King Acid

CLEOPATRA'S NOSE (PART 4)

Had there been a fatal failure in the nuclear furnace? She knew that couldn't be true, because the safety valves and electronic dead hand systems made that impossible. The only way it could have happened was if it had been overloaded. And the only way it could have been overloaded was if it had been done deliberately.

The stench of smoke and ether strewed rapidly through the halls. Security agents packed the entrance, some of them rushing into the lab while others stayed at the doors and kept the maddened crowd of scientists back who, like her, were trying to get in and check things out. As she tried frantically to trundle her way through her peers, the thought flashed through her mind, like a shooting star that fell and crashed behind her eyes, of Landau's name among a list of civilian casualties; of his life as one unit in a routinary tally.

It was at that moment, when, for a second, she gave up on Skyler, that she realized her feelings towards him were not those of a boss, or even a friend, and by no means a lover. She had always deemed him a kind of younger brother, someone from whom she had to keep the world at bay. And the idea of having failed at that plunged her into a new depth of hell she didn't understand. But she had to figure it out. As she prepared to headbutt her way through friends and foes and risk a concussion along the way, a stout hand showed up from behind, taking her by the arm and pulling her away from the crowd with a forceful jerk. When she turned around, she saw it was Colt. The man maintained a bizarrely tense countenance, a mixture of concern and raw excitement.

"We gotta go."

"But what has hap—"

"I don't know," interrupted Colt, "but we gotta leave. Hear me out. I'm a double agent for Skyler's brother."

"The criminal?"

"That's what you've been led to think. Listen, for years, some pretty freaky men have been watching your boss. I've been here all this time, trying to get him away from them, and a chance just showed up now."

Light nodded in bewilderment. In some sense, it all felt right to her. Atticus was no criminal; he never had been. He just loved his brother; she knew that much. Why did she know that much?

"What has happened in there?"

"I don't know. I just got in and Skyler's out cold."

"You sure?"

"Don't worry, he's alive. The paramedics will arrive anytime now. I'll pose as one of them and drive the ambulance to an extraction point, and I want you to come with us."

"You want me in the ambulance?"

"No, that's impossible. Your name's not in the official directory of the medical database, so they wouldn't take long to discover you and compromise me. What I want you to do is go to Landau's house and find the place where he keeps his correspondence. His brother Atticus was constantly sending him secret messages inside his mail, giving him instructions to reach out to him. He apparently never noticed them."

"What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to find that mail, take it to a safe place, and then decrypt it. You'll have to find not only letters, but brochures, coupons, promotional magazines, anything that's sent by mail. The keys are almost always on the covers. By decrypting one of those, you'll find the instructions to get in contact with Atticus' men so you can be extracted, too. We're almost sure the NSA has planted microphones and cameras inside his house and on the street, so you'll have to keep your face covered all the time while you're there. Here." He gave her a car key. "It'll be best not to use your own car; they may check out your registration. Use one of mine. Both its registration and manufacturing specifications were made to mislead public databases, so they'll take a while to find you if you decide to flee in the meantime. These keys are for the blue Chevrolet at the entrance in parking lot 7G."

Light nodded in silence, trying to assimilate all that information.

"And when you're finished there," he continued, "set fire to the house."

"Set fire?" she repeated with astonishment.

"That'll be best to erase all traces of Atticus in his house."

"The best, yes." Light saw at that moment the opportunity to take Ace, too.

"Here." Colt pulled out his MAC-11 pistol and put it in her hands. "Just in case. Fired one before?"

"At the shooting range with Skyler now and then."

"This one's automatic, so you only have to hold the trigger for the bullets to come out in bursts; don't bother aiming. It has a 9mm 32-round clip, so it'll just take pulling the trigger for half a second before you run out of bullets. Keep that timing in mind. If you're gonna use it, see to it you hold the grip tight on the magazine with one hand and the handle with the other to minimize the recoil."

Light was so dazed and flustered before that whole stream of data and the smell of ammonia that she couldn't find the strength to turn him down. Instead, she nodded again and tucked the gun into her jeans with the same indifferent clarity as in a lucid dream. Maybe that was it. Just a dream. How could it not be? Skyler could never die. He wasn't allowed to.

"Hey." Colt broke her out of her catatonia with a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "You OK?"

"I...guess."

"C'mon, you can do it. See you on the other side."

And Colt faded away between the ether and the crowds. Never again would she see him. She reached behind her jacket for a moment. She felt the parkerized steel with her fingers. Cold. Nothing else. It was that, and only that, which made her realize the moment was actually real. At that point, she knew nothing would be the same, and that she had to adapt if she wanted to see Skyler again. She had to adapt if she wanted to survive. With that new conviction hammered into her head like a nail in a casket, Ericka Light turned around and headed for the house of Dr. Landau with scientific resolve.