15

We met our fair share of resistance on the way out of that place, but thankfully none of it was of the acid-spitting variety. We passed Junior on the floor, unconscious but breathing with a pair of tranq rounds in his neck. Across the hall, medical personnel were tending to Daichi, monitoring his vitals. Plenty of well-armed Blackshirts thought it was their sworn duty to keep Sanitoro and me from leaving the building, but we managed to change their minds about that.

Sanitoro's roundhouse kicks did most of the talking, along with a few open-handed chops to the throat. The Blackshirts staggered out of our way, gargling curses. A few right hooks and uppercuts from yours truly kept them at bay while we kept moving.

Outside, the night was lit up by headlights from half a dozen hybrid SUVs and a sweeping floodlight that passed over intermittently, courtesy of an airborne chopper. Junior's followers had been rounded up and returned to the facility, along with Sanitoro's car. They hadn't gotten far before the Feds swooped in to collect them, and Sergeant Douglass was nowhere in sight. The kids looked dazed and partially sedated as they were led into two black, unmarked vans. Mindwiped already by the looks of them and headed home—if I dared to believe Agent Adams.

Ducking behind parked vehicles and avoiding the helicopter's spotlight, Sanitoro and I reached his car and climbed inside, careful to slouch low in the seats. I chucked the files onto the floor and gripped the EMP gun at the ready. Just in case I needed to keep another semi from following us.

Or knock that chopper out of the sky.

Sanitoro didn't slam on the accelerator and tear out of there. He waited until both vans were loaded up with those kids. Then he pressed his thumb on the ignition pad, and the sedan purred to life. Keeping the lights off, he eased the car forward in a trajectory that would eventually follow the vans westward. A caravan of sorts, but we were unofficial members of the entourage.

I kept an eye on the side mirror. Nobody at our six—

Until the bruised and battered Blackshirts exploded out of the building, hobbling and shouting, waving for the attention of their comrades. Moving like some sort of synchronized marching band, they scrambled into their vehicles and gunned them to life, kicking up dust and gravel.

"Fun while it lasted," I muttered, surprised it had taken them this long to mobilize.

Sanitoro planted his foot on the accelerator. We passed both passenger vans, dipping and lurching along the dirt, ripping across the barren terrain as we pulled ahead, lengthening the gap between them and us and doing our damnedest to stay in the lead.

"They better be headed to Little Tokyo," Sanitoro said, glancing into the rearview.

Had he intended to follow them all the way back into the city, to make sure the detainees weren't taken to another facility deeper in the Wastes? How many of these detention centers were there? And how many of them had been infiltrated by enemy operatives?

"She said Junior's doctor wasn't one of theirs."

"You believe her?" Sanitoro kept his eyes on the uneven stretch of land ahead of us as we bounced along toward the remains of that ruined desert highway.

I picked up one of the files on the floor and thumbed through it. Too dark to read in the car. "Isn't like the Feds to fill out their reports in Chinese."

"An EC infiltrator then?"

I assumed so, unless the mad scientist in question had defected from the Eastern Conglomerate and was now working for the government of the Unified States, off the books. Had I crossed paths with her during the war? Such an encounter should have left more of an impression, if she was as off-the-wall as she sounded. But if she was an infiltrator, some kind of secret enemy agent acting on our soil—now that was an unsettling thought.

I always had a hunch the war wasn't as cold as the pundits made it out to be, but I'd never had this kind of proof before now.

"I will not forget her face," Sanitoro said coolly. "This Agent Adams. If she has lied about returning our wakamono to us, she will pay dearly."

The past twelve hours hadn't dampened his spirits any. "She may be many things, but she's not suicidal. She knows who you are. She wouldn't lie to you." Not to his face, anyway. "Your young people will be returned."

"What will you tell Okada?" he asked at length.

I closed the file and set it on top of the other folders. "Don't know yet." What do you tell a man whose nephew has been turned into a monster?

"Yoshiro...was like nothing I have ever seen."

Would Adams try to mindwipe Sanitoro? The government had to keep its dirty little secrets, after all. If the general public found out about suprahumans with bizarre abilities walking among us, mass panic would overwhelm the world. Or so went the party line. Yoshiro, Daichi, Old Man Okada, maybe even Sanitoro himself if Adams was feeling extra plucky today—they couldn't be allowed to remember what they knew. There was always the possibility that somebody's brain could spring a leak. Then word of mouth would take care of the rest, spreading the truth like a viral outbreak.

