iRobotronic Page 16

  “What's going on here?”

  Trent looked up as the nurse walked in. “Uh, I think this man suffered a heart attack.”

  The nurse ran out, calling for a crash cart. He used the opportunity to bolt from the room. Jogging down the hall, Trent checked each room he passed. When he turned a corner, he stopped a nurse and asked about the room with an optical blood imaging device and she stared at him with confusion.

  I should've known.

  Trent figured Seffy had been taken from the hospital. He cursed himself for not being aware enough to stop her kidnapping. At least they hadn't killed her outright, so there was a chance she was still alive. He crashed through the exit door and looked around the parking lot. Cars went back and forth on the street and people strolled the hospital grounds, but there was no sign of a girl in a blue robe.

  Trent saw a couple walking by. “Hey, did you see a woman in a hospital robe come out here?”

  The white-haired woman looked at the man she was with. “We did see a young lady get into a white van with a doctor. In a light blue robe? Did she have short hair?”

  Trent closed his eyes briefly. “Yes. Did you notice which way the van went?”

  “Out of the parking lot,” the man said, shrugging.

  “Okay, thanks.” Trent stood scanning the area for white vans, but of course there were none. They'd be long gone by now. He clenched his fists. How did this happen? What were they going to do to her? How would he ever find her? If she somehow escaped, would she know to go straight to the tanning salon and not try to get the backpacks?

  He looked up at the sky and closed his eyes, not having a clue what to do beyond making himself scarce before the cops showed up.

  ***

  Seffy struggled against suffocating hopelessness and huddled against the side of the van. Her sore jaw where she'd been hit by the doctor was nothing compared to the certainty that Trent was dead. She blinked away useless tears and hoped everything would just be over soon.

  The van lurched to a stop in front of an anonymous warehouse in a derelict neighborhood. The doctor got out and yanked on her arm, pulling her from the van. In addition to her fresh wound, every muscle ached, making her cry out at the rough treatment.

  The broken asphalt beneath her bare feet felt warm and oily. “I need some shoes,” she said, staring at the man who'd refused to answer a single question she'd asked, unless a knuckle sandwich counted as a response.

  “Move.”

  Newspapers piled up against torn chain link fences. Garbage spilled from battered metal trashcans and rusted cars crouched in shadowed corners. She was shoved toward a whitewashed building with peeling paint and a rusty metal roof. With the van driver in front of her and the doctor behind her, she entered a dark room. A strong chemical odor hung in the air. Seffy grimaced at the metallic taste in her mouth.

  They entered a room lit by a bare bulb, illuminating a small space that had a couple of card tables and chairs, some medical equipment and a large microscope. The walls were lined with a half dozen tall men with shotguns and sunglasses.

  She shivered. “Do they come off an assembly line or something?”

  No one answered her.

  Seffy lifted her chin. “They're not as effective as they look. We beat three of them.”

  “Sit down.” The man in the white coat shoved her into the chair next to the table with the microscope.

  Ouch. She scowled at him. “You can lose the coat now, dude. Make-believe time is over.”

  “I am a doctor,” he said through gritted teeth as he put on purple gloves, plastic glasses, and a face mask.

  “Universal protections, huh? Are you afraid you might get infected from my blood?”

  “Can you get her to shut her mouth?”

  The driver came up to Seffy and pressed a handgun to her temple. She glared at him. “Go ahead. Pull the trigger. My blood will go everywhere.”

  Something flickered in his eyes and he glanced at the doctor.

  “We don't want you dead, yet, so sit still and be quiet.”

  “I would really like a pair of shoes. This floor is disgusting. In fact, I want something real to wear. If I'm going to have my body dumped in some greasy back room, I demand to be clothed.”

  The doctor looked at the driver, his face mottled with anger. “Find her something.”

  The driver disappeared through a side door.

  Seffy studied the doctor's eyes behind the plastic glasses. “I'm kinda psyched that they won't be retro clothes.” She leaned toward him, making him jump. “Right?”

