He sauntered up the two flights of steps to his door, forcing himself to walk slowly, his mouth dry in anticipation.
The power.
That’s what it was all about.
He pushed open the door. Grinned in the darkness.
He shut the door behind him. The apartment door opened immediately into a kitchen area. Beyond that was the living room. Where she was waiting.
He started to unbutton his shirt. He stepped forward, whistling. Stopped. Did he smell fresh-brewed coffee?
Then something, someone, grabbed him around his neck.
He gave a gargled shout of outraged surprise. This wasn’t part of the game he’d told her to play.
He pulled at the arm around his neck, trying to loosen it. He half registered that the arm wasn’t soft flesh, but rock-hard muscle.
The kitchen lights went on.
At the cheap table, pushed up against the wall to make as much space as possible in the cramped quarters, sat a man with sandy-colored hair, black shirt, black jeans, holding a cup of coffee in one hand, a cordless power drill in the other, staring expressionlessly at Merritt.
Merritt’s first thought was indignation. That was his cordless drill. He never loaned it out, and he’d painted it fluorescent yellow to identify it.
“First things first,” the man said. The man poured out his cup and dropped it, letting it break on the floor. “Your coffee is crap. Heard of roasted beans?”
“You got no right to be here,” Merritt tried as a bluff. But something about the man’s confidence told him otherwise.
“You don’t believe that,” the man said in a quiet voice. “We’re going to talk. Unless you want to find out exactly how many holes I can make in your body before you bleed out.”
A tall woman—younger, dark clothing, slender—stepped into the kitchen from the living room area. She carried duct tape. The invisible man holding Merritt by the neck maintained the chokehold while he shoved Merritt forward, spun him around, and forced him to sit in the other chair at the table.
In silence that was as terrifying as the suddenness of this, the woman with duct tape strapped Merritt’s ankles to the chair legs. This was too real and too scary to be anything like a fantasy. She taped each of his upper calves to a chair leg, forcing Merritt to sit with his legs apart with not-so-symbolic vulnerability. Next Merritt’s wrists. Taped behind his back to the upper part of the chair.
The woman and the man with solid arms stepped outside the apartment.
That left the man in black with the power drill staring thoughtfully at Merritt.
“What’s going on?” Merritt squeaked. “You can’t do this.”
The man smiled humorlessly. Revved the drill.
“Think I’ll start with a kneecap,” the man said. “Ever smelled bone when it burns?”
That’s when Merritt wet himself.
Pierce detested bullies. He was also aware of the hypocrisy of bullying a bully. Especially when unnecessary. Chances were, Merritt would talk without the psycho-drama threat that came with the borrowed power drill that Pierce had no intention of using past a prop. It’s the way Pierce had expected to handle it, coming to Merritt’s apartment with Holly and Jeremy.
But earlier Pierce had spent a few quiet minutes talking to an obviously exhausted Industrial they’d found waiting on a couch in Merritt’s apartment, shivering in ridiculously small fishnet lingerie. She’d probably been up well before dawn to make the trek to the city wall and through the outer gate. She’d already spent a full day in the walled community where Merritt worked security. Then, as Pierce had learned while she spoke, wrapped in a blanket Pierce had found for her, Merritt demanded most of the evening with her but intended to send her out into the night when he was finished with her, expecting her to hide someplace as she waited for dawn, when curfew ended and Industrials were allowed to move through the city again.
Would be good, Pierce thought, to change the man’s view of Industrials.
“There’s a chance you can keep your body parts,” Pierce told Merritt. “Even a chance you won’t be reported for extorting tolls from Industrials.”
“I don’t extort—”
Pierce cut him off by revving the power drill. “Think when we ask every one of them who passes through your gate that all of them will support your claim?”
“Everyone does it, takes money from them,” Merritt said. “Come on. They’re Industrials.”
