“What about Adam?” I say. The thought has come out of nowhere.
“What do you mean, what about Adam?” Aislin asks. “We’re fleeing for our very lives and you’re worried about some software?”
“It’s just—” I begin. But that’s all I have.
Solo says, “Tommy didn’t get his PhD and this job by being an idiot. We surprised him. We threw him off his game. But he’ll be back. We have minutes—if that.”
“My mother won’t hurt me,” I say, sounding pretty doubtful even to myself.
“But what about Solo?” Aislin says. “He’s not her son.” A strange look crosses her face. “You’re not, are you?”
“No, thank God,” he says with an ugly snarl. Belatedly, he realizes how that will sound to me. “I mean—”
I wave him off. “Let’s get out of here,” I say, but for some reason, I stop long enough to grab my sketchbook. I rip out my unfinished life drawing, fold it up, and stash it in the pocket of my jeans.
The three of us race out into the hallway. It’s all very action movie, but feels ridiculous. Seriously, I’m fleeing from my mother? Seriously?
My mother, who made me a lab rat. My mother, who runs a chamber of horrors.
Those images. So many of them. How am I supposed to reconcile them with my mother?
The problem is, it’s all too easy. It’s not like she has ever been some warm, nurturing, hugging, head-patting type. She’s an amoral bitch. That’s the reality.
I’m running down curving, carpeted hallways, trying to dredge up something nice to think about my mother.
It suddenly occurs to me—and yes, it’s a ludicrous setting and circumstance—that I’ve been a bit neglected as a daughter.
We make our way toward the garage, just like we had in our earlier “escape.” But the risks are higher this time. The sense of fun is gone.
We climb into the elevator. It moves, comes to a stop.
The door doesn’t open.
Solo nods, unsurprised. “He’s after us.” He pulls out his phone. “This will work once. Only once. He’ll counter immediately.”
He punches numbers into the keypad.
“We’re between four and five. He’s going to have the garage covered, and if he corners us down there, it’s way too easy for him to finish us off.”
The elevator lurches. “We’re going back up,” Aislin says.
“Yes,” Solo says tersely. “Soon as the door opens we run.”
“Where?” I ask.
“Just stay with me.”
The elevator comes to a stop and we explode out the door. Solo yells, “This way, this way!”
We dash fifty feet down a long hallway. Solo stops at an office, panting, and stabs some numbers into a keyboard. The door opens. It’s dark inside.
“Office belongs to a dude who’s been on medical leave for months,” Solo explains.
Aislin reaches for the light switch.
“No.” Solo shakes his head. “No lights.”
There isn’t much to see in the office except the view out over the San Francisco Bay. Clouds hang thick on the Golden Gate. The stars are sparse, the moon visible only as a silvery glow without distinct location.