Charlie Madison and Wanda Wood, on the other hand? For some reason, Agent Adams had allowed us to proceed without our brains scrambled. As far as I knew, we were the only citizens in the city with such a distinction. Adams knew I'd kill her if she ever laid a hand on Wanda. And as for me, she'd once said something cryptic about my mind, my memories, how they made me special or some other nonsense. Because of that, she would never mindwipe me.

But the joke was obviously on her. What good were my memories when I couldn't even remember meeting a Chinese scientist during the war—assuming that had ever happened? Then again, Junior could have just been playing games, making things up. Wouldn't have put it past him, considering his state of mind. Even on a good day, when he wasn't a genetic freak, the kid liked to stir the pot.

I borrowed Sanitoro's Link and called Sergeant Douglass to check in. I figured he might not be too happy. Sometimes I really hated being right.

"What sort of mess have you got yourself mixed up in now, Charlie?" His Scottish brogue always made a stronger appearance when he was overstressed. "First it's the damn yakuza, now it's the Blackshirts. Are you in some kind of trouble?"

"On my way out of it."

Sanitoro took us onto the broken highway, ghostly under the moonlight. Barring any run-ins with gregarious, chainsaw-wielding border gangs, it would be a clear shot back to the city.

"Those kids your gangster friend called me about. The damn Feds took 'em. Said we had no jurisdiction in the Wastes."

"Do you?"

"Debatable," Douglass grumbled. "We were all set to head into the desert and escort 'em back to Li'l Tokyo, had a whole squad prepped and ready, when those damned Blackshirts showed up. Vans, armored trucks. Hell, even a chopper, swinging a big spotlight around."

"We've met." I checked the mirror. Speak of the devils. In a few minutes, they'd overtake us. "Impressive display."

"They sure like to think so," Douglass said, cursing under his breath. "Throwing their weight around, treating us like backwoods hillbillies."

"Where are you now?"

"Where do you think? Back at my desk, stewin' and fumin'. Can't sleep now anyway, figured I'd get some work done. Daybreak's right around the corner."

"Feel like picking me up?"

"Of course. Where are ya now?"

"Leaving the Wastes." Hopefully in one piece.

The plan was for Sanitoro to drop me off at the border before he returned to Little Tokyo to check on the detainees, making sure they were returned to their families safe and sound. Douglass agreed to give me a ride to my office where I would spend some quality time with the files I'd borrowed, finding out as much as I could about what was going on in that secret facility.

But first we had to settle the matter of outrunning a few angry Feds. The chopper was upon us in no time, flashing its white-hot light across the hood of Sanitoro's sedan while an authoritative voice, amplified by megaphone, shouted a series of threats and commands. Basically, they wanted us to surrender.

I was this close to bringing the EMP gun into play, consequences be damned. But a glance in the mirror advised me not to. Not yet, anyway.

Because we weren't alone.

Dirt bikers leapt into view, ripping through the air behind us like masked apparitions. Shots rang out, thudding against the bulletproof rear window of Sanitoro's sedan. Rounds aimed skyward at the chopper got it to back off, veering out of range and taking that damnable spotlight with it. The Blackshirts' vehicles took a cue and slowed way down, leaving us at the mercy of the border gang.

By all appearances, they were the same bunch we'd met earlier. But this was no friendly reunion. I had a feeling they were only interested in serious payback.

I tucked the EMP gun away for now.

"Not willing to press your luck?" Sanitoro said.

He was right. I'd been lucky the first time that no wayward chainsaw had taken off my head. "How much abuse can your windows take?"

Sanitoro growled a low curse as two dirt bikes flanked us. Semiautomatic rounds punched into both sides of the vehicle like angry fists moving as fast as Yoshiro the Leaping Lizard.

"You will pay for the damages," he said.

Of course I would. But at the moment, these goons in their luchador helmets were providing a service worth paying for, one way or another. The Feds wouldn't dare become prey themselves. They would continue to back off. They knew full well that a mobile chop shop—wherever it was hiding, assuming the gang had gotten their semi up and running again—was no respecter of vehicles.