Crosscut

by Meg Gardiner

  The receiver came free in my hand, the cord springing with it, neatly cut.

  I dropped it. Thought twice and picked it up and held it like a club while I peered around the lobby and up at the mezzanine levels and walkways that ascended around the rim of the atrium.

  I had to find my mother. I had to get out with her and Jesse, and I needed help right this damned second. What did I have? Mace. A telephone receiver. My wits, what was left of them. My lover, who had plenty of wits and a tire iron and wheels for feet. And there had to be other people in this freaking tower. A janitorial crew, the odd wonk who couldn’t leave his desk. Somebody who would have a working cell phone and could redial the police.

  The voice of fact and necessity tinned at me, far back in my thoughts. There’s a key to unlock the doors.

  The fire alarm. I could pull the fire alarm. Archie had a set of keys. The fire alarm would get plenty of attention here, fast.

  Get the keys.

  Deep down, I moaned. Even when I pulled the fire alarm, it would take five to ten minutes for an engine crew to get here. Jesse and I could slide under the garage exit grate, but once he did he’d be stuck. The fastest and safest way to get out of here was to get Archie’s keys.

  Psalm 91, is that the one about not fearing the darkness of the night? Slowly, reluctantly, I tiptoed back toward the stairwell, feeling the marble cold beneath my bare feet, clutching the Mace and the phone. There would be a fire alarm by the elevator. The lights spasmed above me. I turned the corner.

  Maureen Swayze was waiting for me.

  I screamed and jumped and brought up the canister of Mace.

  Just as quickly Swayze brought up a gun—no, something else—and I shouted, turning away, putting my arms over my head.

  Pain engulfed me. Outside, inside. Electric shock. I was rigid, falling, biting my tongue. The pain was unbelievable. I hit the marble and couldn’t move, couldn’t scream. Swayze grabbed me by the arm and dragged me into an elevator.

  The walls of the elevator whirled like a fairground ride. Tears leaked from my eyes. I lay twisted on the floor with Swayze standing above me, appraising me as though I were a frog pinned to a lab tray. She held the stun gun in her hand, and she looked eager for a repeat performance. Head to toe it felt as if straight pins were sticking into me. My legs and arms were floppy clubs. My tongue was bleeding, blood running out the side of my mouth onto the floor of the elevator. The car lurched to a stop and the door pinged open. Swayze dragged me out into a half-lit hallway.

  Even with the walls spinning I could tell this wasn’t the slick corporate lobby of Primacon Labs. We were on one of the building’s unfinished floors.

  Concentrating, fighting for some tiny use of my body, I hung my head and spit blood on the floor. As she pulled me along I dragged my hand through the blood. It left a trail like fingerpaints. I fought, slowly bending my knees.

  She stopped, dropped to one knee, and jammed the stun gun against my belly, right at my panty line.

  “The Taser is a nonlethal device. Usually.” Her eyes, behind her glasses, were remote. “I’m not current on the research as to its effect on a first-trimester fetus.”

  I stopped breathing. Swayze’s face lit with satisfaction.

  “As I suspected.” She stood. “Get up. Crawl.”

  With effort I pushed up onto my hands and knees. They shook like bamboo sticks beneath me.

  Her voice was self-congratulatory. “I couldn’t understand why your boyfriend was so desperate to be sure that you’re healthy. But then I recalled how you turned tail and ran the other day when we approached the door with the radiation warning. And I got to thinking.”

  From the angle of the emergency lights and the echo off the walls, I could tell we were on one of the floors overlooking the atrium. I saw drop cloths, paint buckets and sawhorses, drywall and conduit hanging from the ceiling. She grabbed the back of my collar and jammed the Taser against my shoulder as I inched along.

  “Faster.”

  I crawled toward the exterior windows. Outside, skyscrapers glittered with lights and Wilshire Boulevard snaked toward the Pacific. I felt my coordination returning. If I bunched myself I could roll. I didn’t know if I could get to my feet, but perhaps I could knock her off balance. I took a breath, testing the strength in my arms.

  “No, you don’t,” she said.

