Clark came out of the back room, followed by Sher sans white coat. She stopped and held the door open for a six-foot man wearing tailored purple scrubs with black piping.
Bailey jumped up at the sight of Laylea tucked into the tech’s arms. “Can I take her, Armando?”
His forehead rose in amused wrinkles, but the man crouched so Bailey could see the woozy pup. Laylea looked even tinier tucked into her ratty blue baby blanket with a white clinic sheet wrapped around it. Her lips hung open with the tip of her tongue sticking out between her teeth and her eyes didn’t move when he tilted his head down to catch her gaze.
Bailey’s face scrunched up with the effort to keep tears from escaping his eyes. He clasped his hands behind his back, knowing he couldn’t hold her. Not safely. He only remembered to breathe when Armando stretched out his chin and tickled Bailey with his thick beard.
“It’s okay. She looks funny cuz we gave her drugs. You’re gonna hold her in the truck, Baileo. But it’s like hospitals and wheelchairs. I have to carry her out there. Cool?”
Unable to speak, Bailey dove back onto Woodford’s bed.
“She looks so much better.” Michelle rolled her chair over to have a look since Laylea was at her level too. “You had Dr. Sher worried there for a moment, Laylea.”
Armando tickled Michelle’s cheek with his beard. “All thanks to your positive thoughts, Misha.” He grunted a little as he stood up to his full height. “And Dr. Sher’s magic touch.”
“Bailey, can you get Woodford in the truck?” Clark put a hand on Armando’s back, encouraging him toward the front door.
Bailey grabbed Woodford’s leash from the hook above his bed, but he didn’t clip it on. Woodford led the way out to the curb where the truck was parked. He didn’t really need Bailey’s help beyond opening the door, which took some effort for the kid.
The rusty door successfully wrenched open, Woodford hopped up and settled on the carpeted floor mat. He rested his head on the hump, looking over at the pedals. This was his customary spot in the family vehicle. Sher helped Bailey hop up and scoot over to his customary spot in the center of the bench seat. She buckled him in and backed out of the door.
Armando leaned in and set Laylea on his lap. He told Bailey to hold her carefully and showed him how to keep her secure without hurting her. Bailey asked questions. Bailey asked more questions. Sher abandoned Armando to help Clark put the trike in the truck bed and tie it down. Armando uncurled the puppy a little to show Bailey the stitches on her belly which would keep her from becoming a mom and doing other icky girl stuff. He then showed him the stitches on her hip, where Sher had repaired some of the damage done by dad’s client.
Clark buckled himself in the driver’s seat and got some basic instructions from Armando on where he should not hold Laylea if they had to stop short. He shook hands with the tech and started the engine. Armando backed up to give Sher her seat.
“Wait.” Bailey stopped him. “How long before she can resume her normal activities?”
Armando stopped. He shot seven-year-old Bailey a funny look and appealed to Clark. “It’s a kid right? Not a cleverly disguised midget?”
“Little person, Armando. You should know better, working with Michelle.”
“Michelle is a good 5 feet tall. I believe the cut off for LP is like 4’10” or something.”
Bailey spoke up. “I’m not a Little Person. I want to know how long before she can play with me.”
“I’m sorry.” Armando folded the towel up over Laylea. “Your Mom will let you know when you can run around with her. But it should be about a week of rest. She’s got painkillers, mostly for the hip, but they’ll help with the belly too. She’ll want to move around more than she should. So you need to find quiet ways to entertain her. If you have any more questions, you can call Chris.”
Clark sighed. “Really, Armando?”
“He already has his number, Clark.” Armando tickled Bailey one last time and hopped out of the truck.
“Thanks for your help, Armando.” Sher suffered the tech’s hug. “You’ll check in on Dash every hour?”
The tall man grinned guiltily. “I’m in the middle of Dean Koontz’ latest. I was just gonna pull a stool up to Dash’s cage and hang out with him all night.”
“That,” Sher shoved him out of her way, “works too.
