The Flight of the Silvers (29 page)

“We have a clean bathroom downstairs,” the cashier replied. “They’re pay toilets.”

“How much?”

“Twenty dollars.”

“Goodness. Do these exceptionally clean toilets come with Eaglenet access?”

For an extra ten dollars, they did. Melissa carried a handtop under her arm. She was determined to keep working, all through the night if she had to.

Two stairwells and one purchase later, she sat in an overstuffed recliner in the corner of a dim and smoky lounge. She closed her eyes as she savored the taste of the cigarette, her first in twenty-two months. She’d been hoping to enjoy her life in America without the crutch of nicotine, but today was a day of extraordinary frustrations.

“It’s out of my hands,” Cahill told her, five hours ago. “We hunt where they tell us to hunt.”

Melissa had crafted a no-nonsense approach to tracking the fugitives—a strategic sweep of every pawnshop and panhandle park in the ten-mile radius of the abandoned van. From all appearances, these runners were low on resources. Finding them was simply a matter of anticipating their chosen method of fund-raising.

Unfortunately, the mystery of the dead physicists crashed her plans like a wayward truck, dominating the team for the rest of the day. Nine hours ago, Melissa walked through the empty corridors of the Pelletier building, marveling at the results of her wave scans. From all gauges, the entire building had been temporically reversed, a feat that was as bizarre and unlikely as broiling a high school. Soon policemen stumbled across a bloody Japanese sword, just one foot outside the property perimeter, a discovery that made even less sense. The only encouraging find was a missing door from the stolen van, direct evidence that the fugitives had been there.

Seven hours ago, Melissa sat at the bedside of Janice Salgado, the widow of Martin and mother of the three security guards who were either missing or dead. She was a heavyset woman with a cherry-red bouffant that matched her freshly cracked eyes. A constellation of baby spot sedatives was peppered across her neck, twisting her mouth into an unholy union of a smile and a scream.

“There were six people living in that building,” Janice told Melissa. “Marty didn’t know where they came from. He said they just showed up one day with bracelets on their wrists and . . . weird stuff. They could do weird stuff. Erin took a real shine to one of them. Young girl named Mia. Poor child. Erin said . . . she said the poor thing lost her whole . . . she lost her whole . . .”

Janice sobbed and clutched at Melissa’s blouse. “Please. Please find my youngest. I know in my heart they’re gone, but they need to be buried with the family. Please.”

Five hours ago, Melissa stood at the city coroner’s office, watching through a window as men in masks examined Constanin Czerny. As they finished their work, her handphone rang. Cahill didn’t sound pleased.

“Just heard from the directors. Our scope has changed. For the short term, they want us to devote all our resources to finding Sterling Quint.”

“What? But sir, the runners—”

“I know. I know. It’s all image control. The story’s gone national. They reckon we’ll look like humps if we can’t track one of the country’s most famous dwarves.”

Melissa clenched her jaw. She had a grim hunch that Quint, Caudell, and the two Salgados had all been inside the Pelletier building when it was mysteriously reversed. Dead or alive, their bodies would have been erased out of existence. The British referred to the process as “nulling.” The Americans called it “zilching.” In both countries, it had become the cornerstone of waste management, as well as a favored tool for criminal evidence disposal. They’d never find Quint.

“Sir, this is the most perplexing case I’ve ever seen. There’s so much I don’t understand. But one thing I know is that every trail leads back to those six people. We need to find them.”

“I agree with you, hon. But look at the bigger picture. I’m still five signatures away from making you the new me. This isn’t the time to kick sand.”

Twenty minutes later, she received a preliminary autopsy report on Constantin Czerny. He had died of the same subarachnoid hemorrhage as the other victims. But from the unique attributes of his abdominal wound, he’d been stabbed by a projectile made of pure tempis.

Melissa was downright smarmy when she updated Cahill.

“Shame we don’t know anyone who can cause such an injury, sir. Perhaps Dr. Quint will know.”

That was when Cahill told her, with a hopeless sigh, that it was out of his hands. If Melissa wanted to do more digging on the tempic redhead, he wouldn’t stop her. But she had to put in face time on the Quint search. Such was the price of career advancement.

After three hours of pointless legwork, Melissa escaped to the tobacco den, puffing cigarette after cigarette as she scanned through digital mug shots. The red-haired woman was, as Melissa feared, a virgin to the justice system. Odder still, there was nothing in the news archives about a girl named Mia who lost her entire family. Were these people in
any
systems?

