Made Men (22 page)

Progress. She might listen again.

“Genetic
aberrants.” Ryker glanced around. Rickard whispered to Shupp. The soldier
didn’t appear to want his ear especially close to Rickard’s mouth, though he
had to bend down to hear him well.

“I
suspected as much.” She looked him head to toe, her eyes sad.

She began to smell like her usual self.

“But
how?” Henna’s bottom eyelids rode up, an incredulous, angry, hurt look, but all
Ryker could think was that her regular, human eyelids looked lovely. “What
aberration?” she demanded. “Why and how?”

Stephan
had Henna’s satchel and had slung it over his huge shoulder like a bandoleer.
He appeared to be ready to go.

Slow, but steady.

Ryker
took a moment to assess the others. The contractors ate up the air in the room.
Their energy was solid and even. All of their glands pumped away, but at a
sustainable pace. Ryker had screened each
months
ago,
searching for a weaknesses, but inspected each man again, as though studying a
slab of bacon. They’d been damaged but healed—Henna’s best shot.

They were professionals. There were none
better for the task.

“Go
with Shupp,” Ryker said, avoiding her eyes and questions. “Do what he says, even
if you don’t like it.” He started for the elevator, hoping she would follow.

She did
.

“Just
stay alive. I will explain later.” He pressed the button, then, purring, tapped
at her shoulders and arms like a worried mother afraid to make eye contact because
she might cry, or a boxer’s manager who was inspecting his fighter just before
the bell. The doors opened. “It’s time to go.” He
nodded,
a thing humans did to encourage each other. “Go with Shupp, now.”

S
hupp reached for her
arm. He wore a beard so thick Henna couldn't see skin through it.

The
mercenary had aliases—Shupp was one of them. Another of Shupp’s names had
a death record on file.

A
long scar ran along his forehead and bisected an eyebrow before disappearing in
the thick black wool of his beard. Hair burst from his T-shirt and the backs of
his arms. He smelled of chewing tobacco, gun oil, and musk. His left arm was a
blotchy, shiny palate consisting of smooth, twisted skin and meat.

He’d been burned?
That
or exploded … or worse.

Stopping
just short of grasping her arm, instead Shupp offered the callused palm of his
hand to Henna, his other paw wrapped with confident ease around the butt of the
assault rifle slung across his chest, as though he lived with the weapon there.

“No,”
she said, emboldened, turning back. “Ryker, if our lives are in danger, tell me
everything you know, NOW.” Henna stepped sideways, toward Stephan, and jutted
her chin at the worried German. “Who is he—the man after me—and who
are you, and…” she nodded, but didn’t look at the man in the hat “…no offense,
Shupp, why have you got soldiers of fortune able to respond, not five minutes
after MY phone rang?”

The
testosterone
squad swept behind Stephan, herding them into
the elevator like
a U-shaped wave. Ryker held a foot in the door of the
lift and provided the information he thought would get her moving.

“His
name is Osgar. A name he chose for himself. It means the spear of God.” He
shifted his gaze between her eyes and Stephan’s. “He may as well be God. He is
human, but not like you.” The German began to shake his head slowly, but
continued. “Osgar is the product of a team of Nazi scientists who used
everything at their disposal to create a perfect man.” Henna stood, surrounded
by the meaty team. The smallest of them could pick Stephan up by the armpits.

“And
he is that man. OK …” Henna held her eyebrows high, her arm barring the door.

Marcus attacked
Stephan. She killed Marcus. Daddy Blackshaw sent a demon for her. The
demon was already watching for reasons to strike out at his old family, lizard
boy exhibit A and lizard boy exhibit B, so he popped up in the rolodex easily,
because he was omniscient and intended to. That it?

“Who
are you?” Henna asked again, instead.

He
looked sad. “Not entirely human,” Ryker began. He put a cold hand on her arm,
but she gripped the steel harder.

She’d block the damned door until she
got answers.

Ryker’s
eyes looked big and eerie.
Stranger than usual.

Was he trying to look sad?

Anger
renewed, Henna decided to wait him out. Finally, he spoke. “A different set of
scientists brought us about, though the same man implanted us in our surrogate
mother. We are aberrants.” Henna nodded.

Not entirely human, he’d said.

The
elevator doors slid, but she banged them back open.

Tomatoes. Strawberries. Fish genes were
used to keep them from freezing.

Those
were mild examples. Goats with spider genes were bred to create silk tougher
than Kevlar.

Those were real things. Recent advances
… how old were they?

“What
scientists?” Henna demanded. Shupp hoisted her effortlessly as the doors slid
closed, placing her behind him, but Stephan threw a shoulder into the door,
buying them time. Henna felt that everything was now out of her control. “WHAT
ABERRENCES?” The lab, the Germans, it felt like her
life
was ending as the heavy metal doors rolled shut.

