Out of the Box 7 - Sea Change (33 page)

They caught her nimbly, softly, moving down as she fell, absorbing the impact into the bush. It caught her as lightly as if a pair of arms had reached out to catch a child dropped from six inches of height. She turned the course sideways and the plant nudged her bare feet into the sand, pushing her upright gently.

“You’re life and I’m death, do you get that?” Sienna loomed over her, floating six feet off the ground. “You’re the tall, willowy, classic beauty that everyone thinks is hot, and I’m short, squat and not exactly shaped like a model, okay? You were always so sweet to everybody, and you didn’t think deep thoughts or constantly worry about the fate of the world and everyone liked you anyway. And me?” She made an ugly face and looked resentfully at the rising sun. “No matter what I’ve done since I beat Sovereign, since I became a so-called ‘celebrity’ … it’s all turned to vinegar. People hate me, and I can’t … I can’t control my anger a lot of the time, okay? I’m inappropriately violent. I order a tall mocha with whip and the barista makes a face when he hands it to me, I imagine myself driving his stupid nose into the countertop—and I could do it. Now, ninety-nine percent of the time I don’t, and when I do, it’s always to some asshole who’s hurt people, like Eric Simmons, who had just wrecked a subway train full of people after trying to rob the Federal Reserve.” Her smile grew bitter as she looked straight at Kat. “But I don’t get credit for that. Instead I get a thousand think pieces written about how I’m a menace, and they use the incident at the campus with the Russians to reinforce the argument that I’m brutal dictator who doesn’t know how to do anything but kill people. Our little phone call, edited for ‘clarity,’” she made air quotations, “didn’t help.”

“I told you I didn’t have anything to do with that,” Kat said.

“Yeah,” Sienna replied, “and you didn’t have anything to do with going ahead on the
Vanity Fair
shoot yesterday that cost a bunch of people their lives, and you definitely didn’t know that going to the party last night would kill—hell, I don’t even know, but probably hundreds.” She shook her head. “The thing that burns me …” She glared right at Kat. “You weren’t being brave and we both know it. You were being selfish. But everyone’s going to say you were being brave, because they love you and hate me, and that’s just the way it is.”

“That’s not my fault, either,” Kat said numbly.

“It’s a little your fault.”

“I didn’t lead you into talking about how you killed those Russians,” Kat said. “I didn’t bait you into talking about smacking around Eric Simmons, and when we did talk about it, I at least acknowledged the other circumstances, what with him saying what he did to that waitress—”

“And none of that made the cut,” Sienna crossed her arms and looked away, still hovering in the dawn air, “so you get no points with me.”

“None of it would have mattered anyway,” Kat said. “People don’t hate you because you beat the shit out of Eric Simmons or killed a bunch of Russians who were staging a jailbreak of dangerous prisoners.”

“Really?” The sarcasm dripped off Sienna’s words. “Then please, oh expert, tell me why they hate me—in your opinion.”

“Because you’re such a bitch,” Kat shot at her. “I mean,
really
. Normal people don’t kill, okay? They don’t shoot people, they don’t beat people with their bare hands, they don’t set fire to them with superpowers—none of that happens in civilized society. And if they have to do any of those things, they damned sure don’t mouth off to Gail Roth and come off like a psycho afterward. You’re your own worst enemy.” Kat folded her own arms. She doubted Sienna was going to
get
any of this, it would just roll off her like a punch to the face. And that girl could take a punch. “You look like a lunatic all the time. You’re mad at me because I’m pretty and put together and try to act in a way that makes people like me—”

“‘Act’ being both the operative word and one of the things that irritates me most about you, yes.”

“Well, it’s a full-time job acting like you’re a well-socialized human being when you’re dealing with the press, okay?” Kat exploded. “Because they’re busy trying to find every little speck of dirt they can, and you’re busy looking like there’s none, like you’ve never taken a dump in your entire life. It’s inhuman, and the sport we make in this country of trying to raise people up before we find their flaws and tear them down so we can burn them in effigy? Dodging that is a full-time job, too, and you treat it like it’s a—like it’s—like it’s nothing. You don’t worry about it. You don’t try to be likable and you wonder why people don’t like you?”

“I don’t wonder that hard, okay? It may not be one of my powers, but self-awareness isn’t something I’m utterly short of.”

