Under My Skin (Wildlings)

by Charles de Lint

  "You've raised a brave young man," Lindel tells her. "Okay, let's get the vests on and do this thing."

  Matteson hands me a tactical Kevlar vest with "FBI" emblazoned on it in big white letters.

  "I thought you said there wasn't any danger," Mom says as I'm putting on the vest. It weighs more than I expected, but that's not a problem for me.

  "It's just a precaution, Mrs. Saunders," Solana says. "We intend to take every measure available to us to keep your boy safe."

  When the other agents and Lindel have their vests on, Lindel gives us all a once-over.

  "Let's saddle up," he says. "You folks ride with Special Agents Matteson and Solana."

  He gets back into the SUV he arrived in. Besides his driver, there are two other agents in the back seat. When we pull up in front of ValentiCorp, three of the other FBI vehicles are already parked there.

  "Hang on," Matteson says as I go to open the car door. "The Chief needs to sort out jurisdictions."

  I'm not sure what he means, so I open my window and let my Wildling hearing do its thing as three cops approach Lindel. He pulls a folded piece of paper from his pocket.

  "Where's Neufield?" Lindel asks the nearest one.

  "Chief!" the cop yells toward the building. A tall man with greying hair and broad shoulders turns around from where he's standing several yards from the building.

  "Hello, Jason," he says, walking over to Lindel with his hand extended. "I hope you're here to take this headache away from me."

  I recognize him from TV and the paper. He's Ted Neufield, the Santa Feliz Police Chief.

  "Come take a look," he says as they shake hands. As they walk back toward ValentiCorp, Neufield introduces various officials along the way. There are officers from the County Sheriff's office, the Highway Patrol and a man in dark blue suit from Homeland Security. The FBI agents from the other three cars have followed behind and are waiting Lindel's orders.

  "What do we have so far?" Lindel asks.

  "As you can see, a lot of damage to the front entrance and foyer of the building. Witnesses say it was a red SUV, but there's no sign of the driver, or even the vehicle that did it. Staff from some of the other stores say a bunch of motorcycles pulled into the complex shortly before this all went down, so it could be part of a gang war. Apparently there was a lot of gunfire. That's about all we know. We haven't actually gotten access to the inside yet. The security here is Black Key, so you know what that means."

  "They've been stonewalling you."

  "They claim there's structural damage inside and don't want to let us in until it's been checked over by their team. ValentiCorp is afraid of lawsuits if the place comes down. Einhorn—" He nods at the man from Homeland Security. "—says the company has a number of sensitive government contracts, meaning it could be an act of terrorism. That's why he's here."

  "Where's the head of Black Key?" Lindel asks.

  The Police Chief points to where three men are standing nearer to the damaged entrance. I recognize the man on the right as one of the men who grabbed me at the school. I wish I could release the mountain lion on him.

  "He's the one in the middle," Neufield says. "Name's Clint Gaillard. Ex-marine, apparently."

  "Thanks," Lindel says. "We'll take it from here."

  "If this was a terrorist attack …" the man from Homeland Security begins.

  "We don't know what it was," Lindel tells him. "But we do know that it was the site of a juvenile kidnapping and that puts it in our jurisdiction."

  With that, he sets off toward the head of Black Key Securities, his agents following in a fan shape behind him.

  "What's happening?" Mom asks.

  "We're just gaining access to the site," Matteson says. "It shouldn't take long."

  I'm not too sure about that. Even from where I am, my Wildling sight shows Gaillard bristling at the approach of the Chief and his agents. He's as tall as Lindel, but in much better shape.

  Lindel looks into the trashed foyer of ValentiCorp, then waves the search warrant in the man's face.

  "I'm going to need you and your men to stand down," he says. "We need access to the building."

  "I'm sorry, sir," Gaillard says, "but I can't allow that without the okay from my bosses. We have concerns about structural damage."

