by Regan Black
"Can’t anyone use a name anymore?"
'Body moved to morgue. Family notified. Reports filed internal and external.'
She wasn’t buying it. Maybe it was their tracking system. The elimination of names in favor of privacy-protective numbers bothered her. People were people, young, old, law-abiding or not, they should have the dignity of being addressed by name.
Quieting this lamentable quirk of her nature, she paged back to a layout of the facility. Common sense and her memory of the blueprints proved the morgue was situated between the infirmary and the loading dock. Her original plan was still good enough. She peeked through the tower windows down into the dark prison yard.
She refused to accept his death until she saw Nathan’s body. Her own concerns aside, she owed Petra that much.
In her mind, her father’s voice grumbled about stubborn girls with more will than sense. Simple parental disapproval over her decisions didn’t scare her any more. Failure terrified her. She would bring Nathan out, hopefully alive, so he could help her in turn. Always better to assume the positive.
She reached into her pocket for the paper packet. Unfolding a corner, she held it to the guard's nose and puffed a fine powder into his nostrils. He'd sleep long and hard enough the system might just declare him dead as well. Rolling him under his computer, she dismantled his gun and jammed the firing pin into an external port on the computer monitor.
She eased over the wall, timing her silent descent with the swipe of the flood lights. She crossed the yard without incident and used the guard's badge to enter the door closest to the infirmary. She found the stairs and raced down to the first of the prison’s many sublevels.
Here, another guard protected his comrades from any security breach. She watched, timing him through a short seventy-five second route. She waited through three cycles, finding his rhythm, and then she wiped her face clean and made her move.
Sweeping her pilfered card through the reader, she put herself into his path, cocked a hip and smiled with all the seduction she could muster on short notice.
His surprise quickly morphed into suspicion.
She held her palms up in universal surrender, then held his gaze hostage while she reached up and loosened her hair. As it fell past her shoulders, she tossed her head, watching his suspicion melt into lust.
He stepped closer. She held the pose. He remembered to ask for ID. She twirled the card and then crooked a finger to invite him closer. He walked straight for her. With his eyes glued to her breasts, he didn’t see her trap snapping closed.
Bigger than the guard upstairs, he didn’t go down as gently, but he did go down when she activated the hypo-spray. She relieved him of his security card and weapons, tied her hair back and then took a moment. Calm and patience were the watchwords for the next step. If security was up to advertised standards, things were about to get tough.
Crossing to the guard's console, she created a diversion by tripping a fire alarm in the neighboring cell block. When she heard the resulting commotion, she darted back up the stairwell and into the infirmary.
The open ward revealed several empty beds and a willowy blond nurse hovering over a patient at the far end – precisely where Kelly had hoped to go unnoticed.
"You're here for Nathan," the nurse whispered, waving her to the exit across the medical bay. "The morgue's just through that door. Then the ambulance dock."
Kelly followed the gesture, but braced for a conflict. "You're on Nathan's team?"
"In a manner of speaking. Go on now."
Kelly nodded and ran, accepting the unexpected grace. She pushed the questions away, hoping the nurse was indeed special ops here to keep track of Nathan. Entering the morgue, she gagged as the repugnant odor of the austere clinic assaulted her senses.
A large, walk-in cooler with a small window in the wide stainless steel door took up an entire corner. With no typical wall of drawers, she assumed any remains would be there – in the cooler. She skirted the stainless work table to peek into the window. Her stomach rolled at the sight, but she raised the handle anyway. Locked.
Dammit.
She hesitated to use either guard’s card, afraid it would register on the prison’s computer and someone would realize the walls had been breached. Well, breached by someone other than the nurse.
Kelly considered going back to ask for the code, but there wasn't time. She crossed to the small desk beneath a bank of cabinets and hoped for the best. Rifling the folders on the desk turned up nothing on Nathan, so she searched for a password cheat sheet. She found numbers scratched into the side of the second drawer.
