"Then we'd better hurry, get done, get back."
"I have to get you out of here."
"You've come too far to turn back now. Someone might come looking soon."
"No, they won't, not where I'm going. And where I'm going, what I'm going to do, you can't have any part of that. Listen to me." She took Diana's shoulders. "There's nothing more important than your safety, than your freedom."
"Yes, there is." Diana's eyes were clear and dark. "Ending it."
A
larms were shrilling when Eve strode into the ER. So were a lot of people, she noted. But then, they would. Panic was as natural to some as breathing.
Health care workers, security guards were trying to restore order.
"This will be her work." Eve badged an ER nurse who barely gave her a glance. "Emergency entrance has to be the weakest point. Add some disorder to the natural disorder an area like this has, and go about your work." She glanced at Roarke. "Let's take a page out of her book."
He looked down at the scanner he'd palmed. "Beacon is a hundred meters northwest. No current movement."
They followed the trail, came to a dense cloud of smoke.
"Sulphur cube," Roarke said when Eve cursed at the stench. "Kids tend to make them up. I did myself. Messy, smelly, and harmless."
Eve sucked in a breath, moved into the stench at a jog. A maintenance worker wearing a safety mask waved her back. She shoved her badge into his visor, then kept going.
"Harmless?" she said on the other side. "How about the hour we're going to have to spend in fumigation?"
"The fact it reeks to heaven and back is part of the fun." He coughed, winced. "When you're twelve. Forty-six meters, east." He adjusted his earpiece. "We've still got her," he told Feeney on the other end. "Got that. He says the commander's authorized backup. Feeney'll be guiding them in using the beacon. As long as he can hold it."
"Just so it's long enough. She couldn't pull this off alone. I don't care how smart she is. She's got to be with Deena."
"Smart timing. Make your sortie not only through the weak spot, but at the weak point in time. Late night, holiday eve. A lot of the sectors would be shut down, skeleton staff. People's minds are on their holiday plans, or they're aggravated they have to work while others are sitting about eating turkey or watching the game on-screen.
"Through there." He nodded toward the secured doors. "Wait. She's heading down."
Eve tried her master through the security slot, and was rejected. "Get us through."
He pulled a device out of his pocket, attached it to the head of the slot, then tapped keys. "Try now."
The second swipe opened the doors.
"Just a different kind of cloning," Roarke told her. "She must've done something similar herself, blocking out any code but her own. Target's still descending."
"From where?" Eve demanded, and Roarke tilted the scanner, aimed it at a floor-to-ceiling drug box. "There's your point. Elevator, has to be."
"How the hell does it open?"
"I doubt it's 'open sesame.'" He ran his fingers over one side while she searched the other. "It can't be manual. Too easy to trigger it accidentally."
Eve gave it a vicious shove and earned a pitying glance from Roarke.
"It's fused to the wall."
"Not on this side," he mused. "Switch."
He worked the opposite side while Eve bellied down to search the floor for any signs. "It's got glides. It's on a glide."
"I'm getting it," he muttered. "I'm getting it."
He pried open a small panel, studied the controls with satisfaction. "Now I've got you."
"Where is she? Where's the kid?"
Rather than respond, he handed her the scanner and got to work on the controls. "Code slot has to be around here somewhere, but this should be quicker than hunting it up."
"She's stopped descending, moving west. I think. We're losing the signal. Hurry."
"There's a certain amount of delicacy required to-"
"Screw delicacy." She whipped off her coat, tossed it aside.
"Pipe down for two bloody seconds," he snapped. Then sat back on his haunches as the cabinet and wall slid left. "You're welcome."
"Sarcasm later, hunt down lair of mad scientists now."
Authorization required,
the security panel announced when they stepped in. Red sector only. "Try your master," Roarke suggested.
Incorrect code. Please insert correct code, and stand for retinal scan within thirty seconds . . .
Eve pulled back a fist. Roarke cupped his hand over it. "Don't be hasty, darling." Once again, he affixed his scanner to the panel, tapped keys. "Now."
