Lydecker woke with the sun in his eyes. His first thought was "I guess I'm not going running today either." The clock told him he had just enough time to get clean, shaved, and dressed before Dawn got back. Moving around confirmed his decision not to go running, but didn't make him any happier about it.
Adding to his dark mood was the fashion sense of Dawn's brother or boyfriend or whatever. The guy had left a box of miscellaneous clothing behind, and it was more or less Lydecker's size. A rainbow tye-dye T-shirt was on top of the pile. "Beggars can't be choosers," he reminded himself, but moved it to the bottom anyway. The next shirt down had a picture of a zombie in a fast-food uniform, holding a Thompson submachine gun, and a wheel of cheese with lots of holes in it. Very strange, but it was black. That and a pair of black fatigue pants met minimum standards for not upsetting his host.
*******
"Discussion implies two ways, Dek." Dawn, in ragged jeans and a T-shirt with pictures of power tools, sat cross-legged on the floor. She pulled a file folder out of the several dozen spread out around her.
"Why should I give you any answers?" he snapped. The Morris chair certainly qualified as sturdy, and even comfortable, but not dignified. Dawn had insisted, and now Lydecker was feeling old.
"I found out what you were up to last night." Dawn handed over a newspaper clipping headed "Security guard dies in burglary attempt."
Lydecker adjusted the glasses on his nose and frowned.
"It's the right distance away to account for the extra miles you put on my truck. You had plenty of time to drive, vandalize the central hub for camera switching, snoop around, get caught, fight with the poor guy, and drive back," she explained. "And, they were on my list of interesting places."
"Assuming that was me, why am I interested?" He handed back the clipping, and folded the glasses.
"Same reason I am, I think," said Dawn. "Place looked abandoned, but still had power, water, data-quality phone service, and armed security."
"Let's try a different topic," offered Lydecker. "Why are you interested in me?"
"I'll start at the beginning. I'm interested in holes. Things that should be there, but aren't." Dawn kicked aside several of the battered folders and stretched her legs. "Information falls into holes, money falls into holes, and so do people. People are especially significant, because it's really hard to make them disappear."
"Live ones, you mean."
"Yes. Anyway, I have a couple of photographs from a Swiss genetics conference in '02. I was really interested, because six of the nine people in the photo were effectively missing at the time."
Lydecker examined the photos. The first showed three women, seated at the center of the group, with four men in dark, formal suits standing in a row behind them, all symmetrically arranged around a fair-haired toddler, and blonde baby in a dress. He recognized himself at 35, on the far left of the photo. "I had no idea what a mess that project was going to be," he whispered.
The next was a close-up of the toddler, who looked up at the camera with an intense frown.
The last picture showed the baby crawling on the grass, face in profile. Lydecker realized that a strip of bar code was visible on the back of the baby's neck.
"After a bit of investigation, I found out who all seven of the adults were. All of them except for you have Ph. Ds or Mds. All of them were frequently published up to 1998, at which point they cease to submit anything to any of the journals in the field. Professionally speaking, they disappeared. So what were they doing at a conference?
"I never could figure out who the two kids were. They must be in their late teens or early twenties by now. At one point I thought that two blond children must be yours, but that was easily disproved." Lydecker smirked, but didn't interrupt. He picked up a pen from the mess on the floor.
"Anyway, as of three weeks ago, six of the adults were dead, and you seemed to be missing. I thought that was really strange, because you were the one member of the group that never actually disappeared.
"So, when you turned up, I didn't want to risk loosing my chance at getting my questions answered. Between the police bulletin and the fact that you were about to join the rest of your friends . . . "
"That was a big risk, Dawn. What if the police were right?" He looked up from the piece of paper he was scribbling on.
"Dek, you were half-drowned and bloody! What was I supposed to do? Leave you?"
"And you figured you could always change your mind later."
"That's not fair!"
"No, I suppose not. What do you want to know?"
"Well, I want to start with Dr. Adrienne Vertes," said Dawn, riffling through a thick and battered folder. "She re-appeared in '10, in Central America, then came to Seattle for a couple of months. Her clinic was burglarized, and she was killed, at more or less the same time. The odd thing about that is none of the stories about the burglary mention the body, and there aren't any records -- newspaper or otherwise -- about a murder. You'd think there would be something, some kind of investigation."
"That would depend on who shot her."
Dawn reminded herself to keep a poker-face. She glanced at the photocopy of the autopsy report ". . . fragments of 9 mm jacketed hollow point bullet recovered from. . . "
"Anyway, it's probably just an oversight," she continued brightly. "I really want to hear about the kids."
"What about the kids?"
"Who are they?"
"Well, this one went by Eva," answered Lydecker, handing over the photo of the baby. Dawn realized that he had completed the bar code, in pen.
"Where is she now?"
"In 2009, a number of X-5 children escaped." He closed his eyes, and pressed fingers against the back of his neck. "Project personnel killed several of them, including Eva. There are probably little bits of her in labs all over the country, but I don't really know."
"And the boy?"
"He was also part of the '09 escape, but he was alive as of last night."
"Your friend is at BM Corporation?" asked Dawn with surprise.
"Not by choice. I couldn't figure out how to help him out."
"I want to talk to him."
"This is a really bad idea."
*******
Dawn swung the beam of her flashlight around the empty room. Clean, white, and empty, except for a few loops of wire and ribbon cable hanging from holes in the wall. Water dripped from a couple of hurriedly capped lengths of copper pipe.
"I thought you said this was the place."
"It is," insisted Lydecker, carefully examining the ceiling. The bright white circle from his flashlight scanned back and forth.
"Ah, here it is." He used the cane to lift one of the tiles out of the metal grid, and let the tile fall to the floor. Dawn jumped at the noise, then came over to look.
