Council of Peacocks (38 page)

“Greece?” Elaine handed a towel to Echo.

“No,” Wisdom said. “We can’t risk it if Josh
has a tracking device in him. We’ll go to my offices in Hong Kong.
I have certain devices set into the building there that will hide
us from my father for a time. They should also block Josh’s tracker
until we can have it removed. I’m not ready for another round with
him just yet, and I think one way or another our next meeting will
be our last.”

Echo straightened her blouse, smoothing out
the wrinkles. “I’m not exactly thrilled by this turn of events,
Wisdom. You owe me a gazillion favors.”

Wisdom laughed a strange strangled sound that
was closer to a sob than a sound of amusement. “I’m just glad
you’re…It’s good you’re still alive. We can talk about repayment
later.”

“You think there will be a later?” Echo
flipped her wrist again and a second circle of light splashed into
the air with a hissing sound.

For just a moment, Wisdom faltered. An
expression crossed his face; it was just a glimmer of fear and then
it was gone.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

When they arrived in Hong Kong, it was
already late afternoon. Echo’s portal opened in a deserted
boardroom filled with cold neon light and mahogany furniture.
Wisdom walked straight to a phone on a nearby desk and made
arrangements, while the Anomalies filed out of the portal. Moments
later, he faded away in a flurry of security guards and a swirl of
men and women in dark suits. Elaine and Echo went with him, leaving
Garnet in charge of the rest. She slipped back into the role of
authority quickly, telling everyone how to get to their rooms.

On his way to the quarters he’d been
assigned, David kept his head down. He felt dirty surrounded by so
many impeccably dressed people and the clean business sterility of
the building. Although he was hesitant to be alone, as soon as the
door clicked closed behind him he peeled off his bloodied and
sweat-soiled clothes. He dropped the clothes in the wastebasket in
the bathroom. Naked, he felt more civilized than he had in days. He
walked over to the window and looked out over the city.

It reminded him of the movie
Blade
Runner
. Everywhere he looked there was steel and glass and neon
signs. Large billboards with television-like screens flashed
pictures of smiling Chinese women and pop cans. People and cars
filled the streets below like schools of fish swimming in different
directions through narrow streams. He was not completely convinced
that the little oval of light had not brought them forward in time.
He half expected to see air ships moving between the
impossibly-high skyscrapers. Toronto was a large city but, compared
to this, it seemed intimate and backwater.

He walked to the edge of the bed and sat
down. Alone. The silence was oppressive. Thoughts of demons and
shadows bubbled over in his mind. Pushing those thoughts aside, he
took a long hot shower. As the hot water pounded on him, he thought
of the television show
Survivor
. He remembered watching a
group of women relish a simple shower. At the time, it had seemed
like a silly reward. Now he understood. There was something
extremely civilized about taking a shower. The soft spicy scent of
the soap and shampoo erased the dirt and the wildness of the past
few days.

He dried himself off as he walked over to the
closet. It was filled with designer clothes and tailored suits,
names like Hugo Boss and Versace attached like cattle brands
marking wealth. Normally he spurned designer clothes; they were
pretentious wastes of money worn by silly people with no respect
for their own wealth. Growing up, his family had never had extra
money lying around to buy things like this. He opened the top
drawer of a nearby dresser and removed a pair of underwear. As he
slid them on, he had to admit they were more comfortable than the
ones he got at Wal-Mart. Even the socks seemed different when he
stepped into them. When he walked around the room, his feet felt
cushioned as if he was not really touching the ground. He slid a
pair of pants off a hanger and put on a grey high-necked sweater.
Both were his size, which, while unnerving, was not completely
unexpected.

As he finished dressing, he shook his head at
the amount of money it must have taken to stock this room. He was
sure his mother could have fed them for half a year on what it took
to buy a few of the suits.