In a desperate last effort, she accessed the Eaglenet bitboards and launched a keyword search through today’s online discussions. There was much talk of tempis and even more talk of redheads, but not a lot of chatter about both. After wading through a number of false double-positives, Melissa found an interesting post in a customer support forum for a popular brand of armored safe:

This incredibly intense redhead came into my store today and slapped her hand on my counter. Suddenly the tempis on my Shellbox started rippling. Has anyone else seen anything like that?

A profile search on the author revealed him as John Curry, a pawnbroker here in South California. His shop was just eight miles from the site of the fugitives’ abandoned vehicle.

Melissa took a final drag of her cigarette, closed her handbook, and hurried outside to the company van. She steered it thirty feet into the air and then shifted to 10×. She could still taste the tobacco on her lips as she shot through the night like a missile, straight toward Ramona.

NINETEEN

Amanda didn’t know how to feel about her latest transformation. She watched her reflection from the desk chair while Hannah brushed inky dye into her tresses. Stroke by stroke, lock by lock, red to black, red to black.

At midnight, the job was finished. Now Amanda stared in wonder at the dark-haired stranger in the mirror. To her surprise, she didn’t hate the new color. And yet she couldn’t help but lament the latest upheaval to her personal status quo. She was a widow now, an alien, a fugitive, a brunette. Mad events were slowly turning her into a parallel-universe version of herself. Bit by bit, piece by piece, she was becoming Altamanda.

Hannah removed the drip-stained towel from Amanda’s shoulders, then studied her reaction. “I did the best I could.”

“What? No, you did great, Hannah. It’s perfect. I’m just upset about the reasons behind it.”

“Well, it’ll work. I doubt anyone who’s looking for you will recognize you now.”

“That’s really all that matters. Everything else is . . . I just need to get used to it.”

Amanda bounced a mirrored gaze at Mia. “So what do you think?”

Mia had peeked up from her journal many times to watch the recoloring in progress, this strikingly cozy endeavor between women. Having grown up in a house full of brothers, it was strange for her to witness the feminine rituals of siblings.

“Looks good,” she listlessly replied. “You two finally look related.”

Hannah tossed her rubber gloves in the sink. She was too tired to color her own hair. Too upset. She plopped herself onto her bed, sending Zack’s drawing fluttering down to the floor. She was sick of thinking about the bothersome man in the picture.

On the flip side of Peter’s letter, Future Mia had reserved some words for a new orbiting threat.

I’m not even sure how to explain Evan Rander. He’s from our world, but he acts like he’s been here forever. He knows us all disturbingly well, and yet none of us know him. We still have no idea why he hates us so much. He always seems to find us when we’re alone and at our most vulnerable. He likes to twist the knife, especially on Hannah.

Once Evan’s identity was uncovered in retrospect, Zack worked with Hannah to provide a composite sketch of the smiling cowboy who’d greeted them at the side of the van.

“It makes no sense,” said Hannah. “What could we have done to make him so angry? What could
I
have done?”

Mia shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe he’s just crazy. If I had spent the last six weeks wandering alone out here, I might have lost my mind too. I probably would have slit my wrists.”

The sisters traded a dark look in the mirror. Amanda tensely wrung her fingers.

“I don’t know who this guy is. Right now, I don’t care. We have bigger problems.”

“Easy for you to say,” Hannah growled. “He hasn’t singled you out.”

Amanda turned her sharp gaze on her. “Do you want to trade places? Because I’d rather have a stalker chasing me than a team of federal agents.”

“Hey, fun fact: the feds are after me too.”

“And this Evan guy is following all of us! Why do you . . .” Amanda closed her eyes and waved a tense palm. “I can’t handle a fight with you right now.”

“Then don’t start one.”

Amanda tightened her towel wrap and shot to her feet. Mia watched with puzzlement as she closed the bathroom door behind her.

“Okay, what just happened?”

Hannah threw herself back onto the mattress, throwing a dismal gaze at her scarred wrists. “It’s nothing. Old wounds.”

“Will she be okay?”

“She’ll be fine,” the actress replied, with dripping venom. “She’s a rock, that one.”

Mia returned to her journal, her thoughts twisting with unease. She wondered if she dodged a bullet by not having sisters. All things considered, she preferred the way men fought.

—

Zack and David crossed midnight like frigid old spouses, puttering away in parallel beds. While David browsed a local paper, Zack drew an elaborate pen sketch of Bugs Bunny. There were only a handful of people who’d recognize the poor rabbit now. Zack wasn’t even sure David was one of them.

