The next two hours or so traveled more slowly than I would have preferred. Being around the company of second-rate people often annoyed me, along with enclosed areas. I had never been claustrophobic, but I hated being trapped by a bunch of perspiring, panting, putrid pigs.

Kyle finished typing about fifteen minutes before we arrived at the docking place in Michigan. He shut his keyboard with a satisfied click and sighed to himself, examining a nail that had been torn on his right hand. "What are you doing in Michigan?" he asked, not looking at me.

"Girlfriend," I lied, no longer even bothering to hesitate; lying to him was all part of the play I acted in. "Her name's Cynthia."

He nodded slowly to himself. "You going to the football game tonight?"

"Probably not. Why should I?"

"Two rival hick teams get together. Makes the front page of every damned newspaper in the shit-hole county."

"So, this is where you lived before you left your wife and…Jack?"

"Yeah. Pathetic-isn't it?" he grinned wryly with a psychotic gleam in his eyes.

"Suppose so," I muttered. I was getting nowhere fast. I had to keep asking him more questions. I had to get him to work with me more. I had to own him. "And you went to work where after that?"

"Genetics facility in Wyoming."

"Genetics?"

"Actually," Kyle responded, lowering his voice slightly, "it was a military facility that were creating these hyped up kids. I worked in the lab, promoting the older ones' strength."

"Really."

"Of course. But it's not like anybody could even say anything. Directors would have their heads sliced for even mentioning the name of the place-which, since I do value my top, I'm not going to say anything either-because the media would have a field day with it. Think about it: Secret government building tucked away in the forests of Wyoming with bases around the country, creating powerful little monsters. Not exactly something everybody would want to see on the front page of their morning newspaper."

I paused, glancing away from him. No matter how desperately I wanted to ask him about joining me on my quest for the Blue Lady, I couldn't. He was old and frail, despite his mental strength. No, I urged myself, you need to get more on his good side that's all; he'll still be strong in the hunt. Ask him about his kids. Every parent likes talking about their kids. Daddy 'Deck sure did.

"What's your son's name?" I asked blandly, hoping he would get the point I was just making small talk because, otherwise, he would start asking too many questions that I wouldn't answer.

"I told you that already: Jack."

"The other one."

"The one that is alone now?"

"That'd be the one." Geez, how stupid was he? He must have assumed that I had forgotten the conversation we had already shared. Like I could forget anything that was fed into my devilish brain.

Kyle cleared his throat, pausing purposefully. He glanced out the window, watching the rusting cars roll by us. For a moment, I didn't think he would answer, but finally, he said, almost in a whisper, "It's Zack."

I froze, praying he hadn't seen my finger dance over the trigger of one of the semi-automatics as the pieces fell into place with a frightening speed, causing my mind to buzz with excitement to due to the fact that I had figured everything out so rapidly.

Kyle had worked at Manticore.

Kyle looked extremely similar to Zack.

Kyle was Zack's dad.

God, I was good.

I'd considered telling Kyle that I knew his son, thinking about how bizarre that conversation would make out to be. Still, Zack would probably kill the son of a bitch and that would be that. And, as Kyle had clearly pointed out earlier in the trip, Zack's story was not mine, for Zack would be kept separate from me, keeping Kyle's certain death far away from my own blood.

"Oh really," I mused, thanking the Blue Lady that, as a child, I hadn't been permitted to work with Kyle in the lab for torture resistant techniques. The older X5 males had-Zack, Zane, and Jack-but at that time they were known only by their barcodes. I had already pieced together the memories of Kyle coming down the hallway while my unit had marched like a bunch of proud buffoons past him. Then again, some of my unit still were a bunch of buffoons.

"How old is Zack?" I finally asked, playing a stupid-but sinless-idiot.

"Twenty-one, twenty-three," Kyle shrugged. "I don't know. It's not like a send a birthday present to the ungrateful jerk." Ungrateful jerk, I smiled to myself. Kyle, old boy, you've hit it right on the head. While dear old Zacky would never know what would happen to him until it was too late.

Slowly, the bus crept into a dying parking lot where weeds grew high and buildings fell into puddles of bricks and dust. I spotted a couple humans meandering about, but not too many. A desolate railroad track, choked with dried and tangled plants, was the only way out of the city. Obviously, many years ago, this place had been rich and prosperous with the main train station coming in and out of town. Then again, many years ago, the entire United States was equally rich and prosperous.

The people on the bus, seeing that we had arrived at our destination, rose slowly to their feet, stretching and grumbling, not at all anxious to start another wretched day. Kyle, though, made no move to get off the vehicle, knowing that it wasn't going to do any good to push and shove his way through. So, I sat with him, trying to force myself into asking him to join me. Despite the fact, he was a mere mortal weakling, I was beginning to like him, which worried me; I shouldn't have liked anybody.

"So," I began, clearing my throat as the people trudged by in aisle, "where exactly is this football game at?"

"King Street." He rose his arm and pointed off to my right. "About eight to ten miles that way. You won't miss it. Every person in the county will be there. Game starts at seven thirty tonight. You comin'?"

"I'm thinking about it."

Kyle nodded, as if that was the answer he had been expecting. "I'll look for you then."

"What's Jack's jersey number?" I asked.

"Seventeen. I read it in the paper since he won't tell me himself."

Finally, the remainder of the people had cleared out, leaving the bus alone to just Kyle and myself. Rising to my feet as Kyle did the same, he offered me his hand. Cautiously, I accepted the clammy flesh and shook it, pretending to a true gentleman.

"It was good talking to you, Alec. I'll see you at the game?"

I nodded, letting Kyle exit the bus before me because something had caught my eye. "Yup," I grunted.

He didn't respond, but I wasn't offended in the least. It wasn't like I wanted to carry on a lifelong conversation with him. Besides, looking at him would only make me feel guilty that I hadn't asked him to join the Blue Lady and me. Still, I pushed those thoughts away and made my way over to a seat where I had noticed the bundle lying on the cracked vinyl seats.

Crouching down, I saw that, in the seat, there laid a blanket, thin and wispy, wrapped haphazardly around something as if the person had been in a hurry to dispose of the object. Yet, when I picked the pile up, there was a definite weight inside that didn't come from the flannel sheet alone. So, with a curious mind, I peeled back the layers until my fingers touched cold flesh, and I recoiled in horror, nearly dropping the mass.

The cocaine baby.

It was dead at that point, abandoned by its own mother to try to find its way to a child's heaven. The skin was tinged blue while its little body felt strangely like rubber. Gently, I picked up the baby and stared at it, perplexed and confused then, for my instinct to run away in abhorrence had left me with just questions.

I had never held such a being as this. Never felt so warm and cold inside all at once. Something inside of me, a prenatal instinct, however, told me to take the child before hungry predators-both people and animals-destroyed it. Wrapping the cheap blanket tighter around the little frame, I exited the bus, cradling the child in one powerful arm.

I wasn't a big promoter on giving my love away. For starters, I didn't believe that love existed-except in the delusional minds of people that had nothing else to grasp to. Yet, carrying that dead baby, I think I came as close as I ever had to feeling love. Ironically, affection for something that was so like me with similar cold heart, but so different because it had gone to Heaven, while I only had the Blue Lady to beg to save me from the pits of Hell.