The End of Tomorrow (12 page)

Jack took the phone and dropped it into a glass of soda. None of us spoke. We just got up and grabbed the doctor. Jack gave her a look as he lifted a rod—a cattle prod maybe. “This is going to hurt.” He jabbed her with it delicately. I let go as it made contact and she tensed, making a slight grunting noise. He pulled the cattle prod and went about gathering his few things he had brought in.

“You fucker!” She twitched and breathed like she had run a marathon.

“You likely are being traced, Janice. It’s even possible your own little nanobots are inside you. I just shorted everything for you.”

She winced. “Good point.” She didn't seem less annoyed. I didn't blame her. Being electrocuted wasn't fun for anyone.

With the clothes on our backs and the thick socks on my feet, we hurried out and down the street of the old house. Luce ran ahead, knowing we needed wheels.

Jack slipped inside a house—one of the ones in the Portobello area that looked shabby on the outside, but you knew were redone inside and worth a couple of million pounds. He hurried back to me and Janice, already on the phone he had lifted from inside the house. “Meet us where I told you I owned royal property. Bring the whole crew.” He hung up and dropped the phone into a puddle.

Janice looked confused and still a little worried.

I gave her my best attempt at a kind expression. “We will sort this out. You just might have to never be you again.”

She cringed and nodded.

I knew exactly what was going through her mind and how much it hurt.

Bond, Jack Bond

“You know the one good thing about the EU is their lack of border patrols.” Jack chuckled to himself as he drove us in the car Luce had stolen in Paris.

“I don't think this was the intended use of the union.” Luce opened her window and let the wind blow all over us. “But you’re right, this is awesome.”

We had made it two countries over but had gone in wild zigzagging patterns. I was tired and ready to kill someone. But sitting was better than anything for my feet so I suffered in silence and lost all feeling in my butt as Jack zoomed along the Autobahn.

I moaned and stretched, earning a look from Janice. “You have ADHD, don't you?”

“What? No?”

She nodded. “You do. I bet you can’t ever sit still and you change your mind constantly, and you hate choosing anything and being stuck with it.”

I scoffed. “You can’t tell that by a stretch and a yawn. And no, I don’t.”

Jack and Luce sniggered in the front seat like assholes, but I refused to admit there was any possibility my being antsy was anything other than a lack of constant peace and daily yoga classes.

“I have it. That's how I recognize the symptoms.”

“Awesome.” I nodded, not certain where this was going but getting less patient as the conversation continued.

“My dad has it as well. It’s genetic. My research was actually moving into the neurotransmitters of the brain, working toward regulating the output of dopamine pathways. It could actually work its way into depression, with serotonin levels being regulated.” Her eyes glazed over as she sighed. “It was going to be revolutionary.”

My heart, which was no longer in survival-Evie mode, twinged a little for her. This was her baby. She was thirty-one years old, single, living alone in a shitty apartment, and in a foreign country, and that research was all of her accomplishments. It was her life.

That made me hurt for her. Not badly enough to allow me to believe that we should free her and let the whole world suffer as a result.

“So when you gave your research to Dr. Drusack—”

“Oh, I never gave him the research, just a container of drone-like nanorobots, simply programmed to follow one task.” She shook her head. “He doesn’t know how to make them or anything like that. And the program I gave him that was initiated with him giving them one single command is actually corrupted. Once it was set to run with whatever he asked them to do, the program ended. It was a one-time use.”

Jack glanced back in the rearview mirror. “So he came to you and asked for some nanorobots and you just gave them to him?”

“I did.” She nodded. “I thought that he was going to help me branch out with my research. He has published far greater studies than I ever will and the research is protected. I never imagined he would use it for anything like that. In fact, he told me he wouldn't. He’s a scientist. All scientists want to preserve life on the earth; it isn’t ever about killing innocent people for us.”

Luce gave me a sideways glance. I knew what she wanted me to do, but I didn't want to do it. I didn't think it was ours to share. If she managed to get away from us, Janice could tell others of the Burrow. I shook my head subtly. “Loose lips sink ships,” I muttered.

Janice agreed. “Indeed.”

“So he asked for a specific number of nanorobots?”

