Working Stiff

Chapter 7

The sound of voices outside the car woke her, finally. Bryn yawned, made a face at the horrible taste in her mouth, and blinked to clear her eyes. She couldn’t see much. Is it already dark? No, it couldn’t be. A jolt of shock and fear went through her. My shot. Is it late?

Then she calmed down and realized that she could see daylight in the distance. McCallister had parked the car inside a windowless building, something like an open, deserted factory. She could dimly make out an empty expanse of concrete, some dilapidated wooden crates, and a few bolts where large machinery had once been installed.

It didn’t look like anyplace she’d have voluntarily visited.

Bryn listened more carefully. She heard McCallister’s voice, and saw him standing outside the car talking to … no one. Wait. He was addressing a speaker grille set into the wall next to a solid metal door.

“… message, Manny. I know you don’t like it when I bring strangers, but I didn’t have a choice. Open up. It’s dangerous to let her sit out here.”

“No, it’s not,” the speaker said, with a faint crackle of static. “We intercepted the tracking signal half a mile out and jammed it. Your satanic bosses will be looking in all the wrong places by this time, especially since I ghosted the signal out to some repeaters. They’ll get random blips through half the state for as long as I want.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me, Pat. As far as I’m concerned, you can take her and go.”

“Manny, we talked about this. You said you had something for me.”

“I do. And I’ll give it to you. But she’s not coming inside— Wait. Pansy, Jesus, don’t go and—” Manny fell silent, then sighed. “Well, crap.”

A light switched on above the door, and it opened with a heavy scrape. On the other side was a small-framed woman with dark hair cut in a pageboy style; she had a lovely, heart-shaped face, and a wicked smile for McCallister. “Well, bring her in, Pat. I can’t stand to hear the two of you yammering at each other anymore, and I know how stubborn you both can be.”

McCallister leaned forward and kissed the woman on the cheek. “Thanks, Pansy.”

“Don’t thank me yet. He’s going to pout for days about this, and he may not help you at all now. You know that, right?”

“He’ll help,” McCallister said, “once he meets her.”

Pansy lifted a shapely eyebrow and shot an amused glance at the car. Bryn suddenly felt far too unprepared for whatever was going on. Damn it, why couldn’t McCallister part with details once in a while? What was so hard about that?

He turned and motioned to her, and Bryn got out of the car. Mr. French woke up and started barking in confusion, but she shut him inside and told him to be quiet, for all the good it did. When she turned around the woman—Pansy, God, what a name—was offering her a hand to shake.

“Pansy Taylor,” she said. “You must be Bryn.”

“You know who I am.”

Pansy smiled. “You’ve been a hot topic around here, believe me. Come with, and bring the dog. Oh, and ditch the guns, Pat; you know the rules better than I do.”

McCallister sighed and took out his own guns—two of them—and placed them in the glove compartment of the car. He silently demanded Bryn’s, and she handed it over. Reluctantly. Once the weapons were locked up, Bryn grabbed Mr. French, who wiggled excitedly, and Pansy led them up a narrow, featureless concrete staircase as the door boomed shut behind them, and at the top of the steps entered a complex code into the keypad, then put her hand on a scanner.

“In case you’re wondering if you can cut my hand off and use it to get inside, you can’t,” Pansy said. “It checks pulse.”

“I wasn’t wondering,” McCallister said. Bryn was, but she didn’t say so.

“Who exactly are we going to meet?” she asked. There was something vaguely mad-scientist about all this, crossed with evil-villain. It was surprisingly disturbing.

“Manny Glickman,” Pansy said, and frowned at McCallister. “What, you didn’t tell her?”

“I didn’t want to broadcast it to anyone who might be listening.”

“Jesus, you’re as paranoid as he is. Get help, man.”

The door hissed open with a puff of cool air, and Pansy held it open as they passed before locking it behind them.

Bryn had expected a decrepit warehouse environment, like the floor below, but this was … high-tech. The floors were concrete, but clean and glossy; to the left she glimpsed a kitchen gleaming with tile and aluminum. Ahead was a series of tables, equipment, humming machines, and computers, all in clear-walled rooms.

At the far end hung floor-to-ceiling burgundy velvet curtains, which seemed very out of place for such a laboratory environment.

Pansy saw her looking, and winked. “The bedroom,” she said. “Trust me—it’s nice. Manny would crash on an air mattress in the corner if someone didn’t keep him civilized, but I do my best.”

Bryn had been so caught up in all of the busy detail of the place that she’d failed to see the man bending over a complicated-looking lab setup in the corner until he said, “Oh, come on. Really? A dog?”