“Well, you gripe about it like it’s the thing you want most,” Kat said, “but you don’t act like it matters at all. You’ve got this defiance about you, like, ‘I’m going to be who I’m going to be,’” Kat waved her hands at Sienna, “but you get mad when people don’t like who you are. Well … stop acting like a shrew and a bully to everyone.”

“I’m that way mostly to you.”

“You’re that way mostly to everyone,” Kat said. “Steven is the only person I’ve seen you interact with since you got here that you didn’t fill full of barbs. You—you got in an argument with the president at his own fundraiser, for crying out loud—”

“He’s a dick.”

“Yes, everyone’s a dick but you,” Kat said, feeling the fight ebb out of her. “You’re the only sane, non-cantankerous person in the world.” She leaned closer and looked up at Sienna. “Or maybe your godlike powers make you the most irritable, impatient—”

“Did you miss it when I admitted I had anger issues?”

“—and thanks a hell of a lot for bringing me out here where I’m safe from everything but the cacti,” Kat said, falling right down into the soft sand.

“You can control the cacti, can’t you?” Sienna asked, looking to the horizon. “You should be safe from them, too.”

“If I don’t get a skinny latte soon,” Kat said, sighing, “I’m going to impale myself on the needles, so no, I’m not safe from them.” She looked around. “Where did you even bring me? Arizona?”

Sienna showed a hint of guilt at that. “Not quite.”

“Are we in Mexico?” Kat looked around as though a Mariachi band might jump out from behind the brush.

“Come on,” Sienna said, hovering closer to her, extending her arms.

“Can we go home now?” Kat asked, pushing herself up, sand drifting out of the folds of her dress.

“No.”

“Come on,” Kat said as Sienna spun her around and lifted her up again. “I just … just take me home. I’ll hide until—”

“Until what?” Sienna asked acidly. “Until I deal with this problem for you? That’s another reason I don’t like you.”

“Do you dislike all the people you have to protect?” Kat asked, resignedly. “Because that would explain why you act the way you do to so many—”

“Oh, shut up.” And they flew off into the eastern sky.

Once Karl had found a car and driven home, it didn’t take much for him realize that the police had compromised his bolt-hole. Normally, one would find a police patrol in Elysium maybe once a month. The LAPD didn’t come to Elysium unless they were called, and when they did, it was in force.

He passed three cruisers once he got off the freeway, just maneuvering around to some of the local restaurants, picking up drive-thru. As he drew closer to the bolt-hole, he suddenly he realized the pedestrians were gone, gone, gone. The herd was thin, even for this early in the morning, and that wasn’t normal, either.

Ergo, cops were in force in the neighborhood, and why would they do that?

He pulled over into a parking lot outside an old, abandoned K-Mart. There were a few other stores still hanging on in this strip mall, but not many. He let his stolen Buick idle with the AC blowing while he dialed his phone and waited for an answer, his eyes scanning the rearview mirrors all the while. A cop car went past on the road, and he didn’t think it was one of the ones he’d seen before. He could see the old-style lights on the outline of the car’s roof.

This was just …

It was so …

Perfect.

When the answer came on the other end of the line, Karl couldn’t help letting the smile creep into his voice. “The cops found the bolt-hole.”

There was a moment’s hesitation on the other end. “You ready?”

“I am as ready as I could ever be,” Karl said, feeling like his chest was swelling with the excitement. “It’s all taken care of. All I need now is the last element, and we’re good.”

“Well,” his benefactor said, “it sounds like you should get to work, then.”

“I want to wait until daybreak,” Karl said, still smiling. “Whole lot of people are going to die today. I want the cameras to catch as many of them dying as possible.”

“I know.” There was a pause, and he could almost imagine his backer grinning. “You’re excited, aren’t you?”

“I am. Can’t imagine anything sweeter,” Karl said. “This is goodbye, then.”

“Goodbye, Karl. You’ll do fine, and you know where to go after this.”

“I do,” Karl said, the excitement causing him to tap his fingers on the wheel. “So long, sir.” And he hung up.

It was time.

This was what he’d been waiting for.

Now he’d get everything he’d ever wanted, and whether he walked out the other side or not … his benefactor would make sure that no one—NO ONE—would ever forget his name.

