Three A.M. (17 page)

The elevator arrived and Kirk ushered me in and then entered himself. He pressed the button for floor ten.

*   *   *

The tenth floor of the Science and Development Research Department was an odd place. The elevators opened into a lavish room. Blue carpets adorned the floors, there were several leather couches and chairs set around finely carved tables, and most striking of all, large, live plants sat in clay urns along the walls. I stood looking around the room in something of a trance until Kirk cleared his throat behind me and I snapped back to the moment. I stepped out onto the soft carpet and he passed me with a knowing nod.

“We like to make a good impression on some of our first-time visitors.”

“I doubt I fall into that category.” He shrugged, distracted by a small device he held in his hand. It was a screen flashing with various images and text, none of which I could see clearly. Kirk cocked his head to one side in thought, and then abruptly lowered the device and began walking toward one pair of the large double doors that dominated each wall of the room. The doors were wood paneled and massive. Kirk pulled a keychain from his pocket and worked the two heavy brass locks. Then he tapped a code into a small keypad next to the doorframe and I heard a series of clicks. He pulled the door open. Its back was not wood. It was iron. The hallway it opened onto looked just like the lobby we had come from didn’t: a prison.

It was a short hall. The floor and one wall were cement. The other wall held four sets of thick steel bars. Inclining his head as if in apology, Kirk bade me to enter with a sweep of his arm.

I said nothing as we walked down the hallway. The first cell was empty. The second was occupied. A young man—one or two years on either side of thirty, stood expectantly at the bars. He said nothing, but his eyes lit up with a knowing recognition that sent chills down my spine. I had no idea who he was, but he looked very familiar.

His sandy blond hair, his pale eyes … No way to dismiss the feeling as coincidence. He nodded imperceptibly as I passed. It all lasted maybe three seconds. Kirk looked over his shoulder as he walked ahead of me, and I snapped my head forward. I don’t know if he could tell. The third cell was empty, as was the fourth, which he slid open. Obediently, I entered. I turned to face Kirk.

He stood by the open doorway, leaning against the bars and looking in at me. “The shower will warm up after a minute or so. There are towels, linens. I’ll have clothing delivered to you. I strongly suggest you clean up and then rest. It’s going to be a busy day tomorrow. And maybe a long night, even, if we get things moving fast enough.”

“Anthony … you’ve got to tell me what the fuck is going on.”

“No.” His voice was harder than before. “I don’t have to. I will, though, when I’m ready to.” He slid home the metal grate and it clicked shut. I heard his rapid footfalls receding and something whispered to the other man. I couldn’t make it out.

I turned and looked around the austere twelve-by-ten cell. There was indeed a nicer-looking cot. It had a thin mattress on it and neatly folded sheets and a pillow set on one end. There was a bar of soap too. The floor was cement except in the corner, where a showerhead stuck out above an iron grate. A steel toilet and sink were the only other accommodations. With nothing else to do, I turned on the shower and stripped. The air was cold on my tired, naked body, but the water grew hot as Kirk had promised.

*   *   *

I don’t know what woke me. I had no idea what time it was, but I was instantly aware of my surroundings. A dim light from the hall cast striped shadows across the cell’s floor. There was a pile of neatly folded clothing just inside the bars. I rose, naked, and went to the garments. As I sorted through them, a pit formed in my stomach—these were my clothes.

I raised a shirt to the light, seeing my own possessions as if they were some strange artifact. Slowly, almost sadly, I dressed. An undershirt, socks, shoes, one pair of pants, one button-up shirt … one outfit. Only one.

“Hey.” I froze, unsure if I had imagined the soft whisper. It was perfectly silent; not even a vent hummed.

“Hey … you awake?”

I was scared stiff. My mouth moved, but no sound came out of it. Then, finally, I said quietly, “Yeah.”

“How are you doing?” he said, his voice louder but still a whisper.

“Um … I’m not too good, man. Not doing very well.” I thought to ask who he was and why he was here and all that. If he knew why I was here. But as I rose and gripped the bars, pressing my face between them, a thought hit me and was past my lips before I fully comprehended it.

“Fallon?” I said, my voice full.

“Yeah,” he said, no longer whispering either. “You’re Tom Vale, right?”

“Yeah.”

There was a long pause. “I’m sorry, Tom. I’m sorry you’re all mixed up in this shit.”

