That’s what I told myself as I committed to the plan. I shot two square in the head, one after the other. They collapsed to the floor, blood trickling down their pale faces.
The third man cried out in fear and started begging for his life.
“I need you to begin a campus-wide evacuation,” I said.
He stood, shaking his head in shock. I took a step closer, and he flinched.
“Okay, okay, okay,” he babbled as he turned toward the computer and started keying in the codes. A moment later he hit a red circle button in the top corner of his keyboard and stood back to face me. “It’s done.”
“How long does it take?” I asked.
“We’ve never done it before. I don’t—”
I didn’t have time for this. “How long should it take!”
“Ten minutes,” he said.
“What do they do with the prisoners in an evacuation?”
“They put them in lockdown.”
“Can I get in?”
“Not without all the proper codes.”
I thought a moment. “Can you tell me where they’re holding Agent Tom Seeley?”
He swallowed nervously and turned back to the computer. He pulled up an image of the agent stalking back and forth inside a celled room.
“Can you override lockdown protocol on his cell?” I asked.
He nodded and pressed a handful of keys before turning back to me. “It’s unlocked.”
I cocked my gun.
“Please, please,” he begged, tears collecting in his eyes. “I have kids.”
I hesitated.
“I have little kids,” he said.
He deserved to die. Kids or not. His kids hadn’t stopped him from looking on while they tortured and trained me. Or stopped him from saying something when orders came through to destroy the footage. Or when they’d assigned us all to be executed like sick dogs. His kids hadn’t caused him to hesitate then. Why should I?
From the depths, Zoe’s voice, warm and comforting, came to me. “Who do you want to be, Lucy?”
My hand quivered, and a moment later I lowered my weapon. He looked shocked, and for a moment we stood there. My training and instincts told me this was weakness, but the warmth Zoe had awakened in me was more powerful.
“I’m going to burn this place to the ground,” I said. “If you want to see your children again, leave with the others. If you do anything other than walk through this door and head for the exit, I will know. And I will not show mercy twice.”
He nodded and passed me without a second thought. Up until the door shut me into the room alone, I thought to put a bullet in his head. Then he was gone, and I returned to the plan. I searched the screens around me, looking for my prize. I had one last order of business to settle before I could put this place behind me.
Then I saw him. Standing in his office, ignoring the warnings going off around him. Too confident to be troubled.
Time to go see Director Hammon.
THIRTY-NINE
SEELEY HEARD THE bolt to his cell door pop, and he stopped pacing. A moment earlier a calm, female voice had come over the loudspeakers and called for a campus-wide evacuation.
Lucy had done it. He wouldn’t have put money on it, but there he stood, listening to the evidence. And now they were coming to move him. He waited for agents to enter, but when none did after a long moment, he switched his thinking. Maybe she’d given him an escape route. She was in the security control room; everything could be accessed from there.
He moved forward and opened the door. He glanced out and saw the hallway was empty. If he remembered correctly, everything would be on lockdown in their sector, and he wouldn’t be able to access any floors above him. But he didn’t need to go up, he needed to go down.
“They’ll imprison me immediately,” Seeley had told Number Nine while they were working through the plan.
“Yes,” she replied, “but the prison is closer to the generator room.”
It dawned on him what she was thinking before she said it.
“You want to blow up Xerox.”
“Burn it all down,” she said.
“And kill all those people?”
“We’ll get them out first.”
“How?”
“Campus-wide evacuation. If I can get to the security room, I’ll set it in motion.”
“Then what?”
“I’ll get you out and you’ll start a fire, just enough to burn through the generator’s cores, which should ignite a large enough fire to cause a combustible reaction.”
“And you?” he’d asked.
“I’m going to kill my past.”
Seeley stepped back into the present as he moved from his cell and down the empty hall. He slid around the corner and toward the back stairwell. One floor down, he stepped into the basement, a place he’d spent more time in than he cared to remember. He walked the dark hall, his feet echoing against the stone. Overhead, echoing on the main floors, the peaceful female voice continued her loop.
He passed by a stone room and paused. Just a short time ago he’d tortured and killed a man in there for helping Olivia. The reminder of the darkness that lived inside him sent a shiver down his spine. It was enough to make his knees wobble, and he knew he couldn’t linger here or he’d never make it to his destination.
He pressed forward. Passed more cold rooms where terrible acts had been committed in the name of duty. He came to the end of the walkway and crossed through double doors that led to more darkness. The place before him had been used for training the children. A large, empty water tank, moldy from disuse, still sat in the center. A door in the far wall led to a small black space known as the pit. Another shiver ran the length of him as he pressed through.
He came out into a final hallway. The large generator room stood at the end. Along the wall was another door, which led into a supply room where they kept training materials. It was locked, and Seeley began ramming the doorknob with the heel of his boot. Over and over, he whaled on it until it broke free and the door swung inward. He stepped inside, clicked the light, and found the shelves mostly empty. It was as if someone had started to clear it out and done the job about three-fourths of the way.
