Broken Mirror (45 page)

Xavi entered the room. His red eyes were surrounded by a black wispy halo of suspicion. Victor took a step sideways, searching for an escape route, but Xavi darted forward and wrenched him off his feet. Then his massive hands slammed Victor into the wall. Victor tried to squirm away, but Xavi pinned him in place.

Xavi said, “Did you lead them here? Who are they?”

Victor tried to shake himself free. “Who are who? I didn’t see anything.”

“I had a better view upstairs,” Davinth said.

Elena tugged on Xavi’s giant arm. “Let him go!”

He did. The floor slammed into Victor’s legs. Xavi hauled him up by the shoulders and marched him upstairs. Victor stumbled into a room overlooking the front yard, and a massive paw, Xavi’s, returned to his neck, pressing his face into the window.

“Who are they?” Xavi asked.

Outside a white van waited in front of the house, blocking Victor’s car in the driveway. Several cars were parked farther away. A few R.O.T. flags flapped in front of neighboring homes.

Reflections off the windshield blocked his view of the van’s interior, but Victor thought he could see movement inside. There was no way to tell if it was Lucky and Bandit. “It’s a van,” Victor said. “A white van.”

“Nobody knew about this house this morning, so how come they’re here now?” Xavi said, spraying a cloud of moisture that came to rest on Victor’s neck.

Victor shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Xavi spun Victor around and slammed him into the wall, his face pressed into Victor’s. Pain screamed in Victor’s wrist as Xavi squeezed the bones together.

“Stop it!” Elena yelled.

Xavi turned his head toward her. “Your friend here brought us some unwelcome visitors.”

“No, it’s not his fault! It was—”

Victor let out a cry of pain to interrupt her. He couldn’t let Elena confess that the bad guys were following her. It wasn’t her fault she’d been fitted with a BioLoc MeshID. As much as he disliked the Puros and their brutality, and as much as her actions had frayed his trust, he couldn’t let her ruin her chances to reconcile with them. She needed them if she was ever going to quit stims.

“I didn’t think they would follow me,” he said.

Elena grimaced and shook her head.

Victor’s chest heaved. “I stole something, and they’re trying to get it back.”

Xavi dropped Victor’s wrist and started squeezing his neck.

“Xavi! Stop!” Elena wedged between them.

Xavi let Victor drop.

Victor steadied himself against the wall. Elena and Xavi faced each other, glowering.

A woman rushed onto the landing from a room down the hall. “Keep it down! Lila and I are doing the accounting.” Another woman with glasses and frizzy red hair peeked out.

“Victor is rich, and he’s got powerful friends,” Elena said, pleading. “We need him.”

“What’s going on?” Lila asked.

Elena told her, “The Corps are worse than we thought. Did you know that Pump is spiked with stims? Who else would do that? If we don’t fight back
—
Look, those two outside are Corps.” She turned to Xavi. “You want to get even with them, right? Us too. If we take care of the guys outside and help Victor search the kennel, you can name your price. Think about it. More weapons.” She turned to Victor. “Right?”

He nodded. It might clean him out, money-wise, and he hated to owe these thugs anything, but he needed their help.

Xavi ran his hands over his bald head and stretched his shoulders and neck. He looked like a boxer about to enter the ring. Such stupid, muscle-bound confidence, Victor thought.

“Okay,” Xavi said. “We need the bucks, no question.”

Victor couldn’t understand why Elena would associate herself with such an ape, but he kept his mouth shut.

Xavi turned to Elena. “Come on.”

The two hurried down the hall into a bedroom, with the two women following. Victor stayed put and looked through the window again.

A cloud had moved in front of the sun, and now he could see through the van’s windshield. Two people, a man and a woman: Bandit and Lucky.

They were leaning forward in their seats, peering up at the house, looking directly at him. Bandit still wore a silly pair of round-eyed sun-goggles that looked too stylish to be functional.

They could follow Elena, but they couldn’t follow
him
, not if he was careful . . . 

Victor backed away from the window and started down the stairs, treading quietly on each step. He tiptoed to the back of the house and looked through the glass door.

The yard had no fence. He could run that way, past a neighboring house, to the next street
—
but then where? They were on the outskirts of the city. He could try to call his car, but Lucky and Bandit could follow it to him.

