WereHuman - The Witch's Daughter: Consortium Battle book 1 (Wyrdos)

by Gwendolyn Druyor

  “Makes sense. But I think you’re going to need two-way communication with your CF if you want to be a queen bee. Redesign the implant with that in mind.” She watched him pull his dopp kit from the bottom drawer of a file cabinet. “Can I borrow a conditioner?”

  For a moment she thought he meant for his hair.

  “Someone low level should be fine. Someone you can spare for a few weeks or so.”

  Trask leaned forward and typed a message to her head of personnel. Human Resources had a different meaning in her and Walter’s divisions. “Go speak with Perino. I’m sure he can find someone qualified who doesn’t disdain your operational objectives.”

  “Thanks.” Walter flipped through some papers on the corkboard.

  “Any other ideas you recommend I pursue in your absence?”

  “Compensatory epigenesis as a tracking program methodology.” He took down three pages of dog sketches. He slid them into a hard cover folder and then into his backpack. “We should have software that could switch from monitoring say the sale of Snickers to trail mix at its own discretion without alteration of the primary program design.”

  “You want to encourage independent thinking in our computers.”

  “In a way.” He stopped at the door. “Honestly you’re reprogramming humans to be more like computers. Why not try the reverse?”

  Trask swept her briefcase off the desk and joined him at the door. “Please keep an eye out for Gamma Subject in your travels. And if you find a doctor who happens to be a genius in conditioning, send him my way.”

  “I’m going to be visiting veterinarians.”

  Trask raised her eyebrows in a rare expression of feeling. “How do you think we train animals except through conditioning? You have heard of Pavlov, right?”

  “Look at you thinking outside the box. I’m so proud. If I find any genius Russian vets, they’re yours.”

  Walter slipped a piece of black jack in his mouth. Trask straightened her skirt. And the two left the room.

  The Director hit pause on the playback. He picked up his stylus and requested his assistant find a biologist who could explain the last three minutes of the conversation to reassure himself that the two hadn’t developed some secret code. He reached under his glasses to rub his dry eyes. The doctor had ordered him to get out in the field more. Instead he washed down a couple of vitamin D capsules and stretched his neck. He swiped to a video marked as priority level four that had been cut together from several Washington offices. Not desperately important, but Washington was always good for a smile.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Laylea was almost four before she got to spend a day at the clinic with Sher again. Clark picked up extra work flying to small airports and airstrips judging their safety for a private firm. He was going to be gone long hours, sometimes not coming home every night and with Bailey at school, Sher didn’t feel comfortable torturing Woodford with the younger pup all day every day. So the mom planned to alternate taking Laylea and Woodford to work with her.

  On the morning of her first day at work, Laylea woke up before Bailey’s alarm. She stuck her nose in Bailey’s ear and snored a few times before she did up dog with her paws on his chest. She hopped on him and did down dog with her back paws on his hip. Once certain he was awake, she barreled down her steps and out the door.

  Spring thaw had come early and the parents had been sleeping with their door cracked to get a cross breeze so Laylea was able to get in and stretch on Clark’s side of the bed. She stood there staring at the dad until he reached down and craned her up. She clambered between them and licked Clark’s face until his eyes opened. Then she leaped off the bed by way of his bladder. When he got out of the bathroom, she herded him, Bailey, and Woodford outside for a good long walk in an early spring drizzle.

  Back home, Sher had oatmeal and kibble ready for everyone. After breakfast, Bailey gathered his schoolbooks and homework, Clark tucked his lunch into his hiking backpack and Sher slipped teddy lizard into the back pocket of her cycling jacket. But then they all three stood around the garage door talking about where each of them was going to get dinner and who was going to get home first to feed Woodford or some such inanities until Laylea sang a growl at them and grabbed her leash from its hook.

  “Oh,” Clark teased, “are you ready to go?”