Incorrect code. You have twenty-two seconds to comply . . .
"Or what?" Eve snarled as Roarke reconfigured. "Again."
Code accepted. Please step to the rear of the unit for retinal scanning.
"How the hell do we get by that?" Eve demanded.
"She did. I'll wager she's done the work for us."
The scan beam shot out of the panel, but it wavered, then pulsed twice.
Welcome, Doctors Icove. Which level do you require?
"That's good." Roarke's voice held quiet admiration. "That's bloody good. I wonder if this Deena would like a job." "Return to previous level," Eve ordered.
Level One is requested.
The doors slid shut.
"Fast work on compromising the scan," Roarke commented. "Smarter than disengaging. Bound to be an alarm trigger for that. This way you skip some steps and add the irony. I could find quite the happy position for Deena."
"Damn it, damn it, the signal's gone. Make sure Feeney has the last coordinates."
She drew her weapon as the computer announced arrival at Level One.
She came out low, with Roarke taking high, into a wide, white corridor. The walls were tiled and glossy, the floors gleaming. The only color was from the large red "1" directly across from the elevator, and from the black eyes of the security cams.
"A bit like the morgue," Roarke commented, but she shook her head.
There was no smell of death here. No smell of human. Just empty air pumped and recycled. They headed west.
There were archways right and left, with codes posted, again in red, on the walls.
"Lost Feeney. We're deep." Roarke looked up. The ceiling was white, too, and curved like a tunnel. "And there's probably security plates to block unauthorized communications."
"Have to know we're here." She lifted her chin toward another camera. "Maybe security's automated."
She strained to hear. Voices, footsteps. But there was nothing but the quiet hum of the air system. The tunnel curved, and she saw the remains of a droid scattered over the white floor.
"I'd say we're on the right track." He crouched to study the pieces. "Bug, equipped with stunners and signals."
Because they looked like mutant spiders, they disgusted her on an innate level. And where there was one, there were bound to be more.
Her theory proved out when she heard the scuttle behind her. She turned, fired, as the bug droid rounded the curve. Three more came behind it.
She dropped to avoid the beam, clipped one, and was rolling to her feet when Roarke obliterated the third. The injured one let out a high-pitched signal before she kicked it, full force, and set it smashing against the wall.
"Damn insects."
"That may be. But in a place like this, I'd say they're the first wave." Anticipating, Roarke drew a second blaster. "We can expect worse."
They hadn't made it another ten feet when they got worse.
They came, front and rear, and at quick march, in perfect formation. Eve counted more than a dozen before her back slapped against Roarke's.
Droids, she hoped they were droids. They were identical: stony faces, hard eyes, bulky muscle under what were outdated military uniforms.
But young, oh Christ, no more than sixteen. Children. Just children.
"This is the police," she shouted out. "T
his is a sanctioned NYPSD operation. Stop where you are."
They kept coming, and as one entity, drew weapons.
"Take them down!"
She'd barely gotten the words out when the explosion rocked her. She flipped her weapon to full stun, fired first in a sweep, then in quick, focused bursts.
Something seared her left arm, brought a quick shock of pain. Even as she fired into one of the oncoming's face, the one behind him fell on her.
She nearly lost her weapon as the force slammed her to the floor. She smelled blood, ripe and fresh, saw the human in his eyes. And without remorse, jammed her weapon against his throat, and fired on full.
His body jerked, convulsed, and was dead before she shoved him aside. She avoided, narrowly, the combat boot that kicked toward her face. Yanking her knife free she drove it up, into the hard belly.
Chips of tile flew, sliced at her exposed skin as she rolled. There was another jolt of pain, a pinch at her hip. She caught sight of Roarke battling two, hand to hand. And more were coming.
She clamped her knife between her teeth, thumbed to maximum blast, and flipped her clutch piece out of its holster. She somersaulted back, took one of Roarke's opponents out, cursed when she couldn't get a clear shot of the other, then began to fire two-handed, like a mad thing, at what remained standing.
