“Manny—”
“Now!” His shout rattled the rafters. Pansy sighed and turned to Bryn and Joe.
“Please,” she said. “I need to back him off the ledge.”
Kneeling down with her stiff and still-healing leg hurt, but it was better than risking Manny going all hair-trigger on them; Bryn was more concerned about Joe, who’d had a very full day for a man with a recently collapsed lung. He shrugged off her silent concern, though, and sat down a lot more easily than she did. By unspoken agreement, they kept their hands in the air.
“Okay, they’re down,” Pansy said. “Can I please come talk to you?”
“If they move—”
“They’re not going to move. Can I?”
He hesitated for a long moment, and then said, “I’m coming down. Stay there.”
His heavy footsteps clanked overhead and down a staircase somewhere in the shadows to the right. When Manny finally came back into the glow of the overheads, he was dressed in black—black turtleneck, black pants, a black tactical vest with pockets bulging with ammunition. He carried the shotgun at a neutral but ready position.
And his eyes were more than a little crazy. He didn’t take his gaze away from Bryn and Fideli, except for a very fast glance at Pansy.
He handed her a syringe.
“What’s this for?”
“Blood sample,” he said.
“She’s okay, I told you—”
“Not from her. From you.”
“Jesus, Manny!”
This time, the glance he sent her lingered, and was half-apologetic. But still half-crazy. “I need to know that you’re still you. They could have revived you. You could be acting under protocols.”
She didn’t try to talk him out of it, and Bryn thought it was sad that Manny’s paranoia was actually quite practical now; she wouldn’t have believed that kind of thing two weeks ago, but now, it was surprisingly rational. Pansy just walked over to the nearest flat surface, drew a sample of her own blood (not something Bryn thought she could have accomplished with nearly as much aplomb), and handed back the full syringe. Manny backed up, keeping his eyes fixed on all of them, opened up a box nearby, and took out what looked like a sheet of paper. He squirted a small amount of the blood onto the surface. It soaked in quickly, and a blue ring spread out from the crimson blot.
Manny’s body language visibly relaxed. “You’re okay,” he said. He sounded shaken. “You’re really okay.”
“Of course I’m okay, idiot.” Pansy took the shotgun from him, broke open the stock, and set it aside. Then she hugged him, hard, and kissed him. “Thanks for worrying.”
“I always worry.”
“Okay, worrying more than normal.”
Manny looked over his shoulder, first at Bryn, then Fideli. “I know about her. What about him?”
“He’s all right.”
“Test him. Prove it.”
“Okay. First, we don’t need a whole syringe full, right?” She took the syringe from Manny’s fingers and disposed of the rest of the blood in a haz-mat container off to the side, grabbed a test sheet from the box, and went to Fideli’s side. “Knife?”
“Yo,” he said, and took one out of his belt—a big, wicked thing with an edge sharp enough to cut the light. Pansy pressed it lightly to his thumb and smeared the thin crimson line that appeared onto the paper.
Blue halo.
“See?” she asked, and handed Fideli’s knife back. “You can get up now. It’s okay.”
Manny clearly didn’t agree, but he didn’t argue. “We can’t stay here,” he said. “I’ve already called the vans. We’ll be moved by the end of the day and in the new location.”
“Manny, there’s no need to do this. We can stay here.”
“No. I need to move. Too many people in and out. It’s not secure.”
Pansy rolled her eyes. “Not what I needed today. All right, we’ll move. But first, Bryn needs her inhibitor booster, and then I’ll send them on their way.”
“All right.” Manny pointed at a set of boxes across the lab. “Third carton from the bottom. I packed it underneath the extra saline.”
The boxes weren’t labeled, Bryn realized—not a single one. “Do you remember what’s in every one of them?” she asked.
Manny looked at her. “You can put your hands down,” he said. “I’m not going to shoot you.”
“Yeah,” Pansy said, as she walked toward the indicated boxes. “But only because I took his gun.”
“You really remember what’s in the boxes. There must be two hundred of them!”
“Two hundred thirty-six,” he said. “Not counting the crated machines. Yes. I do.”
“What happens when they mix them all up in moving vans?”
“I pay them to make sure they get stacked and delivered in order.” His green eyes were less crazy now, and he frowned as he looked her over. “You don’t look so great.”
Bryn laughed a little. “It’s been … stressful.”
“They were letting her rot,” Fideli said, “for science.”
“Really?” Those eyes gleamed suddenly. “Did you get any records? Video? That would be very useful.”
“Jesus.” Fideli raised his voice. “Pansy, you really sleep with this guy?”
“I keep one eye open,” she called back, as she restacked cartons—keeping them, Bryn noticed, in precisely the same order as they’d been. “Got it!” She held up an IV bag and needle kit. “Manny, stop being so creepy. It was awful for her. It really was.”
He didn’t look noticeably sorry. “I’m sure it was, but still, the opportunity to study something like that …”
“Yeah, well, I hope you won’t have the opportunity to do it on me,” Bryn said. “Where do I sit?”
“Over here,” Pansy said. She hooked the IV bag on a rolling stand that hadn’t yet been packed and pulled over a straight-backed chair. Bryn sat and let Pansy numb the back of her hand, then guide in the needle. It still, as always, hurt, but the cool rush of fluid into her veins soothed things nicely. “Should take about an hour. I’m going to get you some more water. Anything to eat?”
Food. Bryn’s stomach rumbled, and she realized that she hadn’t really even thought about food for so long, it was an abstract concept. “Uh, anything,” she said. “Whatever isn’t packed, I guess.”
“I’ll find something. Joe?”
“I’ll have what she’s having. Minus the IV.” Fideli put his back against the wall and leaned. Now that he wasn’t under threat of death, he allowed himself to look tired. He nodded to Manny. “So you’re the FBI guy, right? The one McCallister knows.”
“You know McCallister.”
“Yeah, old friends. I kinda work for him.”
“Then I suppose you’re all right,” Manny said grudgingly. “He’d probably take it badly if I’d shot you.“
Fideli grinned, a surprising flash of white, even teeth. “I’d like to think so. Glad I didn’t shoot you, too.”
Manny raised his bushy eyebrows. “Do you think you could have, before I fired the shotgun?” Fideli stared back. He didn’t answer, and he didn’t need to, really. Manny nodded and sat down on the edge of one of the wooden pallets. “Interesting.”
“Mutual, if you do half the stuff he says you do.”
“Interesting that he’s talked to you about me, and not to me about you.”
“I’ve known him longer,” Fideli said. “And he meant to bring me over here. He just didn’t get the chance.”
That made them fall silent for a moment. Bryn felt the anxious flutter in her stomach at the thought of McCallister, still missing, and she knew Joe was feeling it, too. Maybe even Manny was, as well.
Pansy came back with cups of instant soup all around, and by the time they were emptied, the four of them had formed a fragile kind of trust.
For now.
Manny kicked them out as soon as Bryn’s IV was finished. So much for trust.
Pansy walked them down to the van. “Sorry about this,” she said. “Once he gets in this mood, I can’t talk him out of it. We’ll move the lab; he’ll settle down; things will go back to normal. But I can’t take you with us. I can’t even tell you where we’re going, because he won’t tell me either. I’ll contact you later.” She passed Bryn a bundle of things. “Here. I think they’ll fit. You can’t run around in some numbered paper jumpsuit and expect not to get noticed.”