Cuff Lynx

by Fiona Quinn

  I turned the corner and started up another hallway. No, that couldn’t be right. I would recognize this if I had experienced it from my first days here. This was something new and very odd.

  And what was more peculiar was that when Gater touched me, the sixth-sense impression magnified. That impression was separate from – no not separate – different from what I experienced from the knowing. “Ladybug, Ladybug.” My house was on fire. I needed to find the smoke so I could put out the flame and keep my family safe.

  I moved through the halls with my arms extended to the sides, trying to act as a human antenna and sense the vibrations. I found myself outside the door to Command’s wing, where the air felt vivid. It was the same sensation as when I stood outdoors and a flash of lightning raced with the thunder. I could almost smell the ozone where air molecules ripped themselves apart and reconfigured.

  The door opened. Leanne paused, hand on the knob, with a slight frown. “Did you forget something, Mrs. Sobado?”

  “Hi.” I tried to cover up my embarrassment at being found standing there, sniffing the air. “It’s lunch time.” I forced a smile. “Can I invite you for Chinese? I know a cute little restaurant not far away.” And maybe you have a clue as to what’s going on with Iniquus.

  Leanne forked up the last bite of her vegetable lo mein. It hung midway to her mouth. “You look different,” she announced.

  I took a sip of green tea.

  “I’ve spent all of lunch trying to figure out how, though.” She put the food into her mouth, but her gaze didn’t waver from mine. She wiped her lips on her paper napkin. “Something about your eyes. You’re harder now, maybe. Shadowy.” She held up a hand. “Not that that’s a critique. It’s not a bad thing. It’s. . .” Her voice tapered off. “An observation,” she concluded, then offered up a half-smile. “You’re okay now?”

  “I’m getting there.”

  “Someday, we’re going to get drunk, and you’ll to tell me the whole story. I might even write it down and make a million dollars as a bestselling author.”

  She picked up her fortune cookie and pried open the plastic wrapper with her fork tine. Snapping the cookie open, she looked down at her paper. “‘Wherever you go, go with all your heart.’ Where do they come up with this drivel?”

  “Confucius.” I reached for the other cookie. “So, where is your heart leading you?”

  Leanne leaned forward conspiratorially, “Toward Dawson Hughs.” She winked.

  I laughed. “I don’t think that was exactly what Confucius meant, but okay. Tell me about Dawson.”

  “Actually, he’s in China right now. I want to go to China someday.” She popped a piece of broken cookie into her mouth. “And eat fresh fortune cookies instead of these cardboard things.”

  “It’ll be hard to find fortune cookies in China,” I said, breaking mine open.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Fortune cookies are Japanese-American.” I looked down at my slip of paper.

  Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practices it will have neighbors.

  I had to read it twice. It was our code. My head popped up, and I scanned the restaurant. Was he here? Spyder?

  In my memory, I was suddenly back at China Magic, one of the restaurants near my old apartment building where my mentor Spyder McGraw and I liked to go. We were laughing over some story that Spyder recounted. Sitting in the bamboo chair with a pair of white cranes painted on the wall beside me, I had just reached for my fortune cookie. That’s when Spyder told me he was going off grid. I didn’t want to hear him tell me the news, so I focused on reading my tiny slip of paper. Virtue is not left to stand alone . . .

  Spyder had slipped my paper from my fingers and read it over. “There are no insulated events in this world, Lexicon. Everything transpires as it should. This fortune, for example, is well-timed. Very suitable, wouldn’t you say?”

  I frowned at him.

  His eyes smiled back in his fatherly way. “Lexicon, this will serve as our code. When there are no other options, and you send me a message with these words, I will dismiss all other obligations and return to your side.” He paused. “I trust you will use the code wisely.”

  As the thought faded, I looked across the table at Leanne, who was busy reapplying her lipstick with the help of a tiny mirror. My lips trembled at the corners, and my fingers worked the paper.

  Of course, this Confucius saying would eventually show up if I ate enough fortune cookies. But Spyder had somehow infused this quote with special powers. Nothing is insulated.

