The Mutant Season, Page 27

  Andie pulled her hand free from his grasp.

  “Cabinet post? What are you trying to say?”

  “Andie, what better way to unite all of us than under a mutant President?”

  “A—mutant—President!” Her laughter was shrill, almost hysterical. “We’ve only just gotten around to electing a woman, finally. What do you intend to do? Push President Kelsey off a parapet at the White House?”

  Jeffers continued as though he hadn’t heard a word she’d said. “A mutant President,” he repeated. “With a nonmutant wife.” He turned toward her eagerly. “Marry me, Andie. It’s not too late. You could work with me. Help me achieve my goals. Bring us all together.”

  She backed away into a corner of the floatsofa. It was all too much. “Marry you?” she said, astounded. “Help you? Stephen, what about the murder? What about the money you’ve stolen for human experimentation?”

  Jeffers squinted at her. “You know about the supermutant program?”

  She nodded.

  “I had to do it,” he said, speaking rapidly. “My own resources were overextended. It was the only way. If I’d had a little more time, I could have buried the evidence and the GAO never would have found it.” He paused, then hurried on. “Don’t you see that an enhanced mutant is the next logical step in human evolution? It would be criminal to prevent the flow of human progress.”

  “What you’ve done is criminal,” Andie said. “Stephen, you’ve financed kidnapping, illegal experimentation and murder. Doesn’t any of this bother you?”

  “The ends justify the means.”

  Andie studied him as if he were something from another world. “What ends? You’ve killed a courageous mutant leader. What could possibly justify that? And where’s your supermutant?”

  “We’re very close. It will happen.”

  “It hasn’t happened yet,” she retorted.

  “Are you sure you won’t work with me?”

  She realized she was being offered her life. But the price was too great.

  “I can’t.”

  Jeffers shook his head regretfully.

  “What a shame. For a normal, you’re really quite talented.” With a sigh, he sat down next to her. “What am I going to do with you?”

  Panic gripped her. “Let me go, Stephen,” she pleaded frantically. “I swear I’ll never say anything—”

  “Andie, I’m not naive. Even if you really meant it, sooner or later, you’d feel compelled to report what you’ve learned. So I suppose the logical thing to do is make sure you won’t be in any condition to do anything.”

  “No.”

  She sprang up and raced toward the door. But he was after her with catlike agility. Halfway down the stairs, he caught her in a powerful grip.

  “You murderer! You used me!” she cried.

  “Did you really think I was interested in you as anything more than a sexual experiment?” Jeffers’s tone was disdainful.

  Desperately, she clawed at his face.

  He reeled backward as she struck a telling blow, giving her enough time to scramble out of his grasp. With strength born of fear, Andie leaped up the stairs, her momentum propelling her down the hallway and into his bedroom. She slammed the door, locked it, and cast around the room for a piece of furniture to further block his way.

  But even as she shoved the heavy oaken chest of drawers toward the door, Andie heard the lock give, and the door slid open; she’d forgotten his telekinetic powers. Unseen hands laid hold of her now, propelling her toward the door, where Jeffers stood waiting.

  With a harsh laugh, he grabbed her, shoving her against the wall, knocking the wind put of her.

  Andie gasped, fighting for breath. His golden eyes drilled into her, draining her of the will to struggle.

  “You’re a telepath?” she said, her voice faint. “But what about the telekinesis?”

  “I have both gifts,” he replied. “Didn’t you wonder how I healed the boy on the beach?”

  “I just thought all mutants were latent healers.”

  Jeffers snorted. “Normals! You never really understand us, do you?”

  Weakly, she sagged in his arms. Jeffers placed a hand on either side of her head.

  “Such a shame,” he said. “Senator Jeffers’s press secretary had a complete mental breakdown just before the election. Most be kept medicated. A vegetable, really.”

  Abruptly, his expression changed.

  “Maybe hypnosis would be better,” he said. “That way, you’d still be useful.”

  He pulled her down next to him on the bed, drawing her close.

  She was caught, helpless in his shimmering gaze.

  “You know I’m innocent,” Jeffers said softly. “You know that Canay has been working with my enemies to discredit me. He’s falsified all this information. And you’ve helped him.”

  His tone was silky, insinuating. He put his hand on the side of her cheek in a caress. Left it there.

  “Yes, you and your network of saboteurs. You’ve been working against me all this time, probably in league with Horner. You hate mutants. And you’ve subverted young men like Canay who are filled with self-hatred.”

  “Self-hatred?” she asked groggily. “Who?”

  He cut her off. “You’ll call Cable News tonight and make a full disclosure, admitting your guilt.”

  “My guilt.” His words were beginning to echo in her head. She wanted to argue, but her tongue felt thick, unwieldy. Her thoughts were confused. Her guilt. Yes, her guilt. She closed her eyes.