Praising the gift of poor memories, she entered the code and lifted the handle. This time it lifted with a soft swish. She entered and ignored her entirely prissy shiver. It wasn't the cold that had the hairs on her arms standing at attention. It wasn't even the adrenaline. It was the racks of bodies laid out on rolling shelves beneath gray sheets, only tagged toes exposed.
Ick.
She’d memorized Nathan’s inmate number and her heart simply stalled when she saw it scrawled in black marker on the stark white tag. Bracing herself, she reached for the sheet and pulled it back from the immobile head. Her heart kicked back into rhythm. This man was blond. Not Nathan. She drew the sheet back a bit more, just to confirm the substitution. She checked the faces of the others and blew out a sigh.
Nathan wasn’t here.
THREE
The farther backward you can look the farther forward you are likely to see. Winston Churchill
Nathan felt the gurney pause and in the quiet, he used the only senses left – hearing and scent – for clues. No one spoke, but he knew Kristoff by the slight wheezing and there would be at least one guard or orderly handling the gurney. A bing, followed by a soft whoosh let him know they were near an elevator. During his pre-mission recon, Nathan knew the only elevators, aside from the loud freight lifts, were in the hospital wing and the prison's administration tower. It was doubtful Kristoff was taking him to visit the warden.
His gurney bumped and jostled over the elevator threshold. Inside the confined space made it easier to hear individuals. He counted four during the short ride, one who had just popped a breath mint, but that was the only information he could glean. Up and down were lost to him.
Beside him Kristoff's breath stuttered and Nathan reached out with his mind, only to get slapped back for his trouble.
"Give me that bag," Kristoff ordered. "Damned twin phase obsession. Plans and prophecies my ass."
Nathan heard him rummaging and mumbling and knew he'd gone too far. If one dose of Kristoff's cocktail had paralyzed all but his mind, what would the next dose do? Trying not to panic, Nathan dove deep inside his mind for the safest place he knew.
"Ah-ah. You stay right here." Kristoff peeled Nathan's eyelids open. "I want to see this one take effect."
Yanked from safety, Nathan willed his muscles to activate but couldn't flinch away from the icy pressure on his inner arm. He sent every dark thought he had at Kristoff's mind, to no avail. Was the man blocking him or did drug affect his telepathy too?
"Not feeling quite yourself, Nate?" Kristoff wagged the hypospray in front of him. "I made you. You owe me." He thumped the tool on Nathan's chest, emphasizing each point. "You will join me."
Kristoff leaned closer, nose to nose, his muddy breath choking Nathan. Nathan wanted to cringe, to breathe clean air, to close his eyes and shut out the nightmare. He pushed back, against the drug, against the man, with every scrap of his waning strength.
It wasn't enough.
"Finally," Kristoff said, straightening. He tossed the sheet over Nathan's face once more, then snapped his medical bag closed. "Open us up," he ordered the guard who'd been holding the elevator.
As the gurney rolled ahead, he praised himself for a job well done. Nathan was stronger than any of the projections. While that clearly posed problems in this initial dosing phase, it meant nothing but positive results in the end.
> With a stronger stride and confidence, he followed the gurney through the deserted prison corridors. Winning the game – the most important game of life – was the point, after all.
* * *
Considering the ugly twists her life had taken and this blatant corruption, Kelly left the cooler to find vials for the samples she intended to take. The mismarked body might have evidence Nathan could use later against Kristoff. She returned to the body to pluck several hairs and cut away a fingernail. Safely stowing the vial in a pocket of her combat vest, she exited the cooler, waiting a moment for the lock to click back in.
In the total silence of the morgue, she heard the all-clear signal from the fire team. Her diversion was spent. She checked her watch and realized the hyposprays she’d given the guards would be wearing off any time now. While the amnesia dose would help keep her anonymous, they wouldn’t help her get out. She had to think! Where else would they take a prisoner everyone thought was dead? And why would a staff counselor haul Nathan up out of solitary?
