Skin Game

Chapter twelve Streaming freedom video

Soon everyone was standing around the table in Logan’s new quarters, the would-be killer splayed across the table like a ghastly meal. Original Cindy, Otto, and Asha — unbound now — were joined by a revived Thompson, Joshua, and Sketchy, who held an ice pack to his chest where the stun rod had bruised him.

“Fill the bathtub with cold water and ice,” Max said, directing the order to no one specifically.

It was Alec and Logan who took off to comply with her command.

“Who is he?” Otto Gottlieb asked.

On the table, shivering, flesh bursting with red sores, this was no longer a fearsome figure — eerily, the resemblance to Logan made this seem like a long-lost Cale brother, in the throes of infirmity.

Joshua said, “Kelpy is his name. He’s one of us.”

Alec emerged from the bathroom with a plastic bucket in hand, heading to the refrigerator.

Gottlieb eyed Joshua’s canine features suspiciously. “You mean... transgenic.”

“Yes.”

Max was wrapping a blanket around the shivering creature, who gazed at her with a sickly, frankly adoring smile.

“Well, his being ‘one of us’ is not good news,” Alec said, at the fridge freezer, filling the bucket with ice. “Bobby or Kelpy or whoever he is, he’s our serial killer... So nobody get too teary-eyed.”

Then Alec went off toward the bathroom with his load of ice.

“The skinner?” Thompson asked, his eyes wide above the dark beard. “This is the son of a bitch who killed my partner?”

Max stepped between Thompson and the prone, blanket-wrapped Kelpy. “And now he’s going to die — isn’t that enough for you?”

“No.”

Turning back to her patient, Max tucked the blanket tighter around Kelpy and, in the process, something fell out of his pocket, rolled off the table, and clunked to the floor, lid popping off, pills bouncing crazily for a second.

“His Tryptophan,” Original Cindy said.

Max bent down, picked up a few of the pills. “I don’t think so...”

“No, Boo, that’s his meds! I saw him at Jam Pony.”

Max rose. “Maybe so, but these are the wrong color for Tryptophan.” She held one up to her nose. “They don’t smell right either.” She called: “Logan!”

He emerged from the bathroom, from which the rush of water filling the tub could be heard; Alec trailed after, the empty bucket in hand.

“We’re about there,” Logan said, jerking a thumb toward the bathroom. Frowning at the sight of her grave expression, he asked, “Something else you need, Max?”

She held up one of the pills. “Do you have the equipment to do a chemical breakdown on these?”

He shook his head. “Don’t have that gear in yet — soon.”

“Soon won’t cut it.”

At the freezer, Alec paused in filling his bucket and turned to say, “Dix has got his Frankenstein lab going — unless he’s just brewing moonshine.”

Joshua corrected his friend: “Dix is doing chemical breakdowns on the biohazard materials in Terminal City, Max. Looking for antigens.”

“That could be a break,” she said. “I need somebody to take Dix these pills — and tell him we need to know what’s in ’em, ASAP.”

Stepping forward, Alec handed Logan the ice bucket and took the bottle of meds from Max. “Back in a flash.”

Max turned to Joshua. “Put Kelpy in the tub, Big Fella. We need to get his body temperature down.”

“Let him fucking suffer,” Thompson said.

Stepping over to him, Max said, “Thompson, isn’t it? Sage Thompson?”

“I know who you are too,” he said, his face edged with contempt.

“Since you love us so much, why exactly are you here?”

Logan said, “He just happens to hate Ames White more than he does transgenics — every alliance starts with a common enemy, Max.”

While Joshua lifted his old friend Kelpy into his arms, gentle as a baby, and conveyed the diseased transgenic into the tub of ice and water, Logan gave Max a quick but thorough rundown on Thompson’s situation, from his fear of White wanting him dead to the family he’d sent underground.

“Mr. Thompson,” Max said, “here’s what I want from you, right now — sit down, and shut up. Can you handle that?”

He started to say something but Max’s glare silenced him.

“Asha,” she said to the blonde freedom fighter, “didn’t some members of your S1W group wind up in British Columbia?”

“That’s so.”

