Climatic Climacteric Omnibus

by L. B. Carter

  "So what's the plan?" Reed rumbled into her ear, his hot breath tickling the short hairs near her neck.

  What? She'd more or less detailed why she'd stolen Sirena upstairs.

  "With the guard?"

  Oh. She refocused on the hut. The overhead light cast a sheen on the glass so she couldn't see inside.

  "I don't know," she admitted, shifting on her feet and bumping into Reed who was hovering too close over her. "Well, I can continue to be bait," she offered. Her dang tiny shorts provided no protection from the chill, so she might as well use them for something. "Unless you have an idea."

  "Gimme a sec." Yep, he didn't have any ideas. He just didn't want to use hers. Arrogant.

  The door to the garage clicked open.

  "No time." Val left the safety of the pillar, walking quickly, casting furtive glances in the direction from which they'd come.

  When she got close, she slowed to a stroll, added a sway to her hips and a couple hair tosses, and dipped her chin at a sultry tilt toward the guard shelter batting her lashes. "Help," she called out, weakly. "Help."

  No one came out the door on the side. In fact, she notice it was slid open as she drew closer, and the hut was empty. "Officer?"

  When she turned with a baffled palm-raise to the pillar, Reed stepped out and jogged up to her side. "What's up?"

  "No one here. My show was for no one." She pretended to be upset.

  "Well, not no one. I quite enjoyed being your audience. You're welcome to walk away from me whenever you want as long as you add that extra hip sway."

  Val rolled her eyes with a snort, but the motion allowed her to catch a blue light scanning across the wall near them.

  "Shit." She snagged Reed's shirt and moved up the ramp. Once Reed had caught up, she let go of his stomach and pushed up the incline with her quads. A dull roar hit Val's ears, and her head tilted as she neared where the sloped driveway leveled off and met with the road.

  "What the hell is that?" Reed didn't seem thrilled by whatever surprise they were about to meet. However, with the drones up their butts, meet it they would.

  "This better be worth it. If Ace and his girlfriend don't get the info..."

  "They will," Reed said with confidence. "Nor will make sure they get where they need to."

  That wasn't what worried Val—she was more questioning their ability to infiltrate BSTU’s suped-up systems. Sure, Ace had done it before when they got out the first time with Sirena but BSTU was sure to have upped their security after that embarrassing mishap, plugging the holes as it were.

  That anxiety was knocked clear of her mind like a drone hit with a bat when they met the horizontal tarmac and came to a dead stop, dumbfounded. "Found the security guard," Val noted dryly.

  They were on the inside of a perimeter made from police barriers that BSTU guards were trying poorly to enforce. They were spaced every few feet, arms spread wide.

  On the other side was a mosh pit. Bodies were crushed up against the barriers and each other, limbs waving around, some of them clutching cameras, phones, recording devices, microphones, all of them shouting at once in a big jumbled roar. Not one looked their way.

  Like a unit, Reed and Val turned to identify the focus of the public's attention. In front of the main building, Katheryn Tate was in a heated argument with a guard, holding Sirena securely.

  "Fuck." Reed was running before Val could agree with his swear of choice.

  "What are you doing, you psycho?" Val screamed at Katheryn, using Reed as a high-jumper's pole to slam into the woman, jarring Sirena free and knocking Katheryn back from the guard with whom she'd been trying to negotiate. "You're going to get Sirena killed."

  Katheryn snarled, pushing Val back.

  She bumped into something and felt Reed's arms slide up her arms, reassuring her that he had her back. But at the same time... "Get Sirena," she tossed over her shoulder. "Take her back inside."

  "No," he said.

  Val dared to pull her eyes from Katheryn as she jerked her chin over her shoulder. "I said..." she growled through gritted teeth. The only thing they all cared about—why they were all there—was Rena, and he was risking that to play macho?

  "They want you, too," Reed replied.

  Katheryn grabbed Val's arm and tugged her toward the crowd, lifting her fist aloft like a champion wrestler. "I present to you: the government official who so kindly demonstrates the success of our transmutation methods," she heralded, and the writhing bodies became more urgent like a pack of predators sensing weak prey.

