Alien Nation #4 - The Change Page 21

  Door or lure?

  It was time to get some answers from the opposition.

  Maanka looked down at the bomb in his hand, canceled the program, and quietly padded downstairs as he reached into his jacket and withdrew the implantation device. Once he was in the kitchen, he backed himself against the wall and fitted an implant into the device. He entered his basic slave control program into the device, waited for a moment, then glanced around the corner and watched through the living room windows as the officers emerged from the black-and-white. Both of them remained hatless as they put their batons in their belts and drew their revolvers.

  While one officer approached the front door, the other should’ve streaked for the back door. It made sense. If the cops come running in the front, the suspect escapes from the rear. But the officers weren’t doing what was smart. They stayed together as they both approached the front door. There was no way to implant one of the officers without getting him alone. Maanka felt the grip of the machine pistol stuck in his belt. Perhaps he could take out one officer and subdue the other, but they both had their weapons out. Maanka demanded of himself an answer. Would he risk throwing away his chance at vikah ta to take out one officer in the hopes of slaving another for a purpose that he hadn’t quite thought out?

  There was another black-and-white on the street, and Maanka felt his hearts beat out of sync as he realized the second pair would attempt to cover the rear of the house. In a matter of moments the first pair of cops were through the front door and Maanka Dak was out the kitchen door and back into the shadows.

  He pushed his way through a hedge, crossed over to an adjoining backyard, and crossed between the houses to another street, his breath coming hard.

  Moments later, his hands shaking, he was in his van, driving west on Beverly. Maanka Dak knew he could play any game and win, yet to do so he needed to know the game. To know the game is to know which rules to break. Without knowing the game, breaking the rules can be playing into the hands of the opposition.

  The Francisco family had been moved. There was no cause for panic. Maanka had identified four other safe houses that would be good possibilities. The Franciscos had to be somewhere, but that somewhere might be entirely out of the area. If that were the case, it would be back to combing the credit card data banks to pick up the trail. Susan Francisco and her daughters had been moved. That’s all there was to it.

  Yet even at the height of his fear, George Francisco hadn’t left his home. His son had even arrived very late. Somehow Buck Francisco had evaded the security surrounding the house. Have to think about that.

  Nevertheless, George Francisco had stayed home. Was he offering himself as bait?

  Possibly.

  He wasn’t the kind to thumb his nose at his enemies, if the enemy in question was after his friends and family. But the new adversary, Iniko or whoever it was, had thrown all of Maanka’s equations into imbalance. The old limits were out of sight.

  Before Maanka’s van reached Atlantic Boulevard, he turned off Beverly onto a side street and pulled up behind the husk of an abandoned Ford Galaxy. He sat shaking behind the wheel for several minutes before he scanned the street and found it deserted. He took a deep breath, engaged the motion detectors, and turned to enter the rear of the van. Once there, he pulled the blackout curtain shut, sat down, energized his equipment, and locked into his telephone remotes. Concentrating his attention on one number in North Belvedere, he stared at the screen, his eyes almost glazing as his mind worked at a furious pace, sorting and collating the new data, trying to get a step ahead of the opposition.

  The Francisco number came on the screen. Route identification: Mount Andarko Hospital. He was still at his home. Francisco would be on the telephone checking on his partner’s failing progress. Maanka’s mouth opened and a hiss came from his throat as the voice-print identifications came on the screen: Susan Francisco, then Cathy Frankel.

  He cut on the switch to monitor the call. “—stable, but they can’t keep him like this for much longer. They’re getting ready to operate. Are you and the girls all right back home?”

  “The house is just a wreck, Cathy. You should see the hall mirror, the walls. We’d just painted.” She laughed nervously. “I’m being terribly silly. I’m so happy just to have the family together; so happy that we’re alive. This has been such a nightmare, I’m just grateful it’s over—”

  “Over?” Maanka repeated.