Mr. French growled, right on cue, an aggressive reply that made Bryn wince and quiet him with a hand on his head. “Sorry,” she said. “He’ll be good.”

The man sighed. “Dog owners are so gullible. ‘Oh, he won’t bite. He’s perfectly friendly.’ They say that right up until their pit bulls rip your throat out. Has she been searched?” He was, at first glance, not very remarkable. Frizzy dark hair, body swathed in a white lab coat. That was all she could tell about him, because he didn’t turn around or even glance their way.

“I’m vouching for her,” McCallister said. “She’s all right.”

“Just like her for the dog?”

“Manny, turn around and at least say hello,” Pansy said. “They came a long way.”

“Then they should turn around and go back.” Still, the man straightened up and turned to face them. He was bigger than she’d expected, broad shouldered, with surprisingly green eyes. He didn’t meet Bryn’s gaze for more than an instant, though, before he transferred his attention to McCallister. “Pat, you can’t just drop in. It’s not safe. What if you were followed?”

“You jammed the trackers. You just told me that.”

“Physically followed.”

McCallister shook his head slowly. “In all the time you’ve known me, have I ever been that careless?”

Manny stared at him for a long moment, then turned back to his chemistry set, or whatever it was. “There’s a woman involved,” he said. “You’re not the only man to forget to watch his back under those circumstances.”

“It’s not about that.”

“It’s always about that, and if you don’t think it is, you’re lying to yourself.” Manny sent her another fast, scorching glance. “She’s pretty.”

“She’s an asset. And you’re making me wish I’d never come here, because you’re embarrassing me.”

“Then we’re even, because I wish you hadn’t come here either.”

“Manny, come on. What’s got the bug up your ass?”

“Nothing.” Manny peered through a microscope and made some notes on a pad off to the side. “I’ve got business to do. Clients who need help.”

“I’m paying.”

“Damn right, you’re paying. If Pharmadene knows I’m playing in their sandbox, they’re not just going to send me a cease-and-desist letter, you know. They kill people. I’ve got Pansy to think about.”

Pansy, who was gathering up used coffee cups that were scattered around the area, rolled her eyes, which made Bryn smile, even as she felt a twinge of uneasiness. Safety was obviously a very big concern for Manny Glickman. Bryn had met paranoid people before, but never anybody quite that far gone who wasn’t under serious medication, in a locked-down facility. She had no idea what McCallister saw in this weirdo, or why he was expecting Manny, of all people, to be their ace in the hole.

“I need this from you,” McCallister said. He took a step forward, grabbed Manny by the shoulder, and spun him around. Manny was taller, but in that moment, McCallister simply dominated the room, just by the intensity. “And you owe me.”

“So you’re finally going there.”

“I will if I have to.”

Manny stared down at him, eyes half-shut, and then nodded once, sharply. “I don’t care how much I owe you; I took one hell of a risk even messing with this stuff for you. If you want the results, you’ve got to pay me for that.”

“Ballpark me.”

“It took weeks, you know. Your Pharmadene bioengineers are really good.”

“Get to the point.”

“All right. A hundred thousand for the single-shot prototype. To set up any kind of an actual production line for quantity, I’m going to need expensive equipment and raw materials. A hundred thousand more, minimum. Not including my fees, which will be twenty-five to start.”

“Jesus, Manny. I thought you owed me.”

“I do,” Manny said. “Which is why I agreed to fuck around with your Pharmadene zombie drug in the first place. I’m giving you the friend rate, but I don’t give freebies. Ever. You want me, you pay me. You know that.”

McCallister hesitated a bare second before he said, “I’m going to need to see the prototype in action before I jump into that kind of money. I’m not—”

“I know how much you’ve got in the bank, Pat. Don‘t kid a kidder. You may not have access to the trust, but you don’t do so badly for yourself. Couple of hundred thou won’t break you.”

McCallister stared at him for a long, long moment, then nodded sharply, once. “It had better work.”

Manny shrugged. “It’s science, man. We fail before we succeed. I don’t guarantee anything.”

Well, that was comforting.

Pansy touched Bryn’s arm, making her jump, and said, “Come with me. You’re going to want to sit down for this.”

It’s just an IV, Bryn told herself, as she watched the clear fluid drip slowly from the bag into the flexible tubing. Just saline.

It wasn’t just saline, and it was going into her veins, and that scared her so much her mouth felt dry. The shots, at least, were fast, over before she could really think about the implications. But sitting here like this as Manny’s prototype whispered into her veins, that was something else entirely.

