If it wasn’t, he was about to make perhaps the most serious mistake of his life.
The Clarity Held lying bound on the couch was not panicking or projecting fear or anger or uncertainty. It was projecting nothing. As one of its not-so-very-tightly-bound hands started to come around, he squeezed the disruptor’s trigger. Shocked by the shot, the hand’s three middle fingers fired at the ceiling. Three small explosions left a big hole in the roof as the miniature missiles struck. He raised one arm to ward off the dust and fragments of insulation that snowed down on him. Watching the pop-up guns and the spider-settee convulse in the course of their mechanical death throes had been much easier than standing by while sparks and fluid flew from the humanoid figure on the couch.
He approached cautiously and poked the simulacrum’s smoking remnants with the tapered tip of his pistol. The epidermal material gave eerily, like actual flesh, but the illusion was destroyed by the sparking, flaring, failing components within. Ormann was no dummy. If the guns failed, the cabin contained sufficiently murderous backup in the form of the homicidal chair and footstool. If both of them proved unsuccessful, he could rely on the far more stylish and elegant simulacrum of Clarity to fool her would-be rescuer.
Pretty clever, Flinx thought as he moved toward a door at the back of the room, to have the simulacrum deliberately warn him about the chair and thereby put him off his guard. Had Ormann known the truth of Flinx’s talent, he no doubt would have engineered an entirely different ploy.
The locked door gave him no trouble. Inside, he found Clarity gagged and bound on a smaller couch. On the floor nearby was a transparent case within which a young minidrag, its frantically beating wings a blaze of color, was banging and snapping like a gigantic dragonfly. Landing atop the container, Pip began hunting for an opening. Within, her offspring’s iridescent green head tracked her every movement.
Flinx reassured Clarity with calming words. He had no intention of removing his filtering mask until both of them were safely outside. It was hot in the room and she was sweating profusely. Doubtless she had heard the commotion and wondered what was taking place.
Now her eyes widened as he removed her gag. “He didn’t get you.”
“No. He didn’t get me,” Flinx reassured her softly. With a small vibraknife he began to slice through the restraints that bound the rest of her body, starting with her wrists and ankles. “Smarter sentients than William Ormann have tried.”
“I know. But I was still worried.” With his assistance, she sat up on the couch, rubbing her wrists. “He’s gone over the edge, Flinx. Completely lost it—in his quiet, controlled, ice-cold managerial fashion. I told him he wouldn’t be able to hurt you.” Looking up, her eyes bored into his. “I’m not always right, but this time I’m really glad I was.”
“So am I.” Slipping his hands under her arms, he helped her to stand, steadying her while sensation returned to her numbed feet and legs. She was surprised at how strong he had become. Perspiration made it difficult for him to maintain a grip that was firm but not impolite. After a minute or two, he started to release her and step back.
“It’s all right, Flinx. I can manage now.”
He turned to the cage that held Scrap. The seal on the container proved no match for old skills. In a couple of minutes, Scrap was free. The minidrag stretched its wings before taking joyously to the air. Pip pirouetted around him. This aerial ballet continued for a couple of minutes before both flying snakes settled back to the ground, their upper bodies entwining affectionately as they folded their blue-and-pink wings flat against their diamond-patterned sides.
Still walking tentatively, Clarity started toward the outer room. Flinx hastily put a supportive arm around her back.
“Thirsty,” she told him. “Water would be nice.”
Leaving her, he advanced into the kitchen. Taking a glass from a cabinet, he filled it from the sink, but not until he had first checked the water with the analyzer he always carried with him. There was, it insisted primly, nothing in the glass but plain old dihydrogen oxide.
Taking the glass, she held it in both hands and drank greedily. Pushing past him, she refilled it. Only when she had drained the contents a second time was she able to flash Flinx the familiar smile of which he had grown so fond.
“Better.”
He gestured toward the open front door. “I’ve got an aircar outside. Can you make it?”
