by Anne Tibbets
“I don’t have a choice,” I said. “They’ll take my babies.”
Doc was enraged again but held it together. “They want your...” The rest of the sentence died. I waited as he got a grip. “Is that where the other babies went?”
I didn’t answer. That said enough.
“All right,” he said, his chest moving up and down a little quicker than before. “Give me your ankle.” He went to his desk, opened the top drawer and pulled out a surgical tray with shiny silver scalpels.
“Why?”
“I’ve got to cut out your tracking chip.”
“Now?”
“How else am I going to get you out of here without them knowing?”
“They’ll know the moment my tracker stops working.”
He raised his eyebrows. “That’s true. But we have ways around that.” He pointed at his desk. “Come here and sit down. I can give you a local, but honestly, it’ll be a lot quicker if you just let me cut it out. If you can sit still, that is.”
“I can hold still.”
Doc squinted at me as if he was considering if I really could. “It’ll be painful.”
“I’ve done worse.”
He turned pink again but said nothing more. Then he sterilized a scalpel and washed his hands in a sink behind his desk.
I got up and sat on the desk. “Which ankle?”
“It varies. Let me see.”
I kicked off my shoes and flung my legs on top of the desk, my feet toward him. Doc leaned over and inspected my ankles, gently turning over my left foot and then frowning. His fingers were hot on my skin.
“You ready?” His green eyes were bright again.
I gripped the desk and slammed my eyes closed. “Go.”
The first cut didn’t hurt. It felt as if I was being poked, but then the pain shot through the rest of my body as the scalpel dug inside my ankle. My skin screamed in agony.
I bit my lip and kept my eyes closed, gripping the desk so hard my hands hurt. I held my breath, despite wanting to cry out.
After what seemed like hours, which was in actuality about thirty seconds, the stabbing stopped, and then I felt a throbbing pain just behind the ankle bone.
I opened my eyes and released my breath as Doc dropped a bloody microchip into a glass capsule and onto the silver tray. He took some gauze from a jar by the sink and cleaned the blood off my ankle, then sealed the skin closed with bonding tape he pulled from a sterile roll inside a paper sleeve.
“You did well.” He was grinning.
There was that damned dimple again.
“All in a day’s work,” I said.
His grin evaporated. He held out his hand to help me off the desk but thought better of it, letting his hand drop to his side. Doc turned to the tray, picked up the chip with a pair of tweezers and went over to the aquarium full of mice. With one hand he reached in, pulled a mouse out and took it to his desk.
I turned away.
There was a series of squeaks and jerky movements from the doctor, then it stopped. As he worked, I examined my ankle wound. It was thin, hardly noticeable and throbbed with the slightest of heartbeats.
So simple.
Now Auberge couldn’t track me—at least, as long as I stopped all transactions. I wasn’t sure how that was possible, but I hoped Doc and that “group” he’d mentioned had ideas.
I was one step closer. I was afraid of the hope swelling within me.
Still.
If I was able to get to West now, Auberge wouldn’t be the wiser.
I liked this.
I felt a shred of control.
When I turned back around, Doc was holding a paper bag with the mouse rolling around inside.
“Dolore!” he hollered. He placed the paper bag into a leather satchel he pulled from behind his desk. There was a knock on the door.
Dolore entered, a little breathless. She saw the tray with the bloody scalpel, and me climbing off the desk, my shoes on the floor. Her face went dark. She glowered at Doc as if he’d performed some sort of perverted act upon me.
“No more appointments today,” he said.
Dolore was furious. “Yes, okay.”
Doc tossed various supplies into the leather satchel and slung it over his shoulder. “Have Char cover for me tomorrow, and grab me some prenatal vitamins.”
Dolore went out.
Doc opened the door for me and indicated I should go first. We walked down the long hallway. Dolore was in a storage room, fishing around some jars of pills. She held out a bottle and handed it to Doc as we passed.
“Let Anj know I’m on my way. And good night,” he said.
Dolore looked concerned as we walked out, into the waiting area and out the front door. It bothered me that she was so angry and worried.
What was I getting into?
Chapter Eight
Outside the building, the putrid grey air slapped me in the face. I rushed to the corner of the doorway to throw up again.
“Bend over,” Doc said. “Grab your knees and breathe through your nose.”
I did as he said.
“In. And out,” he chanted. “In. And out. Now, in through the nose. Out the mouth. That’s it.”
I stood up. The feeling passed. “I’m fine. It’s the smell. Gets me every time.”
Doc flipped his bangs out of his eyes and looked wry. “I’m sure the morning sickness isn’t helping. But don’t worry. You get used to it after a while.”
Great.
We walked down a block, past more dilapidated buildings, until we came to a crammed parking lot.
I followed behind. Doc breezed by a few old gas-guzzlers and a handful of electric cars and stopped at a black motorcycle. He straddled the machine, then tilted it off the kickstand. Putting in the key he’d taken from the satchel across his shoulder, he nodded behind him. “Get on.”
I hesitated.
