Shadow Unit 15 (6 page)

"Eddie..."

"No. Let me finish. I learned. I learned about evil and sluts and faggots and illegals. I figured it out. You don't think like me. So ... I started trying to be like you. I got the treatment. I played along in therapy. I thought I was doing better."

"You are, Eddie."

"No. No, I'm not. Look at the board."

Dice glances down at the forgotten chessboard.

Black King's Bishop moves. Slowly, wobbling on its felt feet, the resin piece slides across black squares barely an inch to rest in front of the black king, and halts.

"J'adoube," Eddie laughs, low but fearful. "I can't pick anything up with it. Just—push, or hit things. But it's strong."

"How long?"

"I used it to block the table. Week ago? Ten days?"

"You haven't told anyone."

"They'll put me back."

"Let's tell Dr. Ramachandran, okay? We can figure this out."

"I don't want to hurt anybody," Eddie said.

"I know, Eddie. Everyone knows. Come on, we'll talk to the doctor."

He's going to be late for bike polo. But Eddie needs him, and his little brother shuffles along behind Dice as Dice leads the way out to the nurses' station.

Ashton, VA, May 15, 2014

You're on supermax gateway duty and your stomach is already grumbling after lunch, and you had at least a pound of pizza with a quart of milk. You took the earliest lunch, made like you were buying four slices on pizza day for coworkers, and tore through them like a starving jackal before anyone could come in and see you.

It's an hour to your next break, and the green light indicating movement in the hallway is on. Someone's coming. If it's someone who knew you had lunch, then eating cheese, crackers, and an apple won't fly. Eating too much here would flip everyone out, and explaining about magic? You can't do it.

You watch the doors. It's what you're supposed to do. You breathe a sigh of relief when the stocky figure of Rupert Beale resolves into sight.

He's favoring his leg a bit today. You want to say something sympathetic and you know he'd hate it, so you just say, "Hi."

"How's the fort?" Beale asks, and produces a little clear clamshell with a cheese Danish. "Do me a favor? I bought it on impulse."

"The fort's all right," you say, and accept the Danish. "I'll just run an extra fifteen and make up for it."

"No trouble, with being short staffed?"

"Not so far. Everybody knows the routines, and everybody's been quiet. Well. There was an altercation up on four. That was exciting."

"The supervised wing?"

"Yeah. Maybe letting them have their own gen pop isn't so hot. But I'm not the Doctors, am I?"

"They do what they can to make sure the patients on the new program can handle the responsibility."

"Until they start chucking tables at each other," you grumble. The Danish glistens. You can smell the butter that went into its making, the slight creamy-sour tang of the cheese. You
want
that Danish.

"Tossing tables could be the worst of it," Dr. Beale says. "We still have hope that the stress of the outside world can be handled by the implant surgery."

You once told Beale how much letting that woman Hafidha walk free bothers you. It's wrong. She'll go wrong. Even in a cage she acted like a queen on a throne. She'd sit down and expect the river to move. When you told Beale what you really thought, he didn't disagree. That nice girl Susanna tried it, and she came right back here.

"Anyway, you came to see somebody. Patient?"

"I did. Donatta Fletcher. She's next for the implant."

"How are they even going to— You can't even
touch
her."

"Not with your hand," he says. He looks right in your eyes. "But you can touch her with a scalpel."

"Wow," you say, and think about it. "That's fucking brutal. You ever feel like they're moving too fast with that thing?"

"Not that I would admit out loud," Rupert Beale said. "I'll let you get to that Danish."

J. Edgar Hoover Federal Building, Washington, D.C., May 20, 2014

"This is bat country," Hafidha's phone reports.

"Sol," Hafidha says. "How goes the battle?"

"I found something," Sol says.

"What did you find?" Hafidha asks the air. She lifts a hand, and all the monitors halt in their scrolling and streaming, waiting for her smallest gesture.

"Starbucks."

