Skin Game Read online

  This left only one thing to do. Since the thermal imager could not see through wood, that meant he still had to check out the offices one at a time.

  Letting out his breath slowly, he stepped toward the doorway in the farthest left corner, his pistol and flashlight leading the way. He swept the room quickly once, past the large metal desk, over the peeling wallboard, past the scattered, smashed glass on the floor to the low half wall to his right.

  The room was empty.

  And he saw no wet footprints on the floor; even the dusty patina of the desktop seemed undisturbed. Still, Thompson played it carefully as he eased around the desk and pointed his gun at the floor behind it.

  Nothing.

  He let out another breath and felt a little better, and pressed on. His stomach was fluttering, though, and he felt covered in an apprehension as real as his rain-drenched clothes. Middle office, now.

  Not only was the door gone off this office, so were the furnishings within: no desk, file cabinets, tables, chairs, nothing but piles of broken glass and fractured wallboard littering the room like the aftermath of a biker party. No transgenics in there either.

  Listening intently at the sagging door of the final office, Thompson heard nothing but his own pulse pounding in his ears. Though the whole building smelled of rot and decay—a bouquet emphasized by the night’s dampness—the last office seemed to be the nexus of the putrid aroma. The door groaned as he pushed it open.

  The desk in this room had been tipped over, its legs sticking out at Thompson, its top facing the back wall. He shoved the door hard, smacking it off the wall, just in case someone . . . something . . . had snugged himself . . . itself . . . back there. . . .

  Nothing behind it, though. Swinging the other way, Thompson played his light over the floor and saw nothing but broken glass and other rubble. Slowly, he edged toward the side of the desk and shined the beam behind it, and the light caught something, something made not of wood or steel or glass, but flesh. . . .

  There, on the floor, lay the skinned carcass of some sort of animal. The body had obviously been there for some time—even the insects had lost interest in it by now—and Thompson couldn’t even make out what it was, between the darkness and decay.

  From its size, it at first appeared to him to be a very large dog, or maybe a deer that had wandered into the city; but as the beam crept over the prone form, Thompson realized that what he’d just found was neither deer nor dog.

  The body on the floor was that of a man.

  Not an animal carcass, but a human corpse.

  “Hankins,” Thompson said, struggling to keep his voice calm. “Got something.”

  No response.

  The smell of the office oppressive now, threatening to send his dinner scurrying back up his throat, he again hissed, “Hankins.”

  Finally his partner growled in his ear: “What the fuck is it now, Thompson?”

  “Got a body here.”

  Hankins’ voice came back gruffly, unimpressed: “The transgenic?”

  “I . . . I don’t think so.”

  “Shit. I knew we couldn’t be that fuckin’ lucky. Tell me about your catch of the day.”

  “Office downstairs. Last one on the right. Behind a desk.”

  Harrumphing, Hankins said, “Jesus, how about a detail that matters? Like is it a man? A woman? Child? What?”

  Thompson bit his tongue and kept the obscenity from popping out of his mouth. Discipline, Thompson knew, kept him from being like Hankins, and he wouldn’t allow the F word to slip into his reply, no matter how hard it fought to come out. Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, he said, “Frankly, I can’t tell whether it’s male or female . . . probably adult, and I . . . I think it’s been skinned.”

  “What?”

  “Skinned,” Thompson repeated. “It’s a dead body . . . with no skin.”

  “Goddamn. . . . How fresh is that baby?”

  How the hell should I know? Thompson wondered, but he said, “Old—there’s not even any bugs. Even the smell’s died down . . . some.”

  Hankins sighed in Thompson’s ear, then said, “Fuck it then. Move on.”

  “You don’t think finding a dead body is a ‘detail’ that matters?”

  “Sure it is—in the long run. In the short term, we’re lookin’ for a transgenic tonight.”

  “Maybe this is the victim of a transgenic.”

