The Clinic

by Cate Culpepper

  “Great,” Jode repeated. He rummaged in the bag. “Pam threw together some warm clothes. I’m no help with sizes. I just told her Brenna’s short and you’re a tree. We’ve had the backpacks and camping supplies ready for weeks. Hey.” Jode looked up, his flushed face curious. “Hey, Jesstin, if Brenna had said no, would you have bonked her over the head and carried her out of here over your shoulder like a sack of wheat?”

  “No, of course not,” Jess replied. “Brenna’s not a child. She makes her own decisions. But so do I, and if she’d chosen to stay, I wouldn’t go either.” She felt Brenna’s hand on her arm tighten.

  “Get out of here, laddy-buck.” Jess nudged Jode. “You’re late for your shift. We’ll see you after midnight. Whoa. Leave the coffee.”

  Chapter Six

  In Amazon lore, taking captives was sometimes a matter of survival. Their modern counterparts had to keep prisoners too, occasionally. While more harmonious than the City, Tristaine wasn’t immune to the random criminal impulse.

  But when Amazons take prisoners, Jess thought, we not only treat them well—they certainly get better coffee—we also manage to guard them properly, most of the time. In her opinion, the Clinic’s lack of visible armed security at night bordered on the absurd.

  She paused at an intersection of corridors and slid her hand back, waiting until she felt Brenna’s cold fingers brush across her wrist. She then peered carefully around the corner. At the far end of the hall, a lone orderly sat at a battered steel desk, clicking slowly away at a keyboard. A rifle rested against the wall behind his folding chair. Four feet to his right stood the doors that led outside to the Clinic’s parking bay. Beyond the doors, Jode’s battered van idled in the shadows.

  Jess crouched, wincing, and then braced three fingers on the floor until the dizziness lifted. She heard nothing more menacing in the dark hall than the droning hum of the cooling system in the vents above them.

  Brenna and Jode crouched behind her. Brenna snugged the collar of her lab coat around her neck. The coat wasn’t actually hers, not that hers ever fit, anyway. Jode had found it in the lounge and brought it to her in the hope that anyone who saw them would not immediately remember her fall from Caster’s grace.

  Jess swiveled and rested her back against the cool plaster. Jode shifted to ease his hips, and his tennis shoe squealed across the tile. Jess lifted an eyebrow at him, but the rattling of the cooler above them would cover the lapse and their muted voices.

  “Twenty-five convicted criminals in this facility,” Jess murmured, “and only three armed staff at night, covering three widely distant exits?”

  “Well, twenty-four of those criminals don’t have two gullible Clinic staff willing to unlock their cells,” Brenna pointed out. Her teeth were chattering.

  “Hey, remember, Cam and Kyla almost caught an entire Prison flat-footed when they tried to bust you out.” Jode grunted softly. He was not built for sustained crouching. “City lockups haven’t had to cope with anything as mean as Amazons for decades. What now, warrior queen?”

  Jess considered. “It’s a long walk from here to that desk. We don’t need to seem harmless long, but long enough to close the distance.”

  “Then I suggest we make a harmless run, from here to that desk,” Brenna whispered.

  “Nothing that swashbuckling, sorry.” Jess smirked at Brenna. “You’d best enjoy this, lass. You’ll never get to do it again.”

  *

  Swing shift was not so damn hectic that its staff had no time to enter chart notes. Even if the pricks over in Military Research thought they were too holy to do such scut work, there were still half a dozen Civilian orderlies who could type this crap in the afternoons. Grave staff was not being paid enough to go blind doing data entry all blessed night. Swing shift had access to the huge bright monitors at the staff desk.

  Malcolm broke off his internal litany and looked up, frowning. He heard the door leading from D wing close, then footsteps. He craned his stiff neck to see the clock on the wall behind him through its wire cage. There was no mention of a one a.m. discharge on his roster.

  A large orderly sauntered down the hall, followed by a tall female prisoner with her hands bound behind her. An attractive blond medical tech walked at her side, holding a stunner on the dark woman.

  “Yo.” The big guy jutted his chin at Malcolm when they were halfway down the corridor. He was swinging a tangle of keys, the possession of which, in Malcolm’s view, made Military Research orderlies imagine themselves hefty of penis. “Got a late transfer tonight, compadre.”

