The Death of Dulgath (51 page)

With no time to spare, Daniel turned and ran the opposite way, emerging from the far end of the alley onto a more peaceful street, thankful to be out of sight and, hopefully, out of danger.

On the vacuum train home, the stream already carried news of the brawl, and there was footage of it by the time the train crossed into Arizona. The riot had flared briefly before being shut down by riot police and their blanketing sleep gas. The film premiere was ruined; Kai Ripsen, savagely attacked and receiving medical treatment, was unavailable for comment.

It made Daniel think about the security cameras the Asian man had mentioned. The area had been well lit for the premiere.

Will the police be waiting at my doorstep?

Instead, he found the babysitter. Since his wife, Rosa, had left, it had become increasingly difficult to find people willing to care for a child with a
mystery illness.
Many feared it was contagious. April was the neighbor’s child, sixteen, and kindhearted enough to play with Estrella even when she wasn’t being paid.

She looked up expectantly as Daniel came in, but as soon as she saw him, her face fell. “No luck?”

It hurt Daniel’s heart to see the disappointment. It reminded him of the last time he saw that look on Rosa’s face, the night when she’d decided she couldn’t go on helplessly watching Estrella waste away.

“Not this time,” Daniel said.

Just as before. Just as always.

He didn’t tell April about the altercation with Kai Ripsen or mention the possibility of the police showing up. If they analyzed the security footage and were able to trace him along the street back to Methuselah, they’d find his name and address on file in a nice little package. If they needed to compare his image with the central database, it might buy a little time.

Instead, he paid her, adding a generous tip for all the help she’d been over the past two years. “Thank you for treating Estrella the way you have. It’s meant so much to her.”

And to me.

“No problem, Mr. de Montes. Do you need me again later this week?”

“No, we’re going on a trip and might not be back for a while. Leaving tonight.”

“Oh? Another lead?”

He nodded. “Vancouver. This might be the one.”

She wished him good luck and slipped out of the apartment. Daniel rushed to his bedroom to pack a bag. The closet still held those things Rosa had abandoned when she’d left. Until tonight, he’d held out hope she might come back someday—but now, if she did, there would be nobody left to forgive her.

He remembered that night, her lying facedown on the bed, softly sobbing. Daniel had sat next to her, running his hand along her back. They hadn’t had a real marriage for a while—their ordeal had been far too great—but he still cared deeply for her.

“We’ll find a way through this,” he had said. “We always have. And there’s still hope.”

Rosa’s cries turned into a sharp, muffled scream. “I can’t do this anymore,” she shouted into the covers.

“No, honey,” he said, rubbing her neck, “everything’s going to be fine. Even if all else fails, Methuselah will—”

“Methuselah,” she said contemptuously, pushing away from the covers. Away from him. “They’ll never give Methuselah to an ordinary girl. They don’t care about us!”

Rosa got off the bed and went to their closet, dragging out her floral print suitcase. “You’re a fool, Daniel, and I can’t stand it anymore, searching for an answer that doesn’t exist.”

But it does exist. There
must
be an answer.

With his own small bag packed, Daniel went to Estrella’s bedroom and peered in on her. She lay asleep in bed, angelic face upturned to the ceiling, her breathing distressingly shallow. He hated to disturb her from even this labored rest, but there was no time to lose.

“Estrella,” he said, shaking her awake.

“Mom?” she asked groggily.

“No, honey, it’s Dad. I need you to get up and get dressed. Quickly. We’re going to make you better.”

Her eyes fluttered open and she coughed herself fully awake. “Where are we going this time?”

“New Mexico.”

According to a sign, Taos was thirty miles away. Almost no cars were on the highway leading into town. Daniel checked the rearview mirror and was surprised at his own appearance: his eyes bloodshot, the skin around them dark purple. He hadn’t slept for far too long.

Estrella thankfully didn’t have that problem. She slept, slumped against the side door in the backseat, a denim jacket serving as a blanket that left her head peeking out the top. She didn’t look ten. The illness had kept her small and thin, her cheeks hollow. Her breathing continued to appear shallow, even more so than it had been at home. Maybe after getting into town, he’d pull over at a recharge station to see if she needed anything.

Then he noticed something in the rearview mirror: a car trailing him in the distance, black and sleek with a slender light bar along the roof.

Regional police.

Daniel’s stomach clenched.

They didn’t have their lights on and followed in the distance. He had to keep calm and not attract attention. He accelerated slightly, but not so much that it would look suspicious.

I hope.

WELCOME TO TAOS! a sign on the side of the road announced in bold white font. On the outskirts of town, only a few buildings lined the road, most of them fast food or convenience stores geared toward travelers. Business was light this morning, though there were a few customers here and there, waiting in drive thru lanes or stretching their legs. Happy families on vacation, perhaps. His own had been among them, once upon a time.

