Xenofreak Nation, Book Two: Mad Eye

by Melissa Conway

  With a groan of capitulation, he kissed her, and even though full control of her body had been returned, she found herself caught up in the residual excitement, hungering for the tempest to return. That need manifested itself in a fervent response to his kiss, but she felt the loss of the pleasure keenly. Being in his arms was nice, but the unenhanced sensations she experienced now left her unsatisfied, empty even, like she’d lost a limb and was tormented by its phantom. Still pressed up against him, still desperately returning kiss for kiss, tears began to course down her face.

  He must have felt them, because he tore his mouth away from hers. Breathing heavily, he said, “Bryn.”

  She sniffed and disentangled her hand from his belt loop to wipe at her tears. “It’s gone. I’m okay now.”

  For the first time since she’d met him, he looked uncertain. “That wasn’t...I thought you were supposed to be scared.”

  She took a deep, trembling breath, aware that his arms still encircled her. “Apparently, Padme has a choice between sending fear or pleasure.” Her voice broke on the word ‘pleasure.’

  Jason’s face slowly crumpled in confused repugnance. His hands loosened their hold and dropped to his sides. “That’s-”

  “Horrible?” She thought of her dream and the sheer joy she’d felt at knowing her mother was alive. She thought about what she’d almost given him, a man she’d met less than two days ago. It was another sharp reminder of his similarity to Scott.

  He stepped back and she realized they were standing by the fireman’s pole in their stockinged feet. On shaky legs, she brushed past him and went back into their little room. A moment later, she heard him come up behind her as she stood staring at the cot, fighting off a return of the tears.

  His breathing hadn’t quite slowed to normal. “I can sleep on the floor if you want.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Just promise me if it happens again, you won’t - touch me.”

  He didn’t touch her now, just leaned around her so she could see his face. “I didn’t know what was going on. Earlier when you...”

  He trailed off, but she knew what he was trying to say.

  “Your xenograft,” she said. “I don’t know why I - I shouldn’t have done that. I can see why you might have come to the conclusion that I...” now she trailed off.

  A humorless laugh escaped him. “Whatever Padme did to you is kind of like what happens to me, isn’t it?”

  She shrugged helplessly, but asked, “Can you control it?”

  “Usually. But just now you were so...”

  “Intense?” The tears threatened again.

  “Don’t cry, okay? I hate that.” But he said it gently.

  “I just want to go home,” she whispered.

  His head jerked a little to one side and his expression instantly changed to one of warning. As if she could read his mind, she knew he was going over their actions and words since Padme had attacked, trying to determine if any of it would give them away in the event Maddy’s holo techs were listening. Their conversation had been the first open one they’d had since arriving here - and could have put them in more danger than they’d been since arriving.

  By mutually unspoken decision, they climbed onto the cot and settled back down for the night. Bryn thought she was going to be kept awake by reproachful thoughts, but found herself so utterly wrung out that she slipped quickly back into slumber.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Lo woke him up with a nudge to his shoulder. “Hey, Van Winkle. Wakey-wakey.”

  Scott sat up, stretched and yawned. “Sorry about that. Haven’t gotten much shut-eye the last few nights.”

  “Here you go, Boss.” Boardman passed him a thermos.

  Scott removed the cup, unscrewed the lid and inhaled the welcome scent of coffee. He poured some of the dark brew into the cup. Normally, he didn’t drink it black, but he needed an infusion of caffeine to chase away the residual grogginess. He took a sip and said, “Strong.”

  Boardman shrugged. “The stronger it is, the less you have to drink. Don’t want a full bladder when things get dicey.”

  “If things get dicey,” Lo said. “But you also don’t want a shaky trigger finger. Moderation in all things.”

  The coffee was so strong it was almost thick. Scott took one more sip and set it aside. “What time is it?”

  Lo gestured to a holoclock on the dash at the same time one of the techs said in his ear, “Go time in two hours.”

