Outrage (5 page)

Fenfang squinted at him, not knowing the expression. Odin rephrased: “Force the mean female out of your head.”

“Ah. Yes. I do not think she will go. She feels stronger when I am tired. When I am weak.”

“Then we need to keep you rested,” Odin said.

X had been lying on the floor near Shay, but now he stood and pointed at the door with his nose: someone coming. A moment later, the door in the next room popped open and Twist and Cruz walked in.

“Got two slightly ancient Sony Vaios on sale,” Twist said. “Plus four pizzas and something for the dog. Let's eat and talk.”

“Wish Cade were here,” Shay said.

“So do I,” said Twist. “Even though he tries to be unreliable, he's pretty useful.”

They considered their position as they ate:

Were they safe? For how long? What kinds of resources did Singular really have? They needed time to work, and the first priority was to crack as many of the flash drives as they could.

Twist asked Odin, “How big a problem are the phones? Can they track us, even if they're prepaid and we use fake names?”

“Sort of depends on who's doing the tracking. The police and the FBI have to know the numbers you're using, so throwaway phones will beat them. But the NSA has voice-recognition software that's so good, it can pick up voice files anywhere in the world and figure out who it is,” Odin said. “If they recorded us anywhere along the line, or me, really, and I used any phone, even if it's clean…Senator Dash is on the Intelligence Committee, so she may have help from the NSA.”

Twist said, “Okay. So no phone for you. How about the computers?”

Odin said, “If we do too many searches on Singular, or North Korea and brain research, the NSA could spot us.”

“Credit cards…,” Shay said.

Odin shook his head. “Absolutely not. If it was a real emergency, and you had to use one, you'd have to get as far away as you could as fast as you could right after. Everyone tracks purchases. Verizon and AT&T track purchases and know where you're at.”

“We're going to need more cash,” Twist said.

Shay said, “There was a thousand dollars in West's wallet, and I had the money you gave me. I spent like a hundred bucks on a motel room, plus hair dye and a phone and some food for X and the bolt cutters—”

She pulled the cash out of her pocket, some of it still dappled with dried blood. “It's got some blood on it, from West,” she said. “We should rinse it off. God…that's just awful.”

“I'll take care of it,” Twist said. He slipped the money in his jacket. “It's good enough for a while, but these three rooms are costing us five hundred bucks a day. I've got a stash back in L.A., and I'm thinking of going down to get it tomorrow afternoon, after Cade gets back. Cruz and I could run down, be back in ten or twelve.”

Cruz nodded. “I know where we can pick up some cold plates for West's Jeep, and some good-looking registration and insurance papers. Then the Jeep really would be ours.”

“How will you get into your hotel?” Shay asked. “They'll be watching for us.”

“I got an idea for that,” Cruz said, breaking out a wicked grin.

“I'm not going to ask…yet,” said Twist.

Odin had been tapping along on one of the Sonys and said, “Guess what? Rachel's been using the Wi-Fi at the Pasadena Public Library on Hill Avenue, always in the evening. She's in L.A.”

“If you really need your old laptop,” Twist said, “you could come with Cruz and me, we could see if we can find her.”

“I think I will,” Odin said. “We really could use my tools.”

They'd talked about taking the night off, but it was impossible. They were a restless bunch. Shay poked through West's external drive and found thousands of files, all apparently from Singular's logistics department.

“It's like reading the Yellow Pages,” Shay grumbled.

“There must be stuff in here that we can use,” Odin said. “You read, I'm going to crack his laptop.”

They worked on the files long after midnight—Odin cracked the laptop in a few minutes, working around the password, and found that West had encrypted some files, but most were not. Unfortunately, the open files weren't particularly interesting.

Twist and Fenfang did what they could to help, and at one point, Cruz went out to a twenty-four-hour office supply store and bought a small printer so they could move some files to paper, the easier to read. But eventually, they began to drift away from the computers: files were coming up, all good evidence, someday, maybe, but nothing that would break Singular right now. And they were tired: too much running, for too long.

They went to bed.

