My Next Breath

by Shannon McKenna

  He concentrated on driving for the better part of an extremely long and silent hour before he tried again. “How’s the head?” he asked.

  “Bad.” Her voice was curt. “You were absolutely right about the talisman being compromised. It’s not working for shit anymore. You can say I-told-you-so.”

  “Simone. Just don’t. Are you ready to talk about this? Can you listen to me now?”

  She looked out the window and didn’t reply.

  He sighed. “I just want to explain—”

  “That’s the thing,” she broke in. “I’m just trying to decide if I can stand to listen to any more of your bullshit without killing you.”

  “I won’t lie to you again,” he told her. “There’s no reason. Not anymore.”

  “So why did you lie before?”

  “Lives were at stake. Including yours. If you’ll quit sulking, I swear to God, I’ll tell you everything. But stop spitting fire at me.”

  “Oh no. Did I hurt your feelings? That’s impossible, since you don’t actually have any. Because you’re a manipulative prick and liar and a spy and a thief and an asshole.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Is that the short list?”

  She leaned back with a sigh. “Oh, whatever.”

  Zade dodged a church van going hell for leather. “Can I talk now?”

  Simone rolled her eyes. Audibly. “Only if you entertain me. But first tell me where we’re going. Another holding cell?”

  “We’re going as far as I can get you from those assholes who were dragging you off to a fate that almost certainly sucked a great big bag of dicks. I have a place in the mountains. I go there when I need to chill. It’s very private, totally off the grid, and the property isn’t under my name. Safest place I can think of right now.”

  “Wonderful. So I’ll be all alone in the dark, miles from help and actual electricity. In the company of an industrial spy who hired thugs to attack me. Sounds like an interesting evening.”

  “I can explain,” he said wearily.

  “You keep saying that. Get on with it.”

  “Fine. Did you ever hear of an organization called The Obsidian Group?”

  His ASP, burnt out and sputtering though it was, still registered her instant physical reaction. The sudden drop in blood pressure. The surge of anger.

  “No,” she muttered. “Never heard of it.”

  “Really? Is that why your face went white and your blood pressure dropped?” He reached out and grabbed her hand. “Your palm is icy. And sweating.”

  She yanked her hand away. “Don’t tell me what’s going on inside me.”

  “Got it,” he said. “Moving on. How about the Mayburg Group?”

  “I know of them, yes.” Her voice was clipped and chilly. “Batello does a lot of business with Mayburg. I was even engaged to the CEO’s son for a while. Jordan Holt, remember? Infamous prick fiancé number one.”

  He maneuvered through two lane changes and past an on-ramp with a couple of rolling SUVs, and accelerated just as she started pounding the dashboard.

  “What?” she yelled. “What’s with the loaded silence? Spit it out!”

  “Just trying to find a way into it that makes sense,” he said. “Can’t find one.”

  She shrugged, frowning. “Get it over with. Talk. Put me out of my misery.”

  “I’ll try to be quick.”

  “Good,” she said under her breath.

  He exhaled slowly. “So anyhow. My parents were drug dealers. Heavy into it. Any drug you could name. They ran a pretty big operation.”

  “Um. Okay. I see.” She seemed taken aback. “And what does that have to do with me?”

  “Getting to that,” he said. “When I was about thirteen, their, uh, business interests expanded. They went after major deals. Stepped on some toes in the process. They wouldn’t back down. So one day while my brother and I were at school, someone came over and taught them a lesson.” He paused for a moment. “A permanent lesson.”

  Simone twisted her hands together. “That’s awful.”

  “Anyhow, I found them when I got home.” Zade slowed a little, easing into a long stretch of curving road. The silence got heavier. He blew out a breath and shook his head. “So I went looking for Luke, my brother. He was at basketball practice.”

  “What happened to you two?” she asked.

  “After that? A whole lot and not much of it good,” he said. “No relatives would take us in, so the authorities were talking foster care. Which wasn’t new to us, since Mom and Dad did time in jail now and then. Long story short, we took their stash to sell and ran away.”

