Sidekick (28 page)

“I know!” I whispered. “And unless you can take him out through the camera, be quiet!”

“Well, I’m good,” Bart drawled. “But—”

“Shut up!”

My ear bud went silent.

I turned to Choden.

“I’ve got this,” I mouthed.

I stood up and turned the corner.

“Hey!” I called out. The bearded lady’s glazed eyes turned to me. He had definitely been chipped, but I had to believe he was still in there somewhere. I just needed to goad it out of him. Once he realized what the Sultana had allowed my father to do to him, he’d be on our side for sure.

He lowered the gun at me.

“You don’t want to do that!” I shouted. “We can settle this without guns.
Mano et mano
. Or
hotto
…that’s me,” I said putting my hand on my chest, “
et losero
.”

He did something that made the gun click.

“Hey!” I shouted putting my hands out…because that would do a lot of good warding off bullets. “I’ve got a video of me flattening you at the fair. In the event of my death, it goes viral. The internet loves midg—”

I thought I saw a spark in his eyes…just before the bullets started flying.

I dropped to my belly and slid back around the corner.

“Okay, I think it’s safe to say Plan A is out,” I shouted at Choden over the gunfire. “But at least he doesn’t seem to be coming after us.”

“He is most likely programmed to stay at his post.”

Suddenly Choden took a step to move past me.

“Choden!” I scrambled after him on all fours. “It’s suicide. Don’t do it!” I yelled, making a grab for his pant leg.

I heard a sharp
phfft
sound.

I looked up. Choden had a small pipe in his mouth.

I looked over at my nemesis. His hand was at his neck, feathers in between his fingers. He slid to the floor.

“A dart…so cool,” Bart’s electronic voice whispered.

“You could have told me you were going to do that,” I said, accepting Choden’s hand up to my feet.

He shrugged.

We both walked over to the little man’s unconscious form. At his belt was a heavy set of keys.

“Don’t worry,” I said to him, grabbing the bunch. “Someday we’ll have our bitchy blogging war.”

Then I realized something. I turned to face Choden. “What about your vow?”

“Blow darts don’t count,” he said calmly.

I raised an eyebrow.

“They don’t count.”

“Whatever you say, Peace and Light.”

He smiled a little.

I opened the heavy metal gate, and we walked through to the other side.

I was halfway down the hall when I realized that Choden wasn’t with me.

“What are you doing?” I called back.

“I will have to stay here.”

“What? Because of what I said about your vow? I was just k—”

“No,” Choden said, shaking his head gently. “Someone needs to stay by the gate. Should your father decide to switch on his kill device, this is the way the prisoners will leave the facility. I cannot let that happen.”

“He’s got a point,” Bart chimed in.

My eyes peered down the unknown concrete hallway. “So you want me to go in alone?”

“It is not for me to want anything for you.” Choden moved his hands to a prayer position. “I know my path. You must choose yours.”

“Well, that’s just great,” I muttered. I was never very good with directions.

I studied Choden’s face to see if he had any further wisdom to share.

Nope.

I sighed. “I guess I’ll just go on ahead then.”

“Come on. Say it like you mean it!” Bart’s disembodied voice prodded.

I rolled my eyes. “Said the guy safely back at the van tending to his nerd injury.”

Suddenly I heard a strange noise in the background. “What’s that sound?” I asked, plugging my other ear. “It’s like broken glass on a chalkboard.”

“That’s Queenie.”

“What’s she doing?”

“Laughing.”

“Scary,” I said.

“Scary hot.”

I fought off the image forming in my head. “Okay, I gotta go.”

“Here, let me help with some inspirational music,” Bart said. Suddenly
The Flight of the Valkyries
came over my airwaves.

“Seriously, Bart?”

“What? Too much?”

I said nothing.

“Fine. How about this?”

New music came on.

“What is that?”

“AC/DC,” he replied. “Do you want me to turn it off?”

“No, leave it,” I said waving to Choden before stalking my way down the hall. “I think my dad is about to be
Thunderstruck
.”

“Now that’s too much.”

“Right.”

***

For about a minute and a half, I strode the hallways hopped up on an intoxicating mix of adrenaline and heavy metal. Then I entered the first hallway of cells.

