Damn Him to Hell (13 page)

Looked like an invite to me. “Pearl can’t climb the stairs anymore. I hope she’s not still in the cellar. Should I check on her?”

“Don’t believe everything Pearl says,” was his ambiguous reply.

He had books and papers spread across every inch of the floor, and there were a lot of inches. I’d guessed right. This once must have been an attic. The floors were unvarnished wood. The walls were brick. Bare bulbs hung from the rafters overhead.

He had a good view for miles inland and toward the Zone if he opened the French doors to the tiny
front balcony. Even from up here, the air was a normal gray fog color, raising doubts about the lingering effects of green gas.

But there were still a dozen or more comatose patients who hadn’t come around. The cloud hadn’t been our collective imagination. Even as I stared down, I saw little Roomba-like devices circling the street, sucking up dirt and presumably particles. Apparently, the machines worked this far outside the Zone. If Acme really was vacuuming the streets, I wondered what they were doing about the harbor. Employing tiny Nemos?

A plain door on the opposite wall blocked any view of the water. Someone had nailed shelves between the wall studs, from floor to ceiling, and Paddy had filled them with books.

The only furniture I could see was a top-of-the-line computer desk, chair, and equipment, with thick cables and several large monitors.

Milo sniffed around and settled down in front of the French doors to keep an eye on activities below.

I rummaged in my capri pocket for the USB drive I’d copied yesterday. “I liberated this from the head honcho’s office. Don’t know if it’s useful.”

He was flipping through a book on the desk but glanced up quizzically at my offering. His eyes were clear, and he seemed to be operating on all cylinders, despite his cryptic replies.

“Head honcho?” He took the drive and plugged it in without asking for more explanation. “You mean Ferguson, the one whose ID tag you stole?”

Okay, definitely operating on all cylinders. I was starting to enjoy myself. I could have a posse if Paddy was up to speed. “That would be the one.”

“He’s a pervert.” He opened up the file list I’d copied, scrolling through. “I have most of this. The moron doesn’t know the meaning of
password
.” He clicked on one that couldn’t have been labeled more obviously: private.

I had a quick glimpse of way too much gross nek-kid anatomy, before Paddy deleted the entire folder with the push of a button.

“Maybe I should delete Ferguson like that,” I muttered, not enjoying myself anymore.

“When we’re ready to dispose of Ferguson, we can call the feds and have him taken out based on the contents of his computer,” Paddy said, unfazed.

“You’re almost as mean as I am,” I said in wonder. “Why haven’t you shut down Acme already?”

“Can’t, for many reasons, as you’ve pointed out before. Besides, if I’d reported Ferguson, they would have locked me out permanently. Have you checked on our patients this morning?” He settled into his chair and started studying dates on the files I’d given him.

“I’ll do that next. Anything else I can do?”

He glanced up in surprise. “You’re asking?”

I shrugged. “I do that sometimes. Even surprise myself.”

He snorted. “And then you do what you want anyway. Keep Andre from killing anyone. It’s not healthy for him.”

He returned to work as if I weren’t there.

If I asked about Andre, it would imply I was interested. Not going there. If I meant to be a lawyer, I had to stay away from people who broke the law. Or thought they were above it.

That was a pretty dilemma for someone considering breaking, entering, and criminal trespass to retrieve Bill. I had justified saving Sarah because she was nuclear dangerous. But could I jeopardize my career for a gentle man who was just a friend? And then callously leave the others? Or was I trying to justify not going back to Acme’s dungeon?

I let myself out. Milo trotted after me. He’d appointed himself my guard cat, but I’d seen him flung against a wall and almost killed. He wasn’t invincible, but I couldn’t convince him of that. He was as warped as any other being living in the Zone. Take my word for it.

Checking outside, still seeing and smelling nothing unusual beyond the mechanical critters sucking the street, I let Milo follow me next door. From this vantage point, I could see down Edgewater to the Zone’s business district and ground zero of the barricaded harbor, with its rusted chimneys. Not a creature was stirring, not even pink ash.

No one answered the bell at Andre’s place. As usual, the front door was unlocked. Since this and the warehouse were the only ways I knew to access our patients, I entered without invitation. Maybe Andre’s security system sent him a Nuisance Alert message when I arrived so he could flip some magic switch.

