by Greg Cox
She offered Oliver her hand, which he grabbed on to with unexpected force. Ouch, Roberta winced as the motor-mouthed little terror squeezed her hand harder than a two-hundred-pound quarterback with something to prove. Must be that genetically enhanced muscular development, she deduced. Lucky me.
“Givemeyourpen!” he demanded, bouncing up and down at the end of Roberta’s arm. She tried to pull her hand free, but Oliver held on to it like a vise. He started grabbing at her other arm, trying to snatch the servo away. “Giveittome! Giveme! Giveme!”
“Oliver! Stop it! Let go of me!” The excited child tightened his grip, squeezing her trapped hand so tightly that she could feel the bones grinding together. For the first time, she realized she was in actual physical danger from the berserk supertyke. Oliver kicked her savagely in the shin, staggering her, but she still couldn’t bring herself to [182] strike back at the little boy. It’s not his fault, she thought, torn between panic and compassion. He’s emotionally disturbed!
She held the servo above her head, out of Oliver’s reach. The tip of the weapon pointed uselessly at the ceiling, but, ignoring the pressure crushing her other hand, she struggled to turn the servo around with her fingers, a test of digital dexterity she could have gladly done without. If I can just do this, she thought desperately, without dropping the darn thing or zapping myself by mistake ... !
Then Oliver jumped for her upraised arm, sinking his teeth into her biceps. Roberta cried out in pain, feeling his jaws bite down on her even through the fabric of her lab coat, and the servo flew from her fingers, landed several feet away among a gang of children, who instantly started fighting each other for possession of the shiny silver prize. “No, no, no!” Oliver shouted, letting go of Roberta to chase after the escaped servo. Roberta yanked her injured left hand back, shaking it hard to restore the circulation to her fingers. Nothing felt permanently broken, but it had been a close call. She looked quickly for Isis, half-wondering why the combative feline had not come to her defense. Then she saw that Isis had another crisis to deal with: taking advantage of Roberta’s predicament, Eygor had lowered his hands to reach for a button beneath his desk. Isis sprang at the slouching man like a miniature panther, but she was too late. An alarm sounded and a metal grille descended from the ceiling, sealing off the exit.
Trapped! Roberta stared bleakly at the riot of thrashing children that had swallowed up the servo, along with her ability to transport herself and Isis to safety. High-pitched screams and angry yelling joined with the blaring alarm to produce a nearly unbearable volume of noise that just made it harder to think clearly. She approached the kicking and clawing children warily, uncertain of how to safely separate the kids, let alone retrieve her servo. She glanced at the only other adult present, the hunched, pop-eyed attendant, hoping he might intervene to halt the violence, only to see him gaping at the ceiling with an apprehensive expression on his homely face.
Her gaze followed his upward where she was shocked to spy tendrils of thick white gas pouring into the classroom from vents in the [183] ceiling. This is not good, she thought, instinctively taking a deep breath and holding it. Alas, her quick reflex bought her only enough time to wonder whether every chamber in Chrysalis came equipped with knockout gas, for reasons of internal security, or if this was just an emergency measure installed just in case the Developmentally Deviant kids got out of control.
If nothing else, the gas attack served to quiet the brutal skirmish that had broken out over possession of the servo. Trying hard not to breathe, Roberta watched as, one by one, the brawling children, along with the rest of their behaviorally impaired classmates, succumbed to the narcotic effect of the billowing white fumes. She couldn’t help noticing how angelic, how touchingly normal, Chrysalis’s misfit children looked when they slept.
She rushed forward, gently pulling the children’s collapsed bodies off each other as she searched frantically for her servo. The kids’ inert forms were dead weight, which left her struggling against gravity as well as time. If I can just find it in time, she thought desperately, I can still ’port us out of here!
But such furious exertion only used up her last breath faster. Cheeks bulging with exhaled carbon dioxide, she caught one brief, frustrating glimpse of metallic silver, poking out from beneath a pile of slumbering toddlers, before she burst out gasping, sucking in lungfuls of tainted air that sent her head spinning and turned her legs into overcooked spaghetti. She tried to focus her increasingly fuzzy vision, which fell helplessly upon an indistinct black blur atop the attendant’s desk.
