Xenofreak Nation, Book Two: Mad Eye

by Melissa Conway

  When he arrived at Shasta’s office, she was meeting with Special Agent in Charge Miles Reed. He had thinning brown hair, and his portly physique suggested he’d been out of the field for quite some time.

  Shasta introduced them and they shook hands. Not long after Scott’s undercover assignment had come to an end, when he was reintegrating into the agency, he’d decided there were two kinds of people - the ones who reacted to his xenograft, and the ones who ignored it. Reed was the latter. It didn’t mean he didn’t have an opinion; just that he was too professional to express it.

  Shasta cut to the chase. “How did Antonovich know Agent Alton would be at the silo safe house?”

  “He didn’t,” Reed replied. “Our agents have access to the safe house system, but it only tracks what units are in use, not who’s using them. The silo had been decommissioned for almost two years, but our techs say Antonovich set it up so he’d be pinged if it was ever reactivated.”

  “So he was trying to retrieve the body,” Scott said.

  Reed’s head dipped in acknowledgement. “We think so.”

  “Who was it, Miles?”

  Scott wasn’t surprised she called him by his first name. Shasta Fox knew everyone.

  “Munnu Singh,” Reed said.

  Scott had never heard of the man, but when Shasta asked, “Maddy’s Singh’s twin brother?” he realized she was referring to the leader of the Mad Eye gang.

  “That doesn’t make sense,” she said. “I was told the second body had been dead for some time.”

  “Hard to tell how long,” Reed replied. “It was near freezing down there.”

  “Ballpark?”

  “M.E. said three to five months.”

  “Then it couldn’t have been Singh. One of our agents reported him alive and well a few days ago.”

  Scott thought about the grisly holo of the corpse, and asked, “Face transplant?”

  “That would tend to explain the missing face on our body,” Reed said. “But why?”

  “And why dump the body where it could be found instead of destroying it?” Scott asked.

  “I’m sure the answers to those questions will be fascinating, but right now, I’d really like to find my agent and our witness. Any idea where they might be?”

  Reed frowned and shook his head. “Nothing at the scene indicated whether they walked away on their own steam, or were taken by force by an unknown party.”

  “Let’s assume for argument’s sake that no one else was there,” she said. “Alton realizes he just killed an FBI agent, but the body in the basement makes it pretty obvious that agent was crooked. Forensics says the blood in the bathroom was Alton’s, so it’s a good bet our witness bandaged him up and he got her out of there.”

  “Without reporting in,” Scott said, unable to keep the contempt out of his voice.

  “He panicked,” Reed suggested.

  Shasta shook her head. “Not Alton. But he would have wondered how Antonovich knew they were in the safe house. I think he came to the conclusion someone within the XIA tipped Antonovich off.”

  “These days that’s not even a paranoid assumption,” Reed said.

  Scott nodded his agreement. Spies and corrupt employees were rampant within every conceivable government law enforcement agency. Not a week went by that he didn’t hear about a terrorist organization or crime syndicate that had infiltrated up to the highest levels. Trust could cost you your life.

  “Where would he go?” Shasta said almost to herself.

  “You know,” Scott said, “he was pretty pissed when you pulled him from his mission.”

  “What mission?” Reed asked.

  She hesitated as if she was debating whether to answer, but finally said, “To get close to Maddy Singh. But she put him out at Yakaburra and he was useless to us there.”

  She looked at Scott. “What are you suggesting, Agent Harding?”

  “Nothing. Just...if it were me, and information that could help me accomplish my mission just dropped in my lap, I might be tempted to run with it. No pun intended.”

  She looked up at the ceiling for a moment and sighed. “Edgemere is underground. You might be on to something. He might have been trying to kill two birds and gain himself some time to think. We’ve got a semi-reliable informant out there - I’ll see if I can find out anything.”

  She stood. “Thank you, Miles. I know this has been unpleasant. I appreciate that you’ve been reasonable and haven’t turned it into a manhunt.”

  Reed stood, too; slowly, as if his joints pained him. “Oh, I never said my people weren’t out looking for your agent.”