If so, he didn’t come out to stop me. I smelled burning toast from one of the kitchens, but as much as I liked Julius, I wasn’t casting myself in the role of domestic goddess. I like to eat, and I’d learned to cook to prevent starvation. Just because I could didn’t mean I was meant to feed the multitudes. I jogged down the cellar stairs with Milo on my heels.

Sarah and Katerina were just as I’d left them the prior night. They had fresh IVs. Katerina’s lustrous black locks had been brushed. Sarah’s frizzy mess had been pulled into a scrunchie to keep it out of her face. She was the same age as me, and her relaxed expression seemed almost innocent. I wondered if their brains were alive, and if they were conscious of anything, but I guessed we’d need MRIs to sort that out.

I tried to summon red rage for whatever had put them in here, but there were no direct correlations to any one person. I had no face to put to my whammy, and the rage didn’t come.

“Why rage?” I asked Saturn. “Why can’t I be filled with joy and happiness and just wish people better?” Enamored of this new notion, I concentrated on happily anticipating that the patients would rise and be well.

As usual, the Universe ignored me.

“Zap, you’re better,” I said, somewhat desperately, concentrating on them opening their eyes. Nothing.

More and more, it looked like Satan, not Saturn, guided me. Satan wanted minions, and Sarah and Katerina weren’t what he had in mind.

I didn’t want to be around if Sarah was startled
awake anyway. She had strangled several large men with her chimp hands. I didn’t stand a chance against her. But she was the only other Saturn’s daughter I’d met besides my mother, and I’d kind of hoped she might have a few things to teach me about our strange condition—if only by bad example. It hurt to watch her lie there, helpless. If her defective moral center could be fixed, she could save the world. Or some portion of it.

I wandered on. The other rooms of the bomb shelter were unoccupied. The theater was still a mess following the moving of the seats, but things were settling back to normal.

I proceeded on through the tunnel and up the stairs to the warehouse, with Milo trotting ahead. With no windows in this back part, the warehouse was dim even in daytime. I’d remembered a flashlight, since I wasn’t as familiar with the light switches as Andre was. I picked my way past snow shovels and old tires and down the hall to the infirmary.

We had a male med student today. He was making frantic notes on a chart and text messaging at the same time. His red curls stood on end as if he’d run his fingers through them a few times.

“Can I help with anything?” I asked.

He glanced up, looking perplexed and just a little lost. I hoped the pink ash and gas cloud hadn’t fried his brains.

“They’ve all improved overnight,” he said in bewilderment. “I don’t know if Christy was tired or these old gauges were faulty, but . . .” He wandered
over to a microscope set up in the corner. “It’s not normal.”

An uneasy shiver crept down my spine. “It’s the Zone,” I said casually. “Equipment doesn’t work right down here. Some kind of electromagnetic field.”

“That’s why I’m using this.” He gestured at the old-fashioned microscope. “I had my roommate bring it over. No mechanical parts, just mirrors.”

Well, I knew for a fact that mirrors could be windows to hell, but I bet that wasn’t the case here. “And this proves what? They all still look dead to me.”

“They’re all healthier than they were yesterday!” he shouted, obviously losing his cool. “Insulin normal, blood pressure down, white-blood-cell count decreasing.”

“Yesterday’s readings were probably screwed up,” I said consolingly. “It was kind of frantic here with the gas and all.”

Nancy Rose was better? That seemed promising, in a screwball kind of way. Hope was a good feeling, one I wasn’t much used to.

He rubbed his hair and nodded dubiously. “That might be it. These obviously aren’t ideal conditions.”

I was thinking we needed to get the baby docs and the patients out of here pretty quick. Once word spread that pink gas might cure all ills, we’d be inundated with media and feds and who knew what all. If they found Sarah and Katerina . . . we could have World War III with magic gas. What happened in the Zone
really
needed to stay in the Zone.

My grim thoughts were interrupted by a roar that
sounded as if the roof were being ripped from over our heads. We both glanced up and watched the beams vibrate. Tornado? In Baltimore? Earthquakes didn’t last more than a minute or so, did they? This noise wasn’t ending.

“Is there a helicopter pad up there?” the doc asked warily.