Seeley rummaged through what was left, looking for anything that would help him ignite a flame. On the back shelf he found a discarded handgun and half a box of bullets. That could work.
He loaded the gun, cocked it, and exited the closet. Down the hallway he opened the door and stepped into the generator room. Five huge black generators were running like a train and powering most of Xerox. Twenty feet tall and at least twelve feet wide, each massive beast roared as it ran like a thundering stampede.
Seeley picked one. He knew he couldn’t penetrate the generators’ outer shell with enough force to cause a fire, so he stepped toward the back and aimed for the electrical wiring that connected the beasts to the walls. Their weakness was there. If he fired enough into the outlets, he could cause friction for an electrical fire, which would spread up the cables and into the machine. One blazing machine would ignite the others until enough heat lit the place up like a rocket launch.
He aimed and fired. Over and over, sending bullets into the wiring until a spark ignited and then a small burst of flame exploded to life. It popped, and the ground under Seeley’s feet shook slightly. It wouldn’t take long, and he needed to clear out.
Keeping the gun ready for use if needed, Seeley left the room behind. Back the way he came, forced to exit through the places that darkened his past and toward the place where he’d been imprisoned. He continued toward the level’s exit. It was locked tight, but a few well-aimed bullets short-circuited the door, and Seeley pushed it open. He went up the elevator to the main floor—completely vacated, a sight he’d never seen before—the female voice now clear and loud, echoing out of the speaker above him.
He needed to find Lucy and get her out before the whole place went up.
I DIDN’T HAVE to use the ventilatio
n system to move toward Director Hammon’s office. The halls were clearing out, and the last few stragglers were paying me no attention. They were all too focused on getting to safety, which was smart since I knew by now Seeley was on his way to start a fire.
I was in the hallway a couple yards from Hammon’s office when I encountered the first armed agent. He was facing away from me, and I snuck up without a sound, wrapped my arm around his throat like a hook, held my hand over his mouth, and squeezed until his body went limp. I laid him on the ground.
Two more stood outside the director’s door, probably to escort him off the campus. I would have taken them out silently, but one of them saw me, so I put a bullet between his eyes just as he was opening his mouth to alert his comrade. The agent fell forward and hit the ground with a smack as I raised my gun to fire on his friend. It clicked empty, so I threw it like a blade, swiping the side of the man’s head and drawing blood.
I rushed him then, using my arm like a stiff rod and knocking him off his feet. He fell directly on his spine, all the air in his lungs bursting out. I dropped to a squat, yanked his fallen comrade’s rifle from the ground, and placed three bullets into his chest before he could get a breath.
I turned, rifle still raised, and kicked in Hammon’s office door. He was hunched over his desk and looked up to reprimand whoever had entered without permission, but he stopped cold at the sight of me.
For a breath we stood there, eyes locked, while that calm female voice called over the speakers for us to evacuate. I stepped into his office, keeping my gun trained on him, and he straightened until he was standing tall, arms at his sides. He didn’t look afraid even though I was pointing a weapon at his heart.
“Number Nine,” he said calmly, “put the weapon down.”
“No,” I said.
“No?” he questioned. He started to move out from behind his desk.
“Don’t move,” I said.
He paused and then huffed in amusement. “So, you’re the one giving orders now.” He continued walking around to the front of his desk.
I thought to shoot him. Put a bullet between his eyes, like I had already done with so many. If anyone deserved it, it was him. The commander of all my pain. But something stopped me. Something deep in my programming made me unable to pull the trigger that rested just against my finger.
“You won’t shoot me, Number Nine,” Hammon said. “You weren’t built to.”
What did he mean by that? Was I not capable of it? I wanted to show him that he was wrong about me. That he didn’t know me at all. I told my finger to pull. To just squeeze the trigger. But my hand remained frozen, and the lack of worry on the director’s face opened a can of worms inside my gut. They slithered free and started to gnaw on the truths that I had been so certain of.
Maybe I couldn’t change as much as I believed.
Were there things about myself that I didn’t have control over?
Would I always be less powerful than those who had created me?
Would I always be a slave to my programming?
Hammon sat back against the front of his desk and crossed his arms. He pointed a single finger up toward the ceiling. “Are you the reason for this evacuation?”
I didn’t reply. The worms were chewing too loudly for me to think straight. What was the point of all this if I couldn’t destroy the things that had imprisoned me?
“What is the move here, Number Nine?” Hammon asked.
“Don’t call me that,” I said.
“We’ve been over this. Number Nine is who you are. It’s what you are. I know. I oversaw every part of your creation.”
“I don’t have to be what you want. I can change.”
“Do you really believe that? Then shoot me,” he said.
Again I told my finger to obey, and again it betrayed me.
“You can’t, Number Nine. Because your training forbids it. In the deepest part of your beliefs, I am your commander, and to kill me would be the worst offense.”
I knew it was true, even as every muscle in my body wanted it to be wrong. I couldn’t break through the wall that had been built around me.
“You are to protect me at all costs. Even to your own detriment,” Hammon said. “In fact, right now you are the threat opposing me. You would be better to take your own life than to take mine.”
