Working Stiff

place was crowded with boxes stacked everywhere. No more lab equipment; it was all packed. Big machines were crated and secured, ready for transport. The curtains at the back of the big room were open, and more pallets of boxes were stacked there.

“Freeze!” a magnified voice said from overhead, and Bryn looked up sharply to see a figure above them on a narrow catwalk. It was almost obscured by the lights, and she squinted and just barely made out Manny Glickman’s form up there.

He worked the action on a pump shotgun, and the crisp chunk-chunk sound made them all obey. Even Fideli. Bryn raised her hands in surrender.

“Jesus, Manny, it’s me.” Pansy sighed. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Moving,” he said. “You were supposed to be back four hours ago.”

“I told you it wasn’t guaranteed, baby.”

“Four hours ago.”

“You didn’t pack all this in the last four hours.”

Manny was silent for a few seconds, then said, “Are you vouching for them, Pansy?”

“Of course I am, or I wouldn’t have brought them up here, would I?” Her voice was gentle, but as Bryn glanced at her, she saw that Pansy was worried. “It’s all right. Trust me. Her tracker’s gone, and we weren’t followed.”

“I thought about blowing up the van,” Manny said. “You know that, don’t you? You didn’t come in the right car. You said you’d be in a red sedan.”

“Pansy, what the hell …?” Fideli murmured. She shushed him.

“We had to improvise. Things were crazy. But we got out, and everything’s fine, and I brought you a present.” She held up a single vial of Returné. “Enough to run tests on for months.”

It was a shiny treat, but Manny failed to take the bait. “Make them sit down on the floor, right now. Hands behind their heads.”

“Manny—”

“Now!” His shout rattled the rafters. Pansy sighed and turned to Bryn and Joe.

“Please,” she said. “I need to back him off the ledge.”

Kneeling down with her stiff and still-healing leg hurt, but it was better than risking Manny going all hair- trigger on them; Bryn was more concerned about Joe, who’d had a very full day for a man with a recently collapsed lung. He shrugged off her silent concern, though, and sat down a lot more easily than she did. By unspoken agreement, they kept their hands in the air.

“Okay, they’re down,” Pansy said. “Can I please come talk to you?”

“If they move—”

“They’re not going to move. Can I?”

He hesitated for a long moment, and then said, “I’m coming down. Stay there.”

His heavy footsteps clanked overhead and down a staircase somewhere in the shadows to the right. When Manny finally came back into the glow of the overheads, he was dressed in black—black turtleneck, black pants, a black tactical vest with pockets bulging with ammunition. He carried the shotgun at a neutral but ready position.

And his eyes were more than a little crazy. He didn’t take his gaze away from Bryn and Fideli, except for a very fast glance at Pansy.

He handed her a syringe.

“What’s this for?”

“Blood sample,” he said.

“She’s okay, I told you—”

“Not from her. From you.”

“Jesus, Manny!”

This time, the glance he sent her lingered, and was half-apologetic. But still half-crazy. “I need to know that you’re still you. They could have revived you. You could be acting under protocols.”

She didn’t try to talk him out of it, and Bryn thought it was sad that Manny’s paranoia was actually quite practical now; she wouldn’t have believed that kind of thing two weeks ago, but now, it was surprisingly rational. Pansy just walked over to the nearest flat surface, drew a sample of her own blood (not something Bryn thought she could have accomplished with nearly as much aplomb), and handed back the full syringe. Manny backed up, keeping his eyes fixed on all of them, opened up a box nearby, and took out what looked like a sheet of paper. He squirted a small amount of the blood onto the surface. It soaked in quickly, and a blue ring spread out from the crimson blot.

Manny’s body language visibly relaxed. “You’re okay,” he said. He sounded shaken. “You’re really okay.”

“Of course I’m okay, idiot.” Pansy took the shotgun from him, broke open the stock, and set it aside. Then she hugged him, hard, and kissed him. “Thanks for worrying.”

“I always worry.”

“Okay, worrying more than normal.”

Manny looked over his shoulder, first at Bryn, then Fideli. “I know about her. What about him?”

“He’s all right.”

“Test him. Prove it.”

“Okay. First, we don’t need a whole syringe full, right?” She took the syringe from Manny’s fingers and disposed of the rest of the blood in a haz-mat container off to the side, grabbed a test sheet from the box, and went to Fideli’s side. “Knife?”

“Yo,” he said, and took one out of his belt—a big, wicked thing with an edge sharp enough to cut the light. Pansy pressed it lightly to his thumb and smeared the thin crimson line that appeared onto the paper.

Blue halo.

“See?” she asked, and handed Fideli’s knife back. “You can get up now. It’s okay.”

Manny clearly didn’t agree, but he didn’t argue. “We can’t stay here,” he said. “I’ve already called the vans. We’ll be moved by the end of the day and in the new location.”

“Manny, there’s no need to do this. We can stay here.”

“No. I need to move. Too many people in and out. It’s not secure.”

Pansy rolled her eyes. “Not what I needed today. All right, we’ll move. But first, Bryn needs her inhibitor booster, and then I’ll send them on their way.”

“All right.” Manny pointed at a set of boxes across the lab. “Third carton from the bottom. I packed it underneath the extra saline.”

The boxes weren’t labeled, Bryn realized—not a single one. “Do you remember what’s in every one of them?” she asked.

Manny looked at her. “You can put your hands down,” he said. “I’m not going to shoot you.”

“Yeah,” Pansy said, as she walked toward the indicated boxes. “But only because I took his gun.”

“You really remember what’s in the boxes. There must be two hundred of them!”

“Two hundred thirty-six,” he said. “Not counting the crated machines. Yes. I do.”

“What happens when they mix them all up in moving vans?”

“I pay them to make sure they get stacked and delivered in order.” His green eyes were less crazy now, and he frowned as he looked her over. “You don’t look so great.”

Bryn laughed a little. “It’s been … stressful.”

“They were letting her rot,” Fideli said, “for science.”

“Really?” Those eyes gleamed suddenly. “Did you get any records? Video? That would be very useful.”

“Jesus.” Fideli raised his voice. “Pansy, you really sleep with this guy?”

“I keep one eye open,” she called back, as she restacked cartons—keeping them, Bryn noticed, in precisely the same order as they’d been. “Got it!” She held up an IV bag and needle kit. “Manny, stop being so creepy. It was awful for her. It really was.”

He didn’t look noticeably sorry. “I’m sure it was, but still, the opportunity to study something like that …”

“Yeah, well, I hope you won’t have the opportunity to do it on me,” Bryn said. “Where do I sit?”