  The little girl barked and spun around. She leaped onto the dog food container, from there to one of the stools and then up onto the counter where she grabbed the rubber Kong toy stuffed with tasty treats. Before any of the humans could grab her, she bounded down to the floor in the same way and ran to Woodford’s bed in the family room. She dropped the Kong and covered it with a blanket. Then she ran back to the garage door, picked up the hook end of her leash, and firmly put her butt on the ground staring at the knob.

  Clark swung his pack onto his back. “I’d feel a little insulted if I were you, Woodford.”

  Bailey tried to give Woodford some love. But the hound was already hunting down his Kong. Sher finally scooped Laylea up and they all went out to the garage. Laylea settled in her basket on the front of Sher’s bicycle. Woodford barked when the garage door opened and all the humans yelled goodbye to him in their own ways.

  Laylea tried to be a good girl and sit crouched low in the basket. But the speed was too enticing. She rested her chin on the edge of the basket and licked at the wind, reveling in racing through the countryside with her pack. The overnight rain had soaked into the earth and released a treasure of rich odors. Scents melted together as they sped away from the OLR’s roses, through the old neighborhoods, and down the hill to Bailey’s school.

  Laylea dreamed of going to school with Bailey. Woodford had gone to Show and Tell but he only got to stay for an hour. Laylea wanted to go and sniff every book in the library. She would sit quietly at Bailey’s feet and not help on tests.

  She stood when Sher rolled to a stop by the paved playground. Bailey rode on through a thin patch of wet grass and hopped the curb. He tucked his front wheel against the side of a rack filled with kid’s bikes. Most were half-heartedly connected to the rack with U-locks Bailey could open with a pen. He wrapped his back wheel, frame, and front wheel with his Abus cable before securing the end around the thickest pipe of the rack. He used to slip the cable through his helmet straps and leave that outside. But someone had sliced the strap once just to be mean.

  “Look, it’s the genius.” A much bigger kid wearing a camouflage rain poncho stuck his muzzle right in Bailey’s face. His friends surrounded Bailey from behind.

  Laylea barked.

  “Michael Asher,” Bailey stepped around his bicycle and put a shaking hand on the bigger kid’s arm. His childish tenor didn’t drop as deep as Laylea knew he’d like it to, but he soldiered on. “Inside. I’ll talk to you inside.”

  “Inside.” Michael scoffed. He splashed through a puddle on his way toward the school building. He muttered over his shoulder at his crew when they didn’t keep up. “I’ll see him inside alright.”

  Bailey ignored the chatter. He jogged over to Sher’s bike and gave Laylea a kiss on the head. Laylea wiggled.

  “Bailey.”

  He didn’t look up. “Yeah, Mom?”

  “Did you condition your friends?”

  Clark laughed quietly but he didn’t interrupt.

  “I conditioned Michael and his friends.” The kid stuck his chin out and looked his mother straight in the eyes. But Laylea felt his hand still shaking as he pet her.

  “You can’t do that.”

  “Yeah, I can.”

  “Bailiff Hillen.” Clark dropped his voice to a ridiculously low and quiet tone. “No. No training your friends.” In a normal voice, he added, “Or your enemies.”

  “He’s not my enemy. He’s a thirteen-year-old in sixth grade with absentee parents and a bleep bleep uncle.”

  “Don’t you—”

  “I didn’t swear, Mom. Gotta go.” He kissed Laylea again and ran across the emptying playground to catch u
p with a heavyset kid dressed in black from head to toe. Thomas had entered his goth phase early.

  Sher sighed.

  Clark whispered, “I love you, kid.” He rolled up next to his partner and kissed her. “We made him.”

  “That doesn’t scare you?”

  “It’s a rough world and I think he’s gonna be prepared for it.”

  Most parents dropped their kids off at the turnaround in front of the school so the two were the only adults in sight. The kids who rode their bikes to school were used to seeing Bailey’s folks. Some of them even waved hi.

  Still, Sher lowered her voice. “He’s got your skills. And mine.”

  “Skills.” Clark chuckled at her choice of words.

  “What happens to him if the Consortium finds out we had a child?”

  “The Consortium thinks you’re dead. And how could I pass along my skills?” He watched a girl struggle with her too-large cruiser. She took off her equally large backpack to better fit between the crowded bikes. “Unless you altered my genetics?”

