“Oh, I do have to leave, and although the XIA is certainly a factor, it’s not the only reason. Fournier is going to attempt to retrieve his former asset,” she held a hand out behind her and Padme clasped it, “plus, my father will be furious. I have been an embarrassment to him for far too long for him to suffer my existence once he finds out what I’ve done.”
“We can protect you from him.”
Maddy laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous, it doesn’t suit you.”
“How can you just walk away from Edgemere? You count on your people and they count on you.”
Even to Bryn, Jason was beginning to sound desperate.
“You’re right, they do. And I will miss them. Who do you think built this place? I did. Not just this community, but the mall itself. And then that hurricane came along and all I had left was a ruined husk. The insurance company went bankrupt rather than pay out my claim and the monthly allowance my father deigned to send me wouldn’t even cover the taxes on the land, so I was forced to find other ways to supplement my income. But I did it. My mushrooms have been quite fruitful, and that’s not a pun since mushrooms are a fungi. Anyway, I’ll be fine on my own and my people are just as self-sufficient. They’ll find somewhere else to live.”
“What’s left of them,” Jason muttered.
“What?” she asked, indignant. “Are you insinuating that I’m at fault for the massacre at Coney Island? Because I seem to recall that somehow the XBestia knew we were coming. And a certain federal agent had just snuck away to make a phone call to his handler.” She thrust her chin forward pugnaciously. “You know what? I lied. I am going to kill you. As soon as we leave, I plan on turning off the pilot lights to the heating system and letting the methane from the bioluminescent bacteria flood the place. You would have gone peacefully to sleep, but you had to upset me and now you know.”
“Actually, methane poisoning makes you sick,” Jason said.
It was clear to Bryn that he was just stalling now - saying anything he could think of to prevent Maddy from leaving, or maybe even to provoke her into doing something that would give him an advantage. Dillo must have come to the same conclusion, because he pulled Jason’s gun from its holster and fired point-blank at Jason’s chest.
Jason collapsed to the floor as Mia screamed.
To Bryn, it felt like déjà vu, especially when Dillo laughed heartily and said, “I love these plastic bullets.”
Maddy shook her head at him. “You’re incorrigible.”
The door swung shut with a resounding finality.
Chapter Fifty
Scott ate every bite of the bland hospital breakfast, wishing there was more. The pain medication he’d been given was strong, but he was too antsy to relax and enjoy it. Despite Shasta’s assurances that Maddy wouldn’t hurt Bryn, and her confidence that Alton’s ‘ace in the hole’ would give him leverage, he wasn’t convinced. He was just thinking about pushing the call button and asking for more food when two figures appeared in the doorway.
“Ahoy, Matey,” said Lo. She was dressed in street clothes, but Boardman, standing next to her on crutches, wore a hospital gown.
Scott put a hand up to his eye patch and grinned. “Oh, you like that? Arrr.”
“Hey, Boss.” Boardman lifted his fingers from the grip of his crutch. “I hear you took four bullets to my one.”
“Five if you count this.” Scott gestured to the eye patch.
“I could have told you he was an overachiever,” Lo said.
Scott waved them in. “Come on in, have a seat. I’d offer you a beer, but...”
Boardman sat in the one side chair and Lo stood by the bed. The levity faded as she patted his knee and said, “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“So what happened?” Boardman asked.
Scott gave them a similar version of what he’d told Shasta. Lo and Boardman took turns dissecting the op from their points of view. Then they told him that despite the blockades, the rioting had spread upward from Coney Island to some of the worst neighborhoods in Brooklyn. Once rumor of the deadly sickness originating with xenos had spread, the tide of violence turned. There were reports of non-xeno vigilante groups attacking anyone known to have a xenograft. Entire apartment complexes in the troubled neighborhood of Brownsville had been burned to the ground.
“The mayor declared a state of emergency,” Boardman said. “I can’t believe you went back to Coney Island and survived.”
“I can’t believe I shot at another agent,” Lo said, grimacing.
