Burn (Pure #3)(76)

“Do you know what’s in there?” Partridge asks bluntly.

“What’s in the room isn’t meant for you.” Partridge isn’t sure what this is supposed to mean. Was it meant for his father? For someone else?

“I wasn’t expecting to find my inheritance, Peekins.”

This comment startles Peekins. His head jerks a little, and then he looks away.

“Do you know what’s in the room? Or should I say who?”

Peekins doesn’t answer.

“You have to tell me.”

“No,” Peekins says. “I don’t.”

“I’m in charge now. Didn’t you hear?” It’s a lie, but Peekins might not know the truth.

Peekins looks at him and blinks.

“Dr. Peekins, I thought you knew how to follow orders,” Beckley says, standing in the door, one hand on his gun.

“I am following orders.”

“Whose?”

He looks at Partridge. “Your father’s.”

His father’s alive? Is this what Peekins is saying? “Jesus, Peekins,” Partridge says, trying to laugh. “He’s dead!”

Peekins doesn’t move, doesn’t say a word. He looks as frozen as one of the suspended bodies. Why would Peekins be following his father’s orders? “Unless he’s not dead. Is that who’s in the chamber, Peekins? My father? Did he somehow get resuscitated?” Partridge leans his shoulder against the wall to steady himself. “Is that urn that’s supposedly filled with his ashes and that was put on display at every goddamn memorial service just a hoax?” Partridge’s ears start ringing. I killed him, he reminds himself. I killed him. I wanted him to die, and he’s dead.

Peekins still doesn’t answer. Partridge wants to punch him in the head. Maybe Weed’s right and a little act of violence is needed every once in a while. “Tell me the truth, Peekins—right now. Tell me what you know.”

“Or what?”

Partridge rears back. Torture. “Or I’ll send you in.”

“Where?” Peekins says. “I heard you put an end to all that.”

Partridge’s jaws knot. He looks at Iralene and Beckley for help, but what can they say? Peekins is stating the obvious. “Take us to the high-security chamber, Peekins. Can you manage that?”

Peekins walks them through the halls to one that ends in front of a large metal door. It’s locked and barred, with a blue-lit alarm system mounted on the wall and a keypad to one side of the door. Partridge places his hand on the blue screen, hoping it will work like some of the fingerprint systems in his father’s war room and inner chamber, but as Peekins predicted, nothing happens. He leans down, looking for a retinal scan, but nothing flashes across his eyes.

He stares at the keypad. Is this the only thing keeping him from the suspended body of his own supposedly dead father? Or is it Hideki?

He starts typing in all of the key words that he associates with his father:

Swan. No response.

Cygnus. No response.

Phoenix, Operation Phoenix. Nothing.

“Peekins, am I close? Is this how it works?”

Peekins is silent. Partridge hates him for this. “Damn it,” Partridge mutters. He’s so frustrated that he starts missing letters, misspelling—he hits CLEAR, CLEAR, CLEAR and starts over. Seven, the seven. He starts to type each of the names of the Seven—his mother’s, his father’s, Hideki Imanaka, Bartrand Kelly…

Then Beckley gets a message through his earpiece. “The other guards say that the crowd is beginning to worry. They want someone to call an ambulance. A doctor has identified himself and has asked if he can help. We have to go.”

“Not yet,” Partridge says.

“We have to go!” Iralene says, pulling on his arm, making him mess up again.

“Iralene! Let go!” He starts over. Eden, New Eden… Nothing works.

Peekins walks up close and whispers, “You’re not really supposed to be here. I know the truth.” That Foresteed has all the real power? That Foresteed is blackmailing him? Or is Peekins saying that he knows Partridge killed his father?

“The truth is that my father is dead. You can’t be following his orders,” Partridge shouts at Peekins. “I know he’s dead!” The more he says his father’s dead, the less true it feels. The words seem to peel away from their meaning and are just sounds. “You’re just trying to get into my head, aren’t you? Who are you really working for? Foresteed? Weed?”

Peekins lifts his chin and doesn’t say a word.

“I’m going to get into this chamber, Peekins. With or without your help. You might as well be on the right side when the time comes.”

“I know the right side from the wrong side,” Peekins says very slowly. “Do you?”

Partridge leans in and puts his face an inch from Peekins’. “Don’t push me. Are you listening? Don’t push me.”

For the first time, Peekins looks a little scared. He nods slowly. Is this what a bully feels like? Partridge wonders. If it is, then it feels good.

Beckley says, “Come on.”

“We have to go,” Iralene says. “Follow me.”

And they start running down the halls, passing nameplate after nameplate—so many bodies, frozen, stuck, but still alive.