“It’s worse than that,” Bryn said. “They’re going after politicians. Bankers. Leaders of all kinds. She’s out to take over, Joe. Really take over. And she has to be stopped.”
“Nice idea, babe, but we had a hell of a time shooting our own way out. I don’t think waging a three-person crusade is going to get us anywhere. Four, if we can hook up with Pat. Five, if you count Manny, which I don’t.” He shook his head. “Best we can do is blow the whistle loud and hard, now that we have you.”
“Have … me?”
“Without you, we’re paranoid schizophrenics babbling about the zombie apocalypse. With you, maybe we’ve got a fighting chance to have someone believe us.”
“Is that why you—”
“No,” Joe said. “McCallister was going to come get you himself. He said he promised. It would have been a disaster; no way could he have gotten in without being caught, much less gotten you out. Me and Pansy, we’re not really on their radar. Well, weren’t, until then. I gotta tell you, Pat and I don’t come to blows real often, but we did over this thing. He was damn sure going to get himself killed for you.” He gave her a long, assessing look. “You do know why, right?” She shook her head, but it was a pro forma lie, and he smiled. “Hey, I’m the last one to point fingers about getting personally involved. I met a girl on a job once. Look how that turned out.”
“You mean Kylie?”
“Exactly. Being professional will only get you so far, and then you’ve got to be human.”
Horror flooded her, on the heels of that warm moment. “Joe—your family—”
“They’re safe,” he said. “Pat saw them moved out to a secure location, as soon as he knew this was going south. Nobody’s going to touch my kids, or Kylie.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah, well, it’s going to take a bouquet of roses the size of the frigging Rose Parade to make this up to her, but my wife knew what she was getting when she married me. And the kids think it’s a cool adventure.” Fideli shrugged. “Which it is, right?”
Unbelievable. “You got shot.”
“Eh, I’ve been shot for worse causes. And we just rescued you, shot our way out, had a car chase. Plus, there’s this whole coming-back-from-the-dead thing. My kids would be very impressed.”
“I’m very impressed, too.”
“Well, it wasn’t a clockwork operation, but it’ll do. At least you’re on the mend.”
For now. Bryn swallowed again, miserably aware of her own vulnerability. “Joe … I’m going to need another shot,” she said. “And one tomorrow. And one the day after. What exactly are we going to do about that?”
Fideli kept his eyes on the credit card machine. “You want me to lie to you and tell you I’ve got a brilliant plan on that?”
“Would you?”
“Probably not. I’m hoping McCallister does.”
Pansy slid the door back, jumped in, and slammed it shut, panting from her run. “Done. I put the thing in the bed of a truck with Texas plates. As far as I know, they’ll chase him all the way back to San Antonio,” she said, and took a moment to lay her hand gently on Bryn’s head. “You doing okay?”
“Peachy,” Bryn murmured. “I have a giant hole in my leg, and we were just talking about how much Returné we don’t have.”
Pansy gave her a slow, delighted smile and said, “You two don’t think I’d let you down, do you?” Even Fideli turned to look at her when she said that, eyebrows raised. Pansy picked up a small box from the floorboard. “Et voilà.” She opened it.
Inside were vials filled with clear liquid. Seven of them.
“How …” Bryn’s voice failed her.
“Where do you think I got the shot to give you? I made sure I was the one Harte tapped to pull it from the supply. They had two boxes out on the cart, since they were assembly-lining the staff. I grabbed one. We’ll need to pick up syringes—that’s all. Oh, and just in case …” Pansy handed her a gold-edged Pharmadene ID. “Irene Harte’s. It probably won’t work, but just in case you ever wanted a souvenir, that’s probably the best you can get. Manny won’t let me keep it. He’ll assume it’s bugged.”
“Is it?”
“Not anymore.” Pansy gave her a cheery smile.
“I’d kiss you if I could get up,” Bryn said. “God, thank you.”
“No charge. Well, no extra charge. Joe’s already paying me.”
“Paying you …”
“I don’t come cheap, sweetie,” Pansy said. “Manny doesn’t like it when I leave him all alone. He’s got another batch of inhibitor ready, by the way, so when you take me home, you can get your booster on that, too.”
A week. A whole luxurious week of life, guaranteed right there.
