing impatient. “All right. Let’s have it. What’s the deal?”
“First, let me make formal introductions. I am Quentin Jeffries. I have the power of telekinesis. What that means is..,”
“I know what it means,” she said.
“Yes. Well, behind you, the gentleman filling the room with second-hand smoke is Cosmo Setter.”
“Flame Thrower,” Cosmo said.
“The huge man guarding our door and drinking all of the beer is Peter LaSalle.”
Peter said, “I like to be called Power Man.”
Quentin rolled his eyes. Oh, how far he had allowed himself to sink. But the cause was worth it. He had to keep reminding himself of that.
“So,” she said. “What do you all do here?”
“This building serves as our headquarters, where we plan our operations. Subject to change, of course, at a moment’s notice. There is one other member of our merry little band you have to meet. Follow me.”
She f
ollowed Quentin up a rickety flight of wooden stairs. The plaster on the walls at either side was crumbling, falling entirely away in some places. The smell of old, rotting wood and cat piss was in the air. Something about these old places – they always seemed to carry with them the smell of cat piss.
They topped the stairs, and Quentin knocked at the door. “Mandy?”
There was no answer.
“Mandy, it is I. We have found her. I would like you to meet her.”
Mandy Waid sat on a small couch in one corner of her room. The couch had tattered upholstery and had been rescued from the city dump. She had, just a year earlier, a bank account worth over a million dollars. Advance money from her book about Jake Calder. The book she had never finished. The publisher had attempted to take back the advance money, but Mandy had disappeared. Fallen off the proverbial radar. The publisher had gone to court and filed injunctions, and done all the things civilized people do to crush one another, and froze her assets. Now she owned little more than the clothes on her back.
She held a beer in one hand and was staring at the bottle when Quentin opened the door.
“I knocked,” he said.
“Did I say come in?” She did not take her gaze from the bottle.
Quentin stepped in without waiting to be asked. Chloe followed.
Beer bottles littered the floor. Maybe ten of them. And from the smell of the room, Chloe figured they had all been opened and finished within the past couple of hours.
“This is she,” Quentin said.
Mandy finally turned her eyes toward the girl standing beside Quentin.
She was sloshed, Chloe realized.
“Oh,” Mandy said. “The one you were talking about. Carrie, or...something.”
Quentin nodded. “Her name’s Chloe.”
Mandy nodded. “Pleased to meet you..,” and she let her gaze drift away from Chloe toward the other side of the room.
“So,” Chloe said. “Is she, like, all right?”
Without waiting for Quentin to answer, Mandy said, her eyes fixing on the bottle again, “He’s a year old now.”
Quentin said, “I think we should go.”
“A year old,” Mandy continued. “My child. And you know what? I don’t even know his name. Or what he looks like.”
She turned her gaze back to Chloe. “Have you ever had a child ripped from you?”
“No,” she said tentatively, “Not exactly.”
“Well, I have. Ripped from me and taken from me. By that evil Doctor freaking Frankenstein. First my child was made into a freak, and then he was ripped from me, and then taken away.”
Chloe saw that Mandy’s arm, the one holding the beer bottle, seemed to be disappearing. Within seconds, her arm was simply gone, as though it now ended at her shoulder. The beer bottle was hanging in midair, suspended where Mandy had been holding it.
Mandy smiled. It was not a smile of happiness. It was the smile of a cat ready to go out and kill a mouse. “You think that’s impressive?”
Mandy got to her feet, her arm returning to full view. She turned, and stepped through the wall, and was gone. The wall was fully solid – Mandy had simply stepped through it like it was made of fog.
“How..,” Chloe was staring with disbelief. “How did she do that?”
Quentin said, “It’s her ability. She’s a meta-human like the rest of us.”
Chloe nodded. “I figured that. She wouldn’t be here otherwise. It’s just that I’ve never seen anything quite like that.”
“Our Miss Waid is quite unlike anyone else.”
Mandy said, stepping through the closed door behind them, “You got that right.”
Chloe knew she probably should not ask this question, that she should probably turn and get the hell out of here while the going was good. But the question was there, and had to be asked.
“Who took your baby? Who’s Doctor Freaking Frankenstein?”
“The scientist who lives in a secret hideaway in a mountaintop, somewhere. And when I find him, I am going to kill him. I am going to reach my hand into his chest, just like I passed through that wall, and pull out his heart.”
She returned to the couch, drawing her feet up to sit in the position Chloe called Indian style. Not politically correct, she knew, but who cared? Not her. She lived under a bridge on the other side of the city with a dozen other meta-humans. She figured political correctness was one of the least of her worries.
Quentin said, “We had better get out of here. Leave her alone.”
