Mercury Man (24 page)

Now more than ever he needed to see them all, his new family.

There was light ahead, gigantic moving shadows: someone playing the beam of a flashlight against the tunnel walls.

And voices —
her voice in particular.

“It's me!” he shouted and ran toward the light.

He sprinted around a corner. Miranda and his mother stood framed in a lighted passageway. When they saw him they jumped up and down and waved. They were almost the same height; he hadn't noticed that before.

“It's Tom!” his mother cried, and Miranda's voice sounded with hers, clear and beautiful.

The girl put down her light and ran toward him.

They hugged and held each other. Her body felt warm; he trembled with joy, feeling her so close.

“You've come back — and I can talk to you,” she said.

“Miranda! Your voice is wonderful — just like I imagined it.”

“Dad explained what happened. A reverse trauma, or something like that. You know after Fabricon's horrible programming I couldn't speak. Then, when I thought you'd been captured by Tarn, I just had to! I had so many ideas — of how we could rescue you.”

“But, Miranda — your dad? He made it out?”

“Yes he did, thank God! And we've all been worried sick about you.”

They walked arm in arm toward the bunker door. His mother watched them, then Paul came out and stood beside her.

Karen reached out, instinctively it seemed, and took Paul's arm. It was strange seeing his mother so comfortable with a man she'd just met. It didn't seem at all like her.

Zak Daniel appeared at the door, his wheelchair carefully poised at the top of a short ramp. He too was smiling.

Tom thought they were giving him quite a welcome, considering what a mess he'd made of things!

He and Miranda laughed together. Paul, subdued as usual, approached them.

“I'm surprised you want to stand so close to him,” Paul said to his daughter. “He looks like something the cat dragged in.”

Everyone laughed and Tom felt suddenly crushed — then Paul threw his arms around him and said in a quiet voice, “Good work, kid. Thanks to you I got the files out of there. How in hell did you get away?”

Tom gaped at him. “I was lucky,” he mumbled. “I saw everything. You're right — there's a room, with images of all the kids! And diagrams of the brain … I'm in there too!”

Tom felt Paul's arms around him. “Take it easy. It's over now. We're going to knock them for a loop.” And after a pause, he added, “We were waiting for Jack. He's supposed to be bargaining for you right now. C'mon inside and relax. Then we can fill each other in.”

“I'm proud of you, son,” his mother told him. She hugged him and walked along holding his hand. Miranda ran ahead.

“I didn't do anything, Mom.”

“You're here, aren't you? And you saved Paul, too — he says you did!”

They walked up the ramp and into the bunker. Despite the grim exterior, it seemed a cozy place. The ceilings were high, outfitted with fans and track lighting, and the walls were cleanly whitewashed. A few oriental rugs were scattered on the painted concrete floor. On one side were bookcases and two long tables covered with newspapers and magazines. On the other side Tom noticed a large sofa and armchairs. Coloured photographs brightened the walls, and there was a battery of equipment, including a television and a computer monitor, both turned on.

“We've been trying to get news of Fabricon,” Zak explained. “But now you're here!”

Tom shook the old man's hand and crashed down on the sofa.

“Looks like the hero needs a drink,” Zak said, flipping off the TV. Miranda disappeared through a door at the rear and returned with a small Coke and a bag of potato chips.

“We lack for nothing,” Zak said. “Except news. How in blazes did you get away from Tarn?”

Tom took a drink, wiped his mouth, and looked doubtfully from face to face. The bunker was strange despite its homey touches; everything seemed too vivid, almost hallucinatory.

He turned quickly to Paul and said, “You got all the files — that's just great!”

“I got the files, all right,” Paul said.

He walked over to the long table on which the TV sat and lifted a small black tubular object from a shoe-box. He turned it around in his left hand, then connected it to the monitor on the table. Paul touched a keyboard and within seconds a set of complicated diagrams appeared on the screen.

These looked innocent enough, but other pages were more sinister: profiles of Tom and his friends, photographs, diagrams of their bodies, psychological information, lists of their friends and relations, and medical histories, as well as links to a world pool of information on DNA, mind control, and special programming.