Isis was already out cold by the time Roberta’s world went completely dark.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“YOU KNOW, WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT, she caused more confusion than actual harm.” Walter Takagi tugged uncomfortably on the collar of his T-shirt as he and Dr. Kaur contemplated the gassed form of the woman he knew as Dr. Veronica Neary, prostrate upon the padded floor of the Developmental Deviations Unit. All around them, teams of security guards and child-care specialists tended to the unfortunate children who, with their caretaker, had been gassed along with Ronnie. Like these poor, defective kids didn’t have enough problems, he thought sourly. “Ultimately, the project was only compromised, not irreparably damaged.”
“That’s small comfort, Walter,” Kaur said soberly. The director of Chrysalis watched the unconscious children being carted away to the infirmary, a discontented expression upon her refined features. “After years of secrecy and meticulous preparation, we have now been infiltrated by two spies in nearly as many days, one of whom we actively welcomed into our ranks.” A slippered foot tapped impatiently against the floor, hinting at the degree of anxiety at work behind Kaur’s composed exterior. “A most unsettling turn of affairs.”
Takagi gulped nervously. He had heard rumors about what happened to those who violated Chrysalis’s acute code of secrecy Like that American, Singer, who disappeared without explanation while I was in Rome, he remembered. Nobody even mentions him anymore.
“I take full responsibility,” he offered, secretly hoping that his willingness to own up to his mistake would count in his favor, perhaps [185] mitigating whatever harsh disciplinary action Kaur had in mind. “She fooled me completely.”
“So it seems,” Kaur agreed. Takagi waited for the axe to fall, resolving to face his punishment with as much dignity as he could muster. Grisly visions of seppuku, lifted mostly from old samurai movies he saw as a kid, slashed their way across his imagination. To his surprise, however, Kaur merely sighed and gave him a thin, rueful smile. “Unfortunately, Dr. Lozinak and I were equally taken in. Nor can you be blamed for the unwelcome advent of Mr. Seven. Clearly, our essential security was breached at some earlier point, perhaps via our New York operation.” She scowled thoughtfully. “I think it best that we declare a moratorium on recruiting new talent into Chrysalis until we get to the bottom of these incursions, and perhaps beyond.”
“Absolutely!” Takagi responded hastily. An overwhelming sense of relief coursed through his body, rendering him almost light-headed. Looks like I’m not dead meat after all! “That’s a very good idea, of course.”
About a meter away, the guards hefted the last of the imperfect children off the floor. A glint of silver caught his eye, and he recognized the slim, metallic pen that Ronnie had used to put Dr. Lozinak to sleep. Judging from the alert expression that suddenly leaped into Kaur’s eyes, she had spotted the suspicious device as well.
Without waiting for one of her bodyguards to retrieve the disguised weapon, she pounced on the pen herself. Lifting it from the floor, where it had lain hidden beneath the bodies of the narcotized toddlers, she held it up to the light, inspecting it carefully from every direction. “Of course,” she murmured intensely, her eyes narrowing in anger, “I knew there had to be a connection.”
Before Takagi’s baffled eyes, she fished an identical pen out of the pocket of her lab coat. She held them side by side in front of her, then collected them both in her fist a
nd forcefully thrust them both back into her pocket. “It appears that Mr. Seven and Dr. Neary, or whatever their real names are, are supplied by the same unknown agency,” she explained curtly.
Takagi was tempted to ask for more details, but decided, upon rapid consideration, not to push his luck. Best to keep a low profile for a while, [186] he resolved, as much as he was dying to find out more about who this Gary Seven character was, until this whole fiasco has time to fade in people’s memories. Assuming it ever does. Times like this, he couldn’t help wondering if he wouldn’t have been better off sticking with his comfortable teaching gig in Osaka.
