by Jade Kerrion
In less than a heartbeat, Galahad won; its perfectly sequenced attack executed with precision and speed.
Gritting her teeth against the pain, she cursed the inevitable outcome as it eased the dagger from between her fingers, but it pulled her to her feet, released her, and stepped away from her.
Wide-eyed, she stared at it. Her lips parted but no sound emerged.
An emotion she could not decipher rippled over its flawless features. It flipped the dagger over in its hand and held it out, hilt first, to her. “I don’t know why I’m fighting you. You came to kill me; I should thank you for your kindness.”
Her body moving on auto-pilot, she reached out and accepted the dagger as her mind scrambled to make sense of the situation. Galahad held her gaze for only a moment before it lowered its eyes and looked away. Its throat worked as it fought an internal battle to suppress its survival instincts, before turning its back on her and walking out of the bathroom.
She could have struck the fatal blow. Galahad was offering her the chance. She could pull Galahad’s head back and apply the faintest pressure to the dagger’s blade across its jugular. She could extract the tissue sample she had been sent to collect, and then leave, her mission completed.
Too easy.
She stared down at her dagger—the dagger he had returned to her.
Too difficult.
She could not bring herself to kill Galahad. Something in her wanted it—wanted him—to live.
“Zara?” Xin asked quietly, her tone concerned.
“I’m all right,” she said. “Give me a minute.” She watched him make his way toward the wide windows. He kept his back to her as he stared out at the manicured lawns around Pioneer Labs. Was he waiting for her to strike?
She could play the waiting game too. She followed him and turned to lean against the window as she looked up at him, her gaze coolly challenging.
Several moments passed.
“Who sent you?” He broke the silence but did not look at her.
She had expected the question, but not the calm, neutral tone in which it was asked. No anger. No hatred. No fear. Just a simple question, driven more by politeness than by any real need to know. “Does it matter?”
He released his breath in a soft sigh and tried another question. “Are you from around here?”
“Washington, D.C.”
“I’ve seen media clips of that city. It’s beautiful.”
She offered a shrug in response to his statement. “It’s pretty enough, I suppose. I take it you’ve never been there.”
“I don’t get out much, and the last time was a good while ago.” He too shrugged, a graceful motion that belied the bitterness in his voice. “I’ve seen media clips endorsed by Purest Humanity and other pro-humanist groups. There is no place for me in your world.”
It was pointless to deny the obvious, but before she could open her mouth to toss out a retort, an animal-like cry resonated through the complex. The sound started at a low pitch, like the whimper of a lost puppy and rose until it was a banshee’s scream. “What was that?”
“It’s an experiment in another part of the building.”
“It doesn’t sound like anything I recognize. What is it?”
He tossed her question back at her: “Does it matter?”
“Not if you don’t care.”
“It’s been going on for as long as I can remember.”
His matter-of-fact tone made her grind her teeth. “And you feel nothing? No anger? No pity? You’re inhuman.”
“I thought you’d already decided that,” was his mild rejoinder. “Isn’t that why the pro-humanist groups want me killed?”
She hesitated. Somewhere along the way—she was not even sure when—she had stopped thinking of Galahad as an “it” and had started relating to it as a “he”. She had attributed to him all the responsibilities of being human, but none of its rights or privileges, in effect placing him in the worst possible no-win situation. She recalled his convulsions in the sensory deprivation chamber. How much pity did she expect him to dredge up for another creature in a position no different from his own? Very little. In fact, none at all.
She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. The anger subsided. “Do they conduct experiments on you too?” she asked.
He stiffened. Without meeting her gaze, he answered the question, choosing his words with care. “I…yes, they do, sometimes.”
“What did they do to you today?”
Galahad averted his gaze. He shook his head, said nothing.
“You looked like hell when they brought you back. I want to know, please.”
