Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls Part 16

At a loss for words, I can only point to the cottage, shaking my head vehemently. Then I point toward the largest building, a flattopped three-story thing, intermittently lit.

"Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast," I whisper.

"Huh? Sarah, what's wrong?"

I gesture toward the larger building. "The play's the thing, wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King."

"King?" she starts to ask, then nods. "You think that we'll find them in that building? Why?"

I smile bitterly. "I remember, I remember the house where I was born, the little windows where the sun came peeping in the morn."

The other two are stirring, restless and curious at the reason for our delay. Abalone beckons them forward and explains.

"Shouldn't we let Sarah lead?" Midline suggests. "She may remember something else, an' the owl can scout for her."

Abalone agrees, promising to be as close as my shadow, and now I lead the way across the park. The well-tended lawn springs beneath my soft-soled shoes and the night wind whispers through the new leaves on the trees. From the bag slung across my shoulder like a bandolier, I can hear Betwixt and Between muttering to each other, but I do not shift my focus to listen.

Ahead is the building and my memory fills in details that the darkness does not reveal. It is stone, rough and red, grainy to the touch, though not crumbly like sandstone.

The lower floor will not interest us. It is mostly offices and entertainment areas: a ballroom, a conference center, a lounge. The second floor is labs and test areas, some recreational facilities, but these are for the patients, not for the guests: treadmills to measure heart and respiration, rooms with walls of one-way gla.s.s, an Olympic swimming pool.

The third floor is our goal. Rooms for the resident patients. Dylan. Me. A kitchen and dining area. A playroom. Somehow it does not occur to me to wonder if this will have changed with the pa.s.sing years. Maybe the place itself tells me. Change of that sort is not important to its purpose.

Purpose.

Something touches a buried memory, but eludes me like the moth Athena futilely snaps at as she soars just ahead of us. Then we have arrived in the building's shadow and the others are waiting for me to tell them what to do.

The building's flat roof makes an entry directly into the third floor seem possible, especially if we target one of the empty rooms. Holding a finger to my lips, I motion for the others to take cover behind some azaleas thickly covered with red flowers that smell faintly sour. Then I send Athena to look in each window, charging her to remember what was within each.

After a few moments, she returns. Her report does not take the form of anything as simple as words, but I manage to learn that most of the rooms are empty of all but dust and darkness. One or two show signs of human inhabitants, but none of these are a man with white hair and pale green eyes. More than this is beyond my limited ability to understand.

I rea.s.sure myself that both the second-and third-story windows above us are dark and the rooms untenanted before I turn to the others, who are waiting with nervous tension.

I gesture upward, motioning as if swinging a grapple.

Professor Isabella looks sharply at me. "You think we should climb up?"

I nod and Midline purses his lips, surveying the height involved.

"We can do that," he says, pulling gear from his belt.

"Okay," Abalone whispers. "Anchor a line to the roof and I'll go first. I want to check if the upper windows are wired. The lower ones are."

Midline steps just outside of the azaleas' shelter and I fight the impulse to huddle small. If anyone sees him, we are all in equal danger. But the night remains quiet and the stretch of park is uninterrupted by guards or other hazards.

A nearly inaudible clunk announces that the grapple has found purchase and Abalone climbs upward with the primate grace of one of the Free People. She stops outside of the third-story window and wrestles out her tappety-tap.

Something troubles her. She hangs there, studying a reading. Then from a pouch at her waist she removes tiny tools, visible only as points of light in the shadows. After working for a moment, she presses up against the window frame.

I hear Professor Isabella intake her breath in apprehension, but no alarms go off and Abalone vanishes within. Midline gestures for me to go next and I scramble up, certain that I will be spotted. Yet, I dive safely into the room, rolling past Abalone, who motions for me to go and listen at the door and warn her if anyone is coming.

Obeying, I feel a soft breeze as Midline enters and hear soft grunts as Professor Isabella is helped in. There is the sound of metal on stone as Midline retrieves his grapple and then a cessation of outside noises as the window is slid shut. Abalone comes to crouch beside me, chortling nearly inaudibly when she finds a computer jack on the wall. Relieved some from guard duty, I turn to study the room.

Staring in pure disbelief, I realize that I know this room. The bra.s.s bedstead in one corner looks smaller than it did when Dylan and I played pirates on it and the ivory dresser is thick with dust, but this is my room. Unbelieving, I study the rainbow of dancing teddy bears that borders the room, remembering how when I couldn't sleep they would sing to me.

The faint sound of those chiming voices reaches me, but I push it back. More important is remembering where various rooms were in relation to this one. Adult perspective threatens to scatter my memories like sparrows before a cat-then I sink back and let memory rise.

Yes. Dylan's room is across the hall and to the right. Eleanora's is beyond his, but it has been empty...Past, present, and future threaten to rise and flood me with their contradictions. Can Dylan be here at all?

Meanwhile, Abalone and Professor Isabella have been reviewing the data that is scrolling rapidly across Abalone's screen. Midline stands out of sight of window or door, ready to take any who might have seen our entry and come looking. A sheathed knife waits below his hand, ready as its owner, but I know he will prefer empty hands to weapons.