  The two years between that Chinese restaurant scene and now had been sweet and sour. Good things had come to me; I can’t say they outweighed the bad. No. Bad was too mild of a word. These last two years had been a hellish ride. I had needed Spyder, begged him in my mind and my prayers to come and stand beside me. Through it all, I didn’t remember this code; not once did I think about this quote. It was as if someone expunged it from my memory bank. And suddenly here it was, back again, as vivid as the colors in a peacock’s fan.

  This whole day had been a head trip – like walking through a carnival funhouse. The reflections that I moved past distorted my reality. This was why I could never do drugs. I didn’t like feeling this unsteady. And it was just thirteen thirty hours. I wondered what else could happen today, then I immediately wiped those thoughts clear, lest I jinx myself.

  I propped my elbows on the black lacquer table. It was probably too soon for me to be back on the job. I had pushed myself too fast. I needed to talk this over with my traumatic brain injury physician, Dr. Jasper; I decided to call him as soon as we got back to Headquarters. I needed to find some way to discern between my physical reality and my psychic warnings.

  Leanne touched my sleeve. “Mrs. Sobado? Lynx?” Her voice was stern.

  I focused on her face.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Sorry. I had a thought about a case. What did you say?”

  “I was asking you why you would think that the cookies are Japanese-American.”

  “Oh. Uh. Here in the US, they were popular in Japanese restaurants until 1942, then the Chinese took over the recipe.” As I spoke, my eyes swept over the bright red dining room, hoping to find Spyder lurking in the shadows.

  “1942?” Leanne planted her elbows on the table, leaning forward. “Why 1942?”

  “The US government shoved the Japanese into West Coast internment camps. So if you wanted oriental food, and fortune cookies, you had to go out for Chinese,” I said. I ran the pads of my fingers over the paper. Nothing is insulated. I squeezed my eyes tight to stop the tears that threatened to spill. I still didn’t have my emotions completely under my control. I wondered if Leanne chalked up my weird behavior to my brain damage from the plane crash. She was being very patient. Leaning across the table, I spoke under my breath. “Leanne, do you have a way to get in touch with Spyder McGraw?”

  “Yes. I send him directives. Why?”

  “I have a special favor to ask. It’s extremely important to me.” When Leanne said nothing, I pushed forward. “Can you get this message to him?” I slid the fortune toward her.

  My request pulled her brow together. “You’re kidding, right?” She picked up the slip of paper and read it over.

  “Please. I need you to do this.” I said, pulling my vibrating phone from my pocket.

  OUTSIDE NOW, Blaze had texted.

  I showed her the screen. “I’ve got to go.” I put the keys to the car on the table with a twenty and headed to the door.

  As I stepped outside, an Iniquus Hummer roared around the corner and screeched to a stop in front of me. I grabbed the handle and jerked the door open. Blaze’s face was set at grim angles.

  I jumped into the front seat. As I pulled my safety belt into place, Blaze jerked the wheel to the left and catapulted us down the street, through the red light, and onto the highway.

  “What the heck, Blaze?”

  “The team went incommunicado
. I’ve got nothing. No phone. No GPS. No communicators. Nada.”

  “They’re being jammed?”

  “Near as I can figure it.”

  Adrenaline flooded my body. “Did you call in support?”

  “Echo and Panthers are en route. Shit!” Blaze swerved onto the shoulder. I reached up for the grab handle as my body thudded against the door. Gravel flew and horns honked their annoyance at us as we roared down the side of the highway past the traffic jam.

  “What’s your plan?” I yelled over the engine noise.

  Blaze shot me a glance, then focused back on the road as he threaded his way around the construction equipment. “I’m going to drive, and you’re going to do whatever the heck it is you do to psychically connect with Gater. He’ll feel you and know we’re on it. And you’re going to feed me anything you pick up.”

