by Red Harvey
“Wrap them up for me,” she said. Inside the tech store, several electronic wonders hovered above white pedestals. One of the lights below a display flickered, and the interface disappeared. She examined the pedestal next to her, her hand going straight through the modulator.
“Holographs,” the clerk laughed. “I have to get the real thing from the back room. Three modulators, right?” He whistled. “You must have a lot of mouths to feed.”
He leaned on the store interface, a clear invitation for her to pay.
“Hurry up,” Ada snapped. She reached out invisible fingers and flipped a switch on the clerk’s circuit board. He shook his head, stood up straight, and thanked her for making a swift payment.
“I’ll go and get your modulators, ma’am.” His bright tone suggested nothing was amiss.
Post-purchase, she drove back to the N.A. neighborhood, the faded phrase on the building drawing a chuckle as she walked up to the front door. The corniness of the phrase reminded her of Gemina.
Ada juggled a large box while reaching for the doorbell. Before she pressed it, the door opened, and two hands dragged her inside. “Whoa, now, take care of me.” She threw off the stranger’s hands with a small jolt of electricity traveling over her shoulders.
“Shit, somethin’ shocked me!” The boy rubbed his hands together and jumped away from her.
She took in the dilapidated condition of the house, which wasn’t much better than the outside. Sheetrock peeked through holes in the wall, and every piece of furniture had a large chunk missing, or sat on one side, unusable.
“Here.” She thrust the box at the boy. “I’ll take that.”
The dark-haired girl from the interface took the box from her. She peeked inside, nodded, and handed the package off to the boy.
Though the box was bigger than his lanky frame, he hoisted it over one shoulder and left them alone.
“Hello again.” Ada gave a small wave. “I’m Ada, and you’re Shana.”
Shana scowled. “What kind of intel do you want? Seems you got enough already.”
“Not the right kind.” She took a breath. “You’re here because the State took someone from you, right? Someone...special?”
A rose bloomed on Shana’s cheeks. “Yeah.”
“Say, theoretically, I wanted to see where they kept specials. Where would I start to look?”
“Theoretically, I have no damn idea,” Shana said, “and if that’s what you wanted intel on, you wasted a trade.” She whistled, and two others appeared, looking ready to escort Ada out.
One of them was the boy from earlier, and he hesitated. “I don’t wanna touch her,” he said.
“What? You ain’t no Prominent, so get her the hell outta here!”
He fidgeted. “She did somethin’ to me, last time.”
“What’s that?” Shana sized Ada up.
“Dunno.” He rubbed his hands together again, as if recalling the pain that shot through them. “It hurt though.”
“Eh, he might be talking about this.” Ada put her arms out in front of her and allowed small trickles of light to move over her skin.
Everyone stepped back.
“No wonder you hacked my interface,” Shana said, hypnotized by the blue sparks.
Ada lowered her arms. “Now you know why I’m interested in specials, and why I need to know where they keep them.” She left out the part about Cybil and her daughter. She wanted to keep things simple for the time being.
“You should know where the place is, being a special yourself.”
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t need the intel. Will you help me or not?”
Shana sighed. “I’ll think it over. Following Sammies is dangerous work, and even if I find the place, there’s more than one. Wherever your friend is could be any number of their facilities.”
“How do you know I’m looking for someone?” Ada asked.
The girl tapped her head. “I’ve got a method for gathering intel, and it starts here.”
“It’s a good guess, anyway. I’m not really looking for a friend. More like a friend of a friend. Someone I owe.”
The thought of Cybil’s daughter locked up by the State kept her up some nights. There wasn’t much difference between one special or another, and Ada could’ve easily ended up lost in one of the State’s black sites. She hoped if that ever happened, someone would be able to get her out, if she couldn’t fight her way out first.
“I’ll help you, only if you can promise us shielding from the State. A job like this could get us noticed and slapped with more than just N.A. status.”
Ada held out her hand. After several moments, Shana shook it.
