"You don't know what to do with me, do you?" Ian said. "Who's your dad? Is it Kinnery?"
"God, no." Mike shook his head. "My father's a politician."
"Forget Kinnery. He can't touch you now." Rob studied Ian's face. "We need to get you out of here. Thanks to Zoe what's-her-face blabbing it all over the Internet."
"Gran said it was my insurance."
"Well, it got us here, so maybe she was right."
Mike's brow creased a little. "We're sorry about your gran. You must miss her."
"She wasn't my gran. Not biologically."
"Does that matter?"
"She lied to me. Everyone lies to me. How do I know you're not lying too?" I'm not mad, Gran. Why did you let me think I was? Didn't you realise it'd end like this anyway? "I thought I was crazy. But I'm not, am I?"
Mike shook his head. "No, you're not, buddy. It's real. I can understand why you're angry."
"Yeah, we get lied to all the time, so we're not going to lie to you," Rob said. He didn't blink much. "Nobody except nutters believes a word that web site says, but the company that worked on your project probably does. You can either wait here for them to track you down, or come with us. We're your safest bet."
Ian thought it sounded like he had a choice. It was confusing. He had good reason to be scared of these guys, but they also seemed to be trying hard to put him at ease. Mike looked around the room, then stepped back to check up and down the hall.
"There's not a single mirror or reflective surface in this place," he said. "Except the windows."
Ian wondered why he'd spotted that. "Gran tried to make sure I didn't have to see my reflection. Why did you notice?"
"Because we're soldiers. When we clear a building, we check for reflections that could get us killed. Ours or the enemy's."
Soldiers had rules. They had discipline. Ian had seen it in the movies. Mike and Rob could have shot him and nobody would have known or cared – well, maybe Joe would have – but they were talking like they were taking him seriously. They'd be just like his great-grandfather, decent guys with a sense of honour who cared about their buddies.
But he wasn't my great-grandfather, either.
Mike lined up his cell phone and took a photo. "There. If you change again, I've got another picture to compare you with. You can't control this, can you?"
"I don't know how." Ian felt like a child again, helpless and pathetic. He wanted Gran to be here. "If I did, I'd stop it."
"Well, now that you know what it is, maybe you can learn."
It was the first encouraging thing anyone had said about his morphing. Mike squatted next to his chair and looked him in the eye.
"I'm giving you my word, Ian." He had intense blue eyes, lighter than Rob's. He seemed really earnest. "I won't let anyone take you or do anything to you against your will. I guarantee that. You don't have to come with us, but if you do, you can stay with me and my wife while we work out how to fix things. You can bring your dog if you like."
Rob made a quick huffing sound as if he didn't approve. "You going to ask her first?"
"I don't recall you standing around debating when I was in the shit, buddy," Mike said. "There's nowhere else I'm willing to take him. I'm responsible for his safety now."
The two of them stared at each other for a couple of seconds. Ian wasn't sure if it was a stand-off or some silent question between them. He considered his choices. If he said no, what was he going to do? He'd be stranded here, waiting for someone else to track him down and knock on the door, someone who probably wouldn't be so concerned about his welfare. And he couldn't get away from Mike and Rob anyway. They wouldn't make the same mistake twice.
I have to trust somebody. I can't hide forever.
"If I come with you," Ian said, "can I bring some of my stuff? Not that I'm saying I will."
"Sure." Mike stood up and studied the CDs, tapes, and DVDs lined up on the bookshelves. He stepped over a couple of boxes. "You look like you're moving out anyway."
"Gran wanted me to burn all her stuff."
Mike carried on looking at the DVDs. "So you watch a lot of movies. Let's see. War movies. Explorers. Biopics. No horror. No alien invasions. What's your favourite?"
"Ice Cold In Alex," Ian said. He couldn't think straight now that Mike had asked. "Scott of the Antarctic."
"All stiff upper lip drama, huh?" Mike slid out another plastic case and handed it to Rob, who gazed wistfully at it. "The Cruel Sea."
"Now that was a great film," Rob said. "You like military stuff, then."
