“What you doing in here?” one of the deliverymen asked.
“Bio-tech stuff. I’m working on creating artificial skin,” Tim said. He blurted out the first thing that came to him. The deliveryman shrugged and then took his hand truck back to the loading dock.
He made sure the plates cut from the composite material were safely hidden away under a tarp so no one saw them until the time came. There was no reason to think any of these deliverymen might be up to something, but there was also no reason to take a chance either. Even if someone didn’t really know what he was doing, they might become suspicious enough to call the cops. That was the last thing he wanted.
Once all the deliverymen were gone, Tim sorted through his materials and then set to work. After two years in prison he’d forgotten what it felt like to really get into a groove, to lose track of the hours while he immersed himself in the work. It was the same feeling he’d had at TriTech when he worked on the RAT prototypes. He’d forgotten about everything—including Sylvia.
As he’d told her ghost in the bar, he had been an idiot for spending so much time at work instead of with her. The sad irony was that when he’d neglected Sylvia to work on projects for Ward, he had hastened Sylvia’s death. If he’d never completed the RAT project he wouldn’t have come up with the antimatter reactor plans. There wouldn’t have been anything for Ward to overload and Sylvia would have lived.
They would still be together, probably married by now. He had wanted to marry her, but first he had wanted to secure his career so they could have a future. In hindsight he supposed it had really been a case of his macho ego at work. Sylvia had plenty of money from centuries of weapons dealing to have supported both of them. If he had asked, she could have bought him a workshop just like this and bought whatever materials he wanted. He didn’t need someone like Ward to back him. He hadn’t wanted to ask Sylvia. He had wanted to be the man and provide for them; that was what his father had always said a real man did.
His father hadn’t liked Sylvia. They met only once at a party to celebrate the opening of the Artemis Salon—and gun range. Tim had warned her in advance his parents were from the old school; his mother stayed home while his father owned an insurance company. “Don’t act too butch around them,” Tim had said.
“Butch? Me?” she asked as she picked her fingernails with one of her knives.
“Just don’t wear any camouflage.”
“Fine. I’ll go have Agnes make me some lacy little thing.” While she had scoffed at his warning, she had worn a simple green dress with high heels instead of her usual combat boots. When his parents came into the shop, she glided over to them with the brightest smile he’d ever seen on her. “You must be Mr. and Mrs. Cooper. Tim has told me so much about you.”
His father asked point-blank, “You really think people want to shoot guns in a hair salon?”
“Well, the two are separated.”
“They’re on the same property.”
“Yes, but—”
“It’s dangerous. You have any insurance on this place?”
“Yes. I have full coverage.”
“Surprised anyone would cover a harebrained scheme like this. Must be some fly-by-night operation.”
Tim’s mother took his father’s arm. “Roger—”
“What?”
“Try to be polite. You’re embarrassing Timothy.”
His father nodded and then said to Sylvia, “Best of luck, young lady.”
To her credit, Sylvia didn’t hit Tim’s father, as Tim was certain she badly wanted to do. She’d put a lot of effort to make the salon—her dream—a reality only to have his father write it off as a silly venture. His mother was more supportive; she patted Sylvia’s arm and said, “It’s lovely—and so are you.”
Sylvia waited until after the guests left and they had returned to their apartment to say, “Your dad is some piece of work.”
“I’m sorry about that. He’s always been that way.”
He thought she would rant and rage, maybe even break something. Instead, she just smiled at him and said, “Well, at least the apple fell far from the tree.” They’d gone back to the bedroom to make love and put the incident behind them.
Except she’d been wrong. He was just like his father at the core; he hadn’t wanted to appear weak to her, afraid she might think less of him if he wasn’t a big success. If he could do it all over again, he would spend as much time with her as he could to make her feel special.
By the time these thoughts had run their course, he had completed the interior assemblies for the legs. He put these on like a set of waders to test them out. Each leg weighed twenty pounds without the armor on it. After he rigged the wires into a portable power supply, he ran the legs through their paces—literally.
He had to learn how to walk all over again. His first step landed him on his face when he didn’t adjust his body for the weight. He took a more hesitant step the next time around and managed to steady himself this time. He took a few more baby steps, to get used to the added weight and bulk. But it worked. It worked!
The rest would be more difficult, especially the hands, which would require far more articulation. He set back to work and reminded himself he didn’t have much time. Emma was still in trouble and Isis was still growing more powerful. Akako and the Reds were counting on him. He wasn’t going to fail them, not the way he’d failed Sylvia.
As he thought of his Sylvia, he couldn’t help but think of that other one, the ghost he’d met in the bar. If he had really met her, if she hadn’t just been his imagination. She certainly had felt real enough when they had danced. She had even danced the same as his Sylvia, her body stiff as if she were on a parade ground. She looked just the way he remembered too with her wavy dark red hair and green eyes. And her lips felt the same too.
He wondered what the mathematical odds were of Sylvia being exactly the same in two completely different universes. Renee would probably know. She could probably calculate it in her head before he could snap his fingers.
