Blind

by Francine Pascal

  Her blue eyes locked on Ed like twin lasers. “What are you doing in here?”

  “I came—”

  “To see Tatiana, right?” Gaia shook her head. “She’s not here.”

  “I know.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  Ed quickly stood up again. He stood with one hand holding the back of his chair, but otherwise he had no support. He thought it was important that he was under his own power when he said these words.

  “I love you.”

  He waited for a moment then, maybe half a heartbeat. Only half because he wanted Gaia to have a chance to shove in an “oh, Ed, I love you, too,” but not a whole heartbeat because Ed didn’t want Gaia to think he was waiting for those words. Gaia made no reply. This gave Ed an opportunity to cut his losses and run, but he charged on. “I’ve loved you from the first day you came snarling into my school. I’m not sure I’ll ever stop.”

  Gaia looked at him blankly.

  Ed took a deep breath and moved to statement number two. “The night we spent together was the best night of my whole damn life. Best and most important. Not because we had sex. The sex was just sex. I mean, the sex was great. It was the best sex I ever had. Of course, it’s not like I had a lot, but…” Ed stopped. Rambling much? He sucked in another long breath. “What I mean is, you were what made that night important. Being with you. You’re beautiful and brilliant and absolutely insane and more scary than anyone I’ve ever met. There’s no one in the world like you.”

  Ed felt like he had run a marathon. Wearing lead shoes. His breath was coming hard, and his chest was tight. The hand on the back of the chair had gone a bloodless white with the effort of keeping him up.

  “I love you,” he said again. “I don’t know why you left me. I guess I don’t give a damn. I just want to be with you.” There. Take that. Who’s a wuss?

  For the space of ten very loud heartbeats, Gaia stood at the bottom of the stairs and looked at him. She raised one hand and ran it through the tangle of her hair. She shifted from one foot to the other. Her mouth opened, and Ed thought she was about to reply, but then Gaia’s mouth closed again so quickly that her teeth clicked together. Without a single word Gaia turned and started up the stairs.

  Halfway up she paused. “Ed?” she said without turning to look at him.

  “Yeah?”

  “Mind the gap.” Gaia sprinted up the rest of the stairs. A second later there was a bang as one of the bedroom doors closed.

  Ed choked back disbelieving laughter and dropped into his chair. The gap? What was the damn gap, and what did Gaia mean about minding it? It made no sense.

  He had done it, though. He had sliced open his chest and handed his heart to Gaia on a silver plate. He was not a wuss. Just an idiot. A freakin’ clown.

  The front door rattled again, and a moment later Tatiana walked in. As soon as she saw Ed, her pretty face brightened. She dropped her books on a table and hurried across the room to give him a kiss on the cheek. “What a nice surprise.”

  Ed blinked and swallowed. He wondered if he looked bruised. He felt like he had been in some kind of accident. Hit by a bus. Maybe a subway train. He fought back an urge to look down and see if he was leaving blood on the pale, cream-colored carpets.

  “You ready to go get something to eat?” His voice sounded like it came from somewhere else. Another world.

  “Of course.” She patted a hand against her smooth, flat stomach. “I’m always hungry, and you have promised to show me more sights.”

  “I’ll show you anything you want,” Ed said. He forced his face into an expression that he hoped looked something like a smile. He got slowly to his. feet, gathered his crutches, and limped toward the door.

  GAIA

  Stress might be what you feel when you’re not allowed to hurt the person who really deserves it. But try not getting to love the person who deserves it. That’s pure agony.

  How easy would it be to run back downstairs and grab Ed? Take him back up here with me and and hold him till my arms hurt. Kiss him till my lips go numb. Drag him back to bed and see if the second time really can be better than the first. See if the third time is better than the second. And if the millionth is better than the hundredth.

  But none of that is going to happen.

  I walked away from Ed because it wasn’t safe for me to stay. Not safe for Ed. That hasn’t changed. I’m still Gaia, the plague of human misery.

