Working Stiff tr-1

by Rachel Caine

  “You mean Kylie?”

  “Exactly. Being professional will only get you so far, and then you’ve got to be human.”

  Horror flooded her, on the heels of that warm moment. “Joe—your family—”

  “They’re safe,” he said. “Pat saw them moved out to a secure location, as soon as he knew this was going south. Nobody’s going to touch my kids, or Kylie.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s going to take a bouquet of roses the size of the frigging Rose Parade to make this up to her, but my wife knew what she was getting when she married me. And the kids think it’s a cool adventure.” Fideli shrugged. “Which it is, right?”

  Unbelievable. “You got shot.”

  “Eh, I’ve been shot for worse causes. And we just rescued you, shot our way out, had a car chase. Plus, there’s this whole coming-back-from-the-dead thing. My kids would be very impressed.”

  “I’m very impressed, too.”

  “Well, it wasn’t a clockwork operation, but it’ll do. At least you’re on the mend.”

  For now. Bryn swallowed again, miserably aware of her own vulnerability. “Joe … I’m going to need another shot,” she said. “And one tomorrow. And one the day after. What exactly are we going to do about that?”

  Fideli kept his eyes on the credit card machine. “You want me to lie to you and tell you I’ve got a brilliant plan on that?”

  “Would you?”

  “Probably not. I’m hoping McCallister does.”

  Pansy slid the door back, jumped in, and slammed it shut, panting from her run. “Done. I put the thing in the bed of a truck with Texas plates. As far as I know, they’ll chase him all the way back to San Antonio,” she said, and took a moment to lay her hand gently on Bryn’s head. “You doing okay?”

  “Peachy,” Bryn murmured. “I have a giant hole in my leg, and we were just talking about how much Returné we don’t have.”

  Pansy gave her a slow, delighted smile and said, “You two don’t think I’d let you down, do you?” Even Fideli turned to look at her when she said that, eyebrows raised. Pansy picked up a small box from the floorboard. “Et voilà.” She opened it.

  Inside were vials filled with clear liquid. Seven of them.

  “How …” Bryn’s voice failed her.

  “Where do you think I got the shot to give you? I made sure I was the one Harte tapped to pull it from the supply. They had two boxes out on the cart, since they were assembly-lining the staff. I grabbed one. We’ll need to pick up syringes—that’s all. Oh, and just in case …” Pansy handed her a gold-edged Pharmadene ID. “Irene Harte’s. It probably won’t work, but just in case you ever wanted a souvenir, that’s probably the best you can get. Manny won’t let me keep it. He’ll assume it’s bugged.”

  “Is it?”

  “Not anymore.” Pansy gave her a cheery smile.

  “I’d kiss you if I could get up,” Bryn said. “God, thank you.”

  “No charge. Well, no extra charge. Joe’s already paying me.”

  “Paying you …”

  “I don’t come cheap, sweetie,” Pansy said. “Manny doesn’t like it when I leave him all alone. He’s got another batch of inhibitor ready, by the way, so when you take me home, you can get your booster on that, too.”

  A week. A whole luxurious week of life, guaranteed right there.

  And what about after that? But for the first time, Bryn felt the tight fist of anxiety in her chest ease, just a little, and as Fideli and Pansy spoke in low, quiet tones, and Fideli pulled the van out to drive on, she finally surrendered to her need to rest.

  When they finally arrived at Manny Glickman’s lab, hours later, it was chaos. Even Pansy seemed shocked when, as she helped Bryn in the big fire door, she ran into a giant pallet of neatly stacked boxes. “Great,” she said, staring at them. “Just great.”

  “What’s going on?” Fideli asked, from behind them.

  “Get in and stay right here,” Pansy said. “Whatever happens, don’t go all Rambo on me, all right?”

  That didn’t sound good. Neither did the tension in Pansy’s voice. Edging around the boxes, Bryn saw why; the place was crowded with boxes stacked everywhere. No more lab equipment; it was all packed. Big machines were crated and secured, ready for transport. The curtains at the back of the big room were open, and more pallets of boxes were stacked there.