  "No," Val wrenched back, trying to pry Katheryn's fingers off her forearm. The older woman had a shockingly tight grip. Motivation was a great strengthener. So was living in a place that provided ample food and water. "You'll get me killed, too. All your hard work." Val tried to reason.

  "Professor Tate!" A desperate journalist was hanging over the barricade, a security guard blocking her attempt to flip right over it. A recording device was thrust under the guard's armpit. "You said this was the Director of Disaster Management, but she matches images of your own daughter, Jennifer Tate, a recent student in your lab. How do you comment?"

  Dang, motivation could accomplish a lot in a short time. That journalist had been busy since the news clip released.

  Katheryn was lured in. "Yes." Her lips almost scraped the recording device she was so intent on ensuring it captured her response.

  Reed's large hands joined Val's scrambling to free her from Katheryn's grip.

  "Ow!" Katheryn interrupted herself.

  "Hey." The security guard abandoned the crowd to face down Reed. This guy clearly worked out and puffed up his chest. Of course, Reed did the same. He was impressive, but the guard hadn't been living off of protein fumes for the last week or more—Val had lost track of the number of days.

  "Reed," Val cajoled, snapping her fingers in front of his face, abandoning her other arm in Katheryn's spindly fingers.

  Katheryn returned to the journalist. "You're correct; the DNA we used to modify this woman was my own daughter's. As you can see, the match is nearly perfect. Except for the personality mannerisms, which remain her own." Her eyes flashed to Val for a moment, lips thinning in distaste.

  "And where is your daughter now? For comparison." The woman was shouting, being shoved around and trying her hardest to keep her stretched arm still, close to Katheryn's mouth.

  Katheryn straightened up to her tallest. "She could not be here."

  Reed and the guard were arguing. Val ignored them and leaned toward the recorder. "She got her killed!"

  The journalist swung wide eyes on Val, enraptured at the chance to spin this story into the scoop of a lifetime. "Who killed whom?"

  "Katheryn Tate! She killed her own daughter."

  Katheryn tackled Val, knocking her to the concrete, the back of Val's head smacking painfully.

  "You bitch! You killed her, not me." The grown woman's nailed fingers were clawing, pulling hair, trying to press Val into the floor and swipe at her at the same time. She straddled Val.

  Behind her, Reed was in a deadly dance with the guard. The one time she could've used his help.

  Fine. Val could handle herself. She had saved him from those vandals. "I'm not the one who drove her away, who made her desperate for any kind of escape," Val snarled into Katheryn's horse-like face.

  Katheryn gave a frenetic screech and slapped Val's cheek hard.

  The side of her face snapped numb and then began to tingle as feeling seeped back in. Val tucked her tongue into her cheek, tasting blood where her tooth had slit through the inside of her mouth, shocked by the woman's vigor. "You just assaulted a government official," Val intoned with sardonic darkness. "I think you're giving all the proof the media needs of your propensity to kill." Sometimes you just needed to let people get themselves in trouble. Val didn't need a dagger to win a fight. Words, reputations were the most valuable.

  Val should know. Her statement wasn't entirely true—she was no longer a USGCS director
. But the wild professor didn't need to know that fact.

  Katheryn's eyes widened, and she sat up, appalled, the offending hand burrowing into her chest as if hiding a weapon. She looked over her shoulder at the chanting crowd behind.

  Finally, she was realizing that they were a mix of ravenous journalists, grubbing greedy grabbers volunteering for the procedure, and haters protesting her unethical human trials and unnatural alterations. Only a few were there to support her. Most people only got riled up over something they didn't agree with... or wanted for themselves.

  The journalist they'd spoken to was watching avidly. She may not have had a camera, but certainly enough others did to corroborate any story she wrote up.

  "If I were your daughter, I'd have preferred to die than stay with you, too."

  Katheryn's face swung back to Val, caved in, horror stretching her features.

  Then Reed appeared, lifting the small woman off Val like a sack of grain—no, that was too precious in this world to represent the asshat. He was back in a second, hoisting Val to her feet and dipping down, hand on her chin, to check her cheek. "You okay?"