  Earthquake Gaia. Hurricane Gaia. Gaiazilla. Stomping on everything I love. Leaving a path of destruction a mile wide no matter where I go.

  If I let Ed get too close, he’s going to get hurt. Just like Mary. Just like Sam. Just like my mom.

  I have to keep him away. I have to make him think I don’t care. Because I do.

  ED

  They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I guess that’s true enough because I’ve walked through the Museum of Modern Art and seen all these paintings that are supposed to be priceless. Some of them are cool. More of them look like they were made by throwing snails into a paint pan and letting them crawl away. If beauty’s there, count me as a nonbeholder.

  I’ve also seen a lot of reports that say witnesses to a crime are totally unreliable when it comes to remembering details. Guy runs through a building with a beard like Santa Claus, no witness reports a beard. Guy robs a store wearing a blue hat, the witnesses say it was red.

  Everything is relative and subjective. I mean, come on, there are people who think Tom Green is funny.

  That one night with Gaia was the most important night of my life. Completely earthshaking, life altering, undefeated and untied. The heavyweight champion of nights.

  Obviously it wasn’t that way for Gaia. She got up from that bed and walked away. And from the way she’s acted since then, she had to be absolutely embarrassed by Ed’s Big Display of Luv. I definitely didn’t feel any warm glow coming back my way.

  Oh, Ed, I love you so much, I think I’ll just run out of the room mumbling something about a gap. Right. Did she want me to buy new jeans or something?

  Gaia doesn’t love me. She probably never did. Even if I do still love her, nothing is going to happen. The longer I drag this thing on, the more I’m going to become Ed the Sorry Ass Excuse for a Joke. It’s time to get a clue, move along, have a life.

  Without Gaia.

  Action Tom

  THE SMALL MOTOR MADE LITTLE NOISE, but Tom was careful to turn it off while there were still several hundred yards of surf between the boat and shore. For a few minutes he let the boat drift. The waves cast pale phosphorescent streaks as they broke above the shallow reef. Farther away, he could see the white lines of foam running up the narrow beach. Beyond that was the chain-link fence of the McHenry Medical College.

  It was a bigger place than he had expected. Inside the tall fence a pair of long, two-story buildings peeked up above surrounding palms and mangrove. Smaller buildings were clustered around these two. There were lights at the corners of the buildings and more lights inside. While he watched, Tom saw an elongated shadow move across the space between the buildings and the fence. A moment later another shadow. Guards, he guessed, walking the perimeter.

  McHenry College was supposed to be a place mediocre students attended in a last-ditch effort to become doctors. There were many such places scattered over the Caribbean. Students who didn’t have the grades to get accepted into a medical school back in the States could slip down here for a couple of years, then hope to find placement in a residency program back home. Sometimes it worked, more often it didn’t, but the students who came to places like McHenry were so desperate to be called doctor, they would take most any risk—and pay most any price.

  Up until a few years ago McHenry had been like any other offshore medical school. A hundred or so students had come down each year, a couple dozen had gone north to be doctors. But in 1999 things had changed at McHenry. From that time on, Tom could find no records of students. Not a one. As far as classes were concerned
, McHenry Medical College was closed.

  Tom looked across the water and watched the lights from the compound reflected in the nighttime sea. Even if there were no classes in anatomy or tests in biochemistry, something was still going on at McHenry. They might not be graduating any doctors, but Tom had a feeling that medical work was being done inside the buildings. Over the years Loki had been involved with genetics, with cloning, with drugs, and with any number of biological horrors. A place like McHenry College would be a perfect cover for more cloning experiments or any other perversions that Loki might think up.

  Whatever Loki was doing in the Caymans, Tom was willing to bet the research wasn’t going to win any Nobel Prizes. Or help kids in the third world. Or cure the common cold.