Quietly, I rise, and inspect the room's other door. If memory matches reality, this opens into a bathroom. Tension has made me suddenly desperate to pee and without word to the others, I gently turn the doork.n.o.b, remembering the struggle the task was for my smaller self.

Midline's arm pulls me back.

"No exploring," he growls in my ear.

I blush, realizing how stupid I nearly was, yet aware of the sotto voce sotto voce clamor of past experience luring me to act like a child rather than an adult. clamor of past experience luring me to act like a child rather than an adult.

Sitting heavily on the floor, I pull Betwixt and Between from their bag and cradle them, inhaling their strawberry fragrance in slow, deep breaths.

They, in turn, appreciate being let out.

"Gee, it's awfully dark in here," Betwixt says.

"Dusty, too," Between sneezes.

I start to hush them and then remember that only I can hear them. Instead, I whisper, "Am I my brother's keeper?"

"You?" Betwixt seems confused for a moment. "No, but I see what you're getting at. This is definitely the place."

"I wonder if Dylan has the same room?" Between says, his voice rising with excitement. "That would mean he's just down the hall! Do you think he'll remember us?"

"Of course, he will," Betwixt replies, but I can hear the nervous edge to his voice. "Weren't we his best friend?"

Their colloquy is interrupted by a whisper from Abalone. I crawl over to join her and Professor Isabella by the door. Midline inches closer, but keeps his watchful station.

"We've dumped loads of data," Abalone says, "too much and too fast to read now and my memory is at capacity. There were no maps or room a.s.signments in what I skimmed, so we'll have to do a quick physical search. Sarah, do you have any ideas?"

I nod. In the shielded beam of a light, I sketch what I remember of the corridor using the pile of the carpet for a canvas. Across from my room, just to the left, is a door to a stairwell. To the left the corridor jogs and there are several rooms. To the right, there is the large sunroom and one other: Dylan's. Finishing my map, I place an X where Dylan should be.

Abalone studies my map. "Good detail, but things may have changed since you lived here."

Midline coughs what I realize is a laugh. "And she may have flipped directions, like by the Jungle. What say we split? Me and the Professor go left, an' you and Sarah, right. We won't be so far apart for us not to holler for help."

Professor Isabella raises a startled eyebrow at Midline's choice of partner, but nods agreement. "Remember, though, Dylan and Eleanora may not wish to be 'rescued'-this place may be all they know."

Abalone stands, reaching for the door handle, before I can adjust to the shocking thought. I hadn't wanted to leave the Home, had I? Would they feel any different about the Inst.i.tute?

"I've unlocked the electronics on this level," Abalone whispers. "Ignore any telltale that reads 'Locked' and go through."

Then she presses down the handle and pulls the doors open. Quietly, I follow her into the hallway and to the right.

Walking after her down a hallway that seems nearly unchanged since I was a resident here, I am escorted by a shadow of my smaller self. Up and down this grey, nubby carpet, I would run, chasing Dylan and, more distantly I recall, Eleanora. I loved active games like these, because even then I couldn't talk.

Dylan was less active than I. I think his head often hurt him, for my memories of him frequently show him with head in hands in a darkened room, speaking only in a husky whisper.

The click of the door latch startles me from my reverie and I walk after Abalone from the pearl and grey of the hallway into a man's bedroom. It is empty, but even as I register that, I am recovering from the expectation that, like so much else, this room would be unchanged.

A faint scent of shaving lotion tints the air, but there is something besides its sharp spice-a mustiness that tells me even before Abalone turns on a low beam light and I see the dust on the dresser tops, the barren closet, its door ajar-that no one lives in this room any longer.

Dylan, apparently, has moved on and my dragons hiss my disappointment. Abalone has arrived at the same conclusion.

"They've moved him," she whispers. "Let's see if the others have had better luck."

They haven't. When I step into the hallway again, Abalone hard on my heels, someone grabs my shoulder and pulls me to the side. Someone else grabs Abalone. I feel myself quickly and efficiently patted down. The bag with Betwixt and Between is taken from me and Athena is removed from my shoulder.

I hear Abalone cursing a long and brilliant line of profanities that sear my ears. When I am allowed to turn, I see that they have taken her tappety-tap and that a large man in the same dark blue as those who attacked the Jungle is twisting her arm.

Professor Isabella and Midline are standing with guards behind them. The trickle of blood from one man's lip reveals that Midline did not subdue easily. Too late, I remember the floor's uniform soundproofing-a source of both amus.e.m.e.nt and annoyance to me and my sibs.

But memories are unimportant now, faced as we are with a half dozen guards and Dr. Lea Haas. If she is hoping to intimidate the Free People, she must be disappointed, for Professor Isabella's words are calm.

"We were coming to meet you when these people leapt out from the stairwell. I am afraid that we were a bit over-matched, despite Midline's valor."

Midline shuffles his feet as if embarra.s.sed, gaining a suspicious look from his bruised guard.

