Exit (19 page)

“What did you say?”

“What could I say? Frankly, the two of us were scared shit by everything that was happening. Things were snowballing. This was one more horror on a growing list of horrors. But I mention this, you know, because today, well, there was no sign of the lesions.
Nothing.
”

Rayne listened, and wondered what that meant. “What do you make of it?”

“I don’t know, Rayne. Maybe it means nothing. Still, how does all that clear up so quick? Does it begin to heal as soon as he flips back into this world? Beats me. But that was him today. No doubt. Face, height, weight, voice, you name it. Even his clothes were the same, the same wrinkled clothes from being out on the run for several days. Christ, it was his same damn shoes if I’m not mistaken. This whole thing gets me more and more creeped out.”

“Ditto.” Rayne folded her arms across her chest and shuddered. There was such a tidal wave of data and information coming at her, and with so little time to process it. She had to be logical, methodical. No room for error. Looking through the plate glass windows, she saw rooftops and chimneys and satellite dishes and thought of her apartment not far from where she stood. She saw her parked car across the lot. The sun had set; dusk was coming. Shadows lengthened. “I hate to do it, but we’ll have to hide my car. Or just ditch it.”

“That crossed my mind too. The cops will be looking for the Buick. Wonder if we could buy any time by stealing a license plate and swapping them.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. It’s all new to me. So we ditch the car, our apartments…” She paused and reached into her pocket. “This too, my cell. They can track us.”

“Phones have an RFID chip, and their cameras can be remotely activated. We could drop it into a washing machine.”

“Realistically, I wonder how much time we have.”

“If we stay in the city, and they keep tightening the noose,” Tim said, “they might find us tonight. Or maybe we get slick and stretch it out a few days. But right now, all we’re doing is reacting. We need to be proactive.”

WXZY returned. The male anchor said,
“Welcome back. This is our continued coverage of a breaking story. Lisa Lane is standing by in East Cambridge. Lisa, what have you learned? Have you gotten any additional information?”

At the lower left corner of the screen, a white banner with two red words the color of an ambulance:
Breaking News
.

Lisa Lane stood by a tree and faced the camera, the breeze flapping her bleached hair. The audio picked up the sound of cars driving by.
“I just received word….hold on….there’s been an unusual turn of events in this investigation. According to Cambridge Police, the EyeSoar Corporation had a threatening video emailed to their corporate headquarters today. EyeSoar sent a copy to the Cambridge Police, and offered their assistance. Cambridge Police confirmed that EyeSoar will assist in the investigation with their state-of-the-art technology. I believe we…hold on a second…”
She adjusted her earpiece, studied the ground for a moment with a grave expression
. “All right, okay. Yes, we have it. Here’s the video sent to EyeSoar. At this time, the identity of the sender has not been confirmed.”

Lisa Lane waited for the video, her wide, oblong eyes the size of enormous popcorn kernels ready to pop…pop...

“Here goes,” Tim said. “Now what?”

Rayne watched as Lisa Lane vanished, the screen darkened. A voiceover sans image:

“They’re here,”
said a female voice in a hushed tone. The screen was solid black, the voice seemed disembodied.
“Some are here, more are coming.”

“She sounds…a bit…” Tim’s voice trailed off.

“And if they’re not stopped, the world is doomed.”
The voice rose, the sound of increasing urgency.
“They come from another world. Now they’re coming after you. They are aliens, the ultimate illegal immigrants. A breach in our borders has...”

“Rayne,” Tim said in a monotone as if hypnotized. “She…kind of sounds…like...”

The darkness on the TV screen faded. An image came into focus. A pot of water on a kitchen stove. Something wiggled inside the pot, obscured by a veil of steam.

“The hell is that?” Rayne said.

