Max Collins - Skin Game

“Passing for human?” Joshua asked.

“No — being human.”

“We are human,” Alec said.

“Not exactly,” Hampton said.

“Anyway,” Alec said, picking up the prior thread, “you say you have no idea where he is? Can’t you give us a lead, anyway?”

Shrugging, the janitor said, “Kelpy had an apartment over in Queen Anne.”

Alec said, “Isn’t that where you live, Hampton?”

“Yeah, on Sixth. Bobby’s place is on Crockett.”

“Bobby?”

“Yeah. He uses the name Bobby Kawasaki. Only a few of us know about Kelpy.”

“Bobby Kawasaki... you’re shitting me.”

“No,” Hampton said, frowning, “I’m not. Why?”

“Nothing,” Alec said.

But really it was something: Alec knew the name.

It belonged to a Jam Pony messenger. He’d heard Normal call out for the guy before; but for the life of him, Alec couldn’t put a face with the name.

“Can you give us Kelpy’s — Bobby’s — address?”

Hampton did.

“Thanks,” Alec said, and turned back to his towering companion. “Better put your helmet back on, Joshua.”

But before Joshua could take that advice, the door to the small room swung open.

Alec turned to see a skinny man in his late fifties, in shirt and tie, his hair short and gray, his brown eyes huge with fear as he stared up at Joshua’s helmetless head.

“Oh, my God,” the man squeaked. He tried to shut the door but Joshua came running out, knocking the visitor aside. Alec turned and immediately punched Hampton in the face, and the janitor crumpled to the floor in a heap. Joshua stood in the hall, aghast, as Alec slipped into the corridor as well.

The guy in the tie snatched a walkie-talkie off his belt and held it up to his mouth. “This is Vice Principal Koopman — they’re here ! The freaks are here — they must be trying to grab the children!”

Alec ripped the radio out of the guy’s hands and threw it against the brick wall, smashing it into a thousand pieces. Then he and Joshua sprinted up the hall, into the main corridor and out of the building.

Once the car was a safe distance from the school, Joshua asked, “Why did you punch Hampton?”

“To protect his cover. They’ll think he was fighting us. He’ll be all right.”

Joshua nodded. “That went sideways.”

“Yes, it did.”

“FUBAR.”

“FUBAR, indeed,” Alec said.

The X5 knew that once this made the news, Max would be righteously pissed, and there would be hell to pay. The only way to make this better was for them to find Kelpy or Bobby, or whatever the hell he was calling himself now.

The sector cops would be looking for them, and having to go to Queen Anne meant five more checkpoints to clear, which meant the smart money was on stealing a different car. In a grocery store parking lot, Alec traded the gray Catbird for a maroon Ford. They passed through the checkpoints with no real trouble and finally got to the address Hampton had given them for Kelpy.

The odd couple climbed the stairs to the eighth floor, and found Kelpy’s door seventh down on the left. No light was visible under the door, but Alec was through taking chances for the day. Using the old Manticore hand signals, they came up with a plan. Alec slid to one side and pressed himself against the wall. Still wearing the helmet, Joshua stood in front of the door and knocked.

“Pizza,” he said.

There was no response from the other side.

Knocking a second time, louder this time, Joshua repeated, “Pizza.”

Still no one came to the door.

“Fine,” Alec said. “We do it the hard way.”

“Hard way?” asked Joshua.

Easing his friend aside, Alec used burglar tools — two picklocks — on the door. Soon the two were standing within a small studio apartment, as silent as it was dark.

Alec hit the light switch, but the dim forty-watter overhead did little to improve the gloom inside the tiny flat. “Not exactly living high, wide, and handsome, is he?”

Joshua said, “Not high, not wide,” clearly not knowing what he was saying.

Alec dispatched Joshua to start on the kitchen side, while he handled the other. They took their time, moving ahead slowly, hoping not to miss any bit of evidence that would either prove Kelpy was the killer or exonerate him. After checking the stove, Joshua opened the refrigerator door and stood, staring.

“What have you got?” Alec asked.

“Tryptophan in the fridge,” Joshua said, holding up a white bottle big enough for five hundred or so doses.

“Take it.”

“That’s stealing, Alec.”

“Take it!”

Joshua stuffed the bottle in his pocket. In the bathroom, in a cupboard under the sink, Alec found a canvas bag. Inside he found the wallets, pistols, stun rods, and badges of two sector cops and an NSA operative named Calvin D. Hankins.

“Not exactly the jackpot I was hoping to hit,” he said.

Ducking into the bathroom, Joshua looked at the items and frowned, and his voice quivered as he asked, “Kelpy... Kelpy is skinner, isn’t he?”

“Looks that way... Sorry, big guy.” Alec loaded the evidence back in the bag. “We’ve got to get this stuff to Max, ASAP.”

“Okay. But Alec — she won’t be happy. We won’t be heroes.”

“No, but she’ll be pleased we found this before the cops or Ames White. Did you find anything?”

Joshua shook his head.

As they walked out into the main room, Alec noticed a door next to the one they’d busted in. A closet, had to be. “Did you look in there?” he asked.

Joshua shook his head. “Didn’t see it.”

Glancing from Joshua to the door, Alec turned the knob and opened it.

Inside they saw something even their Manticore hardened eyes were unprepared to process.

A dress mannequin stood on the floor, wearing a Frankenstein patchwork, an incomplete garment, whose sections were various tones, ranging from brown to off-white, depending in part upon their relative freshness.

The garment in progress consisted of the stitched-together flesh of Kelpy’s victims.

“Crazy bastard’s making a human suit,” Alec said.

“Why, Alec? Why? ”

“To be human, I guess. Somewhere in his Manticore-fried brain, he came up with that hot one... Wait... what the hell...?”

Hating to touch the thing, Alec swiveled the mannequin slightly.

On the blank head of the thing, Kelpy had pasted a photo of a white face with spiky hair, wire frame glasses, and a serious save-the-world look.

Joshua said simply, “Logan’s picture. Alec — why is Logan’s picture on that statue?”

“Not good,” Alec said. “Not good.”

Walking down the eighth floor hall, Bobby Kawasaki knew something was wrong.

He could almost smell it. At his apartment he paused and saw the faint glow beneath the door.

Someone was inside!

Not wasting a moment, his fear spiking, Bobby stripped, tossed his clothes down the hall, and blended into the wall.

Not thirty seconds later, his head covered by a motorcycle helmet, Bobby’s old friend Joshua stepped into the hall. A young man who appeared to be an X5 followed, the canvas bag of goodies hanging from his arm.

They took a few steps in the opposite direction and Kelpy attacked.

Reaching into the bag, Kelpy pulled out a stun rod before the X5 could react. He touched the X5 with the rod, and the young man yelled as he shook violently.

Growling, Joshua spun toward Kelpy, but not in time...

Snatching up the second stun rod, Kelpy hit Joshua in the chest even as the beast man lunged forward with a lionlike roar that turned into a shriek. Kelpy hit both of them again, and left them twitching but unconscious.