  She blinked at him a few times. “At this juncture, I’d keep in mind that Alton may very well feel threatened by any FBI agent he encounters.”

  “We’ve had a nice conversation, Shasta. But you and I both know a full investigation will be launched. Alton may or may not eventually be cleared, but as long as he refuses to turn himself in, he looks guilty as hell.”

  Her jaw jutted briefly to one side. “Just a word of advice then, Special Agent. Don’t send your people into Edgemere looking for him. It’s not a friendly place.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Bryn woke lying on her side with a heavy weight across her hip. It was Jason’s arm, which he’d slipped under her open jacket sometime during the night. Because of her quills, when they’d first climbed onto the thin mattress he’d had to scootch further down to keep from getting poked. They’d gone to sleep fully dressed and back-to-back, but they’d turned towards each other sometime during the night. She looked down and saw the top of his head. His warm breath penetrated her shirt against her abdomen. It was an intimate position, and yet she didn’t feel the slightest stirring of interest. If she’d woken up in Scott’s arms, her quills would have reacted by going flat to her head.

  Thinking of him made them do just that, and she responded by irritably nudging Jason awake.

  He instantly sat up. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I think it’s morning.”

  It was impossible to tell. The green lighting remained constant. He reached for his holophone to check the time.

  “Do you get a signal?” she asked.

  “Very weak. It’s six a.m.”

  Because there were cameras everywhere, she hadn’t been able to voice her concern last night that they weren’t far enough underground should Padme attack. She’d been scared not just because of what her nanoneurons might do, but because freaking out in this place would be a very bad thing. If she’d lost control like she had at Carla’s, it would have gotten her the wrong kind of attention - not that any kind of attention was a good thing here.

  Bunking down at Edgemere hadn’t been a private affair. Maddy’s soldiers filled nearly every one of the fourteen bunks in this, the drainpipe designated for them. When Jason and Bryn had first arrived and he’d chosen a lower bunk at the back of the pipe, she’d rebelled and attempted to climb on the top bunk, but he’d grabbed her arm to prevent her from doing so. It was dark, since only one tube of bioluminescence snaked through this pipe, but she’d seen his warning look: stay in character. After hearing the rough banter from the soldiers as they trickled in, she was glad he’d insisted they sleep together, despite the awkwardness.

  None of the other occupants stirred when they quietly put on their shoes and hefted their bags.

  “Where are we going?” she whispered.

  “Breakfast. Maddy’s an early riser.”

  “I need to go to the bathroom.”

  Outside the pipe, an armed guard was waiting. He said, “Dragila.”

  When Jason nodded, he said, “Come with me,” but Jason responded, “We need to make a pit stop first.”

  The bunk pipe was on one of the top levels. The guard led them through two doorways until they reached the fireman’s pole. He looked at Jason. “You been here before, right?”

  “Yeah. Latrine’s two floors down.”

  The guard grabbed the pole, wrapped his legs aro
und it and slid down through the opening in the floor. Jason turned to Bryn. “You got this?”

  She nodded. She’d climbed the extension ladders to get up into the higher levels of the lair, but knew she was expected to slide back down.

  The opening in the floor was just big enough to accommodate the bags slung over Jason’s shoulder. After he disappeared, she quickly followed. She slid down slowly, the soles of her shoes squeaking on the metal. When she arrived at the right level, Jason reached out and grasped her around the waist, helping her traverse the gap.

  The ‘latrine,’ as he’d called it, was all the way back in the furthest pipe on that level. It had two sinks, one long tiled shower facility like they’d had in her high school locker room, and four toilets, none of which were enclosed in a stall. Luckily, it was deserted at this hour.

  She walked over and inspected one of the toilets. The water was glowing faintly green. Dillo had mentioned the bioluminescent bacteria produced methane, but it smelled like pine-scented cleaner in the pipe. “Why doesn’t it smell bad?”

  “I guess there’s not a high enough concentration of the bacteria,” he said. “If there were, it wouldn’t be livable down here - methane’s deadly - and besides, now that I think of it, it’s odorless. It only smells bad when it’s combined with something, uh, stinky.”