“Doctor,” Armando held onto her arm. “I mean yeah, she’s just a dog.” He scuffled his feet in the grass. “But she’ll be able to walk and that’s no little thing.” He frowned at a grass stain on his pristine white Chucks, then caught Clark’s amused grin when he looked up again. He shrugged his lanky shoulders and let his gaze rest on Laylea’s drug goofy face. “I just . . . good job.”
He flashed a smile and ran across the sidewalk and into the clinic. Sher slid into the truck and shut the door. Laylea looked up at the sound. Sher yawned at her, a canine calm down signal, and the puppy dropped her jaw in a return yawn. Her pink tongue curled at the end and retreated fully into her mouth as she laid her head on Bailey’s arm.
Clark put the truck in gear. “Ready to go?”
“Ready.”
“Ready to go, Dad.”
“Bailey,” Clark asked, “why do you have a vet tech’s number?”
Bailey looked away from Laylea just long enough to give his dad a scathing look. “Cuz you don’t know how to play video games.”
Clark looked over him. “Sher?”
“You vetted him, Clark.” She pointed out. “Don’t you like Chris?”
“He’s twenty-four years old.” Clark tried to catch Sher’s eyes but she wouldn’t look away from Laylea.
“Yeah,” she agreed. “But he’s a boy. You guys are all the same age.” She ignored their protests. Instead she tucked Laylea’s tail into a fold of the baby blanket. “Maybe it’ll be good to have another girl around the house.”
She looked up when she noticed the truck wasn’t moving to find both her boys staring at her. She straightened up and turned her gaze to the street. “It’s been a long day, Hillens. Let’s go home and play card games.”
“Yes!” Clark put the truck in gear. “I’m good at those.”
Bailey and Sher both laughed. “No, you’re not.”
Chapter Thirteen
Laylea ruled Bailey’s life not only for the next week but for that entire summer. Bailey took the bedrest instructions literally. Other than for bathroom breaks, he and Laylea hadn’t left his room. Three days after the surgery, Sher officially announced that Laylea could go outside. She carried the puppy downstairs where she got her medicine-laced breakfast on the floor beside Woodford.
After breakfast, Sher went to work and Bailey asked his dad to hold Laylea while he brought her bed out to the porch. He brought his sleeping bag out too and his stuffed bear, Casey along with her teddy lizard. Another trip up and down the stairs and he brought out a pile of books. Then some pillows. The chess board. Finally he gathered snacks in the kitchen and took out a tray which included a bowl of water for Laylea. Then he came and got her from his dad.
When Clark looked out later Woodford was snoring on Bailey’s legs and Bailey napped with one arm encircling the bed. Laylea had laid her head on the bolster so she could clean Bailey’s ear. Clark saw her take a deep breath and sigh into sleep, staring at her boy.
Clark checked on the trio again at lunchtime. Bailey sat up with Laylea on a pillow beside him. He had one of his old picture books laid out in front of them. His finger pointed at a word as he explained to Laylea. “This says puppy. You are a puppy. This says boy. I’m a boy. This says dog. Woodford is a dog. When you grow up, you’ll be a dog. When I grow up, I’ll be a man. If I were [LS3]a girl, I’d be a woman. But you’ll still be a dog. This is mother. Sher is our mother. She’s a woman. But this is the puppy’s mother so she’s a dog. Your mom is a woman cuz you live with us.”
Bailey sounded like he had confused himself. He paused to sort it out. Then let it go.
“You and I are siblin
gs now. And we take care of each other. Woodford is your big brother and you can chew on him. But if he says stop it, you stop. That’s the deal. He’s older and wiser and knows a lot more about life and Mom and Dad’s secrets than either you or I. They both talk to him a lot. He’s a really good listener.” Clark’s breath caught in his throat wondering how much Bailey overheard.
He went on. “I’m your big brother too and I’m working on being a good listener. If you ever need help you have to ask me. That’s what families are for.”
Clark smiled. He stepped out onto the porch. “How are you guys doing? Are you ready for lunch?”
Laylea’s tail wagged wildly and she tried to stand. Bailey picked her up to keep her from hurting her leg. “Dad?”
