Flight of Shadows: A Novel

by Brouwer, Sigmund

  He kept his back to the surveillance camera and reached inside his shirt for the kitchen knife he’d taken from the apartment. He opened the box and deftly skewered the rat with his knife. It squealed briefly but died so quickly he got little satisfaction. He slipped the knife and the rat back into his shirt.

  “Hey!” came a voice from the loading dock.

  Mason stood and faced a potbellied elderly man in a faux police uniform. By his mental count, it had been about fifteen minutes. That delay plus the fact that the security man was staying up on the dock where it was safe told Mason enough. Not much danger.

  “Just waiting for someone,” Mason said. He felt some squirming inside his shirt. Apparently the rat wasn’t completely dead.

  “Not here,” the guard answered. He had an earpiece and a small microphone on a headset. “You’ve got twenty seconds to leave before I call Enforcers.”

  “It’s a girl I’m waiting for,” Mason said. He placed his left hand on his belly and felt the shape of the rat. He pinched the rat’s neck while its legs futilely scratched at his skin. He felt the rat spasm briefly, and the legs stopped scratching. “She works here.”

  “We don’t have those kinds of girls at this hotel.”

  “She’s a maid,” Mason said. The apartment woman had told Mason all about the agency men who came looking for Caitlyn after Billy and Theo left. She’d told Mason a lot more about Caitlyn than she’d told the agency men. But then again, Mason had been able to motivate the apartment woman in a different way. “She looks weird. Almost like she has a hump on her back.”

  The security guard tilted his head and squinted. “You know her?”

  Mason’s belly tingled. It wasn’t the rat, but his predator’s instinct. He was close.

  “I’m waiting for her,” Mason said.

  The guard tapped his earpiece. He covered his mouth and spoke into the microphone. Mason tensed, wondering if he’d have to run.

  The security guard finished the conversation behind his hand, then spoke to Mason.

  “Want to make some easy money?” the guard asked. “Someone wants to ask you about her.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Razor had stared at her in silence for a full minute, daring her to explain who she was.

  She’d stared back. The entire minute. Thinking about what she had just learned because of the healed wound. As a child, she’d been remarkably insulated. From strangers, from children, from activities that might damage her. She’d never been cut, beyond casual scrapes; never hurt herself badly enough to discover this strange thing about her flesh, unless it had happened when she was too young to remember. Then this was just one more thing that Jordan had kept from her.

  Finally, Razor dropped the blood-soaked shirt on the floor, leaving it as a mute accusation. He’d gone back into the kitchen.

  Caitlyn sat alone on the couch. She heard strange sounds coming from the kitchen of the luxury suite. Muted clattering. She wasn’t in the mood to be curious but walked over anyway and looked around the corner.

  Razor was moving contents from the fridge into the oven beside it. To all appearances, inexplicable. Razor glanced at her. Said nothing. As if daring her to ask. So she didn’t.

  She returned to the couch, wondering again if she should just take her chances on the roof. Maybe if she bolted and threw herself from the roof, she’d make it past the waiting sniper and have a chance to land far enough past the blockade on the ground to find a way to escape. Billy and Theo were at the soovie park. Waiting. Ready to go west. Until this—the helicopter outside—there was only one thing she had to do to reach that dream. Become invisible. Not like the Invisibles. Truly invisible. Through surgery that would remove the outer signs that her DNA had been spliced and manipulated at an embryonic stage by the man who called himself her father.

  That was the terrible contradiction she had faced. To become free, she’d have to give up what truly made her feel free. Surgery would be Jordan’s redemption. Not hers. It had been easier to make no decision.

  She stared at the gray sky. At the chopper. Hovering. Waiting. Holding a sniper in place to execute her. It was no longer just Mason in pursuit, but the power structure of the Outside. She and Billy and Theo had made a plan, had dared to dream. But her darkest secret was as inescapable as the forces pursuing her. If somehow Razor got them out of here, the only way she could live without hunters on her trail was to give up who she was.

  Razor grunted as he pushed the fridge on wheels out of the kitchen area. He stopped it just before the door that led to the hallway and elevator.

