Earth Thirst (11 page)

Invisibility is better, and so I stay put as she gets back into the car. It backs out of its space, pivots, and drives around toward the front of the facility and the long driveway to the main road. After it is gone, the silence returns.

Two rentals left. Somewhere between four and eight passengers. It's after ten o'clock. If there is a shift change coming anytime soon, it'll be midnight. I have two hours.

The scent of the Gauloises hangs in the air, a tantalizing hint of an idea.

The smoker's corner is under the overhanging eaves on the northern back corner of the main building. There are two plastic chairs and a tall cylindrical ashtray. A single video camera points directly down on the spot, the baleful eye of Eden Park's administration offering not-so-subtle distain for the lung-burners.

Having seen the unedited toxicological reports from the 1960s, I can't say I blame them.

Fortunately for me, any serious smoker is going to need a couple smoke breaks during an eight-hour shift. I shouldn't have to wait too long.

* * *

He's a three-pack-a-day man and although he washes his hands obsessively, there's still a nicotine stain on the inside of his right middle finger. He breathes heavily from the mouth when he's afraid, and I gag at the rot coming out of his lungs. His circulation is bad enough that it doesn't take much pressure on his neck to make his pass out. I lay him out on the ground, swipe his ID badge and his wallet, and after a moment's hesitation, I dig through his pockets for his pack of cigarettes and shred them.

The video camera hangs crookedly on its post, its eye no longer watchful.

I swipe the ID card on the nearby door and slip into the main building.

Inside, it's all puce walls and off-white trim. Prints of very restful landscapes are arranged neatly along the walls. Someone left the mood music on—Chopin, from the sounds of it—though it's so quiet most wouldn't know they were actually humming along with it. Got to keep the natives placid.

I'm behind the scenes at the psychiatric hospital, and there aren't any cameras watching the watchers. The first floor is most likely administration, with the upper floors and basement given over to the rooms for the residents and rooms filled with therapeutic opportunities, respectively. A pair of orderlies is hanging out in a break room not far from the staff kitchen, and as they're staring tiredly at a video feed from a sports channel, it's not too hard to slip past them. I ponder putting the pair of slightly less bored guards in the security cage to sleep, but I suspect the current administration at Eden Park isn't keen on putting real names on the room roster.

I'm going to have to do this the old-fashioned way.

THIRTEEN

M
ere is in a corner room on the second floor. She's asleep when I peek in, but she's thrown her sheet off and even though she's curled up and her head is turned away from the observation peephole in the door, I recognize her shape.

There are a lot of things I can't forget. Sometimes I wish I could. Though, times like this, I relish having the memories I do. Too many are gone—good and bad.

The lock on the door is solid, and I could probably rip the door off its hinges, but that'll be noisy. I go looking for someone with keys instead—like the two guards in the security cage on the first floor.

When I get back downstairs, one is not there. When he returns a few minutes later, he gawks at his unconscious buddy for a second before joining him. While I've been waiting, I've had time to collect the set of master keys and read over the resident roster. It's all first names and last initial only, and I find “Mere V” as well as “Thaddeus M.”

Sally
will be pleased.

The master key makes it easy to open room 216 quietly, and I consider slinging Mere over my shoulder and making a run for it. But I don't know what the drugs have done to her; if she wakes up and freaks out, then I'm carrying the equivalent of a sack full of cats. I opt for stealth, though it is going to take more time. I sit and bounce on the edge of her uncomfortable bed until she stirs. Her breathing changes around the third bounce and her eyelids start to flutter. She turns, notices my presence, and opens one eye enough to look up at me. She burrows into her pillow, pulling it over her already messy and limp hair. She mumbles something unintelligible.

“I'm not a dream,” I say.

“You have to be,” she slurs. “Otherwise the rest is true too.” I stroke her hair. Other than when I held her out over the railing on the boat, it's the first time I've touched her when she's been aware of my presence. She whimpers slightly, and when she speaks, her voice is muffled by the pillow. “I can't feel anything,” she whispers.

“It's the drugs,” I tell her.

