After the Dark (19 page)

“Because your unique DNA assures you that you will suffer no side-effects, no illness. Sandeman found a way to defeat the toxin, using frozen samples recovered from the polar ice cap. Your blood offers the ordinaries the same sort of vaccine potential that we have obtained through thousands of years of selective breeding.”

“My blood,” she said, not knowing whether to laugh or cry or do Daffy Ducks around the room, “could save the world?”

Bostock nodded, as if what she'd said was eminently reasonable. “Those ordinaries who don't die immediately upon exposure to the biotoxin might overcome it, given a vaccine developed from your blood. But when I kill you, Max, that possibility evaporates—the dream ends for humanity, and ours succeeds.”

She held her palms out. “Sure you don't wanna drag me back to Snake Cult Central, and be the big man, for bagging lady Jesus?”

“It's tempting,” he said with a tiny smile. “But you're a gifted young woman . . . and making the journey with you might be too great a risk.”

Bostock's finger was poised on the trigger, and starting to squeeze.

Behind the Familiar, a window shattered . . .

. . . and Mole flew through, rolling once and popping up next to the stunned secretary; the pistol Mole had lifted from the Gulliver house was now scant inches from Bostock's skull, minus the silencer. They all stood frozen for a second, then Bostock, realizing the futility of his position, dropped his gun.

“What the hell took you so long?” Max asked Mole. “If this crazy son of a bitch wasn't so chatty, I might be dead by now!”

Mole had a big fat half-smoked cigar in his teeth, which had survived the trip through the window. He said, “I was listenin' on the ledge—entertaining BS, too. Anyway, you were about to jump his shit, weren't ya?”

That was true, but Max said, “Where the hell did you get the cigar?”

Mole shrugged. “Found a box of Havanas in Snake Boy's office downstairs.”

“You took time to look for
cigars
?”

“Chill, Miz Messiah—Popeye needs his spinach, Mole needs his smokes.”

If the lizard man hadn't just saved their skins, she might have been tempted to whale on him.

Puffing happily on his Havana, Mole jabbed the pistol into Bostock's ribs and said, “Sounds like Nixon here knows where Logan is.”

Bostock stood silently, sullenly. He didn't seem particularly afraid, which bothered Max.

Mole got right on that, raising the pistol from the man's ribs to six inches from his left eye, thumbing the hammer back.

The tip of his stogie waggling an inch from his captive's cheek, Mole said, “Your problem, Bosty ol' boy, is it's Max here who thinks the sun rises and sets on Logan Cale. To me, he's just another annoying ordinary, which I'm sure you can identify with.”

Sweat began to pearl Bostock's upper lip.

Mole went on: “Of course, I ain't crazy about you, either—though I do appreciate the Havanas. Even so, I'd just as soon pop one in your eye as not. So, asshole—you ready to die for the Conclave?”

Joshua finally entered the conversation, growling, “Take one for the team.”

Bostock remained stoic.

Mole turned an eye toward Max.

“Screw it,” she said. “When White calls next, we'll tell him everything and gamble he'll play ball.”

Bostock said, “White will never—”

Max said to Mole, “Shoot him.”

The secretary's eyes widened and his hands shot up, palms outstretched in front of him, pushing the air in a “be reasonable” fashion.

“Wait!” Bostock blurted. “Wait—I do know where Logan is . . . I can show you the way.”

Mole eased the gun back a few inches.

Max came over to the pair then, her face less than a foot from Bostock's. “Selective breeding, and you're what they came up with?” She got out her cell phone, punched some buttons.

The voice in her ear was reassuringly sassy: “Original Cindy. Whatchu want?”

“It's me, Cin.”

And Max outlined the situation for her friend.

“So,” O.C. said, the sounds of Jam Pony in the background, “all I gotta do is rent a boat, drive it out to some godforsaken island in the middle of nowhere and babysit some old coot who's a vegetable?”

“That's all, Boo.”

“No problem. But you gonna owe me, girl.”

“As usual. And I need you to hook up with somebody else.”

She gave Cindy the number of Sam Carr. Max was confident that once again Logan's doctor would make a house call.

“And tell Sam to bring Bling and/or other support. Couple guys who can handle themselves and are Eyes Only friendly.”

“Hostile territory?”

“Yes—secured hostile territory, but hostile.”

They searched the mansion one more time, making sure all of the security force was out of action; the survivors were rounded up and locked away in the basement. Then the little commando squad took a few minutes to grab some food—for now and later—in the Cale mansion kitchen.

But they couldn't afford to wait around for their friends to arrive and take charge of Lyman Cale. Max was confident Original Cindy could handle the situation, and the X5 would check in with O.C. and Sam Carr by cell phone.