With a sigh, Tim reminded himself this Sylvia wasn’t the same. Not exactly. She had dressed differently for one thing in that black leather jacket and jeans. His Sylvia preferred an old army jacket for the number of pockets where she could stash her various weapons. There were probably other differences too that he would notice when he met her again. If he met her again, he corrected himself.
He knew he shouldn’t meet her again. It would only create more heartache later when he had to leave her behind to go back to his universe. And the more he was around her, the more he would see she wasn’t his Sylvia, that she was a completely different person. It was better to just think of her as a ghost he’d met in a bar—the ghost of the woman he had killed.
This thought sobered him enough that he could focus on his work, on the mission. If he saved Emma and helped her defeat Isis that would be some small measure towards putting that ghost to rest.
***
As expected, Daddy kept Renee on lockdown once they got home. He took away her cell phone, laptop, and backpack and then banished her to a guest bedroom so she wouldn’t have access to her books. “You sit here and think what you did,” he said.
In his mind—and everyone else’s—she’d acted like a stupid little kid and run away from home. The only one who knew the truth was Tim and he couldn’t say anything or else he’d blow his cover. Renee flipped through the channels on the television to find something more stimulating than Real World vs. Road Rules Challenge.
This was all Aggie’s fault. If she’d actually lied instead of being such a goody-two-shoes, Daddy wouldn’t have gotten wise to her being gone. The one time she needed her best friend to cover for her and Aggie blew it. It was just as well Renee would go to Harvard or Oxford or somewhere like that where she could make new friends, ones who might not sell her out when she needed their help.
When Daddy opened the door, she assumed he wanted to argue some more. Instead, he said, “Get dressed. We go to hosp
ital.”
“Hospital? Why?”
“Agnes sick. Her sister call just now.”
“Sick?”
Daddy didn’t have any more details on what had happened to Aggie, which left Renee to worry about it all the way to the hospital. Or maybe he did know and he just wanted to torment her. Either way, she imagined Aggie with her guts hanging out or half her face burned off or wrapped in a full body cast.
The truth was far less interesting. Aggie had overdosed on her mother’s Vicodin. Sophie had found her passed out and Aggie’s mom had taken her to the emergency room to get her stomach pumped. By the time Renee got there all the excitement was over. “She’s resting right now,” Sophie said.
“Can I see her?”
“Family only,” Sophie said in that superior way of hers. There was little love lost between them, especially since Renee was bound to beat Sophie out for valedictorian, which Sophie had set her little heart on since she was three.
“A few minutes shouldn’t hurt,” said a familiar voice behind Renee. She turned to see Aggie’s eldest sister Sylvia there with three cans of soda.
Renee waited for Sylvia to mention something about their meeting this afternoon at the factory, but she didn’t. Maybe she had too much on her mind at the moment to blame Renee for this. That was fine, as Renee already blamed herself for whatever had happened to Aggie.
Daddy waited with the Joubert family while Renee slipped into Aggie’s room. There was a girl younger even than Renee in the other bed. The little girl stirred and then looked up at her. “Are you the Tooth Fairy?” she asked.
“Do I have wings? Or a wand?”
“No.”
“Then what do you think?”
“Sorry,” the girl whimpered and then went back to sleep.
Aggie was still fast asleep; her big stomach rose and fell beneath the white sheets. Renee didn’t bother with the chair; she was small enough that she could climb onto the bed to lie next to Aggie. “I’m really sorry,” she whispered into Aggie’s ear. “I mean, I don’t know what happened, but I know it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have asked you to lie for me.”
These must have been the magic words, as Aggie began to stir. Her eyes flashed open and then her head turned slightly to face Renee. “Renee?”
“I’m here.” Renee smiled at her friend. “How are you feeling?”
Aggie put a hand to her stomach. “Kind of sore. What happened?”
“They pumped your stomach.”
“Oh.”
Renee’s voice caught in her throat for a moment before she could spit out, “Aggie, did you try to kill yourself?” To Renee’s relief, Agnes shook her head. “Then why’d you take your mom’s pills?”
“I just wanted to relax.”
Renee finally let out the tears she’d held in since her father had told her Aggie was in the hospital. She put her head against Aggie’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Agnes. It’s my fault. I’m a really shitty friend.”
She waited for Aggie to deny this, but she didn’t. Instead, she nodded. “You are.”
“Aggie—”
“You never listen to me. We always do what you want to do. The stupid Goth thing was all your idea.”
Renee hopped off the bed to glare at her friend. “You didn’t seem to mind when you were reading all those terrible poems to me.”
“I thought that’s what we were supposed to do.”
“If you didn’t want to do it then why did you?”
“I don’t know. I wanted you to like me, I guess.”
“Well, if you don’t want to be friends anymore that’s fine with me.”
“Fine.”
“Good. You can hang out with Sophie. That’s what you want.”
“Sophie doesn’t make me do things I don’t want to do.”
“I didn’t make you do anything. You could have said no.”
“I should have. All you ever do is get us in trouble.”
“Yeah, well, you won’t have to worry about that anymore.”
“Good.”
“Good,” Renee echoed in a mocking voice. “While you were having them pump your stomach, maybe they could have pumped out some of the fat.”
