Painkiller (27 page)

“—we gave DNA to them not just for money—” she went on.

“Oh, it was totally about the money for me,” Phinneus said.

“—because they said they were working on something that would help slow the aging process in everyone—normal humans and metas alike,” Veronika said, looking like there was a flint grinding against a rock in her soul as she said it. “They were supposed to roll back the clock on … time.” She flushed, looking abashed and maybe a little insulted. Part of me wanted me to know what deep personal motivation was driving Veronika, making her less coldly impartial about this turn of events.

The other part of me wanted to shoot her in the head while her hands were at her side and call it good. Needless to say, the new and improved me was keeping that impulse heavily under wraps, where no one could see it.

Harry came wandering back over with a tallboy full of scotch and slipped back in next to me. “That percentage on you shooting Veronika and Phinneus is wavering pretty heavy. Maybe you should stop going to war with yourself and get it over with one way or another, huh?”

Dammit.

“The thing I don’t get, though,” J.J. said before I could turn too red (Veronika totally shot me a look that told me she’d heard what Harry said), “is why would anyone be experimenting with trying to kill all the metas?”

“Because we’re just so good for the world, obviously,” Kat said, the gun in her hands still pointed at Veronika. “We do such amazingly awesome things, like that time my brother almost blew up Minneapolis, for example—”

“And that time Sienna almost blew up Minneapolis,” Augustus said.

“Let’s not forget Sovereign,” Reed said stiffly.

“Or that time Western Kansas got burned,” I said, trying to shift the focus to something I had absolutely nothing to do with.

“Then there’s also Soldier Field and the Great Chicago Fire,” Harry said, calmly, between sips of his drink. “One of them caused by this little lady,” he nudged me in the ribs, “and the other by your old friends Winter and Sovereign.” My eyes widened as I stared at him. I had no idea that those two had caused the Great Chicago Fire. “Yeah, we’re kind of a plague on this world, but I might suggest, no more so than any other human. It’s not like we invented the nuclear bomb, or war, or anything like that.” He sipped. “We just … maybe refined it a little from time to time.”

Veronika looked ashen. “You’re kinda making me not want to save us, Harry.”

Harry looked around the room. “Well, why not? What, you think metas only do bad? We’ve all seen what our race can do in the bad times. Hades, Ares, Zeus, we’ve heard the legends.” He raised his glass to Phinneus. “Hell, Chalke might even have seen some of those things personally—”

“Screw you, Harry,” Chalke said, folding his arms in front of him.

“Death’s a fact of life, kids,” Harry said, holding his glass precariously between two fingers. “Humans killing humans is a fact of life.” I suspected he caught the fact that he was sinking the room into a collectively deeper depression by the second, because he stopped, kind of took a breath, and started again, looking each of us in the eye in turn as he spoke. “Look … I kill when I can feel the pain of others. It’s like a swallow of castor oil, sick and greasy, and it runs right through me.” He brought his gaze over to look me in the eyes. “Like that guy on the beach. I could feel what he was going to do to those girls, and it was like someone jabbed a knife right into me. I couldn’t—” He grimaced. “I’ve never been able to take that, not really. The drinking helps, but … I still feel it sometimes.” He raised his glass and stared at the deep amber liquid within. “It’s nice to numb the pain, to dial it down so I don’t feel it always.” He took a long drink. “Not to worry about tomorrow.” He swallowed and made an
Ahhh!
sound. “Well … there’s a lot of people about to not have a tomorrow. We all know about the worst of us.” He tipped his glass toward Veronika, then Phinneus, then Fannon. “We hear the rumors, the stories. But we don’t hear about the kid I passed on the street earlier, who had the same ticking clock as the rest of us, but none of the horrific baggage.” He sniffed. “He’s going to go his whole life without hurting a soul. He’s innocent. Sweet. In a way none of us are anymore.” He looked pained. “Doesn’t he deserve a chance?”

“Shit, Harry,” Phinneus said, frowning, “you didn’t have to get all sappy. I would have partnered up with you clowns just to save my own ass in this.”

“Same,” Veronika said, sounding madly uncomfortable.

Fannon grunted from the floor. “The old dinosaur … makes a good point, though.”

“Like I was talking to you cynics,” Harry said, making a face at Phinneus and Veronika. “I was speaking to the younger and more idealistic crowd.”