They took the boat back, got the car, and—following directions supplied by a suspiciously cooperative Bostock—hit the road.

“How do we know this button-down bastard ain't leadin' us on a wild goose chase?” Mole asked Max as he guided Logan's wheels down a back country road.

Hands and feet bound by duct tape, Bostock chuckled in the backseat, jammed between Joshua and Alec, who had the pistol pressed into the private secretary's ribs.

“You're easily amused,” Max said to their prisoner.

Shaking his head, Bostock said, “I'm not leading you on a ‘wild goose chase.' Not at all—I'm taking you right where you want to go.”

“Yeah,” Max smirked. “You're a great guy, Bostock. Class act.”

He grunted a laugh. “You think you've won. You're only making my own inevitable victory that much easier. By hand-delivering you to the Conclave alive, I will not only shame White and his family, I . . .
I
. . . will become the chosen one. Ames White's defeat will be complete, as will my ascension.”

“Sorry, Franklin,” Max said, “but there's only room for one messiah in this car, and according to you, I'm it.”

Everybody but Bostock laughed. Even Joshua got the joke.

“When we crucify you,” Bostock said nastily, “you won't be coming back.”

“Pretty cocky,” Max said, “for a man on his way to see the father of the child he had murdered . . . Boy's body is in the trunk, by the way.”

Bostock's smug facade faltered, but only for a moment. “White must be even softer than I thought if he lost to the likes of you.”

Alec jammed the gun in the man's side. “Yeah,” Alec said. “Takes a real schmuck to let transies like us get the better of him.”

Her cell phone chirped. “Go for Max.”

“It's Sam, Max. I'm with Lyman Cale.”

“Can you do anything for him, Doc?”

“I'm arranging to have him taken out of here by private medivac—but I don't hold out much hope. The man has been nearly starved to death.”

“These the medivac people Logan has used?”

“Strictly Eyes Only ops. Bling's with me now. We need to not hang around here, you know—you left some . . . trash.”

The mansion and the grounds were littered with dead security guards. And of course a few live ones were salted away in the basement, and might get frisky, over time . . .

“You're right, Sam. Get out of there, ASAP. Get Logan's uncle some help, and you and Cindy to safety.”

“Got it. Good luck. Stay safe.”

“You, too, Sam. 'Bye.”

She broke the connection.

“Dr. Carr?” Alec asked.

“Yeah. If Mr. Cale lives to see the New Year, it'll be a miracle.” She turned to Bostock in the backseat, her voice icy. “By the way, if White doesn't kill you, I'm going to.” Their eyes met for a long moment, and he kept his face impassive and proud; then she turned back—and heard a little gulp behind her.

They drove for hours and, as midnight passed and the temperature turned cold, Max wondered what exactly she and her friends could do to stop a comet that was supposed to wipe out mankind come Christmas.

The weirdest part was that she cared. Most of the ordinaries had shared nothing but revulsion and fear with her and her kind. If she was their damn messiah—and she'd had a sort of virgin birth, hadn't she?—she couldn't say she was wild about the idea of dying for their sins.

“That's it!” Bostock said from the backseat. “Just up ahead!”

Mole slowed.

At the mouth of a blacktop lane that cut through dense trees was a large white sign that said in bold black letters:

PRIVATE

NO ADMITTANCE

NO TRESPASSING

STRICT ENFORCEMENT

“Somebody doesn't have the Christmas spirit,” Mole growled.

“That's the only way in,” Bostock said, an excited edge in his voice.

“And out,” Max said. She turned and looked at their captive, pointedly. “You'd just love us to go driving down there—a gate? A guard?”

Bostock was smiling. “Don't worry—when they find out it's you, the welcome will be warm.”

Max's eyes went to Mole, who was shifting his latest stogie from one corner of his mouth to another.

“I don't think so,” she said. “Keep driving.”

Mole kept driving.

Both he and Max had a good sense of direction, a Manticore-tuned grasp of geography, and after a while she nodded to the lizard-man chauffeur to turn right onto a dirt road, which was little more than a path. It wasn't wide and didn't look like it had been traveled on for a good long time.

Still, something about the road had set off Max's radar, and she pointed to a grove of trees off to the left. “Pull in over there and park it. Kill the lights.”

Mole eased the car off the road, onto the grass, and let it glide under the cover of the trees.

They all got out, Alec still holding the gun on Bostock, the bound secretary hopping along awkwardly.

“You're wasting your time,” Bostock said.

“Gag him,” Max ordered.

Joshua held Bostock while Alec went back to the car; soon Alec returned to give Bostock half a smile before jamming a rag in his mouth and circling his head with duct tape.