  She shocked me again.

  When I came around, I knew I’d been drooling bloody saliva out both sides of my mouth. The lights outside spun like stars. I was groaning. I’d wet my pants.

  The ripping sound was painful in my ears. My head began to clear, and I understood that she was securing my hands with strapping tape to a steel pillar. Her face, half-shadowed above me, was purposeful.

  “Believe it or not, I consider this an unfortunate turn of events,” she said.

  I moved my legs but couldn’t get any purchase. I was lying on my back with my hands above my head. Swayze was whipping the tape around my crossed wrists and the pillar, tighter and thicker. My hands ached and began to lose feeling.

  “I wish it were possible to keep you alive.”

  So stop. I tried to say it, but my tongue and lips wouldn’t cooperate.

  “But this is much bigger than you or me.” She slung the tape around and around my wrists. “Your father would understand that.”

  No. I moaned it.

  She worked with imperious detachment. In the pale light coming through the plate-glass windows I could see sweat shining on her face.

  “You’ve inherited a terrific genetic base from him. Presuming that you’re serum-negative for the prion, you and Jesse could have half a dozen high-caliber children.”

  I swallowed and tasted blood.

  She dropped the tape and yanked against the bindings, checking that they were secure. She had wound it a quarter inch thick. I pulled and felt layer upon layer digging into my wrists. I couldn’t budge them from the pillar.

  She stood up, wiping the back of her hand across her forehead. “You wouldn’t be the first. A number of your classmates have borne superior children. Abbie Hankins in particular.”

  At Abbie’s name I felt a welt of pain in the center of my skull. I squeezed my eyes shut, smothering a cry.

  “Her daughter Dulcie tests at an IQ of a hundred and fifty-two on the Stanford-Binet scale, and her preschooler shows signs of savantlike genius.”

  I heard her shuffling around and opened my eyes. She was at a makeshift table, laying items out on the work surface, including Jesse’s Glock. I recalled Tim North’s advice.

  First rule of a gunfight: bring a gun.

  First rule of a knife fight: bring a gun.

  She glanced at me. “Do you know the etymology of the word teratogenesis? The usual translation is monster making. In medical usage it refers to substances that cause malformations in the fetus.” Brushing her hair back from her face, she crossed to me. “But the Greek prefix terato doesn’t only mean monster.” She crouched down at my side, her eyes shining. “It means wonder.”

  Her gaze ran down my body. I tried to bend my knees.

  “You thought this was a coverup, didn’t you? That Coyote was killing women because they were exposed to the prion. Big bad government trying to sweep its dirt under the rug.” She sneered. “How pedestrian.”

  She pulled up my shirt, exposing my skin. I tried to squirm away but couldn’t get my legs to follow instructions. The Taser had fried my nervous system.

  “No, if it were at all possible to start a breeding program under controlled conditions, this would be spectacularly exciting. Imagine, true teratogenesis. Wonder children.”

  She put her hand on my stomach. It was warm.

  “My remit is to return the situation to one of safety. The infected exposees present a risk to the genome. Once the epidemiological evidence started coming in, there was no alternative.”

  She stroked her hand across my stomach. “They were doomed, you understand? And they were breeding in an uncontrolled
manner. Their children would have become a danger if left loose. Those who survived would have become Coyotes, but without the guidance or training to perform as warriors. They would be feral.”

  Her hand lingered on my stomach, dry and warm.

  “But as warriors . . .” Her voice sounded awestruck. “If only you could have seen Kai at the height of her abilities. She was a magnificent creation.” She shook her head. “But she’s gone far beyond her mission brief. I need to pull her in, and this is the best way to get her here.”

  “You don’t want the police to get hold of Coyote. You don’t want her to talk or to go on trial.”

  My voice slurred, but I managed to get the words out. “You’re protecting yourself and the people who set you up to this.”

  Her sneer returned. “You don’t understand at all, do you? You have too much of your mother in you, I think.”

