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The house was halfway up the block, dark just like all the neighbors. There was a play set in the backyard visible through the chain link, and a doghouse, but no dog came out to bark at their approach.
The whole neighborhood seemed eerily silent. Bryn would have expected to see at least one light on, even as early as it was…. Early risers existed everywhere, didn’t they?
This felt almost like a movie set—dressed, but vacant of human habitation.
McCallister mounted the porch steps and held out a hand to keep her on the sidewalk. The front door was open; she could see the black gap from where she stood. She hadn’t seen him draw, but McCallister’s gun was at his side, primed and ready to fire.
She drew hers as he eased the door open and stepped inside.
Bryn followed him. She wasn’t staying on the damn sidewalk, and he must have known that because he didn’t bother to try to tell her again.
“Shut the door behind you,” said a man’s voice from the darkness, and a light flared on, splashing over pale blue, worn carpet, toys spread in a corner in primary-color confusion, newspapers piled on a chair, a faded floral sofa….
On which sat a man with a round, unremarkable face, short graying hair, and cold, ice blue eyes.
“Mr. Mercer,” McCallister said. Bryn shut the door and locked it behind her to ensure nobody would be coming up behind them. Mercer didn’t have a gun visible, and they had two; she wasn’t letting anyone in to start to even the odds.
“Mr. McCallister,” Mercer said, with perfect composure. “I would have expected you to be down at the headquarters getting your shot by now. Surely Irene’s chewing nails over your absence. You know how she is about full buy-in from her team. ”
“You should have been the first one she went for,” McCallister said. “If I’d been making up the charts, you would have been at the top of the list. ”
“I’m glad you weren’t, then. I had just enough time to get my things together and file for my vacation before Harte thought to order my lockdown. That’s something my good little corporate-citizen act bought me, at least— vacation time. That and free Krispy Kreme doughnuts once a week at the team meetings. But in fact, Harte was too afraid to order me put into the program at first; she knew I could engineer a vaccine to counteract the revival process and make myself useless to her. Effectively, she would be rolling the dice on whether or not I’d wake up, and she couldn’t afford that risk until she was sure she wasn’t dependent on me. ”
Mercer transferred that cool stare to Bryn. “You made it out. I heard they were bringing you in for … What do they call it? Observation. Irene likes to have a record of the process on file, to prove that the experimental failures have been cleaned up properly. I’m not really sure she doesn’t keep copies. You know, for fun. ”
“You really are crazy,” McCallister said, almost admiringly. “I’d heard rumors. ”
“Oh, I’m not crazy. Crazy is sticking a gun in your mouth and blowing a hole in your cerebellum, like my old lab partner. I simply chose to stop counting the cost of what we did, other than in terms of what it could buy me. That’s eminently sane. Thanks for your two hundred thousand dollars, by the way. I’m very grateful. It’s helped me get my new assembly process tooled up in a secured facility. I’m turning out the drug in enough quantities to guarantee steady employment, and that’s all I really want. ” He smiled. “Well, that and destroying the company, and particularly Irene Harte. But that’s what I want from you, McCallister. In return, I will guarantee your friend Ms. Davis here a lifetime supply of Returné,
as long as she makes her wealthy funeral home clientele available to me as customers, as Mr. Fairview did. I have to look to the future. ”
“I’m not your assassin,” McCallister said. “And she’s not peddling your drugs. ”
“Wait. Let’s review. You are an assassin, as we both very well know; Ms. Davis is in a particularly nasty situation, because her supply from Pharmadene is gone, and even if she managed to secure some on the way out, it won’t be much. It doesn’t store well; did you know that? Ineffective in the vials after about a week. Fresh batches are important. So really, there’s no bargaining going on here; you’re going to do what I want, and she’s going to do what I want. Because the alternatives are unthinkable. ”
“Where are they?” Bryn asked. She raised her gun and pointed it at Mercer’s face.
He cocked his head, baffled. “Who?”
“The people who live in this house. The kids. ”
“Oh, they’re in the back,” he said. “You’re free to go check on them if you’d like, but I promise you, their hearts are still beating. They’re just in a very deep sleep. ”
“And where’s Annie?”
“Your sister. Ah, yes. ” Mercer glanced behind him, toward a rounded doorway that led into a kitchen; Bryn could see a silvery refrigerator and a sink from the angle where she stood. “In there. Go on. I’ll wait here. By the way, the kitchen door has been jammed shut. ”
McCallister started to follow her as she moved, and this time she was the one to give the hand signal. He didn’t like it, but he obeyed … mainly, she thought, because he knew Mercer was far too dangerous to leave unobserved.
She crossed to the kitchen and stepped inside.
For a second she didn’t see anything, and then she heard a scrape, and looked to her left. There was a recessed breakfast nook with a table and chairs. One of the chairs had been turned to face outward.
Annie sat on it, hands tied behind her, legs secured to the wood. She was breathing fast, and her hair was in her eyes, lifting and falling with each rapid gasp.
“Bryn, help,” she whispered, but that was all she had time for, because there was someone sitting behind her who slipped a plastic bag over Annalie’s head and twisted it tight at the neck. Annie immediately panicked, twisting against her bonds, the bag sucked tight into her open, gasping mouth.
