Stray (24 page)

“Oh.” I blink at him. “Shit.”

“Are you lost?” The smiling guy rises from his seat, two others rise next to him, curious grins, travelling eyes. Some lean in their seats for a better view. “Looking for the women’s mess hall?”

“Um,” I stall, clueless as to how to explain myself.

“She’s not supposed to be in here.”

“Look at her hair – you know what that means?”

“Shut up.”

“Yeah, leave her alone. She’s the first girl I’ve seen in a month.”

“She’ll mess with our signals. You felt it.”

“Oh,
I
felt it.”

Sniggers.

I grip the edges of my surgical gown tighter.

The smiling guy gives me an apologetic look and growls over his shoulder, “Can you animals shut the hell up? You’re scaring our guest.”

Several men laugh, a few grunt and one or two exchange looks that vary from eagerness to outright suspicion. Most settle into eating though eyes rove back to me.

“You hungry?” a man calls from the kitchen, apron, ladle, toothy grin.

“Um …” What am I doing? The reality of a room full of Shields, in the bowels of a compound the size and breadth of which I can’t even guess at, brings my escape whim into sharp perspective. They can’t help me. They won’t. While no one appears to be in a flap to alert the authorities, I’m clearly breaching some kind of protocol by invading their gender-specific space and I don’t want to get anyone in trouble. My initial spike of adrenaline ebbs and I sway on weak legs.

“Whoa, careful.” The smiling guy goes to steady me and spots the bloodstains on my bandaged wrists and frowns at the sensors on my temples. He doesn’t say anything and settles for my shoulder as a safe place to hold me. On contact his eyes widen then glaze over. I feel it at the same time. In the bandwidth, a meeting of signals. His mind opens to me, an unresisting flood of images.

Not wanting to see, I shake my head, somehow cutting off the involuntary Harvest.

He blinks. “Whoa, that was– You can Harvest. Holy … she can Harvest.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to do that.”

His mouth pops open before he finds words. “Are you the Proxy?”

The room grows quiet.

“What? No.
No
.”

“As if.” The no-longer smiling guy’s friend nudges him. “The Proxy’s not a
girl
.”

Comments rise from the tables behind them.

“He’s a dude.”

“Like an old dude.”

“An original.”

“Like Gandalf.”

“
Gandalf?
Honestly, moron.”

“Seriously, he has a long white beard and shit.”

“That’s Santa, you idiot.”

Snorts of laughter.

“I’m not the Proxy. It’s just all the signals in the room amplify my …” I don’t know what the terms are. Red with all the attention, I wave my hand uselessly at the ether. “Radar, or whatever.”

“Still, that’s a hell of a reach.” His apple cheeks blossom briefly before concern clouds his face. “Shouldn’t you be in the infirmary? You look like you need a medic.”

“No. I need a phone. I need to c-call–” I try again. “There must be a landline, right? It’s just really, really urgent that I make a call. Someone’s life sort of depends on it.”

His face sobers, his friends’ too. Giving my shoulder a sympathetic squeeze, he releases his hold on me and lowers his voice. “They took you from an active Spark, didn’t they?”

The clatter of dropped utensils.

A hiss.

Mutters from the kitchen.

“Bastards.”

“Protocol, my ass.”

The collective disgust is palpable and I feel an inexplicable rush of … what? Comradery? Belonging? They think I’m like them, that I’ve suffered what they’ve suffered, extraction by force, leaving an unprotected Spark cluelessly vulnerable.

“You put up a fight.” He releases my shoulder and nods at my bandaged wrists. Others lean to see and nod their heads too.

I shudder at the thought of what they’d say if they knew my worry was for Aiden. “No, it’s not like that.”

“Wait.” His face screws up, puzzling over the math. “You can’t be fresh off the street. Newbies can’t Harvest. I don’t get it.”

The doors open again behind me and a strong familiar signal touches mine. I don’t need to look to know it’s Benjamin. My panic can’t get off the ground and my shoulders slump. His hand comes under my elbow, his body heat warming my side.

“I wasn’t running.”

“Of course not,” he says, his voice full of warning.

This time I do look up.

His almond eyes simmering and fierce.

“It’s cool,” the smiling guy says, “she’s not hurting anybody.”

“Bullshit.” Davis. Naturally. He steps forwards, baton in hand, mercifully unlit. “You know the rules.”

The smiling guy gives the baton a wary look. “Really? You gonna zap this girl?”