“Will they help us?”

The blonde nodded. “No prob — I’ll get ’em headed there right away.”

“Thanks,” Max said, bestowing her sometime rival a smile.

Thompson — seated at the kitchen table now — shook his head, obviously bewildered. “You’re... helping me?”

“Mr. Thompson, you may be a uniformed, bigoted asshole, fresh from service with a government agency devoted to making my life miserable... but you are also the victim of Ames White... which means you and I desire the same damn thing.”

“Stopping White,” he said softly.

“Stopping White... and whatever it takes to make that happen, and soon, is fine by me. If that means helping a transgenic-hating scumbag like you, so be it.”

Logan leaned over to Sketchy. “Hey, Jimmy Olsen — you taking notes on this?”

Sketchy’s eyes widenend and brightened with something very much like thought. “Pictures too, right?”

Max spun in Sketch’s direction. “But no shots with Original Cindy... and we need to protect Thompson, and Otto, here.”

Gottlieb, who’d stayed quiet on the sidelines, just taking it all in, smirked humorlessly and said, “Hell — go ahead and take my picture. My career’s over, anyway.”

“Me too,” Thompson said. “Fire away, kid — maybe by going public we can keep ourselves alive. Killing us only validates our position.”

“Hell of a way to make a point,” Gottlieb said wryly.

Sketchy needed no more encouragement, and the flashbulbs started popping.

“Can we get Otto and Thompson on tape telling their stories?” Max asked Logan.

He nodded, and fetched a small minirecorder from his nearby office area, calling back to her, “You talked to Clemente lately? You making any progress?”

“No,” she admitted. “Somebody — White maybe — has frozen Clemente out. The feds’re jamming all the signals in and out of Terminal City.”

“Well, you’re outside now,” he said. “And if Alec’s right, you’ve got the skinner serial killer in custody.”

Original Cindy stepped forward, her complexion pale, sweat running down her face. For a moment Max thought her friend might have caught the virus, too.

“You know, come to think of it,” Cindy said. “I think I saw the evidence... and I know where Bobby left it.”

That surprised Max. “You do?”

And Cindy described the patchwork garment. Joshua, returning from the bathroom, reported that he’d also seen it — on a mannequin at Kelpy’s apartment, with a picture of Logan attached to the face.

“I think he wanted to have human skin,” Joshua said.

The seated Thompson said, “And he would’ve cut off your boyfriend’s face, if he hadn’t been stopped.”

Max frowned at him and pointed a threatening finger. “Didn’t I tell you to shut up? That’s your only job. Work hard at it.”

“It’s not my only job,” Thompson said, lower lip trembling, as he summoned some courage and indignation. “You want me to tell my story, and I’m ready to tell it — but don’t lie to yourselves. That’s a transgenic beast taking that soak in there... a monster capable of skinning people and putting their skin on like a suit. Explain that away!”

Original Cindy said, “The dude is right, to a point — and I ain’t goin’ back for that thing alone. I ain’t touchin’ the motherfucker, you dig?”

Gottlieb stepped forward. “I’ll go with her, and collect the evidence.”

Max signaled her assent by tilting her head toward the door, and the pair left.

Thompson stood and Max shot him a look; but the agent was just getting his cell phone out, to hand her. “They won’t be able to trace this one,” he said. “You need to talk to your police contact? Make your call.”

She nodded a curt thanks and dialed Clemente’s cell number, catching him in the car. She explained the situation in broad strokes.

“You have the skinner,” he said. “And the evidence?”

“It’s being secured.”

“Where do you have this Bobby Kawasaki?”

“Ready for the address?”

“Born ready.”

She gave it to him. “Come alone.”

“That’s outside Terminal City, Max — what happened to our deal?”

“Our deal went on the back burner when the feds took your ass off the front line. You want to wrap this case up and be a hero to both sides? Then you’ll just have to trust me... and hurry.”

Fifteen minutes later Clemente arrived. They gave him a quick overview of the situation, and Max led him into the bathroom.

Kelpy had taken a turn for the worse.

