No Point Flattering the Dead
Rifle slung, Jake climbed up into the trusses above the stage, where he settled down and seemed, by some sleight of hand, to disappear. She couldn’t see him, when she looked away and then back again—just a yellow triangle with an exclamation point and a line going to what looked like a bit of truss. “Jake?” she said.
“Yeah?” His voice came somewhere from the shadows above the stage.
“How long do we wait?”
“Hard to say. Taylor has a bit of a hard-on for you, so I suspect he’ll send his ogre soonest, but it depends on how far away he is and how soon he can be tasked.”
“Do we know he’ll send the ogre?”
“No.”
“What if he doesn’t?”
“Then I kill whoever he does send. Get up on the stage like we said. Stay under cover. When he comes through the door, pull back behind the stage.”
Nadine crouched behind an improvised shelter Jake had built on the stage, behind the sofa. He’d unzipped his black bag and lined the back of an overturned table with it. “Kevlar,” he said. “Not great, but better than nothing.”
Long minutes went by. Nadine heard nothing but her blood roaring in her ears. She looked up. Other than the yellow triangle, she saw nothing. “How do you do it?”
“Do what?”
“The waiting.”
No answer.
“Hello, this is interesting.” Jake’s soft murmur sounded like a shout after the long, tense silence.
“What’s that?”
“Newsfeed. Got my implant set to tell me if anything comes up about you. Apparently there’s been a sighting of you. San Jose. Surveillance drone caught you trying to rob a convenience store. Biometrics and facial recognition confirmed. Oh, you naughty girl! You stabbed the owner and fled on foot.”
“What’s that about?”
“Taylor’s taken the bait. He’s clearing the game board. Getting the Feds to pull out, head to San Jose post haste. He must’ve had that video dummied up and ready to go. Betting there will be limited police response to the shenanigans here tonight. Almost showtime. You scared?”
“Yes.”
“Good. That might help keep you alive.”
“Did a shopkeeper really get stabbed?”
“Dunno. Maybe. Maybe the shopkeeper’s one of his. Maybe there is no shopkeeper. This kind of shit, who can tell?”
You aren’t really, you know. Anna’s voice, somewhere behind her.
“Really what?”
Scared. Not as much as I thought you’d be. Knew I saw something there, that night at the rave.
“You aren’t real.”
“What?” Jake said.
“Nothing,” Nadine said. “Hey Jake, you ever hear things?”
“What kind of things?”
“I don’t know, things. Things like—”
She never finished the sentence. The wall across from her exploded with a roar. Jake just had time to shriek as the lighting trusses atop the stage caved in. The front of a large vehicle protruded, angular and brutal, through the ruined wall for just a moment, then withdrew. Headlights shone through the massive cloud of dust that billowed through the room. She heard a cough, then silence.
A door slammed. A moment later, a dark-clad figure darted catlike through the hole, outlined in yellow triangles. A quick flicker of motion. One of the yellow triangles detached from the figure and floated toward her, following a red arc splashed in microscopic LEDs across her vision. Nadine dove to the floor, hands over her head, eyes tightly closed.
An explosion to shatter worlds smashed ice picks into her ears. Nadine screamed, the sound lost behind the shrill ringing. Her stomach heaved. She backed up frantically, disoriented and half-deaf, scrambling on hands and knees. She lifted her head to see the figure turn away from her, stepping over the rubble, scanning the wreckage of the trusses. A corner of the ceiling had come down, and now lay in ruin, pinned by the cold blue glare of the headlights through the ruined wall.
Run! Anna’s voice in her head.
“What?”
Run or die. Now!
Nadine exploded from a crouch, running for the door, driven by an impulse she didn’t understand. The figure turned. Yellow triangles danced in the corner of her vision as she raced up the walkway between rows of shabby dust-covered seats, silent and empty. At the door, she jumped, praying she remembered where the laser tripwire was, dreading the bang that would end all of this.
