"For to him that is joined to all the living there is
hope: For a living dog is better than a dead lion."
Ecclesiastes 9:4
Carrie could feel them putting the squeeze on. Every day there were more of them than there had been the day before. Everywhere she looked there were fucking SWTF. Maybe she was just being paranoid, but she didn't think so. They were either sure that Spider was on her way and were preparing a trap with Carrie as the bait, or they knew what Carrie had been doing and were closing in for the kill.
Either way, it made Carrie feel like she was standing on shaky ground at the edge of a cliff. One wrong move and she would plunge into the abyss.
She ran her hands through her hair, and continued what she was doing. She had to cover as many bases as she could think of to cover. She took the micro disk out of the machine, deposited the other disks in the evidence box, and called her new legal assistant to come and cart it away. Then she stuck the micro disk in a case and stuffed it into her bra. She still didn't know what to do with the information on the disk.
She could make it public. If she did, she exposed the SWTF and all that they were doing. This disk was proof that aliens were a fact, which would no doubt cause world-wide panic and expose Spider and people like her to the worse kind of scrutiny.
Her second choice was to not make it public. But if she didn't, there was nothing to stop the SWTF from continuing to do what they had been doing all along, manipulating and destroying lives. Using people like guinea pigs as if they had no feelings and no souls.
There didn't seem to be any real answer. Even when she selfishly thought only of herself, she realized that exposing the SWTF meant exposing Spider. Spider might be able to run and hide from the SWTF, but how could she ever run from the masses? There would be nowhere that she could go and be safe ever again.
She thought about her favorite bumper sticker of all times and smiled. Mean People Suck. That said it all.
She pressed the button on the intercom. "Agnes, send George in here, please."
"Yes Sir."
A few minutes later George walked in. "Carrie?"
"Sit down, George," Carrie said. She took a deep breath. "Have you noticed . . . "
"Strange people everywhere? Yes, I have."
"Suddenly this building needs all kinds of work. The road outside my house has suddenly sprung a leak. Don't ask me how that happened, or why it's taking them three days to fix it. I want you . . . no matter what happens . . . to forget everything that we have talked about. Forget about everything, do you understand?"
"But, Carrie . . . "
"Just listen, George. Please. Jackson Harris would make a damn good assistant DA . . . "
"Carrie, what the hell are you saying?" George said.
"I'm saying I don't know what the hell is going to happen!" she said hotly. She forced herself to calm down. George didn't deserve her wrath. "There is no reason for them to believe that you are part of anything that I have done. None of it can be traced back to you. If I come up missing . . . "
"Carrie, for God's sake . . . "
"Please shut up, George. This isn't easy for me. I don't know if it's the right thing to do, but it may be the only thing." She paused and took a deep breath. "If I come up missing, I don't want you to say a word about the SWTF or anything that I've been doing. Play dumb. Say it was one of the homophobes who phone this building daily with threats. If you don't hear from me in," she thought for a minute, " . . . four weeks—one month, or I turn up dead, then take the disks and give them to the press."
George nodded silently, then said, "Carrie . . . isn't there something we can do to stop them, to protect you?"
"No. I don't think so." She forced a laugh then. "Who knows? Maybe I'm just being paranoid, and nothing at all will happen."
Robby drove, and Tommy rode shotgun. He had to think, and think clearly. Spider was counting on him to bring Carrie back in one piece. Laura was counting on him to come back in one piece. He couldn't afford even one fuck up.
He'd had a chance to talk to Robby on this trip and he now understood—at least in part—why Spider had gone to such lengths to protect him.
Robby talked about the siblings he had raised and the grandmother he had helped to support without any bitterness and with such love. Here was a man who had never had a chance to be a boy, who had never had a chance to get an education or even go on a date, and was currently being hunted like a wild animal. Yet he wasn't bitter. He wasn't even unhappy.
He talked about the girl he had fallen in love with in such glowing terms that you'd think the woman had a gold-plated pussy.
Robby was sharp and friendly. In short, he was the nicest motherfucker Tommy had ever met, and he couldn't think of one reason not to like the guy. Yet he had probably personally killed more men than any other single man in history.