His clothes stripped from him, the sores covered his whole body; he still bore a strong resemblance to Logan — something in the virus seemed to have locked him into the form he’d blended with last. His temperature remained on the rise, though the icy water had slowed its ascent.

Logan sat on the edge of the tub, tending (but careful not to touch) Kelpy. Clemente stood, hovering over the tub, Max framed in the doorway.

Looking down at the pitiful creature, Clemente read him his rights, then asked simply, “Why?”

“To be with Max,” Kelpy said with a little cough. “She loved an ordinary — a human... Logan. I needed to be Logan.”

The detective turned to Max. She kept her face stony, though emotion welled within her, unbidden.

“He worked with us at Jam Pony,” Max said. “No one ever paid him much attention. But I guess he was like everybody else — he wanted to be noticed.”

Behind her, just outside the bathroom, Joshua said, “Noticed by you, Max. You saved him when Manticore burned. Max... he loved you. Not like Joshua loves Max, but like... like I loved Annie.”

Max felt tears forming — goddamnit!

Clemente was shaking his head. “This is not going to win the people of Seattle over to the side of the Terminal City residents. I mean... a transgenic killing people so he can make a human suit... to woo another transgenic.”

Max nodded glumly, glancing at the feverish Kelpy, naked in the tub. He didn’t appear to hear any of this, much less understand the trouble he’d caused. The promised Army invasion was less than three hours away, and there was nothing she could do to stop it — they would have to do what Manticore had trained them for, only fighting the country that created them had never been in the plans.

“This couldn’t be worse,” Clemente was saying, “if Ames White himself designed the scenario.”

“Maybe he did!” someone yelled.

Alec.

Popping up next to Joshua just behind Max in the doorway, the handsome X5 said, “Suppose somebody pushed our Chameleon Boy over the edge?”

They all turned, and Joshua stepped back to allow Alec to take center stage in the bathroom doorway.

“Dix just ran a chemical analysis of the pills Kelpy’s been popping. They contained Tryptophan, all right... but mostly they were a drug Dix had never seen before.”

“Shit,” Max said. “We have to identify it!”

“Oh, but we have. Dix hacked into one of Uncle Sam’s computers and found a reference to the same chemical compound. Seems it’s a drug called Cullinasec.”

Gottlieb’s voice chimed in from the living room: “That’s classified information!”

Max and Clemente followed the voice into the living room, where Gottlieb and Original Cindy were back. Cindy was seated at the kitchen table, looking shell-shocked.

Clemente said, “Where’s the, uh...?”

“The ‘skin suit’ is in a big plastic garment bag in my trunk,” Gottlieb said, raising an eyebrow. “I don’t think I compromised the evidence by moving it from my backseat to my trunk. Better to secure it, considering some of the... unusual circumstances surrounding this case.”

Clemente was nodding. “I’d have to agree, Agent Gottlieb.”

“I hope you don’t mind my interrupting this love fest,” Max said, stepping between them, directing her attention to the NSA agent. “But what did you mean by calling that drug ‘classified information’?”

Gottlieb spoke softly, as if reluctant to even hear the words he spoke himself. “Cullinasec is a psychotropic drug being developed by the NSA for espionage purposes.”

Clemente asked, “And no one outside the NSA is supposed to be able to get their hands on this junk?”

Max said, “Maybe no one outside the NSA did.”

“... White?”

Moments later, Max was seated on the edge of the tub. She said to Kelpy, “Where did you get the drugs?”

“A... nurse named Betty... at Harbor Lights Hospital.”

“But then one day she disappeared,” Max said.

“How... how did you know?”

“It’s a long story,” Max said.

“And... and you don’t have time to tell me?”

“No.” Max turned to Logan, standing just behind her. “Can you get me a picture of Ames White?”

“Right on it,” he said, and was gone.

To Kelpy, Max said, “After the nurse disappeared, where did you get the drugs? Who was your connection?”

“Just... some guy. Some guy taking over... taking over Betty’s clients.”

Logan came in with the photo, fresh off the printer, and handed it to Max. She showed it to Kelpy.

“Would this happen to be your dealer?”

“Yes,” Kelpy said. “That’s... that’s him.”

