Double Helix Ch. 19

"Good night," I said, and she gave me a thin smile and turned to leave the room. I touched the spot where she had kissed me and frowned. "Goddammit," I muttered under my breath. I went through the same exercise as before, banishing the heady feelings that the brief physical contact had inspired.

To distract myself, I pulled up my next task on the terminal. We had a team of thirty or so who were tracking reverts, checking their social media accounts, that kind of thing. If we saw that someone stopped posting updates, we would flag them for closer scrutiny. If they stayed gone, or we started seeing friends or family asking after them, we put them on our list of disappeared reverts. Alarmingly, we were seeing them disappear nationwide at a rate very close to 2000 per month. It was my job to compile that data based on the location, age, sex, income, and other factors and pass that on to Stanley for analysis.

So far, there seemed little pattern to the winnowing except that the amount remained steady, they occurred in proportion to the population in an area, and they tended to be people with few friends or family. Reverts were publicly registered, but unless the person was a potential employee or fiancé, few bothered to check, so most people would never make the connection.

At the rate they were disappearing, it would take about nine years to take them all, accounting for deaths due to natural causes, accidents, and other causes. I carefully parsed and compiled the lists of confirmed disappearances into counts by the categories I had been given, loaded it into a report and sent it on.

I stood up and stretched stiff muscles. It was after 2 AM and the rest of the house had gone to bed. I was out of work for the moment, so I headed for the bathroom, contemplating what type of entertainment I wanted to load up to keep me distracted until morning. I went into the little bathroom next to the den and sat to relieve myself. I cocked my head at hearing the faint sound of footsteps on the stairs, coming down. The steps came closer, soft, as though the person were deliberately being quiet, moving slowly. They paused for a moment outside the bathroom, and I heard slow, even breathing, and then they moved on, the sound changing as the steps fell on the hardwood of the den instead of carpet.

I finished up quickly in the bathroom and carefully and quietly opened the door. My own footsteps sounded blunderingly loud to my ears, despite my best effort to be quiet, but I knew that no one else in the house but Tilly was likely to hear me. A faint metallic scratching sound was coming from the den. I put my head slowly around the corner. The den was well-lit, and I immediately spotted the figure of a woman in gray pajamas bent down in front of our gun cabinet, a screwdriver in one hand and what appeared to be an unfolded paper clip in the other.

"Nonna?" I said. "What are you doing?"

She glanced at me, but did not answer. She was still working at the lock, and I could hear the faint "snick" of pins being pushed above the tumbler by the paperclip. "That's it," she said in Russian, and the lock suddenly turned from the pressure of the screwdriver.

"Wait," I said, also in Russian, but she was already reaching inside the cabinet for the little 9mm handgun we had confiscated from her a year ago. She pulled back the slide, cocked her head to one side to peer into the chamber and released it. "Nonna, stop!" I said, coming towards her in a rush.

She froze in the act of reaching for the gun's magazine, then quickly pulled her hand back. She lifted the gun to show me that it was empty and I stopped a few feet away. "This is my gun," she said, speaking English. "I was just coming to get it back."

I stared at her. "You're speaking perfect English," I said.

"Of course," she said. Her accent was still there, but nowhere near as thick. "Why shouldn't I?"

"Your English has always been a little broken."

She cocked her head in thought. "Now that you mention it..." She looked at the hand holding the gun and then lifted her other, turning it in the light. She touched the side of her her face. "What did...?" she started. Then her eyes widened. She let the gun fall from her hand to clatter on the floor. "Excuse me," she said, pushing roughly past me.

I turned to follow her and caught up to her in the bathroom. She was touching her face and her hair, and turning to see different angles. "I can't believe it. I'm young again. Tell me how this happened."

I told her what I knew of the enzyme, gene therapy and the stem cell treatments, but she cut me off impatiently. "How long did this take? What is the date?"

"It's after midnight, so September 26th," I said.

"What is the year?"

"2015."

Nonna swayed on her feet and had to grip the countertop for support. "Years," she said faintly. "I've lost years."

I put an arm around her waist for support. "Come on, let's go sit down."

I lowered her into the armchair in the den and pulled the desk chair around to face her. "Tell me what happened," I prompted. "What do you remember before you got here?"

She nodded slowly a few times. "I woke up in bed. That little girl, Wendy is her name?"