She
was not going to get her answer. The doors slid.

Inches, millimeters.

“C.
rhombifer
,” he said, and they dropped.

C.
rhombifer
.

H
enna’s head swam as
the hydraulics lowered them past the parking garage, to the building’s lowest
level. Stephan mumbled something she didn’t
process,
too busy sorting through her Latin.

If it was possible to create a
fish/strawberry or spider/goat, and these were public events, what was being
done behind closed doors in private labs?

“Crocodiles,”
Stephan said louder. “Holy shit, Henna. It all makes sense. They are part
crocodile.”

“Holy
shit …” Shupp spoke with a gravelly whisper, after a few moments. “That DOES
make some sense.” Puffing out his cheeks, the team’s leader frowned, as though
considering the possibility. “Crocodiles aren’t so bad—they’re like
sharks. Relatively noble, if you ask me.”

Cuban crocodiles.

Shupp
prattled on as Henna put it all together. “There are no bad sharks. Just
sharks.” He shrugged, preaching to the two bald meatheads. “No predator in
nature carries any malice. They just do what they do. Hell, a bull has more
malice than a shark—but drop a pissed-off bull in the water and what
chance has he got against a calm crocodile or a shark of the same weight?” The
mercenary grinned appreciatively, inspired and poetic, then answered the
question himself. “None. They’re built different. Bull’s a browser, sharks and
crocs eat browsers.”

Henna
frowned, glaring, as Shupp’s minions nodded agreeably, hands at rest on their
rifles as though he spoke the gospel. The guy with dreads chimed in, breathing
meaty breath too close to her face. “They like you.” Stephan bristled, but the
hairy soldier didn’t seem to notice. “If those little guys like you, you’re
pretty much safe …” The guy looked to the rest of the brute squad before
continuing. “But what I’ve found is if they don’t care for you, you’re pretty
much fucked.” Shupp snarled a warning, and the hairiest brute held up his
hands. “Hey. Being honest, man. I don’t want to meet any crocodile’s
bogeyman—”

“Crocs,
huh?” Shupp tried to change the subject. “They pay well.” He shot sharp
warnings to the rest of his crew, absently fingering
an angry
hieroglyphic swirls
of shiny tissue on his arm.

Burns.

Shupp
sucked his caustic plug of tobacco and swallowed the juice. “Not just well.
They pay REALLY well.” It wasn’t
braggadocio,
it was
to remind his men of their job. He gave her a fatherly look. “Be glad you
didn’t get stuck with the other batch of assholes.
The ones
in the garage.
We take shifts.” Henna focused on his face, softening.

Maybe they would be OK …

“If
I weren’t already dead on paper,” Shupp added grimly, for her benefit, “I’d
retire next week.”

I
t was hard for him
not to stare at Vai.

Bonn
felt heady as he drank in her scent. The Plymouth’s bucket seats made her feel
so far away. The vigilante had always been awkward—he’d spent a lot of
time avoiding people, but never before had he wanted to be closer to anyone.

Even Henna.

Resting
his arm on the console, he and Vai held hands, fingertips and palms busy with
silent innuendo.

Henna had accepted him
.

Just as he was.
He’d done the same
with her. That’s what they shared.

Not love.
Not this.

It
couldn’t ever be like this with Henna. This was what the fuss was all about.
Now he understood.

This was how Stephan looked at Henna.

V
ai had a comic book
quality to her: form-fitting clothes, ridiculously long legs, and the
confidence not to wrap them around just anyone whom showed interest in her. She
had waited to have sex.

She had waited for him.
Her confidence was her best feature
.

“Moroccan
culture is unfriendly to women who they think are European. In the souk—”
His expression told her he wasn’t familiar with the word. “It’s a market.
Spices and baskets and small bits of food lined up in neat rows. Pick-pockets
loitering every few feet.” She steered the wheel of the heavy car with the palm
of her hand, gripping when she needed to, resting her hand when she could.

“The
colors are dazzling! Juxtaposed smells assaulted my nose. I remember closing my
eyes. Not for long—human waste was everywhere on the streets, and I liked
my shoes.” Her neck was slender, but strong. “I could smell a stall with spices
and piles of dates, it drew me in … the worst smells chased me toward the
best.”

He
liked the way she moved. He felt apologetic. “I don’t have the storytelling
skills that you do.”

“You
are a good listener,” Vai countered.

Bonn
could picture her in the colorful market. “How old were you then?”

