06 - Vengeful

by Robert J. Crane

  49.

  I sauntered up to J.J., who was sitting across from Dog with his laptop between them, eyeing the dog nervously. “Hey!” he said to me as I approached, my boots rustling the wet grass as the sun set behind me. “I am so glad to see you.”

  “He giving you any trouble?” I asked as Dog came over to circle my legs. I scratched his head idly.

  “Ummm … no, he’s been an angel,” J.J. said, voice a little strange. “I’ve just, uh … been digging a little deeper into that hack of Cassidy’s email and found a … a thing … that’s worrying me …”

  “Is that so?” I asked matter of factly as J.J.’s eyes skittered nervously around. “I gotta get this guy fed.” Dog barked in agreement.

  “Yeah, so … about that,” J.J. started.

  I anchored my eyes on the tech geek. “Is it him?”

  J.J. blinked at me. “Is … who … him?”

  I sighed that he wasn’t keeping up with me. “Give me a name, J.J.”

  “A name for wh—” I looked down at the Dog with leading eyes, and J.J. followed my gaze. “Oh!” he said. “Owen Traverton.”

  Dog stiffened and froze against my leg, which gave me enough time to grab him by the back of the neck and grind his muzzle right into the ground with all my weight. “All right, Wormtail—or should I say Owen? Go human, or I will Old Yeller you right here.”

  “She goes for the heartbreaking Disney reference at this moment of supreme betrayal,” J.J. said, nodding sagely. “An excellent choice.”

  Dog yelped pitifully in what I assume was an attempt to yank at my heartstrings, but I was all done being tugged around by this asshole. “Now, Owen, or I start breaking bones in ways that won’t be easy to heal, even for a skin-changing meta like you.”

  Dog held in place for just another second before he yipped and started to shift. His ears lowered, head elongated, his skull becoming human as the hairline receded. “Owww …” he said, and I could tell he was not happy about the pain I was inflicting with a knee right in his kidney. “How did you know?”

  “You understand English a little too well,” I said, “and you reacted a little too quickly to save your own ass during the earthquake. Most dogs don’t jump into the arms of a stranger at a second’s notice in hopes they’ll be carried out the window, I don’t think.”

  I looked at the beast that had been my pet for the last few months, my elbow in perfect position to have an accident against his spine. He’d been leaking my secrets for pay, helping to make me look like a horrible person the world over. Just a slip …

  “It wasn’t personal,” he said, spitting in the dirt, “I needed the money.”

  “The battle cry of the prostitute,” J.J. offered as commentary, “but will it find purchase in the rough rocks of Sienna’s soul—”

  “J.J., shut up,” I said, giving him a good withering glare. It was becoming a habit. I switched my fury back to Owen Traverton, in all his middle-aged, skinny, alopecia glory. “You could have made it so easy. You could have grabbed the shotgun out of my closet while I was sleeping and just unloaded it until I was a bloody carcass in the sheets. Instead you injected me in the hand with—with—whatever the hell it was that put me in a coma—”

  “I thought you picked up a chemical-laced flyer off your car?” J.J. asked, looking at me strangely. “Did I imagine that?”

  “I don't think so,” I said, staring at the man I had pinned against the ground. “I think it was this bastard right here. Wasn't it?”

  “I’m sorry,” he murmured into the dirt. “I didn’t—I’m not that kind of—”

  “Please say ‘Girl,’” J.J. offered. “Because it fits really well with that whole motif I was—” I gave him the look again and he shrugged.

  “P … please,” Owen Traverton said as I leaned on his neck.

  “Relax, Owen,” I said, and jerked him to his feet, putting him in an armbar that evoked an immediate, “Ahhh!” of pain. “I’m still more human than you.” I pushed him toward the entrance to the Cube. “And I think it’s time for you to spend a spell in the kennel.”

  50.

