Accelerated

by Heppner, Vaughn

  I didn’t know if that was true, as I had no idea what Tina Cheng could do. I do remember that she seldom boasted. While working on the Reservation, Kay must have learned how each of us had been altered and she must have told Cheng later.

  None of that mattered now. “Hurry up,” I said. “Click me loose.”

  Stone’s throat grew tense as he studied me. Then he brought up the remote and clicked the other manacle.

  It popped open and I ripped out my wrist.

  “It will take time for us to saw open the other lock,” Cheng told me.

  “No it won’t.” I’d had more than enough and I wanted out of here. So I proceeded to smash the heavy table with my fist. Both Stone and Cheng backed away. I kept hammering oak, using my density to full advantage. Soon, I shook my formerly trapped arm free. Then I came around the shattered table.

  Stone drew his magnum. He thumbed the hammer, the click loud in the interrogation room.

  I stopped, deciding that Stone would shoot rather than chancing humiliation at my hands.

  “He is not the one,” Cheng told Stone.

  “You’re sure about that?” Stone asked, as he kept his eyes on me.

  “Are you questioning me?” Cheng asked quietly.

  Stone licked his lower lip. Then he eased the hammer down and holstered his hand cannon. He backed out of the room, never taking his eyes off me. I was fast, but so was he, especially at drawing his iron. I suspected he practiced at home in front of a wall-sized mirror.

  “Thank you for wrecking the table,” Cheng told me as the door closed.

  “What does it mean when you say I’m not the one?” I asked.

  “Why, the obvious. That you’re free instead of being imprisoned.”

  That isn’t what it meant, but I dropped it for now. I said, “I’m thinking of pressing charges.”

  “No you are not.”

  Those solid-colored eyes, they were freaky. It was as if she could look at my soul. “Are you reading my thoughts?” I asked.

  She gave me an enigmatic smile.

  “I don’t see how you can read thoughts,” I said.

  “This is interesting. You are frightened.”

  “Can you sense emotions?”

  “Mr. Kiel, you claimed you wished to see me. Here I am.”

  I’m going to kill you. I projected the thought at her, and I ran the litany several times in my mind. There was no reaction from Cheng. You’re a bitch! I thought. There was still no reaction from her. I was beginning to doubt she could read my mind. I needed one more test, however, to see if she reacted to anything.

  “Did you kill Kay?” I asked.

  “Don’t be absurd,” she said, frowning.

  “Did you order her death?”

  “I’m afraid you’re badly out of touch with reality. There is much more at stake here than a troubled woman’s life.”

  “That troubled woman was my friend, and she came to me for help. Now she’s dead and I’m going to find out who killed her.”

  “You’re angry,” Cheng said. “Why, you’re angry with me. How quaint.”

  “What do you see with those strange eyes of yours?”

  Her head swayed back as if I’d slapped her. “You are an annoyance, Mr. Kiel. You are an X factor in a deadly game of Go. None of us knows which way you will jump, and that makes each of us nervous. By going to you, Kay decidedly complicated matters.”

  “Is that why you sent a man with a needle after me?”

  “This truly happened?” she asked.

  Her question let me know that she’d been listening to Stone interrogate me. She must have been watching behind the one-way glass.

  “You know it happened,” I said.

  “When?”

  “Right,” I said.

  “Mr. Kiel, if you will walk with me, we will go to my office. There I will answer a few of your questions. Then you might answer one or two of mine. Agreed?”

  I toed a splinter of oak. Were there more sides than the Shop and Polarity Magnetics? If so, I needed to know who else had an interest in the cube and who else might have killed Kay.

  ***

  We didn’t walk to her office, but rode a golf cart after leaving a modest-sized brick building with a narrow iron door. We passed a massive hanger where technicians with miles of cables and electronic gear worked on an F-35 with several odd features I’d never seen before.

