by Ellery Kane
“What did they say?” I asked.
Edison and Quin shared a glance. “The gist of it was about String. Like he had done something he wasn’t supposed to do yet. I didn’t really get it at the time, but then McAllister told me what happened.” The spotlight redirected onto Quin.
“Any idea why Sebastian would want you dead?” Mr. Van Sant asked.
“No clue,” Quin said. “But I know he’s been following me, at least since I got back from L.A. And Lex overheard him say something about tailing my dad.”
I glanced sidelong at Augustus. He was preening like a peacock. “You knew about this, didn’t you? Why was String following Quin?”
Augustus’ serpentine smile was a forewarning. “I wish I could be of assistance, Ms. Knightley. I really do.” Doubtful. “I’d like to punish that little traitor more than anyone.” That I could believe. “However, there is the matter of my … ” He cleared his throat with a purposeful glance at Mr. Van Sant. “ … compensation. I don’t give out priceless information for free.”
“Argh!” Max groaned in frustration. “Could you be any more evasive? Is there an evil madman academy where they teach you this stuff?”
“It’s called business school, Mr. Powers. Negotiation 101. My favorite class.”
“Let me guess, your second favorite was Advanced Fraud,” Max replied. “Or was it Accelerated Conning and Manipulation?”
Augustus looked through him. “We had a deal, Nicholas. You pay. I talk.”
“Yes, and I will. But you certainly can’t expect me to pay you one-and-a-half million dollars today.”
“And why not?”
“It’s impossible.”
“I hate to be cliché, but where there’s a will, there’s a way.” Augustus leaned back and closed his eyes. “Wake me when you have it.”
“Porter!” Mr. Van Sant pounded the table with his fist. Augustus didn’t even flinch. “We don’t have time for this! People’s lives are on the line here.” He pretended to snore. “Fine. I’ll give you $250,000 in cash today. That’s the best I can do.”
“Well if that’s the best you can do.” Augustus’ smirk returned slowly, as if he was awakening from a delicious dream. “I met Sebastian right after my appointment as drug czar. He was living on the street outside of my office in downtown Oakland. I watched him for a while. He was smart, cunning, independent—a lot like me. So I took him under my wing. I gave him a job. I even bailed him out a few times.” A slight variation of String’s story. Since neither was known for telling the truth, I wasn’t sure who to believe. “That’s when he told me he was looking for someone. He wanted to settle a debt. He showed me—”
“Who was it?” Quin interrupted.
“Patience was never your strong suit, was it?” Augustus scowled at Quin. “I was getting to that. It was your father. He showed me a picture of your father. I didn’t recognize him at first, of course, until he told me the name. That was before your father got his second fifteen minutes of infamy. When Sebastian said the name McAllister … well I thought perhaps we could come to a mutually beneficial arrangement.” Amused with himself, Augustus chuckled. “I scratch your back, you scratch mine. You find my McAllister, I’ll help you find yours.”
“But how would String know George McAllister? What would he want with him?” I asked.
Augustus reclined in his chair, his work apparently done. “Ms. Knightley, your guess is as good as mine. But I do know he found him. He was tailing him and—”
Before he could finish, Mr. Van Sant jumped up from his seat, grinning. He put his open palm in front of Augustus. “Give me five!” Augustus gingerly tapped his palm, disdain dripping from the downturned corners of his mouth.
“What are you talking about, Dad?” Edison asked.
“I’m talking about a possible witness. A witness to Shelly’s murder. If Sebastian was following George McAllister, then maybe, just maybe, he was there that night. This is the first real lead we’ve had in a while.”
I peeked up at Quin. His eyes were pure excitement.
“Let’s just hope he doesn’t kill Quin first. Or turn up dead himself,” Edison added. Dead. Max and I both winced, but that word was a harsh reminder. I still had a few more questions for Quin.
“We saw String aiming right at you,” I said. “How did he miss?”
“He didn’t.” Immediately, the light in Quin’s eyes doused. I wondered what he was thinking. “One of the soldiers on the stage pushed me out of the way. He got shot in the back, but he was wearing a bulletproof vest.”
