Bryn licked her own lips, wishing there was another bottle in the bag. Scott reached into the medical kit and took out a gauze pad. He tore open the wrapper and turned to her with it, firmly wiping her cheeks and under her eyes. She thought about the black makeup she’d put on prior to her arrival at Edgemere. It must have smeared something awful the way Scott was going at it.
He looked into her eyes. “It’s almost over.”
She nodded. She wanted to talk, but the noise of the rotors made it difficult. Not to mention, she was having difficulty thinking straight. Thirst, hunger, exhaustion and stress hadn’t exactly nourished her brain.
When Mia had coaxed Jason into drinking as much water as he would take, the bottle was still three-quarters full. She held it up to Bryn and said, “You want the rest?”
“I’ll split it with you.”
“No,” Mia said. “I’ll wait.”
Bryn guzzled it down, thinking that now they were on their way back to civilization, Mia’s tendency towards germophobia was reasserting itself. Although she did notice Mia hadn’t bothered to search the medical kit for latex gloves and in fact, kept a comforting hand on Jason’s naked arm at all times. She’d definitely formed a bond with her patient. Maybe it had something to do with attending the deathbeds of so many of Maddy’s people last night. She couldn’t save them, but seemed determined Jason would be another story.
The pilot kept her word and got them to a field adjacent to the nearest hospital in three minutes, faster than the ambulance, as it turned out. The rotors had almost stopped spinning by the time it showed up.
“’Bout time you got here!” Mia said as the paramedics wheeled the stretcher up to the doorway.
“Lady,” one of them replied, “do you have any idea how busy we are? It’s a nightmare out there. Damned xenofreaks.”
Scott stepped forward and said deliberately, “Here. Let me give you a hand with that.”
The paramedic who’d spoken caught sight of Scott’s xenoalterations and recoiled. “Jeez, you guys are everywhere.”
“Mister,” Mia spat, “The injured man is a federal agent. If he dies because you hesitated to treat him, I will personally see to it you never work in the medical field again. Got that?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the paramedic muttered. He wisely kept his opinions to himself after that.
Mia insisted on riding in the ambulance with Jason, claiming to be his personal physician, which Bryn figured was technically true enough.
There was no fanfare for the rest of them. They had to walk. It was cold out, and the air in this part of Brooklyn was hazy and smelled of smoke. Scott introduced Boardman, who said, “Hey,” and Lo, who said, “I had no idea you were that Bryn.”
Once they entered the hospital and got in line at the front desk, Bryn asked meekly, “Do any of you have any change? I haven’t eaten in...I can’t remember how long.”
Scott patted himself down and grimaced apologetically. “I think all I have is, um, really big bills.”
Lo held out a twenty and Bryn excused herself to hit up the snack machine down the hall, but the oddest thing happened when she tried to choose something: nothing looked good. The thought of eating anything at all made her mouth water like she was going to throw up. She stared at the selection, suddenly conscious that half an hour ago she’d thought she was going to die. Had seen a man die. The soldier with Dillo had never gotten back up. Had Maddy left him there, or had they taken the time to bury him next to the graves she’d spotted when the helicopter first lifted off?
She shook herself out of her reverie when she realized she was staring at the snacks, but not seeing anything at all. Her gaze focused on the glass front, at her own reflection. It was no mirror, but she could tell she looked like hell despite Scott’s ministrations. Behind her, a dark shape with looming shoulders materialized. She froze in fright and then when a hand reached out for her, uttered a little shriek and flinched away.
“Bryn! Hey.”
It was Scott, of course. Not Dillo, as her imagination had conjured.
“You okay?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No. No, not really.”
Chapter Sixty
Scott took the twenty-dollar bill out of Bryn’s limp hand and put it into the machine. She had such a brittle look about her that he didn’t ask what she wanted; just chose his favorites. When he opened the package of coconut cream Nom-Nom cakes and held one under her nose, a spark of interest appeared. She reached up and stuffed it into her mouth.
