by Hines
He looked at the dark windows of the fourth floor, put his hand against the iron fire escape Lucas had used not so very long before.
Iron. Like steel. Like the room he could still feel, still smell and taste, all these years later.
Lucas had locked himself inside rooms as well, hadn’t he? Kept himself isolated. And now it was time to throw open the doors, expose Lucas to the Great Wide World beyond.
He had big plans, very big plans, for this Lucas.
Swarm felt the wasp working its way down his face, across his cheek. He opened his mouth, stood unmoving as he felt the thin legs of the wasp make their way onto his lips and across his teeth.
When he felt the wasp on his tongue, he closed his mouth over it, feeling its panic as it desperately injected its stinger into the soft pink flesh of his tongue again and again.
He savored the wet taste of its fear before beginning to chew, crushing it between his molars.
And as he chewed, overhead, he already felt another wasp join the endless cloud that followed him.
TWENTY-TWO
UNDER THE HAZY TWILIGHT OF EARLY MORNING, LUCAS WALKED INTO A homeless shelter on the north side of DC.
He needed new clothes. But more than that, he needed new everything. Someone had found him (it was me, I found myself), and he was sure he knew both who and how.
The who was Saul. The how was something he currently carried. Maybe his clothes, maybe something in his backpack, maybe the backpack itself. Surely a bug had been planted somewhere on him during his meeting with Saul. It made perfect sense. Which meant it was time to be reborn. Time to change every article he was wearing, donate every item he was carrying, and replace it all.
The clothing was easy; he was happy to pick out donated items from the shelter, and he regularly carried an extra set of clothes with him in his backpack.
The backpack and its contents would be more difficult. He had several stashes of cash all across the city, so money wouldn’t be a problem.
At least, not an immediate problem; sometime soon, he’d have to start working again. Or panhandling.
He would have to make several stops, though: a sporting goods store for rope, utility knife, and flashlight; a hardware store for duct tape, drill, and other tools . . .
He sighed. No choice.
At least he could donate all his current items, make sure they went to someone else.
Before turning in the backpack, Lucas went through it and retrieved a few items he had to take with him. First, tapes of everything he’d recorded from Donavan’s files, as well as Dilbert’s footage. He’d buy new DVDs and make copies at The LiveWire café, then ditch the tapes in an alley trash can somewhere. Second, the remaining two geopatches he’d lifted from Donavan’s; they might come in handy again.
He put the tapes and geopatches aside, and thought of what he’d been forced to leave behind. The mementos—the photos, scraps of clothing, and knickknacks that kept the Dark Vibration inside under control—were gone now. Certainly for the foreseeable future. Maybe forever. He’d have to leave them where they were, forever entombed above Dandy Don’s Donuts.
He shook the last few items out of his backpack and noticed a small piece of paper flutter to the table where he stood. He picked it up, recognizing it as Sarea’s phone number.
He hadn’t talked to her for—well, it had only been a matter of days, but already it felt like several lifetimes. He felt an overwhelming urge to hear her voice. Something warm and comforting and familiar. Especially now that he had given up his totems.
He clenched the slip of paper in his hand and went to get a couple fresh changes of clothing. It would take a couple of hours to replace everything, and then he would call Sarea.
“HELLO?”
Her voice sounded warm, comfortable, familiar, and just the sound of her saying one word made tears well in his eyes.
What kind of reaction was this? Certainly nothing he’d expected. He sucked in a breath, switched the new TracFone to his other ear. “Hey, Sarea.”
“Lucas.” She spoke his name as if she’d been expecting his call.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m on shift,” she said. “Pretty light right now, though. I’m gonna walk into the back so I can talk.”
“Okay.” He waited a few seconds, listening to her breathe as she walked, kitchen sounds filtering by. Then, abruptly, he spoke again without thinking. “It’s good to hear your voice,” he said. “Really good.”
She laughed. “You act like it’s been years since we talked,” she said. “It’s been—what?—three days maybe.”
“Let’s just say it’s been a long three days,” he answered.
“Okay,” she said. “I’m back here by the old Hobart now. We both know it’ll be quiet—Briggs is on.”
“Piling ’em up for the next shift, huh?”
“Yeah. And the new kid can barely make it to the bathroom by himself.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s like you got . . . I don’t know. A get-out-of-jail-free card or something. Some of us, we been here for years. So when someone goes on to a better place, that’s good.”
“What makes you think I’m in a better place?”
“Just an expression. You in trouble? You need help?”
“I don’t know what I’m in,” he said. “But I already feel better talking to you.”
He heard a quick breath from her on the other end of the line. “Good to hear your voice too. I’m glad you didn’t decide to just disappear on me.”
“Yeah, well, it wasn’t you I was trying to disappear from.”
“You sure you’re okay?”
“I am now.”
“Listen,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “There’s been guys coming in here. Looking for you. Not just that first guy.”
Probably not a surprise. “What do they look like?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Different guys. Three or four of ’em.”
“Anyone . . . look like me?”
“What? No. No, not at all.”
Lucas breathed a sigh of relief. He half expected to hear that the . . . thing . . . chasing him, the thing wearing his face, was out there. Wandering the streets. Living his life.
