Family

by Robert J. Crane

  I watched her face, like it was a snapshot being shown to me, a moment frozen in time, and the cold fury broke over it as she grimaced, at first, then cried out in pain and tried to jerk her hands away. Mine were on hers, though, and I gripped her tight, felt the swirl begin in my mind as I overpowered her. I rose almost without realizing it as she fell back, trying to pull her hands away from mine. I held on, even as she started to scream, until finally she jerked once more and tugged free, staggering back onto the mats and landing on her backside as I stared down at her and she looked up at me. Her face was haggard, blue eyes fearful for the first time since I’d known her.

  “So,” she said, recovering her frosty expression, “it’s you. You’re the more powerful.”

  “You’re damned right I am.” I looked down at her, my expression now a cold fury not unlike hers. “Look at you. My whole life you tried to keep me under your control. You had to beat me down, cage me – to keep me from rising.” I looked at her with the ultimate disdain. “No more. I’m not a little girl anymore. And you…will…never…have power over me again. You will never tell me what to do again.”

  I heard movement from the door and it creaked open as Scott and Kat slid in. Kat dropped to her knees by Zollers, her expression all concern. Reed was three steps behind them, and halted next to Scott as they stared at the sight of me standing over my mother, still on her knees. “Sienna,” Scott said, looking at the carnage, the three dead bodies and the fallen psychiatrist, “you okay?”

  “Never better,” I said, still staring down my mother.

  “You’ll regret this,” Mother said, looking up at me with flames in her eyes. “You’ll be sorry you stayed. There’s a storm coming, and it’s gonna sweep away the old order of metas. You, this place, you’re going to be sitting in a ruin, and when you look back on this moment, I want you to remember.” She stood as she said it, and looked me dead in the eye. “I did it all for your own good, and I tried to show you the way, but you didn’t listen.”

  I stared back at her. “I’ve listened to you long enough. I’ll find my own way, through whatever storm comes.”

  She shook her head, and in her eyes there was a cold satisfaction that bordered fear. “No you won’t. Not this one. I don’t care how strong you are; you’re not ready for this. You won’t be able to handle it alone.”

  “She’s not alone,” Scott said from behind her, eliciting a glare from my mother. “She’s got us.”

  “And who are you?” my mother asked with a scoffing amusement. “The M-Squad Junior League?”

  “No,” Scott said. “Unlike you, we’re family.”

  “Family,” my mother said with a derisive laugh. “You’re not family. That’s a word used by simpering losers to make themselves feel better about their pitiful relationships. You’re not family; you’re a bunch of puppets that Erich Winter has dancing in a pretty little row to whatever tune he’s playing.”

  “Maybe,” I said, “but Erich Winter has trusted me with more truth in six months than you have in eighteen years.” I took a step closer to her. “And when push comes to shove – and if what you say is true, it will – I’d rather have these three at my side than you.” I stuck out my chin at her. “I’d rather be Sienna, the Directorate agent in charge of her own destiny, than the girl in the box, waiting for her mother to turn her loose someday.”

  Mom took a step back, as though I’d hit her. “You’ll be sorry. I told you you’d make more mistakes, and this is one right now. Maybe the biggest you’ll ever make.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But it’s the choice I made. See how I did that? If it looks funny, it’s because you’ve probably never seen me make one that wasn’t subject to your approval before.” I blinked at her. “Now get out of here, before I slap these handcuffs on you and give Old Man Winter an early Christmas present.”

  She gave me one last look and turned, walking out unsteady, gaining strength as she hit her stride, passing Reed and Scott, then giving Kat only a glance as she walked on out the door.

  Chapter 24

  I sat in Old Man Winter’s office, across from the massive stone desk. I’d slept in my own bed the night before, after Zollers had confirmed to Ariadne that Mormont was the Omega spy. She’d looked oddly relieved, and she had admonished me to get some sleep with a look of mild concern that bordered on motherly, I thought. Or at least my vision of it.

