Double Helix Ch. 09

Conversation now drifted to me from the other room. "How many do you think will go with us?" Nissi asked.

Norm sighed. "I think Nock might. And I think Stansy's going to stay. I really don't know about the others."

"I don't want to lose you," Nissi said. They were quiet for a time, and I started to drift towards sleep. When Nissi spoke again, I came back to full consciousness, pulled by the mention of my name. "Norm? Why do you think Tilly would want to go with us?"

I could hear the beat of hesitation before Norm spoke. "I think it's probably out of gratitude for what I did for her."

"You should tell her not to go. There is no reason for her to suffer and die out there with us."

"You know," Norm said softly. "It might not be that bad."

"What do you and I know about living out in the wilderness? What are we going to live on? Nuts? Roots? Tree bark? All we're going to do is delay the inevitable. She shouldn't have to go through that. She should have a chance to live."

Norm was quiet again for a time. "I'll talk to her," he said.

There was another long paused before Nissi spoke again, her voice slurred slightly. "Norm, is there really no other way?"

"There might be," Norm admitted. "There should be, but we don't know of one. We can only go on the knowledge we have."

The problem that had been nagging at my brain suddenly lurched to the fore again. There was an answer there, so close that I felt like I could reach out and take hold of it, but the more I tried to think it through, the more it slipped from me. There was something that Daniel had said, and a feeling he had when saying it. I needed to talk to him to find out more.

I waited in the dark, listening for more, but neither spoke again. I got up and crept to the door to listen and could hear Nissi's soft, thin breath and Norm's deeper rasp. I stood there for a moment, steeling my resolve while planning my next moves. The door opened with a snick and one of the hinges groaned as it swung back. I paused, listening to the rest of the house. The door to Wendy and Nonna's room was closed. I crept closer and could hear them both within, deeply asleep.

I opened the door and slipped inside. Wendy and Nonna were sleeping back to back, the former curled up on her side, looking small and vulnerable. I tapped her shoulder and her eyes came open, blinked, and came into focus. I knelt down next to her. "I need you to help me with something," I whispered. "Can you get up and come downstairs with me?"

She nodded and peeled back the covers. She was dressed in a set of children's pajamas, colored pink and somewhat threadbare. We crept towards the door and away from Nonna. "What's going on?" she said.

"It's Dan," I said. "I'm afraid we're all making a terrible mistake. I need to talk to him."

She frowned, but I sensed trust and acceptance from her. "He's locked in the cellar. Stansy has the key, probably in her room with her."

"Okay, let's go. Nock is probably on the net, so if we're quiet, hopefully he won't hear us. Follow close behind."

I took careful steps down the hallway, avoiding the creaky board a few steps from Wendy and Nonna's room. At the top of the stairs, I paused to listen, holding out my hand toward Wendy to indicate for her to do the same. From below, I could hear the distant clacking of keys from Nock, using the MC to browse the net, just as I expected. I moved down the steps to the first landing and paused again to listen. There was still no change, so I continued to the bottom.

The lights were off in the living room, but I could see that the door to the guest bedroom was cracked. I motioned for Wendy to wait for me before I crept across the room and carefully pushed it open. Thankfully, this door did not creak. Stan and Stansy were spooned up together in bed, sound asleep. I cast around the little room and quickly found what I was looking for. The keys that Stansy had shown us earlier lay on the mirrored dresser at the foot of the bed.

I took a deep, stilling breath and walked quietly and calmly over to the dresser. I could see Stan and Stansy in the mirror's reflection, behind my own. I grasped one of the keys between my fingers and gently lifted, letting the keys stand up and slide across the old, scarred wood, until, with a tinkle that sounded unbearably loud to my enhanced ears, the half-dozen keys came together and swung from their ring. I closed my other hand around them to keep them from clinking together. The pair on the bed slept on, oblivious to my theft.

I slipped from the room and padded over to the kitchen, Wendy close behind. I knew that the hard surfaces would amplify any sound, so I made an effort to be even more quiet and careful in crossing the linoleum. In a few moments, I was looking down the steep shaft of the stairs that went down to the cellar. The stairs were tall and narrow, so I descended them carefully, but when I was less than halfway down, one of them gave a loud creak. I froze, clutching the keys in my fist hard and gritting my teeth. My heart beat in my ears, once, twice, before the clack of keys resumed from the den. I remembered to breathe, but it took several more seconds before I could make myself move again, shifting my weight slowly off the stair so that it wouldn't creak a second time.