  "Yeah, fine. What did you do with the professor?" She tried to peer around him, but he hadn't finished inspecting her face.

  His green eyes switched to penetrate hers, and a grin quirked his lips. "I wouldn't worry about her."

  "The hell does that mean? Did you kill her?"

  Reed recoiled though his fingers continued to warm her chin, thumb slipping up toward her lower lip. "No, Jesus. Who do you think I am?"

  Val shrugged. "I would've."

  His teeth showed. "I know. If I didn't stop you." His eyes dropped to her lips as his thumb coasted over the bottom one. Feeling was definitely returning to her face with renewed vigor. "You're a blood-thirsty bitch."

  Val scowled at the word Katheryn had also used on her. "I'm not a bitch."

  "Yes, you are, and it's fucking hot."

  Val suppressed a smile, relishing his skin sliding over hers as her mouth quirked. "But really. What'd you do with her? And where's Sirena? Tell me you got her to safety."

  "Not me. Either of them. Though I appreciate your confidence in me." His brows rose.

  Val's eyes rolled. "Who?" Again, she tried to look. Reed's grip tightened.

  Then he kissed her. In front of the media and everything.

  Val let him. But only for a minute.

  Pulling back, she blinked up at him. "What the hell was that for?"

  He smiled. "For taking off your clothes in front of me when you were covered in old man piss."

  Val grinned. "That was days ago."

  Reed's full lips rolled. "Tell me about it," he groaned.

  A laugh eased out of Val, and she attempted to wiggle free of his hands, which had snaked around her neck. She put one of hers up, plucking his hand off. "So if not you, then...?" A scream scraped from her.

  A clown stood right behind Reed, an overzealous grin enveloping most of his make-up-caked face. His gloved hands, ruffled at the wrist, were locked around Katheryn. She didn't look thrilled.

  Join the club. Val thought she might have just developed a fear of clowns.

  Spinning, Val saw a ballerina in a tutu, toes out-turned, inexplicably carrying Sirena in her rounded arms, the girl's legs over one bronze-coated limb and her back propped against the other. Sirena looked more weirded out than upset by her situation. To be fair, she got the better of the two options.

  "Who invited the circus?" Val blinked a few more times at the new members of their team, but they stayed there. They weren’t a product of the slap-to-the-face or the head-smack-on-cement.

  "Me."

  Val almost cricked her neck. Out of the building's main door strode a triumphant Henley followed by a proud Ace. Bromley trailed behind, wigged out by the unbelievable insanity in which she'd gotten involved.

  "And Ace," Henley included, sharing her smile with him. It almost looked as though he returned the joy. "Val, meet BSTU's Faneuil Hall-stationed automatons. Well. They're under my orders now."

  Val's brows pulled down. "I told you to locate Sirena, not form some kind of... robot army."

  Henley didn't let Val's anger affect her and said benignly, "Yeah, well we did that faster than you did, but we figured we'd try to address the security concerns we found her in with something more than just a tackle."

  Ace was definitely smiling now. It was a scarier look on him than the clown.

  Val was unamused.

  "I dunno." Reed draped an arm around Val's shoulders. She shrugged it off. "I personally would prefer to see Val in a cat-fight than—" He eyed the robots with concern. "—invite these guys over for a play-date."

  "You're welcome for drawing the drones away so you could do your... summoning ritual or whatever," Val snapped. "Where are the drones, anyway?" She squinted toward the garage exit she and Reed had sneaked out of. "I thought you couldn't disable them."

  "I couldn't," Henley shrugged.

  "Where's Nor?" Reed asked.

  "I can answer both of those questions," a new voice proclaimed.

  "Nor!" Sirena exclaimed happily, struggling to get out of the ballerina's immobile arms as Nor came waltzing out of the garage.

  He grinned at her then swung his blue eyes on his brother and Val. A piece of piping was tipped against his shoulder like a baseball bat. His and Reed's father walked behind him, a few of his men behind the others. All carried various bits of building material. "Thought I'd teach the old man how to play ball… Valerie-style."