  He cut off the switch and stared at the screen. There seemed to be an odd warp in reality’s main strut. The voice-print identification of George Francisco appeared on the screen, and Maanka lifted his hand to cut on the monitor, when the motion detectors began flashing.

  There was a sound. Maanka turned his head as he heard a rattle from the back of the van. A scrape, a voice muttering, another voice answering.

  Maanka watched as the lights in the compartment took on a purple tinge and went slightly out of focus. There was irritation, pique, anger, and rage. What rode through Maanka Dak’s mind right then was off the scale.

  It was too much.

  Everything was a bit too complicated, a bit too delicate, to have to bother with ants.

  It was just a bit too much.

  Another rattle, and Maanka pulled his machine pistol. He aimed it in the direction of the back door and stood up as he listened to someone work at the lock with a pry bar. There was a snap and a clunk; flesh and bone striking sheet metal.

  “Damn!” cursed a voice in a loud whisper.

  “What is it, Rody?” whispered another voice.

  “Shit! Look! Tore my goddamned fingernail!”

  “Fingernail? Jeez, Rody, get on with it.”

  “Lookit it! Lookit my damned fingernail!”

  “Jeez, Rody. Open it up! C’mon, man! We gotta go.”

  “Dammit, Buggy, it hurts!”

  “Forget the fuckin’ fingernail, okay, Rody? We gotta go!”

  “Awright, Buggy. Don’t pee in your pants. It just hurts like hell.”

  “Okay, Rody. I acknowledge that.”

  “Fuck you.”

  There was a wrenching, groaning sound, then a snap. The door opened slowly and the ones called Rody and Buggy cried out as they saw the machine pistol pointed at their faces. Maanka pulled the trigger, the pistol roared, then he reached back, pulled shut the door, and the van squealed away from the curb, leaving the pair of thieves with the remains of their faces staring up wide-eyed at the night sky. As the life ebbed from him, the one called Rody peed in his own pants.

  C H A P T E R 2 4

  GEORGE FRANCISCO LOOKED out of the living room window at the street’s night sights. No cops, no traps, no special anything. Mrs. Rothenberg was walking her evil-tempered pit bull, Satan. The animal was so mean and uncontrollable that late at night was the only time she could walk him. Nate Robeson, as usual, jogged by her and Satan. As he usually did, Satan pulled loose from Mrs. Rothenberg’s grasp and chased Nate. Both Nate and Satan loved to run together.

  Across the street Polly Wexler’s cat was on the roof again, singing at the top of its lungs. Chances were, Ramon Gutierrez, her next door neighbor, was dialing 911, although Emily might have been right about what she said regarding Ramon’s feelings toward Polly. The last time George had seen Ramon and Polly together in the daylight, Ramon had neglected to mention the cat, so concentrated was he on sucking in his gut. Things were normal. That was the abnormality.

  “It was a Hila at the Rama Vo who suggested turning the label tables on Maanka,” George said to Paul Iniko. “We made Maanka brilliant by treating him as though he were brilliant. Canceling the command organization and quitting the safe house ended the brilliance.”

  “And now,” Iniko said, “you’re treating him as though he’s stupid?”

  “No. I had the captain cancel everything and go back to normal operating procedures.” He turned his head and looked at the former Overseer. “We’re treating him as though he is nothing.”

  Paul Iniko was si
tting in the overstuffed chair next to the couch where Susan and Buck sat. Susan sipped at a cup of tea, while Buck, lost in thought, stared silently at the FBI agent. Emily and Vessna were upstairs, asleep. Susan placed her cup and saucer on the coffee table. As she did so, her hands shook, slopping a bit of tea into the saucer.

  “I’m sorry,” she said to no one in particular. “It’s been a harrowing couple of days. I’m still frightened.”

  “It’s all right,” George said.

  She glanced nervously at Iniko, and shifted her gaze to George. “Darling, are you saying we have no protection against this Maanka Dak?”

  George turned his head and faced the window once more. “There are Agent Iniko and myself. I have my pistol.” He glanced at Paul Iniko and raised his eyebrows.

