by RJ Plant
Shaina and Rian would stay at the hotel that curled around the former ABBA museum—which had been converted into an ABBA-themed residence hall—while Seth accompanied Kaitlyn and me to visit Esposito.
Apparently, Kaitlyn’s babysitter needed a babysitter.
The buildings in this city—and it was definitely still a city—had suffered considerably little damage. So many major cities had been wiped out, and most that remained were now ghost towns, entombed in sarcophagi of unbreathable air, but not here. Stockholm was as close as it got to a city untouched by the War. People everywhere, so close they rubbed shoulders in the streets. Buildings were being reinforced so more floors could be built on top in a patchwork of primitive towers. The community had even begun using rope bridges to travel between the taller buildings due to the congested streets. The woven ropes and beautifully carved boards contrasted with the glass and steel and brick structures. The marina’s piers were crowded with boats that had been cobbled together from the destroyed vessels scattered about like so much scrap, wood and aluminum, acrylic glass and plastic all thrown together in a Frankensteinian naval fleet.
This was the type of place I’d have chosen to live in.
“How much farther, did you say?” Kaitlyn asked.
“It would take less time if you’d walk faster,” I said. “I’m sure if you ask all sweet like, Seth will carry you.”
“I’m just here to make sure you two don’t kill each other,” Seth said. “Or anyone else.”
“I’m surprised you got volunteered,” I said. “Seems more Shaina’s area of … work.”
“She might watch you and Kaitlyn, but who’d watch her?”
“You saying you think I’d kill her?”
“I’m saying I think she’d kill you.”
“Is it concerned for me, you are? That is sweet.”
The trek from the helicopter to the GDI building took about twenty-five minutes. The densely packed trees were a dramatic change to the crowded city streets and even I could tell that breathing here was easier.
“I’m not ready,” Kaitlyn said as we approached the building. Glass and glossy white shining in the pathetic afternoon sun. “I just need a minute before we go in.”
Seth started walking toward Kait. I moved to put myself between them.
I hauled Kaitlyn up by the elbow when she tried to sit down and dragged her behind me. There was no point in delaying the inevitable and I could feel my muscles starting to spasm as the acetylcholine started to release from the C-chip.
“Do you know your nose is bleeding?” Kaitlyn asked after a minute of half-hearted struggling.
“And my eyes?” I asked. “Ears? Because it feels like my brain is boiling.”
I stopped, pulling Kaitlyn in front of me, confronting her concern head on. I held her biceps, one in each hand, in what I hoped was a sincere and comforting gesture. When she grimaced, I eased my grip.
“Kaitlyn, I promise to do everything I can to not kill you. We need to get this chip out. And we need to find out what Esposito is doing, what this virus is. I’ll try to isolate him so you can run your tests, okay?”
“I need your blood,” she said.
“Can you for one minute just work with me instead of against me?”
“I am working with you. Are we going to be in a situation where I can get your blood once we get inside?”
“Yes. Maybe,” I said. I shook my head and sighed. “I’m sure we’ll manage, pretty little Kaitlyn. I’m sure we’ll fecking manage.”
She walked ahead of me now, stiff and shoulders hunched. Whether against fatigue or the wind I couldn’t tell. It was significantly colder here than in Edinburgh and neither of us were dressed for it.
I looked Seth up and down, coddled in his warm coat and insulated trousers.
“It’s called planning ahead,” he said. “And if you’re thinking of knocking me out and stealing my clothes, I’d highly recommend against it.”
“How did you plan ahead?” I asked. “You didn’t even know we’d be coming here.”
“I have my sources.”
“There’s a card reader on the door,” Kaitlyn said.
I climbed up the steps and stood behind her on the marble slab leading to the door.
“Don’t you have a card?” I asked but reached around her and held mine up to the machine anyway.
The little light flashed green, the door unlocked, and my muscles eased. My shoulders sagged. I let out a long sigh of relief.
