“You think it’ll work?”
“I know Cormac would say it’s too late. But I guess I want to prove someone can come back from that.” My same old line: I wanted to believe our human sides were stronger. Or at least just as strong.
Ben turned a wry smile. “It’s not your job, you know. You don’t have to try to save everyone.”
I frowned and looked away. I couldn’t save everyone; I’d had that demonstrated to me all too clearly. But if you didn’t try, you might end up not saving anyone. I had to try.
“Who else is going to do it?” I said. “Besides, I don’t think of it as a job so much as a . . . a vocation.”
“Sometimes you can’t fix everything. You can argue your best case in front of the most sympathetic judge and jury in the world—and sometimes you still won’t win.”
“I’m not sure this is about winning,” I said. “It’s about proving that we’re human. That we deserve a chance.”
“The life you save may be your own?” he said.
I gave him a grim smile.
THE NEXT day at work, I waited for Dr. Shumacher’s call. I wanted to hear that Tyler and Walters had arrived safely and happily in Denver, and that they were eager to embark on bright, happy, well-adjusted lives. I was afraid I would find out there’d been another breakout, and that the trio was again rampaging across the countryside. I was afraid Shumacher would tell me that Colonel Stafford had decided a few silver bullets were the only solution after all.
My phone kept ringing, as usual, but none of the calls came from Dr. Shumacher. It was making me cranky.
I answered yet another call from my desk phone to hear Lisa at reception say, “Hi . . . um, Kitty?”
“What?” I just about snarled that time.
Lisa sounded a little shaky. “There’s someone here to see you. He doesn’t have an appointment, says his name is Harold Franklin.
Harold Franklin, president of Speedy Mart. Here? “Really?”
“He says he wants to talk to you. Should I send him up?”
“No, that’s okay, I’ll meet him downstairs,” I said, scrambling to gather my thoughts. Why would he be here? He ought to be talking to me through our lawyers. That was the whole point of having lawyers, so you didn’t have to talk to people you were officially mad at. My paranoia got the better of me and I decided I wanted to meet him in the open, with people watching, in case he’d decided on more direct and nefarious action.
I was supposed to be a big, scary monster, so why did I spend so much time worrying about people killing me?
I ran down the stairs and emerged into the KNOB lobby.
He was alone, standing near the reception desk and gazing around the lobby with the abstract interest of someone killing time. He was tall, older—in his early sixties, maybe—his short cropped hair gone to white. He wore a gray suit and overcoat that were probably expensive, and held himself with a lifetime’s worth of confidence and authority. Here was a man used to running empires—corporate empires. The only kind that mattered these days.
“Ah, Ms. Norville,” he said, turning his attention to me.
And why did he make me think of vampires? He wasn’t one. He had a living, beating heart, not to mention it was full daylight outside. It was probably the “I could own you all” attitude.
“Mr. Franklin,” I said, and approached him with my hand politely offered for shaking, which he did in standard corporate fashion. Nothing suspicious here. “Would it be a cliché to say that this is a surprise?”
He chuckled politely. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”
There was really no nice way to make the next conversational gambit. “Um . . . why exactly are you here?” Here in Denver, here in my building, talking to me . . .
“Is there someplace we can talk privately?” he said, glancing around to indicate the public nature of the lobby, including Lisa, who was failing to pretend to ignore us.
I winced in false apology. “Actually, you know what? I
think we’d better talk right here.”
He smiled as if he’d scored a point. Like he’d proven that I was too insecure to talk in private, that I was actually worried, or something. Oh yeah? Well, I scored a point by not caring about that. He shouldn’t even be here while he was suing me. Not without our lawyers. I wanted witnesses.
“All right, then,” he said. “I want to make you an offer.”