Shadow Ops 3: Breach Zone (26 page)

There weren’t enough of them. Not by a long shot.

And help wasn’t coming.

Interlude Six

Our Little Secret

Mexico’s attitude toward Latency is a study in conflict. It is a deeply religious, Catholic country, but also a country in love with mysticism and superstitious ritual. The Conquistadores were never able to fully eradicate the cultural roots that hearken back to shamanistic religion, and Mexican Catholicism is pregnant with iconography and pageantry not found to the north. Publicly, their attitude toward magic is one that will satisfy their northern neighbor. But privately, many Mexicans embrace their
brujeria
, which they feel is a gift from God himself.

– Professor Osvaldo H. Soto
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Six Years Earlier

Morelli Lopez stared into the middle distance. Her scorched dress had been replaced by a pair of ill-fitting cargo pants and a T-shirt that hung to her knees. Her long, tangled, black hair was streaked with gray. Her whole body seemed to droop, the extra weight dragging earthward. Harlequin found it hard to reconcile the demon who’d burned the housing project with the sad, fat, old lady who sat before him. Sergeant Ward and a SOC Suppressor, a bull-necked chief warrant officer called Rampart, stood behind her. The burned portion of Ward’s moustache had been neatly trimmed away, leaving it lopsided.

Crucible knelt before her, tapping a clipboard. ‘We just need your signature, ma’am. Then we can get you out of here.’

She stared over his shoulder, her mouth slightly open, saliva bubbling at the corners. ‘Ma’am?’ Crucible asked again. Ward translated into Spanish.

She twitched, eyes coming into focus, grabbed the clipboard. ‘I speak English,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want to do anything bad. I had the devil take me.’

Crucible looked up at Harlequin, who in turn looked to Ward. Ward looked surprised. ‘I never heard her speak anything but Spanish before.’

‘The devil,’ she croaked again, dropping the clipboard.

‘I got it,’ Crucible said, retrieving it and pressing it back into her hands, ‘but that doesn’t change the fact that you need to be kept in custody. All we’re promising here is more comfortable accommodations and a chance at some experimental therapies that may help you . . . get the devil out, let’s say.’

She looked up, eyes suddenly focused. ‘You can get the devil out?’

‘Sure,’ Crucible said, gesturing at the clipboard, ‘in a manner of speaking. Sign it, and we can get started.’

Harlequin stared at the back of Crucible’s head, sickness churning in his stomach. This wasn’t right. He looked at Ward, but the NYPD sergeant simply looked on.
He doesn’t have the courage to challenge the SOC.

‘Sir,’ Harlequin said, ‘this isn’t . . . she doesn’t know what she’s doing.’

Her expression went hard at that, jowls quivering. ‘The fuck? I know what I’m doing.’ She shook the clipboard in his direction, brandished the pen at him.

Harlequin ignored her. ‘Sir, we should order a psychological . . .’

But she was already signing, pushing the pen so hard that he could hear the paper ripping beneath it. ‘Know what I’m fucking doing,’ she muttered. Crucible snatched the clipboard out of her hands the moment she was done.

‘Thank you, ma’am,’ he said, then turned to Harlequin. ‘It’s done, Jan.’

‘Sir . . .’

Crucible waved the clipboard in front of him, her signature half off the underline, illegible. ‘Leave it. It’s done. We have authorization, and now we have consent. Let’s do our jobs.’

Harlequin was silent as they escorted her out of the room and into an unmarked van and headed for the Channel building downtown, but the knot in his stomach wouldn’t quit. He repeated Crucible’s words in his head.
She’s going to be helping, and the drug might even help her. This is all authorized by command. It’s not my call. I have to follow orders.

But he felt no better as they stepped out of the car and into the building’s spartan lobby, her slippers padding across the reflective marble surface.

Grace and Weiss were there to greet them, along with two brawny security guards in matching gray shirts and cargo pants. Body armor was visible beneath their baggy jackets. Harlequin couldn’t see pistols, but he guessed they were hidden in the smalls of their backs.

‘Hello, Miss Lopez,’ Weiss said. ‘Welcome to Channel and thank you for volunteering.’

‘Huh?’ Morelli asked, craning her head up to take in the building’s atrium, blinking at the sunlight filtering in from the slanted windows. ‘You got plants up there.’ She pointed.

‘Yes.’ Grace glanced at the hanging fronds arranged in the recesses of the ceiling. ‘Do you like them?’

‘Why am I here?’ Morelli asked, suddenly looking frightened.

‘Because we’re going to help you,’ Grace answered. ‘Because you’re Latent.’

