Memoria (40 page)

"Clear!"

The defibrillator clicked. Floyd's body j
erk
ed
with
the
electric
pulse
.

"
CPR and heart massage."

Well-trained, they acted in unison, trying to bring the man back from the other side. But Floyd's eyes remained dead.

"Again," the cop placed the electrodes onto his chest. "Clear!"

Another click.
The body jumped.

"CPR!"

Jessup
stepped to the wall and leaned his heavy body against it watching Floyd.
He didn't look as if he could make it.

"Pointless," he
finally
said.

The duty officer looked up at him,

"Blood loss too
serious
, sir."

"I can see that." Jessup sighed.
"Did he say anything at all? What's going on in the camp?"

"He just gave us your name, sir, and this container."

A car braked by the guard house. A door slammed
. Several voices spoke at once. The radio in Jessup's hand
sprung
to life, giving him a bad feeling. He put the sound up to hear Salem's voice
through
the
gremlins
.

"No!"
he exclaimed, dis
believing. "When?"

"This afternoon," Agent Archer said entering the room. "Anna
Gautier
and two more leaders have been killed
in the Council building.
I need all the men you can spare in the Bronx before the migrants cut the
electricity and water from the
city.
We can't afford that
to happen."

"Salem? I'll call you back later." Jessup lowered the radio
. A
t the same time,
he
slipped the container into his raincoat pocket.
"Why haven't they reported it earlier? Who made the statement?"

"
Memoria's Press Secretary
."
Archer's long face grew even longer as he stared at Floyd's body on the bench. He
kept speaking on
automatic pilot
, looking confused. "They'
ve made a full scan of the killer's memory. The mnemotechs' report
has already been posted online."

"Who killed him?"

Archer blinked, staring at Floyd's body.

"Who was it?" Jessup repeated louder.

"Shelby
...
Frank Shelby."

* * *

"Frank Shelby!" the tall tech shouted
. A
shove
to his ba
ck sent him sprawling through the doorway
into his co-worker arms.

Both tumbled onto the surgery floor
.
Inside,
Maggie
Douggan
lay
in her underwear
strapped to the tomography bed.
Frank lunged
inside and slammed the door shut praying
that
the security guard
who
watch
ed
the hallway through
the
security
cameras
had turned
away
from his screens for a second.

The tall tech had told him the truth. The team
number
ed three people. The
third
tech stood by the equipment stand to Frank's right.
Frank stepped closer
and took a swing
to punch him o
n the chin when one of the two on the floor grabbed his leg.
Instead of
a
punch, Frank's
fingers brushed the tech's nose; he dropped the syringe and
came down.

The team's resistance surprised him. These were supposed to be
laboratory wooses
, but they reacted with pitbull
-like
fortitude.
Leaning on his elbows, Frank pulled his leg out, turned around and kicked the strange
r's
face
red with excitement. His head
jerked, blood pouring out of a
smashed nose.

"Finish him off, Sam!" the tall one shouted as he tried to scramble back onto his feet.

Sam
—
apparently the on
e who'd just escaped the punch o
n the
chin
—
didn't move
. His hesitation
gave Frank the
chance
to get up and an advantage. Jump
ing up, he punched Sam in the chest and stomach. The tech doubled
up
, and Frank
rabbit-punched him to the neck
.
One down. Frank turned around. The tall tech
had by then forced himself up on one knee. A broken jaw later,
the man was back on the floor.
His co-worker, though, proved to be difficult: he crawled under the table, kicking and screaming his head off.

At first, Frank tried to grab him by the foot to drag him out
. No
luck
. Snarling with anger, he
tried to
lift the heavy steel table and
pushed it over the tech.
Boxfuls of surgical tools
, laid out on the table for an operation,
cla
tter
ed
all over
the floor
. The tech screamed out
—
then
fell silent.

Agitated by the fight and shouting, Frank stepped back to the door.
He
breathed fast. H
is heart bea
t
wildly
,
unable to slow down. Two men lay unconscious in the middle of the room. The third one, pinned to the floor by the table,
wheezed and jerked, his legs twitching.

Frank didn't
check on him. The man's chest could be
smashed
. A syringe needle could have gone into his eye.
Whatever it was, the man
was
never
going to get up. Frank picked up the syringe filled with
the
opaque greenish liquid and
went over
to the girl.
His fingers shaking with
exertion, he started undoing the straps.

