Mad Skills

by Greatshell, Walter

  Then: A strange, two-humped shape appeared, looming out of the low murk. Gliding just above the ground like a weird sea creature, a floating nautilus, it made its way down the line of police vehicles with careful deliberation, as though peering into each one. As it drew near, they could hear the rumble of its engine.

  It was a motorcycle. A sleek, hornet yellow racing machine with two helmeted riders. The rear passenger was aiming something like a camera into each car they passed, and as the motorcycle drew up alongside, the doctors found themselves in the thing’s sights.

  The device lowered; the rider got off the bike and peered into the car. She tipped up her mirrored visor so they could see her face.

  “Omigod! Chandra, it’s her! It’s Maddy!”

  Alan Plummer jumped from the car, frantically jabbing the button on his wave emitter. It seemed to have no effect. In the excitement, he neglected his gas mask and fell unconscious at Maddy’s feet.

  “Whoops,” Maddy said. Her voice was muffled from the helmet. “Don’t worry, it’s temporary.”

  She got into the car next to Dr. Stevens. “Hi, Doc.”

  Chandra Stevens looked at her unflinchingly, mask to mask. “Hello, Maddy. Are you okay?”

  “Not really,” she said. “It’s been a weird couple of weeks. I only have a minute, but I thought we should talk.”

  “All right.”

  “I just found out everybody I know in Denton has been taken into protective custody. That’s not the weird part.” She tossed a sheaf of printed-out photos on the doctor’s lap. “I don’t think Beth and Roger Grant are even the real Beth and Roger Grant. They look sort of the same, but not that much. You know what I think? I think these people started impersonating the Grants about fourteen years ago. Right around the same time you adopted me and gave me to them.”

  “Maddy, that’s absurd—”

  “Stop. I found the records. I know you think you’re playing some kind of mind game, but believe me, you want to start telling me the truth.”

  “Maddy … I’ve already told you the truth. It’s your own mind that is playing games. By this point you’ve discovered that for yourself; you just refuse to accept it. Stay with us, and we’ll do everything we can to help you. It’s not too late.”

  “Bull. That’s total bullcrap. Here’s the thing: If you don’t tell me the truth, and immediately expose to the world everything that’s going on at Braintree and Harmony, then I am going to be forced to deal with it myself. I have nothing to lose anymore.”

  Several other motorcycles pulled up. The riders were women—very alarming women. They were road warriors, dressed for medieval combat in studded boots, chain mail, and spiked leathers. Their helmets had been converted to some kind of improvised breathing apparatus that made them look like giant hornets. They were members of a biker club: On the backs of their leather jackets were red she-devils and the letters FPKK.

  Dr. Stevens said, “What do you think you’re going to do? Who are these people? What do they want from you?”

  “Just some ladies I met on the road. It’s a motorcycle gang. This one is Locust.”

  “Yo,” said Locust huskily.

  “Dear God, Maddy. And I suppose they believe you, is that it?”

  “No, they pretty much think I’m bonkers, too. But I’ve been able to demonstrate my usefulness to them, so we’ve worked out a mutually beneficial agreement. My brains in exchange for their brawn. You know, I never realized how easy it is to make money off the Internet. Give it a couple months, and I think you’ll be seeing these guys in the Fortune 500. So what’s your answer?”

  Dr. Stevens shook her head, then scornfully dropped her gas mask and breathed deep. Instantly, she convulsed and fell unconscious.

  Looking at the twitching form, Maddy sighed. “That’s what I thought.”

  She got back on the bike, hugging Locust around the waist. With a wave, they were gone.

  THIRTY-ONE

  CASTLE DRACULA

  LOCUST paused her motorcycle by the roadside, staring up the steep sloping lawn to the big silvery cube at the top.

  “So that’s it, huh?”

  “That’s it,” Maddy said.

  “Doesn’t really look all that sinister, does it?” Locust sounded disappointed.

  “It’s not Castle Dracula, no.”