To ride it, I would have to hold him around his waist and straddle the vibrating machine. Plus, I still didn’t know where he was taking me. He’d said my trust would need to be total, but this seemed a huge leap of faith, and I took a moment to consider it.
He saw my face and looked sad again.
It was beginning to irritate me, how he kept doing that.
“It’ll be fine,” he said. “Won’t hurt you or the babies, I promise. It’s electric. I’ll take it slow.”
I forced a shrug. “Go as fast as you want. I’ll be fine.” I got on and put my hands on his hips.
“I’m sorry, but you’ll need to hold tighter than that. Should we take the subway instead?”
“No,” I snapped. It really bothered me how damned considerate he was. “I said it’s fine.”
I wrapped my arms around his waist, and he started the machine. It hardly vibrated at all.
He backed the bike out of the parking slot, and even though it was smooth and quiet, I was forced to press my chest into his back for balance.
Underneath his thin button-down shirt, I felt firm, smooth muscles. It pissed me off. I shook the feelings from my head.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Just do it.”
His wrist twisted a handle, and we were off. Gliding out the parking lot and onto the street. We zigzagged past a few cabs as they waited in traffic. At the next light, on the corner of 13th and Avenue B, we turned right and our balance shifted.
“Lean in the opposite direction,” he said.
“I got that.”
We straightened out and zipped around a few more cars that were trapped in the web of clogged streets.
The motorcycle was surprisingly smooth.
We picked up speed, and my hair whipped around me. The air stung my face. I brought my head down and press
ed my cheek against the back of his shoulder.
I shut my eyes.
We turned a few more times. A right. Then a left. After a few minutes, we slowed.
I lifted my head and glanced around. We were on the outskirts of Central, near 2nd and V. Beat-up brownstone houses stacked side by side lined the boulevard.
I noticed an absence of people collected on the sidewalks and stoops. No cars were parked on the curbs. No cabs were stacked up and down the street. Aside from the piles of garbage, the neighborhood appeared to be deserted.
We pulled up to a corner, and a woman came out the front door of one of the brownstones. She had long but trimmed brown hair and pearly teeth.
She took one look at me and frowned. “Another one?”
I narrowed my eyes at her. Did I have the word “prostitute” tattooed across my forehead?
Doc tried to smile. “Nice to see you too.” He climbed off the motorcycle and from his satchel pulled out the mouse in the paper bag. He held it out to her.
“Dammit, Ric.” She snatched the bag.
He grinned, completely unaffected by the woman’s irritation. He kissed her on the cheek, which made her roll her eyes, and got back onto the motorcycle. “Thanks, Anj.”
She shook her head, looking annoyed but affectionate at the same time.
His wife, perhaps? A girlfriend? I wasn’t sure. She didn’t seem too worried about finding another girl wrapped around her boyfriend.
Doc started up the motorcycle again.
She nodded at me but did not smile. “Good luck.”
“Thanks.”
The motorcycle pulled out, and we zipped back into the street.
“What’s she going to do with the mouse?” I asked.
“I’ll tell you everything once we get there.”
“Get where?”
“You’ll see.”
We zigzagged through more traffic and turned onto Avenue W. My hair whipped my face again.
Perhaps I was getting used to it, or maybe the air was slightly less toxic in this part of town, but it didn’t seem to bother me as much. I stretched my face into the wind.
There was so much air. It was crisp. Fresh. Almost like the air conditioner.
I relaxed my death grip around Ric’s waist and sat back a little, allowing the wind to whip my shirt around. The breeze blew in and out of my sleeves, down the V-neck and around my belly.
I closed my eyes and laughed.
The bike turned a corner onto 25th Street, and I tightened my grip again to keep from slipping. We sped by Vira’s restaurant on the corner of 25th and R, and my eyes followed it as we passed. It looked the same. I thought of Hugo.
I squeezed my eyes closed until it was gone from view.
We drove a few more blocks north, then stopped.
We were in the industrial part of Central, next to the loading docks and the lake. The water smelled like sewage. Warehouses with large metal rolling doors were all around us.
Doc waited for me to slide off the back of the motorcycle. Then he pushed the bike into an open warehouse and tossed a nearby tarp over it. I stood just outside.
When he returned, he looked me up and down and opened his mouth to speak. His lips slammed shut and he flushed.
I checked behind me, but there was nothing there. “What?”
He indicated my shoulder.
My shirt had slipped to one side, baring my skin. I straightened the shirt.
“This way,” he mumbled.
What kind of doctor blushed?
I followed him back through the warehouse and up a flight of metal stairs. The warehouse was empty. The concrete floor was covered in dust and footprints. The walls were unpainted cinder blocks. It stank like the rotting lake and the temperature had dropped several degrees in the shade.
“What was the mouse for?” I asked.
Doc paused for a moment, gripping the metal railing of the stairs. “According to your tracking device, you’re staying in a boarding house on the other side of Central. Your mouse will be there for a week or two. Anj will see to it.”
“Who is Anj, anyway?” I watched Doc’s face for an expression. He masked it quickly, and I could tell he was holding back.
