WEET-WEET-WEET!
WEET-WEET-WEET!
An alarm. A throbbing, high-pitched shriek.
Ian snapped awake. John wiped the drool from his mouth and pulled himself into his chair. Even Xana’s eyes fluttered.
Amarta walked into the hall. “What is that?” She had to yell over the skull-splitting noise.
John shook his head.
“Found it!” Ian called.
A red disc-shaped speaker rested on a table next to a tablet computer. There was a single button on top. Next to it were three neat stacks of bills. Money.
Ian pressed the button and the alarm stopped. He looked to John and Amarta, who came up behind.
The trio turned their heads when they heard Xan’s bed creak under her shifting weight.
“I’ll check on her,” Ian said.
Amarta looked at the disc and the tablet. They hadn’t been there the night before. “What do you think it means?”
John picked up the thin touchscreen computer. The screen turned on. A white sideways triangle appeared—the symbol for play.
Ian ran back. “She’s gone.”
John spun. “Xan?”
“No. Wink.”
“What do you mean gone?”
“I mean gone. She’s not here, and I don’t think she’s coming back either. She took all her stuff this time. Her tools and everything. It’s all gone. Vanished.”
Amarta scowled. “What? How? Where could she have gone?”
Ian shrugged. “She does this.”
John looked at the tablet in his hand. “But she’s always left her stuff before.” He held up the screen so everyone could see. He tapped it.
Prophet’s voice came through the speaker. It was a recording.
THis TeAm iS ExpOseD.
ROgUE eLemEnTs fROm iNSiDe oUr AdVerSaRY’s OrgANiZaTiOn haVE bRoKeN frEe Of tHeIr COmManD AnD cOntRoL ANd aRe coNvErGinG On YoUR lOcaTIon At tHIs VeRy mOmENt.
THeRe iS No rEcOuRSe TO tHis ThReAT.
FOr EvErYonE’s sAFeTy, tHIs tEaM hAS beEn PeRmAnEnTLy dIsbAnDeD.
aNy ANd alL aSsoCiAtIoNs BeTwEen yOU shOuLd Be ImmEDiAtElY sEvERed.
aS wAS mAdE CLeAr tO eACh oF yOU At tHe bEGinNInG, ThIs oUtCoME wAS aLwaYs A poSsiBilItY.
FinAL pAyMeNT iS hEReBy DeLivErED.
RuN.
eNd Of LiNE.
Ian picked up one of the stacks of money. Twenty-dollar bills. “This looks like a lot.” He thumbed the edge. “But it’s not really. Is it?”
“Maybe a couple grand each,” John said.
“What does it mean?” Amarta asked.
“It means things are worse than I thought.”
Ian’s shoulders sank. “She’s really not coming back this time, is she?” He threw the stack of bills down and sighed. He turned to John. “They recruited you first. Any idea where she goes?”
John was stoic. “I tried following her a couple times. You know, in a different host. Ruined a few people’s day when they woke up somewhere they didn’t expect. But she’s too clever. And kids can fit places adults can’t.
“I had a plan. To get around that. But I guess it doesn’t matter anymore.”
Ian’s head snapped up. “You were trying to hitch Roger the cat. Weren’t you? I always wondered why you had him—I mean her on your lap and shit. You never struck me as a cat person.”
John nodded. “I figured the cat wouldn’t raise any alarms. I thought if I timed it right, I could maybe hang on long enough.”
“Did it work?”
“Hitching a cat?” John shook his head. “Not really. There’s not much to an animal’s mind. Not much to hold onto. Kinda like trying to steer a semi with your pinky. Best I could do was sort of aim it in a general direction, make it angry or calm it down. The rest is all instinct, stuff below where I can go.”
Ian sighed. He looked at the money again, then the tablet in John’s hands. Was it really over? Just like that? “Jesus. What are we gonna do?”
John rubbed his upper lip. “What do we know?” he asked himself softly.
“Nothing,” Ian answered. “As usual.”
