Prisoners (Out of the Box Book 10)

by Crane,Robert J.

  “I doubt it.”

  “But don’t let your wounded pride get in the way of the bigger things going on here,” he said. “I didn’t just take that job at the lab because I needed the money.”

  “So you do pro bono criminal work?”

  “No,” he said, “but I did it because there is something going on at Palleton Labs that isn’t right.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “a bunch of metahumans broke in the other day. They got away with it, though.”

  “I’m not going to get away with it,” he said, voice cracking.

  “You’re looking free as a bird to me,” I said airily. I still had my finger on the trigger.

  “Do you even want to hear what I’ve got to say?” He was looking at me with puppy dog eyes. Owen Traverton eyes, that was how I thought of them, as just another betrayal, and I resisted the temptation to spit right in his face.

  “Nope.”

  I watched as his face fell. I didn’t know what he’d had planned in coming here, but I could smell the disappointment. He even looked a little wounded, which made sense, because everything I’d said to him since he’d walked in had been exactly the sort of shit my mother used to badger me with when I disappointed her in some way. I’d learned well how to hurt people when I wanted to drive them away, and I wanted Timothy Logan to go find a fire and die in it, preferably while screaming loudly.

  He turned around to leave, and let his hands slowly drop to his side, apparently convinced I wouldn’t shoot him in the back. He was probably right, most days. Today, though, I thought about it. “You might regret this,” he said.

  “There are many things I regret in life,” I said with great conviction. “Not ever really meeting my father. Agreeing to an interview with Gail Roth. That not-brief-enough period of time when I thought I could pull off twerking. But this?” I waved Shadow’s barrel, careful to keep it aimed at his upper body. “This isn’t even going to make the list below ‘Having that extra margarita last night after beating the ass off the Clarys.’” I stood, and pulled Shadow’s hammer back, letting that ominous click fill the air. “Don’t ever let me see you again, Timothy, or I will shoot you in the back, front, or whatever piece of you that gets presented to me.”

  He didn’t look back. “You won’t ever see me again.” And he walked out, leaving me to puzzle out what exactly he meant by that bit of ominousness.

  21.

  I had to unmute the TV when the words, “President Harmon holds press conference on Nealon pardon,” appeared at the bottom of the screen in bold letters, which irritated the hell out of me. I turned the volume way, way down, and even that wasn’t enough to mask the sound of Thunder Hayes doing his eighteen thousandth interview of the morning. He was not a quiet man, and I’d been fortunate enough to be able to listen, just-before-live, as he ran me down on every single network presently holding court in my parking lot.

  Oddly enough, not one of the so-called journalists thought to ask what seemed to me a very basic question: Gee, Mr. Hayes, why are you outside Ms. Nealon’s office? Apparently they didn’t think it was at all unusual for newly released convicts to just hang around outside their arresting officer’s place of business. Probably assumed they genuinely were here for the ice cream.

  The network I was watching cut away from rerunning their interview with Thunder Hayes for the eighth time in the last half hour to show the empty podium of the White House press room. It was a good aesthetic choice, I thought, given that Thunder Hayes looked only marginally less attractive than a pig’s ass but twice as hairy.

  “We’re waiting now for President Harmon’s statement on the recent revelations involving Sienna Nealon’s past,” one of the offscreen commentating jackasses said breathlessly, as if that explained why they were wasting precious airtime on an empty podium, photogenic as that podium might have been when compared to their last interview subject. “He’s expected to make a statement shortly.” For this live shot of a podium they were passing on a commercial break in which they could sell me pads to deal with the incontinence caused by waiting to see what the president was going to say about me.

  I waited with bated breath, wondering if I should risk sneaking into Ariadne’s office to hit the bottle of brandy she kept hidden there. Downside: I might get seen by the reporters outside, because McCartney had ripped down the blinds in that room. Plus side: I might have liquor to endure whatever crap Harmon was about to say vis-à-vis me, provided McCartney hadn’t destroyed the bottle. I gave it fifty/fifty whether Harmon was going to defend his decision to issue me a pardon or just toss me under the Acela, as one does when in Washington. (Because tossing one under the bus is just so last year.)

