Broken Mirror (48 page)

Tosh seemed to be forgetting that the point of the torture was to get answers to questions. Victor walked to Lucky and slapped her face. “Where are my things? Tell me before he does something worse.”

“Bastards,” Lucky groaned. “We were going to sell it. It’s in our van. Secret compartment to the left of the passenger’s feet.”

“The van’s out back,” Elena said.

Victor bolted outside, running to the rear parking lot and the van. He tore open the door, jumped in, and found the hidden compartment. He took out his data egg and the Handy 1000, whooping and smiling, feeling complete again.

Victor breathed on the data egg, licked it, tried rubbing it between his hands. The device stared back at him like an ominous black eyeball, uselessly foreboding. He shoved it into his pocket.

The Handy 1000 blinked, indicating received messages. He quickly unfurled it. One message from his parents questioned where he was and why he hadn’t called them. His aunt asked the same questions. Another from Ozie read: “More bad news: Systems hacked. Café raided by the King. We’re on the run.”

There was nothing Victor could do about that. He fished into the recesses of the secret compartment, searching for his medicine. There was no sign of the bitter grass and fumewort sachets. The empty vials and alcohol for making tinctures weren’t there either.

His bowels squirmed. Without the herbs, what would he do? He was barely holding himself together.

He searched the van, checking the glove compartment and the cargo bay. He came up empty. He looked under the seats. Nothing. Lucky and Bandit must have put the sachets somewhere else, maybe back at their office hideout. He would have to ask them. Perhaps ungently.

Victor climbed out of the van and went back in the lodge, holding the objects above his head in each hand. Faster than he could react, Tosh snatched the data egg, putting it in a pocket and zipping it shut. Victor opened his mouth to protest, but Tosh pointed the knife at him and shook his head in warning.

Victor asked, “Why do you care so much about the egg?”

Tosh said, “Jeff gave it to me, but at the last minute he changed his mind. Said he should be the one to do it. He seemed particularly worried about what might happen to you. And, man, let me tell you, he was right. You’re a magnet for trouble.”

“What else do you know?” Victor asked. “Now is the time to tell me, Tosh. Before you torture them any more, we should compare notes.”

“Jeff didn’t tell me anything. That was the way he operated, but this time . . . I keep kicking myself for not forcing the truth out of him. Not that I could have. Stubborn goat. But
—
I mean, he wasn’t . . . All he said was to look after you.”

That’s not an answer.
“What are you going to do when it opens? Are you going to run to the King?”

Tosh stiffened but didn’t say anything.

There it is, the truth, finally
, Victor thought.
Tosh is working for the King.

Victor would deal with Tosh later. He walked to Lucky. “I couldn’t find my medicine. Where is it?”

“What are you—”

“The herbs! Little glass vials!” Victor turned to Bandit. “Do you have them? Are they in that office building?” He removed the gag.

Bandit shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The herbs. My medicine. We’ll cut you again if you don’t tell us.”

Lucky groaned. “Oh, Laws! They’re gone, okay? She got rid of them.”

“Who did?” Victor asked.

“She said they were junk.”

“Who?” Victor asked. He felt as if he was finally getting to the bottom of why these two had been following him.

“Karine, you dumbshit! Ever since you went to that herbalist, she’s been complaining about your herbs. She told her Corps to flush them. ”

“
She’s
been complaining? You knew her before Amarillo, before kidnapping me?”

Lucky laughed bitterly. “Who do you think hired us? You twit.”

Over and over in my dreams I see a beautiful woman’s face, and, for no discernible reason, it makes me incredibly sad. How can I have such strong emotional reactions when the cause is unknown and, perhaps, unknowable?

—Victor Eastmore’s dreambook

Victor sat down on the bed, speechless. The world jolted
—
he’d slipped to the floor. The ceiling loomed above him, precariously held aloft by the lodge’s flimsy construction, an ineffective barrier to the force that threatened to rip him apart and hurl his pieces into space.

What did he know about Karine?

She had access to the genetic sequence linked to mirror resonance syndrome. She could have used that knowledge to manufacture stims.

