Knavery: A Ripple Novel (Ripple Series Book 6)

by Cidney Swanson

  “I could go out for football,” said Gwyn, picking polish off her thumbnail.

  Ignoring Gwyn’s remark, Bridget said, “Well, I for one think something should be done to fund cross country. I could hold a bake sale, maybe….”

  “Ma, please,” said Gwyn. “A couple hundred bucks isn’t going to do it.”

  “Gwyn’s right,” said Will. “We need a couple thousand, more like. Maybe ten thousand. Coach can’t be expected to coach for free, and the away events cost money.”

  Sir Walter cleared his throat softly.

  “Yes, we all know you’re loaded,” snapped Bridget Li, turning to face the old man. “And no, you may not solve this problem with a wave of your magic carte de crédit.”

  “We could ask Geneses for corporate sponsorship,” said Gwyn, snickering. “It would help with their image problem.”

  Chrétien threw Gwyn an alarmed look.

  “Just kidding,” she said. “Although, their image is sort of in the toilet.”

  “Where it belongs,” said Will.

  “This serves us well,” said Chrétien, glancing at his father.

  “Indeed,” agreed Sir Walter. “A … preoccupied Fritz is a Fritz less likely to trouble any of us.”

  Gwyn sat up straight, a shocked look on her face. “Am I to understand you are behind some of the mud-slinging?”

  Sir Walter tugged at his goatee. “I have friends in Sacramento to whom I have suggested certain … investigations with regard to Helmann’s former company.”

  “Tie him up in paperwork,” said Mickie. She grinned. “You are one sneaky old guy.”

  Sir Walter merely smiled.

  “How about selling those coupon books?” suggested Sylvia.

  Sam knew her stepmother got worried any time the conversation steered toward Geneses and Fritz Gottlieb, so she jumped in. “You mean the ones the cheerleaders sold my freshman year?”

  Sylvia nodded. “I haven’t seen anyone do that for a couple of years. I always bought a couple of those, even at twenty bucks a pop.”

  “All the coupons are for stores in Fresno,” said Sam’s father. “That’s why the school doesn’t use them for fundraisers anymore. People felt ripped off.”

  “We could make our own coupons,” said Bridget.

  Gwyn rolled her eyes. “What, like fifty cents off a coffee at Las ABC? Two dollars off a sweater at La Perla?”

  “We don’t have the retail resources here in Las Abs,” said Sylvia. “But I like the idea of selling something that actually costs more than a fifty cent raffle ticket.”

  “A calendar,” said Gwyn. “You know, like that movie, Calendar Girls.”

  “The cross country team is not posing naked,” said Sylvia. “Sorry, Gwyn.”

  “We could do the Twelve Months of de Rocksolid,” mused Gwyn, staring at Chrétien. “No, never mind, I don’t like sharing. But now you know what you can get me for Christmas, mon coeur.”

  “A cookbook,” said Bridget. “We put together a cookbook featuring everyone’s best recipes, and we sell it for twenty bucks a pop. Coach Fortini’s Pasta Salsiccia, Sylvia’s Mango Salsa.”

  “And, what, Bridget Li’s Famous Chocolate Chippers?” asked Gwyn.

  “Why not?” asked Bridget.

  “Um, duh, because Baby Needs New Shoes, Ma,” replied Gwyn, flapping her bare feet. “You are not giving away the store just to fund the cross country team.”

  “I’m not giving away the store. People are inherently lazy. They’ll still come to the bakery for their chocolate chip cookie fix.”

  Sylvia nodded. “It’s true. I’ve got Bridget’s recipe in my card file and I never make them—I just go to the bakery when I want some.”

  “I would make them from scratch,” said Mickie.

  “Yeah, but we’re dirt poor,” said Will. “We never buy anything from the bakery.”

  “Will!” growled Mickie.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Was I giving away top secret information?” Will laughed. “Come on, Mick, it’s no big deal.”

  Mickie rose. “It’s time for me to call it a night.” She turned to Bridget. “If you end up doing the cookbook, count me in for a pesto recipe.”

  Sir Walter stood suddenly.

  “Are you heading home, too?” asked Sylvia. “Please take some—”

  “Forgive me,” said Sir Walter. “Chrétien, do you hear what I hear?”

