The Warning

by Michelle E Lowe

  He went around the van to get into position.

  “Whoa!” one of the workers exclaimed, looking into a body bag. “What the hell happened to this thing?”

  “Get back to work,” another worker ordered. He looked at the Replicas dressed in casual clothes. “Where are your uniforms?”

  “We’re undercover,” Two answered shortly.

  The worker considered her a moment. Finally, confused, he turned back to the bodies. “Why are there four bodies?”

  Stewart fixed an emotionless stare on him.

  “Answer me, drone,” the man demanded. “We were told there were only three to collect. Why is there an extra one?”

  “Three and half,” Nineteen said jokingly.

  “What?”

  “Where are the other Betas?” Ebenezer asked, coming up behind him. “Are any of them here?”

  The worker turned to him, looking cross. “I wasn’t talking to you,” he fired back. “You need to stay in your place and speak only when you’re spoken to.”

  Ebenezer was used to the ill-mannered tone, especially from the workers. Most were usually high-strung and quick to snap at Replicas.

  The worker returned his attention to Stewart with an annoyed sigh. Ebenezer snatched him by the collarbone with crushing force. The other workers tried to bolt, only to find themselves surrounded by the Alphas.

  “Answer me,” Ebenezer growled. “How many Betas are in the building?”

  “None,” the worker replied fearfully. “Every Beta is out in the city.”

  Ebenezer released the man, who fell to his knees in agony. He turned his attention to the Alphas. “Let’s go. The guards will be here soon.”

  They left the workers where they stood and headed for the single door leading into the lab.

  Waver sat in her office, busy with work, when a worker from the monitoring station called, “Doctor Waver, we have a serious problem in the garage area.”

  She exited from her work tab and opened up the security line. The Alphas were in the garage, on their way inside the lab. Her stomach bottomed out.

  “What do you want us to do?” the worker asked on the other line.

  “Call in the guards,” she ordered quickly. She hung up and went to a nearby intercom, pressing the button to Linden’s apartment. “Doctor Linden,” she shouted. “I need to speak to you.”

  Linden had already fallen asleep when Waver’s screeching voice echoed throughout his room. With a groan, he rolled out of bed and hobbled to the nearest intercom. “What is it?”

  “We’re under attack,” she blurted. “Some of the Alphas have returned to the lab.”

  Icy cold tingles ran down his back. He’d never imagined the Replicas would return to attack him. He suddenly felt stupid for not considering that possibility.

  “Whatever you do, keep them away from the East Wing.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “Do more than your best. Keep them away from that area, and get someone to guard my son.”

  He grabbed his robe and rushed out of the apartment. He needed to reach his office and call the Betas back.

  A guard with green crescent-shaped eyes ran with several other guards toward a pair of double doors, her gun clutched tightly in her hand. The ones in the front burst through the doors. She heard the shots before bullets cut through the air. The bulletproof vests they wore couldn’t protect them from the hollow-points designed for killing Replicas. The guards in front went down before they even got off one shot. She and others retreated behind the doors as bodies dropped.

  When the gunfire ended, she knelt beside her fellow guards. Behind her were a handful of others. All remained still and silent. She stayed on her knee, wiped the sweat from her eyes, and raised her rifle. Her heart pounded so hard against her chest that every beat stole the wind from her. She was nervous, but mostly panicked, and the silence only made everything in her stomach sour.

  There was no movement or sound from behind the double doors. She wondered if perhaps the guards had managed to take the Replicas out before they’d died. The tension in her muscles eased.

  Abruptly, the doors burst open and a figure appeared in a blur. A Replica opened fire. She managed to fire off a shot or two before a bullet got her between the eyes.

  She never saw it coming.

  Linden rushed out of the elevator and bolted down the hallway to his office. He used his identification card and flung the door open. The motion-sensor light illuminated the room as he swept up the headset on the desk and pressed the button as he put it on. “Attention all Betas, you’re needed back at the lab immediately. We’re under attack by the Alphas!”

  Huddled in the break room of a closed-down car factory, the remaining Alphas hid in the dark, watching through a glass wall as a group of Betas searched the assembly line not far away.

  A female Beta approached the break room. The Alphas ducked behind the wall and waited, listening to her footsteps draw near. They suspected the next sound would be gunfire. Instead, they heard Linden’s voice through the Beta’s radio.

  “Affirmative, sir,” she said. “Returning immediately.”

  The Beta’s footsteps faded as she retreated.

  Model 4020 casually strolled down the sidewalk of 106th St, frightening people with the rifles strapped around him. His communicator blared with Linden’s call for help. He stopped to listen before shutting the communicator off.

  Knox tightened his finger on the trigger, ready to splatter blood and brains on the clean hospital wall. Crawford shut his eyes, his skin glossy with sweat. An unnerving silence had settled in the room after he’d given Knox his answer.

  No, Knox thought. It couldn’t be.

  He pulled the gun away from Crawford’s forehead and lowered the weapon to his side.