She
accelerated as they hit a long, straight stretch. “Around twelve. I wore a
headscarf like the local women and a long black skirt over my capris, but my
shirt gave me away. Tourists aren’t always popular in the markets.” Quickly,
they were behind a slow-moving station wagon, and Vai eased her foot to the
brake, waiting for a safe place to pass. “Just a bright green shirt that I
liked, bought in Majorca, which I loved. It had short sleeves, and I wore it
every day—so often that the armpits were worn. My new breasts were
popping out, and Dad had gone out alone that morning to buy me a different
shirt.” Accelerating, she gave the family car a wide berth. She used her
signals.

Polite.

Bonn
tried hard not to stare at her chest, but failed.

“The
one he found was long-sleeved and black; it had a nice drape, but it was too
hot to wear black.” Vai flipped down the sun visor, steering with her left knee
as she did it so she didn’t have to let go of his hand. “I didn’t want to wear
it. Well … I wanted to, just not to the souk.” She kept her eyes on the road
but pointed her face at him.

“Anyway,
I was tall, and probably looked like a woman already with my short-sleeved
shirt smashing my breasts together. A man came striding from his stall to pinch
me.” She swiveled the visor to her left, her knee back on the wheel. “More of a
grab … my butt. I carried a little curved knife.” Bonn thought of the one in
her pocket.

“I
twirled fast and cut his face. He reached up to feel the place I opened him. My
dad was right there, but instead of attacking him, Dad just acted like a silly
tourist.” She flared her fingers on the wheel and pantomimed a fall. “The most
coordinated man I’ve ever met, my father. As he tripped into the guy, he took
my knife, folded it, and stuck it into his own pocket … all in the blink of an
eye.” Bonn leaned closer, listening intently. “The vendor started yelling. He’d
known I cut him … but where was the knife?” Vai raised her eyebrows, nodding.
“They quarreled.
The vendor and my father.
My dad
whisked me out of the souk, to our rented room.” Vai wore a wistful look.

“I
shook, worried. I put on the black shirt and some sunglasses. Mother tied a
different scarf on my head. I cried for my dad, but he showed up smiling just
then, with a big bag of fruit and spices. He didn’t lecture
me
or anything
. Just gave me back my knife and said ‘I like that shirt,
Vai. It looks good on you.’”

Bonn
imagined the Spaniard cutting the crowd to ribbons.

“But
what happened? I’d asked him. How did you get away?” Vai laughed, her belly
flat and tight. “‘Did you run fast? Did you fight?’ I’d asked.” Bonn looked
through the windshield. Vai had turned on her headlights as the sun set. She
seemed to know, and to follow the rules.

“‘No,’
said my father. ‘I’m too pretty to hit.’ He’s got a great sense of humor, made
light of the whole mess. ‘I bought some fruit,’ he’d said. ‘We all shook hands.
It’s OK, now,’ he’d told us. ‘Let’s go back.’ I didn’t want to, but he insisted.
‘Come. It is fine.’ And sure enough, it was.” Vai shook her head as though she
had witnessed a miracle. “The man waved at us from his stall, happy despite his
bandages.” She frowned. “I didn’t wave back … wanted to carve him up more, in
fact.”

Vai
tilted her head, a transitional gesture that seemed uncharacteristically
Eastern-Bloc. “My mom had a long yellow ponytail hanging out of the back of her
scarf, but everyone left her alone. She projected a confidence that I had to
learn.”

“I
like that story,” Bonn said, admiring her. “What a way to grow up.”

“They
are amazing,” Vai agreed. “Mom especially. I stayed close to her. She was the
fighter. He was the disarming dancer, socialite, so charming, and thought like
a chess player. It’s not that he wouldn’t fight, he just knew how not to
also—and still get what he wanted.”

It was the most amazing compliment Bonn
had ever heard a person give another.

Vai
shrugged. “That was how we lived. We went where we wanted. Dad danced, Mom
played music. We made money to eat, to live well. If we had more than we needed
we gave some away, just like you.”

Bonn
shook his head, incredulous that she knew things like that.

“I
loved to sleep…” Vai stole a glance at him “…because when I slept I saw you.”
She intertwined her fingers with his, a solid grip. “I was eighteen when I came
to the States. I’d planned to sneak away, but Mom gave me one of her deep looks
one morning and knew. She held me for the longest time and told me things I
never knew about her. About my father too.” Vai steered with her knee, wiping a
tear. “She gave me money and told me to bring you back with me, when I found
you. That was six years ago. Ah—”

Vai
steered into the gas station and swung out her long legs, stretching. “I saw a phone
booth around the corner. Do you want to try your friends?” Her fascinated lover
nodded.

I
t felt good to move.
The booth was old and the phone cracked. He dialed the secure line.

The laboratory. The Germans were nearly
always in the lab.

The
earpiece clicked, but the phone didn’t ring.

Odd. That’s a dedicated line.

He
dropped in more money and tapped in a different number carefully, slowly:
Henna’s number.

Nothing.

A
dime shone up from his palm—all he had left.

He couldn’t buy a stick of gum.