It just really did not compute.
"Is she going to get better?" Robby asked, talking about Spider.
"I hope so," Tommy said. "You've never really seen her at the top of her game. There's no stopping her."
"If she's not operating at the top now, she must be hell on wheels. I've seen her do things . . . " He told Tommy about her dropping down the stairwell. "She seemed to have her balance then. Maybe it was that last sleeping dart."
Tommy shrugged. "When I got hit in the head the doctor kept talking about something called post concussion syndrome. Laura said it can take days to manifest. Apparently swelling in the brain causes short-term memory loss, loss of balance, and irritability. I'll bet it's nothing a little time and some attention from Carrie can't cure. Pull in here."
Robby pulled into the parking lot of the bar without question.
"Come on. It's show time."
Sherry and a woman Tommy didn't know were sitting at the corner table. Sherry wasn't a very big woman. Average height, thin, nice build—a real looker. At first glance, one might dismiss her as an airhead, a lightweight. Tommy knew better. He started making his way across the room, and Robby followed.
"Hey, Sherry," the girl at the table said. "You know some pretty sleazy people. What if I wanted to have someone killed?"
"Linda, I know people who'd ice a guy for a twelve pack and a joint," Sherry said. She looked up at the two strangers as they approached. "Take these two for instance . . . Can I help you guys, or are you just here for the view?"
"Need to talk to you, Sherry," Tommy said. Linda didn't have to be asked to leave—she just made tracks. Tommy sat down and Robby followed his lead.
"Tommy Chan, is that you?" Sherry asked in a whisper.
Tommy nodded.
"Hell, boy! We thought you were long dead. Word on the street had it you got in trouble with some mob thing."
"The mob I could have handled, but we're talking government. Listen, Sherry, you know that favor you owe me?"
"I knew that was going to come back and bite me on the ass some day." Sherry leaned forward with a sigh and rested her chin on her hands. "Well, get on with it."
"I need you to make a diversion."
"Is that all? I thought you were going to ask me to hand over my first-born or some other goddamn horrible thing. You want a diversion . . . " She snapped her fingers in a Z. "Sherry can make a diversion."
Sherry's gum popping was starting to get on his nerves. "Do you have to do that?" Tommy asked in a whisper.
"What?" Sherry asked with a shrug.
"That popping, smacking shit," Tommy said.
"What are you waiting around for, anyway? Are we just going to sit here all damn night?"
That was a good question. Tommy wondered where the hell Carrie was. She should have been home an hour ago. He hoped he wasn't too damn late. But if he was, why were the damned SWTF guys there? He was sure that was what the road crew was.
Suddenly he saw what he was sure was Carrie's car turn around the corner of the street. "OK, Sherry. Do your thing." He handed her a hundred dollar bill and she looked at him. "For cab fare."
She nodded, stuffed the bill in her bra and got out of the car. She pulled her skirt up as high as it would go and headed for the "construction workers."
"Hey boys!" She sauntered up to them. "Pity to be working on such a nice night." She purposely dropped her purse, and then bent down slowly to retrieve it, flashing her ass for them.
"We ain't looking for no hooker, lady. Just doing our job. Now move along."
Sherry smiled before she stood up. All she had to do was create a diversion, and he had just given her a hell of an opening.
"What the hell did you call me!" she screamed. "I ain't no fucking hooker!"
"I'm sorry . . . "
"Sorry! Why you pencil-dicked, geek! Why, you couldn't get laid in a monkey whorehouse with a sack full of bananas. I wouldn't fuck you if you had the last dick on earth!"
"Hey, now . . . " he started to protest.
"Hey now, my ass!" Sherry screamed. "You think you can call me anything you like and get away with it?"
The other three men were obviously very amused by the fourth one's predicament.
"What are you bunch of cackling hens laughing about, there ain't a rooster in the whole damn bunch of ya! If any of you were real men, you wouldn't let him talk to a lady like that . . . "
Carrie pulled into her driveway with the police close behind her. They got out and one stood with her while the other went inside to do the regular check of the house.
