Ann Marie's Asylum (Master and Apprentice Book 1) (17 page)

The numbers on Ivy’s screen, the dollar signs and zeros all the way down to the pixels, started to wiggle like tiny candle flames. Something seemed to be wrong with her eyes or perhaps she had been staring at the screen too long. She had slept eight hours after a quiet evening the night before, but she still felt something akin to a hangover.

Freddy, another level one analyst who shared a neighboring cubicle, leaned over the wall and said to her, “Hey Ivy, are you feeling OK?”

“Of course. I feel quite tremendous,” she answered in a weird monotone. She didn’t take her eyes off of the dancing numbers on her screen.

“I don’t think you’ve moved a muscle in four hours,” he told her. “I wish I had that kind of discipline.” Freddy continued to hover over her desk as though he had something else to say. Listen,” he went on, looking nervous suddenly. “There’s a volleyball tournament this weekend down at the beach. I was thinking about heading over there. I hear there is gonna be lots of food and fun stuff to do.”

Ivy continued to stare at her computer screen in silent hypnosis.

The lack of response seemed to be making him even more nervous but Freddy went on to ask her, “Would you want to maybe go with me?”

“Why?” she asked without looking at him.

Freddy let out a nervous laugh as though she had to be joking around with him. “I don’t know,” he said with his face turning red. He struggled for some way to say it.

“Is this some sort of plan to have sex with me?”

“Whoah!” blurted Freddy so loudly that people around him heard. “I didn’t mean it like that. I was just trying to be nice.”

She picked up the phone on her desk just as it was starting to ring. “Fine. I’m coming up,” she said to the person on the line. With her face somehow both blank and purposeful, she stood up from her desk in the middle of the cubicle farm. Without looking at Freddy, she told him, “Stop trying, Freddy. It’s too late for me. Get out while you still can.” She picked up her purse and coat, removed the only personal item on her desk, a photo of herself as a little girl of three or four, and headed toward the door as though she had no intention of ever coming back.

Just as she was walking away, Freddie thought he heard her whisper, “Please help me. Please someone help me.”

He asked her if she said something and she replied, “I said this place is finished.”

The elevator took her to where the CEO’s office spanned nearly the entire floor. Philip Handley, the chief executive officer of The Asylum Corporation, stood up to greet her as she walked in. Next to him, Doctor Bernard Mengel gave her a gentle wave. Dade’s DeathStalker was right at the old man’s feet, scanning him and waiting for the perfect moment to strike. As strange as the machine was, Ivy barely noticed it. She looked like she was in a trance.

“My lovely and dearest Ivy,” Bernard said to her, “forgive the interruption of your work but we have some very exciting news for you.”

Ivy looked at them blankly and it took her a few moments to summon an answer. “Oh,” she said meekly. “That’s good.”

The CEO turned to Bernard and looked at him disapprovingly. “I don’t know what the hell you did to this girl,” he said.

“She’s at the beginning,” said Bernard. “She’s just a child learning.”

Ivy looked confused, like someone who had just stumbled into the middle of a controversy in a foreign language.

The CEO told her, “Miss Cavatica, it seems as though you have a very powerful friend in this corporation and it turns out that a new position has opened up.”

“That’s nice,” said Ivy like someone who was mostly asleep.

“You’re my new vice president,” said the CEO. “VP of special products and prototypes.”

“That’s nice.”

“Bernard,” said the CEO as he turned to the old man, “I’m giving you what you want here and I hope I won’t regret it.”

“You won’t,” Bernard answered as though the question had annoyed him. He added, “And don’t ever forget who you’re talking to. I’ll have you sucking your brains out of your head through a straw.”

...

The following morning, a strong surf was ramming ten foot waves into the beach. The hiss and eventual boom could be felt throughout the beach community of Palos Verdes, even up to the beehive lab on top of the hill. Ann Marie sat on the hood of her car in the empty parking lot after attempting, for the fourth time in her young life, to drink coffee.

After a particularly smoky and gross sip, she tossed the mostly full cup into a nearby trash can. Hissing frothy water climbed nearly all the way up the beach as a wave broke.

She heard a sharp click-clack of titanium legs on the concrete behind her. She turned around to find Bernard Mengel. His DeathStalker, Ann Marie’s body guard, stood between them. It flashed its infrared scanning stare right at him. Its inner-workings hummed almost like a growl.

