“Did you ever fight with Karl?” I ask.
Pearl laughs. “Of course! Didn’t you grow up with siblings?”
“I had siblings, but I never met any of them. My parents weren’t allowed to conceive their next child until after I was shipped away to be raised. I know from my birth certificate that they were assigned to have four children, but I don’t know if I was the first or the last.”
“Did you have other children you grew up with?”
“No. When Sapphiri agents are old, they’re either disposed or they’re given the assignment to raise a child. But, they don’t stay with any one child very long. Children are moved around every few months to a year. You never know how long you’re going to stay with someone.”
“That’s terrible for the child’s mental well-being.”
“Probably.”
“No probably about that,” she says firmly.
I scoff and look out the window. “Don’t feel sorry for me,” I tell her. “It’s the system we’ve been using for centuries. The Sapphiri have done a lot of research around what kinds of processes make the best agents.”
“Still.”
“You’re avoiding my question, though. You fought with Karl?”
“Of course.”
“Why do you say of course?” I ask.
“If we don’t disagree with the people we’re close to, are we really close to them?”
I think for a minute. I never fought with Cassi. I don’t remember her ever disagreeing with anything I said. If what Pearl said is true, was I close to Cassi?
“I guess I haven’t been close to very many people,” I say.
But I thought I was close to Cassi. What does it mean that we never fought? She gave me whatever I wanted, but is Pearl right that it’s weird she put a video game console in her front room? Was she really trying to get information from me? What information would I have that would be valuable to her? Even if she was another Sapphiri?
I jump when Pearl’s warm hand slides over mine. She squeezes my hand, then returns hers to the steering wheel. “I’m sorry, Bob,” she says.
I’ve been lonely my entire life, but until I felt her hand squeeze mine, I didn’t realize it was possible to feel otherwise.
* * *
Pearl parks a few blocks from the target location and locks the car. It’s a different car—we sold the compromised car a few weeks ago. It’s a shame, really, because Pearl insisted we buy an older car this time. This one is at least ten years old.
But, if the guy who came to kill us did what he was supposed to do, he sent in pictures of the car before he approached Cassi’s house and put a tracking device on it.
Snow flurries fill the sky as we make our way the few blocks to the warehouse. We don’t see a soul, which means if anyone is on the lookout, we’ll be easy to spot.
But, Pearl said she hasn’t seen any guard posts. That doesn’t mean they aren’t there. It just means we can’t see them because we can’t see inside the surrounding buildings. I pull the sweatshirt hood farther over my head and look around warily. The road looks deserted.
Putting in cameras and guards can attract attention. The Sapphiri only get attention when they want it. But, usually the Sapphiri use cameras.
When we get to the block with the warehouse, I finally see the cameras. I whistle two short whistles to signal to Pearl. She nods and pulls the sweatshirt hood over her head. Her black hair falls out of the sweatshirt in a jumbled way that leaves her face completely hidden. I hope she can see well enough to keep us safe.
We’re on camera. I’m not sure we need the sweatshirts. I’m sure they will recognize us, especially if we start towards the warehouse.
“There are cameras on the other side, too,” Pearl mumbles. “But, I haven’t seen guards any of the times I’ve been here.”
Which is a lot, because I’ve seen her buy a lot of different sweatshirts over the past few days. I didn’t realize there wasn’t anyone else on the streets around here, or I would have put a stop to her coming. We stand out like a sore thumb.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Pearl says.
“What?” I ask, surprised.
“You’re thinking about the fact that no one is here. Relax. Every other time I’ve come, there have been others here. Today is different. It’s cold and it’s snowing. And it’s the middle of the day.”
Am I really that obvious? I grunt in response.
When we get close to the building, Pearl ducks behind a dumpster. I see her just in time to follow. The dumpster sits on the side of the street, up next to the fence that surrounds the building we’re trying to get to. The building is two or three stories high, made of white brick, and square. Most of the windows are either boarded up or have broken glass shards surrounding the edges. About five feet of broken concrete and weeds lie between the warehouse and the fence.
Pearl moves silently along the side of the dumpster until she is up against the fence. I crouch next to her, wishing she would have told me at least part of the plan.
She pulls some wire cutters out of her sweatshirt and cuts the fence. It falls apart quickly, and we jump across the concrete to get to the building. Pearl’s entrance is right at a broken window that doesn’t have any glass around it. Neither of us get cut as we push ourselves through the window and into the building.
The building is dark and deserted. The floors echo as we tiptoe from room to room, using a flashlight Pearl brought. We systematically check out the first floor and find it empty.
“If there’s anything here, it must be downstairs,” Pearl whispers.
I nod, and she leads the way through the building to the stairs. I keep my hand in my pocket on my gun. If I draw the gun, it would alert anyone who is watching us that we are intruders. However, if I don’t have it at the ready, I could be too slow if this ends up in a shootout.
I’d be willing to bet that Pearl’s flashlight doubles as a weapon. They should give cool stuff like that to Sapphiri agents.
At the bottom of the stairs, we find a locked door. I stare at it, not sure what to do. Do we break it? There’s no way it’s not alarmed.
