Family

by Robert J. Crane

  There was a certain growing alarm on his face. “You can’t think—”

  “How can I not?” I held my hands apart, and felt the blood drip off my palm to the floor. “Not only am I good at getting people killed and driving others away, but my own mother—”

  I stopped as I saw movement behind the windows. There was a man coming down the hall. Tall, balding, lean and wearing a suit with a white shirt and red tie. My eyes traced him as he came along, his demeanor straitlaced. He stopped at the glass door and it swung open.

  “Time’s up, Doc,” he said with excessive casualness. “She’ll have plenty of time for a counseling session later, but I need to talk with her now. Ariadne’s orders.” He nodded to me. “Come on.”

  Doc Zollers didn’t turn to look at him, just stood there still fixated on me. “Mormont, I need a few more minutes—”

  “Now,” Michael Mormont said, not harsh, but without an ounce of give. “Come on, Nealon.”

  Zollers wheeled, and walked his way to Mormont, who watched him with a wary eye, and I saw him whisper something into Mormont’s ear. I’m a meta, so I heard it too. “She’s vulnerable right now,” Zollers said, “and I need to help her through some trauma. I just need a few more minutes.”

  Mormont leaned in and whispered back. “She’s vulnerable? Good. Then she’ll answer my questions without fighting me as hard as her reputation leads me to believe she normally would.” He slapped the doctor on the back and I saw a grin that was almost a sneer. “Don’t worry, Doc. You’re a master. You can pick up the pieces when I’m all done.” With a finger he beckoned to me, and I caught the look from Zollers, the uncertainty.

  I walked, one foot after another, toward him, passing Zollers, shrugging off the arm he tried to put around me, and out the door that Michael Mormont held open for me, into the hallway, where the cold of the air conditioner seemed overwhelming for some reason.

  Chapter 9

  Still bleeding, I walked out of the building, at which point I let Mormont cross in front of me. He shot me a sidelong glance as he passed, and I caught a glimpse of his smooth skin, not even a hint of five o’clock shadow on his face. His eyebrows were heavier, and his face held a bit of a smirk that he flashed me as he passed. He turned his back to me as he led me across the campus, following the paths that cut through the grass.

  If there was anything I appreciated about Michael Mormont thus far, it was that he didn’t try to make small talk on our walk to the headquarters building. He walked in front of me, self-assured enough that he didn’t once look back to make sure I was following him. For my part, I wondered if I could blame it on Wolfe if I clubbed him from behind and ran off.

  The sun was hot overhead, but I barely noticed, as it felt good against my sweat-soaked skin. My hair was sticking together in strands, and I could feel it frizzing above my forehead, struggling against the ponytail. I could almost see to the other side of the campus from here, and I gazed longingly at my dorm and the shower I knew it contained, wondering when I’d be able to enjoy the warm recharge within it.

  I desperately wanted a drink of water now, the sour taste of bad breath making me run my tongue over the interior of my mouth as if I could rub the bad flavor out. In the distance I could hear a lawnmower running as the ground crew went about the business of making the Directorate look fabulous. I wished I was one of them right now. It had to be less precarious, dangerous and insane than what I was currently doing for work.

  When we reached the headquarters building, Mormont entered, triggering the handicapped automatic door without looking back. I suppose I should have felt honored or something that he was trusting me not to run, but instead I felt an almost creepy self-assurance from him, like I was some poor puppet in his thrall and subject to his will no matter what. Then I felt a rush of irritation that bled over the torrent of emotions that had been hammering at me only a few minutes earlier.

  The lobby of Headquarters was an ornate, marbled affair, black with white-flecked overtones. The air conditioning hit me as I walked in, but I didn’t feel much of the chill this round, even though I was still dripping in my own sweat. Mormont led the way to the staircase that curved up to the second floor and started up. I followed, taking the stairs at a leisurely pace, slowing down to see if he’d notice. He adjusted to match, I realized after a second, apparently in no hurry since he had me going along with him, dragging me like a magnet draws filings across a surface. Bastard.

  He went on, down a hallway of white, doors on either side, taking me through a wide-open space of cubicles buzzing with activity. One of the walls of the room was windows that looked down on the lawn, giving me a clear view all the way to the garage. The ringing phones and chatter slowed not one iota as I passed through, though I caught a few eyes of workers dressed in business attire, men in suits and ladies in skirts and jackets. A few of them dressed like Ariadne, I thought, as we entered another hallway.

  Three-quarters of the way down the hall, he stopped at a room and opened the door. Inside was a table with two chairs, and against the wall behind one of them was mirrored window. I wondered who was on the other side, if anyone. Ariadne? Old Man Winter? Who would have the joy of watching me square off with this guy?

  He watched me as he held the door open and gave me a nod of false courtesy as I entered the room. I immediately went to the nicer of the two chairs and sat down, even though it placed my back in front of the mirrored window. He eyed me as I did it, but didn’t say anything, taking the lesser seat. He grabbed the yellow pad of paper from in front of me and slid it over to him, taking his time, giving me a last chance to read what was on it. I caught a glimpse, but not much, and it looked like a cursory summary of Scott’s account of the mission.

