She solidified. “Careful with the gun.” She gestured at the glass walls. “If you miss…”
“I’m not going to shoot you. I need you awake so I can beat the truth out of you.”
“The truth.” She smiled. “You sure you want the truth, Jane? Because the truth is, even if you get me to tell you where Phil’s hiding, you won’t save him. He belongs to the Troop now. You might catch him, but you won’t turn him. He’ll curse you for even trying.”
“Why don’t you let me worry about that?”
“I know you are worried about it. That’s why there’s a part of you that really would like to shoot me, to shut me up before I can talk. Go on, check it out.”
I glanced down at the gun in my hand.
The dial was turned to the MI setting.
“Yeah,” the bad Jane said. “If you kill me, Phil gets away, and then you can go on pretending there’s hope. But there is no more hope, Jane. You had your chance to protect Phil twenty-three years ago. Now he’s got power, and position, and a purpose—more than you ever had—and he’s never going to give that up willingly. He might have shared a little of it with you, but that chance is gone too. So all that’s left is death. You can hunt him down and execute him, like the bad monkey he is. Is that the truth you’re looking for, Jane? You want to be responsible for finishing Phil off?”
As she talked, she moved along the catwalk towards me. She started to get a little too close for comfort; I took a step back and my heel caught, throwing me off-balance. It was all the opening she needed. She came forward in a blur, chopping her hand against my wrist to make me drop the gun. Then her hands were around my neck.
“Don’t fight it,” she said. I tried to melt away, but she held on to me firmly, using the last of her power. “Don’t fight it, Jane…You know this is the best way.” She bent me backwards over the catwalk railing. I felt the heat of the light scorching me. “Just let go. Just let go. No more guilt for you, no more screwups, and Phil gets to go on…”
With the last of my strength, I reached up, placed a palm flat against her chest. I pushed, merged, my hand passing through her jacket, her skin, her breastbone. I grabbed her by the heart, and squeezed.
She gasped and let go of me. She tried to step away, but I lifted her off the ground.
“Now,” I said. “You’re going to tell me where my brother is…”
Her arms and legs started flailing like mad, but her slaps and kicks were nothing to me. I pivoted around, lifting her over the railing to dangle her above the searchlight. I concentrated; the light blazed up, not just like the sun now, until I could see all the way through her, all the way to her soul. Steam, then smoke, curled off of her.
“Tell me where he is,” I said. I gave her heart one more squeeze.
She threw her head back, screamed it out; the words echoed off the glass tent as the light continued to blaze.
“Thank you,” I said. “And good-bye, Jane.”
I opened my hand. Her body, limp now, slipped free. Descending, she flashed into fire, the light consuming her more thoroughly than a Mandrill bomb. Not even ashes were left.
Tapped out, dripping with sweat, I slumped against the catwalk railing.
A dark shape moved at the edge of my vision. There was a flash of pebble glasses.
“Well,” Dixon said. “That was rather medieval.”
“I didn’t like her,” I told him. “I don’t like you much, either. But that doesn’t matter now…I know where Phil is.”
“Yes, I heard. I hope she wasn’t lying.”
“She wasn’t. But we’re going to have to move fast. By now Phil will know that this operation has gone wrong. When the bad Jane doesn’t report in, he’ll run.”
“Not to worry.” Dixon flipped open his cell phone. “I have a Bad Monkeys strike team standing by.”
“I don’t want any help. Just get me to him, I’ll go in alone.”
“You aren’t going in at all. Even if I trusted you, you can barely stand.”
“Even if you trusted me? What…Wait. What do you mean, ‘strike team’?”