The Immortality Virus (33 page)

“I was really hoping to groom you for captain one day,” Captain Flint told her. “Back when you were on the force.”

The news startled her. “What?”

“You cared, which was more than I could say for most. Trouble was you cared too much. I should have helped you more back then; kept you working within the system more so you had a chance to do some real good.”

“Why are you saying all this now?” Grace asked.

“You wanted to know why I saved your life back then. That’s why.”

“Oh.”

“I know you don’t want to trust anyone and you’re smart for that, but maybe before this is all over you can trust me.”

He looked so sad, but Grace couldn’t give him much. Not then, anyway. “Maybe.” She turned and walked back inside her apartment, closing the door.

“Now what?” Sam asked.

Grace’s mind remained with Captain Flint in the hallway. “I don’t know exactly, but I think it’s time to get more proactive. Perhaps what we need is a goose to chase.”

“We still have the same problem,” Alex pointed out. “If they start fighting one another, we get caught in the middle.”

“Yeah,” Grace said, “but sitting and waiting for something to happen is not an option, either. It’s at least as likely to get us killed and it’s far less likely anything good will come of it.”

“Where do we start?” Sam asked.

Grace started pacing again, but this time with more purpose. She began to interpret Meg’s long absence in a way she hadn’t before. Perhaps Meg had been gone so long because she had found something. Part of Grace wanted to go after the girl, but if Jordan were there, it defeated the point of a wild goose chase.

“We could go after Mr. Stanton,” Grace said finally. She didn’t trust the man, she didn’t even like him. She believed him capable of murder, whether or not he had actually killed his father. But he was a known quantity and besides, he was her boss. People would expect it.

Sam smiled and nodded, but Alex frowned. “Are you sure? Maybe you can find someone else to develop a cure, assuming my grandfather will help.”

“I’m sure. He’s also the one who’s paying me and someone people would expect me to find.”

She looked up at Alex, studying his reaction. His eyes were dark, pensive, beautiful. She tore her eyes away and spotted Sam, studying her.

“You’re right,” Alex said, finally. “But there is still a problem with your plan. The people who are following you are all waiting for you to find my grandfather to act. What makes you think finding Matt will encourage them to make a move?”

Good question, but it didn’t take long for Grace to think of an answer. “Because I’m not going to be the one to find Jordan. You are.”

“Huh?” Alex said.

“You’re not coming with us,” Grace told Alex. He started to argue, but she cut him off. “No, listen. You’re his grandson. It makes sense you’d know where he is even better than I would. It even makes sense you wouldn’t have told me in order to protect him.”

She stopped. It made so much sense she had to wonder if it were really true. Shaking her head, she went on, “You can go somewhere that would convince everyone else you’ve found your grandfather. Somewhere where armies might come together but not hurt very many people.”

“Like the cabin?” Alex asked.

Grace shook her head, but didn’t say that she thought Jordan might really be there. “Like...like the graveyard where your grandmother is buried. Nobody goes near that place.”

Alex got a haunted look in his eyes. “I haven’t been there since my grandmother’s funeral.”

“Can you think of someplace better?” Grace asked.

Alex shook his head. “I’d like a private word before you go, though.”

Grace glanced at Sam, who shrugged. “All right. My room.”

They headed back to her bedroom for the second time. “Do you trust him?” Alex asked without preamble.

“Who?”

“Sam.”

The intense look he was giving her made her think he was asking the question on many levels. “I want to.”

“Does that mean you’re still in love with him?”

“What? No!” The words came out so abruptly she barely had time to think them through. When she did, she wasn’t sure she believed them. She had spent years convincing herself she wasn’t in love with him–wasn’t in love with anyone. There was no such thing as love. Yet, when she had seen Sam again after all those years, her heart still did flip flops and now, looking at Alex... She looked away.

“You can’t get over someone by convincing yourself never to love again,” Alex told her.

She wished he wouldn’t make so much sense. “I have to go.”

* * *

She wasn’t sure about leaving Lissy alone while they all went on their errands, but Lissy insisted they couldn’t do anything for her anyway and really, she was right. So Grace gave her a pile of nutri-bars and set up a voiceprint ID so Lissy could work the holoset.

“All right,” Grace said as they made their way out of the apartment building. “Do you know where Medicorp’s escape tunnel goes?”

Sam hesitated. “What escape tunnel?”

“You’re still a terrible liar. Besides, it only makes sense. I’m guessing the entrance is in the basement, where Matt’s father was killed. I’m thinking he was on his way out.”

Sam’s face went a little pink. “All right, I know about it.”

“Well then, I think we should pick up the trail at the exit. Lead the way.”

They didn’t head downtown. Instead, they headed to North Kansas City. The tunnel apparently came out in the basement of a boarded up, two-story apartment building swimming in homeless people.

“I’m surprised the recruiters haven’t swept them up,” Sam muttered as they approached.

Another flash from above seemed to emphasize his point.

“They’re not in great shape,” Grace pointed out as they walked up the steps to the front door. Two skinny men blocked their way. They wouldn’t have been able to put up much of a fight–not that you’d know it from their expressions.

“What do you want?” one of them asked.

“We’d like to go inside,” Sam said.

Grace knew instantly that he’d said the wrong thing.

“This is our house and you don’t live here,” the first speaker said. “Who are you here to see?”

“We think a friend of ours may have come through here,” Grace said. “We’re hoping to talk to the people who live here and ask if anyone’s seen him.”

The second man coughed but did not speak.

