Paranormals (Book 2): We Are Not Alone (18 page)

“Ohhh ... kaaaay ...” Mark drawled even longer this time.

“We’ll be there, Lieutenant Hart.”

Hart nodded, then hustled off to the next office down the hall, which explained why he was out of breath and sweating — was he doing this for the whole building?  Michael and Mark exchanged a befuddled look before heading out ...

The armored truck slowed, and the partners straightened up, knowing they must be approaching the pit’s main gate. If Cooper were planning a last-ditch escape, this would be one of his final chances to try it outside the prison walls. But he just sat there, still staring off into space.

The truck rolled inside, the back doors were opened, and Michael aimed his V9 and Mark aimed his fists at the half-dozen guards who were, in turn, aiming their V10s (rifle-sized models of the V9s) right back at them.

“The prisoner is secure,” Michael stated.

The closest guard on the right asked, “Nervous?”

“Yes,” Michael answered.

The closest guard on the left asked, “First time?”

“Nah,” Mark answered, “we’ve been nervous lots of times.”

All sides lowered their weapons. The exchange of pass phrases — which rotated every day and were taken from movies, books, or sometimes made up from scratch, and never repeated — was one more layer of defense, on top of the other various sensors that were pointed at the truck as soon as it came within five hundred yards of the gate. Of course, if Michael and Mark had been bushwhacked on the way here by rogues who were both Class One shape-shifters
and
Class One telepaths ... well, it wasn’t a perfect system, but they were coming up with new ideas all the time.

Michael and Mark stepped down from the truck, allowing the guards to take their place. Michael signed off on Cooper’s delivery, then asked one of the guards about transportation back to PCA headquarters.

“We’ve got a car heading that way in about half-an-hour,” the guard told him.

“What’s going on over there?”

Michael turned to see what Mark was asking about. All the way at the other end of the grounds, a small crowd milled around in a line leading up to the three-story prison; all sorts of civilians, waiting under the watchful eyes of multiple guards.

The guard glanced over as well. “Oh,” he shrugged. “Visiting hours just started.”

Michael checked his watch, something he had steadfastly avoided doing on the way here. Sure enough, it was ten o’clock.

Mark rolled his eyes before Michael had a chance. “Aw, you gotta be f...” The rest was muttered under his breath, but Michael was pretty sure he was quoting
John Carpenter’s The Thing
this time.

“Mark?” Michael said as he stared at the civilians, who were beginning to file inside through the metal (and other attributable) detectors.

“Yeah?” his partner replied.

“We’re here, it’s her birthday, visiting hours just began, and we can’t leave for another thirty minutes.” He looked at Mark. “Any chance some higher power is trying to tell me something?”

“I can’t vouch for that, young’n. All I can say is, if you wanna go in, I’ll go in with you. Or if you wanna get the hell outta here, I’ll fly us back to headquarters — if you don’t mind piggybackin’.”

Michael avoided commenting on Mark’s flying record. He stared at the small crowd as they disappeared inside the building ...

Michael drew a deep breath, sighed “Goddamn it ...” and headed that way.

PCA

Once Michael and Mark made it through the line into the large visitors’ room, instead of telling the guard in charge whom they were there to see or taking a seat at any of the many metal rectangular tables, Michael instead indicated his PCA badge, then moved along the wall until he was standing in a corner; Mark trailed him.

Michael watched, waited, his heart hammering in his chest. Why was he doing this? He couldn’t give himself a satisfactory answer, and that was driving him crazy. Wasn’t
he
supposed to be the “sensible” one and Mark the impulsive partner? Yet when it came to Christine, they seemed to have swapped roles, and
that
 was driving him bat-shit, too.

He soon spotted her, and if his heart was hammering before, it skipped a beat now. An ECD-armed guard escorting her in, Christine wore a standard orange jumpsuit, her blond hair in a simple ponytail, no accessories except for the gunmetal-grey psi-jammer wrapped around her forehead, and no makeup ... and she was, if anything, more attractive to him now than when they first met.

Goddamn it ...

