“You couldn’t let him rest in peace,” the man named Dr. Lenoir said, looking like he wanted to strangle the general.
“Rest?” Yurkutz chuckled. “Far from it. No, Doctor, my use of the venerable Hertzog isn’t complete. What he would not do in life, he will do now.”
Dr. Lenoir’s eyes flared. “What wickedness is this?”
“I think you know.”
The medics wheeled over two rattling carts. One contained large vials of an unknown dark-green fluid and several electronic devices the size of coins. The other was covered with shiny instruments lined up in rows. There were blades of various sizes, but Rin almost threw up when she spotted the saw.
Dr. Lenoir’s face blanched. “And if I refuse?”
General Yurkutz prodded Rin in the back, and she felt one of the woman’s pointed nails dig into her flesh. “Then she will die.”
***
Grey resisted the entire way to lockup. She was rewarded with sore muscles and raw knuckles.
Pierce closed her into one of the holding cells they’d apparently fashioned from wood and scrap metal. “Sorry, kid,” he said. Waving off the other guards, he pulled a stool up to the cell. “I’ve known Sue for five years. And I’ve watched her pray every day.”
She glared at the man.
“For you and your sister.” Pierce gave her a sad smile. “That someday you’d be reunited, that you’d be safe. I thought she was delusional, yet here you are.”
“Right. Here I am. A prisoner of my own mother.”
“You are not a prisoner.”
She grasped the bars of the cell. “I guess these are just my imagination.”
Pierce stood. “You’re an Alexander. You fight for those you love, even to the point of death. Your mother knows that and wants you to live.”
“My father is going to die because of me!”
“He is an Alexander too.”
“Isn’t there anything you can do to help him?”
He waved toward the cavern’s entrance. “We are few here. We cannot take on the Mazdaar army.”
“Instead, you’re going to run like cowards and let them make drones from the bodies of innocent people.”
Pierce ran his fingers through his mop of hair. “Your bravery is admirable, girl. But walking away doesn’t always make someone a coward. You’d do well to remember that.”
With those words, he left Grey alone. She quickly examined her cell, searching for any vulnerability. The floor was stone, the bars thick, wooden beams. No way to break them. She focused on the lock. Its ancient design and the fact that it actually needed a key might make it easier to pick.
Grey shook the bars as hard as she could, not really expecting them to break from the force, but more to get a feel for their strength. No way was the door budging, either.
Slumping to the floor, she held her head in her hands. She needed to think. Mom obviously knew her better than she thought and had guessed what she wanted to do. But how could she actually lock up her own daughter? It was infuriating.
Grey stood and began pacing the small cell. Mom would probably try to bring her to her senses at some point, later today maybe. Grey took note that she’d grown to almost the same height as her mother, and she had youth on her side. But Mom had experience and probably all kinds of combat training. Did she dare try to physically overpower her own mother? No, she couldn’t do that.
With a sigh, Grey stuffed her hands into her pockets, wincing at the fresh sting from the wound on her arm. She’d probably opened it up again struggling with the men.
Her fingers brushed against something metal deep in her pocket. Grey jerked her hand out and stared down at the small, metal device lying in her palm.
Dr. Lenoir’s skelette.
* * *
Chapter 34
Rin stared at the corpse on the metal slab. His skin was the color of a dark storm cloud; his mouth gaped as if in one final plea for mercy.
“The great Mazdaar,” Dr. Lenoir said, “picking on children and old men.”
Evangeline Yurkutz laughed. “Don’t let him deceive you,” she whispered to Rin loud enough for all to hear. “He pretends to be a fool, but if it wasn’t for the great Dr. Lenoir we would not be here today.”
Rin focused on the doctor’s face. The corners of his mouth drooped, and his eyes seemed dull and watery.
“I am no longer proud of my past achievements. The Gihern chips were destroyed, so I do not know what you want me to—”
“We have the chip, Doctor.”
Dr. Lenoir blinked several times, looking as shocked as Rin felt. “But . . . how?”
Yurkutz smiled. “Shall we continue, or will I have to convince you by other means?”
Rin felt herself breathing faster as it sunk in just what was going on here. All the equipment, apparatus, fluids. This dead man. But hadn’t her father destroyed his research and the chip prototypes?
“Untie her,” Dr. Lenoir snapped. “Or I will not work.”
Surprisingly, Yurkutz gestured for Dana to do so, and Dana quickly complied.
“She’ll be no good to us dead,” Dana muttered.
With the grace of a lioness, Yurkutz closed the space between herself and Dana, glaring down at her daughter. “I did not ask your opinion.”
Dana looked away.
Dr. Lenoir stepped up to the table, still shadowed by the drones. He nodded to Rin. “What is your name, dear?”
She would say it proudly. “Orinda Alexander.”
The doctor’s eyebrows rose. “Any relation to Grey Alexander?”
“She’s my sister. How do you—”
Dana smacked the side of Rin’s head. Fire flew down her neck as it snapped back, and she wondered if Dana was being particularly brutal to impress her mother.
“I just wanna know if she’s alive!” Rin braced herself against the table and recoiled when her hand touched the cold leg of the dead man.
