GENESIX: THE TRILOGY Page 21

  She took a swig. “What brings an Englishman all the way across the water to Boston?”

  “I had a problem and I needed it solved. And I figured Doctor freaking Frankenstein, as Mandy so aptly calls him, could probably help. Which he did.”

  “That baby she was talking about, did any of that really happen?”

  “Indeed. Though, it was not quite ripped out of her. The good doctor teleported it out to save her life. ”

  “And the life of the child?”

  “I really doubt there is anything on Earth that could harm that child.”

  “So, is she, like, your cherry bomb?” she took another hit off the beer.

  “My...what?”

  “Your squeeze. Your lover. Come on, dude. You’re English. Don’t you speak English?”

  “I thought I did. Until I came to these lovely shores. But no, Mandy and I have never been together. Why would you ask that?”

  “I can tell by the way you look at her. It’s kind of obvious.”

  “What’s obvious?”

  She smiled. “You’re in love with her, dude.”

  He raised a brow. “I most certainly am not.”

  “Sure you are.” Chloe took another pull from the beer.

  Quentin sighed with indignation.

  Chloe shrugged. “A woman knows. Besides, you’re telling me right now that you are, without even realizing it. You’re protesting too much. If you weren’t in love with her then the suggestion would just make you laugh.”

  Quentin frowned. “Just how old did you say you were?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Well, you obviously are quite the student of human nature.”

  “So tell me about her. Who’s the baby daddy?”

  “Jake Calder. Ever hear of him?” But he could see by her reaction she had.

  “The Jake Calder? The one caught in that explosion a few years ago and turned into a meta-human?”

  “One and the same.”

  “She doesn’t shoot small, does she? And the kid must have the same bizarre abilities he has.”

  “Quite. She walked away from the child because there was no way she could raise it. But then I think she found walking away from it took more out of her than she realized. I think something inside her just snapped.”

  “Dude,” Chloe said, “I think it’s obvious something inside her snapped.”

  Quentin nodded sadly. “It’s worse when she’s drinking. But it’s never good.”

  “All right.” Chloe set the beer on the table. “We gotta have some ground rules if I’m going to work with you. One, you stay out of my head. If I catch you messing around in my head even just a little, for any reason at all, the deal’s off. And I might just kill you on top of that. Two. Those goons out there, none of them touches me. No one does. It’s hands-off-the-girl or I walk. Got it?”

  “But I haven’t told you what we do.”

  “What you do is obvious. And it wasn’t exactly like I hadn’t heard of you. Word gets around in our little community.”

  “You haven’t even inquired about pay.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t figure there’s going to be any. If there was, none of you would be living like this. Besides, I have my own source of income.”

  “Then, might I ask, what it was that sold us on you before I could even really begin the sale’s pitch?”

  “That woman upstairs. I guess I kinda identify with her.”

  “With her? She’s drunk and out of her mind. I can’t see how she made any kind of positive impression.”

  “It was something she said. About the baby being taken away. You might say I know how she feels.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  The water kettle began screaming. Quentin removed it from the stove and filled a cup, and then dropped in a bag of Earl Grey.

  “Tea must be brewed to an amber color,” he said. “Another quirk of you Americans I cannot quite fathom. You people drink it black as though it were coffee.”

  “Then why don’t you go back to England if you prefer life there so much?”

  “Because,” he dropped the tea bag into the trash, “the people I am preparing to go to war against are here. Hence, I must be here.”

  He returned to his chair, cup in hand. “Now, must I ask for an explanation of your rather cryptic statement? About somehow identifying with Mandy and her baby?”

  “I don’t talk about it much.” She gave a shrug and a sigh, as if to say what-the-hell. “When I was fourteen, I was in foster care and I got pregnant. And they just took the baby and it was given to adoption. I had no say in any of it. I saw the child only once. Seeing that woman upstairs, I kind of know how she feels.”

  Quentin took a sip of his tea. “I am continually amazed at how a supposedly civilized society can treat its people so barbarically.”

  “So tell me about her power. Her ability. She seems to have two of them. She can walk through walls, and she can turn invisible?”

  “I am not a scientist. I know very little of the genesis gene, aside from what I gained from my brief contact with the mind of the aforementioned Doctor freaking Frankenstein.”

  “You find that name amusing.”

  He smiled. “Suffice it to say, Mandy has a way with nicknames.”

  “Do I dare ask what she calls you?”

  “To my knowledge she calls me nothing.”

  Chloe raised a brow. “She doesn’t know how you feel about her?”

  He shook his head. “No, and neither does anyone else here. I would like to keep it that way.”

  “All right. Then, tell me about this Frankenstein dude.”

  “His name is Scott Tempest. He is a meta-human like us. However his ability is his mind. His intelligence level is off the scale in any kind of test devised by mankind. He thinks in what he calls four dimensions.”

  “And what is that?”

  “He never really defined it, but I touched his mind once and got a glimmer into what such a thing is.”

  “So, you can reach fully into someone’s head and read their thoughts?”

