“We’ve got to get out of here! They’re taking us to Ivan. They killed the Berkeley kids and left everyone else.”
“Aw, shit, really? Noel’s spider got me before I could say or do anything.”
“I’m sure that’s the reason they took you and Faith and Bruno first. Nellie could have defended herself too.”
“You keep forgetting to use your telekinesis when the need arises.”
“Damn, you’re right. Damn it!”
“Do you know where we are? I can send an image to Cole or Jonah. It’ll be hard, but I know their minds, so I can probably pick them out even from hours away.”
“We’re in the middle of nowhere, that’s where we are! On our way to Ivan, remember!” I hissed.
“Pick up your sandwich. Touch the wrapper and see if you can get a vision about where they bought it.”
“You’re a genius!” Ilya grinned, as I picked up my lunch. “Now get inside my head so you can see what I see.”
My partially unwrapped sub sandwich had a paper wrapper. I closed my eyes. The paper felt smooth and slightly waxy against my fingertips as I turned it over, passing from hand to hand as I concentrated on the sandwich being made. The blackness of my eyelids disappeared and I stood next to Noel in a sandwich parlor.
“Lettuce on all of them. No hot peppers,” said Noel. I scanned my surroundings in the shop, a standard franchise. Nothing gave away our location. I focused trying to back myself out of the shop.
I felt a light pull as my perspective drifted backwards, up and out of the sandwich shop, hovering above a sign for Sage Hills Shopping Center. I dropped the sandwich.
“They were somewhere called Sage Hills. I saw the outside of the mall, but I didn’t recognize the area. I’m sure Nellie can find the mall if you show it to Cole.”
“Good. But there’s no telling how long ago they bought these sandwiches. We need to know where we are now, and ideally, where we’re headed.” Mostly talking to himself, Ilya closed his eyes as though listening. Voices murmured angrily outside and stopped.
“Thorn is leaving. They don’t want to risk calling a tow truck and getting a third party involved. He’s angry because he has to run back to a town called Pleasanton. We’re supposed to make Bakersfield by sundown and we won’t at this rate. He mentioned the ‘I-5’ which must be this highway, but he keeps thinking of it as a ‘freeway’,” said Ilya.
“What does Ivan want with a psychic when he’s got access to a mind reader?” I said, smiling.
“I’ll send the images to Cole and hope for the best. You might be impressed now, but if you remember, interpreting what I send–especially over long distance–isn’t exactly conversational,” said Ilya.
I remembered seeing his apparition outside a culvert in Victoria’s Inner Harbour and my heart sank. Cole could easily misunderstand where we were and what happened to us.
“There’s not much else we can do.” I took a bite of my sandwich and passed it to my brother.
The back door of the van clacked open and Noel peered through the opening. She frowned at both of us and thrust out her forearm. Her spider tattoo swelled up and off her arm, leaping to Ilya.
“No! You don’t have to–” I stopped short to turn my head away from the repulsive arachnid as it leapt at me. Fangs pierced my neck and sleep smothered me.
We were rolling down the road again when I awoke. Ilya slept. Noel sat in the back with us, scratching away at a Sudoku book.
“You’re a stubborn one.” Noel didn’t look up from her book.
“I’m not trying to be,” I said.
A loud CRACK hit the back of the van and we all slid towards the doors.
“Sonofabitch!” Noel threw her book down and knelt in front of the back window. “Assholes,” she said to herself as she watched something pass around beside us.
The van stopped hard with a SQUEEEEEEE sending us all flying to the front. Noel tumbled slid halfway through the curtains. Ilya and I hit the driver and passenger seats.
“Fuckin’ hell!” Noel untangled herself from the curtains and crawled into the front passenger seat. A rumbling growl came from the driver’s seat. The door opened and shut. Noel scrambled out through the passenger side.