  "Bullshit about the structural damage. Any fool can see that no bearing walls have been affected. And speaking of fools, don't you see what this is?" Lindel adds, holding the warrant mere inches from the other man's face.

  "I still can't let you—"

  "Brackens and Johnson," Lindel says and two of his men step forward. "Cuff Mr. Gaillard. Read him his rights and then charge him with obstruction of justice."

  "You can't—" Gaillard begins.

  But the two agents are already on either side of him. They each grip an arm and propel him to the side of the closest vehicle. They push him down over the hood, pull his hands behind his back and snap on the handcuffs. One of them starts reciting his rights.

  Lindel's attention is now on the two other Black Key guards who were standing with Gaillard. He holds the warrant up.

  "Either of you care to join him?" he says, jerking his thumb over his shoulder toward Gaillard.

  One man shoots a glance to where his boss stands in cuffs.

  "I can't just—"

  "Arrest him as well," Lindel tells his men as he turns to the remaining guard. "And how about you?"

  The guard sighs. "You might as well arrest me, too. I don't have the authority to make that kind of decision."

  Lindel motions to his men and they take the pair away to where Gaillard is standing under guard. Lindel looks toward the front entrance, where yet more of the Black Key guards are standing.

  "I can do this all day," he calls over to them. "Right now, you're only facing obstruction charges, but if we find what I expect to find inside, you'll also be up on charges of accessory after the fact."

  "What are you talking about?" one of the guards calls back. "We were the ones who were attacked."

  "Arrest them all," Lindel says.

  His men move forward.

  "Man," Matteson says softly to his partner. "I wish I could hear everything that's going on. Do you see how many of those guys he's got in cuffs? I'm gaining a whole new respect for the Chief."

  Solana nods. "He's pretty hardcore, all right." He turns from the front seat to look at me. "Do you recognize any of those guards?"

  "Well, they're pretty far away," I lie, "but one of those three looks like one of the men who grabbed me from school." I point to the first three men who were arrested. "The one standing on the right."

  "Let me tell the Chief," Solana says.

  He gets out of the car and trots over to where Lindel is watching the remaining Black Key guards arguing with the agents arresting them.

  "Saunders says he thinks he can finger at least one of them for the abduction," he tells Lindel.

  Lindel nods. "Ask the Police Chief to bring us a prisoner van. We'll run the bunch of them against that video footage."

  Solana heads off to where the local law enforcement officers are standing, watching the show. Lindel waits until the last of the guards is handcuffed, then he motions for us to join him.

  "You should wait in the car," I tell Mom as she reaches for her door handle.

  Matteson turns from the front seat. "He's right, Mrs. Saunders. It will be much more comfortable for you waiting here."

  "But—"

  "I'll be okay, Mom. Special Agent Matteson will be with me."

  He gives me a surprised look and I wonder, how did we ever end up on the same side? Then I give Mom a quick kiss and step outside.

  We cross the pavement to where Lindel is waiting for us.

  "You're sure you're all right with this, son?" Lindel asks me.

  I give him a quick nod.

  We wait until the local police have the Black Key guards in custody and the rest of the FBI agents have joined us.

  "Which way?" Lindel
asks me.

  I start to lead off, but he puts a hand on my shoulder.

  "I doubt there's any danger," he says, "but I'd prefer to have my men take point. You just tell us in what direction we're going."

  It's a very different trip back to the labs than it was escaping them with Rico. No one is trying to kill or recapture me this time, but I do worry the whole way down. What if the bodies are gone? What if somebody comes along and shows the FBI the surveillance footage of me changing into a mountain lion and then killing the woman researcher? What if they can tell just by looking at her body that I was the one who killed her?

  I know it's ridiculous, but the deeper we go, the more vulnerable I feel. The press of the building seems to weigh down my shoulders. All the horrible memories from this place crowd around in my head like the unwelcome guests that they are.

  Waking from the drugs. Rico's missing leg. Snapping the woman's neck. Rico cutting her companion's throat. Jenny's desecrated body. All those cut up kids in the metal drawers ...

