THE 4400® WELCOME TO PROMISE CITY (16 page)

He paused in the doorway. A wry smile hinted at a private joke. “As I told your esteemed sister, I don’t have a clue.”

She had no idea if he was telling the truth or not.

“Home sweet home,” Cassie said. “Finally.”

Kyle’s new apartment on the twenty-third floor of the Collier Foundation building was definitely a step up from the abandoned bomb shelter they had squatted in when the Movement had first returned to Seattle, shortly before the Great Leap Forward. A black leather sofa and matching love seat faced a state-of-the-art entertainment center, cobbled together from spare parts by Dalton Gibbs, Promise City’s most brilliant mechanic. A white shag carpet cushioned the floor. A large leather-bound tome, containing the original “White Light” prophecies, occupied a position of honor on the coffee table. A family photo, taken during happier times, before his mom and dad got divorced, rested on a bookshelf. A photo of Isabelle Tyler sat beside it. A framed photo of Mount Rainier, where the 4400 had first returned to the present, decorated one wall. A potted fern, picked out by Cassie, added a feminine touch.

The ritzy digs did little to lift his spirits, though, after that ugly scene at his dad’s place. Flicking on the lights, he angrily tossed his jacket onto the love seat. He couldn’t
get over the way his dad and Shawn had tried to guilt-trip him over dinner. “Crap, crap, crap,” he vented aloud. “Things were going so well between us before. Why did they have to spoil it like that?”

“I tried to warn you,” Cassie reminded him. Shucking a knitted shawl, she plopped down onto the couch and kicked off her shoes. She curled her bare legs up beneath her. “It’s not a good idea to associate with those people, not until they see the light.”

“Yeah, maybe.” He joined her on the couch. “But he’s my dad, Cassie. And Shawn’s more than just a cousin. We used to be best friends.”

“I know.” Her tone softened as she snuggled up next to him. She rested his head on her shoulder. “The future has asked a lot of you.”

Tell me about it,
he thought. Although he had been meant to be one of the original 4400, a botched attempt at abducting him had landed him in a coma for three years. Then, after Shawn finally revived him, one of the future people had possessed his body and forced him to shoot Jordan Collier. He’d spent nearly a year in Evergreen State Penitentiary before Jordan had finally managed to spring him from custody. Throw in a stint spent in quarantine right after he’d been possessed and almost five years of his life had been shot down the tubes, while rival factions in the future treated him like a pawn in some kind of time-bending chess game. It wasn’t until he’d taken the shot that he’d finally felt like he was taking control of his own destiny.

Maybe.

“It’s just one thing after another,” he moaned. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

“It will all be worth it in the end,” Cassie promised. Her gentle fingers stroked his hair. “Everything you’ve gone through, all your trials and hardships, it was all to serve a greater purpose. To bring Heaven to Earth and end mankind’s suffering forever.”

Kyle wanted to believe that. He
had
to believe that.

“You really think so?”

“Trust me.” A cryptic smile lifted her lips. “Have I ever led you wrong?”

I guess not,
he thought. Lifting his head from her shoulder, he contemplated the enigmatic woman beside him. Not for the first time, Kyle wondered where exactly his unconscious mind had conjured her up from. Why “Cassie Dunleavy” anyway? Where had that name come from? Some stray memory from his childhood that had been lodged in the back of his brain until the promicin brought it to life? Maybe a character from a storybook or a girl he’d met in kindergarten? According to Jungian psychology, which he’d studied briefly in college before dropping out to join the Movement, everyone had a female side called an
anima
. Was Cassie a psychic manifestation of his anima, or something else altogether?

Look at me,
he thought.
I don’t even know how my own ability works. How pathetic is that?

“I don’t know.” He stared morosely at the floor. “Maybe my dad and Shawn have a point. Who wants another fifty/fifty?” Distraught, he ran his fingers through
his hair. He felt like he was at the end of his rope. “I get so confused sometimes.”

“Poor baby.” Cassie gracefully rose from the couch. She reached down and lifted his chin. Striking green eyes gazed down on him tenderly. “You’ve had it hard, haven’t you? But I know just what you need.” She undid a clasp at the back of her dress and the funky purple frock slithered to the floor. To his surprise, she wasn’t wearing anything underneath. The turquoise pendant shone brightly against her smooth, pink skin. “It’s been a long day. Let’s go to bed.”