  “So it was Mormont all along,” Ariadne said, facing the window and staring out. Old Man Winter watched me, his fingers interlaced in front of his face, blocking his mouth. He had returned during the night. “The best way to spy is to be in charge of catching them, I suppose.” Ariadne turned from the window and crossed to the desk to stand behind Old Man Winter.

  “It was,” I said. “Pretty clever, if you’re into devious schemes. He plants evidence in my room, sics the vamps on us, gets Andromeda killed—” I frowned at the last, as something wasn’t sitting well with me on that one, but I dismissed it.

  “He wasn’t too kind to you,” Ariadne reflected. “Are you sorry to see him dead?”

  I felt a flash of regret as I imagined him bleeding, lying on the floor of the practice room. “A little relieved I didn’t have to do it myself, I guess.”

  Old Man Winter raised an eyebrow at that, but Ariadne nodded. “You’ll need to go to Dr. Zollers at some point over the next few days—”

  “For a de-stressing, yeah,” I said with a casual shake of my shoulders. “I know. I’ll schedule it. I’m okay, though, really.”

  Ariadne’s eyes shuffled downward. “We haven’t talked about the fact that you spent some time in a cell at our behest recently.”

  “Yeah.” I felt myself tense. “Pretty sure that’s some sort of OSHA violation.”

  “Agreed,” Ariadne said, and raised her head. “But we’d like to…try to make it up to you.”

  I smirked. “Why? Are you afraid I’d sue you? It’s not my style, and the court case would be thrown out on the grounds that people with metahuman abilities are a totally ludicrous concept to any sane, normal person.”

  “All the same,” she said, “we’re making a large deposit into your bank account with your next check as a minor effort at restitution. And you have our apologies.” She waited, as if holding her breath to see what I’d say.

  I stared at her, then Old Man Winter. “Is that all?”

  I caught a flash of surprise from her, a slight recoil. He, on the other hand, did not react visibly save for his hand, which went to a file laying on his desk, which he slid, very slowly, toward me, as though offering it. I reached out without breaking eye contact and slid it in front of me. I opened the folder and found a piece of paper, typed, the print set like a transcript. As my eyes slid down the page I leaned forward, taking in every detail, starting with the date at the top of the page. I furrowed my brow – it was the date I first came to the Directorate.

  [Operator]: Carringer Institute, Minneapolis campus.

  [unidentified female]: I need to – dammit [unintelligible] – I need to speak with Erich Winter.

  [Operator]: I’m sorry, we don’t have anyone listed by that name—

  [unidentified female]: Listen to me, I know he’s there, that you’re a cover for the Directorate. Get me Erich Winter. Tell him it’s an emergency, that if I don’t speak with him, a metahuman girl will die.

  [Operator]: [pause] One moment, please.

  [Winter]: Who am I speaking with?

  [unidentified female]: You know who I am, Jotun. You’ve been looking for me for eighteen years.

  [Winter]: [pause] Sierra.

  [Sierra]: Looks like you’re still on top of your game, even a hundred-plus years after Peshtigo.

  [Winter]: Why are you calling?

  [Sierra]: My daughter. I have a daughter. She’s seventeen and Wolfe is after her. He’s closing in on her as we speak.

  [Winter]: Why do you call me, then?

  [Sierra]: Because I can’t stop him, dammit. Because I can’t get her away.
[pause] But you can.

  [Winter]: And she is—

  [Sierra]: A meta, yes. She’s at 832 Hamilton Ave. in Minneapolis. She’s…locked in. She can’t get out. If he finds her first…

  [Winter]: You expect me to throw my men into danger to save her?

  [Sierra]: She’ll die if you don’t.

  [Winter]: [pause] I will send agents immediately. If you are lying—

  [Sierra]: I’m not.

  [Winter]: We still have unfinished business, you and I.

  [Sierra]: Not today, Winter. I’m not even in Minnesota anymore. You might want to hurry; you haven’t got much time.

  [call ends]

  I looked up, caught his frozen eyes again, boring into me. “She called you herself. That’s how you knew to send Kurt and Zack to get me.”