  “And you say they’re making zombies in there? By the hundreds, like a big assembly-line thing? Beaming out brain waves to control everybody, like something out of the Body Snatchers?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Right here in this building? With the employee parking and handicapped access and all?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let me get this straight. The guys who wash the windows, and the landscaping crew, and all the secretaries and everybody—none of them know about this? Or is it that they’re all cool with it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Hell, that’s a first. You don’t know. But you’re sure this is the right place? It’s not some other generic office park you’re thinking of?”

  “No.”

  “All right, all right. If you say so.”

  Locust was still not over her surprise at first laying eyes on Maddy Grant. She might have believed the kid was a Girl Scout selling cookies, but the idea that this walking, talking Raggedy Ann doll could be a dangerous wanted felon was too much.

  The bikes all caught up, and Locust signaled them to wait. “So, what’s our next move, hotshot?”

  Maddy wasn’t quite sure what to do next. Her thoughts were suddenly garbled, fuzzing in and out like a bad phone connection. It was a feeling she hadn’t had for some time, not since her encounter with the firemen, but this time she recognized it for what it was: interference. They were messing with her head. Nice try, she thought, turning up the gain on her signal blocker.

  “Give me a minute, okay?”

  “Knock yourself out.”

  After speaking to Dr. Stevens in the car, Maddy had ridden north with Locust and the FPKK, retracing her path back to Braintree. The trip had been uneventful. They’d traveled in an invisible storm of radio interference, so that no one without a landline could immediately report their passing. There were a few run-ins with the highway patrol, but those were quickly defused by either diverting the cops elsewhere with fake radio signals, or—if they were really determined—frying their cars’ electrical circuits with the portable EMP cannon that Maddy had rigged to the back of Locust’s motorcycle. They made good time, ignoring the speed limit and stopping only to eat or go to the bathroom. By nightfall, they had arrived at Braintree.

  Locust was getting impatient. “So what’s it gonna be, kid? You wanna turn back or what?”

  “No,” Maddy said. “Let’s go in.”

  LOCUST signaled the other motorcycles to follow. They advanced in a line.

  As the train of bikes cruised through the open gate and up the driveway past the empty parking lot, the security cameras all mysteriously went dark. Likewise, phones and computers in the whole complex went dead, so that when the lead motorcycles charged up the wheelchair ramp and blew through the glass doors into the lobby, none of the frantic skeleton crew could alert police. The automatic alarms did not go off.

  There was a small security contingent, six heavily armed and gung ho Homeland Security fast responders, who took positions in the foyer and were instantly rendered unconscious by a homemade gas grenade.

  The rest of the staff was already gone. Rather than challenge the wheeled invasion, they had abandoned their stations and retreated for the fire exits.

  As the last of the bikes streamed in, Maddy consulted the floor directory, and said, “Communications Suite—Sublevel Two. That must be where the carrier wave originates.”

  “If you say so.”

  “It’s below ground level and probably well shielded. In case it’s still functioning, we have to go down there and knock it out directly.”

  “How?”

  “Just pull the plug. Follow me!”r />
  “Whoa—you said to get you in here. We got you in. I ain’t goin’ noplace my wheels can’t go.”

  “Fine, I’ll go myself.”

  “You crazy? You can’t go down there alone!”

  “I went into that disgusting hellhole of yours—this is nothing.”

  “All right, hold up, I’m coming.”

  Locust wasn’t about to let the kid out of her sight. It was funny, because just a few days ago she had thought nothing of taking Maddy’s money and selling her down the river. As far as she was concerned at the time, the girl was just a fugitive with a big price on her head. She remembered the look on Chickasaw’s face when Maddy first showed up at the Hippo.

  Locust?

  What’s wrong?

  She’s here.

  Locust had checked her gun, thinking: This better not be a goddamn setup. She’d been worried ever since she got that money and the strange note that came with it:

  Dear Ms. Pursleigh, it had read. This is a serious business proposition. I give you this money as a gesture of good faith, just so you will hear me out. I need partners who are willing to take small risks for large rewards. Since you already take large risks for small rewards, I hope you will consider my proposal. I look forward to visiting you soon. Sincerely, Maddy Grant.

