by M. Garnet
They looked at the papers of Mr. and Mrs. Average. They examined Beth’s, then walked around the car with mirrors. Beth pretended to keep busy on her computer, and gave a small smile to the guard who stopped at her window. Mr. Average, as the driver, did the smart thing. He opened all the windows to give access to the guards, so that they could look into the vehicle.
They were one of the earliest vehicles waved through. The road was not too busy as all the traffic was being delayed. They drove at the speed limit, making good time going north. She asked no questions but just sat back catching some light sleep, listening to the quiet talk in the front. It seemed that there was some sort of farm in one of the northern central States. That was where everyone was going to meet.
Well, let’s see, Beth thought. Every Shifter was going to some nice farm in Wyoming or one of the Dakota’s, but not Beth. That was the last place she was going to place her little fanny.
They stopped for gas. Marly and Beth went to the lady’s restroom that smelled of commercial antiseptic that still did not cover the odor of urine. Mr. Average pumped the gas and washed the windshield. It was simple. Marly went in for snacks, and Mr. Average went to pay. She slid into the driver’s seat. The keys were still in the ignition with the dinging sound, which stopped when she put on the seat belt. Away we go, no mess no worry. Beth didn’t even look in the rear view to see if they were waving her down.
She had a full tank of gas. She also had a new SUV that probably had a GPS tracking device. She could take it for a while, but then she had to ditch it.
Chapter Nine
The roar shook the white van. They pulled over immediately, out of the traffic. The four of them went to the side door of the van, waiting for the Alpha to speak.
“She is running again.”
“Alpha, you are still healing and there is the meeting. You must attend or there will be an outing.”
* * * *
This was the third time she had returned to the clinic. Beth hoped this time the doctors had some answers for her. She had given them an interesting project. After the first trip in, after the first tests had started coming back, with more people getting involved, she was hoping for some help.
She had told them of a trip to Santiago, Mexico, then into the jungle at the Presa Rodrigo Gomez reserve area. She told them a reasonable, made-up story about being part of a research study. She told them that a large cat had attacked and bitten several of the group, including her. She told them that the animal had gotten away, but couldn’t be identified. She claimed she wanted to make sure she had not gotten rabies or some jungle infection that the cat might have in its blood.
The first doctor took a general look at her bite scar as he took blood samples. He asked her to make an appointment to come back in a couple of weeks.
Surprise! She had received a call two days later, asking her to come to a clinic at a different location. There were several doctors to look at her bite. They also took more blood samples.
Next was a toe to head examination. Some of the exams used a magnification to see if she had any other bites, scratches or puncture areas within her hair, between toes, butt cheeks, behind ears and up the nose. She put up with all of this because she wanted the results of all the tests.
Beth finally decided to take control of things so she drew a stop. She would not submit to any more tests or exams until they told her what they had found so far. She wanted them to answer her questions about it, or if they could, to get rid of it. Could they excise the bite mark?
She came for her next appointment, but when the doctor came in with an assistant to start to take an actual skin sample, she was sitting on the table, still dressed, waiting for them to give her information.
The doctor was startled. “Ms. Perry, is there a problem?”
New identity, new name, she was getting to find it easy to adopt a new persona. Thank goodness she had a great memory.
“Yep. I am a research assistant. I have been in labs in the field. You guys have done a lot to me, yet I haven’t had any information. This is my body. I want some information. Did I get anything? Can it be cured? Do I need to go to CDC or California where they know more?” She waited to see if the threat got her any information.
The doctor hesitated, then mulled over her words as he looked down at the clipboard he was holding.
“Look, let’s step into my office where we will be a little more comfortable. I want to have my partner join us.”
She was shown into a decent size office with the standard wood desk, and lots of leather chairs. The walls were covered with shelves of books instead of diplomas, though there were a bunch of diplomas hanging against each side of the door. That told her they were more interested in what they were doing than what they had done.
After the two doctors sat down with the door closed, one began to speak.
“We want to be honest. Since you have some background, this will be both easier and harder. You don’t have anything in your blood in general, but we find something strange in the serum around the bite area. We don’t know what it is. It seems to be related to feline. We also don’t understand why it does not circulate away from the bite area.”
She thought about this for a while. “Well, what would happen if I excised the area?”
The two doctors looked at each other. “Well, we could do that for you. We would like to have the sample afterwards. This would make a mess out of your breast. It would take a plastic surgeon to rebuild the area to make the breast match the other one. We would do the excision at no cost, but the plastic surgery would be expensive for you.”
“Wow, decisions, decisions. Okay, let me think about all of this. Thanks, I will give you this promise. If I do the excision procedure, I will return here and let you guys have the pleasure.”
She stood up but saw a little bit of panic on the face of one of the doctor’s.
“Look, let me think this over. You have all my information, including my phone so you can contact me. Give me a day or two. At least I can come back and continue the tests.”
