Phoebe Harkness Omnibus

by James Fahy

  I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. Coldwater was as surprised by what she saw at the power plant as we were. Whatever she had been ‘financing’, I don’t think she had been entirely in the loop.

  “I want my daughter back,” Kane rumbled at her, clearly losing his patience. I held my hand up as he took a pace toward the director.

  “No, wait,” I said. “This is all backwards. I don’t think she knows much more than we do.”

  Coldwater stared at us again and closed her phone slowly. “He’s…not answering,” she said simply. “Now why would that be? Why would he call me all the way out here now, and neither be here himself nor answer my calls?”

  “Who’s ‘he’?” I asked. “Just what is it you’ve been funding, off the books? A cure for what?”

  The director gave me a cool look. “I hardly think you are of the rank to question me, Doctor. I like you; I would appreciate you not taking liberties and making demands. Remember with whom you are speaking.”

  “I’m very, very confused,” Cloves said, lowering her torch and looking irritable. “You say you don’t know anything about the murders? The missing students? But you do know about this place? Director, we really need to understand what’s been going on out here.”

  Coldwater looked at Cloves haughtily. “And if I do not deem you sufficiently trustworthy to debrief? What then? Are you making a personal threat against a superior level Servant, Cloves?”

  “No, she isn’t,” Kane said. “But I am. A very direct threat. Tell us what you know, right now, or I will tear you apart. These two fine colleagues of yours would not condone it. They may actually try to prevent it,” he snarled. “But they will fail, and you will die. I care nothing for your rank.” He spat the word. “My daughter has been taken. My people are dead, and there are answers here, even if you claim not to know them.”

  Coldwater seemed to consider for a moment, judging her very limited options. I got the impression she was very unused to not having the upper hand.

  “I can assure you, whatever you may think, that I have not involved myself with anything as vile as murder.” She looked rather taken aback at the very thought of it. “Honestly, I am a director of Cabal. My work is as ever for the protection and preservation of the population of New Oxford. His work here is…experimental, granted, but I was assured…” She trailed off, staring at the tubes behind us again. “Good lord.” She stepped slowly towards us, her eyes fixed on the suspended, faceless bodies floating in their glowing goo. “What has he been doing?” Her voice cracked a little. “And with my backing, my funding. This is a…cure?”

  “He, who?” I asked again. I was about five seconds away from smacking Director Coldwater’s head into one of the tubes. I’d like to say I could blame my temper on the Pale virus in my blood, but Allesandro had subdued that for now. My gritted teeth and clenched fists, that was all me.

  “She barely knows herself, poor woman,” a male voice came from the doorway, making us all whirl round. “But I can fill in the blanks for you if you like, darling.”

  We all stared. Coldwater blinking in confusion. A man stood in the doorway, leaning nonchalantly with his arms folded. None of us had heard him enter after us, despite the crackling floor. He had appeared like a ghost. The deep red of his leather jacket looked like dark blood in the odd yellowish light.

  It was Chase Pargate.

  “Who on earth are you?” Coldwater said, looking more surprised than ever. She looked suspiciously at all of us. “Jesus H Christ. I secure one supposedly ‘secure’ research facility and suddenly it’s like a bloody house party.”

  Chase was holding the Voynich Manuscript in his arms. He casually tossed it down the ward, its ancient and delicate pages fluttering as it landed with a thud amidst the trailing wires.

  “This is what it’s all about,” he said, sounding satisfied. “As I told you once, Doctor Harkness, it all comes back to Bacon.”

  I couldn’t believe it. “You? You’re behind all this?” I said, dumbfounded. I would have said more, but Cloves almost knocked me over, pushing me out of the way. She had reached into her jacket and pulled out a tazer, small black and sleek, which she now levelled at Pargate down the length of the ward. The kind that shoot out fun electrically charged wires. Her hand was shaking slightly. We all stared at her.

  I don’t know why I was remotely surprised. Cloves had a tazer, Kane could turn into a bear at the drop of a hat. What did I have in way of weaponry? Harsh language?