  “Yes. I have a weapon, as well.”

  “We have two pistols, then. Perhaps we also have Maanka Dak’s imagination working for us.”

  Susan glanced at Buck, frowned, and held out her hands as she looked again at her husband. “George, please explain something to me.”

  “If I can.”

  Susan moistened her lips and forced her voice to calm down. “If all of those dozens police officers last night, armed to the teeth and watching every blade of grass, couldn’t stop Dak, I don’t see how just the two of you can manage from in here with nothing but your street clothes.”

  For the first time Paul Iniko cracked a tiny smile. “I think, Mrs. Francisco, it’s more like no defense at all can’t do much worse than last night’s super effort by the department.”

  “This is hardly the time for levity, Agent Iniko,” Susan snapped, the anger and acid resentment in her voice at last obvious. She faced George and said, “When you said this man was coming over, you told me he had some important information. You didn’t tell me he was an Overseer! I think I’d best know what this important information is.” George glanced at Buck, but Susan placed her hand on her son’s shoulder. “I think Buck’s paid his dues for this meeting.”

  “Quite so,” George said. “I was just wondering at his reaction to sitting down to tea with a black tattoo.” George looked around and fixed his gaze on Paul Iniko. “It’s your intention to get the information out, isn’t it?”

  “In an effective manner.”

  “Go ahead, then. Tell them about MDQ.”

  Susan looked at the FBI agent. Iniko’s face became wooden as he debated something within himself. The debate concluded, he began talking in a deep monotone, his face revealing nothing about his feelings. He sat motionless in his chair, seemingly more rock than living being.

  “There are no more Overseers, Mrs. Francisco. There are no more slaves.” He steadied his gaze on her. “I am not your enemy.”

  “You have been my enemy since I was born, Overseer! You can’t come in here wearing a coat and tie, sit down in my living room, and tell me all those decades of horror didn’t happen.”

  “No,” he answered. “I won’t tell you they never happened. Neither will I tell you they were better than you remember them, nor that I am to be excused my role. I will tell you two things, however.”

  “Two things?”

  Iniko nodded. “First, those decades of horror are in the past, not the present. The pain you feel now you inflict on yourself. No Overseer is inflicting it. Second, on the ship I had precisely the same amount of choice as to what I became as you did in what you became: none.”

  Susan was silent for a long time. At last she said, “What about this MDQ and what does it have to do with us?”

  Iniko gripped the armrests of his chair, leaned back and began. “It stands for Medical Q. I don’t think the Q stands for any particular word. It simply represents intelligence as in intelligence community. MDQ’s an anachronism left over from the Cold War; a secret government organization that studies and conducts experiments in the medical and psychological aspects of intelligence work.”

  “You mean drugs and stuff like that?” Buck asked. “Secret experiments with LSD?”

  “Among other things,” Iniko answered. “MDQ was organized under the authority of the Clandestine Offices Act back in the sixties; its funding appears on no departmental budget.”

  George Francisco leaned his back against the wall, folded his arms and watched as Paul Iniko appeared to hammer the last few nails into the coffin of his FBI career. Malcolm Bone’s comments regarding labels played before George’s mental eye as he studied the former Overseer.

  Former Overseer, George thought to himself. Could such a thing be possible? Were the Overseers simply an occupation, an organization, an association that could be terminated by withdrawing, by ending the reason for the association’s existence? Or, instead, were the Overseers a race unto themselves, genetically fixed to be arrogant, unfeeling monsters for life?

  They were chosen young to have their feelings of compassion, love, and pity cauterized, a vicious program of right and wrong hammered in the gaps to replace them. They were educated separately in disciplines designed to equip them to wield power. In exchange they were given authority, power, and privilege.

  Race or occupation? Label or fact? Perception or prejudice? It seemed stupid to say it, but nothing changed without change. George wanted very much to be changed, to have the peace in his hearts that came from having no hates, having no resentments. But Overseers were a different kind of test. George had a lot of old scores that clamored to be settled before anything like forgiveness could be approached.

