Was this grotesque crap the best Eyes Only could muster? White was about to laugh, when the spectral figure spoke.
“My name is Bobby Kawasaki,” the voice said, and it was strangely similar to that of Eyes Only himself. “I’m a transgenic. I killed three people. It was a bad and terrible thing — I know that now. What I did was wrong. But I want you to know I did these bad things under the unknowing influence of a powerful drug.”
The picture changed to a still of Ames White...
... who sat up sharply in his chair in his family room.
Bobby was saying, “And this is a photo of the man who gave me the tainted drugs. This is the man who turned me into a monster.”
Ames White sat frozen, as if he were the one in icy water, something frigid running through his veins — and in his belly, a million snakes seemed to coil and uncoil.
The picture was now live again, but no longer on the red-splotched ghost in the bathtub. Now the screen showed a room, possibly a bedroom... and the face on camera belonged to that fool Otto Gottlieb!
As Otto began telling his part of the sordid tale, Ames White put a hand to his temple.
He was ruined in the NSA. Right now, in front of all Seattle, and no doubt soon, all across the country, he was being outed — all that work to save his cover after the fiasco at Jam Pony, and now it was gone.
White’s phone rang and he picked it up on the third ring. “White.”
“Norton.”
“The trace—”
“I’ve been instructed to tell you to report to the office immediately.”
White hung up the phone.
That idiot Thompson — the guy White had been searching for every spare minute of the last three months — came on next, spewing his self-pitying garbage.
Rising, White picked up his pistol, went upstairs and quickly filled a suitcase. The conclave would of course see this, and he doubted they would take it lightly either — this could be viewed as nothing but the failure it was. Even he knew that...
The phone rang.
This time he let it ring.
Detective Ramon Clemente was next on screen. “I would like to personally thank the transgenics of Terminal City, especially Max...”
“Guevera,” an off-camera voice prompted.
“Max Guevera,” Clemente said, “who personally, and at great risk to herself, broke this case wide open, and in so doing saved many lives. And when the killer was found, and was a transgenic, Ms. Guevera did not seek to cover it up... rather came to me, the police.”
White, gathering some things from his family-room desk, managed not to throw a bookend through the screen.
“As the Seattle police officer assigned to the so-called siege at Terminal City, I make this public plea to the Army: I urge you to reconsider your plans to invade Terminal City. These people — some call them freaks — have done nothing except defend themselves against false accusations, and yet... even when overwhelmed by problems of their own... still managed to help the police capture a serial killer. In addition, they have helped identify and expose the person manipulating the confessed killer, in an effort to stereotype transgenics as monsters, in a crass and heartless exploitation of the media and the public.”
What the fuck office was that detective running for, all of a sudden? God, how White hated that pompous petty nonentity. He picked up the remote and fired it at the picture tube. A minute later he was riding away from the suburban house, leaving the lie of that life behind as quickly as possible, and heading into a precarious future.
On televisions across the city the Streaming Freedom Video logo returned and that familiar, strangely soothing voice said, “One man’s hatred, one man’s fear of things different... sometimes that’s all that’s needed to tip the scales of justice, until they are criminally off-kilter. We hope that those who make decisions are listening. We hope that — unlike Ames White — they will not turn a deaf ear to the cries of those who are different. There is time to stop this madness, this hatred. This has been a Streaming Freedom Video.”
At the end of the broadcast, Max ushered everyone — except Joshua, who was still tending to Bobby — out into the kitchen apartment. No one spoke; a quiet had settled, like ground fog, and they all huddled within it, wondering if their efforts had been for nought.
Max stood, hugging her arms to herself, Logan nearby, his face unreadable. Alec and the three lawmen sat at the table, where Original Cindy remained, apparently still freaked out from the human-skin garment she’d helped retrieve. Sketchy bounced on the periphery, the only one in a good mood; he seemed to be relishing the role of real reporter...
Finally, Clemente’s cell phone rang, and he answered so quickly it was almost silly: “Clemente.”
Max could hear only one side of the conversation, could read only the detective’s somber expression.
“Yes?”
A pause.
“They did?”
Another pause.
“They are?... Thank you.”
Clemente hit End, rose from the table, and sighed. “That was Colonel Nickerson of the National Guard... The order to attack has been rescinded.”
The room erupted in whoops and hollers and applause, and they all took turns hugging each other — except, of course, for Max and Logan.
She approached the detective. “Okay,” she said. “I guess I trust you.”
His grin was explosive. “That was close.”
“Around here, Ramon,” she said, putting a hand on his shoulder, “they always are.”
Clemente sat back down at the kitchen table and let out an even bigger sigh. “The feds are viewing Kelpy’s story as a death-bed confession.” He glanced at Gottlieb and then at Thompson. “Nickerson said they want to bring you two in from the cold, and they have agents scouring the area looking for Ames White. He’s now a wanted felon.”
The two former NSA agents grinned at each other like a couple of kids.
Standing nearby, arms folded, Max wasn’t grinning. “They won’t find White.”
Clemente frowned up at her. “You sound sure of that.”
“I know him. He’s in the wind already.” Then she got a little smile on her face.
“What?” the detective asked.
“I was just thinking... better him than me.”
Max wandered into the bathroom. Joshua rose and made room for her, so she could sit on the edge of the tub.
She took Kelpy’s hand in hers. “You know, only Logan was supposed to be able to catch that virus.”
The pale red-pocked form shrugged, making waves in the icy water of the tub. “Maybe... in a way... now I am Logan.”
“Maybe.”
“Max... Max... my body hurts.”
“I know.”
“But my mind... it’s so clear that... it hurts, too.”
“Yes.”
“I... I did bad things.”
“Yes.”
“Terrible... awful... monstrous things...”
She squeezed his hand. “But you did good things too. You saved a lot of lives tonight. Every transgenic in Terminal City, and many on the other side of the fence. You saved us all — Joshua, Alec... and me.”
The smile on the Loganesque face was weak; his blue eyes were hauntingly familiar.
She told him, “I’ll always love you for that.”
And she kissed his hand.
A splotch of rose came to the pale cheeks, and it wasn’t the sickness.
He whispered, “You love Logan, don’t you?”
She glanced back.
Logan was in the doorway.