This got her out of the clinic. Beth was running from a longer list. She sat in the coffee shop across the street from the clinic to put the doctors off, just in case they had someone looking.
Now, she was running from a Clinic that wanted her flesh, Mr. and Mrs. Average, two guys from some Big Circus, the initial guys from the US Gov, and best of all, the Black Ghost.
She did some planning, as she was traveling on the busy highway in the stolen old car. Stealing an old car was good and bad. There was no GPS for the police to track. The police also didn’t look for junkers on the stolen list, but the downside was that they were older. That meant they were bad on gas plus they broke down without warning.
Well, when she got to Atlanta, she was going to dump this one in an area that would have it either picked clean or taken again within hours. She had on thin leather driving gloves with her hair tucked into a knit cap. Sun glasses finished the disguise, although she had not chosen the items to hide, but to keep her fingerprints along with any DNA off of anything she had to touch in order to move to her new location.
She had thought out lists as she came to her decision. It would be safer to be in the middle of a busy urban area. It was easier to hide from all the alphabet government guys within thousands of faces in plain sight. The Circus guys would be out in the boonies looking under every tent they could find. As for the big cats, well, forests, jungles including the deserts were the place they loved, not the city with vehicles, hard streets and only small parks here and there.
In Atlanta, Beth could lose herself. She would change her identity for a new one. She would find a job in an office with hundreds of other office workers. She could rent a nice room. She could ride the bus to work. She didn’t need a car. She had four thousand dollars in her belt. She had money in the online bank, but she was afraid to touch that. You never know who was watching the Internet.
It took Be
th the first week to get a really good identity that would hold up. She used the time to work on rented computers, sleeping in the car that she moved from place to place. She ate junk food. She had become pretty familiar with the different sides of Atlanta, some good some not so good.
The next week, she found a nice room at the end of a bus line on a quiet street at a house that was in a clean neighborhood. She found some decent clothes in a couple of second hand stores, choosing carefully for office work. She had worked up a couple of references, nothing too extreme, but enough that would hold up to a casual examination. Then it was out to beat the street, looking for work with all the others. She had a lot of computer skills.
It took her another two weeks to get the first job. She was underpaid and overworked. There was no pay past forty hours. Of course, there was work beyond those hours. That was, until she cut loose on the computer.
She had another name, another life, and another time looking over her shoulder. In three months, she had been moved up in the department. In six months, she they sent her to the basement. Oh, she loved the basement.
Here were the temperature-controlled stacks beside the boards, the clean rooms with the noises from outside dampened by the floors that were on raised, spring- protected webbing to eliminate the movement from the outside vehicular traffic.
The geeks spoke a different language, when they spoke at all. Most wore ear-pods connected to the latest smart phone, played dark games on their breaks and ate lunch at their computers. At one time or another, most tried a clumsy pick up, but they were easy to put off. Still, she had to smile at the whispers as they tried to encourage each other to some type of contact with her.
Among them were two IT guys that she did smile enough at, so that they let her get close enough to begin to learn the insides of more than just computers. She followed them through the main frames, through the stacks to combine the power and memory. She was learning about op codes, about i-o ports, and some items, she just couldn’t remember the terms, but she did like the systems.
She didn’t let her anxiety dissipate. No matter how much time passed, she constantly watched for tell tale signs for anyone that didn’t fit the pattern of the life she was leading. Beth was looking for any of the people that might be looking for her.
It finally happened.
She got off the bus that was only two blocks from work on the same side of the street, but she had run out of coffee. At the last minute, she took advantage of the light to hurry across the street to the local shop that had what she thought was the best coffee in Atlanta.
In the reflection of the windows, she saw the black government SUV slam on brakes, then one man jumped out as a couple of horns let out with driver indignity. The SUV turned in the opposite direction. The man hurried, jay walking after her. She went on in to stand in line, then after getting her coffee she turned. She looked directly at the guy. He got real busy looking at the large menu on the wall behind the counter over her head.
He stayed in the coffee shop when she left. The SUV didn’t show up so she took her time crossing over to the other side of the street. Going into the busy doors of her work place, she stepped back, then looked out the windows, watching. They must have taken enough time to pick up the guy, then after a few minutes, the SUV slowly went by, moving with the traffic.
She knew they couldn’t see her through the heavily tinted glass of the lobby, but she stepped further back just in case. She went back to the last elevator that took workers to the bottom two floors.
Each worker in the lower floors had special cards, like credit cards. This not only let you into the proper floor, it opened the locked doors as it registered your hours, acting as a time clock. If you left the building, you were off the clock. If you went to another floor, you swiped the card at that floor. This way, you didn’t have any time deducted. If you forgot, it was a big hassle to report it on your company computer. Then you had a supervisor sign off. You didn’t forget very often.
