The Warning

by Michelle E Lowe

  The plan had been for officers to storm the building, yank Knox out, and report that Crowe had fired at the police. Jean Crowe would have gotten caught in the crossfire. If Nikolai Crowe had somehow managed to escape the apartment, the helicopter would fly low enough where he wouldn’t be able to hear orders to surrender. Officers would take Crowe down at Osborn’s command and when questioned later he would claim he thought he’d seen a gun. But with the news filming the entire thing there would be a lot more explaining to do.

  “Ah, shit,” he complained when Knox burst out of the building.

  “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” Knox shouted, running into the circle of cops.

  Sakura stood with her back to the chaos for the perfect shot of the arrest in progress. “This is Sakura Yoko reporting live, where police have the alleged murder suspect, Nikolai Crowe, surrounded.”

  Kenny pointed to something behind her. She looked back as Knox came out of the building, waving his arms about. She whipped her head around to face the camera.

  “The man you see running to the suspect is Detective Lucas Knox. He may be the one responsible for finding the fugitive.”

  Knox came to within arm’s length of Nikolai and stopped. They were caught in a fierce storm as the wind from the rotor blades stirred debris around them.

  “You lied to me!” Nikolai yelled, his hair blowing in his face.

  “Crowe, listen to me,” Knox called over the noise of the helicopter. “You have to give yourself up or you will be shot!”

  Nikolai glared at him. Knox was right, even if he didn’t want to accept it. Slowly, he raised his arms and interlocked his fingers behind his head.

  “Get on your knees.”

  He could barely hear Knox but understood his gestures and so he lowered himself to the ground. Knox waved the officers forward. He didn’t hear their approach, but felt his hands being yanked from his head and placed behind his back. Once he was secured, he was hoisted to his feet. He never once broke his stare with Knox. The bitter taste of betrayal stuck to his tongue. Despite that, he hated himself even more for falling into this trap.

  Lee Gaiman took a seat at his desk after returning from his break. An e-mail icon blinked on his computer screen and poised his finger to click on it when someone bolted into the editing room.

  “They found Nikolai Crowe, and Sakura is live on the scene, shooting the arrest!”

  Everyone jumped from their seats and followed the man down the hall and into the break room. Lee joined them, leaving the blinking icon on his computer screen unchecked.

  Chapter 22

  Christos stepped onto the platform and started hacking into the system. Ebenezer kept his grip around Linden’s wrist.

  “What are you doing?” the old man demanded. “Stop that this instant! That’s an order, Christos!”

  The boy ignored him and stayed focused on what he was doing. After accessing Linden’s files, he retraced the steps of his discovery from searching through the secret archives. Breaking through codes Linden had set up to block out intruders, he only had one obstacle left.

  “What’s the password, Father?”

  “Whatever you’re planning on doing, don’t,” Linden pleaded.

  “Tell me the password, or Seven will rip your arm off and let you bleed to death.”

  Linden placed a hand on his chest. Pain coursed through him when Seven twisted his wrist, nearly cracking his elbow. With a cry, he shouted, “Hagley! The password is Greg Hagley!”

  Confused, Christos turned to him. “Hagley? Why?”

  Tears rolled from his red, watery eyes. “To remind me that betrayal can come from anyone.”

  The boy said nothing as he turned back to the keyboard. After he typed in the password, he could go anywhere in the program. He scrolled over each Replica’s number, highlighting them as he went.

  Linden realized where Christos had gone in his files. The emergency system shutdown. “No!” He shouted, lunging forward.

  Seven held him back while Christos typed in the word YES to the computer’s prompt for shutting down. Each CPU served as a lifeline to the comatose Replicas.

  Christos pressed ENTER and all sixteen hundred machines went blank. Rows of computers beeped as their power was cut. The Gamma’s experienced a violent reaction as the nerves in their brains shut down. They thrashed on their steel slabs in convulsions. There was a ripple effect as each row powered down.