"That's right."

"Wendy was asleep next to me and I couldn't remember how I got there. I went to find the gun that I always keep in my nightstand drawer, but it was missing. I thought hard and remembered that there is a cabinet that has guns in it, but I do not know where the key is. So I got the tools I would need to pick the lock. That is when you showed up. Who are you, by the way? I remember you, but not your name."

"I'm Nock," I said. "I think your brain finally finished wiring up all of that regrown tissue and must have rebooted itself or something."

"Has Aleksandra seen me like this?" she asked. "She probably..." Her brow furrowed. "Oh. Oh, no. They-they took her. I remember seeing her face on the news."

I nodded grimly. "Sasha was arrested, yes, on the night we escaped from Seattle. She was put on trial for treason. Her attorney has appealed her conviction several times now, but the government has been fast-tracking her through the system."

"I see," she said. "Do we know how much longer she has?"

We had all been following Sasha's case, though we rarely talked about it anymore. We had known from the beginning that the outcome would be. The McCain administration had used the incident at her house, and especially the police officer Norm had killed, to push its agenda of demonizing genemods. Our successful escape had, in a not insignificant way, actually harmed public opinion of genemods and given McCain greater freedom to pursue their destruction. Her execution as an enemy of the people had probably been a foregone conclusion.

Death row inmates under US federal jurisdiction normally went to the complex in Terre Haute, Indiana, but that prison was strictly for male inmates. Washington state had a longstanding moratorium on capital punishment, so they couldn't execute her there. They lacked the facilities, for one thing. So she had been held at Sea-Tac Federal Detention Center while her attorney steadily worked through her appeals. Her last appellate trial had finished a few weeks prior.

"Not long," I said. "They are supposed to move her to Terre Haute to carry out the execution, but no one knows exactly when that will be."

"Prisoner transport?" Nonna asked, gazing at me with sudden intensity.

"Well, yes, I suppose," I answered.

"And she has not already been moved?"

"Any time something happens in her case, the news is all over it. If she had already been moved, I'm sure we would know it by now."

Nonna pushed back a lock of her long black hair that had fallen in front of her face. "Then there is a chance. We need to find out when that transport is going to take place, and we need to know it right away." She stood and started for the doorway, but stopped. "Where is..." She paused, scrunching up her face. "The one with the beard. He tries to be funny."

"You mean Norm."

"Yes, I think that is it. I must speak with him, please."

She followed me upstairs and to the end of the hall. I knocked on Norm's door and waited. Tilly answered a minute later, wearing one of Norm's shirts. She looked at me, then Nonna. "What's wrong?"

"Stansy," Nonna said. "We need to talk to Norm."

"Alright," Tilly said, confusion flashing on her face, probably more from Nonna's behavior than by being called by the wrong name, but she didn't miss a beat. "I'll get him up."

"Meet us down in the den," I said.

Tilly nodded and closed the door.

"That was Tilly," I said. "Not Stansy."

Nonna frowned at me. "What? Oh, right, of course."

Once we were back downstairs, I asked. "How much do you remember about the last few years?"

Nonna stared into the distance. "Just fragments. I remember coming to America. Aleksandra arranged it through the embassy in Helsinki. That was..." Her brow furrowed. "Six years ago? We lived together for a few years, and then I remember many people coming and going from our basement. Genemods. You were all in hiding. That's why we were on the run, wasn't it?"

"That's part of," I said. "Your mother was caught by a sting operation to catch food hoarders, and they came to the house. A police officer was killed when we escaped. Federal prosecutors spun the whole thing as an act of domestic terrorism, so they have particular interest on all of us."

"I remember that," Nonna said. "I shot one of them."

"And I'm glad you did," Norm said, walking in. "I might have been killed if you hadn't." Tilly followed just behind him. Both had taken a moment to throw on rumpled clothing before coming down. "Nonna, you're looking and sounding much better."

"Thank you, but I am still struggling to put all the pieces together. I recall coming to this place, but not much of what came before or after. Nock has helped me to remember some. He said that Aleksandra is to be transferred from the prison in Sea-Tac to Indiana for execution. We cannot allow this to happen."

