Xenofreak Nation, Book Three: XIA (9 page)

Bryn felt as if the temperature in Fournier’s living room dropped about ten degrees when he asked, “Maddy Singh? What about him…or her, or whatever?”

Dundee took several steps closer, crocodile eyes narrowed like he was smiling under the surgical mask. “The chatty germ doctor let it slip on the ride. Said Maddy’s one working eye was photosensitive.”

Fournier looked at Mia with a shake of his head. “Is this true? You know Maddy Singh?”

“They both do,” Dundee said helpfully.

Fournier turned his penetrating gaze on Bryn. “What
have
you been up to?”

She certainly couldn’t tell the truth, but a lie would get complicated fast. She thought about keeping silent, but was afraid of what Mia might blurt out. She settled on, “We met once. I don’t know her.”

“And you?” he asked Mia.

“She kidnapped me. Her people were dying of the typhoid and she thought I could help.”

“So this happened recently.”

“You should know,” Mia replied, “since you’re the one who sent the carrier to infect them.”

Bryn closed her eyes briefly. Mia just couldn’t resist goading him.

“Ah,” Fournier said. “You must be referring to Junk.”

“His cause of death was blunt force trauma, in case you’re curious.”

“Nothing less than what he deserved for getting caught.”

“More like what he deserved for killing a bunch of innocent children.” Mia was getting worked up, and Bryn laid a cautionary hand on her arm that she immediately shook off.

“Innocent?” Fournier asked. “Maybe. I won’t get into a debate with you about the wisdom of preventing the children of one’s enemies from growing up and becoming enemies themselves. Regardless, my intention wasn’t to kill anyone, but simply to spread the infection among xenos.”

“And create carriers.”

Fournier sat back against the couch cushions. “You
are
well informed, aren’t you? Is this your own insight or Maddy’s? Oh, wait – the CDC is working with the XIA on this one, am I right?”

Even though it was a logical conclusion for him to make, Bryn began to silently panic. In Mia’s agitated state, she might slip up and mention Scott. According to Padme, Fournier still didn’t know he was an agent. Thankfully, rather than answer him, Mia looked up at Dundee and demanded, “Why is that man wearing a mask? Is
he
a carrier?”

“He is indeed. And in case
you’re
curious, your graft won’t begin to protect you until several weeks after it’s fully healed.”

Mia didn’t respond other than to stare up at Dundee from beneath knitted brows. Bryn was frankly relieved that something had shut her up before she revealed anything that could get them killed – assuming she hadn’t already.

A gentle tone sounded, and Fournier blinked to activate the holopiece over his ear. No one but the wearer could see who he was talking to, but she heard his side of the conversation. “Why not?” “Then use the truck!” Slowly, like he was speaking to a child, he said, “Drive it through the front entrance.”

After he ended the call, Bryn tried her best to sound respectful. “When are you going to let us go?”

He leaned forward to take another sip of his tea, regarding them intently over his cup. “I really just brought you here out of curiosity, but I have serious reservations about turning you loose now that I know about your connection to the Mad Eye. My organization has suffered some severe setbacks thanks to their leader.”

“But we
aren’t
connected to them,” Bryn protested. “We don’t want anything to
do
with them.”

Mia was still staring at Dundee as if his crocodile eyes had mesmerized her. She tilted her head to one side and murmured, “Junk had a crocodile graft, too.”

The moment the words left her mouth, she gasped and all the color leached from her cheeks. She turned to Fournier. “Is that it? Do all the carriers have reptile grafts?”

Fournier chuckled. “That would be ironic, since you just got one, wouldn’t it? But no, it doesn’t appear to be all reptiles, just crocodilians. And unfortunately, now that you’ve figured that out, I really must continue to detain you.”

“Why?” Bryn exclaimed. “I thought you wanted the government to tell the public the truth.”

“Did I say that?” He looked at her derisively. “It doesn’t matter what the government tells them. Everyone gets their information from the interweb. Besides, I doubt anyone as young and attractive as Ms. Padilla has much sway within the CDC. Why do you think they sent someone so inexperienced on such an important mission? So she would fail.”

Mia’s cheeks turned pink again. “I’m hardly inexperienced, but I don’t keep my résumé in my purse, so you wouldn’t know.”

For the first time, Fournier’s mask of politeness slipped. “What I know is that as we speak, the legislature is hearing testimony in yet another futile effort to regulate xenoaugmentation, while at the same time, some very powerful people are determined get it outlawed entirely – people who have significant influence over the decision-makers in this country, including those at the CDC.”

“You’re suggesting the CDC is withholding information that could save lives?” Mia asked.

“I’m not suggesting it; I’m saying it. I’m sure they justified it by claiming they didn’t want to panic the people, but it’s too late now, isn’t it? The riots changed everything. People aren’t sitting on their hands waiting for answers; they’re actively searching them out.”

Bryn thought about the men who’d chased them out of Scott’s apartment. One of them had referred to the jacker Scott was out tracking down, saying, “Savvy says all xenofreaks are immune, and once the contagious ones kill off the rest of us, the world will one big xenofreak show.”