  He wanted me to walk behind the Veil? This was a bad plan. Blaze had only watched me connect through the ether on one occasion, stepping away from my body and merging with a crime victim. That had been a vicious attack on a young woman held as a sex slave, and the process left me badly wounded. At the time, my team begged me never to do it again. The best that I could promise them was that I would save that particular skill for life or death situations with my family or myself. And my team was my family. But was this life or death? Blaze must think so, or he wouldn’t be offering this up as our strategy.

  Blaze understood that after I travelled away from my body, I went into a recuperative trance, and I’d be of no use whatsoever. And he knew that if something was physically happening to Gater, it would be also be happening to me – so medical support might be needed, for both of us. Blaze wouldn’t have forgotten these critical drawbacks; he was much too affected by what he saw happen to me. I looked over at the grim set of his face. He must be grasping at straws.

  “Give me a second. Let me think this through.”

  Strike Force was on satellite communications – I doubted D.O.A. had the kind of technology required to mess with our equipment. How could the whole team have gone incommunicado? It didn’t make sense. Come on, brain, think! How could I make Blaze’s plan work and still stay operational?

  Maybe the Veil wasn’t necessary. It was the best solution if I had a safe site with support. But here I had neither. And the first rule of rescue was: don’t become part of the problem.

  “Where are we headed?” I asked.

  “Last known location,” he said, as he clicked on his blinker and peeled off onto a ramp. I was surprised the police hadn’t tried to pull us over yet.

  I tapped Blaze’s arm. “Keep us steady for a second.” I unclasped my belt and crawled into the cargo area in the back. As I lowered the passenger seats, making the area large enough that I could lay down, I wondered if “last known” wouldn’t put us behind the curve, especially if minutes counted. But then, where else could he aim the car? And that’s probably where we’d meet up with the other teams.

  I lay flat on my back and worked on a best solution set. I let my mind drift to find what information my subconscious wanted me to weigh. The images I pulled up were from my very first experiences with using my sixth sense as a little girl. When someone’s pet was lost or their child didn’t come home for dinner, I was able to come up with situational clues that I could piece together to make a good guess. But I had known the area pretty well, so I had mundane information about what I was sensing. Could that technique work here? I didn’t know the area that was marked on Blaze’s computer screen, but this was all I was willing to do under these circumstances. That was my plan, anyway.

  I visualized my team this morning at Headquarters. I pictured the operation clearly drawn on the white board. The Veil shimmered to my right. That was information in and of itself. The Veil only opened when someone was in desperate straits. This was more than a communications glitch. Something had gone seriously wrong. I pushed the Veil back, asking it to close - the way Miriam Laugherty taught me as I learned the techniques for leaving my body for remote psychic work.

  Knowing the close tie Gater and I had in the ether, I decided to go the simplest route possible and just ask. “Gater, where are you?”

  Four

  Gater’s heart beat Morse code against his ribs. He lay flat on his stomach. His ears rang so loudly, the noise masked any telltale environmental sounds. I could see nothing. Midnight black with intermittent colored flecks. The acrid smell of smoke—Gater’s lungs were full of it. He held a cough behind a tightly clamped fist. Held it back like a drowning man holds onto his last breath.

  Puzzle it out, Lexi. I had smelled this smell before – something sharp. . .pyrotechnics. Something had detonated. Gater’s vision was clearing. His ears still rang loudly. Saliva gathered in his mouth, and he swallowed down the need to cough. An eerie yellow light showed the outline of a hand holding a gun to Gater’s right, so someone was with him. The pistol glowed bright with heat.

  “You okay back there, Lynx?” Blaze called from the front seat of the SUV.

  “I’m guessing flashbang. Using fusion night-vision. Wet. Narrow space. Shots fired recently.” Nothing helpful.

  The heat on the gun, the need for fusion lenses at fourteen hundred hours, the lack of ambient light to improve night vision capabilities, and no communications. The sensory puzzle pieces were adding up.

  Turn your head, Gater; give me something I can work with.