  Seven pushed Linden away, slung his rifle around his shoulder, and aimed it at the computers. “Christos, move.”

  “Don’t!” Linden cried.

  Squeezing the trigger, Seven opened fire, shattering the computers in a spray of bullets. Hot pieces of fiery metal rained on Linden. When nothing more than damaged, smoking equipment remained, Seven stopped firing.

  “It’s over.”

  “Watch out!” Waver screamed from below.

  A female Gamma model heaved Seven off the ground and threw him across the room, over the bodies of the dying Replicas. She jumped over the platform railing and ran between the rows, reaching the other side of the room as Seven slammed into the wall. She caught him by the throat and held him against the cinderblock.

  Knox grimly watched as officers took Crowe away. He’d wanted to protect him, not deliver him into the hands of the police.

  As he stepped between the chaotic herd of officers, he was suddenly pushed from behind.

  “Liar!” Dr. Crowe screamed as he whipped around. “You said he would be safe. Instead, you had me bring him here to be arrested? You … you used me!” Tears of rage flowed down her face.

  As a detective, he’d been trained to look at everything from different perspectives. He imagined how things must’ve seemed from her point of view. She saw him as just another washed-up detective, desperate to get his name back in the spotlight. He’d found the perfect opportunity by tricking her into luring the most wanted man in the country into his hands.

  He might be renowned among his peers and the people of New York, but he’d never wallowed in his own celebrity. He didn’t get goose bumps over fame, but from the job itself. He lived for solving murders and busting drug traffickers. Giving someone the peace of mind that a killer was caught or saving someone from becoming a hopeless addict was his silver and gold.

  Dr. Crowe came at him throwing punches. He allowed her the opportunity to work out her aggression, waving away a cop who stepped in to intervene. Finally, she collapsed against his chest.

  “I didn’t bring them here,” he whispered. She raised her acid washed face to him. “I didn’t bring them here.” he repeated. He looked deeply into her dark eyes in an attempt to explain himself without words.

  When he heard the sound of Osborn’s voice, his vision faded to red.

  “Chief,” Sakura said, before throwing the microphone in his face. “Tell us how you found Nikolai Crowe.”

  Osborn’s pupils narrowed with the camera lights shining in his face. “Uh, we assigned officers to stake out the suspect’s sister at the hospital where she works, and they saw Detective Knox leave with her. The officers followed them here, to her residence. It wasn’t long afterwards that Crowe showed up and our officers called in for reinforcements.”

  “So, Detective Knox was responsible for Crowe’s arrest?”

  “Well … yes, Detective Knox lured the suspect here, but he—”

  “So, without him, Crowe would still be at large?”

  “Yes, but we would have caught him—eventually.”

  Perfect! she thought happily. Not only have I helped restore Knox’s reputation, but Osborn just made the entire police force look like morons.

  She knew exactly what she was doing. She didn’t have many friends, but the few she had, she’d go to the ends of the earth to help, especially a man like Lucas Knox.

  “Eventually,” she said bluntly. “That’s good to know. Thank you, Chief.” She turned back to the camera. “And there you have it. Thanks to Detective Knox, despite being suspended from duty, a da
ngerous fugitive has been brought in. I must say, this reporter is proud of him. Back to you, Jen.”

  “Bastard!” Knox exclaimed the moment the camera went off. He charged Osborn and caught him off-guard, slamming a fist across his face. Before he struck Osborn again, several officers pounced on him and held him back.

  “Keep the camera off,” Sakura said to Kenny.

  “Why? This is great stuff.”

  “Just do what I say,” she ordered.

  The cops pulled Knox away, but he continued to lunge at his superior officer.

  “What the hell?” Osborn bellowed, touching his bleeding lip. “What’s your freakin’ problem?”

  “You know exactly what my problem is,” Knox said indignantly. “I know everything.”

  Osborn’s face showed nothing. “Congratulations on the collar.” He stalked off, got into his car, and drove away.