  The waves pushed the little boat gently over the reef. As soon as it was clear of the breakers, Tom lowered the anchor into the water and let the rope slide silently through his fingers. A moment later the boat surged to a stop seventy feet from the beach. With the boat rising and falling over the low waves, he slipped on his fins and picked up his mask and snorkel. He spit into the mask, then rinsed it with seawater before putting it on. Finally he took his heavy black Glock automatic and slid it into his wet suit before zipping the top closed.

  He went over the side of the boat as smoothly as he could, but there was still some splash. Tom waited there, treading water in the dark, to make sure there was no immediate response from the medical compound, then he flipped over on his face and kicked slowly toward shore. He left the snorkel and the flippers on the beach and pulled the gun from his wet suit jacket before heading for the fence.

  I am way too old to be playing James Bond, he thought. Of course, so was every actor who ever played James Bond. But those actors had nice stuntmen to take the falls for them, and the bad guys in the movies were never using real bullets. Tom knew that if he kept this up much longer, he was going to catch one of those bullets. Soon.

  George Niven had been a field agent once. Tom could remember that George—slim, fast thinking, strong, and decisive. Action George. But time had caught up with Action George and landed him behind a desk. Time was running out for Action Tom as well. It was getting close to the day when Tom would have to find a nice safe desk and a comfortable chair. When he would have to do all his work with his mind and leave the guns and fists to someone else.

  He might have already considered such a move if it weren’t for Gaia. And Loki. There was no way Tom could sit back and let others take the risks as long as his brother was still out there. Gaia was his responsibility. Loki was his problem. Tom couldn’t let either burden slip.

  He eased along the fence, looking for an opening. Shadows moved along the inside of the fence, and Tom froze as two men strolled past. They wore white security uniforms, which made good sense for the tropical heat of day but made them stand out like torches in the night. They came closer. Tom crouched down and waited. The men came within a few feet. Tom could have taken them both down before they knew what was going on, but he let them pass. This was a recon mission. If he could get into McHenry, find out what was going on, and get out without being seen, that would be the best-possible outcome. If Loki’s operation in this place needed to be stopped… that was for another night.

  The men moved on, and so did Tom. It took him five minutes to locate a small gate on the ocean side of the fence. It took ten more for him to open the lock and slip inside without catching the attention of the guards. He hurried across the open grounds and pressed himself to the side of the first building. A quick peek inside a window showed darkened rooms and no people, but he could make out long rows of counters and the glitter of glassware. Laboratories of some kind.

  Somewhere nearby a truck rumbled to life. Tom heard distant voices calling and the clatter of an opening gate as the truck pulled away from the compound and rolled out onto the road. He took advantage of the momentary noise and light to hurry around to the door at the front of the building and slip inside. The corridor was empty, dark, and utterly bland. Gray tiled floors. Off-white walls. The only decoration was a bio-hazard symbol attached to a rank of metal cabinets. There was no one in sight. Tom moved on, his pistol up and ready as he padded down the hallway. At the first door he looked inside and saw more of the lab space. Long black counters. Beakers. Hooded workstations with ranks of petri dishes and Erlenmeyer flasks. There were cardboard boxes on the floor and more boxes stacked on some of the counters. Some of the equipment in the lab was in pieces. It was clear that things at McHenry College were in the process of coming in or going out. Either Loki was still in the middle of scaling up his operations here, or the work was complete.

  Tom would have liked to think he had caught this plan early, that whatever plans his brother had for the medical school were just getting started. That Tom had caught this particular bit of evil before it could spread. But McHenry hadn’t turned out a student in several years. It was entirely possible, even likely, that Loki had already done what he came for and was finished with this place.

  Tom left the silent lab and went to the next door. This time it was an office. Tom poked around inside, searching for any visible papers, but the desk and the file cabinets were completely empty. The next room was another empty office. The next another lab, also full of disassembled equipment and no clues about what had been going on there. That was how it was throughout the whole building. Tom even jogged up the back stairs and looked at the offices on the second floor. Nothing. Even the trash bins and the shredding machines were cleaned out.

