It took me a second to grasp that she was telling me to get up. 'Oh. By myself?'
'Yup. This is where we part company, kiddo. I have a house call to make.'
I hesitantly stood up out of the wheelchair. She must have given me a shot of something to bring me around: My legs were steady, my head clearer by the second. But I still felt vulnerable emotionally. Much as I resented what they had done to me, I dreaded being left alone. I called back, 'What am I supposed to do?'
'Just try to keep an open mind,' she said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I crossed the bridge and made my way down a metal pier. It ended short of the fence, so that I had to walk in freezing-cold mud with only thin booties on. A door opened somewhere in the complex, and I could hear the hyperventilating approach of a dog… or what I thought was a dog. It came charging around a corner and leaped high up the fence, its great frizzy mane bouncing like an oversized afro. At first I took it for a hideous giant poodle, and even when I realized what it was, I couldn't believe it.
It was a baboon, the gorgeously colored type known as a mandrill, with curved fangs as long as my pinkie and malevolent golden eyes that peered at me out of a face like a witch doctor's mask. I couldn't recall ever having seen one this big on TV or at the zoo. Also, it was berserk with bloodlust-my blood. I froze well back from the gate, hoping that whoever had released the animal would gain control before it realized it could easily scale the fence.
With a buzz, the gate rolled open.
I backpedaled frantically, searching for anything to climb or hide behind, but my only prayer of shelter on that bulldozed wasteland was the deep watery drainage ditch, and there was no chance of reaching that. Still, I ran for it.
'Yo!' a man's voice shouted. 'Little girl! Stop!'
Sensing the baboon at my heels, I dove to earth and shielded my head with my arms-the classic 'duck and cover' position. The mandrill trampled up and leapfrogged over me, my back muscles jerking involuntarily at the touch of its hard hands.
'Don't worry, he won't bite,' said the approaching voice.
'People always say that,' I growled into the mud.
'You're too young to be so cynical. C'mon, stand up. Don won't bother you-he only attacks Furies. He's just excited.'
'That's what worries me.' I slowly got to my feet. The baboon watched closely, sitting on its haunches with a magisterial air. He really was a frightening creature, but by then I could tell he didn't mean to kill me. Still, I was afraid to talk too loud. 'You call him Don?'
'That's his name: Don Ameche. Mine's Rudy.' He offered me his clean hand, and, with some reluctance, I gave him my dirty one. He was middle-aged and had the wan look of a graveyard-shift motel clerk, albeit one with a cultish amulet on his head. 'You must be Louise,' he said.
'Lulu.'
'Lulu. Well, Lulu, I'm sorry to have scared you. Don doesn't usually come on so strong. You scared me, too, running toward the ditch like that. Lotta stuff has gone in there and never been heard from again.'
'Why do you have a baboon?'
'This is a research facility. We use animals for tests.'
'I mean why is he running around loose?'
'Oh come on! Don't you think he's a charming fellow?' He smiled at my expression. 'We got the idea from the Egyptians. Don ensures we don't get a lot of casual visitors disrupting our work. There aren't enough security personnel to go around, and you'd be surprised at how many people are interested in what we do here. Privacy is at a high premium these days.'
We strolled to the enclosure, Don loping ahead. Inside the fence, it felt like a concentration camp, with longhouses jacked up on planks and muddy runs in between. Power cables drooped overhead like clotheslines, and dirty lawn furniture was scattered about on atolls of cigarette butts. One of the sheds had an open door, and inside I could see lab-coated people laughing and drinking coffee under fluorescent lighting. They all had implants. A genial-looking older woman with hair like steel wool saw me and leaned out, cackling, 'Well, if it isn't Little Bo Peep! I see you've met the foul brute that stalks this compound. The other one we call Don.'
'Charming.' Rudy sighed.
'Wow, that's a fresh one.' She brazenly examined my forehead. 'Let's splash a little hydrogen peroxide on this before it goes septic, whattaya think? You have to keep that stud clean.'
'Lulu,' said Rudy, 'this is Dr. Chandra Stevens, Assistant Chief of Experimental Gerontology under Dr. Langhorne. Did you meet Dr. Langhorne?'
I nodded. 'She brought me here.'
'And she didn't come in?' Dr. Stevens was mock-outraged. 'What a brat-ever since her ex showed up, we never see her anymore. Don! Outside! Outside!' The baboon snorted indignantly and vanished down the alley, flashing his barstool red behind.
They gave me a pair of plastic sandals and took me into their cluttered office. It looked like a third-world medical clinic, except that the cots were for the doctors' own use. There was also a small kitchen, so that they could presumably work, sleep, and eat in the same room. It didn't look like they got out much.
'May I see my father now, please?' I asked.
'Sure thing, hon,' said Dr. Stevens sympathetically, dabbing my head. 'It's just that there's a little formality we have to go through before we can admit you to the ward.'
My heart fell. 'What kind of formality?'
The woman lost some of her twinkle. With the ham-handed compassion of a grief counselor, she said, 'It's a little complicated. Not everybody gets the grand tour-it's to help you better understand what to expect… and why you are here.'
'Is he dead? Just tell me if he's dead, please.'
'No, he's not dead, but-'
'Are you sure? Because this sounds an awful lot like you're trying to break it to me. It really does.'
She glanced at her colleagues, who were fiddling with their coffee cups. 'Of course I'm sure. Although we did have to intervene quite aggressively to save his life. Ordinarily, we would not take measures like that. If someone is close to death in here, they are euthanized and immediately cremated for safety's sake. But we were instructed in this case to keep him alive for questioning. Do you have any idea what that might be about?'
'Not really.' I tried to calm myself down. 'There was something about him having stolen something from the submarine. They had him tied up and were trying to force him to tell them where it was. They even assaulted me in front of him, but he still didn't say anything. I think they made a mistake. He was just trying to save our lives!'
Dr. Stevens nodded thoughtfully, arranging her pens. 'Did Dr. Langhorne tell you the nature of our work here?'
'I guess so. The 'Magic Bean.''
'Yes. Pretty terrible, wouldn't you say?'
Feeling like she was testing me, I warily nodded.
'What if I told you there were people lining up for it? Lining up for a dose of Agent X?'
'Why?'
'The same reason people used to have their ashes shot into space, or had themselves cryogenically preserved: a shot at immortality. Agent X stops time. It stops the aging process.'
'But you're not human anymore.' The deeply buried memory of my ravening mother flickered in my mind, and I had to wrench my thoughts away. 'There's nothing left of you. Just a horrible thing.'
'Insomuch as you have seen.'
'What more do you need to see? God! Are you people all crazy in here?'
'Louise, Lulu, I'm sorry. We know you've been through a lot, and we're not trying to make it harder for you.