  “You…” she said, staring at Pargate with a look of absolute disbelief. “They told me it was you, but it couldn’t be. It can’t be. You’re dead. I killed you years ago. I don’t know who you are, but you’re not Chase.”

  He smiled at her warmly. “Hello Vee,” he said fondly, completely ignoring the weapon. “It is me, I’m afraid. And yes, you did shoot me, your dear old partner, way back when. Can’t keep a good man down though, eh? Planning on taking a second try?”

  Cloves shook her head, both hands on her weapon. “No,” she insisted. “You sound like him, it’s a clever trick, but he was fifty years old when he died. What are you, barely a man?”

  “You look good, Vee,” Chase said. “Very fresh. You’ve had a little work done?”

  “You too…evidently,” she replied with scorn.

  “I have an excellent dermatologist,” he grinned. Coldwater had stepped to one side, out of the range of Cloves’ tazer.

  “Who…who is this man?” she demanded to know.

  “This isn’t the ‘he’ you keep referring to?” I asked. She clearly didn’t know Chase at all. What the hell was he doing here then? He had popped up like a jack in the box throughout this whole investigation.

  The man raised his hands in mock surrender, ignoring Coldwater completely. He was obviously humouring Cloves. “Come on Vee,” he said. “I’m not the enemy here. If anything, you’re the bad guy. We were partners, you shot me in the chest.” He shook his head, tutting. “That’s just bad form.”

  “Chase Pargate went rogue,” Cloves said. She was still eying him as though they were the only two people in the room, the rest of us might as well not have existed. “He was paranoid. He thought everyone in Cabal was corrupt, working against humanity, not for it. The day I shot him, it was self-defence.”

  “You don’t really believe that?” he said. “I never would have hurt you. You were still in bandages, after your vampire buddy tried to tear your throat out, remember? Fun times. Have you forgotten? I only wanted to go after those higher, those responsible.”

  “A killing spree. You went vigilante,” Cloves said. She shook her head. “He did—I mean, Chase did. You can’t just make up the rules as you go along. If I hadn’t stopped him that day, he would have killed God knows how many people in the building.”

  “What the hell are you two talking about?” I said, looking from one to the other.

  “My partner,” Cloves said to me, not taking her eyes off the man in the red jacket for a second. “He had planned his own rebellion. A list of higher servants he was going to execute. I had to stop him. The law is what it is. I was doing my job.”

  “So she shot me,” he said, conversationally, with a half-smile. “Icy viper that she is, even back then; she was always the same. Her own partner, shot in the name of duty, left me for dead.” He folded his arms. “Did you get promoted? Above and beyond the call of duty and all that? I bet you did.”

  “You are not him!” she snapped angrily. “Enough of this ridiculous fucking pantomime.”

  “You have three freckles in the hollow of your back,” he said. “I used to call them Orion’s belt, remember?”

  Cloves stared at him, the tazer wavering slightly. Her lips were thin.

  “You threw up pecan pie, all over me on our first day partnered, when we entered that domestic abuse property. Your first, and last, moment of weakness. You made me swear not to tell anyone.”

  “Anyone could have got this information,” Cloves said, but she sounded unce
rtain for the first time.

  Chase sighed. “You really want me to pull out the big guns?” he said, rolling his eyes. “Fair enough.” He looked at her seriously.

  “Mr Snuggluff,” he said quietly, with an air of gravitas.

  I peered at Cloves with interest. Her lips were still pursed, but her eyes were widening. Slowly, even begrudgingly, she lowered her arm.

  “You…really are Chase,” she said, disbelief in her voice. She shook her head. “How…the fuck is this possible?”

  He looked relieved. “I’ll be honest, for a moment there I thought you were going to kill me all over again, make it a habit, once every decade, you know.” He unfolded his arms, looking at his own hands. “As to how?” He smiled secretively. “Let’s just say I have friends in strange places these days.”

