by Tasha Black
“Did you call the police?” he asked.
“Mom did,” she said. “As far as they’re concerned, she’s just a teenager out after curfew. They said they’d give us a call if anyone spots her.”
Typical Glacier City police. They’d rather chase vigilantes than recover lost children.
“Did she say where she was going?” he asked.
“Just out to get some air. I got this text about an hour ago,” Cordelia handed him her phone.
JESS:
Don’t worry. I’m fine. Be back soon.
“So she has her phone. Have you tried to reach her?” Dalton asked, knowing the answer.
“Yes, of course. But there’s no response,” she replied.
“Have you tried using the GPS on her phone to locate her?” he asked.
“No luck. She must have it turned off. I know I’m overreacting. But she’s never done anything like this before,” Cordelia said, stopping before the tears could infiltrate her voice.
A teenager out for a late night was usually nothing to get fired up about, but he couldn’t help feeling worried. Was it really his own instincts, or was he getting some emotional overflow from his connection with Cordelia?
It didn’t matter. She needed his help.
“Realistically, how far could she have gotten?” Dalton asked, not worrying about being politically correct. The kid was in a wheelchair. How hard could she be to find?
“You’d be surprised. She’s a very resourceful girl,” Cordelia said.
A vision of West’s high-tech crime-fighting suit flashed through Dalton’s head.
“You’re right about that,” he said.
If Jess really didn’t want to be found, they might have an issue.
Cordelia ran a hand through her hair in an uncharacteristic gesture of nervousness. Dalton could feel her pain and frustration coming through, stronger now that they were face to face.
“I just thought you might have… resources the police wouldn’t,” she said.
“I do,” he admitted. “And I’d be glad to help. But if you want someone who can really call in some favors, we should think about bringing West in on this.”
“No,” she said quickly. “I mean… I don’t think we need to bother with all that. I was hoping to just keep it between us.”
“He’s crazy about that kid,” Dalton told her honestly.
“Is he?” she asked.
Dalton sighed. Of course West was crazy about Jess. On the other hand, his behavior was unexplainable.
“Besides,” Cordelia said. “I have a feeling his nights are pretty busy nowadays.”
Was she hinting that West had returned to his old ways, or did she suspect something more?
Dalton decided not to find out.
“This is really a conversation you should be having with him. But I’ll respect your wishes. For now. Let me do some recon. I’ll see what I turn up. Can you give me a list of her friends, and any places you think she’s likely to turn up?” he asked.
The relief on her face made him feel an ache of something like happiness. Could he ever be part of a world where broken curfews were his biggest worry?
“Sure. But it’s going to be kind of a short list. I’m sorry. I’m sure she’s fine. I’m probably just being silly,” she smiled through her tears.
“Worrying about the people you love is never silly,” he assured her.
But the sentiment burned.
His thoughts turned to Elizabeth Sterling.
Of all the people he’d ever known, she was one who could take care of herself.
Why did he feel so worried about her?
21
Jess was a little disappointed to feel the chair slowing down to a coast, bringing her back to the real world. But the sound of Pan’s breathless laughter behind her made up for it.
“I think we’re good. Can you take it from here?” Pan asked.
“Yeah,” Jess said.
“So do you need to go home?” she asked, walking a step or two ahead of Jess. “Do you have a curfew or something?”
In fact, she didn’t have an official curfew. No point in a curfew if you never went out. A technicality Jess certainly wasn’t going to mention.
“No,” Jess replied.
“Want to check out some music?” Pan asked with a wicked smile.
“Sure,” Jess smiled back, expecting the girl to pull out a phone and play something for her.
“Okay,” Pan said. “We’ll go to Smoke & Mirrors. Bi-Polar Express is opening tonight.”
Holy crap. Smoke & Mirrors was a cool club. And Bi-Polar Express was a really popular local cover band. And Jess had never been to a concert at all.
“Perfect,” Jess said, trying not to wiggle around in her chair like a puppy.
The walk to Smoke & Mirrors wasn’t long. A sign board in front of the door proclaimed: Tonight: Bi-Polar Express, opening for… Somnambulance!
Behind the sign and velvet rope, a line of people stretched halfway down the block. Everyone looked older, so Jess supposed they would be carded. No way would they get in.
So she was amazed when Pan waved at the bouncer and he gestured for them to skip the long line and go right in.
“Hey kid, who’s your friend?” he asked Pan indulgently.
“Hilda,” Pan replied without skipping a beat.
Jess tried to cover a giggle with a cough.
“Nice to meet you, sweetheart. You girls have fun,” the big guy said with a smile.
Jess nodded and followed Pan into the crowded club.
It was dark, but the huge space was intermittently lit with flashes of strobe lights. Kind of like being in an electrical storm during a blackout, with about five hundred of your closest friends.
She hated spaces like this. People were always tripping over her chair, it was completely embarrassing. But Pan didn’t seem worried about it.
“Jesus, asshole!” Pan barked at a young guy who bumped into Jess’s footrest.
The guy turned around with a mean look. But when he saw Jess, his expression went from confrontational to guilt-stricken.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry…” he began.
Great. Even more embarrassing.
