by Wesley Chu
Hands grabbed at him, pulling at his shirt and arms. Someone smacked him in the face. Cameron spun and dodged, slicing between people, sweeping out with his feet and tripping them when he could, knocking others off-balance with his arms when he had to. He felt graceful and in-control. These kids stood little chance as he spun a guy around and pushed him into two others. He sidestepped a tackle and tripped another. Before he knew it, he had worked his way through a dozen bodies, half of which were now groaning on the floor. He also was pretty sure he hadn’t seriously injured anyone.
Well done.
Cameron looked for Alex and gasped. Tabs obviously had not given her the same instruction about not hurting any of his classmates. Alex was laying waste to the soccer team. He saw three students on the ground unconscious and at least two puddles of blood. He watched, fascinated and horrified as she shattered Bill’s nose with her fist, exploding bright blood all over the floor.
In a second, she moved in on the starting third baseman and broke his wrist when he grabbed for her. Then, before any of the now-terrified kids could run away, she actually pounced on one of the football linesmen and elbowed him on the back of the head. He collapsed like a ton of rocks onto the floor.
Get her out of here before she kills someone.
Cameron ran and grabbed her before she could cause any more damage. She almost seemed to be in a feral trance as he pulled her back. “We need to go.” He wrapped his arms around her waist as she struggled against him.
Right as they stepped out the door, she became perfectly calm again. “Let’s go,” she said, and took off, leaving Cameron dumbfounded with nothing left to do but follow her.
29
Hospital Visit
Timestamp: 3133
The next few years were a blur. Small town Appalachia gave way to small town Midwest to small town Rockies. We even did a stint in Canada. Way too cold. By then, we had learned how to avoid the IXTF. The Genjix were dealing with their own consolidation and had largely forgotten about us, and the Prophus network was too much in tatters to mount any sort of steady operation. It was actually a nice time in our lives.
That all changed when the Keeper made a personal visit to our home.
* * *
Roen wasn’t a big fan of hospitals. He usually visited them as a patient and was there for gunshot wounds, broken limbs, or some form of blunt force trauma. That kind of stuff he was fine with. He recognized that he would have been dead a dozen times over if it weren’t for hospitals. That wasn’t what bugged him about them. He just didn’t like the smell.
There was something about that sterile smell that drove him nuts. Roen guessed it would be better than the stink of death, but every time he was in a hospital, it brought him back to that fateful day when he had to bust Edward’s brother, Gregory, out of the long-term care facility. He ended up killing his first person that day, and then euthanizing Gregory that evening in order to free Yol. No matter how many times Roen had killed since, that day haunted him, and every time he stepped foot into a hospital and smelled the sterile hospital smell, he relived those moments.
Stepping into Saint Alphonsus was no different, though this time he was actually breaking into the building, as opposed to being a patient. His plan was simple. Find an exterior door in a less-traveled area without a surveillance camera. Once someone passes through, jump out of a hiding place and follow inside. In a small-town facility like Oregon, it should be a cakewalk.
Unfortunately, Roen picked too quiet a spot. He found a door near the far end of the loading dock that had a small garden for patients to sit in. It was a foggy morning, so finding a good hiding spot around the corner behind a thick bush proved relatively easy. He planted himself there and waited. And waited. And waited some more.
It was twenty minutes before someone used that door. Unfortunately for Roen, his attention had wandered by then, and he was a second too late in grabbing for the door before it closed. It was another fifteen minutes before someone else came out for a smoke. This time, he was ready and leaped to the handle before the door closed all the way. Once he got through the front outer door, all he had to do was act like someone who was supposed to be there.
Helen’s scrubs had looked like a skin suit on him when he had tried them on. Instead, for the first time since the desk job Tao had found him in, he wore a shirt and tie, and sported a pair of khakis. These he had picked up from the local department store down the street. Selections were pretty limited, so he was relegated to a baby-blue short-sleeve button down and a decidedly non-matching tie. He could imagine what Tao would say right now if he saw Roen.
Short sleeve button-downs are an abomination.
“Six bucks a shirt, man. Six bucks.”
Marco and Helen had a field day poking fun at him when he tried them on. He wasn’t sure that’s what doctors were supposed to wear, but it seemed about right. The tie also wasn’t hanging quite straight; the double-Windsor was one of those skills he had never gotten around to mastering, and he was too embarrassed to ask Marco for help. Jill was the one who usually took care of that for him.
It only took Roen a few minutes to sneak into the main hallway and blend in with his fake badge. That was the one nice thing about small towns; security was usually pretty lax. Now, all Roen had to do was act liked he belonged. That was really half the battle when it came to infiltrating any place. It was admittedly one of his weaker skillsets, but it wasn’t like he was busting into Fort Knox here.
A few of the nurses and doctors threw looks his way, but most ignored him after he gave them a friendly smile and pretended to be busy. It took a little sleuthing and some flirting with some of the nurses – he really wasn’t as incompetent as Jill and Marco made him out to be – before he found his way to the third floor recovery rooms.