And dreamed of hard times. Shay, of the shooting that left West on a basement floor; Odin and Fenfang, of their treatment at the hands of Singular; Twist and Cruz, of gang fights from their past—Cruz, the barrio war that killed his brother; Twist, a beating years before that nearly left him dead and that he never discussed.

In the morning, still tired and anxious, they went down to the hotel restaurant, ate breakfast, went back to the rooms, and read more files.

“It's like going into a library and trying to find a book by the last sentence in it,” Odin told Twist. “You can go through all the books, one at a time, but if the library is large enough, it'd take forever. We don't have forever.”

“I'll think about it,” Shay said.

She did. She kept coming back with ideas, and Odin kept saying, “I thought of that.”

“Listen, do you want me to keep working or not?” Shay asked.

“Yeah, yeah, don't get all snarly. Just don't think the same things I do.”

They sniped some more, like brother and sister, with X showing a little anxiety about it, but they gave him a three-way group hug, which he liked. As he walked away from them to turn in a circle and lie down, Shay noticed that one of his hind legs seemed to get momentarily tangled with the other one.

Shay stooped next to him and scratched his head—he liked a firm fingernail scratch right between the ears. His artificial blue eye—implanted by Singular—wasn't right: Shay thought it looked faded, unsharp. “Dammit. I think he needs a charge.”

She'd explained to Odin how they'd recharged X's brain battery, and now he said, “That's a little scary. Plugging something into a living brain.”

“I know,” she said. “But the last time, he almost died before we plugged him in.”

They looked at the dog for a long time, in silence, then Odin said, “It's your call: he's your dog now.”

Shay got her laptop, and the Thunderbolt cable, and got X to lie down. He knew what was coming and seemed willing enough: he stretched out on the floor, his jaw between his front paws, with his eyes closed. She plugged him in.

“How long?” Odin asked.

“I don't know,” Shay said. “Last time, it took at least an hour, but I wasn't watching the clock. His battery was totally flat back then.”

“Interesting,” Odin said. “Freakin' Frankenstein science, but…interesting.”

Shay looked up at Odin, and then at Fenfang, and at Twist, and it was Twist who asked, “What?”

“We keep saying we need something dramatic.”

Twist said, “Right.”

“Well, we've got Fenfang,” Shay said. “And we've got Dr. Girard. And you're going to L.A.”

Twist said, “Oh…jeez. Where's my head been?”

Odin asked, “What?”

Twist said, “Girard's a friend of mine. He runs a clinic in L.A., and he's got an X-ray machine. He X-rayed the dog for us.”

Fenfang said, “Then he could”—she gestured at her head—“X-ray this?”

“That would be great on Mindkill,” Shay said. “You don't have to be a doctor to look at an X-ray showing hundreds of wires stuck in a brain and know it's a problem.”

Fenfang nodded and said, “I will do it.”

An hour later, X's eye was dark blue again, and his tail thumped against the floor. Shay unplugged him, and he licked her hand and rolled onto his back for a belly rub.

Cade arrived in Las Vegas at noon, having left Salt Lake at dawn. “They should be all over Salt Lake,” he said. “I left several difficult-to-find clues that they'll find, if they're competent.”

“They're competent,” Odin said.

Cade was carrying a bag from Cabela's. Twist said, “You're not old enough to buy a gun, there's no place to fish….”

Cade emptied the bag on a table. Six Motorola walkie-talkies and a pack of batteries fell out. “We can talk to each other without using cell phones. We choose the frequency, good for a mile or so. You'd have to know we were using them, where we were, and what frequency we were on, to intercept.”

“Old tech, but useful,” Odin said. “We'll take them with us this afternoon.”

“What's this afternoon?” Cade asked.

Twist briefed him on the proposed run into Los Angeles.

“They're probably watching the hotel,” Cade said.

“Yeah, we thought of that, not being complete morons,” Twist said. “We can handle it.”

“What am I doing?” Cade asked.

“Computer files—you and Shay will be trying to find more stuff we can use to hang Singular,” Twist said. “We'll be out of L.A. and back here before morning.”

“I'm worried about the hotel. Not everybody in there can be trusted,” Cade said to Twist. “They ain't a bunch of little snowflakes. If I were Singular, I'd call up some rap sheets to see who might be bought. Some of them could be. If they see you, and make a quick call, you're trapped.”