  “Remember the mirror down there?” Razor asked, puffing slightly from the exertion of moving the fridge. “It’s where I practice illusions. I like games. I like creating illusions. I like fooling people. That’s why I didn’t hand you over to Melvin. I thought this was a game I’d enjoy. I thought it was a game I was good enough to win. If it had just been Melvin, I could have.”

  Leaning against the fridge, Razor looked beyond her at the helicopter. “Believe it or not, I’ll get past them. I’ll get you out too if you want, but then you’re on your own. This is your game, not mine. I want out.”

  “Maybe you’re creating an illusion right now, just to turn me in.”

  “I’m done playing.” The exasperation in his voice told her it was truth. “You said it yourself. I’m worth a lot to them.”

  “Help me move this fridge. I’ll get you out.”

  “Make me trust you.” If they got out of here, she’d find a way to the surgeon.

  He paused, searching her face. “I used the computer in the bedroom to access the building’s security system. When the fire alarms go off, we have about ten seconds to get this fridge out the door and into the elevator. Stay and you’re dead.”

  “Or go with you and have you turn me in.”

  He opened the door and pushed the fridge halfway into the hallway. Looked back at her. “You’re spooky. You can fly, trick or not. A bleeding knife wound that doesn’t even need bandages, and somehow you stop me from bleeding too. They’ve assembled an army to kill you. And they’ll know that I now know these spooky things about you. If you’re this valuable to them, there’s only one guarantee I can’t tell anyone about you. If I’m dead. I need to help you long enough so we can walk away from each other. Alive.”

  Suddenly the fire alarms began to scream.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Not bad.” Pierce spoke to himself. He’d walked across the street from the Pavilion and was on level five of the building that Razor and Caitlyn had somehow managed to escape, staring at an empty refrigerator in one of the elevators, the door now kept open by a fire key. “Not bad at all.”

  His one-sided conversation was cut short by a team leader approaching, his shoes slapping the tile of the hallway.

  “Confirmed. Building is clear. Both are gone.” Redhead, buzz cut. Maybe five years younger than Pierce.

  Pierce didn’t know the agent’s name. Didn’t care. The guy was standing ramrod straight. JAA. Just another agent. Bracing himself for outrage. Or sarcasm. Or however else Pierce was going to vent, given that two Illegals had defeated fifty-plus operatives, thermal imaging, and professional snipers in a stealth chopper.

  But Buzz Cut didn’t know Pierce.

  Pierce pointed at the fridge. “Find out where it came from then.”

  “We’ve got over thirty levels in this building. Twenty to forty doors per level. A lot of angry Influentials. That fire alarm—”

  Pierce wasn’t a screamer. He merely locked his eyes on Buzz Cut, waited for silence.

  “Somewhere there’s an agency tree chart that illustrates why you shouldn’t second-guess me,” Pierce said. “Lucky for you, I don’t give a crap about tree charts. You don’t have much moral high ground here. Not after all the resources you mismanaged in the last half hour.”

  “Not a person left this building without my men giving a close visual inspection. Even after the fire alarm.”

  Which is exact
ly what Razor and Caitlyn would have expected. Attention diverted to everyone leaving the building.

  “Open the fridge door,” Pierce said. “Tell me what you see.”

  Sullenly, Buzz Cut reached for the fridge handle.

  Pierce slapped it away.

  “Fingerprints,” Pierce said. “Start thinking.”

  This was a pain. Now Pierce would have to ask later for Buzz Cut’s name. Not to report breach of procedure. That wasn’t worth the paperwork. But to make sure to avoid working with the guy on future operations.

  Pierce took off his belt, used it to wrap around the top of the fridge handle, and pulled it open it from there. “What do you see?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Not even shelves,” Pierce said, sliding his belt back into place. “And what do fridges usually hold?”

  “Food.”

  “Cold food or hot food?”

  “I’m not a child.”

  Pierce stared the man down again. “Cold food or hot food?”

  “Cold.”

