“D’you still think of it as home?” he asked.
Rob shook his head and turned away from the glittering tower.
“No. It was never much of a home. Not what I imagine a home should be, anyhow.”
“They’re never going to be ready,” said Sam.
“Yes, they will,” said Rob. “They just need time.”
He flashed Sam a smile, but his eyes told another story. He knew that this was it. That all they’d ever do was raid small offices whose holdings were so unimportant they were protected by little more than a camera and an old guy in an even older uniform.
For the first time, Sam actually felt sorry for him—this boy with his grand obsession.
“You need a new crew,” he said.
“Yeah, well, this is all that’s here.”
“So go somewhere else,” said Sam. “Build your operation. HI isn’t going anywhere and there are plenty of people in the Wilds that’d be willing to listen.”
“You think?” Rob’s voice was different. There was the flickering of hope.
He turned back and looked at the campus again.
“It’d be weird,” he said. “Not seeing it every day, y’know?”
“Sure, but this isn’t what it’s all about, is it? This is just the research division. The real power is—”
“Seattle City, I know. But this is the place that did the work. The records have to be in there. I need those before I can do anything.”
Sam couldn’t believe what he was about to say. Was he becoming obsessed, too? Straining after an irrational need to know? He should probably just walk away, go back to the Wilds, to the life he knew. But he also knew that now, wherever he went, Dr. Robinson’s words would be echoing in his head. He was dangerous. It was only a matter of time.
“If you could get to the tenth floor, do you know where the file room is?”
It was almost like someone else’s voice.
“Sure,” said Rob. “My old man’s office is up there. I know the place like the back of my hand.”
Sam reached into his pocket and produced Dr. Robinson’s keys.
“Right then,” he said. “Let’s do it.”
“What?” Rob seemed taken aback.
“Let’s do it. Let’s find the main file room. I’m in.”
“But…they want to slice a chunk of your brain out. Why would you go back there?”
“Because I want to know why, and if all their records are as detailed as the ones you brought back today, then the file room is my best chance of finding out.”
Rob nodded thoughtfully.
“We could take Trey, he’s pretty reliable…and maybe—”
“No,” said Sam. “If we’re going to have any chance of pulling this off, the fewer people involved, the better.”
“Okay. Sure,” said Rob, nodding slowly as the idea slowly grew on him. “Let’s do it. Tonight sound good to you?”
“Fine,” said Sam, grimly. “Tonight it is.”
He strolled back inside, but the celebrations and increasingly raucous conversations weren’t what he needed. He walked out front and leaned against one of the porch posts. After a few minutes, Rob followed him out.
“You’re sure about this?”
“Yes.”
“But you’re not doing this for me.”
“No.” He glanced at Rob. “I already know Mutha’s sentient.”
“You what?”
“My parents told me. Years ago. When I was a kid. I’ve always known.”
“Well, then…I mean…really?” The excitement in his voice was palpable. “We should go inside! Tell everyone!”
Sam shook his head.
“No, Rob. Me saying it doesn’t carry any more weight than you. You still need proof. Get the proof then go somewhere else. Figure out what to do. Get some good people around you.”
“But I don’t understand why you’d…”
Sam looked at him for a moment.
“Tell me,” he said, finally. “What do you know about the Sams?”
“The Sams? You mean the poor jerks in the clinic?”
“Yeah.”
“Not much.” Rob shrugged his shoulders. “We used to call them the droolers when I was a kid. Sometimes we’d sneak down and mess with them. Yank their chains. Y’know, for fun. They’d get all freaked out and stuff.”
“You’d what?”
“I know…what can I say? I wasn’t the nicest kid on the planet back then.”
“No shit.” Sam shook his head. “So, anyway, you don’t know how they got there?”
“Nope. I just thought they were thetas. Really bad ones. Though usually they just put them down.”
“Put them down?”
“Yeah.”
“You mean kill them?”
“They always killed the ones that couldn’t work. I don’t know why they keep the Sams, though. Weird.”
Sam had been warming to Rob, but there was something about the dismissive way he spoke about the thetas that really rubbed him the wrong way. He wanted to sock him where he stood, but he managed a smile.
“Yeah,” he said. “Weird.”
“Is that what you want to find out about?” asked Rob. “The Sams?”
“You may have noticed a slight similarity in our names.”
“Well, yeah…but you’re not like them.”
“My parents were HI scientists. They left when I was about five. It was something to do with...there was…” His voice trailed away.
Rob was staring at him intently.
“I just…need to know,” muttered Sam. “Okay?”
Rob nodded.
“Yeah. I guess.”
Sam shivered. The sun was getting lower in the sky and the icy fog was moving back into the bay.
“It’s getting late,” he said. “I’m going to get some rest before tonight.”
He went back inside and up to the bedroom. Mary was waiting with a couple of mugs of the hooch.
“I thought you might like some,” she said quietly.
“No thanks. I need to keep a clear head.”
Sam sat on the edge of the bed. Mary knocked back the contents of one of the mugs and joined him.
