by anonymae
He burst through the fire door in time to see the intruder leap up to the opposite landing.
The beast’s rage stoked his resolve. He wouldn’t underestimate his prey again.
Flinging himself after the interloper, Kayd landed badly. Pain screamed up his shins. It bellowed in his mind.
At the head of the next landing, less than three feet away from him, the invader leaped.
Too late, Kayd grabbed a pant leg and wrenched. But the intruder met his strength, pistoning the trapped leg into Kayd’s chest.
Furious, Kayd fought the momentum, but the same force shoving him backward drove the invader forward. His fingertips slipped down the intruder’s pant leg, past a sock-covered ankle.
The beast howled for release.
No. Stay back.
Slamming back into the cinder-block wall with a whump, his lungs compressed. Air jetted out of his mouth. And his arms fell slack by his sides.
Wincing, he pushed off the wall. The beast growled, but took pain as its due. It would return it in kind.
Grabbing the handrail, he leaped up the flight and through the fire door a split second before it swung shut.
Sprinting down another dark and empty corridor, on the intruder’s heel, he felt his lips part into a maniacal grin, until a dull red glow appeared in his line of sight.
23:27 Complex Tank Biosphere 09/30/16
Taleia collided with the feral midflight. She grabbed the little girl’s hands. With her right hand, using Boi’s momentum, she swung the child around and away from her. With her left hand, she tucked the little girl into the lee of her torso, right before they hit the ground.
Hard.
Screaming pain radiated through her ribs. Fear, like the ragged edge of a broken bone, stuck in her throat. Dark spots exploded in her vision.
Fury-blind, Boi spat and gouged her dirty, ragged nails into Taleia’s arms. All ten barbs jabbed deep into her flesh.
With the precision and inexorable slowness of a professional torturer, Boi plowed her nails down Taleia’s biceps, ribbons of meat curling out from beneath her nails. Pain, like the flames of ten compact culinary torches, seared down her arms.
And with it came anger.
Anger of a guardian. Anger of a protector. And a centuries-old anger known by all women of color. But no amount of anger could stop thick rows of blood from oozing up and over the flesh of her biceps.
Gritting her teeth, Taleia tightened her hold around the child. And the little girl’s breath tore in and out of her in short, sharp pants.
Come on, come on, come on. Give up already.
At the same time, her cracked ribs felt like knife blades, jabbing her lungs, cutting her breath in half.
It’s a race, kiddo.
Taking in what air she could, Taleia bit her tongue. Blood pooled in her mouth.
Stay awake. Stay awake.
Fighting. Straining. Forcing air into her fiery lungs.
Boi’s unguiculated nails sank deeper into Taleia’s muscles; the darks spots in her vision bloomed and multiplied.
Then the creature within the little girl changed tack.
Dropping her chin centimeters over Taleia’s bloody, striped flesh, the little girl snapped her head back with more force than a child her size had a right to possess. The back of her skull hit Taleia’s sternum with a loud crack.
Carbon dioxide rushed out of Taleia as fast as oxygen rushed into the vacuum of her lungs. Relief from the CO2 burn—and pain from her splintered ribs—darkened her sight. But when Boi cocked her head down, Taleia’s teeth closed around the back of Boi’s slender neck.
23:58 Complex Employee Parking Lot Level 3 09/30/16
Erupting from the fire doors, Kayd landed on the concrete floor of the sodium-lamplit and deserted employee parking lot. Bang-bang-bang—the sound of the inch-thick doors slamming into the concrete walls echoed off the lot’s walls and naked girders, surrounding him in a mocking cacophony.
A snapping current of animal rage flooded his veins. Kayd gritted his teeth against the worst of it. But it was no use. Crackling energy inundated every cell of his body. Unlocking the beast.
THREE
01:00 Complex Vang Examination Room 10/01/16
Crossing his legs at the ankles, Efrayim leaned against the edge of his desk. Holding his mobile phone to his notched left ear, he pulled his gnarled right hand through his shaggy gray hair.
