Orphan X Read online

  Morena was long gone; Evan had told her to keep running, that he’d make sure no one came after her. That was a long-term promise. Way across the roof, an elevator opened, the family of four inside jolting cattle-prod upright at the scene before them. The father leaned forward, jabbing at a button, and the elevator swallowed them back up.

  With bruised and aching hands, Evan fumbled out the keys, dropped them, picked them up, all the while sensing Slatcher’s rolling-boulder approach. He fought the key into the first vault and grabbed the stock of the combat shotgun, swinging it free and scattering the sheathed katana and the tray of shotgun shells across the roof.

  Slatcher was on him.

  There was no time to bring the Benelli around, no time to do anything but lean to dodge the hurtling mass. Slatcher clipped him, knocking the shotgun away and crushing himself into the lowered tailgate. The collision was seismic. Bone crunched, but Slatcher gave up only an understated grunt. Evan dove for the shotgun, but it skittered out of reach toward the metal bars guarding the broad concrete overhang. The ammo boxes had burst open, red shells spraying everywhere. Bouncing off the truck, Slatcher nearly slipped on them, but he regained his footing and squared to Evan. Breathing hard, Evan pulled himself unevenly to his feet.

  Slatcher stood stooped, favoring his broken hip. His split chin had painted a bib of crimson down his shirt. Blood trickled down his arms, dripped from his fingers. The collision with the truck had stunned him, and Evan had one shot to capitalize on that.

  Slatcher lumbered toward him, hands coming up into fighting position. Evan sidestepped, forcing him to circle the wrong way and set his weight onto that broken hip. Slatcher gritted his teeth and took a quivering step. Bone crunched. Before he could set himself, Evan stepped forward, planting his left foot, and delivered a wing chun oblique kick with his right, pivoting to piston his heel forward, aiming beneath the pillar of Slatcher’s lead thigh. He hit the knee squarely, shattering it backward, and the big man bellowed and sagged, somehow keeping his feet. For an instant Evan wobbled off balance, time enough for Slatcher to hop forward, rotating the immense base of his hips and driving a reverse punch into Evan’s solar plexus.

  Pain exploded in his wound, torpedoing through his insides. The force of the blow knocked him off his feet, and then he had only a sideways view of the rooftop as he slid back and racked into the guardrails. The back of his head clanged off the metal, concussion flares hazing the world. The sun-baked concrete cooked his cheek, and he felt a curious detachment as he watched Slatcher drag himself across the sideways roof, growing larger.

  Evan blinked, snapping to. He turned his head. Through the guardrails was only the concrete slab of the solar-paneled overhang, a ten-foot ring around the structure, petals of green-black glass. Beyond that a seven-story drop. He blinked again, harder. There was more, if he could just see it. His bowling-ball slide into the rail had knocked the katana beneath the bottom metal rung, as well as a number of shotgun shells, still spinning like tops. But he wasn’t focused on them. He was focused on the Benelli combat shotgun just beyond, the barrel come to rest several inches off the rim.

  Evan pulled himself up the guardrails, a boxer climbing the ropes, and spilled over the top. Slatcher’s fist skimmed overhead, missing by inches. The shells clattered; the sword finished a lazy half rotation, then fell, slotted into the space between solar panels.

  Evan crawled along the curved eave toward the shotgun, hands and knees sliding on the slick solar panels. He heard Slatcher shatter a panel behind him, landing hard. Evan’s fingers strained, inches from the shotgun stock.

  Slatcher lunged for him, grabbing his calf, knocking Evan’s hand forward into the Benelli.

  It skimmed soundlessly off the rim. For a moment it floated against the pretty glass backdrop of La Reverie. Then it vanished. The breeze ruffled Evan’s hair, and he felt the soothing warmth of the sun on his cheek. A poetic moment of ordinary life.

  Then Slatcher ripped him backward. Evan fell from all fours onto his stomach.

  Rotating on his hip, he hurled his weight into a turn and kicked Slatcher with everything he had left. The top of his foot struck just below Slatcher’s jaw, hooking the big man’s head and spinning him toward the brink.