  I twisted in my seat to get a better look, but Doctor Cheng increased speed. She had returned my sunglass, so raising my eyebrows at her seemed useless. We were in the heart of Polarity Magnetics, Long Beach. I figured my time would be better spent gawking at everything I could to see what was going on rather than talking chitchat. There were more glass-fronted buildings, more hangers and then long, low buildings like steel-construction barracks. Hissing, buzzing sounds emanated from them.

  “What’s going on in there?” I asked.

  Cheng smiled faintly, with her hands on the steering wheel at ten and two o’clock.

  Three white-coated men walked toward a low building. Beyond it were rows of storage facilities. A flatbed truck was parked beside one. A forklift driver unloaded huge crates. I read LASER ACCESSORIES/M1A2 on the side of one. That must be for the Abrams battle tank, which was strange, because Abrams fired shells. Then I remembered that some tanks use lasers for sighting.

  “There’s a lot of military hardware here,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “You must have a lot of friends in the government to get all these contracts.”

  “We are doing nothing illegal.”

  Sure, I thought to myself. The room I’d just been in had said it all. Once people spent big money, just about anything corrupt and illegal was possible.

  Tina Cheng, who was she? I remember in Geneva that Kay had never liked Cheng. Most people reciprocate hostile feelings. As I rode in the golf cart, I recalled that Cheng had been a perfectionist and very hardworking, someone who would put in eighteen-hour days without a thought. Cheng’s only hobby had been constructing amazingly complex paper models. She’d made pagodas and soldiers driving chariots with intricate details down to hooves and barbed arrows. With scissors, glue and paint, Cheng had constructed ladders that looked real and apples you thought you could eat. One match would have burned everything. I’d always hated to think of the patience needed to construct such things.

  The ride ended behind the big glass building with the park-like lawns. Cheng hurried briskly up the sidewalk. A guard opened a glass door and nodded us through. The hall was dim, carpeted and quiet except for clacking computers keys that come from an open door. We went the other direction to an elevator, rode to the basement and an even dimmer corridor. Cheng pressed her thumb on a scanner and motioned me to hurry as we scooted past the swishing door. Another door opened where a secretary frowned at a computer screen.

  Looking up, the secretary said, “Doctor, the Director—”

  I couldn’t tell if Cheng shook her head, but the secretary compressed her lips, swiveled in her chair and wrote something on a pad. She tore the top paper from the pad, folded and slid the note across the desk.

  Cheng picked it up on her way past, glancing at the note in her palm. She nodded, and she stepped into her office.

  The room was large, but not huge. It had a door to the side, leading to a restroom likely. She had a minimalist desk with a computer scroll on it and a model pagoda with little waving flags. Chinese silkscreens hung from the walls in a tasteful display, while a row behind the desk showed paper fish, cats and pandas.

  “I don’t have much time for you,” Cheng said. “So please make this quick.”

  “How’s Dave?” I asked, meaning my friend in CERN Security. He had taken the fullest brunt of the expose and lived, phasing in and out of existence. Kay had told me they had moved Dave here.

  Cheng drummed her fingers on the desk, staring at me. It seemed like she was weighing her words. Finally, she said, “Nothing has changed with him.”


  “That isn’t what Kay told me.”

  “The woman could never keep her mouth shut. She shouldn’t have said anything to you about Dave.”

  “He’s my friend.”

  “He was your friend,” Cheng said. “There is a great difference between his former state of being and now.”

  “You killed him?”

  Cheng shook her head. “Sometimes I think we should, but no, he is as alive as he’s ever been since the accident.”

  “Why do you want to murder him?”

  “There are things happening to him…” Cheng shook her head again. “We are not here to discuss Dave.”

  “He phases in more, Kay told me,” I said.

  “I have already told you—” Cheng sighed, and she spoke in a softer voice. “Dave is not the person you remember.”

  “You can talk to him?”

  Cheng pursed her ruby-red lips. “I can communicate with him on a minimal basis only.”

  “That’s more than I heard anyone else could ever do. What does he say?”

  “None of that matters between you and me,” Cheng said. “Besides, his words would make no sense to you.”