Pierce seriously thought of running the quarter-inch drill bit through one of the guy’s earlobes. Knew he wouldn’t like himself for it. Earlobes. That triggered a half thought he couldn’t quite grasp.
“Despite the mess in your crotch,” Pierce said, “after the kneecap, we’ll move there.”
“You can’t do this,” Merritt said.
Pierce went to the man’s fridge. He found some grapes inside. Perfect.
He returned to the table with a grape. “What I’ve learned is that eyeballs kind of pop. Hydrostatic pressure.”
Pierce held the grape between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand. Drilled into it with his right. He squeezed at the same time to ensure a satisfying pop of the grape. He licked his fingers as he stared at Merritt.
Yeah, he was bullying a bully. He could just as easily have invited Merritt in a friendly voice to sit. Showed him the NI identity badge. Taken him through a couple of questions. No doubt the guy was a common type. A wannabe Enforcer. He’d love to feel important by helping Pierce.
“I’m going to ask questions,” Pierce said. “I already know some of the answers. So I’m testing you to see if you’re going to tell the truth. If you don’t, you’ll lose an eyeball too.”
Another rev of the drill.
Merritt licked his lips and swallowed hard, eyes focused on the drill.
“You let an Industrial into the neighborhood today,” Pierce said. “He wasn’t registered to the neighborhood. What time was that?”
Merritt answered. Quickly. With the right time.
Pierce knew it because that’s how they’d spotted Razor. Influentials didn’t allow surveillance cameras anywhere that affected them but fully supported the cameras anywhere it helped control Industrials. Face identification software wasn’t perfect and didn’t always deliver immediate results. But it had pinpointed Razor to Merritt’s gate about a half hour after Razor had arrived. It had taken another fifteen minutes for the information to reach Pierce. Too late to get to the gate before Razor left the neighborhood. But not too late for him to follow up with Merritt.
“We also know who he visited,” Pierce said. This was not true. It was much easier to find out this way than begin asking the Influentials of that neighborhood. One, Influentials had lots of friends who could make life difficult for Pierce. But two, and much more importantly, Pierce wanted to know who Razor had visited without alerting that Influential. “Tell me.”
“Hugh Swain,” Merritt answered without hesitation. “Now there is a man who keeps Industrials in his house after curfew.”
“Really,” Pierce said. “You admire him?”
Merritt turned stone faced.
“You’re doing fine so far,” Pierce said. “Don’t stop now. How’d the unregistered Industrial get in? Did Swain let you know ahead of time that he was expecting him?”
Merritt shook his head no. He spoke fast as he described the entire conversation. “Swain didn’t want to see him. The Industrial said Swain would want to see him. Said there was a friend named Jordan. Had a daughter that Swain was expecting.”
Pierce kept a bored expression on his face. But, for the first time, he felt close. Jordan Brown. The fugitive he’d failed to get in Appalachia. And Caitlyn, who’d somehow managed to escape too.
Pierce set the drill on the table. Merritt watched every move as Pierce stepped to the outer door. He spoke to Holly outside.
“We’ll need everything you can get on an Influential named Hugh Swain.”
Then back inside, where he grilled and regrilled Me
rritt, punctuating his questions with the power drill, occasionally putting holes in the kitchen table.
When Pierce was satisfied he had as much information as possible, he ripped loose the duct tape from Merritt’s left wrist.
“Do the rest yourself,” Pierce said.
Pierce pointed at the neatly drilled holes and small piles of sawdust on the surface of the table.
“Your guard booth is going to be under 24/7 surveillance from here on in. A couple of warnings: none of this gets back to Swain.”
Merritt nodded. Eagerly.
“And you take any money from Industrials or force any of them to visit you after hours, we’ll be back. Middle of the night, when you least expect it.”
Some bluffs were more satisfying than others.
FIFTY-FOUR
Was it Emelia?” Caitlyn asked softly. “Did she tell you?”
