The Chemist

by Stephenie Meyer

  L'Enfant Plaza was one of the biggest and most chaotic stations on the line. When the door opened, Alex put her arm around Daniel's waist and led him out. He draped one arm over her shoulder for support. This didn't surprise her. The tryptamine she'd injected him with made people disoriented, acquiescent, and quite friendly. He would follow her lead as long as she didn't push him too hard. The drug was distantly related to a class of barbiturates that laypeople called truth serum and that had a few effects similar to Ecstasy; both were good for breaking down inhibitions and inducing cooperation. She liked this particular synthesis because of the confusion. Daniel would feel incapable of decision making and therefore would do whatever she told him to until it wore off--or unless she asked him to do something that really pushed against the walls of his comfort zone.

  This was easier than she'd hoped, thanks to the unexpected tete-a-tete. She'd planned to stick him, then play the old Is there a doctor in the house? Why, yes, I happen to be a doctor! routine to get him to go with her initially. It would have worked, but he would not have been this docile.

  "Okay, Daniel, how are you feeling? Can you breathe?"

  "Sure. Breathing's good."

  She walked quickly with him. This drug rarely made anyone sick, but there were always exceptions. She glanced up to check his color. He was still pale but his lips hadn't taken on the greenish hue that would presage nausea.

  "Do you feel sick to your stomach?" she asked.

  "No. No, I'm fine..."

  "I'm afraid you're not. I'm going to take you to work with me, if that's okay. I want to make sure this isn't serious."

  "Okay... no. I have school?"

  He was keeping pace with her easily despite his disorientation. His legs were about twice as long as hers.

  "We'll tell them what's happening. You have a number for the school?"

  "Yes, Stacey--in the office."

  "We'll call her while we walk."

  This would slow them down, but there was no help for it; she had to allay his concern so he would stay docile.

  "Good idea." He nodded, then pulled an old BlackBerry out of his pocket and fumbled with the buttons.

  She took it gently from his hand. "What's the last name for Stacey?"

  "It's under 'Front desk.'"

  "I see it. Okay, I'll dial for you. Here, tell Stacey you're sick. You're going to the doctor."

  He took the phone obediently, then waited for Stacey to answer.

  "Hello," he said. "Stacey. I'm Daniel. Yes, Mr. Beach. Not feeling so good, going to see Dr. Alex. Sorry. Hate to dump this on you. Sorry, thanks. Yes, get better, for sure."

  She flinched a little when he used her name, but that was just habit. It didn't matter. She wouldn't be Alex again for a while, that was all.

  It was a risk, taking him out of school. Something de la Fuentes might notice if he was keeping close tabs on his messenger of death. But surely he would not raise the alarm to critical over one missed Friday. When Daniel showed up intact Monday morning, the drug lord would be reassured.

  She took the phone from Daniel and pocketed it.

  "I'll hold this for you, okay? You look unsteady and I don't want you to lose it."

  "Okay." He looked around again and frowned at the giant concrete ceiling arcing overhead. "Where are we going?"

  "My office, remember? We're going to get on this train now." She didn't see any faces from the other train in this car. If they were following, they were doing it from a distance. "Look, here's a seat. You can rest." She helped him settle, surreptitiously dropping his phone by her foot and then nudging it farther under the seat with her shoe.

  Tracking a cell phone was the very easiest way to find someone without having to do any work. Cell phones were a trap she'd always avoided. It was like volunteering to tag yourself for the enemy.

  Well, she also didn't really have anyone to call.

  "Thanks," Daniel said. He still had one arm around her, though now, with him sitting and her standing, it was at her waist. He stared up at her dizzily and then added, "I like your face."

  "Oh. Um, thank you."

  "I like it a lot."

  The woman sitting next to Daniel looked over at Alex and examined her face. Great.

  The woman seemed unimpressed.

  Daniel leaned his forehead against her hip and closed his eyes. The proximity was disconcerting on a few different levels, but also oddly comforting. It had been a long time since any human being had touched her with affection, even if this affection had come out of a test tube. Regardless, she couldn't let him fall asleep yet.

  "What do you teach, Daniel?"

