Authors: Walter Greatshell
Mad Skills (30 page)
“Whoa—you said to get you in here. We got you in. I ain’t goin’ noplace my wheels can’t go.”
“Fine, I’ll go myself.”
“You crazy? You can’t go down there alone!”
“I went into that disgusting hellhole of yours—this is nothing.”
“All right, hold up, I’m coming.”
Locust wasn’t about to let the kid out of her sight. It was funny, because just a few days ago she had thought nothing of taking Maddy’s money and selling her down the river. As far as she was concerned at the time, the girl was just a fugitive with a big price on her head. She remembered the look on Chickasaw’s face when Maddy first showed up at the Hippo.
Locust?
What’s wrong?
She’s here.
Locust had checked her gun, thinking:
This better not be a goddamn setup.
She’d been worried ever since she got that money and the strange note that came with it:
This better not be a goddamn setup.
She’d been worried ever since she got that money and the strange note that came with it:
Dear Ms. Pursleigh,
it had read.
This is a serious business proposition. I give you this money as a gesture of good faith, just so you will hear me out. I need partners who are willing to take small risks for large rewards. Since you already take large risks for small rewards, I hope you will consider my proposal. I look forward to visiting you soon. Sincerely, Maddy Grant.
it had read.
This is a serious business proposition. I give you this money as a gesture of good faith, just so you will hear me out. I need partners who are willing to take small risks for large rewards. Since you already take large risks for small rewards, I hope you will consider my proposal. I look forward to visiting you soon. Sincerely, Maddy Grant.
The attached bundle had ten thousand bucks in it. Unmarked, nonsequential twenties. Nobody gave money away like that, not even teenage psychopaths; it had to be a trap of some kind. Plus the note looked like fucking Emily Post had written it. The girls in the office only cared about the chunk of free cash, and Locust had to remind them there were all kinds of shady characters out there, many of them wearing police badges. It was a sick world, full of false promises, false information, false salvation. At least Locust’s criminal enterprises offered value for money. But from Chick’s tone of voice, she could tell this was something different. Out of curiosity, Locust had her bring the girl in back. They could always kill her.
Instead, they made her their leader.
As the last of the bikes came in, Locust ordered them to guard the entrance while she followed Maddy downstairs. There was no rush; no help was coming anytime soon. They went down two flights, emerging in a dim utility corridor with metal doors on either side. The ceiling was a mass of pipes and wires, and there was a hum of machinery.
“Where exactly are they supposed to be doing all these mad experiments?” Locust asked, looking around doubtfully.
“I don’t know,” Maddy said.
“She don’t know.”
“I don’t know everything!”
“Coulda fooled me.”
Maddy didn’t know what to say. It was a good question and one that increasingly troubled her. The more she looked around the place, the more she realized it was nothing like what she had expected to find. Truth be told, it was all pretty straightforward—she could intuit the blueprints right down to the welding specs and bolt torque. There were no extensive secret laboratories, no surgical assembly line with a conveyer belt carrying thousands of people in one end and mindless zombies out the other. The building was not that big, there was no room to hide an operation of that scale.
So what did that mean? Was she crazy, as everyone said? Could it all be a sick fantasy, just a postoperative delusion? No way, no
way
—it was ridiculous even to entertain the thought.
way
—it was ridiculous even to entertain the thought.
Going down the rows, passing the computer lab and the rustling rat amphitheater, Maddy quickly found the Communications Suite. Its heavy steel door was locked. Locust cocked her Glock, but Maddy pushed the gun down.
“You’re going to kill us with that thing,” she said. “I got it.”
Taking out a Gerber jar of gray putty, Maddy used a plastic spoon to pack it into the doorjamb. Then she said, “Stand back,” and stuffed in a Gummi worm. At once it began to burn, flaring hot as a blowtorch. It went on like that for about half a minute, then abruptly sputtered out, leaving a large scorched spot.
Maddy tried the door. It still didn’t open. The lock hadn’t burned through.
“Damn,” she said.
Locust brushed her aside, saying, “Let me try.” She raised her massive hobnailed boot and kicked the door in, shearing off the weakened bolt.
Inside, they found a control room lined with instrument panels—it looked like a recording studio. There were fax machines, computers, and printing equipment, as well as a lot of high-tech stuff with labels like STORAGE SERVER, SCANNER CONTROL CONSOLE, REAL-TIME ANALYSIS, RF COIL, RF AMP, DIGITIZER, WAVEFORM GENERATOR, and TRANSMITTER.
Transmitter.
“There it is,” Maddy said.
“There you are,” someone else said.
