Under the Knife(118)

All three of them.

After he’d regained consciousness; after he’d yanked the conduction gun hooks from his buttocks; after he’d dragged himself through fire and pain, hobbled by the chunk of hot metal embedded in his left thigh; after the cool night air had soothed the burns covering much of the left side of his body and face; after he’d followed the sound of their voices (he couldn’t make out what they were saying but no matter) through the gap in the fence and arrived at the park in time to see Sebastian leave the other two; after trying to detonate the bomb first in Dr. Wu’s head, then her sister’s, only to determine that someone else (Sebastian, had to be Sebastian) had already defused them—after all of these things, his folly was now clear to him.

Still, one card left for him to play.

Her implant had been robbed of its explosive capability, but it was still active. Sebastian had failed to shut it down.

Sebastian, who was now gone.

He plucked his notebook from his coat pocket. Or tried to: Its blackened pages crumbled in his hand. He let the ashes drift to the ground.

No matter.

Dr. Wu was motionless now.

“Dr. Wu.” He spoke into the microphone of his tablet. “Rita.” His tongue caressed the two syllables of her given name. It was the first time he’d addressed her by it. Its use seemed appropriate now, for reasons he couldn’t fathom. “There’s one way left to save him, Rita. Only you can save him.”

“Spencer? You mean save Spencer?” she replied breathlessly.

“Yes. Save Spencer.”

He started limping toward her.





RITA


The pain in her head was gone.

Rita blinked, and looked to the side …

… and locked eyes with a twin version of herself, who was lying next to her in the mud, on her hands and knees.

“You need to walk over to the cliff,” the other Rita, the one on her hands and knees, told her in Finney’s voice. She was wearing blue jeans, which were splattered with mud, and Sebastian’s dark windbreaker. “At the end of the park. Overlooking the ocean. That’s the only way to save him.”

“Walk over to the cliff? But, firefighters, and paramedics—” She pointed in the opposite direction. It took a lot of effort. Her arm felt heavy.

“No. They can’t help him. They won’t get here in time. The cliff, Rita. The cliff will save him. Only the cliff will save Spencer.”

“Why? How? How will the cliff save Spencer?”

“Everything will be obvious to you once you’re at the cliff.”

Of course. The cliff. The cliff will save Spencer.

She didn’t know why, but this made sense. She needed to walk to the cliff.

“Walk to the cliff, Rita.”

“Okay.” Rita rose from the mud and walked west across the park. Her twin walked next to her, keeping pace, murmuring her approval in Finney’s voice.

Rita reached a railing. There was sign with a picture of what looked like a whale on it (dark, hard to tell in the dark), and another sign that said something about unstable cliffs.

(Unstable cliffs?)

She hesitated at the railing. There was water on the ground everywhere, and her feet were soaked.

“Go under the railing.”

“Why?” Rita asked.

“To save Spencer.”

“Right. To save Spencer.”

Of course. She needed to go under the railing to save Spencer.

She slid under the railing, splashing through water and mud.

“Take two steps forward, then stop.”

Rita did.

There was blackness ahead, spreading out before her at her feet, devoid of any light.

There was the roaring of angry waves, far below.

There was a strong, cold wind.

It was like standing at the end of the world.

Rita shivered. “Now what do I do?”

There was no answer.

Her twin, the other Rita who had walked with her from the field, was gone.





FINNEY


He’d initially followed her from a distance, then closed the gap, dragging his injured leg behind him, to within a few feet as she approached the railing.

He knew he could convince her to keep right on walking, right off the edge.

But that didn’t feel right.

No. It seemed more fitting that he be the one to push her over.

He ducked under the railing and picked his way among fast-moving rivulets of water, some a few feet wide and just as deep, little canyons carved into the soft clay as tons of runoff from the heavy rains raced toward the Pacific.

She was staring ahead, out over the dark ocean.

He stole up behind her.

His smile was thin and broad as he reached both hands toward her back …





SEBASTIAN


Sebastian was never able to explain what had made him look at the Fruit Punch Drunk app again on his phone.

Or—having looked at it, and perceived the reestablished connection between Finney and the still-active device in Wu’s head, and realized that Finney had managed to lock him out of the command sequences again—what had made him turn around and come back.

He didn’t need to do this. He’d gotten away clean, picking his way south along the cliff’s edge, carrying the waterproof pack of supplies he’d hidden earlier near the Torrey pine in Higdon Park.