There were eight exit doors for public use with four additional for the hired help, including service outlets, in this large modern building. Besides the corporation that she worked for, which owned the building, there were many offices leased out to legal firms or other companies doing business in downtown Atlanta. Her card would let her out of any of the doors, although the public doors didn’t require identity swipes except after hours. She always took the front main entrance because it was closest to the bus stops. She could walk a couple of blocks in either direction to find a standard covered bus stop that Atlanta kept clean and up to date with four color posters.
Today, after seeing the government alphabet car, she took a service exit, thinking she would hail a cab.
Everything looked normal—busy sidewalk with office workers heading for home along with a few shoppers. Traffic, heavy on the six-lane street flanked by the wide sidewalk, whizzed past in both directions showing no black SUV’s—well maybe a fancy Cadillac SUV, but not the type used by the government.
The fancy Cadillac Escalade was waiting by the curb, and leaning against the front fender was the big guy. By the back opened door was Noble. It took her a full minute to realize she was not breathing. As she sucked in life-saving air, she looked in both directions.
She heard the deep voice of Noble, even though he was a distance away. “You are not going to make a big guy like Tern chase you down these busy streets? Think of all the people that will look and talk about it later.”
Beth felt the hairs on her arms rise. The heat burn in the lower part of her stomach was agony. His voice always called to her—this was so not fair. Sometimes she thought she might be running from herself as well as running from him. Beth took a deep sigh. She then began, slowly, to walk towards the car. She could outrun the circus guys, she could outsmart the government alphabet guys, bit all she could do was surrender to Noble and his tribe.
It took her fourteen steps to reach the car, and every other step had a shit mentally stamped into the cement with the left foot. The right one had the question, but why? She was grateful that he didn’t touch her, just waited as she slid onto the soft leather and moved across the seat. Then, he ,too stepped in.
Beth was not aware of when the big guy had gotten in the driver’s seat, but the powerful car moved out into the traffic. She did finally know his name, Tern. She sat silently, grateful that Noble was also quiet. She didn’t think, letting herself go numb as the miles flew by. The smooth highway was like a drum on the wheels, the faint noise within the vehicle.
The only disturbance she felt was a pull of lust towards Noble. She needed out of this vehicle, to put a distance between her and the tall, slender man sitting so silently beside her. She refused to look at him. She sure as hell wasn’t going to be the one to speak first.
“Where are we going?” she asked, biting her tongue after the words came out.
She flinched as he turned towards her. It was getting dark out, but in the reflection of the headlights, she could see his eyes. They were golden.
She heard his deep sigh as he turned away. “Don’t worry, we are just taking you somewhere safe.”
She thought about the last safe house that had been safe for about two years. How long would this one be safe?
“Noble, how do you stay safe?” She had often wondered about this as she sat in the basement, carrying out repetitive work. If they chased her with a couple of men, they must chase him with an army.
She was pleased that he turned back towards the front and didn’t look at her as he continued their conversation.
“Beth, we are a lot harder to catch and to hold. Even if they do catch us, half the people guarding us don’t believe what we really are and get careless. No matter where they take us, others of our kind can find us and retrieve us. Some of us have the ability to convince people to do things. Not bad things, just sleep or turn around, see things that aren’t there.”
Beth would not look at him either, but stared out a
t the last of the evening, the dark tree line against the sun finally sinking below the horizon. She had to ask. “Things like sex?”
She felt his eyes on her, but she didn’t turn away from the tinted window. She wished she hadn’t asked the question. “Don’t answer, Noble. I know what happened. I know what I initiated in that cabin. You warned me. I am sorry I even said that.”
She knew his eyes had again moved toward the front. She allowed air into her lungs. That was when the SUV filled with a flash of bright light as she saw the two headlights only long enough to recognize what they were. Then, the Cadillac, solid at it was, was all metal crushing in on her side as the other vehicle slammed into their vehicle..
The noise was now deafening as tires screeched, metal screamed and blaring horns from other cars caught up in the melee. The collision pushed her over against Noble when she actually saw the second set of lights coming in. She had only seconds to wonder why big vehicles were driving at an angle on this highway? The second slam rolled the Cadillac. Her head hit the padded top as her neck bent. She actually heard the crack of her own bones before pain followed by blackness took her.
* * * *
The clinic was on the outskirts of Atlanta, set back with manicured lawns surrounded by hand-trimmed bushes. It was the expensive type where the name was on a small, gold-on-black sign hanging on the brick wall next to the guardhouse. The guards stopped everyone. The visitors had to prove with identification, whether they were doctors, nurses or loved ones.
Besides the unusual guards that the facility provided, Noble had his own staff outside her private room. This facility provided medical service for movie stars and foreign dignities. Anyone who could afford the price, but wanted to remain anonymous, would find this the place to heal. You got what you paid for at this clinic. The best care, the best doctors, and the best equipment.