I went more slowly, testing my weight gradually on each step and skipping those where I could feel a subtle shifting that would likely lead to a squeak. At the bottom, I selected one key at a time and tested them until I found the one that opened the door. Wendy came to rest on the bottom step just as I turned the bolt.

The inside was pitch black, but I could hear Daniel's breathing coming from one corner. Once we were both through, I turned and locked the door behind me, then slipped the keys into the pocket of my jeans. I took Wendy's hand and waited for my eyes to gradually adjust to the very dim light that slipped in through the gaps between walls. The constant clatter of typing had finally disappeared, the sound blocked by the thick door. Empty shelves and cabinets lined the walls, and a long table took up the center of the room. The cellar was easily half as large as the first floor of the house, running under the kitchen, living room, and guest room. Daniel lay sleeping on an old mattress on the floor.

I moved over to him and stood for a moment in thought, rehearsing my next action. I knelt above his head and quickly reached with both hands, putting one over his mouth and pinning his arms with my elbows. He came awake immediately and began to thrash against me. "Quiet!" I hissed in his ear. "I'm not going to hurt you. Stop struggling and I'll let you go."

It took a few seconds for that to sink in, but once it did, he stopped trying to open his mouth and pull away. I released his arms and took my hand from his mouth. "Sorry," I whispered. "I couldn't risk you making a noise that might alert the others. Speak very softly. One of the others has enhanced hearing."

He sat up, felt around for the wall, and turned so he could lean up against it. "Who are you? I can't see anything." His pupils were dilated nearly to the point that his irises disappeared, and he looked right past me.

"My name is Tilly," I said. "I'm the brunette you met earlier. Hold on."

I pulled the chain on a light fixture that hung from the ceiling. He and Wendy both blinked at the sudden brightness. My own irises had responded at my conscious thought, contracting just before I pulled the chain, plunging my vision into darkness for a split second, but preventing me from being blinded when the light came on.

"Hello again," Wendy said, when he looked at her. "I'm Wendy."

"Nice to meet you, Wendy and Tilly," he said mockingly. "How can I help you young ladies?"

I blew out a breath and knelt in front of him. I left my instincts take over, modulating my manner, my expression, even my scent, to inspire relaxation, contentment, and trust. "I need to ask you some questions."

"I have one for you first. Are you going to let me go?"

"What would you do if I did?"

He answered without hesitation. "I would go back home," he said, "and give my son a hug, and be grateful I'm safe and alive."

Wendy sat next to me. "You wouldn't tell anyone about us?" she asked.

"I would be a fool if I did. Like I told my cousin, the federal government is intent on wiping out genemods at any cost, even innocent lives. Amnesty isn't coming to an end, it already ended. That's why you haven't been hearing a lot on the news about genemods being captured, not like you used to. There's good reason to believe the FBI is still making arrests, but that either the genemods that are taken are being imprisoned and tortured or quietly executed."

He leaned forward, meeting my gaze. "The McCain administration has decided that overt threats and pushing public opinion against genemods hasn't delivered the results they need. Now, secrecy and double-dealing is the order of the day. If they can take me in secret, they'll do it for the chance, however small, that I can help lead them to more genemods. Of that, I'm certain."

It was confirmation of the idea that had been nagging at me for hours. Daniel had mentioned a secret court for prosecuting genemod offenses, and his fear had spiked as he said it. The comment had been passed off as unimportant at the time by everyone, when in fact it was critical. Daniel did not believe that his government would give him a fair hearing, even if he broke no law and cooperated fully with them.

I sensed mistrust and suspicion from Wendy, but I had no reason to doubt his sincerity. Even if what he said wasn't true, he believed it whole-heartedly, and that was really all that mattered. Still, I wanted to know more. "Do you have any evidence of this?"

"Yeah, there's a guy who runs a website that leaks classified government documents and tracks FBI activity. He calls himself Renard. The guy's amazing. You'd have to see to understand."