Pearl, of course, is a mile ahead of me. She pulls something out of her pocket and picks the lock.
“How many cool gadgets do you have?” I whisper as the door lock clicks open.
“More than you Sapphiri agents, even the good ones like you, could ever dream of.” Pearl keeps her laugh quiet. She pushes open the door and we walk into a dark hallway, shutting the door behind us. We walk down the hall past a series of locked but labeled doors. H, G, F, E, D. We turn the corner and find an open door at the end of the hallway.
We move slowly now, and Pearl puts her flashlight away and pulls out her real gun. She pushes the hood off her head and pulls her hair out of her face.
“You go first,” she whispers. “I’ll cover.”
“I’m not sure that’s fair,” I say, but Pearl just swings the gun in my direction and then points at the door with it. I’ve seen her with a gun. I don’t need to argue. I pull the hood off my face and walk down the hall cautiously.
As I approach the room, I see someone inside with her back to the door. She wears a white lab coat, and she has brilliantly bright red hair.
I know who she is.
Tara. I don’t even have to wonder how she got tied up with the Sapphiri again. My reports about her said she’d cheat, lie, steal, and do just about whatever she had to do to get ahead.
Just the kind of person the Sapphiri would want to have working for them.
Once I’m close enough to see into the rest of the room and verify that she is alone, I call out to her. She turns and squints into the hallway until she recognizes me.
“Oh! Hi Bob. I didn’t know you were the inspector.”
“Yeah. Sorry I’m a little early.”
Pearl grunts her approval behind me. I smile. I thought it was a brilliant move on my part as well.
Tara stands and stretches. “No problem! I’m g
lad actually, because I want to get out of here a little early. Hot date tonight.”
She gets up and strides across the room towards me, heels clicking on the floor. As she walks, her lab coat falls off her shoulders and then onto her arms. Underneath the coat Tara is wearing a racy outfit. One thing I remember about Tara is that she is hot. Nothing compared to Cassi, and not nearly as kind. But, still. Wow. She gives me a hug, and I enjoy every second of it.
“It’s been a long time,” she says, holding on to me longer than one would expect for a I-haven’t-seen-you-in-forever hug. “I never got to thank you for lining up this job for me.”
So that’s how they got her here. I never set her up with any kind of job. Well, aside from the report I wrote about her, that is.
She steps away from our embrace and looks questioningly at Pearl. “Oh yeah.” I clear my throat. “This is my associate…” I try to think of what to call her. I can’t give anything away. Pearl does look a little like Karl, though the fact that he weighs two hundred more pounds than she does hopefully hides some of the resemblance.
“Does your girlfriend here have a name?” Tara coos, extending her hand.
Pearl bristles at the suggestion she’s with me, but she does manage to get a smile out and a laugh. Impressive.
“Yes, I’m Trevor.”
“Trevor? That’s so cute! Just like the code name for this place,” Tara says.
Pearl smiles. Her suspicions are confirmed. She’s good.
“We can’t stay long,” I say. “Lots to do.” And an inspecting agent to beat out of here.
“Of course, of course.” Tara leads the way back into the hallway and flips on the light switch. She pulls out a keyring and opens the door next to us. Inside, there is a lab work bench, as well as a computer and a couple of tall rolling chairs. She hops on one and slides across the room.
Pearl rolls her eyes and slides a chair over, with her hands, before climbing onto it. I follow and stand next to the two ladies. Being tall, I don’t have to worry about them getting in my way, and by standing I’m ready if anyone shows up for an inspection before we get out of here.
“Now, the samples you sent all have a single mutation in one gene,” Tara says. She makes a few clicks on her machine and finds what she’s looking for. I stare blankly at the lines and colors on the screen.
Tara laughs. “Okay, I’ll give you the simpler version,” she says.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“You look as confused as Karl Stapp did the first time I kissed him.”
I look at Pearl as Tara turns back to her computer. Pearl’s eyes are smoking. She needs to be careful and not give us away. Not that she’s wrong about Tara. Still, she doesn’t need to worry about Tara getting close to her brother. Not anymore. Hopefully she can stay focused on us getting out of here alive.
One of the few smart things Karl ever did was getting away from Tara. Maybe the only smart thing I ever saw him do.
“The bottom line is that all the samples you sent me have a mutation in a gene that controls their microbiome,” Tara says. “This gene allows for a higher concentration of some kinds of bacteria that are generally wiped out by the human host. This doesn’t matter too much, not usually. It just means that their gut bacteria are a little different than everyone else’s.
“But it suddenly matters when you inject your virus, virus SAF1. The virus is taken orally, right, and it has to go through the gut before it’s absorbed. Well, these bacteria in the gut see the virus and have a hay day. I just confirmed that they metabolize that virus better than anything else in this world can. So, that idiot girl who survived the virus only got a fraction of the regular dose. That’s why she was able to fight it off and come out alive. Too bad she died in that biking accident, though. I would have loved to do some more experiments on her gut.”
