Legacy: The Girl in the Box #8 (17 page)

Scott and I managed to get a ride from a trucker who was passing through on the way to Decorah, a mid-sized town in northwest Iowa. I should say I managed to get a ride from the trucker. Scott remained passed out and still reeked of mud and champagne, like a pig farmer who’d had a good night, I guess. Probably not out of place in Iowa.

I took a shower and bought some new clothes at a truck stop then rented a car in Decorah. We pulled into the Directorate campus a few hours later, long after nightfall. Ariadne was waiting outside HQ with my mother, her face dark and sullen. I pulled up and got out of the car, stretching my legs as I did so, tilting my arms up in the air. “Hey, guys,” I said from where I’d stopped on the loop just in front of our HQ building, a square, modern-looking structure that rose about four stories above us and two below the ground.

My mother wore a small smile. “I was a little worried until we got your call.”

“A little worried?” Ariadne’s arms were folded and she shot an astounded look at my mother. “She fell out of an airplane.”

My mother’s face didn’t change much, but I saw a hint of something more. “Okay. Maybe more than a little.”

“Senator Foreman caught a flight back to D.C.,” Ariadne said without preamble as I crossed behind the car and opened the passenger door. Scott was still passed out and I hefted him onto my shoulder. He didn’t stir. “He didn’t seem too happy about the outcome of the mission.”

“Did you have to make an emergency landing?” I asked my mother as I walked by her, toting Scott on my shoulder as I headed toward the dorm building. I heard Ariadne’s heels clopping behind us to keep up.

“In Des Moines,” she said. “We caught the next flight back. What about you?”

“Splashed down in a cornfield,” I said. “Managed to hitch to a city where we caught the car rental place just before closing.”

“You lost every single one of the telepaths,” Ariadne said, her voice strained.

“We did,” I agreed. “And the two escorts.”

Her face was grim. “How is this in any way not a catastrophe?”

I kept walking, Scott’s body bobbing lightly on my shoulder. It had been a long day, but he still didn’t seem too heavy. I stopped, realizing we were about halfway across the lawn to the dormitory building. “I should probably take him to medical to be checked out, huh?”

I turned and saw Ariadne looking at me with cool disbelief. “Seeing as you don’t care that your captives were killed in a glorious bloodbath that culminated in you being thrown out of a plane in flight, I might recommend you get yourself examined as well.”

“I’m fine,” I said. “And I suspect he’s just hungover and worn out.” I altered course and started heading back to medical.

“About the telepaths—” Ariadne started.

“No use crying over splattered pawns,” I said, “especially when they didn’t know much.”

“They were mind-readers,” Ariadne said dully. “They had access to Century. You can’t tell me they didn’t—”

“Oh, they knew some stuff,” I agreed as we reached the front of the HQ building and my mother opened the outer door for me. I nodded at her and slipped inside before opening the inner door myself and stepping into the lobby. It wasn’t as grand as the last one, but close, with tile floors leading up to the entry desk, and an open second-floor atrium that had a balcony around it. The concierge desk had only one person manning it, but I knew there were armed security waiting just behind the doors to my left, watching the monitors and paid to fire first and ask questions later if someone who seemed even the least bit hostile came in. “The Hercules I drained nearly to empty was their escort, and he was in on all their briefings, saw what they saw, and had even asked a couple of them individually if they knew what was going on, what the endgame of the bigger plan was.”

“They didn’t, I assume by your tone,” Ariadne said as we navigated into a hallway, the white plaster walls looking a little plain in the low light. Decoration wasn’t high on the priorities list at the moment.

“They knew only the basics,” I said. “That Century was going to overturn the old order, was going to kick over the secretive hierarchy of meta organizations, that the members doing the work would get wealthy or whatever else they wanted in the process.” I suspected my eyes gleamed. “They did know one thing that’s a little more than what we’ve gotten before, though not much.”

“And it is?” Ariadne asked.

“That what we suspected about phase two is true,” I said. “The plan was always to subjugate humanity somehow. Eliminating the metas who could oppose them is stage one, but the rest is being kept really close to the vest. The telepaths—and this Hercules—were motivated by two things. The first was the promise of gain, which is to say that they thought they were going to be on the top of the pyramid once everything shook out.”