“What am I mixed up in, Fallon?”

“I wish I could tell you. I don’t know much, all things considered. I thought I got it, but turns out I don’t really know a damn thing.” He sighed. “I know none of it’s your fault, though. You shouldn’t have to be here. I know they’re going to—” Just then, I heard the locks rattle in the door down the hallway. “Shit,” Fallon muttered.

I pressed my face as far as I could between the narrow bars, struggling to look down the hallway. In the dim light, I could see shadows dance as the door swung open but nothing more. A man’s voice called out, “No more talking! Don’t. Talk.”

Then the door slammed shut and it was silent again. The metal was cool against my face, and suddenly I thought of the old woman from the shitshop, spending her life just like this. Her face between the bars staring out into the haze.

I waited for a long time before venturing a whisper. “Fallon?”

“No talking!” a man’s voice immediately boomed.

I stepped back from the bars. “Good night, Fallon,” I said aloud.

“Good night, Tom,” he called back. I lay down and was wide awake for hours. My thoughts at one point strayed to the new pills Salk had given me, and I rose quickly and flushed them. I wasn’t sure what he had meant about not using them, but no reason to risk it in desperation—Salk had made a point of warning me against them. Back on the cot, I went from angry to scared to confused. Mostly I just wanted to know why. No one had ever taken the slightest interest in my life. Why did the first time I was in such high demand have to come with only one change of underwear?

*   *   *

It felt like morning. The lights were back on in the hallway and in my cell. I didn’t remember falling asleep as I woke groggily from a dream. I had been floating on a river through a barren desert. The sun had shone but the sky was gray. The strange wasteland receded and was replaced by bars and concrete and men’s voices as I came to.

I recognized Anthony Kirk’s voice and Fallon’s, and there were two more I hadn’t heard before.

“Vale’s in four,” Kirk said.

“Okay, I’ll go take a look,” said a new voice. I heard heavy steps coming my way, and I stood up as a short, thick man wearing a white shirt tucked into khaki pants stepped into view. He was maybe sixty years old, with coarse white hair encircling an otherwise bald head. His brows were thick and dark and perched above eyes set deep into a large skull. His wrinkles pointed toward a life of frowning.

“Thomas Vale in the flesh, huh,” he said gruffly. I gave no response. “All right, then,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. He shook his head as he walked back out of view. He seemed almost disappointed.

The conversation continued down the hall, but I could not catch any of the words. Then the squat man’s voice barked, “Hold up there, Fallon.”

His gray eyes wide, Fallon rushed to my cell and gripped the bars. He stuck his hand through, reaching toward me. Numbly, I stepped forward and shook it.

“I’m sorry, Tom. Rebecca’s sorry too.” Hearing her name, something inside me stirred. I studied his face. “She’s so sorry. She wanted to make sure you knew that. We didn’t want any of it.” Kirk walked up behind him and laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Let’s go, kid,” he said coldly.

Fallon held my gaze for long moment, then released my hand.

“Fallon!” I called as he began walking away. He shrugged off Kirk’s grasp and turned. “What’s your last name?”

Fallon looked at me incredulously. When he answered, it was in the matter-of-fact way one might tell you the time. “It’s Ayers, Tom.”

*   *   *

Maybe an hour had passed since Fallon Ayers was escorted out of the cell block when I heard the heavy door swing open again. Several pairs of footsteps echoed off the concrete walls, and I rose from where I had been sitting on the bed. I hadn’t known what else to do with myself, so I had folded my dirty garments and made the bed, and then just sat there waiting, smoking a single cigarette—I had only a few left.

Kirk and the squat man stopped before my cell with the less aggressive guard from the day before. The guard unlocked and slid aside the heavy bars. I picked up my jacket from where it lay next to my soiled but neatly folded clothing and stood in the center of the cell.

“Come on out, Tom,” Kirk said softly. He was wearing a gray overcoat on top of a pressed black suit. I stepped out into the hall and we walked toward the doors, the guard leading the way and the other two men behind me.

“Where are we going, Kirk?”

“You’ll find out soon enough, Vale,” muttered the other man. I noted that he too had put on a jacket—a simple Windbreaker—over his white button-down shirt.

“And you are?” I asked over my shoulder.

“Callahan.”

“Am I a dead man walking, Callahan?”

He snorted. “Nothing like that, Vale. Just stop asking questions, huh? It’s too hard to explain to you, anyway.”