His trial and sentence had been as high profile as his real mission had been deep undercover. If his team even knew about the assignment, would they interfere by faking his death to get him out of a corrupted mission?
Face it, you’ve got no clue. Intrigue wasn't her thing. Kelly’s fingers brushed her phone, weighing her options. Surely, Petra would know if her brother had really died. Knowing Petra's gifts, would Nathan’s team risk the bogus report?
Naturally. Covert's what they do. Come on, think!
Since he’d convinced her to help him, he hadn’t made further contact. Was the current silence by choice? She didn’t believe that, not in light of the imposter in the cooler.
She thought back over the report. The key had to be in Nathan’s last meeting. Out of time, she swiped the card to open the prison records again. This time she looked for the day’s video records. Barring an entrance like hers, Nathan’s visitor had to pass by a camera somewhere en route to the conference rooms.
It took too many excruciating seconds and an alternate angle, but she got a look at the face. Chills danced over her skin. Dr. Leo Kristoff, reported dead six months ago, was live and in color, strolling through the prison under a bogus name.
Two not-so-dead people in the same place were more than mere coincidence. From her work with Petra, Kelly knew Kristoff wasn't the benevolent physician the public had idolized. His presence didn't mean anything good for Nathan. Or the rest of humanity, for that matter.
As she cued up the visual-only record of Nathan's conference with Kristoff, she reached for the screen – a reflex to warn him – when she saw the guard drugging him. "Sneaky bastard," she muttered. With a few clicks she was fast-forwarding, trying to get a current location on Kristoff. Beneath her feet, the floor rumbled. She could hope it was just climate control, but her instincts told her time was short.
Her hands flitted over the keyboard, calling up live feeds for the entire facility. When the search proved too much, she narrowed it to just this wing. Maybe he'd recognized the logic of leaving through the ambulance bay as well. She cheered softly when she caught sight of Kristoff moving toward the service loading docks.
Before she could enter the code to lock down the prison, four guards rushed into the morgue. The first two moved to flank her and the other two remained at the doors blocking her only egress. Red hazed her vision and her hand automatically dropped to the short sword sheathed on her hip.
"Down on your stomach." The lead guard took a step closer. "Now," he snapped when she didn’t move.
She raised her hands over her shoulders and jerked her chin to the clock above the door. "You guys are waaay behind schedule. That’s not gonna look good."
To his credit the leader didn’t flinch, though his second whipped around to check the clock. The two at the door, lowered their weapons, muttering about the stupidity of drills.
"This ain’t no drill," the leader barked. "I schedule them."
"Well, you’re out of the loop on this one." Kelly shook her head, easing her hands down. "They send me in every once in awhile to keep everyone sharp. Sorry, but this has to go on report."
She started forward, but he jerked his weapon and she stopped with a loud sigh, hands drifting up once more.
"Call for confirmation," he barked over his shoulder to his second, who immediately reached for his radio.
She didn’t have time to waste. Kristoff could be hauling Nathan anywhere while these oafs chased their tails. "No one in your chain of command can confirm." She poured all the snide she could into her voice. "I’m on an independent contract."
The man behind the leader paused. The guards behind him rolled their eyes and grumbled again.
It was the opening she needed. She dropped to the floor, swung her leg around to take the leader off his feet and ripped her dirk from its place at her ankle.
The next closest guard aimed at her, but she rolled clear as the stunner shot bounced uselessly off the steel desk and into the supply cabinet.
She popped to her feet putting the second between her and the guards at the door. With her short knife to their comrade’s throat, they hesitated to advance. Unfortunately the leader wasn’t so indecisive. He’d regained his feet and now her attention was split between both threats.
"Let him –"
Her knife hand thrummed, wanting to strike, she quashed the urge by tripping her hostage into the guards at the door and pitching the blade back into the leader’s leg. Scrambling through the tangle, she dashed through the door and back into the quiet infirmary.
An alarm sounded, ringing off the concrete block, rendering coherent thought impossible.
