Jaguar

by C. A. Gray

  Before she’d let us in to the living room, Gretchen insisted on announcing to the others, “I now present to you: Mr. Sanjay Amin,” she dismissed Nilesh into the living room first, and Cathy initiated the polite clapping. “Mrs. Nicole Amin,” she signaled Val to go next, and Cathy whistled, “and finally, Candy Coltrain, newest Pendergast nurse.”

  How utterly out of place, I thought, to display my costume as if I were on a catwalk, under the circumstances. But Cathy and Elsie clapped and hollered for me, while Rick clapped politely and Francis gave one slow, sardonic clap for every three of theirs. I forced a smile.

  “You all look perfect,” Cathy gushed. “I’m—so glad my son—” her voice caught, but she swallowed through it and finished, “has such… good friends.”

  Francis stood, and crossed to me, handing me something that looked like a large gray brick with speakers. I glanced at him quizzically. “What—?”

  “Old school walkie talkies, as promised,” he informed me, and stuffed one into Gretchen’s now empty canvas bag. “Also,” he held up a handgun for me to see, and stuffed it into the bag as well. I felt my eyes grow wide, and I swallowed hard. “Hopefully you won’t need it, but you never know. Can you shoot?”

  I bit my lip. “I don’t know. I’ve never tried before.”

  “Wonderful,” Francis said flatly. “Well let’s hope we don’t have to find out. And finally,” he held up what looked like an empty handle, and pressed the button on the side. A blade popped out with a slicing noise, and I jumped back a little. Francis sighed, exasperated, and I was immediately embarrassed. Between the lack of sleep, the coffee, and the nerves, I was definitely far jumpier than usual. “This you’ll likely need, assuming Liam will be tied down at a minimum to prevent his escape. In case he’s cuffed instead, though—” Francis held up a long silver pin, “I can talk you through how to pick the locks. It’s not too hard, if you can keep your hands steady.”

  Across the room, Cathy shook her head, watching Francis. “Something about you just seems so familiar,” she murmured. “Are you sure I wouldn’t have met you before? If you and Liam have been close for years, maybe he would have brought you round at some point—?”

  “We were never that good of friends, we just worked together,” Francis said irritably, and his tone of voice suggested that this was not the first time Cathy had probed him on the subject.

  “And yet he told you that you were one of his best friends when he left the compound,” I pointed out.

  “Yes. Well.” Francis cleared his throat and looked away.

  “Aww!” Val gushed, “he did?”

  “And now you’re risking your life to save him, so don’t even try to play it off like you don’t care,” I added. “You’re not fooling anybody.”

  Francis actually grew red. I glanced at Cathy, who bit her lip as she gazed at him, eyes glistening with tears.

  “Well,” Francis huffed, “we’d better get going. Cordeaux, Rick?”

  I set my jaw and took a deep breath, hoisting my canvas bag up on my shoulder. Val flew into my arms, squeezing me tight.

  “You be safe,” she urged me. “We’ll all be praying!”

  “Thanks. You guys too,” I told her, hugging Nilesh next, and then Cathy. Cathy clung to me also, and she begged against my ear, “Please save my son!”

  I got choked up at this, but promised again, “I will. I’m not leaving there without him.”

  She nodded once, and then let me go. She moved to Francis next, throwing her arms around him too, much to his surprise. She said something that only he could hear, and his eyes went wide. When she pulled away, her eyes were moist again, and she gave him a long, lingering look.

  “All right,” Rick barked at Francis and me. “Let’s do this.”

  Chapter 20: Rebecca

  Francis and I talked not at all on the way to Pendergast. Some part of me wanted to know what Cathy had said to him, but I was too nervous about what was about to happen to spare much brain power for that.

  “Final descent,” called Rick from the cockpit beside our pilot bot, and I gripped the arm rests beside me until my knuckles turned white.

  Breathe, I told myself. Breathe. This is a stage. You’re just playing a role.

  The hovercraft touched down on the top of a parking garage, outside the chain link fence that I thought contained our destination.

