by Mark Tufo
George sat back for a moment, trying to digest this new scenario without getting sick to his stomach. He still wasn't over grieving Virginia's death, and now there was actually a chance that she was still alive. The conflict of information was enough to make his head spin.
"You know, I might even be able to help you find her. Maybe I can help you figure out where she went," the deviant added.
George's heart pounded. "What are you saying? Where would she go?"
The deviant shrugged. "I've got a fifty thousand-dollar bail order that needs to be filled. Get me out of here, and I'll tell you anything you want to know."
George dove across the table, knocking the man to his back, grabbing him by the front of his shirt. He tightened his fist and threatened to punch. "Tell me now—what do you know?"
The deviant cried out, cringing at George's tight fist. "There was a riot in the quarantine room! A few of us got out. I think I remember seeing her run off, but it all happened so fast!" The deviant looked over at the security associate, waiting for some assistance.
The security associate glared back, not looking at all concerned with George's threats against his prisoner.
"I don't know anything else!" the deviant cried. "You have to believe me!"
George backed off, straightening his shirt. He gave the young man a hateful glare and quietly fled the cold cell, feeling more lost than he had been when he had first come. He weighed the different possibilities. It was feasible that the deviant was nothing more than a con man looking for someone to bail him out. He could have gotten information about Virginia from somewhere else . . . but how could he possibly have known in advance that anyone from Law-Corp, let alone George specifically, would be coming to question him? He couldn't have.
If what he said were true, would Info-Corp willingly withhold such an important detail from the public? Would Info-Corp even be let in on such a dirty secret? The deviant's story fit way too closely with the one William had relayed before, and the more George thought about it, the less he was able to accept it as a simple coincidence. Perhaps he was still in denial over Virginia's death and was distorting facts to suit some twisted fantasy in the back of his head.
And then he had to consider another whole new question: if Virginia was alive, would he still want her if she was a deviant? Would Corporate even allow them to stay married? He thought about the kind, generous, beautiful woman he had married, and he decided that if Virginia was still alive, he would find her. He would see for himself whether she was still the woman he loved. He had even more questions now, and he felt as though he might lose his mind if he didn't find a way to get all of them answered soon. He had to know now, with the utmost of certainty, whether or not he was being played by hateful and selfish lies, or whether he and his family had been deceived by some ridiculous Corporate cover-up.
His family. . . .
There was still no sign of Shelley and Kurt at home. George wondered if he might have been a little too hard on both of them as of late, and maybe they'd decided to stay out past dark to teach him a lesson. Maybe their plan was to make him worry just long enough for him to realize he wasn't being as much of a team player as he could be. If that was the case, they were succeeding beyond their wildest dreams.
Deciding that he had the scenario completely figured out, he went to his bedroom and packed an overnight bag. He bundled up for the cold, putting on a heavy jacket, his warmest boots, and a protective hat. He found a good picture of Virginia and tucked it into his bag, then he left a note in the kitchen, telling Shelley to keep an eye on Kurt for the weekend. He said nothing about Virginia in his note, not wanting to get their hopes up, telling them instead that he would explain everything when he returned.
He had no idea where he was going to go, but he felt that initiating a physical search would be a far better use of his time than staying idly where he was. He had the weekend to travel the district, and Shelley was old enough to watch Kurt for a couple of days. His decision was rash, but there was too much at stake for him to do nothing.
He locked up the apartment and took off toward the shuttle garage, hoping he wasn't too late to get a quick lift closer to the heart of the district. He ran as a shuttle going northeast was getting ready to begin toward its final trip to the Food-Mart. He boarded the shuttle just in time, and it accelerated out of the garage just as Shelley's shuttle came in.
Shelley hurried to the apartment, positive she would freeze to death if she didn't get to a heated space soon. Half of her body felt numb, and everything that wasn't numb burned from the cold. Her head was so cold she could barely think. She still wasn't sure what she was going to tell her father about Kurt, as a huge confrontation the moment she stepped through the front door was most likely unavoidable. Still, she had nowhere else left to go but home.