“Good, huh?” he asked. “My mom used to put those in my lunch every day. The preservatives keep ‘em fresh for like a hundred years, but I think they add something special, don’t you?”
He got her a carton of vanilla biomilk to go along with it and watched as she lustily drank half of it and then consumed the other cake.
“I like a girl who’s not afraid to eat,” he said, grinning.
“They starved me!” She socked him in the shoulder, and when he winced, said, “Oh, I’m sorry! You...they...was it a lie? Padme said...did you get shot?”
“Reports of my death have been greatly-”
He didn’t finish. Couldn’t, because Bryn was kissing him. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, ignoring the pain in his back. She tasted like coconut and he didn’t even care that her quills were poking him in the forehead. After a few minutes, she pulled away and said, “Don’t ever die again, okay?”
“I’ll try not to.”
He was about to go in for another kiss, but heard someone behind him clear their throat. Without looking, he said, “What?”
Lo responded, “Shasta’s on her way.”
With a deep sigh, he dropped his arms, but took Bryn’s hand. “Better go pay the piper.”
Chapter Sixty-one
When Shasta arrived, Bryn expected to be left alone while she debriefed her agents, but that didn’t happen. Shasta commandeered an isolated section of the waiting room and included both Bryn and Mia in the conversation. Everyone was seated except Shasta, who stood in front of the five of them like she was conducting an orchestra, firing off questions and pointing at the person who should answer.
Only when a chronological depiction of events had been thoroughly laid out for her did she sit in a chair across from them, shaking her head.
“I would love to take the time to analyze every nuance here, but I can’t. Not to downplay the significance of,” she waved her hand in a wide, all-encompassing gesture, “everything that’s happened, but there is a major crisis going on. I just spent the last several hours with Deputy Director Unger and the mayor in a holo conference with the Secretary of Defense. The biggest factor influencing the riots at the moment is, of course, social media. It’s been flooded with inflammatory speculation about the typhoid, which we need to counter with facts as soon as possible.”
Her laser gaze pinned Mia to her chair. “First and foremost, Dr. Padilla, how does this thing spread? Is it or is it not air-borne?”
“Oddly enough, my experience at Edgemere has shaken my confidence in my previous conclusions about that. However, I can’t make the call with any certainty at this point. If we had the body of the carrier, I’m sure we could confirm or debunk it once and for all.”
Bryn and Scott spoke at the same time. “I saw something-” and “There were mounds-”
He deferred to her, saying, “You go ahead.”
“You saw it, too, didn’t you? The graves?”
He nodded. “It sure looked like graves to me.”
He told Shasta about spotting the disturbed earth from the helicopter.
“I saw it,” Lo said. “Almost put the helicopter down there because the ground had been cleared.”
“That’s great news,” Mia said. “I mean, not about - not because they all died, but it would be great if we can exhume Robert Cruise’s body.” She looked at Shasta. “How fast can I get a team out there?”
“Immediately,” Shasta said, springing up out of her
chair. “In fact, sooner if I have anything to say about it.
“As for you,” she indicated everyone but Mia. “Go home and get some rest. That’s not a suggestion. It’s hitting the fan today, and tomorrow I predict we’ll all be knee deep and armed with teaspoons.”
“Even me?” Bryn asked.
Shasta made a faintly sardonic face. “Well, I’m not going to deputize you or anything, but yes, it would be nice if the XIA could count on your cooperation.”
Bryn wasn’t sure how to feel about that, but nodded.
“Dr. Padilla, shall we?” Shasta asked.
“I need to check on Jason, I mean Agent Alton, first.”
Shasta dipped her head in agreement. “Of course.”
With Shasta gone from the vicinity, Bryn felt a distinct lightening of the atmosphere.
Boardman let out a relieved exhale, like he’d been holding his breath the entire time. “Why do I have the feeling we did exactly what she wanted us to do?”