“To get out of this place I’d crawl through mud and refuse.” She glanced around at the deceptively simple surroundings. “Funny. I used to like this place. But then, I used to like Bill.” Starting forward, she noticed that Flinx was hesitating. “Was there something else?”
“I . . .” With a suddenly unsteady hand, he reached up and felt his mask, but the filter was still in place, still sealed against his face. Nothing could get through to him. “Feel strange, all of a sudden.” He took a step backward. Alarmed, she moved toward him.
“Flinx? Flinx, what’s wrong? You feel all right?”
“I feel fine.” Anxiously, she looked all around the room. She could smell, hear, sense nothing out of the ordinary. The front door was open and fresh air was pouring in. What was the matter?
Stumbling again, he managed to sit on the couch at the foot of the simulacrum he had destroyed. He was blinking frequently now and occasionally shaking his head as if trying to clear it. “What’s wrong?” she asked him.
“I don’t know,” he mumbled, his words slurred. “Feel funny. Can’t be gas. Don’t—understand.”
Pip and Scrap rejoined their masters, Pip crawling into her master’s lap while apprehensively fluttering her wings. As Flinx started to pass out, Clarity rushed forward to catch him. But he was too heavy for her, and she was forced to ease him down against the back of the couch.
“Flinx. Flinx! Tell me what’s happening! I can’t do anything if I don’t know what’s happening!”
“How about we tell you?” As she spun around, both flying snakes attacked. The emotions projected by the newcomers were ripe with enmity.
Minidrag venom creased the air. But the three men and one woman who had entered the cabin were clad in full environment suits. The minidrags’ poison was ineffective against clothing intended to allow the wearer to function safely in interstellar space.
Fine mesh nets of tough fiber composite ballooned from specialized rifles. Their wings entangled, fluttering futilely, they soon found themselves pinned to the floor.
Two of the men gathered up the frantic, thrashing creatures. They proceeded carefully despite the safety of their suits, and placed both flying snakes in the container that had held Scrap. Another man walked over to confront Clarity. The dumpy, middle-aged woman moved to check on the unconscious Flinx.
“He’s out good for now,” she reported. “Ormann wasn’t sure precisely how long the effect would last.”
Clarity could do little more than stare as she once again found her arms being bound behind her.
“Bill—again. Always Bill.” The flying snakes safely secured in Scrap’s box, the four slipped their protective hoods off.
The men moved to help the woman truss Flinx with the same thin, unbreakable plastic strips they had used on Clarity. Then they removed Flinx’s mask and replaced it with a blindfold and gag. Finally, the hood from another environment suit was placed over his head and locked down, together with its accompanying rebreather unit. When the intruders finally stepped back, their subject had not only been rendered immobile but also blind and speechless.
Hypnotism, Clarity thought. Bill still thinks Flinx influences people through some form of hypnotism. She knew that binding, blinding, and gagging him would have no effect on his ability to reach out and affect the emotions of those around him. Of course, he could do nothing while unconscious. When he awoke, his ability would allow him to view those nearby without the need to actually see them. Everything was going to be all right.
Provided, she thought worriedly, their captors didn’t shoot them or throw
them over one of the many nearby cliffs. She had no idea how much time remained to them. In the interim it might be useful to know what had happened. So she asked.
The woman exchanged a glance with one of the men. “I don’t see any harm in telling her. Ormann didn’t say anything about keeping quiet.” She smiled humorlessly. “Knowing him, I think he’d want her to know.”
The man shrugged. “Your call, Meru.”
“In case you’ve forgotten, though your boyfriend may hold an important managerial position within your company now, he was originally trained as a gengineer like you. He still knows how to work a lab.” She grinned. “Pretty clever, your boyfriend.”
“He’s not my boyfriend anymore,” Clarity muttered.