  She laughed a little at his use of the word ‘stinky.’ It seemed too mild a word for him. He must have changed his original phrasing at the last second. It was a small thing, but she thought it was sweet of him. Then he blew it by saying, “Speaking of stinky,” and gestured to the toilet with his eyebrows raised.

  “I just have to pee,” she said, affronted.

  “Well, I don’t, so hurry up.”

  “Turn around, then!”

  “Oh. Right.” He walked over to the entryway and stood there blocking it with his back to her until she was done.

  She wasn’t about to stay in the room while he did his business, so she ducked through to the next pipe, where the guard was waiting. He looked bored until she came in, then he openly leered at her.

  She ignored him and rummaged around in her bag until she felt a round, flat object: her compact mirror. She wasn’t concerned about looking attractive - especially not around lowlifes like the guard here, but she’d rubbed her eyes when she got up before she remembered all the eye makeup and wanted to check it. The mirror had a row of tiny LED lights that showed her she looked like a raccoon. All she could do with the guard looking on was wipe the edge of her finger around her eyelids. It didn’t help much.

  She sighed, closed the compact and glanced around the pipe. It was a storage area with shelves filled with necessities like toilet paper and cleaning supplies.

  It occurred to her that Jason would need new dressings on his wounds. She turned to the guard. “Is there anywhere I can get some bandages?”

  He snorted and his eyes shifted to her quills. “You poke yourself?”

  “Um, yeah, all the time, but they’re not for me.”

  He waved a hand. “If you can find ‘em, help yourself.”

  She moved down the aisle between shelves, searching. There wasn’t a discernible shelving system, but eventually she found a box of cotton balls, an industrial-sized bottle of antiseptic, and a can of pseudo-skin.

  When Jason came out of the latrine, she held up her finds.

  “Yeah, okay, that’s a good idea,” he said. He dropped his bags and stripped off his shirt.

  The guard said, “The queen’s waiting, you know.”

  “It’ll only take a minute,” Bryn assured him.

  She peeled off all the bandages she’d applied yesterday. It was hard to tell in the low light, but the wounds looked inflamed. She quickly swabbed them with the antiseptic, wincing for him as he let out a few gasps of pain, then she stepped back and thoroughly sprayed each wound with pseudo-skin.

  “That feel better? The can says it has a numbing agent in it.”

  He made a ‘whew’ sound. “A little, yeah. Thanks.”

  The pseudo-skin took a few minutes to dry. Because the guard was looking on impatiently, she began to blow on Jason’s back to hurry the process along. When she moved to the wound next to the Gila monster xenograft and gently blew on it, he stepped away and said, “It’s dry enough.”

  He put his shirt back on. She offered to carry his bags for him, but he shook his head and tucked them under his arms.

  The guard said, “Are we done now, or do you all want to clip each other’s toenails, too?”

  “That’s incredibly amusing,” Jason said, sounding anything but amused. “Do you know who I am?”

  “Everyone knows who you are,” he replied, but she noticed he was quick to back down.

  In the dining room pipe, Maddy was sitting at the table eating. Today she wore a man’s camouflage field jacket over a lacy black bustier. Her long blond hair was in one thick braid pulled forward. She looked up when the guard appeared and said, “Yes, yes. Send them in.”

  When she saw that Jason and Bryn were carrying their bags, she asked, “Planning on leaving?”

  Jason glanced at the guard, who’d settled near the doorway. “Still not sure if we’re welcome.”

  “Sit.” Maddy stared down at her plate. Even in the low light, Bryn saw worry lines etched on her face.

  Jason pulled out the chairs in front of two place settings and they sat and waited. After a few minutes, Maddy said in a subdued voice, “Thanks for the supplies. I wouldn’t be eating now if it weren’t for what you brought.”

  “Why’s that?” he asked.

  “Poison. At least, that’s what we think. The effects are too rapid and too severe to be an illness. We lost two more last night. I have my holo techs working on identifying a common link between the victims, and my bioengineers are trying to isolate the toxin.”