Much to her surprise, she opened the door to a cold, dark, empty apartment. She felt a warm rush of relief at first, but when she read George's note and realized Kurt was still unaccounted for, another heavy surge of guilt and worry hit her. She turned the wall heater back on and stood by it for a moment. If Kurt was still out in the shuttle garage or one of the pedestrian tunnels, he had to be freezing. Would he have it in him to persevere through the cold just long enough to get back home?
I need to go back out, she thought. I need to find him.
She thought about the many security associates she'd either ducked past or convinced not to ticket her for being out past curfew. Someone had to have crossed Kurt's path by now. Moreover, if she hadn't seen him anywhere on her way home, what were the chances she'd see him upon a second sweep over that same area?
It was just too cold for her to go back out, she decided. She would regain her bearings and get a good night's rest before returning to her search for Kurt. She would get up early and start back at the Corp Education System's garage, giving his picture to all of the security associates in the area. Hopefully, he just went home with a friend and she could track him down before George got back. Trying to convince herself that she had done the right thing by returning home, that there was nothing more she could have done for him, she tried to get comfortable on the hard kitchen chair.
Not satisfied with how quickly the coils were heating, Shelley decided to take a quick, hot shower. She hurried to the bathroom and turned on the battery-powered light. She looked at her battered face in the mirror, horrified at the sight of her bloodshot eye. Dark bruises were beginning to form all around it, and the swelling still had not let up. Forcing herself to look away, she turned on the shower as hot as her skin could take it. She turned on the water recycler, planning to stay in as long as it took to warm her body clear through. Standing under the heavy jets of water, relishing in finally being warm, she did not hear the telephone ring.
Kurt stood, shaking and chattering, in a phone booth at the Corp Education System's shuttle garage. He had hidden in the boys' bathroom earlier, when Shelley had been looking for him, and clearly he had stayed in there for a little too long. The game had ceased to be fun some time ago, and now he just wanted to go home. Shelley had his shuttle pass, and he had been denied passage even on the promise that he would pay later. Security sent him on another round of hide-and-go-seek, and by the time he emerged from his spot behind the garbage cans, the entire garage had been shut down for the evening. Heavy gates kept him from entering school grounds, and he had no idea as to where any of the pedestrian access halls led.
He realized that his hands and fingers were turning shades of red and blue, and he rubbed them together in attempt to warm them. The motion was painful, despite the fact that most of both hands had gone numb. His face and ears had all gone numb too, and his toes felt like frozen rocks in his shoes. As the area became dark and quiet, monsters formed in the shadows. He held perfectly still, even holding his breath when he felt they were particularly close.
As the time passed, he became increasingly certain the monsters stalking him had to be the same ones that had taken away his mother. While he m
ight have sought aid from the random security associate who passed through every hour or so, he dared not move, lest the Boogeyman snatch him out of the darkness and send him into some hellish oblivion. He wished he were in his bedroom, near the dim light of the bathroom, safe at home with his family. He knew running and hiding from Shelley had been a mistake, the repercussions having become far worse than a few harsh words or even a spank on the rear. He wondered if Shelley was now in trouble, too, for having lost him, and he genuinely regretted his childish behavior.
His fingers and toes began to get worse, and he curled up behind the trashcans in attempt to get warm. To his relief, he stopped shaking and he began to feel strangely warm, although his teeth still chattered. He took quick, heavy breaths, the cold air stinging his lungs. His arms and legs became difficult to move, and he stretched periodically to check that his limbs were all still intact. Finally, he tried to get up, only to find that he could not. He stared ahead, watching his frozen breath as it exited his mouth in tiny puffs. Each breath disappeared nearly as soon as it came, and still he became fixated on the tiny clouds. He began to imagine them in fun and different shapes: a star; a heart; a soft, white teddy bear; endless ocean waves; his mother's beautiful, sad, lonely face. . . .
