“Not that I recall.”
Keats looked eager to get on the road, no doubt to track down Magenta. But Aiden knew there was more to be learned here.
“You need to tell us about White.”
This time, Pinsey maintained iron control of his emotions. “There’s nothing else to tell.”
“I think there is.”
The old man led them to the door to evade further grilling. Aiden wasn’t about to cut him slack.
“You need to talk to us. What is it about White that–”
“I have work to finish. You have to leave.”
It was clear they’d hit a brick wall. When it came to White, Pinsey’s fear was too strong. Aiden switched topics.
“So where can we find this Ana Cho?”
“As I just explained to your partner, I’ve had no contact with Dr Cho in decades. I don’t know where she lives, or even if she’s still alive.” He frowned. “You’re the investigators. You should know her whereabouts.”
“Anything at all you can tell us about her?”
“Very little.”
Aiden made no move to leave. Pinsey sighed, knowing he needed to divulge more.
“Back then Dr Cho was single and lived alone. No family or friends outside of Tau, at least none I ever met. She was young, still in her twenties. Quite brilliant, obviously. Twin doctorates in neuroscience and child psychology. That’s all I know.”
Pinsey swept open the front door. The three of them stepped outside. Across the street, the western sun had fallen low in the sky, silhouetting rooftops against amber light.
Keats gave Pinsey his phone number. “Call if anything happens.”
“Or if there’s anything else you need to tell us,” Aiden added.
Pinsey gave a swift nod and retreated into the house. Aiden doubted they’d hear from him.
They got in the Bronco, and Keats broached the idea of using Gold as bait to snare Red and the mercs.
“If Magenta doesn’t pan out, Bobbie Pinsey could be our best shot.”
“No way,” Aiden said. “We can’t put someone with those kind of handicaps in harm’s way. Besides, I thought using me as bait was Plan B.”
Keats shrugged. “That’ll work too.” He changed the subject. “How come you didn’t ask Pinsey about your birth mother?”
“You heard him. He didn’t handle my adoption.”
“He didn’t handle Red’s either but he had a smidgen of background on it.”
“My parents are Byron and Alice Manchester. They died when I was twelve.”
Keats sensed the sudden hardening of his tone and dropped the line of questioning.
As they wove their way out of the subdivision, Aiden accessed Google Maps on Keats’ phone. The quickest route to North Platte, Nebraska, was about four hundred miles.
It was vital they reach Magenta. That was a helluva lot more important than wasting time on genealogical nonsense. Trying to learn more about some long-dead woman who’d just happened to have given birth to Aiden was an exercise in futility. He didn’t even want to think about it anymore.
But now that Keats had raised it, he couldn’t help himself. He recalled the paragraph from his father’s letter that referred to his biological mother.
She had to make some really hard choices to get by.
Added to that statement was that his birth mother apparently hadn’t known who had gotten her pregnant. Aiden had been trying not to think about those facts even though they’d popped into his head more than a few times.
He suspected that his father had left unsaid a fundamental truth, having wanted to spare Aiden an additional wallop in what was already a document overloaded with gut punches.
A bitter laugh escaped him. Keats glanced over but remained silent.
Thanks, Dad, but your ploy didn’t work.
It seemed more than likely that his biological mother was a prostitute.
TWENTY-SEVEN
They got on Interstate 80 and headed south. Keats made another call to Icy Ned and gave him Magenta’s post office box address. The mysterious confederate worked his magic. Twenty minutes later, Keats received a coded text message that he decrypted using his app.
The box was rented by one Jessica Von Dohren. Icy Ned included the geographic coordinates of her isolated home as well as a bio.
She’d been adopted by Elizabeth Von Dohren, a Princeton cultural anthropologist who’d married a Tau Nine-One researcher. Elizabeth ended up divorcing the researcher and raising Jessica on her own. When her daughter was eleven, she gave up her tenured position, relocated to Nebraska and opened an agricultural supply business. She’d died of natural causes three years ago.