  “So get someone on each level with thermal radar again. They don’t have to open doors. Have them scan for a pile of something cold inside a room. It won’t have warmed to room temperature yet. In ten minutes I want not just the room number; I want to know if it’s a personal or a business suite. Who the owner is. How those two Illegals got inside.”

  Buzz Cut was frowning. A lack of comprehension.

  Pierce’s vidpod began to vibrate.

  Even without the interruption, Pierce wasn’t going to explain. Razor and Caitlyn, inside the fridge. Invisible to thermal radar. Riding down the elevator. Parking it here. If Buzz Cut couldn’t figure it out, all he was good for was grunt work.

  “Just go,” Pierce said, reaching in his pocket for the vidpod.

  Buzz Cut hit the button for an adjacent elevator.

  Pierce walked a few steps down the hallway as he checked out the screen. Incoming message.

  POSITIVE MATCH TO FACE STRUCTURE. SUSPECT IDENTIFIED AS TIMOTHY RAY ZORNENBACH. AGE 22. MOTHER DECEASED. LEGAL REGISTRATION AS ADOPTED SON OF FATHER: TIMOTHY RAYMOND ZORNENBACH. AGE 78. REGISTERED STATUS FOR BOTH: ELITE

  Pierce let the address of Timothy Ray Zornenbach scroll past without giving it much attention.

  His mind was on something else.

  Elite.

  Interesting, Pierce thought. But made sense. Timothy Ray was an Influential. A rich kid. Explained how he got the magic.

  He stopped his thoughts. Tapped on the screen. Reread the address. Called down the hallway just as Buzz Cut was stepping on the elevator.

  “Hold your men,” Pierce said. “Except for one. Send him to…”

  Pierce glanced at the vidpod again. The address belonged to this building.

  “Send him to the thirty-fifth level. Tell him to check 3519 first. Then confirm the suite is registered to someone with the surname Zornenbach.”

  Buzz Cut gave a curt nod before disappearing into the elevator. Pierce hadn’t made a new friend.

  Pierce studied the information on the vidpod more slowly. That’s how he liked to work it. A quick reaction first, going on instinct, then a slow, thorough exam, using intellect. Not always successful, but it had afforded him the luxury of not giving a crap about tree charts.

  Timothy Ray Zornenbach. As in Ray Zor. Razor.

  Got your real name, Pierce thought, sending that thought out in radar waves to the kid named Razor. Time you learned mine.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  You can have the knife and the hand,” Mason said. “But the rat is mine.” He was in a small, windowless room somewhere in the basement of the hotel. Not much breathing space. Two well-dressed men, easily years younger than Mason, and just as easily outweighing Mason by a hundred pounds each, blocked the door. One had just frisked him while the other had trained a Taser gun at him. Now the Taser gun was sheathed. They were making a point. Hands and fists were now enough to contain Mason.

  Neither answered. One had taken the knife. The hand in the Ziploc bag was on the floor.

  “I said the rat is mine.” Mason stared them down as best he could given the eye patch and the tendency for his other eye to wander.

  “Give him the rat,” came a disembodied voice from a speaker built into the ceiling. Mason glanced upward. Saw the unblinking camera eye beside the speaker.

  This is good, Mason thought. He’d learned they were under observation. It also established that he had something that the faceless voice wanted badly enough that he would allow Mason to have the rat. For Mason, now it was a matter of using the leverage to maximum push.

  One of the big men flipped the rat at Mason.

  Mason tried to catch it, but he hadn’t yet adjusted to his lost depth perception, and the limp rodent bounced off his fingers and fell on the floor.

  Both men chuckled as Mason bent over to pick it up.

  Mason smiled in return. Straightened and bit the rat’s head off and thoughtfully chewed, knowing the sound of the cracking skull would plainly reach them in their horrified silence.

  Mason swallowed and wiped his bloody mouth with his sleeve.

  Both men had pressed away from him.

  That’s better, Mason thought.

  “Lovely,” the disembodied voice said. Mason wondered if he detected a note of sincerity.

  “What do you want?” Mason asked.

  “Give him the photo,” the voice said.

  Both big men were still staring in revulsion at Mason.

  “Give him the photo!”