“Bart, kill the music,” I whispered.

“What’s wrong? I don’t see any guards on the monitors.”

“It’s the prisoners,” I said slowing my walk.

“Oh, I guess it’s been awhile since they’ve seen a woman,” Bart said chuckling. “Do whatever little shimmy-shimmy you have to, to keep them quiet. You’re getting close the eagle’s nest.”

“Yeah, that won’t be necessary.”

I looked warily from cell to cell. Each prisoner, though physically different, managed to look unnervingly the same. They all stared out from behind the bars with dead eyes, swaying slightly. I had seen the same look on the circus crew, but somehow, on these men, it was even more disturbing.

Suddenly my phone buzzed.

“Is that your phone?” Bart yelled. “Don’t answer it. There’s—”

I took Bart’s ear-bud out and reached for my phone nestled in a pocket on my belt. It might be Pierce. I had to answer.

“Hello?” I whispered.

“Bremy! You are still alive!” an accented voice called out.

“Oh, Mr. Pushkin. This really isn’t a good time,” I whispered even more quietly, eyeing the dead sharks floating around in their cells.

“Never a good time for you! Mr. Raj says you don’t come to work. You don’t answer my calls. It makes me nervous,” he said. “My other tenants…they know how this works. But you…I spend all this time with the training. It may not be worth it.”

“I’m sorry—”

“Now listen. I’m trying to plan my day tomorrow. If you have rent, good. I just pick it up and be on my way. If you don’t have rent, then I have to change my appointment for nail cleaning. It will take too long to move your body to—”

“You get manicures?” I interrupted. I really didn’t want to hear about my final resting place.

“I am not animal,” he said with disgust. “Now, my twelve hundred dollars…”

I suddenly realized the little bud in my fingers was screaming. I put it in my free ear.

“Are you nuts! What are you thinking?” Bart shouted.

“What?” I asked hurrying down the hall to the next corner.

“What, what?” Mr. Pushkin asked in my other ear.

“Sorry, not you Mr. Pushkin,” I said into my phone as I moved it away from my face. “Bart? What’s hap—”

“Don’t—” he yelled.

I turned the corner.

“—turn the corner!”

My jaw dropped.

There, less than ten feet in front of me, was Pulcinella flanked by two dead-eyed circus pals.

“Too late.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

“I have to go Mr. Pushkin,” I said as calmly as I could. “There’s a clown who wants a word.”

“A clown! You call me a cl—”

I hung up as I raised my hands into the air.

The tall thin boxer reached for one of my arms, while the fat and short one grabbed the other.

Pulcinella led us down the hall. I could tell from the sharpness in his eyes that he still hadn’t been chipped, but even so, he seemed different. Serious.

The eagle’s nest was just as Bart had described it, a glass pentagon-shaped room hovering over the floor of the general population’s recreation area. There was a platform deck surrounding it with one bridge connecting the pod to the rest of the top floor.

We walked in silence across the floating walkway towards command central. Before we even got through the door, I could see my father. He was sitting in a captain’s chair, one leg casually crossed over the other. He pinned me in his gaze as I was placed in front of him.

“You can let her go,” my father said. The boxers released their grip. “She’s not a danger to anyone but herself.”

“Oh my God,” Bart’s voice buzzed in my ear. “Is that your dad talking? I can’t get a video-feed! Ryder says she’s coming after you.”

“No!” I shouted. “Not yet!”

My father gave me an annoyed quizzical look.

“I mean, whatever you’re doing, don’t do it,” I said quickly. “Fight the power. Stop the evil.” I half-heartedly raised my fist.

“Brianna, please stop talking. It is no longer cute.” He dropped his gaze to his phone. Never a good sign. “You know there was a time when—despite all of your foolishness—I thought you might have had what it takes to work for the company. I actually thought I saw potential. I can see now I was wrong. You’re wrong.”

“Because I’m not evil!”

He sighed. “Evil. A relative term if I have ever heard one.” He still wasn’t bothering to look up at me. “Is it evil when a lion kills a gazelle? When a shark kills a fish?”

“It’s not the same,” I sputtered. “They only take what they need.”