Boardman lifted a crutch and poked her in the thigh with it. “You had no way of knowing.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t feel right just leaving him at Edgemere. I sure hope Shasta’s right.”
A voice came from the hallway. “Is she here?”
Lo turned, and Scott leaned to one side to see past her, wincing at the pain. An elderly woman, white hair hanging forward in two braids, said, “Shasta. They told me. This hospital.”
“You just missed her,” Boardman said.
The woman came into the room uninvited. As she got closer, Scott noticed her clothes were dirty and her braids mussed as if she’d slept on them. When she pointed at him and said, “You was there. Esmie saw. Now we all got kicked out,” his first instinct was to hit the call button and tell the nurse someone had escaped from the psych ward.
But Esmie, if that was this woman’s name, had said someone told her Shasta was here. That kind of information wasn’t given out lightly. Of course, the old woman could have simply been listening at the door and overheard Shasta’s name, but he didn’t think so.
“Kicked out of where?” he asked.
“Edgemere. The queen abdicated her throne.”
In an obvious effort to humor her, Lo said, “Okay. We’ll tell Shasta you stopped by.”
Esmie shook her head. “Esmie is Shasta’s eyes and ears.”
Lo put her hand on Esmie’s shoulder and tried to steer her towards the door, but Scott said, “Wait. Are you Shasta’s informant?”
Esmie smiled toothlessly. “Yes.”
He thought about what she’d said. “The queen is leaving Edgemere?”
She nodded. “No more Mad Eye.”
“And everyone’s gone?”
“Maybe by now.”
Scott looked at Boardman and Lo, alarmed. “Why would Maddy bail if she made a deal with Alton?”
“She took Padme, right? She’s probably gonna hunker down somewhere Fournier can’t find her,” Boardman said.
“Then where’s Alton?”
“Probably hasn’t checked in yet. You did have his truck,” Lo said.
“Bryn would have called me the minute she was freed,” Scott said, but he wasn’t so sure.
“The Bryn is still in the dungeon, and Dragila, and the China doll.”
“Are they alive?” Scott asked, bracing himself for the answer.
“That’s what Esmie needs to tell Shasta,” she said, shaking her head. “Not for long.”
Chapter Fifty-one
Instead of getting up and shaking it off like he had on the yacht, Jason lay flat on his back breathing shallowly, his features twisted in agony. Whether coincidental or deliberate, Dillo had hit him almost directly over the black circular bruise left when the plastic bullet had hit him last time. Mia knelt over him and, after only slight hesitation, placed her ear against his chest.
“Can you take a deep breath?” she asked.
“Ah...don’t want to.”
“Try.”
Bryn bit down on a thumbnail as she watched his chest rise and fall.
“Again,” Mia said.
“You’re not...nice,” Jason said, but he took another breath.
“There’s adequate breath sounds, but I’m worried your rib may have splintered and perforated the lung.” She looked up at Bryn. “We need to get him to the emergency room. If his lung collapses he could die very quickly.”
Bryn said, “Were you not listening? We’re not going anywhere.”
She
looked around the dungeon. If Edgemere had really been abandoned, then Maddy’s techs were no longer watching them. To test that theory, she went over to the door and began examining it. Because of the curved sides of the pipe, it wasn’t so much a door as a hole cut in the shape of a door, with the cut out piece remounted. A huge biopolycrete drainage pipe like this one had to be manufactured with thick walls, so the hole had been widened enough so the ‘door’ would swing outward on its one heavy-duty hinge. Still, the crack wasn’t quite wide enough for Bryn to fit her fingers into. The pin side of the hinge and the door handle were on the exterior, with no hardware evident on the inside. Bryn could see the door latch in the crack, but couldn’t reach it.
She remembered reading about biopolycrete in grade school. After the widespread flooding caused by Poppy in 2020, much of New York’s older sewage infrastructure had needed to be replaced and the relatively new, eco-friendly compound had come into fashion. While much lighter than concrete, biopolycrete was still very dense, but at the same time tougher and more flexible. Even if she had a sledgehammer, she didn’t think she’d be able to break through.