  There was that tattoo around Iniko’s left wrist. What did he see there? George asked himself. To see things for what they were, he would have to say that all he saw was a tattoo. But that mark, that label of all labels, meant so many things: pain, frustration, oppression, cruelty. Was a ten-mile walk into the woods but a mere ten miles back out? The question hung before him like a challenge.

  “George,” Susan interrupted.

  He looked up and saw that his wife, Paul Iniko, and Buck were looking at him. “What?”

  Susan stood, walked over, and placed a hand on his arm. “You looked terribly upset.”

  “Upset.” He closed his eyes as his murderous wave of anger left, to be replaced by a flood of depression. “It’s nothing; a physical thing I’m going through.”

  “Did you have a doctor examine you?”

  George nodded. “Yes, I did.”

  “Is it nia?”

  George took an angry deep breath and let it out as he shook his head. “No. It’s not nia.”

  “Well, George? What is it? Is it something more serious? You can tell me. In fact, you’d better tell me.”

  He glanced at Iniko and Buck, both of whom already knew. Susan was the only one who didn’t. “I’m sorry for getting angry. Getting angry is part of the problem, as well as sadness, the giggles, hallucinations, and who knows what else. It’s riana.” As Susan took a step back and covered her mouth with her hand, George nodded at Iniko. “Go ahead.”

  Iniko studied George for a moment and nodded as he shifted his gaze to Susan. “Shall I continue?”

  She looked at her husband for a long time, her eyes wide and filled with tears. “Riana?”

  George giggled, shook his head and said, “That’s right, and I’m not going to die. At least, it won’t be from riana. We can talk about it later. Let Agent Iniko tell you about MDQ.”

  Iniko raised his eyebrows, and Susan nodded as she sat in the straight-back chair next to the window. “Very well.”

  Iniko stared at George for a second, then looked at Susan. “Perhaps it’s not my place to say this, Mrs. Francisco, but your husband is right. There is nothing to fear from riana. I’ve been through it twice myself.”

  “On the ship,” Susan said, “riana meant that you died!”

  Buck reached out his hand and placed it on his mother’s arm. “Mom? Mom?”

  She looked at her son, her eyes filled with anger and fear. “What?”

  “Mom, don’t worry about it. We’re not on the ship anymore.”

  “
I know we’re not on the ship,” she repeated, sarcasm creeping into her voice. “We’re not on the ship, we’re having an Overseer over for tea, and the Ahvin Yin is trying to slay your father and his family as traitors. Nothing to worry about at all.”

  “I meant there’s nothing to worry about from Dad going through riana.”

  Susan stared at her son for a moment, then faced Paul Iniko. “Very well, Agent Iniko. What does this secret intelligence organization have to do with the nightmare my family’s been put through since yesterday?”

  “They organized MDQ, funded it, and did everything to bring it into being except plan to. It was simply there for decades, harmlessly drawing funds, employing a few hundred bureaucrats, churning out classified reports that no one cared to read. I believe the Senate oversight committee was planning on eliminating the funding for MDQ. Then our ship landed.”

  “Monsters from outer space,” Buck said. “There really is someone out there.”

  “Yes.” Iniko clasped his fingers together in his lap and leaned forward, resting his weight upon his forearms. “Once the ship came under the control of the U.S. government, MDQ immediately took control of the medical equipment, supplies, and data. As you remember, most of the medical staff were killed in the crash. Those that remained were thoroughly investigated. Considering the mission of MDQ, I can only imagine the reaction once they learned about the Niyezian neural transmitter technology. In any event, Maanka and Sita Dak and Sing Fangan were the three most experienced technicians who remained from the original implant teams. However, by the time MDQ had pieced that together, the Dak brothers and Sing Fangan had already entered the exciting world of direct-withdrawal banking.”

  “He was arrested for bank robbery,” George said to Susan. “I was one of the arresting officers.”