  As if on cue, Gater shifted to the right. I felt warmth against his leg as he leaned into the person beside him. He shifted again until his lips touched something soft and turgid. . . an ear.

  “Sir, Lynx is here.” Gater’s murmur was a movement of lips and tongue. His ears were still ringing, and he was probably having trouble modulating his voice—not knowing if he was mumbling or yelling—that or a target hid nearby.

  “Sir,” he had said. It must be Striker. I knew that Striker nodded a response by the whisper of his skin moving up and down near Gater’s cheek. White filled my visual field and a noise exploded so loudly that I curled protectively into a ball. It took me a few seconds to gather my thoughts.

  “Another flashbang, Blaze.” I reported from my prone position in the back of the SUV. “This time the smell is not as noxious. I think they threw it farther away. I bet the target is blast fishing. Gater and Striker are together. I have no information on the rest of our team.”

  I waited for something more on Gater’s side. A scream went up at a distance, echoing. A female voice. I couldn’t make out the words through the shrill tinnitus in Gater’s ears, but terror has a certain quality to it. Gater’s chest tightened. Adrenaline surged through his veins, making his lying still all but impossible. I knew Gater wanted to jump full-body on whoever was making that woman shriek.

  Gater was tactically breathing to lower his pulse rate. I could smell the dankness around him now. Old moisture and dirt.

  I need your location, Gater.

  Gater had enough training with Miriam Laugherty that he might be able to pick up on the essence of my thoughts and offer me information in return. When I was in prison, he had worked hard to gain dexterity with this so he could find me. But on my end, working with Gater’s attempts at visualization was like deciphering a toddler’s first drawings or hearing their first words. Nothing so clean and precise as complete photographic images or full sentences. Whether he sensed my request, or he was doing what he thought might work, Gater bit the fingertip of one of his tactical gloves, yanked it off, and reached his hand out to pat over the rough surface forming a wall. Natural rock. Then images filled my mind like Picasso’s cubist paintings.

  He was remembering a field with trees in the distance. I saw Gater’s bent knees as he crouched over the muddy path, his fingers traced over a shoe print. He was tracking. It looked like a group of people had passed that way recently. He lifted his face to the sun. It shone directly overhead, somewhere around noon. He moved to a shed where the door stood open, and the floor formed the entrance of a hole.

  A new sc
ene.

  Striker communicated with hand signals, sending two men from our team down the ladder. Two others were sent to the right of the hole; I assumed to maintain the perimeter. Gater lowered his tactical lens into place and descended. Down. Down. Down. The rungs of the ladder kept going. Gater checked his walkie-talkie read-out - no signal. He pulled out his smart phone, but it was useless at this depth. Okay, now I knew why Striker and Gater were off communications. But they should have given us a heads up and a location before they made their move. And this was definitely not part of any plan we had come up with in the Puzzle Room. What was going on out there?

  They continued downward. Even the fusion night-vision goggles were giving way with the lack of ambient light. Striker’s and Gater’s bodies emitted the only heat source around. I wondered where the other team members were; I was missing players - Deep, Randy, Axel, and Jack.

  Just as Gater released the ladder, Blaze yelled, “Fuck!” The Hummer whipped around. I was unbuckled, and the centrifugal force flung my body around the back of our vehicle. Torn from the scene Gater was sharing, I lay panting and disoriented as the Humvee wheels lifted and bounced on the right then the left before we settled.

  The back door swung open. Blaze’s stricken face leaned over me.

  “Jeezis, Lynx, are you okay?” He crawled into the back and grabbed me under my arms.

  I stared back at him. “What happened?” I stuttered out, holding my head in both of my hands.

  “I ran over a piece of metal and it shredded the tire,” he said, pulling me to him, out of the vehicle, and moving me up the hill to the woods that ran along the highway. He propped me up against a pine tree and dropped to one knee beside me, tipping my head back, and checking my eyes for dilation with his pen light. His cornflower blue eyes reflected his concern. “Did you hit your head, Lynx?” he asked as he ran strong hands over my limbs, palpating for injuries.