“People of Cambridge. You are blind. You have ‘boiling frog syndrome.’ You are frogs. We are watchdogs. We are the guardians that fight the aliens, one by one. Traitors among us aid the aliens. Today we declare war on the traitors, the New Earth Order fascists. The NEO fascists: The World Bank, Gateway Theaters, EyeSoar, and various Illuminati hybrid bloodlines. Don’t be a frog—be a dog.”

Tim elbowed her and said in a low voice, “You hear what I hear?”

She didn’t respond, not moving a muscle, eyes upward. The Laundromat suddenly felt like a tiny fort in a war zone. An image of a sign popped into her head:

Coin Operated Fort

FORT LAUNDRY

Under Siege 7 Days

“Rayne, I think my ears are hallucinating.”

“Shhh.”

The frog looked up from the pot, ground zero, unable or unwilling to leap to freedom. Ribbons of steam expanded over the stove, a misty mushroom cloud. A different voice continued the narrative, a male voice.

“We are the watchdogs. Our video has no financial backers, no crowdfunding on Kickstarter. Our video is a labor of liberty, a stark warning, the ultimate chatter. Department of Homeland Security, are you listening? Aliens must die, so we can live.”

The picture of the boiling frog vanished, replaced by two young people standing in a room in front of a suspended, white sheet against a wall. A homemade movie screen.

Rayne rocked back on her heels, seeing herself and Tim, side-by-side on TV. Mirror images. Two clones. Tim made a guttural sound, as if on the verge of throwing up. He gripped her arm so tight it felt as if he were checking her blood pressure with an inflatable cuff. Well, as of this second, her blood pressure spiked. Way up. Moon shot.

Their doppelgangers in the video spoke simultaneously, a shared vision, defiance in their eyes:
“Cambridge—get off your knees!”

The video faded to black.

Lisa Lane reappeared. Her eyes, cast down and presumably watching a monitor, slowly rose and looked straight into the camera. She hesitated for a second, and seemed confused. Understandably confused. Her posture straightened as she said,
“This is Lisa Lane…reporting from…”

“Mars,” Rayne said in a hollow voice. Now even she sounded disembodied.

Tim turned and looked at her, speechless.

“That was us,” she said. “Dead-ringers. Our identical twins. We worked with image-editing programs at the ad agency. It’s amazing what you can do. But not like this. This took it to a whole new level. And it was image
and
sound. They had our voices down cold.”

Tim’s face had visibly paled. “Before, we were talking about getting set up. And how would they discredit us. Completely trash us. Well, there you go. They blew us up in less than a minute. And it was brilliant. EyeSoar took themselves right off the hook. They got us declaring war on...the New Earth Order fascists? The NEO fascists. If I was sitting at home, I would’ve rolled my eyes at the acronym, and spilled my drink. But EyeSoar played it smart. They included themselves and the Gateway on the hit list, sandwiched in there with the World Bank and, God love ‘em, the Illuminati hybrid whatthefuck. So now, if we or anyone else sounds the alarm on EyeSoar or the Gateway, it makes us the ultimate space cadets. Say the name, people wince. We’ve been lumped in with every fringe group out there.” He took a long, weary breath, eyes blank, looking ready to kill himself—jump into a jumbo dryer and end it. “Gotta say, it was a masterful presentation. Oscars for the video production team.”

“It was too good.”

“Well, there’s one upside. We’ve officially hit rock bottom, so it can’t get any worse. Our manifesto has hit the airwaves. EyeSoar knows our names. Wonder if they told the police yet? Or kept quiet. Act innocent, like they have no idea what’s happening. What’s it matter? Viewers are already calling the cops or TV station and saying, ‘That terrorist dude on TV? Damn, that dude subbed at my high school last week. That sexy girl in front of the bed sheet? Listen, she served me frog legs with garlic the other night at Voltage Café. I recognized the frog in the boiling pot. I musta ate his fucking legs.”

“Tim?”

“Hello, WXZY? Those two terrorists? They live right above me on the second floor. Get your camera crew—”

“Tim, leave it. There’s nothing we—”

They both froze when her cell phone buzzed.