  I almost hope they're not there, because I don't know that I can bear to see them again.

  Two agents lead the way down the stairs with Matteson and Lindel behind them. Solana and I are next, with another four agents bringing up the rear. No one has a weapon drawn.

  When a cell phone rings, we all start. The Chief fishes his phone out of his pocket.

  "Lindel," he says.

  The mountain lion lets me tune in to hear what the caller's saying.

  "We found the vehicle, Chief. A 2010 Chevy Suburban. Thing looks like it just came back from the front lines—shot to shit, the windows all gone."

  "Where was it?"

  "In back of the Target. The weird thing is, the locals already checked this entire complex. I don't how they missed it."

  "Any sign of the driver?"

  "Nothing."

  "How about the owner?"

  "Reported it stolen last night around nine-fifteen."

  "Okay," Lindel says. "Keep working it."

  He stows his phone away just as we're coming down the fifth flight of stairs.

  "Through that door," I say.

  My nose catches the smells of cleaners and disinfectants as soon as the door opens. Our smell is still there, lying just under it—Rico and me, the dead Wildlings—but it's faint. I breathe a sigh of relief. I won't have to see the bodies again. But the relief is short-lived, replaced by worry. The FBI is not going to be happy with me.

  I point to the door at the end of the hall. "That's where I woke up—in the lab behind that door."

  "And the bodies of the kids?" Lindel asks.

  I hesitate. I'm torn between wanting to tell them that everything's been cleaned up and squeezing out a last few seconds of reprieve before they come down hard on me.

  Lindel misinterprets my silence.

  "How are you holding up?" he asks, his voice gentle.

  I decide to go with at least a portion of the truth.

  "I'm okay," I tell him. "It's just harder being here than I thought it would be."

  "You don't have to look at them again," he says. "Just tell us where they are."

  I point to the morgue's door. "In there."

  The two agents on point go in first, followed by Lindel and Solana. The rest of us wait in the hall. I can tell Jenny's body is not there. It's not just the lack of reaction from the agents. With the door open, I would have smelled it.

  I realize I'm holding my breath and make myself exhale. I hear the first drawer open on its sliding wheels. No reaction. A second. Then the smell comes rushing out to me and I hear one of the agents gag.

  "Jesus Christ!" Lindel says, his voice soft.

  More of the drawers are opened and the smell of the dead gets stronger.

  I hear one of the agents punch some numbers into his cell, then realize it's Solana when he says, "We need somebody from the coroner's office down here."

  "What've you got?" the voice on the other end asks.

  "Eight—no, nine bodies," Solana tells him. "It's bad. Most of them are teenagers."

  I lean against a wall and slide down until I'm sitting on my haunches.

  Matteson had gone to look in the room, but he's back with me now. "You okay, kid?" he asks.

  I stare straight ahead and give a slow nod. "But they're not. They didn't get away like I did."

  Matteson crouches down so that his head's level with mine.

  "Don't let it get to you," he says. "Yeah, you survived and they didn't, but they were already gone before you were even brought here. This had nothing to do with you."

  Lindel comes out of the morgue, phone in hand.

  "There are cameras mounted everywhere," he says to whoever's on the other end. "I want to see their footage. I want the faces behind what happened to these kids."

  "I'm already on it," the agent he's talking to says. "The power failure they had took down their computer system and screwed any chances for us to see last night's recordings, but I've got a tech bringing up the backups so we should be able to access everything else. What dates and times do you want?"

  "No idea. Start with newest ones from these fifth floor labs and work back from there."

  "Will do."

  "You sure they don't have backups from yesterday?"

  "Guy says they send those out to an off-site storage facility every morning, but when the computers crashed, they lost anything from after yesterday's backup."

  "Well, get what you can," Lindel says.

  He notices me on the floor, Matteson crouched in front of me. All I'm trying to do is hide my relief.