  She removed a necklace from around her neck. It jangled and caught the light. I saw dog tags and a piece of shrapnel. She stroked the shrapnel across my stomach, unzipped my jeans, and tucked the necklace into the top of my panties. Standing up, she took a cell phone from her pocket, flipped it open, and snapped a photo. The flash momentarily blinded me. I heard her thumbing a phone number and then a beep as she sent the photo to somebody.

  My vision returned. She was at the table. She picked up a hypodermic syringe and turned to me.

  Fear jumped into my voice. “No. Don’t.”

  Puzzlement in her eyes. Then she huffed. “This is not for you.”

  She put it in the pocket of her white lab coat. If it wasn’t for me then it must be for Coyote, and I didn’t think it was a vitamin shot. She put the Glock in her other pocket and picked up the Taser.

  “I’ll scream,” I said. “Somebody will hear me.”

  She gave me a final glance. “Yes. When you scream, I’ll hear you. That’s how I’ll know when it’s time to come back.”

  She walked away.

  In the dark, with the megawatt glitter of Los Angeles coming through the plate-glass windows, I understood. This was an ancient game. I was the goat staked in the clearing to lure the wild predator into the trap. Meanwhile, the hunters hid and waited.

  Back in the darkness, the stairwell door clicked shut.

  I jerked my hands against the tape. Nothing. I tried to slide them up the pillar. No way. I wrestled my legs under me and tried to turn over and sit up. I couldn’t.

  I listened to the sounds of the building, and I began to cry.

  My breath caught, and choking sounds worked their way to my lips. I tried to stop myself. I heard the traffic down on Wilshire, immensely distant, a metallic rush. I heard the sounds of the building, creaks and clicks and machine groans. And a humming sound.

  The elevator.

  I squeezed my legs together, trying to curl myself up into a tiny, baby-sized ball. I bit my lip to keep from screaming or sobbing. I thought of Kelly Colfax, gutted like a deer carcass on her kitchen floor with knife wounds sawed into her legs and genitals. My stomach was exposed. Coyote’s necklace lay jammed in my panties, hissing with starlight. The humming sound ebbed. The elevator pinged. I heard the doors slide open.

  Pain, please don’t let the pain go on and on. Please give me the courage to hang onto my dignity. Don’t let me die begging and whimpering. In the eerie light, I saw a flash of metal. Spinning spokes.

  “Ev.”

  Then I was crying, hard, and trying, harder, to keep quiet. Jesse was at my side and I was saying, “Quiet, gotta be quiet. Swayze’s in the stairwell.”

  He pulled against the tape, trying to find the end and unwind it.

  “She’s waiting for me to start screaming. She expects Coyote to be here any minute.”

  He circled to the other side of the pillar and clawed his fingernails into the tape. He was wearing his half-fingered gloves and his hands looked filthy. Under his breath he said, “Shit.”

  “Jesse, did you hear me? Swayze’s out in the stairwell.”

  He looked at me, and back in the direction he’d come. Without a word he spun and headed away. A moment later I heard keys rattling in a lock.

  Then came the sound of pounding on the stairwell door.

  Jesse came back. He made one more attempt to peel the tape loose. I could see fear in his eyes.

  “What did you do out there?” I said.

  He gave up with the tape. “I locked the stairwell door so Swayze can’t get back in here. I’d already jammed open the elevator door with a potted plant.”

  “How did you . . .”

  He held up a set of keys. They and his hand were smeared dark, and I knew with what.

  “Archie’s?” I said.

  He was looking around the floor. “Yeah.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “Blood trail.” He backed up to a collection of paint cans near the windows. He looked around, went to the worktable, pushed over to a pile of stuff a few feet away. He bent and pawed through it. I saw paintbrushes, rollers, paint trays, more rolls of packing tape.

  “Come on, there’s gotta be . . .” He kept pawing. “Scissors, a box cutter, something. Shit.” He straightened and peered around, searching for something that could cut me loose.

  Out by the stairs, I heard a humming sound again.

  “Jesse.”

  He wheeled back and clawed his fingernails into the tape again. He took the tire iron from his lap and put the end against the tape and scraped. It would work, eventually, but the tape was wound so thick that it would take a long time. He was barely making a dent. The humming sound continued.

