Xenofreak Nation, Book Three: XIA (3 page)

Bryn ran ahead of Mia down the hallway and yanked open the stairwell door. Just as it closed behind them, one of the men bellowed, “Git back here!”

“Faster!” Bryn said. “We don’t have much of a lead.” With one hand on the rail, she took the steps two at a time, quickly outpacing the smaller woman. They were both wearing boots, but Mia’s heels were too high to be practical and Bryn had to slow down for her. They’d only made it to the bottom of one of the three flights they needed to descend before she heard the stairwell door crash open.

Mia swung around to the top of the next flight, lifted one leg and hopped up onto the rail. With her arms held out for balance, she slid rapidly down, allowing Bryn to move at full speed again. They beat their pursuers to the bottom and burst out into the empty lobby.

“How far away is your car?” Bryn asked as she opened the main door, one eye watching for the thugs on their tail.

“Six blocks. We should split up. I’ll just slow you down.”

“Shut up.” Bryn grabbed Mia’s hand and pulled her along.

The street was deserted, but even if it weren’t, she doubted anyone would help them. They made it to the end of the second block when the men caught up to them.

Bryn was scared and angry, but she felt the quills on her head lift defensively and knew she wasn’t helpless. Her quills had saved her before and she was ready and willing to use them again. Panting from exertion, she spun around to face the men. Her voice pitched high from fear, she yelled, “Leave us alone!”

The younger man was closest. He skidded to a stop several feet away, while the larger, older man bent over and put his hands on his knees, clearly winded.

The younger man grinned and set the tip of the bat on the ground, leaning on it casually. “I’m not afraid of you. Savvy says only one in a hundred xenofreaks are actually contagious.”

Savvy
. The jacker Scott was out looking for.

Bryn doubted she could reason with these men, but her instinct was to stall. “Then why attack us? We never did anything to hurt you.”

“Savvy says all xenofreaks are immune,” he said. “And once the contagious ones kill off the rest of us, the world will one big xenofreak show.”

“Why don’t you get a graft to protect yourself then?” Mia asked.

He burst out laughing and turned to his friend, who straightened up and stuck out a sausage-like finger. “One, because there’s a big-ass demand right now. Every xenosurgeon in town’s charging ten times what they usually do and we don’t got that kinda cash lying around. Two, because it’s a sin against nature. There’s a reason you’re called xeno
freaks
.”

“I told you I’m not a xeno.” Mia’s tone conveyed both reasonableness and scorn. “In fact, I’m a doctor, and I’ve been working to determine the actual cause of this outbreak.”

The smaller man chuckled. “Yeah, right. Nice try. Now why don’t we all head back to your apartment so we can talk some more?”

“Here,” Mia took her purse from Bryn and reached inside. Bryn thought she was going to show him her identification, but instead, she pulled out a slim, clear bottle and sprayed him in the face with an antiseptic-smelling mist. Bryn didn’t wait to see what effect it had; she charged the larger man, slamming her head into his chin and neck before he could react.

Both men cried out, but Mia’s victim was clearly in pain, while the man Bryn had stuck full of quills sounded infuriated. She tried to duck away, but his hand shot out and he clamped down on her upper arm. His grip was like a vise, but she struggled against it anyway, shouting, “Let go or I’ll poke your eyes out!”

“I’m gonna
kill
you!” he shouted back.

The man Mia sprayed had dropped the bat to cover his face with his hands. While he was busy gouging at his eyes with his thumbs, Mia grabbed the bat and whacked the man holding Bryn’s arm across his lower back. He ignored the hit, ignored the quills sticking out of his neck, too enraged to feel pain. He twisted Bryn’s arm until she thought it would break, while grabbing for Mia with his free hand. Bryn tried to knee him in the groin, but his grip forced her to bend nearly double.

Mia danced away and sidestepped around behind him. This time, she aimed for his head, cracking the bat across the back of his skull. He let Bryn go and roared, staggering around in a half circle to bring Mia into view. She let out a surprisingly primal yell for someone so petite, and swung the bat again, bashing him in the jaw. He toppled to his knees.

Without a word, Bryn and Mia began to run again. After three blocks with no sign of pursuit, Mia tossed the bat into an alley and they slowed to a fast walk. Mia’s car was a high-end, mid-sized rental. As soon as they got inside, Mia reached out and depressed the pump of a bottle of hand-sanitizer that was resting in the cup holder. As she rubbed her hands together vigorously, the same antiseptic scent Bryn smelled earlier filled the car.

“Kills germs and doubles as pepper spray,” Mia said. Then she started the engine and drove off, squealing the tires.

Bryn sat catching her breath and rubbing her arm. It was several minutes before either of them spoke, and then they both started talking at once. Mia said, “What is
wrong
with…” at the same moment Bryn said, “What the
heck
is…”

They laughed, and neither one bothered to finish their sentence because it was clear they’d both been about to go off on a rant about crazy people. After a moment, Bryn said, “I should call Scott.”

