Rachel Caine: Working Stiff

Bryn turned to get the bag.

She never saw Mercer’s blow coming, and never knew how he hit her, or what with, except that it had to be with something big and heavy. She heard a sound that might have been Annalie’s choked scream, and then she was down on the cold floor, trying to figure out what was happening, and why, why in God’s name he’d done that….

Mercer thought she was unconscious, Bryn realized. She should have been, but she guessed she had a harder head than he’d expected. Her body wasn’t quite within her control just yet, but she could hear as he pressed buttons on a phone and said, “Irene Harte, please. Yes, I’ll hold…. Ah, Irene, nice to hear your voice. Patrick McCallister will be at the Civic Theatre in about twenty minutes, thirty at the outside if he stops for coffee and doughnuts. I believe he’s going to try to take out your advance crew, and then get you for good measure. That concludes our deal, I believe. You get what you want, and you leave me strictly alone. Bye-bye, Irene.”

“You lied,” Annalie said shakily. “You’re working with her.”

“I’m a businessman, and Irene has no real use for me now; it’s just as easy for her to pay me as kill me. She can always try to kill me later. McCallister, on the other hand— he’s much harder to get, so she’s perfectly willing to trade my life for his. And frankly, Annie, my life is really all that matters to me. Now, be a good girl and hit your sister with this pan, very hard, on the back of the head, and I promise not to let Freddy put that bag over your head ever again.”

“I can’t,” Annie sobbed. “I can’t. Bryn—”

“You will if you want to live,” Mercer said. “I’ll count to ten. One, two, three, four … Oh, all right, I suppose blood really is thicker than water. Don’t cry, Annie; listen to my voice. Condition Diamond. ”

Annie abruptly stopped crying. The silence, in contrast, was eerie. Get up , Bryn thought grimly. She tried, and managed to push herself over on her side. Paralyzed nerves were starting to wake up and scream.

Annalie was staring at Mercer, slowly clearing eyes vacant as a doll’s.

“Now,” he said. “Take this pan, and hit your sister in the head with it, as hard as you can, until she’s not moving anymore.”

“Annie—” Bryn whispered.

Annalie didn’t hesitate. She took the pan, braced herself, and swung the skillet with brutal force.

It took three hits to crush Bryn’s skull.

The last thing Bryn heard, a faint and echoing whisper as she fell into darkness, was Mercer saying, “That’s my good girl.”

She woke up to someone screaming, and for a moment she was back in the white room, hearing that awful birth scream through the glass….

... And then she realized that she was hearing it full-strength, somewhere a few feet away.

Bryn blinked and rolled over. The agony in her head was like spikes of steel driven deep, and she thought, That is bone digging into my brain . No, it couldn’t be. The back of her skull felt soft, but not shattered.

Busy little nanites. She knew it had been smashed.

She was lying on a blood-smeared kitchen floor, all alone, and there was a woman in a fluffy pink bathrobe standing in the doorway, shrieking like a banshee.

Get up , she told herself. You have to get up.

She managed to drag herself to her knees, then up to her feet. The woman stopped screaming and ran. Next stop, 911. Time was running out.

Annie. Mercer had taken Freddy with him; he must have taken Annie as well. God, Annie killed me. Or had tried, anyway. Not her fault; she’d been controlled. She wouldn’t have done it on her own, not even out of fear.

Bryn had to cling to that. There was very little left to cling to.

Oh, God, McCallister . He was walking into a trap, and—on her insistence—probably taking Joe Fideli with him. She had to stop it. Stop him.

She had to find Annie.

Bryn gasped and lurched for the living room, past the sofa and the toys. She tripped, hit the door, and bounced off. Locked. Nice that Mercer had been so considerate of the family that he locked up as he left—only he hadn’t bothered to move the dead woman on the kitchen floor. The woman in the bathrobe was on the phone, shrieking out the address.

Have to get out of here.

Bryn twisted the dead bolt and made it outside, staggered down the steps, and broke into an off-balance run once she hit the sidewalk. The neighborhood was still quiet, but lights were coming on all over now, responding to the screams.

She had to get out of here, fast . At the very least, she’d be arrested for breaking and entering; even if no charges were filed, she’d be held long enough that McCallister …

She had to run faster. Somehow, she had to try.

It was ironic that the sun was rising, and it was a beautiful morning; birds were singing in lyrical melodies from the treetops. Morning glories bloomed on the fences. She left fat drops of blood behind her on the sidewalk, but fewer and fewer with each step as the injury’s last bleeder sealed itself. Her head ached unbearably, but she ignored that, concentrating on the pounding rhythm of her feet.

How long had she been lying there? How much time had it taken for the nanites to repair her broken skull?

Two blocks up was the convenience store. She dug for the keys and threw herself into the van, fired up the engine and sped away, not caring about traffic cameras or anything else. If she led a parade of cops to the Civic Theatre, fine. The more, the better.

The clock on the dashboard said she was already too late to get to McCallister to warn him, hours too late, but she had to try.

She had Joe’s burner phone with her, and used it to dial McCallister’s number. Pick up, pick up ….

She got an answer. “Patrick! Patrick, listen—”

“It’s Joe,” said the voice on the other end. “Bryn?”

“If you’re at the theater, get the hell out of there!” she yelled. “Mercer sold us out, understand? Harte knows! She knows you’re coming; get out!”

“Too late for that; we’re in—” His voice was covered by gunfire, shockingly close. “Got to get Harte and shut this down or all this is for nothing. Stay away, Bryn. Just stay away.”

“No! I’m coming!” She hung up and tossed the phone, and drove faster.

There was an eerie sense of quiet at the Civic Theatre, but the entrance to the parking area was manned by men and women in suits and sunglasses, scanning the area with merciless intensity. Bryn took a right turn and drove by, knowing they were tracking the van as it came close to the perimeter. I’ll never get inside. Not against Pharmadene robots. They were definitely company people; she could see that at a glance. Not all of them were trained security, but they were on alert, and she had no doubt that every single one of them had orders to hold the perimeter against any and all comers. They’d do it. For one thing, they were all revived. Hard to kill.

Like her.

What happened to the other security? The Secret Service should have been here; there should have been other government bodies in place. It was entirely possible that Pharmadene had already overwhelmed the Secret Service, then. And the FBI. And anyone else who posed a threat.

You’d never know guns were being fired inside the building; it looked cool and calm. No emergencies reported at all, or there would have been some sign of police, of ambulances. Something .

Bryn moved on, looking for some way onto the grounds. Her panic was mounting; out here, she was useless, and she couldn’t help them. If Harte got to McCallister and turned him … she could order McCallister to do anything. And he was capable; Bryn knew that. Capable of anything. If someone as essentially peaceful and harmless as Annie could be turned into her sister’s killer, just like that, McCallister would be a deadly weapon. No wonder Harte had wanted him so badly.