“And the second?” my mother chimed in, listening intently.

“Intimidation,” I said. “They got visits from more powerful metas and were each promised—well, threatened—that should they fail or betray Century, they were going to be entering a world of pain. Sort of how Zollers was warned, it sounds like.” I shrugged. “I’ve got a face for the guy who paid the visit to the Hercules. It was Weissman.”

Ariadne started to ask me something but stopped as we passed through a set of double doors that opened automatically with an electronic hiss. A row of hospital beds lay along the far wall, empty save for two of them, and the lights started to snap on automatically as we came in. One of the occupants of a bed stirred; the other didn’t.

“Can I just say I’m a little surprised to see you alive?” Reed asked weakly from the bed nearest the door. “Most people don’t survive jumping out of a plane without a parachute.”

“You could have survived it,” I said as I put Scott into a bed. He made a slight snoring noise but otherwise seemed to take no note of his change in position.

“As a Windkeeper, I’m a little different than the average meta,” Reed said, turning onto his side to look at me. His color had returned, and he grimaced only a little as he moved, the white sheet pulled up to mid-chest. He looked like he had a bandage wrapped around his abdomen, and his long hair was loose against the pillows that were stacked behind him.

“You calling me average?” I asked with faux outrage, turning back to face him, “I wasn’t going to be outdone by big brother. Call it sibling rivalry.” I flashed him a grin. “Anything you can do, I can do better.”

He smiled weakly. “Try peeing standing up.”

“What a touching scene of reunion,” came a harsh voice from behind me that sounded more than a little haggard. I turned to see Dr. Isabella Perugini standing at the door to her office, her dark hair frizzed and her eyes bearing dark circles underneath them. “I had thought that you might have actually—finally—perished, ending my long suffering from the damage you do.”

“You’re not that lucky, Doc,” I replied, smiling sweetly. “Like a cat, I just keep landing on my feet.”

“Burying your claws into some new poor soul that doesn’t know better than to get close to a cat that’s trying to find a soft place to land,” she said, coming to a stop at Scott’s bedside. She looked him over once, then took her stethoscope from around her neck and put it on, listening to his chest. “He’s hungover and tired,” she pronounced with a yawn as she finished. “Give him a good night’s sleep and he’ll be fine.” She gave me the evil eye again. “You, on the other hand—”

I sighed. “I don’t know why you’re upset with me. I never locked you in the trunk of a car; Kat did.” I gestured vaguely to where Janus was lying in the corner of the room, a feeding tube down his throat and a respirator quietly hissing, breathing for him. “I bet she’s in here all the time, you should take it out on her. Besides, that was months ago.”

“But who led the mission where she lost her mind?” Perugini said, still giving me a fiery look. “Hm? See? Everything is your fault. Always.” She turned on her heel and went back into her office, the automatic door hissing shut behind her.

“She’s really warming to you,” Ariadne said.

“Yeah, I know,” I replied. “Another couple months and it’ll almost be like having a conversation with you.” I regretted it after I said it. Ariadne had been mostly indifferent to me of late, but that lit a fire behind her eyes. I didn’t grimace but close.

“The telepaths?” she prompted.

“Right,” I said, trying to remember where I had left off in our earlier conversation. “It’s actually a good thing they’re dead, because they didn’t know anything and now we don’t have to worry about guarding them. That would have been a headache in and of itself since we don’t have an empath on staff to block them out.” I shrugged. “Plus now Century can’t storm our headquarters and recover them, thus applying them to their nefarious purposes once more. Because you know we would have been damned near powerless to stop them.”

She looked like she wanted to argue, but she didn’t. “They still could have had valuable intel. Something. Anything to get us closer to Century, to their plans.”

“Their plans are getting more and more screwed by the day,” I said. “They just lost at least half of their telepaths, which is going to slow down their extinction agenda by a lot. A hell of a lot.” I let out a long exhalation and took a deep breath of the medical unit’s cool, sterile air. “As far as victories go, I’ll take it.” I looked around for a wall to lean against but finding nothing, I placed a bare palm on the cold surface of Scott’s bed rail. “I need some sleep.” I looked from my mom to Ariadne. “If there’s nothing else that can’t wait until morning, ladies?” I looked over at Reed, and he frowned. “I’m not calling you a lady.”

