Brain Storm (US Edition) (22 page)

Sara looked up at the building as she ran after Carla. It was a good size and the signs next to the door indicated it was an office building for a selection of high-tech companies. Sara caught up with Carla in about twenty meters and got the younger woman to follow her on a twisting course around the other office buildings in the area. She stuffed the pistol back in the pocket of her jacket that Carla still wore as she passed her. They were getting enough strange looks as it was but she didn't want to get rid of the weapon yet. It could still be useful.

She slowed the pace the further they got from the building and started to look for familiar streets so that she could start them on a course to safety. Not that she had any idea of where they could stay.

"You said that after Grosset got in touch with you you found a new place to stay where no one could find you?"

Carla nodded. "It seems he was right after all."

It was Sara's turn to nod. "I need you to take me there while we sort this mess out."

"Can't you just get in touch with whoever it is that you work for and get us some real protection? And", she added, "get those people locked up."

Sara shook her head. "They got me just as I was trying to get in to find out what happened to you. They might even have got to my boss. No whoever is behind this they've got connections. We need to figure out what it's about so that we know who we can trust."

Chapter
Eighteen

"Don't worry. You are safe now. Those people won't ever hurt you again"

The man set her down on the floor. She scuttled away into the corner of the room. She huddled up and risked only tiny glances around.

"All right, if that's where you feel safe." The man took a seat in the middle of the room. He continued talking, as much to himself as to her. "I've arranged it so that you'll be going to good people. You'll be well taken care of. You won't have to go through all the rest of it. I managed to get you out and I'll keep checks on you to make sure you can have a normal life. You'll have a chance to be more than another one of their experiments."

He faltered and hung his head in his hands. "
Their
experiments," he huffed. "As though I wasn't as involved in what happened to you poor things as all the rest of them. I wish I could ask you to forgive me for what I did to all of you, but I know there is no forgiveness for any of us who did this to you. A couple of attempts at redemption can't wash away years of sin."

He sat there for a long time with his elbows on his knees, hands supporting his head. Staring blankly at the floor.

She slowly uncoiled herself out of her huddle in the corner and crawled over to her rescuer. She climbed up onto the seat next to him and cuddled up to him. She wrapped her arms around him and nuzzled the side of her face into the gap between his chest and shoulder. At first he gave no reaction to this contact so she squeezed her slender arms more tightly around him. He shifted position to make it easier for her to hold him. He ran his fingers through her short hair, only just reaching a normal length after many months of being routinely shaven completely off.

"I don't deserve this, you know?" he said softly.

They sat there few a few minutes in silence. "I've arranged it so that you'll forget all about this. You won't have any memory of what was done to you. You won't remember me, and if everything goes well you'll never see me again. But I'll keep checking up on you to make sure you stay safe. I wish you never had to go through any of this but taking away your memories is as close as I can get."

He trailed off and started talking to himself again. "I should do more for the others, I know, but I can't fight them alone. I took a major risk trying to get you out after the last time and when they find out you're gone they could come after me. If I get away with it I'll have to lie low for a while and they'll never trust me even as much as they used to. You have to believe me that I would like nothing more than to stop it all right now but I can't."

He broke into tears and wrapped his arms around the little girl.

***************

"Well here we are. It isn't much but it's home."

Sara regarded the rundown hotel. Carla was right it wasn't much. She looked around at the other buildings nearby and the state of the whole area. Compared to what surrounded it the hotel was five-star accommodation.

She followed the younger woman inside where she exchanged brief pleasantries with a man called Joseph. Then she led her upstairs to the rooms she called home. Her next door neighbors were enthusiastically engaging in some bedroom gymnastics and from the sounds of things there were at least four participants. Carla looked at Sara with a mildly embarrassed expression as she unlocked her door. For her part Sara just shrugged.

The inside of the room-cum-apartment pretty much matched Sara's expectations from her look at the rest of the place. Still it was private and anonymous which made it ideal for the two of them right now.

"There's a kitchen through there if you want anything to eat or drink. I don't have much stuff in but what I have you can have." Carla was playing the good hostess pointing out the facilities as she stripped out of Sara's jacket. "The bathrooms through here next to the bedroom if you want to clean up. There's only one bedroom and it's a single bed so if you want to stay the night I'll sleep in here."

Sara waved her to stop. "That shouldn't be necessary but if it is you can have the bed, I've slept in worse places than this. I would like to get washed up though."

Carla nodded. "Sure, sure, of course. It's just over-"

One moment she was speaking and then in the next she was doubled up and throwing up all over the floor. She retched up all of the food inside her and then dry heaved. When she got over the involuntary actions she was able to cough and spit up what was left in her throat. Sara just let her get on with it. It was just a reaction to the terror of the last few hours that was catching up on her. She had seen it plenty of times before. In the heat of the action people don't have time to give in to their feelings. It's only afterwards when things have calmed down and their mind has had time to come to terms with what has just happened that the full impact hits them.

Carla finished spitting out the last of the vomit and saliva from her mouth. When she brought her head up she was pale and shaking. "I'm sorry, I don't know what-"

Sara held up her hands and shook her head to tell Carla that an explanation wasn't necessary. "Why don't you get cleaned up first and I'll get us both something hot to drink?"

