“Follow me,” Justice said. Drake did as he was told. His footsteps echoed noisily off the metallic flooring. Justice paused about fifteen feet down the hallway at a doorway. He inserted his BICC badge. The mechanism beeped, and he pushed open the heavy door. “This wing of the facility is the taupe area. All the sections are color-coded based on the type of guest who’s staying there.”
“What kind of guest am I?” he asked.
“The kind who isn’t going to be any trouble, I’m sure,” Justice replied. His tone wasn’t mean or taunting, just instructive.
I just want to go home. Someone get me home, Drake thought.
The walls were painted a soft tan. The hallway itself branched in several different directions from the main corridor, reminding Drake of an ant farm. This place was bigger, much bigger, than he’d imagined. Halfway down the hall, Justice opened a door, this one leading to a small room. There was a single bed, a half-open door leading to a bathroom, and a television bolted to the wall. Drake brightened at the sight of the TV. He hadn’t had access to one since things went all to hell.
“At least you gave me a TV. That’s something.” Drake looked around for a remote.
“Right. All you can watch right now are the DVDs. There’s only a few but we’ll try to get you some more,” Justice said. “I’ll give you a tour of some of the facility later on, but for now you’ll be required to stay in your room. We also need you to take that.” He pointed to a pill in a plastic cup, sitting next to a glass of water on the end table.
“I’m sick of pills and stuff.”
“I’ll make it worth your while.”
Drake shrugged and took the pill. They’d only force him if he didn’t, and he was curious about the payoff.
Justice walked over to a paper bag on the floor and fished out a T-shirt, which he tossed over to Drake. “Just so you know we’re not the bad guys.” He gave Drake an unconvincing smile and left, locking the door behind him.
Drake unfolded the shirt, which had the familiar Joker Plague logo on it. He tossed his other shirt and pulled it on, stretching it tightly over his belly. Score one for me, he thought, wondering how long it would be before he could get full access to the TV. He’d worry about that later. Right now he was getting sleepy.
Dr. Pendergast leaned forward in his easy chair, scratching the salt-and-pepper Vandyke on his chin. “It’s healthy to grieve,” he said.
Niobe wiped away a tear. She looked around the room, looking for words. Diplomas on the walls documented Pendergast’s extensive medical pedigree. The photo on his desk showed Pendergast in a tuxedo, smiling, with his arm around the shoulders of a centaur. Niobe gathered that the horse guy was some famous doctor. Pendergast often spoke fondly of his time at the Jokertown Clinic.
“They’re scared,” she said. “But if I’m strong, if they feel that, it gives them hope, you know?”
“It isn’t healthy to ignore your feelings.”
“I’m not. But I need time.” She glared at the doctor, twisting the tissue paper in her hands. “You called me for another session even before Xerxes had died. I can’t do it that often. It was too soon.”
Pendergast nodded. “Unfortunate timing. I am sorry about that. But consistency is crucial to our work.”
She exhaled through pursed lips, crossed her arms over her chest, and looked away.
“You’ve grown much self-awareness since you came here. You should take comfort in that, Genetrix.” She’d lost the name battle long ago. The new identity was his idea. “You’ve come a long way. Do you remember how you first came to BICC from your parents’ estate?”
Of course she did. She remembered lots of yelling, lots of blood, an empty bottle of scotch, a straight razor. If one of the maids hadn’t found her in time, she might have bled out right there on the floor of the master bath.
Her tail still had the scars. Little ridges of skin where the ugly pig hair wouldn’t grow.
Quietly, so he wouldn’t press the issue: “Yeah. I remember.”
“You’re a different person now. I’m proud of you.”
Niobe lowered her eyes, nodded. She sniffed again. “It helps having people who care about the kids. Like you. And Christian.”
“And we’re making progress. Two years ago, a full month would have been unthinkable. We’ll beat this thing. The important thing, Genetrix, is not giving up.”
Niobe didn’t say anything. More tears came. The room went out of focus.
