by J. T. Bishop
She hesitated. “That’s not your worry. Right now, you need to rest.”
“With who, Hannah?’
She was torn. Leroy had given her specific instructions to keep Ramsey drugged if she had to, but to keep him out of the room with Morgana at all costs.
“Promise me you won’t go tearing out of here? You need to stay put.”
“What? The meeting is here? Right now?” He looked toward the bedroom door, which he then realized had been repaired, sloppily but well enough that it could reasonably shut out most noise.
Hannah ran her hand through her hair. “Shoot. I’m not very good at this.”
“You’re terrible. Who is it? Or should I venture a guess?” A sneaking suspicion about the identity of the mystery guest arose. There was only one person who would cause this much concern and upset, especially when it came to him.
When Hannah didn’t say anything, he started to rise, going slowly to keep his balance.
“Ramsey, don’t.”
“It’s Morgana, isn’t it? She’s here?”
Hannah paused, but she finally huffed and gave in. “There was a knock on the door about an hour ago. They’ve been out there ever since.”
He stood then, painfully but purposefully. “Then by all means, let’s join the party.”
“Ramsey, please. Let Leroy and Declan handle this. You’ll only lose your cool, and you need to conserve your strength right now.”
“Me, lose my cool?” He put on an innocent face but then stopped and reconsidered. “Okay. You may have a point, though I will make every effort to stay calm. But you know what I said about no more heroics? Well, I’m about to break that promise. This will take more heroics than anything I’ve done since we got here.”
“Well, you never actually promised.”
“Even better, then.”
“Just stay in here, Ramsey. You know she pushes your buttons. You won’t make it past five minutes, heroics or not. Please reconsider.”
“And let them have all the fun? Perish the thought.” He moved around the bed and headed for the door. He had to make the deliberate effort not to groan as he did so, or Hannah would be on him again. When he reached the door, he looked back at her. “Care to join me?”
She sighed with exasperation and put her hands on her hips. “No, thanks. I’ve had enough drama to last me a while. If she wants to speak to me, she’ll find me. Besides”—she looked toward the bathroom—“I’d rather stay and keep an eye on her.”
Ramsey followed her gaze and then looked back. “You need anything while I’m up?”
She made a half smile as she looked at him standing there with his crazy hair, sunken cheeks, and pink face, looking like he was about to fall over but convincing himself that he was hiding that from her. She almost envied seeing Morgana’s face when she laid eyes on him. Hannah stopped herself from laughing to keep his pride intact, but she knew he caught her amusement. “No, Ramsey, I’m good, but thanks.”
He nodded, turned, and pulled the door open with a yank, holding in a groan as he did so. He looked back at her as he left. “Wish me luck.”
“You’re going to need it. Don’t pass out while you’re out there. It won’t be good for your image.”
He smirked back at her. “Thanks for the advice.” With that, he headed out the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
* * *
AS HE APPROACHED the living area, he could hear their voices. “She’s alive, isn’t she?” Morgana’s voice reached him first.
“Nevertheless, it was foolish.” Leroy responded with controlled anger in his voice. “He risked his life.”
“That’s his job,” Morgana shot back. “Her life before his, or any of yours, for that matter.”
“You didn’t give us that choice!” boomed Leroy. “You should have told us that going in. We should have known we were—”
“Expendable?” Ramsey broke in as he entered the room.
They all looked in his direction.
Leroy spoke first. “Sherlock? What the hell are you doing up?”
Ramsey made his way over the table to ensure that if his legs started to wobble, he would have something to grab onto. “You know I don’t like it when you keep me off the invite list,” he answered.
“That’s because you’re not invited. Pretty logical interpretation.” Leroy stared at him. “You look terrible.”
Ramsey glanced down at himself as if for the first time. “Damn, I was trying to impress our guest. Did I fail?”
“Most definitely,” spoke Declan next, gaping at his brother. “You look like the Heat Miser.”
Morgana said nothing, and her only movement was to cross her arms in front of her.
Ramsey paid no attention to her. “Hmm. I always liked that show,” he said, addressing Declan. “Fitting, since we seem to have the Snow Miser here with us as well.” With that, he finally looked at Morgana.
“Opposites attract,” she responded coolly.
“Unfortunately.” He looked around the room. “Anybody care to get me a chair before I pass out on Morgana here? I’d hate to wrinkle her pants.”
Leroy stood and grabbed a dining chair that had somehow moved to the office and brought it back for Ramsey, who was careful to convey as little weakness as possible as he sat down, even though he was weak as a kitten, and it showed.
Morgana ignored his physical state. “Since you’ve graced us with your presence, I assume you are capable of explaining a few things.”
“By all means,” he responded, resting his arms on the table. “What have you assumed we’ve done wrong?”