She’d tucked Mia’s holophone into her purse as soon as they’d vacated the apartment, and took it out now. “I doubt those jerks bothered to even shut his front door. I hope no one steals anything.”

“He didn’t have much to steal. Not even a holovision.”

Bryn stared at the holoscreen and sighed. “I don’t remember his number. It was floating in my holocloud. Do you have it?”

“No, but Shasta’s is there.”

Bryn found Shasta’s name in Mia’s cloud, but when she went to dial it, Mia said, “Wait. Don’t. She’ll want me to come in, but I have to get the graft first.”

“Why don’t you just tell her you need some personal time?”

Mia let out a short, scoffing laugh. “I doubt that’s even in her vocabulary. Besides, now is definitely not the time for me to flake, but I just can’t…” she trailed off, a shadow crossing over her face, shades of the devastated woman who’d been sitting in front of Scott’s door last night.

Bryn had been through a lot with Mia, but she was essentially a stranger and Bryn didn’t have a clue what to say to make her feel better, if that was even possible. Instead of trying, she asked, “Can you drop me off at my godmother’s house?”

The resulting silence spurred her to look at Mia’s profile. It was hard to make out her expression from this angle, but Bryn thought she seemed disappointed. “What’s wrong?”

The corner of Mia’s mouth drooped a bit. “I don’t know. I guess I thought you were coming with me.”

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”

“I could pay you.”

“Are you serious? Look, I’m scared, okay? We just got chased out of Scott’s apartment!”

“So it’s safe at your godmother’s house?”

Bryn looked out the windshield. Up ahead, a burnt-out car squatted at the side of the road.

“No, it’s probably
not
safe,” she replied. “Carla lives in a bad neighborhood. Where are you planning on getting the money?”

Mia flashed her an inscrutable look. “My parents. They live here in New York on the Upper East Side. After what those men said, I doubt ten thousand will be enough to bump me to the head of the xenograft line.”

Bryn sighed. As they drove past the husk of the still steaming car, she imagined she saw the charcoal remains of a body in the front seat. Mia reached out and pushed the recirc button on the dash, but not before a barbecue-like smell filled the car. Mia grabbed a tissue from a box on the floor by Bryn’s feet and held it to her nose.

Bryn thought about Jason, recovering in the hospital. He’d been assigned to protect her, had taken her to a safe house, but they’d been attacked. It occurred to her that there was no such thing as a safe place for a xeno, not now, not ever.

“All right,” she said. “They’ll probably have to give you pain-killers and you won’t be able to drive. I’ll come with you.”

“Thank you. I owe you one.”

Bryn looked back down at Mia’s holophone. She couldn’t call Scott, but he’d sent Mia the xenosurgeon information, so she settled for replying back to that text. It took a while to compose a message that covered the basics of the attack, but that hopefully wouldn’t freak him out too much. By the time she hit ‘send,’ Mia had pulled up in front of a brick apartment building with a long green canopy over the front entrance. Two men in uniform stood waiting as they got out of the car.

Mia said, “Good morning, Brunson.”

“Nice to see you again, Miss Padilla,” one of the men replied, eyes skimming over Bryn’s quills with no change in the pleasant expression on his face. “Your parents didn’t mention you were coming.”

The other uniformed man took Mia’s car keys and the twenty dollar bill she slipped him. Bryn figured he must be the valet, since he got into Mia’s car and drove off. Brunson, who had spotless white gloves and shiny black shoes, had to be the doorman. Outside of holovision, she’d never experienced this kind of service.

“I wasn’t expected,” Mia said. “Are they home?”

“I believe Mrs. Padilla is in.”

“Would you be so kind as to let her know we’re on our way up?”

“Certainly.” He opened one of the double doors and held it as a blast of warm air swirled out. Neither Bryn nor Mia had stopped to grab a coat when they vacated Scott’s apartment, so the warmth was welcome.

Inside, a crystal chandelier hung from the center of a high, arched ceiling, its soft light reflecting off the veined marble flooring. As they waited for the elevator, Bryn couldn’t help but compare this ostentatious lobby with the utilitarian one in Scott’s building.

The Padillas’ suite took up the entire fourth floor. When the elevator doors opened onto the apartment’s luxurious entryway, a plump Asian woman in a brightly patterned silk kimono hurried to greet them, exclaiming, “Mia! What a pleasant surprise.”

Mrs. Padilla placed her hands lightly on Mia’s shoulders and kissed the air on either side of her head. Then she pulled back and beamed at Bryn. “And you brought a celebrity with you! How marvelous.”

Between them, Scott and Lo managed to shove the sheet of corrugated metal roofing along the ground until the roughly three-foot diameter hole was revealed. The aluminum sheet was heavier than Scott expected and the process of moving it produced scraping and screeching noises galore.

“If there’s anyone down there, they know we’re coming,” he said.