  “Freeze!” a magnified voice said from overhead, and Bryn looked up sharply to see a figure above them on a narrow catwalk. It was almost obscured by the lights, and she squinted and just barely made out Manny Glickman’s form up there.

  He worked the action on a pump shotgun, and the crisp chunk-chunk sound made them all obey. Even Fideli. Bryn raised her hands in surrender.

  “Jesus, Manny, it’s me.” Pansy sighed. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Moving,” he said. “You were supposed to be back four hours ago.”

  “I told you it wasn’t guaranteed, baby.”

  “Four hours ago.”

  “You didn’t pack all this in the last four hours.”

  Manny was silent for a few seconds, then said, “Are you vouching for them, Pansy?”

  “Of course I am, or I wouldn’t have brought them up here, would I?” Her voice was gentle, but as Bryn glanced at her, she saw that Pansy was worried. “It’s all right. Trust me. Her tracker’s gone, and we weren’t followed.”

  “I thought about blowing up the van,” Manny said. “You know that, don’t you? You didn’t come in the right car. You said you’d be in a red sedan.”

  “Pansy, what the hell …?” Fideli murmured. She shushed him.

  “We had to improvise. Things were crazy. But we got out, and everything’s fine, and I brought you a present.” She held up a single vial of Returné. “Enough to run tests on for months.”

  It was a shiny treat, but Manny failed to take the bait. “Make them sit down on the floor, right now. Hands behind their heads.”

  “Manny—”

  “Now!” His shout rattled the rafters. Pansy sighed and turned to Bryn and Joe.

  “Please,” she said. “I need to back him off the ledge.”

  Kneeling down with her stiff and still-healing leg hurt, but it was better than risking Manny going all hair-trigger on them; Bryn was more concerned about Joe, who’d had a very full day for a man with a recently collapsed lung. He shrugged off her silent concern, though, and sat down a lot more easily than she did. By unspoken agreement, they kept their hands in the air.

  “Okay, they’re down,” Pansy said. “Can I please come talk to you?”

  “If they move—”

  “They’re not going to move. Can I?”

  He hesitated for a long moment, and then said, “I’m coming down. Stay there.”

  His heavy footsteps clanked overhead and down a staircase somewhere in the shadows to the right. When Manny finally came back into the glow of the overheads, he was dressed in black—black turtleneck, black pants, a black tactical vest with pockets bulging with ammunition. He carried the shotgun at a neutral but ready position.

  And his eyes were more than a little crazy. He didn’t take his gaze away from Bryn and Fideli, except for a very fast glance at Pansy.

  He handed her a syringe.

  “What’s this for?”

  “Blood sample,” he said.

  “She’s okay, I told you—”

  “Not from her. From you.”

  “Jesus, Manny!”

  This time, the glance he sent her lingered, and was half-apologetic. But still half-crazy. “I need to know that you’re still you. They could have revived you. You could be acting under protocols.”

  She didn’t try to talk him out of it, and Bryn thought it was sad that Manny’s paranoia was actually quite practical now; she wouldn’t have believed that kind of thing two weeks ago, but now, it was surprisingly rational. Pansy just walked over to the nearest flat surface, drew a sample of her own blood (not something Bryn th
ought she could have accomplished with nearly as much aplomb), and handed back the full syringe. Manny backed up, keeping his eyes fixed on all of them, opened up a box nearby, and took out what looked like a sheet of paper. He squirted a small amount of the blood onto the surface. It soaked in quickly, and a blue ring spread out from the crimson blot.

  Manny’s body language visibly relaxed. “You’re okay,” he said. He sounded shaken. “You’re really okay.”

  “Of course I’m okay, idiot.” Pansy took the shotgun from him, broke open the stock, and set it aside. Then she hugged him, hard, and kissed him. “Thanks for worrying.”

  “I always worry.”

  “Okay, worrying more than normal.”

  Manny looked over his shoulder, first at Bryn, then Fideli. “I know about her. What about him?”

  “He’s all right.”

  “Test him. Prove it.”

  “Okay. First, we don’t need a whole syringe full, right?” She took the syringe from Manny’s fingers and disposed of the rest of the blood in a haz-mat container off to the side, grabbed a test sheet from the box, and went to Fideli’s side. “Knife?”