  He angled his face up, his cheek still resting on her hip.

  "Mostly English. That's my favorite."

  "Really? I was horrible at all the humanities. I liked science best."

  He made a face. "Science!"

  She heard the woman beside him mutter, "Drunk," to her other neighbor.

  "Shouldn't have told you I was a teacher." He sighed heavily.

  "Why not?"

  "Women don't like that. Randall says, 'Never volunteer the information.'" The way he said the words made it clear he was quoting this Randall verbatim.

  "But teaching is a noble profession. Educating the future doctors and scientists of the world."

  He looked up at her sadly. "There's no money in it."

  "Not every woman is so mercenary. Randall is dating the wrong type."

  "My wife liked money. Ex-wife."

  "I'm sorry to hear that."

  He sighed again and closed his eyes. "It broke my heart."

  Another twinge of pity. Of sadness. He would never say these things, she knew, if he weren't high on her Ecstasy-truth serum hybrid. He was speaking more clearly now; the drug wasn't wearing off, his mind was just adapting to working around it.

  She patted his cheek and made her voice cheery. "If she was that easily bought, she probably isn't worth crying over."

  His eyes opened again. They were a very gentle hazel, an even mix of green and soft gray. She tried to picture them intense--fitting under the baseball cap of the self-assured man meeting with de la Fuentes in the photos--and failed.

  She didn't know what she would do if he actually had dissociative identity disorder. She'd never worked with that before.

  "You're right," he said. "I know you are. I need to see her for what she really was, not what I imagined she was."

  "Exactly. We build up these ideas of people, create the one we want to be with, and then try to keep the real person inside the false mold. It doesn't always work out well."

  Gibberish. She had no idea what she was saying. She'd been in one semiserious relationship in her whole life, and it hadn't lasted long. School had been prioritized before the guy, just like work had been prioritized before everything else for six years. Like how she now prioritized breathing over everything else. She had a problem with obsessiveness.

  "Alex?"

  "Yes?"

  "Am I dying?"

  She smiled reassuringly. "No. If I thought you were dying, I would have called an ambulance. You'll be fine. I just want to double-check."

  "Okay. Will I have to have blood taken?"

  "Maybe."

  He sighed. "Needles make me nervous."

  "It will be fine."

  She didn't like that this bothered her--lying to him. But there was something about his simple trust, the way he seemed to ascribe the best motives to everything she did... She had to snap out of it.

  "Thank you, Alex. Really."

  "Just doing my job." Not a lie.

  "Do you think you'll call me?" he asked hopefully.

  "Daniel, we're definitely going to spend an evening together," she promised. If he hadn't been drugged, he would have heard the edge in her voice and seen the ice in her eyes.

  CHAPTER 5

  The rest went almost too smoothly... did that mean something? Her paranoia level was already so high, it was hard to say if this new worry elevated it or
not.

  He got into the cab at the Rosslyn station without protest. She knew how he felt--she and Barnaby had tried out most of the nonlethal preparations to have some concrete experience with what they could do. This one was like dreaming a pleasant dream, where problems and worries were for someone else to figure out, and all one needed was a hand to hold and a nudge in the right direction. In their notes they'd nicknamed it Follow the Leader, though it had a more impressive name on the official reports.

  It was a relaxing trip, and if it weren't for the fact that she desperately needed her inhibitions, even back then, she might have indulged again.

  She got him talking about the volleyball team he coached--he'd asked if he'd be back at school in time for practice--and he spent the entire cab ride telling her about the girls until she felt she knew all their names and their strengths on the court by heart. The cabbie paid no attention, humming along to some song too low for her to make out.

  Daniel seemed mostly oblivious to the travel, but at a particularly long red light, he looked up and frowned.

  "Your office is far away."

  "Yes, it is," she agreed. "It's a hell of a commute."

  "Where do you live?"

  "Bethesda."

  "That's a nice place. Columbia Heights is not so nice. My part of it, at least."

  The cab started moving again. She was pleased; the plan was going very well. Even if they'd clocked her getting on and off the last train, they'd be hard-pressed to keep track of one cab in a sea of identical cabs twisting together through rush hour. Preparation felt like a magic spell sometimes. Like you could force events into the shape you wanted just by planning them thoroughly enough.