  Simone stared straight out the windshield. “Okay,” she said flatly. “Go on.”

  They passed a road sign as he collected his thoughts. Just another half-hour to the turn-off for the cabin. “We actually did all right for a few months,” he told her. “Then one day, we got approached by this guy. Said he had an amazing opportunity for us. We’d be the future of humanity. We thought he was nuts, or maybe that he just wanted us to suck his dick. But we were hungry, and he offered bacon cheeseburgers. So we figured we’d order a huge lunch and then scram.” He shook his head. “I don’t know how he drugged those burgers. I took them off the steam tray myself. He never handled them. But even so, we woke up in a locked facility.”

  “And?” Her voice sharpened. “What facility?”

  “A research facility,” he said. “As in secret research. An attempt to create extreme supersoldiers. Using nanotech and gene manipulation and brain stimulation and whatnot. We were perfect for the Ratcatcher’s band.”

  “Who?”

  “The guy running the weirdest part of the program. Braxton was his name. We were his lab rats, so he was the Ratcatcher. He did his own recruiting. He had very specific requirements for test subjects in terms of size, strength, IQ, and Luke and I fit the bill. We were both big for our age and perpetually pissed off. That’s what he liked. Him and his higher-ups in the Obsidian Group.”

  He felt it buzz in the air between them once again. A surge of vicious irritation. “I don’t get why you’re telling me this,” she said.

  He was dismayed by that dead flatness of her voice. Maybe he’d hit an aversion trigger. Some weird imbed.

  “The Obsidian Group funded those experiments,” Zade said.

  There was silence. Followed by more silence. The road unspooled ahead. A quick glance at her face was not encouraging. Flat mouth. Rigid jaw. They must have done some tricky aversion brain stim. Rigged it so any mention of Obsidian caused her distress.

  “What does this have to do with me?” she demanded.

  He hesitated. “Everything.”

  She shook her head. “Then I’m missing something. I got nothing.”

  “It’s an experience we have in common,” he said. “They did it to you, too.”

  Her face was blank when he glanced her way.

  “No,” she said finally. There was a thin edge in her voice. “No, Zade. You lost me. You’re making no sense.”

  “I know it’s hard to take in,” he said. “But it’s the truth.”

  She shook her head, so hard it seemed like she was trying to shake his words right out of it. “Pull over,” she said.

  “Okay.” He slowed down and drove onto a wide shoulder, but kept the engine running so he could swing back on the road and keep going if she lost her temper over some unknown trigger. No telling where this discussion might go.

  “So,” she said. “You say were part of a secret illicit experiment designed to boost your normal abilities. That’s what you’re telling me.”

  She was thinking aloud, not looking at him, so Zade took the opportunity to use the Lock All button. Just in case she decided to jump out. “Correct.”

  “And were they stronger after the experiments?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  He knew, with his hyped-up perceptions, that she was thinking about his combat skills. And what had happened at her house. But she was fighting it.<
br />
  “Tell me something,” she said. “How much of it do you remember?”

  “Every fucking second. It was hell.”

  She nodded. “So what makes you think that I would forget an experience like that when you remember it so well?”

  “You forget if they want you to forget. They didn’t bother wiping my memories because I was disposable. Most likely they didn’t expect me to last long enough for it to be an issue. You were different. You were modified for the long term, probably at the time of that convenient car accident that you don’t remember.”

  “You’re taking private things that I told you and twisting them to suit your crazy story,” she said. “You know nothing about my memories.”

  “Yes, I do,” he said. “Like that noise in your head. It’s louder right now, after what I just told you, right? Like a freight train? No matter how loud it gets, it can always get louder. There’s no escaping. Or at least I never found a way.”

  Her face was still expressionless, but her lower lip trembled. She bit it to keep it still.

  “The head pain,” he went on. “I know it. Like a vise, tightening with the screws right at my temples. And the anxiety. The ultimate comet of death, always barreling right toward you.”