John ignored him and stared at the floor. “Why would she run? What’s different?”
Amarta waited a moment. “What do you mean?”
“We need to assume everything Prophet said is true.”
“Come on.” Ian scoffed. “You really believe that crap about rogue agents and shit?”
John shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. If we were in trouble or not, things would look exactly the same. So we have to play both sides. Assume we’re exposed until we have good reason to believe we’re not. That means we go dark, like the man says.”
Ian crossed his arms. “We sleep on old mattresses. In an abandoned garage. How much darker can we go?”
“You’d be surprised. But that’s a good point. We need to cover our tracks. That’s gotta be second priority. We need to burn this place clean. Everything. Like we were never here.”
“What’s our first priority?”
John motioned down the hall. “We have injured. First priority is Xan. Sooner or later we’re gonna need her on her feet. As it happens, covering tracks is a core competency of mine, so I’ll take the garage. That means you’re with her.”
“Right.” Ian nodded.
“Take her and go. Far. A day or two, at least. Don’t tell me where. Just in case.”
“In case you get captured, you mean.” Ian was quiet. He knew what that meant. He wondered what he could say with Amarta present. He wondered if he would ever get another chance if he didn’t. “You’re going after him. Aren’t you? You’re going after Prophet.” Ian almost felt sorry for the man. Almost.
John ignored the question. “I know how to reach the encrypted servers on the Mast. If all goes well, I’ll be in touch. But if you don’t hear from me in seventy-two hours, just leave. Understand? No questions. Don’t go looking for me. Just get out and drive somewhere.”
“Where?”
“I don’t wanna know. Somewhere remote. A cabin in the woods if you have to. Stay down. For as long as you can.” He tossed Ian two stacks of bills.
“And then?” Ian was quiet. He motioned to the countdown on the screen. Twelve days and ticking.
John looked him in the eyes. “Get Xana on her feet. Then decide how far the two of you are willing to go. By yourselves.”
Ian rubbed his face. “Fuck.” This was a nightmare. “Right,” he repeated.
“And me?” Amarta asked.
John looked at her. “Ian will drop you at the train station. Go home. Act like none of this ever happened.”
“Captain, I can—”
“Doc.” John was insistent. “You are gonna help. You’re gonna take the data. All of it. You’re gonna hide it somewhere none of us know. If we’re lucky, they don’t know about you. But that means you gotta keep your head down. Act normal. And let us do what we need to.”
Amarta nodded. She looked down.
John could tell she was disappointed. “What will you tell your boss?”
She shrugged. “I’ll think of something. They’re not gonna fire me. It’s the government. That’s too much paperwork.” She looked at John with wide eyes, glanced at Ian, then turned. “I’ll go get my things and check on our patient one last time.”
John watched her leave. Then he turned back to Ian and spoke under his breath. “From here on out, until we find Prophet, or have reason to believe otherwise, we have to assume anyone not in this building is our enemy. That includes Wink. And that includes your new girlfriend. Understand?”
Ian made a face. “I met her one time.” He looked up at the old windows that ran around the walls near the roof. “Are you gonna be okay? You know, by yourself? And before you say anything, in the present circumstances, I would ask anyone that, wheelchair or no.”
“I’ll be fine. You just worry about Xan.” He paused. “And yourself.” John nodded to Ian’s arm.
Ian held up Stubs. His loose sleeve dangled. “Guess we never had that talk, did we?”
“It’s not all that complicated.” John shrugged. “The trick is realizing there’s no trick. This is what your life is now. After that, it’s just a choice.”
“Choice? How is any of this a choice?”
“Are you gonna let it beat you?” He paused. “Or not?”
Ian looked at his stub. It hurt again. He needed to take his meds. “I can still feel it sometimes. It’s so strange. You hear about guys with phantom limbs and stuff, but when you feel it . . . There are times I wake up and swear it’s still there.”
John nodded.
Ian looked at his friend’s legs. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound like I was complaining.”