“I’m starting to find the little bugger quite charming,” he said to her. He was smiling the way she always imagined a grandfather would.

“I’m not supposed to be talking to you,” she said.

“Do you really think I’m so dangerous that you can’t even speak to me? Come now, Ann Marie. Are you really going to believe everything Dade Harkenrider tells you? I know you have more sense than that.”

Ann Marie shrugged her shoulders, saying, “He doesn’t lie to me.”

“Is everything OK?” Bernard asked her, turning away to look at the rough surf.

“Yes, of course,” she answered, knowing somehow that her face was giving away her lie.

“It must be very difficult,” Bernard said. His grey hair tossed around in the strong breeze. “To be a child and a mother at the same time.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh, don’t mind me,” he said. “I’m just an old man. I don’t always make sense. It just seems to me like you gain a year of age every time I see you. It’s not normal for a girl in the prime of her bloom. It’s not natural.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re a genius, Ann Marie. Of course you’re not fine.”

“Why are you talking to me? Dade told me to stay away from you.”

“He did indeed,” answered Bernard. He pointed to the Death Stalker drone, which was standing by his side and scanning him for the very first sign of a threat. “He also made sure that you were perfectly safe from me.” He twiddled his fingers and opened his eyes in a way that was meant to look comically menacing. “Because I’m so dangerous and scary. Let me ask you something, Ann Marie. Have I ever done anything to threaten or hurt you?”

“I guess not.”

“Just because Dade is angry with me over something in the past doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be able to speak to the best scientist in the United States.”

“I’m not the best. Dade is.”

“Whatever you say, my dear,” Bernard replied somewhat playfully. “I’ve just really been looking forward to getting to know you.”

Ann Marie looked surprised and asked him why.

“Because,” he went on, “I know your work so well and it’s simply extraordinary. It’s no surprise that Dade wanted you here in the flesh, so to speak.”

“It’s not that extraordinary.”

“Dr. Bandini,” Bernard started to ask, “is your father a scientist by any chance? I have a pet theory that your kind of drive and abilities are genetically inherited.”

“I don’t know,” said Ann Marie plainly. “I’ve never met him.”

“Oh dear,” Bernard said with a great deal of sympathy in his voice. “That’s unfortunate. I’m sorry to have brought up such an uncomfortable topic. I have absolutely no social grace. Please accept my apology.”

“It’s OK. My mom says he left and that’s about the only part of any of my mom’s stories that I believe.”

“Well,” said Bernard. “If that is the case, then he threw away the winning lottery ticket, so to speak.”

“I guess.”

“The bond between parent and child is a complex one,” Bernard told her. “I have no children of my own but I must confess that I’ve always wanted a daughter.” He noticed that he had all of Ann Marie’s attention and he continued. “Speaking of children,” he said as he abruptly changed topic, “how are things going with Dr. Death?”

“Good,” she answered delicately. “I’m learning.”

“Indeed,” said Bernard as his smile collapsed. “Has he included you in his extracurricular experiments?”

“What do you mean?”

“Come now, Ann Marie,” he said as he narrowed his eyes. “Let’s not bullshit each other. We’re colleagues after all.” He turned up his smile to her, looking like he was about to tell her the punchline of a joke. “Don’t tell me young Dade is keeping the tank all to himself?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

Bernard seemed to tell from the look on her face that she knew exactly what he was referring to. “That’s OK,” he said, nodding like he understood perfectly. “You should be loyal to your master. That’s important. Your secrets are your own. But would you mind if an old man gave you the smallest piece of advice?”

She nodded.

“Don’t let him keep all that fun for himself. I can tell that you have potential and it shouldn’t be wasted. There is one problem though,” he said, pointing at her like she had a stain on her shirt. “There’s one thing that’s going to get in your way.” He tilted his head and squinted like he was trying to see her from the perfect angle. “I can see it right now,” he told her.

Ann Marie reluctantly took the old man’s ploy, asking, “What do you mean?”

“Call it the keen eye of a man with many decades of experience with the human race. People have an aura about them if you look hard enough. Yours tells me,” he went on, “that there is something you are concealing from yourself.”