Then Roarke was beside her, kneeling beside her. "Fire in the hole," he said, dead calm, and heaved the miniboomer in his hand.
He grabbed her, shoved her back, and threw his body over hers.
The blast punched at her eardrums. She heard, dimly, shards of tile raining down. Then only her own labored breaths.
"Get off, get off!" If there was panic now, it was for him, so she pushed, shoved, rolled him away, then snatched at him again. He was breathing hard now, and he was bleeding.
A gash at the temple, a slice that had gone through the leather of his coat just above the elbow.
"How bad? How bad?"
"Don't know." He shook his head to clear it. "You? Aw, fuck them," he said, viciously, when he saw the blood running down her arm, seeping through her pants at the hip.
"Dings mostly. Mostly dings. Backup's coming. Help's coming."
He looked her dead in the eyes, and he smiled. "And we're just going to sit here and wait for the cavalry, are we?"
The smile loosened the sweaty fist around her heart. "Hell, no."
She pushed herself up, offered him her hand. What she saw around them made her stomach pitch and her heart shrivel. They'd been flesh, blood, bone. They'd been boys. Now they were pieces of meat.
She shut herself down, began to gather weapons. "We don't know what else we've got coming. Take all you can carry."
"Bred for war, that's what they were," Roarke said softly. "They had no choice. They gave us no choice."
"I know that." She shouldered on two combat rifles. "And we're going to exterminate, destroy, decimate what bred them."
Roarke hefted one of the weapons. "Urban War era. If they'd been better equipped and more experienced, we'd be dead."
"You had boomers. You had illegal explosives."
"Well, be prepared, I say." He aimed the rifle at one of the cameras, blasted it. "You've only used one of these a couple of times in sims down in the target gallery."
"I can handle it." She aimed, took out a second camera.
"No doubt."
F
rom their position, Diana looked over her shoulder. "It sounds like a war."
"Whatever it is, it's keeping it off our backs." For now, she thought. She'd estimated she'd had a fifty-fifty chance of coming out of tonight alive. Now she had to survive. She had to get it done and get Diana to safety.
But her palms were sweating, and that only lowered the odds. Avril had been the only person she'd ever loved. Now even that strong current was tame beside the tidal wave of emotion that swept her. Diana was hers.
Nothing was ever going to touch her child again.
So she prayed that the data she and Avril had accessed was still valid. Prayed that whatever was behind them would wait until she got through the doors marked GESTATION.
Prayed that her courage wouldn't fail.
At last the light glowed green. She heard the swish of air as the doors opened into an airlock. What she saw through it, through the glass, drained the heart out of her.
She made herself go in, made herself look.
While her vision blurred with tears, the monster, dead for a decade, stepped into the white stream of light.
Jonah Delecourt Wilson was fit and handsome and no more than thirty. In his arms he carried a sleeping infant. One hand held a stunner and was pressed to the child's throat.
At his feet was the body of a young Wilfred Icove.
"Welcome home, Deena. It's a testament to both of us that you got this far."
Instinctively Deena pushed Diana behind her.
"Saving yourself?" He laughed, and turned the baby to the light. "Which one of yourself will you sacrifice? Infant, child, woman? Fascinating conundrum, isn't it? I need you to come with me now. We don't have much time."
"You killed your partner?"
"Despite all the work, all the adjustment, all the improvement, he proved to be inherently flawed. He objected to some of our most recent advances."
"Let her go. Give the baby to Diana, and let them go. I'll go with you."
"Deena, understand I've terminated my closest associate, the man- well, men, as there are two more of him equally dead-who shared my vision for decades. Do you think I'd hesitate to kill any of you?"
"No. But it's wasteful to kill the children. It's wasteful to terminate me, when you can take me, use me. Study me."
