Xenofreak Nation, Book Two: Mad Eye

by Melissa Conway

  It stood to reason that the man in front of her was an FBI agent. How else had he known they would be here, and how else had he gained entrance past the holoscanner?

  She didn’t move, but not just because she didn’t want to touch the corpse. A tiny red laser light had appeared at the top of her captor’s head on one side. It took all of her self-control not to glance upward, through the holes in the floor to the person at the other end of that laser.

  Her captor looked up at her and the light in his mouth made her squint. He spoke around it, “Get his legs, now, or I’ll-”

  He didn’t finish his sentence, couldn’t because the shot from above blew half his head away. Thankfully, she didn’t see much because the light was blinding her; just an impression of something spattering the ground before his body hit the concrete with a thud. She screamed and fled for the stairs, running up and up until she couldn’t run anymore.

  Jason found her on her knees, gasping for air. She reached out for him, but he recoiled, going so far as to take a step back up. For a brief, horrified moment, she thought it was because she was covered in blood, but she glanced down and saw that she wasn’t - she’d been standing the full length of the dead man’s body and then some, too far away and at the wrong angle to get hit with the spatter.

  “Is he dead?” Jason asked.

  “Yes.” Tears formed in her eyes and spilled over.

  “Get up to the safe house-”

  “No! Don’t leave me.”

  He shook his head. “I gotta go down.”

  “I’m telling you, he’s definitely d-dead.”

  He started past her, and she noticed he had a flashlight in one hand. “I need to I.D. the bodies.”

  She collapsed on the step and waited, shaking from cold and shock. Jason must have done what he needed to do without dawdling, because he was back within minutes.

  “Alright, come on.”

  Dazed, she stood. He didn’t try to comfort her, just took her elbow and steered her up the stairs. She wiped a hand under her nose and tried not to replay the horrible images of what had just happened in her mind. It had been a kill or be killed situation. She had no doubt that Jason had saved her life. Twice.

  At the second level, he stopped and retrieved his rifle, shoving it and the flashlight back into the long case he’d taken from behind the seats in the cab of his truck when they’d first arrived. Had that only been a couple of hours ago?

  The safe house was a disaster zone. There was a big, jagged hole where the door to the escape hatch used to be, and every surface was covered in white dust.

  “Go get your stuff,” Jason said. “We can’t stay here.”

  He disappeared into the bathroom while Bryn went to get her bag. Luckily, she hadn’t unpacked. She slung it over her shoulder and winced when a sharp pain lanced down her neck. She was definitely sore from the grenade blast.

  When she went back into the main room, she heard him call out, “A little help here?”

  She opened the bathroom door and her bag slipped to the floor as she stared in slack-jawed surprise at Jason’s naked back. He’d pulled his t-shirt over his head, but it appeared to be stuck in several places around his shoulders. Blood was smeared everywhere. What surprised her, though, was his xenograft. She couldn’t see the whole thing, but it was clearly a dragon, its ‘scales’ the pebbled black and orange skin of a Gila monster.

  “Are you there?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I can’t get my shirt off. I got hit with some flak when the grenade exploded. Lucky the door blocked most of it.”

  She came closer and said, “Yeah, oh, that looks bad. Um, hold on, I think Carla packed my tweezers.”

  He laughed a little. “Why would she pack tweezers?”

  “I’m a girl. We pluck,” Bryn replied, nonplussed at the turn the conversation had taken. She never would have imagined she’d need to use the same tweezers she groomed her eyebrows with to remove shrapnel from someone’s body.

  The tweezers in question were, indeed, in the bag, along with a mini sewing kit with a small pair of scissors and a mini first aid kit. Carla always did like to be prepared.

  Bryn started by cutting away Jason’s shirt from around the three largest bits of shrapnel protruding from his back. He pulled the tattered remains off while she found a washcloth and wet it in the sink.

  “This is gonna hurt.”

  “Just do it.”

  He held still while she wet the remaining fabric and peeled it away, and then picked the shrapnel from his skin, gently dabbing at the blood.

