Chapter Sixteen
In the last twenty seconds, the laboratory room seems to have gotten much hotter. It’s probably just my temper at seeing how callous Felton was about Williamson’s death. Part of me would love to just conk old Felton on the head and grab his stuff, but he isn’t attacking me. Plus, I’m still trying to avoid physical confrontation, so I try to use my words this time.
“I have another question for you,” I say. I hadn’t noticed before, but there are loudspeakers in each corner of the room. They crackle to life with a low hum. For a moment, I wonder if someone’s going to make an announcement, but when nothing happens, I turn back to the task at hand. I tap Felton on the shoulder. “Question. You. Now.”
Felton doesn’t look up from his black ledger. “Shoot.”
“The black smoke… What does it do?”
Felton keeps typing away without so much as a glance in my direction. “Is this another quiz of my knowledge?”
“That’s right.”
“Our black smoke sedates the subject.”
My tail flicks behind me in a predatory rhythm, not that the very human Felton can see that. “Anything else?”
“Nope.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“Positive.”
“Good.” Twisting about, I turn to face the long coil of tubing that snakes from the black canister into the examination table. With a single swipe of my tail, I slice through one of the tubes. Black smoke pours out from the severed end.
At last, Felton looks up. “What are you doing?” Felton can’t see my tail, but he sure can see the newly-sliced tubing.
“This.”
My tail jabs into Felton’s white hazmat suit, creating an opening that’s large enough for—you guessed it—the freshly cut tube-o-black smoke. I jam the open end into Felton’s suit. A dark haze quickly appears behind the clear plastic visor of Felton’s helmet. The dude coughs a few times before falling over onto the floor, unconscious.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer senior researcher.
I scoop up Felton’s ledger from the floor and remove the binoculars from around his neck. All the while, I make sure that the smoke tube is still safely jammed inside his hazmat suit because, well, that’s the least this guy has coming to him.
At this point, I’m feeling pretty good about my bad self when the loudspeaker roars to life.
“Miss G. Scala to reception. Miss G. Scala to—” The loudspeaker goes silent. Still, I heard enough to know one thing.
That was Cissy’s voice. And the way her tone was shaking? She’s in big trouble.
Crap. In all my interactions with Felton and Williamson, I forgot all about Cissy, Zeke, and Albinia. I rush out the door and head toward the lobby at a run.
I’ve no sooner set foot in the outer hallway than the building goes berserk. Lights flash. Sirens sound. Razor Guards and researchers run in all directions. The soothing all-white passageways become the equivalent of a mosh pit at a Bullet For My Valentine show.
Here’s one situation where having a tail comes in handy. It’s a double bonus that no humans can see it. As a march along, my dragonscale tail juts out left and right, shoving anyone and everyone out of my path. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a flash of light. It’s such a shock I almost trip over my own feet.
Was that? Could it be?
No way.
I didn’t actually see the little glowing dude again. Not possible.
Shaking my head, I refocus on sprinting back to the lobby. It isn’t a long journey; all Albinia did was walk me down to the end of a hall and say, “Turn right.” Within seconds, I’m stepping back into the lobby.
The place is packed with Razor Guards. Cissy and Zeke stand against one wall. All the guards are arrayed around them in concentric circles, like some crazy version of planetary rings around a pair of moons. Only in this case, the rings have guns. And they’re all pointed at Cissy and Zeke.
A knot of worry forms in my throat. These are my friends. They came here to help me, not be target practice for Ethan’s goons.
Once again, Albinia stands behind her pod-like reception desk. She wags her pale finger at Zeke. “He took over my mind!”
I scan the scene, smooth out the front crinkles in my hazmat suit, and saunter up to the guards. Hey, the inspection thing worked before. It’s just got to work again. “Who’s in charge here?”
All the guards head over in unison to stare at me. It’s a really creepy effect. One of the Razor Guards closest to me steps forward. “I’m Ethan Unit 437-Q. I’m the lead warrior in this building.”
“You did a wonderful job, Mister Q.” I set my fists on my hips and nod in what I hope is an authoritarian way. “This was an excellent test of your abilities in a crisis.” I raise my hand. “Especially impressive considering how we’re short-staffed today. Well done.”
Mister Q doesn’t say anything. I hope that’s because he’s appreciating the new name I gave him (Mister Q is a much better name than Ethan Unit 437-Q, after all). Doubtful, but a girl can hope.
I saunter over to my friends and shake their hands in turn. “Agent Frederickson, Agent Ryder. So well done. Any suggestions for our guard team?”
Cissy lifts her chin. “I’ll put my suggestions in the report.”
“As will I,” adds Zeke.