"I wanted to join the Army. Fat chance."
Mike picked up the photo of David Dunlop. "Who's this gentleman with the Huey?"
"I thought he was my great-grandfather. Gran's dad."
"Well, blood relative or not, he certainly shaped your life, didn't he?" Mike folded the stand flat against the back of the photo and handed it to Ian as if he expected him to start packing. "We'll show you our pictures. Rob's got some awesome stuff. He was a Royal Marine. I started in the National Guard. We've just come back from Nazani."
For the first time in his life, Ian was having a conversation about morphing, a real, honest conversation. It seemed incredibly important. It made it real. And that made all the terrible, uncomfortable things that ate at him somehow reasonable. He wasn't wrong to feel betrayed, scared, or angry. He just needed to find his way out of this tailspin.
"So are you going to come with us? We won't force you." Mike went to the window and tweaked the slats of the blinds apart with his thumb and forefinger. "Where are all your animals?"
Ian's gut was still telling him to run and hide, but another part of him wanted to fit in with these guys and be accepted by them.
"Joe's taking care of them for me. Can I tell him where I'm going?"
"He doesn't know that you change, does he?"
"No. And he won't recognise me now. I'll have to phone him."
"A cap and a pair of sunglasses works wonders."
"I know." Ian had come down from the terrifying adrenaline high and now he felt shaky. He realised he'd slipped from maybe to definite. "How much stuff can I bring?"
"As much as you can get in the car."
"Where are we going?"
"Maine," Mike said.
"That'll take days."
Rob laughed. "Welcome to Zombie's world, son. He's got a his own private jet."
Ian couldn't tell if Rob was joking. Now that he had some time to think about leaving, not just snatching the grab bag in the hall and running for his life – and that hadn't worked out, had it? – he wasn't sure what mattered to him. He had to collect all cash he'd stashed around the place, though. He'd need that.
Mike wandered in and out of the kitchen, looking at the walls as if he was thinking of buying the place. "Can I use your cell, please? It's unregistered, isn't it? I need to get a message to my pilot. If I use my own phone, there'll be a record that links me to this location."
Ian nodded and pointed at the counter. "Sure. I'll start packing." Damn, he'd need to collect the cash in the tool locker, too. "I need to get something from the barn first."
Rob stood up. "Come on, then. I hope you're not going to make a run for it."
"I promised," Ian said. "So I won't."
Rob waited at the barn door while Ian unlocked the tool cabinet and slipped the rolls of notes inside his shirt. There was David Dunlop's old woodworking chisel, too. He couldn't leave that any more than he could leave the photo. He carried it out by the blade, just in case Rob thought he was going to stab him with it.
"Great-Granddad's," he said. "Well, whoever he was."
"Do you always keep your savings in the barn?"
"In case the ranch burns down. Or I have to get away fast."
"You'd be right at home in Essex."
Ian didn't know what that meant. Rob took a small packet of cookies out of his pocket and offered it to him as they walked back to the house.
"I've got a son about your age," Rob said. "He
's at university. Lots of friends, likes a beer or two, plays football, dates girls. You should be doing all that. Not hiding."
Ian shrugged. That stuff was theoretical, things that he knew existed but didn't think were possible for him, like luxury yachts or being an astronaut. Dating girls was still the most distant prospect of all and the most depressing.
"What am I going to say to Joe?"
"I can make the call for you."
"He'll want to hear it from me, or he'll think you're social services coming to take me away."
Rob chuckled. "Yeah, people always mistake me for a social worker. Look, tell him some friends of your gran's old mate got in touch and you're going to stay with them for a while until you've sorted yourself out. It's almost completely true."
"Which bit isn't?"
"I wouldn't call Kinnery a friend."
"But he knows you're here, yeah?"
"He asked Mike's dad for help to hide you, so we agreed to pick you up." Rob held his hand out for the chisel and examined it. "I'm surprised you're willing to trust us. You were ready to punch the shit out of me earlier. Don't trust everybody, though, will you?"