“You feel better?” Kaitlyn asked. I nodded. “The chip probably has some sort of tracker, so when you don’t hit a certain check-in destination, Bernard will know.”
“Because of course it would,” I said.
With Seth bringing up the rear, I led us to the receptionist’s desk—or the first line of GDI’s ground-floor defense, or whatever it actually was. The woman behind it could have blended right into the desk, wrapped in white as she was. It was her hair and skin that made her stand out.
Dark skin, darker hair that was pulled back in a tight knot behind her head. She was not unattractive. Quite the opposite. I smiled at her and she smiled back.
“Quinn here with Dr. Henderson,” I said.
“We’ve been expecting you, Agent Quinn,” she said in a highbred English accent.
“Not quite established as an agent yet.”
“We have every faith in you.”
She stood up, and I was able to see just how tightly wrapped in the white dress she was.
“I’m Brinly Joyce,” she said, “the host of this facility. If you and Dr. Henderson will follow me.”
She stopped abruptly. “I almost forgot. Your weapons.” She bent down and pulled a plastic bucket out from under the desk and held it out to me. I smiled and set the pistols in the bucket.
“Thank you,” she said. “No firearms are allowed past this point, I’m afraid.”
“I hardly believe that, Mrs.? Ms.?”
“Agent,” she said.
“Agent, it is.”
“Your associate there will need to have a seat in the lobby. His presence in unexpected.”
I waved at Seth, who made a rude gesture at me, then turned to follow Agent Joyce. She led us to a lift that took us to a subbasement, though I couldn’t tell how far underground we were.
“This facility has the most up-to-date lab and medical equipment,” Agent Joyce said as she exited the lift to lead us down a hallway. “All GDI research begins and is fulfilled here.”
I looked at Kaitlyn, who looked back. Did that mean the Kazic files were here, then? It seemed likely.
Everything was stainless steel, the floor, the ceiling, all of it, overwhelmingly silver. We stopped at a door—just a regular-looking not-so-ominous door—with a small window. The plaque to the left of the door read kazic. Well, at least that was one question answered.
“Dr. Esposito is just finishing up another task, Dr. Henderson,” Agent Joyce said. “Your files are already here, and your directive has been set out for you.”
She held her card in front of the scanner and the red light flashed green. The door opened with a whoosh. I watched Agent Joyce as the door closed behind Kaitlyn.
“Do you know your directive?” she asked.
“Make sure Esposito gets what he needs,” I said. “Then get rid of the girl.”
“Yes, well … Find me at the front desk when you’ve done what you’re going to do. I’ll return your pistols. You are supposed to report to Bernard at HQ for debriefing.”
“So I read. I haven’t got a breather, no tools,” I said, feeling uncomfortable under the weight of her gaze.
Uncomfortable, and … something else. She smiled, an expression that looked more than little wicked on her.
“I’ll give you everything you need,” she said, which didn’t make the something else any better. “And Conor?”
I smiled and waited like a good little soldier.
“Let’s see that virus put to good use.”
; She didn’t wait for an answer. I watched her walk away. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a pleasant view. When the lift doors closed behind her, I held my card up to the reader and the lab door opened. Kaitlyn was sitting at a desk, poring over a file. She looked up as the door sealed behind me.
“I didn’t know you could look so hard at anything,” she said. “Were you trying to use your mind to kill her or to fuck her?”
I blinked very slowly. Then I left the room and waited outside the door for about a minute.
I held up my card, walked back in, let the door seal.
“What was that?” she asked.
“I think it’s called a mulligan.” I walked over and looked at the file in front of her. “What is it?” I asked.
“They want me to produce a synthetic antiserum based on the Kazic human antiserum sample,” she said, waving vaguely at what I guessed was a freezer. “One that can be mass distributed. The timetable for this is impossible.”
“Seems to be a GDI standard, that,” I said.