“We’ll help each other, and find who need to find, together.”
“Yeah, yeah, no promises,” Shana growled.
“Sure, sure.” Ada neared the door and opened it. “We might not ever find any site, let alone all of them!”
The door slammed as soon as Ada scooted out of the house. Somehow, she thought the group might turn up good info. Eventually.
Twenty Four
Weeks went by with Ada in limbo. She repeated the purge many times, many times without her father present but with Kressick assisting. When she recovered from each one, she felt all the stronger, even as her talents took time to build up to their full potential for hours afterward. Purging was addictive, and she needed to be careful. She didn’t know when she might need to be ready to deal with Moretz.
There were quiet dinners with Kressick, and a few times, Moretz sat in to eat with them. He asked Ada about her day, about her life plans, and other questions parents ask their grown children. She resented his interest in her because it humanized him. She no longer called him “the bastard” in her thoughts, and she was beginning to forget why she wanted to kill him.
One dinner, he sat next to her and accidentally brushed his knee against hers. At the contact, she experienced a tingling sensation. It took her a few seconds to identify the tingling as revulsion. Amid the revulsion came a flood of memories, all of them unpleasant, and she excused herself without a word.
She wasn’t certain she wanted to act out the final kill stage to her plans. Moretz had ruined her, and she hated him, but he was no monster. Gemina’s hospital balance was proof of his goodwill. Maybe the mask he wore changed him, because he didn’t seem the intolerable bastard her mother had cautioned her against.
Her wristlet buzzed with an incoming call. She read the caller id: the hospital. “Hello?”
“Ada?” Her mother sounded small and very, very far away.
“Mom! Are you okay? How long have you been awake?” Tears immediately welled and rolled down Ada’s cheeks, and she swiped at them impatiently.
“I’m okay. The doctor says my body needed time to recover after the new transplant. I’ve been awake a few hours.” Gemina slurred her words. “Where are you?”
Her heart rate picked up pace. What would she tell her? Was it safe to tell her anything? “I’m in Atlanta. Visiting...my father.”
Her mother’s shuddering intake of breath whispered across the line. “Why, why, why would you do that?”
“I wanted to meet him.” Ada’s mind raced ahead, planning on a return trip back to Colorado. Obtaining travel papers would be hard, but not impossible with Kressick’s connections. She could get money easily. Her mother shouldn’t be alone, but then she remembered Cybil and relaxed somewhat.
“He’s dangerous,” Gemina said. “I got away from him because he hurt you, and I wasn’t going to have that.”
Memories crowded in Ada’s brain, all of them fuzzy. “Mom, I know, but he’s different now, and has a family—”
“A family?” Panic elevated Gemina’s tone. “Other children? Young children?”
“He hasn’t touched them,” Ada said, hating herself for defending Moretz.
“Maybe not that they’ve admitted. You don’t remember, not everything, or you wouldn’t have gone near him. I was glad you blocked out the worst of it,
but you need to know. I made you do what I thought was best,” Gemina panted out the words.
Ada’s memories came crashing to the forefront.
Pushing, the ceramic cold on her ass, pushing until the fetus was out of her.
Even as relief flooded her limbs, shame ate at her heart. Dirty. She was dirty, and she would never be clean again.
She gasped. Moretz had more blood on his hands than just August. Hate for her father bloomed anew.
“I remember, Mom. It wasn’t your fault.” Tears clogged her throat, and she could barely speak. Her next words came out hoarsely. “He is dangerous. I’ll come get you in a few days.”
Her mom sniffed, an indication she must be crying. “Kressick too?”
“Kressick too.”
Though Ada didn’t know if he would come. She hung up and took quick strides to the underground garage. On the way, she witnessed a seemingly innocent scene: Moretz speaking with Darcy. Although, through her eyes, the interaction appeared anything but innocent. For one thing, he stood so close, and Darcy noticeably made an effort to move away. He reached out to caress her face, and an explosion occurred behind Ada’s eyes. No one was safe near the bastard, and she’d make sure Darcy never experienced what Ada had.