As a business leader in SeCa, she could have obtained polonium from one of her many contacts overseas. She had close enough ties to the Eastmore family to administer the poison. After Jefferson Eastmore died, Karine had maneuvered her way onto the Health Board, where she helped shape SeCa’s policy on mirror resonance syndrome. She was perfectly placed to pull all the strings. And when Victor had started snooping around, she’d hired Lucky and Bandit.

Shocks, it was obvious now. Karine had killed Granfa Jeff.

He looked at her, tied to the chair, unconscious. The sight of her made his stomach heave.

Victor crawled to the bathroom, arms shaking underneath him. He closed the door behind him and started the tap in the tub. He doused his head and sputtered and swallowed the sulfur-tasting liquid.

“Victor?” Elena called from the other side of the door.

“Leave me alone!”

“Why were you following him?” Victor heard Tosh say over the sound of the running water.

Victor slumped against the tub and shuddered, breathing hard. His heart raced. His mind was caught in the resonance again. Fear spiking. Losing control.

Blankness loomed over him. Compared to his anger, the blankness was soothing, but he didn’t want to go blank. He stood and gripped the sink with both hands.

Bandit’s scream, muffled through his gag, surged through the closed door.

“Tell me everything Karine told you,” Elena said from the other room.

Karine’s wrongdoing could be bigger than murder. She might be responsible for all the addiction and conflict ravaging the Republic of Texas. She could have killed his granfa, organized a drug cartel, and tracked him to this wasteland.

He pictured his hands closing around her neck and the look on her face as he crushed her windpipe. He had to confront her, but he needed a fail-safe, in case he couldn’t control himself.

Water dripped along the curve of his scalp and down his face. Shivering, he focused on the sensation of the drops crawling on his skin. He had to remain calm, coherent, and sane, but he didn’t have the bitter grass and fumewort to help him. Fine. It would be difficult, but he could do it.

Bandit was whining in the other room. Bile rose in Victor’s throat and his mouth watered. He tried not to picture Bandit lying down, restrained, at Tosh’s mercy. How far would Tosh go to get answers? Maybe Victor should try to stop him. But he wanted answers as much as Tosh did. Maybe more.

Tosh asked Lucky, “Did she order you to kidnap Victor?”

Lucky gasped, “What are you doing? Stop it!”

“Answer the question.”

Lucky said, “We did it to protect him. To keep him safe from the dickies.”

Tosh laughed cruelly, a sickening sound from someone holding a knife.

No use letting Tosh have all the fun. I could carve up Lucky and Bandit and do the same to Karine.

It was a terrible thought. He couldn’t let himself walk that dark path. He needed a distraction.

The wise owl listens before he asks, “Who?”

Victor pulled out the Handy 1000, pressing the first name he saw: Circe Eastmore.

The call connected right away.

“Auntie?”

“Victor! Are you all right? Karine said she was going to bring you home.”

“No, I’m . . . I’m in Amarillo. I
—
I think I know . . .” Victor had trouble forming words. He took a breath. He had to tell her, to warn her about Karine.

“Amarillo? I’m not sure where that is. Did Elena drag you there? Oh Victor, I’m sorry we ever got her involved.”

Victor blanched. “
You
got Elena involved? I thought Ma found her.”

“I thought you might need a friend with all that you were going through, so I suggested it to your mother.”

A hot flash of indignation seized Victor. He terminated the feed and threw the Handy 1000 to the floor. Everyone in his life was pulling his strings, lying to him, compounding his problems.

In the other room Tosh asked, “Why did you kidnap him? Think carefully. This knife is getting cold.”

Lucky answered, “I told you! We were working for Karine. He stole data from BioScan, and we were supposed to get it back.”

“Uh huh,” Tosh said, “and how long have you been following him?”

Victor’s curiosity pulled at him. He opened the door and peeked out. Tosh was holding Bandit’s ankle and waving his foot back and forth. Blood trickled down his leg. Karine hadn’t moved, was still unconscious.

“Victor, are you all right?” Elena asked. “Do we need to get out of here?”

“How long?” Tosh asked.

Lucky craned her neck to see what Tosh was doing. “As soon as the data went missing
—
”

“Wrong answer,” Tosh sneered. “I was there at the graveyard, and so were you,
before
he stole BioScan’s data. This is going to hurt, buddy.” He cut into Bandit’s foot, a deep slice that ran from the ball all the way to the heel. Bandit’s entire body vibrated and jerked as he screamed in his gag.

