by Rune Skelley
Fin shook his head. “Rook thinks she knows where it is. We should be able to get as many as you need.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
AFFRONT TO REASON
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excerpt from DNAnswers Labs brochure
Rook and Fin were both quiet for much of the drive to Donner to collect the jewelry for Willow. Rook spent the time going over the knowledge she stole from Kyle’s mind about Shaw Ministries’ clandestine wing. As Fin navigated the winding drive up to the compound, Rook felt she should say something to break the ice, to get them ready to face this. But she didn’t have anything to say.
They reached the gate and saw the heaped-up debris of Kyle’s memorial shrine.
“That’s fucking disgusting,” Rook said, happy to have a topic.
“Amen.” Fin rolled down his window. “Here’s the keypad.”
Rook recited the nine-digit code she learned from Kyle, and the gate swung open. Fin rolled forward over the soggy mementos and proceeded into the complex.
As Fin drove, Rook surveyed the unkempt grounds. When they rounded the last bend she caught sight of the rubble where the cathedral once stood. Yellow police tape, strummed by the breeze, encircled the twisted, shattered mess. The surrounding area showed the tracks of bulldozers.
It was a visceral thrill to see the site in ruins. Rook had been in the cathedral twice, and neither time was pleasant.
“There’s a parking garage by the seminary school.” She pointed to a short, white brick building.
They followed the corkscrew ramps all the way to the bottom of the empty garage, four levels below the surface. Fin parked in a space, which Rook found amusing. She went to a light switch at the foot of the stairs and pressed on the metal plate. It flipped open, revealing a small keypad where she tapped in the code again. A section of the wall swung inward.
Fin said, “Let me go first.”
Rook shook her head. “I’ll recognize the mercenaries, and some of them would know me, too.” Fin looked like he wanted to say any number of objectionable things, but they all tried to get said at once and logjammed. He grumbled and fell into step behind Rook.
She headed down the long white passageway toward the secure storage area, trying to walk quietly without looking like she was sneaking. Fin clomped behind her, clearly counting on her ability to sweet-talk the guards.
The place seemed abandoned, the air still and smelling faintly of mildew. Their route took them past the armory, which stood open and empty.
When Rook told Fin what used to be on the racks he said, “Well this is good. The soldier-boys left and took their toys with them.”
“Let’s keep this quick, all the same.” They moved on.
The vault also stood open, cleaned out.
“Shit!” Rook yelled.
Fin sagged against the wall. When Rook met his eyes, he smiled sadly and shook his head. “I don’t know why we’re surprised. There must have been lots of people who knew about this cache.”
“They moved it.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know,” Rook replied in an irritated tone. She gave herself a chance to take a deep breath before going on. “They hid it. Let’s look around.”
Fin didn’t move at first, but he shrugged and tagged along after Rook.
“I’ll take the right side,” she said, “you take the left. Check every room.”
The system of tunnels was large, but not complicated. Barracks holding skeletal cots with no bedding, mess halls with ranks of spotless empty tables, training rooms devoid of free weights and heavy bags, offices with the desk drawers all hanging open, and most intriguing and most frustrating, labs and control rooms stripped of anything that hadn’t been bolted down and much that had.
Rook knew Fin was going through the motions, but he didn’t complain. It took them an hour to scout the whole warren.
“Long way back to the car,” Fin said. “At least I think so. You have a better idea of the layout.”
Rook nodded, but she wasn’t thinking about leaving yet. She said, “Right around the corner there’s a tunnel into the main building.”
Fin shrugged.
“That’s where Shaw’s old office, or Kyle’s... both I guess. Anyway, that’s where the office is. I want to check it out.”
“I don’t think the jewelry is up there.”
“Probably not, but we’ve come this far,” Rook said. “There were files, paper files, detailing who had interest in the stuff. I went through all of it, but I couldn’t take notes. I’m sure it’s still there.”
Fin looked unconvinced.
“We came this far,” Rook reiterated.