  Scott looked out the windshield. They were maybe a hundred yards offshore, and tonight there was no fog to obstruct the view. Lo handed him a pair of round-lensed spectagoggle tactical optics and he fit them over his eyes. There was no switch to activate them - to all outward appearances, they were nothing special.

  Scott said, “Check,” and his lens display lit up.

  “We see what you see,” one of the techs said. “Remember that if you have to make a pit stop.”

  “Oh, you guys are high-larious.”

  “You’re the one drinking coffee.”

  Scott turned his head to look back out the windshield and squinted his eyes to zoom in on the beach. The remnants of the boardwalk and the buildings that had survived Hurricane Poppy were slowly deteriorating from neglect, but the building housing Bluto’s Bar and Grill was intact. The establishment would be closed now, or nearly so, but a party of Xenos, four men and two women, had started a fire in one of the battered metal garbage cans out front and were laughing and horsing around, clearly inebriated.

  He shifted view to the alley between Bluto’s and what remained of the shack next to it. He could just see the wall of the building at the end of the alley, the same building in which he, Bryn, and Carla had encountered Nosferatu and his gang. The tunnel Fournier had built between that building and Bluto’s was, according to Padme, how Lupus would be entering Bluto’s tonight in order to conduct business with Phaco, the manager.

  Lupus had traveled in the dark of night ever since Scott had known him. With the face of a wolf, he couldn’t exactly move around incognito, so he used the cover of darkness to skulk around doing business for Fournier. He would not be easy to bring in. He’d been Army Special Forces before becoming an XIA agent. He was the first to pose as a member of the XBestia, and the first to go missing. Padme told Scott that Lupus himself had killed and disposed of the next agent who had attempted to infiltrate the gang. Fournier had complete control over him, turning a once-admirable man into his own personal executioner.

  All because of the nanoneuron program Padme had helped create.

  She’d talked of sending Bryn pleasure as if it would make up for the fear, but Scott knew it was just as bad. Fear and pleasure may be on opposite ends of the sensation spectrum, but if a person was forced to experience either one against their will, it was a violation plain and simple.

  He remembered how he’d felt when Padme first demonstrated it; when she’d pulled off her shirt and straddled him in her control center. Just the touch of her body pressed up against his sent his desire spinning almost out of control. If he hadn’t hit the escape button on her holo keyboard...

  Scott’s train of thought stopped dead and he swallowed a sudden lump in his throat. If Padme could be believed, Bryn was right now sleeping in the same bunk as Jason Alton. Objectively, Scott knew she would be in less danger among the Mad Eyes if she posed as Alton’s girlfriend; knew instinctively that was why they were, as Padme put it, sleeping together.

  He fought a flood of angry adrenaline as he remembered the calculating look on Padme’s face when she’d ‘offered’ to send Bryn pleasure. She hadn’t said it to placate him - it had simply occurred to her that she had the power to push Bryn completely away from him. All she had to do was time it right.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  A noise like the clearing of a throat woke her. She opened her eyes, startled and disturbed to find Maddy standing over them. The Mad Eye queen was outfitted in an all-white pantsuit, with gold buttons and fringed epaulets on the
shoulders. Her hair was loose and wavy from the braid she’d worn the previous day. She held a holopad in one hand.

  Jason sat up and asked, “Is it time?”

  “Not quite yet,” Maddy replied. “I had a few things I needed to discuss with you and your...friend.”

  Jason swung his legs over the side of the cot and reached for his shoes. Maddy said, “No, don’t. First, explain this.”

  She activated the holopad and held it out. Just as Bryn had feared, Edgemere’s hidden cameras had caught last night’s entire scenario. It was beyond weird to see herself writhing in Jason’s arms as he carried her to the fire pole; beyond embarrassing to watch a replay of the clinch that followed. It would have been an easy thing to explain if it were only a holo, but their words, too, had been captured.

  After the holo stopped, Maddy drew her finger backwards along the progress bar until Jason’s voice was heard saying, “We need to get you away from the signal.”

  “What did you mean by that?” she asked.