  “Kay believed she could bring him around.”

  “That isn’t exactly what she believed, but in your view it would amount to the same thing.” Cheng glanced at the paper pagoda. Then she looked at the note again, the one the secretary had written her. Smiling fainting, Cheng faced me, and said, “Kay wished to waken Dave, and I believe that would be a terrible disaster for all of us.”

  “Care to tell me why?”

  “You are not qualified to understand, nor do I wish to take the needed time to make you understand. Therefore, we shall proceed to other matters. For instance, who is this needle man you spoke about?”

  “I want to see Dave.”

  “No. That is impossible.”

  “You mean you don’t want to,” I said.

  “I mean what I say: impossible.” She glanced at the note a third time and then put it in a pocket. Smiling fainting once more, she said, “Now tell me about this needle man. Did the attack occur on June 12?”

  “He was your man. You should know what day he made the attack.”

  Cheng blew out her cheeks in seeming frustration. “For your information, the Shop has sent operatives to America. That should gravely concern you.”

  “I’ve already spoken with the Chief.”

  Cheng sat back in surprise. “He allowed you to live?” She shook her head. “Obviously, he did. You are here. Unless you’re lying to—” She squinted at me. “No. You’re not lying.”

  Goosebumps rose on my neck. What was she doing with her eyes? What could she see? I grinned to try to hide my growing uneasiness.

  “Has the Shop contacted you?” I asked.

  Cheng seemed amused with the idea. “The Shop has been warned against trying that. Now it appears the Chief has ignored the injunction. Hmm. I hesitate to bring the State Department into this, but it appears I must.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” I said. “You have cowboys like Mike Stone in charge of your security and now you claim to have access to the CIA or FBI.”

  “I make no such claims. I spoke about the State Department. They will speak to the needed people in Geneva, who will rein in the Shop.”

  “The Shop has always been rogue,” I said. “The Reservation should have taught you that.”

  “If you truly believe that, you don’t understand how the world operates.”

  “I understand men like the Chief. He doesn’t let rules and committees stop him.”

  “The Chief would be ill advised to strike against me,” Cheng said, “especially as he has come here in person. He is a spider, and spiders are most dangerous when they’re unseen. If he dares to move against me, I will crush him.”

  “You spoke about me being an X factor. That implies there are more people or groups vying for—for what exactly?”

  “Perhaps for the cube Kay stole,” Cheng said.

  Finally, someone admitted to its theft. That was an improvement. “What does the cube do?” I asked.

  Cheng put her hands on the desk and leaned forward, focusing her strange orbs on me. “Do you have it?”

  “I’ve seen the cube,” I said. “Kay took it as insurance. She claimed having it would allow her to finish her work on Dave.”

  “She lied to you. Now where is it? Tell me.”

  I debated telling Cheng I had told Kay to return the cube, but I was beginning to believe the good doctor could tell when I was lying. Instead, I shook my head. “I’ve seen the cube, but I don’t have it now.”

  Cheng’s eyes swirled strangely, and she sat perfectly still, no longer breathing. Then she took a deep breath and blinked several times, massaging her forehead. “You’re telling the truth, but there is a hidden truth you’re not speaking.”

  Down here in the basement of Polarity Magnetics, Tina Cheng unnerved me. It was a supernatural thing, of a mutant I didn’t understand. For the first time, I had sympathy for the Chief. He must view all of us as dangerous predators, superior killers that might decide to devour humanity. What was Cheng doing with her eyes?

  Cheng smiled, and it was an ugly, threatening gesture. “You are wise to fear me. I have gained abilities that dwarf your density. The Chief fears me, and he attempts to marshal evidence in order to bring the full force of the Shop against us. He is like a jackal daring to roam the killing fields of lions, but careful to stay out of my path. He realizes that his worst mistake was in letting us go. The State Department has yet to realize that, but they will in time. By then, however, it will be too late.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. My changes, they are not world-threatening.”

  “Are you sure?” Cheng asked. “Have you tested yourself? Have you refined your new powers?”

