“Because I’m not a giant whiner,” I said with a straight face, and she got serious quick.
“Oh, no you din’t,” she said, destroying the word “didn’t” in the process of drawing my attention to it.
“Oh, yes I—hey, we’re here.” I brought us down in a low sweep toward the hidden place where I’d stashed the vault. I came in low for a landing, dropping Veronika in a thatch of bushes. She screamed at me as she landed, but I figured it was fair game for her nearly burning my hand off earlier.
“That was reciprocity, I guess,” Veronika said. She was quick. “You owed me that for the hand.” She brushed a twig out of her hair. “And at least this isn’t the desert, where I’d get a cactus up my ass.”
“Note to self: detour to Arizona on the way home,” I said, “though I must say, after a month in Utah—”
“Why would you go and do a thing like that to yourself?” She shook her head sadly. “Was it some sort of self-flagellation?”
“It was nice there,” I said, “with mostly nice people. Except for that one bitch that dumpstered me—”
“You let someone put you in a dumpster?”
“I needed to be incognito. Plus, I tipped a portable outhouse over on her as a reply in kind.” I frowned, thinking about it. “I wonder if Sandra has figured out she got effed up by Sienna Nealon yet?”
“She’ll figure it out eventually,” Veronika said, brushing a stray leaf out of the crack of her too-tight pants. They weren’t too tight for her, but she was clearly way more confident in her body than I was mine, even with the Abigail-ification of my wardrobe. She walked up to the vault and just stared at it for a second. “You carried this thing all the way out here from Portland?”
“Yep.”
She raised her eyebrows, impressed. “Nice job, Nealon. You’re like, my hero, or something.” She raised a fist and crackled the knuckles one by one. “That said, you should never send a girl to do a woman’s job.”
“And you should never send a woman in a girl’s pants,” I quipped back, drawing an amused look from Veronika.
“Girl, you know my ass looks good in this leather. You weren’t just checking out the branches you tried to violate me with.”
“I wouldn’t violate you, even with a branch, but you just keep thinking I would.”
“God, you’re such a stick in the mud, Nealon. Why can’t you be a stick up my ass instead?”
I was never quite sure how to take Veronika’s borderline flirtation with me, but fortunately, she got to business before I had to give it much more thought. Her hand lit up like a lantern, and she plunged it into the specially imbued metal that comprised the vault. Her fingers pressed against it lightly, like mine had, making it look a little like she was casting a magical spell or something.
“This is really hard material,” Veronika said. “Like … really hard.”
“You’re searching for a way to make that dirty and failing to come up with a guy’s name to drag into it, aren’t you?”
“Oh, I could go down that dirty road if I wanted.” She flashed me a grin. “But I like to keep you guessing.” She turned back to the vault, a look of concentration visible on her face. She pushed her hand against it and the vault squeaked, moving slightly against her pressure.
And her fingers melted a few centimeters into the surface.
“Yeah, baby,” Veronika whispered, “I would have burned Thor’s hand off and violated him with his own hammer. Who’s harder than that?”
“I’d doubt he’d be, after having a big honking hammer placed where the sun don’t shine.”
“You don’t know, he might have been waiting all his long life for a girl like me.”
“Then he died waiting, cuz he ate it in Norway back in the 1600s.” I tried to recall Bjorn’s memory of him, which was somewhat dim, like Bjorn himself. “Also, Chris Hemsworth—way better than the original casting.”
“That’s disappointing,” Veronika said, pushing her fingers deeper into the vault as they sunk in up to her fingertips. “This is really taking a while. Good thing I’ve got you to banter with or I would have given up out of boredom already.”
“Suddenly you’re sounding a little like my psycho aunt Charlie.”
Veronika almost choked, spinning around to face me, hand still buried in the vault up to the wrist. “Oh God! Charlie Nealon’s your aunt?”