  I cut in across the two of them. “You have been chasing this from the beginning,” I said. “At this point, I don’t even care if you are my boss’s ex-partner back from the dead and botoxed to the eyeballs. I couldn’t give a shit. From what I’ve heard, you were clearly deranged before she shot and killed you, and you don’t seem any less unhinged to me now. What’s your involvement? If you’re not the killer, and you’re not working for Coldwater, then what are you doing?”

  “Quietly,” he said, gesturing for me to pipe down. “You’ll wake the monsters.”

  He sat down at the foot of one of the beds, like a caring relative visiting a sick loved one. He even reached out and patted the leg of the unconscious Pale affectionately. He really was mad.

  “I represent…certain parties,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “Parties who are aware of what is going on here.” He looked sympathetically at Coldwater. “…Even if you are not, my poor little duck.”

  He looked to me. “My employers, for want of a better term, have a vested interest in seeing that the fruits of these particular labours do not come to fruition. Ever. They engaged my services to find out who, what and when.”

  He pointed at Director Coldwater, who was still standing with her phone in her hand, clutched to her breast defensively.

  “This lady here,” he said. “Who, if I understand correctly, you all seem to think is the enemy, has been cruelly deceived.” His eyes narrowed. “Even the most upstanding citizen can be convinced to do terrible things, to fund terrible things, if the right buttons are pushed. And there is nothing as tempting as being told there is hope. Not when you’re a grieving mother. Desperation makes for strange bedfellows, am I right, Director?”

  “Shut your foul mouth,” Coldwater whispered.

  Chase Pargate ignored her. “Correct me if I’ve got this wrong, Director, I’ve been digging around this for months and I only confirmed my suspicions recently, but let me take a shot at how things panned out. Tell me if I’m on the right track.”

  He crossed one leg over the other, hugging his ankle, his head tilted to one side. “Some time ago, you were directly approached by a scientist, yes? An expert in their field, with a proposition. They had found a cure, a way to end the Pale virus once and for all. A way to end the siege of our city, of our entire country. And it was far more promising that anything Cabal were developing at Blue Lab One. Even the recently developed Epsilon by the admirable Doctor Harkness here is only a retardant at best, and a very temporary one. This scientist offered you the promise of a total cure.”

  Coldwater looked pale. She nodded.

  “However, the means and methods were somewhat…experimental. And perhaps, shall we say, more controversial that the people of New Oxford would accept. It wasn’t something you could propose at a board meeting. This scientist needed somewhere to work, and a certain level of funding. Access to the most advanced technologies and genetic information, highly classified stuff.” He gestured at the tubes behind us. “In order to develop this cure, they wanted another run at genetically-engineered bodies. The Sentinel programme all those years ago, well, that didn’t end too well now, did it? No one was going to back that, not publicly. But this scientist knew your reputation. You were not easily scared. You’ve always been a big-picture thinker. Not afraid of the smaller sacrifices. And this was a Cure, he said. He promised not only to end the Pale, but to reverse the process. There was a chance that those infected could maybe be saved. Made human again.” He sighed, looking at Coldwater with pity. “People like your son.”

  I glanced at her. Cloves had mentioned in passing to me that Coldwater had lost people to the Pale, back during the wars. Her own son.

  “My son…is dead,” Coldwater insisted darkly.

  Chase sighed down his nose. “Now, that’s really a bit of a fib, isn’t it? Your son was infected during the war, a brave soldier I’m sure, an excellent agent. He’s on record as being amongst the many Pale casualties who died in the great firebombing of Cambridge. But if I’m correct, you wrote that report yourself, didn’t you, Director? Easy enough to claim him dead and instead…hide him away somewhere…hoping to somehow reverse his condition. You forget, I’ve been digging around. In Blue Lab, at the Jenner, Cabal HQ even. I was always a good snoop, even before the good Servant Cloves killed me. I know he’s squirrelled away on a restricted level at Blue Lab. You’ve kept him from extermination all these years. How could you resist the promise of having him back?”