  My phone buzzed, causing me to just about lose bladder control again. I’d been holding it in all morning because I didn’t want to leave the interior room for fear that the press would interrupt the shot of the empty podium or a gripping rerun of the umpteenth Thunder Hayes interview to show me walking down a hallway. Sienna Nealon walks down hallway! the chyrons would declare, as though this were VERY IMPORTANT NEWS, critical to the well-being of every citizen of the world.

  Did I mention that I hate twenty-four hour news stations? I feel I should mention that, again and again.

  I scooped up the phone and unlocked it to find a text message from Veronika: All arrived safely. I’ve arranged the safehouse, and all protectionary measures are in place. Augustus will call you to verify.

  The phone rang, and I answered it without checking the caller ID, something I never do. “Yes?” I whispered. Clearly the fear of being watched was making me crack up; answering the phone without checking on it, whispering in my own open-air offices … this was not the behavior one would expect from Sienna Nealon, dammit.

  “We made it,” Augustus said.

  “You sure?” I muttered, peering at the door to the hall as though a plethora of reporters armed with microphones and cameras were going to come bursting in any second. “You’re not being forced to read a canned statement by someone with a gun at your head, are you?”

  “Why would I—don’t you think they’d want you to know they had us, if that were the case?” Augustus asked, poking his damned logic holes in my paranoid theory. “And why are you whispering?”

  “Thunder Hayes and his crew of miscreants destroyed our offices last night.”

  “What?”

  “Well, it was actually Bronson McCartney, in the form of a raccoon, but—”

  “WHAT?!”

  “Never mind,” I said. “Anyway, we have no windows, and a murder of reporters is perched outside—”

  “Wait, are you pluralizing reporters as—”

  “A murder, yes, keep up. Anyway, they’re outside, and I’m afraid they’ll use long range microphones to listen in on our conversation.”

  There was a brief pause. “You know, about half the time I think your obsession with security is just crazy paranoia letting itself run loose.”

  “And the other half of the time?”

  “I’m wishing I had a gun to blast the crazies that are legit after my black ass.” He took a deep breath. “What’s the move?”

  “Your move is to stay hunkered down,” I said. “This safehouse Veronika set up … is it really safe?”

  He waited a moment before replying, and I could tell he was trying to decide whether to humor me or perhaps bust my ass. “It’s got good lines of sight, your boy Phinneus is sitting about a half mile out keeping watch, and speedy Colin is doing loops with occasional breaks to lecture us all on sustainability. I’m thinking about setting up a glass trap for him again—”

  “Just take the lecture with a smile and let him protect you,” I said.

  “You say that because you ain’t had to listen to his shit. If I hear one more diatribe on the toxic pestilence we’re feeding ourselves by being non-organic and non-vegan, I’mma—”

  “Sit back and listen to another one, and realize that while annoying, he’s a great perimeter guard,” I said.


  “Perimeter, shmeshmimeter, he’s a twat.”

  I frowned. “That’s a very British thing to say. Where did you even learn that?”

  “Pffft, I’m all cultured now, got class and sophistication.” He gave it a second to sink in. “Also, it was on Netflix.”

  “Downton Abbey?”

  “Hot Fuzz, I think? Reed recommended it. Downton’s in my queue, but Taneshia wants to watch it with me.”

  “Best to wait, then. I’d hate to see you go out, especially in such an electrifying manner.”

  “Terrible pun.” I could almost imagine him shaking his head, the silence growing between us, suddenly uncomfortable as a fall breeze rattled some of the hanging blinds in the other room.

  I shuddered in the chill. “You should probably put Veronika on.”

  “What, you can’t call her on her own cell phone? People getting lazy these days—”

  “Yeah,” I said, “including ones who won’t just hand a stupid phone over to someone standing next to them.”

  “Veronika isn’t standing next to me.” He grunted and I heard him walking, and then J.J.’s voice in the background:

  “… but because they sold the rights, it’s not an MCU movie.”

  Then I heard Veronika. “But it said Marvel on it.”

  “Yes,” J.J. said, “but—”

  “Yo,” Augustus said, “Sienna wants to talk to you.”