  He nodded. “The problem was, when I engaged my ability, I began to hemorrhage within my cranium. He determined the cause was related to my cranial blood pressure. It increases drastically whenever I use my telekinesis. He created a device to prevent this from happening.”

  “Sounds like he helped you out.”

  “Indeed. He helped me greatly.”

  “So what did he do to Mandy?”

  “He saved her life, actually. The child she was carrying, Jake Calder’s, was tearing her up from within. Scott removed the child from her and then used advanced technology to heal her.”

  “Then what’s your beef with him?”

  “My beef, as you say, comes from when I touched his mind. You see, I had to use my telekinesis to hold Mandy’s uterus together until the teleportation could be effected. I am no biologist, so Tempest invited me to reach into his mind and tap into his knowledge, so I could effectively reach into Mandy telekinetically and find her uterus and hold her together. And what I saw when I touched his mind,” he took another sip of tea, “profoundly frightened me.”

  “What did you see?”

  “I saw things as he does. I saw what four dimensional perception is like.”

  “What is it?”

  “I have never really been able to put it into words. It was like asking someone to describe the taste of chocolate. There is no way to accurately do it, other than to say it tastes like chocolate. And I saw how fast he can think, and the depth of his memory.”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “So he’s real smart.”

  “Oh my dear, he is so much more than real smart. He can effectively change the course of civilization, should he be left unchecked. And unchecked he is. The government was keeping a tight leash on him, but he and Calder escaped and have since gone rogue.”

  “I don’t see what the problem is. If he’s that smart, maybe he can do a lot of good.”

  “Have
you ever heard the expression absolute power corrupts absolutely?”

  She shrugged. “I guess.”

  He took another sip of tea. “Scott Tempest and Jake Calder are each more powerful than any human who has ever walked the face of the Earth. Together, they are even greater than the sum of their parts. And yet they are flawed, as much so as any human. They are as fallible as any of us. They have the power to alter the course of civilization, but I believe a civilization must follow its own natural course, directed by its members. To have one or two super beings simply step in like gods is antithetical to healthy development.”

  Her brows rose. “Like gods? Isn’t that maybe overreaching a bit?”

  He shook his head. “Not in the slightest. Not if you knew these two and what they are capable of.”

  She took a couple gulps of beer, and stood the bottle on the table. “And you intend to stop them?”

  He nodded, and reached again for his tea.

  “Do you mind if I ask how? I mean, look at this place.” She glanced at the room about her. “Look at all of you. You give new meaning to the saying operating on a shoestring budget. How do you even hope to be a threat to them?”

  He let out a long, weary sigh. “It has been slow going, to say the least, trying to build up a force capable of holding them in check.”

  Peter LaSalle came striding through the doorway. He said, “Just get me into reaching distance of Jake Calder,” he held up a fist, “and pow!”

  This invoked another weary sigh from Quentin. “LaSalle, you already tried that approach. It resulted in you having a fractured skull and in your capture by the government.”

  LaSalle continued on his way to the fridge, and pulled out a beer. “That was because I gave him time to power-up. I was stupid then. I know how his power works, now. I’m gonna give him a good right cross before he can power up. Knock his head clean off’a his shoulders. Besides, he’ll find it harder to knock me out this time. You hit me, I get tougher. I always been like that.”

  He gripped the bottle cap between his thumb and forefinger, and without bothering to twist it off simply snapped the cap from the bottle. He then tossed a wink at Chloe. “Hiya, cutie. He treatin’ you okay? He can be a little dull sometimes.”

  And without waiting for an answer, he strode back out to the television.

  Chloe said, “He gives me the creeps. I really meant what I said about no one touching me.”

  “No need to worry,” Quentin said. “I have the power to stop him.”

  “You better have or this deal’s off.”

  “He’s not very gifted in the mental department, but he is strong. He can stop a car with one hand. He is necessary. Believe me.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  After the beer, Chloe said, “Well, I gotta go. It’s getting late.”

  “If you’re going to be part of the team, you can stay with us. There are rooms upstairs.”

  She shook her head and rose to her feet. “Not a chance. Not with that loser out there.”

  “I assure you, I can hold him in check.”

  “Thanks,” she said, “but I haven’t stayed alive this long by taking chances.”

  He also rose to his feet. “I can contact you telepathically to let you know when we need you.”

  She shook her head. “I meant what I said. Stay out of my head.”

  “Then, how will we know where to find you?”

  “Go to the bridge on Worcester Street. A few of us live under it. And then there’s the abandoned shoe factory on Waverly. I’ve crashed there a few times. If I’m not there, the people there will know how to find me. And there’s the old jewelry store where Mother stays a lot. I check in there regularly.”

  He nodded. He knew the place. “I should at least walk with you. It’s not safe for a girl on the streets at this time of night.”

  “I’ll be all right. I’d be surprised if Snake wasn’t outside waiting for me. He’s very protective.” She shouldered into her jacket. “Later, dude.”

  She strode across what passed for a living room. LaSalle was sitting in one chair, which all but buckled under his weight. Cosmo slouched in another. They each had a beer in one hand, and as Chloe crossed the room, their gaze went from the television to her tight jeans and the way he hips swished from side to side as she walked.

