House of Dolls 5

by Harmon Cooper

  “No,” Nadine said on the verge of tears again, “it’s for you.”

  Chapter Fifteen: A Leaf in the Wind

  Roman waited at the same roadside food stand he had been to the previous day. The food was a bit different now, but it was still based on the same theme of potatoes and other root vegetables coupled with a sliver of meat.

  There were quail eggs cracked over it this time, however, a brunch of sorts.

  Celia and Coma were with him, Casper deactivated and in his pocket. Celia sat across from Roman with the metal case in her lap, the doll holding it as if it were a handbag.

  “I heard about the attack,” a man said as he walked by, his friend to the right of him.

  “I figured you had. You’re always following the news.”

  “They’re saying it was Centralia.”

  “Shit…” the second man muttered. “I didn’t hear that part. Only that there was an attack.”

  “I really hope it wasn’t him. If it was…”

  “Yeah, if it was…”

  The two men passed, Roman’s only response being to bite his lip and lower his head.

  “I don’t understand,” Celia said.

  “It will all make sense in the end.” Roman had barely eaten any of the food in front of him, and rather than try to explain to her how the earlier attack would be interpreted, he focused on his plate.

  As he was cutting into his potatoes, the message came in from Miranda. Roman dropped his fork onto his plate.

  “What is it?” Celia asked.

  Roman’s combat doll stepped in front of the table, ready for anything.

  The message played out again in Roman’s head: The Eastern Province government has discovered us. We are being taken into custody now. Naomi and me. The embassy has been alerted. Jess is in our hotel room. Roman, do not panic; I’ll send your location to her, and once she’s clear she’ll come to you. Where are you? Hurry. They’ll prevent telepathy soon.

  Roman finally swallowed what he was eating and sent a message back to the telepath. I’m at the same food stand we met at yesterday. Are you okay?

  Don’t worry about me. They can’t do anything to me. War would break out…

  War may have already broken out. They’re framing the attack at the university as an attack by Centralia. I don’t even know how they’re getting this information. Well, I do know one way, but that wasn’t part of the plan. Or was it?

  Roman shook his head. He damn well knew what the plan was, but he had to play along.

  I’m okay. I’m not worried. What’s most important now is that you meet with Jess and deliver the prototype.

  What about you? Roman thought to her.

  Let our government handle it.

  Absolutely not, Roman said, an idea coming to him. If a war was necessary—and he knew it wasn’t, but he also knew it was inevitable at this point—how bad would it be for him to yet again rescue someone from Eastern military custody?

  Roman…

  Tell Jess where I am. I’ll wait for her to come here and we’ll go from there. In the meantime, stay strong.

  Miranda didn’t reply.

  And even though he was no longer hungry, Roman returned to his food, hoping to blend in as much as possible.

  The streets before the food stand were still quiet, the occasional person passing by or police exemplar flying overhead. There sure were a lot of flying police here, and Roman soon realized in watching one that they weren’t exemplars; several had some sort of hand or boot device that allowed them to fly.

  His thoughts returned to Miranda.

  While he didn’t much like her, he did appreciate her demeanor in the wake of such a calamity. And even though Roman was far from a patriot, he had to appreciate how calm she had been, how even in such a terrible situation her thoughts didn’t seem very panicky.

  Yet again, the advantage of having actual training, unlike Roman, who’d had some training and then been forced to rely on his past skills and cloudy intuition to steer his course of action.

  “You never said what was happening,” said Celia.

  “Miranda and Naomi have been taken,” he said under his breath.

  She gasped. “That’s terrible news. What are we supposed to do now? Are they safe?”

  “Jess can morph into any inanimate object; I’m guessing she’s still in the room, maybe a lamp or something, and waiting for a good time to slip out. She’s probably not a lamp,” Roman said, shaking his head. “Because someone might wonder why there are suddenly two lamps. But she’s there, and since she can turn into anything, I don’t think it will be very hard for her to hide even if they do sweep the room.”

  “So we wait?” Coma asked, his combat doll still standing guard.

  “We wait.”

  “And are we planning to go after Miranda and Naomi?”

  “You know me so well,” Roman told his combat doll. “Let’s get more details first.”

  “This is going to be dangerous, isn’t it?” Celia asked.

  “I think you already know the answer to that question,” Coma answered for Roman.

  Roman stayed put for well over an hour.

  He didn’t know when Nadine would return to their hotel room, but this little detail no longer mattered to him. What mattered to him now was meeting with Jess, turning the device over, and finalizing his desire to go after his peers.

  Even with what Roman was planning to do, a part of him—and perhaps a stupid part of him—couldn’t let Miranda and Naomi be captured.

  And with the news now that the Easterners were considering this an act of war, it only made sense for Roman to dig the knife in just a little deeper.

  At least in his head it did.

  Roman couldn’t help but have doubts about what they were planning, even though some of the details were foggy.

  “If you keep looking worried like that, the wrinkles will permanently stay on your forehead,” Celia told him.

  “Where did you hear that?”

