Stories by Elizabeth Bear Part 91

At last, they lie belly-down along branches overlooking the compound, peering through camouflage netting supported by the very trees they've made their lair. Men in plainclothes bordering on uniforms-blue s.h.i.+rts, tan trousers, navy berets-come and go, some of them carrying automatic weapons. At the center of their activity-shadowed by the camo net-lies a low building obviously a.s.sembled from portable component parts. From above, Sanchez can make out the joints between individual rooms and hallways, the tan tape sealing tan waterproof recycled wallboard together. It's the stuff the U.N. uses to throw up refugee camps in a hurry, repurposed ingeniously.

Somebody is leading two children out of the building. And Sanchez recognizes him.

She can't have done so. He can't be here, but there's no mistaking him. He's broad-shouldered and black-haired and dark and tall, and even at this distance she knows the span of his hands and the ease of his stride in her bones. Hands shaking, she raises the spygla.s.s to her eye, shading the lens with her hand so it won't flash in any stray beam of sunlight.

It's Doe Callandar. She recognizes the curve of his mouth, the shape of his chin, the boyish cheeks, the satiny sheen off his skin. His face is set in a scowl, an expression Sanchez knows a little too well. It's the one he wears when he's faced with a task he finds unbearable.

He's got two kids in pajamas beside him, walking barefoot over hardpacked earth.

Brown must notice something, because the earbud he gave her crackles. "Sanchez?"

"That's my husband down there," she says. "Cascadia LEC is on the job. Except they didn't tell me they had an inside man here ... "

Or he's dirtier than she ever imagined. And having witnessed a little, like any lover betrayed, she imagined a lot.

When Sanchez's gaze follows his arm down to the little girl on her left, she almost drops the spygla.s.s.

Because the little girl has the face of a woman of sixty. She's slight and skinny, her shriveled apple head bobbing on a stick-thin neck, her thin hair hanging in gray wisps about her face. The boy, too, is wizened and thin and bald. Sanchez can see the discomfort in his expression as he twists his fingers over and over again in Doe's grip, trying to pull his hand loose. Doe holds both children tight, thought, and by the weapon on his hip, Sanchez has a horrible sense she knows what's about to happen.

He leads the children into the woods.

"Brown."

"Copy."

"Hit your panic b.u.t.ton, man. I'm going after those kids."

"Sanchez!" A desperate hiss. "Don't be crazy, lady. You don't have a gun!"

"Yeah," she says, already gathering her feet under her, getting ready to move. "I know that."

Officer Callandar dragged Martha and Matt along, away from the bustle of the camp. n.o.body would look at them as they pa.s.sed, and Martha had a horrible feeling that she knew why they didn't want to notice her. Because if they noticed her and Matt, they would have to take responsibility for what was going to happen to them.

n.o.body wants to know when something horrible is about to take place.

She screamed and cried, but the big man was stronger than anybody, and he just kept walking. He had a gun-she could smell the gun cleaner, as sharp and green as Daddy Corey's-and his skin was so hot against hers that her palm and wrist were all slicked with sweat. If she could just pull away, she would run- And leave Matt here alone? Run off into the woods in pajamas, barefoot? Without a knife or a fire?

She wouldn't last the night.

She picked her feet up and hung on the man's arm, trying to drag him to a stop, but he just kept walking. He lifted her up by her wrist, so she dangled clear of the ground, and though she kicked and kicked she couldn't hit him in the face like she wanted. His big body just seemed to soak up any punishment she could dish out. Matt, too, struggled and tried to bite, but couldn't get ahold of the man.

Finally, they were well away from the camp, the big man stopped. He set Martha and Matt on the ground, kneeling beside them, and let go of their wrists. "Go on," he said. "Run."

Martha took a step back. Another. Her bruised hand groped out and clutched after Matt, finding his wrist after two grabs. He slapped his fingers over hers, squeezing.

"If we run," Matt said, "you're going to shoot us. Like you shot Daddy Corey."