“You’d better be,” Pan piped up. “She’s in this thing from an MMA injury. When she gets out she might just come find you and kick your ass, so scram.”
The guy backed away, completely confused.
Jess laughed her head off.
“I gotta pee,” Pan said.
“Me, too.”
They headed toward a glowing sign at the back of the club.
Inside, it was much quieter. A couple of girls leaned into the large mirror over the sink, putting on make-up.
Jess pushed to the handicap stall.
“You’re good, right?” Pan asked lightly without a touch of condescension.
“Yeah,” Jess smiled.
When they came out again, Bi-Polar Express was already playing. It was a Bowie cover, and they were pretty good.
The drummer kept looking right at them, it seemed.
“Do you know him?” Jess asked Pan between songs.
“You could say that. We dated for a minute. But he was, well, a drummer,” she said with a chuckle. “I could get us backstage to meet Somnambulance, but they’re the type of band that expects the girls who come backstage to, you know, do stuff. And they’re pretty skeevy.”
Jess nodded in a way she hoped looked knowing instead of amazed.
They watched for a while, but they were back kind of far. Once the headliners came on, the crowd started to fill in, and it got hard for Jess to see.
“Hey, watch this,” Pan said.
She grabbed the back of Jess’s chair and began to push their way through the crowd.
“My friend can’t see. Have some respect,” she said loudly as people got out of the way.
Jess wanted to die of shame. It wasn’t right.
“I said she can’t see from back here,” Pan sp
at at a group of girls who looked like they were thinking about putting up a fight. “She was injured representing the US in an international snowboarding championship, she’s a fucking American hero. Get out of her way.”
At last, they made it to the front row.
“Nice work,” Pan told Jess.
Jess was speechless and decided to listen to the music instead of talking. It was too loud for conversation anyway.
A minute later, Somnambulance broke into one of their rare slow songs. Pan grabbed Jess’s hand, like it was no big deal.
“Oh man, I love this one,” Pan crooned as she swayed.
Jess couldn’t repress a smile and she swayed along too, forgetting all about being indignant.
When the song was done, Pan wiped sweat off her brow.
“It’s too hot, let’s get out of here.”
They headed out of the club and back to the community center.
When they arrived, Pan pulled out her cell phone and texted someone.
“My ride,” she said. “Do you need a lift? We can throw your chair in the trunk.”
Oh boy.
She didn’t have any place to go but home. So much for independence.
“Yeah, okay,” she agreed.
“What’s up?” Pan asked, clearly sensing trouble.
“It’s just, I don’t really feel like going home right now,” Jess admitted.
“I feel that. Sometimes you just need a change of scenery. You wanna come back and chill at my place for a while? We can see if they’ve got any good superhero movies on Netflix. My dad’s got a pretty sweet home theater set up,” Pan waggled her brows as if to sell the idea.
Crap. Jess knew she should just go home.
“That sounds cool.” She smiled back at Pan.
“You can even crash if you need to,” Pan said.
“You mean like, sleep over?” Jess heard the words leave her mouth before she could stop them.
Oh god. She was acting like she was twelve.
“Yeah, it’ll be swell. We can do each other’s nails, and braid our hair, then we can have a big pillow fight and talk about boys,” Pan laughed. Then she punched Jess in the arm and gave her a smile that seemed genuine.
She was laughing, but not at her.
Jess laughed too.
“Sorry. I guess my life has been kind of, sheltered,” she admitted. “My family is always trying to make sure everything is just right for me.”
“Sounds pretty rough,” Pan said with an eyebrow raised. “No wonder you wanted out.”
Jess let that sink in for a minute.
“You sure your Dad won’t mind?” she asked.
“He’s cool,” Pan nodded.
“And you’re sure the trunk is big enough for the chair? It’s heavy,” Jess worried.
A stretched Cadillac Escalade pulled up and stopped at the curb in front of them, its contoured black body gleaming under the streetlights.
A brick wall of a man in a nice suit got out. He was bigger than West. Even bigger than Dalton.
The enormous guy headed toward them. Jess noticed a constellation of tiny scars dotting his lips.
“I think we’ll manage,” Pan teased.
“Good evening, Miss Ionna,” the man said in a deep, friendly voice. “Will your friend be coming with us tonight?”
Ionna?
“Yep,” Pan said, rolling her eyes at the sound of her real name. Jess couldn’t imagine why. It was beautiful. Like a goddess.
The ride was pleasant. Pan lived across the bridge, in the fancy part of Glacier City that wasn’t locked in by the glacier.
By the time they arrived, Jess was starting to doze.
She perked up as Pan - Ionna - led her to the house. It was super nice and about as big as her whole block. It even had a wheelchair ramp, which Pan informed her was for her grandfather, who lived with them.
Her dad greeted her at the door with a hug, and didn’t even bat an eyelash at her bringing Jess home unannounced. He seemed cool. And he was handsome, too, for an older guy.
He had someone set up one of the many extra rooms for Jess, then left them alone to watch movies on the giant TV.
Jess thought she could get used to this kind of lifestyle pretty quickly.
22
The scanner enveloped West in a hush. Cool air tickled his skin for long minutes. He tried not to hope his limbs could be salvaged. He tried not to think of anything.