“Admit it,” he said as he walked over to one
of the full-length mirrors that hung on either side of the door
leading to the bathroom. “You’re eager to dress up like someone
else.” He wore black silk pants, the pleats hanging like something
out of a catalogue, and a bulky loose-knit grey wool sweater that
rose up his neck and gathered around his face, framing it. It was a
very maritime sweater, reminding him of cold nights damp with the
wind off the ocean and drinking pints of Moosehead in pubs. His
skin was still pale, his hair was as red as ever, but he barely
recognized himself. He felt like a movie star. “So that’s it, eh?
That’s why people shell out all that money for these clothes. I
guess I get it now.”

Satisfied he was unrecognizable, he moved to
the window and looked out into the city from the future. Thirty
minutes or so later, there was a knock at the door.

“Come in.”

Jessica walked into the room, her eyes
focused loosely on the ground. She was dressed in a pair of blue
jean overalls and a white t-shirt. Maybe it was just the way she
moved, but David felt her change in clothing made her a different
person, too. There was no sign of the smart-mouthed girl who
believed it was natural for her to be the one in charge during a
crisis. The way her cotton shirt hung against her chest that had
not yet grown breasts, the way her ponytail bounced as she moved,
she looked like a young Jody Foster.

“The last time I was in Hong Kong, Amy and I
went for Dim Sum at this really cool restaurant.” She leaned
against the wall just to the left of the mirror and kept her eyes
on the ground. “Mr. Wisdom took us there. He said it was a special
treat for all the progress we had made in class. It seemed like the
most important thing in the world back then, doing well in class.
Now I just want to run home to my mother. Pretty pathetic, isn’t
it?”

“Jessica, pathetic is the last word I think
of when I look at you. I am way more pathetic than you are. Look
how you handled yourself against the Edimmu. You were like Ripley
and Sarah Connor all wrapped into one little package. Meanwhile, I
was the one crying like a loser. Terrified. You feel that way
because you’re human. And I mean that. Human. No matter what Elaine
or Wisdom says, we’re not monsters. Not if we don’t let ourselves
be.”

Jessica nodded and looked out the window. “It
might be easier, you know, if we let ourselves become monsters. I
think that’s why Ms. Ryerson tried to convince us we were. I am not
psychic – not in the precognitive way, anyway. I don’t really know
what’s going to happen to us in the next couple of days, but I
think it’s going to be pretty bad. Wisdom is freaked. I can feel it
in the way he moves. After he passes through a spot, the air
radiates spots of black, like it’s filled with anger and fear. If
we were monsters, maybe it would be easier for us to, I don’t know,
get through it and all.”

“But at what cost, eh?” David walked over to
where she was standing and got down on his knees, forcing her to
look into his eyes. “No matter how hard it gets, we can’t let
ourselves become something dark and scary. Listen, maybe our
parents were demons and maybe we have a little monster inside of
us. I don’t know if I believe that, but let’s just say it’s true. I
saw what you were like with Amy. There was nothing monstrous about
that. You were a little girl. You still are a little girl. And if
you feel like running away from all this crap, that’s good. That’s
what a logical, sane person would do.”

Jessica raised her head. “I think that was
actually inspirational, Mr. Ross. You know, Amy liked you. I used
to think you were a doorknob. Now I’m thinking she was right.”

“Well …”

David stopped as Jessica leaned over and
kissed him on the cheek.

“Thank you,” she said. “I’ll see you
tomorrow.”

Jessica walked out of the room and David
smiled, feeling good about himself for the first time in
months.

***

Josh had been in his room for only a few
minutes when Garnet was at his door with a stack of manila folders.
She handed them to him, then bit her lip and looked over her
shoulder. The look in her eyes made it clear she did not feel
comfortable around him. She did not step into the room. Josh
realized she wasn’t alone. Two armed men in dark suits stood to
either side of her.

“I can’t see how they’re going to do you any
good, Josh,” she said. “We don’t even really know what your EFHBs
are. Makes it kind of difficult to develop them.”

“All the same,” he said, trying to be as
charming as possible. “Thanks again.”