"Get them below," Dr. Haas says coldly. "Accidents can be arranged, especially for dregs like these. Sarah, though, she can stay here-in her old room. There's something in that."

Her words give me an idea which is no sooner thought of then enacted. I slide my fingers to Athena's control bracelet and touch a series of moves. Immediately, there is a loud, pained cry and a flurry of silver-grey wings.

"The b.a.s.t.a.r.d bit me!" is all the guard has time for before the Pack sprints for freedom.

Professor Isabella opens the door to my room, dodging inside. Midline chooses not to follow, preferring to deck the guard nearest to him. The other, the one with the b.l.o.o.d.y lip, is fumbling for a tranq gun.

I think I hear him mutter, "Not even for union rates," but I am too busy to be sure.

With Professor Isabella and Midline freed up, I dive Athena at the guard nearest to Abalone. When he raises his hands to shield his face, Abalone throws her full body weight into a punch between his legs. He shrieks, doubles, retches, and she seizes her computer before it can hit the floor.

A touch of night air tells me that Professor Isabella has the window open in my room. Two guards down and a third occupied with her injured comrade. Midline distracts a fourth, using the doorframe as a shield from the tranq slivers. A pair remain by Dr. Haas, trying to get a clear line to one of us without hitting one of their allies.

I decide to continue equaling the odds. The owl swirls up and around, diving at the man firing at Midline. Automatically, the man raises his gun, shooting at the darting, dodging blur on wings.

"Don't fire at the bird," Dr. Haas shouts. "It's the blond girl who's doing it! Get her!"

Actually, she is not completely correct. Athena's own circuitry is handling her immediate activity, but if they get my wristband...In my moment of revelation, I completely forget the guard behind me. She turns from helping the man Abalone had hit and grabs me.

My arm is pinned behind me with expert pressure and minimal force, yet moving brings sudden, sharp pain. I freeze in place.

Dr. Haas tosses her white lab coat over Athena and the owl sinks, still beating her wings until a safety override shuts off the motion and she crumples. I wonder if only I hear the chirped anger.

Abalone and Midline are poised to spring, but I call out desperately, "There's such divinity doth hedge a king..."

Abalone completes the line, sliding the door shut, "that treason can but 'peep' to what it would."

I barely hear Midline's whispered, "We be of one blood, ye and I" before the door clicks shut.

Suddenly brave, Dr. Haas's two goons leap forward and to the door. Dr. Haas walks to an intercom.

"They won't get away," she says to me as she flips it on and begins to rapid-fire instructions.

But when the guards burst open the jammed door of my bedroom, the room is empty. The grounds are searched, but no one is found, nor does security report any unauthorized vehicles crossing the Inst.i.tute's airs.p.a.ce.

No one even tries to question me and even if they did, I had been so distracted when Abalone reviewed her escape plans that I could not have told them how it was managed. But I do remember that Peep has been Abalone's pupil and suspect that alone is enough to guarantee a quick and easy escape.

But this is small comfort; larger is the knowledge that the Inst.i.tute will not trouble them further. Now that I am returned, they will have no reason.

I hope.

Thirteen.

NOT EVEN AN HOUR AFTER MY SURRENDER, I AM TAKEN TO A AM TAKEN TO A panel van and from there to a small airfield. At some point, I must have been sedated, because I remember very little of the ensuing journey. panel van and from there to a small airfield. At some point, I must have been sedated, because I remember very little of the ensuing journey.

When I come to myself, I am in a room that smells hospital but proclaims prison. The windows are sealed and the door has no latch on the inside. Yet, I had expected something like this. What I had not expected was to find Betwixt and Between and Athena waiting for me on a small round table. Athena's control band sits beside her.

I leap up from the narrow bed, slowing as my head swims.

"Careful, Sarah," Betwixt cautions. "I think this room is monitored. Watch what you say."

"I have drunken deep of joy," I promise, "and I will taste no other wine tonight."

"That's careful enough," Between mutters. "I can barely understand her."

I hug them, ignoring the hardness of their rubbery spikes. Then, more gently, I stroke Athena's wings, checking for damage from her fall.

"Oh, dear girls, we are in a pickle," Betwixt says. "I watched as they brought us in and this place is about as accessible as a hibernating mud crab. I am not sure that even Abalone's magic can find us. We may be stuck."

Picking them up and setting Athena on my shoulder, I go to the window. The prospect is not promising. A green tangle surrounds us above and below. I remember Sherlock Holmes's horror of the countryside and wonder what he would make of a tropical jungle which not only isolates, but conceals and destroys as well.

Next, I inspect my quarters. The room I awoke in contains a foam extrusion bed, the round table, which is of only slightly firmer stuff, and some cushionlike chairs. A sliding door reveals a comfortable bathroom, equally designed with the resident's safety in mind. There are no sharp edges, no hard surfaces; there is not even a deep sink and certainly no tub.

The decorating scheme in both rooms is uniformly done in shades of tan and beige, lighter for the walls and floor, darker for the furnishings.