  When he’d aimed his gun at Crawford, he’d crossed a line he’d hoped never to cross—a fine line between being an honorable lawman who’d never use the More Aggressive Law and those who did without hesitation. But this was different. Crawford was responsible for the death of a friend’s daughter, and helped put an innocent man in danger. Now, from the answer Crawford had given, it seemed he’d crossed that line for the wrong person. He didn’t want to believe it, none of it.

  He has to be lying.

  “What are you going to do with us?” Novak asked, breaking into his thoughts.

  “Shush!” he hissed.

  The surgeon clammed up. Knox approached the door in deep thought before he paced back.

  It would have to be someone with money to afford the bribe for the surgery. Someone with that kind of money equals power. He stopped dead in his tracks, the color draining from his face. But how could any man kill his only child? What kind of monster does that?

  His friendship with the mayor had blinded him to the possibility of his involvement. The thought of any parent ordering the murder of their child was inconceivable. As he thought more on it, however, he realized that was what provided the perfect cover-up for an almost perfect crime.

  He took out his phone and pressed Rivera’s number.

  “Hey,” Rivera said on the other end.

  “I need you to come up to the Montgomery Hospital, to the cosmetic recovery area, Room 29. I found the man who went into Miss Sho’s apartment.”

  “You found Crowe?”

  “No. I found the guy who had surgery to make himself look like him.”

  “What? Okay, all right, I’m on my way.”

  Nikolai leaned his elbows on the bar counter and placed his hands on the back of his head. He now understood why Jade had broken off their relationship. She’d been aware of the likelihood of being killed and had wanted to keep the same thing from happening to him. She had loved him; her letter had explained that much. The gut-wrenching sickness he’d felt earlier rumbled back when he thought she might have believed that he’d gone to kill her.

  “Are you okay?” Marko asked.

  He raised his head with a sniff and caught his reflection in the mir
ror behind the bar. He appeared a decade older. “Yeah, fine,” he lied. “Just need some time alone.”

  Marko came up beside him and laid his hands on the bar. “That’s understandable. After what you’ve been through, I’m surprised you haven’t gone mental.”

  He rubbed his face with both hands. “I’m not too far from it.”

  “I know you didn’t kill her.”

  Hearing those words brought tears to his eyes. He’d found someone other than Jean and Ebenezer who believed he was innocent. It gave him the relief he so desperately needed.

  “Thanks,” he said, turning away. “So, what’s the next step?”

  Marko sighed despairingly. “Right now, we’re copying the footage on other cards. We wanted to post the footage through the net, and send copies of the hard file to the President, but that’ll take a day or so to catch people’s attention.”

  On a portable TV beside him, Sakura Yoko was broadcasting live at 116th Street. “That’s too long,” he said, picking up the television. “How fast can we get to East Harlem?”

  “A half hour, depending on traffic. Why?”

  He watched the TV a bit longer before setting it down. “I have an idea.”

  Rivera rushed through the cosmetic recovery area and barged into Room 29. Knox was leaning against the windowsill, holding his gun in one hand and his face in the other. He looked at both Crawford and Novak. “Is that him?”

  “Yeah,” Knox replied, holstering his weapon. “Doctor Novak here was paid to reconstruct Crawford’s face to look like Crowe’s. After the murder, he reversed the procedure.”

  “That’s a lot of shit to go through just to kill someone. Did he say who else was in the apartment?”

  “No, he never saw what the person looked like. He claims the other person was the one who killed Miss Sho, and I believe him. I don’t think he’d have the stomach for it.”

  Rivera studied Knox’s acid-washed face. “Are you all right? You look like someone just ripped off your nuts.”

  “I’m fine. Listen, I’ve gotta do something extremely important. I need you to stay here and watch them until I can figure out where we can take them.”

  “No problem. I won’t let them out of my sight.” Knox returned his badge to him and started to leave the room. “Where are you going?”

  “I have to find the real Nikolai Crowe.”

  Chapter 20

  A guard stood in front of Christos’s room, ready for any sign of trouble, yet he never heard the door behind him open until it was too late. He was struck across the head hard enough to render him unconscious. His body was dragged into the room, and seconds later Christos stepped out. He shut the door and left down the hall without making a sound.

  Waver watched from inside the viewing room as the Alphas entered the lab and made their way into Programming. The Replicas opened fire on the computers that had programmed them, which then erupted into red and yellow sparks.

  “What are they doing?” a worker asked. “Did they come back to tear up the place like a bunch of dumb animals?”

  Waver studied the Alphas’ behavior and disagreed with the worker. “No, they know exactly what they’re doing.”

  Everyone looked at her, but she was too engrossed with the Alphas’ actions to notice.

  “Doctor Waver,” Linden called through her headset.

  “Yes?”

  “They’re destroying everything in Programming. Send in the rest of the guards.”

  “Sir, they’ve killed so many already. Sending in others would be murder.”

  “I don’t care. I have to get to the East Wing and I don’t want to run into any of them on the way.”

  His command appalled her. She might as well put a bullet in the guards’ brains herself. “I can’t do that. It wouldn’t do any good to send more guards against them.” She braced herself for his angry response, but no matter what words he spat at her, she’d stand by her decision.