  “Maybe—but we’ll let the investigative team figure that out, Sage my boy. If you got a kill that ain’t fresh, it’s not going to do us any good now . . . and it’ll wait until we’ve cleared the building.”

  When this becomes somebody’s else’s job, Thompson thought.

  Yet, while he would hate to admit it, Thompson knew that what Hankins said actually made sense. Slowly pulling the flashlight beam off the corpse, Thompson forced himself to turn away and walk out of the office.

  He climbed the stairs to the second floor. Even darker than the first, this level had been subdivided into smaller rooms which lined either side of a central corridor that ran the length of the building, starting at the freight elevator that squatted next to the stairwell.

  Though a thick layer of dust still covered the floor, this level seemed cleaner than the last, somehow—no debris, no shattered glass. He was just about to go up the stairs to the third floor, when he decided to take the time to double check. He turned and played the beam over the corridor in front of him.

  At first glance he hadn’t spotted them, but now—on this second, closer look—he saw the wet footprints, running down the hall but close to the wall at right. Were those Hankins’ footprints?

  No—his partner was still up on sixth; and anyway, these were smaller than Hankins’ big feet would make, not as wide, and longer. And leading to the third door on the left. . . .

  Acid churned in Thompson’s stomach as he considered what it might be like to go one-on-one with a transgenic. They could vary in strength, in abilities, and defects, depending on what animal DNA had been mixed into their personal genetic soup. Some of them were human, even beautiful.

  Others were grotesque combinations of man and beast.

  “Hankins,” he whispered into the headset.

  “Yeah?” The older man’s voice sounded resigned and maybe a little pissed off.

  “I’ve got footprints on the second floor. They’re wet and they’re fresh.”

  Any skepticism or irritation disappeared from Hankins’ voice: “What’s the imager say?”

  Thompson returned his automatic to its holster and pulled out the imager. Watching the imager drawing blanks as its invisible beam moved up the hallway, he suddenly felt naked without the pistol in his hand, and when a red flare blipped up on the imager’s tiny monitor screen, he damn near threw the thing down the hall in his anxiety to reach for his weapon.

  “You still with me, kid?” Hankins asked.

  In spite of himself, Thompson jumped a little when Hankins’ voice made its appearance in his ear.

  “Got a hot body,” Thompson said, “but its temp is below a hundred.”

  “Probably not a transgenic.”

  “Probably not.”

  “Shit, though—I’m on my way. Hang loose till I get there.”

  Thompson felt his nerve returning a little as he realized that whatever was in the room ahead probably wasn’t a transgenic.

  “It’s all right, man,” he said into the headset. “I’m all over it.”

  “You sure, kiddo?”

  Slipping the imager back into his pocket, Thompson pulled out his Glock; his stomach was still fluttery, but—goddamnit—this was his job, and he would do it. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  Hankins’ voice came back clearly, all business now. “You let me know what you find. You need me, I’m there in a heartbeat.”

  “Right,” he said, almost feeling affection for the older man—and wasn’t that a rarity. . . .

  Thompson remained cautious, shining his light into each room as he moved down t
he hall. He wasn’t checking them carefully—somebody or something was on this floor, and he was moving it right along, accordingly—but the imager had shown nothing, and the quick playing of the beam around the rooms assured him the new gizmo wasn’t on the fritz.

  Outside the third door on the left, he stopped, calmed his breathing, and once he was steady, he swung through the open door, his arms extended in front of him, the flashlight moving from right to left.

  His flashlight sweep was halfway around the room when he heard the whoosh in the blackness to his left. In the grim darkness, he saw a length of two-by-four arcing through the air!

  Before he could react, though, the board crashed down across his arms and the flashlight and pistol went flying in opposite directions, clattering, clanking. The flashlight went out when it hit the floor, the room going completely black. His Glock flew to the floor somewhere as well—didn’t go off, thankfully—winding up vaguely to the left, where it skittered along until it smacked into a wall.