“I heard what you said,” she whispered. “About HIR. I don’t think you should go. It’s too dangerous.
“I’ll be fine,” he said, smiling.
Mary shook her head miserably.
“This always happens,” she said. “I meet someone I like and then they’re gone.”
“You’ve only known me for a day,” said Sam, putting his arm around her. “I’ll be fine. I know what I’m doing.”
“No you don’t.”
“No, you’re right, I don’t.”
She looked up at him earnestly.
There was a fleeting moment when Sam knew that he should leave it at that, but her eyes were so sad and she felt so warm against his body and her lips were ever so slightly open. So he kissed her.
Which was nice.
Very nice, in fact.
Right up to the second he opened his eyes and saw Alma standing in the doorway.
She didn’t say anything, of course. She just smiled that slight sideways smile and left Sam holding Mary and wishing he was anywhere else. After a few moments Mary sat back and looked at him, her face a picture of resignation.
“Well, go on, then,” she said.
“What? Go where?”
“Wherever she’s gone. The roof’d be my guess.”
“There’s nothing—”
“Oh, give me a break! Are guys really that dumb?” She peered into his face. “Yeah, I guess you are. No wonder we’re an endangered species.”
Sam looked at her, then stood up.
“I’m sorry,” he said, meaning it.
Mary shrugged, drank the second mug of hooch and lay back on the bed.
Sam walked out of the room and into the hall. There was a small ladder leading up to the attic and then presumably out onto the roof. He put a foot on
the lowest rung, then stopped.
This wasn’t what he ought to be doing. He ought to be focusing on the job at hand. A job which, truth be told, was probably not going to turn out well. He took his foot off the ladder, turned, and walked straight into Alma.
“I’m not up there,” she said, smiling.
“Jeeze! Will you stop doing that!”
“We need to talk.”
“I know, but I don’t think this is—”
“About breaking into HIR.”
“Oh.”
“What did you think I was going to say?”
“Nothing. Um…are you going to try to talk me out of it?”
“Would it work?”
“No.”
Alma nodded and glanced up and down the hall.
“Let’s go outside,” she said. “Too many ears around here.”
She led the way back downstairs, past the noisy celebrations in the kitchen, and out onto the back porch.
“Okay,” said Sam, closing the back door. “What’s up?”
“I’m coming with you.”
“No.”
“Sorry?”
“It’s not necessary. Rob knows where the file room is, we’ll be in and out.”
“Right. I don’t think I made myself clear. I’m coming with you.”
“The more people are involved, the more likely we’ll be caught.”
“If the only two going are you and Rob, you will definitely get caught.” Her expression was almost sympathetic, as if she were talking to a child. “I mean, honestly, Sam, what are you going to do if it all goes pear-shaped?”
“Run.”
“Oh, great. Nice to see you have a plan.”
Look,” said Sam. “I know you can maim and kill just about anything, but my idea is to just go in, read some files and get out.”
“What files?”
Sam hesitated. This was the moment where he’d either tell her or push her away. Revealing the truth hadn’t worked well with Nathan. Was Alma different? He really wanted her to be different.
“When I was there…” he began, then stopped. He wanted to see her eyes. He shifted position so the light from the kitchen fell on her face.
“In the clinic?”
“It wasn’t a clinic. It was…that is…”
Okay, he thought. Deep breath. Here goes.
“There was a corridor that had what Bethany called the ‘Sam rooms.’”
“Sam rooms?”
“I went there. One night. They thought I couldn’t walk. The doctors, that is. Anyway, I went there and there were boys in every room. A couple looked older than me, but most were the same age or younger. They were all completely out of it, sick and drooling and staring.”
He glanced at Alma.
“And they all…they all looked kind of like me.”
“Sam, you were sick, it was probably just your imagination.”
“No. You don’t understand. They had my eyes. All of them. One blue, one green. And…and I could hear them. In my head. They were saying ‘Sam,’ over and over. Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam.”
“You could hear them?”
Sam nodded. She sounded surprised, but interested, and there was nothing in her voice that suggested she thought he was mad. Sam took another deep breath and dived in. He told her everything—from his parents leaving San Francisco and raising him in the Wilds right through to opening Bast’s safe, turning the pulse on the Rovers and escaping from Hermes Industries Research. When he was finished, Alma didn’t say anything, she just looked at him, her dark eyes revealing nothing. Sam felt as if the world had stopped turning, like the axis of everything was right there, in the narrow piece of porch that separated them.
“How many people have you told?” she said, finally.
“Just you and Nathan. I didn’t tell him everything, though. Oh, and a bit to Rob, but he already knows about the Sams. That they’re there, I mean.”
“Well, don’t tell anyone else.”
She stepped down off the porch and walked across the yard to the pump. Sam watched, waiting. After a few moments she returned.
“You’re right,” she said. “It sounds like some sort of experiment.”
“Yeah, but why? What was the point of it? And why don’t they have any Mutha access at all?”