  Two of the splinters were about an inch long and had entered his skin shallowly, but the third was more of a chunk, half an inch in width and deeply embedded in his trapezius. She dug away at it, and could see from his face reflected in the mirror over the vanity that it hurt, but the only sound he made was a hiss or two of pain.

  “Is my xenograft okay?” he asked.

  When he’d taken off the rest of his shirt, she saw the entire dragon. The Gila monster graft was in the center of his back in the shape of the dragon’s body. The rest of the dragon, head, tail and wings, were tats. The wings extended across his back, up over his shoulders and down his arms.

  “There’s a nick on one edge, but it’s not bad.” She ran her fingers lightly down the pebbled surface of the Gila monster skin, noticing that his own skin responded by sprouting goose-bumps. In the mirror, she saw his eyes close.

  “Don’t,” he said in a hoarse voice, pulling slightly away.

  “Why not?”

  She wanted to say, ‘It’s beautiful,’ but didn’t because as always, she was torn by her feelings of sorrow for the donor animal.

  He said, “It’s...sensitive. Are you almost done?”

  “Yeah, let me clean this gouge from the bullet on your shoulder and bandage you up. You really need stitches.”

  He just grunted and said, “Hurry up.”

  When she’d finished, he pulled a clean t-shirt from his bag and she helped him ease it over the bandages.

  He’d come straight into the bathroom when they’d first arrived at the safe house and had left his bags here after he took his shower. He gathered them up and said, “Ready?”

  “How are we supposed to get out?”

  He shrugged and then flinched. “Ow. Remind me not to do that. We go out the escape hatch.”

  She recalled that the lowest steps had been blown away and thought it was easier said than done, but asked, “Are you taking me back to XIA headquarters?”

  He shook his head. “Not if you want to live, I’m not.”

  Chapter Nine

  Scott crossed the street, planning to let Mia know he was leaving, but she said, “My team just called. There’s a problem at the morgue.”

  “Medical Examiner won’t release the body?” He started walking and she fell into step beside him.

  “Yeah, how’d you guess?”

  “Met him. He’s a character.”

  She sighed. “Awesome. Your car or mine?”

  “Both.”

  “That’s not very environmentally friendly.”

  “Maybe not, but I’m on the job and if I have to leave suddenly, you’re walking no matter whose car we take.”

  “Fine. Did you learn anything from that man you talked to?”

  He told her what The Viscount said. She didn’t ask any more questions until they’d almost reached Scott’s sedan.

  “So what happened after you talked to him? When you were about to step into the street. You got this, um, look on your face like, well, I don’t know how to describe it. Then you blew a kiss to the building?”

  Scott felt his face go hot in a combination of embarrassment and anger. He’d been taken unaware when Padme hit him with the burst of pleasure - not that he would have been able to control his reaction had she warned him. The expression that must have been on his face was definitely something he wouldn’t have chosen to share with everyone on the street who happened to be look
ing his way.

  “You don’t miss much, do you?” he asked, hoping to deflect her questions.

  “Nope. So are you going to tell me?”

  “Nope. Here’s my car. I’ll meet you there.”

  He got caught in lunch hour traffic, and when he finally arrived at the morgue, he was told Mia was already there. He was sent down to the basement, to Autopsy. The long room had seven stainless steel tables all lined up in a row, but only one was occupied, the body still zipped up in black plastic. Mia stood at the foot of the table, talking with Rex Harrison, Chief Medical Examiner. Scott had met him after the fire at the Warehouse, when Scott had been called in to help identify the bodies of the xenofreaks who’d been killed during the fight between ARA soldiers.

  Harrison was an older black man whose hair was completely white. He stood only about an inch taller than the petite Mia, but he more than made up for his lack of stature with his overpowering personality. Although as Scott walked up, he didn’t sound as if he was giving her a hard time.

  “Call me Rex,” he was saying. He lifted a hand to Mia’s shoulder and kept it there even though she tried to duck out from under it. Scott smiled to himself, noting that Rex seemed oblivious to Mia’s uneasiness.

