Xenofreak Nation, Book Two: Mad Eye

by Melissa Conway

  Bryn was still standing in front of him, clinging to his jacket. He bent at the waist and put his forehead against the front of her shoulder, pushing his spectagoggles back down over his eyes. It hurt when the frame settled down over his injury, but once he’d gotten the optics in place, he could see in the dark out of his good eye again.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Nothing. I just need to sit down.”

  He walked over to the wall next to the door, on the opposite side of the pipe from the handcuffed man. The flooring was metal and seemed level, but he felt an almost imperceptible shift as his weight rolled the pipe against the cinderblocks wedged along the outer edge. The interior walls were curved, which might make his next move more difficult. He turned around and lifted his left foot behind him, simultaneously falling back against the wall and trapping his foot against his thigh. Even though his hamstrings cramped up from the unnatural position, it was an easy matter of reaching back for his ankle with his bound hands. He managed to hook the handle of his dive knife with a claw and flip it around. It took only seconds to slice through the zip tie. He immediately retrieved the box with the auto injector from its hidden pocket, opened it and grasped the cylinder in his right hand like Shasta had shown him.

  The watchers responded more quickly than he’d anticipated. The door to the dungeon was just beginning to swing open when he grabbed Bryn’s wrist and jabbed her in the thigh with the auto injector.

  “Ow!” she exclaimed. “What was...oh, I feel funny...”

  Scott let the knife clang to the floor in order to catch her as she fell. When Dillo appeared in the doorway, framed by the strange green light of Edgemere, Bryn was already on the verge of unconsciousness.

  Scott held up the spent auto injector. “Now you can’t torture her.”

  “We can still torture you.” Dillo shrugged. He gestured to the injector. “And what is that? Knock out drug? She’ll come to eventually.”

  Scott had known he was just buying Bryn time. He’d also realized rescue was not forthcoming. Shasta would be unaware that Alton’s cover had been blown, since the yacht had taken them out of range of the hover drone before Maddy had informed them they were under suspicion. Maddy might not know who Alton was working for - yet - but it was unlikely his mission could be accomplished now.

  Scott had one card left to play, but first he had to convince Maddy Singh to let him play it.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Bryn woke on a hard surface. Her mouth was open and her tongue so dry it took her a while to work up the spit to wet it again. She was intensely thirsty and her stomach ached from hunger. She was lying on her back, and when she turned her head, the first thing she saw was a bright light pointed at a bloody, shirtless man slumped against the wall of the pipe, one arm handcuffed to a rail.

  Memory flooded back. The man was Junk, but where were Scott and Jason? She sat up stiffly, glad it wasn’t pitch dark anymore, until she realized the light was not directed at Junk.

  “Jason!” she gasped. She attempted to get up, but dizziness overtook her and she stumbled and fell forward onto her hands. Her elbows shook and she felt feeble as a newborn as she crawled over to him. As she got closer it was clear she was far better off than he was. His face had been battered, and by the dark streaks beneath his nose, the majority of the blood on his chin, neck and chest appeared to have come from there.

  The door was closed; they were alone in the dungeon. She put one hand on his shoulder and checked the pulse in his throat with the other. This was the second time since she’d met him that she was grateful to feel the fluttery rhythm of his heartbeat under her fingertips.

  “Jason, can you hear me?”

  Both of his eyes were bruised and swollen, but he opened them somewhat and said weakly, “Yeah.”

  She almost asked, “Are you okay?” but didn’t, because it was obvious he wasn’t.

  “Where’s Scott?”

  “Gone.”

  Her heart skipped a beat. “What do you mean?”

  “Made a deal with the devil.”

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  The truck Maddy had given him couldn’t possibly be emissions compliant. It was parked outside of Edgemere’s underground mall in the middle of a thick copse of holly bushes that had grown to the size of trees. It took Scott several tries to start the piece of junk, and when the engine finally turned over, a cloud of blue smoke shot out the exhaust pipe. When he got out onto the road, he hoped he wouldn’t get pulled over for a pollution violation.