  After I dropped my not-so-faithful dog off in his new home under the earth, I came out of the Cube to find Director Andrew Phillips milling around outside with Guy Friday, the man in black’s arms folded in front of him, looking only mildly muscled at the moment. “Good fight earlier,” I said to him, and he nodded at me once in acknowledgment. “I do have to ask you a question, though.” He braced for it like he knew me. “What happens if he forgets the safeword?” I chucked a thumb at Phillips.

  My boss was not amused. “Who’d you just take down?”

  “My dog,” I said, my own amusement going by the wayside. “Turns out he was a skin-changer working for Cassidy and the Clary family.”

  Phillips didn’t look impressed, either. “So he’s been feeding them information on your activities, and they’ve been feeding that in turn to the press.”

  I made a face. “Looks that way. He also poisoned me.”

  Phillips looked at the prison entrance, which was really just like a ramp leading into the ground at this point. “He’s still breathing.”

  “I noticed that, too,” I said, nodding sagely. “Will wonders ever cease?”

  Phillips stared at me for a minute without speaking. “This is a disaster, you realize.”

  “Tell me about it, that bastard has been watching me undress for months—”

  “I meant from the government angle,” Phillips said, apparently unconcerned for my modesty. I wasn’t all that concerned about it at this point, either, given how lost a cause it seemed, but it was a funny way to avoid the obvious. “Washington’s furious.”

  “The whole city, all at once?” I didn’t take it too seriously. “That’s an impressive level of conformity.” He let his head sag sideways in obvious disappointment. “I’m sure they’ll find some way to take out their anger on me, and if it means I’m out of a job, then …” I shrugged. “Oh, well.” I looked over his shoulder at Guy Friday. “Looks like you’ve got your own team forming, one that’ll probably listen to orders way better than me anyway.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You telling me you don’t care?”

  “I’m telling you …” I sighed. “I’m not oblivious to how things look to the outside world, Director. I understand the political realities that President Harmon is dealing with over the next … what, eight weeks ’til election?” I shrugged again. “I’ve done the best I can in the job I have. If he doesn’t like the work I did, I’ll leave, no questions asked. He can even trash me on the way out if he needs to in order to spare himself the poll hit, and I won’t fight it. I’m gonna be okay, even if I don’t end up working here anymore.” I felt a surprising calm about that. It was a new thing for me. “But if he wants to keep me in this job, the president shouldn’t expect anything less from me than relentlessly hounding criminals until they’re sitting down there.” I pointed back at the ramp to the Cube. “Because for as long as I am here, I will not quit until they stop popping their ugly little heads up and I’ve popped them all.”

  “Like a Whack-a-Mole game,” Guy Friday said, nodding sagely, drawing a look from both Phillips and me.

  “Yes, like Whack-a-Mole,” I said, “except a Whack-a-Meta-Criminal.”

  Phillips fixed me with a stare. “You sure you want to adopt that position? Seems like it hasn’t worked out all that well for you thus far, being this … inflexible.”

  “I’m sorry if you end up having to deal with blowback,” I said, shrugging again. It’s all I had. “This isn’t Tiddlywinks—”

  “It’s Whack-A-Mole,” Guy Friday said, still nodding seriously, like it was go time on a nuclear threat or something.

  “Uhhh … okay,” I said. “It’s not a game, is my point … those people in that crater would have been more than happy not letting me walk out alive.”

  “Okay,” Phillips said, and I got the feeling that our conversation was over by the dismissive way he turn
ed from me. “I’ll let you know where we land.” With a last nod, he headed off. Guy Friday followed behind after giving me a nod of his own that I couldn’t help but frown at. Was it mutual respect? Something more predatory? And what was with that dude and Whack-a-Mole?

  “Hey,” Ariadne called from over my shoulder, and I turned to find her there with a dusty bag hanging from her shoulder. “Ready to go?”

  I let my eyes sweep the wreckage of the campus, and I caught sight of Dr. Zollers talking with J.J., who had his laptop folded underneath his arm, Reed and Dr. Perugini walking side by side, Augustus standing off on his own shaking his head, and Scott …

  Scott was staring off into the distance near the ruins of HQ, his arm still in a sling.

