After Destiny Read online

  Ed only managed to make it a few steps before she heard Mac following her again. Mercifully, he stayed a few paces behind her and said nothing, though she knew he was seething. As good as he’d proven to be over the years at his job, lately he was itching for a fight. There weren’t as many raids on Janus anymore to keep him occupied and he was going stir crazy with no reason to shoot someone.

  As they wound through the complex, Ed trying to encounter something that would tie Mac up long enough that he would be out of her way for the rest of the day, they managed only to encounter peaceful confrontations and people cooperating and getting along. There wasn’t even a loud disagreement to throw him at. Any other day, she would be happy about it, but today she needed something before he opened his damn mouth again. She might try to deck him and that would be embarrassing for everyone.

  Mac reached out and grabbed a young woman walking past them by the arm who was carefully avoiding eye contact. Her dark hair was up in braids today and she wore a long, pastel patterned maxi dress that was very unbefitting of her day job.

  “Grace!” he snapped at her. “Why the hell didn’t you report a new entrant to the complex? You found her, didn’t you?”

  Kitty yanked her arm out of his grip. “One, off duty. Unless there’s something outside, it’s not my problem until tomorrow. Two, check your messages.”

  Mac looked at her for a long moment before reaching into his pocket for his phone. His thumb swiped across the screen and he frowned at it.

  “Yeah, guess who did her job. But you were off duty. Like I am right now. Can I go?”

  “Whenever you want,” Ed said, glaring at Mac to leave her alone. She returned her attention to Kitty once he got the idea and looked around her. “No Clyde today?”

  “Nah, he’s on duty and hanging out with Dave tonight. They haven’t really gotten much time alone together, so I’m taking a me day.”

  “If you can cut the girl talk, we have an actual issue on hand.”

  “You want to interrogate Snow White, don’t you?” Kitty asked. “Look, we found her naked on a mountain. There is literally nothing on her. No hint of radiation when we checked. The weirdest thing about her is the fact that we found her on a mountain that vanished as soon as we got off of it and I’m waiting for her to wake up so I can ask her what the fuck happened.”

  “Well, she woke up,” Ed said. “But she’s kind of gone missing.”

  “Like lost a corpse missing or…”

  “She’s AWOL.”

  “Well,” Kitty said, clapping Mac on the arm and grinning, “tough shit for you. Try looking for a guy on a white horse. She’s probably with him. Oh, and here comes trouble to make shit worse.”

  Mac and Ed followed her finger down the hall to a small, light haired six year old. They all recognized Miranda’s son, Brady, as he ran down the hall towards them, no cheeky smile on his face to barely contain his latest mischief today. Instead, there was concern there. “Ms Ed!” he yelled as he got closer. “Ms. Ed, there’s a lady outside!”

  “Not now, kid,” Mac snapped at him.

  Brady stopped well out of Mac’s arm’s reach, but kept his eyes on Ed as he spoke, only a little winded. “Ms. Ed, I’m not lying. There’s a lady outside in the haze. She’s just standing out there.”

  “Beat it,” Mac said, squaring his shoulders to Brady and glaring down at him. Ed put herself in the way, though Mac didn’t move. “This isn’t playtime.”

  “Please Ms. Ed! You know you can’t leave people outside for too long!”

  “I got it,” Kitty said, moving past both of them to Brady. She put her hand on his back and steered him back down the hall. “Come on; show me where you saw her. If there’s someone out there, I’m going to be the one to bring her in again anyway.”

  “She’s naked too, so you gotta bring her some clothes.” Brady told her, walking off with Kitty

  “We gotta get her inside before we do that, kid.”

  Ed turned back to Mac, meeting his eyes and not deviating from them. “You need to calm the hell down,” she told him evenly. “And I don’t care where you do it, but it’s nowhere near that woman. Take the rest of the day off if you have to, just get your shit together enough to stop thinking a formerly comatose woman is the precursor for a large scale invasion, do you understand me?”

  “You aren’t taking this seriously enough, Ed. We don’t know where she comes from and medically she’s an anomaly. Who’s to say she isn’t much more dangerous? We used to question every single person who walked into Janus for a reason.”

  Ed nodded, disappointed. “Iris.”

  A soft tone sounded around them as Iris, the Janus Complex’s monitoring system, came to life. Ed was given control over it when she was put in charge and she was still learning the various ways she could be used. Ed didn’t rely on her, but there were times when Iris was very useful.

  “Revoke Taylor Mackenzie access to Sections B, H and K for the next 48 hours.”

  A pleasant tone sounded. “Access revoked,” a female voice said.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “Go home, Mac,” Ed said, turning away and continuing down the hall more quickly than before. “Think of it like a long weekend.”

  Mac stood for a moment, stunned, before he started to follow her once more. Ed went through the next set of sliding doors into Section H and they shut behind her. A moment later, she heard Mac softly banging on the doors behind her, but none of the obscenities he surely shouted.

  It was already quieter and Ed let out a breath. “Iris?” she said again, not waiting for the tone. “Announcement all sections. Attention, please. We have a missing new arrival from the Medical Wing. If you see a strange woman, please report her to the Medical Wing. End announcement.”