  “First I’ve heard of it.” Malcolm’s hand moved to the box on his desk, and Brenna nearly freaked where she stood. One flicked switch would summon two other armed staff.

  Jode paused, and for a moment Brenna thought he was frozen. Then he proved himself the son of an Amazon again. “Great. That’s great. Another admin fuckup,” he grumbled. “Hey, go ahead and call the desk for me, would ya? Have them wake up one of the brass?”

  He started walking again, and so did Brenna, nudging Jess along sternly like a good Clinic medic.

  “Tell them to call Lorber at home.” Jode nodded at Malcolm’s hand on the alarm. “Or is there somebody still here this late who can authorize this?”

  Malcolm hesitated. Hitting any alarm meant filling out a dozen triplicate forms, even if it turned out there was no real security breach. Mighty Penis here didn’t have to assume his glitch was worth that much sweat. He stood, pushing back the folding chair with his thighs and wincing as his spine crackled, and came around the side of the desk.

  “You don’t have any paperwork? Not any?”

  Please don’t make us kill him, Brenna thought. She didn’t realize she was praying. Let this work. All I want is to get us out of here without anyone getting hurt. But the man’s eyes had focused on Jess’s face and narrowed. Her status as a Clinic celebrity was proving a definite disadvantage.

  “Hey, that’s Caster’s Amazon.” Malcolm’s gaze darted to Brenna. “And what’s she doing here? That’s—”

  “Stay low, Bren,” Jess whispered.

  Malcolm bolted for the rifle, and so did Jess.

  Brenna leaped to the right, clearing Jess’s path to the desk, and she saw Jode lunge after her. She raced to the desk alarm and cut its power quickly, ensuring that no signal reached the Clinic’s other sentries. She whirled as a crash of bodies hit the far wall.

  *

  Brenna’s teeth were chattering so hard now she could hear them over the rumbling of the van’s engine. She helped Jess stretch out on the padded back bench, then squeezed into the cramped floor space behind the driver’s seat. She wrapped her arms around her knees to contain her shivering and hoped there were dentists in Tristaine.

  Jode bent into the cab of the van and billowed a green canvas tarp over their heads. He had tossed enough painting supplies around to make the back of the van look comfortably messy and nondescript. The musty plastic of the tarp tented neatly above them, an unbroken ceiling stretching from the driver’s seat to the van’s back doors. Brenna felt a lurch as the big man climbed behind the wheel.

  “Can you hear me, Jode?”

  The tarp made Jess’s voice resonate beside her. Brenna could barely see her in the green shadows, but she could feel her warmth. Her own trembling began to ease.

  “Yo.” Jode’s muffled voice drifted to them. “You two all right back there?”

  “Dandy,” Jess sighed.

  Jode’s scarred face had been pale as he eased the tarp over them, but his driving was calm and smooth as the van coasted out of the bay and into the brightly lit lot. “Jesstin?” he rumbled. “Dropping that guy yourself was completely uncalled for, especially seeing as how you were dead just a few hours ago.”

  “I’m fine, bro.”

  Fine was a relative term, Brenna thought, trying to see Jess’s features through the green gloom. They had left the orderly hog-tied with his own belt in a utility closet, basically whole and safely muzzled. But th
e diversion had been expensive in terms of Jess’s energy.

  “I could have taken that guy out, though,” Jode asserted.

  “I know, Jodey. I got nervous. I’m sorry.” Jess lowered her voice, and Brenna leaned in to hear her. “A hundred years, and we’re still pampering male egos.”

  “A hundred years, and butches are still condescending as hell,” Brenna replied at normal volume, and Jess winced. “I could have handled him more easily than either of you, Jesstin. And Amazon butches, pardon me, are macha to the point of idiocy—”

  “You two lay low,” Jode cut in. “Last station coming up.”

  The tires made a regular thrumming sound as they passed over the succession of steel grids that led to the exit of the Clinic lot, and the final net stretched in their path. The gatekeeper’s station housed an armed sentry at all hours.

  Brenna rocked against the seat as Jode pulled the lumbering van to a stop, and she steadied Jess on the padded bench.

