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The woman sighed and stripped her mask down. “That’ll do it,” she said. “It’ll take time for her to come back, though. I’m not sure she’s really rational at this point. You’ll have to wait for her cognition to return. ”
Bryn hadn’t seen her come in, but there was another woman in the room now, without the mask or gown. She was wearing a suit. Her name was … was …
Harte.
“Keep her strapped in, just in case,” Irene Harte said. “I’m going to go check progress on the org charts. I’ll be back to question her in an hour. Be sure not to give her too much; there’s no need to drag this out for another entire week. I need a few hours of lucid interrogation, and then you can put her back in the room until she’s finished. ”
“Yes, ma’am. ” The woman nodded. She was a pretty lady, with shiny black hair bobbed around her jawline and a mobile, kind face.
And she was familiar. Bryn studied her, blinking, trying to force her sluggish brain back to action. The woman started fastening big Velcro restraint straps around her arms and legs, watching Irene Harte as the woman pulled out a cell phone and dialed on her way out of the room.
As soon as the door clicked shut, the woman ripped the restraints open again with furious strength. “Bryn? Bryn, are you with us? Can you understand me?”
Oh. She knew her. Flower, some kind of flower. She was Manny’s girlfriend….
“Pansy,” Bryn murmured. “Pansy Taylor. You shouldn’t be here. ”
“Yeah, no kidding. Nobody should be here. I know it hurts. ” From the appalled look on Pansy’s face, Bryn gathered that she wasn’t looking very good. “You’re going to be all right. I gave you boosters. You’ll feel better soon. ”
“We can’t wait,” the other man said, looking toward the door. He also lowered his mask. His face was pale and set, and she knew him, too. Joe. Joe Fideli.
“You were shot,” Bryn said.
Joe laughed, but it sounded all wrong. He glanced at her, then quickly away, and she saw muscles jumping in his tight jawline. “I checked myself out once Pat told me you’d gone missing. ” He moved his shoulder a little, and winced. “I’m not supposed to be getting in any wrestling matches. Doctor’s orders, so don’t go kicking my ass like you usually do. ” He sounded like the old Joe, but his eyes were haunted and worried. Not for himself, Bryn realized. For her. God, how bad was she?
Worse than she’d thought. The blowtorch of pain was dialing down a little, but when she glanced down at her hands, she saw how discolored they were, how … inhuman.
“We have to move,” Pansy said. “We don’t have much time left. ” She nodded to the two security men still in the room with them, and Bryn’s sluggish brain woke up enough to wonder why Joe wasn’t worried about their overhearing. Pansy said, “Gentlemen: this is a Condition Diamond situation, and I’m invoking your protocols. Protect our escape at all costs; do you understand? Acknowledge these orders. You first. ”
“Yes, ma’am, acknowledging Condition Diamond. I will protect your escape at all costs,” said the first man. He was familiar, too; he was the one who’d taken Bryn to Harte’s office, and then to the white room. His partner echoed the same words; then they moved as a team out into the hallway as Pansy took Bryn’s arm and got her on her feet.
“Hold on to me,” she said. “I know it’s not easy for you to move fast. Do your best, okay?”
“Gun,” Bryn said, and licked her dry, desiccated lips. “I need a gun. ” Her voice was hoarse and faint, but steady. Joe reached under his surgical gown and came out with two weapons. He chambered a round in one and handed it to her.
“Point and shoot,” he said. “Try not to get me or Pansy. We’re the ones around here now who don’t get up again so easy. ”
The guards. Bryn’s brain kept chewing away at the question, and finally, she understood. The guards had been killed and revived, probably under Irene Harte’s new corporate loyalty program; that left them open to protocol orders, if you knew the keys.
Which Joe and Pansy did. Condition Sapphire made you follow orders, even to confessing to everything you knew. “What’s Condition Diamond?” she asked.
“Not really the time, Bryn. ”
“I want to know. ”
“All right. ” Joe exchanged a quick glance with Pansy, who was now holding a gun of her own. “Condition Diamond is a lockout command. Once it’s triggered, it can’t be countermanded, and the revived will follow that last order to the end, no matter what happens. We programmed it into a few of the security guys along the way, just in case we needed a back door; it’s supposed to be reserved for military use only. You haven’t got it, in case you were wondering. ”
“I wasn’t,” she said. That was a lie. She’d been worried.
Just then, a Pharmadene security man out in the hall noticed their little party, and the two guarding it. “Charlie, I thought you were supposed to keep her in the room—” he said.