Shasta had said Savvy’s messages seemed to be originating from someone with specific inside knowledge of Fournier’s involvement.

“It was you,” Bryn said, suddenly understanding. “You’re Savvy, aren’t you?”

“Oh, you’ve heard of him?” He looked pleased. “Savvy is what you might call my mouthpiece.”

“I don’t get it,” she said. “You’re turning people
against
xenos.”

“I prefer the term ‘polarizing.’ For or against. A necessary first step to accomplish my short term goals. I find that when things are particularly chaotic, the ones who don’t panic can accomplish quite a lot.”

“Like the men who tried to rob your den?” Bryn asked.

“Exactly. They saw an opportunity and went for it. To their detriment, as it turns out.”

“But you’re not just taking advantage of the riots, you’re making them worse by fanning the flames.” She took a breath as something occurred to her. “Because you need the police to stay overwhelmed. You’re going to do something!”

“Clever girl.” He looked thoughtful for a moment. “How much did your father tell you?”

“Not a lot. He said he asked you to do this,” she gestured to her quills, “to protect me. And because he wanted to exploit what happened to me in order to turn people against xenos, which would then open the door for human cloning.”

“What?” Mia sounded aghast. “That’s ridiculous.”

Bryn didn’t feel the need to defend her father, but she thought Mia at least ought to understand. “He was the head of the Pure Human Society. He thought if we could clone human hearts, livers and kidneys instead of getting them from bioengineered animals, it wouldn’t be such an…aberration, I guess.”

“Your father’s vision was limited,” Fournier said. “There are hundreds of thousands of people whose lives have been saved with bioengineered organs – a process, as you know, that I pioneered. Coincidentally, every one of them is now protected against the typhoid.”

“But they aren’t protected against mobs of scared and angry people.” Mia said.

Fournier got that same fervent look in his eye Bryn’s father always used to get when he was gearing up for a lecture. “Transplant patients may be xenos, but they aren’t so-called xeno
freaks
. It wasn’t a lifestyle choice. No one will judge them for choosing to save their own lives. Just as you won’t be judged for getting a graft to save yours.”

“It cost me fifty-thousand dollars. Only the wealthy will survive this pandemic. Was that your intention?” Mia’s full lips twisted in a sneer. “To get rich through genocide?”

Fournier sighed. “Believe it or not, I’m doing this to save lives. It may sound melodramatic, but ‘sacrifice for the greater good’ and all that. There are so many things you don’t know.”

He paused to gather his thoughts. “Were either of you aware that lawfully bioengineered animals cannot reproduce?”

Bryn nodded. In the dark days before she’d come to terms with her quills, she’d done her research. Around the turn of the twenty-first century, genetically modified crops had been introduced into America’s food sources. The pros and cons were hotly debated, but it wasn’t until a rapidly-growing variety of cultivated grape resistant to pests, herbicides and harsh environmental conditions began to spread across the southern states that people began to really take notice. The grapevines invaded other crops and orchards, quickly killing them through strangulation and heavy shading. Eradication of the plant took almost a decade. The entire debacle set the stage for heavy penalties for any corporation responsible for letting a genetically modified organism loose on the planet, including bioengineered animals.

“They make them sterile on purpose so they don’t disrupt the ecosystem,” Bryn said.

“Correct. Which means all animals provided to the
authorized
xenofarms in this country come from government-mandated bioengineering labs. The farms then raise the animals in as sterile an environment as possible and slaughter them on demand for transplant hospitals. Do you know what they do with the rest of the animal after they’ve removed the useable organs?”

“They incinerate it.”

Fournier dipped his head. “Every xenofarm in the United States is contracted with a single company charged with disposing of the remains. Instead of doing so, that company has begun selling the skin and other parts on the black market.”

“Okay, so you have competition,” Mia said. “What’s that got to do with you supposedly saving lives?”

“My ‘competition,’ as you call them, are utterly ruthless. They’ve been fighting xeno regulation for years, because regulation would make the practice officially accepted, which is the opposite of their goal, to make it illegal.”

“Why make it illegal?” Mia asked. “It’s a simple dermatological outpatient procedure.”

“The majority of grafts are simple, as you say, but there are the more extreme forms of augmentation, those that require nanoneuron implantation.”

“Your specialty,” Bryn sent him a hard look.

“Who are these people?” Mia asked. “Animal rights activists?”

“No. They have a much more sinister goal than the ARA. On the surface, they’re a faceless corporation that doesn’t care who or what it hurts in its pursuit of money and power, but in reality, one man calls the shots. You might think the xeno black market would be small potatoes to him, but it’s become essential that he control it. Can you guess why?”

“I’m sure you’re going to tell us – eventually.” Mia rolled her eyes.

“His corporation is huge, dealing not only in over-the-counter pharmaceuticals, but prescription medications and immunizations. He recently purchased both the xeno donor waste disposal company and the bioengineering labs I mentioned. With those acquisitions, the only thing preventing him from obtaining a stranglehold on this country’s xenoaugmentation trade is entrepreneurs like me.”