She hit the scuffed linoleum flooring in the hallway off-balance, skidded, then picked herself up and kept going. A wave of vertigo sent her staggering against the wall, long rows of metal lockers painted institutional orange marching in rows down the still, dark hallway. Through the shrill ringing in her ears, she heard sounds behind her, then a distant pop, no louder than a firecracker. She collapsed to her knees, retching, stomach heaving.
“You bitch! You’ll pay for that.”
Nadine slumped against a metal locker, paint peeling, corrosion eating a hole in the corner of the door. The chrome-plated latch pressed painfully into her back. She looked up at the figure silhouetted in the doorway, surrealistically muscled, a cartoon caricature of a bodybuilder, arms so enormous Nadine wondered if he could even cross them. He wore black pants and a black shirt with a black vest over it, open at the sides, a plate of angular black metal mounted in a kind of cloth pouch in front and held in place with black Velcro. He wore a helmet, too, black matte, and a pair of silver shades over his eyes that looked a bit like a cross between wraparound sunglasses and welder’s goggles. He leaned against the edge of the door, blood on his face and the side of his neck. The shot had shredded his shirt along his side, where his vest didn’t cover. Blood dripped down one bulging arm.
He reached into his belt and pulled out a baton. A yellow triangle floated above it. It whined like the charger on an old-fashioned camera flash. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m coming for you.”
Three loud bangs sounded behind him, all in a row, pop-pop-pop. The ogre was moving before Nadine even registered what happened, inhumanely fast, as agile as a hunting cat and graceful as a dancer despite his enormous bulk. Something small and fast whined through the doorway, ricocheted off the locker across from her. Nadine had just enough presence of mind to reach into her pocket and flip the switch on Jake’s jammer.
Run! Anna’s voice again, startlingly loud.
Nadine dragged herself to her feet and fled down the hall. Somewhere behind her, something detonated, a sound beyond all possible sound, a piledriver crushing her head. The hallway lit up with a blazing light brighter than the noonday sun, bleaching the row of lockers into a jumbled abstract impression of white radiance and black shadow, and then was dark again. She clamped her hands over her ringing ears and screamed.
She staggered on, past doors that opened on both sides of the hall into long-abandoned classrooms. More sounds from behind her, muffled beneath the ringing in her ears, dull firecracker pops, ceasing abruptly. Three left, three right, then a row of narrow doors all close together, bathroom stalls, then three right and two left, one opening into the kitchen, the other into the cafeteria. She flung her shoulder against the door to the cafeteria, which slammed open without resistance, then kicked it closed behind her, panting. She half-ran, half-staggered past rows of tables to a long stainless steel serving line, empty holes for trays of industrial food open like eye sockets in a skull.
From some endless distance away, she heard a door slam open. A thick growl: “Bitch!” A crash as another door slammed open. “I’m going to find you.” Crash. “And I’m going to fuck you up.” Crash. “Did you really think you could take me?” Crash. “You have no idea what you’re dealing with.” Crash. “Your boyfriend can’t hide from infrared.” Crash, worryingly close. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” Another door, slammed or kicked open. “Running outta places to hide, little girl…”
The door to the kitchen slammed open. Nadine curled into a tiny ball on the cafeteria side of the serving line, a long, solid rectangle of stainless steel between her and the ogre in black.
Keep low. Anna’s voice, in her head.
Nadine’s lips moved silently. “Anna, you’re dead.”
You will be too, if you don’t keep low.
Nadine curled tighter. The late evening sun sent razor-edged shadows through the gloom. The ogre brought his baton down with a crash on the stainless steel shelves behind the counter. Nadine jumped, fist stuffed into her mouth. “That little booby trap of yours hurt!” he called.
Nadine edged backward, keeping under the long serving tray, heart hammering. I’m a bit disappointed in Jake, Anna’s voice noted, so close Nadine could almost feel her breath on her ear.
“Why?”
He underestimated this guy. That’s not like him. You both did, but at least you have an excuse. This isn’t exactly your wheelhouse.
Another crash. The ogre kicked open the walk-in cooler, long unused. An unpleasant smell rolled out.
You need to survive this. Being dead’s no fun. Trust me.
“I must be losing my mind,” Nadine muttered to herself.