She left Aggie in tears to stomp back out to the waiting room. “Come on, Daddy, let’s go.”
Renee waited until she was curled up on the backseat of the Land Rover before she let herself cry again.
***
With the fallout from the trip to the hospital, Daddy decided to take Renee off lockdown. “You be careful,” he warned her before school the next morning.
“I will, Daddy.” She hugged him around the waist. He patted her head. With that, she knew everything would be all right between them.
She couldn’t say the same about Aggie. Her friend didn’t show up at school, but through some friends of Sophie’s, Renee found out that Aggie had gone home from the hospital. It pained Renee that Aggie hadn’t called to let her know. Despite their fight, she should have known Renee was still worried about her.
At lunch, alone at a corner table like a complete loser, she tried to call the Joubert house. No one answered, so that it finally went to voicemail. “Aggie, I know you’re there,” Renee said. “Come on, I’m sorry. Can’t we talk about this? Please? I’ll keep my phone on.”
After she hung up, she dialed Tim’s number. He answered on the fifth ring and sounded out of breath. “What’s up?” he asked.
“Just seeing how you’re doing.”
“I’ve got the skeleton mostly complete. Then I’ve got to run it through a few trials before I start welding the exoskeleton on.”
“Do you need any help? I haven’t used a welding torch, but—”
“I think it’d be best if you didn’t come over.”
“Why? Daddy and I straightened things out. He’s not going to call the cops again.”
“I can’t take any chances right now. This is very important. I’m sorry, Renee.”
“Can you at least take a picture when you get it done?”
“Sure I can.”
“Good. How’s Mr. Snuggles?”
“Fine, as far as I know.”
“Try not to singe his fur with the welding torch.”
“I won’t.”
She could tell from the anxiousness in Tim’s voice that he wanted to get back to work. He didn’t have time to talk to a stupid little kid like her. “Well, bye then.”
“Bye.”
Renee put down the phone. It really sucked she only had two friends and neither of them wanted to talk to her. With a sigh, she brought up Akako Chiu’s Facebook page. There at least she had plenty of friends to talk to. Of course none of them were really her friends; if they really knew her they’d hate her just like everyone else. She responded to a few of the idiotic missives posted to her wall.
Someone had included a link to a chat room. It was probably some creep who wanted to fuck Akako Chiu. Since Aggie wasn’t around to bitch about it, Renee clicked on the link. Immediately some guy began to hit on her; he masqueraded as a fifteen-year-old but tried way too hard to sound cool. While she deflected his inane questions, she read through another conversation taking place at the same time, this one between a couple of other people who communicated in Swedish. She had learned Swedish when she was three, so it was easy enough for her to follow along.
These guys clearly weren’t out to show their penises to little girls. They wrote stilted sentences to each other that could only be some kind of code. Renee saved this to study later. The Swedish guys signed off, which left only the pervert to hit on her. She logged off the chat room to study what the Swedes had said to each other.
“Holy shit,” she whispered.
***
Renee had wanted to skip the rest of the day of school, but decided it would be better to be a good girl so as not to arouse Daddy’s suspicions. After class she called the office to tell him she needed to take some books back to the library. “You go straight there and back,” he said. �
�Take cab, not bus.”
“If you insist,” she said. Daddy didn’t seem to realize she could be kidnapped as easily by some sleazy cab driver as she could by someone on the bus.
She took the cab to the main branch of the library and got a receipt to show Daddy later. Then she called for a second cab to take her to the factory. Along the way she stopped at a Tennessee Chicken to get a bucket of chicken for Tim. She’d bought plenty of food for him, but he was probably sick of that canned stuff by now. Some hot food might help keep him from getting too pissed off about her appearance after he said he didn’t want her around.
As expected, he was hard at work when she showed up. She stood over by his worktable for a few minutes, to watch him as he bent over to weld some armor plating to the vaguely humanoid skeleton. It looked just like the drawings they had made, except now it was almost seven feet tall—it was real. She nibbled on a drumstick as she watched him work and imagined the sweat pouring down his firm muscles—
“Renee? What are you doing here?” he asked. He flipped up the welding mask so she could see his sweaty, grime-smeared face.
“I brought you dinner.”
“Thanks, but what about your father?”
“He thinks I’m at the library.” She rolled her eyes at him. “I’ll go back in a couple of hours. Don’t worry. You like white or dark?”
“Dark,” he said. He accepted a thigh she gave to him.
“It looks like it’s really coming along.”
“It is. And so far everything works perfectly.” Tim sat down at the worktable and reached for a bottle of water to go with his chicken. “It should be ready for trials tomorrow.”
“You think you could get it ready tonight?”
“Tonight?”
“By midnight?”
“I don’t know—”
“You know how you were saying you wanted to bring some weapons back for your friends? Well, I got a line on where you can get some. It’s going down at the docks tonight.”
“What’s going down at the docks?”
She rolled her eyes again; for a guy who could probably rewire a toaster into a DVD player he could be pretty thick at times. “Erik the Red’s people are bringing in a shipment of guns from Bolivia tonight at the docks. I was thinking if you showed up in that, you could steal a crate or two for your friends.”
Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Wrath of Isis Page 154
