buried inside his mind, he surely had other childhood memories to compare Aaron’s with. Not even counting the life King the Changeling had led within the stark walls of Weatherfield—Aaron’s life had probably been a picnic compared to growing up as a science project.
Aaron’s life had also gone off the rails at some point, because up until permanently joining forces with King, Aaron had been (according to Dahlia and Aaron himself) a selfish prick who abandoned his younger brothers in search of the next party and the next big fix. No one hits rock bottom for the fun of it, but the skeletons rattling around in his closet weren’t any of my business.
Knowing that didn’t stop me from asking, “So what changed?”
He opened his mouth, then shut it just as fast. The glamour of Scott Torres crept up until Aaron was hidden again. “I did.” He punctuated the statement with his exit from the apartment.
Five
Manhattan Island Penitentiary
O ur first stop after lunch was Ellis Island. A military fort, an immigration station, and then a museum, Ellis Island now housed the prison’s main observation tower. It had been built on the site of the old Main Building just after the War, and five stories of concrete and steel served as the activity hub for everything that happened in Manhattan and at the dozens of other checkpoints around the island’s secured perimeter.
The distance from the Jersey shore to the island was relatively small, but only official copters were allowed to land on Ellis. Simon signed us in with a pair of snarly guards armed with high-powered rifles who barely gave me or Aaron-as-Scott a second glance when they handed us visitor badges, then he led us over to the warming copter.
“Wouldn’t it be faster if you flew us over?” Aaron whispered, barely audible above the whir of the copter blades.
“Maybe,” I said, “but something tells me Lieutenant Itchy Trigger Finger would love an excuse to shoot us down.”
“Good point.”
We climbed into the copter like good little prison visitors and let it fly us over the bay to Ellis Island. A puddle-jump in a copter was a lot less stress-inducing than our four-hour flight in a jet, and then we were walking briskly down a stone path toward the observation tower’s entrance. Simon flashed his own badge in front of a white panel. Something buzzed, and he pulled the glass door open and indicated that we should go inside.
The tower lobby was empty of everything except two elevators and a door marked Emergency Stairs—no furniture, no man at a desk to tell us where to go. Everything seemed automated and impersonal, with no signs that a significant historical building had once stood here before a big old Meta battle leveled the entire thing. Just one more landmark on a long list of them destroyed during the Meta War.
Simon flashed his badge in front of another silver panel between the elevators. The doors on the right slid open with a chime. The interior of the elevator was as boring as the lobby, all buffed chrome. Aaron fidgeted the entire ride up, apparently more nervous than I had thought, and with good reason. The federal government was not, to our knowledge, aware of the existence of Recombinants, and by bringing one into the prison, we were trying to get a big one over on a lot of powerful people.
Not that I cared about our minor subterfuge; I just didn’t want it to backfire on us.
The elevator stopped on the top floor, and we walked out into a circular room the size of the entire tower. Directly ahead of us was a wall of computer monitors, occasionally spaced by a window that gave us a nice view of New Jersey. Clusters of desks stood around other monitors, and the constant hum of machinery and voices gave the room a lively atmosphere that was cut by the somber nature of the workers’ navy federal corrections uniforms.
A handful of those workers paused in their tasks long enough to give us a variety of looks—some hateful, some
Aaron’s life had also gone off the rails at some point, because up until permanently joining forces with King, Aaron had been (according to Dahlia and Aaron himself) a selfish prick who abandoned his younger brothers in search of the next party and the next big fix. No one hits rock bottom for the fun of it, but the skeletons rattling around in his closet weren’t any of my business.
Knowing that didn’t stop me from asking, “So what changed?”
He opened his mouth, then shut it just as fast. The glamour of Scott Torres crept up until Aaron was hidden again. “I did.” He punctuated the statement with his exit from the apartment.
Five
Manhattan Island Penitentiary
O ur first stop after lunch was Ellis Island. A military fort, an immigration station, and then a museum, Ellis Island now housed the prison’s main observation tower. It had been built on the site of the old Main Building just after the War, and five stories of concrete and steel served as the activity hub for everything that happened in Manhattan and at the dozens of other checkpoints around the island’s secured perimeter.
The distance from the Jersey shore to the island was relatively small, but only official copters were allowed to land on Ellis. Simon signed us in with a pair of snarly guards armed with high-powered rifles who barely gave me or Aaron-as-Scott a second glance when they handed us visitor badges, then he led us over to the warming copter.
“Wouldn’t it be faster if you flew us over?” Aaron whispered, barely audible above the whir of the copter blades.
“Maybe,” I said, “but something tells me Lieutenant Itchy Trigger Finger would love an excuse to shoot us down.”
“Good point.”
We climbed into the copter like good little prison visitors and let it fly us over the bay to Ellis Island. A puddle-jump in a copter was a lot less stress-inducing than our four-hour flight in a jet, and then we were walking briskly down a stone path toward the observation tower’s entrance. Simon flashed his own badge in front of a white panel. Something buzzed, and he pulled the glass door open and indicated that we should go inside.
The tower lobby was empty of everything except two elevators and a door marked Emergency Stairs—no furniture, no man at a desk to tell us where to go. Everything seemed automated and impersonal, with no signs that a significant historical building had once stood here before a big old Meta battle leveled the entire thing. Just one more landmark on a long list of them destroyed during the Meta War.
Simon flashed his badge in front of another silver panel between the elevators. The doors on the right slid open with a chime. The interior of the elevator was as boring as the lobby, all buffed chrome. Aaron fidgeted the entire ride up, apparently more nervous than I had thought, and with good reason. The federal government was not, to our knowledge, aware of the existence of Recombinants, and by bringing one into the prison, we were trying to get a big one over on a lot of powerful people.
Not that I cared about our minor subterfuge; I just didn’t want it to backfire on us.
The elevator stopped on the top floor, and we walked out into a circular room the size of the entire tower. Directly ahead of us was a wall of computer monitors, occasionally spaced by a window that gave us a nice view of New Jersey. Clusters of desks stood around other monitors, and the constant hum of machinery and voices gave the room a lively atmosphere that was cut by the somber nature of the workers’ navy federal corrections uniforms.
A handful of those workers paused in their tasks long enough to give us a variety of looks—some hateful, some
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