“It’s alright, man.” John was serious. “It sucks. And it’s not a competition. Believe it or not, I met some guys in the hospital who had it worse than me.”
Ian shuffled his feet. “You know what’s really funny? A few months ago, I was ready to give up on life ’cuz a girl dumped me.” He looked to John with a blank face. Then he started laughing with his mouth closed.
John chuckled with him, eyes shining.
Ian wiped tears. He was beaming. “No wonder you wanted to kick me off the team,” he said between giggles.
John laughed more. It shook his big chest.
As the smiles faded, Ian nodded at his friend. “We can take care of ourselves now, you know. Me and Xan.”
John was still.
“You did that.”
The soldier nodded once.
“Thanks.”
John extended his right hand. Ian shook it with his left.
“Ready.” Amarta walked back into the hall.
Ian walked away. “I’ll go get Xan into the Mast.”
John rolled to the wall where his swords were hanging, the twin set he had taken after their battles with Deadbolt.
“What about you?” she asked. “How will you get out of here?”
“I got a few tricks up my sleeve.” John fixed the sheathed weapons to the side of his chair.
Amarta stepped closer. “That’s the most well-armed wheelchair I’ve ever seen.” Her face was dark.
John turned to her. “Take care of yourself, Doc.” He held out his hand. “It looks like this is—”
“Until next time, Captain,” Amarta corrected. She took it.
“Be seeing you,” he said.
“I hope so.” Amarta waited for a moment. Then she turned for the side door.
John watched her walk down the hall. He saw the Mast pull up with Ian at the wheel. The red markings on the sides of the vehicle became pixelated and changed their orientation and color. A thick blue line swept up and back, while blue letters proclaimed the vehicle was now affiliated with Washington County Emergency Services. After a moment, the Mast’s license plates changed as well.
“Hey, Doc,” he called.
Amarta turned.
He started to speak, but he wasn’t sure what he wanted to say. Or maybe he was just too afraid to say it.
Amarta filled the silence. “You know where to find me. When this is over. Now go be the John Regent I know.”
Amarta was right about one thing, John thought. His military career had been one long run, up and out. As much as he liked having a team—maybe even needed it—John had always felt the most alive, the most vibrant, when he was on a mission alone. And that hadn’t changed since his capture. He was getting good at what Wink had dubbed “jumping”—moving from one person to the next, only holding on for a few minutes, at the most. It was far from effortless, but he liked the results. When he left his hosts, they barely seemed to notice anything was wrong. Everyone zones out from time to time. When they awoke, they found they’d simply been confused, or weren’t paying attention, and had gotten turned around. It was still stealing, he figured, but it was mere pennies.
Seventy-two hours, he thought. Seventy-two hours of freedom. No pain. And with a legitimate reason to hitch. To walk.
To run. On two working legs.
John “moved” through the late rush-hour crowd—a teenager, two businessmen, a pickpocket (he put it back), and a flower hawker—before settling on a middle-aged businesswoman with a ticket for the commuter train to White Plains. He walked a few blocks, not wanting to make her miss her connection, and scanned his surroundings.
White people. Mostly. Men in suits. Guys who would stand out anywhere but the nice parts of the world. He needed someone who could blend in just about anywhere. Besides, call him racist, but John still preferred to hitch a black man.
So it was, as soon as he saw the face of the driver in the approaching taxi, he flagged it without looking too hard, but as soon as he climbed in the back, he cursed under his breath. The cabbie was heavy. Very heavy.
The man asked for a destination. John had to make a choice. He glanced back to the street.
You’re in a hurry, he said to himself.
John concentrated as the cabby repeated himself twice. Then a third time. Five seconds later, he jumped.
And almost lost his grip. It took so much concentration, like ballet in a hurricane. And this time something nearly grabbed him as he moved through the maelstrom of higher-dimensional space, or whatever it was. An apparition. Like a tentacled worm.