  The officers led Nikolai to a patrol car. He preferred their manhandling over what he expected when Geiger and Cooper approached.

  “We’ll take him,” Geiger said.

  He dug the heels of his boots into the pavement to stop the officers from taking him any farther. “No! Don’t let them take me anywhere.”

  Cooper snatched him from the officers’ hold. “Stop resisting.”

  The other officers simply left without argument.

  “It’s a good thing we kept an eye on your sister,” Cooper said. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t have been able to follow Knox here.”

  He turned to face him. “You followed Knox?”

  “He didn’t even see it coming,” Cooper chortled. “He handed you over on a silver platter.”

  As Cooper led him toward their unmarked car, parked at the end of the alley, there was a commotion on the side of the street. Knox was yelling at Osborn while other officers held him back.

  “I don’t see why he’s so pissed,” Cooper grumbled. “He’s the one who’s gonna get the credit for our hard work.”

  “Yeah,” Nikolai said as they reached the car. “Must’ve been strenuous work chasing a man down in a car while he’s on foot.”

  “Get in there, wisenheimer!” Cooper snapped, shoving him into the back seat. “And keep quiet.”

  He caught a glimpse of his sister through the side window and turned to see her through the back windshield as they drove away. She stood in the middle of the road, ignoring the passing cars driving around her. Guilt raised the acid in his stomach up to his throat. It shattered his heart as he wondered if he would ever see her again.

  * * * *

  “You all right?” Sakura asked Knox after the cops had released him.

  “Yeah,” he said, shaking away the last man’s grip. “I’m just frustrated over the whole thing.”

  “Sounds like you know nearly as much as I do,” she whispered.

  “What are you talking about?”

  A mischievous smile creased her face. “You’d never guess in a hundred years.” Her phone rang and she answered it quickly. “Hey, Trevor.”

  “Yoko,” Greene said, “I just wanted to call and tell you what a superb job you’re doing. How are you getting these award-winning stories?”

  “Just lucky, I suppose.”

  “Come back to the station. You’re not done yet.”

  “Have you spoken to Lee? I sent something important to his computer about an hour ago.”

  “Lee from editing? Nope. Haven’t seen him around. Why? What did you send?”

  She didn’t feel right talking about the subject over the phone.

  “I … I’ll tell you when I get there, okay?”

  “All right, but hurry.”

  Chapter 23

  Waver stood near the staircase, amazed at the strength it took the Gamma to throw Seven across the room.

  “You!” Linden seethed at Christos. “How could you do this after everything I’ve done for you?”

  The boy looked at him with little emotion. “Perhaps I’m acting as you would have when you were a young man, Father. Don’t I remind you of the person you once were? Or have you grown so corrupt there’s none of that left?”

  Linden snarled. He shouted to the Gamma across the room, “Kill him! Kill him now!”

  “Father, no!”

  “Quiet, Christos,” Linden demanded harshly. “The Alphas should’ve been thrown out years ago.” He angrily rubbed his wrist. “Like old attic junk.”

  Christos’s protest had no effect on him. Seven was on his own. Waver ran over to help, even if she had no idea what she could do once she reached him. But she owed it to him to try.

  She zigzagged between the rows of dying Replicas, only to have something latch onto her ankle. The floor rushed up to meet her as she fell. The impact of the fall made her bones reverberate. Behind her, a dying Replica clutched her leg. She tried to pull herself free, but his grip only became tighter, until her bone cracked.

  * * * * *

  Ebenezer gripped his attacker’s throat and squeezed. The female Gamma showed no evidence of pain as he wrapped his hand around her slender neck. He stared deeply into her green crescent eyes and recognized her. He’d gunned down her counterpart after breaching the lab.