Christine was led to a table where three adults — a man and two women, one older and one young — and a little girl about eight years old waited; this would have to be Christine’s sister, Amanda, her husband and their daughter, and ... her mother? The visitors rose as one, and all of them fell into a clumsy, emotional group-hug. Christine’s escort tensed up, but chose not to interfere.

A few minutes passed, with Michael just watching the family chat with gushing enthusiasm. After the initial hug, Christine was seated (gently but firmly) on her own side of the table, but she reached across and both hands were shared by all four family members.

Mark leaned closer to him and said, “You know I’m not rushin’ you or anything, ‘cause I’m not, but ... if we aren’t leaving, shouldn’t we head over there? Just get it over with — like rippin’ off a Band-Aid, you know what I’m sayin’?”

“Yeah,” Michael sighed.

Slipping his hands into his coat pockets — to hide his clenched fists or their trembling, he wasn’t really sure which — Michael walked, very slowly, toward the White table.

As he drew near, he saw Amanda produce a small cupcake (which had certainly been scanned upon entry), and the little girl was allowed to light the single candle atop it. Christine laughed and applauded when the girl finally got it lit, then closed her eyes and blew it out. Her family applauded, and Christine had just started unwrapping the bottom when she saw Michael ... and dropped the cupcake.

It took considerable force of will for Michael to
not
 bolt from the room like an overwhelmed pre-teen. Instead, he clenched his fists tighter still and kept walking toward the table.

After a moment of stunned disbelief, Christine’s face lit up. She started to rise from her bench, but her escort placed his hand on her shoulder with a soft “Please stay seated, ma’am.” Amanda and her husband looked over their shoulders to see what was causing this reaction.

“Michael!” Christine finally blurted. “You— you’re
here
! But how ... how did ...?”

Oh, God
, he thought.
She didn’t know, Amanda was trying to surprise her, she had no idea I was invited. I ... I don’t know if that’s better or worse.

Michael now had the attention of all her family, and with the exception of Christine, their expressions were not welcoming — even the little girl was giving him the stink-eye. Amanda in particular was staring daggers at him, but he knew that was his own fault.

He reached the family’s side of the table and said, “Hello, Christine. Happy birthday.”

“Decided to come visit the girl you put in here after all, did you?” Amanda spat through clenched teeth.

Confused, Christine looked at her. “Amanda?”

Amanda’s husband started to rise, fire in his eyes. “If you think you’re welcome now—”

Mark stepped forward and put a hand on the guy’s shoulder — much like the escort had done to Christine, but not as gently. He leaned over on the side away from the little girl and said in a low voice, “Eyes front, asswipe.”

Amanda’s husband turned to glare at him, clearly offended and ready to pursue the matter, but then he either saw something in Mark’s eyes or maybe recognized Mark’s face from news coverage. Regardless, he chose to back down after all, but he wasn’t happy.

“Okay, everybody,” the escort said, “let’s all take a deep breath and calm down, or I’ll have to cut this short.”

“Amanda?” Christine asked again. “Curtis? What’s going on?”

“It’s my fault, Christine,” Michael said. “Your sister is right to be upset with me.” He turned to Amanda. “I sincerely apologize for the way I reacted on the phone. I was just ... well, it doesn’t matter. I was rude, I’m sorry.”

The clouds over Amanda’s head thinned a little, and the girl and older woman took that as a cue to cool down a notch. Curtis remained tense, but Michael suspected that was now more related to Mark.

Christine, on the other hand, had become agitated. “Amanda, you talked to him on the phone? When?”

“It’s all right,” Michael assured her. “It’s fine.”

“Can I have your names, please?” the escort asked them, probably to consult a pre-cleared list.

Michael pointed to his badge. “I’m Lieutenant Michael Takayasu; this is my paranormal partner, Shockwave.” He knew the extra adjective for Mark was a bit excessive, but from the corner of his eye, he saw Curtis shrink further, and forced himself not to grin about it. “We’d like permission to join the visitation.”

The escort shrugged and asked Christine, “That okay with you?”

Christine’s family all shook their heads, but the escort wasn’t asking them.