Sprawled upon the cushioned and graffiti-covered floor of the DDU, Ronnie stirred fitfully, coughing hoarsely before dropping back into drug-induced slumber. Despite everything, Takagi was glad to see that she was recovering from the potent anesthetic gas used to subdue her. Kaur nodded at her personal bodyguards, and the two Sikhs took hold of Ronnie by her wrists and ankles, lifting her from the floor. “What would you have done with her?” the senior guard inquired.
Kaur stared at Ronnie as she would at a particularly virulent strain of bacteria. “Put her in with her partner,” she said harshly. “I’ll deal with them both soon enough.”
Another guard, a survivor of the recently overthrown right-wing regime in Portugal, lifted a limp clump of glossy black fur off the caretaker’s desk. “What about the cat?” he asked brusquely
“I couldn’t care less about the blasted cat,” Kaur snapped, her patience clearly nearing its limits. Exasperated, she clenched her fists and unleashed some of her pent-up frustration on the unlucky guard. “Adopt it. Eat it. Dissect it. Do whatever you wish with the miserable creature.”
Takagi couldn’t help recalling Ronnie’s final words to him, seconds before she fled the scene of her ill-fated confrontation with Dr. Lozinak. “If anything happens to me, make sure my cat is okay.” Experiencing distinctly mixed feelings, he watched Kaur’s guards carry Ronnie’s supine body out of the depressing confines of the DDU. He took a deep breath, knowing he was going to regret this, and stepped forward. “I’ll take the cat,” he said.
“Is that so?” Kaur fixed a quizzical gaze on Takagi, looking like she wasn’t sure whether to be amused or annoyed. “And what in the world are you going to do with it, Walter?”
Takagi squirmed beneath the director’s radioactive surveillance. He could feel himself losing every bit of credibility that he had somehow, [187] miraculously, managed to hang on to. “Um, I thought maybe I’d donate the cat to the kids in Lot Epsilon.” Kaur continued to regard him dubiously, and Takagi groped for a plausible rationale. “They were quite taken with the animal earlier today, when, er, ‘Dr. Neary’ and I dropped in on the class. Noon seemed particularly fond of it.”
“Noon? Really?” Just as he’d prayed, Kaur’s forbidding attitude appeared to soften fractionally at the mention of her brilliant and multi-talented progeny. She shrugged and nodded to the Portuguese guard. “Fine. Give the cat to the children.” A trace of venom crept back into her voice. “The duplicitous Dr. Neary might as well make some small contribution to the project, despite her best efforts to betray us.”
Takagi gratefully took the flaccid, inanimate pet from the smirking guard, then scurried out of the classroom before Dr. Kaur had a chance to change her mind.
I hope Ronnie appreciates this, he thought peevishly. Whatever happens to her.
Squawks, chirps, barks, and yelps roused Roberta from a drugged, dreamless sleep. At first, she thought it was just Isis, being a pest as usual. “Go away, you stupid cat,” she muttered, trying to brush away the nonexistent feline. Slowly she realized, however, that not even Isis could sound like an entire menagerie. Uh-oh, she thought, a more discouraging scenario presenting itself to her mind.
With considerable effort, she forced her eyes open, only to find herself lying upon a bed of straw, one cheek pressed against the dry fibers. The light immediately hurt her eyes and set her head throbbing. I feel hung over, she realized, but how come? She didn’t remember drinking to excess, or even drinking anything at all. Oh yeah, the gas, she recalled. Unpleasant flashbacks to the shocking injustice of the Developmental Deviations Unit, and of the noxious white fumes filling her lungs, flooded Roberta’s memory, bringing her more or less up to speed, or at least until her present rude awakening.
Her first attempt to sit up was a complete flop. The minute she lifted her head from the straw, a wave of dizziness hit her and she had to retreat back to a horizontal position. Too fast, she concluded [188] groggily, no good. She took it much more slowly the next attempt, gradually rising onto her knees. The dizziness washed over her again, but she was ready for it this time; her head reeling, she closed her eyes and waited for the queasiness to pass.
All right, she thought, after a few rocky moments. That’s better. Cautiously, she opened her eyes again, confirming what she already suspected: she was back with Gary Seven and the lab animals again, but this time on the wrong side of the prison bars.