Somehow Ilya stayed asleep. I wriggled back out of the cloth strips binding my wrists. I untied Ilya and crept to the back door. I ventured a glance outside the window. We were stopped on the side of a highway. Jonah’s face came around the corner and I let out a cry of shock.
A surge of flame whooshed beside us as Jonah opened the door. “It’s just Thorn and the tattooed girl, but Cole and Josh have their hands full.”
I grabbed him and kissed him hard on the lips, more a gesture of gratitude than passion. “Her name is Noel. Stay with Ilya. He’s still asleep.” I pushed past Jonah and hopped out onto the road. I had to find a huge rock.
Cars veered around Faith and Noel as the former shot targeted streams of fire here and there at the bird, spider, and bobcat trio guarding the latter.
I looked farther up the road in time to see Josh deflect one of Thorn’s darts. Cole was nowhere in sight. I had to act.
The ditch along my side of the road spilled with trash and weeds in either direction. I scanned the hillside and found my target. A head-sized piece of loose bedrock.
I willed the rock up into the air, needlessly guiding it with my hands. I knew I could do it with my mind alone, but my arms helped me to focus. I flung it at Thorn’s head. He dodged effortlessly.
I retrieved the rock remotely and this time sent it into the back of Noel’s head as hard as I could. The blow knocked her forward into the air and face first onto the road. Her animals fell to the ground too. As blood pooled out of the back of Noel’s head, her animals deflated, losing all their color until they were no more than puddles of skin on the pavement.
Faith looked at me, eyes full of shock. I turned around to see Cole wielding a road sign like an axe. He struck Thorn in the gut, severing the man in two. Blood gushed out onto the road. Cars streamed past while rubbernecked passengers stared in disbelief.
“Is everyone all right?” said Cole.
“We’ve got to go. Now! We’re going to have cops on our tail fast!” I said. Jonah was suddenly next to me holding Ilya like a sleeping child.
“Put Ilya in the back of my car. Faith, go with them. Nellie and Bruno are in the Jeep,” said Cole.
“I’ll go in the Jeep,” I said to Jonah. He looked drained, but I kissed his cheek anyway.
“Double back to Pleasanton and head into that park,” Josh said to Cole as they ran for their respective vehicles.
I ran to Josh’s Jeep and hopped into the front passenger seat. I looked back at Nellie and Bruno. I smiled at them.
“You look chipper for a recent kidnapping victim, Irina,” said Nellie.
“I’m free now, so there’s a lot to celebrate.”
Chapter 26
“Did Ilya’s images make sense?” I asked Josh as we sped northward on the I-5freeway.
“We found you, didn’t we?” said Josh.
“How did you catch up to everyone else?” I said.
“Ilya showed us the ball field too. We hit the ravine same as you guys on our way to Bay Farm Island. We had already detoured to the east when Cole saw something from Ilya.”
“They were with us when we woke up,” said Nellie.
“Did any of the Berkeley kids make it?” I asked.
“We had to take out Thorn’s darts,” said Bruno from the back seat. I turned around and saw the pained look on his and Nellie’s faces.
“Brian, Meadow, Sam, and Alex were already dead when we regained consciousness. Hollis and Becky weren’t going to make it either, so we extracted Thorn’s darts. We wanted to remove as much variant evidence as possible,�
� said Nellie.
“So it looked like they got mugged in the ball field?” I said.
“It won’t stand up to much scrutiny as a straight up mugging, but they won’t figure mutated people were involved,” said Bruno.
“Maybe we shouldn’t be hiding evidence of variants? If we could ‘come out’ so-to-speak, it could take some power away from the argument Ivan and his buddies make when they recruit people. If variants like Ralph and Adelaide can live normal lives, there’s no way they’d side with The Compendium crew,” said Josh.
“We should have ditched Ralph and Adelaide when we had the chance.” I wanted Bruno and Nellie to feel guilt for bringing Ralph. We should have left him in Portland to roam the sewers. Better still, we should have skipped Portland and Spokane. I turned to Josh and glared at his profile.