  He nodded almost impercetibly. “She and I…have a somewhat tangled history after the Agency. To send you my way, her need must have been dire.”

  I stiffened. “Or she just didn’t care at all. If you were…enemies, as it were, she put me into your open arms and never so much as checked to see if I was okay.”

  “I don’t believe that is so,” he said, motionless.

  “Yeah, well,” I shook my shoulders lightly, “you didn’t live with her as long as I did.” I blinked. “She mentioned something. Something coming, a crisis for metas. She called it a storm.”

  Old Man Winter cocked his head and leaned forward for the first time since I had known him. “Interesting. Did she share any details of this…storm…with you?”

  “Nothing specific,” I said with a shake of the head. “Just told me it would realign the world of metas, leave us in wreckage.”

  He settled back into his chair, and Ariadne stared over his shoulder at me, intrigued. “That’s not foreboding at all,” she said with a frown.

  “Sorry. All I’ve got.”

  “All right,” Ariadne said. “Well…thank you for being so understanding…about everything. Is there…um…anything else you’d like to ask us, or…talk about?” She said it with such concern, I thought she was going to wilt in front of me.

  “Nope,” I said lightly. “I think it’s time for me to get some breakfast, anyway.” I stood and looked at the two of them, and then at Ariadne, who actually was wearing a red blouse. “You look nice,” I told her. “You should wear color more often.”

  She blinked at me. “Uhm. Thanks?”

  “You’re welcome,” I said with a smile I felt through the totality of me and walked out, making my way through the rows of cubicles between me and the elevator. I passed the outline of a familiar head and paused in the middle of one of the rows, turning my head sideways to look at the back of a black muss of hair. “J.J.?” I asked, tilting to look at the cubicle dweller hunched over a computer.

  He twisted at the waist to turn, his black glasses slipping down his nose as he looked up at me. “Oh. You. How’s it going?”

  “Good,” I said, taking a step into his cubicle. “Did you have as much fun in confinement as I did?”

  He blinked, a little dumbstruck. “Um. No. I was bored, man. I thought I was gonna lose it staring at those square walls.” He smiled. “Thanks for getting me out.”

  I waved him off. “Wasn’t me. Mormont confessed in front of Zollers and everything; all we did was repeat his story for Ariadne and she was all forgive-y and stuff. Did she try and buy you off with money?”

  He pushed his glasses up back to the bridge of his nose. “Yeah. When I saw how much it was I almost asked her to lock me up again…but I was afraid I’d never get the damned squares on the walls out of my head.” He straightened. “Do you know how many one foot by one foot squares there were in that place? S—”

  “Six hundred,” I said, bored. “Yeah.” I caught sight of something on the monitor behind him. “Whatcha watching?”

  He blushed. “Oh. Uh. That. Well, it’s—”

  I stepped closer and saw security camera footage of the practice room. I tried to visualize where the camera would have been positioned in order to capture the scene from that angle, and realized I’d never seen any cameras in that room, nor in the Directorate in general. I stared. Mormont was front and center, one hand on the taser, leads still running to my mother, his other holding a gun pointed at me. Visible in the bottom left corner was me, kneeling next to Mom, and Doc Zollers was in the top right, almost ready to fire on Mormont.

  “Please don’t tell anyone,” J.J. said, almost begging. “I just…wanted to see how it happened. I mean,” he blushed, “I’m still a little raw at Mormont, if you know what I mean.”

  “I know what you mean,” I said, concentrating on the screen. “Is this video or stillframe?”

  “Video.” He pushed a button on the keyboard and the picture started to move. Zollers fired and Mormont reacted to the impact of the bullets, falling to the ground. J.J. blushed again. “Please don’t tell anyone.”

  “I won’t tell anyone you’re watching a snuff film,” I said, frowning at the display. “Though that is a little creepy.” I looked at Zollers standing there, gun in hand. “Can you rewind?”