Pendergast stood. He paced over to his desk and picked up the candy jar. In a lighter, more jovial tone, he said, “Quite a trio in this clutch!”
He offered her a chocolate. Niobe declined. Sweets made her break out even worse than normal.
“Yectli certainly was a shock.”
One corner of her mouth curled up in a half-smile at the pun. She snorted. Then she looked up, worried.
“Was anybody hurt? He didn’t mean to. He just wanted to impress me. Kids are like that.”
Pendergast waved away her concerns. “No worries. He frightened the technicians, and fried an expensive camera, but otherwise no harm done. I found it funny, myself.”
“Do you think he’s a joker? The albinism, I mean?”
He shrugged. “Who can say? Your hatchlings vary so greatly from one to the next . . .” He trailed off. “Do you think he’s a joker?” He narrowed his eyes and scratched his beard again. “Were you thinking about jokerism when you were with Christian?”
“No. Why?”
“I want to show you something.” Pendergast opened a wooden cabinet to reveal a flat-screen television and a DVD player. He pressed a button and the static blinked into a view of therapy room two from behind the mirror.
She watched herself saying, “Maybe we can leave the curtains closed, just once.”
Then Pendergast fast-forwarded until Yectli hatched. Yves’s head kept bobbing into the frame as he danced on the ceiling. “Watch what I can do,” boasted Yectli.
Zap! The image returned to static.
“Quite a coincidence,” said the doctor. “You expressed unhappiness with the camera, and then poof! A manikin with the power to address your unease.”
“You think I did that on purpose somehow?”
“Perhaps your mental state during copulation determined Yectli’s power.”
“Jesus, Doc! If I had any control over their abilities, don’t you think not dying would come first?” Niobe threw up her arms. “God!”
He raised his hands, palm out. “Fair enough.” As he closed the cabinet, he said, almost as an aside, “Has Yvette demonstrated her power to you yet? We’re still unclear on whether she’s an ace or a deuce.”
“Nope. She’s a quiet one.” Aren’t you, sweetheart?
Better to be thought a fool, Mom.
After a happy but bittersweet lunch with Yectli, Yvette, and Yves, Niobe loaded up one of the kitchen carts with books, magazines, and a cooler of ice cream. She promised to rejoin the children for a movie night as soon as she finished her rounds.
Mick absorbed ice cream through his fingertips while Niobe read another chapter of The Catcher in the Rye to him. She always let him have a little extra. His body contained the cure for cystic fibrosis; the wild card had cured him even as it rendered him a joker at age eight. By studying Mick, BICC researchers would one day save thousands of kids.
When she tugged the empty bowl from his fingers, he grabbed Niobe’s wrist. He tapped the book with his free hand while bobbing his head at her. Tap, tap. Nod, nod.
“Mick, I don’t understand. What? What’s wrong?”
He’s saying you’re like that catcher in the field of rye, said Yvette.
Because I remind him of Holden Caulfield?
No. Because you care so much.
Oh.
Niobe smiled. “Thank you, Mick. I like you, too.”
He let go. Plaster dust rained down on his sheets once again as he went back to knocking his head against the wall, just as he’d been doing when Niobe arri
ved.
“See ya tomorrow, Mick.”
In addition to voluntary residents like Niobe and Mick, the low-security wing housed a library, cafeteria, gym, and television lounge. The lounge also contained a computer with Internet access. Niobe swung through during her rounds to check her e-mail. She watched a few minutes of a football game, socializing with the patients and off-duty orderlies, while waiting for a turn at the computer.
Nothing from her parents, of course, but she did find a new e-mail from Bubbles, who was in New York. Another city on Niobe’s list of places to visit someday. Niobe decided to respond with a note about Xerxes’s death—Bubbles had met him and would want to know.
Moans went up around the lounge. The game had disappeared, to be replaced with the words “Special Report.” Niobe kept one ear on the TV while she typed. Several people threw things at the screen when President Kennedy announced a new gasoline rationing program. Niobe finished up the e-mail to Bubbles and resumed her rounds.
