One - A Horrible Plot

It was one in the morning, and I was still awake. Again.

Once upon a time, I would have been asleep at such an hour. And not so long ago, I would have been at work.

Now I was lying on the couch, opening my mail, while a late-night movie played on the TV.

I almost trashed the letter right off the bat -- the return address was unfamiliar, and the handwriting was, ew, my sister's.

You may have missed the memo on that one. Let me explain:

I'm the youngest of three kids. My older sister, Marian, and my older brother, Steve, tortured me through our whole childhood. You probably know them better as the Director and the Uber-Director. (Steve still can't spell, it seems.)

Yeah, we kind of don't speak to each other anymore.

Anyway, so I almost binned the letter, but reconsidered. I had nothing better to do. Not at one in the morning.

So I opened it up.

The first thing I saw was that, after thirty years, my sister was still dotting her i's with little hearts. Her printing was still fluid and illegible, though, which didn't fit with the little feminine touch. We hadn't actually spoken to each other in person for years, minus one shouting match a few years back.

It was the usual cold, impersonal letter. She was still in touch with our parents, and reported that Dad still hated my guts and Mom was still so senile she didn't know she had a youngest son -- but I'd bet she remembered Marian and Steve just fine.

Marian ended on a typically snide note, writing that "Steve and I send you our best wishes", in lieu of, say, a pipe bomb. (I'd been grateful for the fact that I was renting a P. O. box when that happened.)

I'd never been happier in my life than the day my family disowned me. I never liked my parents, and I could have cheerfully murdered my older siblings. Although I sometimes missed the dog.

So I snickered, balled both letter and envelope up, and shot it across the room into the wastebasket. (There had been a time when I would have kept it, whether so I could experience the satisfaction of burning the reminder of my siblings to ashes, or so I could pin it to my bulletin board, which is what I'd done as a lonely, underage college student -- before I came to my senses.) Three points.

Now done with my mail (except a few circulars addressed to RESIDENT, which I left on the coffee table for reasons that made sense at the time), I finally felt tired. It was probably the interaction with my sister, which was exhausting even by proxy. So I turned the TV down a little and fell asleep where I was.

I woke up to the news fanfare when my alarm went off, and as usual, fell off the couch before realizing that the alarm was under the couch, and as a result spent five minutes with my arm stuck under the couch looking for the goddamn alarm clock.

By that time, I was pissed, not to mention groggy. And my mouth tasted like ass. Well, not ass so much as like I'd licked the carpet, which had a peculiarly vile smell to it. (I would know. There had been more than one morning when I'd woken up with my face planted solidly in it.)

Being that I was awake, I figured I might as well shower, and so I did. By the time I made it back into the living room, I was at least a little more awake than I had been, and in a slightly better mood.

I paused on my way through the living room to the kitchen. It wasn't anything special, but the morning news was on, and I could have sworn I heard the pretty anchorwoman say...

I turned the volume up.

"Marian Janssen of Itexicon Corporation announced today that the major corporation will be conducting a merge with the smaller Cogilium, Incorporated."

Shit.

I knew that Marian worked for Itex, and that Steve ran Cogilium, but really, I'd never imagined they'd go for so obvious a team-up.

To most of the early-morning news watchers, the ensuing five-minute segment would have been a signal to go put some coffee on to boil or change the channel. Like them, I pretty much blanked it out, but for a different reason: I was horrified.

Cogilium, in case you don't know, is a technology-development corporation. They make toys for grownups. Like weapons. All kinds of weapons.

Including biological ones.

I didn't know why Marian wasn't just relying on Itex's own microbiologists for whatever job she needed done, but I counted myself lucky that she'd decided she needed more help -- and help from Steve, at that.

I figured it probably had something to do with me.

No, really. Hear me out.

I still had a job -- technically. As far as my work at the School was concerned, I was on extended leave while they decided if they should consider the fact that I was -- if you'll excuse the bragging -- a brilliant scientist as more important than "some family issues".

Man, I was just happy they hadn't put a price on my head. God knew Itex had -- after the incident in Germany, those fuckers were pissed at me. Thankfully, Marian had experienced a moment of sadistic genius and decided to call off the hitmen -- hey, I was more useful alive and suffering than dead and angry. (I probably wouldn't have stayed dead for long. Even I have friends.