  “I don’t really have anything for her,” J.J.’s voice broke through. “Yet, I mean.”

  “Maybe if you weren’t trying to explain the defining lines of the MCU to Veronika, you might,” Reed’s voice came through the phone.

  “This is important stuff, okay?” J.J. said. “Deadpool is not MCU canon, and people need to know that.”

  “But it has—” Veronika started.

  “IT IS NOT MCU CANON!” J.J. shouted.

  “Oookay,” Veronika said, and suddenly she got a lot louder. “Yo, girl. All quiet on the west coast front.”

  “Hey,” I said, “thanks for handling this.”

  “No thanks needed,” she said, “because I saw your wire transfer, and it was all the gratitude I require.”

  “Good to know,” I said, and an ugly thought raised its head. “Listen, if anyone ever tries to outbid me—”

  “Whoa, whoa,” Veronika said. “You know I don’t sell out my clients for a higher bidder, so no need to worry about doing a Dinklage here.”

  “A Lannister always pays their debts!” J.J. shouted in the background.

  “… whut?” I asked.

  “You don’t watch Game of Thrones?” Veronika sounded mildly scandalized.

  “No, I watch it, I’m just trying to put that one together.”

  “Bron and Tyrion, their arrangement to—you know what? Never mind. Deal’s a deal, that’s the point.”

  “I feel a lot more relieved now that the person who fights for money has made clear that she can’t be bought out for more money,” Augustus said in the background.

  “You’re cute, honey,” Veronika said. “Go get me a Lipton’s Tea out of the pantry, will you?”

  “The hell?” Augustus asked. “Does this look 1963 South Carolina to you? What the shit? You gonna go sit on the porch and admire your plantation afterward?”

  “Oh, don’t be so damned sensitive or you’ll never be able to handle the nipple clamps later,” Veronika said, and I could hear her moving. “To say nothing of the pegging.”

  “The what?!”

  “Anyway,” Veronika said, sounding like she was back to concentrating on me, “I think your friends are under the radar, because no one’s even approached me yet.”

  “That could change any minute,” I said, feeling a tinge of loneliness knowing that pretty much everyone I cared about was at least a state away, if not many, many more.

  “I’ll let you know if anyone does make an offer, just so you know the direction the trouble’s coming from, but—and I know this is gonna sound funny, but cash is bond. Your peeps are safe with me.”

  That lonely feeling got deeper, all the way down to a hollow core inside, like someone was plucking a harp string that was vibrating through an empty cave within me. I pushed that feeling away, trying to summon up a forced smile as I quipped: “You keep your damned plasma-burning hands off my marshmallow treats.”

  Veronika just laughed, thankfully getting the joke. “Do what you gotta do, sweetie. And watch your back.”

  “I’ll tr—” I blinked; President Gerry Harmon had appeared at the podium. “I gotta go.”

  “Seriously. Watch your back, because you know no one else is there to do it.”

  “I know,” I said, and hung up just in time to see the President of the United States smile smugly, right at the camera, and somewhere in my gut, I knew that what he was about to say next was going to be really, really bad.

  22.

  “Ladies and gentleman of the press,” Gerry Harmon said, in a voice dripping with smarminess, “thank you for coming.” I looked at the clock; he was at least seven minutes late. Apparently he didn’t really have a lot of respect for reporters or punctuality. “I’m going to give a brief statement, and I won’t be taking questions afterward.” He looked up, as though challenging one of them to say something. No one did, so he stared right into the camera and started talking. I couldn’t tell if he was reading from a teleprompter or if he’d memorized his speech.

  “Five years ago, the world watched as a secret hidden for ages came out in the most stunning way possible—there were people with powers living and working among us, hidden in our own society under the surface. They’d been with us since the days before civilization, their stories fading into the realm of myth, an active conspiracy working to keep them hidden from our sight. You all know this, of course,” he said, clearly pandering to his audience. Oh, you’re soooooo smart. I imagined it being said by Kat, and it made me twitch. You know all this already, you bright boy, you!

  You are very unkind to my sister, Gavrikov said, and she is so very helpful to you.