In the doorway, Clemente said, “Wait, wait. What’s going on here?”

Max showed him the picture. “I think you recognize this face.”

“Special Agent Ames White. Are you saying...?”

“I’m not saying anything — Kelpy is. Your dying confessed murderer has just identified NSA Agent Ames White as the man who provided him with the drugs that turned him psychotic.”

“And why would he...?” And then Clemente answered his own question: “The media war — providing the public with a transgenic boogie man.”

“That’d be a big bingo,” Max said.

From the hallway, where he’d been listening in, former NSA Agent Otto Gottlieb squeezed into the little room, joining the confab to offer his own informed analysis.

“This whole crisis,” Gottlieb said, “has been stage-managed by Agent White. He set Thompson and Hankins up in that warehouse with the bum imagers, providing a psychotic transgenic with two possible victims.”

Clemente was frowning. “How could White know what Kelpy would do?”

“He couldn’t and he didn’t,” Gottlieb said. “White just knew it wouldn’t be good. That whole human suit routine came from Kelpy’s own tortured imagination... where it would have remained, if Ames White hadn’t turned an already unstable transgenic completely psychotic and set him loose on the city.”

“All for a media war,” Clemente said, still struggling with the madness of it.

“It’s much more than that, Detective,” Gottlieb said. “Ames White hates the transgenics — especially her.” He nodded to Max. “He wants 452 dead.”

“Why?” Clemente asked, eyes like marbles.

“You’d have to ask White. But I do know his desire for her death is why he brought in the snipers to start the shootout at Jam Pony.”

Frowning now, Clemente asked, “That pumped-up SWAT team was government agents?”

Gottlieb shook his head. “I don’t know where White got them — they’re sure as hell not feds. I can’t find any orders, any requests on file... I can’t even find any records of phone calls on White’s cell phone, other than the one to the governor.”

Still frowning, Clemente asked, “How much can you prove?”

“Damn little,” Gottlieb admitted.

From the doorway, the other former NSA agent, Thompson, joined in. “I know my imager didn’t work, and Ames White did hand each of us our imagers, personally.”

Clemente walked briskly out into the living room, Max and the others following him; Joshua took over the vigil in the bathroom with his old friend Kelpy.

The detective sat down heavily into a chair. “Do we have enough to make a case against White?”

Max realized Logan was at her side; she looked up at him, but his attention was on the detective.

Then she turned to Clemente and said, “The Army will be making their move soon, and it’ll be too late.”

Clemente pounded his fist into a hand. “We need to get the word out — we can’t move through the system in time to stop the slaughter. Shit... where the hell is that Eyes Only guy when you need him?”

Several pairs of eyes turned to Logan.

Picking up on it, Clemente turned to him too.

“Something I should know?” the detective asked.

“Well,” Logan said, almost shyly, “I sort of have a... uh, ‘in’ with Eyes Only.”

“Hell, man!” Clemente said. “Can you reach him? Can he help us?”

“See what I can do. Max — come with me a second, would you?”

Away from the others, they talked quickly, then Max gathered Alec and Sketchy into an impromptu camera crew.

Soon a video camera was set up on a tripod in the bedroom, to be manned by an enthusiastic Sketchy; here were sequestered Clemente, Gottlieb, Thompson, and everyone but Alec and Kelpy... in the bathroom with Alec manning another camera on a tripod... and Max and Logan, in the latter’s computer-and-monitor-arrayed office area.

As far as Clemente, Gottlieb, and Thompson were concerned, Alec was relaying all of this to a secure remote location, where Eyes Only was making broadcast magic. The trio of law enforcement veterans were unaware — or, anyway, so Logan and Max hoped — that the real broadcasting was being done a room away, by the real Eyes Only.

And thus came to pass the first broadcast of Freak Nation TV.

All around the city, TV screens went to static.

The static transformed into a logo depicting a pair of light-colored eyes on a blue background, with the words STREAMING FREEDOM VIDEO rolling by above and below, white letters standing out on a red background.

Then the familiar voice said: “Do not attempt to adjust your set. This is a Streaming Freedom Video bulletin. This cable hack could last more than sixty seconds. It still cannot be traced, it still cannot be stopped, and it remains the only free voice left in this city...”