I turn back toward Mister Q and cup my hand by my mouth. “What part of ‘these are Hunter Enterprises employees’ do you not understand? Order your men to lower their firearms.” Under my breath, I mutter to Zeke. “That’s what they call guns, right?”
Zeke nods. “You’re doing great.”
Mister Q slowly lowers his own gun. The rest of the Razor Guards follow. My body feels light as a feather. This is really working.
I address the guards with my best Queenly voice. “Really well done, men.” I raise the ledger in my right hand. “I’ll be sure to make a note of your performance for CHUCK. But now, we must take our leave.”
Cissy, Zeke, and I start walking toward the revolving front door. Trouble is, none of the guards are getting out of our way. I refocus on Mister Q again. “Do you mind? We’d like to leave some time this century. The three of us have a very important meeting with the Supreme Leader.”
Mister Q rubs his chin. Or rather, he scratches at the black bandages there. “What’s your name?”
“Mine?”
“Yes.”
“Senior Researcher Felton Weiner. I was recruited for this special assignment.” I adjust the binoculars at my neck. “Can’t wait to see these two off, so I can return to killing people.”
“You,” says Mister Q. “You’re Felton Weiner?”
“Don’t be judgy. It’s a family name.”
“I suppose that’s fine,” says Mister Q slowly. “Carry on.”
At those words, it’s as if someone loosened a vise on my body. I can breathe again, move again. And there’s only one place I’m going: out the damned front door.
Cissy, Zeke, and I step through the knot of Razor Guards. They don’t make a path for us, but at least they aren’t actively moving to block us anymore. Hey, I’ll take it.
We’re in the middle of the pack of guards when the back door to the lobby is thrown open. The real Felton Weiner bursts into the room. He’s got his helmet off, and yeah, the guy looks like a Felton Weiner: he’s tall and thin like a hotdog with a neck-head combo that doesn’t really have a distinct separation point. And he’s mostly bald with a few stray clumps of hair combed over his head.
The second he enters the lobby, Felton starts screaming his head off. “Stop her! She tried to kill me.”
There’s a moment where Cissy, Zeke, and I share questioning looks. We’re all thinking the same thing: do we keep playing the charade, or do we run for it?
I turn toward the revolving door. “Run!”
If I thought the hallways were a mob scene, then the lobby becomes even worse. We get a few yards closer to our exit before the guards close in. Now, I didn’t want to get into hand-to-hand combat, but this moment leaves me no choice. My tail wraps around the neck of one Razor Guard and slams that dude’s cranium into the ground. He slumps to the floor, unconscious.
One down, about fifty to go.
This is not going to end well.
From the corner of my eye, I see that glowing form again. And then things get even stranger. Childlike laughter echoes through the lobby. For a second, I see a small humanoid form. Fire drips from its hands.
“Bigga boom,” it says.
After that, the lobby explodes in a ball of red flame. The fire touches everyone except Cissy, Zeke, and me. The three of us haul ass out the lobby door and into Times Square.
Another explosion sounds. All the windows in the Hunter Enterprises building shatter, sending shards of glass out onto the street. The huge monitor attached to the structure itself sparks with flame and electricity as it loses its tether to the building’s façade and crashes onto a sidewalk. Humans scream as they leap out of harm’s way.
A cab pulls up to the curb. The passenger side window rolls down halfway. A voice sounds through the window. “What’s going on?”
I shake my head in disbelief. We’ve been here all morning, and not a single New Yorker has said a word to us, outside of Felton and Albinia. Now there’s a fire, and everyone is chatty.
“You’re taking us to our hotel, that’s what’s going on.” I quickly usher Cissy and Zeke into the waiting cab. “We’re staying at the—Where are we staying, Cis?”
“The Industrial Arms. Soho.”
I slide into the back seat beside Cissy and Zeke. “Oh, and there’s an extra five hundred if you most fast.” I have no idea if that’s a lot of Earth money, but it sounds good.
The driver peels away from the curb at almost supersonic speed, so I’m guessing $500 is pretty good, after all. Sirens sound behind us as we drive away.
“Did you guys see anything strange in the lobby?”
Cissy rounds on me. “You mean other than the Razor Guards, researcher and random explosion.”
“Yeah.” It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask if they saw a little glowing man, but I hold off. Chances are, I’m having stress-induced visions or something.
“Nope,” says Cis. “I didn’t see anything else.”
“Same here,” adds Zeke. “Did you?”
“I’m going to catch my breath now.” It’s not an answer, and Cissy gives me the side eye. But with the cab veering through traffic and sirens still going off, it seems like she’s willing to drop the subject. Which is fine with me. I don’t need to share my wild imagination with her.
I slump back into the seat, clutching the ledger and binoculars to my chest. These are what’s real and important.
They’re my keys to finding Lincoln.
Once we get back to the hotel, I know we’ll do just that.