He was silent for so long she thought he was never going to answer the question, but he finally spoke in a measured tone. “They gave me a highly concentrated sleeping pill and then injected a hallucinogen, to induce nightmares. They wanted to see if I could overcome the effects of the sleeping pill to wake up.”
“Did you?’
Another long pause. His reply was an anguished whisper. “No.”
“How long did the experiment last?”
“About eight hours, perhaps nine.” He laughed, low and melodic, but it was a humorless sound. “I slept all day, and I’m exhausted.”
“Why do they do that?”
“It’s simple; because they can. Humans and their derivatives, the clones and in vitros, have rights. I’m considered non-human, in large part because of the successful lobbying of pro-humanist groups, and I don’t have rights.” Galahad released his breath in a soft sigh. Long eyelashes closed over pain-filled orbs as he inhaled deeply. He opened his eyes and met her gaze directly, holding it for a long, silent moment. The corner of his lips tugged up again in a bittersweet half smile. “I’m tired. I need to lie down. You can do what you need to do whenever you want.”
“Wait!” She grabbed his arm as he turned away from her. “You want me to kill you?”
“Isn’t that what you came to do?”
“Do you actually want to die?”
He waved his hand to encompass the breadth and width of the impersonal room. “I’m not sure this should count as living.”
“But you’re not human.”
“No,” he agreed, his voice even. “No, but I am alive…just like any other human. This isolation drives me crazy. I know this is not the way others live. This isn’t living.”
He looked away. His pain was real, his anger compelling. In spite of it, she had seen him smile a few times and wondered whether his twisted half-smile could ever be coaxed into becoming something more.
Galahad turned his back on her and walked to his rattan chair. He seemed tired, emotional weariness draining his physical strength. He settled into the chair, drawing his legs up beneath him. He had chosen to ignore her, tuning her out and finding solace in the few things he had left—a worn chair and his own company—trying to get through each cheerless day and lonely night.
Outside, a rabbit, safe from predators in the falling dusk, emerged from its burrow and hopped across the small patch of grass in front of the large windows of the suite. A faint smile touched his face, transforming it. His personality seemed wrapped around a core that was equal parts weary indifference and controlled bitterness, but there was still enough left in him to savor the small crumbs that life threw his way. If his quiet strength had amazed her, his enduring courage humbled her. He had won the battle he had wanted, so badly, to lose. He had proved his right to live, even though there was no purpose in living in a place like this. He knew that fact intimately, and so did she.
“Zara, we’ve got trouble.” Carlos’s voice cut through the silence of her thoughts, his habitual calmness edged with tension. “Lots of vehicles incoming. Purest Humanity logos. Could be a protest forming; they look seriously pissed.”
Scowling, she took a few steps away from Galahad. “They’re about two days too early. They’ve been gathering on Christmas Eve each year.”
“Well, looks like someone had a change of plans. I’m estimating a
bout forty…fifty cars, at least twice as many people.”
“They won’t get through the gate,” Xin said. “It was designed to keep out APCs.”
“Uh…The gate just opened…Por dios…They’re driving in!”
“What?”
“No kidding, I swear to God.” The tension in Carlos’s voice escalated. “Someone must be screwing around with the security system.”
Zara suppressed a hiss of irritation. “Find that person, Xin, and disable his access. I don’t want to have to fight my way out of here.”
“I’m on it, but I can’t guarantee they won’t get to you. If they’re already through the gate, they’ll be pounding on the front door in seconds. You don’t have time; get moving. And Zara, if you don’t take Galahad with you, he’s as good as dead.”
Zara’s mind raced through the options available to her, the possibilities. She shrugged, dismissing the many logical reasons why she should not do what she was about to do. “He’s coming with me. I’ll get us out of the building. Carlos, stand by for an extraction.”
“Copy that.”
She looked at Galahad. “You need to change into something else.” The thin cotton tunic and pants he wore would not provide sufficient protection from the chilly night air. Besides, his clothes looked like something issued to long-term residents of mental hospitals. Something with fewer negative institutional implications would work better at keeping him as inconspicuous as possible.
