House of Dolls 2

by Harmon Cooper

  “She briefed us,” the strongman said, tensing and relaxing his big gloved hands. While the top part of his body was thick, his legs were actually rather skinny, only accenting his bodybuilder physique.

  “And?” Kevin asked.

  “You want to break out a healer, and according to you, this is the only healer left in the entire world,” said the woman, a hint of amusement in her voice.

  “The Centralian government has scoured the world for healers, killing all aside from one,” Kevin said, “who happens to be at Prison South. We have an injured colleague, and it is my goal to break this healer out and have them heal our colleague. Don’t believe me? Take a look at the documents on the table over there, some stuff I borrowed from a government official, a list of healers who have expired.”

  “And you expect us to help you break this person out?” the man in the gray beanie asked. “Because where I’m from, that’s called suicide.”

  “Oh yeah? And where are you from?”

  “Near the northern border,” the man said.

  Something about the way he looked made Kevin think he was a telepath, or at least that part of his ability was based in telepathy. Thing was, Kevin had dealt with a good many telepaths in his position before becoming an immigration advisor, and many of them shared a similar look.

  Most people never caught it, but Kevin had seen it multiple times—a troubled look, fitting for a person who was sensing everything in the room.

  The good ones could cover this look of discomfort, as it was very subtle, but all of them shared it. It was almost a nervous twitch, which meant the man likely sensed something was off about Kevin.

  But he wasn’t saying anything about it, which made Kevin wonder where the man fell on the telepath spectrum.

  “Neither of you has said no yet,” Kevin remarked, cutting straight to the chase. “Which leads me to believe you have some interest in what I’m trying to do. Is that the case?”

  “Everyone can use a healer in their personal lives,” the strongman said, his eyes drooping as a frown formed on his face. “Family reasons.”

  “Then we are all in the same boat,” said Kevin.

  “We’ll take some of the money, too,” the woman added. “Not that we’ll be able to spend it.”

  “Why is that?” Kevin asked.

  She scoffed at his question. “What you are asking us to do is suicide. It’s the most heavily guarded prison in Centralia. And yes, I’m aware there are rumored black sites in the Western Province, but I’m talking about within our borders. There’s nothing else like Prison South.”

  “If it’s suicide, then what do you need the money for?” Kevin asked. “I mean, those were your words.”

  “Because we need to be able to kill ourselves if this doesn’t pan out,” she said. “That money can be used to purchase various pills we can take that will stop our hearts from working, and if we’re unable to do that, we have enough to arrange for an outside force to kill us. Plus, a little for our families.”

  “Fair enough,” Kevin said, steeling his nerves. “But we’re not going to die. None of us are going to die. We’re going to break this healer out of there, share them, and…”

  “It’s a very good question,” the man in the gray beanie said. “What happens after we’ve rescued this healer? Assuming that we all make it out alive. And what’s this about sharing?” He laughed. “I’d disregard that naive thought if I were you.”

  “Fine, I’m just thinking out loud,” said Kevin. “To answer your first question, we use Scarlett’s services to teleport the healer to the various locations we need them to be.”

  “Starting with your location, I’m guessing,” said the muscular man.

  “I’m the one putting this together,” Kevin reminded him, “and I’m the one that plans to get the intel.”

  “How do you plan to do that?” the woman asked.

  “I’ll answer that,” said Scarlett. “You may not know this, but there was recently a breakout in Prison South, a successful one, which has led them to reevaluate their structures. It’s also caused an influx of guards to be transferred from other prisons. Temporary guards, which means the bars outside the prison will be full of new guys with loose lips.”

  “So you plan on randomly finding someone, getting information on where the healer is being held, and then using that information to break them out?” the man in the beanie asked.

  “Well, now that you’re working with us, James, we figured you’d be the one that could get the information we need,” Scarlett said.

  “I haven’t said anything about working with you yet.”

  Scarlett rolled her eyes. “For a telepath, you sure are shit at hiding your thoughts.”

  The man known as James laughed. “You’re right, I would be able to get it. But that doesn’t mean we’ll be able to pull it off.”

  Kevin licked his lips, realizing that the man was a telepath, as he had predicted. That meant he knew Kevin’s secret, but like a good telepath, he was holding his cards close to his chest.

  “We just need to know where to go,” Obsidian said, the cat girl stepping forward. “That’s all that matters. All of us combined will be able to get through, get the healer, and get out. And that’s all that matters.”

  “And you’re sure the healer is still being held there?” the short strongman asked.

  “From what I know, yes,” said Kevin. “But this is something we could confirm tonight at one of the bars in the area.”

  “It’s curious to me that they would keep the healer there after the breakout,” James the telepath said.

  “The people that broke the inmate out were coming for someone else,” Scarlett said. “And I agree with you, it’s a little strange, but I think it’s a ‘hidden in plain sight’ type of thing. Regardless, we will still need to act quickly.”

  “You know, it has been a long time since I got into something like this,” the woman with the shaved head said.