Fannon looked right at me, clutching at himself, skin wet with blood. “What do we do?”

I hesitated, lulled by Harry’s speech, which had produced some very odd emotions in me. “Uhm …” I glanced at Harry.

Harry gave me a nod. “They’re all in. I can read the probabilities. They’re not going to stab you in the back later. Gustafson’s the one paying them, and if he’s dead …” He waved his drink, careful not to spill.

“Yeah, no contract,” Veronika said, thoroughly irritated. “I came to town on my own dime so that I can do charity work. Whoopee.”

“All right,” I said, nodding. “We need to get to Gustafson and stop him before this clock ticks down.” I looked at J.J. “This is your moment, J.J.”

He nodded solemnly, a serious look falling over his face at the grim moment we found ourselves in. He opened his mouth, licked his lips, and said, “Does this make us the slaughterhouse ten, now?”

I just rolled my eyes and barely kept from slamming my head against the table. You can take the geek out of government service, but he’s still a geek.

“The cops are coming,” Harry pronounced suddenly.

“Yeah, I won’t be sticking around for that,” Phinneus said, throwing a furtive glance behind him at the large windows onto the street.

“I’m … I’m just gonna get on a plane,” Veronika said, seeming to gather herself together at last. “You don’t need my help catching some pencilneck. Gustafson … he’s the kind that carries a slide rule in his pocket, not a gun.”

“Hmm,” Harry said, staring at her carefully, “that doesn’t change anything for you, survival probability-wise. Either you’re already infected with whatever this is … or this thing’s going global.”

“Fine,” Veronika said, looking rattled, “then I’m going to—”

“Won’t help,” Harry cut her off with a shake of the head. “The only probability change I’m seeing right now is if we go the ‘fight’ route.” He downed the last of his drink. “I know. Wouldn’t be my first choice, either.”

“What do we do?” Reed asked as the first sound of sirens echoed through the steakhouse. The sound of a shattering plate in the back kitchen was like a warning that things were about to break all over if we didn’t get moving.

“J.J.?” I asked, but he was pecking away on his keyboard.

“He won’t give you anything before the cops get here,” Harry said.

“Also,” Reed said, under his breath, “Slaughterhouse Five was the name of the slaughterhouse, not a name for a group.” J.J. didn’t stir, but I saw Reed relax a hair, clearly relieved now that he’d corrected the incorrect geekery foisted upon those of us present, none of whom gave an actual damn.

“Fannon,” I said, looking at the speedster still surrounded by Augustus’s prison of shards, glittering the steakhouse’s low light, “why don’t you go up to Northern Illinois Technical University and grab Gustafson?”

“I’d love to,” he said, voice wrought with pain, “but I’m kinda gonna be pushing glass shards out of my internal organs for the next couple hours, and moving fast would be … really detrimental to my health during that time.” He glanced at Augustus. “Thanks for that, by the way.”

“Hey, man, you were the one who took a contract to kill my friend offered by a genocidal mad scientist,” Augustus said.

“Why not get your friends the cops after Gustafson?” Phinneus asked.

“Not a terrible idea,” I said, looking back at the street.

“Whoa, no, that’s a terrible idea,” Harry said, pretty definitively. “That one kills the small chance of survival we all had.”

“Damn, this is grim,” Reed said, looking as grey as I’d ever seen him.

“We gotta go now,” Harry said, standing up. “Otherwise, the cops are gonna try and detain us, and Phinneus and Veronika are going to kill eight of them.”

“Yep,” Phinneus said with a nod when we all looked at him.

“Fine, we leave,” I said, matching Harry and standing up.

“Where do we go?” Reed asked. “Do we just … all pile in a bunch of cabs and head up to NITU to snag Gustafson?”

Everybody sort of looked around uneasily except Harry, who chortled. “Like a convoy.” He seemed to sober up, his childish grin disappearing. “I guess I’m the only one who thought three cabs full of metahumans rolling through the streets of the Gold Coast was cause for amusement.” He pushed at Reed, who started to move. “All right, let’s go.”

“I got a bike outside,” Phinneus said, as we started to move ourselves toward the door, kinda slowly for a bunch of people with metahuman speed. “One of you can ride with me.”

“Oh, man, I want to ride on the bike,” J.J. said, looking up as he snapped his laptop shut just before he tripped over one of the stairs.