  It had been easier than he expected to convince Maddy to let him go. He’d explained that he had a contact in Fournier’s organization and that he could convince that contact, with force if necessary, to tell him where Fournier was.

  “And what is this contact’s name?” Maddy had asked.

  “Padme.”

  Maddy had shifted her gaze to Alton. “The same Padme who sent Bryn that lovely dose of pleasure last night?”

  Scott scowled. So he’d been right. Padme had waited until Bryn and Alton were bunked down together before activating her nanoneurons.

  Alton had the grace to look uncomfortable, but Maddy saw Scott’s reaction and seemed to be enjoying herself. He wondered how she knew about Padme, but realized it didn’t matter. There were other, more important things for him to focus on.

  Now driving the beat-up old truck, he headed straight for the blood donation center, determined that every aspect of his plan would fall into place. Bryn’s life was hanging in the balance.

  “If I even think you’re contemplating double-crossing me,” Maddy had said, “I will kill her. If the feds so much as sniff downwind of us, she’ll be the first to go.”

  To further ensure his compliance, she’d had her holo techs wire him. They’d confiscated his earbug and bulletproof aqua vest and taped a long-range listening device to his chest. It not only transmitted his voice and the voices of those nearby, but it recorded his heartbeat, so if he removed it, they’d know instantly.

  “I go where you go,” Maddy had said, in an eerie echo of what the com techs said to him yesterday before the Lupus op.

  He got lucky and found a parking space in front of the blood bank building, but right away he realized something was wrong. A sign was taped to the glass of the main door. It said, ‘Closed indefinitely for FDA violations.’

  He looked up at the corner of the building, but the camera he’d contacted Padme with was gone. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, mentally backpedaling. So far, no good on the first leg of his plan to save Bryn. Time to institute the much less desirable back-up plan.

  He was reaching for the ignition when someone rapped on the passenger’s side window. He turned, expecting for some reason to see Padme, but it was Mia. Her hair was pulled back in her customary loose bun and her cheeks were pink from the cold. Her breath left condensation on the dirty glass as she lifted a hand and mimed rolling down the window.

  The truck didn’t have automatic windows, so he leaned over to roll down it down manually.

  “I had a feeling you’d come back here today...” she trailed off after getting a good look at his face. “What happened to your eye?”

  “Nothing. It’s fine.”

  He wanted to ask her if the CDC or XIA shut the blood donation center down, but was conscious that Maddy was listening. The Mad Eye queen still didn’t know for sure who Scott worked for, and he’d prefer to keep it that way.

  “Fine? It looks horrible. Have you seen a doctor?”

  “Yeah, I was just headed there now.” He reached for the ignition again.

  “Oh, no you don’t!” Before he could stop her, she opened the door and jumped in. “No more disappearing acts. The world’s gone nuts and you’re never around when I need you.”

  Scott wanted to get her out of the truck, but found himself asking, “What’s happening?”

  “What’s happening?” She looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “Coney Island? The riots? The
fires? It’s a war zone. Where’ve you been?”

  In the middle of it, he thought. But he said, “Busy.”

  “Well, last I heard, they called out the National Guard. And things are only going to get worse.”

  “How’s that?”

  “That news reporter who did the piece on the typhoid? She got fired and isn’t too happy about it. She’s been screaming conspiracy theory to anyone who’ll listen. Saying the typhoid is killing off non-xenos.”

  He started to respond, but the harsh sound of screeching brakes interrupted him. He turned to look out the driver’s side window and saw that a black Hummer had stopped in the street so close to the truck he wouldn’t have been able to open the door more than a few inches. He couldn’t see through the Hummer’s tinted windows, but he heard a car door slam as someone got out on the far side. In his rear-view mirror, he saw two dark-clothed figures appear at the back of the truck.

  They’d followed him.

