Only Human (Themis Files #3)(32)

White House Press Secretary Abendroth said the government is taking note of the coroner’s findings but warned against drawing broad conclusions based on an isolated incident. Asked if the administration was ruling out expanding security measures to the A2 population, he said: “Nothing is off the table at this point.”





FILE NO. 2121


PERSONAL LOG—EVA REYES (WITH UNKNOWN RUSSIAN)


Location: Safe House in Saint Petersburg, Russia


—My nie mozhem segodnya puteshestvovat’. Oni nas budut iskat’ vezdye. My mozhem zdes’ nochevat’. Eto dom druga. Zavtra my uyezzhayem pro pervom rassvete.

—You know I don’t speak Russian, right?

—Yes. Tebye nado shas’ spat’. Naydu nam mashinu na zavtra.

—You know, but you just don’t care.

—Yes.

—What’s your name?

—Bob.

—Really?

—No. You should sleep.

—Why are you helping me?

—A friend of a friend.

—That makes absolutely no sense.

—My friend, he is friend with your friend. Sleep, Eva.

—Wait. Who’s my friend?

—Dr. Franklin.

—Oh! OK, and who’s your friend?

—I not know his name.

—Good friend …

—He tells good stories.

—OK … Well, whoever you are, thank you for getting me out of there. Wait, is that a map? Show me. Where are we going? Saint Petersburg is … here. All we have to do is get here, to Finland, right? That’s what? A couple hours by car?

—Yes. But we go through Finland. Finland is Russian-occupied territory. I use GRU papers to get to Helsinki. Tell them I take you to genetic-research center there. From Helsinki is … complicated.

—What does that mean?

—We need to get to Turku, here. Take ferry to Mariehamn in ?land. There we take other boat to Sweden.

—Why go all the way there? Why not get a boat in Helsinki to … anywhere.

—Too many Russian Army in Helsinki. Port is very protected. Gulf of Finland very protected. ?land is much safer.

—The map says it’s still Finland? Won’t there be just as many Russians there?

—No. ?land is avtonomnaya territoriya, independent place. No military. Russia not send army to avoid war with Sweden, Europe. Still, much travel between Turku. Easy for us to go. You go where you want after that.

—You’re not coming with me?

—No. I come back for your father.

—Don’t. They’ll know you’re the one who let me go. You won’t be safe here anymore.

—You do not want your father free?

—I don’t want you to risk your life a second time for him, no. I don’t think he’s in any danger. Just let him be. He can take care of himself.

—Family is all you have.

—Believe me, I know. That’s part of the problem. All I have now is his blood, and people are chasing me for it. Besides, I think the world is much safer with the two of us not being in the same place.

—Sem’ya eto te kto paderzhat tebya v trudnoiy situatsyiy.

—What the hell does that mean?

—Hmmm … When trouble come, it is family that support you. What happen with your father?

—Look, Bob, I’m grateful for what you did. I am. But can we skip the family counseling?

— …

—No? Oh, what the hell. You probably don’t understand half of what I’m saying anyway. I don’t know what happened, Bob. He … I was gonna say he changed, but I’m not sure that’s true. Things changed. He was everything to me after the aliens came. He was my whole family, my one friend. Oh, don’t give me that pitying look, or I’ll knock your yokits teeth out. We had this … bubble. This tiny bubble with just the two of us, and I felt safe inside it. Maybe that’s just not the way it’s supposed to be. Then we get whisked away to another world, and things change. I … No one knew me there. My visions, they … their whole species has them. Do you get what I’m saying? I wasn’t a freak anymore. No one looked at me the way you just did. I wasn’t … normal, but no one was. Shit, I hung out with a blue girl and some dude who was nearly two hundred years old. I found this band of misfits in the slums of an alien planet and I fit right in somehow. For the first time in my life, I belonged. My dad, he just didn’t understand. Maybe he did. Who the hell knows? Was that personal enough for you? How about we talk about something else?

—No.

—Well I don’t know what else to tell you, Bob. We grew apart. That’s it.

— …

—My whole life, before we left, I felt … defective. Broken. With my dad, I felt lucky. I felt really yokits lucky that anyone would love someone like me, that much. And I was. I was lucky. I don’t know, I guess, over time, he started reminding me of that. Of how I saw myself before. How shitty, and ugly, and undeserving I felt, and I just … I didn’t wanna feel that way anymore.

We disagreed on things … more and more. What’s that face? You think I went out of my way to argue with him? Sometimes. Yeah, I’m not stupid, I know. Sometimes I’d hold my ground for no good reason, just to piss him off. It was like a victory, somehow. A small one. I was … smaller when I was around him, so I stopped being around him. Then, things got really messed up, and before I could do anything to fix it, he dragged me back here against my will, and I’m a freak again. They put me in a glass jar, for yokits sake, like a … deformed baby in a sideshow. A pickled punk.