"But you're flawed, you see. As Wilfred proved to be in the end. And you've cost me beyond measure. All this, about to be destroyed. Two generations of progress. Fortunately, I have countless generations to rebuild it, improve it, then see it flourish. You'll all come with us, and be a part of that. Or you'll all die here."
Another stepped out of the opposite door, and had a sleepy toddler by the hand. "Keep your hands up," he ordered her, and stepped forward.
"Transportation's waiting for those selected," the first told her.
"What of the rest?"
"Once we're clear? Fail-safe. A difficult sacrifice. But we understand difficult choices, don't we? We have all the records we need, and the funds, the time to rebuild. Move forward."
As she did, Diana pulled the laser scalpel out of her pocket and aimed it at the eyes of the one holding the toddler.
The little girl screamed, and began to wail when the man holding her hand convulsed and fell. Equipment exploded as Diana swung the beam. Even as Wilson returned fire, Deena shoved Diana to the ground, then dove toward the younger child. As she scooped the toddler up, spun, she saw Wilson, and the infant, were gone.
"Take her." She pushed the screaming child-her child-into Diana's arms. "You've got to take her. I've got to go after him. Don't argue! Just listen. Someone must be trying to get through-all the fire we heard."
"You're hurt."
"It's nothing." Deena dismissed the burn on her shoulder, and pushed past the pain. "You get her to safety. I know you can. I know you will." She pulled Diana into her arms, kissed her, kissed the little girl. "I have to stop him. Now go!"
She sprang up, ran out of the nightmare, and into hell. Diana struggled to her feet under the weight of the child. She had the laser still, she thought, and would use it again if she had to.
THEY SHOULD SPLIT UP. TIME-SAVING, MORE
efficient, but the risks were too many. Her hip was a low, continual scream, but Eve kept moving, kept moving.
At every fork, every turn, every doorway, she braced for the next assault.
"There may be little else in direct defense. You'd assume with the level of security above, and the defense here, no one would get through."
Rather than finesse, he blasted the locks on a door marked EXPERIMENTAL ST
UDIES.
"Mother of Christ," he whispered as they saw what was in the room.
Medical trays, preservation drawers, tanks filled with clear liquid. In them were fetuses at various stages of development. All were deformed.
"Defects," Eve managed while her blood ran cold. "Failures or defective results, stopped when defects were observed." She studied the electronic charts. Something worse than sickness was clogged in her throat.
"Or they were allowed to develop further, even created this way, so they could be studied. Experimented on," she said, swallowing bile. "Kept viable until they were no longer useful."
There was nothing viable there now. No hearts beat in the room but hers and Roarke's.
"Someone's turned off the life systems here, all of them."
"There have to be more."
"Eve." Roarke kept his back turned to what couldn't be changed, couldn't be saved, and studied the equipment. "They haven't just been turned off. It's on a Yellow Alert."
"Meaning?"
"Might be a level for the security breach, automated as you suggested. Or it could be a holding pattern before Red, and self-destruct."
She spun back. "Deena couldn't have gotten that far ahead of us. She's not that damn good. If... Someone else set it."
"Bury it," Roarke said. "Bury all this and everything in it rather than have it taken."
"Can you abort?"
He was working, manually, through his scanner. And shook his head. "Not from here at any rate. This isn't the source."
"Then we find it, and whoever's running this show, before it goes to Red."
She turned, pushed through the doors.
In the white tunnel outside, she saw Diana standing with her hand gripped on a younger, smaller version of herself. In her other hand was a laser scalpel.
"I know how to use it," Diana said.
"Bet." And Eve knew exactly what it felt like to have the beam slice through flesh. "But that would be pretty damn stupid as we've come to get you the hell out of here. Where's Deena? Has she set for self-destruct?"
"He did. She went after him. He had a baby." She glanced at the sniffling toddler. "Our baby sister."
"Who did she go after?"
"Wilson. He had her." She lifted the toddler's hand a fraction. "Her name's Darby. I killed him, one of him, with this. I set it on full and aimed at his eyes. I killed him."