“So,” she said, to take her mind off of things, “how long have you been working on this?”

Manny didn’t seem to hear her, but he finally answered as he scratched down notes in a chart, referring to the machines she was hooked up to. “McCallister brought me a sample of Pharmadene’s drug when it was first started in trials,” he said. “He wanted to know the potential for abuse. I told him there was nothing but potential for abuse. So technically, I suppose almost a year since I started taking the thing apart.”

“And this is … an antidote?”

“For what, death?”

“Manny!” Pansy called from the next room. “Behave.”

“Sorry,” he muttered. He didn’t sound sorry. “As far as I can tell, your condition isn’t fixable by any medical means. The drug maintains you. It doesn’t bring you back to life, just supports your vital functions. If I wanted to get poetic, I’d say it replaces your soul.”

That was … uncomfortable. Bryn looked at the needle going into her arm. “So what exactly does this thing do?”

“No pain at the entry site?” Manny asked. It wasn’t that he sounded concerned, really, just inquisitive. All this was an intellectual problem for him.

Life and death, for her. Or whatever passed for life these days.

“It’s fine,” she said, and dry-swallowed. “I’m really thirsty.”

“Yeah, that’s a side effect,” he said, and poured some water from a carafe nearby. He handed it over, and she gulped it down in three convulsive swallows. “Not too much. You’ll vomit.”

Comforting. She leaned her head back against the leather headrest and studied the ceiling girders high above. “I can’t believe that I’m taking experimental IV drugs from some guy who bunkers himself in a warehouse.”

“You left out paranoid. A paranoid guy who bunkers himself in a warehouse.”

“I was trying to be nice.”

“Don’t waste it on me; I mostly don’t notice. Or care.”

“Do you have any qualifications?”

“Why, would it matter now? The IV’s already in. If you wanted to see my Johns Hopkins certificate, you should have asked before.”

“Do you have one?”

He shrugged. “Somewhere.”

She eyed him curiously and wondered what his story was, but mostly what she was concerned with was what the hell was going into her body. Slowly. To no apparent effect. “I repeat—what the hell is this stuff?”

“If I tell you it could prejudice the trial,” he said. “Just tell me if you feel anything.”

“Anything like what? Because I’m feeling pretty damn unnerved right now!”

Manny, unruffled, checked his watch and the level on the bag above his head, then stood up and went to the door. “You can test it now; the solution should be filtered throughout her system.”

“Try what?” she asked, feeling ridiculously exposed, as if they’d left her naked and defenseless. “Uh, could someone please explain anything to me?”

McCallister stepped into the room, shut the door behind him, and exchanged a look with Manny before he said, “How are you feeling, Bryn?”

“Pissed off,” she said. Her voice was shaking, and she was breathing faster than she should have been. The urge to rip the needle out of her vein was almost irresistible. “Terrified. How’s your day?”

“Interesting.” McCallister pulled up a stool across from her and said, “Your pupils are a little wide.”

“Probably because whatever’s in this stuff is making me high, but not in a fun way.” She swallowed hard and lowered her voice. “I’m scared.“

“I know.” He leaned forward and studied her for another few seconds before he said, “What color underwear do you have on?”

“What?” She blinked at him, and felt a surge of heat in her face. God, she hated blushing. “None of your business!”

“Tell me.”

“No!”

“Condition Sapphire. Tell me!” He’d raised his voice, shouting it in her face, and she felt all the tension, all the anger, all the hate she’d pushed down for days now suddenly boil up to the surface.

Bryn surged up out of the chair and screamed back, “Go to hell, you son of a—” The truth hit her in a cold rush, and she paused, staring into his eyes. “Oh,” she said, in a much calmer voice. “Oh.”

McCallister smiled—a real, relieved smile. “Manny,” he said, “you are a genius.”

“Is that news? I thought you knew that when you promised to pay me—let’s see—two hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. To start.” Even Manny was smiling—or at least, he looked like he was tempted.

“Try it again!” Bryn said, and grabbed McCallister’s hands. She squeezed hard. “We have to make sure! Come on; order me.”

“Kiss me,” he said, still smiling.”

Maybe it was the smile that did it, but she felt a wild and uncontrollable impulse to follow that order. Bryn froze, stared at him a stricken second, and then said, “Something else.”

The glow in his eyes faded, and so did the smile. For a second he’d seemed … so different. Almost human. But now … now it was just business again. “Walk to the corner,” he said. “That’s an order.”