  His strength didn’t measure up to hers. His vision dimmed as her fingers dug into his windpipe, cutting off his airflow. His body went numb, blocking the feeling of warm blood streaming down his skin. Blood also rushed to his ears, blocking out the gagging of Replicas he’d helped to destroy. He hardly noticed the shards of glass raining down on them as the window above shattered.

  Shots rang out before a body fell. It was one of three Gammas Linden had awakened to protect him. They’d gone upstairs to destroy the Alphas coming from the elevator. Despite their overpowering might, they hadn’t been fully programmed or trained in battle strategy. They had nothing but their strength with no other weapons to compensate for their lack of skill. They were fired upon and cut to pieces when the Alphas spotted them.

  The female Replica holding Ebenezer didn’t even flinch when a body fell behind her, or when the glass sliced deep gashes through her face, arms, and shoulders. He saw as her skin sealed up before the shards hit the floor.

  Nine leapt through the window.

  “Behind you!” Waver called out.

  He whipped around and saw Ebenezer pinned to the wall. He put his rifle against the Gamma’s temple and pulled the trigger, sending round after round into her stone-hard skull.

  Linden clicked the button on his communicator as things gradually took a turn for the worse. “This is Linden. Are there any Betas out there?”

  There was no response at first, but then …

  “I’m here, Doctor Linden.”

  “Where are you, Twenty? I’m under attack.”

  “So I’ve heard. I’m truly sorry about your misfortune.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” he snapped. “Just get here and stop them!”

  “I’m sorry, but I’m in the middle of a hunt right now.”

  “A hunt? What are you talking about? Who are you hunting, if not the Alphas?” He’s malfunctioning. But that can’t be; I programmed him myself.

  “Nikolai Crowe,” Twenty replied. “He’s escaped me twice. I can’t be disgraced by a mere human.”

  What’s he talking about, disgraced? He’s acting as if he has—No! He’s expressing pride!

  He recognized his error. He’d programmed Twenty to be more aggressive and less structured, but his experiment seemed to have blown up in his face. Twenty had been a well-adjusted model, and he’d been thrilled when the opportunity arose to see the Replica in action. At some point during his mission Twenty must have begun developing human emotions. It made him realize that the other sixteen hundred Replicas would have also evolved to think for themselves as well, creating utter devastation for the human race. Emotions were a mystical unicorn; they couldn’t be captured or tamed.

  “Goodbye, Doctor Linden,” Twenty said. “Good luck with everything.”

  He stood motionless before slipping the co
mmunicator off his head and dropping it to the floor.

  “This is why I’ve done what I have,” Christos said. “I had to stop what you and the mayor planned before it went horribly wrong. You nearly caused the downfall of your own kind, Father.”

  The dying Replica refused to let go of Waver’s ankle even as she kicked him repeatedly in the face. He would be dead in less than a minute, but not before he squeezed her bone to dust.

  Sixteen approached the Replica with a handgun aimed at his head. Waver shielded her head when the gun went off multiple times. After the gunfire stopped she opened her eyes as Sixteen pried the dead Replica’s hand off her fractured ankle. The hot and throbbing pain made her sweat.

  “Are you all right?” Sixteen asked, kneeling beside her.

  She looked up at her. “I … I will be. Thank you.”

  Sixteen smiled. “You’re welcome.” She lifted Waver into her arms and carried her to where the other Alphas stood. Seven sat gasping for air, his crushed windpipe preventing any oxygen from getting through.

  Sixteen set Waver down and allowed her to lean on her for balance. Waver cringed at the extent of Seven’s wounds. The Gamma had dug so deeply into his flesh that she’d nearly ripped out the front of his throat. His wounds struggled to repair themselves, but if he died before they succeeded, he’d stay dead.

  Unable to do anything for him, the Alphas stood in silence and watched. Behind them, the room went still and quiet as the last Gamma died. She stood with Sixteen and studied the Replicas mourn their fallen leader. Nine knelt in front of him, one hand on his shoulder. Finally, Seven gurgled up blood and dropped his head. His body went slack.