  The attached bundle had ten thousand bucks in it. Unmarked, nonsequential twenties. Nobody gave money away like that, not even teenage psychopaths; it had to be a trap of some kind. Plus the note looked like fucking Emily Post had written it. The girls in the office only cared about the chunk of free cash, and Locust had to remind them there were all kinds of shady characters out there, many of them wearing police badges. It was a sick world, full of false promises, false information, false salvation. At least Locust’s criminal enterprises offered value for money. But from Chick’s tone of voice, she could tell this was something different. Out of curiosity, Locust had her bring the girl in back. They could always kill her.

  Instead, they made her their leader.

  As the last of the bikes came in, Locust ordered them to guard the entrance while she followed Maddy downstairs. There was no rush; no help was coming anytime soon. They went down two flights, emerging in a dim utility corridor with metal doors on either side. The ceiling was a mass of pipes and wires, and there was a hum of machinery.

  “Where exactly are they supposed to be doing all these mad experiments?” Locust asked, looking around doubtfully.

  “I don’t know,” Maddy said.

  “She don’t know.”

  “I don’t know everything!”

  “Coulda fooled me.”

  Maddy didn’t know what to say. It was a good question and one that increasingly troubled her. The more she looked around the place, the more she realized it was nothing like what she had expected to find. Truth be told, it was all pretty straightforward—she could intuit the blueprints right down to the welding specs and bolt torque. There were no extensive secret laboratories, no surgical assembly line with a conveyer belt carrying thousands of people in one end and mindless zombies out the other. The building was not that big, there was no room to hide an operation of that scale.

  So what did that mean? Was she crazy, as everyone said? Could it all be a sick fantasy, just a postoperative delusion? No way, no way—it was ridiculous even to entertain the thought.

  Going down the rows, passing the computer lab and the rustling rat amphitheater, Maddy quickly found the Communications Suite. Its heavy steel door was locked. Locust cocked her Glock, but Maddy pushed the gun down.

  “You’re going to kill us with that thing,” she said. “I got it.”

  Taking out a Gerber jar of gray putty, Maddy used a plastic spoon to pack it into the doorjamb. Then she said, “Stand back,” and stuffed in a Gummi worm. At once it began to burn, flaring hot as a blowtorch. It went on like that for about half a minute, then abruptly sputtered out, leaving a large scorched spot.

  Maddy tried the door. It still didn’t open. The lock hadn’t burned through.

  “Damn,” she said.

  Locust brushed her aside, saying, “Let me try.” She raised her massive hobnailed boot and kicked the door in, shearing off the weakened bolt.

  Inside, they found a control room lined with instrument panels—it looked like a recording studio. There were fax machines, computers, and printing equipment, as well as a lot of high-tech stuff with labels like STORAGE SERVER, SCANNER CONTROL CONSOLE, REAL-TIME ANALYSIS, RF COIL, RF AMP, DIGITIZER, WAVEFORM GENERATOR, and TRANSMITTER.

  Transmitter.

  “There it is,” Maddy said.

  “There you are,” someone else said.

  Maddy turned around, feeling the hair bristle on her neck. Her heart rate spiked then leveled. There was a doctor standing in the doorway—the doctor. His ID badge read, DR. MARK HELLSTROM. He was the same strange-looking man she had fought before, the one who had almost killed her. Once again, he was wearing a pale blue surgical gown, a paper mask, and elbow-length rubber gloves. Half his face was one big, nasty-looking bruise, with a lot of little sutured cuts.

  “Locust?” she said evenly. “I need you to give me some space.”

  “What? Aw, don’t worry about this asshole, honey—just do what you came to do, and let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  The doctor came in, pale and languid as a ghost, seeming to glide forward on casters.