  Jason inhaled deeply through his nose and let it out slowly. “The nanoneurons in her brain were being stimulated via cell signal.”

  Maddy’s eyes widened and she blinked a few times. “Really.”

  He nodded once. “We’d hoped being here, underground, would block it.”

  “Ah, yes, well, that would normally be the case, but you see, I had a signal booster installed. Wouldn’t want to miss all those loving calls from my father.”

  With her finger back on the holopad, Maddy went forward to when Jason said, “That wasn’t...I thought you were supposed to be scared,” and Bryn’s response, “Apparently, Padme has a choice between sending fear or pleasure.”

  “This interests me greatly,” Maddy said. “I don’t suppose you have information on how this was accomplished?”

  Bryn said, “When I was in the hospital, the doctors told me their scanners couldn’t read my nanoneuron program; that Fournier had his own program created and they couldn’t disable it.”

  “Most excellent.” Maddy’s voice dripped with envious admiration. “And Padme is..?”

  “Fournier’s programmer.”

  “I love it. Since there’s no way to remove nanoneurons, once you flip the switch on fear or pleasure, all the victim can do is run and hide. Yet another reason to get my hands on one of Fournier’s lieutenants.”

  She shut off the holopad.

  “Now for the other matter I wanted to discuss with you. My other contact in the FBI has informed me that they found the body of my brother. It’s only a matter of time before that information gets back to my father. Dragila, when you told me Munnu was an imposter, I never did get your answer as to how you knew. Would you care to enlighten me now?”

  “I saw the body.”

  “And then you, a recently escaped criminal, called the FBI to inform them?” Maddy’s face was the picture of pleasantness.

  Jason hesitated just a bit too long, giving Bryn the impression he still hadn’t come up with a plausible cover story and was frantically thinking one up on the fly. Luckily, she’d mentally concocted an account she thought would cover all their bases, one that blended enough truth in with the fiction that she hoped she could tell it convincingly.

  “We didn’t call anyone,” she said, ignoring Jason’s sharp look. “When I helped Jas-Dragila escape custody, I took him out to this place I knew of - an old missile silo where my friends and I used to hang out. The top level was converted to a house, but no one’s lived there for a while. The main entrance has got some heavy duty security, but I knew a secret way in. We got comfortable and the next thing we know, this big guy with a gun busts in. You know, shoot first, ask later? He thought he’d killed Dragila and wanted me to help him move Munnu’s body. But Dragila shot him and found out he was FBI. We ran.”

  “And came here to warn me,” Maddy said, looking at Jason thoughtfully.

  He shrugged. “Plus, we went to the silo in the first place to get her underground, away from cell signals. She pissed off the XBestia, and if they stimulate her nanoneurons long enough, it can kill her.”

  “Better and better,” Maddy murmured.

  “I figured it’d be safe here,” he continued, “since the feds have never messed with Edgemere.”

  Maddy’s laugh held no mirth. “Yes, well, that may change soon, since the agent you killed was my man.”

  Jason’s head went back in surprise. “You knew Munnu’s body was at the silo?”

  “No.” Her jaw clenched. “Antonovich was supposed to have thoroughly disposed of it, but since he didn’t it’s obvious he was planning to double-cross me. And I see from your face you have come to the wrong conclusion. I did not kill Munnu. He got into a fight and was mortally injured. The man who is posing as him is one of my seven younger brothers, an outcast like me, as well as a near-perfect tissue match, so he doesn’t have to take too many anti-rejection drugs. We had very good reasons for the charade, I assure you. However, it will all be moot now that he’s come down with the sickness Junk brought us.”

  “Oh, no,” Bryn murmured as Jason asked, “He’s not a xeno?”

  “He is now,” Maddy said. “I brought a xenosurgeon in last night as soon as we realized he’d contracted Fournier’s deadly little germ. Let’s hope whatever imparts immunity kicks in in time.”

  Jason rubbed his chin, which had grown dark with stubble. “Are you going to postpone the attack?”