“Cultural anthropologist to agricultural businesswoman,” Keats mused. “Pretty radical change.”
Aiden had a hunch what had prompted Elizabeth Von Dohren’s striking transition. Age eleven likely had been when Jessica began experiencing the manifestations. Like other parents of quiver kids, Elizabeth would have feared that her daughter’s ability would attract Tau Nine-One’s interest and had opted for an isolated existence to protect her.
Keats surpassed the speed limit on their way to North Platte. He seemed to have innate radar for knowing when to slow down, usually moments before a statie’s cruiser appeared on I-80’s darkening flanks. Even with a quick stop for fuel and sandwiches, they made the trip in five-and-a-half hours.
It was nearly eleven o’clock at night when they passed a huge Union Pacific railyard and exited the interstate. A short drive brought them to a narrow road bisecting farmlands and accessing properties outside of town. The last turnoff was Jessica Von Dohren’s driveway.
Keats ignored a series of No Trespassing and Keep Out signs and headed in. They drove a good half-mile on the driveway’s crunchy gravel. A final bend around a shrub-caked hill brought them to a modest, two-story house with clapboard siding. An old Dodge pickup was parked in front. Keats turned the Bronco around to face the lane and killed the headlights.
The silhouette of a TV antenna rose beside the chimney. Other than a rectangle of amber light seeping from a curtained upstairs window, the place was dark. There was just enough starlight to guide them toward the front porch. It was so quiet their footsteps on the gravel made them sound like a pair of city-stomping Godzillas.
At the side of the house, chicken wire enclosed what appeared to be a small cemetery with seven tombstones. Upon closer inspection, Aiden realized the squat monoliths weren’t grave markers. They were porcelain toilet tanks without the bowls. What he’d taken for a cemetery was actually a weird garden. The lids had been removed and the tanks served as planters for tomato vines and a variety of flowers.
They reached the front porch. Curtains were drawn. Keats stepped to the side of the door and unholstered the Glock.
“Is that necessary?” Aiden whispered.
“Judging by Pinsey’s letter and those driveway signs, I’m guessing our girl might not be the most congenial type.”
Aiden peeled back the screen door and banged three times with the horseshoe knocker. The sound reverberated in the darkness, loud and ominous.
There was no response. He waited a few moments then smacked out another triplet. Still nothing.
He was about to try again when the door whipped open, revealing a silhouette cloaked in shadows. The barrel of a shotgun slithered from the portal and pressed into Aiden’s belly. Alarmed, he took a step back.
“What do you want?” The voice was deep and raspy, but decidedly feminine.
“Easy, girl,” Aiden whispered, raising his hands.
“Don’t call me girl.”
“Sorry. We’re not here to make trouble.”
“That so? Then why is we holding a pistol?”
She motioned toward Keats, now in a two-handed shooter’s stance.
“Nice shotgun,” Keats offered, his voice calm. “Remington twelve-gauge autoloader. Four-round mag?”
“Only need one to blow a hole in your buddy.”
> “I’m guessing you don’t want to do that any more than I want to put a bullet through your skull. How about we both stand down.”
“How about you tell me what the hell you want.”
“You’re Jessica Von Dohren?” Aiden asked.
“And if I am?”
“Then you’re also Magenta. We were babies together at Tau Nine-One. I’m Green.”
She lowered the shotgun, stepped from the shadows and uttered the words “Basic Instinct.” Her command tripped an audio sensor, activating the porch lights.
Jessica Von Dohren was far from the ogre her aggressive intro might have suggested. Despite frumpy attire – tattered sweater and jeans – she was beautiful, fashion model tall with generous curves. Wavy blond hair cascaded to her shoulders. Aquamarine eyes regarded Aiden with cool detachment.
“Call me Jessie,” she said, cradling the shotgun under her arm and motioning them inside.
TWENTY-EIGHT
“Fatal Attraction.”