“
This girl
is a felon.”

“Davis,” Benjamin says quietly.

Davis ignores him, bristling at the others. “Twenty-four hours ago she helped a Stray escape from a detention centre.”

The atmosphere fissures, a collective recoiling. Several seats scrape the floor as men lurch to their feet as though poised to attack. The expressions now range from horror to hatred. I find myself moving closer to Benjamin. He’s angry but he won’t let them tear me apart … will he?

Davis nods, pleased to get a reaction. “Before that she lied to an Extraction team, compromised two senior Assets, broke several key protocols and now she’s escaped midway through an interrogation led by the Executive. Trust me, she could use a zap.”

“Davis.” Benjamin sighs. “Dial it down.”

The no-longer smiling guy’s horror takes on a degree of awe. “She escaped ReProg?”

I clear my throat but my voice comes out weak. “We were on a break.”

At the end of the mess hall a metal door opens from the gym. Tesla strides in. The whole room stands to attention.

Tesla makes his way between the tables, his scowl mixed with discomfort, like he doesn’t enjoy the attention. Heads turn to follow his progress, faces alert and eager. Shoulders pull back, chests expand, spines straighten. Tesla offers a reluctant nod to some of the young men, who seem to glow with the acknowledgement. He stops before me, his eyes cutting in consternation over my shorn head, bleeding wrists and bare feet. I’m grateful for Benjamin’s hand under my arm as I become aware of how much I’m trembling and weakened by pain.

Tesla frowns at the tableau.

“She was looking for a pho–” The no-longer smiling guy cuts off when he sees my expression. “She was lost. We were just helping her.”

“Really?” Tesla gives a slow nod. “And yet not one of you has offered the girl something to cover her gown?”

A blank pause followed by a reluctant flurry of movement as hands grab for sweatshirt zippers.

“Too late.” Tesla shrugs his jacket off and swings it around my shoulders. A warm and comforting weight, it hangs to the back of my thighs, the pleasant scent of soap and subtle cologne. He narrows his eyes at me and sighs. “Brünnhilde.”

The weird name aggravates me. Is he making fun of me? I’m torn between the desire to throw the jacket off and relief at being covered. I glare at him, my vision blurring with a wave of dizziness. “You know he destroyed the sample.” I shoot Davis a hateful look.

“Bullshit.” Davis jerks his chin at me. An orange glow lights up beneath the head of his baton and the sight of it ignites my rage. An adrenaline surge dilates my pupils and once again my ears fill with high-pitched ringing. Glasses glint and rattle on the nearest tables and pins and needles stab my spine. With a fierce grunt, I ram my elbow into Benjamin’s side, twist away and swipe the baton from Davis’s unsuspecting grasp, jabbing him in the gut with the tip. A charge vibrates through the baton, throwing us both backwards, to a chorus of exploding water glasses and cries of shock. Davis crashes against the sliding door and I crash into the unforgiving surface of Tesla’s chest. A half-second of chaos.

In the next half-second the baton has left my hand and I’m pinned beneath Tesla’s arms and all the adrenaline has drained from my body, leaving me faint with pain and exhaustion.

Tesla tosses the baton to Davis. “Less baton, more brain, my friend.”

Davis staggers back to his feet, red-faced and breathing hard. He nods but murders me with his eyes.

Benjamin holds his ribs, shaking his head, his mouth turned down. “Shall I take her?”

“I will.” Tesla swings me gently up into his arms and I’m as boneless as a bag of laundry with no strength to resist.

“Put me down.”

“No.”

“I’m not coming with you.” My head lolls back over his arm, giving me an upside-down parting glimpse of hostile faces, even the no-longer smiling guy looks glad to see me go. Tesla carries me out through the locker room. My vision blurs and my words come slurred. “I won’t tell you anything … you can’t make me … you’ll have to fry my brain.”

He sighs. “
Du bist genau wie deine Mutter
.”

“What did you say?” My voice is airless, pale, pain like a rolling fog dulling my thoughts. But I know that word …
Mutter
…
Mutter
. I cling to it to keep from going under. Mother. He’s saying something about my mother. He means Miriam. I know it. “Where is she? She’s hurt, isn’t she? Can I see her? Please.”

