She pulls him into another kiss, massaging him until the beeping finally stops.
Then …
The house phone begins to ring.
Alex hangs his head in defeat. “It must be Maydevine.”
Silver gives up and withdraws her hand. “Are you the only Agent working in this city?”
Alex reaches for the phone. “I’m the only one who knows who you really are, and knows what we had to do to get you here, and what we have to do to keep you here. So I don’t think Maydevine has too many other numbers he can call right now. Besides, I need to talk to him about what happened this afternoon.”
He clicks the phone on. “King.”
He waits for a response on the other end.
“Okay, boss.”
He hangs up the phone and tosses it away, acknowledging the look of frustration that Silver intentionally fails to keep from her face.
“What do you need to do?” she pouts.
He looks down at her, eager to erase the annoyance and replace it with the desire he saw in her eyes just moments ago. “He’s coming over.”
Silver begins to sigh, but Alex smothers it with a kiss.
And another.
“He won’t be here for almost half an hour.”
The smile returns.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Consequences
Alex and Maydevine talk in the kitchen while Silver showers and dresses. They speak in hushed tones, Alex’s voice fraught and angry.
“That was a cheap trick you pulled this afternoon, and it wasn’t necessary.”
“That’s a matter of opinion.”
“Meaning what? You don’t trust me now?”
“Implicitly, in every other way. But when it comes to my daughter, you and she have a way of butting heads. She can bring out the worst in you in the heat of the moment, and you know she likes to push your buttons.”
“It’s been well over a decade. A lot’s changed since then.”
“For you, maybe. But she’s only really happy when she’s hurting.”
“She’s getting better.”
“Is she? How did you conclude that? Not from her medical file, that’s for sure.”
Alex looks blank.
Maydevine sighs. “You didn’t read the file?”
“I did. Most of it.”
“Her toxicology panel?”
Alex’s heart stops, and he drops down into the nearest chair. The color drains from his face and he dreads hearing Maydevine’s next words.
“She had ketamine, Rohypnol, and amphetamines in her system, and her blood alcohol level was three times the legal limit.” Maydevine leans on the table toward Alex. “Look, she’s pissed off and unstable. I don’t trust her not to take it out on you, and I don’t trust you not to escalate it. Do you understand me? You’re both as bad as each other.”
A brief silence invades.
Alex doesn’t protest further, and Maydevine quickly changes the subject.
“How much of her medical file did you read?”
“All the confusing parts, a hundred times over.”
“And did you tell her?” Maydevine’s gruff voice barely conceals his anxiety.
“No, I didn’t tell her.” Alex ruffles his hair nervously. “And I don’t know what difference it would make even if I did.”
“She needs to know.”
“What am I going to say? ‘Oh, hunny, by the way, you’re a medical anomaly. Your T-cells look like golf balls, and your B-cells are so deformed they could leave home and join the circus’. Tell me, how is that going to help? She already knows what matters: she survived, and she’s immune. Let the lab coats figure out the rest.”
“The virus altered her entire immune system. We’ve got no idea how that’s going to affect her future health.”
“Drop it.” Hushed anger. “Now’s not the time. She’s been through enough, don’t you think?”
Maydevine paces the room. “We’re in a very tenuous position here. As soon as her identity’s revealed, we’ll be right in the shitter.”
“You’re just realizing that now?”
Maydevine looks uncharacteristically exasperated. “I delivered her appeal papers to the new Governor over a month ago. This afternoon, her appeal was denied.”
“On what grounds?” Alex is outraged, raising his voice for the first time.
“Because the Governor is a backstabbing bitch.” Maydevine keeps pacing. “I was counting on the appeal to take the heat off our actions. I figured that once Silver was exonerated, we wouldn’t so much be guilty of aiding and abetting a criminal as we would be unlawfully expediting her repatriation.”
“And what about Jennifer McAllister?” Alex growls. “Once Silver’s cover is blown, they’re going to want to know what happened to her, and where the tag came from.”
“I already took care of that.”
“Did you? Really? ‘Cause apparently Jennifer McAllister was a very popular girl.”
Maydevine shakes his head. “She was a foster kid. Nobody will miss her.”
Alex folds his arms defensively, taking offense at the suggestion of a foster child’s lesser worth in this world. “Maybe not family, but she did have half of Amaranthe taking rotation shifts between her legs.”
Maydevine looks surprised.
“Oh, you didn’t know about that?” Alex sneers at him. “Turns out Carter wasn’t the only one slipping it to her. And now, thanks to you, Omega has a tape of me being accused of knocking up a Sentinel District prostitute.”
Maydevine waves that off. “As far as the official records go, the real Jennifer McAllister never existed. I had the tag reprogrammed with a whole new life. So unless any of her old clients are going to come crawling out of the woodwork to volunteer themselves for banishment, nobody can prove any different.”
“And the tag?”
“When they ask where it came from before I meddled with it, I’m going to say that I borrowed it.”
“From where?”
“A corpse in the morgue. As far as I can tell, there’s no law against that.”