Jessie’s command tripped another sensor. Downstairs lights came on, revealing a rustic living room with a ceiling corralled by thick beams. A coffee table cut from a tree slab seemed to be growing out of the floorboards. A grandfather clock guarded the staircase leading to the second floor.
Matching sofas angled to face an old TV built into a cabinet. A vintage Norelco radio the size of a microwave squatted on a buffet table. Entertainment technology appeared to have been stopped dead in its tracks many product generations ago.
Jessie hung the shotgun over the fireplace and motioned them to sit. Aiden and Keats selected one sofa. She perched on the farthest armrest of the other one as if they bore some dread disease.
Considering her greeting, Aiden didn’t mind the separation. The phrases she’d used to trigger the lights, “Basic Instinct” and “Fatal Attraction,” were the names of movies featuring murderous female villains.
“Nice house,” Aiden began. “Live here long?”
“You came all the way out here for small talk? What do you want?”
“Any strangers snooping around lately?” Keats asked.
“You mean except you? Not really.”
“Most people don’t greet you with shotguns.”
“Story got passed around town that I like to walk through the house bare-assed. I do – fucking sue me. Then some asshole I dated for two nanoseconds decides to make it a thing on social media. So now, adolescent boys come out here at night on a dare and peek through my windows. Think I’m going to put on a show for ’em.” She gave a derisive snort. “Jerkoffs. Used to yell at them to get lost. But the Remington gets the point across faster.”
“The quiver kids are in danger,” Aiden said.
He reviewed his own history, dovetailed it into a brief account of recent events. Keats interjected various details, including the murder of the railfans. Jessie remained calm throughout the account although she seemed to listen more intently when Keats mentioned the holographic figure glimpsed by Henry Carpousis. But when Aiden related his capture and torture by Red, she muttered “Fuck” and jumped off the sofa. By the time he’d finished with highlights of their visit to Maurice Pinsey, she was pacing back and forth in a frenzy.
“Pinsey! The bastard mentioned having a disabled kid when he wrote back. But I never imagined it was Gold. Trying to gain my sympathy, I figured.”
“What do you know about Red?” Keats asked.
“I met him once. I’d just turned eighteen. It was an age when I really burned with curiosity about my past. My father had been a researcher at Tau. Although he worked on other projects, he’d managed to learn a few things about the experiment.”
“Your dad still around?” Keats asked.
“Yeah, but he was never really in my life. He and Mom divorced when I was pretty young. Get Christmas and birthday cards from him, that’s about it.” A flicker of pain touched her face.
“Anyway, through some old connection of Dad’s, Mom learned the identity of the family who’d adopted Red. The de Clerkins of California.” Jessie unleashed another snort. “They named their little bundle of joy Michael.”
Michael de Clerkin. Aiden connected the name to the face of the man who’d ordered his kidnapping, torture and attempted murder.
“He was living in LA. I flew out there on my own without telling Mom. I called him up, told him I was a quiver kid. We met in this upscale restaurant.
“He was charming, at least at first. He asked about my life, bombarded me with compliments. But I played it close to the chest, didn’t tell him where I lived or even my real name. I wanted to get to know him better first.” She paused. “Lucky for me I was cautious.
“After dinner we went to his condo. He had his own place. Very swank. He was trying to get me into bed. Frankly, I was considering it. He was pretty sexy. But I started picking up red flags. There was something creepy about him, something I couldn’t put my finger on. After he snapped a photo of me without asking if it was cool, I got pissed.
“I told him I had to leave. That’s when the real Michael de Clerkin showed up. He got pushy as hell, didn’t want me to go. Then he started ranting about how powerful us quiver kids were and about how he was personally destined to become a god. It was the most megalomaniacal crap I’d ever heard.
“By then, I just wanted out of there. He cooled it with the god talk and begged me to stay for one last drink. I said OK but I was suspicious. Good that I was. I caught him slipping something into my rum and coke. For sure, some kind of roofie.” She scowled. “The bastard was planning to rape me.