In homes, bars, police stations, fire stations, anywhere there was a television, people’s attention turned to the box; it had been months since they had heard from Seattle’s renegade cyber journalist, and the excitement around the city was palpable.

“The information you’ve been given about the transgenic crisis in Terminal City is tainted and false. Likewise, the news you’ve heard about a serial killer skinning police officers has been only part of the story. Tonight, we’ll give you the facts.”

In the family room of the suburban home where he lived without his family, Ames White went ballistic. It apparently hadn’t done any good, shooting up that asshole Eyes Only’s apartment; right now, Ames White’s best efforts seemed only to have spurred the bastard on...

As the Eyes Only bulletin continued, White dialed the number of his government office.

“Norton,” a voice said.

“The prick’s at it again. Start a trace, now!”

“Which prick is at what again, sir?”

“Eyes Only, Eyes Only — turn on the goddamned TV!”

“Trace started, sir,” Norton reported.

“Let me know when you get something.”

The staticky logo image disappeared and the screen was filled with a ghostly white man with spiky hair in a bathtub, red sores pocking his body, floating in water bobbing with ice cubes. The male form was drenched in sweat and it was obvious whoever-this-was wasn’t going to live out the night.

Was this grotesque crap the best Eyes Only could muster? White was about to laugh, when the spectral figure spoke.

“My name is Bobby Kawasaki,” the voice said, and it was strangely similar to that of Eyes Only himself. “I’m a transgenic. I killed three people. It was a bad and terrible thing — I know that now. What I did was wrong. But I want you to know I did these bad things under the unknowing influence of a powerful drug.”

The picture changed to a still of Ames White...

... who sat up sharply in his chair in his family room.

Bobby was saying, “And this is a photo of the man who gave me the tainted drugs. This is the man who turned me into a monster.”

Ames White sat frozen, as if he were the one in icy water, something frigid running through his veins — and in his belly, a million snakes seemed to coil and uncoil.

The picture was now live again, but no longer on the red-splotched ghost in the bathtub. Now the screen showed a room, possibly a bedroom... and the face on camera belonged to that fool Otto Gottlieb!

As Otto began telling his part of the sordid tale, Ames White put a hand to his temple.

He was ruined in the NSA. Right now, in front of all Seattle, and no doubt soon, all across the country, he was being outed — all that work to save his cover after the fiasco at Jam Pony, and now it was gone.

White’s phone rang and he picked it up on the third ring. “White.”

“Norton.”

“The trace—”

“I’ve been instructed to tell you to report to the office immediately.”

White hung up the phone.

That idiot Thompson — the guy White had been searching for every spare minute of the last three months — came on next, spewing his self-pitying garbage.

Rising, White picked up his pistol, went upstairs and quickly filled a suitcase. The conclave would of course see this, and he doubted they would take it lightly either — this could be viewed as nothing but the failure it was. Even he knew that...

The phone rang.

This time he let it ring.

Detective Ramon Clemente was next on screen. “I would like to personally thank the transgenics of Terminal City, especially Max...”

“Guevera,” an off-camera voice prompted.

“Max Guevera,” Clemente said, “who personally, and at great risk to herself, broke this case wide open, and in so doing saved many lives. And when the killer was found, and was a transgenic, Ms. Guevera did not seek to cover it up... rather came to me, the police.”

White, gathering some things from his family-room desk, managed not to throw a bookend through the screen.

“As the Seattle police officer assigned to the so-called siege at Terminal City, I make this public plea to the Army: I urge you to reconsider your plans to invade Terminal City. These people — some call them freaks — have done nothing except defend themselves against false accusations, and yet... even when overwhelmed by problems of their own... still managed to help the police capture a serial killer. In addition, they have helped identify and expose the person manipulating the confessed killer, in an effort to stereotype transgenics as monsters, in a crass and heartless exploitation of the media and the public.”

What the fuck office was that detective running for, all of a sudden? God, how White hated that pompous petty nonentity. He picked up the remote and fired it at the picture tube. A minute later he was riding away from the suburban house, leaving the lie of that life behind as quickly as possible, and heading into a precarious future.