  Maddy straightened resolutely. “Of course not. Now I have even more reason to rain fury down upon the XBestia. Plus I’ve gone to great lengths to prevent word of the attack from getting out. No one has been allowed to leave and all transmissions have been monitored. It will be a complete surprise. But without Munnu - without my brother - I’m forced to trust in you more than I have in the past, Dragila. I hope it will not turn out to be misplaced.”

  Jason reached for his shoes and looked up at her with a small smile. “Stay the course.”

  Maddy’s return smile had a quizzical bent to it, but she said, “Indeed.”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  “Is the drone in place?” Scott asked the com team, shifting in his seat. Almost two hours of fidgeting in the UAAV was not taking the edge off his anticipation for action.

  In his ear, he heard, “Overhead now. Uh, hold on, possible target acquired. Sending holo.”

  Lo switched on the holo projector in the UAAV’s dash. Because the live feed from the surveillance drone was shot from above, she squashed it almost to 2D so the image hovering between them wouldn’t be so disorienting. Infrared showed a lone figure entering the building behind Bluto’s. Even from above with only a heat image to work from, Scott recognized the large, slightly hunched figure as Lupus from the xenofreak’s distinctively intimidating body language.

  “That’s him.” Scott turned to Boardman. “This is it. Ready?”

  Boardman settled his own pair of tactical optics onto the bridge of his nose. “Let’s roll this rock.”

  Lo piloted the UAAV silently right up onto the beach about a hundred yards east of Bluto’s. The partying xenos remained oblivious to the vehicle’s presence. Scott put his arms through the straps of what looked on the outside to be a normal backpack, but was in reality a portable stretcher made out of the same tough, slick material used by hunters to drag big game. He then slid open the door on the side facing away from the action, and he and Boardman jumped out onto the sand.

  “Break a leg,” Lo said. “I’ll be waitin’ in the getaway car.”

  There was a mild breeze off the ocean and the cold night air chased away the last of the residual sluggishness. He walked casually alongside Boardman in case anyone saw them, but they didn’t head towards Bluto’s. Instead, they took a straight course across the beach and over the partially buried boardwalk to an alley between the nearest structures, or rather, the crumbling walls of what used to be structures.

  In his ear, Scott heard Lo say, “You’re platinum,” which he took to mean the xenos out in front of B
luto’s still hadn’t noticed them.

  Even with night vision, it was slow going picking their way through the alley, which was cluttered with rubble and garbage, but they needed to circle around to the same building, same entrance, Lupus had used.

  In his ear, a tech said, “Hold on. Picking up some heat. Looks like three - no, four - incoming - what are those?”

  “Canines,” said the other tech.

  “Okay, looks like a pack of dogs at your six o’clock.”

  Encountering even one dog on Coney Island would likely result in a confrontation, but four meant a wild pack was on their trail.

  “I got this,” Boardman said. He pulled a plum-sized object from one of his pockets.

  “No noise,” Scott said quickly.

  Boardman held the object up.

  “Is that a dodo egg?” Scott asked.

  “Yep.”

  ‘Dodo egg’ was the nickname for the hard-to-come-by dodecahedron smart grenade; smaller than a standard-issue pepper spray canister, and each of its twelve sides had motion sensor equipped nozzles that not only detected when the target came within the spray zone, but released the caustic liquid in the target’s - or multiple targets’ - direction.

  Scott admired it for a second. “I didn’t get one of those.”

  Boardman pulled the pin and lobbed the egg into a clear space about ten yards behind them. “Pays to flirt with the munitions clerk.”

  They didn’t stick around to watch. When they reached the exterior door to the building Lupus had entered, they heard several yelps echoing through the alleyway.

  “Canines are in retreat,” one of the tech guys reported. “Oh, and we got a faint heat signature of your target after he went into the building. Sending you the schematics to show where he disappeared.”

  A map of the building appeared in the upper right quadrant of Scott’s optics. A circle with the words ‘You Are Here’ was placed by an exterior door and a big X by a doorway in a corridor.