“Listen to me and you decide,” Razor said. “More than two decades ago, before the Wars, Jordan was head scientist in a military lab. Genetic experiments. Women served as surrogate mothers.”
Caitlyn clenched her jaw. That’s who she was. A genetic experiment. Named after the woman who died giving birth to her. Jordan had told her this, but not at any time while raising her in Appalachia. Only in their last moments together. After he’d betrayed her.
“Jordan wanted out,” Razor said. “He wanted to help one of the women out too. He had a colleague and close friend who agreed to help. Hugh Swain.”
Swain! Caitlyn hadn’t told Emelia about the letter. There was only one way Razor could have known. The letters he’d found in the elevator. That he’d handed her walking out of the kitchen, up in the highrise.”
“You read the letter Jordan gave me.”
He nodded.
“And his instructions on how to find a surgeon I could trust. Hugh Swain.”
“Think of my point of view. What I needed to know.”
“What do you want from me?” she asked, using coldness to contain her rage.
He must have understood the intensity of her question. He blinked. Hesitated nearly thirty seconds before answering. “At first I thought I wanted your magic trick. How to soar. How to hide the wings. But now I know it’s not a trick.”
“What. Do you want. From me.”
“It’s obvious now that whatever this is, it’s so big that I’m going to be on the run for the rest of my life unless you get out of this,” Razor said, still choosing his words with care. “I don’t know how to do it, but I want—no, I need—to figure a way out. And I can’t do it without knowing as much as possible about the situation. So what do I want? Help. Answers.”
Caitlyn concentrated on controlling her breathing. Slow and deep. Since fleeing Appalachia, she’d been on hair-trigger rage. “What you’re telling me was not in either letter.”
“I visited the surgeon,” Razor said. Razor described how he’d done it. “Swain. He was expecting you. He got me instead.”
Caitlyn wanted to flail out, but curiosity held her in check. Jordan had promised her that Swain was a surgeon she could trust. Who would finally make her normal. Sure, by cutting through tissue and muscle and sawing through bone. Removing her wings. “Swain. And he gave you answers?”
“I told him that you wouldn’t visit unless you trusted him. And that you wouldn’t trust him unless I had answers to bring back to you.”
“You didn’t ask my permission for that.”
“You wouldn’t have given it to me.”
It was Caitlyn’s turn for silence.
Why was she so determined not to accept help from Razor? Because he was cocky to the point of arrogance?
No. It was something else. Something she didn’t want to admit to herself. But she couldn’t keep fighting it. If she allowed herself to be truthful, there was something more about him that bothered her. Yes, he was deeply attractive. But for all the wrong reasons. He wasn’t strong and gentle, like Billy in her memory. He wasn’t deep and consistent, someone who would carry her through all storms. Still, if she let herself, she could sense an excitement that would make the risk of danger so worthwhile. Or maybe it was the risk of danger that would lead to excitement.
Yes. It was time to admit instead that she didn’t want help from anybody. If she were to be truthful, that’s why she wasn’t with Billy and Theo. She’d found a reason to abandon them, not even wanting to place any faith in the strong yet gentle, even the total acceptance that Billy offered. Maybe Emelia’s comfort had opened her eyes to this. Jordan, the rock of her entire life, had proven to be nothing more than shale, easily shattered. The lesson she had learned was trust nobody, trust no illusions, fight for herself, and protect herself with the satisfying yet paradoxically empty rage that came with distrust.
Time to admit that she needed help. This was a strange, strange world. Razor was correct. She didn’t understand it, and sooner or later, even without pursuers, it would end her. Her pursuer was no longer Mason, but an enemy with unlimited power. And she only increased that enemy’s power by remaining ignorant. What hope did she have alone?
But did she have any hope with Razor?
“What did Swain say?” she asked. Curiosity had won over anger and caution. She sat back, no longer on the edge, ready to fight or flee.