“Got in through the tunnels,” reported the voice on the other end of the phone.
Bushy gray brows joined in worry, obscuring his sight. Concern dug trenches into the creases around his mouth. “Did—”
“We stayed downwind,” interrupted the voice. “Wasn’t our first time, Alpha. Won’t be our last.”
The old alpha rolled his eyes. “How far—”
“Lost the trail in the parking lot,” the voice broke in.
“What aren’t you telling me, wife?”
Silence.
His vocal chords tightened, thickening his redneck’s drawl around her name, “Cherry…”
“He,” she began, then he heard her swallow. “He lost control.”
The old alpha inhaled through his nose and exhaled out his mouth. Afraid of the answer, he asked, “Was anyone—”
“No. No one was hurt. No one saw.”
Surprise colored his wife’s melodic voice. “He didn’t leave the Complex. I—he looked like—I think he was trying to find the trail.”
“Where is he?”
Silence.
“As of two minutes ago, he was in the lot.”
Efrayim waited.
“Now.” She paused, the rhythmic staccato of her fingernails against a glass keyboard dancing across the digital airways.
“He’ll be in your office in T minus thirty. He can fill you in on the rest.”
Efrayim huffed out a breath.
The rest?
Still, he thanked the Goddess. Their people were safe, for now.
“Gotta go,” he whispered. “Love you, my Beta.”
“Love you, my Alpha.”
01:03 Complex Vang Examination Room 10/01/16
Slipping his phone back into the holster at his belt, Efrayim Vang dragged his rheumy fingers through his too-long gray locks. With deliberate care, he checked the contents of his Medi-Pack, the CDC-issued medical backpack. And discreetly assessed the man concealed in the shadowed corner of his office.
A lifetime of living in the South taught Efrayim all he needed to know about the disguises of a white man’s shame. Shame disguised within the framed accolades of academic accomplishment. Shame concealed within ineffectual political power. Shame masquerading as righteous closed-mindedness. Shame camouflaged as fear-encased bullets fired by officers of the law into the bodies of innocent men, women, and children. And his former protégé, whom he thought of as a son—his shame camouflaged as scientific hubris.
Efrayim stepped around his desk. And continued taking stock of the virologist’s disposition while fussing with the Medi-Pack.
Leaning against the bookcase in the far corner of his office, one tree-trunk leg held Kayd’s weight. The other, bent at the knee, ended in a mud-covered boot propped against a book shelf. And thick-limbed arms crossed his massive chest.
From the frayed cuffs and the ragged edges of Kayd’s dress shirt, he could see his protégé had scrambled over boulders and rocks surrounding the Complex. The crisscross clay caking the man’s cargos told him Kayd had run through the creek at the eastern edge of the Complex. And the twigs, leaves, and tree sap embedded in the man’s beard and dark-gold hair confirmed his protégé had sprinted through a copse of maples at the southern edge of the Complex.
The younger man huffed in long, measured breaths, as if he were asleep. His breath was even. Too even. Too rhythmic.
Forced.
Quietly, without looking up from his task, the old alpha asked, “What happened?”
His onetime mentee remained still, then ground out, “Security breach. Possible R
egression.”
A tachycardic rhythm hammered helter-skelter against the alpha’s breastbone. Slowly, Efrayim turned to face his former protégé, hiding in the shadows.
“Leia or Boi hurt?”
The crisp rustle of cotton from within the shadow—and the stink of his protégé’s sweat mingled with the sweet scent of the forest—was answer enough.
Concealing his disappointment, the old alpha grunted in reply and picked up the Medi-Pack. He shrugged its straps over his shoulders and loped out the door and down a dark corridor toward Quarantine.
01:16 Complex Level 5 Hallway E 10/01/16
“Regression?” Efrayim asked, searching Kayd’s profile. “You’re sure?”
The old alpha had known something was wrong the day his former mentee left for college.