"Um, Sol? The word 'ubiquitous.' Feeling any association?"

"I looked at the three gremlin cases we found. Two of the three happened within five hundred feet of a Starbucks."

"The third?"

"On a highway with a direct feeder road with a Starbucks on it. Genevieve Howard, the steering failure accident in September, had purchased a decaf nonfat sugar-free caramel machiatto—"

"What is even the point. I'm so confused right now."

Sol makes a small chuff of amusement. "Well, that was what was in her stomach contents."

"So there could be a chance that I'll find the same credit card information at all three locations on the respective days of their accidents?"

"You might," Sol says. "I'll hold."

"Could take a minute to do this all private citizenry... No. But that doesn't mean that there wasn't someone there, using different payment methods on one or more visits."

"Or cash," Sol says. "I'll keep looking."

Purcellville, VA, May 20, 2014

Connor just shows up at your door—on a Tuesday night, after nine. He's wearing the lawn shirt that Ash made for him, with full sleeves and a high collar, meant to be fastened with a stock.

"At quadrille club?" you ask.

He smiles. "We're not supposed to talk about it."

That ritual done, you open the door and let him in. "I wasn't expecting you."

"I thought if I called to ask to see you, you'd make an excuse," Connor said.

"I would have."

He looks so much like Ash. The same brown hair, prone to light auburn in the sunlight. The same narrow nose, the tip up-tilted. The same gold-dusted eyes. He looks at you, reaches to touch your shoulder.

You remember to hold still.

"I know you would have," he says. "I've been worried. I haven't heard from you, Mom hasn't, she worries, too. How are you?"

"I'm fine."

"I don't actually believe you," Connor says. Ash should be chiding you to relax, but she's just as still as you, just as cold.

"Okay," you say. "I wish she weren't dead. But—"

"But?"

"It feels like she's still here."

"Oh, Em," Connor says, and you're flush up against him, his arms around you. A hug. He's hugging you.

You remember what to do. You raise your arms, close them around Connor's back. A hug. Connor's shoulders slump a bit as he relaxes, still holding on.

"I still feel her," you say. "That makes it all right."

"Em. She loved you. Mom loves you. I love you."

You know what you should say. "I know. I love you, too."

"Em," Connor says, and pulls back. Looks at you. "I love you."

"I know," you say, and something in his face changes, smooths out as his eyes close. You try to think of what to say.

But he's kissing you and everything in you screams
no no
and you push him away. Connor leans against your hands, saying, "It's okay, it's all right," and he just slips between your hands and kisses you again.

Make him stop!
Ash cries.
It's not right it's not right

"No," you say. "Stop. It's not all right. I don't like it."

And Connor leans back, looks at you, steps back. Wipes his mouth. "I'm sorry, Em. I didn't want to scare you."

"I know," you say. Ash is still screaming.

"It's just, we've known each other a long time, since I was a kid. And I never said anything but you had to know."

"I knew. I didn't want you to do that."

"Why, Em? You changed. You quit dancing, and you quit Wicca—"

"I didn't believe in it anymore." But now you have power. So much power, bursting to get out with Ash's screams.

"Ash told me that you and her weren't a thing."

"We weren't." But she was the only one who you could bear touching you. The only one. "Hold on, will you?"

You walk out to your yard, and the breeze that curls around you is cool, welcoming. You fall to your knees and the bruised grass releases its scent under your weight. You press against the ground and beg the power to go into the earth, away from Connor, beg Ash to stop screaming.

She didn't know what happened to you when she was alive, but she knows it now. She's the one reliving it, not you. She's the one with her face turned away, with her eyes shut tight, with broken nails stuck in her palms.
Please Ash, it's over,
you say.
Wipe it away. We're here in Purcellville, in the house my grampa built and we're safe. Please, we're safe.

You vomit onto the grass, but it's nothing but yellow bile. The world spins hard enough to throw you off, but you rise against it and stagger back up the porch, where Connor stands and stares in horror.

