The Rift (17 page)

He loved his job.

And that was when the Men in Black appeared, seemingly out of the walls, one on either side, lifting him up off the ground, his feet still churning, searching for floor. They hustled him into the elevator. A third one, they all looked alike, took the phone and glanced at the screen.

“Do you have the decryptor?”

Cranston nodded. “In my room. I was gonna do it.”

“We’ll help. It’ll save time. You don’t want to get this wrong.”

Nada and Zoey were looking at the babies.

They weren’t supposed to be in the nursery.
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY
the placard on the outside door read, like that had ever stopped Nada from going anywhere. In fact, it was practically an invitation.

Nada checked his watch. They had three minutes before the nurse came by again. The staff had a rigid schedule, the bane of all security. They even had a little infrared thing they had to scan on a light on the wall to confirm they were doing their checks on time; someone thought the trinket added to the security of the place, when in reality it made the hospital all that much more vulnerable to those in the know. Nada knew he could have snatched every one of these little beasts, thrown them into a duffel bag, and been on the road before anyone noticed.

But that would be wrong. Probably even to think it was wrong.

“Hurry,” Nada said in a voice that said do anything but hurry to Zoey. He’d learned that was the best way to couch things with his niece. She still hadn’t quite forgiven him for the park incident and being abandoned to the police. She was stopping at each basinet and whispering baby talk and all sorts of gooey-gooey. A part of Nada suspected it was an act, designed to irritate him, so he feigned not being irritated.

Plus, it was the right thing to do, he supposed, not very up on baby talk. In fact, Nada was known for not being up on talking at all.

It was a bunch of babies, for frak’s sake, not the gold at Fort Knox. Was there an epidemic of baby stealing? For all he knew, there was, not having studied the matter.

He followed Zoey, peering over her shoulder at each one. There were some damn ugly ones, but he imagined everyone would lie and say “How precious,” “How gorgeous,” whatever it was people had to say about babies, because the parents had a lot vested in those little suckers. Nobody would look in and scream in dismay at the sheer ugliness of the bugger and predict it having a life full of pain and misery because of its looks. Whoever said beauty was only skin deep had none. It’s easy to diss what one does not have, Nada knew. He considered adding that to his Nada Yadas but didn’t see the point.

As he looked at each one, he wondered what kind of different people they’d turn into. Some were fretting and crying in their blankets, their tight cocoons of cloth unraveled, and he figured that’s sort of the way their life would turn out for them. Others were sound asleep, snug as bugs, their blanket tight around them. They’d live quiet lives, not making a fuss, security—another word for fear in Nada’s opinion—being their priority.

A few were staring around, not making a fuss, just observing.

Those were the dangerous ones. Just staring as if they already knew something was up, that they’d been dealt a hand, and they were just trying to figure out the cards. Something was going on and they wanted to know what it was. Several met his eyes, staring back as if challenging him. He foresaw great things and/or terrible endings for those particular babies.

He wondered where and how each would die. It was a morbid thought he’d never shared with anyone, not even Moms, but every time he’d killed someone, he’d later wondered if they would have lived their life differently if they’d known before about whatever shit-hole situation he’d had to kill them in, that that place and time would be their final moment?

He often wondered where he would meet his own end. A Nada Yada he didn’t share with others but that ruled his life was: Things will always turn out how you least expect.

Most likely, if he made it to old age, he’d die with Zoey standing nearby giving him grief.

Zoey cooed into another basinet and Nada looked over her shoulder. There was a big boy in it, his head covered with thick black hair and his eyes dark and wide open. They seemed to be staring right through Nada, even though he knew the eyes couldn’t focus yet. The baby couldn’t see him. So why was he staring at him? Nada wondered.

“Hurry up, Zoey,” he said. “The nurse will be here in thirty seconds.”

At the sound of his voice, the baby’s head moved, as if trying to zero in with his ears as well as the eyes that couldn’t focus. Nada put his big, calloused hand out, as if to stroke the thick hair, but he just waved it in front of the baby’s face and the eyes tracked it, which he found most fascinating. Movement could be noticed without focus?

Something to remember if he ever had to draw down on a newborn.

Stranger things had happened to him as a Nightstalker.

Zoey grabbed his hand, reversing roles. “Come on, Uncle. We gotta get out of here.”

But Nada suddenly wanted to stay. To whisper something to this boy, to leave some mark. There were great things ahead in this kid’s life. Nada didn’t know how he knew it, but he trusted it as much as he did when his gut told him he was about to walk into an ambush. He was still alive because he trusted that instinct.