No sooner had he rounded the corner, than he saw two men guarding one of the doors in the middle of the hallway. Roen palmed the listening bug in his hand and pretended to ignore them as he tried to pass by the room.
Predictably, the two men stood up and one of them blocked his path. “Sorry, sir, this is a restricted area.”
Roen acted confused. “I’m just trying to get across.” He caught a glimpse inside the room. Prie was awake and propped up on the bed, talking to someone to his left. The commotion in the hallway must have caught his attention, because he turned to face Roen, and their eyes met. Pri must have told him something, because Roen received a slight nod.
Security was too tight. There was no way he could step foot into the room to plant the bug. Perhaps if he broke in at night, but Roen was willing to bet there were guards here around the clock. He had to be careful not to spook the IXTF folks, or they might just move Prie prematurely.
The one blocking his path became more insistent while the other guard in the back reached for his firearm. The person inside turned around and followed Prie’s gaze toward him. Roen quickly turned away, taking the identification clip off his shirt and putting it into his pocket.
“Ralphy?”
Crap. She had noticed him. Roen stopped, turned around, and smiled. “Special Agent Kallis. What a surprise to see you here.”
“Official business. You?”
Roen motioned toward his left elbow. “Was looking at some rot on a pile of wood. Fell off. Thought I broke an arm. Got it checked to be on the safe side. Trying to get out of here now. Kind of got my way twisted around.”
“Good to hear you’re all right.” Kallis looked back in the room and then at her two men. “Hey, Charles, I’ll be right back.”
The agent on the left nodded. “Take your time, Ma’am. Fritz should be here any minute, anyway.”
She turned back to Roen. “I’ll walk you out.”
“Uh,” he stammered. Without a good excuse, he sighed and allowed her to lead him out the hospital that he had just spent the entire morning trying to get into.
The two of them stepped out through the emergency room exit and into the cool dewy afternoon air. It had rained th
e previous night, and a low-hanging mist had fallen over the town. Roen stared longingly back at the hospital. He’d have to do this all over again.
“Well, Ralphy,” Kallis waved, and paused. “Ralphy’s not your real name, is it?”
For a second, Roen thought he had blown his cover, then he realized what she meant and shook his head. “Nah, only…” he had to take another second to pull up the stupid name Marco gave himself, “…Cornelius calls me that. My real name is…” To be honest, Roen didn’t like Ralph either. He went with the first thing that came to mind. “…Rutherford.” That wasn’t much better. Mentally, Roen imagined himself palming his own face. He could see Tao doing it too, if Tao had hands. He could hear his friend berating him.
What did I tell you about not complicating your lies? Stick with Ralphy and keep things simple, dumbass!
“Okay, Rutherford,” Kallis grinned. “I’ll see you later.”
“Hey,” Roen called after her, not sure what he was doing. “You, um, want to grab some lunch?”
Kallis stopped, looked at Roen, then back at the hospital, and then shrugged. “Sure, why not? Not a big fan of these places anyway.”
“I’m right there with you,” Roen agreed. “Every time I truck through here, I get the chills.”
Kallis frowned playfully. “Are you that big of a klutz?”
Roen realized his mistake a second too late and tried to play it off. “Ulcers. Comes with being Cornelius’s business partner.”
In his head, he began to tally all the lies he was stacking on top of each other. At this rate, if Kallis ever ran into Marco again, Roen would have to give him a complete dossier on his new secret identity. For now, he was just going to have to keep track of everything.
Keep it simple, stupid.
The two walked across the street back to the Woodchuck Chuck. It was here or the run-down pizza joint, the even more run-down burger place, or the fake Mexican fast-food place down the street. Not that Woodchuck Chuck had much better food, but at least they served alcohol, and that basically clinched their choice.
Pretty soon, the two were picking at mediocre fish and chips over a pitcher of crappy beer, commiserating on their shared hatred of hospitals. Roen had to do a little more creative alibi-building as she questioned him about the redwood lumber business. It became pretty clear five minutes into their chat that she was primarily interested in Marco.
After the initial generic questions about him, the conversation shifted to all Marco all the time. She asked about how they met, how they got into business, and what sort of guy he was. She delved a little deeper into why he was single at his age, if he was ever married, and whether he had children. And of course, Roen had to talk Marco up, which was one of the most painful things he’d had to do in recent memory.
It was bad enough he had to work for the guy, now he had to say nice things about him. Yes, Marco is nice and considerate. Yes, Marco is witty and a good friend. No, Marco isn’t a player or have gambling or alcohol problems. It really couldn’t get much worse. Eventually, though, he had lied enough to satisfy her curiosity about the Brit, and even got a few digs in, like telling her Marco loved to recite poetry and was once a junior champion river dancer.
“You should ask him to show you,” Roen said. “He’s fantastic. His nickname in prep school was Tapping Fairy.”
Then it was his turn. Roen asked Kallis about how she got to her position and what she was doing in IXTF. He had much of this information already. The Prophus still had some access to certain federal personnel files. He had researched bios thoroughly when her name began to pop up more frequently during his jobs for the Underground Railroad.