“You mean you’re not enjoying this little drama he whipped up for you? Did you think he was going to rely on mechanicals and deceptions to ensure that a job like this got done? He’s been busy, your boyfriend has.” The woman turned momentarily reflective. “Shows sufficiently shrewd thinking to get a job in my line of work. But he hired me and the guys to wrap things up. After you took care of your friend first, of course.” Her expression was a mask of professional indifference as she studied Flinx. “Nice looking. Too bad.”
Confusion swept over Clarity like an ill wind. “After I took care of him? I don’t understand what you mean. I didn’t do anything.”
“Oh, but you did, sweetie.” Grinning, the older woman ran a gloved finger deliberately along Clarity’s bare upper arm. Clarity flinched at a touch that carried with it a hint of something other than professionalism. “Though he doesn’t know exactly how your boyfriend does it, Ormann warned us not to get anywhere near him unless he was already unconscious. He had to find a way to make that happen, and he did. Ingeniously, if I do say so, and with your help.”
“But I didn’t do anything,” a bewildered Clarity repeated.
The woman continued to trace idle patterns on Clarity’s bare skin. Observing this, one of her companions shook his head knowingly as he finished his own work.
“Oh, but you did, sweetie. Passively, but you did. Since you were so busy with your boyfriend here, our Mr. Ormann had a lot of free time. Instead of fuming about the situation, he spent it in one of your company’s labs, gengineering the modified molecular structure of an illegal but well-known and widely available epidural narcotizing agent. We were told to avoid contact with it at all costs. Absorbed through the skin, it’s supposed to put even a healthy professional athlete under for four to eight hours.”
Four hours, Clarity thought apprehensively. Would they leave Flinx alive long enough to regain consciousness and bring his singular talent to bear? Aloud, she said, “I didn’t put anything like that on him. I haven’t touched him.”
“I believe you. But sweetie, he’s touched you.”
Of course he had. To sit her up on the couch. To remove her bindings. To help her stand. Which meant, the chemical responsible had to be somewhere on her. “Why am I still conscious?”
“I told you: Mr. Ormann gengineered the stuff. Did some rearranging of the molecular structure.” Her grin returned. “Made the delivery vector site specific, you might say.” Again the finger pressed against Clarity’s exposed skin, only this time not across her arm. “You’re the only one in this room who the agent won’t knock out. Why do you think the back room where you were being held was kept so hot?” She peered eagerly into the captive’s face, lapping up the hurt and confusion she found there.
To make me sweat, Clarity realized. The dynamic agent that had drugged Flinx had been on her skin all along. Her perspiration had activated it and provided a vector. Driven by his cancerous obsession, Bill Ormann had overlooked nothing.
Regrettably, Flinx hadn’t worn gloves.
The heavy-duty environment suits that had protected their captors from the venom of the minidrags had also allowed them to handle Clarity without fear of being contaminated by the agent Ormann had surreptitiously rubbed into her flesh. Once applied, it had plainly traveled throughout her body, to emerge and become actively dangerous when she had begun to sweat. Insidiously and skillfully he had made her, the one agent Flinx was least likely to suspect of posing a threat to him, the instrument of his downfall. She remembered now. Being knocked out by Bill. Being tied up.
It had meant nothing to her at the time, hadn’t registered as significant at all. Why should it have? Just because all the time he had been working on her, he had been wearing gloves?
“Sweet, isn’t it? You didn’t have to do anything. We didn’t have to do anything. All that was necessary was for your boyfriend to touch you, which our friend Ormann was certain he’d do at the first opportunity without thinking about it too much.” The woman’s tone reflected a calm, practiced admiration for the method that had been employed.
“He’s promised to help me and the boys out in the future, in case we need the compound rejiggered to work for another client. The beginning of a fruitful business relationship. You’ll be around to enjoy it. Apparently, he doesn’t want you harmed.” The gloved finger moved. “I can see why.”
Clarity’s bindings prevented her from flinching from the lugubrious caress. “What about Flinx? What are you going to do to him?” As much as she didn’t want to know the answer, she had to ask.