  “ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety-seven, ninety-six…”

  A cacophony filled Andie’s head: voices, hundreds of them, chanting numbers. Jeffers’s voice, yelling at her, trying to overcome the strident chorus. Failing.

  “eighty-six, eighty-five…”

  Jeffers released his hold on her. Still, she kept her eyes closed.

  “sixty-two, sixty-one…”

  The chorus faded to a whisper and was gone.

  Andie opened her eyes.

  Jeffers lay sprawled on the floor, unconscious.

  I’ll be damned, she thought. It worked. Skerry’s crazy mental defense worked!

  She stood up carefully. The room whirled around her. She staggered past Jeffers and out into the corridor, stopping only to grab her screencase. With each step, her balance improved. By the time she reached the stairs, she was running.

  Andie bolted out the front door, jumped a hedge, splashed through a half-frozen backyard wading pool and jumped another row of bushes into a narrow street.

  There was no sign of pursuit.

  She ran for another five minutes, gasping with each step. Finally, lungs burning from the cold air, she slowed her pace.

  It took a moment to locate the card in her purse, and another moment to open her lapscreen. Andie’s hands shook as she punched in the code.

  A cheerful, pink-cheeked young woman appeared onscreen.

  “FBI, Special Crimes Division.”

  Andie took a deep breath.

  “Rayma Esteron,” she said. “And hurry. It’s urgent.”

  24

  BEN CANAY WAS arrested that afternoon. But Stephen Jeffers proved to be more elusive. He did not return to the office nor accept calls at home. When the FBI burst into his townhouse, they found it empty, the deskscreen and files missing. The mutant senator had vanished without a trace.

  It was a week before the FBI lifted its seal on the office and Andie could get back to work. When she opened the door, she was appalled. The place was a shambles. Chairs lay on their sides. Drawers hung out of desks at crazy angles. Paper, memorypaks and discs were scattered everywhere. Ben Canay had left a wake of destruction behind him before the FBI intervened. Apparently, they hadn’t bothered to clean anything up.

  Andie stood alone in the chaos. Somewhere in the mess, a deskscreen buzzed. She ignored it.

  Her own screen lay blackened, shattered.

  I’m glad I wasn’t here when they arrested Canay, she thought. H
e had a little too much time to try and destroy evidence. Thank God for Karim’s homescreen.

  Footsteps. She whirled to confront the intruder. Skerry stood in the doorway, surveying the damage.

  “Nice mess,” he said. “I think Hurricane Andie came through here.”

  She put her hands on her hips.

  “I should have known you’d show up after the excitement was over!”

  Grinning, he enfolded her in a bear hug that left her breathless.

  “Whoa. Take it easy,” she gasped. “I’m still recovering from my footrace through exotic Maryland.”

  “You did it, toots! You flushed out Jeffers!” His tone was exultant. Despite herself, she hugged him back.

  “Thanks to ‘defchoir.’ Skerry, your implant really worked! If not for that, I’d have been a hypnotized zombie by now, in federal custody, claiming I arranged Jacobsen’s murder. Jeffers was going to frame me.”

  The bearded mutant nodded with grim satisfaction.

  “I knew he was bad news,” he said. “Any word from the authorities on his location?”

  “Cable News reported sightings in Panama, Seoul, Fiji, Moonstation and Place Pigalle. Personally, I think they should look in Sao Paulo. Or the Potomac.”

  Skerry leaned against an overturned desk. “So what will you do now?”

  She shrugged. “I’ll testify for the prosecution when Canay comes to trial. And I’ve been asked to assist the FBI in their investigation of Jeffers’s conspiracies. They impounded his townhouse, you know. Of course, he was long gone. Taking his credits and records with him.”

  “They’ll find him,” Skerry said grimly. “Or we will.”

  “I hope so.” She shivered. “I don’t know if I’ll ever feel really safe until Jeffers is apprehended.”

  “You’ve still got defchoir to protect you.” Skerry said. “And if you need me, get on the screen to Halden.”

  “After what I’ve done, would any other mutant even want to talk to me?”

  His eyes flashed. “The smart ones realize you saved us all. The stupid ones will lick their wounds and mutter about losing their crown prince. And a few probably even agree with what Jeffers was trying to do. But don’t worry about them.” He touched her face gently. “Just take good care of yourself, toots. I’ll be in touch.”

  Andie reached out to take his hand, but her fingers closed on thin air. Skerry was gone.

  So long, will-o’-the-wisp, she thought. Now to contact support services and get some mechmaids in here to clean up this mess.

  Her shoes crunched over debris as she stepped gingerly past her own desk to retrieve her screencase. A few typed commands, and she had arranged for the entire office to be cleaned and repaired. It took the rest of the afternoon to set everything to rights.

  Kelly McLeod strode out of the Akuda boutique in the Cherryhurst district of Denver, looking smart in her navy fatigue jumpsuit. She checked her watch. Twenty minutes until she was due back on the tarmac for preflight instruction. Where was the tube entrance? She looked behind her for a moment. No sign of it.