When Darcy left, Ada took the chance to corner Moretz in the empty hallway. He greeted her, asked her how she was doing.
His amicable nature infuriated her. She had to try to bring out the real Moretz, the one her mother told her about and the one who she knew as a small child. If it didn’t work, she would leave him alone. If successful, she would proceed with the final stage of her original plan.
“No one’s listening. We can skip the pleasantries neither of us enjoys,” she said.
His brows came together.
Ada went on. “I need to meet with you in private. To talk.”
“How about bringing your grandfather along?” Moretz asked.
“No good. We can meet in a public place if you prefer, like a restaurant.” It struck her that he never met with her alone. “You’re afraid of me,” she said, her voice prickled with pride.
He coughed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but it would be best to bring your grandfather if you want to get together.”
Face-to-face communication was a lot more telling than getting the run-around from electronic messages or audio conversations. Ada was learning more about the Congressman now than she ever had from their meetings. “Obviously you know something, otherwise you wouldn’t insist on me bringing Kressick. You need him to block me, right?”
Moretz was quiet. Crumbs on his shirt kept him busy. Tact had never been one of her strong suits, but her candid approach to life had been an asset at times. People were so concerned with being polite to one another that they often handed out lies like pieces of candy. She found the whole process of being polite—or lying without need as she called it— a disgusting prospect.
Ada was used to dropping truth like they were bombs, and this one she dropped with precision. “You don’t have to worry. I do just want to talk. If you answer my questions, I might or might not kill you after.”
A strange look came over the Congressman. He became completely still. “Since you’re being entirely truthful, I will too.” He lost the stock congressional air of bullshit, and he almost looked like a real person. “If you would like to speak with me, your grandfather has to be there, for my safety and for yours.”
Frowning, she pretended to think it over. “I guess that’s okay. Tomorrow too soon?”
“Not at all. Where?”
“Kressick’s townhome.” She held her breath, expecting him to back out.
“Yes, all right. See you at one o’clock.” He hurried from the hallway.
He had taken a bit of control at the end by setting the meeting time. Oh well. Let him think he has control. After her questions, he would put on the face again, his real face. That’s who she preferred dealing with.
~ * ~
The subject’s habits had been fairly predictable until tonight: the old man’s townhome, the coffee shop, the Congressman’s mansion, then back to the townhome. Erma was starting to believe Moretz duped her into following a normal.
Can’t trust a special. They say anything to save themselves. For years, Moretz had been trading information to the State to keep his name from the POI list. Every other name checked out, except for Ada Freyr.
Erma thought of Freyr as a person of non-interest, even as her superiors urged her to keep up the surveillance. As proof, they offered Erma a video feed of her arrival to the office weeks ago and the subsequent report she had given about Freyr, the person of non- interest.
“Yes?” she asked after watching the feed. “What’s this proof you speak of?”
Her superiors were incredulous. “You don’t see it?”
“See what?” One of the authorities pointed at the screen. “You were like a robot, Erma! You walked into this office in a daze, then told us blatant lies. Now, you were drugged, or brain-washed, or the devil- knows-what, but this woman is behind it, and we want to know how she did it and what else she can do. Understand?”
“Okay.” Her boss wasn’t happy with her answer. “Watch Freyr at all costs. That’s an order.”
Whether she believed Freyr was a relevant subject or not, Erma wasn’t going to disobey orders. She kept on with her day-to- day surveillance of Freyr, yet she felt it to be wrong, even a waste of time. And boring.
Then Freyr went somewhere new in the middle of the night. The tiny electric car she drove led Erma to a money dispenser.
Activating the night vision glimmer on her glasses, Erma zoomed the lens in closer to see tiny blue sparks ripple across Freyr’s hand as she touched the dispenser. Standard procedure was to sync one’s interface with the dispenser, but she bypassed that with a touch of her hand. Numerous bills shot out from the machine. Some two minutes later, the dispenser finished, and Freyr pocketed an enormous amount of cash.