After all, he hadn’t done a very good job of living it, had he?
“What can you remember about them?”
“Well, I’ve seen four of them, now that I think about it. Two were white, and they came in alone. But two came together, and they were Asian, I guess.”
He held his breath. “Asian? Like maybe Chinese?”
“Chinese? Yeah, sure, I suppose.”
Lucas nodded to himself. Guoanbu. Sending agents after him. Evidently Saul was pulling in reinforcements.
“How many people do you have after you, Lucas?” she asked.
“I’m losing count.”
“So let me help.”
“That would be a bad idea. A very bad idea.”
“Why?”
“All these people after me, for one. And you haven’t even met the most charming ones.”
“Well, Lucas, there’s a problem with guys who try to solve everything alone.”
“What’s that?”
“They die alone.”
LUCAS NEEDED TO STAY HIDDEN, AWAY FROM THE PUBLIC EYE AS MUCH as possible. So late that afternoon he went back to a server room he’d found several months before. In older buildings, especially, Internet companies rented large rooms, filled with servers hooked to the Web via high-speed backbones. Techs would regularly come to the server rooms to do some maintenance, but 90 percent of the time, the servers were alone.
Which meant Lucas could be alone with them.
He popped open the door marked AUTHORIZED FASTECH EMPLOYEES ONLY using the master key he’d swiped from the management office on the first floor long ago. Inside, the mechanical hum of a hundred computer hard disks flowed over him. He smiled, feeling at home here; in many ways, the hum
of these servers mirrored the Dark Vibration he always felt inside.
A built-in desk on the west wall held an older computer the techs used as a workstation when they were here; he’d watched them, carefully logged their actions in this room, on two or three occasions. He knew he could use the workstation to do some searching; his actions might be logged on FasTech’s network somewhere, but the thought didn’t bother him. He’d be long gone before anyone came around to investigate.
He did a news search for the name Kleiderman Delgado and came up with a couple hits in local newspapers. Kleiderman, a diplomat on staff at the Venezuelan embassy, had been released from the hospital with a leg injury following an apparent robbery attempt in his suburban DC home. His wife, Leila Delgado, had been unharmed during the break-in.
Kleiderman Delgado was a diplomat. Did that mean diplomatic immunity? Was that why the whole story was apparently being swept under the rug? And what had happened to Leila?
Again, the whole diplomat connection seemed a bit uncomfortable to Lucas; it was part of a bigger picture, he knew, that hadn’t yet fully focused for him.
Troubled, he backed out of the search and went to Donavan’s geopatch site. It was still operational, but the two patches he’d planted—on Saul and Dilbert—had been inactive during the last twenty-four hours. That meant the patches had probably been discovered and destroyed, or perhaps simply fallen off; they were, after all, only meant to be temporary tracking devices.
On a whim, he went to the Creep Club home page. Instead of the familiar log-in screen, he saw a new one: “All messages are now being routed through the Blackboard.”
The Blackboard? Lucas scanned his inventory of conversations with Donavan; there had been one previous mention, but no details. He did a quick Google search and found a piece of communication software called Blackboard. Was that it? If so, he had no way of finding it right now.
Lucas backed out of the Web browser and checked the workstation’s clock.
The next Creep Club meeting was in less than an hour. The regularly scheduled evening meeting.
He was sure the Chinese version of the CIA was now after him, and he had Saul to thank for it. If he could back up, maybe start over with the club, he could explain the situation with Saul, convince them to help him bring it all down. But that was all out the window now; he couldn’t very well show his face to them again, especially in light of his recent publicity.
Still, he had nothing else; going to the Creep Club meeting was the only thing he could think of to do, and he needed to do something. Quitting, leaving, dropping out of sight, and doing nothing wasn’t an option. He felt a . . . well, Connection was the right word, wasn’t it? That indefinable, extrasensory something that tied him to certain people over the years. He felt the Connection now, stronger than ever, more imperative than ever, and even though it wasn’t tied to a specific person, he knew he couldn’t cut it.
He sighed as he stood. Time to creep the creeps, as Saul liked to say. He needed to build a makeshift observation deck at the new building, hide away and find out what he could.
Maybe he’d be lucky.
TWENTY-THREE
LUCAS WATCHED AS THE CREEP CLUB MEMBERS SLIPPED INTO THE building—some through the broken door, some through old windows, some, he was sure, through entry points he couldn’t easily see—and he felt a longing in his heart.
Here were people who should welcome him, who should understand him, who should accept him as one of their own. Or, maybe more appropriately, here were people he should welcome, he should understand, he should accept as his own.
And yet, as much as he understood one side of them—the side that hid an insatiable hunger to seek out other people, an uncontrollable need to feed the Dark Vibration—he was repulsed by their unseen side.
The side that simply watched while other people suffered.
He wasn’t one of them. Couldn’t be one of them. The Dark Vibration that thrummed in his bone marrow didn’t demand the suffering of others.
Did it?
He pushed the thoughts from his mind and hefted his new pack onto his back. Like it or not, he needed to find out more. Maybe he could use something he found out as a lure for Saul, a bargaining chip.