The boy glanced with concern at the stack of glossy blue cash on Zack’s nightstand. He checked the door to the bathroom, where Theo had been showering for forty long minutes.

“Maybe we should put that money in a safer place,” David suggested.

“What, you mean a hedge fund?”

“No. I mean perhaps I should give it to Mia or one of the sisters.”

“Oh, you’re just hoping to catch them in their undies, you scamp.”

“Zack, I think you know what my issue is.”

Zack did know, and he was trying not to get angry about it. “What do you have against Theo anyway?”

David lowered his voice. “Nothing. I’m sure he’s a fine person. But at this stage of his alcoholic recovery, he’s a liability to all of us.”

“That liability got shot trying to save me.”

“I’m not asking you to expel him from the group. Just hide the cash.”

“Fine. You asked. And I’m saying no. Now drop it.”

They languished in icy silence for several minutes. Zack finished his sketch and let out a loud exhale.

“Look, I’m as cynical as the next guy. Normally you wouldn’t have to tell me to be nervous about someone. The problem is that we have too many problems already. Rebel and his people are looking to kill us. The Deps want to lock us away. God only knows what the Pelletiers are after. And now we have some twisted little creep following us around like our own personal Gollum. Given all that, I’m in a rather desperate need to trust the people in my tent. Do you get that?”

“I do,” said David. “Just as long as you understand my concern.”

“Yeah. You don’t want to lose the money.”

“I don’t care about the money, Zack. I’m sure Mia could send herself more if she had to. But after reading Peter’s letter, it seems absolutely crucial that we get to New York. Not just some of us. All of us. For all we know, Theo’s the ‘one in particular’ who stops the second Cataclysm.”

Zack lowered his pad and studied David carefully. The boy was usually logical to a fault, but now he treated Peter Pendergen’s words like they’d come down from Mount Sinai. It was an odd shift for one such as David, but who knew? Maybe the kid needed to believe in Peter as much as Zack needed to believe in his friends.

“Look, I’ll make you a deal. We’ll leave the cash out for one night. If it’s still here in the morning, we’ll know we can trust him and that’s one less thing to worry about.”

“And if it’s not?” David asked.

“Then I’ll dance on the street for money till I can buy you an apology bouquet.”

David eyed him with furrowed bother until he emitted a dry chuckle.

“I like you, Zack, but you can be awfully strange sometimes.”

“Says the kid who eats like a six-foot rabbit.”

“I just hope you’re right about him.”

Zack looked to the bathroom door and heaved an airy sigh. “Guess we’ll find out.”

Once his long shower ended, Theo wiped the steam from the mirror and stared at his chest. An angry red scar ran across his left pectoral—six inches long, five years old, and as jagged as the mouth of a demon. Theo was well acquainted with its voice by now. It had pestered him all throughout the evening, dousing him in noble reasons to break away from the group.
They’d get so much farther without your mouth to feed. They’d be so much less conspicuous without an injured Asian among them. They’d have a chance, Theo. Why must you rob them of their chance?

By the time the steam cleared, the matter had been settled. He’d leave them tonight, after Zack and David fell asleep.

Ecstatic in victory, the demon took no time to rest. As Theo dried himself off, it broached the delicate subject of severance pay.

—

The squad room was a slice of Old London, a dank basement of dripping steam pipes and moldy gray brick. Melissa found it a refreshing contrast to the unrelenting modernism of South California. The whole damn state seemed obsessed with hiding its history.

Fourteen law enforcers eyed her cynically from their chairs as she paced in front of the screenboard. Half the men were uniformed officers here at the precinct. The other half were her fellow Deps, all summoned to Ramona in the middle of the night for reasons they had yet to process. Even Cahill seemed skeptical as she activated the display. The flat ghost images of all six Silvers loomed behind her. She pointed to one with her coffee-cup hand.

“Her name’s Amanda Given. At least that’s what she told the local pawnbroker at 11:36 this morning, when she sold him a wedding ring.” Melissa motioned to Zack’s picture. “She was accompanied by this man, the driver of the stolen van and quite possibly the leader of the group. Now there are several factors—”

“That was fifteen hours ago,” an agent griped. “What makes you think they’re still in town?”