“Yes. He said he needed five hundred for testing. He was going to do five groups of fifty and we had to account for mishaps and malfunctions. You always provide for double the amount needed in testing. He said he would be a few months with it. I planned to publish long before then. I had already filed my patents to protect the rights.”

“How did he program each of them to detonate bombs in various locations if the bots each had one program?”

Jack answered Luce’s question for Janice, “He programmed the bots to detonate the bombs. They each would have had the same bomb and the same detonation and the same time. Or he just programmed them to deliver a package at the exact same time. It was the people who went to the many individual hospitals that would have made the location difference.”

Janice nodded. “That's right. If he asked them to go to the hospitals as delivery people and they didn't know they were each carrying something evil inside them, he could have run the one program on the bots and detonated five hundred bombs.”

“But now he’s out of bots, but if he still has a few, he’s unable to program the ones he has left?”

She shrugged. “I don't know. He might have saved a few. The program has run its course though. The bots he has are useless if he can’t find the codes to program them.”

“We will kill him long before he ever gets to that stage.” Jack sighed and continued driving.

My insides were cramping and my breathing was hurting, but I knew I didn't have time to be injured.

I pulled the disgusting socks off and unwound the bandages. Seeing the cuts and scrapes and swelling of my feet was defeating. They looked worse.

“Good God, you are fairly extreme.” Janice leaned in to get a better look.

Luce laughed. “She is the most extreme. If a job needs to get done, this is your woman.”

I scoffed. “No. I have a terribly strong sense of survival, that's all. I hate pain, but I hate being caught or losing more. Highly competitive maybe, but extreme—no.”

“Being extreme is another ADHD symptom. They have proven the trait has overcome Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest because people with ADHD are predisposed to being better hunters. They are more likely to do extreme things and hyper focus with activities they enjoy. And women are instinctively attracted to extreme men; we are drawn to them and therefore carry the genetic disability through to the next generation.”

“Well, sign me up then. I need some hyper focus.”

She laughed. “Oh, I think you might be the president of the club.”

Luce laughed. “It’s all fairly accurate, you know.”

I pulled my hand out of Servario’s baggy trousers and acted surprised by the middle finger I found in there for her.

They both laughed. I wished I could laugh, but I was stuck on the fact that my father was part of something evil. He knew I was helping the Burrow and he had to know the Burrow was misusing its assets. I couldn't help but wonder if my mom knew as well. Servario clearly knew. He had warned us about Janice because the Burrow wanted her. They had sent him to get her. Obviously. The problem was his membership to the Organization. They wanted Janice too. So he sent us to retrieve her for the Burrow and sent himself and hired the most inept group of bad guys I had ever seen to be his team. He had set himself up for a failed abduction.

And we were the good guys, bringing the poor helpless doctor to the Burrow before the world could force misdeeds from her. Except she wasn't helpless, and we weren’t helping anyone but the few who believed the New World Order wasn't such a bad plan.

It was so cliché. The people at the top of the food chain always did see the masses as a burden. Population culling hadn’t been invented by these people. It was an old idea, maybe started by the Nazis. Maybe even before the Nazis. I didn't know. But I knew that we had to stop it.

Jack pulled off the Autobahn, taking an exit to a smaller highway. He drove into countryside like I had never seen. It was green—so green it looked photoshopped. The houses were small and white with red rooftops and black wooden beams. It was a valley with what appeared to be high mountains, but I had seen the Rockies in British Columbia so I knew how big mountains could get.

It was breathtaking here though to see the bright-green and village-styled communities and the dark forest all around us. The bark on the trees was black like it had been burnt, but it grew that way.

We drove along a river to a much larger town, more like a small city but very European looking.

“This is Gernsbach.”

“Are we in the Black Forest?” Janice asked, looking like she knew the area.

“Yeah.” Jack nodded. He seemed like he knew this place as well.

“Drusack has a house near here. You are aware of that I’m sure. Some place with the name Bad in it. I thought it was weird, but he said Bad actually means bath in German.”

“Bad Herrenalb, and yes, I am aware of it.” Jack laughed confidently.

“You are?” Luce didn't look convinced.