  Daniel wasn't as talkative now. This was the second phase of the drug's action, and he would be getting more tired. She needed him to stay awake just a little bit longer.

  "Why did you give me your number?" she asked when his lids started to droop.

  He smiled dreamily. "I've never done that before."

  "Me either."

  "I'll probably be embarrassed about it later."

  "Not if I call you, though, right?"

  "Maybe. I don't know, it was out of character."

  "So why did you do it?"

  His soft eyes never left hers. "I like your face."

  "You mentioned that."

  "I really wanted to see it again. That made me brave."

  She frowned, guilt pulsing.

  "Does that sound weird?" He seemed worried.

  "No, it sounds very sweet. Not many men would tell a woman something like that."

  He blinked owlishly. "I wouldn't usually. Too... cowardly."

  "You seem pretty brave to me."

  "I feel different. I think it's you. I felt different as soon as I saw you smile."

  As soon as I roofied you, she amended in her head.

  "Well, that's quite a compliment," she said. "And here we go, can you get up?"

  "Sure. This is the airport."

  "Yes, that's where my car is."

  His brow furrowed, then cleared. "Did you just get back from a trip?"

  "I just got into town, yes."

  "I go on trips sometimes. I like to go to Mexico."

  She glanced up sharply. He was staring ahead, watching where he was walking. There was no sign of distress on his face. If she pushed him toward a secret, anything that was a pressure point, his docility would turn to suspicion. He might latch on to another stranger as his leader and try to escape. He might get agitated and call attention to her.

  "What do you like about Mexico?" she asked carefully.

  "The weather is hot and dry. I enjoy that. I've never lived in a really hot place, but I think I would like it. I get burned, though. I've never been able to tan. You look like you've spent some time in the sun."

  "No, just born this way." She got her coloring from her absentee father. Genetic testing had informed her that he was a mix of many things, predominantly Korean, Hispanic, and Welsh. She'd always wondered what he'd looked like. The combination with her mother's Scottish background had created in her an oddly ordinary face--she could have been from almost anywhere.

  "That must be nice. I have to use sunblock, a lot of sunblock. Or I peel. It's disgusting. I shouldn't tell you that."

  She laughed. "I promise to forget it. What else do you like?"

  "Working with my hands. I help build houses. Not in a skilled way; I just hammer where they tell me to. But the people are so kind and generous. I love that part."

  It was all very convincing, and she felt a thrill of fear. How could he stick to the story so well, so effortlessly, with the chemicals moving through his system right now? Unless he'd built up a resistance somehow. Unless her department had created an antidote, unless they'd prepped him and he was playing her. The goose bumps stood up on the back of her neck. It didn't have to be the department that had prepared him. It could be his interactions with de la Fuentes. Who knew what kind of results strange drugs interacting with her own would have? She touched her tongue to the false cap on her back tooth. The department would have just killed her if that were the goal. De la Fuentes would probably want to punish her for attempting to interrupt his plans. But how would he know in advance? How could Daniel have made her as an opposing agent so quickly? She didn't even actually work for anyone anymore.

  Stick to the plan, she told herself. Get him in the car and you're in the clear. Sort of.

  "I like the houses there, too," he was saying. "You never close the windows, just let the air blow through. Some don't even have glass. It's a lot nicer than Columbia Heights, I can tell you. Maybe not nicer than Bethesda. I bet doctors live in nice houses."

  "Not me. Boring vanilla apartment. I don't spend much time there, so it doesn't matter."

  He nodded sagely. "You're out saving lives."

  "Well, not really. I'm not an ER doctor or anything."

  "You're saving my life." Wide gray-green eyes, total trust. She knew that if this behavior was genuine, it was the drug talking. But it still made her uneasy.

  She could only keep playing her role.

  "I'm just checking up on you. You're not dying." That much was true. The boys back at the department might have ended up killing this man. At least she could spare him that. Though... after she prevented the catastrophe, Daniel Beach would never see the outside of a prison cell again. Which made her feel...