“I'm going up ahead to have a look,” Max said. “Hang here—if I'm not back in half an hour, bail.”

“I'll just tag along,” Mole said.

“No. Stay with the group.”

Joshua raised his hand like a school kid wanting to be excused, and said, “Me, then.”

She shook her head. “It's just a recon—better off alone. I'll be back soon.”

Before they could put up any more fuss, she took off.

She traveled less than a mile through the silent, dark woods, the evening chill making the temperature crisp again. The trees were close together, the grass not too tall, and above her, small meteors streaked across the sky, giving her a sense of foreboding.

She'd read in that rag Sketchy wrote for about the end-of-the-world comet, but hadn't taken it any more seriously than the vampire bat boy story or “Bigfoot Had my Baby.”

But the comet
was
coming . . .

Still in the woods, she reached the top of a short hill and peeked around a tree to see what lay beyond.

Down the other side, past another patch of trees—alone in the middle of a wide, well-trimmed, sparse landscape—sat a three-story white stucco building and two outbuildings. Even from this distance she could see that bars covered the windows, and something C. J. Sandeman, the nutty brother of Ames White and evidently her half brother, had told her—when was it, a year ago?—came back to her.

“I'm not going back to their loony bin,” C.J. had said.

From here the building indeed looked exactly like a no frills mental hospital. Below her, she knew, sat the stronghold of the Conclave.

Logan was in there somewhere—White, too; and God only knew how many Familiars, and what horrors . . .

But they had to go in. If they were walking into a trap, so be it; at least she'd be near Logan one last time.

The people in that bare-looking building—whether directly or indirectly—had been screwing with her since before she was born. It was too close to sunup to do anything now; they would sit tight during the day, and then tomorrow night it would be time to take the asylum away from those madmen.

Chapter Ten

SHOWDOWN AT BIG SKY

CONCLAVE STRONGHOLD
DECEMBER 24, 2021

They took turns watching the Conclave stronghold from Max's spot atop the hill, facing the northwest rear corner of the building complex. Max had scouted all the way around the place, and this seemed to be the best, most easily defensible vantage point.

Though they couldn't see the front entry, they could monitor the parking lot and most of the compound; the lot had a dozen cars, plus a couple company vans, which was promising—it indicated the size of the staff, which would seem manageable, though she wouldn't have minded knowing if these Familiars were car-pooling.

Her foray around the far side of the building had provided little more than knowing that the sign out front identified this as
BIG SKY RETREAT
. When C.J. called the place a “loony bin,” Max had no idea he was being this literal.

On the other hand, it made perfect sense for the Conclave's purposes: an ideal front, and a wonderful cover for both their sub-rosa activities and the keeping of any prisoners . . . Should any state inspectors come 'round, the only protestations they might hear would be courtesy of the inmates.

Of course, with the snake cult in charge, the lunatics really were running the asylum.

By dawn, Max and her minicommando squad had a pretty good idea of the Conclave's movements around the facility. Roving patrols of three took circuitous and seemingly random routes around the edges of the valley, into the woods surrounding the grounds of Big Sky; however, none of them came as far into the woods as the hill.

By Mole's count there had to be at least a dozen Familiars serving on patrol duty alone.

The four of them, up against an unknown number of selectively bred soldiers whose chief hobby in life was to wipe out transgenics—and Max was the snake-cult poster child of all transgenics, the “Messiah” the Conclave must smite.

Yow.

Funny thing was, troubled though she might be by the prospect of the apparently lopsided battle ahead, she didn't feel particularly frightened. They had faced long odds before and accomplished their missions; Manticore had instilled that ability, that attitude, within them.

But being up against an army so close to being their equals, and being decidedly outnumbered, did give her pause. This would definitely take a plan that didn't suck. They would need not only a solid scheme, but a diversion that would allow her to get Logan out.

She sat next to the car. Bostock, trussed up in duct tape, lay on the ground next to her, Alec sitting Indian-style, loosely training the pistol on their prisoner. Joshua was taking his turn at the watch post, and Mole was reclined in the front seat, catching z's before the fun.

“Cooperate with us,” Max said to the gagged Familiar, “and I might help you stay alive.”

He stared at her defiantly—or at least that was what she figured he was trying to do; mouth duct-taped like that, it wasn't really clear.

“You give me a rundown on the inside of that joint,” Max said, “let me know how many of your fellow Snake Scouts of America are in there . . . I'll help you survive this. Interested?”

Still gagged, Bostock wriggled—like a snake, actually—and said something loud and angry, two words, the first one guttural, the second a vowel sound.