  Distracted, she bumped into a young woman hurrying past.

  “Forgive me,” she said. Then she paused. The young Oriental-Caucasian girl looked vaguely familiar.

  “Melanie?”

  The girl removed her sunglasses to peer at Kelly with bright-blue eyes. “Excuse me?” she asked uncertainly.

  “I’m sorry,” Kelly said. “I thought you were somebody I used to know. Can you tell me where the tube station is?”

  “Down the block on your left.”

  “Thanks.” Kelly waved and hurried away.

  The young Oriental woman watched the dark-haired girl in the blue jumpsuit move past her, out of sight.

  I didn’t know Kelly was in the Air Force, she thought. Maybe I should have said hello. She always was nice to me.

  For a moment, she was tempted to go after her. She took two steps toward the tube station, then stopped.

  What good would that do, Melanie thought. Reopening my old life just when I’m starting over? That’s all finished now. A closed chapter. Everything about the past is a closed chapter now.

  She pulled out a mirror and checked her reflection.

  Perfect, she thought. Those lenses really work. Maybe I will get them affixed permanently, after all.

  Smiling in satisfaction, Melanie Ryton tucked the mirror back into her purse and faded into the crowd.

  When Andie got home, she was exhausted.

  Wearily, she palmed the roomscreen on, setting it to autodial, and sank down on the floatsofa. Images raced across the screen in flashes of red, blue, purple. For a moment, Andie lingered on the central channel, her attention caught by a blond reporter.

  “Senator Stephen Jeffers’s disappearance has raised rumors of conspiracy, fraud and murder in the nation’s capital,” he said. “Unofficial reports have the FBI engaged in a massive manhunt for the mutant senator. For mutant leaders’ responses, see ‘Evening Report’ with Don Cliffman.”

  The front door buzzed. Andie cut off the news.

  Odd, she thought. I’m not expecting anybody. Who could it be?

  Her heart began to pound as she thought of Stephen Jeffers. Was it Jeffers? Was he standing outside her door, eyes glittering, waiting to abduct her? Hands shaking, Andie switched to the door circuit.

  The face onscreen was a mutant face. But it did not belong to Stephen Jeffers. Andie let out a deep breath and relaxed. Michael Ryton stood on her doorstep. As she watched, he buzzed again.

  “Hello? Andie? Anybody home?”

  Andie keyed on audio.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “I’m in town on business. Wanted to see how you were.”

  She unlocked the door. “Why aren’t you at home with your new wife?”

  Michael shrugged. “Jena came down here with me. She’s shopping at the Georgetown Mall.”

  Andie studied his face for a moment. His eyes looked shadowed from weariness. The youthful mutant she’d seen only weeks ago was vastly changed. Dressed in a dark-gray suit, he seemed more solid. More thoughtful. Older.

  “Sit down,” she said. “What can I get you?”

  “Vodka.” Andie dialed up his drink and a bourbon for herself.

  They sipped quietly.

  “How are you, really?” she asked.

  His golden eyes met hers candidly. “I’m all right. A little surprised at how things have turned out, but all right. Being married is nice, actually.”

  “You sound as if you’ve settled in quickly.”

  Michael shrugged. “I guess I’ve accepted the way things are. Not much choice, was there?”

  “And your father?”

  “The mental flares have increased.” He glanced away. “He’s only working half-days now. Under sedation most of the time. So I’m busier than ever.”

  For a moment, neither of them spoke. Then Michael turned back to her. “What about you? From what I’ve heard, Jeffers’s people really trashed your office. Sounds like you’ve been through a bad time.”

  “To put it mildly.” Andie shuddered. “Michael, I feel like such a damn fool. A naive damn fool.”

  “Why?”

  “I was in love with a madman. With a dream. Saint Andie, the bridge between mutants and non.” She struck a noble pose and chuckled bitterly.

  “Your dream was the right dream,” Michael said. His voice was gentle. “You just picked the wrong mutant.”

  “I feel so embarrassed. Ashamed.”

  He patted her shoulder awkwardly. “Don’t. I’d like to think that love is the only answer to our questions. And maybe I still believe that mutants and nonmutants will be able to live and love together. It’ll take a lot of work, and we might not make it. But your instincts were good. Just a little premature, perhaps.”

  “When do you think we’ll be ready?”

  “Soon, I hope. Let’s take it up with my daughter in a few years, when I bring her to visit Aunt Andie.”r />
  “I’ll drink to that.” She hoisted her glass and clinked it against his. Her smile only wavered for a moment.

  “Do you really think that your daughter will accept a nonmutant as her aunt?” Andie asked.

  “If I have anything to say about it.” Michael squeezed her hand affectionately. “And we’ve got to start somewhere. I can’t think of any place better than here. Can you?”