Gorgon Child

by Steven Barnes

  There was nothing. No one.

  Except . . .

  For a short time, there had been two people who risked everything. Who dared. Who had been lied about, too. And perhaps, just perhaps, were Leslie's only link to life.

  He could barely form the concepts. They were emotional concepts, shadowy things, and incomplete. But they were there.

  Leslie turned in the storage compartment where he had crawled after turning, fleeing from the auditorium after placing the bomb. He wasn't sure why he hadn't gone to the rendezvous, but it had saved his life.

  From hiding, he had watched six of Medusa's Children slaughtered in cold blood by Quint and Ibumi. Ibumi had counted them, frowning, then turned and returned to-the Stealth ship. Leslie had followed, silently, hiding before the cabin was sealed.

  His fingers, incredibly strong, ripped at the wiring, until he pulled the right wire free of its moorings. Leslie searched the frayed lines until he found one of the ship's radio cables. The next step was to splice a connection with the terminal implant in his skull. He opened the line, plugged his cranial leads in.

  No! No filter! This was direct induction, unfiltered, unpaced, and his brain was overwhelmed instantly. Lost, inundated in a world of fluid movement and air pressure, electron flux and photon rerouting.

  It was never meant for a direct linkage, and the overload was almost more than Leslie could take. Without a buffer he was suddenly exposed to the elements. He felt strapped to the outer hull of the ship, wind flensing the flesh from his bones. His mental barriers were crumbling, and awful, raw awareness hammered at his control.

  He calmed himself, forced himself to imagine an alpha-theta synchronizer strapped above his eyes, forced closed the door which led to madness.

  The streams of lightning slowed, became pulses of information. He flowed among them, matched their speed until they were a flood of facts, an infinite stream of images and sensations coursing through the ship's guidance and communications system.

  He sorted through die computer for information, and found what he was looking for. The construction specs on the BioTech building.

  Scavengers. The communication codes.

  One part of his mind held back the fear. Even as everything in Leslie's world tumbled around him, he reached into die bowels of the ship, and sneaked past the filters, and tentatively, desperately, he sent his message . . .

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The Belly of the Beast

  No one in the room said anything, but the single unanswered, unasked question hung in the air like smoke: Where did this leave them? What would, what could happen now?

  Promise's face was buried in her hands, and she sobbed inconsolably. Jenna approached her and held her face in her strong, blunt fingers. "Promise. My sister. You did everything that you could. More than that not you or any other human being can do."

  "I had her," Promise said through her tears. "I had Leslie. The child I thought that I had lost. And then I lost her again. Aubry almost killed himself to try to save Leslie—"

  And here she flashed a look at Aubry, the warmth and love shining even through the tears. "—but it didn't matter. It was for nothing, because in the end it was a lie, everything was a lie."

  She sank her head down into her hands again, and this time she didn't look up again.

  Jeffry looked up from the panel in front of him. "The information was there. Everything was there. It was right in front of us all of the time. If only we had known better."

  Aubry just glared at him. It was at that moment that the radio chimed.

  Jeffry looked at the console. "We've got a message coming out here. I can't read it. Some kind of scrambler circuit."

  The flatscreen was filled with unintelligible symbols, many of them simply geometric patterns, some of them lines juxtaposed in seemingly random order, and alphanumeric symbols floating in between, in various depths of field.

  Bloodeagle moved closer to the projection field. "Gorgon cipher. That is Quint!"

  "Can you crack it?"

  Jeffry shook his head. "Hell. I can't break a cipher with a sample that small, Aubry."

  Bloodeagle detached his personal communicator from his belt. "I have a cipher circuit in my communicator, but I can't get that frequency."

  "Give it to me," Jeffry said eagerly.

  The big Indian wedged his hand communicator open, and fished around inside, pulling out a tiny sliver of plastic and ceramic.