  The beautiful redheaded doll shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

  A woman walked by in a felt trench coat, a leaf attached to the back of it. The leaf pressed off the woman as she passed, landing on Roman’s table.

  “Jess?”

  The leaf made a motion that looked like it was nodding.

  “Let me make sure you’re clear.”

  Roman placed his hand on Coma’s waist, moving her back until her tight rear was pressed against the table.

  He then set the leaf on the ground on the other side of the table. Looking around once more, he noticed that the owner of the food stand could potentially see him through a window on the side of his shack.

  With this in mind, Roman cautiously lowered the blinds on the other side of the window, the man oblivious to what was happening as he fried up more potatoes.

  “You’re clear.”

  Jess’s form took shape, an absolutely exasperated look on her face. “Roman…”

  “It’s fine,” he told her quickly. “Tell me what happened. Everything.”

  “We were just getting up when they came—well, I was at least. There were several of them, and they had rings that nullified powers.”

  “How did Miranda send messages to me then?” he asked her.

  “Miranda was down in the breakfast area. I had just finished taking a shower, so I took the form of a towel. Naomi relayed the message to Miranda, I’m guessing. That’s the only way it would make sense. Miranda was also apprehended in the hallway, likely right around the time she was messaging you. It felt like they’d been watching this entire time. Or at least, Naomi and Miranda.”

  “You just stayed a towel on the floor?”

  She nodded. “They searched the room, but the soldiers with the power elimination rings never made it into the restroom. If they had, they likely would have found me.”

  “Okay, do you have any idea where they were taken?”

  “The military and police are very interchangeable in this country,
” Jess said quickly, running her hand through her blond hair to push some of the strands out of her face. “Then again, they could have teleported them anywhere by now.”

  “Shit,” Roman said under his breath. “And the longer we wait, the harder it will be to go after them.”

  “Go after them?” Jess looked at Roman as if he were crazy.

  “That’s right,” he said with certainty. “There’s not a chance in hell I’m going to let them face whatever will happen to them in Eastern custody. Not if I can help it.”

  “That’s very brave of you,” Jess said in a low voice, “but it isn’t our role here. Where’s the device?”

  Roman looked at Celia and the metal case in her lap.

  “That’s it?”

  “It is. But I’m serious, I want to do something about Miranda and Naomi now.”

  “They’ve trained for this,” Jess said, a calmness coming over her tone.

  “I don’t think you remember what happened to you back in the West,” Roman told her. “For some strange reason, our operatives are trained in an almost every-man-for-himself sort of mindset. It really pissed me off then, and it’s pissing me off now. Ava showed little to no concern about what happened to you in Kevin’s pleasure house, if you recall. We can’t do the same to Miranda and Naomi.”

  “I think you’re confusing concern with faith and dedication toward the overall mission,” she told him sharply. “I’m sure Ava was concerned, but she had a different mission, or I should say we had a mission.”

  “To capture the serums, which none of us seem to possess now. You’d think if they were sending us to a foreign country, they would at least give us something that would heal one of us if we were injured in some way.”

  “And let the serums fall into the hands of the Eastern Province? That sounds like a terrible idea.”

  “Some risks are worth taking.”

  “Whatever. Do you know when your target will be back?”

  “I don’t know when Nadine will be back.”

  “Do you even know where she went?”

  Roman shrugged, unable to hide the agitation in his voice. “She said she had something to handle.”

  Jess glanced at Coma, who still stood before the table, stoic as ever. “Do you feel safe here?”

  “Sometimes I don’t have faith in my own power,” Roman admitted, “but yes, I feel safe enough. I realize now that there aren’t many other exemplars who could bring me down. I could go toe-to-toe with most Type IIs, obviously depending on their actual power. Someone with enhanced speed would be able to take me down, and like anyone, I’m susceptible to a strong telepath and certain elemental forces, most notably wind. But no, I’m not afraid. I know we share a similar power, but yours has limitations.”

  “Thanks for reminding me,” Jess said bitterly.

  “Mine doesn’t, or at least it mostly doesn’t.” Roman grimaced. “I was able to bring down two buildings today with just a flick of the wrist.”

  “You didn’t experience any strain?”

  “There was some, maybe more than I would like to admit, but my point is I’m able to do something like that—and if I can do that, I can do this.”

  “You really are going to go after them, aren’t you?”

  “Think about it,” Roman said, his eyes darting from left to right. “The attack today is going to be considered an act of war. The East will respond if we do this now, or if I do this now, and it can be grouped under this initial attack. Sure, they’ll be two separate incidents, but they’ll likely be coupled together, and after a few days pass, the main focus will be on the university buildings. If we wait and try it later, it could be considered a new and separate attack. Another scenario is that the Eastern Province kills them, which most certainly would call for retaliation. Do you see what I’m saying here?”

  “I…” Jess sighed. “It makes sense,” she finally admitted. “But they aren’t going to approve this.”

  “Most of the things I do aren’t approved,” Roman told her.

  “And that’s how you ended up in this situation.”