He blinked in surprise, her voice jerking him back to reality. “There is nothing else to wear,” he said. He released his breath in a soft sigh, his gaze drifting away from her to the rabbit outside the window.
Nothing else? A quick search of the suite confirmed his words. The only pieces of clothing in the suite’s large and mostly empty walk-in closet were several pieces of identical white cotton tunics and pants, a subtle but effective dehumanizing strategy. “We’re leaving anyway,” she told him as she returned into the living area of the suite. “Get up. We’re going.”
He stared at her in bewilderment. “Going?”
Zara reminded herself to be patient with him. “I’m getting you out of here.”
A glimmer of understanding tinged with wary hope swirled through the confusion in his sin-black eyes, but he still did not move from the chair. “I thought you came to kill me.”
Not precisely, but perhaps it was not a bad thing if he kept believing it, especially if it would make him more tractable. Things were complicated enough; an uncooperative captive would heighten the stakes and the danger of their situation. “I’ve changed my mind.”
“Changed your mind?”
“It’s a woman’s prerogative,” she said. A smile curved her lips and her tone softened. As huge as this step was for her, it must seem even larger for him. “I want to help you. Will you come with me?”
He met her gaze, held it for a long moment, and smiled. “Yes.”
The simplicity of his answer staggered her, to say nothing of the heart-stopping power of his smile. “You trust me,” she said, “but you don’t even know my name.”
“It would be ungracious not to trust someone who has already passed up on several opportunities to kill me.” He uncurled from his chair and stood. His manners were at least as exquisite as his looks. He made no mention of the fact that he had beaten her in a fair fight and then refused to follow up on his advantage.
Maybe he considered it irrelevant. The important point was that she did not. The fight she had lost had, after all, been the critical turning point. She smiled up at him. His dark, fathomless eyes did not seem nearly as distant and empty as they had several minutes earlier. “I’m Zara Itani.”
The warmth from his smile lit his eyes. “Zara, I’m Galahad.”
CHAPTER TWO
Pete had seen a great deal in his fifteen years of employment with Pioneer Laboratories, the leading genetics research institute in the country, but nothing like this. Each year, right before Christmas, an irate crowd assembled at Pioneer Labs. Never mind that nearly two and a half decades had passed since Galahad’s birth on that quiet Christmas Eve, the crowd still gathered as if its united voice would make a difference in the inevitable march of civilization toward increasingly sophisticated levels of genetic selection.
This year though, it was different. The crowd was larger, more vocal, and armed. Leading them was a man known to most of the long-time employees of Pioneer Labs.
Jack watched from behind the security desk. “Should we call the professor? Let him know his son is here?”
Pete chewed on his lower lip. Outside, Jason Rakehell stirred the crowd into a frenzy with a brilliant, though prejudiced, rhetoric against in vitros, clones, and most especially Galahad. Jason denounced his father, accused Roland Rakehell of playing God, of devaluing humanity, and stopped just short of declaring that his father was Satan’s henchman.
Pete exchanged a worried look with Hank, who was in charge of the security detail for the night. They had not planned for this situation. The crowds, year after year, had gathered on Christmas Eve itself, and Pioneer Labs had planned for that occasion. Additional security teams had been hired, and the police force and other emergency personnel had been notified.
Two days before Christmas Eve however, only the standard security detail stood against a furious crowd of pro-humanists gathered at the front door. “How did they even get through the gates?”
“Apparently it opened for them,” Larry, another security guard, said. His fingers tapped a rapid rhythm over the computer keyboard. “Someone’s overriding our central security system. Nothing’s responding to me. I can’t lower the blast doors over the entrance.” He looked up, and his eyes widened as he scanned the crowd. “I’m calling the cops.” He picked up the phone but slammed the receiver down when he realized that the line was dead. He reached for his cell phone instead.