  Slatcher’s broad fingers scrabbled for purchase across the sleek silicon, sending shotgun shells scattering. His legs drifted off the lip, and then his hips went, that low center of gravity tipping him over. His elbows ledged the rim. Then slipped. Slatcher’s bloody hand flailed up over his head.

  And caught something.

  The sheathed katana, stuck in the gap between sets of solar panels.

  It protruded from the roof’s edge like a bracketed flag from the side of a building. Slatcher’s downward weight wedged the long sword handle tighter into place, pulling it horizontal until it locked between the panels and the concrete lip of the roof.

  His mighty arm trembled. The hand tendons were frayed from the bullet wound, his fingers not clenching fully.

  A suspended moment. And then his other hand flew up, clamping onto the scabbard beside the first.

  He started to draw himself back toward the rooftop.

  A pull-up, one hundred feet above the sidewalk.

  The sheath slid an inch off the hilt. Slatcher froze. If the sheath went, he went with it. The equilibrium held. After a moment’s pause, he began inching his way up again.

  Biting his cheek against the pain, Evan pulled himself toward Slatcher and the sword. Slatcher’s face strained, a vein popping in his temple. Still, he made headway.

  Evan came within range. He positioned himself to kick Slatcher off, but Slatcher watched him intently, ready to react even from his compromised position. If any part of Evan’s body came within reach, he had little doubt Slatcher would latch on to it and bring Evan with him.

  Evan turned to the sword instead. He fought to free it from between the panels, but Slatcher’s weight pinned it in place. He grabbed the base of the scabbard and attempted to force it off the length of sword, but the same was true, the downward pressure too strong.

  Slatcher kept rising, his elbows hovering just off the concrete rim, nearly able to set down.

  A crackling sound turned them both to statues.

  Evan’s eyes dropped to that hairline crack in the sheath from when Peter had dropped it. The crackling noise resumed. The fissure expanded. Then forked. The fracture lines spread beneath Slatcher’s hands.

  Evan’s breath snagged in his throat. Slatcher’s eyes, level with Evan’s, widened, bloodshot lines pronounced in the sclera. His lips trembled, his Adam’s apple jerking.

  Both men watched, motionless.

  The sheath broke into pieces beneath Slatcher’s fingers, his grip slipping, his weight tugging him downward again.

  He jerked his hands off one at a time, letting the fragments fall away, his palms slapping back onto the metal itself, acquiring a new grip.

  Evan waited for the cutting edge to ribbon his hands, but no—in a stroke of luck, Slatcher was hanging from the dull back of the sword.

  Through clenched teeth Slatcher released a hiss of amusement at his good fortune. His neck sheeting with muscle, he coiled his arms, those cantaloupe biceps bulging, raising his giant frame again.

  The two-century-old tamahagane steel flexed, the edge grinding on the concrete lip. The metal, used for cannonballs in the Meiji era, would not break.

  Slatcher rose another few inches, his face lifting above the lip of the roof.

  The sword grip was elongated, designed for a two-hand samurai hold. Beyond the length wedged beneath the solar panels, four extra inches protruded. Just wide enough for Evan’s fingers. The cord wrap gave him a good grip, the round tsuba guard pinching the edge of his hand.

  Gripping as hard as he could, he tried to free the sword. No such luck.

  A few feet past him, he sensed Slatcher rising, his shadow creeping across the rooftop, centimeter by centimeter.

  The sword jogged slightly in Evan
’s hand, and he realized: He couldn’t loose the sword, but he might be able to turn it.

  With all his strength, he twisted the handle like a motorcycle throttle. At first nothing happened, but then the sword spun barely in its makeshift housing.

  The tiny movement knocked Slatcher down six inches.

  Evan kept on, turning the cutting edge upward. The sword rotated jerkingly, Slatcher losing ground, his huge form swinging from the blade. His giant hands, torn and bloody, trembled violently.

  With a roar Evan ripped the sword in a quarter rotation, the sharp edge now pointing at the sky.

  There was an instant of surface tension, Slatcher’s wild gaze flying up to land on Evan, and then the katana did what it was designed to do.