In the cabbie’s body, John shook the vision of it out of his head. That was close. He turned back to the middle-aged woman he had just left, who blinked at him in confusion. “Here we are, ma’am.”
“Oh . . .” She looked around. “Right. Thank you. How much do I—” She reached for her purse.
John raised a hand. “You already paid, remember?”
She smiled. “Oh, of course!” She put a hand to her head. “Silly. Sorry, been a busy week.”
John watched her walk away. Then he sniffed the air. He scowled. His new clothes smelled like cigarette smoke, but not the interior of the cab. The man kept it smoke-free for his patrons. Must be company policy, he figured, because the guy certainly wasn’t worried about cleanliness. There was trash at John’s feet and on the seat next to him. Wrappers mostly. The man didn’t eat healthy. No wonder he weighed 300 pounds.
John lifted his wide butt and pulled out the man’s wallet. It was at least two inches thick and well-worn. The smooth surfaces bore the permanent impression of its contents.
Seven dollars. A bunch of old receipts. A club card to every store in the city, including a few that weren’t even in business anymore. And pictures, all crimped along the right edge as if they’d been pulled from the wallet and put back irregularly many times, and all of a little girl, from birth to about age eight. The last was a school photo. She had cornrow pigtails capped in red plastic balls. It looked like it was at least twenty years old. There was nothing after that.
“Shit.” Must’ve died, John thought. Or been taken away. And the man never let go.
John slid the school picture under the rim of the taxi license so the girl covered the cabbie’s own angry, fat-headed picture.
Cute dimples.
Then he drove four blocks to a hardware store and loaded the trunk with bleach and industrial abrasives, and after a short stop at the gas station to fill three five-gallon plastic containers, he drove across the bridge and back to Grimm’s Garage. The guys in the chop shop across the street had cars lined up all along the road. Their garage door was up. They were “repairing” a dark blue BMW.
John drove through the sliding gate in the fence and around to the back, where he unloaded the trunk.
In the yard, something fell. Something small and metal hit something large and metal. John grabbed a tire iron out of the trunk and crept slowly toward a stack of rusted vehicle frames.
He stopped when he saw Roger the cat. He walked into the kitchen and poured some food in the animal’s bowl and set it on the ground. Roger ran over to eat and John rubbed her head once. That’s when he noticed something under the fridge, near the tower of pizza boxes. He bent down.
A picture. One of many Wink had taken. Ian and Xana were arguing at the little kitchen table. John had his head in his hand at the back.
He smiled.
Another noise.
John stopped and listened.
A woman’s voice. Sounded like radio chatter.
“Chet! Chet, are you there? Chet!”
John walked back to the taxi and sat down in the driver’s seat. He lifted the little girl’s picture and read the name on the license pinned to the dash.
He snorted. “Now how does a black man go about getting a last name like Chet O’Rourke?” John asked softly. He picked up the radio. “Go ahead.”
“Where the hell you been, man? You got a fare waiting.”
“Sorry, I gotta clock out. Or whatever. Personal business.”
“No. Nuh uh. No way. This is the fourth time this month, fat man. You wanna stay in that cab, get the damned fare. But I’ll do you a favor. I won’t even ask what you’re doing all the way out in Jersey.”
John looked at the floor. GPS. Apparently the dispatcher could follow his every move. He’d had Chet long enough anyway. “Copy that.”
The woman started laughing. “Copy? What are you in the fucking military now? Just get the god-damned fare.”
John put the microphone back in its cradle. He’d switch hosts while he was out, double back to finish the job, and be on his way in a couple hours. He put the address in his phone and looked at the map.
“Not exactly close,” he mumbled.
John looked at himself in the rear view mirror. “Chet, my man, you got one more fare tonight. I’ll take off before she says where she needs to go. You can take it from there. I appreciate you sharing a bit of your life. Take care of yourself.” Wrappers crinkled as John put his foot on the brake. He turned back to the mirror. “And stop eating this shit, man. It’s gonna kill you. That ain’t what little”—he pulled the picture and read the name on the back—“Alicia would want.”