After an eternity, the shining white instruments slid away.
Mallory sat on the chair beside him, her expression blank.
But West saw the tears threatening to spill out of the corners of her eyes.
“There’s no easy way to say it,” she said in a brittle voice. “They’ve got to come off. I’m sorry.”
The air went out of West’s lungs.
Half of his body would soon be gone.
He looked up at Dalton, who had rushed to join them here.
His friend couldn’t even meet his gaze.
“There’s got to be another way,” he tried to reason with Mallory.
The consequences of losing his arm and both his legs began to dawn on him. His right hand clenched, as if to assert itself, and he stood and began to pace the room.
“I’ve been over this from every angle,” Mallory said sadly. “Your system just can’t handle this kind of strain. Your central nervous system is already severely compromised.”
“Mallory…” he said, pausing to plead with her.
He didn’t know what else to say. She was a genius. Geniuses didn’t just say I can’t, did they?
“Look at it like this,” she said, her voice warming a tad as she launched into an explanation, “if your body were a house, your nervous system would be the wiring. Before your injuries, your wiring was kind of like a 60 amp fuse box. But we’ve upgraded so much, that it’s not enough anymore. You should be running a 200 amp service through a circuit breaker. At least,” she finished.
Dalton raised an eyebrow at her.
“What? I watch HGTV,” she retorted, and turned back to West. “Anyway, this heavy draw is basically melting your wiring, deteriorating the myelin sheaths and resulting in sodium leakage into the extracellular fluid. Admittedly, the metaphor breaks down a bit here, but you get what I’m saying. It’s like you’re blowing fuses. And your body isn’t going to be able to keep replacing them. Sooner or later, your power is going to go out for good.”
“Didn’t we plan for that?” West asked, grasping at straws.
“We did. Extensively. In cases with a single prosthetic, operating at a reasonable power level. But you have three full limbs, almost half your body mass, and you’ve got them all cranked up to 11,” she told him.
And there it was.
“So what do we do?” he heard himself ask. His own voice sounded far away.
“We need to get you set up to remove them. And then we start some experimental treatment and, well… pray. Since the problems began with Sean Cooper, I’ve been working with an old friend who is doing some incredible things with MS and ALS treatment. If we can find a way to combine his remyelination process with our nanotech delivery system, it could be groundbreaking on both fronts,” she told him.
“So what’s the hold up?” West asked.
“Just a few rolls of bureaucratic red tape to cut through. You might be surprised, but giant corporations aren’t always very good at sharing,” she said with a quirk of her lips.
“Speaking of our legal team,” West grabbed his briefcase and spread it open on one of the lab tables. “I had a very long meeting with Gary from Legal this week.”
“This isn’t about the hair again, is it? Because—” Mallory began.
“No,” West cut her off with a chuckle. “It’s about these.”
He pulled out the hefty stack of papers and handed it to her.
“What’s all this?” Mallory asked, not looking.
“Those are all of your patents, since you’ve started working for Worthin
gton Enterprises,” he replied.
“Is there some kind of problem?” she asked anxiously.
“No.”
“Well… Thanks? I do already have copies of all the patents I’ve registered for Med Pros on file in my office,” she replied.
“Look a little more closely,” West urged her with a smile.
Mallory gave him an odd look. Then she set down the pages and began to look through them.
He saw the exact second when she spotted it.
“West, these are all in my name.” Her eyes went wide. “Only my name.”
“That’s right,” he told her.
“But that means…”
“That means they’re yours,” he said. “Just like they should be. Or at least they will be as soon as you sign the changes.”
He slid a pen out of his pocket and offered it to her.
Mallory stood before him, staring at the pen. She was speechless, for the first time since he’d met her.
“I’ve been thinking lately that I might be undertaking some… high-risk activities,” West explained. “What we’re talking about today only underscores that.”
Mallory opened her mouth like she was going to say something. When she didn’t, he continued.
“Whatever happens to me, I want you to be free to do what you see fit with your work. You told me something once, about how you signed every piece of this tech with your blood and sweat. It’s about time you signed them with your name.”
He held the pen out to her again.
She took it, then sank onto a lab stool.
“Of course, Worthington Enterprises is also prepared to lease the use of your tech. He handed her another stack of papers. I think you’ll find the lease terms agreeable, and the payment fair.”
Mallory tentatively rifled through the new set of papers.
“Holy shit,” she breathed. “Sorry,” she caught herself, smiling up at West.
Dalton laughed and the deep sound filled the room.
“It’s a fraction of what we stand to make with you at the helm,” West assured her.
“But, West… why?” she asked, shaking her head.
“Seriously?” he asked. “The easiest answer is that I owe you my life. In more ways than one. But that’s only a small part of it. Think of how many people you’re going to help with this. And not just prosthetics. Optics, nanotech. Five minutes ago, you glossed over the fact that your work is going to help revolutionize treatment for Muscular Dystrophy and Lou Gehrig’s Disease like you were telling me you found a way to save money on your car insurance. If you’re in control, you can do things with all of this that I literally can’t imagine. I’d be honored to be a part of that.”