(Friends with access to highly illegal, really, really cool technology.)

And Steve... well, Steve was still a little behind the curve. OK, so saying that he was the muscle in our sibling trio would be very, very accurate. (I couldn't tell you whether it's me or Marian who's the soul, though. She may be a woman, but I actually care about people. Sometimes. Depends on the person, really.)

Or he had been the muscle, before that tragic, tragic pipe bomb accident. (Disregard my tone, please. I may hate my siblings, but not enough to try to blow them up and fail. If you want it done right...)

But I digress. Back to the news.

The reader with a shorter attention span is probably asking why I was in such a distraught state over all this. Why? Because you're so goddamn dumb.

Actually, because I figured that in typical Marian style, she'd gotten frustrated with a lack of results in Itex's work and decided that fuck it, she was calling Steve in to make her a killer virus that would burn itself out after killing half the population of the world.

Hey, that's what I'd have been doing if I were her.

Actually, cancel that thought. If I were her, I'd be considering the problem of body disposal first. Three billion corpses not only stinks to high heaven, it's a health hazard.

I kind of doubt she was considering that. She'd never been the type for planning.

Come to think of it, none of us were.

But. I brought myself back to the moment. I wasn't going to just stand around and let her destroy the world. In the finest Batchelder sibling tradition, I was going to stop her from carrying out her plans, mock her as much as I could, and hopefully make her cry.

First, I was going to need accomplices.

I know. You're going to guess that I called the flock.

Fat.

Fucking.

Chance.

For one thing, Max has caller ID, and I am not the kind of person whose calls she'd answer, much less return.

And for the other thing, if I wanted mindless destruction, I would call the flock up.

I just wanted to stop my brother and sister from taking over the world.

Not to burn their house down, injure bystanders, and probably kill a few puppies along the way.

So. The flock was right out. Who else could I call?

For some reason, a few years back, the School had decided to put out a company directory. Or perhaps I was remembering wrong and it was the employees who'd put it together. Whatever.

The point is, I had an index, however old it was, of current and former School employees who might be willing to lend me a hand.

I grabbed a pencil and went to work on it.

I crossed out all the names I knew wouldn't call me back. For whatever reason. And then the ones who I knew weren't working at the School anymore. Obviously.

That left about thirty. I couldn't call that many people in the time I had -- I figured that to extract maximum effect from my ill-formed (nonexistent, actually) plan, I needed to get my ass in gear and get moving soon.

So I crossed out the ones that were, as far as I knew, perfectly content with their jobs. Which left about ten. Damn.

And in a stunning display of coincidence, the likes of which I hadn't seen since my last college English class (where we had read Dickens), that was the moment the School called me.

Unsurprisingly, it was a secretary.

"Hi, may I speak to Jeb, please?"

I recognized the voice. Tiffany. Blonde. Twenty. Braces.

"This is he."

"Oh, hey Jeb. We just wanted to know if you were going to come in today."

Huh?

"Uh, yeah, of course I am."

"Great."

She hung up on me, leaving me to a moment's pondering. They'd never called me before.

Something was fishy in Denmark.

After the world's fastest drive to work (OK, who am I shitting, it took two hours), I screeched down the long dirt drive to the School. Not that I didn't enjoy driving around in the desert (there are no speed limits on private dirt roads, which infinitely thrilled the sixteen-year-old boy in me), but I was both excited and terrified to find out just what they wanted from me.

At the security checkpoint, the guard actually did a double-take when I handed him my ID. "No way," he said.

I smiled tensely. "Way." Yeah, I still speak bored twentysomething. What's it to you?

"Nice to have you back," he said. "You'll need to renew that next month."

"OK," I said. He handed me my ID back, I rolled up the window, and I drove on forward.

I don't know how it's possible, but somehow, under that wide expanse of clear blue sky, I felt claustrophobic.

It was probably the stress.

I hurried in through the main doors, past yet another security checkpoint (at this one, thankfully, the guard didn't care enough to ask for my ID, trusting in the other guard and twenty miles of desert to keep out the riffraff) to the reception desk.