“Odd.” Mr. Van Sant summed my reaction perfectly. “The military isn’t exactly pro-McAllister. Did you know him?”
Quin didn’t answer at first. “No, I don’t know him.” Everyone else moved on. I stayed stuck in the quicksand of what Quin wasn’t saying. He avoided my eyes.
“How did Valkov find you?” Elana asked Edison.
Edison shrugged. “That guy is like a sniffer dog. No offense, Artos.” Hearing his name, Artos cocked his head and whined a little. “I was being so quiet. He must have heard me breathing.”
“So what did you do?”
“Well, Red, I did what I used to do best. I pretended I was plastered out of my mind.” Edison and Quin both chuckled. “Valkov hit me with a chair, and then Quin showed up.” Edison pointed to his black eye. “He smacked me around a little for old times’ sake and convinced the powers that be to let him deal with me. And then we got the heck out of there.”
“What did you tell Xander?” I asked Quin. He looked away, uncomfortable. Edison’s face reddened. The lightness between them darkened.
“It’s okay, McAllister. You can say it.” Edison’s words of encouragement had a sharp edge, the kind that would make you bleed before you realized you’d been cut.
Quin sighed again. He was used to Edison’s razor tongue. “I’d rather not. You know I didn’t mean it.”
“Yes, you did.” Whatever remained of Edison’s self-loathing was unearthed. He spit out the words with the sort of bitter vigor he reserved only for Quin. “He said I was a loser. An arrogant, good for nothing—”
“Stop.” Quin’s voice was soft but compelling. “I was describing myself. My old self. Everything I ever hated about you, I hated about me too.” He put his hand on Edison’s shoulder, both of them wincing with the effort of it, the admission it required. I saw what I had known since that first night in my kitchen. They were two sides of the same boy. “You’re a good guy, Eddie. You’re my friend.”
Mr. Van Sant nodded. “You’ve got to stop being so hard on yourself, Son.” Considering his words, he amended them. “I have to stop being so hard on you too.”
Edison’s muscles were tense, his jaw clenched. He was on the verge of something. Good or bad—it was hard to tell. A single, willful tear escaped from his eye before he leveled it with his uniform sleeve. “Alright, alright, alright.” He released a shaky breath. Elana wrapped her arm around Edison and kissed his cheek. Disarmed, he finally turned to look at Quin. “I love you too, McAllister. But you know I’m already taken.”
Augustus raised his hand like a pompous schoolboy who wouldn’t wait to be called on. “Large bills only, please.”
CHAPTER FIFTY - FIVE :
SECOND CITY
“You’re gonna want to see this.” Barry called to us from the corner of the living room where he was sitting with the laptop balanced on his knees, sorting through the contents of Xander’s hard drive.
On the screen were hundreds of folders, most cryptically labeled. “A lot of these file names correspond to the substitution code. Like this one.” He pointed to a numbered folder. “Docil-E,” he explained, clicking on it. Barry scrolled through the documents to the very bottom. “Lex, I think this might explain why your soldier was violent.” He opened the file. It was an internal email dated November 15, 2042. I read it over Max’s shoulder.
Dear Mr. Steele,
As we discussed in our research review meeting last week, the te
am is nearing completion of the Docil-E2 experimental trials. It is my understanding that the military expects Docil-E2 to be ready for deployment within a month. Though the team has successfully met the requests to alter the chemical composition of Docil-E according to military specifications, I feel it is my duty to apprise you of my reservations, which are based on the trials conducted in our laboratory as well as my five-year tenure at Green Briar Recovery Center treating EAM abuse and dependence.
While Docil-E has been proven effective in promoting positive emotions, including kindness and cooperation, Docil-E2’s effects are less advantageous. Test subjects in Trials 4 and 5 (who were administered Docil-E2) showed low levels of activity in the frontal lobe, leading to decreased alertness and self-efficacy, and increased vulnerability to suggestion. Unlike their Docil-E counterparts, Docil-E2 subjects maintained a similar propensity toward violence.