Matt was just guessing, Martha thought. But Officer Callandar winced.

He reached down and slowly pulled his gun from the holster. "What do you think is going to happen if you don't run?"

Something moved in the trees behind him. Over the thunder of her own heart, the rasp of her breathing, Martha heard a rustle in the needles. She held her breath.

It was the wrong thing, because the big man noticed. He pointed his gun straight up and fired it twice. "Run! You stupid little s.h.i.+ts. Get out of here!"

Something big fell from up above.

Martha did not stay to see what happened. She grabbed Bobby's hand and turned and ran, her knees aching with every step.

Sanchez hits the dirt and Doe at the same time. She puts all the force of her leap-and-fall into the stick she swings, bringing it down on his skull. He crumples, the gun he only fired into the air spinning out of his hand to slam into the earth two meters away. Secured by a squeeze safety and a palmprint-lock, it does not discharge.

Sanchez stands over her husband, the b.l.o.o.d.y stick speckled with a few tight coils of hair in her hands like a baseball bat, like a samurai sword. She breathes heavily-in, out. It hurts.

Doe moans.

She drops the stick and reaches for her cuffs, cursing under her breath when she realizes that in this persona, she does not own any.

The ancient, alien thunder of helicopters rises up the mountainside. The cavalry has arrived.

She must not have hit Doe hard enough-Pulling your punches? Really?-because he suddenly scrambles forward, kicking up clods of composting needles. She dives after him, but he rolls and comes up with the gun. Blood trickles stickily across his forehead. He wipes it away with his free hand.

"Mauritza." It comes out as a sigh of relief, startling her. Still, she watches the gun like you'd watch a snake. "Thank G.o.d."

"You're under arrest," she says.

He lowers the gun, but doesn't put it away. "What for? I'm legit, love. On a license for Seattle. I replaced some private security goon they busted leaving town. What are you doing here?"

She folds her hands. She could lunge for him-she's inside twenty feet, and his gun's not ready. She might be able to disarm him.

But he's bigger and stronger.

She says, "You killed Darwish, didn't you?"

He spreads his hands, leaving the gun in his lap. Intentionally disarming himself. "Klopft killed him. And if you're smart, and you want Klopft to stay in jail, that's the story you'll support." He pauses. "You'll find Darwish's harvested organs and DNA in the freezer here. You've got him dead to rights. Your collar, love."

She meets his gaze. "Like last time?"

He hesitates. And then nods, as if deciding very slowly to be honest.

"In Oakland you planted evidence," she says. "You saved my life, and I covered for you. This time, you framed somebody for murder. For a murder you committed."

"If you send Klopft up for trafficking in endangered species, or for illegal adoptions, he'll serve a couple of years. A few months. I know he killed babies, but I can't prove it. I can prove he killed Darwish. And do you know what Darwish did? Did you see those kids? That's what he was involved in, Mauritza. The first babies they made all had genetic defects. Progeria. They put most of 'em down, but Darwish kept a couple as pets. They'll die of old age before they turn fifteen. These people are horrible. Play it my way and you're a hero."

"You can stop me," she says. "You have a gun."

"I know." But he doesn't reach for it.

"You poor stupid son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h," she says. "Darwish was an informer, Doe. The guy you killed and cut up was on our side."

Back at the camp, Cascadia and Interpol's licensed ops and sworn officers bustle about as they hustle men and a few women into coffles. There could have been a firefight-Sanchez is surprised there wasn't a firefight-but surprise must have ameliorated the worst of it.

She hands Doe off to a uniformed officer, dazzled for a moment by the cost in energy, hydrocarbons, fuel cells to bring all these people out here. She tells the woman that they need to mount a search party, that there are two children suffering some form of progeria lost in the woods. That the kids are witnesses against Klopft, and need to be protected.

And then she goes to join the search for them, confident that neither Cascadia nor Interpol had trackers much better than her.