The earth-toned medium-security wing (brown, taupe) housed patients moderately dangerous to themselves and others. Some were here voluntarily; others at the behest of family, or the courts. Niobe’s first room had been in this wing. There were no voluntary committals in the yellow high-security wing.
Powder blue Q Sector, BICC’s maximum security wing, housed the worst of the worst. It was also the reason Niobe never let her children accompany her on the rounds.
The wing had been built into one of the spurs off the outer ring. Each cell required special construction tailored to the particular occupant, and the old salt caverns offered the space to do so. If you wanted to lock somebody up and lose the key, this was the place to do it.
Niobe hurried past the cell housing the joker woman covered in dozens of baby mouths. The active soundproofing never completely nullified their combined wailing. She also passed a lead-lined cell that housed a glowing, mummylike figure, and a watertight cell filled floor to ceiling with glycerin to prevent its occupant’s skin from igniting.
One denizen of Q Sector she didn’t skip, though she might have liked to, was known as the Racist. She tapped on the Plexiglas window of his cell. She never met his eyes when he looked at her; their darkness, their intensity, unsettled her. Prison gang tattoos covered most of his skin not covered by his jumpsuit.
“Bookmobile.”
“You still here, kike?” At some point in the past, he’d decided she was Jewish.
She slid his requested book—a dog-eared copy of The Turner Diaries —through the lazy Susan. It was originally his own copy, found on him when he was captured.
“How many times are you going to read this crap?” she asked. “Why don’t you read something educational instead?”
“How long until Uncle Shylock takes you back to Jew York City so I don’t have to see your ugly face no more?”
“I’ve told you,” she said, wheeling the cart away, “I’m not from New York.” She left the Racist to his solitude.
“Nibble they toes, nibble they fingers . . . ”
Her last stop was outside the cell of Terrence Wayne Cottle, aka Sharky, in reference to his gray skin and the serrated, triangular teeth that filled a mouth extending halfway around his head. Cottle embraced the identity enthusiastically. He’d eaten his victims to death.
“. . . chew they skin, chew they guts . . .” Featureless black eyes popped open when Niobe pushed her squeaking cart to a halt outside his cell.
“. . . chomp they tail and all them kiddies!”
“Something to read, Terrence?”
“Not bored. Hungry.” Thin lips pulled back from his teeth as he said this. “So hungry.” He licked his lips.
A single scoop of butter brickle sat at the bottom of her cooler, but of course she couldn’t give it to him. Pendergast and the security techs were adamant that Cottle could never receive any utensil. Even a plastic spork.
“Can’t help you there, Terrence.” Niobe held up a few magazines. “How ’bout a National Geographic?” Even staple-bound magazines were off-limits.
“What I’d really like, Genetrix, is a copy of Modern Gourmet.”
“Sorry, Sharky, no such luck.”
Cottle shook his head. “Shame. Been looking for a good recipe for roast joker tail.” He laughed. “Something that’ll tell me how to debone that thing.”
His shouts followed her back up the hallway. “. . . or a marinade for fat little kiddies?”
Yves, Yvette, and Yectli were extra quiet. But she knew how to cheer them up.
Hey, you kids ever been to Disneyland?
Yectli clapped. Of course not! said Yves.
Well, let’s fix that, thought Niobe. And this time, no putting the trip off until it was too late.
All they needed was a few days. She’d let Pendergast know they’d be gone, and then find some tickets online. The oil crisis guaranteed that she’d have to pay a king’s ransom to get all four of them to California and back, but she hadn’t touched her trust fund in a long time. It might have taken a hit, thanks to market craziness brought on by the crisis, but odds were that her parents’ goodbye-and-go-away-forever gift was still pretty hefty.
You guys are gonna love Space Mountain.
Returning through the medium-security wing, Niobe found one of the cells open. The cot had been stripped, and a pile of new linens rested at the foot of the mattress.
“Get a move on, Genetrix.”