Ian didn't like the thought of a politician being involved. Gran said they were as bad as any government agency and most of them were corrupt assholes on the take, but he didn't have any choice.
"Well, if you're CIA or something, and I try to get away, you'll shoot me, or worse," Ian said. "But if you're telling the truth, and I don't come with you, then I've lost a chance to be rescued. So going with you makes sense either way."
Rob laughed. "Good logic, son. You'll go far."
"But we're going now, aren't we? Tonight?"
"Ready when you are. We don't want to hang around either."
"Has Mike really got a jet?"
"Absolutely. It's his dad's. They're minted. I mean megabucks rich." Rob handed the chisel back to Ian. Maybe that was a test of trust. "Mike's a top bloke. A bit mad, straight as a die, and he'd give you the shirt off his back. Which in his case is a really good deal. Five hundred bucks a pop."
Ian still wasn't sure if he believed a word of that. But if gut instinct was worth anything, he felt safer with these two guys than anywhere else right now. They made him feel that things were somehow okay, and that if they weren't, they'd step in and fix them.
It was just after five in the afternoon. Ian stopped on the porch and looked out over the ranch, suddenly appalled at what he was going to do. He couldn't remember any other home. Now he was going to abandon it at a moment's notice.
But Gran had always said he'd need to run one day. Now was as good a time as any.
DUNLOP RANCH
TWO HOURS LATER.
What else could I do?
Mike stood staring at the shelf of tapes and DVDs. How was he going to break the news to Livvie? Where would he start, with the part about finding a real live shape-shifter, or the fact that he'd promised him that he could stay with them? He'd worked out a plan for every eventuality except one; that Ian Dunlop was exactly what Kinnery said he was.
And I'm really not imagining this. Wow.
Upstairs, Ian was still packing his bags. Mike tried to imagine what it felt like to be that isolated, too scared to even look in a mirror because you thought you were insane. Ian was a mess of problems. It was hard to decide which needed tackling first.
"Poor little sod." Rob walked up behind Mike and jangled some keys. "I've secured the firearms in the car, so we've just got to box up some books and DVDs. Maybe this Joe can take all the food before it goes off. Christ, this is really happening, isn't it?"
"That's what I keep telling myself."
"Kinnery needs garrotting. May I?"
"No, I call dibs on that. That's got to be one damaged kid."
"Actually, he seems pretty sane. And disciplined. Look how tidy this place is." Rob ran the back of his forefinger along the tightly packed DVD cases on the shelf like a pianist doing a glissade. "There it is. Maggie Dunlop's manual for being a real man. This is how she made up for Ian not having a male role model around. Take a look."
Mike looked along the shelves again. Rob had a point. These were more than just war movies. If they were Maggie's choices, then she was big on stoical self-sacrifice and the honourable, responsible, dignified hero with good manners. There wasn't a single macho splatter-fest in there. Did it matter where kids learned their moral lessons? It probably explained why Ian hadn't put up a fight about leaving with them. Soldiers looked familiar to him, a known quantity in a frightening situation.
"Yes, that makes sense." Mike paused to listen. Ian was still opening and closing closet doors upstairs. "This is turning into a can of worms. We can't take him to see a physician without exposing him. We can't take him to a shrink. And then there's getting him some photo ID. You can't take a leak without it."
"Yeah, you Septics do rely on that more than we do."
"I promised him he'd be safe."
"Who from, though?"
"If the changes are a random thing, he's no use to spook-kind. That wouldn't stop them, though."
Rob did his bank-note gesture, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together. "I'd be more worried about KWA. Boffins love money too."
"But Ian's still invisible, if everything else Kinnery says is true. No school record, no friends, and no trace of him online."
"Yeah, well, I wouldn't believe that bastard if he told me I had a dick. And if Ian's that far off the radar, it's easy for them to make him disappear with no questions asked."
"Just like we're doing."
"I'm betting your dad didn't war-game this fully." Rob kept looking at his watch. "When are you going to call him?"
"I'll work that out when I hear how Livvie reacts."