"I'll check it out, but can you give me just one example?"

"Okay, listen. Around the 25th of last month, an entire family in a large household in Denver disappeared. Local media ran a few stories on the subject, but it never made national news. That was a couple in their thirties and two kids. There was a major FBI presence at the house at around the time of the disappearance, but of course they claim to have been searching for evidence of where they had gone. Renard published the public records for the house. It had a large, finished basement with plumbing and wiring. He also somehow got ahold of their utility bills and found that they were significantly above average. It's pretty obvious that they were housing genemods there. The FBI, or whoever was in charge there, made two kids disappear."

I was still skeptical, but I let it drop. "How do you feel about genemods, Dan?"

"You mean before today?"

"Yes, before we assaulted you," I said. I knew intuitively that it was the right thing to say. Daniel expected another apology, but what he really wanted was for us to own up to what we had done to him. He nodded, and I could sense that I had earned some measure of respect.

"I don't know," he said with a sigh. "I don't buy into that purity of humanity bullshit. We've been tinkering with DNA since the late 1930s, increasing crop yields, finding new treatments for diseases. Anyone with half a brain should know that linking the Rot and genemod humans is one huge non sequitur, but somehow no one questions it publicly. I think the whole thing is about fear."

I didn't disagree with his assessment, but I wanted his personal take on it. "How so?"

"People fear that you're going to replace us, maybe even make war and destroy us. 'Posthuman' was what some people called you. You can't tell me that a word like that doesn't have a lot of potential behind it for being misunderstood. Even before the Ban, human genemodding was outlawed back in the 90s. And then there is the fear of the government, what they'll do if you speak out."

I hesitated about my next words, but then went for it. "Dan, the reason we showed up here in your dad's house is that our safe house was raided."

"Whoa, hold on," Wendy said. "Are you sure that's wise, Tilly?"

I nodded at her. "He needs to know." I looked back at Daniel again. "They got our host, a woman named Sasha. You may have seen it in the news?"

He thought for a moment and nodded. "Right, I do remember that from a few weeks back. Up in Seattle?"

"Right, that was us. Norm was the man that they showed in the police sketch."

Daniel gasped in realization. "He—he killed a cop?"

"Quiet!" I hissed. I listened for a few moments, but could hear nothing from the house above. "Yes, that was him."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"To show that I trust you. Besides, that picture is still going around out there, so you would probably make the connection sooner or later. I would trust Norm with my life. In fact, he saved my life personally twice, and then saved all of us by getting us out of that safe house. He had no choice in what he did. If he hadn't shot first, that officer would have killed him. I know. I was right behind him when it happened."

"I don't think I can take this," Daniel said.

"Listen to me, Dan. We are good people, all of us, but we have nowhere to go. Earlier tonight, we were discussing hiding out in the forest. Some of them are going to turn themselves in. I'm pretty sure that's what Stansy—I mean Claudia, is going to do."

"She shouldn't do that," Daniel warned. "I'm telling you. There's no amnesty, not anymore."

"I believe you," I said. "And I'm going to tell the others what you told me, but where does that leave us?"

He considered this for some time. "You need to stay here," he said at last. "I can't send you to your deaths. I won't tell anyone. We'll just all have to take our chances."

"You're a very honest person, Dan," I told him, genuinely impressed. "You've never lied except to your mother, when we made you do it."

He laughed. "You can detect lies, huh? Well, I've just never been very good at it, I guess."

"I have a question," Wendy said. "It's about the fruit orchards."

"Sure. What do you need to know?"

"Do you harvest the fruit? Or do you leave that to the Department of Agriculture?"

"We harvest it ourselves," he said. "My mom and dad hire a few guys from Corvallis to come help."

Wendy leaned in closer to him. "What do you do with the fruit that you don't sell to the DoA?" I could feel his agitation at the question and wondered why. "Understand," Wendy clarified, "I'm not condemning you. But we're running short on food. If you have a black market contact you can give us, someone you trust, it would be a huge help."

"We do sell it, sometimes," he said grudgingly. "We also can and dry a lot of it. My dad's been putting that stuff back for a couple years now." He sighed. "Listen, if you let me go, I'll give you my contact. I'm sure he won't mind the business."