She had risen through the CIA and was assigned to the IXTF during the agency’s inception. Since then, she had been a fast riser within Interpol, but had been passed up for the directorship of the North America region twice. After her latest failure, when she was assigned to the Pacific Northwest, she thought her career had stalled. However, she found that she was enjoying this assignment much more than when she was operating out of New York.
“Part of it’s the wilderness, and you’d be surprised, but part of it’s the action,” she said. “I can’t get into details, but there is a lot of heavy traffic coming in from Canada south toward Mexico.”
“Like drug smuggling?” Roen asked, playing dumb.
Kallis shook her head. “People smuggling, and lots of it. For some reason, a lot of aliens are running from something.”
“Are these aliens really bad?” Roen asked. “I hear that they’ve been around for longer than we were. Doesn’t that give them a better claim to the planet?”
She made a face. “That argument might have held water if they hadn’t spent their entire existence screwing us. We can’t trust them.”
“Well, they did come clean,” he said.
“Only after supposedly one side lost. At the end of the day, humans should be in control of our own destiny. They even admitted to purposely causing wars in order to advance technology. How messed up is that?”
Roen had to be careful here. It was a fine line between acting stupid and defending his cause. “I thought there were two sides to the aliens. Mind you, I’m only getting this from the news and the Internet. You’re the expert here.”
Kallis thought it over. “Well, there has been some evidence of two differing groups of Quasing. But we don’t know if they’re just playing us again. At the end of the day, it seems they need us more than we need them. They need to come clean and tell us everything.”
Roen grunted. Fat chance of that. Kallis thought she knew what was going on, but if she only knew how deep the rabbit hole went. There would be no hope for reconciliation then. However, she did prove to him that she was somewhat open-minded about things, which was a far cry from the times he had spoken to her as the Rayban Ghost.
After their meal, he walked her to her car in the hospital parking lot. She smiled, a genuine one now, and held out her hand. “Hey, it was fun. Really. I’m glad we had this opportunity to chat.”
Roen accepted it. He sincerely thought so as well. “Hey, um, I’m about to go see Cornelius. Did you want me to tell him hi? We’ve been running around busy over the past few days, but I’m sure he’d love to see you.”
Kallis smiled. “Thank you, Rutherford. I’d like that. Cornelius has a really good friend.”
Roen kept that smile plastered on his face until she turned away. He almost felt bad for using her, but it was important he and Marco nurture this relationship. Prie’s life could depend on it. Still, Roen couldn’t help liking Special Agent Kallis. She was the enemy, no doubt about it, but in another world, they could have been friends.
He watched as she disappeared into the hospital and turned a corner, and gave himself a mental pat on the back. He had used her in more than one way. His con job was a little sloppy, but the bug he had planted on the bottom of her shoe right in front of the heel should hold. Both the sole and the bug were black, so with just a little luck, she’d never notice the small attachment. He grinned as he hurried back to the hotel.
30
The Way South
ProGenesis, the modified artificial Quasing atmosphere, is a breakthrough because it not only allows us to reproduce, but also allows us to reconnect our thoughts. However, for many of the Quasing who call Earth home, it has a price that we are not willing to pay. There is a secret regarding my people that very few humans will ever be aware of, one that will change the way humanity views the Quasing forever.
Tao
* * *
Cameron and Alex scoped out the local bus station from across the street. There were seven cars parked in the lot and two buses with their engines on. The bus on the left would take them south to Fort Bragg. The question was, how would they get on it? Was it safe to even try? Cameron studied the faces of each person who walked to and from the station. He recognized some of them; it was hard not to when you lived in a small town. However, he wasn’t prepared to make a trip ac
ross the street to buy a ticket, especially after what had happened at the school the day before. There was only one bus station in town, so it made coming here especially perilous. There was a high likelihood of either the Genjix or the police waiting for them. Or both.
Police car a hundred meters up the street. There is someone sitting in the blue sedan on the right. He has been there for thirty-five minutes.
“We’ll never learn anything by just sitting here,” Alex said. “Besides, the police are not going to watch the station just because a few kids got beat up.”
“You don’t know small towns, then,” he said. “This is probably the biggest thing to happen to Eureka in years.” He turned to her. “Besides, you didn’t just beat them up; you brutalized them. We’re just lucky you didn’t kill anyone.”
She rolled her eyes. “That is the Hatchery way. If you show compassion to your enemy, you only invite them to return twice as determined. Those kids will never try to stop us again.”
She also got every parent and cop in this small town on alert for a blonde psychopath.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Cameron muttered. “It’s made our escape much more difficult with everyone looking for us.”
Unfortunately, Cameron’s words probably weren’t too far off. News in the small town had spread like wildfire that a bunch of students at the local high school got their asses kicked by a Russian teenager. As they are wont to do in a place as small as Eureka, the rumors had taken a life of their own. Right now, half the population probably thought there was a vixen serial killer in their midst, while the other probably thought they were being invaded by the Red Army, and were forming up as if they were in the movie Red Dawn.
Technically, there hasn’t been a Red Army since World War II.