  One reached into his suit jacket. He held the photo in his fingertips and stretched his arm across to Mason, determined to keep as much distance between them as possible.

  Mason studied the photo. It was slightly grainy, obviously a still photo taken from video.

  Caitlyn.

  She was centered in a hallway, a cart of cleaning supplies behind her. Her expression clearly showed that she was unaware there was any kind of electronic scrutiny.

  The outline of her body showed the deformity beneath loose clothing.

  “Is that the one you’re looking for?” asked the disembodied voice.

  Blood dripped down Mason’s fingers from the headless rat. He sucked the blood from his fingers, then from the gaping hole at the rat’s shoulders.

  One of the big men gagged.

  “Is that the one you’re looking for?” the voice repeated.

  “If you’re going to puke,” Mason told the men, “maybe do it outside. Don’t want you spoiling my appetite.”

  “Sir,” one pleaded, “cut us a break here.”

  “I want to know about the girl,” the voice answered.

  Mason took his time as he ate the rest of the rat’s body. One of the men watched, paralyzed. The other had turned his back.

  “She might be the one,” Mason finally said. “But I don’t say a thing until you and me are face to face. And until I get the money that security guard promised me.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Razor had taken her underground. Literally.

  To Caitlyn, the tunnel brought back memories of her escape from Appalachia. The mountain at the border had been honeycombed, a result of generations of coal mining.

  The width seemed the same, maybe five paces from side to side. And like the mountain tunnels, the height matched the width. The air too had the cool, wet stillness that seemed like a balm to her lungs.

  In the mountain, however, the tunnel walls had been hewn from rock, shored with timbers in places, steel beams in others. Here the walls consisted of concrete blocks, forming a horseshoe arch that extended as far as she could see.

  Wires ran along the top of the arch, obviously supplying electricity to the lights that were set apart every twenty paces or so. Many bulbs were dark, however, giving uneven, eerie shadows down the length of the tunnel.

  Mossy green gravel formed the floor of the tunnel, except for the center, where a footpath had been worn so that the gravel had the color of sun-dried bone.
r />   The significance of this was not lost on Caitlyn. Nor was the isolation of her circumstances lost on her. She was trapped in a place where Razor, or those who walked these tunnels often enough to keep the moss from closing together in the center, would have the leisure of attacking her without fear of interruption.

  She said nothing, however. Expressing fear would make her more vulnerable. Surprisingly, she didn’t feel the fear with intensity. It was more like an undercurrent that kept her alert.

  Caitlyn gave that some thought. She realized she wasn’t too concerned about Razor. Was it because if he did have malevolent intentions, he would have tried earlier, when she was in his room?

  No, she decided, that wasn’t it. Her instinct told her that she could trust him to a certain degree. But could she trust her instinct?

  She thought of the man who had threatened her on the rooftop. Everett. The one who had smiled hungrily because she was a freak. Then her instinct had shrieked warning.

  She would relax around Razor then. And trust he knew what he was doing. It was Razor’s careless confidence. This tunnel was his escape hole. He wouldn’t have brought her here if it held danger. He walked as if he’d been here before, as if he knew where he was going.

  She’d follow because what she now wanted most was to get to a prearranged location to meet Theo and Billy.

  She carried two folded pieces of paper against her skin, held in place by her microfabric. One was the letter from her father. As a reminder of his betrayal. It fueled her anger. Kept her strong. We had decided, the woman I loved and I, that as soon as you were born, we would perform an act of decency and mercy, and wrap you in a towel to drown you in a nearby sink of water, like a kitten dropped into a river…

  The other folded paper had directions to the address of a surgeon in the DC area. One of the Influentials. Dr. Hugh Swain.

  She’d made her decision. Surgery. There was relief in it and relief that there really hadn’t been a choice. She needed the surgery to survive. She’d meet Billy and Theo, let them know she was ready to go to Swain. She’d live with Billy and Theo, protected by Billy among the Industrials and Illegals, until the surgery was arranged. Once finished, all three would take their chances and try to make it beyond, to the freedom of western territories. One freedom would be gone—her wings—and she’d exchange it for another.