  In spite of the heat, Sam felt an icy chill run along her spine. She hadn’t heard anything. Or anyone. And then she did hear it.

  “Oui, mon père,” replied Chrétien. “I hear him as well.”

  7

  SVEGLIATI

  Fritz was ready to test his formulation of Pfeffer’s Immutin drug on caméleons. Conscientious scientist that he was, he had tested it on animals. They weren’t caméleons, obviously, but a careful researcher ruled out the possibility of unexpected injurious effects that could occur beyond the desired effect.

  After confirming the medicine did nothing to harm animals, Fritz found non-caméleon human test subjects. All under the guise of a trial he’d falsified as having appropriate governmental approval, of course. Honestly, it was ridiculous what the rabble would agree to ingest or be shot with for a paltry fifty dollar payout. What if he’d been injecting them with a deadly virus? Fritz’s mouth tugged upward on one side. But, no. No distractions from his goal. He must remain single-minded if he was to achieve his ends. And anyway, Geneses didn’t need the bad press.

  In addition to his readiness to test the formulation, Fritz was also ready to test Georg’s loyalty. It was time to find out if the boy was all palaver and no substance. It would be only a small test, but as small decisions went, so went the great ones. If Georg proved disloyal, it were better Fritz found out now, while the stakes were relatively low.

  “Georg, my boy,” said Fritz as the young man entered his office.

  “You wished to see me, Uncle?”

  “Yes. I have a special task for you. I may need you to end a life today.”

  “Uncle?”

  “Do you object?”

  Georg answered at once. “I will do whatever is required to serve you, Uncle.”

  “There’s a good lad. Come with me.”

  Fritz turned to lead Georg forward, but something caught his eye. He turned back to his nephew.

  “Have you injured yourself?” asked Uncle Fritz. One of Georg’s wrists was colored with the angry red of a scalding. Fritz tapped it gently. As he did so, Georg’s face flushed with additional color.

  “I, ah….” Georg, ordinarily so self assured in all his utterances, was stuttering.

  “What have you done, dear boy?”

  Georg covered the burn self-consciously. “It is nothing, Uncle. Spilled coffee, I think.”

  “You think?” Uncle Fritz laughed. “Surely such a baptism would have made an impression.”

  “Forgive me, Uncle. It was not … coffee.” Georg’s left eye twitched. “I became sunburned from a visit I made to the roof of the building.” Georg looked fearful he would be reprimanded.

  “Ah,” said Uncle Fritz, feeling genial. “You needed a bit of fresh air, did you? And now your Northern Race complexion pays for it. See you apply sunscreen next time, my dear boy. I have yet to discover a cure for skin cancer.”

  Fritz then pushed thoughts of skin damage from his mind. He had bigger concerns today, and it would not do to allow himself to be distracted, not on such a momentous day as this.

  Fritz led Georg from his office to one of the other offices across the hall. Until recently, the six rooms in the corridor had belonged to Helmann, Hans, Helga, Fritz, Franz, and Pfeffer. Now all the chambers but Fritz’s had new occupants. Within four of them rested four sleepers: four Angels. At times, Fritz stored their slumbering forms invisibly. At other times, he needed them to remain solid for purposes of observation and testing. But at all times, barring those when he needed to speak to one of them, they were kept in hypnotic slumber.

  A fifth cha
mber, once occupied by the “Angel” who’d taken his own life rather than serve Fritz, had been repurposed as Georg’s room. Perhaps, when the day was ended, another of the rooms would have lost its occupant. Fritz’s jaw tightened. He needed the angels. But he needed them for experiments like this one, he reminded himself. This was no time to hold back.

  “I must ask you to remain outside the chambers while I awaken the test subjects,” said Fritz.

  Georg nodded briefly and stood, guard-like, to the side of one of the doors. Once inside, Fritz closed the door so that he could speak the password to awaken the sleeper out of Georg’s hearing.

  “Svegliati,” he murmured. His weakness for Italian opera was known to few; certainly Georg was unaware of Fritz’s musical inclinings.

  The girl before him opened her eyes and looked at him with utter contempt.

  “Subject Four,” said Fritz.

  “My name is Katrin,” snapped the girl.

  “What’s in a name, my dear?”