Norm exchanged a look with me, but I only shrugged. He glanced at Tilly, but she was watching Nonna intently. Finally, he said. "Nonna, you're talking about breaking her out of a federal prison. That's just not something we have the resources or the know-how to do."

Nonna raised her brows. "We do not need to break her out of prison. Our best hope is to intercept the transport when they attempt to transfer her to Terre Haute. For this, we will need guns, vehicles, equipment, and personnel."

"Whoa, slow down," Norm said. "Look, I think it's wonderful that your mind is working so much better, but have you gone completely mad?"

I barked a laugh at the contradiction, earning me a disapproving look from Norm. I don't think he got the unintentional joke.

Nonna sat back in her chair, regarding Norm intently, as if sizing him up. "It is very simple. We have an as yet undetermined window of time. If we do nothing, they will execute my daughter. I intend to prevent that. I owe her my life for getting me out of Russia. I think that most of you owe her as well."

"How would you do it?" I asked.

"Before deciding anything, we need information," Nonna said, leaning forward once more. "We must know when the transport will leave Sea-Tac, the route it will take, and who will be onboard. Ideally, we will know the make and model of the vehicle and its capabilities, also if it will have escort. We must have a reliable estimate of when authorities will respond to our attack, and which authorities those will be. Then, we must come up with a means of stopping the transport, neutralizing any armed resistance, blocking communications, and evading pursuit."

As she spoke, Norm's expression shifted from dubious to interested. "How did you come up with that?"

She turned her gray-eyed gaze on him. "I was a member of a resistance group in communist Russia for over thirty years. I personally led many actions against the Leninist government."

"You mean domestic terrorism," Tilly said.

Nonna chuckled. "You may call it whatever you like, but we restricted our attacks to political targets, never civilians. We had the support of the people. There was a reason the communists had such a difficult time rooting out our cells."

"Any action that might help to disrupt or destabilize that terrible regime," I said, "is worth it. I just wish more people had shown that kind of courage."

Nonna nodded at me appreciatively.

"Sasha told us some of that," Norm said. "He said that your husband was killed after he was caught supplying weapon to rebels in Ukraine, but not that you fought the regime yourselves."

"We did whatever we thought could make the greatest difference at the time to undermine the regime. I would never have thought that your free West might also fall under tyranny as well. Yours is just of a different flavor."

"We don't have the resources you need," Norm said, getting the conversation back on track. "Most of us can shoot, yes, and we have a few guns, but how would we stop a prison transport? And how would we get away afterward?"

"Norm," Tilly cut in. "Do you remember when Mike operated on Stan in the basement storeroom of that antique shop?"

"Yeah, they had a damned arsenal down there," he said.

"And when we first got there, the table was covered with maps," TIlly added, closing her eyes as she spoke, "and lists of people with their occupations and addresses. Most of them had government jobs."

Norm stared at her as she opened her eyes once more. "That was over a year ago, and I barely got a second to look at that stuff before he hid it from us."

Tilly just shrugged.

"It sounds as though this Mike is perhaps moonlighting as a domestic terrorist himself," Nonna said. "Or at least he knew people that are. Can we contact him?"

Norm nodded hesitantly. "I can call him, but I don't know if he's going to want to help us. I barely convinced him to work on Stan when he was bleeding out."

"He knows us better now," I pointed out. "That might make a difference."

"It is at least worth exploring," Nonna said. "Now, how can we get the information we need?"

"Sam," Tilly said immediately. "If anyone can get what you need, it's him. I can get a message to him."

Norm gave her a peculiar look and she shrugged. I had seen this from time to time. It almost seemed that she could interpret his thoughts just from his expression. He turned back to Nonna. "We have not decided anything yet. Nothing would make me happier than to save Sasha from execution, but it would put us in grave danger. All of us, because if even one of us gets captured, the feds will get the location of the farm out of him."

"I don't think you understand," Nonna said. She stood, went to the spot where she had dropped her gun, and picked it and the magazine up. She put the magazine into a pocket and did a quick examination of the weapon. "I'm going to do this, whether you help me or not, but my chances are much greater if you help me. I won't let them kill her." She tucked the gun into the waistband of her pajamas and swept out of the room.

"Do you think she'll do it?" Norm asked. "Go it alone?"

"She's determined," Tilly said. "I don't think she was bluffing about that."

"Shit," Norm muttered, shaking his head. "This is not the time to be taking foolish risks."