“Anyway, I bolted out the door as fast as I could. Caught a taxi to the airport and took the next flight home.”
“You never told him about your manifestations?” Aiden wondered.
“No. But looking back on it, I realized he’d been asking subtle questions that suggested he knew something about them. I’m pretty sure he was experiencing the manifestations too. We were both trying to learn about each other without revealing our own secrets.”
“Did either of you mention anything about your medical and school records being secretly accessed?”
“Michael never said anything. And I don’t think my records were looked at. Mom was wary of Tau Nine-One doing secret follow-ups. I don’t think she’d have missed something like that. Yours were accessed?”
“According to my father, yeah. Did you ever dream about your color?”
“No.”
Michael de Clerkin and Bobbie Pinsey hadn’t experienced color-themed dreams either. That and their records not being accessed seemed to indicate that Aiden was different from the other quiver kids in some fundamental way. Then again, with a sample size of four he might be jumping to conclusions.
Jessie ambled toward the kitchen. “You guys want a beer?”
They nodded. She returned with three open bottles of Heineken.
“So what do you think Michael’s up to?” Aiden wondered. “Why come after the rest of us? If he is planning an assault on Tau Nine-One, why? Vengeance for what they did to him?”
Jessie shook her head. “I don’t think he’d care about that. At least not in the way I used to care about such things. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s trying to…”
She paused. Her face erupted with insight.
“He’s going after the quiver! He wants a second infusion!”
“For what purpose? Quiver’s only supposed to work on babies.”
“Yeah, but we’re different. We’ve already been exposed to it. I’ve had this increasing urge to touch quiver again. It’s just a feeling but I think it means something. I believe a second infusion might be like getting a booster shot, that it would open up a whole new frontier for me.”
“A frontier?” Keats asked.
“New psychic abilities.”
Aiden mentioned the phrase from his green dream, Singularity beguiles, transcend the illusion, and how Bobbie Pinsey had uttered it in her sleep. But the revelations drew a blank stare from Jessie.
> “Why do you think Michael’s trying to eliminate the others?” Keats asked.
“Probably because we’re the only ones who could truly threaten him.”
“Threaten him how?”
“He’s trying to become a god. And gods, by their very nature, don’t tolerate competition.”
TWENTY-NINE
Michael’s dinner meeting was a waste of time. The two software geeks looking for an angel investor for their new company must have thought he had a sucker target on his back. Their facts were shaky and their data slim; their proposal reeked of desperation. Numerous venture capital firms had already turned them down.
Still, it was a relaxing meal at a prestigious restaurant. Since they were picking up the tab, Michael upped the bill by requesting a $1,200 bottle of Pinot Noir and secretly enjoyed their struggle not to look appalled as the waitress handed them the check. He especially liked how their upbeat faces collapsed into disappointment when he announced, “No sale, gentlemen.”
He waited outside the restaurant for JoJo to bring the limo around. It was only a little after 9:30pm, and his scheduled departure for North Platte from Santa Monica Airport wasn’t until 10:50. He considered calling one of his regular hookers and doing her in the limo.
He decided against it. There really wasn’t that much extra time and he didn’t want to have to make it a rush-fuck. Besides, remaining celibate for the next few days and concentrating on reviewing every aspect of Wednesday’s assault made more sense. Tarantian was too important. This likely would be his last opportunity to subject the plan to microscopic scrutiny. Abstinence was a small price to pay for the divine power he might soon achieve.
The limo pulled up to the curb. JoJo got out and held the back door open.
Michael’s chauffeur-bodyguard didn’t look all that imposing. She was short and chubby, and had a puffy face likely to develop jowls in a decade or so. But the former Marine could kick ass. Michael had once sat in the limo at the end of a dark alley and watched her put on an enjoyable show. JoJo had taken a baseball bat to a pair of drunks who’d had the audacity to piss on the lawn of one of his West Hollywood apartment buildings.
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