“You will be silent,” the general said.
She nodded, rubbing her neck.
“Begin, Doctor.”
Sighing, the old man snapped on rubber gloves and approached the carts. For a moment, he balked. He slowly picked up a scalpel. It glinted under the lights. “It was once my life’s goal to make a drone from a human body,” he muttered. “Now I would give anything to take back those years of work. And for your information, your sister got away,” Dr. Lenoir quietly added.
Dana swung toward her mother. “You let her escape?”
The doctor gave Rin an almost imperceptible nod.
“I said begin,” Yurkutz growled.
***
Grey made sure the guards were gone before she tried the skelette. Reaching through the bars, she let it hover over the lock, and it quickly warmed. Something clicked, and the lock popped open.
Grey carefully dropped the skelette back into her pocket and stepped from the cell. She listened. Clattering and shuffling. A metallic squeaking. Everyone would be busy packing up for their massive retreat. Her only chance to steal away undetected would be to act like she belonged.
And if she didn’t run into Pierce or her mother.
Taking in a deep breath to calm her nerves, she flipped through her options. If Mom found her now, she’d search her and take away the skelette. Grey would never have another chance to save the prisoners—or her father. She had to get away or forever live with the guilt of knowing she hadn’t done all she could.
She silently slipped out of the chamber. Lanterns were spaced about ten feet apart and illuminated the stone floor that was littered with reddish pebbles and the dust of a hundred boots. Her arm still ached, but she made herself march confidently and turn down the passage like she knew exactly where she was going. And she did this time. She just hoped Mom would be busy supervising somewhere else.
Someone rushed toward her carrying a stack of metal bins. Grey pretended she didn’t notice him and barely breathed as he passed, the edge of one of the bins bumping her shoulder. She could smell h
is sweat.
“You there!”
Grey froze, squelching the urge to run. A second set of feet pounded on the stone floor, and a dark-skinned woman rushed toward Grey. Had she been recognized?
Grey braced as the woman skidded to a stop in front of her. She was sweating too and huffed in air like she wasn’t used to rushing around.
“Did a man just pass you with a stack of boxes?” the woman asked.
Grey’s shoulders relaxed slightly. They must not have heard that Mom had locked her up.
“Down there.” She pointed in the direction she’d come.
“Okay, great. Thanks!” The woman took off down the corridor away from her, and Grey started walking again, this time a little faster.
Stopping at her mother’s quarters, Grey decided on one detour. She strained to hear any voices inside. When she heard nothing, she popped in.
Empty.
She rushed over to the table, and sure enough, the black coilgun she had seen earlier still lay where her mother had left it. Grey snatched it up, stuffing it into her waistband and making sure her tunic kept it hidden.
One more hurdle to go. There’d be people in that main gallery, but Grey had to chance it. She walked straight into the bustle where people called out to each other and passed containers, bags, and machinery.
Go. Don’t look back.
When she reached the chameleon-cloth-covered exit, Grey forced herself to pass through. She blinked against the sudden daylight and took a moment to stare up at the crazy, swirling sky before she took off running across the Jupiter terrain. She couldn’t think about never seeing her mother again or that she was probably going to die on this planet sooner rather than later.
* * *
Chapter 35
Rin watched in horror as Dr. Lenoir performed the procedure on the body of Victor Hertzog. He replaced the man’s blood with a green solution he called glutaraldehyde, his heart with a biopump, and then planted four coin-sized electronic chips at the base of each limb.
Perspiration beaded on Dr. Lenoir’s forehead as he closed the last incision with a layer of self-healing bioskin. He narrated his movements as he went through the operation, presumably for her benefit and maybe for his own. When he was nearly done, he explained how the Gehirn chip needed to be planted last at the base of the man’s brain. Dr. Lenoir picked up the miniature circular saw and approached the end of the table where the man’s head lay.
“Turn him over,” the doctor said, and Yurkutz waved for the two medics to obey the man. This time, Rin did close her eyes. But she still heard the exact moment when the saw met bone.
He’s dead. He’s dead. He’s dead. He can’t feel anything.
They brought in the connecting equipment, and Rin was forced to watch as they tested the viability of the chips, causing each of the man’s limbs to move independently. But it was when they came to the brain chip that her stomach lurched again.
Dr. Lenoir gave her a tired, sympathetic glance as he pressed the button to connect the final chip. His finger pressed the key floating on the virtual keyboard beside him, and the dead man’s eyelids slowly opened, revealing huge, dilated pupils.
“Is he . . . dangerous?” Dana asked.
Yurkutz laughed. “Of course he is.”
Dr. Lenoir pressed a few more keys, then stepped away from the table, peeling off his gloves. “I patched him into your server. It will take him a few hours to fully function.”
Yurkutz crossed her arms, surveying the body. “We have your father to thank for this moment, Orinda.”
Rin glared at Yurkutz.
“Oh, yes. Dear old dad and Mazdaar used to be”—Yurkutz entwined two fingers together—“like this. Did you know that?”
“Until he found out how evil you really were,” Rin managed, expecting to pay for the remark.