Maddy turned around, feeling the hair bristle on her neck. Her heart rate spiked then leveled. There was a doctor standing in the doorway—
the
doctor. His ID badge read, DR. MARK HELLSTROM. He was the same strange-looking man she had fought before, the one who had almost killed her. Once again, he was wearing a pale blue surgical gown, a paper mask, and elbow-length rubber gloves. Half his face was one big, nasty-looking bruise, with a lot of little sutured cuts.
the
doctor. His ID badge read, DR. MARK HELLSTROM. He was the same strange-looking man she had fought before, the one who had almost killed her. Once again, he was wearing a pale blue surgical gown, a paper mask, and elbow-length rubber gloves. Half his face was one big, nasty-looking bruise, with a lot of little sutured cuts.
“Locust?” she said evenly. “I need you to give me some space.”
“What? Aw, don’t worry about this asshole, honey—just do what you came to do, and let’s get the fuck out of here.”
The doctor came in, pale and languid as a ghost, seeming to glide forward on casters.
“Back off, motherfucker,” Locust said, brandishing her gun.
“Locust, get back,” Maddy said.
“Stop, man, or I’ll blow your nuts off! I mean it!”
When the doctor didn’t stop, Locust wavered in frustration, then lost patience and fired, intending merely to wing the man. A little wake-up call.
Except that when the bullet got there, the doctor’s leg was not where it was supposed to be—the slug punched empty air. And before Locust could try again, the gun was clapped in a vise grip and yanked from her hands.
Diving after it, Locust cursed in shock and anger.
She knew how to fight, had been trained in hand-to-hand combat, knew all the techniques for fighting dirty, even to the death, but this odd-looking man wasn’t interested in fighting. He didn’t seem to even know there was a fight going on.
With clinical indifference—practically as an afterthought—the doctor swung the gun’s handle like a club, delivering a sharp blow to the ventral root ganglion at the base of Locust’s skull. In a fraction of a second, the confrontation was over.
Maddy was a different story. As the doctor came for her, she retreated behind the equipment, keeping clear of those hands.
“Come on now, Madeline,” he said patiently. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Ducking and dodging, she said, “I know you’re not.”
She tossed him the baby-food jar. Lid screwed tight, it was crammed with Gummi worms, the chemical reaction already glowing fiercely as a tiny bottled sun. Maddy hit the floor as it exploded in his face.
The man went down in flames, a screaming, melting marionette—swiveled steel armatures grafted to flesh and bone—and Maddy bolted past him to the doorway. Then she was out and running for the stairs.
But others were already there, coming down for her, and more emerging from the elevator. Dr. Stevens and Dr. Plummer were with them—she heard Dr. Stevens say in a voice of nasally resignation, “Oh God, that’s her.”
Maddy spun, seeking an alternative exit, an air duct, anything, but there was nothing except an array of locked doors leading to a dead end. She was out of weapons, out of ideas. More doctors appeared from the opposite end of the corridor, bottling her up so that the only choice left was to go down fighting … or just go down.
Busted,
Maddy thought.
Maddy thought.
THIRTY-TWO
RETURN TO HARMONY
ALL right,” she said. “I give, I give. You got me.”
She limply allowed herself be restrained, strapped to a gurney, and hooked up to an IV. There was nothing else for it; all she could do was wait. Wait for the next chance. And if it never came?
“What happened to the other guys?” she said, feeling numb. Whatever was in her IV had definitely kicked in.
Dr. Stevens ignored her, but someone with a soft Southern accent asked gently, “What other guys, honey?”
“The ones who brought me here. The bikers.”
“Don’t worry about them, they can’t hurt you anymore. You’re home safe with us now.”
They wheeled her into the elevator and descended one floor to the bottom level. Here there was nothing but an underground parking garage for a fleet of company cars and vans.
Harmony, here I come,
Maddy thought, trying to say the words aloud. She found she couldn’t speak, couldn’t move her lips. And yet she wasn’t afraid. In fact, it was intriguing to be fully conscious and yet completely paralyzed. Off the top of her head, she could think of several biotoxins that might do that. But somehow she knew this was not a toxin. It was not a chemical at all—there were no telltale side effects. With any sedative drug, there was always a danger of suppressing involuntary functions too much, killing the patient, but this was perfect.
Maddy thought, trying to say the words aloud. She found she couldn’t speak, couldn’t move her lips. And yet she wasn’t afraid. In fact, it was intriguing to be fully conscious and yet completely paralyzed. Off the top of her head, she could think of several biotoxins that might do that. But somehow she knew this was not a toxin. It was not a chemical at all—there were no telltale side effects. With any sedative drug, there was always a danger of suppressing involuntary functions too much, killing the patient, but this was perfect.