No, I don't know why a guarded institution in the middle of the Mojave Desert has a reception desk. Ask the higher-ups. They'd probably know. (Yes, surprising as it may seem, I don't run the School. Other people do. Would it surprise you to know that they're Chinese? China runs a lot of things these days.)

But Tiffany was still on desk, and she looked... pleased to see me.

Which totally made my day. Like I was going to tell her that.

"Uh, hi," I said, standing awkwardly in front of the desk.

"Doctor Batchelder!" she said, turning from the computer to me and looking genuinely happy to see me. Now that was a weird feeling.

"You can call me Jeb," I said. It's been my nickname since fourth grade. Don't ask why. There's no story behind it.

"Right this way, sir," she said, getting up from the desk and walking off down the hall.

I followed her.

She passed the conference rooms we normally used and went to the entrance of a wing I technically wasn't allowed to enter.

I figured that hey, I could always say I'd just been following directions, Nazi little scamp that I am.

She motioned for me to unlock the door with my keycard, and -- to my surprise -- it worked. She smiled, ushered me inside, and left. (Why? Receptionists don't have clearance to enter the animal testing wing.)

Once I stepped inside, it was like the clock had been turned back ten or so years. Same white walls and tiled ceiling, same clean tile floor... same banks of cages along the walls.

I only got a few seconds to reminisce, though, before someone took my elbow and escorted me firmly through the wing.

Yes, to the security substation.

No, not so they could fire me.

I stepped into the small office, where it was clearly present day, from the sleek new laptop sitting on the desk to the monitors hanging on the wall.

The guard unlocked the unassuming door at the back of the office and walked me through.

Would it surprise you to know there was a room back there?

OK, so strictly speaking it wasn't a "room". It was the staff lounge. But it hardly saw any real use anymore -- personnel working in the animal testing wing often preferred to take their breaks either outside or in a different wing of the building, no matter how far they had to walk.

Waiting in the lounge were four other people, all looking at me expectantly.

One of them rose to his feet immediately and went to shake my hand. Michael Duncan, I remembered his name was. The last time I'd seen him, he'd been a tech working in this wing.

Man, how times had changed since the last time I'd been down there.

I shook his hand.

"Take a seat, please," he said.

I did, at one of the chairs around the table.

"We have," he began, "a special assignment for you."

That sounded ominous.

"I'm sure you heard about Itex's merger with Cogilium, and I know you know what that means for the world."

I nodded. "Yes sir."

Since when had the School split from Itex?

I definitely hadn't been consulted on that one, but I heartily applauded the decision. We'd only had to associate with regional representatives, but it still made me uneasy as hell to have my sister holding power over me.

"So," he said brightly, "we've gathered a team of the School's best and brightest..."

They didn't look it. One of them was the typical weedy nerd, one a short woman with a deliberately sweet look on her face, and one a tall, dark scowler who looked like he'd be better placed in some avant-garde art film, not here.

"... and they're going to help you prevent the merger."

For a moment I struggled with the urge to swear a blue streak. Apparently my protection against telepathy was wearing off.

That or there was a camera in my apartment.

Just for peace of mind, I was going with "camera".

"By any means possible."

Was he deliberately trying to make me jump at the opportunity?

"All right," he said. "I leave the rest in your capable hands."

With that, he left, and oddly, the security guard stayed.

As soon as he was out the door, the woman got up from her position slumped in an armchair.

She was tiny. Not more than five foot four -- even in heels, I would guess.

"Introduction time, guys," she said, and got herself a cup of coffee from the machine.

Ah. I'd figured her for a caffeine fiend.

The weedy nerd one spoke up first; he was sprawled on the old couch in the corner, and he took up the whole thing. Six foot, I would guess.

"Donovan Michaels," he said. "Lab tech."

The tall dark one went next, looking fashionably sullen. "Jonathan Leigh. Spelled l-e-i-g-h. Microbiologist and ladies."

The woman introduced herself next. "Isabelle Smalls. Izzy to you. Geneticist."

The security guard, of all people, spoke up. "Crane Johnson. Security."

"OK," I said. "Roll call's nice and all, but... honestly, why you guys?"