Rayne carefully reached for her phone, looked down. She forced herself to sound steady. “It’s Alex.”

Tim didn’t hesitate. “
Sure it is
. Don’t answer it. It’ll confirm we’re alive and here. We gotta ditch the phone. We gotta get out of here.”

The phone buzzed again.

“It feels creepy, radioactive creepy, like I’m holding onto a chunk of uranium.” Rayne held it in her sweaty palm, knowing this was their lifeline to the outside world, beyond EyeSoar. “Two things. I’m gonna call Martina, see what’s happening at my place…”

The phone buzzed a third time.

“Goddamn phone,” Tim said.

“That’s it. It’ll go to message.” Rayne looked up at the clock by the TV. “Thirty seconds and I’ll check it.”

“That cell is making my skin crawl.”

“I know.”

“We gotta do something about the car. What else can go wrong?”

“I know, I know.” After a moment, she held up the phone and checked for a message. They put their heads together and listened. And heard Alex Portland’s cultured voice:

“It’s Alex.”
Pause.
“It’s been a singular night, but I’m okay. I’m home. Meet me at my apartment a.s.a.p.”

End of message.

“That’s his voice,” Rayne said.

Tim locked eyes with her. “Absolutely. And a few minutes ago, I saw and heard us on TV.”

“How do they do it?”

He shrugged. Then his eyes lit up. “Meet him at his house? Yeah, that’s gonna happen. Whoever that is, they’re hoping we didn’t see the TV news yet.”

Rayne punched a number, waited.

A woman answered. Her voice was forcibly hushed, but filled with excitement: “Honey, I know you the shit, but this is crazy!”

“Martina, whatever you heard, it’s all—”

“Bullshit.”

“Thank you.”

“The shit I’m hearing and seeing is unbelievable. You’d think I was living next door to Osama Bin Ladin.”

“Last two days of my life have been a train wreck. Don’t even know where to start. But I’m in over my head. Tim and I got set up.”

“You what?”

“We saw something. We’re witnesses. And now everything’s hit the fan. We’re being made out as…I don’t know.”

“Terrorists.”

“But that’s not us in that video. We can’t figure out how they did that. Did the police come to the building yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Well, won’t be long. Listen, M, I need a favor. I need to borrow your cell phone.”

“You got it.”

“And I need to hide my car. Short-term hiding spot. Any ideas?”

Rayne heard her exhale. A moment of silence.

“My mother rents a parking spot in a long garage behind the condo building where she lives. I can park her car on the street.”

“It’s just temporary. Until Tim and I figure out our next move.”

“Sure.”

“M, you’re the best. Where should we meet?”

“My mom lives near Memorial Drive by the Charles. Meet me in the parking lot of Micro Center. I’ll wait in the back of the lot. You know my ride.”

“Will do.”

Tim stood nearby and said aloud, “Martina, just look for two bomb-throwers in blood-soaked clothes.”

“He’s a little upset,” Rayne said. “It’s been a long day.”

“A long day,” Tim said, almost choking on the words.

“If I were him,” Martina said, “I’d have anxierrhea. Be there in twenty minutes or so.”

“See you.” Rayne held the cell phone, knowing it could be used as a tracking device. In her hand, it had the size and weight of a hand grenade ready to explode. “Thank God for Martina.”

“Now we gotta slip out of here and sneak down the street.” He paced back and forth in front of a dryer.

What was she forgetting? Other than a million things, what was she forgetting specifically right now?

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

She shook her head, concentrated, and recalled the image.

“The TV news. Back at Mass General. My clothes, my black tunic was all over TV. I’ve got to…uh…” She shook her head again to reshuffle her thoughts, clear up the confusion, looked at Tim, past Tim. There, now she knew. She glanced at the phone, then at the dryer.

“What is it?” he insisted.

“Desperation.” She looked through the window and saw the woman outside, still reading the magazine on the bench. “Shhh…not a word.”