  A sour taste rose up in Tom’s throat. Loki had been working on something here, and it was certainly not a cure for cancer. And it looked as if Tom was too late to stop it.

  He went back down the stairs and headed for the back of the building. The final room was a garage and storeroom. A pair of large, dusty trucks stood waiting at the back of the room. Stacked against the wall were more cardboard boxes. The boxes were all identical. Each was about the size of a shoe box, and each was stamped with the words IKOL—A Global Peace Organization. Tom nearly laughed at the phrase. IKOL LOKI. And global peace was certainly the opposite of what his brother was after. It seemed too obvious, even for Loki.

  The sound of a truck engine came through the open door to the outside, followed by muffled voices. Tom started to go back into the hall but stopped and looked at the boxes. Whatever Loki was shipping out of this place, it would probably be all loaded up and gone by morning. Even if it was too late to stop Loki’s plans, Tom could at least get a clue what they were.

  There was no time to be subtle. He darted to the nearest box and tore open the top. Inside was a series of smaller boxes. Tom picked up one of these and turned it over in his hands. Phobosan. 144 Doses, said the small print at the bottom.

  The voices were getting louder. Tom took the small box and retreated into the building. He eased the door shut as quietly as he could and hurried back the way he had come. As he went, he peeled off the top of the box and looked inside. It was hard to tell in the dim light, but he thought the box was full of little tubes. Vials. Each filled with some clear fluid.

  What is this? he wondered.

  Phobosan Inoculation Schedule: Subject B

  Phase 1

  Initial treatment: GABA enhancers. 180 mg. Administer orally.

  Agent’s notes: Dose was delivered by dissolving tablets in nonalcoholic beverage.

  Phase 2

  Secondary treatment: Amygdala conditioners. 300 mg. Administer orally.

  Agent’s notes: Subject took the dosage directly and willingly.

  Phase 3

  Tertiary dose: Phobosan. 12 cc. Intramuscular injection. Must be administered within 48 hours of phase 2 treatment.

  tiny monkeys

  When Heather stopped to think about her life, it was hard to think of a moment when she wasn’t afraid.

  The Jumps

  “THIS WAY,” SAID JOSH. “ONLY another block to go.”

  Heather held on to his arm and hurried to keep up.
She was starting to feel tired, but not as bad as she had felt before taking Josh’s pill that morning. The pill had gone a long way toward kicking the last of the headache and given her an energy boost that lasted all the way into the afternoon. Whatever herbs that thing was made from, Heather was going to have to start buying them by the bottle. “Can’t you tell me where we’re going?”

  Josh shook his head. “I want this to be a surprise. Trust me.”

  In Heather’s experience, a guy that said “trust me” wasn’t to be trusted. Guys usually said those words right before they tried to get into your pants. Not that Heather minded in this case. But she didn’t think this little expedition they were on was going to lead to a bedroom. Whatever it was that he wanted to show her didn’t seem like it would require the removal of clothing.

  They walked for blocks. Heather was about to suggest that they grab something to eat before Josh showed her his surprise when he made an abrupt turn and headed for a door at the base of an office building. The door was absolutely bland. Gray metal. No window. No sign. Not even a buzzer. Josh led Heather up to the door and stopped.

  “This is the place,” he said.

  “Here?” Heather tipped back her head and looked up at the building. It wasn’t very impressive. Just one of those drab places that filled in the spots between more interesting buildings. Not too tall. Not too new. Just there. “How do we get in?”

  “That won’t be a problem,” said Josh. No sooner had he stopped speaking than there was a click from the door. Josh grabbed the handle and pulled it open. He stepped to the side and swept his arm toward the door. “After you.”

  Heather felt a little chill down in her stomach. The building was absolutely ordinary, and she did trust Josh. Really, she did. But there was something about this place that gave her a major case of the jumps. She swallowed hard and stepped through the door.