“There are several factors that lead me to believe the fugitives are still here in Ramona. We can assume they didn’t steal a vehicle. Only two cars were reported missing today. One was recovered. The other was a two-seater, far too small for this crew. We know they didn’t leave by bus, train, or aership. Their facial maps were entered into the Blackguard database. Had they approached any ticket counter, the civic cameras would have recognized them. Excuse me.”

Wincing, she reached up the back of her blouse. Several sleepy eyes lurched awake as she pulled a lacy black bra from her sleeve.

“Sorry. I’ve been wearing that thing for twenty hours.”

Cahill shook his head at her in dark wonder. With a small grin, she continued.

“It seems unlikely that a group this size could hitchhike out of town. I also believe they were too fatigued to walk. Given their state and their fresh influx of money, the likeliest scenario is that they’re resting in one of the twenty-one budget motels that are currently open for business in Ramona.”

She distributed a series of clipped packets, each one containing a list of motels, plus a color printout image of every Silver.

“Check the numbers on your handouts. I’ve split you into seven pairs, with the task of covering the three circled motels on your list. If the night clerk doesn’t recognize the photos, find out if any double or triple room purchases have been made with cash today. If you get a lead, call me. If you should see any of these fugitives, do not engage them. They don’t look it but they’re dangerous. They already hurt six policemen today and may be responsible for at least two dozen deaths.”

Melissa took another sip of coffee, then checked the wall clock: 2:45
A.M.

“I can only imagine they’ll be making an early start out of town. That means we have a limited window to take them by surprise. Does anyone have any questions?”

No one did. “Good. Let’s move out. And please be cautious.”

Despite her call to action, nobody moved. The Deps looked to Cahill, who eyed them sternly. “Did anyone have trouble hearing her?”

The men grudgingly proceeded upstairs. Cahill smirked at the bra in her hand. “You sure like to poke the hive, don’t you?”

“It was mostly a comfort decision.”

“I wasn’t talking about the skimpies, hon. You have any idea what you’re risking here?”

“A pay raise, I imagine.”

“That and more. It wouldn’t have killed you to wait until these people surfaced again.”

“No, sir, but it might have killed someone else.”

On seeing his weary face, Melissa took his arm. “Come on. You can lecture me in the car.”

Cahill didn’t lecture her. He finally saw the futility in trying to instill political sense in this woman. Melissa Masaad was ultimately her own creature—gifted and reckless and hopelessly strange. Cahill could see why she had an easy time getting into the heads of these six runners. Perhaps on some level they were odd birds of a feather.

—

Theo rose from his blanket on the floor and gauged the sleeping breaths of his roommates. After five years of drunken hookups and trespasses, he’d become quite skilled at the art of the stealthy escape. He could move through the dark like a cat, even while his head pounded, his body throbbed, and his sense of worth dangled low enough to trip him.

He tied his shoes by the light of the moon, then slung his knapsack over his shoulder. Between all his frantic inner debates over staying and leaving and robbing his friends blind, a lone voice gibbered in unrelated panic.
Run run run. People are coming. Run run run from the people who come.

As he spied the glistening currency on the end table, Theo’s demon assured him that the group would be fine without it. Mia Farisi was a temporal cash machine. Hell, her next delivery would probably include tomorrow’s winning lottery numbers.

He snatched the money, moving two shaky steps toward the door before halting with a guilty wince. He counted eight hundred dollars from the top of the stack and returned it to the table. Maybe now he could slink away as a half bastard, a half wreck of a human being.

While passing the desk, he noticed Zack’s skillful rendition of Bugs Bunny on a stationery pad. Theo seized it and scribbled on the lower corner of the sheet.

I’m sorry, guys. I’m just not

He struggled on the next words until he realized he didn’t need any. It was perfect just like that. As he closed the door behind him, he caught a reflected gleam in David’s eyes, as if the boy were looking right at him. Theo’s heart lurched. He shut the door and fled.

Soon he returned to his bench at the playground park, his heavy gaze fixed on the one store that remained open. The Genie Mart was embellished with faux-Arabian minarets and sported a cartoon mascot that looked like a sneering devil in a turban. A beer poster in the window hinted at great treasures within.

Theo pulled the money from his pocket and studied it. Nestled between two twenties was a scrap of paper he’d been carrying since Sunday, the phone number of Bill Pollock. He was one of Quint’s older physicists—a husky, white-haired genius who could have passed for Santa Claus were it not for his eternally dour expression.

As the only recovered alcoholic on staff, Bill had been put in charge of Theo’s rehabilitation. He’d wasted no time professing his unsuitability for the task.