That’s a distinct possibility. You’re under a lot of stress. Psychotic break. Well, technically, brief reactive psychotic episode. Why did you leave that picture of us on that machine in the tunnel?
“I don’t know. Seemed the thing to do. Maybe I was praying.”
You’re not a believer.
“Yeah, well, I’ve never been wanted for terrorism before, or hunted down by some kind of augmented assassin freak. Maybe I’m broadening my horizons.”
No need to be snarky. I’m just saying. I wonder why they do it?
“Who?”
The people who leave pictures on that thing.
“My old art history professor would probably call it a communal semiotic expression of persistent low-grade trauma or something.”
Something’s happening.
Nadine held her breath. The classroom door across the hall smashed open.
Go. Now.
Nadine reached up to unfasten the latch beneath the counter. Part of the counter swung aside. She crawled noiselessly through into the kitchen and closed the counter behind her.
Nice. How’d you find that?
“Long story. I stayed late cleaning after a show, one thing led to another, I ended up on my back beneath one of the other performers.”
In the cafeteria?
“I said it was a long story.”
Did you have fun?
“She was okay, I guess. Not as much fun as you.”
No point flattering the dead, babe.
Nadine crawled backward, hands and knees, around a large steel prep table, back toward the massive stainless steel ovens, left here after the school closed because they were simply too cumbersome to take. She wedged herself in a narrow space between stove and wall. The door to the cafeteria crashed open. “The longer you hide, the angrier I get!” the ogre called. “Please, keep hiding. It will be more fun when I find you.”
I wonder if Jake’s still alive.
“So do I.”
You’re pretty buggered if he’s not.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
Call it fatalism. Get it?
The ogre kicked over a table. Nadine flinched. He seems pretty angry, Anna’s voice observed mildly.
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
If I’m your manifestation of a psychotic break, I literally can’t.
“What do you mean ‘if’?”
Shadows scuttled across the ceiling, toward the door. Nadine heard the door across the hall smash open.
Speaking of Jake…
“Yeah, I know, I know.”
Another door slammed open. “This is fun!” her pursuer said. “I haven’t had a good chase in ages. Oh, I’m going to enjoy you.”
Nadine crawled on hands and knees to the door. What’s your plan? Anna’s voice said.
“I’m making this up as I go along. Find out if Jake’s okay. See if we can get out of here.”
You should’ve brought my gun.
“I don’t know how to use a gun. He does. If I play his game I lose.”
Still, might have come in handy.
“Shush. I need to concentrate.”
Another crash, farther down the hallway. Did you just shush your dead girlfriend?
“My dead girlfriend is being unusually chatty.” Nadine reached up to the doorknob. Holding her breath, she cracked the door just enough to peer down the hallway. The classroom doors past the cafeteria gaped open, wide yawning rectangles in the walls.
Good a time as any.
Nadine took a deep breath, then slipped silent as the gray shadows through the hall. She sped as quickly as she could toward the auditorium, heart pounding, afraid to look behind her. If he saw here, out in the open, there’d be nothing she could do…
Can’t think like that. It’ll make you crazy.
“I already am crazy.” Nadine flashed through the doorway. The smell of cordite hung in the air. She hopped over the last row of seats to the corner of the stage, where she could just make out Jake’s head amid a pile of debris. She crouched next to him. “Jake!” she hissed. “Jake!” Her fingers sought a pulse at his neck. “Jake! You okay?”
He opened one eye and gave her a lopsided grin. “Unless you’re a Valkyrie here to carry me off to Valhalla.”
“To Freyja,” Nadine corrected absently. She wormed her hands under the edge of a long piece of truss, straining to lift it.
“What?”
“The Valkyries. They take you to Freyja. Freyja chooses who goes to Valhalla and who stays with her in Fólkvangr.”
“Now I know I’m still alive. No real Valkyrie would be having this conversation with me in the middle of a firefight.” Jake’s face contorted as he struggled to wiggle out from under the stubborn piles. He huffed in frustration.
“Can you move?”
“No. Gimme ten or twenty minutes and I might be able to dig myself out.”