  Thompson’s vision went white, then black, as pain exploded through his being. He heard the whoosh of the board making a second swing, and tried to move out of the way, but then he heard the snap of his left arm breaking, and grunted once before collapsing to the floor. He felt more than saw his attacker, raising the board for a third strike, this one sure to split his head like a melon and leave Melanie a widow and his child fatherless. . . .

  Instinctively rolling toward his attacker, Thompson managed to narrow the distance between them enough so that this time when his opponent swung the board, it whizzed over Thompson’s head as he crashed into the attacker’s legs and sent the man tumbling across the room. Scrabbling to his left, Thompson used his good hand to feel along the floor for his pistol.

  Behind him he could hear his attacker cursing under his breath as he struggled to regain his feet in the near darkness. Thompson fumbled along, seeking his gun, dust rising, and he repressed a sneeze as he crawled forward.

  Hankins’ voice erupted in his headset. “Find anything yet, kid?”

  Fine, Thompson thought, just swell, but he said nothing, not wanting to give his position away to his unwelcoming host. He continued forward, his good hand searching for the Glock, his bad arm throbbing so badly he wanted to pass out.

  “Son of a bitch barge in my house,” the attacker muttered thickly behind him in the darkness.

  There!

  Something cool, something metallic—the Glock. His fingers wrapped around it and in one motion, still on his knees, Thompson pivoted, brought up the pistol and fired blindly three times, left, center, right, covering his options.

  Thompson heard the soft thwack of at least one round entering the man’s body, heard too the man’s involuntary grunt, and finally he heard one more sound: the board dropping from his attacker’s hand with a thunk, raising dust. The attacker sagged to the floor, gurgled a couple of times, then was silent.

  “Jesus, kid, I’m comin’!” Hankins’ voice shouted in the headset.

  The pistol still in front of him, in his good hand, Thompson got to his feet, shuffled over, found the body in the dark and kicked it a couple of times.

  It didn’t move.

  Into the headset, Thompson calmly said, “It’s okay. Got a guy down—need a medic. My arm’s broken, but the attacker’s down.”

  Hankins’ voice sounded like he was underwater. “I’m comin’, kid! I’ll be right there, I’m on the fifth floor and headed down.” The poor overweight bastard was probably running, which meant he might be about to have a heart attack.

  “It’s all right, I said,” Thompson insisted. “I’ve got it covered.”

  Using his foot, giving the darkness gentle kicks, he finally found the flashlight. He picked the thing up, shook it a couple of times, and was surprised when the beam came back on.

  Struggling to juggle both the light and pistol in one hand—not put any more pressure on his aching arm than he had to—he made his way over and pointed the light down at his attacker’s face.

  An old white man with wispy white hair, an open, mostly toothless mouth, and unblinking milky blue eyes stared up at him—no transgenic . . . just some poor homeless wretch. The old man had been doing nothing more than protecting his squatter’s rights in the tiny office . . . and for this, Thompson had killed him.

  The young man’s stomach turned acidic again, but this time it wasn’t from fear. This time it was something far worse—shame . . . guilt.

  He didn’t know how he’d ever get past this. Since joining White’s unit, he’d done some things that he knew he’d eventually regret; but, goddamnit, he’d never killed an innocent man—not until tonight.

  Shaking his head, hot tears running down his face, mingling with sweat and rain, Thompson knew that tonight would be his last in this stinking job. Fuck Ames White. He and Hankins would finish here, drive back to the office, where they would make out their report, then he’d be done.

  He would go home to his wife, take her and the baby in his arms, and tomorrow they would decide how far away they would move to try to put this night behind them. Somewhere, in the post-Pulse world, there had to be a life better than this one.

  Then, in Thompson’s ear, Hankins screamed.

  “Hankins!” Thompson shouted into his headset.

  Nothing.

  “Hankins, talk to me!”

  Still no response.

  Changing frequencies, Thompson sent out an emergency call to headquarters for reinforcements, and a general 911 call that would bring both the local cops and an ambulance. Then he switched back and called Hankins’ name again.

  More silence.