He would have to run many kilometers to get anywhere useful. Still, if he could escape unnoticed, that might give him enough time to get to a taxi, a bus, or the train terminal. He’d have to give up his car, but that was fine. All he needed was his backpack.

He heard thuds upstairs and the sounds of large objects being shifted and dropped on the floor. Footsteps moved in circles.

Chico was still passed out on the couch. Davinth came into the room. His wiry frame and gray hair made him look about fifty years old, but he moved like a young person, fluid and quick. He watched Victor as he dug into his pocket and pulled out his last fumewort tincture. He popped the cap and drank it in one gulp.

“What was that?” Davinth asked. The lilt that came into his voice set Victor on edge and triggered his memories, his senses. Danger smelled like smoke in a forest.

“Herbs,” Victor said. “To replace my medicine.”

“Herbs,” Davinth repeated. “Interesting. What did you steal from those guys outside? Drugs?”

The last thread of Victor’s patience for his guardians frayed. “What is with the Puros and drugs?” Victor edged a few steps toward the glass door.

Davinth eyed him warily. “The Corps keep pushing them from Vegas. They control the border. The police are useless. No one to help us but ourselves.”

“The drug the Corps are pushing. What is it?” asked Victor.

Davinth’s face darkened. “Stimsmoke. Dream sauce. Some people call it Aura. Makes people see shit that isn’t there. Gives them ‘epic déjà vu,’ as Elena would say. Makes addicts out of them. It’s a stain on the purity of our homeland. To be truly pure is to know yourself, to know your weaknesses, to look to others to help you stand proud and free. How are you going to do that with a body full of poison?”

Victor heard engines outside. Davinth grabbed him and pulled him down the hall to the window by the front door. Three massive insect-like vehicles, similar to the ones Victor had outmaneuvered in the desert, had pulled up beside the van. Bandit got out of the van, spoke briefly to one of the vehicle drivers, and then approached the Puros’ front door, stopping several meters away with his arms raised, palms open.

Elena and Xavi dragged several bags down the hall. Shapes made of metal and plastic peeked out of the bags. Weapons.

“More guys showed up,” Davinth said. “This one outside looks like he wants to talk.”

Elena put her hand on Victor’s shoulder. “It’s going to be okay.”

Davinth jerked his head at Victor. “Let’s give them what they want and be done with it.”

“We’re not going to do that,” Elena said. “Right, Xavi?” Her eyes grew wider when he didn’t answer.

“He’s not a Puro,” Davinth complained. “They outnumber us. Look at those tanks. Bet they’ve got better gear than us too. I say kick him out and cut our losses.”

Elena took a step toward Xavi and lowered her voice. “We can call the police.”

“And tell them what?” Davinth whined. “They’ll be no help. They’ll probably arrest us first.”

Light thumps sounded at the door, too light for knocking. Xavi pushed past them and opened the door to look outside. He held a stunstick at his side. Victor followed with the others. Small stones littered the front steps.

Bandit stood on the walkway, smiling, but his eyes were hidden behind his creepy goggles. Keeping his arms raised, he pointed one finger at Victor. “All we want is him. Give him up, and we go away.”

Elena ran back to the weapons. “Come get your gear,” Elena called.

Victor turned, but before he could take a step, he was hurtling backward, through the open door, spinning from the force of Xavi’s shove, and skidding across the grass. He landed on his butt as the door slammed shut. He could hear Elena shouting behind it.

He scrambled to his hands and knees. His bag lay a meter away in the grass. Hurting from scratches and soon-to-be bruises, Victor wished he could tear Xavi to shreds. But there was no time.

Bandit came at him.

Victor jumped to his feet and started to run, but there was nowhere to go. The yard’s hedges penned him, and Bandit blocked his way.

Victor feinted left and broke right, trying to make it to the street. The man ignored Victor’s gambit, approached in three quick steps, and swung his arm directly at Victor’s chest, hurtling him to the ground. Victor was dragged to his feet and flung over Bandit’s shoulder.

Victor struggled, but Bandit managed to rush him into the van. Victor’s head grazed the ceiling as he was flung inside and pinned there by Bandit’s strong, wiry arms.