  A few moments later, Ed’s words echoed throughout the speaker system in the complex. With any luck, someone would manage to find her before she wandered into something dangerous. At some point, she would have to go check on the locks in the Medical Wing, but for now, there was plenty of other work to do while she waited for some news on the missing woman.

  Really, she just needed to get back to work. Besides the fact that things needed to be done, Mac left her stressed and her heart racing. Revoking his access to several parts of the base was the right decision, but she was not ready to think about the consequences of it yet. Getting her hands on something she could actually fix would do her some good.

  Her pocket buzzed. She picked up her phone and saw the message from Kitty already on the screen.

  We found her. She’s outside. I’m suiting up and bringing her back now. H23. Can you tell mac?

  “Not a chance in hell,” Ed muttered at the phone, already diverting her route through the halls. Section H. At least Mac wouldn’t be able to catch up with her there.

  ***

  Section H consisted of a very long stretch of observation rooms. When it was still a research facility before the fallout, it was filled with plants and operated as a large sequence of greenhouses. When they converted it into a military base, they kept the windows, replacing them with materials that would protect them from radiation leaks, and turned it into alternating large recreation areas and small departure zones.

  Ed went to H23, a departure zone at the very end of Section H. Very few came out this way, both because it was too far away and because there was nothing in H22 or H24 but large windows to look out into the haze. The only people who came out this far were people looking for a little privacy and children who were looking for trouble.

  Brady was still there, looking out across the haze as the klaxon to warn anyone near that the door into the haze was open was silent. Ed went behind him, looking out herself and not seeing anything but sand and the ruins of Regina in the distance.

  “I told you there was someone out there,” Brady muttered, keeping his eyes out on the horizon.

  “I know,” Ed told him. “Where are they?”

  “Shower, I think.
I don’t think she needs it, though.”

  Ed didn’t have time to correct him before the door to their left opened. Kitty exited, her hair now wet behind her and pulled up into a messy bun. She pulled at the top of her dress and nodded a greeting to Ed as she waved the woman behind her forward. “Come on,” she said gently. “Let’s get you — No, don’t do that.”

  “It is uncomfortable,” the other woman said, following Kitty out the door. Her words sounded like she was still getting used to them, like she hadn’t spoken the language before. Her dark, almond shaped eyes looked around and her face showed no sign of embarrassment at the fact that she wore nothing to cover herself.

  “Yeah, but we generally wear clothes around here,” Kitty said, though she made no move to stop her or cover her up. She cast a look at Brady, who was very carefully making sure he didn’t turn away from the window where he could see everything reflected. “It’s pretty customary.”

  “If it is custom,” she agreed. Her gaze passed over each of them, Ed feeling a chill as the woman’s eyes fell on her. She eventually settled on Kitty and the air around her shimmered. Ed blinked and when she opened her eyes, their newest arrival wore a dress much like Kitty’s, loose and extending down to the ground, but in the darkest black she had ever seen, dotted with several tiny white spots that seemed to move without her.

  “Okay then,” Ed said after a very long moment of silence. Her mind raced through all the ways she could have managed to do that, from holograms to some elaborate sleight of hand, but for the moment it didn’t matter. There would be plenty of time to ask later. “Welcome to the Janus Complex. My name is Ed Lintel. What’s yours?”

  A puzzled expression crossed her face as she paused for a moment before speaking. “I was called Snow White earlier. Will that suffice?”

  “Do you have another one?”

  “Though there have been many things people have called me, I have never received my own name,” she said. “If Snow White will not suffice, I will accept another.”

  “Snow White’s fine,” Ed told her. She was going to be interesting. “I’ll show you back to your room in just a moment and we’ll talk on the way. But first, Kitty?”

  “Oh god, what did who do?” Kitty asked, going to Ed’s side.

  “I’m sorry, but I need you to take over for Mac for the next couple days.”

  “Oh. Well, I think I saw that coming.”

  “Starting immediately.”

  “I’ll go suit up,” Kitty said. “Come on, kid. I’ll drop you off in class on the way.”

  Brady started to protest, but fell in step beside Kitty anyway and let her lead him away.

  Ed let them go, turning back to their new arrival. Snow White. She did look a bit like the movie princess, but her expression stayed entirely neutral. She stood at ease, and let her gaze wander from wall to wall, not intrigued by anything around her, but not completely disinterested either.

  “So, Snow,” Ed said, gesturing for Snow to follow her as she made her way back to the Medical Wing. “How did you get out there again?”

  “I walked,” she said.

  “So the doors were open?” If that were the case, she was going to have a problem on her hands and a lot of work ahead of her.

  “I encountered no doors.”

  Ed looked at her for a very long moment as they walked. There was no sign of jest on Snow’s face or in her voice, but she had to be kidding. “Do you know what a door is?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you didn’t encounter any from the time you left your room to the time you got outside?”

  “No.”

  “You’re aware that the only exit to that medical room you were in was a door, right?”

  Snow paused. “Yes.”

  “Then how did you get outside without encountering any doors?”

  “I walked.”