  “And it may be the last time,” the strongman reminded her. “I will only do this if we have good intel, if we know for certain that the healer is there. We will also need to get the supplies we discussed,” he told the woman, “because this is a suicide mission.”

  “No,” said Kevin, his voice lowering. “It’s much more than that.”

  Chapter Forty: Going Rogue

  “We have to go,” Nadine told Roman the next morning, a look of utter fear flashing across her face.

  Roman was fast asleep at her side, having crawled back into bed sometime after he and Celia had finished.

  He had been dreaming of moving away from something, the twilight meadow shattering all around him, but he couldn’t remember what else had happened now that he’d sat up. Whatever it had been, it had been coming for him, and he’d been gathering the people around him.

  The people he cared about.

  And there had been many people, but Nadine, the dolls and, for some odd reason, Lisa Painstake had all been there. Others, too—Harper, Emelia, some of his co-workers. Kevin Blackbook, oddly enough, the portly administrator with a dark look on his face.

  “What’s going on?” Roman asked as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.

  “All of us need to leave, now,” Nadine said hurriedly. “Don’t look.” She ripped off her night dress and slipped into a pair of tights.

  “You’re my wife,” Roman started to joke.

  “Get ready. I’m fucking serious here.”

  Once Nadine was dressed, she moved to the other room and woke the dolls up.

  Of course, she didn’t know that they never slept, and Roman had a chuckle knowing she’d probably walked in to find them sitting on the bed, their heads cocked to the left as they observed her. Casper was in there too, although she may still be asleep.

  He heard Nadine’s muffled voice through the wall as he buttoned up a shirt and pulled up his pants. Roman was surprised to see that the bags had already been packed, which led him to believe Nadine had woken up before h
im and let him sleep just a little bit longer.

  A nice gesture, and to thank her, he honored her wishes, kicking into high gear and getting ready as quickly as possible.

  “They’re ready,” she said as she came back in the room.

  “I’m just putting on my boots,” Roman told her.

  “Good, because we need to go now.”

  “Where are we going? What about Lisa?” Roman asked.

  “We’ll get a safe distance away from the city and I’ll take her back. Easier that way, trust me.” Nadine turned to Roman and took a few steps closer to him.

  She reached her hands up, and for a moment, he thought she was going to place them on his cheeks. Instead, her fingers came to the collar of his shirt, which she quickly fixed.

  “We’re going to find the reindeer people,” she finally said.

  “Us? I thought we were just getting intel…”

  “Sometimes it’s good to gather intelligence; other times it’s good to gather intelligence and act immediately. I thought about it, and if the Centralians are moving in, we should be doing something as well,” she said, still avoiding eye contact. “We’re a small group, and likely faster. So that’s what we’re doing now.”

  “So we’re not going back to Centralia today or tomorrow?”

  “That’s still the plan, but we need to try to warn these people first. Also, can you imagine what leverage we would have if we actually found a healer?”

  Roman slipped into his pants. “What would we do with them?”

  “Well, for one, we would hide them from the Centralians, and…” Nadine bit her lip. “We might have to hide the healer from my government as well. And this may come as a shock to you, but it may be easier to hide them in Centralia than here. There are less surveillance rules in Centralia, and people don’t make it a habit of ratting out their neighbors. Do you think Jorgen was put with us just to be a guide?”

  “Where is he, anyway?”

  “I’ve already taken care of him.” And before Roman could protest, Nadine lifted her hand. “I didn’t kill him, but he will be sleeping for the next several hours.”

  Roman nodded, still sleepy and a bit confused, but convinced of the conviction in her voice. “Let’s say we find this person. How would we even get them back to Centralia?”

  “The same way any illegal immigrant gets into Centralia.”

  Roman raised an eyebrow at her. “You know, this isn’t what I signed up for…”

  “But you’re going to do it anyway. Isn’t that right, dear?” She dropped her hand into his and offered him a quick smile. “Well, dear?”

  “I’m going to need a serious mind wipe after this.”

  “That can be arranged,” Nadine said as she turned back to the door. “Let’s go, now.”

  It was better that Roman didn’t know the real reason they were leaving. As Nadine, Roman, Lisa and the dolls slipped out into the early morning darkness, Nadine knew that what she did next could seriously affect her livelihood and the lives of her parents going forward.

  She was betting everything that they would find a healer, this from an interesting conversation she’d overheard at the social last night. It had been a brief remark, but it did corroborate what Casper had heard from the Centralian general, that there may be a healer in the midst of the reindeer people.

  Rumored, but that was all she had to go on at the moment.

  Still, it was an incredible risk, not only because they were severely outnumbered, but because Nadine was disobeying a direct order.

  This was unlike her, and she needed leverage if she was going to do it. Hopefully that leverage would come in the form of a healer.

  Nadine shivered for a moment, recognizing yet again the choice she was making. She didn’t always agree with orders, but she’d never disobeyed one before.

  Part of her disobedience came from disagreeing with how the Eastern Province’s government wanted to handle Roman. She had been assured by Oscar that they wouldn’t detain him indefinitely, but they wanted to know how a non-exemplar had been granted a power, and they didn’t normally have specimens simply delivered to them on a platter.