She heard all the hubbub across the street. Apparently some tramp had mistaken the So-what-if guys for humans. Carrie wished he'd hurry up with his check so she could go inside, throw off her shoes, and sit down.
In a matter of seconds a man jumped out of the bushes, delivered a knockout punch to her guard, grabbed her, and pulled her into the bushes. She started to scream, but there was a hand over her mouth.
"Listen! It's me—Tommy. I'm going to get you out of here."
Carrie nodded and followed as he pulled her around and through the hedges, successfully keeping her out of view of the SWTF guys.
He was leading her towards the hole in the hedge on the west side of the house. She squeezed through and into the car that was parked right beside the hedge.
"Damn! That was way too easy," Tommy said. He was kneeling in the floorboards with Carrie. "OK, Robby. Get us the hell out of here."
There was nothing. "Robby?" Tommy looked slowly up. A big blond guy looked down at him.
"My name is Brawn," he said. "And I'd say I have just about all the leverage I need now to bring a certain lady cop back into the fold."
Tommy saw the size of the man's hands, and knew what he was up against, but it was a sure bet that Brawn didn't know what he was up against. Tommy whipped his right hand up quickly, letting his left shoulder drop to add impact. His palm hit Brawn's nose, and he kept pushing. Then he jumped as far up as the car would allow, and plowed the monster's head into the top of the car hard enough to dent the roof. The man's face caved in around Tommy's hand, and when Tommy pulled his hand back the man fell into the front seat and started to spasm.
"Stay here," Tommy ordered Carrie.
Carrie nodded. She had no intention of even getting out of the floorboards.
Tommy crawled over her and out the door they had crawled in. He opened the front door, dragged the body out, and rolled it into the bushes—not without an effort. Then he started looking for Robby.
"Robby," Tommy whispered. He was ducked down below the hedges. Across the street and around the corner he could hear Sherry still screaming at the SWTF Guys. Then their tone changed. He heard one of them scream over Sherry.
"Something's going down over there!"
A quick look through the hedge showed him that the cop had come out of the house and found Carry gone and his partner down.
"Robby! Damn it, man." He couldn't wait; he had to go. He ran back to the car, jumped in and started the engine.
"Stay down, this could get hairy." He took off.
"Sorry, Robby, but you're on your own," he muttered.
He drove at a normal pace, but they still tagged him.
"Damn! They're following us," Tommy hissed. He tried to lose them without looking too obvious, but they stayed with him, so he wasn't just dreaming it. Suddenly, there was a loud knocking.
"Oh! Just what we fucking need! Car trouble. I wish we had fucking Robby." The knocking got louder, and Tommy realized what it was. He laughed.
"Robby, is that you man?" The knocking got louder and more urgent.
"Carrie, there's a latch in the top of the back seat that flips it down so you can get in the trunk."
Carrie found it and opened it. She could see the man—he had a bucket shaped helmet on his head, and she helped him get it off.
"Tommy! I'm so sorry, man," Robby said.
He was handcuffed, but with Carrie's help he managed to squirm into the back seat. "The fucker snuck up on me, hit me with a fucking lightning bolt, and then slammed that damn thing on my head. I couldn't do shit."
"It's OK, man. Can you do something about our tail?
Robby looked back. "Which one?"
Tommy checked in his rear view mirror again. Damn! They had picked up another car. "Both of them."
Robby focused on the front car for a second. "It's not working."
Suddenly, a large sedan pulled out in front of them. Tommy swerved and hit the gas. The jig was up; no more pretending. This was a full-scale chase.
"Try again," Tommy begged.
"I am. It's just not working."
"Is it the hand cuffs?" Tommy asked.
"No. It's got to be that damned lightning bolt. My heads still sort of fuzzy. It must have fucked me up."
Cars were coming at them from everywhere. Suddenly SWTF, FBI, and local police—everyone—was in hot pursuit. Tommy swerved in and out of traffic.
He saw Carrie pull a gun out from under her arm. She put her arm out the window and started firing behind them. She didn't appear to be hitting anything, but it seemed to be keeping them back a little.