I drew precious little comfort from his words. The guard pulled open the large iron door, and we passed through into the opulent lobby. Several men sat around the room on the various couches and chairs. All of them wore rich suits and had perfectly manicured haircuts, close shaves, shined shoes. I recognized one of them immediately.

“Hey, John!” I called out with a bright smile and a wave. Several heads turned from their conversations. Watley’s eyes widened when he saw me.

“Thomas Vale. So there you are,” he said coolly, eyeing me and then glancing over at Kirk.

“Here I am. What brings you here, Watley?”

“Questions, questions, questions! Come on, Vale.” Callahan clapped a hand on my shoulder and urged me toward the elevators.

“He’s quite inquisitive, isn’t he?” John Watley said quietly before turning back to his colleagues. They spoke in hushed tones, glancing at me now and then. They in their suits and ties, me with my jail cell five-o’clock shadow. All of them looked quite at home in the lavish room. Quite comfortable.

“Prick,” I heard Callahan mutter as he jammed his stubby index finger into the elevator button repeatedly.

The elevator arrived and all four of us stepped on. The guard reached past me and pressed the button for number fourteen: the top floor. As the doors closed, Watley looked over at me once more, his face an emotionless mask.

“How do you know Watley?” Callahan asked, eyes forward.

“I … I was hired by a guy he worked for. I guess.”

“He worked for?” Callahan asked with emphasis on the
for,
looking over at me.

“That’s what I thought, at least. I don’t know anymore, but if you asked me a couple days ago, I would have said he worked for a guy who hired me.”

“That’s … sort of accurate,” Kirk said quietly. “I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”

“Well, that doesn’t make sense. Asshole’s an administrator!” Callahan obtusely pressed on, despite Kirk’s clear attempt to end the conversation.

“One of the organizations that was deemed undesirable … Mr. Watley handled the assessment personally, Callahan.”

“Why would he—?”

“Mr. Watley likes to do that kind of thing,” Kirk interrupted.

I turned 180 degrees so my face was very close to Kirk’s when I spoke. “What was it about Eddie’s warehouse that you deemed undesirable, Anthony?”

He said nothing, looking past me. The elevator stopped moving and the doors opened. Kirk sidestepped me and exited the elevator with a curt “We’re here.”

Callahan followed him off, his face lighting up. “So, Tony, is that why…” He turned and pointed at me.

Kirk stood just beyond the doors in a simple white-walled room and glared at the short, thick man, his eyes ablaze. Callahan persisted, still pointing at me and shaking his head in disbelief and amusement. “That’s why Vale’s here, huh? Just happened to happen that way?”

“More or less. Enough,” Kirk said icily.

Callahan laughed silently to himself as the guard led us to the only door in the room and opened it. My heart was beating quickly and my head was spinning.

“Hey, Callahan,” I whispered, tugging at his shirtsleeve as Kirk passed through the door. “What does an administrator do?”

He looked askance at me, then turned and walked through the door while answering. “What do you think, Vale? City administrator? They run the city. Run everything. Make decisions, allocate shit around. That stuff. Like mayors, I guess you could say.”

“How many of them are there?” I followed them through the doorway and could now see we were in a stairwell. A metal staircase led upward. We followed Kirk up as Callahan began to answer.

“Four, sometimes five if any special needs arise that—”

“Callahan! Just stop talking!” Kirk barked from above, leaning over the railing to look down at him.

Callahan raised his hands in sarcastic deference and trudged up the stairs, breathing heavily as we neared the last few steps. Kirk waited with his hand on the door.

“This can get disorienting. Just stay calm, and don’t move too much.” He pulled wide the door, and tendrils of fog rolled into the stairwell. Kirk stepped out into the gray, and Callahan bade me follow.

The wind whipped at my hair and face, and the mist swirled and danced more violently than I’d ever seen. “Are we on the roof?” I called above the howling wind.

Kirk nodded, and pointed toward the floor. There were two rows of orbs, not on posts, but rather set down on the concrete, leading off into the haze. It was daytime, but in the churning air, I could scarcely see more than three of the glowing orbs even though they were placed hardly four feet apart. “Stay between them!” Kirk shouted. He turned and set off walking along the glowing path, his shoulders hunched and head bent against the blowing fog. I followed him, looking back to see Callahan and the soldier behind me.