Genesis by Paul Antony Jones Page A

doors are all locked and there’s no sign of forced entry. My people have checked everywhere.”
    “I don’t know,” Emily said, her voice a low whisper, conspiratorial. “I don’t know how they did it, but I saw them take him. They made sure I saw them take him.”
    “But if you saw them taking Adam, why didn’t you try and stop them? You have a gun, don’t you?”
    “I saw it happening in a dream,” she said, and even as she spoke the words she knew they were the wrong ones to say, that this man would simply not understand. But that was okay. It did not matter what they thought. She knew the truth.
    Fisher stood up. “A dream? You were asleep when this happened?”
    Emily nodded again.
    Fisher exhaled a long sigh. “Okay, Emily. Well, my people are talking with Rhiannon, and I’ve got teams sweeping the compound. So, if he’s here then we’ll find him, okay?”
    “You won’t find him,” Emily said. “I know you won’t.”
    Fisher regarded Emily for a few moments, his expression noncommittal.
    “We’ll see,” he said eventually, and walked out of the room.
    Two men stepped into view as Fisher arrived at the doorway. Fisher said something to them Emily could not hear and they both nodded. One, a large blond man with a permanent scowl, stepped inside her room and leaned against the wall; the other positioned himself outside the room.
    Before Fisher could leave, Emily saw the unmistakable profile of Sylvia Valentine step into view. She took him by the elbow and he turned to talk to her. Their exchange of words was too low for Emily to hear what was being discussed, but it was obvious from Valentine’s occasional glance in her direction that Fisher was talking about her, probably relaying the conversation they had just had. Valentine nodded every few seconds, and when Fisher was done, she laid a hand on his shoulder and he turned and walked away.
    Valentine lingered in the doorway of Emily’s bedroom for a few moments, looking at her with those cold, emotionless eyes. Emily held her gaze with equal ferocity. A few seconds passed, then Valentine leaned in close and whispered something to the blond man standing in her room before she turned and headed toward the apartment’s exit, but not before Emily saw a sly smile cross the woman’s lips.

    The camp doctor showed up about ten minutes later. Wallace Hubbard was a big man. He sported a full beard, completely gray, and had always reminded Emily of the captain of the ill-fated Titanic.
    “Here, I want you to take these,” he said, pressing two pills into Emily’s right hand and a glass of water into the other.
    Obediently she swallowed both pills in one gulp.
    “Sedatives, they’ll help you sleep.” He rattled a brown prescription bottle. “Take another round this evening to get you through the night. They’re long past their expiration date, but they should still work okay. If you don’t need them, don’t take them. Medical resources are finite these days. I’m going to come back later and check on you, but right now I want you to get some rest.”
    “I don’t need to sleep,” Emily said. “I need to get out of here and help them look for my son.” Her legs felt leaden, but she tried to stand anyway.
    Hubbard pressed her gently back down onto the bed. “Rhiannon, can you come here, please?” he called over his shoulder. “Everyone else, please leave the bedroom.” The blond man who had been standing around the room—suspiciously like he was making sure she stayed where she was supposed to, rather than watching over her, Emily’s fogged mind suggested—grudgingly left as Rhiannon stepped into the bedroom.
    “Close the door, please,” Hubbard told Rhiannon as the blond man joined the other guard in the corridor, both glowering back into the room.
    Hubbard pulled back the sheets to the bed and lifted Emily’s legs under them and gently pushed her back until her head touched the pillow, pulling the sheets up to her chin as though he