Fin nodded wearily. “Lead on.”
It was about 100 yards to the end of the line, then up a steel staircase and through another hidden door to a landing where an elevator door greeted them. Rook pushed the button and a few seconds later the panel slid open. She pushed Private and it closed again. Now, confined in the tiny metal box, Rook started to feel nervous. This place awakened an echo of Kyle’s vibration in her head.
Fin was more alert now than during their subterranean explorations. Maybe it made him nervous, too.
The elevator stopped and opened, and they passed through the vestibule into the once-sumptuous penthouse. Sun angled in from the atrium, casting long shadows. An aroma of stale neglect made the starkly lit room gloomy. Rook flipped the light switch, which chased the shadows back and revealed a littering of styrofoam cups and burger wrappers on the coffee table, but did little to make the place appealing.
Fin held up a hand for her to wait, and started some form of perimeter sweep. His stealth was impressive, now that he felt motivated to be quiet. “What are you up to?” she asked.
Fin paused and gave her a discouraged look. “I don’t like this,” he said. “Someone has been here.”
“Yeah, months ago,” Rook agreed. Fin gestured again for her to stay put and carried on his explorations. Rook took in more details of the dusty room while awaiting the all-clear.
To her left stood the credenza with the chessboard she remembered from her stint as a preacher’s wife. The glass case on the wall above it held an incomplete set — only white pieces, and not all of those. She was struck by a resemblance to the men that came with Fin’s table.
Rook stepped closer to get a better look.
*** *** ***
Kyle’s eyes opened. All was still in the bedroom, and Rook slept securely under his arm. A low, throaty sound through the walls told him the elevator was moving, and his head suddenly contained twin hums.
Kyle slunk from the bed and into a pair of boxers. He got his gun from the nightstand and padded over to listen at the door. The elevator opened.
When he heard their voices, his brow furrowed. What are they doing here?
Kyle advanced a few steps into the hallway. Fin moved farther into the living room, out of view, and when Rook also started heading off without looking his way, Kyle cleared his throat.
Rook gasped and froze in place, then Fin was there shielding her and looking almost as flummoxed.
Kyle set the pistol on the credenza and took another step.
“What are you doing here?” He kept his voice low to not awaken Rook. “Go away. I’m retired from evil now, so whatever it is it’s no concern of mine. I just want to be left alone.”
Rook peered around Fin’s shoulder and said, “We need the jewelry. Where is it?”
Kyle studied her, and she shrank back. The jewelry? Why would they think it was up here?
Obviously they hadn’t expected to run into him, so they didn’t really think he would know. They must have already checked the vault, so someone beat them t
o it. Kyle’s first guess would be the sweater nutjobs. Of course, Rook had the run of their house and she was out looking for it, so scratch that. Who would that leave?
“The mercs handed it over to the government, in exchange for the cathedral coverup,” Kyle said. “Probably took black-ops jobs, or got double-crossed. I don’t know. I don’t care. Please go away now.”
Fin reacted stonily, but Rook wailed. Despite his irritation that the noise might wake his Rook, Kyle felt bad for her.
“Look,” he offered, “I wish you luck getting the baby back. Especially since it’s your only chance to have a kid.”
Their faces told him they weren’t aware of that.
Fin demanded, “How do you even know about the baby in the first place?”
Kyle sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “While I was… away, I had company. Like a voice all around me, like floating in it. It told me things, lots of things. And the baby was exciting news for it. It wouldn’t shut up. More prophecy garbage. Sorry.”
Rook sniffled. “What did you mean, we won’t have another chance?”
Kyle knew the next part would upset her.
“Divided Man stuff. Both me and Fin are the father, and that’s the only way you could have ever gotten pregnant by either of us. One or the other can’t make it happen. It has to be both.”
Rook hugged herself and studied the floor.
Fin looked skeptical. “Two fathers? I seriously don’t think it works that way.”