It had to be her implant; that was the only explanation. They were using electrical impulses to mess with her autonomic nervous system, turning her off like a windup toy. Was that what they had used on Ben, to mimic death? Pretty clever.
To her surprise, they did not load her into one of the vans, but onto a small electric-powered utility truck, not much bigger than a golf cart. Dr. Plummer climbed on, and the vehicle sped down a ramp into a low concrete tunnel marked SECURE DATA STORAGE. There was a bright-lit storage vault, but hidden at the back was a platform overlooking a bottomless pit. The platform was barely big enough for the truck; Maddy felt as though they were teetering above an abyss.
With a lurch, the platform dropped.
It was an elevator—a very fast elevator. The angle of descent was very steep, but it was not vertical.
Bat Cave,
Maddy thought. Fluorescent lights were strung along the walls at regular intervals, creating a mesmerizing strobe effect.
Bat Cave,
Maddy thought. Fluorescent lights were strung along the walls at regular intervals, creating a mesmerizing strobe effect.
It was a long ride. The elevator was more of a railcar—a
funicular
, Maddy recalled.
Are we having fun yet?
Her ears popped. Trying to clear them with her limited movement was frustrating. Giving up, she focused her attention on the shoddy workmanship of the tunnel. Though obviously new, it was already full of cracks and seepage and rust stains. It reeked of mildew. The contractor who had built the thing probably charged a fortune, too. At a certain point they slowed down, passing a series of warning signs reading, DO NOT PROCEED IF LIGHTS ARE RED. The lights were green. The air became warm and tinged with sulfur. There was a roar of ventilation equipment.
funicular
, Maddy recalled.
Are we having fun yet?
Her ears popped. Trying to clear them with her limited movement was frustrating. Giving up, she focused her attention on the shoddy workmanship of the tunnel. Though obviously new, it was already full of cracks and seepage and rust stains. It reeked of mildew. The contractor who had built the thing probably charged a fortune, too. At a certain point they slowed down, passing a series of warning signs reading, DO NOT PROCEED IF LIGHTS ARE RED. The lights were green. The air became warm and tinged with sulfur. There was a roar of ventilation equipment.
After a while, the elevator hit bottom, and they drove the rest of the way, a long straight shot of tunnel, until at last they emerged in a much larger space, a man-made cavern held up with massive wooden beams and brick archways. Huge, corroded remnants of ancient factory equipment jutted from the floor like wrecked ships. The place looked old, a condemned relic of the Industrial Age … yet Maddy had seen it all before.
It was the Braintree of her earliest dreams.
The cart carried her up a ramp to a loading dock, where vacant-faced orderlies waited to roll her wheeled stretcher inside a very large and very dirty freight elevator. With a crash of gates and gears, it rose to ground level. The doors opened on a clean white corridor, all new plasterboard and a new drop ceiling. After the basement, the lights were so bright they hurt her eyes. Maddy found she could blink, but her slack eyelids wouldn’t stay completely shut. Every few minutes Dr. Plummer put drops in them. They passed a sunlit window, and Maddy had a blurred glimpse of rooftops and mountains. Those, too, were familiar, but of much more recent memory.
I’m in Harmony,
she thought.
Carbontown.
she thought.
Carbontown.
The mine. They had brought her to the big abandoned mine at the center of downtown Harmony—the Museum of Industry and Culture.
Of course, stupid!
Why hadn’t she thought of it sooner? It was so obvious! They weren’t doing anything up there on the mountain. How could they? Up there they were in the public eye, a government-funded operation. That was just a front. Braintree Institute was a sham; it was all for show—a few high-profile surgeries now and again, maybe a little token research, just for display purposes, so the funding could be justified. So there would be no questions about where the money really went.
Of course, stupid!
Why hadn’t she thought of it sooner? It was so obvious! They weren’t doing anything up there on the mountain. How could they? Up there they were in the public eye, a government-funded operation. That was just a front. Braintree Institute was a sham; it was all for show—a few high-profile surgeries now and again, maybe a little token research, just for display purposes, so the funding could be justified. So there would be no questions about where the money really went.
Meanwhile, the actual work was going on here.
They wheeled her into a yellow-and-black-tiled room with a padded door and a tiny window of reinforced glass. A mirrored bubble hung from the ceiling, concealing a camera. From the reflection in the dome, Maddy could see that there was someone already in the room, but she couldn’t turn her head to see who it was. Dr. Plummer left without a word, leaving her alone with the stranger.
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