Just as Tommy was sure they were going to get away, a fucking panel truck turned out into his lane. There was nowhere to go except through the front of a department store.
"Get down and hold on!" Tommy screamed.
He drove through the window, diving into the floorboards with his foot still hard on the accelerator.
The car plowed through the window and most of the way across the store before it stopped against the back wall.
Tommy kicked the door open, opened the back door, grabbed his gun with one hand and Carrie with the other. "Come on! Let's move it!"
Robby piled out behind Carrie and they started running for the down escalator, which went to the basement parking garage.
The cops and SWTF started plowing through the front wall and coming after them. Robby turned, and this time his power was back. As the front three SWTF guys blew up, everyone else hit the floor.
The three of them made it to the escalator and started running down it. As they reached the bottom, five SWTF men rounded the corner beside them. Tommy let go of Carrie, grabbed the rail with one hand, and bounded over the side. He kicked one guy in the neck, then spun and snap kicked another hard enough to drive him to his knees. Another kick to the second guy's head finished him.
As Robby hit the other three, Carrie scooped up two of their fallen guns without being asked, and Tommy suddenly realized just why Spider was so taken with her. He'd always known that Carrie was intelligent, but it had never dawned on him that she might also be street smart, and quick. He had certainly never considered that she could be physically tough if the need arose.
She fired on a troop of SWTF men who were coming down the escalator after them. Two of them fell.
Tommy grabbed her arm and pulled her behind a concrete post. Robby followed them, watching their back.
"Tommy," Carrie said a little excited. "I'm still on line."
He looked at her, a bit puzzled about her obvious implication that this was somehow important.
"They can track me. But it also means I still have my clearance."
Tommy nodded. He finally knew what she was getting at. He looked at Robby. "If we can get to a cop car—any cop car—Carrie can get us in."
They started to move again, and were spotted again this time by the police. Carrie waved her comlink at them, but they drew down on Robby and Tommy.
"I think we just caught a break," Carrie mumbled to Tommy.
"Put those away! This is agent Chan and this . . . " she slapped Robby hard, and pointed at the handcuffs, "is one of the men who tried to kidnap me. The others are back there. Be careful! They are armed and dangerous. I need your car, where is it?"
They all pointed in different directions.
"Well, don't just stand there! Go after them." The police ran one way, and they ran the other.
They located a car, got in and took off. No one followed them. No one questioned them.
Tommy sighed with relief. "All right. But what now, boss? This car is linked up, and so are you."
"Let's just get the hell out of town for now. We can get another car in Jones Port or fucking walk for all I care. Right now I just want as much distance between us and them as we can get. As for me." She reached in her pocket, pulled out the wand and rubbed it over her ear. "Now I'm off line, and with this we can put me back on line if we need to."
"Great!"
Robby, now riding alone in the back seat behind the partition, rattled the handcuffs. Carrie pushed the button to lower the shield, passed her comlink over the cuffs, and nothing happened. She smiled at him and shrugged.
"Sorry, must be coded different than mine."
"Hit them with a little heat," Tommy said.
"That only works in the movies. If I get that metal hot enough to break, it's also going to burn the shit out of my wrists," Robby said.
He looked at Carrie then and smiled. She looked haggard and rattled, but she was still every bit as pretty as Spider said she was. "You must be Carrie. I've heard a lot about you."
"And you're the Fry Guy." No hint of surprise in her voice, so obviously she'd already figured it out. Carrie shook his hand as he worked at presenting it to her. "You sure did open up a big ole can of worms, now didn't you?"
He nodded, head down. "I'm sorry."
Carrie shrugged. "It's all water almost under the bridge now."
She looked at Tommy. "So, how is Spider?"
Tommy started to answer.
"The truth, Tommy. If she was in perfect health nothing would have stopped her from coming with you to get me."
Tommy took a deep breath. "She's in pretty bad shape . . . They did horrible things to her, Carrie. They beat her up pretty bad. Pumped a lot of drugs into her body. She's lost a lot of weight."
Carrie nodded and looked out the window. "Is she going to be all right?"