“I knew it,” the first speaker said. “They don’t think we’re people at all–just obstacles to get in the way of what they want. Well, this is my house and I will defend it from all you sorry-ass folks who think you can come through any time of the day and night!” He put up his fists as if to fight.

“Who’s come through?” Grace asked.

“I ain’t saying.” He put his fists down and turned his back to her.

Grace looked helplessly at Sam. “You got any nutri-bars?”

“Half a dozen or so in my pack.” Sam unstrapped it and produced six nutri-bars. The skinny man turned halfway back in obvious interest.

“Can we take a look for some nutri-bars?” Grace asked.

The look of longing in his eyes was piteous, but he shook his head. “That ain’t enough for my family. We’ve got fifty living here.”

“We can get fifty,” Grace looked meaningfully at Sam. “We passed a small grocery two blocks back.”

“Sure thing,” Sam said. “I’ll be right back.”

The man watched Sam go, and then turned to Grace. “Most people just try to beat their way in.”

“It’s your house,” Grace said. It was a shame others didn’t see it that way. These people were probably used to being roughed up, and not just by other people in the same situation looking for shelter from the cold.

Sam returned fifteen minutes later with a bag full of nutri-bars. He handed them over to the men, who stepped aside so they could pass, shouting over their shoulders, “We got dinner!”

They had to wade through a sea of people responding to the dinner call to find the stairs to the basement. Then they had to wade through even more bodies to find the panel that hid the tunnel exit.

“It comes out here,” Sam said, pointing to a bit of wall that looked no different from the rest. “Matt figured nobody would come looking for it here.”

He had to be right about that. This was exactly the sort of place people pretended not to see.

“How do we get in?” Grace asked.

“We don’t,” Sam said. “It’s an escape tunnel. It can only be opened from the inside.”

“Which means...” Grace took a deep breath and tried to think. “It means that Matt either escaped successfully or was captured by Medicorp personnel on the other side.”

“No way,” Sam said. “He had bodyguards with him at all times, and they were trained and loyal. He must have escaped.”

Grace scanned the room, looking for something to guide her. A clue–anything. Then she spotted it–two large, beefy men with vacant, wide-eyed stares, lying dead on the floor, stripped naked by the vultures.

“Unless he was grabbed on this end.” Grace pointed to the dead men.

They edged closer, past people feasting on the nutri-bars. A few stared at her with resentment and one challenged her right to be there. “This ain’t your house! Get out!” The woman had her hands on her hips. Dangling from one of her wrists was a silver watch.

“Where did you get that?” Grace asked, pointing.

“That’s mine!” she grabbed at it. “I found it fair and square. People keep barging in my house. I know it ain’t pretty but it’s mine.”

“I know that,” Grace said. “The gentlemen at the door were kind enough to let us come in so we could talk to you.”

“Gentlemen?” the woman repeated with less certainty. She looked down at her wrist and then at the men. “I didn’t kill them. This watch is mine, fair and square.”

“I agree,” Grace said. “Who did kill them?”

“They’re not men!” shouted a woman on the other side of the room. “They’re demons that come straight out of the wall!”

“Shut up, Lucy!” said the woman with the watch. “Don’t know why we took you in with your damn superstitions.”

“Who killed them?” Grace asked.

“Some crazy men shouting, ‘Death to The Establishment,’ or some such nonsense. There was another guy with the dead ones, all fancied up in a suit and tie. Too bad they didn’t kill him instead. I bet he had a ton of good stuff on him.”

“What did they do with him?” Sam demanded.

The woman shrugged. “Took him.” She turned and wandered off, clearly done with their conversation.

“There are lots of groups who would shout that,” Sam said. “It isn’t much to go on.”

Grace put up a hand to ward off any more questions for a while. Finally, she said, “We know more than that. We know that whoever took him knew to expect him here. It’s not like the people who lived here took him–that would be a crime of opportunity. No, someone barged in here, disrupted these people’s home, and dragged Matt away after killing his bodyguards.”

Grace turned to Sam. “Who else knows about this tunnel?”

Sam shrugged. “Too many people, I think. Matt kept talking about digging a new tunnel because he had no idea who his father would have told. He never got around to it, obviously. Matt only told his secretary, his bodyguards, and the six of us on his top research team. He said he wanted us out if there was ever any trouble.”

“I wonder if Jordan knew,” Grace said. “No one ever mentioned how he got out of Medicorp. They called Mr. Stanton Sr.’s death a result of a break-in, but there was no damage to the front doors, no one forcing themselves past the guards–as if they could.”

“They don’t stop people going out,” Sam said.

“That’s true, but didn’t they lock down the building as soon as Mr. Stanton died? There would have been an alarm, right?”

Sam’s eyes widened in understanding. “Jordan might have known. In which case, this goose chase might not be as wild as you’d hoped.”

Grace waved him off. “Let’s go see if those two by the door saw which way the kidnappers went.”

* * *

After a second round of nutri-bars, they managed to learn “the house crashers with the guns” took Matt due north and then disappeared into the sewers a couple of blocks away.

“Sewer Rats,” Sam breathed as they began moving north.

Rebels. Revolutionaries. People called them a lot of things, but in Kansas City, they were Sewer Rats.

Rumors abounded about the Sewer Rats. Some said they bred real rats for their dinner. Some said they stole away children to raise as their own, like something evil out of a fairy tale. What did seem true was that they stole, plundered, and killed. There didn’t seem to be anything they were above doing if it served their goals.

“They won’t hesitate to kill us,” Grace said.

“Do we have any other choice?” Sam asked.

Grace looked around. She spotted the four men she knew were tailing her since her apartment and another half dozen that she had either missed at the time or who had joined the game since then.