Wendy looked at me. "We can trust him," I said. "He's telling the truth."

Wendy stood and stepped back, but then had a thought. "You said you have a son, but no wife. Where is the mother?"

"She, uh, my wife died two years ago." The memory brought a stab of pain to him and I reached out reflexively to take his hand. "It's okay," he said, "really."

"But you still grieve for her," I said.

I would have left it at that, but he blew out a long breath and looked up at the ceiling. "It happened during the food riots in March of 2012. She was driving home from work. She called me to let me know she was stuck in traffic, but then called me again a bit later to say that the cars weren't moving and that she had gotten out to walk. Hours went by and she didn't show up. I put on the news and realized what had happened. Her office is just a few blocks from city hall in Portland. I was in my car and on my way over to look for her when I got the call that she was hospitalized and in critical condition. She had been trampled when the police started firing on the crowd." His voice went suddenly hoarse. "She died before I got there." He blinked and swiped at the corners of his eyes. "I didn't know how I was going to raise Zach without her."

Wendy suddenly stepped forward, knelt and put her arms around him, and gripped him in a hug. "We'll get you back to your son," she promised. Daniel was too surprised to move at first, but he slowly brought his arms behind Wendy and returned the hug, patting her back a few times. Wendy stepped back. "It's going to be alright," she said.

"Come on," I said, "We're getting you out of here tonight."

We didn't try to mask our noise coming out of the cellar, and Nock came wandering into the kitchen to check on the noise before I had cleared the stairs. "Tilly?" he said on seeing me. "What the hell is going on? What were you doing down there?"

"We're having a meeting," I said. "All of us. Right now." I moved aside to let Daniel and Wendy come up.

"What is he doing out?" Nock demanded.

"I'll explain when we're all here," I said. "Go get Norm and Nissi, please, Wendy. I'll wake Stan and Stansy. Nock, feel free to help me keep an eye on our prisoner."

"Yeah, I'll do that," he said. "Come on, Danno."

A few minutes later, everyone was assembled once more in the living room, some looking more the worse for having been woken in the middle of the night. I let Wendy tell the others what we had done, only speaking when she looked at me for confirmation of what we had heard.

"He's also agreed to give us his black market contact," Wendy finished. "If we let him go."

I watched Nock from the corner of my eye. To my surprise, what I sensed from him was not suspicion and denial, but relief. Norm was more troubled. "I trust Tilly's abilities," he said, with a nod in my direction, "but how do we know you won't change your mind tomorrow?"

"I won't," Daniel said. "And I've been thinking, if you're staying here, we need to have a way to communicate. The DoA does occasional inspections of the orchard, to ensure we're taking proper care of the trees. I thought I would turn on the phone service to the house. Then I could warn you to stay indoors and out of sight."

"And netcast?" Stansy asked hopefully. "Even a basic package would be better than what we get from broadcast."

Daniel nodded. "I'll see what I can do, though paying the utilities on this place is already going to be a burden."

"We never planned on staying permanently," Norm said. He once again offered Daniel several bills, about five hundred dollars, if they were all hundreds. "Will this cover what we've used?"

Daniel took it. "Yeah, that'll probably be enough to cover another month. And I'll get the TV going, Claudia."

"Alright," Norm said, standing. "Is everyone agreed? We let Daniel go free?"

There were nods and murmurs of agreement throughout the room. Nissi snorted. "Hell, it beats camping out for the rest of our miserable, short lives."

"Great," Norm said. "Dan, why don't you get some rest and leave in the morning?"

"You can have my bed," I said. "It's the least I can do after what you've been through."

The others filed off to bed except for Nock, who went back to the den, and Norm, who waited until we were alone. He took a seat where Dan had been. "What you did for us tonight, Tilly," he said, shaking his head. "I almost made a huge mistake. I wish we hadn't lost Sasha. Filling her shoes isn't easy. Why didn't you come talk to me sooner?"

I shrugged. "I only realized it after everyone went to sleep. And besides, you haven't exactly been easy to talk to lately. I make you uncomfortable."

"You know why," he said.

"Yes, I know." I didn't want to say anything more with Nock listening, so I pointed at the front door. Norm looked, frowned in thought for a moment, and nodded.