She turned to find Tom, one of the BICC orderlies, standing next to her.
“Oh, hiya, Tom. What’s going on? New guest?”
“I’m not kidding. Beat it.”
“What? I’m just asking.”
Tom shrugged. “I got my orders.” He pointed down the corridor. “Scram.” He glared until she turned the corner.
She waited a moment before peeking back.
Justice—the head of BICC security—escorted a boy down the corridor and into the cell. Young, based on his height, and a little pudgy.
The boy turned just as Justice slammed the cell door behind him.
He looked terrified.
The interrogation room was cramped and dim. Drake was sitting on one side of a metal table; facing him from the other side were a doctor, or so he guessed from the man’s white coat, and another BICC guy. Justice was behind Drake, but he was letting the others ask the questions.
“Mr. Thomas, you’re aware of your medical condition, are you not?” The doctor leaned forward and adjusted his glasses.
Drake shook his head. “No, no one’s told me anything.”
The BICC man, wearing a badge that said “Smitty,” opened a folder. “Well, it’s time you learned why you’re here. Let’s start with exactly what you remember?”
“Nothing,” Drake said defensively. This was going to be just like the army hospital, nothing but questions. “Why don’t you tell me something for a change. Like where my family is or why I can’t see them, for instance.”
“Well, there is a bit of information I can provide you with about your medical condition.” The doctor had a really nasty look on his face, reminding Drake of his fourth-grade math teacher. His badge read “Dr. Pendergast,” which sounded like something made-up. “You’ve been infected with xenovirus Takis-A, the wild card. As for your family, they’re all presumed dead.”
“Doctor,” Justice said, a serious look on his face, “are you sure . . .”
“Yes,” Pendergast interrupted. “This young man needs to come to grips with the situation he’s in. It might help overcome his memory suppression.”
Drake went numb. “You’re lying about my folks.” He had a feeling, deep down, that it was true. “Tell me you’re lying.” He’d been afraid they were dead, but until someone said it Drake wasn’t going to believe it. Now, someone had said it.
“What did you think happened to them, Drake?” Smitty asked. “Did you think they survived a nuclear explosion?”
“I didn’t even know there was an explosion.” Drake was holding back the te
ars with everything he had. “How did it happen?”
“That’s what your government wants to know, Drake.” Smitty gave Drake a cold stare that momentarily replaced his grief with fear. “It’s possible that your parents were part of a terrorist plot, and something went wrong.”
“My mom and dad terrorists?” Drake shook his head in disbelief. How could these people be such morons? “That’s stupid. They sat outside almost every night watching the sky for aliens as part of the ‘Watch the Skies’ volunteers. They would never hurt anyone.” Drake was telling them the truth. His folks had joined the volunteer program after the Swarm invasion, which happened before he was even born.
“Try to see things from our point of view, Drake.” Smitty looked like he was trying to force his face into something like a sympathetic look. It was ugly. “There’s a small nuclear detonation in a largely unpopulated area. The size of the explosion is consistent with a suitcase nuke, something a terrorist might use. The location suggests it was an accident, except for the fact that there was a little boy in the middle of it. An ace who survived the blast and is immune to radiation. Does that seem like a coincidence to you?”
It was too much for Drake to take in all at once, but these asshats wanted answers, and they expected them from him. “I can’t tell you what I don’t know,” Drake said. Skeptical stares greeted his response. “Maybe the explosion did something to my memory. I’ll try.”
“It would be worth your while to do so,” Smitty said. He nodded to Justice. “Take him back to his room. Keep him on the medication.”
Drake felt his chair sliding backward and he quickly stood. “I’m doing the best I can.”
During the short walk back to his prison, Drake’s fear gave way to despair. His family was dead. Even the few people who cared about him, like his aunt Tammy in Austin, must think he was dead, too.
Once alone in his room, Drake fell on the bed and pulled the pillow over his face. He could hear Justice’s footfalls echoing away down the hall. Only then did the tears come, and he couldn’t stop them for a long time.