I took off my jacket and set it on a counter that ran almost the length of the far wall, then walked back to Kaitlyn and leaned over her, flexing the inside of my left arm to accentuate the vein as best I could. When she looked up at me, I rubbed my ear.
She stood up and rummaged through the cabinets my jacket was resting on. While she searched for the tools she needed, I casually scanned the room for cameras. I didn’t see any. And there was nothing hanging from the walls to hide them: no mirrors, no clocks, no posters or signage.
“Seems safe,” I said.
“We have a problem,” Kaitlyn said.
She nodded at me to sit while she walked over with a phlebotomy sharp and an armful of vacutainer tubes. I sat behind the desk, in the only chair in the lab, and made a fist while Kaitlyn tied a tourniquet around my bicep.
“Do you want to go first?” I asked.
She tapped the vein and taped around the sharp, looking at me as the first tube began to fill. “I think they’re trying to make the virus more widely and easily transmittable. That’s why they need a mass distributable vaccine. Why, what have you got?”
“The virus,” I said.
She fumbled the second tube, then picked it up and shoved it home. We watched it fill in silence.
“Well, confirmation of what we suspected,” I said.
Third tube.
“How many of these do you need?” I asked.
“I want ten,” she said.
Four.
Five.
“Do I get cookies?” I asked.
Six.
Seven.
“I guess not,” I said.
Eight.
Nine.
“Are you going to kill me?” she asked.
Ten.
“Not if you’re useful,” I said, smiling. “And it would be very useful if you could do something about this chip.”
“Felix is as good as dead,” Kaitlyn said.
“Not yet,” I said, a bit taken aback.
“You have the virus. If you let Felix out—”
“You have ten tubes of my blood,” I cut in. “You have your files and notes. Soon you’ll have Esposito. You have access to GDI for the moment. In what world is this not currently a win? Except, oh, I don’t know … the one where I’m going to have to fecking kill you if you don’t do something about this chip.”
I was calm. Kaitlyn was calm. We were all pretty fecking calm. I closed my eyes as she walked away to do whatever she was going to do with my blood, which, for all I knew, consisted of cursing me with it.
*****
“Please, Felix, don’t let him send me back,” I whispered.
I could see our bedroom through Felix’s eyes, shades of blue on the wall, on the bedspread. A writing desk against the wall beneath a blue-curtained window, a walk-in closet set in the corner, clothes spilling out of an overfilled laundry bin. Shoes and action figures scattered along the hardwood floor.
The ceiling fan whirred overhead, steady, almost melodic.
Felix got up and walked into his bathroom to look into the mirror as he spoke to me.
“I’m sorry. I don’t want … You have to go, Conor,” he said, his watery blue eyes pleading. “Rian says—”
“Rian’s a liar!” I said, the emotion of the words forcing them from Felix’s mouth. He clapped his hands over his mouth, eyes a little too wide.
I spoke my next words internally, the usual way.
“I’m scared, Felix. I don’t like being trapped. I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Rian said you stabbed Mr. Moran,” Felix said.
“It was an accident,” I said. “I don’t want to hurt anyone. You’re my brother, Felix. Don’t you miss me?”
“Yes,” Felix whispered. “I don’t want you to go either.”
The bedroom door slammed open. I moved through Felix, taking over completely to shut and lock the bathroom door before he could come in. I let Felix back up. I wanted to talk to him, to make him understand.
“It’s you and me. No one else. I don’t want to hurt anyone, Felix. I just want to protect us.”
But I was just an eight-year-old and scared out of my mind. I couldn’t protect us. Not yet.
“Felix?” Rian called through the closed door.
“We don’t want you here,” I yelled through Felix. “Go away!”
I heard him swear, then, “Conor, let Felix out right now.”
“No. You can’t have him. He’s mine! He’s mine! He’s all I have!”
Rian hit the door hard enough for it to shudder. Hard enough to send panic flashing through me. I took over completely again. There was no need for Felix to see any of this.