“Really?”
“You’d think there would be, wouldn’t you? But the way I see it, I’m only guilty of recycling.” He pops open a briefcase and hands Alex a file. “The appeal papers.”
Alex takes them. “I don’t understand why it would be denied.”
“The new Governor is disinclined to tarnish the good name of her predecessor.”
“And you told her everything?” Alex flicks through the file.
Maydevine nods. “All the gory details.”
Alex closes the file and pushes it away from him. “I’m not telling her.”
Silver appears in the doorway. “Not telling me what?”
Silence.
Silver steps closer to the table, reluctant to make eye contact with Maydevine, despite his repeated attempts to initiate it. “Do you know what happened to me?”
“No.” Alex shakes his head sincerely. “We don’t.”
“Then what?”
Maydevine takes the recovered laptop out of the briefcase and puts it down on the table, sliding it toward her. “Do you know what this is?”
“The laptop you took from my apartment.” She takes a seat next to Alex and finally locks eyes with Maydevine. “Whose is it?”
Part of Maydevine wants to shove everything else aside and hug her. A bigger part of him knows that she’d only push him away, and he’s not in the mood to be rejected. They each owe the other an apology, but neither of them wants to be the first one to do it. So instead, he focuses her on the laptop.
“You don’t know?”
Silver shakes her head. “I don’t remember.”
Alex pulls his chair closer to hers. “What’s the last thing you do remember?”
More head shaking. “I’m not sure. I can’t piece it together.”
“You have to try.”
“And fast.” Maydevine finally pulls up a chair. “The hospital reported
your case, and that puts me in something of a tight spot. A confirmed CV2 infection in the Sentinel District threatens to rewrite the whole course of this event.”
Silver shakes her head in disagreement. “My attack didn’t happen in the Sentinel District.”
“That’s a blue tag in your wrist now, don’t forget. A Sentinel District attack is the story we’re stuck with.”
“How do we fix it?”
“Thanks to Carter—”
“That troll still has a job?” Silver cuts him off, rolling her eyes.
“Barely.” Maydevine chastises her for the childish eyeball acrobatics. “He killed the whore I got that tag from.”
Silver glares at her own wrist as though she’s seeing it for the first time, but Maydevine doesn’t pause long enough for her to verbalize an objection to the facts.
“Needless to say, he owed me a favor. This afternoon, he helped me to intercept a fresh Chimera corpse that was infected with CV2. It was in an Omega transport vehicle, destined for delivery at the research facility. I had it dropped off down by the waterfront, where your attack was supposed to occur, and I called it in as a kill.
“So as far as Omega’s concerned, your attack occurred as a result of a rogue, escaped Chimera. It’s not like that’s never happened before, and the threat’s been neutralized, so that should be enough to keep it out of the media.” He glances over at Alex. “Unless that snoopy little tramp, Rankin, starts poking about in your business again.” He digs something out of his pocket. “And this is yours.”
Alex’s Police Division badge.
He reaches for it. “I’ve been cleared for active duty?”
“As long as you give me no reason to revoke it.” Maydevine gives him a knowing look.
Silver pretends not to notice. “What about me?”
“Kid, there’s much we have to talk about. But first, you have to figure out where this came from.” He taps the laptop.
“Well, what’s on it?”
“That’s his job.” He points a finger at Alex.
Alex boots up the laptop and stares at the Omega security login page. “I can definitely crack this.”
Maydevine checks his watch and gets up from the table. “I should hope so.” He sighs. “Otherwise, not only would we all be fucked, but you really wouldn’t be worth the salary we’re paying you.”
“What about you?” Alex enquires.
“I’ve got a meeting with the Governor in the morning. She’s pushing hard for resolution of the CV2 crisis, and the city’s officially on lockdown. The Hunter Division’s been diverted to the Fringe District to shut down the pit fights and destroy any living thing that isn’t human or Fusion out there.”
“It’s about time,” Silver mumbles.
Not in the mood for a political argument, Maydevine pretends he didn’t hear her and waggles a finger at Alex. “You fill her in on anything she’s missing. You understand? All of it.”
“Yes, boss.”
Maydevine lets himself out and Alex takes the laptop into his home office—a computer nerd’s wet dream. Silver follows close behind him, wondering if she can be of any use.
Three widescreen monitors are hooked up to a powerful, state of the art computer system. The room is sleek and organized, and everything’s wireless. Various disassembled parts of computers and other electronics are scattered everywhere, seemingly disorganized, but all categorized and all in their place.
On an architect’s drawing board on the other side of the room, there’s a myriad of blueprints for different electronic devices, each in varying stages of construction and design.
Silver lingers in the doorway. “What did he mean ‘fill me in’? What am I missing?”
Hesitant to answer, Alex knows that complete avoidance isn’t an option. He’s got to say something, no matter how vague it might be. “He wants me to talk to you about your medical file.”
“Why? Is there something I should know?”
“Only that you’re incredibly lucky,” he blags.