The desire to sleep came on slowly, and then suddenly he had no choice but to close his eyes and rest his heavy head. The chattering stopped and his body fell awkwardly limp. His mind slipped to a warm, happy place where his mother held him in a tender, loving embrace, a place where there were no more worries . . . no more monsters or freezing cold or crushing despair, just him sitting in his mother's arms beneath the comforting glow of a slowly fading afternoon sun, lazily picking out the shapes in the drifting clouds.
After a short, restless night, Shelley made her way back through the pedestrian halls. She could hear rain beating down overhead, and the tunnels themselves were cold and musty. A wave of warmer air rushed toward her when she neared the Corp school shuttle hall, and although the heated ventilation system was set on low for the weekend, it was enough to chase away the violent shivering that had taken hold during her long walk.
As soon as she cleared the tunnel, she paused at the sight of a Police-Corp shuttle speeding in.
A security associate spotted Shelley and ran to intercept her. "I'm sorry, miss, but this tunnel is closed."
"But I need to get through here."
"What business do you have going through here during the weekend?" he asked, subtly glancing over at a random work of Graffiti on a nearby wall.
She felt a tremble return to her hands. He could take her in if he wanted, and it seemed evident that a crime more serious than graffiti was behind the numbers of officers that continued to file in. She needed to get through, though. She'd already checked in the direction of the Food-Mart, and her only other guess was that Kurt had been picked up and taken to the Safe House while a police associate or two investigated his post-curfew wanderings.
"Miss?"
She bit her lip, hoping the truth might unbar her path. "My brother never came home last night and I was hoping to retrace his steps. I think my dad may have been out all night looking for him and—"
"What does your brother look like?" the associate asked.
Shelley took a deep breath. "He's seven, brown eyes, sandy blond hair."
He nodded. "I think you should come with me."
She found his expression unreadable, and a heavy feeling came over her. "Why? What's going on?"
"Please just come with me."
Her throat grew tight as the man escorted her through the garage. "What is it?" she asked, although she'd begun to suspect the answer.
And then there it was: a tiny, ice-blue limb peeking through the small swarm of police associates. Shelly collapsed to her knees with a shriek, her body suddenly too heavy for her muscles to carry. Everything went fuzzy, tears blurring her vision. The voices that echoed through the hall became a confusing mass of noise, her own screams adding to the chaos.
A police manager ran up to her and the associate. "What's this?"
"I think we have an I.D.," said the associate.
"I don't know what we'll do with it. Corporate hasn't sent over any work orders yet," said the manager.
Shelley looked up at the two men, then back over at the body. Denial hit her just as quickly as the initial blow, and she shook her head. "No . . . it can't be him. It can't."
She forced herself to her feet. A dizzy spell threatened to take her back down, but she pushed through it and began toward the body.
"Hey!" The security associate tried to stop her, but she darted past him.
Shelley fell into fitful sobs, pushing through the small crowd, as she recognized Kurt's face. His eyes were closed and his face peaceful, his arms tightly locked around his legs. She'd done this. She'd left him to die. She tried to push through to his side, to embrace the body and maybe find a salvageable spark of life remained, but an officer grabbed her by the arm and held her back.
"I'm going to have to ask you to go with—"
"That's my brother!" she cried, yanking her arm from his grasp. She went limp as two more associates moved in to help the manager pull her from the scene. "Kurt!"
Their voices faded into the din as the police associates spoke:
We'll have to detain you if you don't calm down. . . . I can wait with her for a work order if you want. . . . I think we need to get higher management involved in this one. . . . Mine's not on call. . . . Neither is mine. . . . We'll just have to wait then. . . .
Calm . . . work order . . . not my job . . . we'll neither for do my your down down down.
Calm down. Calm calm. . . .
Miss?
She became cognizant of her surroundings as the associates stopped dragging her, seemingly intent on keeping her contained at the farthest tunnel connection. It felt so cold there now.