“That's what my last boyfriend said.” She giggles and I'm not happy to hear the sound. It's unhinged, disconnected, and we're back to a sack of cats. She's got quite a cocktail screwing with her head. My hands tighten on the edge of her bed, my nails tearing through the sheet and slick cover of the mattress.

“Let's go somewhere else,” I try. “How about a trip to the spa? We'll have native children rub your feet.”

“Don't,” she says. She flips over, keeping the pillow over her face. “You're making it worse.”

I glance toward the door, mentally considering how long I've been sitting here. “I need you to come back,” I say. “I need you to walk out of here.”

With a sob, she bolts upright and throws her arms around me, burying her face in the crock of my neck. She squeezes me tight and I embrace her awkwardly. “I hate you,” she says and then, without taking a breath, “I've been dreaming about you.”

“It's just the drugs,” I tell her gently.

“Before the drugs,” she says with a short laugh.

I don't know what to say to that, and there's an awkward moment of silence between us. “We should go,” I finally say, feeling like I should be saying something else instead, but my ready supply of snappy one-liners has run out.

“To the spa?” she asks, a dreamy smile on her lips.

“Sure,” I reply, grabbing on to anything that'll keep her attention. That'll get her upright, compliant, and heading for the door.

“What about the others?”

I hesitate, and even in her addled state, she's aware enough to read my answer in my silence.

“That's not okay, Silas.”

This, of all things, is what brings her back to reality.

“What do you want me to do? Release everyone?”

“Yes,” she hisses.

I regret my honesty and am about to reconsider how much I'm going to tell Mere when the light through the observation peephole flickers. I'm off the bed and at the door in a second, but I'm too late. I hear the lock click and the heavy sound of the key being removed. I have a set of keys too, though there is no keyhole on this side, and when someone puts their face up to the observation peephole, I slip one of the keys on my keyring between my fingers and jab it forcefully through the glass port.

Someone is screaming outside the room as I return to the bed and grab Mere's arm roughly. “So much for stealth,” I say. “Come on. Spa time. Let's go.”

I kick the door hard, and it comes off its hinges. The guy on the floor with his hand over his bloody eye looks up, other eye wide, and I punch him hard enough to snap several bones in his hand. The other security guard has a Taser, but it's cheaply made and breaks easily. A headbutt lays him out, and then I'm dragging Mere down the hall toward the stairs. The drugs make her clumsy and she stumbles twice before I pick her up and run with her in my arms.

Half a sack of sleepy cats. It could be worse.

The staircase is big and open, and it is easier to simply leap down to the landing of the first turn and then again to the lower floor. Mere is heavy in my arms, and she hangs on tight, her face pressed tight against my shoulder, as if she doesn't want to see what happens next.

The two orderlies who had been watching TV earlier are alert now, and shortly before they spill out into the hall, I hear the distant drone of the alarm and the lights in the hall immediately shift to red. The tone and the color are meant to confuse and disorient any escaping residents, but those parts of my brain aren't in charge right now.

The first orderly has a black nightstick, and he swings it sharply as he rushes me. I raise a shoulder and let the wooden stick bounce off harmlessly. I drop my shoulder and drive it into his chest, throwing him against the hallway wall. A picture frame cracks beneath him and glass tinkles to the floor. The second guy gets it into his head that if he targets Mere, I'll surrender.

He's wrong. Very, very wrong.

I hear a soft pop behind me, and fire explodes across my back. I stagger, nearly dropping Mere, and the hall is filled with a sickly crackling noise as my flesh burns and sizzles. I duck into the break room, depositing Mere on the nearby couch. The chairs scattered around the two small tables are plastic with metal struts, not terribly suitable for what I need. Ignoring the pain crawling up my back, I stagger over toward the counter where several modern appliances are sitting patiently, waiting for someone to put them to work.

Yanking the pot off the coffee maker, I whirl toward the door and throw the glass container toward the man in the dark suit who is entering the break room, a long-snouted pistol held out in front of him. He sees the coffee pot coming and dodges, but in the seconds it takes him to get out of the way, I get my hands on the microwave and throw it too. It's bigger and heavier, but it flies just as readily. It hits him in the face, and something snaps. He drops like all of his strings have been cut.