“I can get in and out,” Twist said. “Cruz has a plan.” He turned to face a mirror, looked himself over admiringly, from his sleek brown pompadour to his polished black boots, and sighed.

Once the others had left, Shay told Cade about searching the hard drive. Cade shook his head. “That sounds like the next thing to hopeless.”

“What else are we gonna do?” Shay asked.

“Here's the thing,” Cade said. “When I'm looking at a computer screen, I can't think. We should turn the computers off.”

“Pretty radical for a computer punk,” Shay said.

“I'm not
just
a computer punk,” Cade said. He flicked his hair. “I'm also
very
good-looking.”

In fact, he was, Shay thought. His phony-real vanity made her smile.

The four travelers made one stop in Vegas, at a Ross Dress for Less, then sped across the desert in a shifting clutch of cars and semitrucks, all headed for L.A. They were slowed on the mountain down into San Bernardino, where a traffic accident pushed everybody into a bottleneck in the left lanes, and they got caught in the evening rush on the 210. Still, they were in Pasadena before seven o'clock.

“Doesn't look like L.A.,” Odin said. “At least not the parts I've seen.” In the weeks he'd been hiding out in Los Angeles with Rachel and the other members of Storm, they'd never made it to the suburbs.

“More like an actual town,” said Twist. “You know, a downtown area, surrounded by houses.”

They parked behind a McDonald's, divided up the walkie-talkies, then walked to a Starbucks. Odin signed onto the Wi-Fi and did a Google image search for Rachel Wharton. He hadn't wanted to do that in Las Vegas, in case her name might be a trip wire that Singular was watching.

He found a dozen pictures of Rachel, stretching back to her high school days. Cruz, Twist, and Fenfang studied the pictures, then Odin shut down the computer and they left. Cruz and Fenfang went ahead, aiming for the library, while Odin and Twist walked down the opposite side of the street. They were all carrying backpacks—they were near Pasadena City College and were going for a student vibe.

Cruz went into the library, swept through it once, didn't see anyone who resembled the photographs of Rachel. He went back out the front, took a left, said “Nobody” to Fenfang. They walked along Hill Avenue, arm in arm, brushed past Odin and Twist, who'd come across after them, and Cruz muttered, “Not there. Don't see anybody watching.”

Twist and Odin split up, Twist walking down to Green Street, while Odin leaned inside the library's door, as if waiting for a date. Fenfang and Cruz walked around the block, looking for people watching them, saw nobody, then went into the library, where they found seats at a long reading table.

And they waited. They'd decided to wait until nine o'clock—Rachel had always signed on before then—and if she didn't come, they'd head down to Hollywood and the Twist Hotel.

Rachel showed up just before eight.

Twist saw her coming and walked past her on Green Street, to check; when he was fairly certain that the woman was Rachel Wharton, he beeped Odin and said, “Coming your way. Nobody with her.”

Odin went into the library, got behind some bookshelves, out of sight. She'd most likely go to one of the big tables, he thought, where she could use her laptop.

She stepped into the library a minute later, and Odin's heart skipped a beat: she was pretty, wild-haired, his first girlfriend, the first woman he'd ever slept with, someone who was willing to trash a lab on behalf of tortured animals….

As Odin watched, she headed straight for a study area. He used the walkie-talkie, said, “Got her. Watch for me.”

Cruz and Fenfang got up and left the library; with Twist, they'd watch the place from three different angles, looking for Singular operators. Odin waited, back in the books, looking for anyone who was paying attention to Rachel. Nobody was. She settled behind the laptop and started typing.

She was still working ten minutes later when Odin settled into a chair across from her. Her eyes flicked up, back down to the laptop, then, startled, back up. She blurted, “Oh, Jesus.”

He asked, “Got a minute?” He tipped his head toward the books. She pushed down the lid of her laptop, got her pack, and followed him into the stacks.

“You got away! How'd you find me?” she whispered.

“I put a tracker on your laptop,” he said. “In case we got separated.”