Victor tasted metal in his mouth, probably from the water. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand, which came away streaked with blood. He pursed his lips and felt pain. He’d bitten them.

Tosh said, “You were following Victor for weeks before he left SeCa, way before he took the data.”

Lucky said, “Okay! Okay! Stop it, you sicko. We started following him back in December.”

“Why?” Tosh asked.

“We were watching him for Karine.”

“Why?”

“Ask her!”

Tosh grinned. “I will, but I’m not done with you two yet.” He put down the knife and took the cudgel in hand, adjusted his grip, stood, and pinned Bandit’s ankle against the bed with his boot. He swung the cudgel hard against the bottom of Bandit’s foot. It landed with a wet smacking sound that turned Victor’s stomach. Blood splattered the sheets and carpet. Bandit screamed and moaned into his gag.

“Tosh! Enough!” Elena yelled. “Let’s wake Karine.”

Tosh pointed at the captives. “I’m not done. These two stimheads need a lesson. Maybe you should step outside. In fact, take Victor with you.”

Elena looked at the half-naked bodies strapped to the bed.

Victor said, “I’m not going anywhere.” He walked to Bandit and removed his gag. “You recorded everything I did for weeks, didn’t you?”

Bandit said, “We saved your butt in Little Asia.”

“And kidnapping me? You have an excuse for that too?”

“You got mixed up with the Puros. It was for your own safety.”

“For my own safety.” Victor wanted to rip Bandit’s head off and toss it like a bowling ball.

Elena walked to Bandit and let a drop of saliva splat against his cheek. “You messed with the wrong people,
idiota
.”

Bandit growled.

“Bandit!” Lucky yelled. “Stop antagonizing them.”

Bandit whipped his head toward his partner. “I told you! This was a bad job from the start.” He turned to look at Victor. “Karine wouldn’t say. My guess is she wanted you reclassified.”

Victor’s vision filled with light. He didn’t dare move, afraid he’d trip and fall. Could she hate him that much? Blankness threatened to return.

“I need to think,” Victor said.

“Are you okay?” Elena asked.

Tosh watched him closely. Elena stared at him, eyes wide with concern. Victor didn’t care. Only Karine held his attention. She sat in the chair, unconscious, and he felt a tide of hate surge within, threatening to carry him into blankness.

“Did you poison Jeff Eastmore?” Tosh asked Bandit, sitting on his back, suffocating him. He let up on the pressure, and Bandit took a gasping breath.

Bandit said, “That’s
his
crazy fantasy.”

“Turns out Victor was right about Jeff being murdered,” Tosh said. “Did you poison him?”

“No!”

Victor said, “We need to wake Karine. Now.”

Tosh nodded, and he and Elena moved over to Karine.

While they had their backs turned, Victor snuck over to Tosh’s black duffel bag, pulled out a small fist-sized metallic sphere
—
a gas bomb
—
and shoved it in his pocket. He took out a gas mask and hid it under the bed.

Elena said, “We’ll need to turn the screws hard to get answers. Agreed?”

“Don’t worry about it, princess,” Tosh said. “I can take care of this.”

Elena took a menacing step toward Tosh. “If you’re saying I don’t need to get my hands dirty because I’m a woman, you’re going to see them soaked in
your
blood.”

Tosh chuckled and raised his hands in surrender. “All right, you convinced me. You’ve got the biggest balls in the room.”

Elena tested the straps around Karine, the way someone might handle fruits at the market to test their ripeness. She gave Karine the wake-up shot.

Karine raised her head, blinked, and looked around. When she saw Victor, she rolled her eyes, saying, “I hope you haven’t completely lost your mind.”

Victor felt his eyes boiling in their sockets as he looked at Karine. He tried to speak, but words failed him. He held out his hand for the cudgel, which Tosh supplied.

Karine’s fiery hair-frizz quivered when she laughed. “I was too lenient. You should have been locked up long before now.” Her confidence almost convinced Victor that she still had the upper hand. But she didn’t know how desperate he’d become.

“You murdered my granfa,” Victor said.