Carla nodded her thanks without speaking and rushed into the bathroom leaving Sara to root through her cupboards for something to drink. She found a couple of tea bags in one cupboard next to some opened biscuits that had been left to go soft. She hit the button on the water heater under the cupboard to boil some water up and went in search of a couple of cups. It seemed that Carla didn't entertain much. There was one cup upside down on a draining board next to the sink, no dishwasher in here, and Sara managed to find another after checking in several more cupboards. The second cup was missing a handle and any patter it might have had was faded but otherwise it was intact.

When the water was boiled Sara put the cups under the tap to fill them up and dropped one tea bag in each, there was no sign of a teapot. She left the water to soak up the
flavor of the leaves and moved the two paces to the fridge to get some milk. She didn't know how Carla took hers so she poured some of the milk into the cup without a handle and then carried the second cup and the milk over to the bathroom, she hadn't seen any sign of sugar either.

"You take milk in your tea?"

There was a moment’s hesitation before Carla answered in the affirmative. Sara poured milk into the cup then knocked on the bathroom door. It came open slightly at the touch, not only was there no lock but the catch wasn't up to much either. She pushed the door open more fully and handed the cup to Carla who was perched on the edge of the bath. All she seemed to have done so far was to have splashed water over her face and head but at least her color was returning to normal. She took the cup and thanked Sara with a forced smile.

"I didn't see a computer terminal out there. Do you have one or . . ."

Carla took a sip from the cup and looked back up at Sara. "There's a portable one hidden around the fridge. Karl gave it to me and I use his name as my password."

"Is it all right if I use it?"

Carla nodded and took another sip. Sara left her on the edge of the bath to go and get the computer to see if she could get any answers this time. If she was honest with herself she didn't hold out much hope.

***************

Carla took another sip from the cup Sara had just given her and turned the taps on so that water could run into the bath. She could only let the hot water run at half speed otherwise it would go rusty. She had splashed water over her head out of the sink and washed most of the taste of vomit out of her mouth so she felt a little better than before. She had thought that she was over the worst of it but once she arrived back home, and had time to think about everything that had happened to her, the full impact barreled into her and she reacted to it.

Up until the encounter with the out of control security mech she had never seen a dead body. She had seen plenty on that night but hadn't really been able to take it in because of her terror that she would soon be joining them. But in their escape from the facility Sara had killed at least four people and Carla had had time to drink in the full horrors of death as she stepped over their bodies. She understood that the killings had had to happen. It had been a case of it being the men or Sara and herself. But she couldn't quite believe that the woman she had invited into her home had killed four men a few hours earlier with no remorse. In fact she trained to do that sort of thing and had probably murdered plenty more people as part of her duties when it wasn't even self-
defense. Suddenly Carla felt a lot less safe.

She turned the taps off and stripped out of the uniform she had been given after her last shower. She left it puddled on the floor where she stepped out of it instead of throwing it into the basket with the rest of her washing. She was going to throw it away or burn it at the soonest opportunity. She stepped into the bath and sank into the lukewarm liquid.

As the soothing water enfolded and caressed her she decided not to dwell over much on applying her own moral standards on Sara's actions. That was a woman who was used to dealing with very bad people and while Carla didn't condone violence she understood that in some situations violence was the only solution to some very difficult problems. Carla had long since stopped being so idealistic that she thought all problems had a peaceful solution if only people were patient enough to look for it.

Whatever Carla thought about the deaths of those men there was no denying that Sara had saved her life more than once, and that without her intervention Carla would still be a prisoner rotting away in that cell. If she couldn't trust her after all that then she couldn't trust anyone.

Carla used the plastic jug on the edge of the bath to pour water over her red hair finally getting a proper chance to clean it. She soaped up and tried to wash the grime of her ordeal out of her skin. If only the memories and mental effects could be washed away as easily.

***************

Sara wasn't having any luck in her search. She was only using the public access sites because this computer terminal wasn't secure. If she used her access codes or tried to get in touch with ECSIS or Ash directly she could be traced. Whoever the people were behind this conspiracy they had shown on any number of occasions that they were professional enough to be ready to hunt her down over the network and then in person. There were also computer programmes that they could be using which would scan for certain keywords in her searches so that they could deduce even without a direct trace what people were after and where they were located. But such indirect tracings took several hours at least and they wouldn't be staying here for that long. As soon as Sara could figure out somewhere to start a search they would set about getting to the bottom of this.

Sara turned at the sound of footsteps. Carla approached dressed in a pair of grey trousers that hung low on her hips and with a short white T-shirt that was
fashionably ripped at the bottom instead of being truly cropped and had three slashes like claw marks cutting diagonally across between her breasts. She was still busy drying her hair on a small green towel.

"I'm done if you still want to clean up."

Sara closed the terminal down. She couldn't do any more until they were ready to leave. Then she could access whatever she wanted because by the time they had a trace they would be leaving.

"I will, thanks." She closed the computer and headed for the bathroom.

"The shower isn't working. There's a jug on the side of the bath that you can use to rinse off."

Sara nodded her acknowledgement and hurried off to wash up. Hopefully a little time spent relaxing, or as close as she could get, would give her the space she needed to think clearly and provide her with the inspiration that so far she had been lacking.

She turned both taps on fully. She noticed that the water coming out of the hot tap was brown at the same time as Carla called through to warn her only to have it turned on at half speed. She slowed it down and climbed out of her clothes. She folded them and put them at the side of the bath, she could have asked to borrow fresh things from Carla since they were of about the same size and build but preferred to keep her own clothes.