“We don’t have ten or twenty minutes.”
“You do. The hole in the wall is clear enough. Get out of here.”
“And then what?” Nadine whispered. “You’ve seen how fast he is. In an open space I’m dead. Besides, I’m not leaving you behind.”
“Why not?”
“You didn’t leave me behind.”
“Yeah, but I was being paid.”
A shadow loomed in the doorway. “Here, kitty kitty!” the ogre growled. “I see you!”
“Fuck!” Nadine looked around frantically. “Where’s your gun?”
Jake shook his head. “Don’t know. He took it. Backup piece is in an ankle holster, I can’t reach it.”
“Fuck,” Nadine said again. She stood, edging toward the stage, keeping the rows of seats between her and the black-clad man.
The ogre spun his baton between nimble fingers in an intricate whorl. “Let’s play.”
Nadine glanced sideways at Jake, then back at the ogre. “Come get me.”
“With pleasure.”
Nadine bolted onto the stage. In a series of fluid bounds, the ogre came after her, leaping effortlessly over the rows of seats. Nadine fled through the curtain that led into the horseshoe-shaped backstage area with its dense clutter of long-dead junk. Long, janky painted canvas backdrops hung in still rows from the ceiling. The gutted remnants of a light panel lay on its side, spilling electronics. A warren of tiny, narrow spaces wormed through the remnants of years of amateur productions.
The ogre burst through the curtain, breathing heavily. “Surprise!” He licked thin lips below mirrored glasses. Something dark flowed down his side. “You’ve given me the best run I’ve had in a long time, but you must’ve known you couldn’t win. Show’s over, girl.”
Nadine leapt over the defunct lighting panel. She darted between two sun-dulled canvas scenes hanging from their cables. The sour scent of dry dust and old paint filled her nose.
“You just don’t know when to quit,” the ogre snarled. A knife blade flashed through the canvas inches from her face. Nadine dropped to the floor and scrambled beneath the row of silently hanging backdrops.
He shoved after her without finesse, slashing through the decaying canvas. She rolled and sprang to her feet, making for a dressing room, sound of his heavy breathing right behind her. She darted through the door. His arm came after her, knife gleaming in his grip, a red fan-shaped arc of light extending in front of it. She twisted away. The red turned green. The knife slashed through the air where she’d just been.
She kicked the door shut on his arm and was rewarded with a bark of pain. He kicked back. The door blurred red. Something smashed into her side. Nadine threw herself backward, rolling as she hit the floor. The knife slashed again, a blur of green just above her.
“You’re fast. Good. You know what? Don’t give up. This is fun.”
For a second, Nadine saw his bulk filling the doorway, then she exploded off the ground, leaping with every ounce of desperate strength at the door connecting the two dressing rooms. She heard a curse behind her.
Her shoulder hit the door. She grabbed for the knob, praying silently that it wouldn’t be locked. It turned. The door opened, spilling her into the darkness of the second dressing room. She groped for the fire extinguisher that should be mounted by the door. Her questing fingers found an empty frame.
A yellow triangle flared. A quick flash of red. She dropped. The red turned green. Air swished past her face.
Nadine ran for the corridor. Fingers brushed her shoulder. Adrenaline slammed through her. She flung herself against the door and out into the corridor again. She kicked the door shut behind her. It slammed on the side of his face. He punched through the cheap, flimsy material. Splinters erupted. “Ow,” he said mildly. He staggered, leaning against the wall. “That hurt.”
Heart hammering, lungs burning, Nadine threw herself into motion. She darted back onto the stage, dragging a metal wheeled garment rack into the space beside her. The ogre crashed clumsily into it. It crumpled beneath his momentum.
Nadine sped across the stage, its faux living room now covered with a thin layer of gritty white dust. The headlights from the ogre’s car sent strange angular shadows through the auditorium. She heard footsteps behind her, the sound of his labored breathing in his ear.
She risked a quick glance backward. A dark shape filled the space behind her, surrounded by yellow triangles. She stumbled gasping across the front of the stage, both arms wrapped tight around her. Every muscle burned. She struggled to pull enough air into her aching lungs. She doubled over, only the wall on the far side of the stage holding up her shaking body. Her knees buckled.