  "This is it." Jeffry took the communicator, attached wires, fiddled for a few minutes, and turned the power on again. The display cleared. Symbols and letters floated in bunches, still unreadable, but now recognizable as transformed language. The screen cleared again, and this time there was language.

  To Scavengers. Please route to Aubry Knight. Quint to following coordinates—

  A string of numbers followed.

  "What? Where's that?" Jeffry's fingers flew over the keys.

  A world map appeared on the holostage, swiftly zoning in on the American Southwest.

  "Let's see—Death Valley—"

  Aubry became very still.

  "That's Death Valley Maximum Security Penitentiary."

  "That has to be it," Bloodeagle said excitedly. "Ibumi must be using the abandoned prison as his staging ground."

  Aubry leaned back against the wall, and his eyes unfocused. "I can't go ... I can't . . ." He swallowed hard, and fought to find his center. "How could they be based there?"

  "It's been deserted for two years," Jeffry said. "Harris must have made it available to them as a secret training ground."

  Jenna came closer, gripped Jeffry's shoulder. "Who's sending the message?"

  To Scavengers. Please route to Aubry Knight. Tell him. Leslie.

  And Aubry closed his eyes, hearing nothing but the thunder of his heartbeat. Seeing nothing but the light fdtered through the red of his eyelids. The ground seemed to open under him, swallowing him. He was back in that terrible place, that soul-stealing space, where the red fingers clawed at his body.

  But Aubry was above his body now, slightly apart from it. He felt the fear, felt his body's responses to the awful stress, and yet was somehow apart from it.

  "All right," he said. "We have to get in there. Bloodeagle—what is he likely to have?"

  "Thirty Gorgons. Weapons and food for same. They're probably on their way to South America, or . . ."

  "Or what?"

  "Africa. The Swarna connection, again."

  "How much time do we have?"

  "Twelve hours maximum."

  Jeffry had been peeking in federal archives, and placed a new outline up on the stage. Seven levels deep and covering fifty acres, a great dome blossoming at the surface. The skeletal outline rotated in the air before them.

  "Death Valley Maximum Security Penitentiary," Aubry whispered. Promise took his shoulder.

  "We can't get in there," Bloodeagle said slowly.

  "I wish that was the truth," Aubry replied. "But I got out, and I know the route. Bloodeagle. How many Gorgons do you have?"

  "Ten."

  "I can get twenty Scavengers who are up to something like this. Promise, what are our weapon stores?"

  "Good. And Jenna brought down more from Ephesus."

  "We don't have anything to match the equipment Quint will have."

  "Get it straight," Aubry said. "Quint isn't in control, and hasn't been for over a year. Ibumi doesn't care about Gorgon—although he just may care about Quint. They won't be properly organized."

  "And you can get us in?"

  "Or die trying."

  The dome. The great, faceted hothouse dome loomed hugely, even a thousand meters away.

  Aubry lay spread-eagled on the sand, watching through a pair of digitizing binoculars.

  "We've got one chance," Bloodeagle whispered. "They won't be expecting anything sneaky. They'll figure that either the road is clear, or the Feds will come down on them like an avalanche."

  "Then we have to take that chance,
" Aubry said.

  He wormed his way into his sand-colored camouflage bag, and slowly began to wiggle forward.

  The automatic rifle slung over his shoulder itched him, but he shut it away, and continued on.

  The ten Gorgons who had joined Bloodeagle and twelve Scavengers wiggled across the dunes, leaving worm tracks on the sand.

  As he crawled, approaching the place of his nightmare, he thought.

  The dome. And the landing pad. He remembered that. Being taken, shackled hand and foot, out of the skimmer, in for his appointment with total human degradation.

  And the utter corruption and human misery of that hellhole had finally caused a more enlightened administration to close it down?

  There was a savage satisfaction in that. But the hole that yawned before him still contained the essence of his dreams, and something within him recoiled and begged Aubry not to go forward.

  This was not the place. This was not the time.