The woman, Lucky, sat next to Victor. “Got you,” she said. “Victor, up close, you’re such a doll.” A hood descended over his face. She pressed something cool onto his bare wrist. The blackness of the hood grew darker, and his head lolled back. Unconsciousness overtook him.

Sometimes I wake up and wonder if this life is real or a dream. There’s nothing that I don’t question now. Even gravity seems mutable. I fear at any moment my ties to this Earth will snap and I’ll go hurtling into space.

—Victor Eastmore’s
Apology

Victor woke up, seated on something hard. His head felt swollen, pounding as if about to burst. He opened his eyes and saw blackness.

When he tried to move, he discovered he was tied to a chair, restrained by something affixed to his chest, arms, and legs.

He called for help.

There was no reply.

Shapes shifted in the dark. He imagined coal-dusted ghosts clawing at his eyes. He held his breath. The shapes fell apart, and the darkness became placid. He breathed in, and the shapes returned, artifacts of his starved vision or synesthetic echoes of his hearing. Either way, he had no way of knowing, and they were an irrelevant distraction.

Victor twisted. His wrists, pinned behind his back, chafed against the restraint that bound them together. His ankles, thighs, waist, and chest were all tied to his seat.

Where was he?

A little voice in his head answered:
you’re in SeCa, imprisoned in a Class One facility
.

His pulse spiked. Victor threw himself to one side, feeling a moment of weightlessness before the chair legs thumped back to the ground.

“My head hurts.” Victor’s voice crackled electric-blue in the dark.

He was in a small room judging by the echo. He smelled cheap plastic carpet, a subtle residue of paint, and the telltale odor of synthleather. Victor flexed against his bonds, and the synthleather scent grew stronger.

This wasn’t the treatment standard for Class Ones. A doctor would have to look after him soon and set things right.

Or maybe not. Maybe no one cared about people with MRS once they were committed. Maybe he was doomed to whatever semicivilized tortures could be devised. He’d heard Class Ones could be shipped offshore, free from constitutional protections. Maybe they’d let the syndrome’s effects eat away at his mind until only a husk remained.

A just punishment. Alik had been a husk for a long time, and he was only one example among many. For years, Victor had been a burden, a problem to be solved. Then, recently, a steady decline, his deteriorating behavior becoming more antisocial and aggressive. He’d horrified his family with his accusations of murder. He’d left Granfa Jeff’s body out in the open air. He’d hurt the woman in the brothel by going blank. He might have killed the Corps who stopped him on the road from Las Vegas.

Shocks, the tally was bleak, wasn’t it? There didn’t seem a limit to how awful he could be.

Months ago he could have pictured himself living a seminormal life. Now he had to doubt that he was still sane. Egged on by Ozie’s revelations, he’d come to believe in conspiracy. What if a manic fantasy had taken hold instead?

Granfa Jeff’s murder, Victor’s flight from SeCa, his pursuers, a mystery man named Tosh, Ozie’s fantasy world
—
maybe it was all a delusion. Maybe his mind had finally fractured, and the darkness would never lift.

But if the last week of his life had never happened, where had his memories come from? Over the past few days, he’d met Pearl, Ozie, Tosh, the Corps and Puros, and Lucky and Bandit. They were real, weren’t they?

Victor wasn’t doing as well as he’d hoped if he was questioning whether the last week of his life had happened. At least he was aware of his potential insanity
—
the truly insane never questioned themselves, did they?

He couldn’t have dreamed up a Puro safe house if he’d never been to one. He’d never seen Las Vegas or Amarillo, or taken in a view of Lake Tahoe and the Sierras. He held memories of those places in his mind as clear as day. These were the facts, they were his link to sanity, and darkness couldn’t erase them.

Victor blinked his eyes, willing his vision to find light, and found a small yellow sliver of it beyond his right shoulder. A door, an exit, maybe? Proof that he wasn’t imprisoned in his own imagination?

He inhaled. A Class One facility wouldn’t smell so plain. It would reek of an institution: piss and bleach, and worse. Maybe this was a room somewhere on a ranch for Class Twos, where he would have nothing but time to read, study, and engage in productive work. Perhaps he could tutor the other residents. He had certainly gone further in his education than most Class Twos would have. There might be animals
—
horses to ride and care for, maybe goats and sheep. It could be fun.