The Gates of Winter - Mark Anthony [186]
She looked him up and down, then nodded. “You're the one he said I have to talk to. The preacher.”
He sat down across from her. “What are you supposed to talk to me about?”
“About this, I suppose.” She opened her hands, revealing a silver computer disk. So she had been hiding the disk, not praying. “God, I hope this was the right thing to do.” Or maybe she had been praying after all.
“You hope what was the right thing to do?”
A laugh escaped her, a slightly mad sound. “I suppose it won't hurt to tell one person. After all, I want to tell everyone in the world about what's on this disk. Besides, I think I can trust him.” She glanced at the door where Brother Cy had vanished. “I think I have to.”
“Did he bring you here?”
“Yes.” She frowned, shaking her head. “No, not exactly. He helped me escape the . . . he helped me to get out. And he gave me a card with this address on it. Only the cab driver couldn't find it, he said the address didn't exist, so I got out and walked, and then I saw the light shining in the dark.”
Two of the mission's workers passed nearby—the young man with the bleached goatee and the young woman with the green hair.
“Who are they?” she said, shivering. “They're all so strange, and him most of all. Who are they really?”
“Here,” he said, reaching out and gripping her hand. “Let me show you.”
Before she could pull away, he whispered Halas, the rune of vision. It was a weak magic; he was tired, and he had not opened the box to touch the Stones. However, it was enough.
She pulled her hand away and gazed at him with wide eyes. “My God, what are they?”
Travis sighed. “That's a good question. And one I don't think we'll ever really know the answer to. But some call them the Little People.”
“Little People,” she murmured. Already her shocked expression was transmuting to one of sharp curiosity. “But what do they want with us?”
“I think they want to help us.”
She brushed tangled brown bangs from her eyes. “Maybe. Or maybe they want us to help them.”
“I'm Travis Wilder,” he said.
She clutched the computer disk. “I know. You see I work . . . that is, I used to work for Duratek.”
He lurched to his feet, sending his chair clattering to the floor as he backed away from the table.
“No.” She reached a hand toward him. “Don't go. I told you, I don't work for those bastards anymore. Please, you've got to help me. They'll be looking for me—looking for this.” She gripped the disk. “And if they find it, there's no hope of ever stopping them.”
The expression in her eyes was earnest, anguished, but it could be she was a good actress. All the same, his heart slowed in his chest. Brother Cy wouldn't have let her in here if she was evil, would he?
He picked up the chair and sat back down. “Who are you? Tell me everything. Now.”
“My name is Ananda Larsen. Doctor Ananda Larsen. I used to work at a high-security Duratek facility in Denver. It was the one you and your associates—”
“The one we broke into last fall.”
She nodded.
“So what did you do there?”
She fingered the disk. “I was working on a research project investigating the use of gene therapy as a means to enhance animal intelligence. My main work involved a chimpanzee. Ellie. Her progress was amazing. Only then they brought another subject they wanted me to work on. It was . . .” Her voice caught. “It was a human subject. A male.”
A sickness spread through Travis, quickly burned away by rage. Until that moment, he had thought he knew what anger felt like. He was wrong. “You were the one who held Beltan prisoner. You were the one who did . . . who did those things to him.” He reached a hand toward her. Runes blazed in his mind: spells of mayhem and death.
She clutched the edge of the table, but she did not flinch. “I don't think I'd blame you if you killed me. What I did was wrong. Wrong on so many levels.” She shook her head, and her gaze grew distant. “It