“Beats me. But it’ll make our job easier. No Mutha means no cameras. Still…”
“What?”
“Well, you could still go with plan ‘A’ and just go somewhere they’ll never find you.”
“I’m not sure there is such a place. Those guys that jumped us back at the campsite outside Hillford were being guided by someone. Someone who knew exactly where I was. I don’t think it was Bast or HI, but I’m on the radar of too many people now and my only way of figuring out how to get off it is to find out the truth.”
“And you think the truth will be in the Hermes Research files?”
“It’s my best bet. I just assumed they’d be electronic or destroyed, but when I saw what you all snagged at the raid I remembered what my mom and dad told me about scientists.”
“Which was?”
“They record everything. They write things down. They share. No one is an expert on everything. My dad said that scientific discovery wasn’t about some lone brain in a lab, but lots of minds working on different elements of a puzzle.”
“So you think there’ll be a file on you?”
“Or on the Sams. I mean, anything would be an advance wouldn’t it? I don’t know a single thing. And…what if the doctors are right? What if I am dangerous? Maybe they’re right and the best thing to do is…fix me.”
“Okay, firstly, they aren’t doctors. You said it yourself—they’re at least three generations away from any kind of formal education, which would make them more like witch doctors than actual medics. And secondly, carving a chunk of someone’s brain out is not ‘fixing’ them.”
She sounded genuinely pissed off, which was the best outcome Sam could have hoped for.
“So you still want to come?” he asked.
“Damn right, I do, porangi. You need a minder.”
Chapter 22
IT WAS ABOUT ONE IN THE MORNING when Sam joined Rob and Alma in front of the house. Alma looked him up and down and shook her head.
“You can get rid of that coat for starters,” she said.
“Why? It’s freezing!”
“Because it’s bulky and conspicuous.”
“Is that your way of saying ‘cool’?”
“It’s my way of saying bulky and conspicuous. Now ditch it.”
“Someone might steal it.”
“I’ll stash it in my bike, okay?”
“They could still—”
“Right,” said Rob. “Like anyone’s going to try to steal from Alma. Give her the coat and let’s get going!”
Sam sighed, took off his coat and shivered as Alma shoved it into one of the saddlebags on her bike.
“Come on,” she said. “The walk should warm you up.”
They set off down the dark, deserted streets, with Sam trailing behind and trying to decide which was colder—the night in the desert ravine or the city by the bay. The smell from the narrow alleys was even worse at night, and the tangle of shadows cast by buildings, junk and abandoned vehicles made the going slow.
Sam was silently vowing never to go anywhere again without his coat, when he suddenly realized that the streets weren’t quite as deserted as they appeared. Something had moved in the shadows. He stopped and peered into the darkness.
“Don’t stop,” said Rob. “That’s what they want.”
“Great,” muttered Sam, wondering what “they” were and deciding it was probably best not to know.
They picked up the pace, and Sam was relieved when they reached the old tenement, and clattered down the stairs to the tunnel entrance.
“Right,” said Alma. “No talking from this point, right?”
“Right,” said Rob.
“Does that mea
n you’re going to be doing those hand signals again?” asked Sam. “Because I have no idea what they mean.”
Alma rolled her eyes and pushed him into the tunnel.
“How on earth did you survive this long?” she whispered.
“Charm,” said Sam, grinning.
As is usual with return journeys, the shaft seemed shorter this time and it wasn’t long before they emerged into the dark stairwell of Hermes Industries Research. Rob led the way up to the clinic door and opened it with a key that he kept on a string around his neck, then he and Alma walked quickly down the corridor to the elevator. Sam hung back. This was the place where Bethany slept, but there was no sign of her. He felt around with his hands in case he’d missed the small bundle that she became when she curled up in her blanket. He hadn’t. There was nothing but dust and a few scraps of paper.
“Hurry!” hissed Alma.
“Bethany’s not here,” whispered Sam.
“They’ve probably moved her,” said Rob. “Keys!”
Sam glowered at Rob. He couldn’t understand how he could be so blasé about her. Sam had only known her for a few days, but that was all it had taken for him to recognize the gentle vulnerability of the girl and to want to make her safe.
“Sam!” said Alma. “Keys!”
He fished Dr. Robinson’s keys out of his pocket and tried them in the elevator lock until he found the one that opened the doors.
“Could you be any slower?” muttered Rob, stepping inside.
Alma shoved Sam into the elevator and pushed the button for the tenth floor. There was a moment’s hesitation before the old machine thunked to life and started its slow, grinding progression upwards.
“Turn right out of the elevator when we get there,” said Rob. “Then left along the first corridor.”
“I’ll check it’s clear first,” said Alma, unsheathing a wicked-looking knife as the elevator reached its destination and juddered to a halt.
Once she’d given the all-clear, Rob led the way along a wide white corridor, past a huge glass-walled conference room that Sam thought looked like the kind of place where underperforming executives could reasonably expect to find trapdoors opening into shark-infested tanks, then left again past several imposing doors that were presumably the offices of the senior doctors.
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