But when Ida entered his life, she had disrupted his plans. From what he said, she gathered that he’d been living a decent life, under the radar. Despite his extracurricular “information gathering” against the mayor, he was a bar owner and well respected in the city’s business community.
They had discussed the plan at length. When it came down to it, Gatz’s grand plan was hiding. For now. Dox was a temporary safe house where Ida and those she cared about could disappear for a while. His appeal to Ida to stay put and try to fight had worked, at least for a few days.
But a full week had passed, and she was going stir crazy. The only thing keeping her from the edge was her self-defense lessons for Lucy three times a day.
Can you blame me? she thought. The place was off-grid, meaning no web or communications devices. Gatz had stocked the place with plenty of books, games, and all manner of non-transmitting devices. Best not to draw any attention should a police droid detect a networked signal down below.
But being hidden downstairs and completely off grid was driving her nuts. In the military, she’d constantly been on the move.
She had shared a bottle of wine with Gatz the night before, after Lucy and Vera had gone to bed.
“We moved mostly during the day because the enemy—the Heavies—were more active at night. When darkness fell, the troops would prepare for battle. Some nights, nothing happened. Others…”
She spared the details, only saying the attacks were fast, came in waves, and nearly always left wounded and dead.
“Did you heal the wounded?” he asked.
She rested her chin on her hands. “Only if I liked them. You got on my wrong side, and you were shit out of luck.”
After a second of confusion, he cracked a smile.
She met it with a giant grin. “I’m just shitting you. How’d you get so gullible? Don’t they teach you anything on Planet Zed or wherever you came from.”
“China,” he said, getting up. “And you wouldn’t be laughing if you knew how great a civilization they were. They invented paper and fireworks.”
“Oh, here we go, Professor Gatz.”
He poured more pinot noir into her glass and chuckled. He said, “Back to my question. Did you heal people in the war?”
Her joking mood passed, and a dark look crossed her face. “I wasn’t exactly advertising my freak flag, if you know what I mean.” She played with the discarded wine cork, flipping it in one hand with her gloved fingers.
“Yeah, I used it where I could. I had to be careful that the others didn’t figure out exactly what I was doing. Mostly they knew to stay out of my way. I had a high recovery rate.”
“I bet. Did you save a lot?”
“Enough to matter, I guess. But there were many I couldn’t help.”
Gatz noticed her eyes were wet. He looked at his watch.
“Got somewhere to be? You never really answered my question. Where did you come from?”
“I told you, China. What you really mean to ask is how I came to be.”
Ida’s eyes flickered with curiosity. “Go on.”
“I was raised in a protected forest in rural China—deep inland.” He topped off his wine glass. “I don’t remember my earliest years. I didn’t have a mother or father. I was created in a test tube, a result of hybrid experimentation by human scientists. There were about twenty of us, all slightly different. Some were mostly panda, with less human in them, while others like me were mostly human, with some panda. Those of us on the more human side were smarter—something the scientists figured out quickly.”
“Were the scientists kind toward you and the others?
“They weren’t cruel, but they were also, well, indifferent. There were a few caretakers, those that came from the outside and fed us, cleaned up after us, and interacted with us. They were mostly young women, and very caring. They became like our mothers, or at least we thought of them that way. We didn’t have anything else.”
“Wow.”
“Messed up, right? So, one day everything went to hell. There was a huge earthquake. There were rockslides from the mountains surrounding us, and the building where the people worked was badly damaged. A fire started. One of the caretakers—Mai was her name—came and led me and a few others across the bridge to safety. The fire destroyed the scientific center, and there were casualties. The government came and sent us away to a city called Shanghai. There, we were treated like animals, and lived in squalor. Mai arranged with a man to smuggle us out of the country. We ended up crossing the ocean in a shipping container, and found ourselves in North America eventually. We heard there were other hybrids in Spark City—the results of other scientific experimentations. We were taken in and accepted here.”
“In the section of the city where the hybrids live?”
“Yes. Hybrids usually keep to their own kind. A few, like me, have ventured out to start businesses in the human sections of the city, trying to coexist. It’s not easy.”
“I can imagine.”
“What do you think of us?” Gatz asked.
“Before I met you, I didn’t think much. I’ve never been around your kind. Never had to interact. Just heard stories.”
“What kind of stories?”
“Well, in the war, some of the troops had heard of incidents where hybrids were in a platoon, and they turned extremely violent, and even turned on the human soldiers.”
Gatz looked deep in thought. “Every hybrid is different. We were made in different labs, and there could have been violent reactions to the stress of a battle.”
“So, you’ve heard these stories?”
“No,” said Gatz. “Well, I mean, I’ve heard of a few hybrids gone bad, but they are always sent away to live on their own. We can’t exist with humans if we don’t punish wrongdoers. It works the same for humans. In a normal society, you would jail or exile criminals.”
Ida seemed to be mulling something over.
Gatz wanted to change the subject. “What are you going to do when this is all over?”
She laughed quietly. “I’m going to Disneyland.” She looked him in the eyes. “You?”