The ogre slowed, chest heaving. “Congratulations,” he said. “You drew first blood. I’m impressed. But now it’s time to fin…to fin…” He reeled drunkenly. “I’m going…” His knees gave out. He collapsed heavily onto the rickety couch in a cloud of dust.
Nadine, still gasping, forced herself to straighten. Fire traced paths through her body. She turned toward him. The knife fell from his fingers, followed on its path to the floor by a yellow triangle. “What…” he wheezed. “What’s happening? What did you do to me?”
Yeah, Anna’s voice said, what did you do to him?
Nadine crept cautiously toward the man. He slumped unmoving on the couch, eyes concealed behind his glasses. She kicked the knife away. More yellow triangles floated in the air around him. She slipped his baton from its holster. He twisted toward her, his movements clumsy and uncoordinated. She flung the baton off the stage. “What…what…” he gasped.
Nadine unsnapped the holster of his gun. He flung himself at her, hand moving in a yellow arc. She evaded him easily and slid the gun free, marveling at its weight. Without taking her eyes from him, she settled cautiously into the chair across from him. “What did you do?” he croaked.
“Synthetic tetrodotoxin.” She over-enunciated the unfamiliar word. “Friend of a friend had some on hand. Packed it in the shotgun shell. Nasty little paralytic. Just the thing for someone with jacked-up muscles. You’re going to die. Unless…”
“Unless what?”
“Unless you get an antidote. Sooner rather than later, I think.”
“What do you want?”
Nadine took the recorder from her pocket and set it on the table between them. “I want to talk.”
“I don’t know anything.”
“I’m certain that’s not true. So what’s it going to be? Are we going to have a talk, or am I going to walk away and leave you to suffocate alone in that fancy augmented body of yours?”
“He’ll kill me—”
“You’re dying now. Better decide fast. Pretty soon your throat will stop working and then you’ll be no use to me.”
“Okay! Okay!”
“I knew you’d see reason.” Nadine pressed a button on the recorder. A small arm rose with a mechanical whirr, a tiny lens on each side of it. She leaned forward, bracing the ogre’s gun across her knees, barrel pointed shakily at him. “My name is Nadine Jiang. I am accused of terrorism, and the police are looking for me. Other people, too.” Her voice quavered. “I don’t know what’s happening or why everyone thinks I’m a terrorist. I haven’t done anything. This man just tried to kill me. He’s not police. Who do you work for?”
“Martin,” the ogre wheezed. “Martin Taylor. He contracts with me to do…security work.”
“I know him!” Nadine said. “He murdered my friends. He took video of me. He told me he would use it to make deepfake videos of me committing crimes. He laughed when he said it.” A tear leaked from the corner of her eyes. “Why is he doing this? Why does he want me dead?”
“You know why.” Sweat beaded on the man’s forehead. “It was that kid. That kid in the hospital. We snatched him from the hospital. You came after him.”
“But I’m not a terrorist!” Nadine wailed.
“Doesn’t…” He dragged in a long, shuddering breath. “Doesn’t matter. You got close. You and your friends. You had to go. The terrorism part was easy. Video is no problem. Taylor…” Another long, labored breath. “Taylor has connections with the police. Easy to slip them intel. Some of it is real. Some, not so much.”
“But why me?”
“Wrong place, wrong time.”
“How come the police think there’s a confirmed sighting of me in San Jose at the same time I’m in Los Angeles?”
“I told you. Easy to fake. Taylor has video footage of you, more than enough.”
“Is that why he was filming me when he had me captive in that office park, before he ordered his security team to murder me?”
“Yes.”
“Why make fake video of me?”
“Money. Why do you think?” He took another wheezing breath. “Can’t…can’t breathe…”
Nadine touched the recorder. The tiny arm retracted. “Thank you,” she said. She set the gun on the floor and relaxed back in the cushions of the cheap armchair, watching him curiously.
“What about…” The sentence ended in a strangled cough.
“What about what?”
“The antidote?”