“Oh, gah—tell me you didn’t—with her—”
“What?” Veronika stared at me, frown on her face. “With Charlie? Hell no! I just—she’s a psycho, is all. It wouldn’t take meeting her for more than five minutes for anyone to figure that out.” She set her feet, steadying herself to get back to work. Beads of sweat glistened like diamonds on her forehead in the bright blue glow.
“Really?” I mused. “It took me about six months to figure it out.” Veronika stumbled slightly but tried to cover herself. “But she was probably putting on a good show for me because I was her niece and all …”
“Whatever happened to psycho Charlie?” Veronika asked. “She make it out of the war?”
“Unfortunately—or maybe fortunately?—no. The Wolfe brothers got her in Vegas right before it ended.”
“Ouch,” Veronika said, not turning back to look. “Sorry-not-sorry to hear it.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sorry-not-sorry to tell you.”
“Ooooh,” Veronika said as her fingers slid through the slag metal of the vault. “Hot! Hot!” She paused, bringing her hand down slowly. Now that she’d cut through, she slowly slid her hand along and carved the vault open like she was slicing a thick wheel of cheese. It took her a few minutes of applied pressure and colorful swearing, but she opened up a hole big enough that she could fit through it with ease and I could—well, sorta squeeze through if need be.
“Watch the edges,” she said.
“Yeah, I get it, the plate’s hot,” I said, drawing the heat from the edges into my hand and dissipating it. It left a little steamed feeling because it was hotter than what I was used to dealing with by a lot. “Yeouch.”
“You always knew I was hot, baby,” Veronika said, slipping through the hole in the vault and lighting her hand up once she was inside.
“You know they make a feature on your cell phone that can work as a flashlight,” I quipped, ducking into the metal confines of the vault, my pants catching on one of the edges. I rolled my eyes and shimmied my hips until it dislodged. “Clearly you have something against curves.”
Veronika gave me a cursory glance back. “I was pretty sick of cutting that hole by the time I got done, so just consider yourself lucky I made it big enough for you to squeeze through at all, darlin’.”
“You really are a master of the compliment sandwich,” I said, “if calling me ‘darlin’ was a compliment at all.”
“What the hell is this, darlin’?” Veronika asked, being snide and informative all at once.
I stepped up next to her, not daring to light up my own hand for fear of combusting something. The walls of the vault were lined with shelves that had apparently been carefully built into the sides of the structure. On the shelves were rows of test tubes filled with liquid. They all looked blue in the glow of Veronika’s white light, and they all had labels with various dates and bar codes printed on them. “Huh,” I said. “Well, Palleton was a lab, I guess.”
“These test tube trays are bolted to the shelves,” Veronika said, bending over to look at the underside of the shelves. “You flew this thing a quarter of the way across the country after breaking it out of a building and …” she looked around, “… I don’t see one fallen test tube.”
“I think they have the occasional earthquake in Oregon,” I said. “Ring of Fire and all that.”
“Still,” she said, peering at one of the test tubes, “they spent some time on this. And they locked it up in a vault that, like, no one could access without permission.” She picked up the test tube she was looking at. “The problem is … how do we figure out what the hell this even
is?”
I scanned the vault. In addition to the thousands of test tubes, there was a shadowy place in the corner, against the back wall. “I dunno,” I said, walking past her, looking into the darkness, “but maybe … yeah, here.” The shadowy place in the corner was a cabinet that had been secured to the floor like the rest of the shelving, but it wasn’t locked with any additional security, just a simple handle. Probably figured that if you were in the vault, you were supposed to be.
I opened the handle and the cabinet swung wide. It smelled like musty paper, and I did find a couple blank note pads on the second shelf, along with a portable hard drive and a list of instructions for its use. “Jackpot,” I muttered as I held the little square of plastic aloft.