Garnet kept eye contact with him for what
seemed a very long time. Then shook her head and looked away.
“Maybe you
are
a miracle worker,” she said. “I wouldn’t
normally do this sort of thing, but God knows things have been very
strange since you showed up.”

Four hours later, Josh pushed himself away
from the desk with a grunt and leaned back in the leather chair.
Looking at the files before him made his head hurt. He had always
considered himself a good student. He'd spent all of his high
school years on the honor roll and carried his average over to
university. He was in his second year of classes working toward a
degree in electrical engineering. You did not make it past first
year if you didn’t know how to study.

Still, these files were way out of his area
of expertise. There were dozens of exercises on how to access
certain areas of your mind, control your biorhythms, and focus
under extreme stress. A lot of the material seemed like complete
Star Trek
fiction: page after page dedicated to the energy
fields of the body and how they interact with the global
electromagnetic fields and sub-atomic structures. He found it hard
to believe that a kid like that girl Jessica could comprehend any
of it. According to Garnet, though, this was all pretty standard
material that the other Anomalies were expected to learn in their
first year. He could only imagine what the more advance material
was.

“I need a break.” He pushed away from the
desk and walked into the bathroom. He went to the sink, turned the
stainless steel faucet and splashed cold water onto his face. He
repeated this several times until he could no longer feel the
remnants of sweat on his skin. Then he dried off with one of the
thick black towels piled on the countertop and turned to meet his
reflection.

“Can I really get used to this?” Only when he
said the words out loud did he surrender to the notion that he
would never go back to his old life. He had already registered for
classes for the upcoming semester.

“I’m never going to make it back to class. I
don’t even know where things stand with me and Jan.” Would she ever
want to see him again? How would she react when he told her that
even now she did not know all his secrets? Hell, even he did not
know all his secrets.

He closed his eyes, thought back to that day
he had snapped orders at those winged monsters. Since Jessica had
helped him recover the memory, it was easy for him to remember
every detail of it: the heat in his body, the anger he felt towards
them, and the way they looked at him. They'd looked at him with
warmth and affection because they knew his father. Because they
respected and feared him.

But which father?

He opened his eyes and followed the lights of
a helicopter as it circled a nearby building. There was only one
way for him to find out. He would have to sit with Jessica one more
time and see what else they could dig up.

“But not tonight.” He turned away from the
window and slipped under the covers on the bed. He left the lights
on. When he thought about turning them off, the memory of those
monsters flowing out of the shadows kept him from moving. It was a
long time before he fell asleep.

***

“Are you mad?”

Wisdom looked over his shoulder. Echo sat up
in bed, her head leaning against the headboard. She wore a piece of
frilly pink lingerie. Wisdom could not decide if he liked it on her
or not. Echo was far removed from the fragility the lingerie
implied, but it was extremely flattering to her physique. He
decided not to criticize. He finished taking off his shirt and
started unbuckling his pants.

“No, I’m not angry at you,” she answered. “No
more than before. I am, however, curious.”

“About that new one? Josh?” Wisdom walked
over to a hook on the outside of his walk-in closet and took down a
pair of flannel pajama bottoms.

“Yes, about that and about your father’s
sudden appearance. I’ve been around too long to believe in
coincidence, Wisdom. This thing with the boy’s father, it’s not the
sort of thing you usually overlook.”

Wisdom rubbed his forehead, unable to meet
her eyes. “No, it isn’t. How could I not have seen Richard
Wilkinson’s son was an Anomaly? How could I miss the connection? I
studied that family in depth for months before I ordered the hit. I
don’t like overlooking anything. In hindsight, I should have
thought something was strange when Elaine missed. She never misses,
you know. It’s uncanny.”

“The way you talk about her, Wisdom...” Echo
crossed her arms and looked away. “Are you two…? I have to wonder
if your relationship is entirely professional.”

Dressed in the pajama bottoms, Wisdom slid
onto the bed and drew Echo toward him. “I love Elaine like a child,
Echo. A daughter. And I would be very surprised if anything I could
do would make you jealous. I think we’re both too old for that kind
of foolishness.”