In short, these subjects complied with orders to refrain from violence but were also willing to behave aggressively when ordered to do so and, in fact, appeared to have less control over their decisions and limited awareness of consequences. Experimental trials also have shown that subjects who were simultaneously administered Emovere, Agitor, or Onyx demonstrated an unpredictable response to Docil-E2. In my opinion, further testing of Docil-E2 is warranted before its use in real-world military scenarios.
Regards,
Dr. Layton Ferguson, Senior Researcher
Max shook his head. “Can anyone say déjà vu?”
“I wish I could say I’m surprised,” Mr. Van Sant replied. “I’m willing to bet Dr. Ferguson is already out of a job.”
“Or buried in a shallow grave,” Max scoffed.
Elana shook her head, puzzled. “It’s strange though. Why would the military want to use this on the public? Or even an enemy? It seems too risky.”
“That’s just it,” Quin said. “They’re not planning to use it on the public.” With all eyes on him, I spoke.
“Research and development.” I repeated Quin’s phrase and he nodded. An idea, as feathery and formless as a cloud, was beginning to take shape in my mind—the shape of a rain cloud with its dark heart throbbing, signaling trouble.
“It’s for internal use only,” he said. “Today was just another test. Whatever Xander is planning …” Quin detoured, distracted by a newly opened spreadsheet. “Is that what I think it is?”
“2043 sales projections,” Barry answered. “By city.”
Quin nodded. “For Docil-E?”
“Among other things.” Docil-E was clearly marked by name, but there were four other substances identified by number. “This one’s Emovere.” As he deciphered the code, he named the others—all banned, of course. “Agitor … Eupho … ”
“I think we all know what’s left,” Mr. Van Sant said.
“Onyx.”
“Looks like Xander’s anticipating a big year for Emovere in California.” I pointed to the sales graphs for San Francisco, Emovere’s line spiking in January and steadily climbing month by month. “And Los Angeles.”
“And Boston and New York,” Quin added. As Barry scrolled through 100 major U.S. cities, we named ten with a similar pattern.
“Ten?” Mr. Van Sant’s sounded dazed and desperate, and I knew exactly what he was thinking. “Do you really think Xander’s capable of something like that? That kind of devastation?”
Quin scoffed. “He’s selling drugs on the black market. He’s supplying gangs with Onyx. He framed my dad for murder. What isn’t he capable of?”
“Quin’s right, Dad. He’d bomb twenty cities if he could.” Edison let out an exasperated sigh. “But this isn’t evidence. We can’t prove anything.”
“Then we have to keep looking.” I directed Barry to another file with a logo I recognized. Guardian Force Rehabilitation Program. “Carrie was right. She said Zenigenic was funding part of the program.” Inside the folder were hundreds of day-by-day Recovery Analysis charts exactly like the one Carrie showed me and my father. I scanned the dates looking for charts dated after her resignation. “There. That one.” July 2041. “And that one.” January 2042. Barry opened them, revealing a long list of former Guardian Force. Like Carrie’s list, there were many red circles. But on this one, there was something else. Asterisks. And Greenhorn 387 had both.
“Uh, Sherlock?” Edison tapped me on the shoulder. “What exactly are we looking for here?”
I put my finger on Greenhorn 387. “This is Peter Radley—about eight months before he started doing those rallies with Quin’s dad.”
“What do the marks mean?” Elana asked.
I shrugged. “I’m not exactly sure. Carrie’s chart was different. No asterisks. She said the red circles corresponded to an incomplete recovery from EAMs. A damaged brain.” The moment my words took a life of their own, I wished I could take them back, squash them inside me like they deserved. What was I thinking? I studied Quin’s face. Even though I expected it—his instant self-doubt—it still was painful to watch.
“Does anyone ever really recover?” Max asked, rescuing me.
Mr. Van Sant made a noise of agreement. “There’s a lot of red on that page. Reminds me of law school, my first legal briefs. Those were a bloodbath.”
“Dad. Focus.” Edison turned to Barry. “Is there a way to find out what those asterisks mean?”
