Traceless (Stateless #2)

by Meli Raine

  And then it's blank faces.

  Opening the door, Callum's greeted by Hokes, who gives me a one-second glance that makes me feel like fading wallpaper.

  “There's a situation in Calgary. You need to read the new report.”

  “Will do.”

  Hokes stands there, clearly expecting me to leave.

  I comply.

  As I walk back to the nursery building, my spine is a little straighter.

  And my heart, a lot more tangled.

  6

  Two months later

  Callum

  Field surveillance is never this interesting.

  I should know. The last six weeks have been nothing but following McDuff to doctor appointments, on coffee runs, on actual runs where he eats up ten miles of road like it's nothing, and on an assortment of domestic errands so boring, I need to overcaffeinate myself to get through them.

  Finally, McDuff and Lily Thornton are on a date.

  Took them long enough.

  For six weeks, every spare moment of my life has been spent doing one of three things: reading reports about activities at the compound, following McDuff, or learning what I can about my brother.

  That last one has turned out to be the hardest.

  Kina, according to my sources, is doing fine. There are more babies in the nursery than usual, but other than that, the place is calm. Sally and Smith seem to be the local leaders in charge, and Svetnu has transferred some new people from Canada, a guy named Roish from Toronto and Patti, from Canmore.

  Until I meet them, I won't know whether they're any good, but as long as they leave Kina alone, it's fine for now.

  Through the window, I see movement at the table where Lily and McDuff are sitting. At the same time, my phone buzzes, the notifications coming one on top of the other. Lily runs out of the restaurant on high heels, nearly tripping twice, McDuff following behind.

  I look at my phone.

  Texas project successful, is all it says.

  I grin.

  It's a weak gesture, but I can't help it.

  Our infiltration was successful. Alice Mogrett's records have been destroyed.

  Whatever she was saving in those files, preserved by her heir, Jane Borokov, the planned fire has taken care of it. Svetnu told me Mogrett was a clever and sly woman who worked hard to squelch Stateless. An enemy to the core, she couldn't be trusted. When in doubt, complete destruction of all evidence is the surest way to maintain control.

  Destruction of people is even more effective, of course.

  Lily Thornton walks with a slightly drunken gait, but I know it's not from the wine they ordered. Her hair's longer now, but the self-conscious way she touches the back of her scalp on one side reveals some of the scars. The sheer number of physical therapy sessions I've observed these last six weeks makes it clear she’s facing lifelong neurological problems, but I have to give her credit: She's determined to overcome them.

  As she runs behind the building, I realize I can't follow without compromising my surveillance. My ears have to do the work for now as I get out of my car and throw in some earbuds.

  Then he appears.

  Sean.

  She calls him Sean.

  At some point, I started calling him that in my head. The shift from McDuff happened too fast, too quick, my mind needing the casual first name, his identity more solid with it. Sean is the name of a guy you have a beer with.

  McDuff is a guy you're assigned to kill.

  He appears at the restaurant entrance, calling out her name and looking in the SUV he drove here. Then he follows her path around the building, even though he can't see her. Something's wrong. Maybe it's the news from Texas.

  Maybe it's something worse.

  Dressed in a t-shirt and running shorts, I pocket my cell phone and pretend to go for a jog. I make my way along the edge of the parking lot until I have a sliver of the back of the restaurant in sight.

  Crash!

  The shatter of glass is an unmistakable sound.

  Crash!

  Again.

  Assuming she's hurt herself, I jog faster, the sound giving me an excuse to inject myself into the scene to collect information if I need to. But the third time I hear it, I realize it has its own rhythm. A cadence, even.

  It's intentional.

  Why would anyone shatter glass like that?

  Angling myself just so, I see I have it all wrong. The other side of the building is perfect for watching them. Pretending I got a text, I look down and mutter to myself, walking the long way around the building, working hard to blend in.

  I was right.

  This is perfect.

  “I'm never going to be safe!” Lily screams at Sean as she hurls another empty wine bottle at the brick building, a graveyard of shards at the base of the wall, a safe distance from where she stands in heels and a cocktail dress. The unlikely scene of her violent destruction of innocent containers for fermented grapes is a bit jarring.

  It makes me smile.

  Not because of her pain.

  Because of the look on Sean's face.

  There's a universal “What do I do now?” look that guys in relationships seem to get on their faces when the woman is angry. I've never had a real relationship of my own, but nine years of college and working in high tech jobs has exposed me to plenty of couples.

  A pang hits me right in the solar plexus, an image of Kina coming to mind. My fingers itch with the memory of her hair in my hands, her lips on mine, her body rubbing against me with need.

  “Those fuckers!” Lily screams, red-faced with fury as Sean tries to mollify her.

  The back door to the kitchen opens, a very nervous young guy in a chef's jacket peeking his head out. He says something to Sean, who waves him off. But before the guy goes inside, his eyes lock with mine.

  Damn it.

  I give him an appreciative gaze, my smile sexually aggressive. It would be more suspicious to be the strange runner than the flirty gay dude in the alley, cruising.

  I get a smile back.

  And an awkward wink.

  And then it's time to run off, because that's what runners do.