  “Oh, Scott, you’re here,” she said, a little too loudly. She stepped in his direction, just far enough away from the medical examiner to escape his hand.

  “Yeah,” Scott drawled, and on a perverse impulse, he placed his hand on her shoulder in the same spot the medical examiner’s hand had just vacated. When the fur from his fingers brushed against her neck, she jerked her head away and moved several steps back from both men. Scott expected her to give him a dirty look, but she just pasted a pleasant look on her face as if nothing had happened.

  “Um, Rex, this is Scott Harding, special agent with the XIA.”

  “Yes, we’ve met,” Rex said. “Youngest ever XIA agent, as I recall.”

  “Yes, sir, I am young.” Scott wasn’t about to try to explain why the XIA had recruited him. They weren’t here to chit-chat. “Has Dr. Padilla spoken to you about the typhoid?”

  “She has indeed. And although typhoid is not unheard of in New York City, it’s rarely fatal, and certainly nothing that would warrant calling in the CDC. Unless there’s something you’re not telling me?” He directed rheumy brown eyes Mia’s way.

  “We have nothing official to tell,” Mia replied. “We just need the body, and we’d appreciate some interagency cooperation.”

  “I see,” Rex said. “Would this have anything to do with the incident at the courthouse the other day?”

  “What have you heard?” Scott asked.

  “Rumors. Of course, your visit is only going to fuel the speculation.”

  “What kind of rumors?” Mia’s voice was soft.

  Rex took a breath and sighed. “The kind of rumors you’d expect to come out of a hospital that had to quarantine an entire ward. There’s talk of a pandemic, talk of a bioweapon attack.” He nodded down at the body bag. “That’s not really typhoid, is it?”

  “It is, actually. And we’d appreciate it if you’d keep a lid on our ‘visit.’ Wouldn’t want to cause an unnecessary panic.”

  Mia smiled, and Scott watched in disbelief as the crotchety old Chief Medical Examiner’s protests melted under her gaze.

  “Alright.” Rex sounded resigned. He picked up a clipboard that was resting on top of the body. “Call in your boys. This is highly irregular, but who am I to gainsay the CDC?”

  Mia thanked him and they left soon after. Scott was glad to get into the elevator away from the cold basement with its strange odors. He had barely pushed the button for the main floor when Mia demanded, “Exactly how old are you?”

  He shrugged. “Does it matter?”

  “As long as you continue to act like a child it does. Do you think I didn’t notice your immature little gesture in there? And sticking your sandwich in my face? I told you I’m a germophobe. Would you please respect that and stop messing with me?”

  The elevator doors parted and Scott walked out, muttering, “Yeah, whatever.”

  She came after him and grabbed his arm in the lobby.

  He looked down at her hand. “I can’t touch you but you can touch me?”

  She let go and shook her head. “What is your problem?”

  He laughed. “You really want to know? Fine. You say it’s my germs that freak you out, but it’s pretty obvious it’s these.” He held up his hands.

  She swallowed. “To be perfectly frank, it’s both, but I really can’t help it. And despite my phobias, at least I maintain a professional attitude.”

  “Well, I’m a xenofreak, lady.” He started for the door. “We don’t do professional.”

  Chapter Ten

  Bryn sat in a patch of afternoon sunshine coming through the dirty window of Jason’s old truck, but she was cold to the bone. She crossed her arms and shivered, waiting while he searched through the black sedan the intruder had arrived in. When he got into the cab and started the engine, she asked, “Was he FBI?”

  He shot her a surprised look. “Yeah. He tell you that?”

  “No. I guessed. He wanted me to help him move the body.” She shut her eyes tightly. Patchy flashes of memory assailed her; the trip down the spiral steps, the blinding light in her eyes, the rifle shot followed instantly by the sound of spatter. Each flash was in black and white except for the color of the dead man’s jacket. “Did you figure out who it was? The-the body?”

  Jason shifted into reverse and backed the truck onto the dirt lane. “The less you know about that the better.”