There was a little blue bulb syringe at the foot of the baby, something used to clear his nose or put drops in his eyes or whatever hell maintenance on a baby required a bulb syringe. Nada instinctively grabbed it and stuffed it in his shirt. He followed Zoey through the door they weren’t supposed to come in. (No signs on this side about stopping intruders, he noted.) They slid through, scant seconds ahead of the nurse doing her rounds, as punctual as security on any firebase.

Nada felt the blue syringe in his chest pocket and it seemed to be extraordinarily heavy. Remembering the impulsive theft caused him to flush, although it would be hard to see against his pitted and dark skin.

He’d done wrong. A small wrong, but an unnecessary one.

And he didn’t know why.

But then his brother was there, bouncing up and down like a kid himself. “It’s a boy!”

He sounded a bit too excited about it in Nada’s opinion, considering Zoey was right there and she wasn’t.

A boy, that is.

“Come, come!” his brother said, turning and heading back down the corridor to the room where Nada’s sister-in-law had just given birth.

Zoey was excited too. Give her credit for playing along, Nada thought, running after her father. “Can I see? Can I see?”

Nada imagined he should be showing some sort of excitement, but his brother had already walked away, so he was spared the effort. He followed and his brother halted at the door.

“Only one at a time, Zoey,” his brother said. “Let your uncle go first. I know you won’t have much time,” he added, because Nada never had much time, it seemed.

“Is he crying?” Nada asked.

“No,” his brother said. “He’s just staring at everything. It’s really neat.”

Then Nada heard the ringtone, low but never silenced: “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead.”

He had to go. Answer the call of duty, even the Loop.

Especially the Loop.

His brother made a face.

Nada felt the weight of that blue bulb on his chest.

Nada hit the mute button on the phone that was never muted and walked through the door to meet his new nephew. “Come on,” he said to Zoey, taking her hand and leading her into the room. “Rules are made to be broken.”

Burns was taking back roads, two-laners that wound through the Tennessee countryside. It wasn’t so much he wanted to avoid police or being noticed; it was that the manic atmosphere of the interstate bothered him on a level he couldn’t define. Everyone seemed in a rush, particularly the big trucks. As if getting there quicker would change the time spent.

In his life before, Burns had driven on the interstate without a care, in the same rush. That he felt differently bothered him because it meant he was different, but he didn’t know how.

He drove the speed limit. He passed what appeared to be a yard sale, except the items were scattered in front of an abandoned building, as if the residents had evacuated in the middle of the sale and just given up on everything. The despair was like a black hole trying to draw one in along the side of the road.

He passed through a small town and slowed down to the posted speed limit. He had the windows down and he heard children’s voices to one side. He pulled off the road and stared at the cluster of kids in a schoolyard.

Some were playing; some squabbling; some off by themselves.

Burns’s eyes began to shift color, gold spreading out from the pupils. The scene he was watching changed accordingly: Each child took on a color according to their emotions. Those arguing were a cluster of black; those getting along yellow; the ones who were alone were the most interesting because they were a rainbow of colors, reflecting whatever was running through their heads.

Burns was startled by a rap on the car’s window.

“What are you watching those kids for, boy?” a distinctly Southern voice demanded.

Burns’s head snapped around and the cop standing there took a step back in shock, seeing Burns’s eyes.

“What the fuck?” the cop said, his hand scrambling for his gun.

The cop was a towering mass of red and black in Burns’s vision. Full of rage and self-importance and the desire to hurt. Reflexively, a bolt of gold shot out of his eyes and hit the policeman in the chest, passing through his Kevlar vest, wrapping around his heart, and stopping it.

The man crumpled to the ground.

Burns started the car and drove way.

He heard the first scream behind him ten seconds later.

Moms’s phone rang and Hannah nodded, indicating she should answer it.

“Yes?”

“I got a message from Scout via the Loop,” Nada said, leading with the headline. “She says, and I quote, ‘Nada. Scout. In TN. We have a golden problem.’”

“Send the alert,” Moms said.

“As soon as I hang up.”

Moms looked at Hannah. “Hold on a second.” She put her hand over the phone. “Do you know where in Tennessee we need to go?”

“To find your little Scout?” Hannah asked. She shook her head at Moms’s expression of surprise. “We got the message the same time as Nada, which actually was about two minutes ago, so there is a curious time lag there. My secretary has been in contact with Ms. Jones, who, of course, being efficient, has been keeping tabs on your asset. She’s just outside of Knoxville, Tennessee. Ms. Jones is on top of this.”

“I assume this one is
our
mission?”

Hannah nodded. “Yes. It is.”

Moms spoke into the phone. “Ms. Jones has the intelligence. I’ll meet you at the objective. Out.” Moms headed for the door, then paused, looking over her shoulder. “Who loved
you
, Hannah?” she asked. Then she left, not waiting for an answer.