  “So, are you settling back in?” He reached into his jacket for a pen, his hand emerging with a nice black ballpoint that he proceeded to click three times, causing me to raise an eyebrow in annoyance that he noted with a smile.

  “Oh gee,” I said, “and here I thought that because we were able to make it across the campus without speaking, we’d tacitly agreed to just skip the small talk.”

  “I didn’t give my agreement to that, tacit or otherwise,” he said, looking down at his pad. “Answer the question.”

  “I’m settling in just fine,” I said, “and thanks for asking.” Some sarcasm, not much, compared to…uh…a teenage girl. Okay, maybe a lot.

  “Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?”

  “We could start at the end,” I suggested. “The part where I leave and you go back to sitting here, making intimidating faces in the one way mirror.” I chucked a thumb at the glass behind me. “You know, if that’s your thing.”

  “Tell you what,” he said, “why don’t we just start with the juicy stuff and work our way back to the mundane details.” His eyes made their way up, and I caught the first sign of something unpleasant in the way he leered at me. “When you encountered James Fries – the second time, in Eau Claire…” He looked down at the pad, as if checking for some small detail. “…what did you discuss?”

  “College football,” I said, snotty.

  “Oh?” He looked up. “Go on.” He smiled. “What scintillating aspect of college football did you talk about?”

  “We didn’t,” I admitted.

  “So you were just being snide?” He smiled even wider. “Noted,” he said, and made a mark on the pad. “How did the conversation go?” I felt the air pressure in the room increase tenfold.

  “He told me he was there to recruit me from the Directorate, though he didn’t say who he worked for at the time.”

  “That wasn’t all, though, was it?” He peered at me across the table, eyes boring into mine. It was hot now. The air conditioner had to have stopped working. “I mean, we know how the story ends – you and he went back to your hotel room. So what happened next?”

  “He showed me that he could touch my skin without getting hurt,” I said, and the uneasiness grew. “And I realized he was an incu
bus.”

  “After which you went to your room,” he said, looking at the pad, “where you remained until Katrina – Agent Forrest – informed you that Ariadne was on a conference call?”

  “Yes.”

  Mormont clicked his tongue as he skimmed the page in front of him. “Could you describe what happened when you got into the room?”

  “Well,” I said, “we turned on the TV, and watched an episode of The Vampire Diaries.”

  His eyes came up again, half-lidded, skeptical. “I’m sorry. Was that another joke? I can’t tell.”

  “You’d have to be humorless to do this job, I suppose, so that makes sense.” I flashed him a tight, insincere smile of my own. “We started to undress, and before we finished, Kat knocked at the door.”

  He waited, looking at me as though trying to sift my guts right there in the interrogation room. “And at this point, you didn’t mention anything about Directorate operations, anything that was going on?”

  “I didn’t know anything was going on other than that we were hunting someone who was assaulting convenience store clerks and that we’d stumbled onto Omega operations in Eau Claire that had some tie to the robber.” I folded my arms, pulling them off the table, and leaned back, felt the top of the chair press into my back, smelled the cold mechanical scent of the processed air.

  “You returned to your room and spoke with James Fries again.” He looked up from the pad and tapped his pen against the yellow paper. “What did you tell him?”

  “That I had to go.” I let it out, forced it out. “That I had a mission. That I was heading east,” I said with reluctance, mentally smacking myself not so much for admitting it to this stiff-collared douche as that I had done it at all.

  “And he was at the Omega facility when you arrived?” Mormont looked from me to his notes. “This…Site Epsilon?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did it occur to you…” He looked up again, and this time there was a kind of faux concern I desperately wanted to smack sideways off his face. “…that he might be an Omega operative when you gave him this information?”

  “I didn’t think so,” I said, “but I acknowledged it was a possibility.”

  “I see. And when you got there, you were ambushed?” He stared at the paper. “Do you think perhaps when he realized where you were going that he summoned some additional Omega security?”

  I froze. I hadn’t considered that. “No. I mean, it’s possible I guess.”

  “Possible.” He had a semi-smile now. “Is it also possible that because you warned him, he was able to rally additional Omega forces in the forms of helicopters and sweep teams – the very ones that ambushed you after your escape, and caused the death of the subject Andromeda?”

  I felt overly warm now. “Possibly, yes. But in my judgment—”

  “I’m sorry to interrupt,” he said, not sounding remotely sorry and on something of a roll, “but you’d been drinking twice in the previous two nights, all while active on a mission.” He looked up at me. “Would you consider that to be good judgment or bad?”

  I wanted to grind my teeth but felt I lacked the muscle control. Instead my mouth hung slightly open, and I felt a surge of emotion. “Not so good.”

  “And taking an Omega operative back to your hotel room,” he said, now riveted, focused in on me, “was that good judgment or—”

  “Bad,” I said, not looking back at him. “Obviously.”

  “So you really weren’t exhibiting the greatest judgment, were you?” His smile went slightly toothy, baring them like a predator, and I noticed a slight yellowing on them, probably from coffee.