John put the car in drive and pulled out of the lot. The guys in the chop shop across the street had disappeared inside. The garage door was closed. That was fast. Might be a problem.
John drove eight miles down the freeway and pulled off at an old neighborhood. As he waited at the stop sign at the end of the exit ramp, he spotted the address he had been given—a corner bar with neon beer signs in place of windows. He turned and pulled up slowly and started scanning for his next host.
There wasn’t much.
A group of men on the sidewalk were harassing a thin brunette wearing a pink tutu over a leather miniskirt. Her hair was sticking up on one side. She was stumbling along the sidewalk, trying to get away from the men—three white and two black—while turning around every few steps to look for the cab. She jumped into the street and waved as soon as she saw it.
The light from the headlights crawled up her body as the cab slowed to a halt. She was a mess. Her mascara ran. Her clothes were torn in a couple places.
She ran around the passenger side, using the vehicle as a barrier between her and the jeering men. She jumped in the back. and reached across the seat to lock the door.
John looked at her in the rearview mirror. She had a shiner on her left cheek and red marks on her wrists. John had been party to enough rough interrogations to recognize it. She’d been held down against her will.
“Go, just go.” She used her hands to hide her face as the men pounded on the window and made jokes about how the party wasn’t over yet.
John nodded. He pulled away slowly. He glanced at her again.
She had her legs pressed together. She had one hand over her . . .
She was hurt. Sore.
Chet’s jaw clenched as Amarta’s words echoed in John’s mind.
Go be the John Regent I know.
The brakes squeaked as the cab stopped.
The woman looked up, shocked. “What the fuck? Do you have a problem?”
“One second.” John opened the door. He stopped himself. You don’t have time for this. He put one foot down and stood. “Whoa.” Chet was a big man. And fat. His legs were a little wobbly. Clearly he spent most of his life sitting behind the wheel. His cargo pants were loose and revealed the crack of his ass. The pockets were full of at least five pounds of jingling keys and junk.
John looked down at his legs. “Jesus, Chet.”
The jeering men turned around. They had been retreating to the bar amid drunken slurs. The looked to each other and smiled at some unspoken joke. They laughed.
Drunk, John thought. High. Maybe both. Good. They’d be unbalanced and slow as fuck.
He leaned his head back in the cab. “Be right back.”
“Hey!” The woman scooted closer. “Where are you going? Hey!” She pounded on the window with her palm.
John popped the trunk, walked to the back, and pulled out the tire iron. When he slammed the lid shut, he saw the woman peering at him through the rear window. She held out her hands in confusion.
John wandered over to the men. Their eyes were bloodshot. They were giggling. Everyone except the big one in the center.
Must be the leader, John thought.
He knew how it would go. They would expect him to give a speech. Then they would try to intimidate him. They certainly weren’t ready for anything else, leaning against each other like that. They figured it was five-to-one and this man was old and fat. Tire iron or no, the advantage was theirs.
But John knew winning wasn’t about strength. Or numbers. It was about will. And experience. And knowing yourself.
“Who raped the young lady?” he asked.
“She’s not a lady, asshole. Bitch is a fuckin’ pro.”
The leader was athletic, an inch taller than Chet, and probably fifteen years younger. But under all the jiggle, Chet’s arms were at least as big.
“Who?” John repeated calmly. He looked into each man’s eyes. As he went around, he saw it, and his shoulders sagged. “Fuck,” he sighed.
All of them.
Without pause and without another word, John rammed the leader in the balls with the tire iron. It was worth it for the shock alone. Poor drunk bastards stood there, eyes wide, and gave him another couple moves for free as the tall man stumbled back, grabbing his crotch and screaming.
Nine seconds. That’s all he needed.
John took a leisurely minute and a half and bounced the men between puddles in the uneven pavement. When he was done, he turned and left all five either unconscious or screaming.
John put a hand over Chet’s heart. He could hear the man’s heartbeat. You would’ve thought he just ran a marathon. “Damn, brother. Time to start taking the stairs.”