“Cool find, bro,” Veronika said, “but we don’t have a computer, and if we need to decode it or something, I’m guessing the crew you’ve got isn’t going to be much help.” She paused in thought. “Maybe that Abigail chick? I dunno.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said, staring at the little piece of tech in my hands, hoping that finally, finally, I might be close to solving at least one mystery. “I know someone who can open this. I just need to get ahold of him …”
74.
Harmon
“Sir?” Jana’s voice stirred me out of my sleep, and I blinked to wakefulness to find her staring down at me, very formally. The Situation Room was quiet, and my back had a kink in it that would disappear as soon as I got up and walked around. Meta healing powers were quite the boon.
“How long was I out?” I asked, standing up and stretching. I didn’t really need to stretch, but it looked appropriate for my supposed age.
“Most of the day,” Jana said stiffly. “I had Ms. Krall cancel some of your appointments, but we’re reaching a congressional meeting that can’t be put off.”
“Oh, I don’t want to meet with Congress,” I said, rubbing my forehead. “This is about their problems with the EPA regulation issuance, isn’t it?” I reached out and touched Scott Byerly’s mind, and found him not very far away at all, and heading toward me. That was convenient. At least he hadn’t had a chance to defy me or cause problems while I was sleeping. “When is the FBI task force arriving?”
“In the next few minutes,” Jana said.
“Them I’ll meet with. Tell the congressional delegation to screw right off.” I frowned, not quite satisfied. “Also, I need a cup of coffee and a sandwich.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Jana,” I said as she started to leave. “Make sure you use the words ‘screw right off’ when you tell the congressional delegation what I said, all right? I don’t want them rescheduling. I don’t have time for this.”
She blinked. “You don’t have time for democracy, Mr. President?”
I blinked right back at her, caught off guard by her candidness. “This isn’t democracy,” I said, defaulting to a certain style I had of going professorial when challenged. “It’s a republic with democratic ideals. I’m the executive branch and they’re the legislature, and while I enforce the laws I’m under no obligation to meet with them because they’re having a tantrum—”
Jana must’ve figured if she was in for a penny, she was in for a pound. “Sir, their complaint is that your branch is writing the laws, not enforcing them.”
That took me aback. Most people didn’t argue with the president. “I’d like my coffee and sandwich, now, please,” I said, turning away from her.
“Yes, Mr. President.”
I covered my face and rubbed my eyes. I was too close now to worry about these trifling complaints. I wouldn’t have wanted to hear them even if I hadn’t been approaching the fruition of what I’d been working toward for so long, and since I was … I really had no time for them at all.
“I bet FDR didn’t have deal with this bullshit,” I muttered, conveniently ignoring any number of times when he had, in fact, dealt with being told no. But I wasn’t going to have to deal with it for much longer, I reflected, as I headed toward the Oval Office.
Hopefully not much longer at all.
75.
Sienna
I hadn’t wasted time going back to LA; Veronika had called the others and had them charter another plane to Montana. They arrived a few hours later, and by then we had a rental house and were set up. I’d finally gotten hold of a burner phone and figured out a way to get the number I’d been searching for.
As it turned out, directory assistance was my Huckleberry in this case. Next thing you knew, I’d be using one of those old phone books. I dialed the number, starting with the Atlanta area code, and waited.
The phone rang as I stood there, hoping for an answer. “Pick up,” I whispered. “Pick up—”
“Hello?” An older lady’s voice answered in a tone that suggested if I were a telemarketer, I might do well to start praying for my immortal soul. If such a thing existed.
“Hi Mrs. Coleman,” I said to Augustus’s mom, “It’s Sienna Nealon. Uh, Augustus’s old boss—”
“I know who you are,” she snapped, clearly not happy with me for assuming she was an idiot. “Maybe you can explain to me why Augustus hasn’t called me in a month?”
“Uhh … I don’t know … I haven’t talked to him in probably just as long—”
“Who is that?” a soft voice asked in the background.
“It’s Augustus’s old boss,” Mrs. Coleman said, clearly prioritizing her company over me.