“And the saving of the people..?” Mia’s reminder was unsubtly contemptuous.

“Let me put it this way: if you had gotten your graft from someone who buys their skins, you would eventually discover you were
not
immune to the typhoid.”

That got Mia’s attention. “That would mean…”

“Yes. His bioengineers finally figured out how xeno immunity works, and they eliminated it. The skin flooding the market now doesn’t protect xenos. Nor do the transplants.”

“Why would they do that?” Bryn asked.

Fournier smiled, a bleak stretching of the lips. “The definition of immunity is freedom from disease. Illness is big business.”

“And this mystery man sells immunizations and drugs.” Now that she understood his argument, Mia’s contempt was less evident.

He raised his eyebrows, but then jerked his head around at a distant sound from outside. Bryn had heard it often enough to recognize it instantly.

Gunfire.

Scott started after Nicola, but stopped, deciding of the two of them, Savvy was the one he needed to watch. He grasped the savant’s arm and pulled him down the hallway.

Savvy had that creepily amused smile on his face again as Scott dragged him into the empty main workspace. Nicola was nowhere to be seen, but he heard the faint chirp of the bird and followed the sound towards the tech room.

He found her standing outside the locked tech room door. Her feather eyebrows looked like thunderclouds over angry green eyes that reminded him of Bryn.

“Perky’s in there. I want her out,
now
.”

“You should have thought about that before you set Lo’s car on fire.”

“It wasn’t my idea.”

Scott jerked Savvy’s arm just enough to get his attention. “Why’d you do it?”

“Diversion,” Savvy muttered.

Scott glanced around the empty office. “For what?”

“Chaos.”

“Oh, not that again,” Nicola said. “He’s always going off about how chaos is what drives biology.”

“It drives
change
,” Savvy said. “Biology would be stagnant without chaos.”

“Whatever.” Nicola put a hand against the tech room door. “Can I have my bird back, please?”

“You want the bird? Answer me. Why’d you set fire to the car?”

“I told you I didn’t have anything to do with that!” Nicola cried.

“You just admitted you knew what Savvy was doing, which makes you an accessory. What was the diversion for?”

Nicola set her jaw stubbornly, and Scott practically felt his patience snap. He took a fistful of Savvy’s shirt and shoved him up against the nearest cubicle wall.

“Stop it!” Nicola said shrilly.

Scott looked over his shoulder at her and snarled, “I will rip his head off if the two of you don’t tell me what the hell’s going on!”

“I don’t know,” she wailed. Her eyes shone with unshed tears, but Scott wasn’t fooled this time. Nicola wasn’t as innocent as she seemed. He let Savvy go as something occurred to him.

“The holophone in Savvy’s backpack. It didn’t have a battery, but that’s because he took it out and used it to power the incendiary device, is that right?”

Savvy turned his head away, and Scott took that as a ‘yes.’

“But you made a call at the roadblock first, didn’t you?” he asked.

“No.” Savvy met Scott’s gaze in a rare moment of eye contact, which Scott took as an indication he was telling the truth. He turned his attention to Nicola. “
You
. You called your father.”

Her face fell into a look of belligerent denial, but before she could voice her protest, Scott’s holophone rang. As soon as he answered it and saw Shasta, he knew something was wrong.

“We’ve got a situation down here,” she said. Her normally tidy hair was mussed and her face tense. It didn’t look like she was in the parking garage, but in the background, he saw what appeared to be the dented front end of a truck. A flash of light exploded somewhere above her and sparks rained down all around. The view became a blur and everything went dark.

Shasta’s face came into view again as she lifted the holophone. She appeared to have ducked down behind something. In the dim glow emitted from the phone, Scott caught a glimpse of Lupus’ wolf face in profile. His eyelids were at half-mast and his black lips hung slack.

“The xenos outside stormed the place,” Shasta said.

Several loud gunshots rang out, followed by Alton’s voice, “I’m almost out of ammo!”

Shasta held the holophone closer to her face. “I sent Bob up – get the printer! That’s an order. Do you hear me, Agent Harding? Get the printer and
get out
!”

The call ended abruptly. Scott’s first instinct was to ignore Shasta’s orders and rush to help her, but Savvy was smiling again and his second instinct took over. He threw a swift punch to the side of the savant’s face, ignoring Nicola’s gasp of protest. Savvy’s knees buckled and he sagged to the floor just as Bob, cheeks red from exertion, rounded the corner.

Bob trotted over and immediately held his shaking hand under the holoscanner mounted next to the tech room door. He said his name for the voice recog-lock, but was breathing so hard it took him three tries to get the lock to respond. When the door swung inward, he hurried inside, saying over his shoulder, “I gotta initiate emergency protocols and shut the system down. Printer’s over there.”

Scott spotted a black container the size of a lunch box and strode over to the counter to retrieve it. When he turned, Nicola had entered the room. He started to chase her out, but she headed straight for the bird cage near the door. As if in greeting, Perky let out another of her jarring chirps.

It only took Bob thirty seconds to lock down the tech room. When he was done, and the secure door slammed shut behind them, Savvy was nowhere to be seen.