“I told you, I’m staying here. Living life.”
“How can you think about staying here with this asshole running things? This is insane.”
“I was doing a swell job at living a quiet life until you walked in my door.”
“You mean when you pulled a peeping Tom on me in the alley.”
Gatz raised his glass in a toast. “To keeping life interesting. To the future.”
“To staying alive,” Ida replied.
Ida entered Gatz’s office the next morning, still wiping the sleep out of her eyes. Behind her, the smell of bacon wafted from the stairs below. Lucy’s mom was making breakfast again. Now that she had been clean for a few weeks, Vera felt like a new person, and heartily accepted her role as mother and caretaker.
They had been over the “procedures” many times. There was a keypad on the inner side of the door where the ladies hid. She was to type in a numeric code. Gatz only opened the door when a tiny green light on his phone watch beeped. They were being cautious; they couldn’t risk a buzzer or even a knock. There was only one way to signal his watch—it was a carefully laid out system for communication.
“Where’s my breakfast?” he said.
“Feeling left out? It’s like the Brady Bunch down there. Domestic bliss, but I’m going out of my head. What’s it like to see daylight?” She sat on a chair and kicked her boots up on his desk. “You really should visit more often.”
He wore small glasses and peered at her. “We can’t afford to take risks right now. Especially not after what I found this morning. I debated even showing you this, but here goes.” He flipped a button on a remote control, and a small digital screen descended from the ceiling.
Ida watched as a television commercial came on screen. It was another Vance Drem ad.
Ida moved to the edge of her seat and curled her fingers around the
armrests. She noticed the film making was sloppier this time, as if Vance had been in a hurry. Not his usual, polished self.
Something was off; the camera showed him from only one side. He had flaunted his good looks in past commercials, and the public had eaten it up. There was no doubt he was fascinating, like being with him would mean living on the edge. But that edge was razor sharp.
The commercial was shorter, and this time Vance got straight to the point. He was in his factory on the river. Two large skyscrapers had been retrofitted into his home/office/factory. He’d built several sky-walks between the twin towers. Once historic apartment buildings, they looked like two giant corncobs rising toward the sky.
Below ground, at basement level, was Vance’s factory, where his robots self-manufactured themselves. His living quarters took up the top floors at the penthouse level.
He was a perpetual bachelor, so the building also housed a restaurant and nightclub called The Phoenix. Whenever foreign VIPs or celebrities visited Spark City, their visits included dinner and drinks there. Vance relished his entertaining duties.
In this commercial, Vance again walked through his factory while he made a speech. He appealed to the citizens of Spark City:
“Citizens, Mayor Drem here. As always, I wish the very best for our city.
Together, we will make this city the best and the safest, most profitable place on the planet.”
Vance walked through the factory as his machines worked on building parts for other robots. As he walked through, a shower of red sparks fanned over him, forming an arc. He walked into his restaurant, The Phoenix, with its gorgeous, large windows overlooking the river and city lights below. Carefully, he always kept his right side out of view.
“Our hope lies in our future. And what can be more important to our future than the children of Spark City?”
Then he sat at a table where a young man sat and waited.
“The young men and women of Spark City are our hope. They hold the future of our city in their hands. We must nurture and protect them, and mold them into the citizens of the future that we so desperately need in this time of uncertainty.”
Ida stared at the screen in horror. The young man was Paul. The camera panned on a close-up shot of Vance as he continued his speech.
“Because I believe in our future, I’m recruiting the young men and women of Spark City to become special youth ambassadors. My new program will include training for children ages 15 to 21. They will learn skills alongside my team, train with our police, and help keep our city safe.
My friend Paul here is my first recruit. He is going to help me seek out the terrorists who have been attacking our city from within.
The attack on our city was such a tragedy. Look into the camera Paul, and show the city who you are.”
Paul managed to look up at the camera, then he looked out of it, as though he had been drugged. Quickly, the camera moved back to Vance. His blue eyes seemed to pierce the screen.
“Wonderful. Thanks, Paul. Look no further than the children for our rescue, for they are the ointment for what ails us. Out of the eater, something to eat; out of the strong, something sweet.”
Gatz turned off the screen before it moved to other commercials. Ida held her head in her hands a few moments. Then she stood and suddenly shoved a pile of books and papers off of Gatz’s desk.
“You weren’t going to tell me! What the hell? That kid—Paul—knows everything about me!”
“He’s as good as dead in Vance’s hands. They already knew you were out there. They have your image from the droids at the planetarium, and now they’ve framed you as a terrorist. They know where you live, and Paul is their bargaining chip.”
“Unbelievable,” said Ida as she sat down again.
“It just limits our options now.” Gatz took off his glasses. “Your friend—it’s not going to end well. Is the girl going to be okay?”
“Not sure. I’ll have to find a way to break the news to her.”
Chapter 25
When Ida returned to the living quarters below Dox, she found Lucy and Vera seated at the small kitchen table, laughing and talking. They’d been working on a large jigsaw puzzle and were discussing how hard it was.
“It’s like every piece of this Ferris wheel looks the same!” said Lucy.