It had been several minutes since he’d seen anyone enter the building, and his TracFone told him it was now about a quarter past the hour; after looking at the time, he powered down the phone and slipped it into his pocket.
A quarter after. For him, it was showtime.
He would have preferred to arrive early, set up ahead of time, carefully conceal himself. Time hadn’t allowed that, so he’d have to wing it, hope for the best.
No matter; he couldn’t stop now. The front door, hanging loosely, had more than enough space for him to enter. He noticed, as he slid through, yet another CC scrawled into the surface of the door. Evidently the Creep Club folks were starting to feel at home.
He climbed the stairs, going to the next floor. He paused at the end of the hallway, noting the light spilling from room 227 about halfway down. He stayed silent, pressed against the wall as he listened. Murmurs from the room where they were meeting, but nothing else. He’d go to the adjacent room this time, as he’d done in the other building, try to overhear what they were talking about.
He stepped out of the shadows and began to move down the hallway, being careful not to make a sound. But after a few steps, he stopped again, shocked by who he saw step out of room 225. His Bad Twin. The Bad Twin looked at him with his eyes, smiled with his mouth, held a finger to his lips for a quick Shhh . . . and stepped back into room 225, slamming the door shut behind him. The sound reverberated down the hallway, and Lucas heard scrambling inside room 227; without hesitating, he started to turn and run, but just as he did, he felt something solid hit him on the back of the head. He crumpled to his knees, dazed, caught a glimpse of the figure who had hit him running down the stairs.
Also his Bad Twin.
Two of them? He’d been set up, tricked, by two people who looked exactly like him. Impossible, yes. Unless he was becoming a split personality. Delusional. That wasn’t so hard to believe.
He started to rise, but he knew it was already too late, even before he heard the mechanical click of a revolver’s hammer being pulled back just behind him.
“I think you can stay on your knees right there,” a woman’s voice said.
He did as he was instructed.
“Put your hands behind your back,” the voice said.
Once again he did as he was asked and felt a plastic tie-down slip around his hands and tighten.
“Stand up and turn around.”
He turned, and the whole Creep Club was in the hallway with him. The woman closest to him kept her revolver pointed at his head. Snake, just behind, stood smiling. Down the hall, he saw a couple of people picking the lock on room 225’s door.
“Well,” Snake said. “You know how to make an entrance.” Then to everyone else: “Okay, let’s go back and talk about this.”
The people began filtering back into room 227, and the woman motioned with the barrel of the gun, telling him to follow.
Inside the room, all was quiet as every set of eyes stared at Lucas. He shifted on his feet uncomfortably; he wasn’t used to being the subject. Only the viewer.
“Odd,” said Snake. “Here we were talking about how to track you down, and you save us considerable trouble by walking into the meeting for us.”
Another man, whom Lucas recognized from the previous meeting as Hondo, spoke. “So where’s Donavan? Was he one of the others with you?”
Lucas stayed in the doorway, returned the man’s gaze. “I’m here alone,” he said.
“Funny,” Hondo said. “We saw one guy hightail it down the steps, another climb down the side of the building and run away.”
“Did you get a good look at them?” Lucas asked.
“Why? Who are they?” Hondo returned.
“That’s what I was going to ask you.”
&n
bsp; Hondo looked like he had something sour in his mouth. He pursed his lips, and Lucas thought for a moment he was going to spit. But he stayed quiet.
Lucas let his gaze slide back to Snake. “Seems like you’re our favorite topic, Humpty. Had a special meeting all about you last night, and now this one tonight. Everyone still wants to talk about you. I don’t suppose you have a project to show?”
Lucas held the gaze a moment. “I do, as a matter of fact.”
“Really?”
“In my backpack. Some tapes I think you’ll want to see. A man who’s a double agent, trying to infiltrate the Creep Club.”
Snake glanced at the red-haired woman who stood behind Lucas, keeping the gun pointed at him. “What do you think, Clarice?” he asked. “Should we let his hands free?”
Snake looked back at Lucas. “Sorry,” he said. “Clarice says we can’t untie you.”
Hondo spoke again. “Yeah, I bet there’s an agent trying to make it into the club,” he said. “And he’s standing right in front of us.”
“Now, now, Hondo,” said Snake. “We don’t know that at all.”
Hondo stood. “That’s just it. We don’t know anything. We never even had such a thing as open membership until we let Donavan in a few years ago. And now, just by coincidence, he comes dragging this guy in.” Hondo gave him a dismissive wave. “Who’s now here to tell us he can save us from some big federal investigation. Timing seems a little convenient.”
Snake seemed to actually be enjoying the exchange. “Hmmm. Interesting point. So what do you think we should do, Hondo?”
Hondo didn’t hesitate for a second. “Shoot him.”
Lucas swallowed, tried not to show any emotion. This wasn’t what he’d expected—these folks loved secrets, after all, so why wouldn’t they be slobbering all over themselves to see what he had on Saul? But surely someone else would speak up.
“Shoot him,” Snake repeated. “A good possibility. Anyone else have an idea?”
Lucas looked around the room, expecting an argument of some kind to start. But all he saw in their eyes was that Dark Vibration, wanting violence.