“Wow! Lucky they didn't code this,” Tom said.

“They did. What's lucky is they never changed the code! When I remembered that Tarn is one of those people who makes a copy of everything, and that he's a
freak for storing things on Fabricon's new micro vault cylinders, I rummaged around and found this! I recognized the code at once — it would have meant nothing to an outsider. If we hadn't arrived in time the cylinders would have been tossed in the river.”

“Tell Tom how you got out, Paul,” his mother said.

Paul grinned. “It wasn't easy. The alarm went off and they had me trapped in the main lounge. Three guys appeared and I had no chance against them. Then two of them took off in a hurry. I guess you stirred up so much trouble they figured they were being invaded! That made the odds a little better and I managed to get out. I hopped the truck as planned and we came here. I wanted to go back for you, but then I remembered that if I had the files I could get anything I wanted from Tarn, including you!”

As Paul explained all this, Karen Blake was pacing up and down. She seemed to be reliving her worst fears. “Your grandfather went straight from Fabricon to his house,” she said. “He's supposed to call the company. We thought he'd get you out of there. We haven't heard from him, though. We've been waiting.”

“Matter of security,” Zak explained. “He won't call us here — they might trace it.”

“You escaped, that's the main thing,” his mother continued. “What a clever guy!”

“I didn't exactly escape,” Tom said. There was a pause. He felt them all looking at him. “I don't exactly know how to tell you …”

“Just tell us,” Zak urged.

“My father got me out of Fabricon.”

They looked at him. There was a moment's silence and then his mother burst out, “Your father! What does he have to do with it?”

“I didn't think you'd seen your father for years,” Paul put in, looking from Tom to Karen Blake.

At the mention of Joe Blake, Karen seemed to lose her poise. “That pig! I should have known he'd turn up at the wrong moment!”

“If he rescued Tom, it was the right moment,” Zak said quietly.

Tom took a deep breath. He'd been afraid of this. “I don't know exactly what happened …” He looked at his mother, who was pressing Paul's hand, still trembling with anger. “All I know is that Tarn said he was going to charge me, have me thrown in jail. Then he took me to a room where Dad was waiting. We talked for a while and Dad got me out of there. He told the guards he was going to take me to the police. Tarn was gone by then.”

Paul Daniel whistled softly.

“Didn't the creep explain why he was there?” Karen asked.

“He said Tarn got in touch with him. I think he was telling the truth, Mom. It's just what Tarn would do. He wanted to neutralize us, to get us out of the picture. He knew that we were working with Paul and Zak and he wanted to mess things up. He thought that if he brought Dad in he would throw me off the rails. He'd already started the process with the film he showed me yesterday.”

“And of course your dad just breezed in, as Tarn knew he would. He must have checked up on him, too. But why did the jerk let you go?”

“He's my father, after all!” Tom paused; he was suddenly furious. They all looked at him. “I asked him to help and he did. Once Paul got the files they had to let me go. Mom, I didn't like Dad very much, but he helped me. He played it fair.”

Zak nodded. “As you say, he's your father.”

Tom pressed his lips together. It was no use talking about it. They wouldn't understand his feelings. But his mother put her arms around him.

“I know. Joe Blake is a great one for twisting things. I suppose he was full of sorrow, full of excuses …”

Tom couldn't speak. He managed a nod and stared at the slowly turning ceiling fan.

Zak Daniel cleared his throat, spun his wheelchair around, and cackled like a mother hen. “By golly, who cares what he was full of? He helped get young Tom back here, didn't he?”

“So Binkley wasn't lying!” A voice from the doorway made them jump.

Paul sprang to his feet; Karen turned. Zak threw up his arms.

Tom got up and ran to embrace the smiling rotund figure who had walked into the bunker while they were talking.

“Grandpa! I got away! Everything's all right.”

Jack nodded. “So I see! That's good news and I've got more of it! Luckily for you guys I
wasn't the police. Didn't even close the door, eh? That's confidence!”