  The same servant woman from last night entered with two plates and two glasses of a liquid that glowed fluorescently in the lighting. She set the plates and drinks in front of Scott and Bryn and left without a word. Jason immediately began to dig in, but Bryn looked down at the steaming pile of what looked like corned beef hash from a can and swallowed.

  “Are you a vegetarian?” Maddy asked.

  Bryn picked up her fork. “No.”

  “Well, that must have been a blessing for you after what your father did. It would have been funny, though. I mean, imagine if you had really strong beliefs about killing animals and he went and did that.” She gestured to Bryn’s quills.

  “Yeah, funny,” Bryn said. She put a bite of the hash in her mouth and hoped Maddy wouldn’t continue.

  “My father was willing to do anything for me and my brother; that is, until he found out I liked boys. That didn’t go over so well.”

  Bryn was saved from having to come up with a suitably sensitive response by someone who appeared in the doorway and waited there uncertainly. Maddy said, “Come in, Vespa. Have you discovered anything?”

  It was the female tech Bryn had seen yesterday at the holo table. She held a holopad in one hand. She took a few steps into the pipe and stopped, as if she was afraid to get too close to Maddy. “Yes-yes-yes, we think so,” she stuttered, nodding rapidly.

  “Well what is it? Tell me.”

  Vespa took another step into the room and held out the holopad, fully five feet from Maddy. “Everyone who got sick was seen with this man.”

  Jason jumped up, took the holopad from Vespa and gave it to Maddy.

  “Thank you, Dragila,” she said, shooting the terrified woman an annoyed look. She frowned down at the holopad and then handed it back to Jason. “I don’t know him. Do you know him? Who is this?”

  “Never saw him before,” Jason said.

  Bryn glanced over. “Oh, wait. That’s Junk.”

  “Who?” Maddy and Jason said at the same time.

  “Dillo had him bring in the boxes...” she trailed off and looked down at her breakfast.

  Maddy’s mouth fell open and she put her hands to
her throat. A low sound escaped, like a moan that began to build until it became a full-fledged scream of fury. She shoved her chair back and swept her hand across the table. Her glass and nearly empty plate flew into the curved biopolycrete wall and shattered. Vespa cringed by the door as Maddy snatched the holopad from Jason. Then she stalked out of the pipe, bellowing in a man’s voice, “Dil-lo!”

  Chapter Nineteen

  When Scott left Shasta’s office, he passed Deputy Director Unger in the hall. Unger didn’t acknowledge Scott - didn’t even seem to notice him. His face was florid with anger as he headed straight for Shasta’s door. Scott didn’t envy her; he was just glad he’d escaped before the fireworks.

  At his desk, he checked his messages. One was from Mia, confirming that Robert Cruise’s neighbor had died from the super typhoid and asking Scott to meet her for lunch at the Holo House Cafe so they could discuss it. The other was from one of the detectives who’d shut down the massage parlor where Cruise’s girlfriend had worked. Scott called him back and got the girlfriend’s name and address. Lucky for him, Candace ‘Candy’ Barton hadn’t been caught up in the raid.

  She lived in the same neighborhood as Cruise, but a few buildings down. It took Scott twenty minutes of driving around to find a parking spot, and he was aggravated by the time he fed the meter. He had to walk six blocks to Candy’s building, which was nearly identical to Cruise’s in every way. Her apartment was on the second floor and she answered the door after his third knock. She was heavyset and had shoulder-length, pink-streaked brown hair. She wore no make-up to cover her acne-pocked skin, although her complete lack of eyebrows suggested she usually painted them on. Dressed only in a man’s t-shirt that came to mid-thigh, she leaned against the doorjamb and said wearily, “Can I help you?”

  “Candy Barton?” Scott asked, flashing his badge.

  She let out a heavy sigh. “Dude.”

  “Is that a yes? Are you Candy Barton?”

  “Um...” She straightened up, but lost her balance and stumbled to one side. “Yeah...yeah. S’me.”