“I am.” He winked at her. “The moment Evie is better, she and you can sneak over there, kill him, and destroy whatever he has going on. There’s an airport ten minutes from my house. Fitz and your mom can meet us there with the jet if we get into trouble. We will flee the area the moment Drusack is dead and the bots are destroyed.”

“Thanks for telling us the plan.” Luce hit him in the arm. I realized then something was different between them. I had missed it before. The chemistry between them had faded or just died altogether.

“I formed it as we drove here. It’s not perfect and the equipment I have at the house is basic. We might even have to take a shopping trip. We don't want anyone to know we’re here.”

“You own a house here?” Luce looked lost and a little hostile.

“Yes.” He didn't seem to get the tone she was giving. “I told you I bought some real estate when I was nineteen. It was investments I made with the money from selling my websites. Just some dot-com money.”

Janice snorted and I sat back, completely baffled by the young man.

“And no one knows you own it?”

“No.” He shook his head. “I actually created a whole new identity for myself once; had it for tax avoidances.”

“You mean evasion?”

He winked at me in the rearview mirror. “Semantics. I mean, I used it to hide money and when I joined CI, I used it to be someone else when I needed to be. His name is Walter Eirew and he is a French photographer, a playboy, and a trust fund philanthropist. Born in France and holds houses in several remote parts of Europe.”

“So the polar opposite of you?”

“Right. Who expects the nerd in the basement to be a man of mystery and wealth? Have you seen my paychecks? They’re pathetic.” He cracked a cheeky grin, something that told me the man we usually saw was the act and the other personality might actually be him.

“Anyone else feel like we might be being led to our death or the worst betrayal ever?” Luce sneered at him.

Good old Jack was back instantly, “I—uhm think we should talk about this later.” He was trying to impress her and he had failed miserably. “At the house.”

Janice gave me a look. “Yikes.”

“Right.”

The drive to the house was spectacular. He left the town and headed into the hills until we reached an entrance with a brick wall. Jack punched in a code and the massive black gate opened for us. He drove in, pausing to watch it close and lock again.

I had to admit Luce had a point. I was a bit nervous about the fact that he hadn’t let us in on the real him, or the fake or other him. I had a bad feeing about the mansion as we crested the hill and it came into view. It looked like the sort of house a bad guy kept. A lair if you will.

Maybe it was a bat cave where he honestly lived a quiet superhero-styled life, but it might also be that he lived a dangerous one where he had double-crossed us.

There was no way to know until we went inside. He parked in front of the circle driveway and immediately an elderly man came hurrying out. He was dressed in a suit and looked shocked or worried. He got Jack’s door first. “Sir, we didn't know you were coming.” The man was English and very butler-like.

Jack stepped out, waving it off. “I decided to take a trip. Ve have been to a rave in Warsaw and are exhausted.” Jack’s accent was perfect Parisian French. I almost shit my pants. “Ve vont be staying long. My friend got very drunk and high and hurt her feet. Zey must be tended to. She must take ze waters.”

“Oh, of course she must. The house as always is ready for you.” The man smiled nervously. “I will have the rooms readied for the ladies.” He glanced at the trunk of the Mercedes. “No bags?”

“Non. Ve flew in. I stole zis car, burn it.”

The man’s eyes widened, but he nodded and got into the driver’s seat as we all climbed out. Jack turned and strolled into the house, looking very much like he belonged here in the creepy castle on the hillside. He suited the life of the young French aristocrat. It was very odd.

He turned back at us all, winking. “Este will show you to your rooms.” He turned and in perfect French told the woman to take us to our rooms and ensure they are satisfactory.

The girl curtseyed and hurried to the grand staircase.

His house made Servario’s many houses look plain. It was the same sort of theme—marble and rich and fancy with gilded shit everywhere. But here, there was grandeur I would expect in a castle and not in a mansion. The house had clearly been a Bavarian castle at one point.

The three of us followed the girl, me barefoot and injured, Janice still awkward and scared, and Luce pissed off in a dark and chilling way.

Jack hurried down the hall away from us. He didn't look back and he wasn't unsure. It was strange. I almost missed the other Jack.

My eyes went to the sky, checking the ceiling for cameras and other security systems by which we might have been scrutinized.