  “Yeah,” I said, nodding to Ariadne. “Get everyone together. I’ll see you there.” And I lifted off the ground, taking to the skies to race them to our destination.

  51.

  There was a party going on upstairs, the movement of feet on the wooden floors causing creaking in the basement where I stood on a canvas mat, staring at the darkest corner where something still hid in the shadows. The whole place smelled musty, and I made a mental note to open the egress windows before fall passed into winter and they got covered over with snow.

  “So that’s the much-vaunted box,” Dr. Zollers said, his feet causing the wooden stairs to groan as he left the party behind to come down to me. I hadn’t planned to be down here for nearly so long as I had, but I got … distracted.

  “Yeah,” I said, breaking away from my quiet vigil to look at him as he paused on the landing. “I keep meaning to have it hauled off, but … uh … well, there’s logistical concerns, and also … I don’t know anyone who carts away personal prisons. Feels like the DAV probably wouldn’t accept it as a donation.”

  “You could pull it apart and haul it off to a junkyard as scrap if you were serious about getting rid of it,” he said, easing his way down the last few stairs.

  I turned back to look at the imposing steel structure in the corner. “Maybe I’m not that serious about getting rid of it, then.” I paused and felt his presence behind me, breathing in the faint light of the single bulb overhead. “Is that weird?”

  “We often keep touchstones of our traumas,” he said. “Occasionally gunshot survivors keep the bullet that nearly killed them. This is perhaps a little unique in the annals of hanging onto your past, but not so dramatically out of line that I can’t imagine it.” He gave that a moment’s pause. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “The distant past?” I stared at the box, the door slightly open, the darkness within beckoning me forward. “Not really.” I felt no compulsion to go inside. “The recent past? Maybe a little more.”

  “What did you want to talk about from the recent past?” Zollers asked, like he didn’t already know.

  “I became inhuman to save humanity,” I said. “Until today … I really worried I couldn’t come back from that.”

  “But now you know you can,” he said. “Does that mean you’ll be okay with going down that road again? Shutting yourself off from everybody?”

  “Well, I could conceivably live an awfully long time, so I probably shouldn’t say ‘never’ …” I took a breath of the cool basement air. “But I hope not. I carried that burden alone so others didn’t have to make those choices, didn’t have to do …” the air rushed out of me, “… didn’t have to do what I did. I thought carrying it all alone, being hard, being willing to do whatever it took no matter what … I thought that meant I couldn’t be part of humanity anymore.”

  “Tough way to live.”

  “I don’t think I was really living,” I said. “I just … figured I’d suffered enough that I could barely feel it anymore, so why not take on a little more?” The thought of all the different gossip rags, the little leaks, the nasty stories that I thought shouldn’t have hurt my big girl feelings but somehow did … they all drifted across my mind. “I felt like everything I’d been through with the war, with Winter … I didn’t think being hated would … hurt so much. That being alone would be so …” I stared at the box. “I mean, it wasn’t like I’ve been really alone these last few months, not like I was when …” I waved my hand at the object in the corner.

  “Human beings are not composed of indestructible metals,” Zollers said, and now he was at my shoulder. “Not even the Clarys, as you proved for yourself today. We all have our limits, and I’d say over the last few years, you found yours.”

  “And here I thought I had no limits,” I whispered quietly. I smiled at him faintly, patently falsely. “Do you think it’s going to get any easier?”

  He put an arm around my shoulder, a half hug, and just like that, I actually felt … better. “There’s a whole house full of people having a celebratory party up there because you captured and stopped people that fully intended to kill you.” I looked over at his eyes, and they were warm, kind, and inviting—in short, everything this basement wasn’t. “You don’t have to be alone in this anymore.” He smiled. “Come back to humanity, Sienna. Join your friends … which includes me.”

  “So you’re still staying?” I asked.

  “I’m thinking about getting my medical license reinstated,” he said, guiding me back toward the stairs. “Maybe open up a practice here in the Cities. What do you think?”