Vera smiled. “I know, what are we going to do?” She paused and ate another forkful of pancake. “The city looked so nice. Everything was nicer back then.”
Lucy nodded, and craned her head around at the sound of Ida entering the room. “Hey, Ida! Why are you just standing there? Don’t you want some breakfast before we start my lessons today? You promised you would teach me to fight with a knife today.” Then she went on with a pretentious British accent, “Would you care for some tea and crumpets?” Using accents was something they had started doing to pass the time. Lucy enjoyed English and Scottish accents, whereas Ida usually opted for German or Russian. Lucy said she sounded badass.
Ida wasn’t playing this time. “No thanks. Lost my appetite.”
“Is it something Gatz said or did?” She tried to keep it light, but Lucy’s smile was giving way as she grew concerned for her friend. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“I have bad news.”
Lucy straightened in her chair and put down her coffee. “Ok. Let’s have it.”
Ida looked at her, silently appreciating her get-to-the-point attitude. That’s was how Ida liked her bad news delivered—fast and straight. “Vance Drem has Paul. I don’t know how he got him or what’s going to happen to him, but Gatz thinks it’s bad.”
Lucy was up from her chair in an instant. She walked over to the console on the wall that controlled the small amount of communication they had with Gatz above. From there, they could text him. Lucy typed a message into the box on the wall.
“What are you saying? C’mon, you know we need to keep the messages short and only for emergencies.”
Lucy continued typing as if she didn’t hear Ida.
Ida stood and started moving toward Lucy. By the time she got there, Lucy was done.
“What did you say to him?” asked Ida.
“I told him to start organizing a team that can rescue Paul. What else would I be doing?”
Ida jammed her hands in her pockets. “Lucy, you know we can’t do that. We’re outnumbered, outgunned by Vance’s robot machines. Gatz is trying to come up with a plan, but he needs more time. For now, we just have to—”
“What? Just sit here twiddling our thumbs and do nothing for Paul?” Lucy’s eyes were wide and blazing with energy. Her voice held a passion that Ida and Vera had never heard.
Ida said nothing, and instead looked at Vera. She shrugged as if looking for backup.
Vera stood and went over to Lucy, touched her on the shoulders, and gave her a small hug. “It’s going to be okay, sweetheart.”
Lucy pushed her mother away. “No, it’s really not. It’s not going to be okay for Paul. Vance Drem is a bastard.” She sat at the kitchen table and put her face in her hands. “I feel terrible about this. He was taken because of me. We usually waited to meet up with each other by your place, Ida. At the pond in the woods. He was probably waiting for me and got taken. I didn’t give him a warning text because Gatz took our phones, said we couldn’t let anyone know anything. That we had to disappear.”
On the wall, the box buzzed with a reply message from Gatz.
Lucy said, “All Paul ever wanted was to help us. He doesn’t have much. He lives with an uncle who barely knows he is there. I was his family, and now you are too, Ida.”
“I’m sorry,” said Ida. “But Paul’s a young man, almost an adult. He’s going to have to take care of himself. We can’t risk more lives.”
“No.” Lucy read the message on the box, then returned to the kitchen. “We must save Paul. Gatz thinks so too.”
“No way in hell he does,” said Ida, moving over to the box. She read the messages that had passed back and forth:
Lucy: Heard about Paul. Devastated. His life is in danger. We must rescue him. Will you help me? Otherwise, I will go myself. We’re all he has. We’re his family.
Gatz: I am so sorry. Dangerous world out there. If you insist on going after him, I will help however I can.
Ida slammed the small sliding door on the box shut. “He’s wrong. You can’t go out there. You’re facing an army out there. You can’t win.”
“Not me alone, but we can.”
“Nope, I’m out. Actually, I was never in,” said Ida, arms crossed.
Lucy crossed her own arms in return and stomped one foot. “You, me, Gatz, and a few of his men—we can sneak in and rescue Paul.”
“Right, sounds so easy. Do you realize it will take weeks of planning and surveillance to know how to ‘sneak’ in? We don’t even know where they’re keeping Paul.”
“Well, where does Vance live? I’ll bet that’s where he is.”
“The commercial showed—”
Lucy cut her off. “What commercial?”
Upstairs in the office, Ida showed Lucy the video with Paul and Vance. They were clearly at The Phoenix, which was in the same building where Vance lived.
As they watched the ending again, Ida caught something new. She didn’t mention it to the others. Instead, she asked, “What did you think?”
Lucy scratched her head and gave Ida a funny scrunched face. “It’s Oscar-worthy? Geez, Ida. I don’t know, maybe I’m more concentrated on finding my friend because he’s being held by an evil dictator.”
“No, what do you think the message in this video is?”
“I don’t care.” Lucy paced slowly. “When do you think Gatz will be back?”
“Not sure.” Ida seemed like she was in a daze as she contemplated the end of the ad. “Why don’t you head down and get some rest before he’s back.”
Lucy pulled on Ida’s shoulder. “Hey, you know why I must help him, right?”
Brink (Spark City Book 1) Page 12