Her captor turned to eye the long-legged figure on the couch. Nearly mummified by his bindings, Flinx lay unmoving, his face hidden. For the first time since she had known him he appeared to be completely helpless, mentally as well as physically.
“We were told that when we reached this point we should ask for final instructions. Thanks for reminding me.”
The last was unnecessary, Clarity knew. The woman would not have forgotten how to proceed. It was simply a deliberately sadistic fillip to the conversation. As the immobilized Clarity looked on, the woman chatted briefly with her companions before pulling out a com unit.
She and Flinx didn’t have the balance of four hours left; Clarity saw. They hardly had any time at all.
Get up, Flinx! she thought furiously. Wake up! Can you feel my fear? You have to wake up.
The body on the couch did not move. Within their minidrag-proof container, Pip and Scrap were growing even more agitated. Did they sense something about to happen, and were they reacting more vigorously because they were unable to influence it? Did she and Flinx have even an hour left?
He might be dreaming, he might be traveling, but the tall redhead was definitely not perceiving her emotions. She did not have to try to falsify them in her silent efforts to bring him around.
She was truly scared.
CHAPTER
13
Ormann did not have to wonder at the source of the incoming call even though he was at work. It was on his private com line, encrypted and untappable. All he had to do to unscramble what anyone else receiving the call would hear as mindless gibberish was to answer it. He let it chime for his attention a few extra times. The anticipation was delicious. Because anyone calling him on that line would only be doing so if certain objectives had been successfully met, and he wanted the warm feeling to last as long as possible.
When he finally did answer it, the voice he expected to hear was on the other end. For security reasons, there was no video. The words spoken were calm and assured. Though he had embarked on the project with confidence, and with much greater care and preparation than on similar previous attempts, he had learned the hard way not to take anything for granted where Lynx was concerned.
It was with great pleasure that he heard the woman on the other end inform him that everything had gone as planned. Yes, the target had made his way past the outer defenses and survived attack by the chair and footstool. Yes, he had somehow solved the puzzle posed by the simulacrum and defeated it, only to be ensnared by Ormann’s sublest ploy: the gengineered soporific applied to Clarity Held’s skin.
“What’s he doing now?” Ormann asked. At last he could relax a little. It seemed that the redoubtable Philip Lynx’s bafflin
g bag of tricks was not bottomless after all. He did not ask about the flying snakes. If they had not been dealt with successfully, he knew he would not be receiving this call.
“Sleeping. Maybe not like a baby, but sleeping. Looks like he went out exactly as you predicted. My compliments, Mr. Or—”
“No names,” Ormann snapped. Secure line or no, he was taking no chances.
“Sorry. Listen, my associates and I are sufficiently impressed that we might like to engage your cooperation at some future time. We might even work out some kind of mutually beneficial barter agreement. Cost you a lot less.”
“I’ll think about it.” Ormann was flattered but preoccupied. “Let me pay you for this job first. I’ll consider your offer later.”
“As you wish.” She sounded disappointed. “You still want us to turn him over to the authorities?”
“I’ve been thinking about that.” Outside his office, the day was even more beautiful than usual. “You know how the court system can be. Even truth sensors can be deceived. After having gone to all this trouble to see justice done, it would displease me greatly to see the individual in question walk away subject to only some minor penalty.”
“And maybe come back to bother your girlfriend again? Not to mention tossing a few uncomfortable questions your way.”
“Exactly.” He allowed the woman to reach her own conclusion. She did so with admirable promptness.
“How do you want it done?”
“Efficiently. I’m not vindictive. I just want it done. Make certain any evidence is eliminated as thoroughly as him. If she asks, tell Clarity you’re going to have him boxed and shipped offworld unharmed.”
“We can do that, too, if you wish,” the voice assured him.
“Excellent.” Ormann felt he was lingering. “Just make sure you seal airtight whatever container you use. I want nothing left for anyone to find.”
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