She leaned forward. “I want to see your eyes.” She slipped off his glasses. “You have pretty eyes. Brown. Gentle. I like them. What’s your name?”
“Thomas,” he gasped.
“Thank you, Thomas, you’ve been very helpful. I don’t want to lie to you. You’re going to die. Right here, on that sofa. There is no antidote.”
“But…” His chest heaved. “But you said…”
“I said you’re going to die if you don’t get an antidote, not that I have one.”
His eyes widened, turning from hopeful to desperate. “But…”
“Do you have someone, Thomas? Someone close to you? A wife? A girlfriend? Kids?”
“Girlfriend,” he wheezed.
“I’m sorry she can’t be here for you, in your final moments,” Nadine said. “I had a girlfriend, too. Smart. So very smart. And funny. She made the most amazing grilled ham and cheese sandwiches. It’s such a simple thing, but the way she made it, it became something else. Something special, made with love just for me.” Nadine closed her eyes. A wistful half-smile drifted across her lips. “I met her at an underground rave. She was so beautiful. Like a goddess, bathed in glittering lights. We danced together, and then she said ‘I’m taking you home with me.’ I never wanted to leave.” Her eyes snapped open. “She died in a shitty concrete tunnel under Martin Taylor’s shitty little office park. She died to save me. Do you have any idea what that feels like, Thomas?”
“They…won’t stop…They’ll carry on coming…until you’re dead,” he gasped.
Nadine nodded. “I know. Someone told me recently that you keep going until you can’t anymore. That’s what I’m doing.” She leaned across the table toward him. “Do you love your girlfriend, Thomas?”
“What?”
“It’s a simple question. Do you love her?”
“Yes.”
“I know how you feel. I loved Anna. I loved her so much, just her smile could make my whole day. Seeing her was like being able to breathe when I didn’t even know I was holding my breath. I miss being able to breathe. Do you know what that’s like, Thomas? A life without that isn’t worth living, don’t you think?” She clasped his hand in both of hers. “Anna died without anyone to hold her. I won’t do that to you. I’ll be here, holding your hand when you go. Nobody should have to die alone. It isn’t right.”
“You…you…” Loathing seethed in Thomas’ eyes. His fingers twitched feebly against Nadine’s palm.
“Do you miss her, Thomas?” Nadine tenderly stroked a lock of hair out of his eyes. “Your girlfriend, I mean. You’ll never be able to hold her again, stroke her hair as you both fall asleep. That’s over for you. You’ll never be able to watch a sunset with her or look up at the moon with her again. You’ll never curl up beside her again. Do you miss her, right now, as much as I miss Anna?” Her eyes searched his face. “I think you do. It hurts, doesn’t it, to have that taken away from you. Like acid and ice, all the time, burning and freezing all at once.”
A small convulsion ran through his body. He stared helplessly at her, eyes burning with impotent hate. Nadine squeezed his hand, patted it. “Nobody should have to go through that, don’t you think, Thomas?”
His lips moved. He convulsed again. Terror filled his eyes for a moment, then they filmed over. Nadine watched patiently as the life drained from them, absently stroking his arm.
When he was gone, she released his hand and slipped the recorder into her pocket. In the corner of the auditorium, Jake’s mechanical arm whirred as he worked to extricate himself from the fallen rubble. “What the fuck was that about?” he said.
“What?”
“Nothing. Did you get what you needed?”
“I suppose.”
“Good. Give me a hand out of here.”
It took almost half an hour before they were able to free Jake from the rubble, one pants leg shredded. Blood slicked his leg and the debris beneath. “You’re hurt!” Nadine said.
“I’ll live. We need to get rid of that guy and the car.”
“Can’t we just take it?”
“No. Taylor’s people will have it wired six ways from Sunday. Only reason they’re not all over us right now is they have no way to know things went off the rails. You turned on the jammer?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Then we still have a little time.” He hooked his thumb toward the stage. “Help me drag asshole over there to the car.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Make him disappear.”
