A chain link fence surrounded two buildings, one three stories tall, the other one small and square. I slowed down and hit the window control. “Tom Jurgen. I think Mr. Dwinn is expecting me.”
The box mounted on the fence squawked. “Come on in.”
The gate slid open. I pressed the accelerator lightly and rolled into the parking lot.
I opened the door and checked my phone. “Okay. Stay close.”
Rachel scrambled from the other side. “Just don’t do anything stupid.”
I smirked. “Who, me?”
She would have slugged me if she’d been close enough. I locked the doors. “Come on.”
Inside the small building we met two security guards in gray uniforms. Humans, not robocops or cyborgs. One man, tall and brawny, and a woman, short and blond.
They checked our IDs, made a phone call. “This way.”
The woman walked us down a short hall to a door with Dwinn’s name mounted on a plaque. She knocked.
“Come! Just Jurgen!” I recognized Dwinn’s voice from our phone chat.
I turned the doorknob. The guard looked at Rachel, then shrugged. “Go ahead.”
Delgado spun halfway around in an office chair. He stopped as an iron hand clamped down on him.
A cyborg. Mostly female, as far as I could tell. Half her face was covered in dark plastic, with an implant over her eye like Eddie. One slender metallic leg, the other still flesh. She wore athletic shorts, boots, and a green T-shirt. One thick arm connected to a metal shoulder. Long metal fingers wrapped around Delgado’s throat.
Dwinn sat behind a long metal desk. He had short gray hair in a military crew cut, and a deep jaw. He wore a turtleneck as if it made him look like Steve Jobs. He glared at me. “Close the door. Who’s that?”
“Rachel.” She stepped forward as I kicked the door shut. “I work with Tom. Who the hell is this?”
Like Eddie Bryght, the cyborg had some kind of implant over her left eye, and I felt as if she was zeroing in on a target as she looked at us. “I’m Stacy. I work here.”
“So, we came like you said.” I checked Delgado out. He seemed uninjured. Just nervous. “Sharp.”
He nodded. Message received. “Sorry. Couldn’t give you much notice.”
I folded my arms, my heart pounding. Trying to look calm. At least I had Rachel next to my side. “So, do you have any idea what you’re doing, holding a cop hostage? I won’t even ask about your robocop initiative, because I’ve got a pretty good idea of what’s going on—”
“Shut up.” Dwinn gulped a cup of coffee. “You have no idea what’s going on here.”
“I think I do.” I was proud of how I kept my voice from shaking. “tou’re building cyborgs for your security force. Eddie Bryght, that other woman. Maybe you think you can mass-produce them and rent them out to the Army? Once you’ve got the bugs worked out.”
He nodded. “Not bad. You missed a few things.”
I glanced at Stacy. “Like heart failure? Because of all the extra weight you’re carrying?Did he mention that? It’s why Eddie died.”
“I’m fine.” She curled half of one lip. “I’m strong.”
“For now.” I turned toward Dwinn. “Who was that other one, Maurice? The woman who got washed up on the beach yesterday? What was her name?”
Dwinn shook his head. “Megan. She was on assignment.”
“What kind of assignment? Are you sending your cyborgs out to kill people?”
Rachel nudged me. “You don’t have to shout, Tom. We’re all right here.”
Was I shouting? “Sorry. The point is—”
“This is the future of security.” Dwinn stood up. “Business security, national security. I’m working with the government. You can’t shut us down.”
“How many of you are there?” Delgado was staring at Stacy. “Like you?”
One half of her human face smirked. “You’d be surprised.”
I looked her body over. “Did you have cancer? Like Eddie? Or what?”
Her bare eye jerked. “I was in a wheelchair. Now I can walk.”
Oh, god. I looked at Dwinn. “Is that how you’re doing this? Recruiting the dying and the disabled?” At least he wasn’t kidnapping people off the street, but still—
“I’m giving them a new chance at life! To be useful!” Dwinn took a breath. “Everyone volunteered. No one—”
“Oh please.” Rachel snorted. “You’re manipulating vulnerable people. Are you recruiting terminal patients in the cancer ward? Scouting rehab centers? Who was Megan? What did you say to her? To make her feel ‘useful’?”
Delgado put a hand on Stacy’s arm. “Let go of me.”
Stacy started to squeeze his throat. “No.”
“Not—a good—idea,” Delgado croaked. “Killing—a—cop . . .”
“Stacy, stop.” Dwinn waved a hand. “Stand down.”
“Yeah, stop.” I reached into my pocket. “Hello? Detective Sharpe? You there?”
Her voice was crisp and clear on my phone. “Yeah. Coming in.”