  Roman smirked. “You’re mostly right, but I’ve been thinking a little more about how I’ve ended up in this situation. I think a lot of it stems from what a person with my ability is able to do. I’m sure if I were…” He swallowed hard. Roman hated to say the next sentence, but it was true, and he was trying to be more honest. “I’m sure if I had been given a different power, no one would give two shits about me. But it’s because of this power I’ve been given—the ability to collapse a building relatively quickly, among other things, from animating the dead to controlling most elements—that our government has been paying such close attention to me. Exploiting me.”

  “Now you’re the exploited one?”

  “In a way, yes, but that’s not what this is about. It’s becoming increasingly clear to me that part of our mission here, especially after our own government approved me bringing down the university buildings, was to spark somewhat of an altercation. Do you deny this?”

  “I haven’t been briefed on anything that resembles what you’re saying.”

  “Are you at a level of clearance that you would be briefed on something like this?”

  Jess reluctantly shook her head.

  “Neither am I.”

  “Obviously.”

  “But if it’s a war they want, it’s a war they’ll get, and as I said, coupling this rescue mission with bringing down the buildings might make things easier in the end.”

  “I have to get the device to the embassy,” Jess said with a note of hesitation.

  “So you’re going with me?”

  “I…”

  “You can communicate with the embassy, right?” Celia asked, interrupting their little moment.

  Jess nodded.

  “Have them come here, and I’ll take the device. You and Roman can go after the other two, Coma as well.”

  Jess was silent for a moment.

  “Well?” Roman asked.

  “I’m not so keen on taking orders from an animated sex doll…”

  “It’s a good plan,” Roman said, Celia not reacting at all to Jess’s biting statement.

  “I’ll have to frame it in a different way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ll have to say you presented me with no other option but to tag along with you, and that I did so to monitor you as we have been tasked to do all along.”

  “Frame it however you’d like,” Roman told her. “I’m sure your powers will be helpful in some way.”

  “Gee, thanks,” she said as she offered Roman a cheeky smile. “And I do know where they were going, by the way. I heard one of the soldiers mention it, a place called Central Holding. I’m assuming that’s a localized prison before their transfer to a black site or something of the sort.”

  “It’s a start,” Roman said. “Alert the embassy so Celia can deliver the tiara. We’ll rescue Miranda and Naomi, and then we’ll have the embassy pick us up where I can retrieve Celia and get back to Nadine.”

  “That easy, huh?”

  “Yeah, that easy.”

  Chapter Sixteen: Smock Masks

  Celia left with a teleporter who had taken shape in slivers, each slice of her body pressing together until she was fully formed.

  Once the two were gone, Jess followed Roman and Coma back to their hotel, where Roman casually asked the clerk where Central Holding was located.

  “Why would anyone want to go there?” the hotel clerk asked before correcting her tone. “I mean, that’s not a common tourist destination.”

  “No reason,” Roman said, clearing his throat. Jess elbowed him and he continued, “We were told there was a great, um, restaurant around there.”

  “In the Ninth Quarter? Are you sure you aren’t mistaken?”

  “Remember the woman I was with when I checked in?” Roman asked, trying to be patient with the clerk.

  “Yes.”

  “That’s where she�
�s telling us to meet her, at some restaurant there. How do we get there?”

  “You would likely want to order a teleporter…”

  “No, not a teleporter, something else. We want to…” Roman glanced at Coma and Jess, Jess giving him a ‘wrap it up’ glare. “Enjoy the view of the city. Verne is a sight to behold!”

  Jess snickered; Roman winced.

  “Then you would take the trolley,” the hotel clerk said, unable to hide her skepticism. “There should be one in the next ten minutes or so. They run every fifteen minutes; I just heard one pass.”

  “Wonderful,” Roman said as he turned to the exit.

  He stopped, Jess almost running into him.

  “It’s on the right,” the hotel clerk said without looking up from whatever she was reading.

  Roman didn’t recall hearing a trolley going by from his room, but perhaps…

  He looked up at the building, acknowledging that his room was on the other side of the complex completely, which was why he hadn’t heard the trolley.

  And just as the hotel clerk had said, the trolley was there within the next ten minutes, Roman, Jess, and Coma filing in.

  The trolley was busier than Roman expected it would be, some people murmuring about the attack while others stared absentmindedly out the windows, their reflections visible in the glass.

  Roman found himself doing this as well, canceling out his troubled thoughts, the ones of self-doubt and the ones chastising him for yet again taking destiny into his own hands.

  He had to focus, so naturally, his mind found something else to wonder about.

  The trolleys here seemed faster than the ones in Centralia.

  The city of Verne wasn’t quite a blur, but Roman did find it hard to focus on anything very long due to the speed. He was able to pick out a few details, like the numerous parks and how several of the stations looked rundown, and most notably the expressions on people’s faces.

  No one on the trolley was smiling; no one seemed happy, yet it didn’t feel like they were somehow experiencing a negative existence. Odd as it was, everyone looked content—grumpy, but content.