"I think so," Tommy said. "In time. I think your being there will help."
They lost the car and stole another out of a parking lot. Robby explained how to do it, and Tommy followed his directions exactly. They stopped along the way for Carrie to get some suitable clothes. When they stopped to sleep for the night Tommy fiddled with the lock on the handcuffs till they came off.
"I could drive," Carrie said.
"No. For the hundredth time, Carrie, we need some sleep," Tommy said.
Carrie nodded. She knew he was right, but it didn't help her much. She needed to see Spider right then. To see how bad she really was. While Tommy and Robby slept like babies, she didn't sleep a wink. She woke them up three hours later and demanded that they hit the road—which they did.
On the way up to the cabins she kept running ahead of them. Even Tommy's reminders that she didn't know where they were going didn't slow her down.
When she stepped into the clearing ahead of Tommy and Robby, the first thing she saw was Spider sitting on a rock in the sun. Spider's head turned to meet her, no doubt sensing her there. She cringed as she watched Spider struggle to get up, then she ran to meet her. Carrie threw her arms around Spider, and Spider embraced her.
They both had a good cry.
"I thought I'd never see you again," Carrie said.
"I was so worried. I knew you wouldn't be safe for much longer. I trusted that Tommy would come through for us. I'm sorry . . . I couldn't go after you myself."
Carrie dried her eyes and then she dried Spider's. "Tommy told me. We'll get you well, Baby."
Tommy and Robby caught up to them then. "That damn woman of yours tried to run our legs off," Tommy said with a smile.
"Thank you. Both of you," Spider said. It didn't look like she planned to let Carrie go anytime soon. Or Carrie her for that matter.
"She's a hell of a gal, Spider. A real trooper," Tommy said with real admiration. Then he took Robby by the arm and steered him away.
Mark came running out of the cabin, very excited. Laura walked out behind him, looking more than a little shaken.
Mark ran up to them. "Tommy! Robby! You know what happened? Laura and I were getting water, and there was this snake, and zap! I just fried it." He almost snapped his fingers, but didn't quite succeed. "Just like that. I think I'm ready to go with you guys now."
Laura hugged Tommy. "It was the most horrible thing; it almost bit me."
Tommy looked over Laura's shoulder at where Mark was making a face and shaking his head no.
Laura saw Carrie then, and started to run off to greet her, happy for real female companionship at last.
Tommy grabbed her arm. "Give them some time, Honey." He looked around. "Where's Francis?"
Mark started yanking on Tommy's pants leg. "Come on, I'll show you."
Francis was in a clearing behind the cabins stacking rocks in some weird formation.
"What the hell is she doing?" Tommy asked.
"She told Mom she's calling the aliens. Mom told her she hoped that she did, because then they were going to kick her ass for what they did to us. But she ain't black anymore."
"What do you mean?" Tommy asked in confusion.
Robby answered him.
"She's not dark anymore. We see evil people as a black shadow. We can see all the bad things they've done. See their dark desires. Francis was like that, and now . . . Well, she's not exactly light, but she's not dark anymore. She's changed." Robby seemed troubled.
"What?" Tommy asked.
"Well, if she could change . . . What about all those people I fried?"
"I'm not sure she deserved a second chance. Most of the assholes you fried had been given more than a second chance, and they just got worse and worse and worse. If I were you, I wouldn't lose any sleep over those scum."
Robby had been messing with it for hours.
"Well?" Tommy asked.
Robby shrugged. "I just don't know that much about computers. I'm sorry, but I don't know if I can make it work or not."
"Let me see if I can help. I'm not terribly mechanical, but I do know computers. Between the two of us, maybe we can figure it out," Carrie said.
Spider sat down on the hearth, and Mark immediately sat down beside her, taking her hand.
"Why don't you just tell us what's on the disk?" Spider asked impatiently.