Lo squatted next to the rim and ran her fingers over the broken concrete. “I’m no demolition expert, but does that look like a chisel mark? Like from a jackhammer?”

“Yep. Someone made this hole because they wanted in.”

“Why? I thought Fournier’s facility was destroyed and any evidence removed.”

Scott shrugged. “Why don’t we go ask?”

She made a face. “After you.”

He took the flashlight off his belt, switched it on, and straddled the hole to get a better look. There wasn’t much to see, just a packed dirt floor at the bottom, maybe six feet down. Several months ago, he’d walked the entire length of the crudely constructed tunnel, but it had been dark and he and Kareem Williams had been carrying a panda at the time, so he couldn’t say what else might be down there.

He sat at the edge of the hole with his feet dangling inside. “Cover me.”

Lo shifted so one knee rested on the ground and drew her weapon. When Scott dropped into the hole, he halfway expected someone to rush him, but nothing happened. He stepped out of the circle of light and shone his flashlight around. No surprises, just support beams and dirt walls. He couldn’t see to the end of the tunnel, but hadn’t expected to.

“All clear,” he called.

Lo responded cheerfully, “Incoming!” and landed behind him with a grunt of effort. She switched on her flashlight and said, “What a pleasant place.”

Scott led the way. The air was cold, damp, and in addition to the fetid chemical odor permeating the place, smelled of smoke. At the end of the tunnel, what had once been a closet with a false back wall was now a gaping hole. Lo took up a defensive position against one wall as Scott stuck the flashlight through the opening and briefly poked his head around. There wasn’t much left of Fournier’s facility. The drop ceiling was mostly gone, although the scorched and twisted infrastructure hung precariously from the bottom of the slab above them. The majority of the walls that had once neatly partitioned the former parking garage had either burned away to ash in the fire or been knocked down during the search for evidence afterward. The flooring seemed to have mostly survived, but it was covered with burnt and broken refuse.

He pulled back for a moment and then stuck his head in again to look in the other direction. His flashlight was strong, but didn’t reach the furthest walls. Someone had cleared a path through the refuse, however, and he thought whoever it was might as well have put up a neon sign saying, ‘This way.’

He shone the flashlight in his own face so Lo could see him jerk his head to indicate he was going in. He heard her follow him; their footsteps echoed in the cavernous space. It didn’t take long for him to lose his bearings as the cleared path turned this way and that, finally coming to an end at another tent. This one didn’t appear to be made from solar fabric, which made sense down here in the dark. The tent opening was zipped shut, but a faint glow from inside indicated that someone was either home, or had left a light on.

“Tent occupant!” Scott called, for lack of a better descriptive term. “We’re with the XIA. Come out where we can see you.”

A muffled male voice replied sullenly, “Leave me alone!”

“We just want to talk,” Lo said.

“I’ve
said
everything that needs saying,” the man replied.

“Not to us.”

“Then you weren’t paying attention.”

“Are you Savvy?” Scott asked.

“Obviously.” Savvy’s voice hadn’t lost any of its petulance. If it weren’t for the deep timbre, Scott would swear they were talking to a child.

“You’ve been stirring things up out there,” Lo said.

“I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Uh, I beg to differ. Hate speech with the intent to incite violence.”

“Hate? More like truth, and good luck proving my intent.”

Lo took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Whatever your intent, there are a lot of scared people out there.”

“They’re not scared enough.”

Scott decided he’d had enough. “Come on out. Don’t make us come in after you.”

“You said you just wanted to talk. We’re talking.”

“You know, Savvy,” Lo said in an exaggeratedly patient tone, “We’ve been tasked with identifying you. My partner doesn’t care whether we get that ID pre or post mortem, but since I just killed a man yesterday, I don’t have the heart for it today.”

If Lo had intended to intimidate him, it didn’t work.

“If you killed someone, shouldn’t you be on administrative leave?”

Scott was beginning to see where Savvy got his nickname. He was smart
and
a smart aleck. Scott couldn’t see Lo’s face very well in the dim light from their flashlights, but he thought she rolled her eyes.

“Usually, yes,” she replied. “But everyone’s on high alert, in part because of the nonsense you’ve been posting.”

“It’s not nonsense,” Savvy said, but the light inside the tent went out and Scott heard him rustling around. The zipper on the tent slowly rose and he stepped out, holding a hand over his eyes when they both spotlighted him.

As soon as Scott got a good look at the man’s high forehead and heavy-lidded eyes, he revised his assumption that Savvy’s nickname came from his smarts. Savvy was thin, middle-aged, and stood before them with shoulders hunched, head hanging so low his chin nearly touched his concave chest. Even with the scraggly beard hiding his lower face, he was familiar to Scott because he’d recently described Savvy’s face to an XIA agent trained in recovering latent memories. Scott had met Savvy once, only briefly, but he hadn’t been given his name – just that he was a ‘savant’ and a valued member of Dr. Fournier’s team.

Scott and Lo had just stumbled upon one of the XIA’s most wanted criminals.