“I don’t know what you mean. I don’t know of anything like that.”

“Well, of course you wouldn’t,” Bernard corrected her. “It’s precisely the fact that you can’t see it that makes it such a problem for you.”

“That sounds a little whacky.”

He adjusted his posture so that he became much more imposing. “Don’t worry, m’dear,” he told her. “It will reveal itself whether you fancy it or not.” He raised his hat to her before addressing his DeathStalker companion. “Old friend,” he called it, “take a walk on the beach with me. We’ll leave Ann Marie to her thoughts.”

...

That night, Ivy Cavatica awoke to pain on the heel of her right foot. Somehow she was outside her condo. As her eyes opened, she heard the slow, soft clapping of her own bare feet on the concrete. She had cut her right foot on something in the street and was now leaving a heel section of bloody footprint behind her. Ivy tried to make her feet stop but she wasn’t awake enough to do it. Her legs appeared to be in charge and they were taking her somewhere.

She lived in one of the nicer gated communities in southern Los Angeles. It was a virtual fortress with ten foot walls and twenty-four-hour armed guards to keep out the rest of the city. After reaching the edge of her tree-lined, suburban-looking street and making a right at the community gazebo, she reached the guard booth of the insulated community.

Right away, the guard noticed that she looked strange. Besides being barefoot, she was barely dressed, wearing the worn grey cotton shorts and white tank top that she had fallen asleep in. The guard said hello but Ivy didn’t seem to notice. She continued toward the main gate and stopped inches from the bars of the fence when it didn’t open.

“Please. Open,” she mumbled nearly incomprehensibly to the guard. Her eyelids kept a slight and tenuous opening like she was in and out of a deep sleep.

“You OK, Miss Cavatica?” The guard asked, stepping out of the small office where he spent his shift. He looked her over, saying, “You sleepwalking or something?”

“Of course not,” she said. “I’m just out for a stroll.”

“You don’t want to go out there, especially at this time of night,” said the guard, who seemed very confused. “It’s much safer to stay inside the community. Maybe I can call someone to take over here and I’ll walk you back to your condo. I can’t let you go out there
like this
.”

Ivy stared at him with a black void of a zombie. Yet, somehow her expression also contained a kind of supreme authority. Without a word, her hand slipped past the guard and onto the switch that opened the gate. Ignoring the plea of the guard, Ivy slipped through to the outside world.

The aura of life, the smell of the trees and the sounds of the insects, immediately faded into a mechanical hum of street noises and industrial odors. She still had no control over her feet and they slid themselves forward over the pavement. As Ivy left her fashionable gated oasis behind her, the blight in the city of Los Angeles shined like the eery glow at the bottom of a nuclear reactor.

She was experiencing a kind of sleep disturbance. Her body was paralyzed from taking any of her commands. It was being led somewhere by some sort of invisible beacon. The farther she got from her condo and the darker the cityscape got, the faster and more determined her feet seemed to move.

She couldn’t remember what she was doing out that night and couldn’t tell herself to stop.

Cars passed her by, with some honking and a few men yelling at her out the window. The whistles and catcalls didn’t register to her and when one passing motorist threw a beer bottle that exploded just a few feet away, she didn’t even flinch. Her feet continued to slide past one another until she reached a section of Los Angeles that could have only been defined by its emptiness. Abandoned storefronts and empty factories lined both sides of the street. Even the homeless had evacuated that section of city.

Ivy still couldn’t wake herself up. Her feet continued to drag her forward into the unknown.

She saw pink neon light ahead. The light was just peeking over some of the broken down buildings. As she got closer, she started to hear voices and laughter. It sounded like a party that had gotten completely out of hand. Motorcycle engines revved and, in the distance, men yelled in a belligerent argument. The pink light was getting brighter as she got closer to whatever it was.

“GirlFixer” beamed in pink neon. “The Gentleman’s Ultimate Experience,” flashed in smaller pink fluorescent lettering just below. The parking lot, which consumed all the parking lots of the former neighboring businesses, was nearly full with cars and tailgaters. With its roof starting to fall in and most of the windows smashed with rocks over the years, the building itself looked like it should have been condemned. It had been a diaper factory twenty years prior. Before it had become GirlFixer, it had been a place for squatters.