“What?” Dwinn blinked. “What are you—”
“Maybe your military contacts can get you out of this.” I held the phone up. “But you’ve been threatening a cop. That’s not going to be a happy ending here. And I bet whatever agreement Eddie Bryght or Stacy here might have signed aren’t going to look very ethical. Or legal.”
Dwinn stabbed a finger at his phone. “Brett? Don’t let anyone in—”
“Maury?” A male voice, nervous. “There are cops outside. A lot of them. Should I—”
“No! Let them in!” Dwinn glared at me.
Delgado managed to twist his neck free and lock his eyes with Stacy. “Better let me go. Or you’ll be back in that wheelchair again.”
Stacy glanced at Dwinn, then dropped her hand. “All right. But this is still better.”
Maybe she was right. I didn’t know. I only knew Eddie Bryght was dead, and now I could tell his wife why.
Sharpe walked us outside and into the next building. “This should be interesting.”
Delgado was in a car inside the gate. Dwinn was under arrest. Stacy walked behind us. She hadn’t fought when Dwinn told her to stand down.
A cop opened the door. Another police officer stood inside. She pointed down the hallway. “On the left, detective. It’s—weird.”
Sharpe chuckled. “We’ve seen weird. Right, Jurgen?”
I glanced back at Stacy. Right.
Sharpe pushed the door on the left open and looked inside. “Wow.”
Rachel and I peered around her shoulder.
It looked like a small hospital ward. Cots laid out—most of them empty, but two people lay unconscious, with IV drips in their arms and legs. The arms and legs that they had left.
Along a wall hung an assortment of metallic limbs—arms, legs, feet, hands—most of them hooked into power strips, feeding energy into their circuits.
A man in a white lab coat looked up. “You again?”
“They’re coming.” Sharpe walked forward.
Stacy leaned over a man on a cot. He had two mechanical arms that twitched as he looked up. No legs.
She bent down. “David?”
His eyelids flickered. “Stace?”
“Oh, no.” Stacy dropped down on her knees. “You too?”
“I couldn’t move.” He lifted an arm up. “Now look at me. Take a look . . .”
Stacey kissed him. “It’s good to see you.”
I looked at Rachel. She shuddered.
Sharpe clamped a hand on my arm. “We need to get out of here. Homeland Security is coming here to clear this place out.”
“Wait a minute.” Rachel pointed.
In the corner sat a young woman in blue jeans and a gray sweatshirt. “That’s her.”
“The witch?”
She looked up as we approach. “Hi.” Rachel crossed her arms. “I’m Rachel.”
The woman nodded, as if she’d dozed off. “I’m—Cam.”
“You’re part of this?” Sharpe gestured at the cots.
“They can’t run on technology alone.” Cam shrugged. “I give them the extra spark.”
Sharpe rolled her eyes. “It’s always something with you, isn’t it, Jurgen?”
I glanced at Stacey and David, talking quietly as we headed for the door.
Back home Rachel heated up the pizza while I called my client. Virginia Bryght listened silently.
“What will happen to all of them?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” We’d seen two unmarked vans pull up in the parking lot as I started my car. Men and women in flak vests jumped out. “The police said Homeland Security was taking over.”
“And Mr. Dwinn? And the other companies?”
I shook my head. “It depends on whether the government can cover this up.” I wished I had a better answer. “We can go to the press—”
“No.” Her voice was firm. “I couldn’t . . . handle that. Thank you.”
I didn’t blame her.
Rachel brought the pizza out. “How’d she take it?”
“About as well as I expected.” I’d send her a formal report—and an invoice—in the morning. Right now I opened beers for us. “Did you pick up anything from them? Or Cam?”
She nodded. “Definitely Cam. I think I know her.”
“She didn’t seem to recognize you.”
“At a party. I’ll ask around.” She sipped her beer. Rachel has lots of friends in the Chicago paranormal community. Being psychic herself. “She felt kind of . . . drained. Like it took a lot of energy to keep those things running.”
“So if the government keeps the program up, they’ll need more of her?”
“That’s what I’m worried about.” She sighed.
“What about the others? Anything?” I was nervous about the question—Rachel sometimes gets annoyed when I ask her too much about what she picks up from people and things around her.
She closed her eyes and chewed a slice of pizza. “I thought they’d be mad about what Dwinn did to them. But David was—happy. He was proud of being able to list his arm.”
“They did it freely. I mean, of course Dwinn probably manipulated them, but—”
She shuddered. “People aren’t tools just because they’re disabled. I wouldn’t want to live like that.”
I wasn’t sure. But I kept my mouth shut.
# # #
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