She didn’t move. And didn’t feel any impulse to, either. What she did feel was a corresponding need to slap him.

“Manny, if this stuff is supposed to counter that protocol thing, I think it works,” she said, and sat back down in her leather chair. “So maybe it’s a good time to explain to me what you just did to me.”

“I didn’t so much reprogram the nanites as chemically inhibit some of their functions,” Manny said. “I’ve been working on turning off specific design features of the proprietary drug ever since Pat made it available to me for study, more than year ago; I’ve also been working to develop a protocol-free version. That one’s a little tricky, but I thought the counteragent would work in the meantime. It’s got a toxic side effect that would kill most people, but for someone like you, taking Returné, that doesn’t matter. The nanites will clean up the mess. Does make you a little loopy, though.”

“It’s toxic?”

“Not so you’d really notice.”

McCallister stepped in, fortunately. “We had to address your vulnerability to the protocols, especially Condition Sapphire. I thought you wanted that as much as we did,” McCallister said. He seemed to have recovered his composure nicely; she couldn’t see even a trace of emotion left in him now. “If you can be ordered to talk about anything and everything, you’re useless to me as any kind of asset. Before I could tell you anything of note, I had to be sure the protocols wouldn’t trigger if Harte ordered it.”

Well, that just warmed her with the blanket of his concern. Or not. “So now I can lie about things.”

“Just like you normally would.”

Bryn stared at him with calm, level intensity until he looked away.

“Yeah, maybe we should sit down and have some coffee,” Manny said. “You’ll be good for about a week before you need another dose of the inhibitor.”

“Great,” she muttered. “More needles.”

McCallister gave her a look. “Would you rather lose your free will on command?”

“No. But I’d rather do it without puncturing any more veins.” She eyed Manny as he bent down, expertly slipping the needle out of her arm as he applied the cotton pad and bandage to stop the bleeding. He glanced up and gave her an awkward half smile. “Thank you, I guess.”

He shrugged. “I don’t get paid in thanks.” But there was a glow in his eyes; he was pleased. “You start feeling faint or strange, you yell for me or Pansy. Loudly. None of this hero crap.” He glanced aside at McCallister. “She stays put for a minimum of four hours before I let you walk out with her. Give me the syringe.”

“No,” McCallister said.

“She needs her shot.”

“And she’ll get it. From me.” McCallister met Bryn’s eyes briefly, then looked back at his friend. “It has to be that way. The syringes have sensors embedded all over the surface, and they’re coded to two users—a primary and a backup. For Bryn, that’s me and Joe Fideli. If anyone else, including Bryn, tries to administer them, the nanites inside self-destruct and become inert. Useless. It’s a security measure to prevent theft.”

Manny stared at him and slowly shook his head. “And here I thought I was the paranoid one.”

“You are,” McCallister said. “But you’re just one person. Multiply it by an incredibly greedy corporation and you get some idea what we’re up against.”

He reached in his coat pocket and pulled out the syringe container; it looked exactly like a silver cigar tube, and he unscrewed it and removed the contents. Great. Another stick. Bryn didn’t look at him as he walked over, took her bared arm, and punched the sharp chisel point into her skin. It was over in seconds, and it didn’t hurt too much, though the lingering afterburn of the injection was annoying.

The two men were watching her with great interest. She frowned at them and said, “What?”

“We’re waiting to see if there’s any kind of unplanned reaction,” Manny explained. “There’s an outside possibility that the nanites could try to resist the secondary agent. That would be … bad.”

“How bad?”

“Oh, you know. Decomposition.” He shrugged. “Probably won’t happen.”

Bryn decided she was going to hate Manny Glickman. Forever. She waited tensely, trying to be alert for any sensations that didn’t belong and trying not to overreact and invent them at the same time. Her two not very compassionate observers sat and waited as the minutes ticked by.

She got permission for a bathroom break at the two-hour mark, and on the way back ran into Pansy, who was coming out of the kitchen carrying a tray loaded down with sandwiches, tea, coffee, and a stack of magazines. “Here,” she said, and handed it to Bryn. “No sense in your being stuck in there without anything to do. There’s a sudoku uzzle book in there, too. And a pen.”

“Not a pencil?”

Pansy winked. “Around here, we do them in ink.”

“Of course you do. Um … thanks. For even thinking about it.”

“That’s why I’m here. To remind Manny to be human every once in a while. You’ve got your work cut out with Pat, though. I’m not sure someone didn’t replace his blood with antifreeze some time ago.”