Spider wasn't herself at all. The longer Carrie was here, the more she realized that. She was weak and got winded easily. She was irritable and edgy. Carrie knew who the boy was, but she kept waiting for Spider to introduce them. Kept waiting for Spider to tell her what she'd been through, but so far in the approximately six hours since she'd arrived, Spider hadn't talked much at all. After the initial excitement of seeing her wore off, she had in fact seemed distant—almost cold. Carrie fiddled with some lines on the comlink. There was nothing really compatible about the disk and the comlink; it was a long shot at best.
She didn't want Spider to see how disappointed she was by her reactions. Laura had told her about the head injury and what she knew about the conditions Spider had been kept in. It explained all of her symptoms, and made her behavior tolerable if frustrating and disappointing.
"What's on the disk!" Spider screamed.
When Carrie looked at her, Spider's face was red with anger.
Carrie took a deep breath and reminded herself that she had to be rational, because Spider really couldn't be held accountable. "It's a list of all the hybrids the SWTF have made. I've found fifty of them, twenty males and thirty females . . . "
"So, now that we're aliens, we're not women and men anymore, we're males and females," Spider said hotly.
It wasn't till then that Carrie realized that not all of Spider's reserved nature was directly related to her injuries or her captivity. Carrie hadn't really had time for the implications of what she had learned to soak in. At least not in relation to Spider. Carrie'd had more pressing matters to worry about than the fact that her lover was half alien—half not human.
It didn't really matter to her. Or at least that was what she'd told herself from the moment she'd pieced it all together and figured it out. But she had just said males and females, so maybe in the back of her head she did see them as different. Of course they were different, but different was not synonymous with bad.
Carrie was about to explain all that when Tommy said, "That isn't what she meant. You know that's not what she meant. Quit being such a damn moody piece of shit. No one can say anything to you without you getting pissed off."
"It's the cranial injury," Francis chimed from where she sat in the corner polishing rocks on her shirttail.
"I'm sorry, Spider. I've just gone through these files so much, and that's the way the files are labeled." Carrie looked at Spider, and held her gaze. It wasn't easy. She was used to seeing love in Spider's eyes, and it just wasn't there right now. Spider seemed to be running on primal energy, almost more animal than human. Existing at least mentally in a place where everyone was her enemy. Where no one was to be trusted. "Feel me, Spider. Can't you feel that I love you? If you are anything different, you are superior to us. Why would I look down on you? Don't you know I love you?"
"I . . . I can't feel anything." Spider now sounded more confused than angry, or even afraid. "My power is all but gone. But notice that I'm not part of us anymore."
Carrie thought over what she had just said. She decided to take off the kid gloves, because that obviously wasn't working anyway. "Christ on a crutch, Spider! Would you listen to yourself? We're gay; they're not. That makes them, them—and us, us. Tommy's Asian; we're not. That makes him, them—and us, us. You and Robby and Mark are half alien; we're not. So that makes you, them—and us, us. But we're still all human . . . "
Spider glared at her through slitted eyes.
"Goddamn it! You know what I mean." Carrie sighed deeply. "Do you really think I would have stuck my neck out for you if I thought you were some freak? If I didn't love you? Look at us! Look at all of us. We've been forced to give up our lives because of the SWTF. We're all in this together, Baby. There's only one enemy here—and it isn't me."
Spider nodded silently and looked at her feet. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm being such a jerk." She started to cry.
Mark frowned and started patting her on the back.
Carrie stood up, walked over and took Spider's hand.
Mark gave her a dirty look. Obviously he blamed Carrie for Spider's tears.
Carrie didn't really care what he thought. "Come on, let's go somewhere and talk." She helped Spider to her feet, and Spider followed her out of the cabin without argument.
Mark started to follow them, and Tommy grabbed his arm.
"Hey!" Mark protested.
"Give them some space, boy," Tommy said. He pulled gently on Mark's arm till he was sitting beside him. "You stay here and help us."
"She looks worse," Robby said to Laura.
"She does not," Mark said harshly.
Tommy glared at Robby, and Robby nodded. "I wasn't talking about Spider. I was talking about . . . this radio, computer shit . . . stuff."
"That's the way they do," Francis said matter-of-factly. "They use more of their brain than we do. They do more with their brains, and for this reason they are capable of complete regeneration of brain cells. But to do so they have to shut almost completely down."
