Marcus Sakey - Brilliance

The surgeon had risen and was walking his tray over to a garbage bin. Shannon circled the table of nurses, slipped between two sad-faced women, cut back across the floor, and then stepped out of nowhere and into the man’s path. They collided. He almost lost the tray, the plate and cup slipping to the edge, then managed to get it under control as he apologized, stepping back and blushing. Shannon shook her head, assured him it was her fault, laughed, patted him on the bicep, and came back carrying the man’s ID badge.

Cooper smiled into his coffee cup.

They finalized their plan in the elevator. As he understood hospitals, small stores of the most commonly needed medications were kept on every floor. But Shadow wasn’t standard stuff. It would be kept in a single location, well secured and carefully monitored.

After they split up, Cooper paused at the corner and counted ten Mississippis. Then he put on a confused expression and started forward.

The dispensary was part storeroom, part pharmacy. A counter opened to a window behind which a man and a woman counted pills. Cooper went to the counter. “Excuse me, can you guys help?” Saying you guys to be sure he had the attention of both of them, and leaning on the counter, drawing their eyes away from the back. “I am so freaking lost. This place is huge! It’s like a maze. I don’t know how you find anything here.”

“What are you looking for?”

“I mean, my God. I’m trying to visit my niece. I started out just the way they said. Turned right, went straight, turned left. I found the elevators okay, but that was the last time I knew where I was. I feel like I’ve been wandering for weeks. Pretty soon I’m going to have to eat my shoe for provisions.”

“Well, tell me where you’re trying to go and I’ll help you.”

Over the pharmacist’s shoulder, Cooper saw Shannon cross between a row of shelves. She winked at him. He smiled before he could catch himself, then went with it, said, “Sure, sure. That’s just what the last guy said. I think he must have had a bet with someone. See how long he could keep a guy wandering. You’re probably in on it.”

The tolerant expression was starting to slip. “Sir, I can’t help you if you won’t tell me where—”

“I told you, I’m trying to visit my niece.”

“Yes, but where is she?”

Cooper did a double take. “If I knew that, I wouldn’t have to ask, would I? You don’t listen too good.”

“No, what department. ICU, pediatrics…”

“Right.” He slapped his forehead. “Sorry, sometimes I get to talking, and goddamn if by the time I reach the end of a sentence I haven’t forgotten the beginning. It’s like the trail of tears. Only, you know, without the dead Indians.”

The pharmacist stared at him. It wouldn’t have taken Cooper’s gift to read his thoughts: This guy is a moron.

Not far behind it, though, was, Maybe I should call security. It was a hospital, after all. There were legitimately crazy people here.

“She had her tonsils out.”

“Okay. Recovery.” The man gave him directions, speaking slowly and carefully. Cooper nodded, thanked him, and then went back the way he’d come. He barely kept himself from laughing but let the smile spread.

Until he turned the corner and saw a security guard hurrying toward him, along with the surgeon from the cafeteria. Shit. They’d hoped the doctor might not need his badge so quickly, and that even if he did, he’d waste time retracing his steps. Instead, it appeared he had gone straight to security—

The fact that they’re here means they checked the computer system. They know his badge was just used to access the dispensary.

They won’t waste time talking to the pharmacist. They’ll go for the door.

Which is the only exit. She’ll be trapped.

—which left Cooper with no choice. He’d do the security guard first, a quick combination, solar plexus-kidney-kidney, then the doctor. Sprint back to the dispensary, hop the counter, take out the pharmacists if they got in the way. Get the Neurodicin, get Shannon, get out.

Someone tapped his shoulder, and he whirled.

The Girl Who Walks Through Walls stood behind him. “Hi.”

“You. But.” He turned, saw the guard and doctor hurrying past. Neither glanced at them, focused on their goal. “Oh. Huh.”

“What?”

“It’s just, I thought you were still in there. I was going to…I was about to—”

“Rescue me?”

“Uhh…”

“I’m not a cat up a tree. I can handle myself.” Shannon held up an orange plastic bottle, shook it so the pills rattled. “Let’s go.”

She wasn’t what he expected.

Shannon had said that her friend Samantha went way back with John Smith. Cooper had imagined another woman like her, strong, ideologically dedicated, and very dangerous. A soldier.

What he hadn’t expected was this tiny, delicate thing with pale-blond hair. She had a woman’s face and curves, but couldn’t have been more than four foot ten, maybe ninety pounds. It had a strangely erotic effect; she was so small you couldn’t help but imagine what she looked like naked.

“Hey, Sam.” Shannon stepped forward, leaning down to hug the woman. “This is Cooper.”

“Hi,” he said, holding out a hand. As she shook it, he got a whiff of perfume, sweet but clean. Maybe it was that, or the softness of her hand, but he felt himself getting turned on.

“Come in.” She stepped aside.

The room looked like a catalog from an upscale furniture store. Twin white sofas sat atop a thick shag rug. A coffee table holding coffee-table books. The only hint of personality was a bookcase packed to bursting. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, only night and the looming invisible bulk of Lake Michigan.

Shannon said, “Brought you a present.” She held out the pill bottle.

“Wow. How did you get your hands on Nada?” Samantha pronounced it like a lover’s name. “That’s so sweet of you.”

Given the upscale apartment and Samantha’s style and carriage, Cooper had almost forgotten that she was an addict. But watching her as she held the pill bottle, he could see the raw, curling need inside her, the hunger. She started to open the bottle, stopped herself, tapped the label. “Sweet of you both.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, for want of something to say.

Samantha’s eyes were soft brown flecked with gold, and as she looked at him, the addiction was pushed down, replaced by something he couldn’t quite identify. She shifted her pose, one foot slightly forward, her hips cocked and back straight. The move was subtle, but it made her look stronger, gave her a ferocity. “I’m surprised a cop would be okay with this.”

“I’m not a cop.”

“Not anymore, maybe. But you were. Right?” She smiled. “I can always tell. It’s the confidence, the way you hold yourself. Like you could handcuff me if you wanted to.” There was a small gap between her front teeth, and Cooper remembered reading somewhere that was linked to highly sexual tendencies, and that thought led to a visual of what she would look like riding him, how huge his hands would be on her hips, the way her back might arch so that hair would swing down behind to brush his thighs…

Jesus, man. Lock it down.