  “Cybele weeps,” Jode whispered suddenly.

  Ice water deluged Brenna’s nerves again, and she gripped Jess’s arm. They heard Jode scroll down his side window.

  “Nice night,” he said to the guard.

  “If you’re wing nut enough to be awake,” Karney replied from the high stool in the gatekeeper’s booth.

  “Thought you worked day shift, Karney.” Jode’s mouth was audibly dry.

  “Yeah, thought you did, too. Pushing curfew a bit, aren’t you?”

  Jess closed her eyes. Tristaine still couldn’t catch a break. Karney knew very well Jode had no business here this time of night. At the very least he would ask to search the van. She thought they might have to make a run for it, and she wrapped Brenna’s arm in one hand to brace them both. She could almost feel Karney’s eyes move over the van’s dark interior.

  “Caster decided a transfer to night watchdog was in order,” Karney’s sullen voice continued, “after I called in with the flu before her sacred trial this morning. Did Lady Brass Balls kick your schedule to shit, too?”

  “And lopped five percent off my pay,” Jode improvised. “Grave shift’s a bitch and so is she.”

  Jess smiled at Brenna in the darkness, proud of her brother.

  Karney leaned out the window of his booth and spat the last mouthful of dreadful coffee onto the asphalt. “You know Caster’s going to crack your nuts, Jodoch, for springing those two.”

  Gun it, Jess thought, he’s calling it in as we sit here. Beside her, Brenna’s breath stopped.

  “That makes you awful dense,” Karney said. “But if anybody thinks every human being with a prick actually is one, they’re pretty thick too.”

  They heard Karney slide his window shut.

  A moment later, the van lurched slightly as Jode pulled out of the Clinic’s lot and headed north.

  Brenna fingered the edge of the tarp aside and watched the spikes of the electrified fence surrounding the Prison tick across the curved window. She shivered again with a relief she knew was not fully warranted yet.

  Rain began a tinny patter against the roof of the van. The drizzle would turn the City’s streets shining and black. Streets Brenna wouldn’t be walking again anytime soon. Her home for all her twenty-odd years. She tried to discern Jess’s features more clearly through the murk.

  “Jode, what about you and Pam?” Jess shifted stiffly. “You know they’ll send Feds to your unit.”

  “We’re not going back.” Jode’s voice drifted to them. “We’ll lie low with one of Pam’s buddies until we can bribe up some false papers. We figure Caster’s not going to be so hot for our hides that we can’t start over eventually.”

  “Jode.” There was real grief in Jess’s voice. “You were almost through school.”

  “So? Show me a Tristainian who needs City schooling to be a good carpenter.”

  “You were studying electronics, bro, and you loved it.”

  “Wellup, I love my mama more.” Jode’s tone was rough with affection. “And Jocelyn of Tristaine would have snatched her baby boy baldheaded if he hadn’t helped rescue Shann’s little chicks. Don’t worry about us, sis.”

  “On behalf of Tristaine,” Jess said, “the chick reference was uncalled for.”

  Jode snorted cheerfully.

  Jess sighed, then her brogue gentled when she spoke to Brenna. “How are you holding up, lass?”

  “I’m fine.” Brenna hunched her shoulders to try to release the crick in her upper back. The starched stiffness of the lab coat irked her. “I wish I was real drunk.”

  “You know she’ll come after us, Bren.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Macha to the point of idiocy.” Jode chuckled suddenly from the front seat. “I gotta tell Pammy what you said about Amazon butches, Brenna. You two would be best friends. She argues with my mom all the time about stuff like that.”

  “Tell Pam she is an Amazon butch.” Jess closed her eyes. Her head was starting to pound again. “Genes have nothing to do with it.”

  “You better get used to talking genes and politics, Brenna.” Jode’s grin was in his voice. “They do it all day in Tristaine. Day in. Day out. Day in. That’s how Amazons have fun. Weeks at a time. You’ve been warned.”

  “As long as they have more of that coffee.” Brenna sighed and rested her forehead on her knees.

  The steady thrum of the worn tires on the roadway lulled her. She couldn’t possibly sleep, but at least the vein-popping tension of the escape was draining away. Brenna lifted her head and focused on the silent woman on the seat above her. “Hey?”