"Bullet hole," he said, poking a pencil into the hole and out the top of the tile at an angle. "Armed security."
Adding to his dark mood was the fashion sense of Dawn's brother or boyfriend or whatever. The guy had left a box of miscellaneous clothing behind, and it was more or less Lydecker's size. A rainbow tye-dye T-shirt was on top of the pile. "Beggars can't be choosers," he reminded himself, but moved it to the bottom anyway. The next shirt down had a picture of a zombie in a fast-food uniform, holding a Thompson submachine gun, and a wheel of cheese with lots of holes in it. Very strange, but it was black. That and a pair of black fatigue pants met minimum standards for not upsetting his host.
*******
"Discussion implies two ways, Dek." Dawn, in ragged jeans and a T-shirt with pictures of power tools, sat cross-legged on the floor. She pulled a file folder out of the several dozen spread out around her.
"Why should I give you any answers?" he snapped. The Morris chair certainly qualified as sturdy, and even comfortable, but not dignified. Dawn had insisted, and now Lydecker was feeling old.
"I found out what you were up to last night." Dawn handed over a newspaper clipping headed "Security guard dies in burglary attempt."
Lydecker adjusted the glasses on his nose and frowned.
"It's the right distance away to account for the extra miles you put on my truck. You had plenty of time to drive, vandalize the central hub for camera switching, snoop around, get caught, fight with the poor guy, and drive back," she explained. "And, they were on my list of interesting places."
"Assuming that was me, why am I interested?" He handed back the clipping, and folded the glasses.
"Same reason I am, I think," said Dawn. "Place looked abandoned, but still had power, water, data-quality phone service, and armed security."
"Let's try a different topic," offered Lydecker. "Why are you interested in me?"
"I'll start at the beginning. I'm interested in holes. Things that should be there, but aren't." Dawn kicked aside several of the battered folders and stretched her legs. "Information falls into holes, money falls into holes, and so do people. People are especially significant, because it's really hard to make them disappear."
"Live ones, you mean."
"Yes. Anyway, I have a couple of photographs from a Swiss genetics conference in '02. I was really interested, because six of the nine people in the photo were effectively missing at the time."
Lydecker examined the photos. The first showed three women, seated at the center of the group, with four men in dark, formal suits standing in a row behind them, all symmetrically arranged around a fair-haired toddler, and blonde baby in a dress. He recognized himself at 35, on the far left of the photo. "I had no idea what a mess that project was going to be," he whispered.
The next was a close-up of the toddler, who looked up at the camera with an intense frown.
The last picture showed the baby crawling on the grass, face in profile. Lydecker realized that a strip of bar code was visible on the back of the baby's neck.
"After a bit of investigation, I found out who all seven of the adults were. All of them except for you have Ph. Ds or Mds. All of them were frequently published up to 1998, at which point they cease to submit anything to any of the journals in the field. Professionally speaking, they disappeared. So what were they doing at a conference?
"I never could figure out who the two kids were. They must be in their late teens or early twenties by now. At one point I thought that two blond children must be yours, but that was easily disproved." Lydecker smirked, but didn't interrupt. He picked up a pen from the mess on the floor.
"Anyway, as of three weeks ago, six of the adults were dead, and you seemed to be missing. I thought that was really strange, because you were the one member of the group that never actually disappeared.
"So, when you turned up, I didn't want to risk loosing my chance at getting my questions answered. Between the police bulletin and the fact that you were about to join the rest of your friends . . . "
"That was a big risk, Dawn. What if the police were right?" He looked up from the piece of paper he was scribbling on.
"Dek, you were half-drowned and bloody! What was I supposed to do? Leave you?"
"And you figured you could always change your mind later."
"That's not fair!"
"No, I suppose not. What do you want to know?"
"Well, I want to start with Dr. Adrienne Vertes," said Dawn, riffling through a thick and battered folder. "She re-appeared in '10, in Central America, then came to Seattle for a couple of months. Her clinic was burglarized, and she was killed, at more or less the same time. The odd thing about that is none of the stories about the burglary mention the body, and there aren't any records -- newspaper or otherwise -- about a murder. You'd think there would be something, some kind of investigation."
"That would depend on who shot her."
Dawn reminded herself to keep a poker-face. She glanced at the photocopy of the autopsy report ". . . fragments of 9 mm jacketed hollow point bullet recovered from. . . "
"Anyway, it's probably just an oversight," she continued brightly. "I really want to hear about the kids."
"What about the kids?"
"Who are they?"
"Well, this one went by Eva," answered Lydecker, handing over the photo of the baby. Dawn realized that he had completed the bar code, in pen.
"Where is she now?"
"In 2009, a number of X-5 children escaped." He closed his eyes, and pressed fingers against the back of his neck. "Project personnel killed several of them, including Eva. There are probably little bits of her in labs all over the country, but I don't really know."
"And the boy?"
"He was also part of the '09 escape, but he was alive as of last night."
"Your friend is at BM Corporation?" asked Dawn with surprise.
"Not by choice. I couldn't figure out how to help him out."
"I want to talk to him."
"This is a really bad idea."
*******
Dawn swung the beam of her flashlight around the empty room. Clean, white, and empty, except for a few loops of wire and ribbon cable hanging from holes in the wall. Water dripped from a couple of hurriedly capped lengths of copper pipe.
"I thought you said this was the place."
"It is," insisted Lydecker, carefully examining the ceiling. The bright white circle from his flashlight scanned back and forth.
"Ah, here it is." He used the cane to lift one of the tiles out of the metal grid, and let the tile fall to the floor. Dawn jumped at the noise, then came over to look.
"Bullet hole," he said, poking a pencil into the hole and out the top of the tile at an angle. "Armed security."