Mandy was once again staring at the bottle, as though Quentin and Chloe were not even there. They turned and left the room, and Quentin gently closed the door behind them.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Snake stood outside the dilapidated building that served as a headquarters for Quentin Jeffries and his screwy little band. The cold drizzle had picked up a bit, and he pulled his slouch hat a little lower to keep the rain from his face and neck. He had been human once, but he fully accepted the fact that he was now no more than a humanoid reptile, and as such was cold blooded. Standing around here in the cold rain was not good for him. Yet he would not leave as long as Chloe was in there.
It was not that Snake didn’t trust Quentin. He did, at least to a point. It was that he didn’t trust the people Quentin allied himself with.
Snake realized the nearest streetlight was beginning to grow dimmer. He knew what this meant.
“Hello, old friend,” he said into the night, his voice its usually gravely self.
The familiar and yet kind of scary baritone seemed to come to life from all around him. “Hello, Snake. It’s a cold wet night to be standing around. Especially for you.”
Snake gave a hissing chuckle. “That’s the truth. I’m just waiting for Chloe. She’s in there with Quentin Jeffries. He’s trying to recruit her for his team.”
“There is a search on for Mother. Is someone ill?”
Snake nodded, and explained about the woman he and Nate had found at the biker bar, and the man with her who was near death. “I was taking part in the search, but then Quentin sent me a mind message saying he needed to meet with me. He wants Chloe to join his team. Finding mother’s important, but keeping Chloe safe is more important.”
“She is like a daughter to you.”
Snake nodded.
The voice in the darkness said, “Mother is at the warehouse on Bay Street. I was just there. She’s helping some of the sick. I would appreciate it if you could go escort her back. It’s a long trip by foot. I’ll stay and watch over Chloe.”
“Thank you.” And Snake took off into the night. Crossing the city would take some time, but he found if he kept moving he could handle the cold weather a little better. He didn’t have to worry about Chloe’s safety. With the Darkness there, she would be safer than she would be with anyone else.
Once Snake was gone, the Darkness settled into the night, swirling about the condemned building Quentin used as a headquarters. Listening. Waiting to protect. After all, this was what he did.
Quentin led Chloe to the kitchen. A battered table stood in the center, with mismatched chairs surrounding it. The finish was peeling from the table and a crack ran down along the center. Quentin motioned for her to deposit herself in one of the chairs.
He went to a fridge. “Would you like something to drink?”
“A beer would be good.”
“A beer? How old are you?”
“None of your business, longhair.” Impatience suddenly rose to the surface. “Look, you wanted to talk to me. You invited me here. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure you want me to join this little group of rejects of yours. Now, get me a beer or I walk. I don’t really care which.”
He shrugged, and reached for a beer. “Coors is all we have.”
“That’s fine.”
He set the bottle on the table beside her, and then filled a kettle with water and placed it on a burner. “I never quite got used to this business of drinking beer as t
hough it were water, the way you Americans do.”
She twisted off the cap. “Yeah, I kinda figured by the way you talk that you weren’t from these parts.”
He took a chair across the table from her. “Now a good hearty stout, that is a drink to cherish. But this watered down stuff you people call beer, why it’s hardly beer at all. So in the absence of a good stout, I’ll settle for tea.”
She took a swig. “What brings an Englishman all the way across the water to Boston?”
“I had a problem and I needed it solved. And I figured Doctor Freaking Frankenstein, as Mandy so aptly calls him, could probably help. Which he did.”
“That baby she was talking about, did any of that really happen?”
“Indeed. Though, it was not quite ripped out of her. The good doctor teleported it out to save her life. ”
“And the life of the child?”
“I really doubt there is anything on Earth that could harm that child.”
“So, is she, like, your cherry bomb?” she took another hit off the beer.
“My...what?”
“Your squeeze. Your lover. Come on, dude. You’re English. Don’t you speak English?”
“I thought I did. Until I came to these lovely shores. But no, Mandy and I have never been together. Why would you ask that?”
“I can tell by the way you look at her. It’s kind of obvious.”
“What’s obvious?”
She smiled. “You’re in love with her, dude.”
He raised a brow. “I most certainly am not.”
“Sure you are.” Chloe took another pull from the beer.
Quentin sighed with indignation.
Chloe shrugged. “A woman knows. Besides, you’re telling me right now that you are, without even realizing it. You’re protesting too much. If you weren’t in love with her then the suggestion would just make you laugh.”
Quentin frowned. “Just how old did you say you were?”
“I didn’t.”
“Well, you obviously are quite the student of human nature.”
“So tell me about her. Who’s the baby daddy?”
“Jake Calder. Ever hear of him?” But he could see by her reaction she had.
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