  Reed's arm landed on Val again. She allowed it to stay. She was still chilly in the open air. The journalist mob was probably getting great pictures of her exposed body while they mashed around with warm coats and each other's body heat. "Wait, what about the security guard?" Val twisted around. "You said you didn't do anything to him."

  "I didn't." Reed shrugged nonchalantly. "He realized I was the alpha and backed off."

  "Yeah, right," Val scoffed, squinting at Reed to tell where the lie was. "Did he think you were that sad of an opponent that he let you go?"

  Reed's mouth opened in faked offense. "You don't believe me."

  Val faced him, causing his arm to fall off her shoulders, and her hands landed on her hips, one eyebrow raised.

  Reed's face dissolved into a grin. "Some asshole in the crowd decided to get physical. The guard realized he had more pressing issues than me. And I think he knew I could handle defusing the cat-fight."

  "Actually, I called him off."

  Val winced at her mother's sharp voice. It didn't penetrate through the crowd's jeers because everyone had gone silent. Red and blue lights slid across Reed's suddenly severe face. Val sighed and rotated, keeping Reed at her back.

  The woman marched right through a parting in the masses, leaving several cop cars and sleek black SUVs parked beyond her. "Don't touch her." Marissa Acton was cold, her gaze shooting past her daughter and son. Val peeked, seeing Nor pause with his arms outstretched, preparing to take Sirena down from the automaton.

  "Why?" Nor demanded.

  "That is government property."

  "The hell it is," snarled Katheryn, struggling against the clown. Her efforts were futile against a BSTU-made 'bot. "She's mine. My daughter, my creation."

  Marissa ducked under the barrier and then stood tall, taking them all in. She smiled in a way Val had seen often when she was being scolded, the mistake being turned into an educational lesson or lecture. "She was. However, you have been found unfit of parenting by the federal social services, and it seems you did not file for proper sanctioning with the government to conduct human trials in your study."

  Katheryn stilled. "Yes, we did. I abide by the laws. We got permission to produce a new species years ago before Sirena was conceived. I have the notification up in my office."

  Marissa dipped her chin in acknowledgment. "Yes, I uncovered that approval notice. However, your study did not seek appropriate consideration for the modification of an existing human subje
ct. Let alone the involvement of your daughter's DNA or that of a government official."

  There were several gasps. "No— I... She did that to herself! It was her idea. She chose to do it. It was voluntary." Katheryn was becoming incredibly disheveled and crazed.

  Val's mom tilted her head to the side. "Do you have a consent form? I would be happy to reconsider if you can provide a copy."

  "No," Katheryn wailed. "You can't do this! I upheld all the rules! I have been a devoted scientist."

  "And a terrible mother," Marissa condemned, finally dropping her cold official demeanor to let a snarl sneak onto her visage.

  Val's grin felt as wide as the clown's. "You figured it out." Her mother was more impressive than she'd thought. "My plan."

  "Of course. Unlike some, I know my daughter. You thought I was going to abandon you here?" Marissa shook her head. "Again, I'm not like her." She jerked the crown of her head at the former Professor Katheryn Tate who was limp, supported by the automaton. "Family first and foremost. And besides, Jennifer Tate wrote me a note before she died."

  Epilogue

  Reed was almost sad to get back indoors.

  He'd rather enjoyed that Val had inched closer and closer to him for heat. He doubted she'd even noticed it consciously. Subconsciously, she'd appreciated him being there.

  He grinned to himself again, tipping back in his chair, arms settled comfortably on his stomach, reminiscing the kiss. She had definitely appreciated that, no matter how much she was pretending it never happened.

  They were in a new conference room in a different building, away from the explosion and the mob outside, secluded in the center of campus. The interior looked more or less the same as the previous room. And the attendees of the last meeting were seated more-or-less in a similar orientation.

  The difference this time was that Sirena was next to Nor, with Val next to Reed, leaving Ace, Henley, Bromley and Reed's father in the middle. Seated across from Reed at the other head of the table was Mrs. Acton, to whom he had been introduced by Nor and received a somewhat hostile glare—he didn't know why; she hadn't witnessed the kiss he planted on her daughter, nor what scenes tended to play in his head.