  “Of course I did.” Sher didn’t notice Clark grip his handlebar a little more tightly. “You haven’t noticed he heals as quickly as you? He can remember everything in a room at a glance.”

  The school bell rang as the girl squeezed her cruiser into the rack between two dirt bikes. Without locking it up, she ran for the school. Halfway to the doors, she remembered the backpack she’d left on the ground.

  “Bailey can remember everything in a forest at a glance,” Clark said. “That’s more than I can do.”

  “Biology is designed to improve us with each generation.”

  “Subtly, I thought.”

  The good science teacher leaned out the back doors, encouraging the little girl. She raced for the doors, her pigtails flying as she clutched the dripping backpack to her chest.

  “How strong is he going to be?”

  “How can we know? He’s still growing.” Clark waited until the door fell shut. “How strong is his magic compared to yours?”

  Sher hissed, whipping her head around.

  Clark took her hand. “There’s no one in earshot, my sweet witch. How strong is he?”

  Sher whispered, “Not as strong as me. Not as strong as my father. But puberty will change everything. He could lose it all or grow more powerful than Great Gram Coogan.”

  “I imagine we’ll start getting a measure of his physical strength then as well.”

  The final bell rang and a dozen students in matching sweatpants and jackets blasted through the gym doors onto the soccer field.

  “Sit.” Laylea did as Sher ordered and they rolled away from the school. “I worry because he’s so different from these other kids.”

  “They’re all different, Sher,” Clark laughed, pedaling beside her. “Everybody is weird. Michael Asher there deals with it by bullying anyone he’s afraid won’t like him. Bailey deals with it by befriending the absolute weirdest kids in class.”

  “I could make it easier.”

  “You are. We are. We’re keeping him safe. Don’t worry. He’ll find his way, just like you did.”

  “I found my way into a lab where I messed with your genetics and your mind. And Jay’s. And Trey and Maggie, and—”

  Clark had to stand to chase her down. “Sher. Stop. If you want to go after the Consortium, I am ready. Just say the word.”

  “No. We can’t risk Bailey.” She turned onto the main boulevard into town.

  “Then you need a little of my disease. You need to forget.”

  Sher looked askance at her husband. “I can’t forget.”

  “Can you give yourself a break? Let down your guard and enjoy life for a day?”

  Sher pulled over at the stop sign at the east end of town. “For a day?”

  “Bailey has band practice after school so you don’t have to worry about him. Just forget about your past for a day.”

  A couple cars passed them, rushing to get to work before the rain began in earnest. Clouds passed in front of the early morning sun. Clark shivered. Laylea stood up on the edge of her basket, every sense glued to the mom. Sher laid a hand on Clark’s face. The hazel ring around her brown irises widened, gold sparking as she captured his eyes.

  “Until I see you again, I will forget about the Consortium. I will forget about Trask.”

  “You will enjoy your life.”

  “I will enjoy my life.”

  Clark jumped as sparks ran from her fingers through his hair. The gold sank into the brown. Sher blinked and her plain face again looked at Clark from under the blue visor of her helmet.

  He leaned in and kissed her. “It’s gonna be a good day.”

  “Every day is good that I get to spend with you.”

  Laylea sang her agreement and ducked back down into her basket as Sher rolled back into the trickle of cars that constituted rush hour in Foothills. Clark followed when he’d caught his breath.

  Five blocks later Sher rolled to a stop at the four-way stoplight. Clark was going right, out to the airfield. Sher and Laylea were headed straight. When Clark stopped beside her, Sher kissed him.

  “Fair winds.”

  “I love you.”

  Clark kissed Laylea goodbye too, took his right on red and rolled away.

  Laylea leaned out of the basket and watched him until he was out of sight.

  “He’ll be back, Lee. Don’t you worry.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Sher rolled her bike right into the clinic. She plucked Laylea from the basket and handed her off to a tiny woman with her hair in dozens of twisty braids. Laylea tasted them.