“Edward Cavanagh?” The voice was female, and clearly not happy at the thought. “Cuz I was sure he was dead.”
“No, Sienna Nealon,” Mrs. Coleman said.
“Can I just —” There was a scuffling sound, and the other voice became clear, a woman’s. “Hello? Sienna?”
“You took my phone, girl!” Mrs. Coleman sounded pretty put out. “Ungrateful!” There was a pause. “Also, you got a scrappy grip there for such a little thing—”
“Hi, Taneshia,” I said.
“What’s going on with Augustus?” she asked, so very serious. “We haven’t heard from him in weeks.”
“About that …” I said. “Have you heard from Jamal?”
“Sure, he’s staying here now,” Taneshia said, sounding a little taken aback.
“Get him, please?”
“Not until I get an answer to my question.” She was pretty firm about it.
“All right, well,” I said, “he’s being mind-controlled by the president of the United States into hunting me down.”
There was a long silence at the other end of the phone. “Let me get Jamal,” Taneshia finally said. “JAMAL!”
“Damn, girl, you don’t shout in my house!” Mrs. Coleman yelled, kinda breaking her own rule.
No one said anything for a few tense moments, and then soft footsteps made their way through the phone and I heard someone pick it up. “Hello?” Jamal asked quietly.
“It’s Sienna,” I said. “I have problems.”
“Other than felony warrants?” he asked dryly. “What’s wrong with my brother?”
“Mind control,” I said. “By President Harmon.”
A pause. “No shit?”
“LANGUAGE, boy!” Mrs. Coleman said. “You ain’t talking like that in my house!”
“I’mma need to step outside for a minute,” Jamal said, and I heard him walking.
“I better not hearing you swearing out in my yard either, making a damn fool of yourself in front of the neighbors and God and everybody!”
There was a click of a door shutting, and Jamal said, “So what are you doing to fix matters?”
“Well, I’m cracking the case of Harmon’s master plan at the moment,” I said. “Figure if I can defeat him, he’ll, you know, let loose of your brother’s brain.”
“You’re going to go up against the whole government?” Jamal asked.
“What’s she doing?” Taneshia asked in the background. I guess she’d followed him.
“Starting shit with the government, sounds like,” Jamal said.
“I have a hard drive from a project Harmon seems to be heavily invested in,” I said. “It was something I think he had Cavanagh on before he died.”
“That’s an interesting tie,” Jamal said. “He wasn’t just a donor, they were pals, huh?”
“Long suspected, more or less confirmed in my mind, now,” I said. “I got a whole mess of test tubes and hard drive that, uh … well, I tried just plugging it into the laptop on hand, but it didn’t do anything.”
“I got you,” he said. “Give me a few minutes and let’s get some things set up, see what we’re dealing with.”
“Thanks, Jamal,” I said.
“Don’t thank me yet,” he said, the door squeaking as he went back into his house. “I’ve got no idea what you’re going to find with this, but if it’s anything like the stuff we’ve dug up on Cavanagh so far …” I could hear him shudder through the phone. “… You might not be that glad we dug into this by the time it’s through.”
76.
Harmon
It was beginning to feel like progress when Cassidy walked in with the little box, her hands shaking. “Is that it?” I asked, and she nodded, not even close to a smile. “Good, because the test subjects will be here in a moment.”
“You’re going to test it on … Sienna Nealon’s friends?” Cassidy asked, looking particularly nervous.
“I am,” I said. “Unless you’d also like to volunteer.” She looked at the box, pondered it for less than a half second, and then shook her head, almost sadly. “I guess we’re stuck with them, then. I’d like to make sure there’s no fatal side effects before I try it on myself.”
“I understand,” she said and looked at the box once more, caught somewhere between fear and envy. She knew what it contained, but also the risks. Truthfully, I wouldn’t have wanted her to take it, for more than one reason.
Unyielding (Out of the Box Book 11) Page 23