“Yes.”
Bailey had always been allowed time to think. Sometimes conversations with him went quite slowly.
“Dad.”
“Yes, Bailey.”
“Where is Laylea’s first mom?”
“We don’t know, Bails. She had to give Laylea to us because she couldn’t keep her.”
Bailey took a moment, kissed the top of Laylea’s head. She looked up from chewing on his fingers and licked his chin. “Do you remember your mom?”
Clark leaned back against the doorjamb, trying to act like the question didn’t hurt. “Nope. I can’t remember her or if I had a big brother to listen to me or a little sister to take care of.”
“That’s why we’re so important to you.” Bailey nodded sagely.
Clark grimaced at his kid, “Your mom remembers her family and you’re just as important to her.”
Laylea growled. The Rick’s cat sat beside the Old Lady Rucker’s rose bushes.
“Laylea,” Clark chuckled. “What are you going to do with that cat if you catch her?”
“Hey dad,” Bailey closed the book, “what is for lunch?”
“Cheese and tomato?”
“Awesomesauce.”
Woodford hopped up the stairs as Bailey led the way inside.
“Hey kiddo, do you remember what a secret is?”
“Pff, yeah Dad, practically everything.”
The screen door slammed shut behind them, jangling its bells.
By the time school started, Laylea could walk normally. She could tumble down the porch stairs all by herself. Bailey set up a box, a stool, and a chair next to his bed and taught her how to use them to climb up and down. She’d doubled her size and still weighed in at only seven pounds according to the scale at Sher’s clinic. She no longer whimpered in her sleep and no longer dreamed of three brothers crawling on her. When Bailey came home from school with work to do for the next day, Laylea sat at the foot of his desk, listening when he talked through the math. Any reading homework was done on the bed so that she could follow along and look at the pictures and words.
During the days when Bailey was at school, Sher at the clinic, and Clark doing errands he couldn’t take her on, Laylea sought out Woodford to curl up next to him. But at night, Laylea climbed her personal staircase and slept in the crook of Bailey’s belly.
Chapter Fourteen
Sunlight wormed its way through every gap in the drapes. Walter hopped up from the desk with his puppy tongue tape dispenser and sheaf of papers he’d just shaded black. The man whistled as he worked.
“Correct me if I’ve misunderstood but you did not find the silkies you were looking for in Scotland?” Trask set her sweet tea on its coaster and wiped her cool hand along her neck and chest.
“I did not see the selkies.” Walter smirked at Trask. “I did not catch a selkie. But I know where they hunt.” He did a jig on the window seat.
He taped a paper to the ceiling and tucked it behind the curtain rod. This blocked the one ray that actually had been bothering Trask. She turned back to her request for increased volunteer applications. Her researchers were continuing to fail. The brain wave adjustment procedure was creating massively unstable CFs with most of the volunteers terminating training before their first off-campus excursion. She had been most hopeful about a candidate volunteered by one of the rare returns. Instead of killing the survivalist who witnessed him leaping from tree to tree, the CF had tied the man up and brought him back. They’d had to sedate the CF when he’d strenuously objected to the intake coordinators taking his pet away. After a successful return, Trask hadn’t wanted to rewipe the man but he wouldn’t stop crying for his prize. The subsequent conditioning failed to take so Trask had rid herself of the volunteer by quietly funneling him through Walter’s intake department.
His prize however had been their first success with the gamma wave surgery. Until last week when the seizures had begun. The doctors said there was no way to wipe him clean and start fresh. The seizures would continue no matter what they tried.
The office shook. Walter had jumped off the window seat. He flipped the fan around and put his face right up to the blades. “I should have had them start building the pool before I went hunting.”
Trask flipped on their intranet to send yet another memo to building maintenance.
“They’ve moved the subjects outside to the courtyard. The guards and scientists are sharing ice lollies. No one’s dropped by to offer us an ice lolly.” He popped over to his computer as the intranet link downloaded fifteen messages from the server. “We’ve got a perpetually distressed volunteer my team think might be a good candidate for your theta wave experiments. Can’t stop wailing about a lost prize.” Walter peeked up to see Trask wiping sweat from her glasses. “Would you like him?”