  The doctor stared at her while laying out needles, scalpels and other scary looking tools on a tray. A few minutes later, the driver appeared with a gray sweat shirt and pants and a pair of tennis shoes. He tossed them to her.

  “This is all there is.”

  Seffy clumsily caught the clothes. She smelled them and was glad they seemed to be clean. She eased up from the chair, dropped the robe and wriggled into the sweat pants. Realizing there were too many eyes to be shielded from, she simply tore off the gown and put on the sweatshirt. Avoiding eyes all around, she sat back in the chair and put on the tennis shoes. They were fairly new Nikes, but the real appeal was that she could kick someone with shoes. Not so much with bare toes.

  She had no plans to die in this room. If she was to die today, it would be in the sunshine, and preferably on green grass. Not surrounded by refuse and rats. And a buttload of meanies.

  “Are you done?” the doctor said sarcastically.

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  “Hold out your arm.”

  Seffy pushed up her sleeve and put her arm on the table. He put a piece of rubber on her upper arm and told her to make a fist. Her little vein looked pathetic in her scrawny arm. “Whatever you think you're after, it's been diluted, you know. I had a few units added after I bled out and basically died.” She winced when the doctor threaded a needle into the vein in the crook of her arm.

  She watched as he filled up three collection tubes. It was red and thick and looked the same as always. The doctor released the rubber strip and put the tubes in a small plastic tray.

  “So do I get to go now?”

  “No.”

  “What do you want with my blood?”

  Silence.

  “Why were you trying to kill me?”

  “We already did kill you.” He shook his head, looking like he regretted speaking.

  Seffy's heart rate kicked up a notch. “Oh, you mean parallel Seffy. Did you kill the other Trent too?”

  He stared at her in a way that told her they had.

  She thought fast. Did that mean tangent Gareth, Lani and Addison were next? Seffy didn't dare ask. She swallowed hard and decided she had to escape to save them. Her lip trembled when she realized it was too late for Trent. She'd left him nodding off in the hospital room. The doctor probably brought a thug along to do the job.

  Poor Trent. He'd done so much. He'd tried so hard. Tears leaked out of the corners of her eyes.

  All she wanted to do now was figure out how to get away. Seffy heard a buzzing in her ear and in her periphery, saw a mosquito flutter nearby. She automatically batted at it with her free arm. “Hey, get this thing away from me.”

  The doctor clamped down on her arm and the driver held on to her other one. She watched as the mosquito landed on her forearm. “He's gonna bite me. What, do you think I need West Nile Virus on top of everything el—ouch!”

  The disgusting little bug bit hard, and as she glared at it, it fell from her arm and curled up into a little dried-out ball. The driver and doctor suddenly released her and took steps back. The men at the wall cocked their shotguns in near-unison. Seffy sat still in the chair, wondering what to make of the tense situation.

  “Did you see that?” the driver asked, his voice hoarse.

  “Shut up.” The doctor's favorite phrase.

  Seffy suddenly grabbed the collection tubes. She pulled the stopper from one and splattered the contents at
the driver. Blood splashed into his mouth and eyes. He screamed like a woman, stumbled backward and rammed into the wall. Seffy watched in disbelief as his face went lax and his body slid to the floor as if were a rag doll.

  Damn. I really am poisonous.

  She held the remaining tubes in front of her and edged toward the door. The men with their shotguns aimed at her, their fingers twitching at the triggers. “If you shoot, my blood goes everywhere, right Doc? Those shotguns are efficient, but oh so messy. Malone taught me that.”

  He stood looking at her in baffled fury, his hands shaking. “Leave me at least one vial. We need to study your blood. Maybe there's a cure.”

  Seffy snorted. “Doesn't look like I need one.” She flicked out another stopper behind her back. “But since you asked...” She threw the open vial at the doctor but didn't wait to see if her aim was true.