And yet, the door was the only way out.
Chapter Fifty-two
After Esmie left, Lo attempted to call Shasta, but got her holomail. She put her phone away and said to Scott, “Shasta asked you not to leave the hospital, but it wasn’t an order, right?”
“She said it like it would be a favor to her if I stayed put.”
“So, theoretically,” Boardman said, “if you were to, say, take a drive to the beach for some target practice, that wouldn’t be a problem, would it?”
“Theoretically,” Lo said, “driving would be a problem. People are evacuating. The roads in that direction are impassible.”
Scott pulled the tape off his IV and slid the needle out of his vein. “We don’t have time to pretend to discuss this theoretically. Are you with me?”
Lo’s cheek bulged out a little as she pushed on it with her tongue. “We won’t have access to the weapons room. What do you guys got at home?”
Boardman shrugged. “Two pistols, a shotgun and a crossbow.”
“Mad Eyes got my gun,” Scott said. “Besides, we don’t have time to run all over town arming ourselves. We need a one-stop shop.”
He looked around the room and saw a wide door that looked like a handicap-access bathroom and another, narrower door. “Is that a closet? Are my clothes in there?”
Lo opened the door and said, “Looks like just your pants and shoes. Shirt and jacket’s probably in an evidence bag somewhere.”
“Toss me the pants,” Scott said.
She did, and as soon as he caught them, the weight told him the bag of money had been overlooked. He pulled it out and handed it to Lo. As he put on his pants, ignoring the pain in his back, she unzipped the bag and whistled.
“That’ll buy us an armory,” Boardman said. Scott was gratified that he didn’t point out the obvious: the money should have been in an evidence bag somewhere, too.
“You know what else it’ll buy?” Lo asked. “A fast way to get us in and out.”
Boardman stood and reached for his crutches. “My girlfriend brought me some clothes last night. I think there’s an extra shirt I can lend you.”
Once the decision had been made, they came up with a plan and moved quickly. Lo drove them in her personal vehicle, a restored 1974 Mustang II. The hazy air smelled like smoke and some areas were so thick with it visibility was limited. Twice on the short drive they had to pull over for fire trucks.
Their first destination was the gun shop, owned by Bernard ‘Bud’ Greenberg. Boardman and Lo went up to the counter, identified themselves as federal agents and held their hands under the government-issue holoscanner so Bud could verify their identities and permits to carry. He looked at Scott, who held up his hands. “No prints.”
Bud frowned, said, “That’s too bad,” and turned to Boardman and Lo. “What can I help you with?”
As Lo fired off a list of weapons, holsters, vests, jackets and ammo, Bud walked around the store unlocking cabinets and drawers and pulling it all out. It was obvious from Scott’s input that some of the items were intended for him, but Bud didn’t concern himself - and he didn’t even blink when they used the cash to buy everything. He only said, “Getting pretty ugly out there, isn’t it?”
Back in the car, they changed into the vests, strapped on the holsters and loaded their new weapons. Lo made one call to her friend Tad Munson, and within a surprisingly short amount of time had finagled them a helicopter. From the gun shop, they didn’t have far to drive.
“You’re a rock star, did you know that?” Scott asked as they got out of the car at the heliport.
“It’s been said,” she replied.
Munson met them on the helipad dressed in a blue coverall with a patch over the left breast that said Munson Helicopter Company. He squinted at Boardman’s crutches and Scott’s eye patch. Scott kept his hands in the pockets of his new jacket and noticed Boardman did, too. In the current climate of xeno paranoia, he figured it would be best to keep his alterations hidden even though as Lo’s friend, Munson would know she had one.
Munson walked them to a sleek black aircraft with decorative red pinstripes and a corporate logo Scott didn’t recognize.
“Just added her to the inventory last week from a company that went out of business.” He patted Lo on the back and exclaimed, “Is that a - are you packing? Damn it, Tina, don’t even bother bringing her back if she’s got even one bullet hole in her. You might as well fly straight on down to Mexico.”