The moment he said it, I could feel the urge to follow his orders. The idea sprang up and started to build. He was right. I was a threat, and the rules that gave me life told me to eliminate the threat at all costs.
“You were made here, Number Nine, in these very walls. Grown and fed by the rules and laws I made. You are a tool we created, not a person with free will and choice. You’re not human, Number Nine. You are a weapon. So no matter where you go or what you try to become, you will always be what you were made to be. And I will always own you.”
All the strength I’d built and gathered, all the truth I’d discovered and harnessed, felt like nothing under the weight of what he was saying. He was correct. I would always be what I was born to be. Why was I trying so hard to convince myself otherwise?
“Who do you want to be?”
Zoe’s soft voice floated through my mind like the breeze, and I felt ashamed that I couldn’t live up to all she believed about me.
“You are a threat to me. Eliminate the threat, Number Nine,” Hammon said. “That’s an order.”
I could feel my body itching to respond. Yes, I thought, protect the commander at all costs.
No! another part of me yelled. You are more than he says.
The two voices that had become so familiar in my brain started to argue as I lost my grip on the reason I had come.
“You can choose, sweet girl. You can always choose.” It wasn’t the voice I expected. This time it was Olivia, singing to me from a place beyond the programming.
Yes! the part of me that was brave shouted. Listen to the truth.
The truth is you are Number Nine. Always and forever, the other voice insisted. As though the girl in the blue uniform and the girl in the unicorn T-shirt were in a screaming match.
Olivia’s voice, full of love and peace, cut through, joined by Zoe’s. Both women who loved me sang in unison, “You can always choose, so who do you want to be?”
“That’s an order, Number Nine,” Hammon said, but this time a hint of nervousness was in his voice. He was starting to think maybe he was wrong. And if he could be wrong, then Olivia and Zoe could be right.
“You’re wrong,” I said to the director, “and you know it.”
“I created you, Number Nine—”
“Yes, and you made me human, gave me the ability to love, and hate, and fear, which means I can choose. I’m not just a weapon. I’m a girl.”
“You’re a tool!”
I remembered the sweet love Olivia had given to me. It had changed me already. And then Zoe had loved me, and it had changed me more. And that change was enough to choose now who I was going to be. I was more than a weapon, because I had love. Deep love, the kind that was powerful enough to change the world.
Something snapped deep beyond the surface, and the truth I’d started to believe before sprang up in full force. Love was the power that saved me from my programming. I couldn’t put a name to it until now, but I saw it clearly, and it was overwhelming.
I lowered my weapon slowly. Killing him would give me nothing. He couldn’t take away what had been given to me. The love I had was mine and mine alone. It would be what defined me now. Upon it I would build my foundation, and from it I would change.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw him move. Hammon yanked a handgun from behind him and drew it around to face me. As if the world had slowed, I watched him twitch his finger toward the trigger. I wouldn’t be fast enough to react, and I saw the last moment of my life flash by just as an exploding crack shot through the air by my ear.
A deep thud smacked into Hammon’s chest, then another as he staggered back from the hit and then sidewa
ys. His hand grasped at the place where he’d been hit. He pulled his fingers back and looked down to see they were covered in blood.
Seeley stood behind me, his firearm raised. He was panting and staring the director down. I looked back at Hammon, who stumbled and fell to his side. His body hit the ground, and his eyes went cold.
The entire room fell still for a moment. I stared at the man lying dead on the ground a yard from me, then turned back to face Seeley. He was still looking at his fallen enemy, his arm shaking, chest heaving. Then he ripped his eyes away and looked at me.
He’d saved my life. I thought to thank him, but words fell flat.
The ground rumbled underneath us and nearly knocked me off balance.
“What was that?” I asked.
Seeley strode to the bookshelf behind Hammon’s desk. At his eye level, among decorative items and hardback copies of legal FBI documentation, he opened a small black chest nearly hidden from view. He reached inside and yanked out a thumb drive, tucked it into his pocket, and turned toward me. “We need to go,” he said, making his way back across the room.
I followed him into the hallway, down across the main lobby, and to the right. Another rumble and we started running. I passed him easily and smashed through a side door that led to the east side of the campus. I didn’t stop running until I was under the cover of woods, and I could hear Seeley racing after me the entire time.
Once the leafy canopy covered me from the sun, I slowed and turned to look back at Xerox. I was about to say something when the west side of the campus exploded into a ball of fire. The blowback knocked me off my feet, and I hit the ground as a wave of heat rushed over the top of me. I drew my knees into my chest and covered my head to protect myself from the debris.
When the air stopped vibrating, I untucked my head and pushed up to sitting. Seeley was a few feet away, using a tree for cover and coughing against the smoky sky. He stood, walked to me while dusting the dirt from his pants, and extended his hand to help me stand.
I accepted, and in silence we both looked down upon the place that had defined us for so long. It stood half engulfed in flames, black smoke weaving around the trees, billowing up toward the clouds. It was the death of where we had been.
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