"This way." The nurse grabbed her arm, tugging her into a glass cube that overlooked the ward. "Stay down."
Kelly obeyed, hoping she hadn’t made a fatal error when she heard the hum and thudding of locks securing the doors.
Boots thudded by, paused, and kept moving. Above her the nurse explained, "Standard protocol in cases of riot or escape attempts. Non-combative personnel lock themselves away until it’s over." She sounded like a computer voice-over during a training vid.
Kelly heard her, but she was thinking about the next move, forgetting the errors of her immediate past.
"You're hurt," the nurse observed, kneeling beside her.
Kelly glanced down at the wet sheen spreading across her calf. She hadn’t felt the hit. More interesting than the injury was the realization that someone, probably the leader, had carried a weapon loaded with old-fashioned lead ammo. Thank goodness her compression under-layer had nixed the blood trail.
The nurse’s hands were on her leg. "My name’s Mira. Looks like the shot went straight through."
"Thanks for the diagnosis. I’ll tape it up later. How can I get out of here?"
"I’ll show you in a minute. Just relax."
Kelly was about to point out her need to leave now, when an odd sensation wrapped around her injured leg. It wasn’t hot or cold, just a warm, soothing tingle. She looked down, bewildered by the indescribable cushion of light between her leg and Mira’s hands.
"What –"
"Shh."
She’d met a true healer only once before, when she was too young for school, but old enough for trouble. Her mother had rushed her to a neighboring town, alternately lecturing and praying while an elder used a similar light to mend a deep gash in her arm. She stared at Mira, wondering what attracted a woman of such special power to a prison.
"Better?" Mira gazed at her so intently Kelly couldn’t bring herself to voice any of her questions.
She tugged the torn clothing to see her leg whole and healthy. "Wow. Yes, much better. Thanks."
Mira’s answering smile was a gift in itself. "Good. Let’s get you out of here." She pressed on one corner of a floor tile and the adjacent tile lifted. Swiveling the raised tile to the side, a weak light bathed a narrow stairwell. Kelly swung her legs into the opening and hustled down.
"Good luck, Calist
o," Mira whispered after her.
Kelly shivered at the sound of the stranger speaking her real name. An engine came to life somewhere below her creating a welcome distraction from the puzzle that was Mira. The nurse was a mystery that would wait until Nathan was safe.
Hooking her feet and forearms around the rails, Kelly slid down the stairs special-ops style. Landing silently in a crouch, she paused to get her bearings and then she ran. Forward was her only option for about twenty yards. Then the tunnel forked, one path heading back under the prison, two more bearing away. She listened, her decision made when she caught voices and a creak of doors.
The engine revved and she double-timed it, playing out possible scenarios in her mind. Her tunnel opened up into a vehicle bay, one she hadn’t seen on any blueprints or camera arrays. She watched a uniformed prison guard shoving a loaded gurney toward the open doors of an aged ambulance. Kristoff followed, eliminating any doubt that this body was Nathan. In her gut she knew Kristoff had orchestrated the whole scene. Having a known fugitive, the Dr. Frankenstein of the century, stealing Nate worried her more than a little. What she’d found while researching Kristoff for her former boss was nothing less than creepy.
She peeked around the corner again as the ambulance, lights and siren off, rolled toward the end of the tunnel and out into the Kansas night.
Luck smiled on her again when she found herself alone in the vehicle bay. She raced after the ambulance, desperate to escape this broken down break-out. Closing in on the vehicle, she suppressed the burst of paranoia that she was being watched. This area wasn’t on the camera circuits, wasn’t being patrolled.
The loaded ambulance lumbered up the walled drive and she ran, pushing herself as it accelerated, until she could swing her legs up onto the bumper and enjoy the ride.
Wherever Kristoff was taking Nathan, he wouldn't be alone anymore.
* * *
In another time or place, Kristoff would’ve loosed a long, hearty laugh. In present company, however paralyzed, he stifled it.