That was as far as he got, because Charlie—one of their two guards—immediately fired point-blank into the man’s face, and not just once; Bryn counted three shots in quick succession, and then Charlie nodded to his partner and they began taking down anyone and everyone in the hallway with cool, cruel, methodical precision.
Condition Diamond. Whatever their past loyalties might have been, they were owned by Pansy now.
Joe took point, moving as fast as possible to sweep the area ahead of them. He took down three guards who came swarming out of a hallway, checked the corners, and motioned Bryn and Pansy forward. Behind them, gunfire continued to rattle as their rear guard held on. From the sound of it, they were getting shot to pieces.
Bryn said, “You … you used them … like weapons—”
“I know. I had to. ” Pansy gasped, staggering under Bryn’s almost deadweight. “Believe me, I’d rather not have done it. Harte has the cancel protocols for everything except Condition Diamond; if we expected to get anywhere, we needed to cause some chaos any way we could, and that meant making them into suicide troops. Come on, Bryn—we have to keep moving!”
“Hurts,” Bryn whispered. That was an understatement. Her whole body felt as if she were being boiled alive.
“In here,” Joe called, and kicked in a door. It was some kind of laboratory, and there were two scientists inside; they both held up their hands and backed off to the walls as he pointed the gun at them. “Condition Sapphire! Down. Down on the ground and stay there!”
They hugged the floor. Joe edged past them to another door, one with a swipe card lock. He looked back at Pansy. “Did you get it?”
“Here. ” She reached under her gown and handed over a Pharmadene ID, one with a gold stripe. Bryn got a blurred glimpse of it in passing, and she was almost sure it was Irene Harte’s. “Hurry. They’ll lock it down as soon as she realizes I lifted it. ”
He dragged it through the reader. The light turned green, and Fideli slammed open the door.
Bullets rang on the metal next to his head, and he ducked.
Bryn pulled free of Pansy, braced both hands on her gun, and aimed over her body to put three rounds in the guard standing at the end of the room. All head shots.
He went down. So did Bryn, in a helpless gasping heap, from the agony of the recoil.
“Damn,” Fideli said, and helped her up again. “Nice shooting. ”
“He’s moving,” Pansy said. She sounded like she was about to be sick. “His brain’s exposed, but he’s still moving. ”
“It’ll take him a couple of hours to heal up. He’s out of the fight, for now. ” Fideli kicked the man’s gun away, just to be sure, and rolled him out of the way of the door that he’d been guarding.
It was a small loading-dock door.
This time, when Fideli swiped his card, the light flashed red, and a siren began to sound. “She realized we had it,” Pansy said. “Unless we can get this door open, we’re stuck. We need
out. Now. ” She stripped off the surgical smock, cap, and mask, and pulled out a gun of her own. “Any ideas?”
Fideli shot the card reader into junk, but the door stayed firmly down. He tossed the ID back to Pansy, who stuck it in her pocket. “Not so much,” he said. “Retreat?”
“They’re coming,” Bryn said. She limped off to the side and braced her arms on a lab table. She’d need the support. The shooting she’d already done had taken a lot out of her, and she felt as weak as a little girl. Water. I need water.
No time for that now.
Her searching gaze fell on neatly ranked and labeled jars, beakers, and canisters against the wall on racks. “Pansy,” she said. “Acid. ” There was a whole row of it, in a multitude of flavors and packaging. Pansy let out a surprised gasp and ran over to inspect the labels. She grabbed two large bottles, a safety face shield, and thick protective gloves that came up to her armpits.
“Back off,” she ordered Joe. “Don’t breathe it in. ” She opened up the first bottle and splashed it in a golden arc over the corrugated metal door that refused to open for them, and kept splashing as it began to hiss and eat through the thick surface. The first bottle emptied. She used the second. A noxious, thick, burning fog filled the room, and Joe and Pansy were coughing and choking on it.
Bryn was, too, but it didn’t matter. Like the man she’d shot in the head, everything was temporary. She could burn black holes all over her lungs and it would all be okay in the morning.
She grabbed the gloves from Pansy, who had sunk to the floor to gasp in cleaner air, and began punching at the weakened metal. It sagged and melted, and her blows bent it outward.
Bryn made a hole, then dragged Pansy over and pushed her through it, then went back for Joe, who was staggering blindly through the corrosive air. “Don’t breathe it! Keep your eyes shut!” she yelled at him, and he nodded, eyes tightly shut. She shoved him through the narrow opening and dived through after.