  “You tell me, Dr. Frankenstein,” retorted the girl.

  Fritz froze for half a second, heard his blood pounding in his ears. He had never entirely shed his childhood response to mockery.

  You must be single-minded, he reminded himself; think of your goal.

  “You will address me with respect,” he said softly. “Or others will pay the price. Do you understand?” He slipped handcuffs onto her wrists.

  “Yes,” replied the girl.

  “Yes, Uncle,” Fritz said, correcting her. “Come with me, Subject Four,” said Fritz, placing a hand on her upper arm. He felt her flinch as he called her by the impersonal title, but this time, she did not object aloud.

  This one had been trouble ever since that day, ten years earlier, when he’d spared her life and those of another six children, curious as to why they’d exhibited caméleon abilities at all, considering they weren’t fathered by Helmann. Fritz had discovered a total of seven such among the Angel Corps children. Helmann had been furious and insisted the “bastard whelps” be terminated at once.

  But they were caméleons. And Fritz, with his sister Helga, held an interest in caméleons who weren’t genetically related to Girard Helmann. So, Fritz had moved the children, settling them inside other compound families and reporting to Helmann they had been disposed of. Fritz had kept an eye on them. Katrin was especially interesting because she’d been one of a pair of fraternal twins, carried by the same mother but derived of different fathers, products of heteropaternal superfecundity. Idly, Fritz wondered where the other twin had ended up. A boy. No, maybe it had been a girl. Not that it mattered. Fritz had been interested in the special children, not the ordinary siblings sired by Helmann.

  Now, Fritz was grateful for his foresight in preserving the girl. She’d ended up in the San Francisco cadre—the one awakened by Helmann before his disastrous (and deadly) journey to France. She’d ended up in Fritz’s possession. Diversity in a gene pool was a good thing. What he wouldn’t have given to have been able to locate the others like her.

  Well, he had her. And she would prove useful today.

  As would Georg. And if he did not? Then Fritz would have learned a valuable lesson.

  ~ ~ ~

  Georg waited outside the closed door, trying to remember if this was an empty chamber or if it held one of the boys. His question was answered a moment later when Uncle Fritz walked out, escorting a girl in handcuffs. The girl looked vaguely familiar.

  Fritz passed the girl—and a sharp blade—into Georg’s keeping. This was going to be interesting.

  Fritz walked down the hall to the door of the next chamber, where he paused to address Georg. “Hold the knife just at the subject’s throat,” said Fritz to Georg. “Like so. There. You’re a natural, my boy. Draw it across her throat only when I ask it of you.”

  “Yes, Uncle,” said Georg, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

  The girl spoke, evidently addressing Fritz. “He calls you uncle. You have located more caméleons?”

  It struck Georg that there was something familiar about the girl’s voice, as well as her appearance.

  “Silence,” said Fritz. “You will speak no more.”

  Georg stood behind the girl, a knife to her throat. Of whom did she remind him?

  Ahead of them both, Uncle Fritz repeated the procedure of ducking in the next chamber. After a full minute, Fritz peered out the door and gestured to Georg, inviting him to bring the girl into the second chamber. Within stood a second girl, not in handcuffs.

  The second girl was whimpering softly.

  “Hush, Hanna,” said Fritz, speaking to the second girl. “No one is going to hurt you today. It is your friend who has the knife to her carotid.”

  “Are you going to kill Katrin?” whispered the second girl.

  Georg felt a thrill pulse through him. Katrin. That was who the girl sounded like—his sibling Katrin. Katrin, who had died of snakebite in a hospital a decade earlier, making it impossible she could still be alive. But the turned-up nose, the grey eyes—these looked so familiar. So … right. Martina had said something…. Something about a letter written by Mutti and addressed to Katrin. Was it possible Mutti had known something? Could this be Katrin?

  Fritz spoke, interrupting Georg’s thoughts. “Hanna, I have allowed your Neuroprine injections to lapse.”

  Georg’s attention was caught by the odd statement. Fritz had allowed her dose of the medicine that prevented rippling to lapse?

  “I have done so,” continued Fritz, “in order to test a new medication on you. In a few minutes’ time, I shall ask you to do something for me. Should you refuse, Katrin dies. Her death will be messy and will occur in your full sight.”