  “I think you’ve got at least one client to start with,” I said as the door to the basement opened wide as we came to the landing. Augustus was standing there, looming in the frame. “Hey,” I said, “how’s it going?”

  “I’m gonna head home for the weekend,” he said as Zollers and I emerged out of the basement’s gloomy dark, “if that’s cool with you?”

  “Fine by me,” I said. “Just make sure you’re back for class on Monday.”

  He gave me the eyebrow. “You sure we’re still gonna be … uh … getting funding for that?”

  I lowered my voice and smiled conspiratorially. “When Ariadne and I set up your scholarship, we put aside all four years of tuition in a separate account, and she wrote it up as a liability on the books. The agency could go bankrupt, and your college is still paid for.”

  “Damn,” he said in mild admiration. “I thought—”

  “I take care of my friends,” I said, “as best I can.”

  He smiled. “See you on Monday.” He looked around. “Is this the office now? Because you’re gonna need more chairs.”

  I punched him lightly on the shoulder without letting Zollers’s arm slip from my own. “See you Monday, Augustus.” I watched him head for the door with a trace of regret that he wasn’t hanging around with us.

  “Heeeeey!” Reed called as we entered the living room. He was on the couch with Dr. Perugini, and they both had plastic cups in hand—my finest glassware.

  I looked around to see Ariadne sitting on the arm of one of the chairs with a cup of her own filled with—smelled like wine, actually. Good bouquet, though I wasn’t really into that sort of thing. Scott was in the chair, his sling off but his arm at a funny angle, and he was looking around. “Nice place, Sienna,” he said mildly.

  “At some point you’re going to have to talk to him about that,” Zollers whispered in my ear, so low I knew only I could hear it. “But not tonight.” I caught his smile, and on that we both agreed.

  “You need one of these,” Reed said, getting up and shuffling over to me and Zollers with cups of our own. I caught a sniff of the contents, and they were not wine. They were stronger. Much stronger. “I feel like after today, we should all be doing shots, but …”

  “But instead you figured antifreeze mixed with Everclear would do the trick?” I held the cup up and pretended to blanch at the smell. I didn’t have to pretend much. “What is this?”

  “It’s what you had on hand,” Ariadne said, clutching her cup of wine like it was a life preserver and she was in an ocean without a shore in sight. “I, uh … stopped off and got a bottle of my own, which you are more than welcome to a glass
of.”

  “Noooo,” Reed said, shaking his head. “Drink with us, Sienna.”

  “Yeah,” Scott said, smiling faintly, looking a little more lively now, “drink with us.”

  I stared into the cup. “After today, you’re right—I need this.”

  “It was a tough fight,” Reed agreed.

  “I was talking about that Imperial March story.” I caught his eye and he blushed and looked at Dr. Perugini, whose head sank in clear embarrassment. He smiled and I returned it as his head came back up. “No, you will not live that one down, not ever,” I answered his question before he even asked.

  “This is cozy,” Ariadne said, tipping back her glass. “Kinda … homey and whatnot.” She sighed, looking uncomfortable about where she sat in more ways than one. “Still … are we going to talk about it?”

  “Talk about what?” Reed asked, already pouring himself another cup from the menagerie of old bottles laid out on the counter. I frowned as I looked at them; those had to be from my mother’s day, and not one of them looked newer than the early aughts.

  “Tomorrow,” Ariadne said.

  “Tomorrow is Sunday,” Dr. Perugini said. “Nothing happens on Sunday.”

  “Monday, then,” Ariadne said.

  “Not tonight,” I said, brandishing my cup and smiling as I looked at my friends, surrounding me here, in this, my home. “Trouble’s already eaten a fair bite out of today. Let’s worry about tomorrow—or the day after—when it rolls around.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” Reed said, and raised his cup. “To the day after tomorrow!” His movement was mirrored by our little circle, one after another. It was warm here, the smell of strong booze was in the air and in my glass, there were friends all around, and it didn’t matter what came on Monday, not anymore. I’d find my way.

  “To the day after tomorrow,” I said, and I tipped back my cup.

  Epilogue