Chapter 17
I guess Wizzit decided he was going to be artistic today, because we were treated to a long, slow pan up Orange's figure. He was leaning against his golf club as if it were a cane, a sand dune behind him, and I have to say he looked pretty stylish. Another pan, showing Shelley this time, posing with her club against her shoulder. A tumbleweed blew by in the background, and I swear I could hear the theme from "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" playing softly somewhere.
"Come on, is this a vid or a spaghetti western?" Toby muttered.
The scene shifted abruptly to a more normal view from one of our belt-cams. At first all I could see was sun and sand and some scrubby bush-thingies. Suddenly, there was a flash of red, and JB Swift was standing in front of them. I'm always surprised at how fast that little guy can move.
"You have her," he said without preamble.
"Yes."
"What would it take to get her back? Alive, of course."
"The immediate and permanent cessation of all Enclave activities on Earth," Shelley said coolly.
"Actually, the entire solar system," Mike added.
JB Swift didn't even blink. "Done," he said.
Shelley laughed. "Just like that? And we're supposed to believe you? I didn't think you had the power to make guarantees like that."
"Believe it. I hold Enclave in the palm of my hand."
Shelley looked at him for a long time. "No, you don't," she said at last, her voice surprisingly gentle. "You don't even have the authority to halt a teleport countdown once it's started."
JB Swift seemed to deflate. "Ah, I see you've been talking to . . . Indigo, I believe he said his name is?"
"Indigo is on my team," Shelley said noncommittally.
"You have teams? Just how many of you Primes are there?"
"At the moment we are holding Miss Lee in a secure location," Shelley said, ignoring his question. "We are concerned about her well-being because, beginning from the very moment we captured her, she has not stopped struggling or trying to escape. She has already torn off her restraints, at the cost of some of the skin on her wrists and hands. I am told that at the moment, she is attempting to kick down the walls of her cell, bloodying her feet in the process. Let me assure you, she will not succeed, but if she keeps this up, I am afraid she will do herself serious injury."
"Miss Lee?" he repeated, sounding skeptical. "Is that what you've decided to call her? Miss Lee?"
"That is her name, is it not? When we first met her, she identified herself to us as Lily Lee." Shelley sounded impassive; I think I would have shown at least some sign of surprise. I mean, seriously, didn't the guy even know what her name was?
"Interesting," JB Swift muttered to himself. "She must have chosen that last name on her own. I wonder why she settled on that particular one."
"Perhaps because it's the family name of the Chinese girl you kidnapped six years ago?"
JB Swift's eyes narrowed. "How did you know that?" he demanded.
Ignoring his question again, Shelley said, "We certainly don't wish to see Miss Lee come to any harm, but neither can we afford to release her. Not unless we have some assurance that she will never again be used as an Enclave weapon against the people of Earth."
"You have my word," he said firmly.
"Your word," Shelley told him, "means nothing."
"Then what do you want from me?" he demanded angrily.
"You were the one who came to this place first," Shelley reminded him. "We followed you here because we thought you would have something to offer us."
A whole range of emotions flowed across JB Swift's small, red face. Anger, frustration, even a touch of sadness. "It took me six years to create the attack doll," he said bitterly. "Six years of my life, and hers. I selected the subject, I set up the facilities, I created the training regimen -- hell, I invented the entire concept of the attack doll. I made her as perfect as humanly possible; she is a work of art, and nearly complete, and yet those cretins I work for have no idea how to use her properly or even what she is capable of. They want to treat her like one of their blasted monsters -- just so much cannon fodder to send out so that you Primes can destroy her. But she is so much more than that!"
Shelley said nothing. Mike looked as though he might be about to speak, but stopped himself when Shelley silently shook her head at him.
"She will wither and die unless she is with me," JB Swift declared. "Not right away, but eventually. I am the only one who knows how to handle her, how to . . . how to care for her properly. If you don't release her to me, then you are condemning her to a slow death."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
JB Swift glared at her. I wondered whether he felt as chilled as I did at the sheer unconcern with which Shelley spoke those five words. "Then we have nothing to talk about," he grated, and he turned to walk away.
He wanted her to stop him. I knew that, and I'm sure Shelley knew it, too. Otherwise, he would have just teleported out or zipped away at superspeed. Shelley let him go for about ten steps before she spoke up.
"I had thought that you would have some consideration for her well-being," she said. "I had thought that the mental image of her beating her arms and legs into bloody stumps against the walls of her prison would prove abhorrent to you. It seems as though I was wrong."
He spun on her angrily. "You have no idea the kind of consideration I have for the attack doll!" he snarled. "You have no idea what kind of --" And then he stopped himself. His tiny hands clenched themselves into fists, and for a moment I thought he was going to attack Shelley.
Mike must have thought the same thing, because he shifted his weight and brought his golf club up as if he were about to swing. "Fancy a bit of a tee-off this morning?" he asked Shelley cheerfully.
"I remember you now," JB Swift told Mike, venom in his voice. "The last time we met, you were Blue. You killed any number of my fellows."
"I was Violet at the time, actually."
"Bah, I can never keep your colors straight!"
I found myself nodding at this little exchange. With his superb reflexes, Mike would of course be the perfect Prime to send against someone like JB Swift. I wondered whether that was why Wizzit had brought him onto the team in the first place.
JB Swift was looking at Shelley now. "Tell her, Special Order three-six-alpha-oh-five. That should put her into a more tractable state." Then he added, "Let me warn you, it will work on her only once."
"Thank you," Shelley said calmly. "Is there any way to facilitate the healing of her injuries? Or should we just have a doctor examine her?"
"Ask her yourself. She will answer any properly-phrased questions you put to her. But do not, under any circumstances, have a doctor examine her."
"She might have some difficulty talking to us." Shelley rubbed a hand across the lower portion of her face. "Broken jaw."
JB Swift growled. "Make her lie down and then tell her, 'Lily, self-heal.'"
I guess he decided that the interview was over at that point, because all of a sudden he wasn't there any more.