She frowned, a wrinkle between her eyes: didn't like the idea of being tracked. “We're the only two still out,” she said. “The cops got the others.”

“I know,” Odin said. “Listen, the Singular people are way, way worse than you can believe.”

“I saw the videos on that Mindkill site—they were from the flash drives, weren't they?”

Odin nodded. “It's bad. Really bad. You should get out of here, at least for a while.”

“Yeah…What about New York?” she asked. “Nobody knows me there. I've still got some money….I could get to Paris, maybe, one of my old girlfriends lives there, they'd never know about her.”

“Using your passport could be risky. New York maybe. But go fast. I've got a name and email address for you—he's the CEO of Singular. I suggest you send him an email. Don't let him know where you are or where you're going, but tell him you don't have any of the flash drives they're looking for, tell him that you don't want to have anything to do with him or with Singular, that you're quitting the animal rights movement, that you're going away and they'll never hear from you again. You gotta do this, Rachel.”

“What happened to your face? What'd they do to you?”

“That would take a while to explain, and I don't want to be here that long,” Odin said, glancing around the room. “We're trying to expose them before they get us. You don't want the details, but believe me: they will kill you if they think you're a danger to them.”

“All right,” she said. “But you didn't just come here to talk. If you saw me signing on, you could have sent me an email. You want your laptop.”

“Do you have it?”

“Yeah, I do.” She put her pack between her feet, unzipped the top, and pulled his laptop out. “I was afraid to turn it on, in case Singular or the cops could trace you.”

“Thanks.” He took out his wallet, found a slip of paper, and said, “This is the Singular guy's email. Send that message one minute before you leave Los Angeles. Then get lost.”

“What about you?” she asked.

“We're running until it's settled. If they get us, you probably won't hear. If we get them, you definitely will.”

She reached out and clutched his forearm, and tears trickled down her cheeks. “Odin, be careful.”

“I will,” he said. “I gotta go.”

“Wait,” she said, and pulled him into a hug. “I know what you think about me, but you're wrong: I really liked you.”

“And I liked you.” He let go of her and stepped away. “Rachel: have a good life. Seriously. Have a good one.”

Odin was out the door and walking down the alley. Twist and Cruz were hidden at the end of it, should anyone be following. Fenfang was back at the McDonald's, watching the car. When the men came up, she nodded and they all climbed in, and as they pulled out of the parking lot, Odin got out a tiny tool kit and began taking the laptop apart.

When he'd gotten the clamshell off, Cruz shone a flashlight on the inner workings and asked, “See anything?”

“Nothing here. It's clean,” Odin said after a moment.

Twist: “You're sure?”

“I know every molecule of this thing. Nothing's been moved or added or subtracted. I gotta look at the software….”

“We'll leave you at Dave's Chicken and Flapjacks,” Twist said. “I know Dave, he'll let you and Fenfang sit in a booth as long as you want.”

At thirteen, Cruz had been running with the gang his older brother belonged to, although he'd not yet been accepted as a full member. After his brother was shot to death, Cruz dropped out at his mother's urging, just before she was deported back to Mexico. In the months that followed, he'd found his way to the Twist Hotel and a different kind of life, but he still had contacts, and they were coming through for him now.

Dave's Chicken and Flapjacks was a greasy spoon three blocks from the Twist Hotel. Twist had spent a significant part of his life in the place and led the way straight into the back, where a man named Al was nursing a Coke in a red plastic glass. When he saw Cruz, he stood up, and they hugged, and he passed a package to him. “Plates and papers for a Jeep Rubicon.”

Cruz nodded and cued Twist, who took an envelope from the interior pocket in his sport coat and handed it over. “As agreed,” he said.

Al nodded and put the money away without counting it. “There are two watchers, all the time. One watches the front, the other watches the back and the south side. Can't see the north side so well. They dress like people in the neighborhood, but their haircuts are wrong, and they are too much like soldiers. Big vibes.”

“That's them,” Twist said.

“You want us to move them along?” Al asked.

“No, no,” Cruz said. “When we go in, if you see them make a move, call us. But that's all.”

“This we can do.”