  A million dead. Innocent tiny babies. Sweet elderly grandmas. The First Horseman of the Apocalypse on a white steed.

  "Oh, a bus too," he said mildly.

  "This one takes us to my car. Then you won't have to walk anymore."

  "I don't mind. I like walking with you." He smiled down at her and his feet tangled on his way up the steps. She steadied him before he could fall, then maneuvered him into the closest seat on the mostly empty bus.

  "Do you like foreign films?" he asked, apropos of nothing.

  "Um, some of them, I guess."

  "There's a good theater at the university. Maybe if the dinner goes well, we could try some subtitles the next time."

  "I'll make a deal with you," she said. "If you still like me after one evening together, I will definitely see a movie I can't understand with you."

  He smiled, his lids drooping. "I'll still like you."

  This was totally ridiculous. There should have been some way to direct this conversation away from flirting. Why was she the one feeling like the monster here? Okay, she was a monster, but she'd come to terms with that, mostly, and she knew she was the kind of monster that needed to exist for the sake of the common good. In some ways, she was like a normal physician--she had to cause pain to save lives. Like cutting off a gangrenous limb to save the rest of the body, just disassociated. Pain here, savior elsewhere. And elsewhere was much more deserving of the save.

  Rationalizing, as she always had, so that she could live with herself. She never outright lied to herself, though. She knew she didn't exist in some moral gray area; she existed enti
rely in the black. But the only thing worse than Alex doing her job well was someone else doing it badly. Or no one doing it at all.

  But even if she fully embraced the label monster, she was never the kind of monster who killed innocent people. She wasn't even going to kill this very guilty one... who was still looking up at her from under his long curls with big hazel puppy-dog eyes.

  Dead babies, she chanted to herself. Dead babies, dead babies, dead babies.

  She'd never wanted to be a spy or work undercover, but now she saw that she was also emotionally unsuited for the job. Apparently she had too much gratuitous sympathy floating around inside her body, which was more than ironic. This is why you never talked to your subject before you talked to him.

  "Okay, Daniel, off we go. Can you stand up?"

  "Mm-hmm. Oh, here, let me take your bag."

  He lifted a hand weakly toward her briefcase.

  "I got it." Though in truth her fingers were pins and needles around the handle. "You need to focus on your balance right now."

  "I'm really tired."

  "I know, look, my car is right there. The silver one."

  "There are a lot of silver ones."

  Exactly the point. "It's right here. Okay, let's put you in the back so you can lie down. Why don't you take off your coat, I don't want you to get too warm. And the shoes, there we go." Less for her to manage later. "Bend your knees up so your legs will fit. Perfect."

  He had his head pillowed on the backpack now, which surely wasn't that comfortable, but he was past caring.

  "You're so nice, Alex," he murmured, his eyes closed now. "You're the nicest woman I ever met."

  "I think you're nice, too, Daniel," she admitted.

  "Thanks," he half articulated, and then he was asleep.

  Quickly, she pulled the beige throw out of the trunk. It was the same color as the seats. She covered him with it. She pulled a syringe from her bag and inserted it into a vein in his ankle, hunching her body so it blocked any outside view of what she was doing. Follow the Leader would wear off in an hour or so, and she needed him to sleep longer than that.

  Not an agent, she decided. An agent might have played along with her kidnap drug, but he would never have let himself get knocked out like this. Just a mass murderer for hire, then.

  *

  THE TEMPORARY LAB she had created was in rural West Virginia. She'd rented a nice little farmhouse with a milking barn that had been a very long time without cows. The exterior of the barn was a white composite siding that matched the house; inside, the walls and ceiling were lined in aluminum. The floors were sealed concrete with conveniently spaced drains. There was a little bunk room in the back; it had been advertised as extra space for visiting guests, delightfully rustic. She was sure there were many naive travelers who would find the rusticity charming, but all she cared about was that the electricity and water were hooked up and running. The farmhouse and barn were situated in the middle of a 240-acre apple orchard, which was in turn surrounded by more acres of farmland. The closest neighbor was over a mile away. The owners of this orchard were making money during the off-season by renting out the space to city dwellers who wanted to pretend they were roughing it.