  The blade lopped Slatcher’s fingers off at the first knuckles. His arms began cartwheeling, a backstroke with no water.

  He and Evan locked eyes, and then Slatcher fell. Evan watched him plummet in the reflection off the glass of La Reverie until that, too, was cut from sight.

  He did not see Slatcher hit the purple Scion, but he heard it.

  54

  No

  Evan looped the Ford down seven stories of ramp, reaching the street. The police sirens were still a few blocks away, the cops hung up in constipated Strip traffic. Encircled by a ring of horrified onlookers, Slatcher’s body was crumpled into the roof of his car, the damage from the fall leaving him nearly unrecognizable. Several of his fingers littered the pavement around him, confetti decorating the gruesome spectacle.

  Pulling on a sweatshirt to cover his bloody shirt, Evan shouldered through the crowd, moving briskly and tilting his head downward in hopes no one would note his bruised face. “Excuse me! I’m a doctor!” Under the guise of checking for a pulse, he searched Slatcher’s pockets, finding only a slender metal case in the front pocket of his pants. The onlookers seemed too horrified to take notice of Evan, sneaking glances and snapping iPhone pictures. One young woman cried into her boyfriend’s chest, stamping her feet in agitation.

  Evan slipped away, finding his shotgun in a hedge at the base of the parking structure. His Wilson 1911, on the sidewalk across the street by La Reverie, was being staked out by several workers, so he left it behind.

  Hopping back into his truck, he pulled out and drove away just as the screaming cruisers screeched onto the scene. As he waited on the clogged freeway ramp, he pulled up his shirt to check his stomach. The sutures had torn through the skin, the wound gaping, but the artery had not ruptured.

  He ran the freeway for a solid hour before pulling off and checking the silver box.

  Ten fingernails. A contact lens.

  He poked at the lens, and it animated, shimmering with a computer screen glow.

  Okay, then.

  He drove to a CVS pharmacy and bought contact solution. Back in his car, parked at the edge of the lot, he soaked the lens thoroughly in case it had been poisoned.

  Then he popped it into his eye.

  The fingernails pressed on with ease.

  He waited.

  A cursor appeared. It blinked red for a time.

  And then green.

  Evan waited, motionless.

  A single line scrolled into existence. ORPHAN O?

  NO, Evan typed, and logged off.

  55

  Silent Work

  Later that night, after restitching his wound at home and cleaning himself up, Evan exited the elevator at the sixth floor of the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center on Sunset Boulevard. Smiling at the charge nurse posted at the station, he lifted two weighty bags filled with mediocre food from the cafeteria downstairs. “Just coming back in with chow for my fellow car-crash victims.”

  She noted his black eye and nodded him past.

  A research session in the Vault had fulfilled his worst expectations, leading him here.

  Strings of silver tinsel adorned the halls, Christmas decorations that felt more like an afterthought. Room 614 came up on his right, and he snatched the chart off the door and shouldered through the curtains, unsure how bad it would be.

  A man lay unconscious, his head mummy-wrapped, his right arm in a cast, one leg in traction. A tracheal tube disappeared down his throat, but a quick glance at the screens showed him to be breathing above the ventilator.

  Memo Vasquez had finally landed in the system.

  Evan eyed the charts, noting the fractures, contusions, the collapsed lung, the intestinal perf. The drug dealers had exacted a payment for their missing drugs from Vasquez’s body. But had they also fulfilled their promise?

  Evan set a hand gently on Memo’s arm, and a moment later the man stirred. Dark eyes peered out from beneath the bandages. His hand lifted an inch above the sheets, and Evan took it. Memo squeezed weakly. His head was cocked back at an uncomfortable angle.

  Evan said, “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.” He braced himself, then asked, “Did they take Isa?”

  The ventilator shoved air into Memo’s lungs. Memo released Evan’s hand and made a small writing gesture. Evan brought him a pen and pad.

  In a trembling hand, he wrote, “sí.” Then, painstakingly, he wrote, “yor face?”

  “You should see the other guy,” Evan said. “Now, can you tell me where to find the bad men?”