  “Not now, Aleksandr,” I said wearily. “But … you’re right.”

  My admission shut his mouth, which was good, because I was missing Harmon’s speech. “… in a battle for the very survival of our people, our way of life, I was told. Told by people I trusted—at the time.” Harmon was dropping the smugness by a few dozen degrees. Now he seemed humble. “I believed the extraordinary threat Sovereign posed to America, to the world. I have never disclosed the source of this knowledge, but in the course of what I am about to reveal today, it becomes important that you understand the factors that led to the decisions made to laud Sienna Nealon for what she’s done—”

  “Here we go,” I said, unsurprised. He was setting it up to toss me right under that Acela.

  “—the information I received came from my opponent in the last election, Senator Robb Foreman of Tennessee,” Harmon said, and there were gasps in the press room. I found my lips curled up in a sneer, eyes rolling. He’d just tossed some company down onto the tracks with me. “I trusted Senator Foreman, not realizing at the time that he was aligning me with Sienna Nealon, probably for his own purposes. Obviously, his scheme failed, though only thanks to the judicious nature of the electorate.”

  I buried my face in my hands at this. I didn’t want to watch his expression any more as he did what he was about to do.

  “Senator Foreman assured me of the good character of Ms. Nealon,” Harmon went on, “and told me that in the course of her battle with Sovereign, she’d violated the law. It was not until later that the full extent of her wrongdoing came to light. Let me say this as clearly as possible—I did not know, when I signed Ms. Nealon’s pardon, exactly what she had done. It was a blanket pardon designed to insulate her against any attempt by local or state prosecutors, driven by fear of metahumans, to prosecute her for actions taken to protect humanity from Sovereign. It was not supposed to protect her from murders she committed in cold blood.”

  I sank b
ack in my chair and the breath seeped out of my lungs slowly. The President of the United States had just told the world I was a murderer.

  “As you all know,” Harmon said, “Ms. Nealon left government service earlier this year, and I have instructed the FBI task force in charge of policing metahumans to keep close watch on her since, fearing she might revert to type. There is obviously no shortage of documentation—YouTube videos, eye-witness accounts, press incidents—showing us that Ms. Nealon is perhaps not even close to the image of an idealized hero that I was sold by Senator Foreman. Indeed, the Cube prison in Minneapolis was her idea—”

  “You sonofabitch,” I said under my breath.

  “—designed and constructed under her supervision, filled by her and her hand-selected team. When my administration responded to reports of Ms. Nealon’s illicit activities and prisoner mistreatment by placing her Metahuman Threat Response and Policing Task Force under the umbrella of the FBI and the Department of Justice’s closer oversight, it was then that Ms. Nealon resigned, presumably in order to avoid the stricter watch that this might bring on her. As you further know, now she works in a freelance capacity for some of the states on contract—”

  “You bastard, you bastard, you—” I said, over and over. My heart was plummeting like I’d flown high and suddenly lost my powers, dropping back to earth without anything but the hard ground to stop me.

  “—where we have documented reports of her assisting individuals like Gravity Gal who have clashed with lawful authorities,” Harmon said. All this was delivered with greatest sincerity; he’d buried his smugness so deep I doubted I could have found it with a bulldozer. I would have liked to have tried, though. Digging into him with a bulldozer would have been really fun right about then. “There remains a pattern of behavior from Ms. Nealon that suggests that she has not changed. Looking back to the incident in Los Angeles early this year, I directed the FBI to reopen a case the LAPD had already closed. FBI Director Phillips will be holding a briefing later this week to sum up the findings in detail, but for now, suffice to say that while the burden of evidence has not been met in order to bring charges against Ms. Nealon for her actions, there is no doubt in any of our minds that she has acted improperly, unnecessarily violently, and without the best interests of the public at heart. She has betrayed the public trust, misrepresented herself to all of us, and is likely continuing her established pattern of criminal wrongdoing. To Ms. Nealon I would say this: we know who you are now, and we are watching. For too long, you have relied on the good nature of the American people. Ours is a willingness to believe in others … in the goodness of others. We have overlooked, we have ignored, and we have extended every opportunity to you to be the hero we thought you were.