“Thanks,” I said, in a tone that I fully intended to be free of sarcasm.
Roberta’s sneer notched back up to its usual ten. “Psh,” she said dismissively. “Whatever.”
TWENTY-TWO
On the ride back to Philadelphia, Claudia and I filled Rex and Roberta in on what had happened, with Ogden chiming in now and again to fill in bits we’d left out. Ogden seemed ambivalent about what we had found. Yes, there was weirdness, but the chimeras were there voluntarily and they were getting paid—a far cry from the kind of stuff that had gone down at Pitman or Omnicare.
I think we all knew we needed to discuss what we’d learned down there, but I wanted to talk it out with Rex and Claudia before sharing any thoughts with Roberta and Ogden, and I imagine they wanted to talk in private first, too.
By the time we got back to the city, we’d pretty much said everything we felt comfortable saying, including making plans to meet in the next day or two to discuss next steps. Claudia directed Ogden to her car. I was relieved to see that the sidewalks in South Philadelphia were now pretty much empty.
“There it is,” Claudia said, pointing as we approached her car. A massive RV was parked in front of it, almost touching the front bumper.
“A Jaguar?” Roberta said, snorting. “Looks like someone’s got rich parents.”
Claudia glared at her but didn’t respond.
As we got out, I grabbed the bag Melanie had given me.
We mumbled our goodbyes, Rex specifically addressing Ogden and Roberta while Claudia and I just said, “See you later.” It was directed at Ogden, but vague enough that Roberta could feel included, if she cared. She didn’t respond to us, or to Rex for that matter.
As Rex, Claudia, and I walked over to Claudia’s car, a group of people came around the corner toward us, from the direction of the arena. There were six of them, and even in the dim streetlights I could see where their pale skin had been singed red by the summer sun, like they’d been standing outside all day protesting. I wondered for a second whose side they were on, but as they drew closer, I got my answer.
Three of them had Wellplants: a woman with her hair pinned up in an elaborate mass of braids, and two men, one bald and the other extremely tall and thin, with bright red glasses and a thick tuft of silvery white hair. The three without Wellplants were almost identical: stocky and muscular, each wearing an H4H T-shirt.
Rex sighed at the sight of them, and Claudia caught my eye, but before any of us could say anything, Ogden’s voice called out behind us, “Hey, hold up!”
We turned to see him coming around the front of the van, pointing at the bag in my hand. “I need that,” he said.
“I was going to see if I could get it tested,” I said. “For pathogens or poisons or whatever.”
He held out his hand. “I can do that. My people are going to want it.”
I didn’t want to be difficult, but I also thought Dymphna and Chimerica would probably have better resources to run whatever tests could be run by his people. And I worried that if Wells really was funding CLAD, the sample might disappear. Of course, Ogden had made similar accusations about Chimerica, so he was probably afraid of the same thing. I wanted to ask Rex and Claudia what they thought, but during the time I was thinking all this, the group of H4Hers had closed the distance between us.
Ogden called out, “Hey!” just as one of them snuck up and yanked the bag out of my hand.
We spun to see the six of them standing right behind us. It turned out the T-shirt triplets weren’t quite identical, but the stupid belligerent looks on their faces were. They reminded me of the rioters back in the fall. One of them, with a buzz cut and a neck tattoo, was loosening the bag he’d just grabbed from me.
The three Plants looked on, smug and disdainful.
“Give it back,” I said.
“A little early for trick-or-treating,” said the guy, reaching into the bag.
“Man, they’re even more hideous than they are on TV,” said one of the others. He had a patchy beard and close-set eyes.
“That’s right, you three have never seen one in person, have you?” said the woman with the braids.
Suddenly, Buzzcut snatched his hand out of the bag. “What the hell?”
I tried to grab it back from him, but he pulled it away and tossed it to the guy with the patchy beard, who reached in to check it out, as well. “What is it? What’s in there?” he said. Then he pulled out the chicken carcass and screwed up his face. “Ugh, you people are sick!”
He dropped the carcass back into the bag and made a show of wiping his hand off on the T-shirt of the third guy, who swatted his hand away.
“Give it back,” I repeated evenly.
The trio of Plants stepped up closer, and the triplets spread out, until they were surrounding us.
“No,” said the Plant with the silvery hair. The other two Plants smiled, all at the same time, all with the same smile. It was creepy. Then they stepped toward us, again all at the same time.
“Don’t do this,” Rex said.
“Or what?” said the guy holding the bag. His back was toward the van. I had left the door open when we got out, assuming Roberta was going to want to ride up front with Ogden.
The van swayed slightly, as if someone was moving inside. Then the sack disappeared from the moron’s grip as Roberta’s left hand appeared in the air over his head. She brought it down with a vicious chop, right where his neck met his shoulder.
He collapsed onto the sidewalk, like a marionette whose strings had been cut.
“Anybody else want to try to take this?” Roberta said, holding the bag in her right hand, grinning as she stepped over the fallen moron.
“We don’t want any trouble,” Rex said.
“Maybe you don’t,” Roberta said with a snort. “I’m just getting started.”
One of the remaining T-shirt morons flicked open a collapsible baton, but in unison the three Plants said, “Enough!”
The two guys in the T-shirts froze.
“Pick him up and let’s get out of here,” said the woman.
The guy with the baton put it away, then he and his pal went over to their fallen friend, keeping their eyes on Roberta the entire time as they bent to pick him up.
She didn’t step back, holding her ground and standing over them as they hoisted the guy off the ground and carried him over to the RV parked behind Claudia’s car.
It had North Dakota license plates.
The Plants turned as one and followed them.
The rest of us stood in place as they got into the RV, and then watched as it swung out into the road. As they sped off, one of the yahoos leaned out an open window in the back and shouted, “Mixie trash!”
“Assholes,” Roberta muttered. She tossed the bag to Ogden, who one-handed it.
I looked at Rex, who shrugged, and then I turned back to Ogden. “So, you’re going to get it tested?”
“That’s the plan,” he replied.
“For what?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess microbes, toxins. Like you said. Whatever else they can think of.”
Roberta closed the sliding door and got in the front passenger seat.
“And you’ll let us know what they find?” I said.