‘Latent? Latent! I’m not fucking Latent!’ She tugged experimentally against Ward and Rampart, but they held her fast.

‘You’re Latent’ – she pointed at Harlequin – ‘and you!’ she added, pointing at Crucible. ‘I can feel it.’ She tugged an arm free from Rampart and pointed at him. ‘You, too.’

Rampart smiled. ‘That, I am. You get used to it.’

‘And you.’ She pointed at Grace. ‘You, too.’

Grace smiled nervously, her eyes flicking from Harlequin to Crucible. ‘No,’ she said haltingly. ‘No, I’m not.’

‘You are,’ Morelli said again. ‘You are. You need help.’

The smile fled Grace’s face, and her voice sounded tight as she moved toward the elevators. ‘Come on, let’s take this downstairs.’

Grace swiped a plastic card at an elevator that stood separate from the bank of six, a sheet of black in the stainless-steel surface of the wall. It opened to reveal a car large enough to house a truck. They walked Morelli inside.

‘We’ll take it from here,’ Crucible said to Ward. ‘Many thanks to you and the department for your help with this.’

Ward hesitated, looked to Harlequin. After a moment, he released Morelli’s elbow and stepped back. ‘Sure. So . . . You’ll keep me posted?’

‘To the extent we’re able,’ Crucible said. ‘I’m sure I don’t need to remind you of the nondisclosure agreement you signed when you agreed to work with us, Sergeant. It’s superimportant that you stick to that.’

Ward tensed, still standing as the elevator doors shut, replacing his face with Harlequin’s own, staring back at him from the stainless-steel surface.

The silence dragged on as the elevator descended, leaving Harlequin to contemplate his own reflection and Morelli’s certainty that Grace was Latent. Crazy. Harlequin had slept with Grace, had been as close to her as another person could possibly be. If there’d even been a hint of a current in her, he’d have felt it.

Yet he still found himself reaching his current out to her, probing, feeling. Nothing. The ravings of a madwoman, nothing more.

‘Where are we going?’ Morelli asked, as the elevator began to descend. Nobody answered, and they rode in silence for what felt to Harlequin like an awfully long time. At last, the car shuddered to a stop, and the doors opened.

The room beyond was plain, a bench running along one white wall, a door beside it. A huge pane of one-way glass occupied the wall opposite. In the center of the room was a reclining chair, padded restraints attached to the armrests.

A bald young man with a beard and glasses stood beside the chair. He wore a white lab coat over his plaid work shirt and jeans. ‘Hello, Morelli,’ he smiled. ‘Thanks for coming! We’re really excited to get started here. I’m Dan.’

He turned on a monitor beside the chair, began unbundling electrical leads and wires that snaked over the chair’s shoulder near the headrest. ‘You want some water?’ he asked. ‘A soda or anything?’

Morelli only stared straight ahead, her jaw slack again, eyes unfocused. She placidly allowed herself to be steered to the chair and seated. Dan and Weiss began to fold the restraints over her arms. Harlequin could feel Morelli’s erratic and powerful current pulsing against Rampart’s, the only indicator that she was reacting to what was unfolding around her.

‘She’s not resisting,’ Harlequin pointed out. ‘We don’t need that, surely.’

‘We don’t know what we’ll need,’ Crucible said.

‘We’re not going to need them in a minute,’ Weiss added, ‘but it can’t hurt to be cautious.’ He caught Harlequin’s glance, saw the disapproval there. ‘For her own safety,’ he added.

Once Morelli was strapped in, Grace gestured to the door beside the one-way glass. ‘Come along, gentlemen, let’s allow Dan to do his work.’

Harlequin didn’t move. ‘I want to stay and observe.’

Crucible looked at him. ‘Jan, come on. You’ll just be in the way.’

‘Sir, respectfully, I took this woman in. I’m responsible for her.’

‘No harm is going to come to her, Lieutenant,’ Dan said.

The friendly smile, beard, and casual clothing were disarming, but he swarmed over Morelli’s head, connecting the electrical leads, tapping the monitor as colored images of her brain patterns began to flash across it. He placed a plastic case on the chair’s armrest behind her elbow. ‘But I have no objection if you feel better staying.’ The only machine Harlequin recognized was an EKG, the steady, rapid pinging and white hills and valleys of the graph showing a level of anxiety not reflected on Morelli’s near-catatonic face.

‘Come on, Jan,’ Grace said. ‘Your man here’ – she gestured to Rampart – ‘will keep her Suppressed. There’s no need for you to be out on the floor.’