“Thank you, no.” She avoided his eyes.
“Aren’t you losing most of your volunteers right now?” he asked.
“I believe I maintain the same retention rate as you.”
“Hm.” Walter typed a response to his intake team. “He seems to like heights. We’ll try a basic primate integration and send him out to your mountains.”
“You’ve advanced to off-campus testing?” Trask couldn’t hide the shock in her voice. “I hope Gamma has met some of yours.”
“This would be our first foray, not counting the carnivore blends who killed each other in the first six hours out.” Walter climbed back up to the window. “Do you ever send your warriors out in pairs?”
“They’re soldiers.” Trask shut down the intranet and opened a downloaded tracking report on the prize. They’d released the man back into his environment with a short supply of antiepileptics and no return order. The man had learned enough from their training to find his way back to his compound. He had a wife and son her intake team had failed to discover in their interviews.
“What’s the difference?”
“Hm?” Trask skimmed the report to find sections relevant to the son. They’d successfully captured the boy and executed a 300 series wipe.
“What’s the difference between a soldier and a warrior?” Walter grabbed her stapler and did a quick basting job where the two curtains met. Trask didn’t object. She hated the bird curtains anyway.
“A warrior fights for himself. A soldier obeys orders.”
“So Gamma is turning your soldiers into warriors.”
“Until we get successful surveillance on Gamma, we won’t know what he’s doing with my CF. For all we know, he’s killing them.”
“But you don’t think so.”
“No.” She pulled a hand fan from her top drawer and leaned back to finish her tea. “How goes the search for your dogs?”
“It turns out the dog pounds around the mountains don’t keep good records.” Walter stapled the last piece of paper to the ceiling. “But my techs are developing some interesting new data mining worms.” He hopped off and wiped the cushions with his hand. He set the stapler on Trask’s ever-present Gamma folder. “Why don’t you try conditioning a CF team? Humans are pack animals after all. A team might have better luck avoiding Gamma or even teaming up on him.” He grinned. “Get it?”
“Yes, Walter. I got it.” Trask turned back to the report on her new 300. The k
id did have a mother. Keep her maternal instincts intact and she might make the perfect guardian. She wiped the sweat from her face and put her glasses back on.
“Yes.” Walter pulled five more sheets from his notebook. “I think we’ll definitely send the new man out into your training grounds.” Starting from the top left corner, he painted a paper with black marker. “Maybe he’ll find his prize.”
Walter focused on his scribbles. Trask glued her eyes to her computer.
The Director typed a quick sequence into the tablet attached to his thigh. His screens filled with acquisition photos and stats on Trask and Walter’s volunteers. He tapped another command and this array whittled down to those who had terminated training. Another command eliminated those CF known to have been retrieved by Gamma Subject. Quick math by the system informed him Trask’s failure rate was 97.394%. A little smile brightened his stout features. The director transferred the details to Records with a memo for them to organize it into a report cc:d to the Biotech Research supervisors. A little inter-division competition should set a fire under the team. That would guarantee him entertainment for years.
He pulled up the prison feeds and set the audio to scan for the keywords physics, survival, and soldier. The feed on a tenth of one screen blanked out as he watched. The Director diverted his attention to have his voxbox call in an anonymous tip to the Superintendent of Angola that Camp D might be about to experience an escape attempt. As an afterthought he sent code to the Biotech Research building to release the air conditioning shut down.
Chapter Fifteen
A week after Laylea’s first adoptionversary as Bailey declared it, they shoved the chairs and couches aside so Clark could lay his tent and tarp out in the family room for repairs. Bailey slumped on the couch in a pout. Until Sher stopped by.
“Do you have a problem, Bailey?” she asked. Grease smudged her forehead and she held a plastic toy in her hands that she seemed to be trying to break.
WereHuman - The Witch's Daughter: Consortium Battle book 1 (Wyrdos) Page 10