His eyes devoured her undraped form, and he felt his body responding, just like it always did. Part of him realized that there was something wrong, maybe even unhealthy, about this new aspect of their relationship, but he couldn’t help himself. He’d felt so alone after Isabelle died, and Cassie had been there to comfort him, night after night.

She’s not real,
he reminded himself.
She’s my own female self.

But he could see her and smell her and touch her, even if nobody else could.

“Come to me, lover,” she whispered huskily. “Let Cassie make it all better.”

“I’ve lost so much,” he whimpered.

“But you still have me, Kyle. Forever.”

Taking her hand, he let her guide him toward the bedroom.

“You’re just making this harder for yourself,” Dennis Ryland said.

Richard was a prisoner once more, but his new quarters made his old cell in Virginia seem like a penthouse suite at a luxury hotel. Sickly green paint failed to insulate the drafty stone walls. Instead of a bunk, there was only a hard concrete bench with no sheets or pillows. You’d have to be totally exhausted to sleep on something like that. Not that Ryland and his stooges had given Richard a moment’s peace since he’d woken up here, wherever that was. Shackled to a chair in the center of the cell, his wrists handcuffed behind him, Richard had no idea where he was being held. An orange jumpsuit had replaced his commando garb. His bare feet rested against cold cement. A draft chilled him to the bone. He wondered if he would ever feel warm again.

“I’m not telling you anything,” he said wearily. Ryland had been interrogating him for hours without a break. He was hungry and thirsty and exhausted. His prison togs were soaked with sweat. His stomach growled. His mouth felt dry as dust. His bandaged arm ached where the dog had bitten it; he’d been given antibiotics and a tetanus shot, but no painkillers. He would have killed for a sip of water.

“What a shame,” Ryland said. The man’s dapper suit gave him the look of a corporate executive, not a torturer. He took a swig from a bottle of imported spring water. “Your daughter was much more cooperative, at least for a time.” Ryland had briefly tricked Isabelle into conspiring against the 4400 a few years back. “We had a good working relationship, before she went berserk.”

Richard glared angrily. How dare this witch-hunting
bastard defame his daughter. “Go to hell.” If his telekinesis was still working, he would have yanked the water bottle from Ryland’s manicured fingers. But he was back on the inhibitor again. “Why should I talk to you, of all people?”

He’d first met Ryland years ago when the man had ordered all the 4400s into quarantine. At the time, the man had seemed like just another paranoid government bureaucrat. Then Ryland had tried to poison all the 4400s with an early version of the inhibitor, mounted an armed assault on a 4400 safe house run by Richard, and corrupted Isabelle. To say there was little love lost between them was an understatement.

“To stop Jordan Collier from killing millions of people?” Ryland’s voice was deceptively calm and reasonable. “All we want is for you to confess that Collier is developing an airborne version of promicin.”

Richard groaned. “I don’t know anything about that,” he said for what felt like the hundredth time. “I don’t even know if that’s true.”

“What difference does that make?” Ryland asked cynically. “We just need you to say so, on camera.” Surveillance cameras, mounted to record the interview, were currently switched off. “That’s all the justification we need to launch a preemptive strike on Promise City.”

“Forget it.” Richard stared defiantly at the other man. “I’m not giving you a bogus excuse for an invasion.”

“Who says it’s bogus? Collier?” Ryland shook his head at Richard’s apparent naïveté. “Haven’t you
learned by now that you can’t trust a word that man says?” He knelt down in front of the seated prisoner, so they were eye to eye. “Remember that beating in Virginia, those crooked guards that were going to blow your head off?”

Richard could hardly forget that, but said nothing.

“
Collier
set that up,” Ryland declared. “It was all a ploy to secure your loyalty, by arranging to save your life.”

The accusation caught Richard off guard. “You’re lying,” he said uncertainly. Doubt sapped his words of conviction. “That’s not true.”

“Pretty convenient how Collier’s freak squad showed up just in time to pull your butt from the fire, don’t you think?” Ryland chuckled at the coincidence. “You ever wonder about that?”