She stared him down. “Take your pick, Ramsey. This situation has been a fiasco from the beginning. She’s lucky to be alive. The minute you realized her life was in serious danger, she should have been brought in. We could have protected her. Instead, you risked her life because she tried to save all of you. She should—”
“Shoulda, woulda, coulda…” Ramsey sat back slowly, trying to find a comfortable position. His eyes traveled to Declan and Leroy, both disengaged at this point, and then back at Morgana. He couldn’t muster the strength to be angry. “Seriously, Morgana, don’t you have something better to do than to show up here and berate us for handling a situation you never bothered to fully inform us about in the first place? And, what, we’re supposed to bring her to you? Forgive me if I’m slightly off mentally, but what the hell do you know about Red-Lines? There are two left. No, excuse me, one left, and he’s half-dead. And we are supposed to trust you? You can’t even protect your own.” He felt his anger percolate despite his exhaustion. “Do me a favor. Next time you ask me to protect a Red-Line and then draw other people into it, people I care about, how about you give me just the slightest amount of respect and tell me the truth. When you do that, then maybe, just maybe, I’ll trust you enough to ask for help. But until then, keep your yap shut about what you think we should have done, because I couldn’t give a flying rat’s ass about what you think.”
The room sat quiet as Ramsey’s words bounced around it. Morgana sat still, with her arms crossed, as Leroy stared at her and Declan hid a satisfied smile. Ramsey waited for the expected verbal assault. Strangely enough, though, Morgana continued to sit without responding.
“I have a question.” Leroy spoke, interrupting the quiet. Declan and Ramsey looked over at him, while Morgana only shifted her eyes in his direction. They waited as he thought about it and then asked, “Who the hell is the Heat Miser?”
Declan cocked his head at the unexpected question. “The Heat Miser? He’s the little fellow with the crazy hair and red face who controls the Earth’s heat.”
“No, no, no.” interrupted Ramsey. “He’s the guy who lives on the hot side of the Earth, and he wants to take over the cold side from the Snow Miser.”
“He doesn’t ‘live’ on the hot side of the Earth,” Declan argued. “He lives in a volcano, and he wants the planet to be hot, while the Snow Miser wants it to be cold.”
&n
bsp; “Isn’t that what I just said?” asked Ramsey. “And how do you know he lives in a volcano?”
“My superior memory, that’s how.”
“And this is a TV show?” asked Leroy.
“You never saw it?” asked Declan, surprised.
“We watched it during the holidays,” said Ramsey. “It’s animated.”
“Well, it’s not a cartoon…” Declan insisted.
“I didn’t say it was a cartoon,” Ramsey shot back.
“Well, you implied it.”
“Is that the show with the catchy tune?” asked Leroy.
“Yes, it is,” said Ramsey, looking at Declan. “How does it go, Mr. Superior Memory?”
Declan stared off, but then he began to sing. “I’m Mr. Green Christmas, I’m Mr. Sun…”
“That is enough about the Miser brothers!” Morgana’s voice projected vehemently through the room. Declan stopped singing.
Ramsey, satisfied that they’d irritated her, kept pushing. “That’s right,” he said, remembering. “They were brothers, weren’t they? Morgana, did you watch it, too?” Ramsey pitched his voice low to convey his feigned appreciation of Morgana’s TV knowledge.
Morgana stared at him with rising annoyance. “Enough, Ramsey. We can discuss our useless knowledge of TV’s holiday children’s programming another time. We have other pressing matters to deal with.”
“Then how about we start actually dealing with them instead of arguing about them? Insisting who’s right and wrong is getting us nowhere,” stated Leroy.
“Agreed,” offered Declan. “How about we discuss what to do next.”
Morgana chose not to argue. She sat stiffly in her chair and eyed Ramsey, who sat waiting and looking like a wilted tree. “Very well,” she said, pausing before her next sentence. “She needs to come back with me.”
Ramsey’s wilted look disappeared, and his expression radiated outrage. “The hell she is. She’s not going anywhere.”
“And just what do you think the three of you can do for her?” she asked. “Look at you. You can barely stand, and Larry and Curly over here don’t look much better.”
At the Three Stooges reference, Ramsey and Declan’s shifted their gaze toward each other, remembering how they’d used them with X and Z. It felt a little discomforting to hear it used in reference to themselves.
Morgana continued. “We have no idea who this adversary is or what he wants. And we know nothing about the three men who came here to take Sarah.”
Leroy tried to interrupt. “Morgana…”
“I’m not finished, Leroy,” she said, now in full Councilwoman mode. “Sarah is in a very vulnerable state, and we don’t know how much longer she’ll be this way. There could be another assault on this location at any time. I doubt she can handle another event as she did before. Let’s face it. Those men would have killed all of you if she had not intervened. That you can’t deny. So I ask you, who is protecting whom?”
“And you think it would be any different if you and your people protected her?” Ramsey asked.
“We have the resources—”
“Wrong. You don’t have the resources.” Declan spoke with enough authority that they all turned to look at him.
“What, Declan?” asked Ramsey, hearing his stepbrother’s tone.
Declan hesitated before answering. “I received some initial information from my people, the ones who took the bodies.”
“And why have I not heard about it?” Morgana asked.
“Because I received it just before you arrived.”
“Then you should have shared it with me first,” she argued. “If this is delicate information—”
“Don’t you think we’ve gone way beyond that now, Morgana?” asked Declan, tired of her posturing. “At this point, we know more than you do, and that’s not likely to change.”
Morgana did not back down. “Things change all the time, Declan,” she said in warning.