  “Back off, motherfucker,” Locust said, brandishing her gun.

  “Locust, get back,” Maddy said.

  “Stop, man, or I’ll blow your nuts off! I mean it!”

  When the doctor didn’t stop, Locust wavered in frustration, then lost patience and fired, intending merely to wing the man. A little wake-up call.

  Except that when the bullet got there, the doctor’s leg was not where it was supposed to be—the slug punched empty air. And before Locust could try again, the gun was clapped in a vise grip and yanked from her hands.

  Diving after it, Locust cursed in shock and anger.

  She knew how to fight, had been trained in hand-to-hand combat, knew all the techniques for fighting dirty, even to the death, but this odd-looking man wasn’t interested in fighting. He didn’t seem to even know there was a fight going on.

  With clinical indifference—practically as an afterthought—the doctor swung the gun’s handle like a club, delivering a sharp blow to the ventral root ganglion at the base of Locust’s skull. In a fraction of a second, the confrontation was over.

  Maddy was a different story. As the doctor came for her, she retreated behind the equipment, keeping clear of those hands.

  “Come on now, Madeline,” he said patiently. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  Ducking and dodging, she said, “I know you’re not.”

  She tossed him the baby-food jar. Lid screwed tight, it was crammed with Gummi worms, the chemical reaction already glowing fiercely as a tiny bottled sun. Maddy hit the floor as it exploded in his face.

  The man went down in flames, a screaming, melting marionette—swiveled steel armatures grafted to flesh and bone—and Maddy bolted past him to the doorway. Then she was out and running for the stairs.

  But others were already there, coming down for her, and more emerging from the elevator. Dr. Stevens and Dr. Plummer were with them—she heard Dr. Stevens say in a voice of nasally resignation, “Oh God, that’s her.”

  Maddy spun, seeking an alternative exit, an air duct, anything, but there was nothing except an array of locked doors leading to a dead end. She was out of weapons, out of ideas. More doctors appeared from the opposite end of the corridor, bottling her up so that the only choice left was to go down fighting … or just go down.

  Busted, Maddy thought.

  THIRTY-TWO

  RETURN TO HARMONY

  ALL right,” she said. “I give, I give. You got me.”

  She limply allowed herself be restrained, strapped to a gurney, and hooked up to an IV. There was nothing else for it; all she could do was wait. Wait fo
r the next chance. And if it never came?

  “What happened to the other guys?” she said, feeling numb. Whatever was in her IV had definitely kicked in.

  Dr. Stevens ignored her, but someone with a soft Southern accent asked gently, “What other guys, honey?”

  “The ones who brought me here. The bikers.”

  “Don’t worry about them, they can’t hurt you anymore. You’re home safe with us now.”

  They wheeled her into the elevator and descended one floor to the bottom level. Here there was nothing but an underground parking garage for a fleet of company cars and vans.

  Harmony, here I come, Maddy thought, trying to say the words aloud. She found she couldn’t speak, couldn’t move her lips. And yet she wasn’t afraid. In fact, it was intriguing to be fully conscious and yet completely paralyzed. Off the top of her head, she could think of several biotoxins that might do that. But somehow she knew this was not a toxin. It was not a chemical at all—there were no telltale side effects. With any sedative drug, there was always a danger of suppressing involuntary functions too much, killing the patient, but this was perfect.

  It had to be her implant; that was the only explanation. They were using electrical impulses to mess with her autonomic nervous system, turning her off like a windup toy. Was that what they had used on Ben, to mimic death? Pretty clever.

  To her surprise, they did not load her into one of the vans, but onto a small electric-powered utility truck, not much bigger than a golf cart. Dr. Plummer climbed on, and the vehicle sped down a ramp into a low concrete tunnel marked SECURE DATA STORAGE. There was a bright-lit storage vault, but hidden at the back was a platform overlooking a bottomless pit. The platform was barely big enough for the truck; Maddy felt as though they were teetering above an abyss.

  With a lurch, the platform dropped.