“Maia Skouris,” Richard insisted. “She warned Collier what was going to happen …”

“Is that what he told you?” Ryland shrugged. “Maybe that’s so. Or maybe that creepy brat didn’t see the whole story.” He rose to his feet and looked down sadly. His vulpine face projected a patently insincere facsimile of sympathy. “You don’t owe Collier a thing, Richard. Why endure all this misery to protect him?”

Richard refused to be manipulated. “This isn’t about Collier. It’s about not giving you a pretext to declare war on an American city.” He peered past Ryland and his flunkies at the solid steel gate blocking his view of the rest of the prison. There weren’t even any bars to see through. “Where are the people who got picked up with me? What have you done with them?”

He hadn’t seen Evee or Yul since waking up in captivity.

“They’re enjoying similar receptions at the hands of my subordinates.” Ryland smirked at Richard. “You should feel privileged that you’re getting my personal attention.”

Richard doubted that either of his teammates would crack. If anything, they were both more devoted to Collier and his cause than he was. They were true believers. “What makes me so special?”

“Don’t underestimate yourself,” Ryland answered. “You’re much more high-profile than your accomplices. A decorated veteran, a former codirector of The 4400 Center, and father of the infamous Isabelle Tyler … Your testimony will carry a lot of weight. I can practically see the headlines now.”

So could Richard. He would’ve spit at Ryland if his mouth wasn’t so dry. “Too bad there’s not going to be a confession.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that.” Ryland turned to one of his associates, an anorexic teenage girl with spiky white hair, pale skin, and a bland, neutral expression. Icy blue eyes regarded Richard with clinical dispassion. A heavy down jacket looked uncomfortably warm even for the drafty cell. Bulky mittens hid her hands. Her breath frosted in the air. Ryland stepped aside to let the girl through. “Astrid, I think you need to apply a little more persuasion.”

Fear contorted Richard’s face. He had already been on the receiving end of the girl’s ability several times before. Ryland sneered in anticipation. Despite his profound
antipathy toward the 4400, the former NTAC bigwig wasn’t above using the enhanced operatives to carry out his crusade. Richard strained uselessly against his bonds. “No, not again …”

Astrid appeared deaf to his pleas. She bent over to look Richard in the face. She took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the stuffy air of the cell. Richard braced himself for an all-too-familiar ordeal, which came upon him with merciless speed.

She blew in Richard’s face, her breath like an arctic wind. Frost flowed over Richard’s entire body, coating his clothes and skin with an icy white glaze. He shivered uncontrollably, on the verge of hypothermia. His teeth chattered like castanets, no matter how hard he tried to clench his jaw. His lips turned blue. His own breath fogged the air. Frostbite threatened the tip of his nose.

He hadn’t felt so cold since the last time she tortured him.

Ryland held up his hand. “That’s enough.”

Astrid sucked the bitter gale back into her lungs. She wordlessly stepped away from the chair. The frost instantly retreated, evaporating into the air. Within seconds, Richard was no longer frozen, but he kept on trembling. Goose bumps covered his skin. Each session with Astrid left him more chilled than before. It was impossible to get warm again.

Ryland gave him no time to recover. “Now then,” he said harshly, abandoning any pretense at sympathy. “Tell me how Jordan Collier intends to weaponize promicin.”

* * *

Maia woke up, shivering. Huddling beneath her blankets, she hugged herself to warm up. The awful dream clung to her like a thin layer of frost.

She grabbed her BlackBerry.

Jordan needed to hear about this, right away!

K
YLE CLOSED AND
locked the door to his office.

Feeling guilty, he crept back to his desk and sat down in front of the computer. It was seven in the morning, and most of the Collier Foundation was still asleep, but, just the same, he didn’t want anyone walking in on him while he looked up Bernard Grayson, just to lay his worries to rest. Jordan’s own office was only two doors down. Kyle had been relieved to see that Jordan wasn’t up yet, even though he kept telling himself that he wasn’t doing anything wrong.

I just need a little more information,
he thought.
Before I can make any sort of decision.

The Foundation maintained a top-secret database of every positive in the Movement. Teams of enhanced computer geeks protected the in-house network from government hackers and other security threats. Only the upper echelon of the Movement had access to the complete database. Kyle was a member of that elite number. To review the files, all he needed to do was key in his personal password.