“Let’s go fishing,” Barry suggested. He right clicked on the screen and typed * into the search bar. Hundreds of results appeared, but one stood out. It was an entire folder, titled only with an asterisk. “Looks like we caught a whopper.”
“Open it,” Mr. Van Sant urged. The folder contained hundreds of documents, each labeled with the identifier of a Greenhorn or a Legacy.
Quin’s eyes widened. “I’ll look for it,” he blurted, quickly tilting the screen toward him, squinting hard. His face tensed. Was he holding his breath? No one else seemed to notice. After a minute or so, he tapped his finger against the screen. It was a letter addressed to Peter Radley.
September 1, 2042
Congratulations, Greenhorn 387,
You have been selected as a qualifying candidate for the Guardian Force Elite Team. This team has been assembled to carry out a series of special missions, the details of which will be disclosed to you after you sign the enclosed contract.
As a reminder, your signature on this document confirms your withdrawal from the Guardian Force Rehabilitation Program and reinstatement in the United States Guardian Force as a member of the Elite Team. As always, your discretion is demanded. Should you accept these terms, please report for duty at the main entrance of the Presidio in San Francisco, where you will be issued further instructions.
We thank you for your service to your country and wish you success as a Guardian Elite.
Sincerely,
General Anton Maze
“Un-be-lievable!” Mr. Van Sant jumped to his feet and began pacing. “Guardian Force Elite Team?”
“Carrie said it was happening again. That’s the general she wrote requesting her resignation.” I found Quin’s eyes looking down at his tattoo, disgusted. It was different now, of course, but what it represented was indelible, inked onto Quin permanently.
His gaze distant, he rubbed his arm. “Maze was fourth in command behind Ryker.”
“Do you think Radley was still working for the Guardian Force when he spoke at the New Resistance rallies?” I asked him.
He didn’t answer. “Quin?” His sigh was long and brittle, the way regret might sound, if it made one.
“Of course he was.” He said it to himself. “How could I have missed that? He always acted a little strange, but I just thought it was the drugs—the long-term effects.” He wandered away and sat on the arm of the sofa, putting his head to his palms. I followed, taking the place alongside him. In the space between us, I could feel his angst squatting like a toad. I laid my hand on Quin’s back and let it rest there. He didn’t move away, but he didn’t acknowledge me either.
“Did yo
u know about this?” I asked Augustus. He was lurking in the corner, a briefcase of Mr. Van Sant’s money—as requested, large bills only—tucked under his seat, so quiet I almost forgot he was there.
“To what exactly are you referring, Ms. Knightley?”
“Any of it? And why do you always answer a question with a question?”
“What makes you think I would have access to privileged military information?”
I rolled my eyes at him. “Because I know you.”
Augustus preened in the spotlight of my unintended flattery. “I do know one thing,” he said. “Steele couldn’t stand it, the way the public despised Zenigenic and, by default, him. His father was similar, always looking for a way to sway opinion. A staged assassination attempt might do the trick.” As far-fetched as it sounded, none of us disagreed.
For the first time since we walked through the door together, Quin looked at Augustus. “You’re right.” Augustus’ eyes widened, as if he was waiting on a bolt of lightning to follow those words. “I can’t believe I didn’t realize it sooner. Barry, is there anything on that drive about what happened in Chicago?”
“You don’t think … ” I let the rest of my words fall away, not ready to say them aloud.
“That’s exactly what I think.”
“Okay, Holmes and Watson.” Edison nodded his head toward Quin and me. “Would one of you please enlighten the rest of us?”
“If Zenigenic is willing to bomb cities to increase sales now, what would’ve stopped them from doing it six years ago?” Quin’s question descended like a bomb in its own right.
In the aftermath, Edison answered. “Nothing.”
Barry motioned toward the screen to a folder that wasn’t numbered. Its label was innocuous. Miscellaneous. “This is the only folder with anything from 2037. It hasn’t been opened in a while.”
There was only one document inside, dated October 30, 2037. “That’s three days after the bombings started. Three days after Chicago,” I said. “That can’t be a coincidence.” It was a memo—one sentence—addressed to Xander’s father, then-CEO of Zenigenic, Jackson Steele.