Free The Indigo Thief by Jay Budgett Page A

now, I decided it was best to just go along with the plan, and not ask too many questions. Phoenix wouldn’t have given me honest answers anyway.
    “And what if we get caught?” I said.
    Phoenix’s face went grim. “Then we’ll be tortured and killed.”
    I shuddered. Was that what the Feds were doing to Mom and Charlie? I felt sick to my stomach. I had to save them, and soon.
    “No funny business out there,” added Phoenix. “Not like what happened out on the beach. If you try to kill us again, then we’ll kill you. That’s a promise. Or we’ll let the Feds do it, and that’d be worse. You’ll follow our commands—without question—and you’ll stay alive.”
    I nodded. I’d underestimated them on the beach. They weren’t idiots. They knew what they were doing, and with or without my help, they were going to do it. It was only a question of whether I wanted to live or die. And if I was dead, I couldn’t save Mom and Charlie. I’d work with Phoenix. And I’d stay alive. For now, at least.
    Phoenix turned to Kindred. “Did you get the pills?”
    Kindred gave him a blank look.
    “The ones we talked about earlier,” he said. “In the cupboard? Meels, you remember the pills, don’t you? The ones we talked about.”
    Mila nodded, left the room, then quickly returned with two blue pills, which she placed in my hand.
    Great, they intended to drug me. Drug me and take me to largest city in the world. In a skirt.
    Kindred saw the pills and laughed. “ Those ,” she said. “I didn’t realize you were talking about—”
    “The Indigo pills,” said Mila. “We were talking about the Indigo pills.”
    “It’s in lieu of a vaccination,” explained Phoenix. “Little doses of Indigo. If you take two a month, you’ll be fine. We’re the only ones who have them. A creation courtesy of Bertha. And if you run from us in the city… well—then I’m afraid you won’t have much time. If the Feds don’t find you, the Carcinogens will. The Indigo pills work just like the real vaccines, but are only temporary. In time, perhaps we’ll consider a vaccination—but those come at an incredible cost. Each vaccine we administer is one we can’t sell, and we need the money. An island of trash doesn’t pay for itself.”
    So that was why Mila’s eyes weren’t blue. She took the pills every month, too, instead of receiving the vaccine. The smaller doses taken orally must’ve prevented her eyes from turning blue. I wondered if she, too, was working to earn a vaccine. As an enemy of the state, I guessed sticking with Phoenix was really her only option to get one.
    I swallowed the pills without hesitation. “Thanks,” I said. “So about the skirt—”
    “It’s for Nancy Perkins,” said Kindred.
    Bertha grinned. “Which is gonna be you, sweetheart.”
    Kindred pushed me into a chair before I could say anything else. She spread a layer of powder across my face like icing on a cake. “Close your eyes, dear. You’re going to look lovely.”
    “What about Phoenix?” I asked. “Is he wearing a skirt too?”
    I heard him and Mila snicker as they left the room.
    “Not possible,” said Kindred. “He’s six-foot-two and built like a god. He’d never pass as a forty-nine-year-old woman. Chin down, dear. Stop flinching.”
    “A forty-nine-year-old woman?”
    Kindred pulled a card from my bag and read it aloud. “Nancy Perkins, forty-nine years old. Former executive assistant to the president of Renzo Enterprises. Resident of the Maui province. Visiting Newla to celebrate the last night of her life in Club 49.” She paused. “The three of you will collect her identification cards and proceed to Club 49 this evening.”
    Dove smashed the blond wig on my head and traced its edges along my scalp before adding glue. “Can’t have it flying off your head on the dance floor,” he said. “It’d blow your cover.”
    When Mila and Phoenix returned, they were already dressed in full costume. Mila wore a black