“How long would it take to gain understanding and acceptance for variants? Anyone who believes us will lock us up for testing, same as Ivan. No, what we should have done was go straight from Seattle to San Francisco. We could have stopped the earthquake. We might already have Jonah’s serum. And those Berkeley kids would be alive,” I said in my most accusatory tone.
“Maybe, maybe not. There’s no way to know. And there’s no changing the past. We’ve got to work with what we have. Cole and I spotted some parkland west of Pleasanton. We’ll fall back to that point, regroup, and go straight to Bay Farm Island. The city is still a mess. We won’t get in and out quickly, but we won’t dawdle,” said Josh.
“If we don’t find serum for Jonah, I don’t know what I’ll do,” I said.
“I wouldn’t hang all my hopes on this office, reputation or not. But if Tatiana is looking to transform, she wouldn’t do it without a safety net. So maybe an all-purpose genetic stabilizer really does exist,” said Josh.
“Thank you for saying that. I need some optimism right now,” I said.
“On the bright side, we don’t have to go back to the parking garage for Adelaide’s van. She can take it or leave it on her own now,” said Josh.
“Yeah, that’s the bright side.” I laughed a little.
Less than an hour had passed when we turned into a dry and dusty park area. We passed a sign for the Pleasanton Ridge Regional Park.
In the parking lot, Cole’s car waited. Jonah sat on the ground against the door on the shady side, gulping water from a plastic bottle. Two empty bottles lay on the ground next to him.
I got out after Josh parked and went to Jonah. “Are you all right?”
“Getting there. That spider venom really knocks you on your ass,” said Jonah.
“I think I’m building up immunity. The last time she dosed me, I had a weird vision of my mom and sister. It was nice actually,” I said.
“Too bad she’s gone,” said Jonah.
“I wouldn’t go that far.” I stood up and scanned the parking lot. We had the only two vehicles. Strong afternoon sun beamed down on the tired faces around me.
“We still need to go back to San Francisco. It’s for Jonah. This is non-negotiable as far as I’m concerned. Anyone who feels differently can leave now.” I had Nellie and Bruno in mind, but I genuinely didn’t want to be dragging any reluctant travelers. I felt ready to walk back to Bay Farm Island myself with nothing more than my phone and backpack.
“We’re with you,” said Nellie.
“Ralph was our friend–is our friend. But, we’re not taking his path,” said Bruno.
“We’ll have our strength back if we rest here overnight,” said Nellie.
“I second that,” said Faith.
“Josh and I weren’t bitten by that spider, so we’re ready to go,” said Cole.
“True, but we shouldn’t split up again, especially over such a long distance. If there’s something waiting for us on Bay Farm Island, it’ll still be there tomorrow,” said Josh.
“I wish I had your confidence,” I said.
“I should have the final word.” Jonah stood up, sweating in the sun. “I’m sick of wondering and waiting. I’m trying to be strong, and put it out of my mind. But I can’t stop thinking about how often I feel like I’m dying. Every time someone catches up to us and we have to fight, I have to worry not just about getting killed, but about getting one of you killed.”
“Nobody thinks of you as a liability,” said Cole.
“Bullshit. Now listen, if we get there and there’s no serum and no lead on one, then you leave me. Go out to the Mojave and put an end to this,” said Jonah.
“You make it sound so simple,” I said.
“It can be. Let’s get on with it. We’ll go back to Innoviro and then down to the Desert. If we don’t screw around, we’ll have it done by this time tomorrow,” said Faith.
“Anyone opposed?” Josh looked around at each of us.
Nobody raised a hand.
“Okay then, back in the cars. Cole, follow me,” said Josh.
The traffic into the Bay Area was light and the roads were relatively undamaged. The highway brimmed with congestion coming out, but few other cars were stupid enough to try getting back into such a devastated disaster zone.
A helicopter hovered over the exit with a sign for the Oakland International Airport. Traffic died altogether as we breezed past the airport into the light industrial buildings of Bay Farm Island.