  “Wait. Isn’t that Pendergast?” I asked Francis, pointing at the enormous structure inside the fencing. “Shouldn’t we have landed in there?”

  “Only official government hovercraft can land in there when they’re carrying prisoners,” he said, opening his netscreen on his lap. “Employee entrance is through those doors.” He pointed to a curved white building with a recessed courtyard.

  Drawing a shaky breath, I stood, and retrieved my canvas bag.

  “Walkie talkie on,” Francis commanded, and I obeyed, hearing it crackle to life. I held it up to him to show him the little green light.

  “But don’t talk to me unless I talk to you first, it’ll give me away!” I added.

  Francis gave me a deadpan glare, as if he refused to dignify such a ridiculous statement with a response.

  I huffed, “Well? Just making sure!”

  Francis glanced at Rick, as if to consult him, and asked, “Do I look like an idiot?”

  We both ignored him, and with one more deep breath, I descended the steps to the outside.

  “Rebecca!” called Rick behind me, and I turned around. “Stay safe. No unnecessary risks. That’s… a message from your mother. Or it would be, if she knew you were here,” he added under his breath.

  I nodded, casting one last glance over my shoulder and gave him a tight smile. Behind him, Francis gave me a thumbs up.

  And then I was in the courtyard. Nobody else here—so far, so good. It had been ten till seven when I left the hovercraft; Jacoby should be here any minute. I approached the entrance, and just in case, reached for the door handle and pulled—locked. I glanced down and saw the retinal scanner blinking in front of me with the words, SCAN EYE HERE.

  I heard footsteps approach behind me, and tried to keep the relief from my face as I turned to greet him. Andy the Second glared at me, and without a word, lowered his face to the retinal scanner.

  “Scan Accepted. Welcome, Dr. Jacoby,” said the tinny voice of the scanner.

  Game face on, I told myself, remembering that we were still on camera here. Jacoby wouldn’t be playing along, but this needed to not look like a transaction between us.

  “Thanks,” I cooed, and added with a careless giggle, “This is only my second shift. I guess I don’t know how it all works yet!”

  “No problem at all,” Dr. Jacoby returned through gritted teeth. “There. You’re in. You best hope not to run into me again, Candy. I won’t be so helpful the next time.”

  I considered shooting back that he’d better help me if he wanted to keep his license—but remembered that this exchange was being recorded. I’d be triggering alerts for suspicious behavior in a few minutes anyway, but the longer I could stall, the better. So instead, I decided to play it off like he was just being an unprovoked ass. I rolled my eyes, and huffed, “Um, okay, wow. Sorry to inconvenience you!”

  Jacoby gave me a bitter smile, and stalked off down the hall, disappearing around a corner and leaving me alone in the vestibule.

  I needed to find a place where I could contact Francis next, without tripping alerts. My eyes fell on the locker room door. Perfect—at least locker rooms and bathrooms still lacked the cameras that were ubiquitous everywhere else. Or at least as far as the public knew, I added to myself. Maybe they weren’t as private as we were led to believe, but it was the best chance I had. I ducked inside the women’s, and pulled out the walkie talkie, dialing the volume down almost to nothing. I was paranoid that someone would walk by outside and overhear.

  “Francis? Are you there?” I whispered when it crackled to life. I hear
d something on the other side, but wasn’t sure if it was him or static. I turned the volume up a bit and repeated my question.

  “I’m here,” he said, “are you inside?”

  “Yes, I’m in the women’s locker room. Where do I go now?”

  “Okay. Liam’s in a window room, fortunately. It’s in the surgical wing, third floor, room 309. From here on, every door into a new wing will be locked and will require a code, which is 4755908. It’s changed every hour on the hour, so that will last you for the next twenty-three minutes. After that, I’ll have to get you the new one. But in theory you should be able to get to Liam’s door long before that, assuming there are no obstacles.”