"Would Sasha have done the same for you?" I asked.

Norm looked at me and sighed. "Damn it, Nock, you already know the answer to that."

"Then what is there to debate? She gave up everything to try to keep us safe. We owe it to her."

"But would she want us to risk all of that we've gained? We could end up throwing away all of this." He gestured to indicate our surroundings.

I grinned. "Sometimes you've just got to put in all your chips and pray that you've got the winning hand. I'm throwing my lot in with Nonna. If she's half as good as she seems to think, then we've got a lot more than a fighting chance."

Norm looked at Tilly. "I'll follow your lead, whatever you decide," she said. "But between us, I think we should do this."

Norm nodded. "Alright, then. I want to see what SamIAm comes up with, and I'd like to know what kind of help Mike can get for us, but I'll support this. We'll call a meeting tomorrow. I'm going to try to get a few more hours of sleep first."

"I'll join you shortly," Tilly said. "I'd like to get a message to Sam."

Tilly dropped a private message to SamIAm, asking if he could infiltrate the federal corrections computer systems and get access to their prisoner manifests and transport schedules. His reply came back within seconds, as a chat window opened on the terminal and words appeared in it.

SAM> Oh, I definitely should not do that. No, that is not very legal, not at all. But then it sounds like all kinds of fun. What are we looking for, domina mea dulcissima, and when do you need it?

I laughed at the Latin phrase, and Tilly's cheeks colored. "I think he has a bit of a crush on me. I looked up what that means. It translates as 'my sweet lady'. Also, I've never figured out how he does that with the chat windows." She typed a reply into the chat.

Tilly> The name is Sasha Grey, and we think that she is still at Sea-Tac federal prison. We need to know when she is being transported, what vehicle or vehicles will be used, who will be in them, and a full itinerary for the trip. "When" is as soon as possible.

His reply came back instantly.

SAM> I will do my best, bellus puella. You will have what you need by morning. Vale, carissima.

SAM has logged off.

Session ended.

I laughed again. "He puts it on pretty thick, doesn't he?"

"Catalina claims he says the same stuff to her. I think it might just be an affectation, just like all the Latin is some kind of lingual tick. I asked him about that once, and he acted like he didn't know what I was talking about."

"I'll keep an eye out if he comes back with a response," I promised. "Why don't you get some sleep?"

Norm called an all-hands meeting in the living room the next morning at nine. Even Alice showed up for it, though she left her kids back at her house. Gena sipped from a tall mug in a back corner, and I thought she must have pulled an all-nighter, as much because she wasn't fawning over her first taste of our excellent coffee as she looked only half awake.

"Some of you already know why you're here," Norm said, pacing in front of the windows on the east wall. "And some of you are new here and will need some context to understand why this is important, so I ask that you all be patient." He then related the whole story of how Sasha had been our host, and how her quick thinking and preparation had allowed us to escape to the farm along with the seeds to secure our future.

"You've all met Nonna before," he said, "but you may notice something different about her." He gestured and stepped aside so that the raven-haired woman could take his place as the focus of the room. She was now wearing a knee-length skirt and cotton blouse more befitting someone of her seemingly young age and slim but womanly figure.

She stood up straight at the front of the room with her hands clasped behind her back. "Good morning, everyone. I'm afraid I am effectively meeting many of you for the first time, as Norm has hinted. My fractured mind finally came back together last night, and upon regaining my senses, I quickly focused on the one thing that is dearest and most important to me, my daughter Sasha. She is to be transferred to a federal prison facility in Indiana for execution in just over two months. We have acquired detailed plans for her upcoming transfer to that facility and are currently reviewing them to decide when and where to intercept that transport and extract her."

She waited for those words to sink in, meeting the gazes of several of the people in the room. Gena didn't look half-asleep anymore, and Nissi was staring wide-eyed at Nonna. She continued, "We are looking at our options for acquiring more trained personnel for this operation, but at present, we have only the people in this room to pick from. The risks will be significant, up to and including possible death. No one will be compelled to join, and no one will think less of you if you wish to remain behind. I want volunteers for this operation, but only if you have skills to contribute and the will to see it through. If you do volunteer, all of your regular duties other than greenhouse work will be strictly voluntary during this time. So, please, step forward if you wish to join me."