The bole of the fallen tree stretched over them kept the rain off, and the ground underneath was only damp, not soaked like everything else. Martha and Matt had no knives, nor anything but sticks rubbed sharp, but Matt was pulling up the bark and probing in the tunnels underneath for grubs. They chewed them carefully, not wasting anything: food was food.

Martha didn't think the people from the compound-or the other people, the ones who had been fighting the people from the compound- would find them here. They'd run far, and hidden well.

And for a couple of hours, everything was silent except the sounds of animals, and the rain.

Until a boot crunched outside, footsteps approaching, and somebody parted the boughs that fell over them with a pale-skinned hand.

"Hey," said the woman who had hit Callandar and then fought him while Martha and Matt ran away. "You guys want to come out of there? My name's Mauritza. I have a warm dry place for you to sleep."

Martha looked at Matt. Matt shrugged, deferring to her.

How bad can it be?

Gingerly, Martha reached out a cold hand.

Brown waits for her near the outskirts of the camp, his arms folded, letting the official types do their work. He's watching a team carry cages out of the building and line them up in the shade-strange purple birds in polymer boxes with airholes, snakes that seem long and whippy and as curiously jointed as those wooden toy serpents you shake by the tail, octopuses in large wheeled terrariums.

"Look at this stuff," Brown says, when Mauritza walks up to him. "Squonks. Tree octopuses. Hoopsnakes."

She decides she doesn't want to know about hoopsnakes. "What's a squonk?"

"See those purple birds? They were supposed to be able to dissolve themselves in their own tears. These ones seem to be able to convert themselves into an amoeba-like state and back. One of your techs said it was going to set stem cell research forward fifteen years, if they can figure out how to extrapolate the tech."

"They're not my techs," Mauritza says. "This was just a license job."

"Sure it was." He smiles.

She looks away.

"There are a whole bunch of babies inside," Brown says. "That same tech told me they're genetically manipulated. Stronger, faster-"

"You have a way of getting sensitive information out of people."

"I used to have a nickname."

"I heard." She pauses, pressed against her eyes. "If you can build a tree octopus, how much trouble is a superkid?"

"Bet the going rate is higher."

"Yeah," she says. "And so is the cost of failure."

Brown turns to look at her. "You know, my license is up as of five minutes ago. I'm not a cop right this second. I'm just a guy with a conscience."

"Doe's going to walk out of this a hero," she says.

"Unless you tell somebody the truth."

She nods. She can't look at him. She keeps talking. Not because he's interviewing her, but because she has to tell somebody, and maybe if it's him, she can tell herself he got it out of her somehow.

Superpowers.

"The last case we worked before I left him," she says. She opens her mouth. She can't go on.

Brown waits, studying his fingernails.

She studies them too. "Doe planted evidence."

"You have proof?"

She nods. "I have a vid. The same vid that shows me nearly getting shot. I kept it to myself. But that wasn't-" She sighs. "That wasn't murder."

Brown says, "If you come forward with this, that will cost you your career."

"And him his." She twists her hands together. "I was a good cop. It's not the end of the world."

Brown looks away. "You are a good cop. You know, I was thinking of getting out of this game-"

"Too much ugly?" she asks, noticing the past tense.

He nods. "They're going to destroy all of these animals."

"I know," she says. "It's not your fault."

"Whose fault it is doesn't change what's going to happen."

She has to force her shoulders out of their hunch. "What about the babies?"

"G.o.d only knows. Adoption? Want to raise a superbaby? Somebody will. And Matt and Martha?"

"Group home. After they testify."

"Group home," he agrees. "Until they die of old age."

Her whole body aches with the aftermath of adrenaline. "What about the animals that escaped?"

"Escaped?" Brown glances across at her and smiles. "You think these things could survive in the wild?"

Sanchez looks him in the eye. She looks away.

"Of course. How on earth would anything escape a place like this? It's crazy talk."

She shakes her head, remembering the elegant coil of sticky tentacles through wet boughs.