I wrung my hands and thought furiously. I was trapped, again. I was always trapped. I ran to the bathtub, jumping in and pulling a towel over me, hiding myself. The more Rian banged on the door, the less sure I was about hiding.
I jumped from the tub and walked, paced, circled.
The towel bar.
I grabbed it with both hands and pulled. I slipped, falling to the ground, then got up and pulled again. The towel bar came free with bits of drywall and I held it like a baseball bat, waiting for Rian to come in.
The door was badly bowing. It was going to give. I could see it. I could hear it. I could feel it.
I clutched the towel bar like a lifeline, clutched it until my fingers went numb.
I wanted to be brave. I wanted to fight back. I didn’t deserve this. I hadn’t done anything!
The door burst open and, terrified, I let Felix out.
Even as I screamed my hatred at Rian, I let Felix out …
*****
29 October 2042, Stockholm, Greater Scandinavian Territory
Blinding pain. Where was I? Whose face was I holding?
A cough tore from my chest. Blood spilled over my lips. It never hurt this much.
I couldn’t see.
“Felix?”
Kaitlyn. She sounded strange. What was going on? Tried to say her name. More blood.
Felt like skin was ripping. Sores opening.
I felt him coming back.
Couldn’t hold him.
13
29 October 2042, Stockholm, Greater Scandinavian Territory
Coming back to the surface, reclaiming our body, was like wading against an ocean tide. With only my consciousness, I struggled and flailed, trying to determine up from down, trying to pull myself to a surface I knew was there but seemed impossible to find, impossible to reach.
Releasing our body to Felix was easy, like flipping a switch. When I called, he came and I just floated down, away. But the fight to come back was terrifying. I wondered, every time, if this would be the time I could break the surface.
But I did. I always did.
I opened my eyes, one at a time. One of my hands was lying in something a little wet, a little sticky, slightly solid, but could arguably be categorized as gelatinous. I wiggled my fingers, then squeezed,
then poked.
“It’s Dr. … Well, it was Dr. Esposito. Shit. Stop … Stop playing with him,” Kaitlyn said, a bit frantic.
I sat up a little more. When I did, my hand crushed through the rib cage I’d apparently been playing with to find the floor underneath. The sticky, gelatinous substance was … Muscle? Organs?
“The fuck happened?” I asked.
“I don’t know. You were asleep. Dr. Esposito came in, and it’s like as soon as you heard the door open, you were on him—or I guess Felix was on him. You … They? … Both just sort of collapsed to the floor.”
Kaitlyn pulled on two pairs of latex gloves, then pulled on some elbow length, heavy-duty gloves that may have been neoprene.
The smell from Esposito’s not-quite-body hit me. I wasn’t all that used to smells, but that was not something I wanted to encounter again. It was so strong I could taste it. It clung heavily to the back of my mouth and throat and I couldn’t decide if breathing through my nose or my mouth was the better option.
“This is what the virus does?” I asked.
“That’s what the virus does,” Kaitlyn confirmed.
“How long did it take?” I asked.
“Ten, maybe fifteen seconds,” she said. “Seemed like forever. It started doing that to you, too. Shit. To Felix, I mean. It was slower, but ...”
She wasn’t looking at me.
“It must be spread through direct contact. It’s just a guess, but since I’m not …” She glanced at Esposito, then quickly away. “A puddle of jelly, I’d say it’s the most likely scenario.”
My skin felt hot and there were bright red patches on my arms and hands. I lifted my shirt and saw the patches on my chest and stomach too. My mouth tasted … awful. I touched my lips and my fingers come away with blood. I spat out the excess blood, only too late realizing that I was aiming at Esposito’s chest cavity.
“I thought Felix would die before you could take back over. Even then, I wasn’t sure what would happen,” she said. “I can’t believe the repair your body has undergone. It’s amazing.”