  “The data I was presented with was overwhelming,” Coldwater said, looking at us all in guarded desperation. “The projected results astonishing. If it worked, I truly believed we could end the Pale. Reclaim the world.” She gestured around at the horrific ward around us. “I didn’t know about all this. I never expected…this. He just wanted the site secured, and for me to ensure that nothing was traceable, no funds, no equipment, nothing noticed missing. This is only the second time I’ve been out here since this began. None of this was here then. None of it.”

  She looked at us beseechingly. “I know nothing about how any of this is connected to the Portmeadow murders. That’s the work of Tribals, surely? Why do you think I’m so keen to broker a peace? My involvement here was for good. Imagine the legacy, to cure the Pale. You would understand if you had children.”

  Kane bristled, glaring at Coldwater with hostility.

  Chase nodded. “You’re not to blame,” he said. “Not really. You’re just a patsy. It’s easy to exploit a desperate mother. No one had ever tried anything like this before. To attempt this.”

  “Attempt what?” I wanted to know.

  “To create a new kind of GO, an anti-Pale, if you will,” Chase explained. “And all based on ancient alchemical texts from an old friar who happened to know some influential GOs. A visionary scholar who studied them, their physiology, their essential makeup, at a time before the world even knew they existed? Poor Director Coldwater had no hope of getting any kind of ‘official’ backing. All a little flaky to put before the board, isn’t it?”

  “I believed in him,” she said in a hollow voice.

  “Sadly, he lied to you,” Chase said. “He has no intention of bringing your son back from the monster he, and countless others, have devolved into. Your saviour scientist is not developing a cure. Not in the sense you believe, anyway. He has used and abused your trust, your resources and your near-infinite funding, and has developed the ultimate solution.” He pointed to the faceless women floating in the tubes, which looked more and more like Roger Bacon’s illustrated women in their tubs with their interconnected pipes. “Those things, they are hosts. Bodies grown with one sole purpose. To incubate and develop the most lethal man-made pathogen ever created.”

  “Stop, Lazarus,” Cloves interjected, holding up both hands. “Jesus, you really are Pargate, you never shut up. This is all good and well, but who?” She looked from Chase to Coldwater. “Whose science-fair-from hell project are you supporting here?”

  “Scott, of course,” she said. At that precise moment the phone rang in her hand.

  We all stared at it. She answered.

  “Speak of the devil,” she said angrily after a moment. “You have so
me explaining to do. You called me out here, this place is filled with insane people claiming all kinds of nonsense, and why the hell are you not even here?”

  She listened for a second. I couldn’t hear what the other speaker was saying, but her face was pale. I heard the line go dead. She looked up at us.

  “He says to turn on the Datascreen.” She sounded incredulous. “The son of a bitch hung up on me.”

  Above the Pale-filled beds, on the wall opposite the windows, was a large Datascreen, looking as though it had been lifted from a conference room. I hadn’t noticed it when we’d entered. To be fair, there were more interesting horrors in the room to capture my attention. Everyone assembled looked at me expectantly.

  Huffing, I stepped gingerly between the beds and waved my hand over its surface sensors. The screen flickered to life.

  There on the screen, against a black background, a green, holographic figure appeared. A young man with blonde hair and a winning smile.

  My heart stopped in my throat. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. This couldn’t be what I thought it was.

  “Oscar?” I breathed, stuttering.

  38.

  The figure seemed to regard me out of the screen. It looked so like Oscar, but not. It was subtly different. The nose a little longer, the cut of the hair a different style. It could have been his brother.

  “Hello, Director Coldwater,” the hologram said, and I recognised the voice. “You’re probably fairly confused at this point, having been summoned to my workshop. I’m afraid I cannot be there in person to greet you. It’s rather a big night for me after all. I have an endgame to prepare. And apologies if I don’t look as I usually do. The flesh does get so old and weak you see, all things rot. As I rarely leave my rooms these days, it pleases me to project myself as I once was, and as one day I shall be again, rather than as the withered old husk I have become in recent years.”