“I know,” Lo said. “I expected her to yell at us. Or at least mention that we went over to the rogue side.”
Scott stood. “That could still happen once things settle down. In fact, you might as well just count on it. Shasta never forgets.”
Chapter Sixty-two
If Scott were a writer, he’d put together a treatise on the restorative powers of a hot shower. Bryn had gone first, and while she was using up most of the hot water, he changed the sheets on his bed. Not because he anticipated using it for anything but sleeping, but because he wanted her to feel as clean as possible after all she’d been through.
It had been a simple matter of asking to get her to agree to stay with him. Getting to his apartment had been a chore all unto itself, though. First, they’d checked on Alton. His lung, as Mia had suspected, had collapsed, but his doctor said he’d be fine.
Lo had then flown them back to the helipad before driving them to the parking structure where he’d left the old truck. That polluting eyesore had turned out to belong to Alton, not to his surprise. He’d had to drop it off at headquarters to retrieve his motorcycle. Luckily, he always carried Bryn’s helmet with him. They would have stopped to pick up fast food, but everything was closed as the city braced itself for more violence.
After he made the bed, he called Carla and gave her a brief, highly-censored account of events. She wasn’t able to bring over Bryn’s car or any of her things because she didn’t have a driver’s license and city bus services had been temporarily suspended due to the unrest.
When Bryn, cheeks pink either from the shower or embarrassment or both, appeared in the doorway of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, he told her to help herself to anything in his dresser that fit.
He went in to the bathroom and saw her dirty clothes in a pile on the floor. Her shoes were in the metal basket he used as a trash can. They had faintly glowing greenish residue on the soles and smelled like rotten eggs.
Thanks to the lukewarm, but still refreshing water, he was forced to shower quickly. He reached back and used his claws to peel off the dressings from the shallow, stitched-up gunshot wounds and rinsed away the unpleasant scent of antiseptic.
After he dressed in loose cotton pants and a t-shirt, he went out into the living room. It smelled like food.
He found her in the kitchen, wearing a baggy t-shirt and his oldest, most threadbare pair of sweat pants, devouring a bowl of ramen.
“I don’t know how long that’s been in the cupboard,” he said.
“Well, it was the only thing in the cupboard, so I helped myself. I hope you don’t mind.”
“You can have anything you want.”
She took a breath and laughed a little. “A week’s worth of sleep?”
Outside, an emergency vehicle went by with siren blaring. “You can try.”
Later, he lay down with her. Her quills made snuggling a challenge, but they made do.
He had something on his mind, but didn’t know how to broach it; wasn’t, in fact, sure he even should broach it. But it felt like an invisible barrier between them.
“I, um...I did something pretty lousy,” he finally said, thinking about how he’d led Padme on.
She blinked at him, her green eyes sleepy. “I doubt that.”
“No, really. It’s about Padme.”
“I heard her say she loved you. Did you sleep with her?”
“No! Did you sleep with Alton?”
“What?”
She didn’t deny it, and worse; she looked away, a reflex that only made her look guilty. He suffered through a rising tide of jealousy, fighting to maintain common sense. If Bryn had slept with Alton, he told himself, it was just another sin to lay at Padme’s door.
Bryn put her hand to his cheek and said, “I didn’t. I wouldn’t. I’m not interested in him. Please believe me.”
He turned his head and kissed her palm. “Didn’t Padme..?” he started to ask about the pleasure, but left it hanging.
Her eyes closed tightly for a moment. “She did, but...it ended before anything too bad could happen.”
He almost pushed it, almost asked her to clarify what she meant by ‘too bad,’ but he realized it didn’t matter.
“I’m glad.”
She nodded, the movement of her head scratching her quills across the fabric of the pillowcase.
“Sorry in advance about your pillow,” she said, her eyelids drooping.
“Don’t you worry about no stinkin’ pillow.”
Her lips curved in a faint smile that faded as she slipped into slumber.