He thought for a moment and said, “Someone who’s helped me before.”
“Oh.” I figured that was a clue to stop asking, but it put me on alert.
At the top of the stairs we reached a door. Doc opened it and a blast of hot, sticky air hit us both.
He turned before going inside. “One rule. Don’t touch anything.”
I nodded.
We went in.
It was dark, and a low humming noise filled the room. Against every wall there were open metal folding tables stacked on top of more tables, each piled high with black cube computer drives—hard drive after hard drive, one on top of the other without an inch to spare. The wall at the end was covered entirely in a myriad of different-sized flat screens from floor to ceiling, wall to wall.
In the center of the room were more tables and hard drives. Dark, rubberized cables snaked across the floor in every direction. There were no lights in the room, only the glow coming off the screens on the far wall.
A short and stocky dark-skinned guy wearing a backward cap sat in a rolling chair and touched the screens, sending images, text and what have you spinning about. From one screen to another the images spun. He rolled across the room on the chair castors with a steady motion.
Back and forth. Back and forth.
From the flick of a switch under his seat, the chair rose up on a hydraulic pole so he could move images from the upper screens. When he came back down, the hydraulics farted.
“Watch your step,” Doc said to me, indicating the wires about the floor.
“I got that.”
Doc came up behind the guy in the cap and waited for him to pass by. When he did, he tapped him on the shoulder. “Tym.”
The guy jumped about a foot and landed on his feet, sending his rolling chair skittering across the room. It bumped against cables on the floor and clunked to a stop. “Jeez!”
Doc held his hands in the air, as if he was being frisked.
The dark-skinned guy’s face colored. “You scared the living crap outta me, Doc! I hate when you do that!”
“I’m sorry,” Doc said. “I just never know when—”
“You ever try texting first? Seriously, I’ve just aged a decade.” Tym bent over and clasped his knees with his palms. He wore thick, dark-framed glasses on his face, with an identical pair perched on top of his cap. When he stood up, he saw me. His breath seemed to catch in his throat. His eyes shifted to Doc. “Another one?”
I guess it was obvious.
“This is Naya,” Doc said.
Tym’s shock slid off his face and he recovered enough to hold out his hand.
I shook it.
“No, not like that.” Tym brought up his other hand and clasped my wrist.
Doc cleared his throat. “Uh, Tym, I wouldn’t...”
“Give me a firm handshake like you mean it,” Tym said. “None of this fishy, ‘oh, woe is me’ bull. That’s right. Shake my hand like you mean business. There you go. I’m Tym.”
“Hi,” I said, firmly shaking his hand.
“Nice to meet you,” Tym said. He glared at Doc. “See? She’s fine. Damn! If she was so fragile, she woulda broke a long time ago.”
I liked the way he thought. I cracked a smile.
“Welcome to my lair, Naya.”
“Thanks.”
“What’s the plan, Doc?” Tym asked.
He wasted no time. “Have you made any progress cracking the mainframe?”
Tym retrieved his chair and plopped down. He turned from us
and threw his arms into the air. The screens came alive. Boxes of symbols and words flew across the wall. He opened one box after another, closing it the moment he was able to peek at what was inside. He was searching for something.
Finally, he opened a box, and a picture that resembled a map filled the wall of screens. Different-colored wires led to various-shaped boxes, held together with silver globs and miniature cubes that resembled tiny skyscrapers.
“The mainframe circuit board!” Tym announced. “They’ve modified it since the last time we tried to crack it.”
Doc crossed his arms across his chest, taking in what he was talking about. I was already lost.
Tym pointed to three boxes clumped together in the corner. “See here? That little beauty? That’s the new storage chip for every palm print in all of Auberge. But they’ve looped it through this chamber here, which connects to HQ.”
“Which means what?” Doc asked.
“Which means, it’s housed in the main server room in HQ. No more sneaking into the satellite software portal and poking around. They’re onto us.”
Doc sighed. “If they were really onto us, we wouldn’t still be here.”
“True dat.” Tym used his forefinger and thumb to expand the picture of the three clumped chips. “Once we get Sonya inside, she’ll feed in a data worm. The worm will then erase a small portion of the motherboard data that has the palm prints—in this case Naya’s—in it, without tipping them off. Our mistake was thinking too big last time and trying to wipe them all. We think smaller, we slip through cracks. You got me?”
Doc stared at the screens with a grim expression.
“Problem is,” he continued, “the worm is so huge, I can’t just put it on a flash drive and hand it over to Sonya. She’s going to have to slip in, plug in a remote modem, and then I’ll upload the file directly onto the motherboard. We run a higher risk of being traced, ‘cuz it’ll take longer, but it’s the only way to wipe out specific prints.”
Doc nodded. He was thinking hard. If there had been a rocking chair around, I was sure he would have been in it.
“So if we erase my prints, then what happens?” I asked.
Tym grinned at me. “You don’t exist anymore.”
That was not what I’d expected to hear. “Then who am I?”