In fact, she was stuck in the same cage as Seven, who, to her dismay, looked exactly as she’d last seen him. He hung, silent and all but lifeless, from the handcuffs that shackled his raw, reddened wrists to the bars of the cage. A single guard, posted outside the cage, watched both prisoners warily, one hand resting upon the grip of his bolstered pistol.
At the moment, Roberta paid little attention to the guard. “Gary?” she addressed her fellow inmate. Despite six years spent saving the world together, she had never felt comfortable calling him by his first name. Sometimes it slipped out, though, especially at moments like this. “Gary? Can you hear me?”
His silence unnerved her. Something was seriously wrong here. She’d seen Seven unconscious before, but seldom for long; as she knew from experience, he had five times more stamina and endurance than your typical twentieth-century human.
Unlike Seven with his cuffs, Roberta was free to move about the cage. Bracing herself against the nausea she experienced whenever she moved too fast, she crawled over to where Seven’s immobile body drooped. Craning her neck so that she could see his face, she tried urgently to bring him back to the world of the living.
“Gary? It’s me, Ro—” She glanced sideways at the watchful guard. “It’s Agent 368. Can you hear me? Are you okay?” She slapped his face gently, then again with enough force to sting. Despite her efforts, Seven’s chin continued to rest upon his chest. His sealed eyelids didn’t so much as flutter. “C’mon, Gary, wake up! Give me a sign you’re still in there.”
Roberta’s heart sank. Seven was more than simply out cold; this was [189] like some sort of trance or coma, and she had no idea how to snap him out of it. Attempting to check his vital signs, she had to strain to detect any pulse or heartbeat at all. The last time I felt a pulse this weak, she recalled, the guy turned out to be Undead.
Not exactly an encouraging sign.
She shot an angry glance at the solitary guard, whose mute indifference to Seven’s wretched state infuriated her. “Don’t just stand there!” she shouted at him. Instinctively, she searched her pockets for her servo, only to find it missing. “I know you have plenty of doctors here. The best in the world, probably. Why don’t you call someone? This man needs medical attention!”
For a moment, she thought her tirade had produced results. Keeping careful watch over Roberta, the uncommunicative guard walked over to a videophone mounted on the wall by the exit. About time, she thought, assuming the sentry was, however belatedly, calling a doctor for Seven.
Such hopes were crushed, though, when the stern, immaculate face of Sarina Kaur appeared upon the video screen. “The woman is awake, Director,” the guard reported gruffly.
“And the man?” Kaur inquired.
The guard shook his head. “Still silent as death.”
Kaur sighed in disappointment. “I see.” Roberta tried not to take it personally as Kaur apparently decided to make do with Roberta instead. “Thank you for informing me, Bhajan. I wi
ll be there shortly.”
No need to hurry on my account, Roberta thought. The formidable director of Chrysalis was no Florence Nightingale, that was for sure. Roberta awaited her next meeting with Kaur with extreme apprehension. Why do I suspect that we’re not going to share a lovely Indian lunch this time around?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“THEY SAY A CAT MAY LOOK ON A KING. Is that why you watch me so attentively?”
Only four years old, young Noon already knew he was destined for greatness. His mother had told him so frequently, and she was the director of the entire project. His genes made him stronger and smarter than ordinary children, and even among his similarly gifted classmates, Noon stood out as someone special. His mother said he had genuine “leadership potential,” and she should know; she had engineered him herself.
No wonder the sleek black cat had gravitated toward him as soon as Dr. Takagi had dropped the animal off at the classroom, explaining that the cat’s owner, Dr. Neary, was currently indisposed and could not look after her pet. Noon had immediately taken custody of the cat, and was now supervising her inspection by the other children, who had lined up to pet the kitty in his arms. “Be gentle. Don’t frighten her,” he admonished an obviously excited little boy named Joaquin, although, to be honest, this cat did not act at all afraid. Instead she purred contentedly, enjoying the attention, as she carefully observed Noon and his playmates. The cat’s unruffled demeanor reminded the well-read toddler of yet another archaic quotation, this one attributed to Montaigne: “When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not a pastime to her more than she is to me?”