“I don’t care what’s running through his veins. He’s not my boyfriend.”

“I know that,” Pansy said calmly. “I just meant as a colleague. Of course.”

She so very didn‘t, but Bryn let it go. She headed for the observation room, where McCallister silently rose from his chair and held the door open as she brought the tray in. “Pansy made us lunch,” she said.

“Of course,” McCallister said. “She’s always the practical one.”

“Ooh, peanut butter,” Manny said.

“I rest my case.” McCallister grabbed a sandwich from the tray—probably not peanut butter, Bryn guessed; he’d probably had enough of that at her apartment—and poured himself a cup of coffee. “You feeling all right?”

“You don’t think I’d tell you if I had any doubts? I’m scared to death!”

“Point taken. Coffee?”

“God, yes.” She grabbed a cup and held it while he poured, doctored it with sugar and cream to her satisfaction, and stood there with him downing caffeine. It almost felt … friendly. “I feel fine, just to make it clear.”

“I’m glad.”

“Yeah, I can tell you’re overwhelmed.” She blew on the surface of her coffee, watching him through half-closed eyes as he took a bite of sandwich. “You don’t really work for Pharmadene, do you?”

“Of course I do. Want to see my pay stubs?”

“That’s the most interesting pickup line I’ve heard this week, but no, I don’t think so. You may get paid by Pharmadene, but you don’t work for them. You’ve got another agenda. And maybe another boss.”

“No, no other boss,” he said. “But another agenda might be accurate.”

“Pat,” Manny said in a warning tone, but McCallister raised a hand to stop him “Fine. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. You go around trusting people, you get a kick in the ribs every time. No matter how pretty they are.”

“Do you say that to Pansy?” McCallister asked.

“Oh, no. I’m not crazy. She might wise up and leave me.”

“If you’ve got something to tell me, say it,” Bryn broke in. “Honestly, I’m so sick of this cloak-and-dagger bullshit!”

McCallister, of course, took a moment to think about it. Just when she was about to throw her coffee at him and tell him to go to hell, he said, “I have a reason for being careful. There have been two other prospects I’ve worked with from Pharmadene’s program. They didn’t work out. That’s why we have the cloak-and-dagger bullshit; I came very close to being exposed by the last one I trusted. I thought that reviving you and being involved start to finish would give us the ability to guarantee you wouldn’t be used and discarded by the company. As you noticed, that wasn’t quite the case. The protocols were still in force, even though I specifically turned them off in your prere-vival profile.”

“You’re blown,” Manny said. “They’ve got to suspect you, if they countermanded that order.”

“Not necessarily. All of my decisions are subject to review by my superior. She might just have done it as a precaution, not out of any suspicion. I could easily say it was a clerical error.”

“Your superior’s Irene Harte,” Bryn said softly. The one who’d treated her like a walking, talking asset that had reached the end of its once-useful life. “Does she suspect you?”

“Irene suspects everyone. It’s her job.”

“You said you had an agenda.”

“I didn’t, at first,” McCallister said. “I took the job in good faith, and for the first year, it was fine. Normal corporate security issues, a few employees diddling the books or stealing from the supply rooms or cooking expenses. Then two scientists invented Returné, and everything changed overnight. It wasn’t a company anymore; it was an armed camp. The implications of what they have are staggering.”

“Department of Defense,” Bryn said.

“Oh, they’ll sell it to the government, but Pharmadene has bigger plans than a defense contract. Before they jump, they want to be sure what they have, and what they can do with it. Why make an official deal when they can sell it under the table as a black-market terrorist’s wet dream?” McCallister sounded grim, and certain. “I knew how it was going to play. Someone had to do something. I thought about blowing the whistle, but there’s nobody I can go to who won’t get sucked into the whirlpool. The government? It has to be destroyed from inside.”

“How’s that working out for you?” Manny asked. It sounded cynical, as if he already knew the answer.

“You know how it’s working out. Pharmadene constantly monitors its own employees—computer activity, e-mails, phone calls, physical surveillance. I’m no exception to that. Harte will be suspicious today, after Bryn and I drop out of sight for a few hours and it’s clear that I’ve covered my trail.” Manny opened his mouth, but McCallister bulled straight ahead. “I planned for that, Manny. It won’t lead back to you.”

“The fuck it won’t!” Manny said, and stood up to pace around the room in agitation. “All right, that’s it. You’re my friend, and I owe you, but I’m not getting in over my head with Pharmadene. Not with them. You take her and you go. Don’t bother to come back. I’m moving the lab.”

“Manny.”