That seems too obvious, and Silver’s not convinced. “You’re sure that’s it?”
Alex shrugs. “What else could it be?”
Silence.
Silver waits for the truth, but she’s not going to get it.
Not voluntarily.
Too tired to press the matter, she smothers a yawn. “Are you coming to bed?”
Dressed in jeans and one of Alex’s old shirts, she looks girl-next-door alluring and Alex is tempted. His body aches to respond to her invitation, but his mind is drawn to the laptop, eager to uncover the secrets contained within.
“I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Governor
Brrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrring.
Alex wakes up to the sound of his phone ringing.
The sudden jolt from sleep nearly tips his office chair off balance, almost sending him tumbling to the floor. A brief glance at his desk reveals that the laptop, plugged into various wires and hubs, is still running the program he set it for the previous night.
Nothing’s changed, and he’s been here all night.
Silver appears in the doorway, tosses Alex the cordless phone, and walks away. The hostility emanating from her is deadly enough to send the cat running in the opposite direction, cowering beneath Alex’s desk.
“Shit.” Alex catches the phone clumsily and fumbles to hit ‘talk’. “King.”
He listens.
“Right now?”
More listening.
“Okay.”
He hangs up.
Sitting in the living room, flicking through the Amaranthe News and Times on the couch, Silver refuses to acknowledge him at first. Familiar with these tactics, he draws near to her with his tail between his legs, trying to close the gap between them.
“Silver …”
She doesn’t even look up from the paper, and flips him her middle finger.
“I have to go and meet with Maydevine,” he continues.
She ignores him.
“He’s with the Governor,” he adds, hoping for a reaction.
Achieved.
Silver looks up, folds the newspaper to frame the front page story, and holds it up to him. “Is it about this?”
The headline: Monsters or Refugees? CV2 Virus Has No Limits. An article penned by the paper’s Editor in Chief, Celia Rankin.
The picture is a crowd of Fusions, clamoring at the fortified entrance to Old World Queensboro Bridge—now City Bridge. It links the Sentinel District directly to the Old World Manhattan part of the Out District, an area now designated as Third Reclamation territory.
Alex snatches the newspaper from her. “How the hell did that bitch get hold of this already? I just heard this from the Commissioner two minutes ago.”
Disinterested, Silver gets up and heads into the kitchen with an empty coffee cup. “Chaos rules,” she mutters.
Alex tosses the newspaper down and chases after her. “Are you not in the least bit concerned?”
Silver pours herself another cup of coffee, still irritated from the night before. “What do you want me to do? I’m in protective custody, remember?”
As she lifts the coffee cup to her lips, Alex snatches it away.
“Oz and Jax are out there, and—”
The coffee spills onto his fingers, causing him to drop the whole thing into the sink, wringing his hand from the sudden sizzle of nerves in his fingertips.
“They’re out there and so is the virus,” Silver completes for him. “I get it. Don’t forget who you’re talking to.” She fixes him with a glare. “Don’t think I don’t know how serious this is. I was the one who warned you, remember?”
Pushing him back to give herself some space, she retrieves her coffee cup from the sink and refills it. “If the virus is attacking the Fusion colony, it’s going to spread through the Out District like a wild fire.
It might even be airborne by now. Heck, it’s already jumped the species barrier.
“That makes everyone living in the Out District—human or Fusion—extremely vulnerable. Worse still, if CV2 is anything like its predecessor, less than two percent of the human population will be immune to it.”
She shoves past Alex into the living room, a fresh cup of coffee in hand.
He keeps on her tail. “At least we have the Hunter Division.”
Silver shakes her head. “The Hunter Division is unprepared and outnumbered. If Omega denies the Fusion colony entry into the city, they’ll take entry by force and the Hunter Division will be powerless to stop them.”
“We’ll grant them asylum, then.”
Silver scoffs at that, continuing her tirade. “Even if Omega did agree to give the Fusions a freedom pass into the city, they lack the manpower to properly command or contain them. Compulsory tagging? Not a chance. There’s not the time, nor the capacity. The city’s already breaking at the seams with an overflowing human population. Where would the newcomers go? The only thing Omega could do is store them in the Belt.”
The Belt.
A narrow band of Old World land—Roosevelt Island—located between the current city walls and the Out District. Left unreclaimed, it’s a shell of Old World ruins, protected only by a small stretch of water that runs between it and the Out District.
Silver shakes her head at the thought of it. “It’s not inconceivable that desperate Chimera could try to cross the water to get onto the island.”
“But it would put some distance between the infected and the refugees at least.” Alex plays devil’s advocate. “And it’d also keep the refugees at bay from the Sentinel District.”
“Just one bridge between them and us. Sound familiar?”
“It would only be temporary.”
“That’s what they said about the Fringe District.” Silver lets that sink in for a while. “There is no protection here, Alex. Not for anyone. All it would take is one whiff of a riot in the Belt and this city would completely self-destruct.”
She can see the tension in Alex’s expression, and she knows this can’t be easy for him. “What will you tell the Governor?”
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