Pete listened to the first few moments of Larry’s frantic communication with the 911 operator before he turned back to Hank. “Is everyone else out of the building?” He peered over Hank’s shoulder as the guard reviewed the personnel list.
“Just about,” Hank confirmed. “Sherry Williams is still here, but everyone else is gone for the day.”
“Sherry Williams?” Pete echoed. He knew almost everyone in Pioneer Laboratories, but he did not recognize that name. “Who’s she—” The bright flare of a flame-thrower yanked his attention toward the glass doors that kept out the crowd.
Jason Rakehell turned to look at them. With a sneer of his lip and a wave of his hand, he unleashed the madness of the mob upon the translucent piece of glass separating those who would tear down humanity from those who would protect it.
“Oh, shit!” Pete stumbled back. The glass door shattered into a million fragments that glittered like icicles on the tiles. He turned and ran down the corridors leading into the heart of the laboratory. Panic dried his throat. He could hardly breathe for the near-certainty of death pursuing him.
“Stand your ground!” Hank ordered his four security guards as he whipped out his pistol. He managed to get off two or three shots before the mob reached him and pulled him down. He screamed once more, his voice ending in a gurgle of pain as his head was smashed into the floor.
What to do…oh, God…What to do? Save Galahad. Seal off the eastern wing. Too much to do, and in opposite directions. “Go get Galahad,” Pete threw the terse order over his shoulder at Jack, who raced behind him, pale-faced and wide-eyed with fear. “I’ll manually seal the eastern wing.”
The younger man nodded, skidding on the polished tiles as he darted down a side corridor that would take him to the western wing. Pete did not stop to watch if Jack obeyed him. Time, he realized, as he heard the roar of the mob closing in on him, was a luxury he did not have anymore.
~*~
Zara and Galahad had just stepped out of the suite when a sharp, rattling sound echoed through the corridors. Galahad jerked to a stop, his head angled. “What is that?”
Damn it;
she would have brought her guns if she had known that she would have to fight her way out of Pioneer Labs. “It’s small-arms fire.” Zara pulled a dagger from its sheath hidden in her right boot and handed it hilt first to Galahad. “Sounds like they’ve broken through the front door. Xin, I need alternate directions out of here.”
The calm female voice responded in her ear: “There’s no exit from the wing itself. You’ll have to get back to the main corridor and then head south. Look for the kitchen; it’ll be on your right, about halfway down the corridor. There’s an exit on the far left of that room that will take you around the back of the building.”
“All right. Carlos, you got that?”
“Si, I’ll bring the car around the back. That should be easy now that there’s no longer a traffic jam trying to get into Pioneer Labs.”
Zara shrugged off the white lab coat and lifted the hem of her skirt to reveal slim legs. She pulled another dagger from the sheath strapped to her inner thigh. “Let’s move.” She sprinted toward the large doors separating the western wing from the rest of Pioneer Laboratories.
The doors slid apart as the pair neared, and the young lab technician—Jack—stumbled through. His panicked gaze flashed by her and locked on Galahad. If Jack was at all shocked at how Galahad had managed to get out of the suite, he got past it quickly. “We’re…we’ve got to get out. The pro-humanists—”
“This way.” She pushed past Jack. The sound of the approaching mob had escalated from a low murmur to a roar. Heavy feet pounded down the corridor toward them, and a man, armed with a crowbar, charged around the corner. Prepared for him, she ducked beneath his raised arm to slide the dagger with merciless precision between his ribs and into his heart. The crowbar fell, slipping from his fingers into her waiting grasp. A simple push sent the man to the ground.
His sightless eyes stared up at the ceiling.
Jack stared at her as if she had sprouted an extra head.
“South. To the kitchen,” she said.
The lab technician blinked hard and then nodded. He scurried down the corridor. Zara and Galahad turned to follow, but harsh voices screaming curses against non-humans confirmed that the man’s companions were not far behind.