“No!” Manny swung around on him and pointed a shaking finger in his face. “No! You know how I feel about this. I do not take chances with my safety, or Pansy’s. Not anymore.” He left the room and slammed the door so hard the entire clear plastic structure of rooms rattled uneasily.

McCallister watched him go, and took another bite of his sandwich, which he chewed and swallowed before he said, “Pansy will calm him down.”

“Is he always like this? Or is this just a really bad day?”

“Actually, it’s a fairly good one.”

“God. And you trust this guy?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

McCallister glanced at her, then went back to watching Manny stalk around the lab, randomly touching things as if it were a calming ritual. “Manny had a very bad time a few years back. He worked with the FBI.”

“One of those profiler people?”

“No. He was a rock star in the lab. A genius, but a pure science geek. He never wanted to be out in the field, not for any reason.”

“But something happened.”

McCallister loosened his tie and sat back with a sigh. “He put a puzzle together, a serial killer’s messages to the agents who were hunting him That brought him to the killer’s attention. As soon as Manny identified him, the killer grabbed him at his apartment, gave him a paralyzing agent, and buried him alive in a graveyard, with one air tank.”

Bryn shivered. That was one of her nightmares now—being sealed in a body bag alive, being buried alive and conscious. That was all too possible a future for her, and she could well imagine the terror. “He got out.”

“No,” McCallister said. “He was found. The tank had run out.”

“You found him, didn’t you? That’s what he owes you for.”

McCallister looked away. “I helped find him. I provided information, and led the FBI to him.”

“God, that must have been … How long was he down?”

“Two hours. One hour breathing from the tank, one hour breathing the foul air in that coffin. He had to force himself to take slow, calm breaths, and he didn’t know whether anyone would find him.” He shook his head. “I honestly don’t know how he did it. I would have died before help arrived. But … he came out different from the way he went in—there’s no question about that. He was always OCD, but now he’s completely off the reservation about personal safety. He quit the FBI, took up private practice, and he moves around. A lot. He’s got patrons. I don’t even know how many, but enough to keep him funded.”

“That’s … kind of horrible.”

“It’s a reasonable reaction,” McCallister said, very quietly. “The coffin was already occupied. He was trapped in there with a body, in the dark, dying alone for two hours. It’s a miracle he’s sane at all.”

Manny had stormed off into some private sanctum with what looked like a panic room door. Pansy came back instead. She opened the door and looked in at them, eyebrows raised. “Should I even ask what brought that on?”

“He thinks Pharmadene will trace us here.”

“Does he have a point? Don’t bullshit me, Pat. Even paranoid people are right sometimes, and I’m not risking his life. Not again. Not even for you.” Pansy, Bryn realized, might look sweet and gentle and practical, but she had a core of steel that even McCallister might envy. “I will toss your ass out to the wolves before I let him go down. I’ve worked hard on this relationship.”

“I know,” McCallister said, and put all the warmth and conviction he could into the words. “I swear to you I will protect him. And you. They won’t get to you through me, or Bryn.”

She stared at him with such intensity that even Bryn felt the burn, and then slowly nodded. “All right. I’ll talk him off the ledge, but if anything happens, swear to God, I will go nuclear-option on you, McCallister. He may owe you his life, but I’m more interested in preserving it.” She swung the door all the way open. “Go. He won’t come out until you leave, and I can’t make him see reason until he’s calmer.”

“Pansy, I need him to keep making the inhibitor for her. It’s important.”

“I get it.” Pansy met Bryn’s eyes briefly. “And I’m sorry for everything that’s happened to you. I wish we could help you more, but I’ll do what I can to keep that going, at least. Manny’s good at this. Very good. But he’s fragile, you understand? And this Pharmadene thing—it’s bad. You know that.”

“I do. I woke up dead. I understand … a little of how that feels.”

“Yes. Yes, I think you do. I’ll do what I can for you, I promise.”

That was the end of it. Bryn retrieved Mr. French from where he’d been snoozing in the corner of a very empty plastic-walled room, and five minutes later they’d negotiated the spy-quality security and were driving out into the sunlight. Mr. French wiggled into the front seat, onto Bryn’s lap, and gave a pointed whine as he put a paw on the door.

“Oh—ah, we need to stop somewhere,” she said. “Time for a walk.”

McCallister was frowning, very inside himself, but that startled him into an even deeper frown. He said, “Do you trust me?”

“I hate it when you ask me that, because it means you’re about to do something I won’t like.”

“Bryn.”

“It depends.”