  Mac couldn’t interview her. Everything that came out of her mouth would sound like a threat and all the more reason for him to start pulling together a militia to deal with an army that would never come. Snow didn’t even seem to be aware of what she was saying, possibly still struggling with the language or her brain had fried from being out in the haze unprotected and without her shots.

  “I’ve been told they found you sleeping on a mountain,” Ed said as they drew closer to the Medical Wing. “It’s disappeared.”

  “Yes.” She sounded pleased.

  “Do you know anything about that mountain?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you tell me anything about that mountain?”

  “Yes.”

  Ed was glad to round the corner and see the Medical Wing at the end of the hall. As amused as she was, she started to get frustrated again.

  “Why is the mountain gone?”

  “Because I am not there to stop it,” she said.

  “Was there anyone else on the mountain with you?”

  “Yes.”

  The doors to the Medical Wing parted open for them and Ed had never been happier to let the sterile stench of a hospital wash over her. She would be back tomorrow to talk to her again, but for now she needed her distance from anyone with speech capabilities for a good long while. Somewhere, there were pipes in the ceiling with her name on them that she could disappear into for the rest of the day.

  At the front desk, Miranda flipped through a tablet, making gestures on it that looked less like looking through reports and more like she attempted to defeat an old high score on a match three puzzle game. She looked up at the pair of them and put the tablet down, careful to turn off the screen.

  “Oh good, you found her,” Miranda said, rushing around the front desk and waving Snow forward. “Come on, we’ll get you back in your room. A different one with a better lock.”

  Snow paused a moment, turning to Ed. “They will be upset when they cannot find me. They will make no attempt to preserve you when they attempt to retrieve me.”

  She said nothing else as she turned back, falling in step behind Miranda and disappearing into the maze of the Medical Wing. Ed watched her go, almost positive that she was underestimating their new arrival, though she wasn’t sure what that meant yet.

  Chapter 4

  Ed was already behind on work. She spent too much of yesterday running around and dealing with the new arrival that she didn’t get a chance to do anything on her own list. While the rest of her team was good about making repairs in her stead, there were still so many left in the queue that required her touch.

  This led her into the ceiling. They already had to move the kids out of the daycare because of the noise in the vents and the smell of something burning, relocating them to the other school facilities on the third floor while they shut this area off entirely.

  Mask covering her face and hair firmly tied back, Ed found the junction where the problem was. It looked like the filter was clogged and the excess dirt caused the burning smell as it tried even harder to pump the air through. She removed the filter and dropped it through the hole below her before she started going through to see how much of the wiring needed to be replaced.

  “Ed? You in here?”

  Balanced on pipes and dealing with soldering new wires onto the panel, Ed made no attempt to respond right away. She brought up the schematics for the wiring on her phone and placed that in front of her, pulling out a length of wire and cutting it to size before working on removing the one that had already started to melt through the plastic insulation.

  “I’m not giving your access back, Mac,” she told him once she got the wire free. No use hiding. She would have to come down eventually and she knew well enough that Mac wasn’t going to leave. With any luck, he’d say whatever he felt he needed to and be out of here to let her work in peace.

  “Not asking for it,” Mac told her. She could tell he was sore about it, but let the matter drop. “I just wanted to ask about this Snow White. Apparently you got a chance to talk with her yesterday.”

  “Brain damage,” Ed told him shortly
.

  “Awfully far for someone with brain damage to wander on her own.”

  “Yep,” Ed said, trying to keep her tone conversational as she focused on the wiring. She silently cursed Kitty. Of course Kitty would tell Mac, if only to keep him off her back.

  “You should probably at least find out how she managed to get out there,” Mac said. The ladder creaked under the hole and Ed could see Mac creeping his way onto it. “If there’s some door somewhere that you can just walk out of or a leak to the outside somewhere, we need to know about it.”

  “You aren’t interviewing her either.”

  “Did I ask to interview her?” He popped his head into the hole in the ceiling. “I’m just saying-”

  “I’m not stupid, Mac.” She didn’t look up and dropped another piece of wire down the hole. Mac shifted out of the way and let it fall. “You don’t get to harass some poor girl whose brain is completely fried.”

  “And who can conjure clothing out of thin air, apparently.”

  Ed needed to have a long talk with Kitty about when she should keep things from her boss.

  “I suppose magically appearing clothing is a security threat,” Ed said flatly. Another wire replaced. “You’re still seeing threats where there aren’t any, Mac. She’s not a threat. She’s just lost. And brain damaged.”

  “So it’s fine if I talk to her,” Mac said. “If there’s nothing to be worried about, it should be no problem. You can even be there if you’re so worried about it.”

  “You can get Grace to interview her,” Ed conceded. She didn’t have time to keep dealing with this. “You can stay on the other side of the glass and watch it happen and not interfere at all.”

  “Grace can be in the room when I talk to her. I’m much better at conducting these interviews. I know what to ask and how to get people to tell me the truth.”

  “You put a man in the hospital, and then proceeded to interview him so thoroughly that Grace had to keep you from making his stay any longer. Or did you forget why you were banned from the Medical Wing?”