‘I’m staying,’ Harlequin said. ‘Unless it’s an order?’ he asked Crucible pointedly.

Crucible looked at Dan, who shrugged. ‘Fine,’ he said, then left through the door, followed by Grace and Rampart. The security guards seated themselves on the bench, arms folded.

Dan nodded at the one-way glass, then turned to the camera mounted to the ceiling. ‘Clinical trial. Initial dose of LL-14 administered to subject alpha.’

He produced a syringe from the plastic case, filled with a light yellow fluid that looked disturbingly like urine. ‘Are you ready, Morelli? You might feel a little pinch.’

She continued to stare into the distance, not responding. Dan waited a moment before wiping her wrist with an alcohol swab. ‘Little pinch,’ he muttered, and slid the needle in.

She showed no reaction beyond a slight wince. Her mouth closed. Dan finished depressing the plunger and stood back, putting a Band-Aid across her wrist. ‘Dose administered – 10 cc.’

He dropped the empty syringe into a can marked with a biohazard sticker and crossed his hands in front of his thighs, watching the monitor intently.

‘Now what?’ Harlequin asked.

‘Now we watch and wait,’ Dan answered. ‘Shouldn’t take long.’

It didn’t.

Her heart rate began to slow, the EKG leveling out to a regular, steady chime. The rise and fall of her chest eased. The monitor behind her headrest showed the oval shape of her brain, the splotches of red slowly fading to purple, then to a deep blue.

But Harlequin felt an instant change in her magical current. The erratic pulsing, straining against the Suppression, slowly eased into an even droning.

She turned her head, focusing on the wall. She looked down at the restraints, pulled against them. ‘Why you got me in these?’ she asked, her voice even.

‘If I take them off,’ Dan asked, ‘what will you do?’

Morelli looked around the room, noting the guards, the single door, and the sealed elevator shaft. ‘This chair’s fine,’ she answered. ‘Comfortable.’

Dan nodded at the guards, who came closer as he undid the restraints. ‘How do you feel, Morelli?’ he asked.

She rubbed at her wrists, sat up a bit. ‘I’m fine,’ she said. She blinked. ‘Am I going to get paid for this?’

Dan laughed. ‘You volunteered, but I promise you’ll get fed and housed. How’s that?’

She sank back into the chair. ‘That’s good.’

‘Okay, Morelli. Now, we’re going to do some things to put stress on you. Show you a scary movie, maybe poke you a little bit. Are you okay with that?’

She shrugged. ‘Then I can eat?’

‘Then you can eat.’

‘Okay. Can I have something now?’

‘Sure.’ Dan motioned to one of the guards, who grabbed a pack of cookies from a small table and handed it to her. ‘Ready for the movie now?’

‘Sure,’ she said. A screen descended from the ceiling before her. As the credits began to roll, she glanced at Harlequin, noticing him for the first time. ‘I remember you,’ she said. ‘You cracked my head.’

‘You cracked your own head,’ Harlequin responded. ‘You were burning down a building. Someone had to stop you.’

Dan sucked in his breath slightly at this, watching the monitor intently. A brief flash of red in her limbic system sparked for an instant, only to be checked by another flash from her neocortex. He turned to Harlequin and twirled his wrist as if to say,
keep going
.

But, in the end, all Harlequin could manage was, ‘Are you okay?’

She shrugged, smiled. She nestled back into the chair, resting her elbows on the restraints and munching happily on a cookie as she looked up at the screen. The trembling violin music accompanying the credits told him it was most certainly a horror flick. ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘You don’t look so good.’

And then she focused, letting the images draw her in.

Grace shifted beneath him, the cool smoothness of her skin sending sparks through his body. She turned, moaned sleepily, opened her eyes first into slits, then wider as she realized Harlequin was awake and looking at her.

At last she frowned. ‘You realize that’s creepy.’

‘I like looking at you; sue me.’

‘Silly boy. I’m the boss. I don’t get my hands dirty. I have a legal team for that.’

He snorted. ‘Do your worst. I’m on a lieutenant’s salary, it’s not like you’ll get any money.’

She shrugged and propped herself up on an elbow. The satin sheet fell away to reveal one breast, the soft moonlight filtering through the blinds making her skin a gray-white alabaster surface. Perfectly inhuman.

‘Meh,’ she said. ‘You’d just get revenge by having rain clouds follow me around all day.’

He smiled, kissed her. ‘I don’t use magic except as specifically authorized in the line of duty.’

Now it was her turn to snort. ‘So . . . that whole fucking on the ceiling thing, and the thing you did with the lightning . . . what did you call it?’