“Not that I know of.” Since the warehouse was only three stories high, the roof wouldn’t be ideal for rotating blades. I had visions of them taking out telephone poles and electric wires and frying us all, but my mind takes a chaos path pretty frequently.

“It sounds like a helicopter,” the med student insisted. “I served in Afghanistan. I know helicopters.”

Helicopters. Very Bad Sign that we had a war zone already. Nasty snakes twisted in my gut. I glanced around at the helpless patients. If Acme meant to eliminate all evidence of their gas attack . . . I didn’t think those were medical evacuation helicopters up there.

“Let’s get these people out of here!” I shouted over the racket, opting for caution. “Into the tunnel.”

Andre would kill me for revealing his secret passage, to say nothing of his mother, but I’m more into that “United we stand” motto than exclusivity.

My logic ran along the lines of . . . I was pretty damned certain the army hadn’t come to save us. I couldn’t abandon our patients to goons with helicopters. Instinct said the tunnel was easier to guard than a hulking empty warehouse full of plywood-boarded windows. Conclusion:
Run!

The doc didn’t need to be told twice. I didn’t know
if it was altruism or medical science he served, but he was totally with the program. He unhooked the IV of the first patient. Grabbing Milo and shoving him in my messenger bag, I raced the gurney down the hall, through the warehouse, and to the tunnel door. Paddy, Julius, and Tim met me there with grim expressions. My guess about unfriendly helicopters was apparently correct.

I wondered where Andre was but didn’t have time to ask. Loud thumps on the roof warned that the invaders were dropping jackbooted troops. Crap. We couldn’t move fast enough.

I debated visualizing our patients in outer Siberia, but whether that was a good or bad idea, I was pretty sure that exceeded my limits. Maybe I was only allowed so many visualizations, and then I’d die. I’m a lawyer, not a believer in fantasy. I needed a damned rulebook. So I resisted the fantastical and relied on good old human know-how.

Paddy and Tim raced for the next patients while I debated carrying some old guy down the tunnel stairs. I weigh 110 pounds soaking wet. A forty-pound backpack is more than I can manage.

Guessing my plight, Julius flipped a switch to unleash a primitive flatbed elevator, lowering it from the ceiling to the warehouse door. Thank heavens. I wheeled the gurney on. Julius hit the switch, and it took me past the stairs to the tunnel under the street.

Julius disappeared into the darkness above, leaving me alone in the dark, empty passage.

We could easily fit ten patients under the street
without entering Andre’s secret bomb shelter. I played Charon, rowing the patients from the warehouse above to the darkened tunnel below. The loader was slow. Gurneys were still lined up at the door when the first shouts emerged from the warehouse.

Where the devil was Andre with his machine guns when we needed him?

A couple of old men and a few nerds didn’t stand a chance against storm troopers, if that was what Acme had sent. My panic button started flashing madly.

As I rolled another gurney to the flatbed, a camouflaged soldier type with a weapons belt and automatic at his shoulder rushed through the garage end of the building. Alarm blossomed into full-out panic. The soldier’s boots hit the old wooden floor like thunder. Ignoring me, he grabbed the first gurney he saw. Unfortunately, Tim was pushing it.

Tim did his best, he really did, but he’s a teen and even slighter than I am. The moment the trooper tried to sling him away, Tim faded out. Disappeared. Vanished. The trooper jerked with surprise—long enough for Julius to step out of the shadows and bash him with a snow shovel.

I’d watched enough westerns to know when we were outgunned. The pounding of more boots overhead and through the garage warned we’d only chopped one tentacle off the monster.

I tried counting heads, but I knew Leibowitz’s big body hadn’t been loaded onto the elevator yet. There were probably others left behind.

We simply didn’t have a choice. With a sick feeling
in my middle, I hauled the gurney onto the flatbed and yelled, “Get in here now!”

I couldn’t tell if Tim obeyed. Julius and the red-haired med student did. I didn’t know where Paddy was, but he played crazy really well. They’d leave him alone. I slammed the door. Julius rammed a bar across the door, protecting Katerina his priority, and we cranked the flatbed down.

After we rolled the gurney off, I left the elevator positioned halfway up and unhooked the cable, blocking the stairs in hopes it could add to the obstacles, but they were already battering at the steel door above.