  The kind that blend in with the woodwork.

  I'm headed around the corner, planning to loop around and follow Sean and Lily, when my phone buzzes. It's a message from the new field commander, Nate Kohlman, a guy Svetnu brought in from Germany:

  Get back to the compound.

  Then a new message, from a private number I know is Sally's, appears on my phone:

  This is Kina. Come back now.

  7

  Kina

  Twilight in the nursery is my favorite time of day, the gloaming a time of in-between, when anything can happen.

  It's not just my sense of relief at putting the children to sleep, my time my own again for a few hours before someone awakens with a need I must meet.

  It's the light.

  Sunsets have their own logic. The cosmos follows rules, but the timing of the last sliver of heathered lilac light is always a mystery. It feels almost magical. We predict sunsets at clock times we identify with scientific precision, but that may not be at all how it appears to the human eye.

  Stand up, it’s at one moment. Sit down, it’s at another. Wind, clouds, reflections change everything.

  Documenting what we observe is a time-honored tradition. It makes us think we have a modicum of mastery, but what it really shows is our fear. To predict our surroundings is to feel safe, to feel we have some control.

  And that’s why, when my shoulders suddenly hunch, I flush with fear.

  We've just settled the last toddler in her crib when the north-facing windows shatter with a boom and a rush, like a dragon has opened its mouth and is blowing as hard as it can.

  No one expects windows to explode and heat to charge through the hole, the old barrier gone with the sweep of a force strong enough to destroy. No one expects glass to rain down on babies in cribs, for curtains to catch fire, for Phi
lippa and me to waste precious seconds screaming at each other to locate all of the babies.

  We expect the crying, though.

  There's always crying.

  Just not every child at once.

  “Get Jessie!” Philippa screams at me as a burning swatch of fabric waves dangerously near. They are billowing into the room, fanning out to brush against cribs.

  I scramble to get the shrieking baby, who has pulled herself up on the crib rail. In my peripheral vision, I note the others starting to stand. The ones closest to the blown-out windows are in the most danger. Philippa sees it, too, and within seconds we grab them all. I’m carrying three children, my shoulder sockets straining until their little feet dig into my belly and hips, taking some of the weight off my upper back.

  Hokes bursts into the room, shouting, “HERE!” Arms extended, he grabs the toddlers, slinging two over one shoulder, somehow managing five kids at once, disappearing.

  Philippa pulls on a sling and I follow, criss-crossing two of them so I can scoop two infants into the pouches on my body, arms still free to grab blankets and a bag of diapers. We’ve done evacuation drills before, but reality is very different, and there are more babies since the last practice. I do a mental count, and hope we got them all. Did we?

  I cannot be wrong.

  I do a second count, and a third, until I’m sure. Philippa's back rapidly disappears down the hallway.

  I follow.

  The scene on the lawn is controlled and militaristic. Hokes is staring over four crying toddlers on the grass as Philippa struggles to hand off her infants to two of the older trainees who have come running to help. I spot Sela, who now cradles little Tilly. Candace, a twelve-year-old with a terrible fear of bees, has Thomas on her hip, making a shush-shush-shush sound while bouncing him.

  Hokes fairly growls at Ashton, who starts pounding his shins with tiny red fists.

  And then I see the blood on Jay.

  “NO!” I scream as I realize he's sitting down, staring straight ahead, shoulders twitching in a series of jerky movements that make my hands go numb.

  Seizure.

  He's having a seizure.

  Blood drips down one side of his face, pooling at his tender earlobe, dripping like a faucet that's been turned on low.

  I want to pick him up, hold him, protect him, rush him to the compound doctor, but I stop myself. Instead, I kneel with an agonizing slowness that makes me want to vomit.

  His eyes don't move. I don't register with him.

  The seizure lasts an eternity.

  “What's wrong?” Sally asks, appearing with a first aid box, her look pinging between me and Jay. “He's cut. Did the glass–”

  “We need Dr. Newbraugher.”

  “She's gone. On assignment. All you get is me and two EMT-trained security guys over in–”

  Jay falls on his side, eyes rolling until more white than iris shows, skin turning a grey color.

  “Oh, hell,” Sally gasps.

  There are no sirens for an emergency on the compound. Unlike the mainstream television shows and movies we've watched, where the cacophony of crisis is made worse by the sirens, this is a relatively quiet affair.

  But the alarm in my head is louder than everything.

  “He needs a doctor!” I shout.

  “Newbraugher isn't here!”

  “THEN WE NEED TO GO OFF COMPOUND TO A HOSPITAL!” I bellow, the words coming out of a dark hole inside me, booming so loud that all of the crying toddlers just... stop.

  Hokes lifts one eyebrow.

  “Server farm,” Smith snaps at Sally as he comes rushing up, ignoring my words. “They blew up the entire server farm.”

  We turn around and gape at the building, which is now a fireball.

  “The whole thing?”

  “What do you think, Sally? Do you see any portion that'll survive this?”

  Philippa shoves him aside and gives me an anguished look. “What about Jay? Shouldn't someone do something?”

  “Stay away from him,” Sally says.

  “What?”