One of the buildings was a recharge station, but he couldn’t stop now. If the police decided to pull in as well, it would be over. The car behind him was still there, taking the main drag into town. Hopefully it was just a coincidence. According to his car’s internal navigation system, the clinic was close. Just a few lights down and to the right.

From the backseat, Daniel heard a noise. Estrella coughing.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

Estrella coughed again. Checking the mirror, he saw her face drawn tight as if she’d just eaten a lemon, her cheeks dark red. More coughs escaped puckered lips, her tiny body shaking with each one.

“Estrella?”

Police car still there, slightly closer.

“Honey? Answer me!” Estrella stopped coughing now. Her mouth was closed, eyes tightly shut.

Is she breathing?

Ahead, the town proper began. Traffic was sparse, but directly in front of Daniel was a major intersection and a green light.

Then it turned yellow.

“Hang on,” Daniel shouted as he punched the accelerator.

Tearing through the intersection, Daniel heard sirens flare behind him. Blue light flashed in the rearview mirror. Then came the terrible sound of a crash. Daniel looked back to see the police car stranded in the middle of the intersection, black smoke already curling from under its hood where it had T-boned a beige pickup truck.

Daniel kept the pedal down, weaving his way through the few cars on the road. The crash bought him a few minutes perhaps, but reinforcements would arrive soon.

Behind him, Estrella was choking. He could see tears fighting to escape shuttered eyes, and her little body shook for air.

“Hold on, baby,” he said. “Hold on.”

Daniel pulled into the shadows of an alley next to a building at the address he’d been given. It was a small nondescript dingy-gray structure wedged between two others, which appeared to have been abandoned long ago. He pulled Estrella from the backseat.

“Oh God, oh God,” he said, holding her against his chest as he sped inside. Estrella offered no resistance to being carried, but no assistance, either. She felt limp. Waning.

“Hello?” Daniel cried.

No one out front. Just an empty counter, black plastic chairs, and a small bell. Daniel had seen a hundred waiting rooms, although usually they were packed. This one had no visible patients or receptionist.

“Hello?” he shouted again, slamming the bell with his free hand, refusing to set Estrella down. He hoisted her up against his shoulder, her lips cool against his neck.

“Just a second,” a male voice called from behind a slotted, swinging door behind the counter. Then came the sound of a toilet flushing.

“She doesn’t have a second!” Daniel rounded the counter and ran toward the swinging door, then froze.

A man in a short doctor’s coat came from the back, holding a gun. He seemed too young to be a doctor, maybe eighteen or nineteen, with striking good looks and curly red hair.

“Back,” he said, pointing the gun at Daniel’s chest. “Now.”

“What? No, my little girl, she—”

“I said back.”

Daniel complied, clutching Estrella. She wasn’t struggling to breathe anymore. Wasn’t moving at all. “My daughter is dying,” he said, tears streaking down his face. “I need help.”

“Why did you bring her
here
?”

“A man in Mexico City sent me. Asian. I have his card!”

The doctor’s eyes went wide and he tucked the gun into a holster under his coat. “Set her here,” he said, patting the counter.

“Can you help her?” Daniel asked. “The Asian man said you could, but no one knows what’s wrong—”

“Not surprised…but it doesn’t matter. If Mott sent you, then I can help.” The doctor knelt in front of the counter and pressed his thumb onto a dark pad on a small safe set in the base. The door hissed open, revealing a second, smaller safe within. The doctor lowered himself to face the second safe. The red-light glow of a retinal scan flashed, then a
clunk
sounded as the lock released. He removed a small bag containing a silver-tinged solution, thick as liquid mercury, which glittered in the light.

“Methuselah?” Daniel asked. Based on the seemingly homemade packaging, he guessed that this hadn’t come from any government facility or official agency. “Is it real? Where did you get this?”

“Oh, it’s real. I made it myself,” the doctor said, affixing a steel needle to a syringe.

Daniel’s jaw dropped. “But how?”

The doctor stuck the needle into the bag’s aperture and slowly drew the sparkling liquid into the syringe barrel. “I invented the stuff. Well, I was on the team, at least. Mott, the Asian gentleman you met, was, too. Then the government decided Methuselah was too important to be left to private enterprise. They took it from us.” The doctor returned the bag to the double safe and stood. He gently expressed the remaining air from the syringe so only the medicine remained. “Our laboratory
mysteriously
exploded soon thereafter. Many friends and associates died that day. Myself and Mott were listed with the casualties, and we didn’t contradict the report. Took that as a sign it was time to disappear.”

The needle primed, the doctor turned to Estrella, examining her wrist for a good injection site.

“But why are you helping
us
? Why my Estrella?”

“The people running the show think only the elite should live, and it’s time to ‘thin the herd.’ First step was Methuselah, but now they’ve shifted to creating diseases. Your little girl is one of their test subjects. That’s why no one knows what’s wrong with her.”