10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Epilogue
Prologue
Nine days after she died, Caitlyn James woke up in a private hospital in Minnesota.
This was problematic, because her last memory was of passing out in the backseat of a Miami limo.
It was a private hospital room, in itself a miracle in these days of HMOs and accountants making medical decisions. One such accountant was in the room with her. He was leaning over her bed and moving his lips. He had thinning blond hair, rimless glasses, and was wearing an utterly spotless lab coat. No name tag. No hospital name stitched over his pocket. She dubbed him Egghead #1.
She squinted at #1, and as if someone were turning up the volume in her head, he slowly became audible.
“…everything’s all right. You’re in a branch of the O.S.F. in Minneapolis, Minnesota.”
“Minnesota?” she rasped. No hangover, that was something. A miraculous something. She was reasonably certain she and her girlfriends had been mixing Kahlúa and tequila. Or had it been tequila and Baileys? They’d been mixing something with chocolate milk….
She sure felt like she could spit cotton though. Her mouth was as dry as the desert. She reached for the shiny cup beside her bed, but it crumpled in her hand. Dammit! She’d do anything, lay anything, for a glass of water.
“Minnesota?” she tried again, clearing her throat.
“Yes. There were special circumstances and we had to airlift you here.”
I. Am. So. Thirsty. “Sorry, I wasn’t listening. What?”
“We had to airlift you here and—and there are some things I need to go over with you.”
“What day is it?” Rent was due on Monday, and she’d be damned if Old Lady Shea was going to nail her with another fifty-dollar late fee. Like the woman needed more money to bury in her chive patch. “The day…what—what time is it?”
“It’s October thirty-first. Halloween,” Egghead #1 added brightly, as if looking forward to a brisk round of trick-or-treating after work. “Just after lunchtime, in fact. If you’re hungry, I could—”
“Hallo—” She cut herself off, shocked. The party had been on the twentieth. Her twenty-fourth birthday. She and a bunch of her sorority sisters had rented a limo and driven from Minneapolis to Miami. Things got a little blurry after her sixth piña colada. They got even blurrier after the Kahlúa-Baileys-chocolate-milk mixture.
Where were her friends? Why was she still here? Had there been an accident?
Oh, God…had there?
She grabbed Egghead #1’s lapel, meaning to pull him closer so she could get some answers. Instead, to her surprise (and, doubtless, Egghead’s), he sailed right over the top of her bed and crashed into the wall above her, then fell directly on her. For a wonder, there was no pain, just the annoyance of being smothered by a squirming accountant.
Caitlyn sat up, startled, pushed Egghead #1 off her, ignored his groan as he tumbled to the floor, and noticed a curious thing: no IVs. No bandages. No soreness. She wasn’t even dizzy. Thirsty, yes. Hurt, no.
So why was she still here? And where was here?
Suddenly, shockingly—by far the most startling thing to happen to her so far, and it had been a weird five minutes—there was something on her eye.
Target pulse rate: 142. Target blood pressure: 140/120.
Chance of target engaging in deceit: 92.628%
TARGET IS STRESSED REPEAT TARGET IS STRESSED
Correction: there was something in her brain. Something in her brain that thought this fellow on the floor was lying to her…or getting ready to.
“Why is there a picture in my head?” Before he could answer, she had another one for him. “What the hell is going on?” She was more puzzled than angry. Anger would come later.
“There are a few other things I have to tell you,” #1 groaned from the floor.
Chapter 1
—Original Message—
From: Donald Carlson, head of O.S.F. Research, Development, and Experimentation <[email protected]>
To: The Boss <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, September 01, 2004 4:01 PM
Subject: Recent Acquisition
Subject was acquired at 0110 hours today via one of our private ambulances. Subject is a Caucasian female in apparent good health, except for being clinically dead, with an alcohol blood level of .20. Subject is seventy inches tall and weighs one hundred seventy pounds. No birthmarks or apparent scars; however, subject has a tattoo on her lower back in dark blue ink that reads CAVEAT EMPTOR. Subject has shoulder-length dark blue hair (presumably dyed) and light blue eyes (Dr. Miller likens them to the color of the deep end of a swimming pool, but then, he’s always been a poetic freak). Subject was in a car accident at 0105 hours with five other females of roughly the same age. Subject got the worst of it because another car hit the side of the limousine in which she was riding. Three of the other five have been released with minor injuries; two have broken bones and are currently recovering at Miami General Hospital.
Subject has no immediate family; parents were killed (irony here, Boss) in a car crash when Subject was thirteen. Subject’s last known relative, a paternal aunt, died eighteen months ago.
Basically, Boss, she’s legally dead and we can do whatever we like with her.
—Dr. Don
—Original Message—
From. The Boss <TheBoss@osf link>
To: Dr. Don Carlson <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, September 01, 2004 4:11 PM
Subject: Re: Recent Acquisition
Sounds promising. What about her friends?
—Original Message—
From: Donald Carlson, head of O.S.F. Research, Development, and Experimentation <[email protected]>
To: The Boss <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, September 01, 2004 4:01 PM
Subject: Re: Re: Recent Acquisition
They think she’s still in Florida and are unlikely to discover otherwise—a bunch of former sorority girls. Not exactly the sharpest