We passed several collapsed buildings. Josh slowed looking for Unit 15 at 2595 on the Harbor Bay Parkway and we found ourselves facing a partially intact facility. We had come a long way for such a small chance of success.
“Ilya and I should go in first. If anyone’s in there, they might’ve been told not to harm us, like Noel and Rose and Sage were,” I said to Josh.
I’m not leaving this place empty-handed. Please, whatever it takes, help me. For Jonah, I thought at my brother as Cole’s car parked next to us.
“All right, but text Nellie if you get into trouble,” said Josh.
I turned around and Nellie nodded at me. I stepped out of the Jeep and Ilya waited for me. Let’s get this over with, I said, in my head.
The door was unlocked and the hall silent as we entered at the door nearest to us on the structurally sound end of the building. Fluorescent lights flickered behind plastic panels above us. My pulse knocked inside my ears and my lungs constricted. I remembered the rabid scorpion dog in Victoria. I pictured Thorn’s face. I thought of Hugo’s crushing arms. With each step, a fresh horror entered my mind.
Ilya put his hand on my shoulder from behind and I jumped. “Relax. There’s nothing monstrous or dangerous here. It’s deserted, I promise.”
I took a deep breath and paused. I breathed deeply. “Here’s Unit Fifteen.”
I reached out and turned the doorknob. The space in front of me looked like a hybrid between a warehouse office and a science lab. At the back of the room, two rows of islands had sinks and outlets on the surface. Bunsen burners dotted the counter alongside empty beakers.
Nearest to me, a handful of desks had computers on them, all dark. Along the wall, several familiar-looking specimen fridges were lit. And it hadn’t been gutted, not entirely.
“I can’t believe this place still has power,” said Ilya.
“It’s almost like they meant to come back, but didn’t get the chance. Hadn’t they planned to abandon this place?” I asked.
“Maybe they underestimated the earthquake’s destructive potential. They evacuated as a precaution,” said Ilya.
I walked over to the specimen fridge and opened the door. Unlike Victoria, these shelves were all small liquid vials. No organic matter. Each of the liquid vials had a serial number. Some were blue, yellow, some clear, all identified with a number.
“How can we tell what’s what in here?” I said.
“Turn on one of these computers. We’ll start searching the local drives and
whatever network we can access.” Ilya knelt down and pushed the power button on one of the towers before he took a seat in the chair. He pulled a thumb drive out of his pocket and plugged it into the tower.
“That’ll be like finding a needle in a haystack. No, we need a strategy.” I stared at the dark screen nearest to me. I opened one of the fridges and picked up a vial of blue liquid. I ran my fingertips over the hand-written number. I felt the ink on the rough paper and closed my eyes.
The lab transformed around me. The lighting glowed soft white and steady. Two men in lab coats were each measuring something in beakers next to each other at a sink.
A young girl with a large black bun on her head clacked away at a computer. “Burt, can you remind me where Tatiana said to save the catalog file?”
From behind the sink, one of the men responded, “The root of the Admin folder on the C Drive.”
“Thanks hon,” she said brightly.
The lab melted back into the empty flickering present. I met Ilya’s gaze and smiled.
“There’s something in the root of the Admin folder on the C Drive,” I said.
“I need a user account,” said Ilya.
I plucked a sticky note off the desk behind him. “Try this one,” I said, passing him the note.
“I’m in,” he said.
I watched behind Ilya’s shoulder as he clicked on the Start menu and found the C Drive inside the Computer folder. He opened an Admin folder and clicked on a document titled ‘Catalog’.
The file opened to reveal a huge table of numbers with notations next to each. The bottom left corner of the document listed Page 1, Sec 1, 1/38. Only 38 pages. Great.
“Try doing a ‘Find’ search for ‘aquakinesis’.”
“There’s nothing,” said Ilya as the document reported zero results.
The Compendium Page 20