Again her world went into slow motion. She went into the splits as bullets flew past over her head. She leaned back and watched bullets cutting the air in front of her face as she bent backwards to lay with her head alongside her back leg. She had her arms stretched out at either side and with an unfaltering aim put a trio burst of bullets into each of the three security men's heads.
It had taken her less than three seconds to end the fire fight. She came back up to her feet and marched over to Barret. She placed the hot barrels of her machine pistols to his head. He tried to back away as they burned his skin but Sara pushed forwards and applied more pressure.
"You've got a lot to answer for."
Sara pulled her weapons away from him and then cracked him around the sides of his head to send him into unconsciousness. Sara left him where he lay and rushed back to Carla. The younger woman was breathing heavily and trying to push herself up. Sara dropped her weapons and went down to cradle the younger woman's head. Carla rolled over onto her back and opened her eyes as though they were weighted down with lead. Her eyes became sharp and clear as they focused on Sara.
"Does this mean it's over?"
Sara smiled and stroked Carla's hair, she nodded. "It's over. I'll put in a call and get some people down here to sort this mess out. We are going to have to go with them and answer some questions but there should be enough evidence in this place to back us up."
"What about the others like me?"
"I don't know," Sara said sincerely. "It will depend on whether they can be rehabilitated. Of course first we will have to find them."
Carla closed her eyes as though keeping them open was too much of an effort. "I'll help with that if I can." Carla's voice went so that it was barely audible. "I can't believe Karl was involved in this."
Sara continued to stroke Carla's hair. "In the end he was trying to do the right thing. He got you out of there." A memory flashed unbidden to her mind, a much younger Karl Grosset looking at her through the glass of a door with tears in his eyes. "I think he tried to help me as well but he couldn't. He risked a lot when he realized what he had become a part of. He was a good man."
Carla nodded slowly her red bleary eyes starting to fill with tears. "Where do we go from here? After we are turned loose by whoever questions us? We have nothing left. Our whole lives we have been manipulated. We were designed to be tools.”
Sara moved a hand down and took hold of Carla's, squeezing gently.
"How does anybody decide what they do with their life? Where we come from isn’t as important as where we are going. And wherever that may be, whatever the future holds, we can face it together.”
Epilogue
“The original facility has been severely compromised. Barret has been taken into custody.”
“Is there anything to link the facility or any of the projects to us?”
There was a moment’s hesitation. “Negative.”
“Then Barret is the only link. Have him taken care of.”
“What about the subject?”
“Keep her under observation. Barret may have talked already, if he did she will have already passed on that information. If we eliminate her at this point we will achieve nothing other than confirm the veracity of her information. We cannot risk an investigation that would compromise any of our other projects.”
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