Back
at the Plymouth, Vai replaced the gasoline nozzle and stretched her arms above
her head. “No answer?”

He
shook his head. “Did you know there wouldn’t be?”

“No.
I only know things about you. I’m a terrible fortune-teller. I just make things
up. Want to drive for a bit?”

T
he Plymouth handled
like a dream. Power steering. Solid suspension.

Wide and low.

Vai
could talk forever. He would never get tired of listening. “The only fortune
I’ve ever been able to tell was yours.” She’d taken off her boots, her feet on
the dash. “I look like a fortune-teller though, so I just speak slowly when I
flip the cards and listen to a person’s breathing. If they hold their breath,
I’m on the right track—but if they move their feet, I’m off.”

She
took off her sleek coat, rolling it to make a pillow. “People who go to
fortune-tellers generally want to know a very limited number of things,” she
explained. “Am I going to fall in love?” Vai flexed her calves, getting her
blood moving, holding a finger aloft to make her point. “Always, ‘yes.’ Others
ask…’” she held up a second finger “‘…will my sickness be cured?’ Always, I
say, ‘I don’t know.’” She pantomimed scissors snipping off the second finger.
“Once a couple came. Eyes red, they hadn’t slept in weeks, desperate to know if
they would have a baby.” Vai cupped her hands, squeezing them. “They had been
trying to do so for years.” She looked away, out of the side window.

She had a tender heart and was so
expressive.

“What
did you say?” Bonn asked.

She
rubbed her hands on her knees, studying her nails. “I admitted I was a fake.”
Then she reached for his hand again.

“I
hugged the woman and we all drank tea. I told them a story about my pet goat
when I was a tiny girl.”

“Tell
me that one.” Bonn grinned out at the night.

“Well
…” Vai leaned back in her seat. “We were on a small island in Greece, a summer
place. There were no other goats on the island. We brought her with us to
eat—but I promptly named her.” She laughed. “So my mother kept my
father’s knife from her throat. We spent the entire summer there.
Fishing, enjoying the sun.
There were fruit trees—”

He wanted to kiss her.

“Things
were cheap to buy, so we stayed even longer.”

Vai
turned on the heat, each foot seeking its own vent.

He’d seen her whole body
.

Bonn
wanted more time like that.

“We
always ate simple food,” Vai continued, “and since it was nice there, we stayed
a whole year. Heddy, the goat, got so fat.” Comically, Vai puffed out her
cheeks to illustrate.

Still, she looked elegant
.

“Then
one day she was thin again and there were two of them.” Earnestly, she tilted
her head to watch him as she finished the story. “That was in the spring. Bonn,
a goat’s gestation is only 150 days.”

When he’d told her his name, she’d
simply kissed him. “B-o-n-n?” she’d asked, spelling it out. “Yes,” he’d said.

 
“‘It was a virgin goat birth!’ I’d told
the couple.” Bonn laughed a genuine laugh, surprising himself.

“They
laughed, too—” She let go of his hand, but ran a finger along the back of
his ear. “And left happy, I think. They vowed to visit their own Greek island.”
Vai ran her palm lightly along the top of his forearm, studying his face. “I
like to think that they did. People always leave me happy.” Then she danced her
fingers across his arm.

“Most
of us don’t want to know the future, I think, but just need validation.” She
caressed the back of his hand.

“You
are a good listener, too.” Bonn offered.

She
ran her fingers up, through his hair. “Let’s stop for the night. I need you.”
She squeezed his hand and bit her lower lip.

“Wait
a minute—” Bonn interjected, his neck suddenly crawling. “You can’t see
the future for everyone … just mine. What did you mean, back at the trailer?
You said ‘you are in a hurry to die …’”

Vai
scowled and turned the heat up yet more, crossing her arms. “My dreams
got—I can only say—LOUDER the closer you were. I knew the spider
bit you when it happened, though I was awake.” She glanced at him, seemingly
trying to identify disbelief. “I knew you were close. I just relaxed and let my
body walk to where you were.”

Was she ignoring the question?

Bonn
reached for her hand. She didn’t take it. “But do you know how I am going to
die?”

She
shot him a sage, wounded look,
then
turned away,
shaking her head.

“I
know it won’t happen in New York.” Vai wiped at her eyes. “I know that
much—” She crossed her arms again, holding her shoulders up. Bonn pulled
the car to the side of the road.

Tense.

“And
I know I can’t keep you from your fate.” She sniffed, her head up, and faced
straight out the windshield. “I know I have loved you for two decades.” She
reached, pulling him close, and kissed him deeply, her hands on his face, then
tipped to touch her forehead to his.

“And
I know that I want a bed.” She glanced behind the car then back out of the
windshield. “I need a shower.” She looked into his eyes. “And more room to
move.”