  “I told you about my symptoms this morning,” she said stiffly. “Now you’re just using that to manipulate me. Like you have from the very start.”

  “No,” he said. “But you know what I’m talking about. Your heart’s racing triple time. I can hear it.”

  “Well, yeah. You’re a madman. You fucking kidnapped me. And now you’re trying to drag me into your psychotic fantasy world.”

  “Not. You’re in pain. Which happens when you fight your programming mods. Whenever you resist a direct order, you get it hard. Like a sledgehammer to the skull.”

  She lifted her hand to her temples. Her face contracted. “Zade, turn this car around,” she said. “Drive me back to the nearest town.”

  He clenched his jaw. “You don’t want to do that, Simone.”

  “Don’t tell me what I want or don’t want. I’m not signing up for your fictional version of my life. I’m not getting sucked in again.”

  Zade looked out the window. There were no longer any other vehicles on the road. They were all alone now, this far from the city, climbing higher and deeper into the mountains. He let the silence settle around them. Then he broke it.

  “How about the nightmares?” he asked.

  She swiveled her head, her eyes wide. “What?”

  “You had one last night. I saw you having it. Was it the white room?”

  Her heart thudded even louder. “What the hell do you mean?”

  “There are some nightmares we all have. And by the way, they’re not actual nightmares. They’re stress flashbacks. The white room is one of them.”

  “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

  She was lying. The tremor in her voice gave her away.

  He pressed relentlessly on. “Restraints on your wrists and ankles. That big smelly helmet keeping your head immobile. Sensors all over your head and chest. That yellow IV drip, like a big bag of piss. The rubber thing they clamp onto your chin so you won’t convulse and break your neck. We all dream about the white room.”

  She swallowed painfully, as if her throat was dry. “How did you … I’ve never told anyone about that. It’s like I can’t speak of it. Even if I try.”

  “You don’t have to tell me,” he said. “I’ve been there. Many times.”

  “Oh, my God.” She pressed her hands against her face, rocking in her seat. “You won’t be happy until I’m raving in a padded room, will you?”

  He shook his head. “This won’t make you crazy. It’ll free you. I knew you’d been modified in the bar as soon as your stepdad called. You acted like you’d been conditioned to obey a summons, but you resisted. Because you’re tough as nails.”

  “No,” she said fiercely. “I’m just—I’ve been having a lot of headaches lately. That was why I ordered the test.”

  “Yeah? But you don’t have Frey-Moller. And I’d bet serious money that your mother didn’t have it, either. What happened was she got modified and they fucked it up. That rare disease explanation is horseshit. Definitely the kind of story they spin when things go sideways.”

  “Shut up.” Her voice shook. “Just shut the fuck up. Leave my mother out of this. You lied and spied on me. You don’t get to tear my life to pieces and then talk about her. Shut up, or I swear to God, I will rip your head off your neck.”

  He closed his eyes and gave her a moment. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But I had to tell you. The truth will set you free—”

  “I said to shut up!”

  “The truth will set you free,” he repeated. “But first it will fuck you hard.”

  Chapter 18

  “Nine in all,” Phillip Holt said. “He neutralized nine ultimate generation operatives. Plus your bodyguard. A former Special Forces soldier, no less.”

  “Unfortunately, that’s correct.” Despite his humiliation, Rand stayed calm, following Holt’s progress constantly with his eyes as he paced around the conference table.

  He didn’t dare turn his back on the man.

  “Jordan, take note,” Holt said to his son. “This is the downside of delegating. Letting supposedly competent people make decisions with no oversight is asking for trouble. That’s exactly what we have now. Big trouble.”

  Rand bristled at the man’s lecturing tone. “Nine operatives seemed like more than enough to take down one man,” he said defensively. “After what happened at Fayette’s, I decided—”

  “You misjudged catastrophically. This has to be fixed, fast. And as quietly as possible. Or there will be unpleasant consequences for all of us.”