Kat was screaming when we came shooting down out of the clouds at our destination, which was so very not helpful but was such a Kat thing to do.

I guess, if I’d been trying to be fair, I might have conceded that we were approaching the ground at something on the order of three hundred miles an hour and cut her a little slack, but I still wasn’t feeling terribly generous toward her, so I just concentrated on the speck of green grass streaking up toward us incredibly fast and sped up.

We screamed to a stop—well, she screamed, and I clamped a hand over her mouth for the last hundred feet—in the backyard of a small house. Kat was wriggling, but not thrashing, which was fortunate for her since I was only holding her with one hand. I brought us from three hundred miles per hour to zero pretty fast, and she snapped in my arms as I braced her, absorbing as much of the shock as I could. When we were motionless, a foot above the ground, I pulled my hand off her mouth heard her making a, “Huhhhhhhhhhhh,” kind of whining and breathing sound.

“You all right?” I asked, gently lowering her feet to the ground.

She wobbled on unsteady legs for less than a second before she collapsed on the lawn. “N … No, I am not all right,” she said in a whisper. She looked around at the fenced-in yard around us. “Where are we?”

“Austin, Texas,” I said, taking a quick glance at my phone to make sure I had it right. I did. I’d been checking it regularly before we made our final approach, looking at my GPS to be sure I didn’t miss our stop.

“Why?” she asked, twisting around to look at me. “Why would you bring me to Texas?”

“Well, it’s far from California for everyone who can’t break the sound barrier at will,” I said, looking around. The sun was up here, but not by too much. “You should be safe.”

“You’re just going to drop me off in some random yard?” Kat’s jaw fell in disbelief. “Do you think I won’t—what, I won’t catch the first flight to LA?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t think you will.”

Her eyes burned with resentment. “Well, I will. You can’t stop me.”

“I’m not going to even try,” I said, and looked up when I saw motion at the sliding glass door to the house. “I’ll leave that to them.” I nodded as the door slid open.

“What the hell are you doing?” Reed hissed, stepping out onto a slab of concrete that comprised a patio. Augustus Coleman was peering out from behind his shoulder, eyes foggy with sleep and mouth open in a yawn, or maybe shock.

“Sorry to interrupt your boys’ club poker night,” I said. I grabbed Kat under the arm, hauling her to her feet and breaking skin contact in less than a second. “But I’ve got more work for you.”

“More work?” Reed did not look happy. “We’ve been trying to catch a positive ID on Grayson Dieter for days—”

“We’ve been on our asses for days,” Augustus said from behind him. “Taking shifts staring out the front window. Most boring assignment ever. I caught up on my homework on day one, and I’ve been waiting for Monday to come so they’ll email me more so I have something to do besides watch his ass make little baby tornadoes on the coffee table.” Augustus nodded at Kat. “What’s this?” He blinked. “Wait … is that …?”

Reed just rolled his eyes. “Now you want us to do stakeout and babysitting?”

“Dude, that’s Kat Forrest,” Augustus said, elbowing him hard in the ribs. He stepped out onto the patio, and I realized he was in his boxers and a t-shirt. “What’s up?” he asked, nodding at her, smiling a little stupidly.

“Augustus,” I said, looking meaningfully at his attire.

He got the hint in a second. “Oh! Oh, shit!” He disappeared back into the house.

Reed was slightly better dressed, at least, wearing jeans with his t-shirt. “She can’t stay here,” he said.

“It’s funny you say that,” I bumped Kat forward, and she started walking toward the patio like she was being forced to at gunpoint, “because here I thought I was your boss—”

“Ungh,” Reed made a sound like a zombie in the dark. “You always do this when we butt heads over decisions, you pull the ‘I’m your boss’ card—”

“Just another reason why people don’t like you,” Kat said, a little sing-songy, either because she was gloating or because she was woozy from our rapid descent. Which I had done so as not to tip off the subject of the stakeout, by the way, not just to make Kat nauseous and scared. That was just a fringe benefit.

“Shut up,” Reed and I said at the same time. His hair was still short from where it had been burned off a few months earlier, and at the moment he looked like the firebomb had taken his humor with it. “We’re busy here,” he said.

“You’re watching a house for hours a day,” I said as Kat and I stepped onto the patio. “You can watch her, too.”