"What exactly does that mean?" Robby asked.
Tommy shook his head indicating that he was as confused as Robby was.
"She gave herself a head injury, and she used a power she'd never used before, she drained herself. Her brain has been damaged. When we take a hit to the head, drink, do drugs, just about anything, we kill brain cells. That's a permanent loss, because when our brain cells die, they don't come back, they're gone. Not the hybrids. Their cells are harder to kill, and they are capable of the total regeneration of brain cells. But, in order to do it, their whole metabolism has to slow down. In cases of severe head trauma hybrids have been known to go into a coma. Then they arise from the coma in perfect mental and physical condition."
"Damn! All this time she's been pushing herself trying to get exercise. Making herself stay up. Trying not to just lay around all day sleeping, and instead of helping her it was hurting her. That's why she's getting worse," Laura said thoughtfully. She glared at Francis.
Francis shrugged. "No one asked."
"Maybe someone should go tell Spider and Carrie," Laura suggested.
"I'm sorry, Carrie," Spider said looking at her feet.
Carrie squeezed Spider's hand tighter. No reassuring pressure was returned. Spider's hand felt cold and clammy.
"It's all right. I know you've been through hell emotionally and physically . . . "
"It's not just that . . . " She seemed to be having trouble breathing. "I need to sit down."
Carrie helped her over to a rock and they sat down. Carrie moved close to Spider without letting go of her hand.
"How bad are you?" Carrie asked carefully. "Tell me the truth. Don't blow smoke up my ass."
Spider laughed.
"What?" Carrie demanded.
"It's just funny to hear my sayings coming out of your mouth. You used to talk so classy."
"I'm still the classy one—don't you forget it. And don't try to change the subject," Carrie demanded
"I don't really know. To tell the truth, I actually feel worse instead of better." Spider looked up at the full moon. "It's all still a little hard to believe. All my life I knew I wasn't like everyone else, but I thought I was just psychic or something. When I first realized there was a connection between Robby and me, I thought about genetic engineering. I never thought . . . I never dreamed . . . extraterrestrial! I'm so sorry that I got you into all this shit. Sorry about your job, and your house, and all of the shit with the SWTF. When I met you, all I thought I was doing was tampering with a little evidence in a way that would ensure that I'd never be caught. I never had any idea that we'd end up like this."
Carrie put her hand on Spider's shoulder, and was a little hurt when Spider flinched at her touch. She told herself that Spider didn't find her touch revolting. It was just that she had been tortured, and it would take a while before she could accept that every touch wasn't going to be accompanied by pain.
"How could any of us have known? You don't have to apologize to me for anything. Like you said you had no way of knowing. If this is what I have to go through to be with you, then I'd do it twice."
Spider put her arm around Carrie's shoulder and pulled closer to her. "The boy . . . Mark . . . he's . . . "
Carrie let her off the hook. "I know already, Spider. I knew the minute I saw his picture. Everything I discovered after that just proved what I already knew in my heart. So, what's that like? Having a son, I mean."
"You know, of course, that I probably have a dozen," Spider said.
"From the files I've seen I'd say at least that," Carrie said matter-of-factly.
"I never thought I'd have kids. I never really had parents, so I have no idea how to raise a kid. Besides, I've seen the worst that this world has to offer, and I'm not sure I would want to willingly bring children into it. Even when you and I got together, I never thought kids would be part of our future. We were both too caught up in our jobs."
"We might have taken a break from work to raise kids," Carrie said with a smile. "I can't say I never thought about it, especially since you and I have been together. But, in all seriousness, I always thought that if one of us were going to have kids—it would be me."
"It's weird, because suddenly here's this kid. I didn't give birth to him, didn't nurture him, and didn't raise him. Hell! I didn't even know he existed. Yet I feel this unbelievable closeness to him. If I let myself think about the rest of them, I could become really seriously weirded out. Who knows what's happening to them? Mark had a good family a good life, but who knows about the others? Where they are, or what's happening to them. Those bastards killed Scott, you know. My mother, too."