  “Huh?” He looked at me blankly. “Oh, sure. You want to watch it again?” He let a little half-smile show. “I’ve watched it like twenty times myself.”

  I stared at him, mouth slightly open and my eyes crinkled in disgust. “Ew. No. I want you to rewind and show me where Zollers came from. Are there other cameras?”

  He turned back to the computer, his face scarlet. “Yeah, yeah, just gimme a…” His fingers danced across the keys and we were treated to a shot of the hallway of the training center, and Dr. Zollers walking backward in rewind, then J.J. changed cameras again and we saw him walk out the front door. The cameras followed him. They were planted all over the Directorate, as we traced his path backward across the lawn and to his office, where a camera caught him sitting alone in front of his desk. I watched the time roll back a minute, then two, as he sat there, seeming to stare off into space. “What’s he doing?” J.J. muttered under his breath, and he pushed a button, letting the picture return to the normal flow of time.

  “Looks like he’s just sitting there,” I said, watching him. He had a simple rolltop desk, pushed against the wall – no computer, just Dr. Zollers, sitting, head resting with his fingers against his temples. “Would he know about the cameras?”

  “Uh, no,” J.J. said, “and neither should you. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I’ve got some leverage on the bosses, but let’s not push this thing, okay? Don’t tell them I showed you this.”

  “My lips are stapled shut,” I said, watching Zollers on the screen. I watched as his hands left his temples and he reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a gun.

  “That’s weird,” J.J. said as I stopped leaning over his shoulder and stood up over him, a cold chill running through me. “What’s he doing? How did he know to get his gun? I mean, you know, it’s like he walked straight to—”

  I slipped my hands out of my gloves and balled one of them up, shoving it hard into J.J.’s mouth to keep him from crying out as I pressed my bare hand against his cheek. He made a noise that was lost amidst the chatter of the cubicle rows and I held tight to him until I felt him lose consciousness. I leaned him back in his seat facing the computer and hoped that no one would notice him until later. Much later.

  I kept my calm as I left the headquarters building and didn’t start running until after I was out the front doors. I jogged across campus, trying to remain calm inside, trying to act like any one of the other people I’d seen run across the campus in the time I’d been there. They did it for their health, though; I was doing it for someone else’s.

  I walked to the door I had been through a hundred times, a thousand times, it felt like. I opened it and found myself in the quiet waiting room of Doctor Quinton Zollers, M.D. The fish tank bubbled in the corner, a steady stream of noise that I usually found calming when in concert with the wood-paneled walls. I paced across the carpet to the far do
or and I hesitated before knocking, my hand raised, ready to descend, when a voice came from behind it, muffled, yet clear. Just like the first time.

  “Sienna Nealon. Come right in.”

  I swallowed heavily, reached into my waistband and withdrew the gun hiding there, felt it cool, gripping my hand, and stepped through the door.

  Chapter 25

  “Hello,” Dr. Zollers said once I was in the room, his dark complexion standing out against the blue sky showing through the window behind him. “I’ve been expecting you.”

  “I kinda figured that,” I said. “You know why, don’t you.”

  His expression was cool, but there was a hint of levity in his eyes. “You suspect.”

  I nodded. “You’re a meta.”

  “I am.” He kept his infuriating calm. “Always have been.”

  “You’re a telepath.” The words sounded incredible as they came out.

  “Which makes my career in psychiatry all the more fascinating, wouldn’t you say?” He smiled, and made his way over to the chair that he always sat in for our sessions. “Why don’t you…have a seat?”

  “Okay,” I said, though I really didn’t want to.

  “And you don’t need that,” he said, nodding at the gun in my hand.

  “All right,” I answered, and started to put it away but hesitated. I felt an internal tension rising, and wanted to scream at myself not to put the gun back in the holster at my back. “Why would I listen to you?” I asked him, my head rising as I looked him in the eyes and felt a slight tremor in my body.

  “It’s just good manners, really,” he said, and I caught a hint of weariness. “And you might consider the fact that I saved your life the other night.”