“That’s … not what I was hoping for.”

“Look, could you please just stop the car?”

“Not yet. We have an alibi to establish.”

“Which is …?”

“You’re not going to like it.”

It took fifteen minutes for him to finish his drive and arrive at the destination, and he was entirely right: she didn’t like it.

“Seriously,” she said, as he parked.

“Take Mr. French for a walk. I’ll check us in.”

Bryn opened the door, and Mr. French hopped down and ran, loose skin flapping, for the small, straggly strip of brush and grass at the rear of the parking lot. “Wait!” she called, and hurried after him as McCallister headed in the opposite direction. “Stupid dog.”

Well, it wasn’t exactly his fault; he clearly had needs. So did she, as a matter of fact, and standing out here fidgeting from one foot to the other reminded her of it. Not that she was looking forward to exploring the bathroom facilities of the Hallmark Motor Court Inn, which looked like it had last seen any kind of upgrade in the 1970s. It was faded pink stucco, flat roofed, built in an L shape around a parking lot and a fenced-off, trash-filled dry pool that insurance issues had probably long ago rendered useless. There were six cars in the parking lot, mostly beaters, and it didn’t look like a place anyone stayed for more than a couple of hours unless they were seriously down on their luck.

She was starting to get a sense of what McCallister’s alibi would be, and no, she didn’t like it at all.

When she blinked, she had an image of utter darkness, of being trapped in a coffin, like Manny Glickman; of gasping for each trembling breath, knowing that each one was one closer to the end. That would happen to her, too, when she missed a shot. How long would it take for the invisible little machines that kept her breathing to slow, drift, shut down? How long would it take for the toxins to build up and poison her? God, how long would she be able to feel it?

Mr. French watered a few dry spots on the ragged lawn, then wandered over to the edge of the building. The wilderness was thicker there, mostly knee-high grass and some very wild-looking shrubs, everything shrouded in shadow by the angle of the sun. Bryn patted her thigh. “Come on, boy. Let’s go.” He ignored her to sniff the concrete, intensely interested in some ghost of a prior dog or cat. “Oh, come on! Seriously?”

He waddled farther into the shadows, nosing out scents, peeing where he felt it might be necessary, and then squatting down at a modest distance.

Bryn was peripherally aware of a man coming out of a room a couple of doors down, but her attention was on the dog and her near-bursting bladder; when a shadow came into her peripheral vision she was sure it was McCallister, returning for her.

But it wasn’t.

The shove caught her unprepared, sending her stumbling after Mr. French, and as she twisted to get a look at the man who’d pushed her she realized that she was in deep and immediate trouble. He was big, and his eyes were dead in an immobile, expressionless face. “Cash,” he said. “Give it up, bitch.”

She didn’t have a purse, or anything in her pockets. “I don’t have—”

He hit her, hard, in the face, and the pain exploded into black waves and red stars. Mr. French came charging out of the grass. He latched on to the man’s pant leg, but was kicked away.

Bryn immediately went for her gun.

Too slow. Her attacker grabbed her by the shirt and punched her again, even harder, twice in the face, once with shattering force in the gut. She only managed to jerk her sidearm partway from the holster before he’d slammed her down on the ground, and then twisted, trying to throw him off to get leverage to draw it the rest of the way. No good. He grabbed the gun butt and pulled it free. She struggled with him for it, but the knee in her stomach was making her giddy and weak.

With a final wrench, he got control of the weapon.

She didn’t hesitate; she slammed her fist into his balls as hard as she could, and he flinched, off balance. That let her throw him off, but he held on to the gun.

She could hear Mr. French’s snarls, then a yelp, then more vicious snarling as he went back at her attacker.

The man aimed her own gun at her, and she knew in that second he intended to kill her, and the dog … and then he looked around, backed up, kicked Mr. French out of the way, and ran.

Bryn rolled over slowly to her side. Blood dripped onto the grass in vivid red globes, and when she coughed it sprayed out in a mist. It was all weirdly pretty, and seemed very remote. So did the pain. She was aware it was there, but a chemical firewall had gone up between her and her nerves, and that was a good thing. Very good.

Mr. French suddenly appeared in her field of vision, whining in concern, and licked her face anxiously. She tried to shove him away, but there was no strength in her arms.

“Bryn.” That wasn’t her voice; that was someone else‘s. Oh, it was McCallister, kneeling next to her dog, staring down at her. He didn’t look remote anymore, or cold, or guarded. He seemed worried. “Can you get up?”