  He reached for his weapon before he remembered he didn’t have one. Mia’s door opened abruptly and a semi-automatic rifle was thrust past her into Scott’s face. The second man reached in and grabbed her arm, pulling her roughly from her seat.

  She took a breath to scream, but the man clasped a hand to her mouth and dragged her away. Scott expected a bullet to his head, but the gun-wielding man didn’t fire. He backed away and ran around to the Hummer. Seconds later, the Hummer - and Mia - was gone. No way Scott could catch them in this ancient truck.

  He bent his head towards the microphone hidden under his jacket and shirt. “Maddy,” he said, trying to keep his voice even; trying not to let his fury show. “That was not Padme.”

  It hadn’t been part of Scott’s plan for Maddy’s soldiers to kidnap Padme, but obviously it had been Maddy’s intention all along. She clearly didn’t trust him to get Padme to talk, and thought her methods would be more effective.

  “The woman your moronic soldiers just snatched is named Mia Padilla and she’s completely innocent. She’s a doctor, not an XBestia, not even a xeno. Please let her go.”

  He stopped talking, knowing that Maddy had heard him but had no way to respond back. He sighed. “I’m going now to talk to Padme, the real Padme, to lure her out. If your soldiers show up again, I guarantee I’ll fail. Let me keep my end of the bargain.”

  He only hoped it wasn’t already too late.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Not long after Bryn came to, the door to the dungeon opened, a woman was thrust inside, and the door slammed shut again.

  The woman was a petite Asian with long black, tied-back hair, very pretty and very upset. She’d fallen to her hands and knees, but sprang back up and flung herself at the door, screaming in another language. She threw a full-blown fit, banging on the door with her fists and kicking at it with her boots. When it became obvious that her anger had no effect on her captors, she turned to Bryn and Jason, breathing hard and still ready to fight.

  “Where am I?” she demanded.

  “Edgemere,” Bryn replied.

  The woman looked wildly around the interior of the dungeon before reaching up with both hands to push her disarrayed hair out of her eyes. She focused on Jason then, on the handcuffs and the blood.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “I’m Bryn and this is-”

  “Jason,” he said.

  Bryn glanced down at him, startled that he’d given his real name. She wondered if it meant Maddy knew who he really was - if she’d tortured it out of him when Bryn was unconscious. He hadn’t wanted to talk since she’d awakened, but she’d taken that to mean they still needed to watch what they said. It was possible they’d already beaten it out of him, though; that all the secrets were now out in the open.

  Jason was staring at the woman. “Why are you here?” he asked.

  “Good question.” She turned back to the door, kicked it again, and shouted, “Why am I here?”

  To everyone’s surprise, the door opened. Dillo stood on the threshold. In his right hand, he held an expandable black baton with two metal electrodes protruding from the end. He slapped the narrow end of the baton into his left palm and asked, “Do you know what this is?”

  The woman lifted her chin in defiance, but took a step back.

  “That’s right,” Dillo said. “It’s a couple thousand volts of shut the hell up.”

  “Dillo!” Maddy’s voice was like a chastising mother’s. “I’m sure our guest realizes she’d be better off cooperating with us. No need to threaten.”

  Dillo’s upper lip twitched, but he stepped aside. Maddy had changed her outfit and was now decked out all in black: tights, high-heeled boots, and a long, sequined sweater with a cowl neckline. She took a few steps inside and stopped, biting her lip and looking the woman up and down.

  “Mia, isn’t it? You are so cute.” She wiggled her fingers near her head. “Even with your hair all disheveled like that.”

  “What do you want with me?”

  Maddy made an exaggeratedly contrite face. “You are here...by mistake. Well, sort of. Actually, we thought you were someone else when we...oh, I’m trying and failing to think of a euphemism for kidnapped...but anyway, after Scott so helpfully pointed out you were a doctor, I thought, we’ve already got her, why not keep her? As it happens, we could use a doctor.”

  Bryn had never heard Scott mention anyone named Mia before, doctor or otherwise. The entire scenario was confusing, and from the look on Mia’s face, she didn’t understand it either.