Very quietly, so he wouldn’t disturb her, he said, “I love you.”
The end.
Xenofreak Nation
Book Three: XIA
by Melissa Conway
Chapter One
Wailing sirens and mysterious booming, banging and popping noises woke Bryn throughout the night, but only briefly. The frightening sounds of unrest spreading across New York City seemed too far away to fully jolt her from her much-needed slumber.
Until a woman screamed.
Bryn sat up in Scott’s bed and looked to the window as shrieks echoed up from the street. The blinds were closed, but a faint orange glow flickered along the wall between the top of the window and the ceiling.
She reached for Scott, but he was gone. It was still dark, but something told her morning was near. After struggling from under the tangled bedcovers, she went to the window, pinching one of the slats and lifting it to peer into the night. Outside Scott’s fourth-floor apartment, across the gap provided by a narrow two-lane road, was the beige brick facade of another apartment building. It would have been an unremarkable view if it weren’t for the black smoke pouring from two shattered windows on the second floor, and the flames that boiled out in great rolling waves.
The screaming had stopped and Bryn listened for sirens that didn’t come. It was chilly by the window, and there were droplets on the glass. She looked down at the wet black street and saw a group of people gathered near the intersection under a streetlamp. Someone had climbed one of the bare-branched old trees lining the sidewalk and was straddling the thickest branch. At first, she thought they were merely bystanders watching the conflagration grow, but then, quite inexplicably, one of them rose up into the air directly beneath the tree, his legs kicking out spasmodically.
The screaming began again, accompanied by shouts. Horrified, Bryn’s breath caught in her throat. She could see them now, the six men hauling on the length of rope strung over the tree branch, like tug of war contestants at a picnic. A woman, probably the one doing the screaming, was punching and kicking at them ineffectually. The crowd was an old-fashioned lynch mob, and the man whose neck was in the noose was slowly strangling to death.
With no warning, a shot rang out, and the hanging man dropped to the ground, somehow landing on his feet. Bryn couldn’t see well enough from her vantage point to tell whether the rope had been severed by the bullet or if the men had released it. The woman shoved her way through
the crowd and no one stopped her. Bryn realized why when Scott appeared from the shadows, bearing down on the crowd, gun arm extended out in front of him.
“Oh, no...” she murmured.
There were at least twenty riled up people out there, all facing one man with a gun. Bryn heard raised voices, but couldn’t make out what anyone was saying.
Her attention was briefly pulled back to the fire as a dull concussive blast rained glass onto the empty street below. The flames had spread to another apartment and several more windows had blown out from the explosion.
Was that a siren? She hoped so. Maybe the mob would disperse if they thought reinforcements were coming.
But they didn’t look like they were leaving, and in a flash, it occurred to her why. The man they’d tried to hang was a xenofreak - but so was Scott. He would tell them he was a cop, but they would see his xenoalterations and wouldn’t believe him. They were functioning under the influence of a powerful cocktail of fear and anger, and as Scott continued to hold them off without firing, they were gaining confidence. He couldn’t possibly shoot them all.
Bryn stepped back from the window and looked desperately around the room. Her holophone was long gone, and Scott’s was missing from the bedside table. She ran into the living room, switched on the overhead light, and went straight for the closet by the door. Earlier, he’d removed his bulletproof vest and hung it there, and she’d watched while he emptied his pockets of bullet clips and miscellaneous gear. He’d hung his gun in its holster on a hook. That was no longer there, but she’d also seen him unfasten an ankle holster and place it on the top shelf.
She stood on her tiptoes and felt around for it, encountering an object with her fingers. She nudged it off the shelf and caught it as it fell. It was a small caliber pistol, much like the one Carla had owned and Bryn had never learned to shoot. She knew enough to tell that the little gun was loaded, though, and she took a few precious seconds to hold the gun up to the light to check that the safety wasn’t on.
Xenofreak Nation, Book Two: Mad Eye Page 23