“That you shouldn’t have lived,” Razor said. “They’d been running the program for five years. Hundreds of pregnancies had ended in deformities, often didn’t make it to the third term or never lived more than minutes beyond birth. It was one of the reasons Jordan wanted out and one of the reasons Swain agreed to help. It came to a point, before you were born, where it was too monstrous for them.”
Monstrous. Caitlyn felt the full implication of the word. But she’d felt it her entire life.
If Razor understood the pain he’d inflicted, he didn’t show it as he continued. “Jordan and Swain planned it carefully. They found a way to hack the computers, to steal and hide all the research data. In effect, it would end the experiments. But there was only a small window of time before it would be discovered. Jordan agreed he would take the blame because he was fleeing to Appalachia anyway. Swain, who would be left behind, would appear innocent.”
The words from Jordan’s letter of confession to her echoed in her head.
We had agreed—the woman I loved and I—that as soon as you were born, we would perform an act of mercy and decency and wrap you in a towel to drown you in a nearby sink of water.
Since the shock of reading the letter weeks earlier, Caitlyn had consoled herself that, at the least, Jordan’s actions in protecting her had been motivated by a father’s love for his daughter. Decimated as her soul had been to discover it was Jordan’s genetic manipulation that had created her as a freak, she still clung to the hope of his love.
Now she had to wonder.
When she was born, did Jordan clean and dry her for a reason other than overwhelming love? Did he choose to spare her life because of scientific curiosity, because she was the first experimental fetus, among hundreds of failures, to live?
Cold anger once again strengthened her resolve to survive, to fight.
“Jordan raised me in Appalachia,” Caitlyn said. She wanted to speak in short, clipped sentences that would hide her emotions. “I knew nothing about this until an agent from Outside began to hunt us in Appalachia. Jordan helped me escape. He’d found a way to reach his old friend Swain, to arrange surgery. He promised it would allow me to live invisible and unhunted.”
“How long since you escaped?”
“Six weeks. Seven. Eight. Not sure.”
“But you didn’t go to Swain for the operation.”
It was an unspoken question. The answer was that Caitlyn couldn’t choose between freedom and flight. That, in a way, she was defiantly proud of what made her different. It wasn’t the answer she would give Razor though.
“I have friends,” she said. “We were going to find a way out.”
“Where?”
“Parts of the world whe
re the government wouldn’t look for us.” Vague but true. She didn’t have to tell Razor the specifics of her plan with Billy and Theo.
“You do know what the government wants, right?”
This was another tipping point. The angry and defiant Caitlyn would not admit ignorance. But she could not survive this alone.
“What I do know is that the government wants me because they can unlock the genetic research from my body.”
From her eggs. Another thing so hideous she couldn’t say it aloud.
“There’s more,” Razor said.
“The funding that that was diverted when they hacked the computers?”
“More.” Razor paused. “Swain wouldn’t tell me. He said only you could know.”
FIFTY-FIVE
Back in the Pavilion, Pierce was exhausted. Too much made little sense. The NI had power, but so did Influentials. Whatever they might get from Everett about the knife attack Melvin had mentioned to Caitlyn, would take days if not weeks. Even answers about the hospital records. All Everett would do if pushed would be to get a team of lawyers as a buffer.
Pierce couldn’t make sense of Razor, either, or the kid’s motives. Pierce’s first hunch said he was the adopted son named Timothy Ray, a rich kid slumming it, using his power and money to give him an advantage while he posed as just another Illegal. But a search of all official records showed only T. R. Zornenbach, the Elite in his late seventies. Except for the notes on official adoption and the required photograph that went with it for facial recognition software, the son of the same name was like an erased ghost nowhere in the system. Holly was working on banks to release some records, including the facial ID attached to those records, but given the system and privacy accorded to Influentials, that was still a couple of days away.
Maybe Pierce could learn something helpful from what Holly and Jeremy had pulled up on Hugh Swain and downloaded to the op-site.
Flight of Shadows: A Novel Page 19