Izzy snorted. "We're expendable." She indicated the four of them with her hand. "The three of us are crazy, Crane's big and dumb, and you are a fallen angel. They need the work done, but to be frank? They don't want to lose anyone valuable in the line of fire."

"Ouch," said Jonathan. "Now that's just a bit cruel, Isabelle. All of us are heavily medicated," he added, looking directly at me.

"But they still don't want us working with anything too dangerous," said the tall one -- damn, I'd forgotten his name already. "I mean, just pointing it out."

"We may be heavily medicated," Izzy cut in, "but that doesn't mean we aren't smart."

"Except Crane," the tall one said.

The man he was talking about crossed his arms. "Hey, just because I don't have a doctorate," he said softly, "doesn't mean I'm not smart."

"We know that, Crane," said Izzy. "Don's just kind of in a funk today."

Ah. Don. That was his name. I'd probably have to make flash cards.

"So, bossman," said Jonathan, who was artistically draped over an armchair like a giant, human cat. "Do you have a plan yet, or are we just winging it?"

"I've never been much for plans," I began.

He grinned. "Excellent. I like the part where we plan on the fly."

"I like having a plan," I shot back.

"OK," he said. "Hit me."

"We're supposed to prevent the merger," I said, thinking on my feet for the first time in way too long.

"The question is how," Jonathan interrupted.

"I know," I snapped.

"We chase them down and persuade them not to," Don pointed out, quite reasonably, I thought.

"How are we going to find them?" Jonathan said. "If we don't know where they are, we can't persuade them."

"We track them," said Crane, who had, as I'm sure you've noticed, been mostly silent throughout the conversation.

"How?" Jonathan asked.

"Don's catgulls."

"OK. But how do the catgulls find them?"

"Catgulls?" I asked.

"I'll have to introduce you," Don said, grinning.

"Back on track, guys," Izzy said, interrupting.

"We are on track," snapped Jonathan. "What are you, my mother?"

"Um, I have a plan," said Don shyly.

"Let's hear it, kid," said Izzy.

"Maximum's flock always gets tracked down by Erasers, no matter what," he said, "and they're attracted to wherever they can make the most trouble."

"So we steal company property, sic it on more company property, and assume we're finding what we're after?" Jonathan asked. "I like it. Just crazy enough to fail completely."

"He has a point," I said, and they all turned to look at me. "It'll work." I turned to Crane and continued, "Are there any squads of Erasers slated for termination?"

"Yeah," he said.

"All right," I said. "We'll take them, then."

Jonathan stared at me, and then started laughing. "You, my friend," he said, "are a genius."

"So does this mean we get to borrow a van?" Don piped up.

"Two, actually," I said. "One for us, one for the Erasers."

"We have to bring the catgulls," he said.

"Give me one good reason," said Jonathan impatiently, checking his watch.

"Even the Erasers with wings are no good at tracking in the air," he said. "Catgulls may not have long-distance range, but they're good at what they do. And I've been meaning to field-test them like this."

"Good with me," said Jonathan. "You cool with it, bossman?" he asked me.

"Yeah," I said.

"So when do we leave?" asked Don.

"Can we be on the road by two?" I asked.

"Yeah, no problem," said Crane. "I'll go give the Erasers their orders."

"And I'll go get the catgulls ready to go," added Don.

The two of them hurried out of the room together. It was kind of a funny contrast -- Crane was the big one, Don the skinny one.

"So I guess it's packing time," said Izzy, leaning on the armchair she'd been occupying when I first entered not that long ago. When she wasn't pacing or mediating a conversation, I noticed, she seemed oddly small.

It was deeply, deeply weird.

"Yeah," I said.

"I'll loan you some clothes," said Jonathan, extracting himself from the armchair. "You look like you're about my size. And I know you don't have time to drive back to your apartment, pack, and get back here."

I blinked. "Are you a mind reader?"

Yeah. Only at the School is such a question deathly serious.

He shrugged. "I used to think so, but now I'm not really sure."

There was an awkward silence for a moment before Izzy spoke up.

"All right. I'm going to go pack. Y'all can work that out between yourselves."

Jonathan was out of the room like a shot, and it was up to me to catch up to him.

Luckily, I run fast.