Kyle gave him a pitying look. “Yeah, I forgot. None of this is ever weird.”
Both Rook and Fin were nonplussed.
“That voice went on nonstop about all this shit. It’s got some big plan, except I think this is not the original version of the plan.”
Fin tried to usher Rook toward the elevator, but she resisted.
“What do you mean, a plan? It told you about this?”
“It was just muttering to itself most of the time. Prophecy stuff, like I said.”
Rook’s eyes grew wide. “Junebug?”
Kyle turned and saw his Rook at the bedroom door in her white dress, blinking at her own radiance after the dimness of the bedroom.
“Who are our visitors?” she asked sleepily. Kyle smiled and extended his hand.
Her own smile as she took it turned to an angry sneer when her eyes accommodated and she saw who was there. Kyle could feel her trembling with rage.
“What’s she doing here!” his Rook hissed.
The other Rook sucked in a breath. “What. The. Fuck.” She got louder. “That’s not my sister, Fin,” she said with mounting alarm. “That’s not Bug.”
“I’m not the fucking Bug, but I am your sister,” Kyle’s Rook shouted. “Don’t deny it!”
Kyle held onto her hand, and blocked the hallway as much as possible. Inside his mind, the signals from both women, nearly identical, amplified, their slight anomalies clashing against each other. His Rook was ready to start a fight, and he didn’t know what would happen if the two of them touched. He was near panic at the thought she might disappear.
“My… my sister?” the other Rook stammered. “No! No!”
“What the hell is going on?” Fin asked.
“Can you see her, Fin? Can you see her there with Kyle?” She was sobbing now. “Is she real?”
“I see her.” Fin reached for his wife. “It’s okay, Rook, I see her. Who is she?”
“That’s Brook, or maybe Bramble,” said the Rook in the living room with a shudder.
“No,” Kyle asserted, “She’s Rook. She’s my Rook.” Fin looked about to express his disapproval, so Kyle continued, “There are two rooks on a chessboard anyway, so you should be fine with this.”
“Actually, there are four,” Fin said.
Kyle felt his face grow hot. Always such a wiseass!
A dissonant keening noise drew his attention back to his Rook. He thought her trembling had become a convulsion, but this was something worse. She grimaced in agony, vibrating into a double-exposure of herself. Only her hand, in his, remained stable and fixed.
Kyle flung his arms around her, to hold her together in one piece. He squeezed her tight, squeezing tears from his eyes at the same time. Fucking damn his interloping brother and that doppelgänger woman! He scowled over his shoulder at them and yelled, “Get the fuck out!”
“Let’s go! Now! Let’s GO!” the Rook behind Fin screamed, tearing at his jacket, dragging him bodily to the elevator vestibule and thrashing at the button. The doors slid open and they piled in, Rook still screaming until the doors closed again.
Kyle looked at his Rook, now whole again, weeping in his arms. He took a steadying breath and caressed her cheek.
“They’re gone, they’re gone,” he whispered. “It’s okay now.”
Rook clung to him savagely, and suddenly she devoured him in kisses. Kyle pulled her hair, tipping her head back so they could both get some oxygen. He kissed her throat and carried her back to the bed.
*** *** ***
Fin slapped the button for the lower level, and thumbed Door Close. Rook scrambled to one of the back corners of the car. She hyperventilated for the whole ride down, while Fin worked on prying her loose from her corner. When they reached the bottom, he opted for hiking to the parking structure in daylight rather than retracing their steps through the passageways.
“She was never real before,” Rook said shakily. “They. She. Whatever. They were just in my head. They weren’t real. Now they are. They’re her. I’m not losing my mind, am I Fin?”
“I saw her, too,” Fin reassured. “Is there any chance you had a twin? Like a separated at birth thing?”
Rook looked at him with undisguised disdain, which was a whole hell of a lot better than the incipient insanity she’d been displaying moments ago.
“You’re talking shit,” she said, and Fin nodded in agreement. “The only twins I ever had were a product of depersonalization disorder comorbid with subjective doubles delusion. They were delusional ideations.”