  “If we were that dangerous, the Chief would have never let us off the Reservation.”

  “Our powers are latent,” Cheng said.

  Was that true? “Why tell me this?” I asked.

  “I want to convince you to tell me the secret you’re hiding. You do not own the cube, but I suspect you can take me to it.”

  “Why is the cube important?” I asked.

  Cheng drummed her fingers on the desk. Finally, she said in a soft voice, “It may be the only device that can stop Dave.”

  “Stop him from what, from waking up?”

  Cheng shook her head.

  “What happens if Dave wakes up?” I asked.

  “There are competing theories. Kay had hers, but no one else believed it.”

  “What did she believe?”

  “Kay is dead,” Cheng said, “so her thoughts no longer matter.”

  “That’s a callous attitude,” I said.

  “No. It is pragmatic. I suggest you adopt a similar attitude if you wish to survive. There are competing forces at play, and one or more of them has made attempts on your life or well-being.”

  “Are you including Rita’s use of the neural whip?”

  “That was a mistake.”

  “Who else wants the cube?” I asked.

  Doctor Cheng sat back, watching me as her faint smile reappeared. “Surely you must know. I can’t believe Kay didn’t mention his name to you.”

  I frowned. What…oh, Kay had mentioned another name. It was how she claimed to have found me. “Do you mean Doctor Harris?” I asked.

  “Interesting,” Cheng whispered. “Yes, yes, that makes sense. I should have seen it sooner.”

  “Doctor Harris doesn’t work here?” I asked.

  Cheng laughed sharply before shaking her head.

  “Are you suggesting the needle man and the men on my boat—those were Doctor Harris’s people?”

  Cheng spread her small hands.

  “What—?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “but I’ve grown weary of your questions. It is time for you to leave.”

  Had this entire episode been for the sole purpose of her findi
ng out about Doctor Harris? I didn’t like the idea of having given away more information than I’d received.

  “What are you injecting into your people?” I asked.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “You do, Ms. Cheng, because Stone spoke about it.”

  “It is time for you to leave. Will you go willingly, or must I summon Mr. Stone and the others?”

  I wondered if I should offer her the cube in order to pry more information from her. Then I decided I needed more facts before I tried to dicker with the good doctor. Besides, I didn’t like the idea that I was in the basement of her building in Polarity Magnetics, and without a weapon.

  So I stood up. “They’d better have my Browning for me at the shack.”

  “Good-bye, Mr. Kiel.”

  -13-

  “I’m wasting my time at the airport,” Blake said.

  We sat on the Alamo as the sun sank into the ocean. Beautiful orange rays spread across the sky and water. Blake had been telling me about his day at the airport, and that he had been unable to discover where Kay’s body had landed.

  “She’s vanished,” he said.

  “She can’t have vanished,” I said.

  “Do you think they altered her with injections?”

  I’d told Blake about my adventure at Polarity Magnetics. Several things stood out for both of us. Rita had kept hold of the neural whip after I’d struck her wrist. That implied greater strength and harder bones than she should have. On my boat, Kay had spoken about possessing new abilities and Stone said she had received injections just like Rita.

  “Why hide the body?” I asked.

  “The obvious reason is because they don’t want anybody to see it,” Blake said.

  I nodded in agreement.

  “What kind of injections do you think they received?” Blake asked.

  “Let’s start with what makes people stronger.”

  “Steroids and testosterone shots,” he said.

  “It’s something else,” I said, “something new. Something somebody could tell by looking at a corpse.”

  “Or by doing an autopsy,” Blake said.

  I stared at the ocean scenery, thinking about everything I’d learned. Doctor Harris was independent of Polarity Magnetics. According to Kay, he had found out where I lived. Cheng feared Dave waking up but not the Shop prowling around Long Beach. Cheng could tell, apparently, when someone was lying. I was not the one, whatever that meant. The Chief didn’t want me anywhere near his investigation. And men with tattoos had tried to inject me and had invaded my boat in San Francisco.