  The hand moved again. It took the better part of five minutes for Memo to write out the location of a warehouse. Not an address but a rough set of directions, a mix of Spanish and phonetic English. It would be sufficient.

  Evan tore off the top sheet of paper. “Everything will be fine now.”

  Memo gestured again for the pencil. With a loose grip, he etched a few more words. “they will deport us. i hav no kard i am ilegul.”

  Evan set down the pad by his hand. “Not anymore,” he said. “Your name found its way onto the approved list in Immigration Service’s database. They’ll be mailing a green card to your house in the morning. A gift for the holidays.” He gave the chart a last glance and set it down on the tray. “They really worked you over.”

  The stubby pencil scratched some more. “U shud see ather guy.”

  Evan smiled. He sensed a glimmer of amusement in Memo’s eyes before they darkened with concern.

  “Rest up,” Evan said. He patted the wrapped hand and turned to leave. “I got this.”

  * * *

  From the asbestos roof of the condemned warehouse, Evan slipped through the high, double-hung window, pivoting to grab the inside sill. His boots dangled ten feet above the concrete floor. He pushed off and landed on bent knees, letting his body collapse to the side so it wouldn’t absorb the impact all at once.

  Though there was a torn twin mattress in the corner, the girl was sleeping on the floor. The small storage room was vacant, an excellent makeshift cell.

  Bare walls conveyed the sounds of men arguing from the dilapidated manager’s office down the corridor. Through a skylight Evan had observed the three of them squabbling over digital scales—teardrop tattoos and prison ink and a security camera that possibly streamed to an off-site location. The rest of the former sweatshop was abandoned, one wall of the main floor collapsed, rubble strewn across rusted industrial looms.

  Rising to his feet in the tiny space, Evan walked quietly to Isa, not wanting to startle her. As he drew near, he saw that she had forsaken the bed so her stuffed animal could sleep there. The pink teddy bear with the chewed ear was tucked in cozily beneath the sole sheet, its head resting on a pillow.

  Evan rested a hand gently on the girl’s shoulder.

  She roused. She might have been fourteen or fifteen, but it was hard to tell given her condition. The upward slant of her eyes, like they were smiling.

  “Your father sent me,” Evan whispered.

  She nodded, her tongue protruding slightly over her bottom lip.

  He gestured to the pink teddy bear. “What’s her name?”

  “Baby.”

  “You’re taking care of her well.”

  The words came soft and slurred. “S�
�. She get scared easy.”

  “She’s lucky to have you,” Evan said.

  A bright, proud smile and a stubby thumbs-up.

  “I’m going to go,” Evan said. “You stay here with her and make sure she feels safe, okay?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Evan reached into his cargo pocket. “I’m gonna put this mask on now. Don’t let it frighten Baby. It’s not to frighten her.” He pulled on one made of black Polartec that covered his face, save for the band of his eyes.

  “A mask.” She beamed up at him. “Like a superhero.”

  “Like a superhero.” Evan unfolded his monocular night-vision headgear. It fit snugly, hugging his scalp, the high-res lens positioned over one eye, leaving both his hands free.

  “Are you okay here alone for a little while?”

  She pointed to the bed. “I’m not alone.”

  “Of course.”

  The sheathed combat knife pulled reassuringly at his belt. Gunshots would scare her. His work was going to have to be silent.

  He set his hands gently on her shoulders and looked down at her with his Cyclops eye. “The lights are going to go off. But the cops will get here really soon after that. I’ll make sure of it. Okay?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  He drew the lock pick from his back pocket and tapped it against his knuckles. “You are a very brave young woman,” he said, turning to focus on the door handle.

  “La puerta,” she said. “It’s locked.”

  “That’s okay.” He jiggled the torsion wrench, sliding the rake pick home. “I can go through doors.”

  She blinked, and he was gone.

  * * *

  Later that night, back home in the open enclosure in his master bathroom, Evan set his palms against the tile, leaning into the punishingly hot blast. Water poured from the rainfall showerhead, washing dried crimson flecks from his face. He scrubbed at his hands and forearms, freeing rivulets of red. There was a lot of blood.