“I'm gonna take that for a no,” Max said.

She walked over to a tree and withdrew her cell phone and punched in Dix's number, back at Terminal City. She got him on the first ring, and he was excited—relieved and worried—to hear her voice.

Max settled him down and filled him in, telling him where they were and what she had in mind.

“When?” he asked.

“Around midnight,” Max said, and gave him more details. “Can you make it happen?”

“If we book,” he said.

“Why don't you, then?”

“Roger that.”

And Dix broke the connection.

For the rest of the day, they maintained their watch. A small basket of cold cuts and canned soda, brought along from the Cale mansion, provided sustenance—a rather grisly picnic, considering the basket had ridden in the trunk with the two corpses. The Manticore-trained soldiers weren't bothered by such trivialities, though, and an eerie calm touched their hilltop camp.

Alec, returning from his rotation, came up to Max and said, “You better take a look.”

She joined him from their vantage point and saw a car rolling into the parking lot from that private lane—a black stretch Lincoln. The parking lot was now brimming with vehicles of many varieties—mostly expensive numbers, but not all.

“I make out license plates from all over the West Coast,” Alec said. “Also, rental vehicles. What do you make of that?”

Max lowered the binoculars. “We're gonna have a full house of Familiars tonight. Comin' from miles around . . .”

“Why?”

She gave the X5 half a smile. “Big night for 'em.”

“You mean, it's the annual snake-cult Christmas party?”

“No—it's the End of the World Fling. Comet's comin', remember?”

“Oh yeah . . . and, the good news is, Jesus is comin' back, right?”

She nodded. “Only they don't know the bad news: she's pissed.”

Alec grinned and nodded. Then he looked at the sky. “I think we might have a white Christmas.”

“Let's hope not much of one.”

Around dusk a dusting of snow did arrive, but nothing troublesome; and then, after the dark came, its charcoal hand caressing the compound, they made their preparations for the coming battle.

They would have only one chance to free Logan—and it vexed Max that the fate of the man she loved depended largely on the whim of Ames White. But—though nothing was said, not directly—all of them knew that more than Logan Cale's future was at stake tonight.

For the cultists below, midnight marked a new future for their own twisted kind, and the beginning of the end for mankind. Whether there was any truth to it, Max couldn't say—what the hell could she do about a comet? On the other hand, the sick bastards below, who longed for the death of all ordinaries, and prayed for the death of transgenics, particularly herself, represented the kind of problem Max and her boys were eminently qualified to correct.

The transgenics had been bred to be soldiers to protect the United States from enemies foreign and domestic, and tonight, on homeland soil, they were finally going to get the opportunity to put those skills to use for their own country . . . at an insane asylum.

She watched them prepare now, her offbeat commando squad—Alec casually doing push-ups to burn off excess energy and stay limber; Mole checking the clip from his pistol (the presence of the weapon still troubled her); Joshua sitting on the ground, back to the car, legs straight out in front of him, his mouth yawned open in a silent roar as he slept.

Funny. They had come so far, the transgenics at Terminal City—their hometown finally accepting them, Alec about to run for city council, the arts and crafts mall revealing an entrepreneurial spirit, and a surprising well of creativity from within creatures trained to fight and to kill. They had come so far . . .

. . . and they had come far, making it to this hilltop, too. To fight. And to kill.

About ten minutes before midnight on Christmas Eve, Max stood with her three friends at the edge of the hilltop. The other messiah had three wise men to attend his birth: she had two wiseasses and a not so cowardly lion. Well, she'd take what she could get.

Nearby were the two corpses—the dead Familiar, rigid with rigor mortis; and the boy wrapped in the white sheet. She spoke to Mole and Joshua, telling them that when they reached the edge of the woods, they were to wait for her signal before emerging with their grim cargo. They nodded somberly.

Then she went up to Alec, who was tending to Bostock, keeping the gun snugged in the man's side. The private secretary still had not only his mouth but his arms and ankles duct-taped.

“Ready?” she asked Alec.

“Ready,” Alec said. “But Max . . . before we do this . . .”

“Second thoughts? Like maybe you'd hate to see your political career nipped in the bud?”

“No. I have no second thoughts about helping take these sons of bitches down . . . but Max—consider.” He gestured with his head to the trussed-up Familiar. “If this guy is right . . . if these snake cultists are correct about this heavenly biotoxin . . . your blood is where the vaccine would come from, that would . . . you know.”

“Save the world?”

“Something like that. Are you sure you're the person who ought to be walking up to the front gates of Snake City, ready to pick a fight?”

She didn't say anything for a moment.

