by G. P. Ching
Again I close my eyes, and this time, I turn my intention within. My injuries are more than skin deep, and I mean to heal them all. I concentrate on the tips of my toes, then scan up my legs, inch by inch, relieving any tightness or pain, setting things right and trusting my instincts. I scan my knees, my thighs, my hips, my abdomen. Once the warmth and light is in my head, it joins the source of the tickle in the back of my skull.
An alarm rouses me from my meditation. The device on my leg is blinking green and ringing like an egg timer. I fold in half and slap the buttons on the side, trying to turn it off.
“Allow me,” David says. He stands and brushes my hands aside. A series of beeps later, the device splits in two and my calf is freed. “How does it feel?”
I bend and straighten my leg, then roll my ankle. “Good. Fine.” In one motion, I swing both legs over the side and kick my feet. “Stronger than before.”
“Easy,” he says. “How’s your head? We don’t want another seizure. Charlie told me to make sure you don’t get up too fast until we know the anesthesia is out of your system.” He holds a hand near my shoulder as if he’ll catch me if I fall.
I cast him a sideways glance. “I’m not sure I’ll ever be safe from seizures with the Nanomem in my system. Is that another side effect?”
He shakes his head. “You saw Laura at the council meeting and didn’t seize again. I don’t think it was the Nanomem. It’s more likely from the anesthesia.”
“Both things injected into my body without my permission.”
“Come on, Lydia, you know I had no choice about either of those.”
“You had no choice but to inject me with a toxic substance untested on my biological makeup?”
“Konrad was watching,” he says through his teeth. “What was I suppose to do? I couldn’t teach you what you needed to know any other way. You should be thanking me. If it wasn’t for me, you’d still be Konrad’s pawn.”
I jump down from the table and take a few experimental steps without the walking cast. I have no pain and everything seems to be working fine. “Why didn’t you tell me about my mother?”
“I didn’t know. I thought she was dead.”
I scoff.
“After your parents escaped with you, Natasha and I were recaptured. Your father’s body was found, as were the Villeneuves. The Stones and your mother were presumed dead. As it turned out, they made it here. Charlie had managed to steal enough serum to keep them alive for a time. His wife, Rebekah, succumbed to electroscurvy before they could synergize an alternative in the lab here. Even then, what they came up with wasn’t enough for them to thrive on until I brought them vials of the newest formula when I escaped.”
“If that’s true, how did you know to come here?”
“I followed Jonas here after Natasha passed. Once it was clear the rebellion had been compromised, Jonas ordered a retreat and saved as many soldiers as he could by bringing them here while the Greens were distracted with you. He was quick to get the word out about Stuart Manor and the fire station. He re-established Liberty Party headquarters here.”
“Charlie mentioned someone on the inside knew about Maxwell’s plan and leaked it to the Greens. Did Jonas ever find out who it was?”
“No.”
“Was it you?”
“No! How could it be me? I was huddled on the landing with my wife dying in my arms, Lydia. Not exactly prime time to get chummy with Konrad and Pierce.”
“But you knew about Maxwell’s plan. The rebels had tried it before. And you were all too willing to share enough with Konrad and Pierce to get Maxwell shot.”
David holds up both hands. “It wasn’t me.”
I hang my head and stare at the tile floor. “Where are my clothes?”
“They were cut off when Charlie did surgery on you, but there are new ones in room 212 upstairs. Your new room.”
“Can I get there on my own, or do I need a key or something?”
His eyes bore into me. “All Biolocks.”
I head for the door to the hall.
“Charlie says you’re supposed to wear the walking boot. Your leg isn’t completely healed.”
“It’s fine,” I call behind me. In truth, I have no idea if it’s fine. It doesn’t hurt at the moment and that’s all that matters to me.
I find the room easily enough and pop the Biolock. David wasn’t lying. They’ve prepared the room for me with a closet of size-adjustable clothing and formal blue uniforms. I take a long, hot shower before dressing in dark pants and a shirt, with a stretchy, metallic-looking hoodie sporting the weatherproof properties I’ve come to expect from English clothes. Socks on, I look for shoes. All that’s available is a heavy pair of steel-toed military boots. I pull them on. If my bone isn’t completely healed, these will do to keep it relatively safe. I poke my feet in and lace them up, then braid my hair, missing my kapp out of habit. When I emerge again, David is waiting outside my door.
“It’s the middle of the night. Why don’t you get a good night’s rest, and we can talk in the morning about finding Korwin?”
I shake my head. “If you think I’m helping you or the Liberty Party while there could be any chance of Korwin being used as a human battery by the Greens, you don’t know me very well. In fact, if you ever want my help, you’d better show me the door and point me in the direction of Crater City.”
“Crater City? Do you plan to walk through the front door of CGEF and ask at the front desk for him?” He laughs incredulously.
I huff. “I don’t know. Sometimes I can… feel him. We have a connection. If I drive around the city, I might be able to sense him.”
“Ever widening circles until you reach the ocean? Somehow eating and sleeping without being discovered?”
I shrug. “Do you have a better idea?”