  Stripping off his tie, he made a makeshift splint with the flashlight, so the beam seemed to shoot out the end of his fingers; he tied it off, popped a new clip into the Glock, then took off up the stairs, fast as hell.

  But not fast enough.

  He found Hankins’ body on the fourth floor, where it had been dragged from the stairwell—he knew it was Hankins, though there was no way to recognize the naked, bright gleaming redness of blood and exposed muscle and bone as any particular human.

  Merely a skinned one.

  Very fresh, this time.

  And the scream he heard in his ears, now, was his own.

  Leanly muscular, with spiky brown hair, icy blue eyes, and the empathy of a shark, Ames White pressed the palm of his left hand against his forehead.

  He didn’t know whether to laugh or scream, so he did what he always did: he smirked, even in the face of death . . . he smirked.

  White knew Hankins and Thompson were not the sharpest men on his unit; he had even suspected they were inept—but he’d had no idea that they were this lame.

  Yet somehow this seemed typical. He was a man with a mission of almost cosmic importance, in a city, a country, that was a shambles, barely worth ruling . . . though one took one’s best option, right? And here he was, with this huge responsibility, surrounded by fools and incompetents. It seemed to White, these days, that he was constantly on the verge of a great victory or a humiliating defeat.

  He wondered which column this one would end up in.

  The upside of this, if there was one, was that at least he’d be rid of the bungling duo now. Hankins, of course, was dead. White glanced at the skinned body, then looked away again—what a disgusting mess. Thompson, huddled in a corner, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, cradling his broken arm, seemed unable to tear his eyes from his partner’s grotesque corpse.

  White already knew the kid was washed up, he could see it in his face. And the fact that Thompson had nearly been taken out by a geriatric homeless person only compounded the failure.

  The downside of this was the pair’s ineffectiveness would reflect on him, and White despised failure, even if his was only one by association. Shaking his head, he turned to his associate, Otto Gottlieb.

  Hispanic-looking with his black hair, dark eyes, and olive skin, Gottlieb was not in the know about government agent White’s se
veral secret agendas. In fact, Gottlieb’s best trait—as far as White was concerned—was that the man did what he was told.

  So far, Gottlieb had resisted the urge to grow a brain and start thinking on his own; but White was afraid that couldn’t last forever. And when the moment came, he knew he’d miss Gottlieb. He didn’t really like the guy—White didn’t really like anyone, and prided himself on a superiority devoid of such weakness as compassion and sentimentality—but he had gotten used to having Gottlieb around, and his associate’s presence somehow brought him peace.

  Even if the man was a moron.

  Motioning toward the two partners—one dead, one alive—White said, “Get him out of here, Otto. He disgusts me. Get him out.”

  “The body? Shouldn’t we wait for—”

  “No. That’s evidence. Thompson, I mean. Lose him.”

  Gottlieb, finally getting it, nodded and moved to the other agent. Helping Thompson to his feet, Gottlieb drew the blanket around the man’s shoulders and led him toward the door.

  When they neared White, Thompson looked at his boss with golf-ball eyes and said, “That transgenic skinned him so fast—so fucking fast. He skinned him.”

  “You screwed up. This was an unacceptable loss.”

  Now Thompson’s eyes tightened and tears began to trickle. “I tried to get to him in time . . . I tried to help . . . I . . .”

  White smirked again, and shook his head slowly. “You just don’t get it, do you?”

  A wide-eyed blank look settled on Thompson’s face.

  “I’m not talking about Hankins. This transgenic saved me the trouble of firing his fat ass.”

  “You said . . . it was an unacceptable . . . loss. . . .”

  “And it is. The transgenic got the thermal imager.” White grabbed the front of Thompson’s wet raincoat. “And how long do you suppose it’ll be before they figure out what it is, and what it’s for?”

  White released the young agent’s coat. Thompson said nothing, his head turning back to Hankins on the floor. His lower lip trembled as he said, “You . . . you’re a monster.”