He and Cherry had planned on treating Kayd to breakfast at his favorite hole in the wall. Driving him to the airport. Fumbling through tear-soaked words of love for the child he was, pride for the young man he became, and eagerly anticipating the adult he would be.
But when he and Cherry returned home from a predawn emergency, the young man and his belongings were gone. The old alpha set aside his disappointment, chalking up Kayd’s sudden departure to impetuous youth. An eagerness to hunt down life. Make it his own. After all, hadn’t he been much the same way at eighteen? But a small voice within his heart reminded him he’d come into manhood in a different era. And unlike Kayd, he knew who—what—he was.
Eventually, Kayd had left a phone message explaining the inexplicable. And then nothing. After a time, Kayd texted belated happy birthdays. Last-minute emails excusing himself from holiday activities. Much later, following a successful postdoctorate, extravagant gifts arrived in lieu of Kayd’s presence. Whose pain the young man was trying to soothe, Efrayim didn’t know.
What he did know was that, up until a year ago, he hadn’t seen or spoken to Kayd in two decades. But he’d watched Kayd grow from a boy to a man. And when he’d left, he was on the way to becoming the man the old alpha always knew he would be. Whatever had changed his former protégé in the interim had made Kayd less than the man Efrayim knew he could be.
In the picosecond between blinks, Kayd’s bloodshot eyes met and held his gaze. And the alpha had to admit he no longer knew the man walking beside him. Worse yet, he didn’t know if he trusted Kayd. He needed to see what sat beneath the man’s skin. Then deal with it.
“I said ‘possible.’”
Cinching the Medi-Pack’s straps tighter around his shoulders, he made his move. “I’m old, Kayd. Not stupid.”
Angry red mottles swarmed up and over Kayd’s neck and ears. Ignoring the prod against his ego, he replied, “Unconfirmed. No point in discussing it.”
Surprised at having found a chink in the younger man’s armor so quickly, he gave it a solid poke.
“You there?”
Discoloration blunted Kayd’s chiseled features. Thickened his prominent brow ridge. Hooded his deep-set eyes. The old alpha bit back a self-satisfied grin. You may not be the man I thought you were, but your tells sure haven’t changed. “Did you see what happened?”
As he’d done in his adolescence, Kayd jutted his jaw in belligerence. “The witch,” he spat, “broke protocol.”
On the other hand, maybe the younger man didn’t remember who he was. If he had, he would have known better. Evasion and misdirection never worked with him. He gave the chink a hard jab. “What happened?”
They turned a corner, heading toward the entrance to the next level. Sentries from the Complex’s security detail guarded ingress and egress between each level, adjacent hallways, and parking lots. The intruder’s breach compromised the proximity readers, the electronic scanners that verified and validated each subcutaneous chip embedded in all Complex employees. So, in the tacit silence of a strained truce, the men submitted themselves to manual verification and validation.
Once they were past the security checkpoint, the old alpha kept up the pressure. “How?”
Kayd’s Nordic features, appearing more Canidae than hominid, melted into an emotionless mask. He looked the old alpha in the eye. “Unauthorized contact.”
Efrayim huffed exaggerated disbelief. “Not the first time she’s disobeyed you.”
Beads of sweat dotted Kayd’s hairline. His knotted broad shoulders ratcheted up defensively. “Doesn’t matter. We were breached.”
“What, you think she intentionally allowed someone to go near Boi?” he mocked.
Vibrating with anger, the younger man replied, “An unexpected consequence.”
Ignoring Kayd’s rejoinder, he said, “Why’d she do it?”
Again, Kayd’s eyes met his. “Irrelevant.”
The old alpha wrapped his bony fingers around Kayd’s forearm, forcing the other man to stop. Searching the younger man’s stern mien, Efrayim recalled Kayd in happier times. His pale-blue eyes glinting mischief. A smile, hiding beneath the surface of the boy’s solemn features, ready to burst free. Big for his age, he was an unusually kind child. Tenderhearted.