Phinneus looked at him in askance. “Not quite what I was hoping for.” He looked straight at Kat, who was leading the way, her gun holstered beneath her aquamarine designer suit. “How about you, girl?”

“She’s out of your league, Phinneus,” Veronika said, brushing through the door. She looked straight at me with a smirk. “How about Sienna? I’ve seen her naked. She’s your type.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I asked a little hotly.

“I saw it, too,” Harry said, breezing out, a whole bottle of scotch now clutched in his hand. He smacked his lips together idly, like he was thirsty. “It’s good.”

“I only saw it for a minute,” Fannon said, his voice still low and grunting as he hobbled out with Augustus walking warily at his back, “when she was turning into a dragon, but before she got all scaly, it was all right.”

Phinneus paused at the curb, one foot off, the very image of a rugged frontiersman … dressed like an old biker. “What, did you take your clothes off for everyone but me? Did you do it after you blinded me?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, you’ve got me figured out. I’m leaving government service to become a stripper.”

“Your ride is here,” Mr. Chang said, and a steel grey Hummer limo came pulling up in front of the steakhouse.

“You know, I can get my bike later,” Phinneus said, clearly admiring my new conveyance.

The sirens were drawing closer. “Okay, everyone in,” I said, and they started piling in like it was a clown car.

“I haven’t seen her naked either, man,” J.J. said, putting a hand on Phinneus’s arm in sympathy. Phinneus gave him a look, and J.J. removed it and skittered into the limo.

“This is where I leave you, Ms. Nealon,” Chang said, not exactly cool as a cucumber. He looked pretty relieved to get off the party bus. “I trust you’ll give me a call when you’ve decided whether to take my client’s employment offer?”

“I’ll be in touch,” I said, giving him a nod as Reed shot me an evil look before he climbed in the limo.

“I’ll be waiting,” Chang said and turned to stride off down the sidewalk. His hair was wet and streaked down the side, probably from getting caught in the most intense negotiation he’d ever been part of. He walked a little stiffly, but seemed to relax more with every step he took away from us.

The sirens blared in my consciousness. “Now would be a good time to leave,” Reed called to me from the open door of the limo, throwing a little extra judgment into it.

With that, I sighed and got in, and the limo sped off toward the college and hopefully Gustafson, where we could put an end to this thing for good.

I found myself on a leather seat between Phinneus Chalke and my brother. Harry was stinking up the limo with the smell of cigarette smoke on his clothes that he dragged everywhere with him like a cloud. Somehow, probably because of the tight quarters, it made me make a face.

“You know,” Phinneus said, showing me just a hint of a smirk, “that was a hell of a chance you pulled in that restaurant, trying to turn us all around on Gustafson. It might not have worked out for you. That took guts. You got a big ol’ brass pair.”

Veronika sat up, and I could see that what Phinneus had said was chafing on her. “I told you I saw her naked, Chalke. The only thing she’s got a pair of is tits. Which explains why she can take a kick to the groin without falling apart, unlike the rest of you helpless dicks in this car.”

“Oof,” Reed said next to me as all the guys in the limo but J.J. cringed at that. My brother looked at me. “So … now we’ve recruited assassins and a hard-drinking, gambling murderer to help save the world.” He looked at Harry, who was clutching his bottle of scotch in front of him like a shield as he frowned at Reed. “No offense.”

“None taken,” Harry said with a shrug.

“I really just wanted to get them off my back,” I said. “I wasn’t … planning to recruit anybody. I’d just like to not have the metas of Chicago or the world die, though, and that’s something we can all agree on.”

“Uh huh,” Reed said, jaded. “You know, when this over and we’re unemployed, you could just go work as an assassin like them.” He nodded toward Veronika. “I bet she’d give you some pointers.”

Veronika turned her head toward us from where she sat next to Kat. “Being an assassin requires anonymity, lunkhead. Nealon fails on that basis alone. She couldn’t go anywhere in the world without someone recognizing that face.” She pointed right at me.

“Not all of us have to show our face to get the job done,” Phinneus interjected with a smirk. He looked right at me. “I’ve seen you shoot on TV. Who taught you?”

“An old friend,” I said, looking at Phinneus’s grey hair and beard. “Actually … you kinda remind me of him.”

Phinneus’s eyes twinkled. “You learned from Glen Parks, didn’t you?”

I stared back at him. “You knew Parks?”