He wiped the tire iron clean of prints and tossed it over a fence. Then he got in the cab and pulled a U-turn.
The woman in the back watched silently from the window as the car passed the men on the ground.
When they hit the freeway, she looked up. “Hey, this is the wrong way.”
John shook his head. “Hospital’s this way.”
“Hospital? I’m not going to the hospital. Okay?” She was unsure what to say to the man who had just put her attackers in traction. “Look, I just wanna go home.” Her eyes squinted. “Okay?” Her voice shook. “I just wanna go home.”
John was silent.
The woman cursed and sat back. John tossed Prophet’s money into the back.
The woman picked it up in confusion. She thumbed the bills. “What the fuck is this? You some kinda pervert?”
“Payment.”
“I don’t need your money.” She threw it back. It hit the back of Chet’s fat head.
“What’s your name?”
“Angora.” She threw the word at him angrily.
“What’s your real name?”
The woman didn’t answer.
John pulled over to the side of the road and stopped the cab, just as he’d done with Xana when they met. The woman went for the door and John locked it from the front.
“Shit,” she cursed. “What’s your fucking problem, asshole?”
John waited until she calmed down. “What’s your real name?” he repeated.
The woman shook her head as she looked out the window. She sniffed. She wiped one hand across her mascaraed cheek. “Alicia.”
John stopped. He turned to the picture on the dash. That girl was black. Not the same. Still.
He turned back. “Alright, Alicia. This is how it goes. You get the rape kit. So there’s evidence. You don’t have to do any more than that if you don’t want to. Just the kit. After that I give you two thousand dollars and you go wherever you want. Deal?”
“What are you, some kind of good Samaritan or something?”
John turned back around and looked out the windshield. “I am tonight.” He started driving. “So is it a deal?”
The woman put a hand to her face. “Please. I just want a shower.”
John nodded. She didn’t say no.
He tossed the money in the back again. He didn’t say anything else, and neither did she. He stopped in front of the emergency room and walked her in without a word. She kept her head down and hid her face. The nurses took her in the back, and John turned to leave. As he heaved Chet’s heavy body down the hallway, he felt a pain in the man’s chest.
He stopped. Didn’t feel like a heart attack. But he couldn’t take the risk. He turned back and checked himself in.
But nothing goes fast in the ER, and it was a couple hours before he got the all clear and a bag of prescription medications: one for the man’s heart, two for his blood pressure, and two more for his burgeoning diabetes.
John was standing in front of the pharmacy, doling out the last of his money, when he saw Alicia leave with some friends.
She stopped in the door for a moment. She waved.
John just nodded. Then he drove to a park along the river and cleaned out all the trash from the cab. He sat on the curb next to the car as the crisp dawn light backlit the city. He pulled out one of Chet’s cigarettes and fumbled in one the man’s cargo pockets for the lighter. It had been a long time since John had had a cig. It was never really his thing. But Chet apparently liked them.
He grabbed the side view mirror and turned it to face him. He looked at the man in the reflection. “These things are killing you, brother, but I figure after tonight, you earned it.”
He lit it and took a drag. He made a face. “Nasty.”
He looked back to the oval mirror. It warned him objects may be closer than they appear.
“I’m John by the way. Nice to meet you. Thanks for the evening. Wasn’t my intention to hang on so long. But I appreciate the time. I don’t get out much these days. And Alicia will never forget you. Oh, and take your damned pills.” He lifted the burning cigarette so it was visible in the reflection. “But for now, enjoy.”
And with that, he let go and drifted back to his body.
Pain.
His greeting. The burning hug that welcomed him home.
Prickly. Throbbing. Stabbing.
“Ugh.” John opened his eyes.
And looked right into those of a red-headed woman. The tips of her hair were colored blue.
“Shit.” Should’ve let Chet live with his choices. Should’ve stuck to the plan.
“Welcome back.” The woman smiled.
Then everything went dark.