  “Hey.”

  “Your turn. Status report.”

  “I’m okay.” Jess shifted again, trying to find anything resembling comfort on the padded bench. “Well, everything hurts, but I’m functional.”

  Brenna had to settle for that. “Where are we going, exactly? I mean tonight. Can we get close to Tristaine?”

  “Not tonight.” Jess rubbed her own shoulder absently. “Tristaine’s deep in the mountains, a good week from the City road on foot, even this time of year. We’re going to have to hike most of it. Luckily, Kyla and Camryn and I know these hills pretty well.”

  “Yay,” Brenna cheered faintly.

  Jess looked down at Brenna, and her rough palm found the back of Brenna’s neck and rested there. “You’ve got to be spooked, lass. This played out much faster than I’d planned. There was no time for much warning.”

  “I’ll be fine.” Brenna kept her eyes lowered as if in thought. She tried to quell a new bout of trembling that had risen at the light touch of Jess’s hand on her skin.

  “Jode will drop us close to a river that the girls know as a meeting place.” Jess, as soothed by the thrumming vibrations as Brenna, felt her eyes drift shut. “We’ll need to cover some ground before we rest, at least make some inroads up through the foothills.”

  “You’re planning on scaling cliffs? Tonight?” Brenna reached up and rested her fingers against Jess’s face. She’d been running a low-grade fever for hours. “You’re not getting any cooler, Jess.”

  “We’re under a tarp.”

  “Jesstin.” Brenna’s hand found Jess’s thigh. “Do you really think you can do this?”

  Jess didn’t answer for a moment. “I don’t know. I can still function, Bren, but I’m pretty rocky. What if I can’t?”

  Brenna paused. She stroked Jess’s leg thoughtfully and then spoke to her as a healer and a friend. “If you can’t, I’ll help you. We’ll get everybody home safe, okay?” She patted her knee in a way that was almost maternal. “Close your eyes, Jess. Get some rest while you can.”

  The van took the on-ramp for the interstate and moved toward the dark hills.

  *

  Jess dozed in a mildly feverish, not-unpleasant haze. Occasionally a jab of pain would surface through it, but mostly she was aware only of cool fingers on her brow, or a light breath stirring her hair. Any images dancing in her mind were softened by Brenna’s touch.

  Shann be
nding over her, after her first battle. Jess had not been badly hurt. The only emotion she remembered feeling was a vague relief that the shock of combat hadn’t reduced her to tears in front of Tristaine’s queen. And the sweetness of seeing Shann’s face again, her wise, tender eyes.

  Jess awoke to the slow scrunch of tires on sand.

  The van rolled to a stop on a rather precarious turnout at the base of the mountains, its fender inches away from a sandy ledge. Below the wash of the van’s headlights, the hill sloped steeply until it hit a line of trees, thick ones, difficult to see through at high noon, much less at three a.m. Jess accepted the forearm Brenna offered to help her rise from the bench and managed to do so without any undignified grunting.

  Brenna was carrying more than a woman her size should have been able to lift. The rudimentary aluminum camping frame strapped to her back held blankets, two lanterns, her bag, and enough dried fruit and meat to feed a small family for a week.

  She finished tightening a shoulder buckle, then swept her gaze over the van’s interior to be sure they had extracted everything Jode had packed for their use. She considered the lab coat, neatly folded on the padded bench. She reached in and laid her hand on its starched whiteness for a moment, but left it behind, a completely impractical garment for a refugee hiking through mountains. The backs of her eyes prickled with tears as she slid the van’s door shut.

  They would be in Tristaine, in another life, in a week. If Jess’s strength held out, Brenna amended, buckling the canvas belt of the pack around her waist. If they weren’t caught. If Jess could convince the other two Amazons not to slit her throat for a spy…

  “We may not see you again, Jode.” Jess clasped the big man’s forearm and held it. “Tristaine owes you a lot.”

  “De nada.” Jode grinned. “By the way, I made a lousy orderly, but I was great at filching drug samples. Here.” He folded a packet into Jess’s hand. “Two tabs of morphia. It was all I could get, so you can’t get hurt again.”