  Once the door was shut, LaSalle said, “I’d like a piece of that, man.”

  Cosmo snickered. “Like you’d have a chance.”

  “Hey,” he said, suddenly indignant. “I do okay with the women.”

  “In your own mind, maybe. Come on, Pete. I’ve known you for a year now. I ain’t seen you have one date.”

  Quentin stood in the doorway to the kitchen. “Gentlemen, as usual, your conversation astounds me.”

  Never quite sure how to take the Englishman, LaSalle said, “Whatever, dude.”

  “Believe me when I say – the girl is entirely off limits. No one is to touch her.”

  Peter said, “Maybe you ought’a let her decide that.”

  “I’m not joking, LaSalle. And believe me, you don’t want to piss me off.”

  Peter held out his hands. “All right, all right. Don’t get your panties all twisted.”

  Quentin, ignoring him, went to a window and pushed aside a tattered, dusty curtain. Chloe stood across the street. There was no sign of Snake, but Quentin doubted he was far away.

  Chloe was standing alone, but she seemed to be talking. She would wait a moment, as though she were listening, and then speak again. It was like she was having a conversation with someone who wasn’t there.

  She began to walk away, and Quentin saw something swirling about her. Like a fog, but dark colored. He blinked and rubbed his eyes, and then looked again, and the dark fog seemed to be gone. Chloe was simply walking alone down the sidewalk. He must be more tired than he thought.

  He stepped away from the window. “Good night, gentlemen. Shut off the lights when you retire.”

  “Why?” Cosmo said. “We ain’t payin’ the bill.”

  “No, but I’m not sure how strong the wiring is in this place.”

  The stairs creaked as Quentin climbed them. He started down the hallway, but paused at Mandy’s door. Oh, how perceptive Chloe was, he thought. He wondered how she could have so easily seen what Mandy herself did not?

  He had been impressed with Mandy from the moment he first met her, not that he was given much time to talk with her that day, as all hell had broken loose. But the more time he spent with her over the past year and a half, the more his feelings had grown. Something about her eyes, the way she tilted her head when she spoke, a sort of adorable way her mouth made a rather puckering motion when she formed her words.

  A few weeks after he had recovered from his injuries and returned to Boston, Quentin visited the site of the former Boston Press Herald building. Rubble was still there in random piles, and the entire area was sectioned off with yellow police tape. Never one to let inane rules hinder him, Quentin stepped over the tape and to a stack of concrete and dirt. He stood in a long coat, the wind moving his hair. The day was cool and the sky cloudy, threatening rain.

  He suddenly heard a voice seeming to come out of nowhere. A woman’s voice. “I come back here sometimes. It’s where the life I had ended.”

  The voice seemed to come from somewhere toward his left. He looked in that direction and saw Mandy Waid seem to fade into view from thin air.

  She said, “This is where the woman I was died, and what I have now become began.”

  “You’re a meta-human,” Quentin said, startled.

  “Kind of obvious, isn’t it?” Her hair was long and hanging loose, the wind catching it. She was in jeans and a long black coat with a gray, fur collar.

  “When did you find out? Or did you always know?”

  “You mean, did I know when I wrote that article on Jake Calder? No, I didn’t know then. I had no idea. I found out only after I came back to Boston from their facility in Colorado. Egghead Man –
Scott – theorized that a meta-human gene might be triggered by severe trauma. And what I experienced here can certainly qualify.”

  “Severe trauma,” Quentin thought, thinking back to events in his own life. “That could seem to answer a lot of questions.”

  “You had some trauma in your life? I mean, before you met Scott and Jake?”

  “Some. Yes.”

  “You don’t wish to elaborate?” She shrugged. “It’s your business. Certainly none of mine.”

  “Maybe sometime over a cup of coffee.”

  As they stood there, it struck Quentin that his initial impression of her had not been wrong. She was indeed one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. Something about the curve of her cheekbone, the gentle shape of her jaw. The sort of green color of her eyes. Her hair gently moved with the breeze, and that somehow added to the breathtaking image that was Mandy Waid.

  “So,” she said, “what is the extent of your ability?”

  “Now that I have the nullifier made for me by Egghead Man, I don’t really know what my limitations are.”

  He glanced to a chunk of broken concrete he estimated to be maybe two tons in weight. With but a thought, he caused it to rise into the air.

  “Impressive.”

  He allowed the concrete to descend back to the dirt. “You?”

  “When I was lying in bed in Colorado, recuperating, I found out I could make my hand go transparent.”

  “Did you tell Tempest?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t trust that freak. And I sure as hell didn’t want to say anything that would make them think I was like them. Though I had to admit, as much as I hated to, I was. Like them, I mean. Once I was back here in town I started experimenting, to see how far I could go. I found I can turn completely invisible. And I can walk through walls. And I can do both at once if I want.”

  “So what now? Do you go back to being Kimberly Stratton?”

  “After what happened I don’t think I could ever go back to the life I had. I am not the same person. I left my child behind. In a way, I left a part of me behind.”