  Hanna’s eyes locked onto Katrin’s, and Georg felt Katrin stiffen in his grip.

  “You won’t kill me, Uncle. You need me,” said Katrin, her voice cold as steel.

  “Silence!” Fritz’s teeth bared as he spoke. “I need all of you. But I am willing to make necessary sacrifices.” He turned back to Hanna.

  As soon as Fritz’s back was to Katrin, Katrin turned her head almost imperceptibly from side to side—a message to Hanna? Georg saw Hanna grow whiter than ever, and she’d been pale to begin with. In contrast, Katrin didn’t so much as tremble in his grip.

  And now Georg felt certain he held his half-sister Katrin. She had been just like this girl—unwilling to cower before threats, however dire.

  “I won’t refuse,” whispered Hanna.

  Katrin’s head shook from side to side with more vehemence; Fritz was still occupied with Hanna and missed the gestured communication.

  “Hanna,” said Fritz, “do you recall that I said I’d allowed your Neuroprine to lapse?”

  The girl nodded her head a fraction of an inch.

  Georg felt Katrin’s breath becoming shallower and more rapid. Was she about to try something after all? And if she did, what would he do?

  “Good,” said Fritz. “I want you to try to do something for me now. But only once I’ve given you a clear order. I’m going to ask you to assume your caméleon form shortly. Should you succeed, you will come back within five seconds. Take longer than that to reappear, and I will be forced to end the life of your friend Katrin. Do you understand?”

  Hanna’s eyes grew wide with fear, but she nodded and breathed out a response. “I understand.”

  “Don’t listen, Hanna!” cried Katrin. “Go and don’t return!”

  Fritz responded to the plea by addressing Georg instead of Katrin. “Do you understand, Georg? If Hanna vanishes and does not reappear before the timer runs out, I wish you to draw the blade across the subject’s neck. Push harder than you think you will need to, my boy, should Hanna choose not to cooperate.”

  “Just go, Hanna! If I die, it’s not your fault,” Katrin blurted out.

  If Georg had any remaining doubts as to Katrin’s identity, they vanished. His sister had spoken the same words to him the day she was taken away. Georg had known the snakebite wasn’t his
fault. It was the snake’s fault. But Georg had been the one who suggested a snake might make a good pet. If I die, it’s not your fault, Georg. Her last words to him. Georg’s head spun with the implications.

  “Silence!” cried Fritz, whirling on Katrin. Then just as swiftly, Fritz turned back to Hanna. “Do you wish to watch as she bleeds out? It will not be a pretty sight.”

  Georg felt the ground pitch and toss. He swallowed hard. He thought hard.

  Hanna was crying now, her breath coming in short sobs. “I … can’t,” she said to Katrin.

  “How long do any of us have?” cried Katrin. “Go. Go!”

  Fritz whipped to Katrin’s side, a roll of self-adherent medical tape in his hand. He slapped the bright pink tape over Katrin’s mouth, wrapping it around the back of her head once and then twice with a swiftness that made Georg think his uncle had done this before.

  Katrin continued to call out a choked version of Go! Go!

  The knife felt slick in Georg’s palm. What would he do, if Fritz asked him to kill his sister?

  He didn’t know.

  “Cut her!” ordered Fritz.

  Georg hesitated. He wasn’t sure what he’d been ordered to do. “Cut her, Uncle?” he inquired, as if asking for clarification. It would buy him a few seconds, maybe.

  “No!” screamed Hanna, throwing herself to her knees, grasping Fritz’s legs. “Please, Katrin—cooperate!”

  Georg felt Katrin’s muscles tense, and then he felt a hot tear splash onto the hand in which he held the knife. From behind the tape, Katrin grunted something which sounded like it wanted to be angry words.

  Fritz got right in Katrin’s face. “Go ahead,” he said, his voice icy and calm. “Prove to me that you are more trouble than you’re worth.”

  Hanna cried, sobbing out, “Katrin, please … please … don’t make me watch … I can’t….” Hanna broke off, still clinging to Fritz, who seemed at last to notice her at his feet. Georg saw his uncle considering whether or not to kick Hanna free. Fritz seemed to decide against it.

  At the same time, Georg felt a break in Katrin’s determination. She stopped trying to shout through the tape. She held herself in stillness.