  No. There was no other time, and no other place. It would be done now, or never. And on some level he knew that better than anyone else could possibly have known, better than anyone could have expected. It was as if he had created this situation to force him to face something that he didn't want to face, ever. Something . . .

  He remembered the lessons of Warrick. . . .

  But Warrick's face faded. There was no strength there., There was only blackness, and sickness, and the depths of the cold caverns ahead.

  Jeffry and his computer had identified the escape route to be used by the prison guards in case of a prison takeover, and the door. Bloodeagle and his Gorgons found it, buried within the sand. It swiftly yielded to their digging.

  It was metal, never used, and the surface was etched with the words: property of federal government, danger! warning! no trespassing!

  Torches were burning at the metal as Aubry scanned the dome, his infrared goggles clicking in to the ranges. There was no movement, no light, no sign of the escape vehicle. But that was to be expected. Quint was a Gorgon. There would be no sign if that was what Quint wanted.

  The door popped free, and the Gorgons began to wiggle down.

  "You've got a half hour, Aubry," Bloodeagle whis-. pered. "Good luck."

  They shook hands, hard, and there was a moment when Bloodeagle wavered, and then gripped Aubry hard, hugging him, and whispered, "I love you. As a man, and as a brother. Go with God."

  Then Bloodeagle was gone.

  Aubry and the Scavengers moved on, wiggling in toward the dome.

  It rose in the sand like an enormous, half-buried egg, its dirty green walls still emblazoned on his memory.

  "Quarry," Aubry whispered.

  Aubry's chief executive moved up, and motioned two of his men into place. A silent, efficient drill cut through the dome's shatterproof plastic panels in a few moments. They attached suction cups, and silently lifted it out.

  A rush of stale air told Aubry that the hothouse hadn't been used in years. It was totally dark, and totally silent within.

  He had to don a gas mask, moved in quickly and rolled, scanning the hundred aisles of dead plants, seeing and hearing nothing.

  It was dark, and dry. They wore infrared goggles, which parted the gloom like mist driven before the wind.

  Quarry touched his throat mike. "Aubry. What's the layout here?"

  "This is the top level," he croaked. His throat was tight, and he desperately craved a drink of water. "There is a central ventilation tunnel ahead. It's how I got out." He loped down the central core until he reached that long-ago path to freedom, a wall grille that had been repaired. He dropped to one knee and listened at the grille.

  They anchored lines and tested them while the silent saw cut through the grille, once again pulling it out silently.

  Aubry peered at his watch. "We've got twelve minutes," he said into his throat mike.

  Aubry was the first into the hole.

  Despite the fact that there were others above him, waiting for their turn, Aubry felt alone. He remembered crawling up this tunnel, wedging his hands against the sides, climbing with a man named Stitch, who had shown him the way out.

  He hung now at a branching tunnel. Which way? Which way?

  Memory returned, and he turned to the left.

  Now he was back in the belly of the beast, and his skin crawled with fear. When he finally pulled out of the grid, he was shivering.

  He couldn't stand still. He knew he was supposed to wait here for Quarry, but he couldn't. The only salvation Itiy in continuing to move.

  He slid out into the hall, looking up one barred corridor and down the other.

  Nothing. Distantly, he heard voices, and the sounds of machinery. He peered at his watch. Four minutes remained.

  Promise and Jenna would move in in five minutes, after the first shocks. Bloodeagle and his men would have planted the gas charges by then, and the attack would be on. It had taken a miracle to keep Promise behind in the skimmer. He remembered the last thing that she had said to him:

  "Do you think that Leslie is still alive?"

  ' 'If he lived long enough to get that message out, I don't see a real problem with him surviving a little longer. After all—whose kid is he?"

  "She."

  They had laughed, and she touched his lips with hers.

  He reached one of the cell corridors. Aubry touched one of the transparent plates that sealed the cell doors, and in the touching, a river of memories flooded.

  This was where he had lost his soul. Here. He ran, quietly now. Over that rail and down the corridor had been the recreation room.

  and . . .