  After they got onto the main road, she asked, “Where are we going?”

  “Where the cell signals can’t reach you.”

  She thought about it for a minute. “Underground?”

  He nodded.

  “Can I call Scott?”

  “No,” he snapped. Then he closed his eyes briefly, shaking his head. “This is bad...this is real bad.”

  She’d wondered how he felt, and even though his words weren’t expressing regret, she took them that way. “You had to kill him. He shot you and blew us both up. He not only thought he’d killed you but was happy about it. He was going to kill me, too, after I helped him. All we have to do is tell them what happened.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “Why not?” She heard the plaintive note in her own voice.

  Through gritted teeth, he said, “I can’t tell you.”

  “What, you think someone’s going to torture it out of me if you do?”

  His sidelong glance confirmed it.

  She looked out the window. They were headed back the way they came. “Underground. So...a cave? Your mother’s basement?”

  He didn’t respond, so she said darkly, “It’s the sewer, isn’t it?”

  “Close. We need to disappear until I can figure out who else is involved.”

  “Okay, I get it. Trust no one. But we can trust Scott.”

  “You can trust Scott. I worked really hard creating a persona for myself within the XIA, and I guarantee your precious Scott thinks I’m scum.”

  “Alright, then drop me off at his place!”

  Jason stomped on the brakes and the truck skidded over to the side of the road. The face that he turned to her was livid. “Do you have a death wish?”

  She cringed back against the door but responded with spirit. “You want me to cooperate? Give me a good reason.”

  He slammed the flat of his hand against the steering wheel, making her jump. After a moment: “Did you see the dead guy’s face?”

  “What?”

  “His face. Did you see it?”

  “No. Just his jacket. It was red leather.”

  “Damn,” he muttered. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance you could wipe that little detail from your memory banks?”

  “Who was he?”

  After a long pause he said quietly, “Mad Eye royalty.”

  He started th
e truck and pulled back onto the road. She sat with her hands folded in her lap, hoping he would elaborate.

  “You know all about undercover agents, right?” he finally asked.

  She thought about Scott, how he’d had her completely fooled at first. “I guess.”

  “Well, it goes both ways. Sometimes cops turn dirty; sometimes they join the force already dirty.”

  “So...the guy in the red jacket was working for the Mad Eye gang? Killed by a dirty cop who was also willing to kill us to hide his crime?”

  “Something like that.”

  “You’re leaving something out.”

  He rolled his eyes briefly at the ceiling of the truck before staring back at the road. “Are you always this annoying?”

  “Only when I’m scared.”

  He let out a little ‘heh,’ and said, “Somehow I doubt that.”

  She knew he was attempting to change the subject again; attempting to distract her from digging any deeper into his reasons for running instead of going to the XIA. She was tired suddenly and wanted more than ever to go home, but decided to ease up on him. Jason had begun drumming his fingers on the steering wheel to some rapid, internal beat, and he seemed to be stretched as thin as a wire.

  She took a breath. “So am I dressed properly for sewer night life?”

  He glanced over. “You got any tats?”

  “No.”

  “Piercings? Anything?”

  “I got a porcupine on my head. What more do you want?”

  “Jeez, you really were innocent weren’t you?”

  She looked away. “That was a lifetime ago.”

  “Are you a virgin?”

  Her head snapped back around. “None of your business!”

  “That’s a yes,” he said under his breath.

  “How could that possibly matter?”

  “It matters because you don’t strike me as a very good actress, and where we’re going, you need to look, and act, like someone whose legs aren’t clamped together.”

  It was a deliberately crude thing for him to say. He seemed to be waiting for a response and she realized he was testing her. She’d played Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz in her junior high school play, but that wouldn’t help make her case. She thought about Sheila Gottfried, the girl her ex-boyfriend had dumped her for. Sheila’s trampy reputation may or may not have been deserved, but she had gotten pregnant immediately after graduating. Bryn stuck her chest out and lifted her leg, resting her shoe on the dash, trying to channel Sheila’s brash attitude.