  “Don’t lose your backbone,” he retorted. “Do what I tell you, or else…”

  “Or else what?” she fired back. “You’ll terminate me? Go ahead, but I’m not going to send any more people in to be slaughtered.”

  Everyone had become spellbound. She didn’t understand why. Although she’d been loyal to Linden for years, she had no trouble disagreeing with him from time to time. Unlike what she helped create, she had her own mind.

  Nothing came over the air for a long while. Then Linden said, “I’ll do it myself.”

  “I’d advise against—”

  She stopped abruptly when she realized there was no one on the other end. She ripped the headset off and threw it onto the countertop. “Impossible man. I don’t give a damn what he’s trying to protect.”

  She stormed out of the viewing room and headed for Programming. As she strode down the hall, Linden’s voice came over the intercom, commanding guards to head for Programming. She picked up her pace.

  The sound of heavy footsteps came from behind a pair of doors down another hallway. She feared for a second that it was the Alphas, then calm washed over her when it was only the guards.

  “Don’t go down there!” she yelled as they ran past her. “Go back! Stop!”

  They ignored her and kept running through the corridor.

  “They’ll kill you!”

  A burst of gunfire erupted when the Alphas came out of Programming. Waver hit the floor, facing the wall. It was several seconds before it went silent. She stayed in her position, too afraid to pull her head out from under her arms.

  “Doctor Waver.”

  She slowly raised her head to model Seven. Her body went cold and numb all at once. Behind him were the others. None had been hurt in the gunfight as she predicted. She flinched when Seven extended his hand to her. “Are you all right?” he said.

  * * * * *

  “Got nealy eveyfang woaded up, Kenny?” Sakura asked through puckered lips as she freshened up her lipstick beside the Channel Eight News van.

  “Yep.”

  It had been a long day. Since six that morning, she’d been running around the city, covering one story after another. First, it had been an eight-car pileup on the George Washington Bridge, then a special event at the Brook Haven Elementary School, before rushing to the First National Bank of Manhattan to cover the robbery. Since then, she and Kenny had been on the story about the death of the mayor’s daughter, racing to uncover any new details about the case before other reporters did.

  Finally, they’d come to East Harlem where she’d interviewed witnesses to a gang fight. When she and Kenny had arrived, she’d noticed five well-dressed people get into an SUV and drive away.

  She pursed her painted lips together. I should be an anchor, damn it. I’m so tired of this shit, I could scream. Spent and exhausted, she was ready to call it a night.

  “Miss Yoko?” came a quiet voice behind her.

  She sighed as she turned away from the rearview mirror. “Sorry, I’m not doing any more interviews.”

  The sight of the hooded man standing nearby made her palms sweat. Breathless, she croaked out, “Kenny?”

  Kenny came from around the van with a gun aimed at his back. Sakura charged for the van to get to her phone, but the hooded man lunged at her. He slammed the door shut as it opened.

  “It’s all right,” he said, just before she punched him in the face.

  While the pain temporarily distracted him, she tried making a run for it, only to have three people dressed in dark clothing appear from the shadows. She stopped short and clenched her fists.

  “What do you people want?” she demanded, trying not to show her fear.

  “Miss Yoko,” the hooded man urged, “listen to me.”

  She turned to face him. When he slid the hood off his head, her eyes widened. “You’re Nikolai Crowe.”

  “I need your help. It’s important.”

  Strangely, she felt less threatened by him, considering what he’d done.

  “My help? You’re a wanted man
, Mr. Crowe. For first degree murder, I might add. I can’t help you. Not to mention you’ve got my cameraman at gunpoint.”

  “Marko,” Nikolai said.

  “Lower it, Kip,” Marko ordered.

  Kip placed the weapon beneath his coat. Nikolai turned back to Sakura. “We’re not here to force you to do anything. In fact, you can leave right now if you want.”

  “Good,” she said, heading toward the passenger side door, “because socializing with fugitives isn’t exactly my kind of party.”

  “You’ll be interested in what I have to offer, though” he said as she walked past him.

  She stopped. With a deep sigh, she turned back to him. “And what’s that?”

  “I’m offering you the story of the century.”

  Those words—the story of the century—piqued her interest. “What exactly do you have?”

  He took a MIR card from his pocket and held it up for her to see. “Let me show you.”

  Waver breathed heavily as the giant towered over her.

  “We’re not going to hurt you, Doctor Waver,” Seven assured, still extending his hand. “I swear it.”

  She hesitated, then raised her shaky hand and slipped it into his large palm. Gently, he pulled her to her feet. The Alphas were lined up across the hallway, blocking the bloody view behind them. Each wore a sympathetic face, which made her wonder.

  Is it true? Do they really have human feelings?

  She’d suspected the Alphas possessed such sentiments, but she’d disregarded her suspicions as a scientist. She’d seen a few of the Alphas standing in front of paintings, admiring colors as only an art lover would. She’d even caught Seven smiling in the yard when a butterfly had landed on his hand.