Tesla doesn’t reply. He doesn’t look at me, his stride sure and steady, almost rocking me as he marches through the maze of corridors. Benjamin and Davis follow, both stiff from their injuries. I feel a little bad, at least for long-suffering Benjamin. Davis glowers, hunching to avoid stretching his stomach muscles. I might have relished his discomfort, if I wasn’t agonised and sick with fear. “Please,” I whisper. “Is she okay? Can I see her?”

“She is not and you cannot.”

“What does that mean? It’s bad, isn’t it?”

We stop before a sliding door with a yellow stripe and he turns to his men. “Mr Nelson will do.”

Davis looks like he’s been slapped. “Sir, I didn’t tamper with the evidence.”

“That will be all, Davis.”

He hesitates like he wants to plead his case, but gives a curt nod and stalks away. Benjamin follows us as Tesla sidles into what looks like a laboratory. Computer screens, microscopes, technical equipment. Not the vastness of the infirmary, but a regular-sized room with a regular-height ceiling with fluorescent strip lights, huge cupboards at the back and a window to another room more dimly lit. Through it, I glimpse a body on a surgical bed and in the bandwidth feel his signal. I stiffen in Tesla’s arms and pain flares through my back. I cry out and collapse against him with a whimper. “Not here. Not with Jamie. Please, I can’t.”

“Jamie is unconscious. He will not know you are here.”

“He’s hurt?”

“He is recovering. Benjamin, a container.” Tesla nods at a stack of styrofoam tubs on a side table then lowers me onto the raised mattress. He pulls the sheet up over my legs and hips, Benjamin hands him the tub and Tesla tucks it beneath my chin.

“I’m not going to–” Nausea, a flash flood. “
Don’t look
.” Then I’m vomiting before an audience. A gush of bile and goo. My last shreds of dignity with it. Exhausted, I slump back.

The container is slipped from my limp hands. A damp cloth mops my mouth and chin. A flap of plastic wraps my bicep, I feel the pump and squeeze of a blood pressure band. Tesla, head cocked, listening without a stethoscope.

Green. His eyes are green, a starburst of emerald flecks around the pupils.

“Please. Will she be okay? I
need
to know.”

There’s a beep. Tesla makes a frustrated noise and loosens the band from my arm. “You
need
water.”

Benjamin steps away.

Tesla lowers the head of the bed flat and eases me onto my side. “Your blood pressure has dropped, which is why you feel like you are dying.”

I
am
dying.

Benjamin returns with a cup and straw.

“Hold it for her,” Tesla says, murmuring. “Sip. Do not gulp. And here.” Another styrofoam container.

Serious and uncertain, as though confused by his new nursing duties, Benjamin pulls up a chair and holds the cup, directing the straw between my lips.

I sip and go cross-eyed trying to bring Benjamin’s hands into focus. Tesla works behind me, his cool fingers opening the back of my gown. He clicks his tongue. “This is a mess.”

I close my eyes to keep from crying because I know they’ll take me back to the room with black glass and the blood sample is lost and I’m sick with fear for Miriam and Jamie. I close my eyes because his signal is rich and resonant and filled with homecoming, but I’ve lost the right to draw comfort from it. Because he must despise me. Because I’m furious with him too.

I draw my knees up, curling away from the pain, ignoring the wetness on my cheeks and the damp on my pillow.

There’s a prick in my shoulder. I flinch, but Tesla holds me still and discharges the needle.

“Please, not more drugs.”

“It is only for pain, nothing more.”

The relief comes quickly, my muscles unclench and I don’t cry out as he removes the soaked dressings from my back and rinses the wounds. “Felicity tried to explain,” I say. “She told me Miriam was in trouble and that I had to keep her–”

“
Be quiet
,” Tesla says. “I do not wish to make the scarring worse.”

Benjamin rises to peer over my shoulder and draws air through his teeth. “What did they do?”

“Core samples.”

Shocked, Benjamin sits and returns the straw to my lips. “Deep tissue. She’s too young. She’ll be permanently scarred.”

“Robert likes to remind me he was against the reforms,” Tesla says, clipping his words as he dries my wounds.

I hesitate, still taken aback by his gruff retort. “What reforms?”

He doesn’t answer, concentrating on applying fresh dressings. I look to Benjamin who frowns. “Counsellor Tesla advocates for Asset rights. He was part of the committee that ended forced commercial use of Shields and introduced limits on torture in ReProg.”

“Limits …”

“He also developed the Deactivation Program.” Benjamin levels a chilling glare that makes me shrink inside.