“Yeah, that was too bad,” I mumble, not bothering to mention that she’s shivering in a tent just outside the city. “So, do you have a solution?”
“Of course.” Tara yawns, rolling her shoulders back as she stretches and pushes her chest out. “Just coat the virus delivery with an antibacterial coat. You’ll have to deliver the virus deliberately to those with the mutation, but everyone else should be fine once we release the airborne version.”
“The airborne version?” I say before I can stop myself. Pearl was right?
“Duh! What else have I been working on down here for the past year?” Tara rolls her eyes. “I have twenty stockrooms full now, along with the last stockroom full of the coated delivery packets. And, I made a few more batches of immunization. Just to be sure. I’m ready for my payday, and if you can pass on the word to those that matter, I wouldn’t mind an extra bonus for beating the deadline.”
She grins, and it’s an evil grin. The grin that she gave me when I told her about my plan to get rid of Karl. She made a lot of money from that business deal.
I’m ready to go. I look at Pearl. She nods and gets up to go as well. “Do you want to ride with us back to headquarters?” she asks.
Tara just laughs. “No, I’m headed back to Oakland. Downtown traffic at this time of the day can get a bit gnarly.”
Once back in the car, we wait and watch until we see Tara leave. We don’t stay for the real inspector to show up, though we’re relieved Tara made it out before he showed.
Pearl hits the gas and we leave the city and go back to the countryside. I open my mouth to say something about the virus, but Pearl speaks first.
“What was that woman doing touching my brother?”
I decide silence is the best option.
“I mean, what did she have that he wanted?”
I thought that was obvious.
“What an evil, awful woman! Did she ever open up to him? Was she his friend? What do you know about this, Bob?”
“Nothing,” I lie. I decide that I would rather go back to the Sapphiri now and let them kill me than tell Pearl about Karl’s relationship with Tara. Or that I paid her to do it.
She glares at me and then turns back to the road, her knuckles white.
I wish she would stop talking about women opening up to men they love. Cassi never opened up to me. Not in the way Pearl is talking about.
17 Attack
Karl
“I already told you, I don’t want to go back down there. Ever.”
Somrusee shakes her head and takes my hand. I hope my involuntary flinch isn’t noticeable. It’s not that her hand isn’t soft, or that I don’t like holding it. I just really don’t want to go down there.
“You can do this,” she whispers in my ear. Feeling her small body lean against me and the warm breath against my ear sends chills through me. If I already decided “no” for Somrusee, why does she still affect me?
“Okay,” I say, mostly so she will back away, and she does move away from me. I follow her down the stairs glumly, consoling myself for giving in so quickly with the fact that Somrusee isn’t the kind of person who will take no for an answer.
What will she say when I finally tell her I’m not going to be with her? More importantly, when am I going to do that?
But after I step off the last stair and into the library, all thoughts of Somrusee disappear. Nothing has changed since the last time I was here. That was the day Buen told me to leave and how to do it. I stare at the chair he sat in. It’s pushed back, just like it was when he got up and ran out of the room.
Ran. Before he could second guess himself. Before he decided he didn’t want to die.
He sacrificed everything so I could be here. So we could live in a world without Wynn.
I wish things were going better. I hope someday his sacrifice will all be worth it.
Somrusee sees me staring at the chair and squeezes my hand. “You miss him, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
It even smells the same down here as it did that day. The musty old book smell fills my lungs. How many hours did Buen and I spend down here together?
/> Somrusee hugs me and I let her, my eyes swimming until I force them away from the chair and the burnt-out fire. Her breathing is slow compared to my choked sobs. She probably thinks of Buen as a monster, which he was. But, he was also a man, and he was my friend.
I regain control of my emotions and step away from Somrusee. “What is it you wanted to show me?”
“I came down here one day looking for the books that Goluken stole from my father,” she says. Her voice drops to a whisper. “I found something.”
She moves quickly through the bookshelves to the back of the room. I follow behind, glad to have the empty chairs and fireplace at my back. Somrusee turns down an aisle, and soon she is standing at a dead end with a small table sitting conspicuously against the wall.
She looks excited in the flickering light of the candle. I take the candle from her and set it carefully on a bookshelf as she pulls the table away from the wall.
“I saw this table, and I couldn’t think of a reason it should be here,” she says. “So, I turned it over.”
I try to see how her thought process was logical, but I can’t quite connect the dots. Instead, I help her turn the table and maneuver it until we can set it on the ground upside down. Somrusee grabs the candle and crouches down so the light is over the underside of the table. I crouch down on the other side of the table, and I can’t help reaching out and running my fingers along the wood. It’s been carved—the entire underside of this table has been carved. I let my fingers trace the shapes for a few moments before I realize what this is. It’s a map, and an inscription, and it has Dee’s name on it in the corner as the one who created it. That makes sense—that something like this would have been created by hemazury. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a more perfect carving otherwise.
“Why do you think this is here?” I ask.
“It makes sense,” Somrusee whispers. “From what Cylus told Princess Ria, things got bad really fast at the castle. If Dee had something important, she would have had to hide it quickly.”
The Sapphiri Page 16