  The receptionist remembered Laylea from her visits to the clinic as a baby and she squealed with delight at seeing her even though Laylea didn’t remember the cute little woman.

  “You obey Michelle as you would me.” Sher turned back halfway through the door to the back room. “As you would Clark. You got me?”

  Michelle laughed when Laylea barked as if she understood.

  Laylea’s day at the clinic went by in a flash. She greeted all of the dogs that came in. Some were friendly and energetic. Most of them were nervous and skittish and just wanted to leave. Some were in pain. Laylea yawned at a lot of dogs to calm them. She jumped up and took a short nap in the lap of a very nervous mom waiting for her old dog who’d had surgery the day before. She bowed and invited a puppy to play to get him in the door. She growled at a frightened terrier who snapped at Chris.

  The cats all came in portable cages. She kept her distance from most of them. But one sick kitten smelled worse than the rest. Laylea caught a whiff the instant she was carried in the door and crept to the edge of the counter to sneak a look. The three pound calico lay listless in her plastic crate. While her exhausted dad talked with Michelle, Laylea examined her from around the corner of the counter.

  Even though the sun had finally come out from behind the clouds, no light glinted off this kitten’s fur. It lay matted against her thin body as if she’d been rolled in the wet grass. Her dull eyes stared at the bars of her crate.

  Laylea sat up and took a couple steps forward. The kitten looked over at her but then ignored her. Didn’t hiss or spit or even turn away like most of the other felines. Laylea dropped to a lie down. She set her chin between her paws, mirroring the kitten. Nothing. She army crawled right behind the dad’s feet to the door of the crate. Her nose twitched at the sour smell, but Laylea stayed there. Finally she reached out and rested a paw on the metal bars. The kitten just had time to swat at the paw before her dad carried her away to an exam room.

  At the end of the day, last day patient sent home, the doors locked and Armando and Chris swapped out for night techs, Sher came into the lobby to find Laylea sound asleep in Woodford’s bed, half a giant Milkbone sticking out of her mouth.

  “Well, Michelle, was she any trouble?”

  Michelle switched off the computer. “I think this is the first nap she’s gotten. Your Laylea has been a very busy girl.”

&n
bsp; The bells on the front door jangled as a young woman came in. She wore a silk tweed pantsuit with perfectly coiffed hair and one inch heels. She guarded the leather purse strung over her shoulder as if she were entering a tattoo parlor in Detroit. Sher noticed that she looked back for approval from a man waiting outside. Sporting jeans and unkempt hair, he kept his back to the clinic, looking around at the other folks closing up their shops. He pulled a copy of the local paper from the vending box and leaned on a telephone pole as the suit greeted Sher’s receptionist.

  “Good evening.” She held her hand out to Michelle who took it and as they shook, the suit put her left hand on Michelle’s arm. She held on to her a bit too long. “You are a lovely woman…?”

  Michelle filled in the blank as she was expected to. “Michelle. Welcome to Foothills’ finest veterinarian clinic.”

  Sher added, “Foothills’ only veterinarian clinic.” She picked up a stack of magazines from one of the benches and smiled benignly as the suit held her hand out.

  Thrown by Sher’s failure to notice her outstretched hand, the suit tried to step closer and touch Sher’s shoulder as she asked her name. “And you are?”

  Sher smoothly dodged the touch by taking the magazines to the reception counter. “Done working for the day,” she replied with an easy smile.

  Michelle flipped the sign on the front door. “The office is closed now. But we open again at 8 in the A.M. You can bring your pet by then. Where is your pet?”

  Sher laughed silently as she maintained her turn away, fanning the magazines on the counter. The suit was consciously trying to manipulate their behavior but she was falling victim to Michelle’s natural curiosity.

  “We are new to town.” Too slow. The response was a lie. “Thinking of getting a dog.” The woman gave up trying to catch Sher’s eye. She took both of Michelle’s hands in her own. “You’ll keep an eye out for any pretty little fawn colored dogs for us?” The statement was barely a question and Sher had a sudden impulse to forestall Michelle’s response.