Lo offered him a cheeky grin, “You’re such a worry-wart, Tad. Have I ever let you down?”
“Multiple times! You know, you only get a limited number of favors for saving a person’s life.”
Scott heard a definite note of affection under Tad’s blustering.
Lo handed him a wad of bills and retorted, “It doesn’t count as a favor when it’s this lucrative.”
“Yeah...just be careful. Don’t get killed or anything.”
Within ten minutes, Lo had gone through her checklist, warmed up the helicopter, and eased them into the sky.
Chapter Fifty-three
The formerly bright portable light had gotten dim. Any second now Bryn expected its batteries to die completely and leave them in the dark to await their fate. She’d already partially dissected it, breaking off a chunk of its plastic housing and slipping it into the door crack to poke at the latch unsuccessfully.
Since then she’d been pacing the pipe lengthwise until Mia asked her to stop stomping past Jason’s head, then she sat for a while before popping back up and pacing the width of the pipe. It only took her four steps to get from one side to the other, but after a few turns, she noticed something.
“The pipe is moving, can you feel it?”
Jason lifted himself up on his elbow, ignoring Mia’s protest and said, “Yes.”
Bryn looked at his bruised and swollen face and smiled. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Only if it involves breaking the hell out of here.”
She put her hands on her hips. “It does. Can you walk? Because we’ll need your weight.”
“Walking won’t do it. We’ll have to move fast.”
“What are you talking about?” Mia asked.
“If we can roll the pipe,” Bryn replied, “we might be able to crush the door handle on the outside.”
She picked up the portable light. It was heavy. If they did manage to get the pipe to roll, she didn’t want it careening around in here. She carried it to the far wall and tried to wedge one of the handles behind the railing Jason and Junk had been handcuffed to.
“No, wait,” Jason said. He’d managed to get to his feet, but didn’t look too steady. “Hang onto that. We need all the weight we can get.”
“Okay, and I think we should concentrate on this side.” She gestured to the side of the pipe with the railing. “We got to hit it at the sa
me time.”
“Synchronized,” Mia said. “Got it.”
Bryn stood on one side of Jason and Mia on the other. She wrapped her arms around the light. “Ready? Go!”
It took them a while to get a good rhythm going, but soon they had it down, their footsteps clanging on the metal flooring. Bryn could feel the pipe moving each time they hit the wall, but it was slight and they couldn’t seem to get enough momentum going. The cinder blocks that had been pushed up against the outside edges were doing their job.
Jason was tiring rapidly and Bryn was getting desperate. This had to work. If it didn’t, they would die. She was scared, hungry, thirsty and had to go to the bathroom, but she mentally pushed all that aside and attacked the wall with renewed energy. “Come on! Let’s move this monster!”
After a few more passes she sensed Jason had almost reached his limit. Gritting her teeth, she took three steps back, let out a wordless battle cry and leaped up onto the railing.
The pipe moved with a jerk, just enough to tell them they were on the right track. Grinning wildly, she jumped back down. Jason bent almost double and raised one of his hands. “Break please,” he gasped.
He sat on one of the mats, head bent forward while Mia pressed her ear to his back to listen to his labored breathing. Bryn briefly worried that Mia would accidentally touch his xenograft, but she seemed to be avoiding it.
“Has the pain gotten worse?” Mia asked.
“I don’t think that’s possible,” Jason replied.
Mia shot Bryn a troubled look. “I guess your torturer would be proud to hear that.”
“I’m alright.” He struggled to a standing position, but his head still hung forward. In a weak imitation of his usual self, he said, “Let’s roll.”
Bryn knew her voice lacked enthusiasm, but she said, “That’s the spirit. I think we should try something different. What if we all climbed up on the railing?”
“Will it hold us?” Mia asked.
“If it doesn’t we’ll come up with something else.”
Xenofreak Nation, Book Two: Mad Eye Page 21