  He flattened himself against the wall as heels turned, and Quint appeared, Ibumi at his side.

  "We need to be out of here by twenty-two hundred hours. Is the relay ready?"

  "Totally." Quint seemed to be in charge of himself. Almost as though whatever drug he had been given worked only when he was quiet. When action was called for, he functioned perfectly.

  Aubry slipped into the room they had just left.

  They had reconverted it—the walls were covered with maps of the convention center, and the single chair which had stood in the center of the floor had been removed to make room for a planning table.

  But he would have recognized it no matter what the' changes.

  Every movement, every action of die past months, seemed to have conspired to bring him here.

  Outside, the hallway thundered as the first of the explosions detonated. Men and metal screamed, but Aubry Knight, lost in his past, sank slowly to the ground. The evil within him, the thing that had withstood all attempts at exorcism, had triumphed at last.

  As plastic explosive punched the plate metal door from its hinges, Jenna and Promise reacted almost as if they

  were different parts of the same body. Promise flattened against the wall, clumsily trying to force her mind to remember the instructions regarding the pulse rifle she carried. Was the safety on? Off? Fear and panic froze her mind. Her breath rasped in her throat.

  Jenna hit the ground and rolled. She peered into the gloom. Where was Bloodeagle?

  On the other side of the barrier, she heard an explosion, and the muffled sound of shots. Behind them, one of the doors began to rise.

  Promise froze. "We can't go that way!"

  "Why the hell not? They can kill us just as easily right here, if they're watching. And they are."

  She took a moment to blow out one of the cameras, and Promise winced. Metal and glass shards spattered to the ground.

  "Come on."

  The sound of the firefight on the other side of the wall grew louder. They were running now.

  Jenna made it to the central guard corridor, pulling Promise along with her. From where they were, she could see what was happening. Bloodeagle's men were trapped in a crossfire. Quint and Ibumi had men posted on a catwalk across the yawning pit, and they were taking their time. One of Bloodeagle's men threw his hands to his head, and an instant later there was no
head, just a flopping corpse.

  But where was Bloodeagle himself? The Gorgon was nowhere to be seen, gone like the wind. For an instant, Promise thought she saw something moving against the wall, moving like smoke, but it had to be an illusion. No one could move up a sheer wall like that. Could they?

  Then something clattered onto the catwalk from above. An instant later explosions rocked the corridor, metal peeled screaming from the wall, and two flaming bodies fell, twisting mindlessly, into the depths of the pit.

  Promise backed away from the edge. "There's a door behind us, over here."

  She wandered down through the corridor. This place, this awful pit, was where Aubry had been incarcerated? It explained so much. This was no fit place for a human being. And men, violent men, had been jammed together »: here, and forced to attempt to deal with each other and with their own demons at the same time? It—

  And there, ahead of her, was a bundle. Something hanging from the ceiling like a spider's meal awaiting the feast.

  It moved, twitched ever so slightly.

  Promise moved forward. Jenna tried to pull her back, but her heart screamed at her, and she moved. Nervously, Jenna moved forward also.

  The door behind them slammed shut.

  A light, a distinct, bright light flared on. In its beam was Leslie. He was bound hand and foot, and swung from the ceiling.

  A voice sounded clearly. "Stand away from the walls and drop your weapons, or the child dies."

  Jenna pivoted as the voice came into hearing range, but there was nothing to be seen.

  "You have ten seconds to comply, and then the child dies. Ten nine eight seven ..."

  Promise spun. "Jenna, please."

  Jenna's eyes were hot, and her hands were tight on the weapon. Her breathing was rapid, and her eyes, her eyes. Promise was terrified. "Jenna. I beg you ..."

  Jenna looked at her as if she were a stranger, and in that moment, Promise thought Jenna was about to shoot her. I Then she sighed and the tension went out of her body. She relaxed utterly, and laid the gun down.

  She stood up straight, her hands out to the side in a clearly scornful position.