"Excuse me," you say, and lurch up the porch steps.

"I'm sorry," Connor says. "Can I come inside?"

"Yes. Help me."

*

It's Connor who brings you a cup of water and plain saltines. You nibble them, but you need more, and blackness is creeping in on the edges of your vision.

"What happened to you?" Connor asks.

"Feel faint. Haven't eaten enough," you say.

"I'll make you something. Just tell me what to do."

"Get the blender."

You talk him through adding a banana, protein powder, coconut milk, pineapple, and chia seeds to mix into a thick liquid. He finds the homemade energy bars in the fridge and brings you the tub. It's enough. You'll be able to get up and cook your own omelette in a minute.

"Are you going to be okay?" Connor says.

"Yeah, my blood sugar is gonna be just fine in a minute."

"That's good. I meant, are you going to be okay?"

"Sure," you say.

"Something happened to you," Connor said. "I should have seen it before. You changed so much."

"Connor."

"It's okay," Connor said. "But you pushed everybody away. Everybody but Ash, and she fought to stay near you. But Ash is gone, and you're alone here."

"I'm all right."

"I don't really believe you," Connor says. "But okay."

"You had better go," you say. "I have to work in the morning."

"Okay, no more pushing. I'll call you," he says. "Someone needs to check up on you."

You watch him until he drives out of sight. Then you take your phone out of your pocket and block his phone number from your contact list.

You can't ever see him again.

Ashton, VA, May 21, 2014

Dice has strudel this time—apple and poppyseed, and Hafidha Gates swoops in just in time to get one of the poppyseeds. Dice proffers the box to Daniel Brady, who puts his hand up and says, "Can't, but thanks."

"Tank," Dice says. "Did you two come together? Is everything—"

"Everything's fine, Lucky," Hafs says. "I'm here to see the doc, Brady's going to interview a subject. How is your brother?"

"I think he's doing good. He's upstairs now."

"Bugzapper's okay, then." Hafidha looks up as the air shifts with the front door, and if Dice hadn't been looking he wouldn't have seen the impassiveness sweep over her face.

Hafidha takes another bite of her strudel. Dice turns to see who it is.

"Dr. Beale," Dice says.

"Rupert, please," Dr. Beale says, and lets go of his wheeled brief box to shake hands, the other wrapped around an extra-large frappuccino something.

"Strudel while we wait?" Dice offers, and Dr. Beale takes apple, toes his brief box down by the bench.

"Thank you. I was meaning to ask you—" He pauses as Hafidha's service pistol thunks into a plastic tub.

"We're butting in, Lucky. You set off the metal detector."

"I do," Dice says. "Go ahead."

"Catch you later. Thanks for the strudel," Hafidha calls over her shoulder, walking away with high-heeled clicks. Brady follows soon after.

"You were meaning to ask me, sorry?"

"If you'd do an interview. It would be anonymized, of course, but I'd like your insight," Dr. Beale says.

"Uh, okay. If it'll be useful. When did you want to do it?"

"Wednesdays and Sundays are your usual days off?"

"Yeah. I've got bike polo on Wednesday nights, but after the next Sunday meeting?"

"We'll come up with a good time, then."

Dice meant literally after the meeting, but Dr. Beale was already putting his wallet and watch and things in the tub. He lifts that frappucino cup in salute and thanks Dice for the strudel, headed to the upstairs.

Dice sets the metal detectors off, and lets Leon escort him in the room to do the usual search.

*

Daniel Brady would like to eat a strudel, but he doesn't want it churning around in his stomach while he meets with Jason Saito. Saito will insinuate, and probe, trying to scare him, and Saito's favorite weapon walked next to him, heading for the elevator.

Maybe he could dull that blade. "Donatta had her surgery today?" Brady asks.

"She sure did," Hafs says. "I've got a full plate of visits this afternoon. Donatta, Suze, and Dr. Allison. The doc wants to know how I changed my bugzapper, so I'm going to change one for her."