"He didn't pass the test," Carrie said. "These So-what-if guys are some real heartless bastards. Seems that when the hybrids reach a certain age if they haven't done something that obviously shows their power, then the SWTF tests them. Apparently they hire a bunch of thugs to attack them. They don't do it themselves, because if the subject passes the test all of the thugs wind up dead. If the subject doesn't kill them, he flunks the test, and they kill him. It's that simple. They didn't have to test you because you went into the service, and that was all the test they needed. After all, they bred you to be soldiers. What better testing ground than a real war? But in order to keep you under wraps, every doctor who ever examined or took care of you had to either be one of their own, or be convinced not to tell . . . "
"If they couldn't convince them . . . "
"They just killed them," Carrie said. She looked up at the moon. "The more I found out, the more scared I got. The SWTF are completely ruthless, single-minded bastards. I had no idea what had happened to you—or Tommy and Laura for that matter. I didn't want to expose them, because in exposing them I would have to expose the entire project, including you. But at the same time I was very quickly running out of options. I'm glad Tommy got me when he did."
"I'm not sure the general public is ready to learn that they aren't alone in the universe, much less that the federal government has been using American citizens as guinea pigs in their experiments. That we are living among them, look like them, and have the power to cook their brains in their head." Spider looked at Carrie. "I think . . . Carrie, I think I'm dying, and . . . "
"You're not dying! You can't die." Carrie was insistent. She hadn't given up her life for a corpse.
Tommy walked out of the shadows. He hadn't been eavesdropping; not really, he had just been waiting for a good time to interrupt them.
"You're not dying, Spider. You're regenerating."
Carrie was more than a little disappointed. She would have liked to curl up around Spider, but the boy was sleeping between them instead, and she had to be content to hold Spider's hand. Laura tried to convince the boy to stay with she and Tommy, but he freaked out, and Spider insisted that he stay with her. Then, of course, he had to sleep with them—and not just with them, but between them.
No doubt he felt that Carrie represented a threat on his claim to Spider. Spider was all the boy had, and after the shit he'd been through he needed Spider. Needed Spider to be his mother.
When Carrie told Mark that she'd talked to his parents, that they missed him and were worried about him, he didn't even seem to care. He hadn't asked her a single question about them or about his sister. It was weird, because they had been the only family he'd ever known, and yet he didn't seem to be suffering from any separation anxiety. He seemed more than happy to forget them and form a new life with his biological mother.
It was a good thing, too, because God only knew if any of them would ever get their old lives back.
Carrie wondered where she was going to fit into the equation if that happened. If Mark stayed with them, would he accept her as part of Spider's life? Could he grow to love her, and she him? Or were they just going to be in each other's way, each trying to get what they both wanted—Spider's attention.
For now, she was the adult. She realized that a little boy who had been through the trauma Mark had been through needed someone to hold on to. For the time being she could take a back seat, but she was damned if she was going to do it on any sort of permanent basis.
She could just barely make out Spider's face in the moonlight. She had fallen to sleep the minute she lay down, and seemed to be sleeping peacefully. Behind her, sleeping on a cot close to the door was the black man. The Fry Guy. He had killed dozens of people, but then so had Spider Webb. He had an awesome power, but if he had wanted to kill them he could have done it easily, so she wasn't afraid of him.
Spider trusted him, so she trusted him, too. Spider had given up everything, risked all of their lives for him. Therein lay the real rub. He was the cause of all of their problems. If it hadn't been for him, none of this ever would have happened. She and Spider would be home in their own bed, as would Tommy and Laura. Mark would still be with his family with no idea that he wasn't right where he belonged.
Suddenly a chill went up Carrie's spine and she was covered with gooseflesh as somewhere in her mind enlightenment dawned. She was where she was supposed to be. They were all where they were supposed to be. All that had happened to them their whole life had brought them to this place at this time. If only one thing had been different . . .
Everything she had ever done had pointed her to this moment in time, and given her the strengths she needed to help take down the SWTF.
With this new enlightenment, Robby Strange became not the man who had witlessly ruined their lives, but the purveyor of their destiny.