"Mag, you okay? What have they done to you?"

She started at him, her eyes wide open, as if seeing him for the first time.

"Mag, do you remember me? I'm Frank Shelby. You're Maggie
Douggan
, daughter of
Barney
Douggan
. He's somewhere here too. Your dad's here, Mag."

He finished unstrapping her, gingerly removed the copper band with wires
from
her head and hurried to the locker in the corner.
The furniture here was identical to Bow's surgery
that
he'd just left. Fra
nk took a lab coat off a hanger. He
helped Maggie to sit up and
put
the coat
on
.

"Do you remember me?" he asked again.

She gave him a weak nod.

"They
must have given you a memory scan," Frank explained.
"A selective one, not complete.
They must be preparing you for a personality correction session. This is what Bow has just said
—
Kathleen's researcher."

"Now I remember," her gaze slid over the room. "They wanted to know wh
ere we'd hidde
n the tape."

"Maggie," Frank glanced at the
tech squashed
under
the table. He was quiet now. Frank took Maggie's hand. "Are you sure you remember me?"

"I am
...
we were in the camp together."

"And your father, do you remember
hi
m?"

Anguish
show
ed in her eyes. Her
gaze focused. With a startle, the girl looked around.

"What- what happened
here?" Her breathing
quicken
ed
and her gestures became jerky.
She
stared at
Frank.

He put his arm around her shoulders and whispered in her ear,

"I've
taken care of them
.
..
they wanted to change you
...
change
us, but I didn't let them
. Maggie, we've got to go. We'll find your dad and get out of here. You think you can walk?
"

"I can. Where's Dad?" Not looking at the unconscious men amid the trashed surgery,
Maggie
sat up and tried to
stand
. Immediately,
she
winced
and lost her balance.

Frank caught her.

"I'm sick
...
my head
just
goes round
...
" Maggie
sounded
surprised
. She tried
not to throw up
and couldn't, vomiting on the floor.

Frank let her catch her breath and poured her some water from the water cooler.

"It'll be over in a minute," he handed her the plastic cup. "Drink it. Try not to
make any sudden movements."

When she em
p
t
ied the cup, Frank helped her sit back on the bed and buttoned up her lab coat.

"Take deep breaths," he told her.

"Where's Dad?"

"He's in the room next door. There's nobody else there. We'll go there now
...
"

"Frank," her eyes glistened but she held back the tears. "You're not telling me everything. What's wrong with Dad?"

"I'm not sure. It looks like they tried to give him a memory scan, too, or a personality correction, but something went wrong.
Barney
's in a trance right now."

Leaning on his shoulder, she
forced herself up. "Come on, let's go."

"Wait," he opened the door a crack and peered out.

The hallway was empty. At
its far end, the red light kept flashing on the wall by the glass
panels
.
The camera on the ceiling focused its black eye on the door.

"The hallway's under surveillance," Frank explained.
"We
'll
come out and walk naturally, as if we're discussing a job problem.
Second door to the right. Got it?"

Maggie nodded. She
smoothed out her hair and
, businesslike,
shoved her hands into her lab coat pockets.
Frank stepped aside, letting her through the door. He
left the
surgery and closed the door
behind him.

Maggie lingered outside, waiting for him.

"I've never been here," she
turned and walked along the hallway, trying to keep slightly ahead of him.

They passed Bow's surgery and approached the room where, according to him, his techs kept
Barney
.
Maggie pushed the door but it didn't open.

"Let me try," Frank motioned her aside.

Under the door handle, he saw the
small
rectangle of a scanning device.

"We should have taken one of their bracelets," Maggie
snapped. "You can't get in without one."

Frank pulled up his sleeve
and pressed his bracelet against the scanner. Something clicked inside the door. In less than two seconds, they found themselves inside the intensive care unit.

It differed a lot from the other two surgeries.
No lockers, no steel tables, no tomography equipment.
Barney
lay on a hard
wide
bed of thick plastic.
His head was entangled
in
a net of wires. A thick bandage, spotted with red,
covered his leg above the knee. A
bove him shelves hung with equipment and monitors
. Machines hummed in large slide-out boxes under the bed.
Barney
's
broad
chest heaved
with his powerful breathing, as if he just lay down for a nap
.