Cruz said, “
Gracias,
Alejandro. Mándale saludos a tu mamá de mi parte.
”

Cruz and Twist left Odin and Fenfang in the restaurant, working on his laptop. Twist did a quick change of clothes in the car while Cruz changed the license plates, and then they walked down to the hotel. A block away, Twist asked Cruz, “Do you still have that .45?”

“In the car. Why?”

“If we were stopped by the cops or anyone else, I'd want you to shoot me,” Twist said.

Cruz laughed and said, “I think you're cute.”

“Cruz…”

“I'm lying. You got ugly legs. Ugly.”

“Thank you.”

They went in the hotel's north door, which opened with a key that only a few people had, and straight up the back stairs to the rooms that housed Dum and Dee, the hotel's enforcers. They saw nobody on the way up. When Dum opened his door, he stared at Twist for a moment, then broke into a spasm of soundless laughter.

Twist said, “Yeah, yeah, let me in so I can get out of this dress….” He was wearing a yellow dress with a puffy skirt, of a kind popular in parts of the L.A. Hispanic culture, and an orange silk scarf tied around his head; he was carrying a wicker tote and a pink umbrella, instead of his cane.

“Ugly legs,” Cruz said.

Twist went into Dum's bathroom with the tote and changed into his regular black T-shirt, black jeans, and high-tops.

Sitting on the toilet, lacing up the shoes, he realized how much he'd missed the place: since getting involved with Shay, he'd literally been driven from his home.

As crazy as the hotel was, he loved it. Though it ran right on the edge of chaos, somehow it had always held together, and the kids who lived there seemed to grow into an extended family—in some cases, the only family they'd ever had. Even the cops would come around to chat, knowing that the hotel was a good thing. Now he was like a hunted animal, always looking over his shoulder. Couldn't turn back. He picked up the dress, went back out into Dum's room.

Dum got his twin brother, Dee, and Lou, Twist's second-in-command, and Emily, a girl who'd been Shay's roommate during her short stay at the hotel and who'd been there at the start of the conflict with Singular.

Twist started with Lou: “Any problems?”

“People are wondering where you are,” she said in her soft Somalian accent. “With Dum and Dee, I can keep the lid on for a while, but if you're not around, people are going to start getting…pushy.”

“Anybody in particular?”

“Barbara Hemme comes to mind. I've been getting a lot of lip from her. That guy Tucker, who calls himself Duke, he's been throwing some bullshit around about the place going straight.”

“You are a little too straight,” Twist laughed. “I'll jack those two up and the word will get around.”

Lou handed Twist a brown paper sack and said, “This is all there is.”

“How much?”

“A little over twenty thousand,” Lou said.

“It'll have to do. Listen, has anybody been upstairs, in my studio? Anybody at all, besides you?”

She shook her head. “Nobody. I took a cot up there and started sleeping near the elevator, just in case.”

“Thanks,” Twist said. “Did you call Danny Dill?”

“Yes. He's still there, still operating,” Lou said.

Emily asked, “How's Shay?”

“She got her brother back,” Twist said. “We're all in trouble. I wanted to talk to you, see if it might be possible for you to move in with your mother. Probably only be a couple of weeks, or a month.”

He explained that they were worried about residents of the hotel being paid to betray them to Singular: “If they know you were Shay's roommate, and there are people here who could tell them that, they might think you're still in touch. They could try to come in after you.”

“I'm safer here than I would be with my mom,” she said. Emily's mother was a lifelong alcoholic, and her devotion to bad choices was why Emily had left home at fourteen. “I've got Dum and Dee right downstairs; they'd have to get past them to get to me.”

“What about when you're working?” Twist asked.

Emily was a “picker,” who found items that looked like junk but could be sold for more than she paid for them. “Well…I've got a whole pile of crap down in the basement, in that old coal bin, that I've been meaning to inventory. I can stay inside here for a couple of days doing that and put all the numbers on my spreadsheet. That would limit their opportunities.”

Twist thought about it, then asked Dum and Dee, “Can you watch her?”

They both nodded.

“All right,” Twist said. “I'm going to go show my face around—talk to Miz Hemme and Mr. Duke, give them some advice about their personal conduct. Knock on a couple more doors.”