  Rand was cowed into silence, which allowed the audio from the video clip of the recent disaster at Simone’s house to be heard. Holt had set the recording to loop. Shouts, shrieks, howls, and grunts of pain were the backdrop of this conversation.

  Holt let out a sharp sigh of annoyance and paused the clip. By some evil chance, it froze on Rand as he rushed through the frame. Eyes wide with alarm, mouth slack. It was an extremely unflattering angle for his chin.

  “The DNA from the dart tips didn’t match anything in the database,” Jordan said. “And the facial recog bots haven’t matched him to any missing rogue operatives, either. Though I suppose he could’ve had plastic surgery.”

  “The database won’t help us if he’s a Midlands escapee,” Holt said. “We have all their control codes on file, but still no way of matching the codes to the respective test subjects. Those paranoid idiot researchers kept all their data on-site back then. It was lost in the fire. All of it.”

  Rand jumped in. “So there’s no telling even how many of them got away.”

  Holt shot him a quelling look. Rand took the hint and shut up. Baby boy Jordan had his father’s full attention.

  “His age fits, for Midlands,” Jordan said, tapping his pencil against his lip. “They used mostly teenage runaways back then. The lab facilities in Asia and Eastern Europe are starting them much younger now.” He looked around. “They die young anyway, right?”

  “His resistance to Corbatrix suggests that he’s from one of the extreme lines of experimentation,” Holt mused. “One dose of Corbatrix would kill an unmod. It killed your security man, correct?”

  “Yes,” Rand said. “Kruger was dead in minutes.”

  Holt grunted absently, his gaze faraway as he drummed his fingertips on the conference table. “Hmm. The drug knocked out all the modified operatives that took a dart, even though the doses were almost exhausted. But our mystery man was still on his feet after six fully loaded Corbatrix darts. That narrows the field quite a bit. I’m thinking he’s from the early days, and I’m betting heavily on Midlands. He could be one of Braxton’s test subjects. Braxton always pushed the mods to the absolute limit. No regard for safety whatsoever.”

  �
�Braxton? You mean the swamp troll?” Jordan looked pained. “I refuse to deal with him.”

  “He survived the Midlands massacre,” Holt said pointedly. “There are no other researchers from that facility still alive who had contact with those rebels. If this man is from the Midlands facility, Braxton might recognize him.”

  Rand agreed with him, but he knew better than to open his mouth.

  “Which would help us how?” Jordan asked. “He’s obsessed with disgusting gene mutation research. He’s off breeding mice with two heads, or something perverted like that. He’s certifiably insane. Plus, he creeps the shit out of me.”

  “That’s beside the point,” Holt said impatiently. “Braxton would remember the control codes, if this rogue is one of his.”

  Rand looked from one to the other of them. “But you said you had all the verbal control codes in the database. Why don’t we just try the word combinations until we find the right one to take him down?”

  Holt shot him a look. “Pay attention. We’re talking Midlands, remember? The rebels firebombed the place. The data was lost. All of it. The research, the subjects’ previous identities, everything. Unless Braxton recognizes this man and drags useful data out of his own decaying brain. Do you want to recite a long, long list of possible control codes while this operative is running toward you with a knife?”

  “Ah, no. I just meant—”

  “I don’t give a shit. Do me a favor and be quiet until you have something useful to share. In fact, why don’t you just leave? You’ve done enough damage today. Take a break.”

  Rand gathered his courage. “I don’t need to. But … fine, then. I’ll just get started coordinating the search for—”

  “No. You will coordinate nothing.”

  Rand’s mouth worked helplessly. “Someone has to.”

  “Not you.” Holt’s voice was crystal sharp. “You screwed up, Rand. She doesn’t trust you now and she never will. Her obedience to your voice patterns and the command chime sequence is gone. Reconditioning her is impossible.”

  Cold fear coalesced in him like a knot pulled tight. “Just let me try,” Rand pleaded. “Give me a chance.”

  “You’re done here. Just go.”