  I had neither watch to see the time, nor paper to write down the code, so I silently chanted the number to myself, committing it to memory. There wouldn’t be clocks in the hospital either, since every worker would have one embedded in their retinas except for me. I’d just have to estimate how much time had gone by, and find a way to check in with Francis when it seemed like twenty three minutes had passed.

  “4755908. Got it,” I told him. “When is Liam’s surgery scheduled?”

  “I can’t tell.” I heard the frown in his voice. “It just says ‘infusion,’ which I’m assuming is part of the pre-op process. But I’d have expected to see a surgery scheduled, and I don’t.”

  “Okay,” I breathed, “at least that sounds like it isn’t happening now, though. As long as they don’t move him in the next few minutes, it should be fine. Okay. I’m going in.”

  “Remember, you’re a humanoid bot from here on out,” Francis reminded me. “It’ll flag you on the cameras since you came in the human door, but it will draw less attention from the other bots around you than pretending to be a human nurse. Those are too rare—”

  “I know, I know,” I cut him off.

  Francis went on inexorably, “Once you get to Liam’s room, wait until you’re alone in there with him. Then lock the door, and call us—”

  “I know, you’ve told me all this. Do you have anything new to say? Because otherwise, I’d just like to get this over with.”

  Francis uttered something unintelligible, but I wasn’t sure if his tone was worried or annoyed. “No. Good luck.”

  “Good luck,” echoed Rick, who must have been listening the whole time.

  I tucked the walkie talkie back into the satchel, took a deep breath, and stepped back out into the hallway.

  I got as far as the corridor leading from the employee’s area to the main hospital, and froze. I’d expected a keypad, where I could just enter Francis’s code, but apparently those must just be in the hospital itself. This one had another retinal scanner. I swore, hurrying back to the locker room I’d been in before. I turned on the walkie talkie again.

  “That was quick,” Francis observed.

  “I can’t get into the hospital! There’s another retinal scanner!” I hissed. There was a long pause. “Francis?”

  “I’m trying to override it, hold on.” Another long pause, and then there was a sigh on the other end. “Can’t override just that door,” said Francis. “We’ll have to enact Plan B.”

  “Which is?” I demanded.

  “Shut down power to the whole complex.”

  I closed my eyes. So much for stealth. “What will that mean for the codes you gave me?”

  “Won’t know till we try. I’m hoping it means all the doors will just be open, though.”

  “What about any surgeries in progress?” I asked anxiously, “will those patients die?”

  “Hospitals usually have auxiliary power somewhere for that sort of thing, but it shouldn’t extend to their security,” said Francis, and then added under his breath, “I hope.”

  I bit my lip, tucking the handgun into the pocket of my scrubs. Just in case.

  “Okay, ready?” said Francis. “Here goes…”

  The changing room went dark, and I sprang into action, running out the door and careening toward the retinal scanner door into the hospital at large. I pushed it open, no problem.

  I stopped running abruptly once inside, though, matching my pace and breathing to some of the orderly bots just down the hall. I could only see by the light of their internally lit eyes. It occurred to me too late that my satchel would be odd on shift. I unslung it from my shoulders, grabbing a cart stacked with sheets from the hallway and wheeling it along with me as I walked, stuffing my satchel underneath the sheets.

  Third floor, third floor… shoot, I thought, realizing I couldn’t take the cart upstairs without the elevator, and the elevator wouldn’t be working now. All around me, the tinny voices of silver bots discussed the power outage, and what it may or may not mean, just as electricity turned back on again—presumably now that I was through security, Francis thought it might seem like it had just been a temporary glitch. I abandoned the cart just at the entrance to the stairs, balling up my satchel as small as I could get it. Then I bounded up to the third floor. Nobody had noticed me yet. Fortunately, the core purpose of these bots would not be security: it would be medical support. They might have been fully capable of seeing me and identifying a potential threat, but they weren’t programmed to worry about that, so they didn’t seem to consider it. Briefly, I wondered if these bots had been made by General Specs, and therefore had downloaded Liam’s program blocking the De Vries creativity upgrade. Maybe that was why they didn’t pay me any mind. Wouldn’t that be ironic.