For a long time, David just stares at me, hands on his hips, a calculating look in his eyes. He licks his lips. “Lydia, I understand what you’re feeling. The pull you feel to find Korwin is only natural given your connection and your relationship.” He pats his chest over his heart. “I’ve been there. I loved Natasha more than life. But this is reckless. You’re barely healed. Chances are as good you’ll get caught as rescue Korwin.”
“You say you loved Natasha. Would you have waited for the council to put together a team to look for her… if they heard a tip about her whereabouts?” I ask cynically. “Can you honestly tell me you would wait?”
His head rolls forward on his shoulders but he doesn’t answer me.
“You owe me this, David. After all the things you put Korwin and me through, after what happened with Maxwell. You owe me. Help me. Help me find him.”
His eyes snap to mine and he grimaces in silence. After a few tense moments, he shakes his head. “There’s only one other place Korwin would likely try to go.”
“Where?”
“If I help you and you find Korwin, do you promise to return here?”
“Like you said, where else am I going to go?”
“Promise me.”
I grind my teeth together for a moment. A promise to David is a promise to the devil. “If you know something about where he could be, you’d better tell me or I will never trust you again.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise,” I hiss. “Now, where do you think he is?”
“Come on.”
David leads me through a maze of corridors to a garage half full of vehicles. There’s a large white van and a Humvee with the logo of the Green Republic on the side. I look at David, puzzled.
“How’d you get one of theirs?”
He raises an eyebrow. “We’re resourceful,” he says darkly.
“You killed the driver,” I accuse.
“No. But I think you did during your tantrum down Fifth Street.”
I recoil, shaking my head, and he bursts into laughter. “I’m joking. You most certainly did not kill the driver of this vehicle. I did. And he had it coming.”
“That wasn
’t funny,” I say.
“Get over it. You’re in the English world now, and it’s a world at war. Either you kill or you die. The faster you accept that, the more likely you’ll survive the next twenty-four hours.”
“You are a ruined man, David. You have no soul,” I say through my teeth.
His wayward grin melts as if my words sting a little. He shivers slightly, casting my insult off and covering the motion by striding away from me, toward a cabinet on the wall. He unlocks it and rummages through its shelves.
“Which way is the door?” I ask.
“You can’t leave on foot. We’re too far from the city. If anyone sees you, they’ll know there’s something wrong. No one walks out here.”
“I don’t know how to drive.”
“Ever ride a bike?”
“Sure. Every day.”
“Perfect.” He turns from the cabinet and throws something round and hard in my direction. I catch it in my stomach. “What’s this?”
“Helmet. Put it on.” He leads me to a type of bicycle I’ve never seen in person. I only know what it is from the book about the Englishers we keep in Hemlock Hollow. A motorcycle. It’s got two fat tires, a seat as wide as a horse saddle, and a dashboard between the handlebars with a full keyboard and an array of blinking lights. “This is a Tomahawk Infinity. They are rare and very fast.”
“I can’t drive this.”
“It will snap to the grid just like any other vehicle and expect you to supply the coordinates of where you’re going.”
“I don’t know where I’m going, and I can’t drive this.”
“If you want to go manual, you simply hit this blue switch.” He points to one of the flashing lights. “Otherwise, all you have to do is turn the key and steer. This bad boy does the rest. Even has anti-crash technology, but hold on if it engages because you are in for one hell of a ride.”
“David!”
“What?”
“I don’t know how to drive a motorcycle.”
He grins at me and taps the side of his head. “But I do. So why don’t you climb on and see if you can figure it out by the magic of Nanomem.”
I stare at him for a moment, scared to the point of trembling. What if I do remember? Will the memory cause another seizure? Or worse, will the reaction be delayed and occur while riding the strange machine. I rotate the helmet in my hands.
“You haven’t even told me where you think I should look for Korwin. You said there was only one other place he could have gone.” I shift my weight from foot to foot, staring into the helmet as if something within its confines will give me an idea of Korwin’s whereabouts. No answers appear within the headgear.
David hooks his fingers beneath a cord around his neck and pulls a small vial out from under his shirt. Delicately, he unhooks it from the cord and holds it out to me between his thumb and forefinger. “Take this and pay Stuart Manor a visit?”
“Stuart Manor is occupied by the Greens. What is this?”
“A vial of Maxwell Stuart’s blood. He provided it to the council in the event of his death. They won’t be happy that I took it.”
“Eww. Why would I want this?”
“As you will recall, the secret entrance into the basement compound of Stuart Manor is locked using a biological key. This is it.”
I accept the vial, turning the small steel cylinder between my fingers. “Korwin would never go there. The place is crawling with Greens.”
“Not the compound. You heard Korwin, even if they tortured it out of the man they caught, they’ll never get in without the biological key. I have reason to believe that Maxwell provided Korwin with the location of a similar vial before they were arrested. He knows the security codes and enough about the compound to find a way in unnoticed. Once inside, there’s enough resources for you both to live safely for months.”
“This is your theory? That with a price on his head Korwin would rush to a place he knows will be occupied by government officers under the odd chance he can recover a vial of blood from some hiding place and break into the compound.”