Having gotten past the initial surprise and joy of Michael’s appearance, Christine now behaved somewhat shyly as she looked up at him — after all, this was the ex-boyfriend who arrested her, testified against her (via affidavit; he had arranged not to have to show up in court), and then ignored her letters for almost a year ...

But whatever she was searching for in Michael’s face, she found it. “Yes,” she told her escort, much to the open annoyance of her family, “I’d like him to stay.”

And as Michael looked down at this vulnerable young woman, he asked himself one last time:
Do I really
want
to stay?

And for better or worse, the answer was:
Yes, I do.

Squeezing in next to Christine’s bristling sister, Michael sat down. Christine, all smiles and teary eyed, reached across the table to take one of his scarred hands in her own, and he found himself holding hers back ...

PCA

Perry Cooper was sitting on the floor of a bare detention cell, waiting to be processed into the wing for those detainees awaiting trial. His manacles had been removed and the drugs they gave him were starting to wear off — which meant what was left of his seared right ear was starting to sting again — but his psi-jammer was still in place, nice and tight. The guards who had escorted him from the armored truck had deposited him here, then backed out and left him alone. Very little had been said to him, and he’d said even less back.

How the hell, Cooper wondered, did he come to this? Sure, his life never would’ve been confused with the land of milk and honey, but how the hell did he go from a man with financial troubles to a man with a half-dozen stun guns pointed at him? Oh, and don’t forget the goddamn headband they kept on him around the clock, with its constant, low-level buzzing (which the PCA paramedic insisted he shouldn’t be able to hear or feel — bullshit!) and what felt like a rash developing under it, but that he couldn’t reach to scratch because it went off if he so much as looked at it funny. Some punk spray-painted his car and he lost his temper — that was all. Things got out of hand, he could admit that now, but if that other lowlife hadn’t shot at him —
shot
 at him! — none of this would’ve happened.

But here he was, and here he would almost certainly stay. A paranormal, a rogue. Now his old penny-pinched life didn’t seem so bad, not compared to life in prison, being treated like a freak.

The only question on his mind now was, would he find an opportunity to end it all sooner or later ...?

Before that line of thinking could go much further, Cooper heard an odd
thump
outside his cell. It was the first real sound that had made it through the reinforced door, so despite his depression, it piqued his curiosity. It had sounded kind of like—

With a
creak
and
squeak
, the door to his cell slowly swayed open. Not far, just a couple of inches, but it sure as hell wasn’t a trick of the eye.

After waiting a moment for whatever might happen next, Cooper wet his lips and called out, “Hello?”

No one answered; the hallway beyond remained silent. What—?

Bzzzzz!

That sound came from a lot closer, causing Cooper to jolt. What the hell was that?!

Another softer, shorter
Bz!
followed, and, with a brief spark, the psi-jammer fell from his forehead. It fell onto his lap, prompting him to swat it aside and scramble away from it as though it might explode — his experience with psi-jammers was fleeting and unpleasant, but even he knew this couldn’t be normal.

Panting heavily now, Cooper again waited, but nothing else happened.

So ... now he was in an
unlocked
detention cell, with no power-blocking headband. What was the catch here? Was he being tempted? Was this a test? Were the guards just waiting for him to poke his head out so they could shoot him and claim he had been “trying to escape”?

Go
, a little voice in the back of his head urged.
Go! Move your ass! Or would you rather stick around and plan your suicide some more?

Cooper climbed to his feet and inched his way toward the open door.

PCA

Talking with Christine again, holding her hand from across the table, was gratifying, nerve-wracking, and more than anything else, surreal. The subject of her betrayal and subsequent desire for forgiveness was never broached — it would come later, surely, but not now, not in front of her family, not on her birthday.

Most of the conversation was driven by Christine’s family. They weren’t happy about Michael’s presence, but with the exception of Curtis, they seemed determined not to allow it to ruin their visit. The older woman (who turned out not to be Christine’s mother, but her Aunt Sidney) asked how her tutoring program had been going, which led to her explaining it to Michael with warm enthusiasm: Christine had been working in the prison library, tutoring inmates who were interested in getting a GED.