“Sure,” she said, and tried. She couldn’t. He pulled her up, and when her legs folded, he lifted her and carried her with Mr. French growling and whining around his feet as he walked. “Shut up, dog. ’M fine.”

“No, you’re not,” McCallister said. “You’ve got a broken cheekbone, your nose is smashed, and that’s just what I can see. Bryn, I left you alone for one minute.”

“Not my fault,” she whispered. “Mugged.”

“Why didn’t you use the gun?”

“Tried.” She swallowed a mouthful of blood, which tasted awful. “He took it.”

“He won’t have it for long.” McCallister sounded grim and very sure. “I’m going to have to let you stand for a second. I’ll hold you up.”

“I’m fine,” she said again, as if saying it could make it so. He let her legs swing down, and she concentrated on keeping her knees firm. And holding on, because the first plan wasn’t working so well. McCallister slotted a key attached to a big plastic tag into the door that was facing them, opened it, and carried her inside over the threshold, which struck her as weirdly funny.

When she laughed and coughed, he looked down at her with a frown. “What?”

“Just married.”

“Did he kick you in the head?”

“A little?”

McCallister slammed the door shut and put her on the bed. He probably did it as gently as he could, but all of a sudden, the firewall came crashing down in Bryn’s brain, and the full force of her screaming nerves hit her in a wave. She couldn’t bite back the cry of pain, and McCallister put a soothing, warm hand on her forehead. “Easy,” he said. “Be calm. I’m going to give you a booster shot, but I have to wait. The shots have to be a couple of hours apart. You’ve got enough damage that the last one will burn off quickly”. His fingers stroked her brow, smoothing back her hair, then withdrew. She felt Mr. French’s warm weight drape itself across her legs, and heard him whining in concern. “How bad is the pain?”

She swallowed and lied, like a good soldier. “It’s fine.”

“You really need to look up the definition of that word. Hang on.”

He put a hand on her nose, and pulled. A glassy, hot snap of pain bolted through her head, drawing another cry, and she felt her muscles tense and her back arch. McCallister grabbed her hand and held it as she squeezed. She gasped out, “What—”

“I had to reset your nose so that the nanites could heal it,” he said. “You’ll feel some pain when the bones start healing in your cheek, too. Hold on. I’ll be back.” He disappeared for what seemed like an hour, and returned with a glass of warm water and a thin washcloth, which he wetted and used to wipe the blood from her face in slow, soothing strokes. Her nose was still bleeding, and the rose red blooms spread across the washcloth, but she felt it trickle to a stop.

The pain built up along her cheekbone, like an unanes-thetized root canal boring through bone. She grabbed for his hand again and held on, trembling, as the wave kept rising. It filled her head until she thought it would burst, and then there was that same glassy pop of bone shifting, and the pain began to recede. It left her weak and sick.

“Breathe,” McCallister said. “The worst is over. Soft-tissue damage doesn’t hurt as much as it heals.”

“Says you,” she whispered. Her whole midsection felt as if a truck were running over it, crushing and ripping things apart. But he was right; it faded fast. In five minutes, she was breathing easier, and the blood that had been choking her was just a nasty memory.

McCallister took the reddened washcloth back into the bathroom, and Bryn finally felt good enough to try to sit up a little. It was a mixed success. Mr. French watched her with unwavering attention, and if a dog could frown, he was definitely trying out the expression. She couldn’t decide whether he was concerned or annoyed with her initiative.

McCallister, as it turned out, had the identical expression when he came back. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Sitting up.” Sort of.

“Don’t. Let the nanites do their job. You’re at least an hour away from the next shot, and the more you move around, the less effective they’ll be as they try to maintain additional activity. Understand?”

She did, but she’d finally gotten the thin motel pillow tucked where she wanted it, and it was more effort to lie flat again. “I‘m—”

“If you say you’re fine again, I swear to God, Bryn, I will drive you back to Pharmadene and dump you on the doorstep as a lost cause.” He didn’t mean it. At least, she didn’t think he meant it. “Stay still. Do not open this door for anyone. Understand?”

“Sure,” she said, and finally realized, as he grabbed the doorknob, that he was leaving her. “Where are you going?”

McCallister flashed her one of those rare, unguarded smiles. “I’m going to get your gun back,” he said. “After all, I’m responsible for it.”

She settled back, staring, as the lock clicked shut, then looked at Mr. French. He settled down across her legs, as if he intended to single-handedly hold her down. “How about you, dogface? You okay?”

He licked his chops and put his head down.

She rubbed his fur with trembling fingers, and knew just how he felt.