  I took the stairs two at a time, pausing at the landing just long enough to catch my breath before pushing it open. Bots won’t be out of breath, I reminded myself.

  Since I had no immediate way to hide the satchel, I walked with my hands behind my back, clutching it between them. I relaxed my brow, willed my expression to remain neutral, and avoided eye contact with passing bots, though my heart pounded. This floor was mostly humanoid bots, not the silver ones of the floor below.

  “Please halt for a security,” said a tinny voice behind me.

  I froze, and for a split second, I debated: pretend I hadn’t heard and keep going, or turn and give a fake story? I glanced at the room number where I stood: 327, and the numbers were descending. Liam’s room should be at the far end of this hallway. If I talked to the security bots and they didn’t buy my story, they’d hold me here, or arrest me. If I broke into a sprint now, they’d give chase—but if I beat them to Liam’s room and locked myself in, maybe it wouldn’t matter.

  I sprinted.

  I heard the commotion behind me, but it all sounded like a dull roar to my ears. Just a few doors more… 315… 311… 309!

  I hurtled myself at the door to 309 with all my might—but it held.

  The keypad! I punched in the code Francis had given me, but the display flashed “Incorrect Code. Try Again.” I cursed aloud—when the power went out and then came back on, it must have reset the codes to the doors, too. I didn’t have time to call Francis back to get the new code, but I fumbled for the walkie talkie anyway as security closed in on me.

  Just then, the power went out again. Francis couldn’t possibly see what was going on, but maybe he’d realized this might happen, and not a moment too soon. I slammed into the door again. It was on a spring, so it sank back into its original closed position with excruciating slowness, like it was trying to torture me. Only then did I realize: the doors don’t lock at all now. That had worked in my favor, until it didn’t. There were no manual locks either. Frantically I looked around the room for something to barricade us in. I found a regular straight-backed metal chair, and tucked the top of it under the handle. It wouldn’t do much, but it was all I had to work with. Then I pulled out the walkie talkie again and it crackled to life, just as I spun toward the bed.

  But when I saw Liam, my mouth went dry. He was unconscious, unnaturally pale—very like a corpse. But he couldn’t be dead: each of his limbs was tethered to one of the corners of the bed, an IV dripping into his hands and feet. That had to mean he was ali
ve.

  Didn’t it?

  “Where are you?” Francis demanded, but I didn’t reply.

  “No no no no no,” I chanted over and over, rushing to Liam’s side.

  “What is it? Are you there?”

  Still I couldn’t answer. I touched Liam’s face, and a small sob of relief escaped my lips: he was clammy, but not stone cold. Then I saw the shallow rise and fall of his chest, and the soft flutter of his pulse in his throat.

  “I assume you must be there. We’re on our way!”

  The door handle started to jiggle. When it didn’t give way immediately, someone began to pound, as if trying to break the door down. The chair shuddered, but they didn’t manage to jar it loose. Not yet.

  “Hurry!” I told Francis, and shut the walkie talkie down. Then I set to work: I retrieved the knife from my satchel, sliding it down the cords that bound Liam’s wrists and ankles. I didn’t know much about IVs, but I’d seen Hepzibah insert and remove them often enough. I clamped off the flow of liquid, praying it wasn’t anything life-giving, and un-taped the wings of the butterfly needles from Liam’s flesh before slipping the needles themselves out of his veins.

  Pound pound pound.

  “Liam,” I murmured under my breath, like a plea. “Wake up! Wake up, I can’t carry you!”

  Suddenly the hovercraft blotted out the light of the moon. I saw the door slide open, and a second later, Rick appeared, one foot on the window ledge and one still inside the hovercraft. With his left hand, he clung to the hovercraft door, and he struck the window with the hammer in his right. He struck once, twice. The window shattered.

  Pound pound pound. The chair holding the door shut slid halfway down: only a tiny corner of the back of it blocked the handle now.