“The gang's all here! Thank goodness!” Zak called out.

“I've got plenty of news, but a glass of beer would make it flow better,” Jack told them.

Tom sensed his excitement — they were all caught up in it.

Miranda fetched a beer. Jack swallowed a few mouthfuls, took a deep breath, and smiled. He flopped down on the sofa next to Tom. The others crowded around him.

Then Jack began to laugh. He opened his mouth as if to speak but seemed suddenly overwhelmed by the humour of everything. “Sorry …” He apologized through his tears, wiped his face, sniffed, and told them, “Well, I just talked to the CEO Martin Binkley …”

“Yeah? So what happened?” Zak bounced in his chair; he seemed ready to shake the news from him.

“Tell us!” Miranda said.

“To begin with, Tarn's out! He's leaving for Switzerland tonight.”

The room erupted in a roar. Miranda squeezed Tom's hand. He raised it to his lips and kissed it. Then, half in embarrassment, he jumped up and did a kind of tap dance on the concrete floor.

When things settled down again, Jack told them, “We shouldn't be so ecstatic. That fellow's escaped and he's dangerous. Who knows who'll fund him the next time? All the same, we've got Binkley, and he's being very cooperative. He just brushed off the break-in, which is pretty
good news. No question of reporting it to the police. He even made a joke about comic book heroes and said Fabricon could never hold a guy like Tom. Anyway, he wants to talk compensation for you, Paul, and for Miranda. He said he feared a grave injustice had been done. He referred to a
generous
compensation, in fact.”

Paul laughed shortly. Zak said, “Damned right!”

“That's just wonderful,” Karen Blake said. She hugged Paul and her father and kissed Miranda, then stood holding Tom's hand. They all waited as Jack continued.

“Binkley promised that all Fabricon programs would be re-evaluated, and if any irregularities were found things would be fixed and people would be compensated. As I read it, that's company jargon that really means: ‘I know we screwed up and we're going to fix it!'”

“That means the kids will learn the truth,” Tom said. “They've got to be compensated, too. Listen, Grandpa! I saw their secret room. I broke in there. Binkley must have known. I want to talk to the lawyer before they destroy the evidence!”

“Don't worry, Tom,” Paul reassured him. “There's plenty of evidence on that cylinder I lifted from them! And the hard files — which they probably will be too scared to destroy now — even show several models of the kids' brain charts. The whole process is there. And some very incriminating memos from Binkley. I suspect we'll be getting him tossed out of Fabricon as well!”

“Well, he's already covering his ass.” Jack laughed. “Binkley told me that the idea of unmonitored genetic
experiments was abhorrent to him. He actually used the word
abhorrent
. More company jargon, but I think we can feel good about the result.”

“It won't do him any good,” Paul said. He seemed subdued and didn't look at any of them. “I've got the files and Tarn knew he was finished. All that playing around to try to stop us — bringing in your father, Tom — it meant nothing once we got the files. And now they'll have to come through. They'll have to make good on this.”

“I don't think there's any question about it,” Jack said. “Binkley even mentioned something like scholarships for Tom and Miranda. That lawyer you put me on to is going to see their lawyers tomorrow. He thinks we have them by the — He thinks they're over a barrel, all right.”

Paul Daniel laughed grimly. “We'll have to get guarantees. They'll be lucky to keep the company afloat after this. They might all be in jail — where they belong — or the company may be totally discredited. But maybe the good people in the corporation — if any turn up — can get rid of the rats without sinking the ship, if you see what I mean, Jack.”

“That's what will surely happen!” Zak told them. “Fabricon is worth saving, and it'll be worth millions to us when they do save it. We can set up the park again. We can all work together on it! Marvin would have loved this — and my own Mary. We'll finally be in business again! Hell, if we had an artist, we could even begin another series of comics — a new Mercury Man.”

“You do have an artist,” Jack announced. “From what I've seen you've got a very good artist. I'll leave you to guess who it is.”

“Grandpa!” Tom got up and paced across the floor.