When the car jerked sharply to the right I was sure we’d been hit. The seatbelt cut into my waist and chest; the shift in g-forces combined with a sudden loss of friction was the cue that we’d left the ground and were tumbling through space. I braced myself for a final impact that never came.
Slowly the car leveled out. There was a light jolt as the tires reestablished contact with the road, and our speed began to drop back into a saner range. The blare of horns had already faded, leaving only the purr of the motor and the steady rush of air through the broken back window.
When I pried my hands from my face, we were out in the desert under a starry sky. The lights of Vegas and the last rays of sunset were just a glow on the horizon behind us. The bad Jane wore the satisfied smile of someone who’s just had amazing sex.
“Evil,” she said, in answer to my stare, “is just so much cooler than even you know.”
The road we were on led to a ramshackle house that stood alone in the middle of the wasteland. The bad Jane parked the car and got out. By the time I staggered from the passenger side, she was at the front door with her back to me, which would have been a perfect opportunity if my NC gun hadn’t disappeared. “Sorry,” she said, without bothering to turn around. “I’m a little too tapped out to play hide-and-seek right now, but if you give me a chance to recharge, I’ll be happy to go again.”
The house was just a shell; beyond the front door, metal steps led down into an underground complex. The first room we came to was a cross between a bomb shelter and a den: the walls were reinforced concrete, but there was a gas fireplace and a fully stocked bar.
“I’ve got sandwiches in the refrigerator if you’re hungry,” the bad Jane said. “And mineral water and juice to drink—I’d offer you something stronger, but I’m guessing your head’s in a weird enough space as it is.” When I didn’t answer, she shrugged and said, “Suit yourself. I definitely need a little something…”
While she rummaged in the fridge, I went over to the shelves that flanked the fireplace, drawn by a familiar row of yellow book spines: Nancy Drew mysteries. Tucked into a gap in the line of books was an autographed photo of Pamela Sue Martin.
“There you are,” the bad Jane said, holding up a glass vial filled with clear liquid. She fitted it into an auto-injector and shot the full dose into her arm. “Ah-h-h…” Her outline got fuzzy, then snapped back into sharp focus. “That’s better.” She ejected the empty vial into a trash bin. “You wouldn’t believe how expensive this stuff is…And before you get any ideas, you should know that it’s DNA-specific. If you’re not me, all it’ll do is give you a really bad trip, the kind you don’t come back from.”
“So when are you going to tell me why I’m here?” I said. “What does Phil want from me?”
“What does Phil want?” She rolled her eyes. “This isn’t about Phil, Jane. It’s about you, playing for the wrong team.”
“You want me to join the Troop.”
“No, that’s backwards. You want to join us. And we’re going to grant your wish.”
“My wish? My wish is to get my brother back, and for you to go to—”
“Are you auditioning, Jane?” She grinned. “Trying to show me what a great bullshit artist you are? Trust me, I know you’ve got that down cold. And hey, it’s a useful skill, we can definitely put it to work for the Troop, but right here and now? I need you to start coming clean with yourself.” She pointed to a door at the end of the bar. “In there.”
“In there what?”
“The thing you’ve been denying for the past twenty-three years. Your true nature. Go on in and check it out.”
I looked at the door. I didn’t move.
“Go on,” she said, and the door opened on its own, and then I was moving—not walking, you understand, just moving. I passed through into this darkened space, and the door slammed shut behind me, so it was like total blackout, and that was bad, not for the dark itself but because I knew it wouldn’t last. She gave me a few seconds to think about what was coming, and then she said, “Now look,” and the lights came on, and there he was, staring at me from every angle. John Doyle.
His wanted poster, you mean. The one from the post-office lobby.
Yeah. Officer Friendly may have kept one copy, but the Troop had a million of them. Every inch of wall space in this room was plastered with them. The ceiling, too, and I didn’t even need to look down—I could feel the paper crackling under my feet.
“He really was a creepy guy, wasn’t he?” said the bad Jane. “Some child molesters, you know, they’re actually very sweet when they want to be, but J.D. wasn’t one of those. He was more the come-with-me-now-kid-or-else type.”
“Did Phil…He told you what I did?”
“At the post office? Yeah, that’s still kind of a sore spot with him, but he told me. Showed me the tape, too.”
“The—”
“The surveillance tape. Probably you guessed this already, but the organization doesn’t have a monopoly on Eyes Only technology. We’ve got our own version. Have had for years.”
“The wanted poster…?” I said. She nodded. “And that’s…how you find victims?”
“Recruits,” she said. “Yeah, that’s one of the ways. You think about it, it’s not a bad profiling strategy: show someone the face of evil, see how they respond. Your brother’s reaction was classic. That look of vulnerability on his face, like he was just begging someone to come in and start rewiring his brain—I can see why the powers that be snapped him up. What I don’t understand is why they didn’t recruit you at the same time.”
“Me?”
“Jane…” Suddenly she was right behind me, with her hands on my shoulders. “Don’t be coy, now. You know what I’m talking about.”
“No.”
“You were standing behind Phil, just like this, whispering in his ear, saying…Let’s see, what were your exact words again? Oh yeah: ‘That’s the guy, Phil, the one who kidnaps little kids for the gypsies. I told him all about you: where you live, where you play, where you sleep…’”
I shut my eyes.
“‘…and when he comes for you, Phil, you’d better not scream or try to run away. That’ll just make him mad, and then he’ll hurt you. And don’t go crying to Mom about this, either. She can’t protect you. He’ll hurt her too, maybe even kill her, and he’ll still take you away afterwards.’”
“I was just messing with his head!” I said. “I was teasing him! I didn’t know—”
“Teasing him?” She touched the side of my face and I flinched. “I think you’re teasing me, Jane. I mean, I saw the tape. Phil was practically pissing himself from fear, and you: you were into it. Teasing! You were being evil. You liked it. You were good at it. Good enough to make a casual observer think that maybe you’d had some practice…”
“Fuck you! I wasn’t—it was just that one day.”
“Yeah, right. That’s a hell of a coincidence, Jane. The one time you give in to a sadistic impulse, put on a performance that couldn’t have been better if you’d been trying out for the Troop, and we just happened to be there to record it…You know what I think? You had ten years with Phil before we took him, and I bet if we picked any day out of those ten years and put J.D.’s poster in a room with the two of you, we’d have caught something just as telling. Jane being evil? Hah. How about Jane being Jane?” She touched my face again, and whispered: “Bad monkey.”
This time instead of pulling away I turned on her, but my fists punched empty air. I heard the sound of her laugh off to my left and lunged for it, still swinging.
“Open your eyes, Jane,” she said. “I know you don’t want to see, but you’re never going to catch me blind.”
I opened my eyes. She was right in front of me, and this time I actually managed to get my hands around her throat before she melted away.
“Stop doing that!” I complained, as she rematerialized, just out of reach.