Another gunman is right behind him though. Same goofy looking pistol. When he pulls the trigger, his gun makes a staccato popping noise, hurling tiny round projectiles. They're like paintball pellets, but their contents are much worse. I dodge, moving slowly but more than fast enough to avoid compressed-air-propelled pellets. There's a design flaw someone hadn't considered.

Realizing the limitation of his weapon, the gunman drops back into the hallway. It's a smart move, forcing me to come through the narrow frame of the door if I'm going to attack him.

I'm not planning on it, though. There's a tall window on the far side of the room. That's where Mere and I will be going.

I cross the room and slam the door shut. There's a deadbolt on the inside frame, and I slot it into place. The guy on the floor is still conscious, bleeding heavily from a gash on the side of his head. Grabbing his pistol and shoving it down the front of my pants, I collect Mere from the couch and dash for the window. She shrieks, clawing at my face, as she sees where I'm going, but I hold her tight and jump.

* * *

I hit the parking lot, the gravel chattering under my feet. The back door bangs open, and a handful of mercenaries run out. They've got more conventional weapons, and the night fills with the muttering noise of angry bees. Bullets spang off the cars around me, making more of a racket than the suppressed semiautomatic weapons being fired at me. I can't keep running with Mere; not with this much lead in the air. I dump her behind a van, and dart to my right, letting the night swallow me.

I feel my body loosen as I let the restraints go. We train constantly to keep ourselves in check, to keep ourselves moving in such a way that humans don't freak out when they see us, and it's glorious to let these self-managed shackles fall off. I'm not anywhere near my full ability, not with my veins still fucked up with the chemical agent. Whatever is in the pellet I got spattered with is from the same batch. I can feel it soaking through the fabric of my jacket and shirt, and my skin burns like a thousand ants are all trying to slice pieces of my flesh off.

There are four of them and they move like a trained team—two focused on what's in front of them, one on either side, each sweeping their back trail as they move. It's a good tactic and they move well together, but they're too tightly packed. A single grenade could take out all four of them.

Or a single Arcadian.

I get a running start and launch myself off the front of a sedan, leaving a big dent in the hood. The closest of the quartet spots me as I sail through the air, but he can't get his gun up in time. My knees shatter every rib in his chest, driving shards of bone through most of his vital organs. Before he even hits the ground, I spring off him and take out the one on my left with a hard strike to his neck that shatters vertebrae. The one standing in front of me is still turning around as I kick him mid-spine, doing more damage than any chiropractic care will ever fix. The last one thinks he knows where I am, but I keep moving, dropping my right arm around his head as I pass. I spin, pulling his upper body in tight to my chest. He stumbles, losing his footing, and I tense my arm and bend at the waist. His neck snaps.

I don't bother checking them; none of them are coming after Mere and me. I run back to where I dropped her, scoop her up, and head off into the woods.

It's only as I reach the tree line that I realize there was a silver Mercedes in the parking lot that wasn't there earlier. There's no time to go back and check, and it might be a coincidence. I got what I came for; time to go. I run until my sides ache.

Mere clings fiercely to me as I run through the woods. I try to dodge low-hanging branches and the trunks of narrow saplings, but I know her dangling feet collide with at least one tree as I speed through the woods. I cross a narrow creek and angle upriver, looking for a suitable place to rest.

I could have gone back to the road, but that choice would have assumed Ralph was stupid enough to hang around and wait for me. On the one hand, it would have made for an easy getaway; on the other, the silver Mercedes was nagging at me. In the end, I didn't want to be in a car on the roads. Too structured. Too few exits and escapes.

Plus I'd have to trust Ralph's driving.

Mere winces as I set her down, favoring her right ankle.

“Sit.” I indicate a grass-covered mound next to a row of red beech. “Let me look at it.” She complies quietly, and as I crouch to look at her, the pistol shoved in my waistband digs into my hip. I pull it out and set it aside.