Nadine and Jake dragged the ogre’s lifeless body out into the evening air. Nadine looked it over. Blue so dark as to be almost black, harshly angular, the windows and windshield unusually thick. “BMW Xi9,” Jake said with something like lust in his voice. “Full armor package, all-wheel electric drive, run-flat tires. Beautiful. Goddammit, where’s the key?” He patted down the lifeless corpse. “Gotta be here somewhere…ah.” He fished something from beneath the corpse’s body armor. The car chirped. “Help me get Asshole behind the wheel. Well, would you look at that.” Awe colored his voice. “In-vehicle high-resolution Doppler radar. I’m jealous. Asshole here has all the best toys.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s how he knew where I was hiding.”
Jake stared off into space. Tiny lights glittered in his contacts. His lips moved soundlessly. “What are you doing?” Nadine said.
“Searching the BMW modder forums. Trying to find…ah, here it is.”
He pushed the body out of his way. Thomas’ corpse slumped over the center console. Jake hit the power switch several times, then held the shift selector button and the power switch for a long moment, until the car chimed and the power switch started blinking. Nadine peered over his shoulder. “What’s that?”
“Service mode. I’m disabling some of the safeties.” His finger stabbed at the central console. “Sanity checking.”
“Why?”
Jake switched the BMW off and on again. “There.” He called up the navigation screen. “I’m telling it to drive to a point about two hundred yards off the end of the last pier on Terminal Island, behind that wrecked ship. Good way to get rid of cars. It’ll hit the edge of the map and just keep on going. Be a while before anyone finds it. You still got that jammer?”
“Yeah.”
Jake took it from her and tossed it in the front seat. “There. That’ll keep Taylor from knowing where it is.”
“Won’t that block GPS? Screw up the navigation?”
“Nah. GPS is receive-only. Real-time tracking tracking takes the information from the GPS receiver and retransmits it on a different frequency. This’ll block the tracking without blocking GPS.” He punched a button and slammed the door. The long, predatory-looking car backed away from them. “Bon voyage, motherfucker!” Jake wavered, then collapsed. “Goddammit.”
“Hey, you okay?” Nadine looked down. Something dark and slick soaked his tattered pants leg, pooled around his boot.
“Bleeding out. Guess I was hurt worse than I thought. Fuck.” He fished a cylinder out of his pocket, unrolled the screen, punched at buttons. “Mini’s on the way.”
“I’ll get you to a hospital.”
“Are you insane? No hospital.” He shoved the unrolled phone into her hands. “Use this. Call Dr. Abdullah. Get me to him.”
“I didn’t think he was that kind of doctor.”
“He’s not. He’s a molecular biologist. He was also a field medic in Afghanistan. Not exactly on our side, but not not on our side either. It’s complicated. Just get—get—” His eyes rolled. He slumped.
“Don’t you fucking die on me.” Nadine’s voice held just a trace of a panicked tremor. She poked at the screen on Jake’s phone. While it rang, she tore open what was left of his pants leg, found a long, jagged wound beneath. “Fuck! Fuck!” She looked around the parking lot, then pulled off her shirt and wrapped it as best as she could around his injured leg. Blood flowed around her hands. “Fuck!” she swore. Headlights strobed across her as the Mini pulled itself into a parking space right in front of her. The doors popped.
Still swearing, Nadine hooked her arms under Jake’s and dragged him into the passenger seat of the Mini. “Hello?” came a voice.
“Hello, Dr. Abdullah?”
“This is me, yes. Who is this?”
“Listen, I don’t have a lot of time to explain.” Nadine pushed Jake’s legs into the car and slammed the door. “This is Na—Melody. We met a few days ago. I’m a friend of Jake’s.” She climbed into the driver’s seat, called up a navigation map. “Jake’s hurt. Bad. He needs medical care. He won’t let me take him to a hospital. Says to see you.”
“Ah. This is awkward.”
“You don’t know the half of it. Where are you?”
A pause. “You cannot bring him here. That would be…inadvisable.”
“Tell me where, then.”
Dr. Abdullah gave her an address. Nadine punched it in. “Are you fucking kidding me?” she said.
“No. Best I can do. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Make it ten.”
“Very well.”