Declan chose not to respond as she stared at him.
“Perhaps we can get back to his news?” Leroy interjected. “What were you going to say?”
Morgana pursed her lips as if in disagreement, but said nothing.
Declan broke from Morgana’s gaze. “We are apparently dealing with something completely unexpected.”
“And what is that?” Ramsey asked. “You said they weren’t Red-Lines.”
“No, they weren’t.” An almost inaudible sigh of relief emerged from all of them at the news. “But they weren’t Gray-Lines either.”
“What do you mean?” asked Morgana.
“They appear to be a cross between the two.”
“What?” asked Leroy.
“How is that possible?” asked Ramsey.
“It can only be assumed that the genetic testing the Council practiced for some years got out of hand and that this form of ‘mutants,’ for lack of a better word, was somehow created.”
“Impossible,” Morgana stated. “That testing we practiced was carefully overseen by our most intelligent and revered scientists. They were very diligent in preventing any sort of result such as that. And if there were mutants, then any embryo with that signature would have been destroyed immediately. We do not allow any such testing in our Community.”
“That’s very comforting, Morgana,” stated Ramsey flatly, “but apparently you’ve got a poop in your pool.” He returned his attention to Declan. “How can you be sure?’
“Initial blood and DNA results confirm traces of both Red and Gray-Line cells, as well as the marks on their bodies.”
“What about the marks?”
“They’re not gray or red. Apparently, they are a mottled color, as if they are a mixture of both.”
“And that’s on all three of them?”
“No, just X and Z. The elderly gentleman was a Gray-Line. Nothing unusual about him physically, but we did get an ID on him. His name is Edward Bright. He has an address outside the city. According to records, he lived alone and is single. Never been married, and no kids. He’s been retired for twenty years.”
“Twenty years? What’s he been doing for the last twenty years?” asked Leroy.
“That’s the interesting part. Apparently he’s a retired scientist. He used to work as a researcher at a company called Bellator Labs.”
“Bellator Labs?”
“Yes,” said Declan, matter-of-factly. “He worked in the Genetic Science division.”
**
NO ONE SAID A word.
“Son of a bitch.” Ramsey grabbed at the table, absorbing the implications of the news.
“I’ll be damned,” said Leroy, leaning back in his seat. “Sherlock’s right, Morgana. There’s something smelly floating in the Council’s water.”
“It’s not possible. No one could do this degree of testing without being discovered,” Morgana insisted.
“Well, someone did,” said Ramsey. “And whoever it is, they’re still out there. Which begs the question…”
“Who is Y?” Declan said, finishing his sentence for him.
“Exactly,” said Ramsey. “What exactly are we dealing with here?”
“He could be another mutant form, like the other two,” said Leroy, thinking out loud.
“I don’t think so,” answered Declan.
“Why not?”
“It’s what I picked up from them. There was definitely a subordinate feeling to it, as if they were here on orders. And they were afraid of him, or her, for all we know.”
“It’s a him,” responded Ramsey.
“How do you know?” asked Leroy.
“Just by the way they talked about Sarah, as if she were a piece of meat. I don’t think they would have done that if their superior were female.”
“Interesting observation,” said Declan. “And you’re probably right. My gut tells me it’s a male.”
“And he’s not a mutant?”
“If he were, I don’t think they’d be subordinate to or afraid of him.”
“So,” Ramsey deduced, “if it’s not a mutant…”
“Then we have a Red-Line on our hands.” Morgana finally spoke up. She looked amongst the group, waiting for an argument, but none came.
“Jeez.” Leroy put his hands on his head and puffed out some air.
“Terrific,” added Ramsey, rubbing his throbbing temples. “A rogue Red-Line on the loose. This should be fun.”
“Before we break out the party hats, gentleman, perhaps we should ask ourselves who this man is and why he is rogue?” Morgana posed her question to all three of them. “Assuming this is all true, shouldn’t he be in the same situation as the rest of us? How is he surviving without the serum? Why is he fighting against us? Between him and Sarah, we could have an excellent chance of working together to solve our crisis.”
There was a brief pause before Declan answered. “Something tells me he doesn’t share our point of view.”
“I think the violent tendencies are a big sign,” Ramsey agreed.
“I’m not arguing the point,” she said. “But it still poses the question. Why is he angry? What does he have against us?”
“I suppose that all comes down to who raised him,” said Leroy. “Who raised all three of them? What made them hostile? And how did two mutants and a Red-Line grow up among us and yet we know nothing about them? Who would have the resources and ability to do that and not be discovered?”
“And how did they survive without serum?” asked Declan. “If we can answer that question, then we might go a long way to discovering a solution to our own problem.”
“There is a possibility we ought to consider,” Ramsey stated.
“And that is?” asked Leroy.
“The obvious. How much does the Council trust Arnuff and Emerson?” He looked at Morgana.
“What are you saying, Ramsey?” asked Morgana. “That the last two remaining Red-Lines are somehow involved in this? That’s preposterous.”
“Is it? They had the resources, and they would certainly know about how to raise and care for a Red-Line. It’s not impossible.”
“They were instrumental in our own line of testing. Why would they branch out on their own?”