  “Jesse, that’s the elevator.”

  “I know.”

  There were four elevators on this level, the two just around the corner and two on the opposite side of the atrium walkway. He had blocked only one.

  “Cut me loose.”

  “I’m trying.”

  He sawed the end of the tire iron against the tape.

  “That’s Coyote in the elevator. Jesse.”

  He stopped sawing and swung the tire iron at the pillar like Tiger Woods walloping a ball. Metal sang but the tape stayed stuck. The elevator hummed. He looked over his shoulder toward the stairs and the elevators. He was breathing hard.

  He glanced down and the truth in his eyes nearly broke me. He couldn’t cut me loose. Hope drained. I lay there, cold.

  Then he looked at my belly. In one swift gesture he grabbed Coyote’s necklace and put it around his neck.

  He pushed back, hard, skating backward across the floor. “Don’t make a sound.”

  I raised my head, his name on my lips. He whirled and disappeared toward the walkway around the atrium, out of sight.

  Air gulped in and out of my lungs. No. What he was doing was suicidal.

  An elevator call button rang. I heard doors slide open.

  And echoing across the building from the far side of the atrium walkway, Jesse’s voice, and dog tags chiming against shrapnel.

  “Looking for this, bitch?”

  36

  The amulet swung from Jesse’s hand. Across the building on the far side of the atrium walkway, Coyote turned around.

  Come on, bitch. Come and get it.

  She had features like a Raphaelite Madonna and skin as pale as marble, with blue veins snaking beneath the surface. Her eyes were out of synch, one pupil blown wide and black. Her hair was shorn and she was wearing a security guard’s uniform.

  Her lips drew back, and the bitch came on.

  She strode toward him, limping. He hit the elevator call button. She rounded the walkway and he saw that her leg was broken. She had strapped the fracture with a makeshift splint, but with each step her leg sagged above the ankle. She was keeling toward that side, her shoulder hanging low. She held a hunting knife in her left hand.

  The elevator came and he pushed inside. She moved. Fast.

  He hit close and grabbed the tire iron. She broke into a run, coming with canine assurance and fury. He backed up. She lunged but t
he doors slid shut.

  Jesus.

  The elevator headed down, the view out the window dropping toward the schizoid lighting in the lobby. How could she run like that on a broken leg? He passed five, four, and the bell chimed for three. Shit, somebody had called it. Swayze?

  He gripped the tire iron. The doors opened and a janitor pushed his cleaning cart into the doorway.

  The guy stopped, staring at him in shock. “Crap, man, you scared me.”

  “Christ, am I glad to see you.” He saw a cell phone hooked to the guy’s belt. “Call the police and get the SWAT team over here. Tell them Coyote’s in the building.”

  “What? Why do you have those keys?”

  “Do it now. Then get the hell out of here.” He looked at the cleaning cart. “A knife. Do you have a knife on your cart? Scissors? Anything big and sharp?”

  “Dude, what the hell?”

  Jesse shot him a look. “The security guards are dead. So call for help, and then fucking run.”

  The janitor stared at Jesse’s bloody hands and the tire iron. He began backing away.

  “Come on, I need a knife. And get this cart out of the door. Please, if you leave it here I’m stuck.”

  The janitor backed up one more step, turned, and fled. The stairwell door slammed shut behind him.

  All right, dumb-ass, any more bright ideas?

  Above in the atrium he heard Coyote running. Her footsteps halted, and two floors above him that deathly pale face leaned over the railing and stared down. She pulled back and he heard a door being thrown open. She was coming down the stairs.

  The elevator doors slid shut, bumping the janitor’s cart. He tried to push it out onto the walkway, putting his shoulder into it, but the cart was too heavy. He heard the stairwell door bang open. Grabbing a broom from the cart, he backed against the rear wall, jammed the brush against the cart, and shoved. The cart skittered out onto the walkway. He tossed the broom against the window and pushed close. Fast. A bunch of times.

  Here she came.

  She stared at the amulet around his neck, her teeth bared. He hit close again and the doors inched toward each other. She lunged.