Kriegspiel [Sequel to The Turing Test]

9. Face It

When Ayo pulls the van to a stop and cuts the engine, the pale yellows and oranges of dawn are just starting to unveil the landscape, and I finally get a good view of the lab's exterior. It's a plain, one-story compound with a surprisingly inviting lobby, whose copious windows offer a clear view of its unassuming interior. Knowing what hides beyond, it seems more like a preemptive plea of innocence than a front.

I pop the passenger-side door open and step out as the doctor mirrors me on the other side. I stare at the rear door, waiting for it to burst open, but the cheery soap bubbles advertising a nonexistent cleaning service remain still.

I reach for the handle and heave; eight faces stare back at me, their eyes narrow and guarded as they sit cross-legged on the floor. Davis, who sits farthest away, toward the front of the vehicle, starts to unfold himself. I reach for him, a movement so involuntary that it's like breathing.

Maven seizes his forearm before he can stand and pulls him back down. I lunge forward, only to stop myself at the hostility in her eyes, but I don't look away from the spot where her fingers dig into his skin.

"Are you sure this is safe?" she asks.

I recognize desperation underneath her prickly facade. She's torn between wanting to see Darwin alive again and her instinct, honed by years of Sven's transgressions, to mistrust anything human. I'm the only bridge between those two worlds.

"It's safe," Ayo pipes up, the click of her expensive shoes preceding her as she walks around to join us at the back of the van. "This place is kind of an urban legend between Sven and me. He knows I work in secrecy, and he knows I have what I promised him somewhere. He knows this place exists, but he doesn't know where."

"If he knows it exists, then he'll find it," Maven says.

"Maybe," Ayo allows. "But he would have found you underground eventually. You know he'll find you wherever you go. Wouldn't you rather be ready when that happens, so you can fight instead of dying underground like cowards?"

I see the downward twitch of Maven's lips in the half-light, but a second later she releases Davis. White marks linger on his skin, the ghost of her fingerprints. In an instant, he's rushing toward me. I reach for him, helping him down from the van, and he falls into my arms.

I hold him tight by the waist as he sinks into me, his knees finally buckling. I feel the moment he no longer needs to be strong. His face burrows into my neck, and his sharp sigh tickles my throat as his arms circle my shoulders. I let out a long breath, my muscles uncoiling as the tension seeps away like the last vestiges of rain down a storm drain.

"Thank you," he murmurs against my skin.

"For what?" I ask as the others start to file out around us.

"Fighting for me."

A hard lump chokes me out of nowhere, and with his ear against my throat I know he hears the squelch of my swallow. "I was only returning the favor," I whisper.

Ayo interrupts with a hand on my shoulder. "Quickly, let's go inside."

I sling Davis's left arm over my back as the others lift Darwin and Alan's immobile bodies from the floor of the van. Ayo marches ahead, and I struggle to keep up under Davis's weight. We bypass the lobby, entering through a side door instead. I squint as my eyes adjust to the relative darkness of the lab.

"Here." I gently lower Davis into the chair behind Ayo's desk; it rolls back a few inches as he collapses into it. Unable to still my trembling hands, I seize one of his in both of mine, squeezing as if his life depends on it.

He looks up at me and tilts his head. "Hey, it's okay, Ronnie." He reaches up to swipe at my face, and the cool air in the wake of his thumb makes me realize that moisture costs my cheeks.