  “Yo,” he said, and took one out of his belt—a big, wicked thing with an edge sharp enough to cut the light. Pansy pressed it lightly to his thumb and smeared the thin crimson line that appeared onto the paper.

  Blue halo.

  “See?” she asked, and handed Fideli’s knife back. “You can get up now. It’s okay.”

  Manny clearly didn’t agree, but he didn’t argue. “We can’t stay here,” he said. “I’ve already called the vans. We’ll be moved by the end of the day and in the new location.”

  “Manny, there’s no need to do this. We can stay here.”

  “No. I need to move. Too many people in and out. It’s not secure.”

  Pansy rolled her eyes. “Not what I needed today. All right, we’ll move. But first, Bryn needs her inhibitor booster, and then I’ll send them on their way.”

  “All right.” Manny pointed at a set of boxes across the lab. “Third carton from the bottom. I packed it underneath the extra saline.”

  The boxes weren’t labeled, Bryn realized—not a single one. “Do you remember what’s in every one of them?” she asked.

  Manny looked at her. “You can put your hands down,” he said. “I’m not going to shoot you.”

  “Yeah,” Pansy said, as she walked toward the indicated boxes. “But only because I took his gun.”

  “You really remember what’s in the boxes. There must be two hundred of them!”

  “Two hundred thirty-six,” he said. “Not counting the crated machines. Yes. I do.”

  “What happens when they mix them all up in moving vans?”

  “I pay them to make sure they get stacked and delivered in order.” His green eyes were less crazy now, and he frowned as he looked her over. “You don’t look so great.”

  Bryn laughed a little. “It’s been … stressful.”

  “They were letting her rot,” Fideli said, “for science.”

  “Really?” Those eyes gleamed suddenly. “Did you get any records? Video? That would be very useful.”

  “Jesus.” Fideli raised his voice. “Pansy, you really sleep with this guy?”

  “I keep one eye open,” she called back, as she restacked cartons—keeping them, Bryn noticed, in precisely the same order as they’d been. “Got it!” She held up an IV bag and needle kit. “Manny, stop being so creepy. It was awful for her. It really was.”

  He didn’t look noticeably sorry. “I’m sure it was, but still, the opportunity to study something like that …”

  “Yeah, well, I hope you won’t have the opportunity to do it on me,” Bryn said. “Where do I sit?”

  “Over here,” Pansy said. She hooked the IV bag on a rolling stand that hadn’t yet been packed and pulled over a straight-backed chair. Bryn sat and let Pansy numb the back of her hand, then guide in the needle. It still, as always, hurt, but the cool rush of fluid into her veins soothed things nicely. “Should take about an hour. I’m going to get you some more water. Anything to eat?”

  Food. Bryn’s stomach rumbled, and she realized that she hadn’t really even thought about food for so long, it was an abstract concept. “Uh, anything,” she said. “Whatever isn’t packed, I guess.”

  “I’ll find something. Joe?”

  “I’ll have what she’s having. Minus the IV.” Fideli put his back against the wall and leaned. Now that he wasn’t under threat of death, he allowed himself to look tired. He nodded to Manny. “So you’re the FBI guy, right? The one McCallister knows.”

  “You know McCallister.”

  “Yeah, old friends. I kinda work for him.”

  “Then I suppose you’re all right,” Manny said grudgingly. “He’d probably take it badly if I’d shot you.“

  Fideli grinned, a surprising flash of white, even teeth. “I’d like to think so. Glad I didn’t shoot you, too.”

  Manny raised his bushy eyebrows. “Do you think you could have, before I fired the shotgun?” Fideli stared back. He didn’t answer, and he didn’t need to, really. Manny nodded and sat down on the edge of one of the wooden pallets. “Interesting.”

  “Mutual, if you do half the stuff he says you do.”

  “Interesting that he’s talked to you about me, and not to me about you.”

  “I’ve known him longer,” Fideli said. “And he meant to bring me over here. He just didn’t get the chance.”

  That made them fall silent for a moment. Bryn felt the anxious flutter in her stomach at the thought of McCallister, still missing, and she knew Joe was feeling it, too. Maybe even Manny was, as well.