Fin made note of those terms so he could look them up later.
“They weren’t real, Fin,” Rook said, her eyes closed. “They weren’t real. I know they weren’t. But they are now.” Her brows pulled together. “She is now.”
Fin drew her in and hugged her.
“I know what she’s like,” Rook said. “What she’s capable of.”
“I believe you.”
She looked up at him, her blue eyes bright with fear. “You do?”
“Of course.”
With a half-smile she broke into tears and hugged him. “Thank you.”
They were about halfway to the garage, breaking trail through knee-high grass. There was a paved walkway, but this was more direct.
Rook recuperated on their hike. “What the fuck is happening up there?” she asked, and Fin wasn’t sure which particular affront to reason she wanted to discuss. “I got away from him, but he can’t let me go. And how the fuck did he do that? He has a living, breathing, creepy-in-so-many-ways creature in his bedroom. He even calls that thing Rook. That is not me. He has no claim on me.”
Fin wore a grim mask of solidarity, but his thoughts were not as unambiguous as Rook’s. The state of affairs upstairs was indeed odd, but from where he stood it looked like Kyle would be content to leave them alone from here out.
“He’s a knock-off of you, so he needs to have a knock-off of me. How original. They’re mocking us. They are a parody. A grotesque, loathsome, foul, demented, twisted, slimy, hateful cruel joke at our expense!”
Fin put an arm around Rook’s shoulders but said nothing. He felt that he should offer a more positive take, interject with a pragmatic point or two, but knew it would feel like an argument. He didn’t disagree with her, so it would be starting an argument he didn’t even want to win.
“At least they’ll keep each other busy and leave us alone,” Rook said, rendering moot the one salient point Fin might have offered aloud. But he was happy she was trying to
find something to feel hopeful about.
Rook’s quiet lasted until they were off the Shaw campus, at which point a whole new program of ills welled up and overflowed.
“I can understand if Kyle’s miserable, but I hate the way he had to shit all over our lives. Even that I could let go, if you and I were wafting along without a care in the world. But we’ve had our child taken from us, and now he has to put the boot in by saying we can’t have another one. I’d forgotten how much I hate him.” Rook folded her arms over her chest and cooked the horizon with her stare.
“He’s lost his mind,” Fin said. “Not surprising when you think about what happened.”
“He doesn’t need you to stick up for him, right now.”
Fin felt offended, but tried to keep that out of his voice. “I was agreeing with you. He’s cracked.”
“He knows what he’s saying! He knows how hard it was for us to cope with him possibly being the father. So he claims he is, because it will stir shit up between us.”
Fin drove in silence, reliving that ugliness. Kyle certainly knew where to place his shots. Then again, how could he know the date of conception? Lucky guess? How could he even know about the baby? Rook didn’t look pregnant now. Was it possible he’d been with the Id?
“I wish he was still in a coma,” Rook said, and Fin nodded his agreement. A moment later she added, in a dead drone, “I wish I hadn’t been such a moron. I should have stayed away from him. Then Severin couldn’t have gotten to Thumper, and Kyle wouldn’t be saying these horrible things, and we’d be wafting along without a care in the world.” Her voice dropped almost to nothing as she spoke, and when Fin glanced over he saw tears on her cheeks.
Fin rested his hand on her arm. “You are not a moron, and I won’t let anybody talk like that about my wife. Even Kyle knew better.” He chanced a crooked grin there at the end, and thought he spotted a fleeting glimmer of amusement on Rook’s face.
“Not to be disrespectful of your dad,” he added, “but Severin was a total dick.”
Rook chuckled darkly. “Yeah, what kind of grandpa banishes his unborn grandchild into another dimension? Of course,” she added, “my treatment of my inner children wouldn’t win me any mother-of-the-year awards. I never expected to run into them again, especially not merged into a clone of me, playing house with Kyle. It’s too weird.”