  Seffy darted from the room and ran for the door, thanking the Lord above for shoes. Bursting out into the parking area, she slipped around the building and headed for the road. Behind her footsteps sounded. Using the rabbit warren of dilapidated buildings, she was able to keep to the shadows and out of the way of the gunmen who fanned out looking for her.

  A nearby noisy pickup backfired, making her jump. Seffy noticed the tailgate was down and that the back had tarps. Scouting to make sure no gunmen were near, she sprinted across the asphalt and slithered into the bed of the truck, yanking tarps over her head.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, sure that at any moment, she'd be blown to smithereens, but the truck lurched and backfired its way down the road. The moment she relaxed, pain bloomed in her back, making her feel faint. She hoped she hadn't torn any stitches, but couldn't tell due to the generalized agony.

  Seffy gripped the last vial in her hands. It was still warm. As pent-up tears clouded her vision, she wondered what it was about her blood that made people die.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Trent hunched into the hoodie he bought from a thrift store and strolled by the alley of his apartment building, scanning the street to see if any one suspicious—say large men with shotguns—lurked about. He wasn't sure whether to be leery or relieved that he didn't see anyone loitering around the area. The bullet wound on his shoulder throbbed with each beat of his heart.

  The alley was empty aside from some torn yellow crime scene tape. Trent thought about the guy who'd saved Seffy. It made him sick the way he'd died. What did the police suspect? Surely there were enough eyewitnesses from the bar shooting to connect the perp to the death of the Latino.

  He tried to tamp down thoughts of Seffy, but he kept remembering the way he felt when she was lost in the compound somewhere and those hellish days of trying to find her. Now she was lost somewhere in Los Angeles or beyond, with no way to find her.

  Okay, focus. I know where the backpacks are, but don't know where to start looking for Sef. So get the backpacks first, then kick into search and rescue mode.

  He paused. Maybe she was here, up in the room. It made sense she'd come here if she'd managed to escape her captors. His heart thudded at the thought.

  Trent went down the alley and approached the door of the apartment building. It'd been torn from its hinges. Inside the shadowy hall, he saw bullet holes in the walls. Okay, so hopefully Seffy never came back here. His respiration increased as he eased the gun from his waistband. When he got up the stairs, he couldn't tell if the door had been tampered with. He touched the knob. The door creaked open.

  Crap.

  He silently slid into the room and surveyed the scene. The bed was overturned, the mattress shredded. Broken glass from the window winked on the desktop. The bathroom medicine cabinet had been torn from the wall. The porcelain toilet had been busted. Holes had been punched in the sheet rock in seemingly random intervals. God.

  Trent looked out the window and didn't see anyone. Was this a trap? He removed the wood panel and found the backpacks. Slinging one on each shoulder, he peered down the stairs to make sure it was clear. He made it all the way to the alley door when he heard the cocking of a gun.

  ***

  Seffy opened her eyes and was immediately consumed with claustrophobia. It took her a moment to realize that she was under a smelly cloth tarp.

  The truck. It was stopped. She realized she'd fallen asleep. Geez, only she could sleep during times like these. Maybe that was how she'd survived—being able to cope with horrendous situations with narcoleptic aplomb. Either that or she'd just passed out from the pain.

  So how long had she been lying in the back of someone's truck? Seffy no longer had the watch she'd started with and couldn't remember what happened to it. It could be past the rendezvous time and she'd be stuck here forever, running from robo-like killers and posing a serious threat to the mosquito population. Suddenly the Fugere compound seemed a welcoming place of comfort and tranquility.

  An actual refuge.

  Seffy eased the tarp aside and looked up at the sky. The sun shone more or less right overhead, which meant noonish, she hoped. A quick scan of her surroundings showed she was alone in someone's driveway. She heard a dog bark and a baby cry, which probably meant she was in a neighborhood. Bracing for the coming back pain, she crawled out of the bed of the truck and made her way stiffly to the sidewalk, still gripping the last vial. She wanted to keep it handy. If a bad guy hadn't been informed of her toxicity, she'd claim the blood was infected with Ebola. That should work in a pinch.