  Pansy came back with cups of instant soup all around, and by the time they were emptied, the four of them had formed a fragile kind of trust.

  For now.

  Manny kicked them out as soon as Bryn’s IV was finished. So much for trust.

  Pansy walked them down to the van. “Sorry about this,” she said. “Once he gets in this mood, I can’t talk him out of it. We’ll move the lab; he’ll settle down; things will go back to normal. But I can’t take you with us. I can’t even tell you where we’re going, because he won’t tell me either. I’ll contact you later.” She passed Bryn a bundle of things. “Here. I think they’ll fit. You can’t run around in some numbered paper jumpsuit and expect not to get noticed.”

  “Thanks.”

  Fideli nodded to her, too. “Thanks, Pansy,” he said. “Nice working with you.”

  “You too, Joe. It was good to get out and stretch my legs again.” Pansy hugged Bryn, and she hugged her back, surprised but pleased. “You, girl, you take care of yourself. I’ll see you in a week for your booster.”

  “Promise?”

  Pansy silently crossed her heart. “Get going. The moving vans will be here soon, and that makes him extra paranoid, even with all the background checks.”

  “How the hell do you put up with it?” Joe asked, climbing into the van’s driver’s seat.

  “I love him,” she said. “And he’s not just paranoid. People really are out to get him. And hey, seems like we’re all in that boat now, right?” She leaned in to put a kiss on Joe’s cheek. “You take care, sweetie. Call me anytime you need a partner in crime.”

  Bryn buckled her seat belt and rolled down the window as they left the safety and shadows of the warehouse to let a fresh breeze blow through the van. The inside of the vehicle frankly reeked; the smell of her blood made her a little light-headed, or maybe that was the inhibitors taking hold. She was feeling herself again, finally; her leg’s ache had subsided, and when she ran her fingers over the back of it, she felt only a faint and fading scar.

  “You can change clothes in the back,” Fideli said. “I’m not gonna peek.”

  “You saw it all anyway.” She sighed. “It’ll be nice to not be dressed in paper.”

  And it was, very nice, from the soft cotton underwear to the long-sleeved thermal tee and jeans. Pansy had i
ncluded a pair of slip-on flats for shoes, which would have to do, for now. At least it wasn’t cold outside.

  Bryn climbed over the seats and buckled herself back in place. “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “Safe house up in the hills,” Fideli replied. “Strap in; we don’t need a ticket when the back of the van looks like a butcher shop died in it.”

  “Is McCallister there …?”

  “I don’t know where Pat is,” Fideli said. “When he’s ready to contact us, he knows my number. We’ve both got disposable burner phones. It’s the best we can do, for now.” He was quiet for a moment, watching traffic, watching the rearview mirror. Road noise hissed through the cabin. “You probably ought to know something.”

  “What?”

  “McCallister made me promise something. If I couldn’t get you out, or if … if you were too far gone, he made me promise to …”

  “To end things for me,” Bryn said. “So I wouldn’t suffer.”

  “Yeah. I thought you’d want to know that.” He pulled in a deep breath and let it out, slowly. “These are some fucked-up times if that’s romantic, Bryn.”

  It made her smile, and it made her eyes well up at the same time. She turned her face away and let the wind whip against her cheeks to dry them as tears rolled down. “Thanks,” she said. “I did want to know that.”

  He turned the radio on after that, and surprised her by singing along to it. He had a good voice, baritone, and did a mean version of Harry Nilsson’s song about the limes and coconuts. It almost felt … normal.

  That was something Bryn realized she craved most. Normality. The feeling that her reality was still the same one that all these other people shared, the ones driving on the freeway next to them. They were headed to work or play or home or shopping. They had lives, goals, plans, challenges that didn’t include rotting away inside a dead shell of a body.

  She envied them all, so strongly that it hurt. Somehow, without ever meaning to, she’d become an alien, stranded in a strange yet achingly familiar landscape.

  “Bryn?”

  “What?”

  “Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” Joe said. “My family’s stuck somewhere halfway across the country, if not outside the country, and I don’t know when or if I’ll ever see them again. Deal with your shit and don’t wallow in it.”