On televisions across the city the Streaming Freedom Video logo returned and that familiar, strangely soothing voice said, “One man’s hatred, one man’s fear of things different... sometimes that’s all that’s needed to tip the scales of justice, until they are criminally off-kilter. We hope that those who make decisions are listening. We hope that — unlike Ames White — they will not turn a deaf ear to the cries of those who are different. There is time to stop this madness, this hatred. This has been a Streaming Freedom Video.”

At the end of the broadcast, Max ushered everyone — except Joshua, who was still tending to Bobby — out into the kitchen apartment. No one spoke; a quiet had settled, like ground fog, and they all huddled within it, wondering if their efforts had been for nought.

Max stood, hugging her arms to herself, Logan nearby, his face unreadable. Alec and the three lawmen sat at the table, where Original Cindy remained, apparently still freaked out from the human-skin garment she’d helped retrieve. Sketchy bounced on the periphery, the only one in a good mood; he seemed to be relishing the role of real reporter...

Finally, Clemente’s cell phone rang, and he answered so quickly it was almost silly: “Clemente.”

Max could hear only one side of the conversation, could read only the detective’s somber expression.

“Yes?”

A pause.

“They did?”

Another pause.

“They are?... Thank you.”

Clemente hit End, rose from the table, and sighed. “That was Colonel Nickerson of the National Guard... The order to attack has been rescinded.”

The room erupted in whoops and hollers and applause, and they all took turns hugging each other — except, of course, for Max and Logan.

She approached the detective. “Okay,” she said. “I guess I trust you.”

His grin was explosive. “That was close.”

“Around here, Ramon,” she said, putting a hand on his shoulder, “they always are.”

Clemente sat back down at the kitchen table and let out an even bigger sigh. “The feds are viewing Kelpy’s story as a death-bed confession.” He glanced at Gottlieb and then at Thompson. “Nickerson said they want to bring you two in from the cold, and they have agents scouring the area looking for Ames White. He’s now a wanted felon.”

The two former NSA agents grinned at each other like a couple of kids.

Standing nearby, arms folded, Max wasn’t grinning. “They won’t find White.”

Clemente frowned up at her. “You sound sure of that.”

“I know him. He’s in the wind already.” Then she got a little smile on her face.

“What?” the detective asked.

“I was just thinking... better him than me.”

Max wandered into the bathroom. Joshua rose and made room for her, so she could sit on the edge of the tub.

She took Kelpy’s hand in hers. “You know, only Logan was supposed to be able to catch that virus.”

The pale red-pocked form shrugged, making waves in the icy water of the tub. “Maybe... in a way... now I am Logan.”

“Maybe.”

“Max... Max... my body hurts.”

“I know.”

“But my mind... it’s so clear that... it hurts, too.”

“Yes.”

“I... I did bad things.”

“Yes.”

“Terrible... awful... monstrous things...”

She squeezed his hand. “But you did good things too. You saved a lot of lives tonight. Every transgenic in Terminal City, and many on the other side of the fence. You saved us all — Joshua, Alec... and me.”

The smile on the Loganesque face was weak; his blue eyes were hauntingly familiar.

She told him, “I’ll always love you for that.”

And she kissed his hand.

A splotch of rose came to the pale cheeks, and it wasn’t the sickness.

He whispered, “You love Logan, don’t you?”

She glanced back.

Logan was in the doorway.

She was looking at Logan as she said to Kelpy, “Yes — yes, I do.”

Logan’s smile wasn’t that big, really; yet the room could barely contain it.

“He’s human,” Kelpy said.

Now she gazed at Kelpy again — at this monster. And yet emotion welled within her.

“But I love you too,” she told him. “I’ll always love you for what you did for us...”

“I guess that makes me human too,” he said. A single tear ran down the chalky cheek; then, with a lurch, he sat forward, almost scaring her, Logan’s blue eyes huge in the pale, pale face.

“Am I human, Max?” Kelpy asked with terrible urgency.

But he died, his hand in hers, before she had time to answer.