  Seffy followed the noise of traffic, hoping for a main road to get her bearings, and tried to keep her spirits up. Her mind glanced away from thoughts of Trent and death. If she dwelt on that, she'd start to cry and never be able to stop, thereby guaranteeing her own untimely death because her eyes would be too full of tears to see any gunmen.

  As she continued toward the main road, she realized she was on the opposite side of Echo Park, not far from the yellow bungalow. Seffy couldn't believe how close she was. She looked at the position of the sun again, wondering how much time she had. Regardless, she was more concerned about warning her friends than making some wormhole appointment with destiny.

  Despite the breathtaking pain in her back, she hurried through the park. The green space teemed with people, dogs, cyclists...people who had a sense of their own time and place. Seffy looked at the stately palms reflecting in the lake. She'd attended the Lotus Festival last year and watched the dragon boat races. Gareth had been her friend then. She remembered his arm around her, remembered leaning against his solid warmth and wishing the night would never end.

  Exhaustion, both physical and now mental, caused her to slow to a walk. Tucking the vial into the sweat pants pocket, she sniffed back her ever-present tears and tried to remain focused. A jogger in sunglasses was heading her way and she moved to the side to avoid a collision. But out of the corner of her eye, she saw him fall anyway. She glanced at him, wondering if he was hurt, and froze.

  “Oh my God. Seffy?”

  ***

  Trent watched the barrel of a .45 edge its way into the hall. He waited behind the door and once he saw a hand attached to it, he threw his weight against the door, crushing the shooter's arm. The gun fell to the floor. The door snapped back, slamming Trent's face. He fought the dizziness and grabbed the gun. Then he kicked the door open, training the gun on the assailant.

  It wasn't a wary tenant like he was hoping. It was clearly the same kind of assassin he'd seen in the hospital. The suit, the same dead eyes, the blank face.

  “What do you want with us?”

  At first the man didn't answer, so Trent kicked him in the chest, making him wheeze and cough. “Answer the question.”

  He looked up at him with contempt. “You're to be exterminated.”

  “Who sent you?”

  The man sent him a sullen stare. “You and the others are like cockroaches crawling through the cracks of time. You need to be stamped out for once and for all.”

  Trent frowned. So this guy knew about the time travel. “I repeat, who sent you?�
��

  The man spit at him.

  “You know I'll kill you if you don't talk. I killed your friend earlier.”

  The man shrugged. “Doesn't matter. There's always more of us.”

  Trent glanced at his watch. Less than two hours remained. Now that he had the backpacks, maybe there was a chance he could find Seffy. “Where's the girl?”

  “Dead.” The man began to laugh, a horrible raspy sound.

  Trent shuddered at the malice in his voice and prayed he was lying. “Where did they have her?”

  “I don't know. Just shoot me and get it over with.”

  “Fine.” Trent, realizing he wouldn't get more information, aimed at the man's head and pulled the trigger.

  The man's body jerked as the bullet sunk into his brain. The gun wavered in front of Trent's line of vision. He lowered his shaking hand and wondered how he was suddenly able to kill two men in cold blood. He stared at the body, at the thin line of red streaming from the hole in the man's forehead. Nausea rose up but he swallowed it back, put the gun in his pocket, and reminded himself all that mattered was Seffy.

  As he made his way down the stairs and outside, he knew he'd never locate where she'd been taken. His only chance of finding her was if she escaped. And if she did, he suddenly knew exactly where she'd go.

  ***

  Seffy stared at Gareth, unable to believe her eyes. He sat sprawled on the ground gazing up at her like he was thinking the exact same thing. He shoved his glasses up on his head.

  “Sef?” His brown eyes absorbed the sight of her. “It's not possible.”

  “Gareth,” she said softly. Uncontrollable tears ran down her cheeks.

  He slowly got to his feet and came closer, his gaze running over her in an obvious effort to confirm her identity. “You look like—”

  “Like I used to, I know. But it is me.”

  “We buried you thirty-three days ago—” His voice broke.