"Just as well you've got all those bedrooms. You'll be sleeping on your own when we get back to Zombie Towers."
Problems could always be solved by lobbing dollars at someone or deploying lawyers. But Mike refused to delegate a moral dilemma. He was uniquely placed to save Ian in the same way that Rob had saved him, the right man in the right place at exactly the moment he was most needed. The clarity was like the first blast of a freezing shower. Mike didn't have the slightest doubt about this. He was sure that Livvie wouldn't either, not once she saw for herself what a terrible burden Kinnery had imposed on this kid and what the rest of his life might be like without someone to fight his corner.
"DNA," Rob said suddenly.
"What about it?"
"We'll never remove his DNA from this place without nuking it."
"Do we need to? KWA must already have records or tissue samples anyway. It's the live specimen they'll want."
"Granted, but it's a link in the chain if they're looking for him."
"They'd have to know about the place and then get access." How the hell does Ian's hair change? Hair's not even live tissue. Raw curiosity kept distracting Mike from the immediate problem. "Maybe Joe can keep an eye on the place. I'll hire a cleaning company."
"My, we're going to be busy boys, aren't we?"
"No, this is my problem. Not yours."
"Bollocks. I've got an adqual in handling teenage lads, remember."
Ian thudded down the stairs and dumped a couple of zipped holdalls in the hall. He'd razored his hair short, possibly to disguise the change of colour.
"Have you got all your documents and paperwork?" Mike asked.
"This is everything, sir," Ian said. Sir. It was rather touching. "What about the rest of the stuff in the house?"
Mike checked his watch. If they took off by midnight, they'd be back home before lunch. "I can get someone to ship it later. There's a lot we've got to work out before then. Are you going to call Joe now?"
Ian put on his sunglasses and cap. There wasn't much hair exposed. He looked like a new recruit after his first brush with the barber. "Am I going to get away with this? You can't see my hair colour's changed. And I always flush the clippings, so don't worry about DNA."
Maggie D
unlop really had drilled him thoroughly, then. Mike had to admire the crazy old bird.
"You'd be surprised what people don't notice, son," Rob said. "Just watch and learn."
Ian picked up his cell from the hall table and looked to Mike for a prompt. Mike was ready to take the phone and do the talking, but Ian proved to be surprisingly good at acting out a role. He sounded suitably stressed on the phone, exactly like someone who'd lost their only relative.
But it's true. His gran's dead. He's alone. He's hurting. Whatever else is going on, he's grieving.
Half an hour later, an old truck rolled up to the front of the house and a burly, greying guy in overalls got out of the cab. So this was Joe. Mike's first thought was that he'd do a good job of dissuading strangers from poking around the ranch. He stared suspiciously at Rob and Mike as they came out onto the porch with Ian, but Rob walked straight up to him in defusing mode and did the introductions with a lot of handshaking and explanations about friends of friends of Maggie Dunlop.
Rob had a gift for it. His body language said he wouldn't take any crap, but it also signalled that he was only pretending to be nice because he thought you were worthy of his performance, and that lesser mortals would just get a smack in the mouth. Joe was added to the list of those neutralized and brought on side in a matter of seconds. He was completely distracted and didn't look too closely at Ian.
Mike also made sure that Ian kept his back to the sun. It was low in the sky, and it was surprising what couldn't be seen in those light conditions.
"So you're going to be away for a while," Joe said to Ian, squinting against the sun. Mike opened the SUV's rear door for Oatie to jump in. He wasn't sure how the dog would cope with the jet, but Dad's Labradors had always slept through the entire flight. "It'll do you good."
"Yeah, a few weeks." Ian handed him a set of keys. "You might as well clear all the food. Gran hated waste. Use the place if you like."
Mike kept an eye on Joe's reaction to Ian. There wasn't the slightest indication that he thought anything was amiss. People usually saw what they expected to see, not because they were stupid or inattentive, but because that was the way the brain ironed out the stream of chaotic, ever-changing raw data from the eyes, doing its own predictions. It was a lesson in how Ian might learn to move unnoticed among people on a regular basis.