“Think about it. Where else would he go? True, he knows the Greens are there, but it’s been almost a year since they took the manor. Now that they have the place secured, there will be a skeletal staff keeping it that way. They are not going to waste staff policing an empty house. Korwin is smart enough to get inside without being seen. He’s probably living inside the compound as we speak.”
“Living in a house secured by the Greens?” I hold up the vial.
“The manor has hundreds of hidden rooms and passageways. Korwin knows them all. The Greens don’t.”
I cross my arms.
David spreads his hands. “Where else would he go?”
With a sigh, I nod and place the helmet on my head. “It’s as good a place to start as any.”
“One more thing.” He reaches around the back of my head and I feel him push against the helmet. A bright green grid forms in my field of vision, light splitting down the center and then widening to the full visor. A bunch of numbers appear in my right peripheral vision, next to David’s face. His hands are on his hips again and his intense stare makes me squirm.
“What?” I say. My voice sounds different, robotic, nothing like my own.
“Inside the compound, behind Korwin’s palomino painting, Maxwell Stuart’s most important experiment is stored in a safe. The safe will only open with a drop of this blood. It is imperative that you retrieve the specimens inside while you’re there. Just a few vials. Easy to carry. By loaning you his blood, I’m giving you my only way in and out of that place. It’s a huge sacrifice for our cause. The least you can do is obtain what we need and keep Maxwell’s work safe from the Greens.”
“I’ll do my best,” I say. I’ve already promised to come back. How hard will it be to bring a few vials with me?
“Good.” He rummages through the cabinet again and pulls out a black backpack with a hard outer shell. “There’s a false bottom in this that will keep the vials frozen for several days. The main compartment holds a change of clothes, a dopp kit—do you know what a dopp kit is? It’s a military-issue bag with a toothbrush and hairbrush and things.”
“Okay.” I shrug.
“There’s emergency provisions under the clothes. Put it on.” He hands me the heavy pack.
I do as he says, suddenly impatient to leave now that I know where I will start my search.
“Lydia, block,” he commands. His heel flies toward my stomach and I rotate my forearm down to block the kick. He smacks my shoulder and I connect with his jaw. He scrambles behind the bike and the adrenaline, coupled with the weight of the backpack and the image of the Tomahawk, bring back a flood of memories.
“I have it,” I say. “The desert. You fought off three masked men.”
He nods. “I thought that might do it.”
About the time I swing one leg over the seat, I am deep within the memory—a good memory. Through David’s eyes I am speeding into the sunset, nothing but wide open desert ahead and Natasha waiting at the end of the road. I give my head a little shake.
“See? No seizures. It’s getting easier.” He grins.
“I know how to drive this.”
“Of course you do.”
I turn the key and the engine roars to life and rumbles under me, a horse chomping at the bit. I’m in the Outlands, so I switch to manual and engage stability control, anticipating rough terrain. David lifts the garage door. It rattles to a stop over my head and warm moist air fills the space between us.
David approaches my side. “The green projection on your right relays the temperature, speed, and fuel level. The helmet is state of the art. It will disguise your voice and has other helpful capabilities. Don’t stare at the interface. Keep your eyes on the road—or the trail as the case may be. And Lydia…”
“Yeah.”
“If you get into trouble, do not pull over. You have no identification.”
“Then what should I d
o?”
He guides my hand to the side of the backpack. There’s a zipper on the side. My fingers caress the ridged grip of a semiautomatic pistol.
“I won’t use it,” I say defiantly.
“Fine. Fistfight the bastards then. But for God’s sake do not remove your helmet or use the spark. If the Greens find you, they will stop at nothing to bring you in. Stay safe and find your way home. We need you.”
Find my way home? My home is a place in Hemlock Hollow. What he means is find my way back. He thinks, when I return, it will be to stay. But he’s wrong. Once I find Korwin, I’ll do as I promised but then I plan to take him home, to face whatever the Ordnung has in store for us.
“Well? Day’s a-wastin’. Go,” David says, pointing both hands toward the door and the silver light that heralds the coming dawn.
“Goodbye, David,” I say. Then I pump the accelerator.
14
Once, when I was seven, I was in a runaway buggy. Later, my father would tell me a snake scared our newly broke horse. The Morgan gelding reared and leapt, sending the buggy and me flying. What I remember most is the weightless lurch, the way my stomach dropped as the seat pulled out from under me. For a moment, direction had no meaning and my breath caught in anticipation of the inevitable collision to come.
Riding David’s motorcycle is a similar yet infinitely more terrifying experience. The slightest rotation of my wrist rockets me past him and out of the garage. I grip the seat with my thighs and lay my body flat against the fuel cells, clinging to the handlebars for dear life. Pebbles fly all around me as I race down the gravel road and take my journey into the forest.
I veer around one tree and then the next, allowing my instincts to take over. As long as I don’t think too hard, don’t allow myself to contemplate the untenable speed in the corner of my vision or the branches that occasionally brush the top of my helmet. My instincts tell me when it’s time to slow down, when the trees have become much too close for comfort.