And what about after that? But for the first time, Bryn felt the tight fist of anxiety in her chest ease, just a little, and as Fideli and Pansy spoke in low, quiet tones, and Fideli pulled the van out to drive on, she finally surrendered to her need to rest.
When they finally arrived at Manny Glickman’s lab, hours later, it was chaos. Even Pansy seemed shocked when, as she helped Bryn in the big fire door, she ran into a giant pallet of neatly stacked boxes. “Great,” she said, staring at them. “Just great.”
“What’s going on?” Fideli asked, from behind them.
“Get in and stay right here,” Pansy said. “Whatever happens, don’t go all Rambo on me, all right?”
That didn’t sound good. Neither did the tension in Pansy’s voice. Edging around the boxes, Bryn saw why; the place was crowded with boxes stacked everywhere. No more lab equipment; it was all packed. Big machines were crated and secured, ready for transport. The curtains at the back of the big room were open, and more pallets of boxes were stacked there.
“Freeze!” a magnified voice said from overhead, and Bryn looked up sharply to see a figure above them on a narrow catwalk. It was almost obscured by the lights, and she squinted and just barely made out Manny Glickman’s form up there.
He worked the action on a pump shotgun, and the crisp chunk-chunk sound made them all obey. Even Fideli. Bryn raised her hands in surrender.
“Jesus, Manny, it’s me.” Pansy sighed. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Moving,” he said. “You were supposed to be back four hours ago.”
“I told you it wasn’t guaranteed, baby.”
“Four hours ago.”
“You didn’t pack all this in the last four hours.”
Manny was silent for a few seconds, then said, “Are you vouching for them, Pansy?”
“Of course I am, or I wouldn’t have brought them up here, would I?” Her voice was gentle, but as Bryn glanced at her, she saw that Pansy was worried. “It’s all right. Trust me. Her tracker’s gone, and we weren’t followed.”
“I thought about blowing up the van,” Manny said. “You know that, don’t you? You didn’t come in the right car. You said you’d be in a red sedan.”
“Pansy, what the hell …?” Fideli murmured. She shushed him.
“We had to improvise. Things were crazy. But we got out, and everything’s fine, and I brought you a present.” She held up a single vial of Returné. “Enough to run tests on for months.”
It was a shiny treat, but Manny failed to take the bait. “Make them sit down on the floor, right now. Hands behind their heads.”
“Manny—”
“Now!” His shout rattled the rafters. Pansy sighed and turned to Bryn and Joe.
“Please,” she said. “I need to back him off the ledge.”
Kneeling down with her stiff and still-healing leg hurt, but it was better than risking Manny going all hair-trigger on them; Bryn was more concerned about Joe, who’d had a very full day for a man with a recently collapsed lung. He shrugged off her silent concern, though, and sat down a lot more easily than she did. By unspoken agreement, they kept their hands in the air.
“Okay, they’re down,” Pansy said. “Can I please come talk to you?”
“If they move—”
“They’re not going to move. Can I?”
He hesitated for a long moment, and then said, “I’m coming down. Stay there.”
His heavy footsteps clanked overhead and down a staircase somewhere in the shadows to the right. When Manny finally came back into the glow of the overheads, he was dressed in black—black turtleneck, black pants, a black tactical vest with pockets bulging with ammunition. He carried the shotgun at a neutral but ready position.
And his eyes were more than a little crazy. He didn’t take his gaze away from Bryn and Fideli, except for a very fast glance at Pansy.
He handed her a syringe.
“What’s this for?”
“Blood sample,” he said.
“She’s okay, I told you—”
“Not from her. From you.”
“Jesus, Manny!”
This time, the glance he sent her lingered, and was half-apologetic. But still half-crazy. “I need to know that you’re still you. They could have revived you. You could be acting under protocols.”
She didn’t try to talk him out of it, and Bryn thought it was sad that Manny’s paranoia was actually quite practical now; she wouldn’t have believed that kind of thing two weeks ago, but now, it was surprisingly rational. Pansy just walked over to the nearest flat surface, drew a sample of her own blood (not something Bryn thought she could have accomplished with nearly as much aplomb), and handed back the full syringe. Manny backed up, keeping his eyes fixed on all of them, opened up a box nearby, and took out what looked like a sheet of paper. He squirted a small amount of the blood onto the surface. It soaked in quickly, and a blue ring spread out from the crimson blot.