Then she put a hand on Alec's shoulder. “I have considered that. But we're here to save Logan. I'm not prepared to believe anything these wackos say . . . but just in case, I'm putting you in charge of gettin' my carcass on ice, toot sweet.”

He grinned at her. “Sure you wanna hand me a money-making opportunity like that?”

And she had to laugh. It felt good.

Then the two X5s exchanged serious nods, and Alec said, “Let's go wish those serpents a Merry Christmas, what do you say?”

“And help 'em shed their skins for the New Year,” she said, and they bumped fists and started down the wooded hillside.

Max was in the lead, with Alec several paces behind her, guiding Bostock, who had to sort of hop along, else be dragged bodily by Alec. Joshua and Mole, carrying the corpses, were several paces behind Alec. Max's point position allowed her to spot one of the three-man patrols, in camouflage TAC apparel.

Bostock made some noise, and Alec slapped him with the pistol.

But Max was already on the move, throwing a kick into the lead guard. Suddenly Joshua and Mole—having laid down their gruesome burdens—were right there with her. A martial-arts blow to the neck from Max cancelled her guard's contract with life, and Joshua broke his guard's neck with a quick twist of both hands. Mole buried his gun so deep in his man's body that the guard's flesh muffled the shot.

Max looked over at Mole, the gun in his hand as he stood over the dead Familiar. He returned her gaze and whispered, “I know you don't like firearms, Max . . . but I gotta do this my way—'kay?”

Hating it, she nodded. Some part of her mind wondered how she could be such a hypocrite—after all, she'd crushed her opponent's windpipe with a knife-blade of a hand, the “gentle” giant Joshua had just snapped a Familiar's neck like a twig . . . and she was having trouble with Mole killing a man with a gun?

Maybe she could talk to somebody at Big Sky about this psychological hang-up of hers . . .

They were still fifty yards from the building when her cell phone rang.

“Go for Max.”

“
Time's dwindling, 452
,” Ames White said, in the same distant, processed sound as his previous calls, as if he were on the moon and not, most likely, within shouting distance.
“Do you have my son?
”

“Yeah,” she said. “He's here with me.”

“
Put him on
”

“Not possible. We have to talk about that . . .”

“
. . . I'm getting the feeling I'm not going to like where this is going.
”

“Are you at Big Sky?”

Perhaps the question took him by surprise, as there was a long silence; she could almost hear the wheels turning, as her longtime antagonist tried to figure out just how much she knew.

“Yes or no?” she asked finally.

“
. . . Yes.
”

“Are you on a secure line?”

“
What do you mean, 452?
”

“I mean, are we ‘alone' or are your friends listening in?”

“
I'm on my cell
,” he said, the tone implying he could talk.

“We've been enemies for a long time, White.”

“
We agree on that much
.”

“But you need to know something . . . We have mutual enemies.”

Another pause.

Then: “
Where is my son?
”

“If you really are at Big Sky, step outside the front door and we'll talk about it. And White? Bring Logan.”

She knew he'd be running to a window to try to see if she was serious. They were still behind the building, so there was no chance of White actually catching sight of them as they made their way through the trees toward the front.

“And don't bother contacting your foot patrol,” she said, “to come up behind us. They're busy being dead.”

White's voice took on an icy note. “
You always did know how to make an entrance, 452 . . . I'll be right out.
”

“Don't forget what I said, White—about mutual enemies.”

“
How could I?
”

“Bring Logan.”

“
I will. We have an exchange to make, right, 452?
”

“Right.”

She clicked off.

Only a few stars dotted the night sky and a heavy chill hung in the air. Mole and Joshua, their arms filled with the dead, waited at the border of the woods as Max, Alec, and their duct-taped captive moved into the clearing, their feet crunching on the snow-powdered ground.

Floodlights on the corners threw pools of light around the building, spotlights awaiting a star performance; but Max and her company avoided them, stopping at the edge of an arc of light that shone from a floodlight above the main entrance.

She looked behind her, toward the trees; she could barely make out Mole and Joshua there, though the white of the boy's bedsheet shroud finally guided her to them. She gave a hand signal—
stay put
—and then nodded at Alec. He nodded back. Bostock, his ear a little bloody from where Alec had disciplined him, held his head up. He seemed to think he was about to turn from hostage to hero.

Max doubted that.

Then she, Alec, and the duct-taped prisoner moved into the pool of light.

The main entrance—double steel doors with wire-mesh-and-glass panels—was at the top of five concrete stairs lined with metal rails. The new masters of the world had selected unprepossessing main headquarters, to say the least. The trio faced the entrance in a loose line, Alec holding Bostock by the scruff of the neck, to her left; Max standing with her hands on her hips, defiant to the last.