  Mia looked down at Jason. “It seems to me you wouldn’t need a doctor if you didn’t treat people like animals.”

  Maddy laughed. “Oh, not for him! He can rot in his own filth. No, we have rather a lot of sick people that need attending to, but you see, it’s not your run-of-the-mill illness. I had my techs check you out - Dr. Mia Padilla of the Centers for Disease Control - and I thought, who better? Since you’re from the main office in Georgia, I’m guessing the CDC sent you here in the first place to investigate whatever is killing my people. Am I right?”

  Mia wrapped her arms around herself as if she were trying to contain her wits. She looked at Bryn’s quills, Maddy’s eye and Dillo’s shoulders. Jason’s back, with its Gila monster xenograft, was facing away from her, but her eyes lingered on the tattoos covering his arms. After a moment, she said, “Edgemere...is this a community of xenofreaks?”

  “We prefer the politically correct term ‘xeno,’” Maddy said. “But, yes, we are an alternate living facility - a sort of commune, if you will. The xenos among us aren’t sick, though. It’s their children, and the elderly who’ve never been grafted. We’ve already lost several people.”

  “They died? At what hospital?”

  Maddy shook her head. “No hospital.”

  “What morgue?”

  “No morgue.”

  Mia’s eyes widened. “I see. We believe this disease is spread by a carrier; one person who had contact with each of those who contracted it. Would it be possible to identify that person?”

  “He’s been identified and dealt with.”

  Bryn watched Mia’s face, sympathetic to what she must be feeling. It wasn’t easy for a normal person to assimilate all that was Edgemere. Bryn had gone through the same gamut of emotions when she’d been kidnapped by the XBestia, and the lawlessness and brutality of xenofreak society still had the power to shock her.

  “I’ll look at your sick,” Mia said, “but not because you’re threatening me. I’m a doctor; I can’t walk away from someone who needs help. But that also means I can’t walk away from this man.” She gestured to Jason. “Let me help him first.”

  Maddy shot Jason a withering look but said, “Done. What do you need?”

  Chapter Forty

  When Mia told Scott that Coney Island was a war zone, she wasn’t exaggerating. The chaos had spilled over into every neighborhood on the peninsula and authorities had responded by blocking off access to the general public. Police and military presence was ev
erywhere. The streets leading into Coney Island and Brighton beach were blockaded by soldiers. The subway to Coney Island had collapsed after Hurricane Poppy, but the one to Brighton Beach, which normally ran on a limited schedule, had been shut down. People were being allowed out, but not in.

  Scott parked the old truck on a side street two blocks from the nearest barricade. He found an all-purpose wrench in the glove compartment and popped the hood. After disconnecting the grimy battery, he wrestled it out and tucked the heavy block under one arm. Then he started walking. Using the thick smoke in the area as a screen, he traversed alleyways, climbed fences into backyards, and somehow managed to avoid the soldiers.

  Dodging the roving gangs of xenofreaks was another story. The first group he encountered was a threesome, teenage thugs hopped up on testosterone and reveling in the mob mentality. They didn’t see him coming down the alley because they were too busy harassing a family of four; a man, woman and two children, who, from the packs on their backs, appeared to be fleeing from the violence.

  The father had a shotgun pointed at the trio. His wife and kids were backed up against the brick building behind him.

  One of the xenos laughed and said, “I think Daddy woulda shot us by now if he had the guts.”

  “I think Daddy woulda shot us by now if he had enough bullets!” another said.

  The third xeno, a beefy, acne-pocked brute with a shaved, tattooed head and what looked to be bat wings sticking out above his ears, lunged forward in a feint designed to intimidate. The entire family flinched away, but the father said in a thick Russian accent, “I vill shoot!”

  Scott didn’t particularly want to get involved, but even if he didn’t have to pass by on his way through the alley, his sense of fair play wouldn’t let him abandon the family to whatever the xenos had in mind.