“You’re right.” He slammed his palms down on the arms of his chair and met my eyes. “I take more than I need…I take what I want.”

“Nice philosophy, Dad…real nice,” I said struggling to keep the emotion from my voice.

“I am building a legacy,” he replied loudly. “I provide for my own. And all I ask for in return is loyalty.”

“And our souls,” I added with a sick laugh. “Don’t forget our souls.”

“You are so limited by your puny understanding of what’s right and wrong that you can’t understand what it is I’m doing here.”

“What
are
you doing?” I asked shaking my head. “It’s not in your nature to help the disadvantaged.”

He considered me for a moment before speaking.

“I am becoming the most powerful man in the world.”

Fear prickled over my skin.

“You’ve lost me.”

My father looked like he was about to say more, but the door to the nest opened again. I swivelled my head and gasped.

In between the grip of two circus-bots was Pierce.

They let go of him suddenly, and he crumpled to the floor. I ran over to his prone body and lifted his head onto my lap. My fingers flew to his neck.

Thank God. A pulse.

I turned his beautiful face to mine. His eyes were closed.

“What did you do to him?” I snapped.

“I gave him what he wanted.” My father rose from his chair and spread his hands in a charitable gesture. “He has been so desperate to find out what I’ve been up to that I thought I would give him some firsthand experience.”

“You chipped him?” I ran my hands through Pierce’s golden hair, and at the base of his skull, I felt something wet. I pulled my fingers away. Blood.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Why are you?” my father shouted. He never shouted. “I wanted to let you go, Bremy, but you just kept pushing and pushing. And him,” he said pointing to Pierce. “You think you can just give me, your father, up to some pathetic boy you met a month ago?”

He walked around the room, seemingly taking time to regain his control.

“You have done this. You want to know the price of loyalty?” my father asked coldly. “This is it.”

“What are you going to do to him?”

He shrugged. “Nothing. But I do fear that he might be a victim of the tragic prison riot that is about to take place—” my father flicked his gaze to his watch, “—in approximately five minutes.”

I pulled Pierce’s head higher onto my lap. “You’re crazy.”

“You thought this was a game, didn’t you, Brianna? You thought you could dress up in your silly outfit and offer up your father, who has given you everything, to the press.” He said the words through gritted teeth, every angle of his face hard. “You know, it wouldn’t have worked. They would have thought you were just another spoiled princess who’s mad because her daddy took her toys away.” He stopped and inhaled deeply, never releasing me from his gaze. “I will say that you have more gumption than I gave you credit for, but you still lack discipline.”

“I have no desire to be like you.”

He nodded as though accepting what I had said with grace. “At one time you were very dear to me, but no one is going to stop what’s happening tonight. I need the press here to bear witness and show the world the technology I have developed. You, however…”

Big scary pieces were starting to fall into place.

“The chip,” I said thinking quickly. “You’re going to turn these prisoners into weapons…your own psychotic army.”

He smiled. “I’m glad to see all those fancy schools didn’t completely go to waste.”

“And that’s why you want the media here,” I added. “You’re staging a demonstration.”

I put Pierce’s head down gently and rose to face my father.

“You’re going to sell the technology to the highest bidder so that they can have their own zombie army.”

My father’s smile widened even more.

“You,” I sputtered. “You’re…horrible. You’re…you’re…a bad, bad person.”

“You missed one part though, my dear.”

“What…it gets worse?” I shouted. “Do you have your name in for CEO of Hell?”

“Yes, I plan to sell the technology,” he said sitting on the edge of a desk, all business casual. “As we speak, there are a select group of world leaders…or terrorists, depending on how you look at it…all glued to their television sets waiting for the demonstration to begin, but embedded within the technology will be a code that still gives me control. Whomever I sell the technology to will do all the implanting…millions of citizens chipped…but ultimately, it is an army I will control.”

I couldn’t speak. I was choking on the horror.

Bart, however, was swearing in my ear.

“Do you see now, Bremy?” my father asked almost gently. “I wanted to give you and your sister the world…your mother too. And I have finally found a way to do just that.” He sighed. “But I suppose Jenny will have to suffice.”

“You didn’t do this for us,” I said almost too angry to get the words out. “You did it to feed the crazy in your head!”