“Damned right,” he said. “Again, back to the peeing standing up thing.”

“There is one other thing,” Ariadne said, and I saw a little nervous tension between her and my mom.

“Okay,” I said with a sigh. “Out with it.”

She hesitated. “Well. We got a flag from customs in Los Angeles.”

“Oh?” I shifted, and found myself suddenly a little more awake. I didn’t relish the thought of rumbling with a Century team in my present condition, but I could sleep on a plane on the way there, and a Red Bull or twelve would have me in fighting shape by the time we landed.

“Flagged at LAX,” Ariadne went on, and everything about the way she said it was dull. “Customs didn’t act on it because they had orders not to engage without sufficient backup, which they didn’t have—”

“Spit it out, Ariadne,” I said. “What are we dealing with here? Mercenaries? Metas? More telepaths? Because if we could mop those up, we’d really put a dent in Century’s efforts—”

“No,” my mother interrupted, and I saw the look she traded with Ariadne. “Potentially more problematic than that.”

I’m sure I looked mystified. What could be more problematic than any of those things? A slow, damning thought came to mind. “Weissman.”

“No,” Ariadne said, dispelling my rising discomfort. “No, I’m afraid it’s not Century related, exactly—”

“If someone doesn’t give me an answer,” I said, looking from Ariadne to my mother, “I’m going to start accusing you people of playing the role of Old Man Winter—”

I stopped speaking mid-sentence. My mother’s face exhibited a fairly obvious twitch at the mere mention of the name, and Ariadne looked away so quickly it was obvious. “Winter,” I said softly. “He’s back.”

Peshtigo, Wisconsin

October 8, 1871

The wind was a low, chill whip around Erich Winter’s face. It hurt, numbly though, and paled in comparison to the other pains that filled his body.
It was not supposed to be like this,
he thought, looking at the scorched flesh on his right arm as he dragged a faltering leg behind him. He limped, the pain in his right thigh a searing, continuous agony as he stumbled forward, the flesh blackened down that side of his body. He had run as far as he could, keeping low across the grain field, toward the town of Peshtigo. It wasn’t logical and he knew it, but the instinct was there nonetheless, the need to run toward people when in danger.
Not that any of them could save me. Not from that. Not from him.

He fell, gasping, to his knees, dodging the long, dried grass that had curled up, near dead from the summer’s drought. It couldn’t hurt him, not really, but every stroke against his burnt flesh added to the pain.
This will take time to heal. Time I hope I have.

He had lived for thousands of years and had not done so by stupidly engaging in fights with his own kind. He crawled now, the sand sticking to his exposed, burnt flesh, and it felt like every grain was a knife, picking at him.
I have never even seen a meta capable of doing what was just done to me. It is simply impossible. No one can have that kind of power ...

His fingers clenched at a weed that had survived the dry summer and he stopped his desperate crawl.
Will I be like this weed? If he comes for me ... I cannot endure, cannot fight ...

Winter began to crawl again, the smell of his charred skin filling his nostrils, his strength fading as he pulled himself along, hand over hand. He tried to spark the power to encase himself in ice.
Protection. I need protection.
There was little humidity in the air to work with, but still he struggled on.
Concentrate. Feel the freeze. Look for the faint strands of moisture, pull them to you, make them yours. Bring on the ice.
They dangled before him like little strings but far off in the distance, and his reach was not long enough to gather them to him. The pain blotted them out, pushed them away, and his eyes fluttered shut as he tried to will the screaming agony out of his mind. He tried again and failed, collapsing in the dirt, his cracked lips feeling and tasting the dry soil.
I have failed. Perhaps if I wait here, he will not find me—

“This is really quite sad,” came the voice, dispelling his hopes. “I’ve been sitting up here watching you.” The voice carried a hint of an English accent, and as Winter rolled over, he looked up at a man hanging ten feet in the sky above him, wearing trousers and a cloak that wouldn’t have been out of place in metropolitan Chicago.