She seemed confident she in her anonymity. Erma laughed at her subject’s stupidity, and her own. Of course her superiors had been right. Should’ve never questioned the State. Her mirth made her sloppy, and she accidentally honked the horn.
Before Ada could turn around, Erma dove into the passenger seat. On the way down, she bumped her head on the dashboard. She bit her lip to keep from crying out. After a few minutes of hearing nothing but her own shallow breath, she peeked up over the dashboard.
The subject was gone. “Fuck.” She rubbed her forehead. “Erma, you idiot.”
But she didn’t have to follow Ada one second longer. Her subject had provided what she was looking for: confirmation.
Twenty Five
Just in case, Moretz brought Darcy to the meeting. When Ada answered the dissipating door, she smiled. Stupid man. He hoped by bringing Darcy, Ada would hold back. By including his other daughter, he ensured his embarrassment. By the end of the meeting, she would know what kind of daddy she and Ada shared.
Darcy smiled back at Ada, more out of surprise than genuine pleasure. Moretz smiled as well. A regular smile-fest, and the air hung thick with unspoken words.
Ever the savior, Kressick joined everyone with congenial greetings. He kissed his granddaughter, hugged his son, and ushered them all inside to sit down in the living room.
Moretz waited for Ada to walk out in front of him before he moved. With only the ability to manipulate electronics, he must have felt as if he had brought a knife to a gun fight. He’s right.
But she wasn’t there to fight. Not physically. Unless Moretz pushed it that far. Though she couldn’t see him trying anything. He was big into self-preservation, with others on his list, like Darcy, probably coming in second place.
Everyone sat. Fingers drummed on knees. Darcy yawned, and Ada stared at Moretz. Agonizing minutes passed.
“Ahem.” He gulped loudly. “What are we all doing here, Ada?”
She sat unblinking. Her head was propped in one hand, deep in thought.
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“Ada?” Kressick prompted. It seemed he wanted to say more, but instead he looked down and tapped at his ear.
She deliberately swung her gaze to Moretz. “Sorry, I’m figuring how best to word this.”
“Word what?” A small tremor shook his voice. Darcy’s gaze went from her father to her sister. Then back again. A static charge in the air all but crackled. The lamp next to her father began to glow brighter, a slow burn.
“Are you trying to get me killed?” Ada asked.
“Huh?” Moretz couldn’t look more innocent if he tried.
Kressick shielded his eyes. Darcy moved away from the lamp’s heat.
“You’re being watched by State authorities—” Ada began.
“Yes, as are plenty of citizens—”
“Let me finish.” She emphasized her tone when the lamp light shattered, making a loud pop.
Darcy jumped from her seat, and Moretz’s face slackened. Yet, he lost the scared look an instant later, his mask slipping to reveal his true face. Good, now we can really talk.
“You must have known you were being monitored, a fact you neglected to tell me. Another thing you must have known was what the Sammies would make of me, but you let me continue visiting your home.” She leaned closer to Moretz, who was sitting on the couch opposite her and Kressick. “Why are you trying to get me killed?”
The New-Moretz settled back on the couch. He lacked the tension of the Moretz from five seconds before. His posture was languid, his stare superior. Darcy and Kressick had unanswered questions in their eyes, but Ada was unsurprised. He was the man she expected to meet from the start.
Kressick played with his earlobe. “No,” he said, all but shouting the word.
“I wasn’t asking you,” she snapped. Whatever seemed to bother him occupied nearly all of his attention. The way he’d said ‘no’ was akin to a crazy person yelling at no one in particular.
“Grandpa, are you all right?” Darcy asked. She touched his shoulder when he didn’t answer.
He shook his head, but then nodded. Ada and Moretz ignored Kressick. They were taking part in a silent communication of their own.