"We're going to need to ask you a few questions," one of them told her.
Shelley thought to respond, but instead she sat, silently weeping, unable to take her eyes away from the body's location. She watched for breaks in the mass of workers . . . waiting for another morbid glimpse of his frozen limbs.
"Miss? Miss?"
Chapter 105
VIRGINIA STARTLED AWAKE with a horrified gasp, sitting up in her cot in a panic. Sleep had thrust upon her mind a terrible nightmare, but what the nightmare had been about she could no longer recall. She took a moment to reoriented herself with her new surroundings, having forgotten that she had dozed off in the basement room after the Conrads had retired for the night. Staring at the dark, dreary walls, she felt a sudden, intense longing to be home with her family, missing them now more than ever.
She stood up, shaking off the cold sweat that covered her body. She looked over to the other cot, noticing that Nadine was not there. She made her way up the stairs as quietly as she could, and then carefully opened the door to the foyer. Seeing and hearing no one, Virginia crossed to the kitchen. There was a service light on over the sink, and Virginia saw that there were two used wine glasses sitting on the counter beside an open bottle of Merlot.
Knowing Mr. and Mrs. Conrad would have rang the bell if they had wanted wine, and Nadine would have cleaned the glasses immediately if she had somehow heard the call and served them without waking Virginia, she wondered if perhaps Nadine was just as much the thief as the girl she had just fired. There was a commotion in the storeroom as a few canned goods fell from a shelf.
She tiptoed over to the storeroom, hoping to see something she could use to put that bossy woman in her place. As she peeked through the doorway, however, she found Nadine and Mr. Conrad together on the floor. He had his undergarments down to his ankles, and she was on her back with her legs wrapped around his wrinkled, fat, gyrating body. Neither expected the intrusion, and both were oblivious to Virginia's presence.
She hurried back downstairs, deciding to feign ignorance over the matter for at least the time being. She returned to her cot, but
found herself too restless to fall back to sleep. The longer she lay there, the harder she found it to get comfortable. Nadine came downstairs after a short while, and Virginia held her eyes closed, falling still and silent. She listened as Nadine quietly slipped back to her cot.
Virginia told herself she would be extra loud when she cleaned out the pans in the morning if Nadine woke with a hangover. She shuddered at the thought of a man as undesirable as Mr. Conrad making a pass at her, and wondered why a pretty young thing like Nadine would give in to his advances like that. Virginia would just as soon quit than add Mr. Conrad to her list of responsibilities, she told herself, disgusted with just the thought of ever seeing that man naked again. Seeing Nadine with him like that took her already diminished respect for the girl down even a few more notches.
Nadine began to snore and Virginia lay awake, wishing the day would just come so she could get it over with all the sooner. The hours passed by slowly, however, and by the time morning came, Virginia had dark circles under her tired, puffy eyes. She dragged herself off the cot as the morning bell rang, perking ever so slightly when she saw Nadine wince at the light and hold her aching head.
"Time to make breakfast?" Virginia asked.
"We have fifteen minutes to put ourselves together," Nadine mumbled. "If you brew us a fresh pot of coffee, I'll owe you whatever favor you want."
"I'm going to hold you to that." Virginia started a pot of coffee in their tiny, downstairs coffee maker, and then turned to the sink to wash her face. She looked at herself in their small bathroom mirror. With her blue eyes and tired face, she could barely recognize the reflection that stared back at her. She quickly turned away before the image had a chance to induce another untimely surge of emotion.
The basement room filled with the aroma of fresh coffee, a luxury Virginia had not enjoyed for a while. She found two clean mugs and poured a generous serving of coffee for each of them. Seeing no sugar or creamer, she handed Nadine her mug and sat back down on her cot. The coffee tasted rich and bittersweet. Virginia lost herself in the comforting liquid as she slowly sipped at it, reality going on hold until her mug came close to empty.