  “Give him space. The seizure will end soon,” she adds, her voice slightly kinder. “We can't do anything until that's done.”

  “At least he's already wearing a diaper. Less mess to clean up,” Smith adds.

  We give him disgusted looks.

  “Hey. I saw guys seize in the field after an IED attack. Poor bastards pissed themselves.”

  “Jay needs a doctor. Now,” I repeat as the seizure ends, poor Jay starting to cry as I lift him carefully. Compared to having four infants strapped to me, he's a feather.

  “Keen,” he says in a sad voice. “Kee.”

  And then he seizes again in my arms, tendons so tight I swear he’ll snap himself to pieces.

  “He's going to die!” Philippa cries out, the babies joining in, the chorus of pain and terror too much. I want to run away, scale the fence, take all the children somewhere–anywhere–but here.

  “He wouldn't be the first,” Sally whispers.

  I grab her arm hard, until she yelps.

  But I don't let go.

  “Not on my watch. No child dies while I'm in charge. You get a car and you take us to the local hospital or I'll hunt you down and choke you to death with your own fingers, Sally.”

  She makes a snorting sound.

  Until she looks in my eyes.

  The snort turns into a gag, dying in her throat like, well...

  Like being fed your own fingers, one at a time.

  “Svetnu has to approve.”

  “Svetnu isn't here.”

  “Someone has to approve!”

  “Call Callum. He will.”

  “WHAT?”

  I grab her phone out of her hand. Fortunately, the text feature's unlocked. I find Callum easily and manage to type: This is Kina. Come back now.

  What the hell? Kina, what's wrong? He texts back immediately.

  Order Sally to take Jay and me to the hospital. He's seizing.

  Consider it done, he types back.

  I show her the phone. She snatches it away as if I've burned her.

  “You bitch,” she mutters. “Going over my head.”

  “You're lucky that's all you forced me to do. We need to go RIGHT NOW.” I look at Hokes. “Get us a car. You're driving.”

  “Hell if I take orders from you.”

  His phone buzzes. He looks down at it.

  “Huh. But I do take orders from him.”

  Shrugging at a very upset Sally, he nods toward a huge SUV.

  “You can't just appear at a local hospital with an unregistered child! Children's services will have a field day trying to take him from us. We need documents. A cover story.”

  “Then get the documents. I know you have sets ready.”

  Her phone rings. She ignores it.

  In the distance, Hokes is standing near the SUV, impatience all over his face.

  Sally's phone rings again. She ignores it.

  Then Hokes' phone rings.

  “Hey! Kina! Callum!” he shouts, waving his phone at me.

  A long, aggrieved sigh from Sally should make me feel better.

  With Jay in my arms, I walk carefully to Hokes, Sally on my heels.

  “Fine,” she hisses. “You need to wait a few minutes. The folder for a cover story is in my office.”

  “You have exactly three minutes. And then Hokes takes us to the hospital and I make up my own cover story. It won't be nearly as charitable to the compound as yours.”

  She peels off as I reach Hokes, who hands me his phone.

  “Kina!” Callum says in a rush. “Are you hurt? They said the building next to yours was bombed. Server farm.”

  “I'm fine. Some of the babies got surface wounds from glass, but only Jay is severely hurt. We need to get him to the hospital.”

  Please let him be okay. Please let him be okay. Please let him be okay. Like a drumbeat, a poem, a mantra, a song chorus, the words won’t leave my head, my hands holdin
g his body, needing him to be safe, the enormity of the explosion too much.

  “Done.”

  “No, not done. Sally's getting a cover story together.”

  “If you need to go, just do it. I ordered Hokes already.”

  As if summoned, Sally walks quickly to the SUV, a thin, zippered pouch in one hand. In the other, she has one of the car seats that we keep for emergencies. She waves the pouch, glaring at me. “Got it.”

  I look over at Philippa, tending to the little ones on the grass. Besides Sela and Candace, I can see three trainees holding toddlers and soothing babies. I take a hesitant step toward them, clutching Jay to my chest, but Philippa looks up and realizes what I’m thinking. She waves, gives me a thumbs up, and points to the SUV as if to say “Go!”

  I do.

  As we leave through the main gates, the strangeness of it hits me, hard, like a bucket of ice water thrown at my face. My chest tightens, eyes feeling too big on my face, the cold air as we move forward shocking me.

  We’re leaving everything we know. All because I insisted.

  What have I done?

  8

  Callum

  The middle-of-the-night plane ride from Southern California to the opposite coast is slightly shortened by the landing strip near the compound, but it's still too many hours in the air.

  Too many questions.

  Not enough answers.

  All I know is that someone bombed the server farm at the compound. It's a quiet operation, buried in the basement of a nondescript building next to the nursery. All of the buildings are nondescript, actually.

  The whole point of the compound is to be uninteresting.

  I've learned so much more about our role. To the outside, the compound is a government research center, a place where boring water filtration systems research takes place. The high level of security–miles of high-voltage fencing topped by barbed wire, guarded gates at the two entry points–is explained away by the need to ensure that no terrorists, or even common vandals, ever gain access. Clean water is an obvious public-health priority for any government in the world.