  I was caught in his stare, and I looked behind me again, to the cold glare of the mirror, the overhead fluorescent shining off it, my face visible looking over my shoulder. I looked stricken, that’s the only way to describe it, and Mormont knew it. I saw him, watching me in the mirror, and I didn’t bother turning back to answer him. “No,” I said, only just above a whisper.

  “So,” he went on, back to the pad of paper that I wished I could burn, “your mother left you in the state in which your colleagues later found you?”

  “Yes,” I said, a deep, galling pain stirring inside. “She did.”

  “And what state was that?” His voice was slick, like oil, his words almost fluid in his delivery, as though they were simply sliding out of him.

  “Beaten. Bloodied. Wrecked.” I stared back at him with all the faux defiance I had left. “Between James Fries and my aunt, I was pretty much an immovable mess.”

  “I see,” he said with a clicking of his tongue. “And two of these people – actually three, if we count your mother, who didn’t hurt you but did leave you in said condition – were ones…you trusted in some way.” He stared at the paper. “Your aunt wasn’t an Omega operative? Just another random psychotic succubus?” he asked, as though it were expected. “You are aware that the incubus and succubus are the most shunned of all metas – the ‘old world’ attitude toward incubi and succubi?” He smiled. “They’re not well-regarded among metas. Something about being able to drain souls with a touch tends to alienate you from others; makes you untrustworthy.” He was grim in his delivery, and I caught the subtext: he’d just finished drawing the line between the behavior of Fries, my aunt and my mother, and now he was connecting it neatly back to me.

  “It’s not exactly my favorite thing about myself,” I mumbled.

  He gave it a moment’s rest, as though declaring silent victory for making me turn on myself. His eyes never left me. “Your mother went by the name Brittany Eccleston outside of your home. Do you know why that was?”

  “I assume she was hiding from the people she used to work for,” I said.

  “You mean the U.S. Government, who might be curious about why she survived their metahuman policing agency’s destruction?” He wore a small smile. “Did she give you any indication what she was at the Omega facility for?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “She just kicked Charlie’s ass, activated the control panel that set loose Andromeda and then left.” I held my arms up in total exhaustion and uncertainty. “I don’t know.”

  “Hm,” he said with a nod. “A few things we can rule out, I think. First, she wasn’t there for you.” He delivered this line with a cold precision and a hint of a smile. “She left Gillette, Wyoming and committed a string of robberies on the way, and it was only by following her trail that you even found the Omega facility. So…it wasn’t because you were there.”

  “Right,” I said, my voice lower than a whisper. I felt a burning at my eyes, and I hated Michael Mormont right then, more than anyone ever.

  “Tell me.” He looked up from his pad again. “Where do you think she would go? Now that she’s kidnapped your colleague?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I didn’t know where to look for her before and nothing has changed. If she’s not at our house?” I shrugged. “I don’t even know what she was doing in Wyoming.”

  “We’ve already looked over your house and have agents in place to make certain that if she returns there, we’ll know about it.” His answer was brusque, businesslike and…almost remorseless, like he was attacking me with it. “Andromeda,” he said. “What she told you; repeat it for me. As close to word for word as you can, please.”

  “She said there was a traitor in the Directorate.” I wasn’t even able to look at him. “That was it.”

  “That was all?” He cocked an eyebrow. “Nothing else?”

  “Some other stuff about…looking to her in the dark.” I shook my head, so desperately ready to be done. “I don’t know. I didn’t understand what she was saying. It made no sense.”

  “It made no sense?” He looked at me, impassive. “Or it made no sense to you?”

  “To me, I guess. To Scott, either. He was there when she said it.” I tried to take the sting out of his words by tossing Scott in the mix, but the truth was that I felt numb, and fully to blame for things I hadn’t even considered.
The good news, if there was any, was that I wasn’t responsible for the horrific numbers of Directorate agents that had died thanks to Omega. The bad news was that I was probably responsible for Andromeda’s death. Everything I touch turns to death.

  He stood, abandoning the pad, and circled around his chair. I thought about standing myself, but I felt a compelling lack of energy. “What do you think of her death?” I blinked at him, uncomprehending. “She’d just saved your life from James Fries, helped you escape the Omega compound, had promised to give you information that would give the Directorate a complete picture of Omega’s operations.” His hands clutched the back of his chair, and I saw his knuckles become more pronounced as he held on tighter to the scuffed wood. “What do you think of that, now that she’s dead?”

  “Obviously I’m disappointed,” I said, not quite sure what he was looking for.

  “Disappointed,” he said with a nod. “Yes, I can imagine. You, who admitted you’ve been recruited by an Omega operative, whose mother kidnapped one of her teammates. Leaving aside any petty jealousies you might have had for Katrina—” his eyes sparkled as he said it – “all these coincidences seem…a little much, wouldn’t you say?”

  I stared back at him in raw disbelief. “My aunt’s a psycho. My mother’s a rogue. And I’ve got bad taste in men, apparently. You throwing in the idea that I’m a traitor to the Directorate into the mix?”