Hafs put her finger right on the sorest spot. Danny tries to answer like her tinkering doesn't worry him."Will your revision suit everyone?"

"That's what we're wondering. It would be nice if I could stop Donatta's nightmares—she has dreams about the caverns and the river. Along with the rest of it, but it's the river that really gets her."

"I've been in that river. Can't say I blame her for that." Hafidha's boots thud on the vinyl floor as they walk down the hallway to the elevator that waits in the center of all the patient wings. Brady holds a fire door open for her.

Hafida nods and walks through, pressing the down arrow for the elevator. "You can't stop all nightmares, though. It sounds like it would be nice, but I think we need fear." She shifts to stand on one foot, messing with the buckle on the ankle of her boot.

Brady sticks his arm out for Hafs to grab, just in case. "That's philosophical."

"No," Hafida says. she takes Brady's arm, though, and fixes whatever's wrong with the buckle. "That's Bugzapper build 1.21a. Not a good day."

Brady knows that he better not ask. "It was only a day, though."

"Ask Chaz about it sometime," Hafs says. "I'm not sure I'm ready to look back on it and laugh just yet."

"I've got a day from tenth grade like that."

"Subject change time, Brady. You know that side project Sol and I are working on?"

"Yes. You have news?"

She glances over her shoulder at the security guard and drops her voice. "Just an update. Apparently Matthew Sheehy was writing a piece about green burials, but asked for a little more time because he'd stumbled onto something involving one of the people who turned up as recently buried. Her name was Ashley Campbell."

*

You freeze.
Don't look up don't look up

"—Her name was Ashley Campbell. And guess what."

You know that voice. You can't stop your chin from rising. You look across the counter of your security desk and at the speaker. It's the one who didn't come back. Hafidha. The one with the bright yarn and the sharp words. The one who could make computers dance to her will.

"Did she die in a car accident?"

You know him, too. He's one of the FBI team who finds the monsters and brings them here. He's chatting with Hafidha about Ash, about Ashley's death.

Why are they talking about me?

"On the highway where Matthew Sheehy died. Sounds like that thing we don't believe in, right? But wait, there's more."

"Ashley Campbell died because of a spontaneous airbag deployment?"

"No. She died because the driver in front of her had a sudden steering failure, panicked, and slammed on the brakes. Solomon Todd found the lawsuit and the insurance claim."

You wonder who they're talking about. Who was Matthew Sheehy? You pick up a clipboard and move out from behind the desk. You follow them to hear more.

"So you think it's connected. Ashley Campbell dies on that road, and then Matt smells a story and starts investigating—what?"

They know!
Ash cries, and your insides clutch. The reporter. He's dead? But you keep walking. Guards and orderlies and nurses are invisible. Just doing their jobs.

"I don't know yet," Hafidha says. "His personal effects were returned to his family. There wasn't anything in his email or his cloud. I think he used
paper.
" She's exasperated.

But then she looks at you, that sharp sidewise look. "Partridge," she says. "How can I help?"

"I just wanted to double-check your visitor authorization. I didn't see your name—"

You look at the clipboard in your hands. It's the sign-up for the department Fourth of July potluck. No paid party anymore. You meant to grab the sign-in sheet.

"Never mind." You manage to smile at the monster. "I was looking at the wrong list."

"No problem. And Partridge? It's nice to see you."

The monster smiles at you and steps into the elevator. You hear her say, "There's more yet, but Sol's getting back to me today. I'll text you—"

The doors close. The elevator's going down, and you have to go back to the desk to clear the trip downstairs.

She doesn't know,
Ash says.
She doesn't know what you did.

You wonder what you did.
We have to stop her. Put her back in the cage.

There's another monster in her old cage. Another one like her. The lightning caller.

There's no help for it. You know what you have to do to stop her.

Calmly you walk back to the desk, put the clipboard back, and sit down. You can't do anything else unusual, now that you know what to do.