  "You don't have to stay here much longer, son," Lindel says. "But if you can, I'd just like you to look into this lab that you told me about and verify that that's where they held you."

  "Sure, that's not a problem," I say, hoping like hell that there won't be any evidence of what we did in that room.

  But it turns out to be all right. Other than the broken, cockeyed plastic cells within the room, there's no trace of violence to humans. Someone even cleaned up where the male researcher bled out.

  "Where did they keep you?" Matteson asks.

  I point to one of the undamaged cells. "I was in that one for awhile," I lie, "but I was out in the main part of the room with a couple of … doctors … when the alarms went off and everything went haywire. I escaped at the same time as the doctors exited the room, but in all the commotion, they weren't aware of it."

  That seems to satisfy both of them. I'm so grateful that they don't seem to think I had anything to do with the damaged cells. Maybe it hasn't occurred to them. Maybe they're just so shocked by what went on in the morgue that my confirmation about this room is just a formality.

  "I want you to know that you did good work," Lindel says, patting me on the shoulder.

  "I'll take him back up," Matteson says.

  Lindel nods, then he returns to the morgue.

  "You need a hand?" Matteson asks.

  I start to shake my head, but his hand is already on my shoulder, steering me toward the exit.

  "We'll let your mother take you home," he says. "Everything else can wait for a couple of days. I have the feeling we're going to be really busy here for awhile."

  "I'd like that," I say. "Going home, I mean."

  "I hear you. At a time like this, I wish I could do the same."

  It's so weird, comparing the Matteson here with the one I first met. I have no idea what to make of him anymore. Which is he? Probably both.

  "The worst thing about all of this," he says as we start back up the stairs, "is they're probably going to get off."

  I give him a shocked look.

  "Oh, yeah. ValentiCorp has been on the FBI's radar for years now about several questionable ventures, but all those government contracts get them connections that always stop us dead in our tracks. Until today, it's just been hearsay and suspicions—nothing we could really pin on them."

  "But those kids ..."

  "Don't get me wrong. Some
stiff's going to take the fall for it. But in the long term? It's likely to be business as usual."

  "You mean they'll go back to grabbing kids and—experimenting on them?"

  He shrugs. "Honestly, I hope to hell not. But I do know that when you get to a certain level on the food chain, you get to live by a different set of rules. Something like what's happened here—with the added stupidity of trying to pin your kidnapping on the FBI—lets us step in. Right now, we have carte blanche to investigate, but you watch. Roadblocks are going to go up and next thing you know, we won't be able to do zip."

  "Why are you telling me this?" I ask.

  He stops on a landing to look at me.

  "The Chief was right," he says. "You did a good thing here. But I don't want you to think it's over and drop your guard. We don't know what they wanted with you—with any of those kids. But sooner or later, they just might come looking for you and your friends again."

  "We're not Wildlings."

  "Yeah, and I'm not a cop. And I'm not a big fan of you kids running around putting yourselves and the general populace in danger. But I'm even less of a fan of what happened down in that lab. That's just wrong. I wouldn't treat my neighbour's dog that way and I hate that yapping little mutt."

  "So can I ask you something?" I say.

  "Shoot."

  "How is ValentiCorp any different from the FBI pulling kids off the street and doing whatever it is you do with them on the old naval base?"

  "How do you know about that?"

  "Come on. You've got those PSAs running on all the local stations. I live here. Everybody knows that's where you're taking them."

  He gives a slow nod. "Okay, here's the difference, so far as I've been told, and I've no reason to think it's not this way. When a Wildling proves dangerous or if they want some guidance … Don't look at me like that—we've had a few come to us, like your friend Danny."

  "He's not my friend."

  "Yeah, well I can't blame you for feeling that. The kid's a jerk. But the point is, all that's happening on the base is they're being kept in a safe environment and learning to control themselves. It's not Guantánamo Bay. It's more like a boarding school."

  "If it's so nice, why do people want to escape?"

  His gaze narrows, but he doesn't call me on how I know that.