Dana moved to strike her, but her mother held her off with an upraised hand.
Yurkutz’s eyes bored through Rin. “Your father broke every one of his promises to Mazdaar. He stole from us the greatest invention our world has ever known, and you dare to call us evil?”
Rin eyed the body, remembering everything Mrs. March had told her. This is exactly why she thought Dad had destroyed the chip, and pride welled inside Rin.
“But fortunately for us,” Yurkutz said. “Tanner Alexander had the chance to redeem himself once and for all.”
Rin straightened. “Dad would never—”
The Mazdaar general smiled. “Oh, but he already has.”
***
The dome loomed in front of Grey.
She crouched at the base of one of the trees and watched the sentry at the entrance. Even from this distance, she could see his metallic hands.
She surveyed the entrance, and her hope faded. This was a formidable machine guarding the door. His eyes never stopped scanning, and she knew that the moment she stepped into the clearing he would alert and probably take her down with one blast of his blueflare.
She pulled out her coilgun and stared at the short barrel. No way could she make the shot. Not at this range. There had to be a different way in.
Painstakingly, she snuck from twisted tree to twisted tree, inching her way toward the rear of the huge edifice where she spotted another smaller door, this one seemingly unguarded. Why would they guard one entrance and not the other? Was it monitored electronically instead?
There was no way to know, but it was her only option. The best plan she’d been able to formulate was to break in and release as many of the prisoners as she could using the skelette before the guards took her out. If she freed enough people before they killed her, maybe they could fight their way to the woods.
Grey braced herself for the spring to the entrance. Then she ran straight across the clearing, zeroing in on her target. She reached it within seconds and held the skelette over the lock.
Nothing happened.
Grey muttered an oath and tried again. Her hands shook, but this time the skelette turned hot in her hand. She quickly turned the doorknob and stepped inside. Her life was almost over.
The back room was full of freight containers stacked to the ceiling with only a small aisle between them. It was wide enough for walking but with barely enough light to see where she was going. How could this room be unguarded? Had she tripped a silent alarm?
She didn’t take time to ponder her luck and headed down the aisle, trying to remember what she could about the layout of the dome. She had to get to the cells.
Grey jogged down the aisle, amazed when she reached the door at the far end of the room without confronting anyone.
Then the door opened.
* * *
Chapter 36
You seem surprised, Orinda.” A slight grin came to General Yurkutz’s lips.
Rin could only stare at the general. Dad had redeemed himself? What did that mean?
Yurkutz turned toward her daughter. “Remember me telling you these Alexanders are loyal to a fault? Tanner is the epiphany of that trait.”
“He would die before he gave in to you,” Rin muttered.
“But he would not let his children die.” With a flick of her hand, Yurkutz ordered Dr. Lenoir and the medics escorted out, leaving Rin alone with Dana and her mother. She wished to be anywhere but here. Anywhere.
Yurkutz stood directly in front of Dana. “Why do you come to me now?”
Anywhere but here.
Dana seemed to struggle to pull her eyes from the twitching bio-drone on the table. In her dusty, tan flight suit, she looked diminished standing next to her mother in her crisp, Mazdaar uniform.
“I—”
“Everything was within your grasp.” General Yurkutz came to stand directly in front of Dana. “Yet you threw it all away. For what?”
“I have information,” Dana said.
“What information could you possibly give us that we don’t already have?”
“Fleur March is alive.”
Yurkutz’s eyes blazed. “Do not lie to me.”
“She’s here, on Jupiter.”
“Here?”
“She flew us in.”
A curse slipped from the Mazdaar general’s lips. “We will deal with her later.”
“What about Tanner?” Dana said softly.
Yurkutz snapped her fingers twice, and a guard poked his head in the room.
“General?” he said with a salute.
“Bring in Tanner Alexander,” Yurkutz said.
***
Grey froze, like an exhausted jackrabbit scared out of her wits.
A Mazdaar soldier stepped into the storeroom, his massive form backlit by the lights in the corridor. He closed the door and at first didn’t seem to notice her. Grey gripped her gun with both hands. There was nowhere to run. She would have to kill or be killed, as if she was back in the Preserve facing that border patroller all over again.
She raised her weapon as the guard turned. He saw her.
Grey’s finger tightened over the trigger.
“Hey!”
His voice was higher than she expected, cracking when he shouted. His hand flew to the laser strapped to his thigh.
If she didn’t act fast, he’d alert the whole compound. Grey aimed for his chest, right where she’d shot the patroller.
The soldier’s weapon cleared its sheath.
Now! It was a clear shot.
But Grey’s hands felt like they were made of stone. What if this guard had been forced here? What if he had family back home waiting for him to come back alive?
He swung his weapon toward her face, and two back-to-back shots came before Grey could blink. She flinched, expecting searing pain, but it never came. Instead, the man fell to the floor, his weapon clattering on the concrete.
Grey swung around. The door she had come in stood ajar, and walking toward her with a violetflare laser still trained on the fallen soldier was Captain Sue Alexander.
* * *
Chapter 37
Jupiter Winds Page 17