The old alpha looked for the boy in the man standing in front of him. But this man bore no resemblance to the child who left him. Grief and loss he should have felt the day he came home and Kayd was gone flooded his soul.
Finally, he said, “You’re not as inquisitive as I remember.”
Again, the scientist met his eyes. “Curiosity killed the cat.”
Then he saw it, the slight undulation beneath the skin of Kayd’s close-cropped hairline. Slithering. Nestling around Kayd’s skull. A larva. His heart lurched.
How had he missed it? They’d worked together for the better part of a year. Hadn’t they?
No, we hadn’t. He’d asked us to join his research team because he needed our expertise. We saw no more of him in the past year than we have over the past twenty.
Praying it wasn’t too late, the old alpha hid his despair behind a toothy grin and clapped his former protégé on the back. “Then it’s a good thing we’re dog people.”
00:27 Complex Tank Biosphere 10/01/16
It worked.
It really worked.
The slight pressure of her teeth along the child’s nape cut off the neurotransmitter-infused marionette’s strings from the pint-size body.
A soft snore fell from the little girl’s mouth. Taleia released her neck, carefully turning the child to face her. As she did, bright points of pain sang down her ribs and arms.
But the child’s transformation, out of Regression, blotted out her pain. She sat marveling at the tiny ridged muscles around the child’s temple. Visibly loosening their violent grip along Boi’s hairline, then down her jaw. Neurotransmitters dispersed harmlessly back into her bloodstream.
With the tips of her thumb and forefinger, Taleia tugged gently at the child’s nape, confirming her suspicion. Like her other clients, Boi’s nape had an extra fold of skin.
Pinpricks of heat broke across Taleia’s nape.
How far this time, little girl?
None of her other clients had come this close to Permanence. Then again, none of her other clients were held against their will in a hallucination-generating biosphere, controlled by a white-site operative.
A self-absorbed, self-seeking scientist with a white hole for a soul.
Though she had no reason to scruff any of her clients, she’d suspected the fold’s purpose. Still, she didn’t think scuffing would work. Not on a child. And though Boi was a child, Taleia couldn’t deny Boi’s brain structures were closer to animal than human. She’d held the idea in reserve. But held no real hope it would work.
The wild thumping of Boi’s pulse unwound beneath Taleia’s fingertip. The sleeping girl drooped in a rag doll’s sag into the crook of her red-striped arm.
Confident she had taken the brunt of the fall, Taleia still examined the child. Taking her in from ’fro to toes, no visual signs of trauma appeared. She moved on to her physical examination.
Expertly, she pressed the flat
of her hands up Boi’s spine and across her back, searching for anything out of place. Circling her wide palms around Boi’s arms and legs, her fingers searched for broken, sprained, or fractured bone.
Nothing.
Shards of pain scored their way past Taleia’s focus. She beat down their sharp edges. The last examination had to wait until Boi woke up. She took what solace she could.
Cupping the back of Boi’s nappy Afro, she brought the little girl’s sweat-stained cheek against her own. In time with the rhythm of her heart, she rocked the child with her dead sister’s face.
How far down the rabbit hole did you fall, little girl?
01:30 Complex Quarantine Security Station 10/01/16
“Don’t think I didn’t notice,” the old man growled.
Kayd blinked.
He hated it. Absolutely hated when the old man did it.
His pitch wasn’t low enough to be a murmur, or even a whisper. It was sotto voce. His voice fooled the senses, making the hairs on Kayd’s nape crawl down his neck, across his shoulder, down his arms.
The old man wouldn’t stop dogging him, not until he got what he wanted. The old man’s persistence made him the expert in his field. And why Kayd needed him. Efrayim Vang, MD and DVM, made connections he couldn’t.
But twenty years had passed between them. And he was no longer a boy. More importantly, reminded his scientist, disclosure is on a need-to-know basis.
Dr. Vang isn’t among the needy.
“Initializing recalibration,” announced a sleek, digitized voice.
Not bothering to turn around, he said, “Found the intruder outside the Tank. Attempted capture.”