  Nadine didn’t want Roman to go through that.

  He was her asset, and regardless of the fact that they worked more like a team, or maybe because of this reason, she felt it was her duty to protect him.

  This, and she wanted to act on the intel she’d received. Because if she could return with a healer, that would be even more valuable.

  It was a bizarre situation, really, to betray one’s overseers with the ultimate goal of helping them gain leverage, albeit from the safety of a different country.

  But that was her angle, and she’d known the risks when she made the decision to take it last night.

  “You seem quiet,” Roman said as he moved in next to her. They had taken a narrow path mostly covered by foliage, but there was still enough room to walk side by side.

  “I’m ready to talk when you are,” a high-pitched voice said from his jacket pocket.

  “I was referring to her, not you.”

  “Usually, when women are quiet it means they know something you don’t know,” Casper told him, her little ears peeking up from his shirt pocket.

  “Is that so?”

  Celia laughed. Roman glanced over to her, watching as the conservatively dressed doll stepped over a puddle and onto more fallen leaves. Nadine remembered Roman leaving the room last night; she had noticed his absence almost immediately. She figured he’d gone down for some food, since he’d seemed pretty restless. Had he wanted to see to his restlessness within the confines of their bedroom, she would have been down.

  But she was sort of glad it hadn’t gone that way. Not yet, anyway.

  “I don’t know anything you don’t already know,” Nadine finally told him. A lie, but it would suffice for now.

  “I thought we were supposed to meet the person who would see to my condition this morning.” Lisa was at the back of the group, mopey as ever.

  “We were supposed to, but something came up. You know…” Nadine turned to her and smiled. “How about I take you to his place? Roman and the dolls can wait here, and I can drop you off.”

  “I…” Lisa glanced from Roman to Nadine and back again. “You think that’s okay? I sort of don’t want to be without you guys.”

  “I’m hoping Roman and I will be back by tomorrow, so theoretically, we would pick you up and then go back to Centralia together.”

  Lisa looked to Roman for support and he nodded.

  “Maybe that’s a better idea,” Lisa finally said.

  “Great. Then stay here, Roman, and I will deliver Lisa to the two techs I met last night.”

  “And my body?”

  “We’ll have a teleporter drop that off as soon as we get there,” said Nadine. “I owe you this much, and I promise we will return for you after we get back from the mountains.”

  Roman started to sit on the ground but then remembered he had a power, so he formed an exposed tree trunk into a nice chair instead. Lifting more trunks next to them, he extended his chair until it was long enough to seat three.

  “I’ll try to bring some food, too,” Nadine called over her shoulder.

  It didn’t take Nadine and Lisa very long to get back to the hotel. From there, they turned right, following a rather wide lane that ran adjacent to the main thoroughfare. Nadine wore her hood now, partially concealing her face, and Lisa was completely transparent.

  No one stopped to ponder why a hooded woman had stepped out of the forest. As Nadine had grown used to in the East, people simply minded their own business.

  They took a winding, cobblestoned street to a residential area with one- and two-story homes pressed up to the curb. There was a smaller trolley station not far from this location, indicated by a bell ringing in the distance. A bakery on the corner had its windows open, the warm smell of freshly baked bread meeting Nadine’s nostrils.

  She stopped here first, picking up
potatoes and meat wrapped in fist-sized rolls, then continued deeper into the district. Referring to a piece of paper in her hand, she found the home in question, which, as she’d expected, was more extravagant than all the other houses on the block.

  The Eastern Province was poor, but that didn’t mean rich people didn’t live here, and the types of people who had attended last night’s event were definitely on the upper echelons of society when it came to wealth.

  Hell, many were richer than the richest people in Centralia, something most Centralians couldn’t comprehend.

  So the tech she’d met last night was well off, another good sign he’d be able to help Lisa. Nadine waited at the gate after knocking, knowing full well that the people who lived in the home probably had some type of security.

  “Are you sure they’re up?” Lisa asked, a hint of nervousness in her voice.

  “If not, we’re waking them up. And you can turn bright again once we meet them, but stay the way you are for now.”

  “How are we paying them for this?”

  “We’re not. I know it sounds crazy, but not everything in the East runs on money like it does in Centralia. They’re interested in your power for research, so by agreeing to this, you are allowing them to perform a few tests on you and take samples of your tissue. Now, they assured me none of this will hurt—nothing invasive—but you should be aware this is the price they are charging. They simply want to know more about you and your power.”

  Lisa thought for a moment, nodding in Nadine’s direction. “I’m okay with that; I just really want this to work.”

  “As do I,” Nadine said as she smoothed her hands over her hooded blouse. “I told them about your power last night, and revealed to them what happened with limited detail. One of the guys we’re meeting claims to have seen a similar case with someone who could turn themselves to water vapor. Now, I’m aware that’s a different element, but they believe they have a way to reattach your spectral form to your real body. Speaking of which…” Nadine closed her eyes and fired off a mental message to a teleporting service.