“You’ve got quite a setup here, Mac.”
He stopped smiling, met her eyes. “Yes. We do. We’ve got a lot of people we want to protect. We want to keep this community safe.”
She stopped smiling, too. “And you think trying to rescue Nine will put them at risk. I understand that.”
“There’s no ‘try’ involved,” Mac said. “If we go in, we rescue him. But a lot of things can go wrong and there’s the possibility he’s not there, the possibility that you read him wrong. The possibility it’s a trap.” He took in a deep breath, that broad chest expanding. “No, don’t say it.” He put a finger across her lips. “I know—and Nick and Jon know—you would never deliberately lead us into a trap, but there’s a lot we don’t know about the situation.”
She kissed his finger, pulled his hand down from her mouth and held it. Felt his determination, felt his warring instincts—a desire to rescue a hurt comrade versus a desire to keep his people safe—felt honor and pride and dread. He wouldn’t be her Mac if he didn’t feel all those things.
“Are you guys still planning how to do it?”
“Oh yeah. We’re not rushing into anything without doing a full recon. Jon’s got drones flying overhead and Nick’s analyzing the results. Jon’s checking their computer systems with the codes you gave him. We’ll go down at the new moon and do a thorough check of the terrain, and when our plan is solid, we’ll go.”
She was going with them but it wasn’t the time or the place to say that.
She reached up, kissed the side of that hard mouth. “My money’s on you guys.”
Chapter Thirteen
January 8
Tired and pissed, Mac entered his quarters the next afternoon, hoping but not expecting and ah . . . there she was.
It had been a long, hard, frustrating day. Two drones went belly-up, and since they were urgently needed for the Millon recon, Jon and Nick had slipped over into Nevada to steal two of them from Nellis. They had walked onto the base in full uniform with fake ID, caught the codes for two drones, remotely flew them out, and drove back out of the base, calm as could be.
But it had taken them, door to door, twelve hours.
In the meantime, Mac had been stuck here doing his mayor/king thing, okaying Dane’s request for a hundred miles of micro-steel water pipeline, Pat and Salvatore’s request for a robosurgeon for minor surgery, Manuel’s request for an experimental square-mile hydroponics bed and listening to a two-hour lecture by Stella on How Not to Fuck Up with Catherine.
One goddamned thing after another, when all he wanted was to spend time with Catherine. Possibly fucking her, without fucking it up.
He’d glimpsed sightings of her from afar, like some unicorn. Coming out of the kitchens as he talked with Dane, she was in the infirmary almost all day and had just left when Pat and Salvatore called him in, somehow she was always just out of his reach.
She’d just finished lunch when he finally made it to the communal eating hall and hadn’t had dinner yet. He’d just checked.
It was the third time he’d checked in an hour and finally Stella told him to just . . . go home.
So he did.
He was frustrated as hell as he walked into his quarters, ready to put out a BOLO on the fucking intercom when there she was, staring out his window.
Oh man.
He stopped on the threshold and rubbed his chest as he saw her, back to him, looking at the view. Home. He’d never had a home before, unless you counted Bachelor Officer Quarters home. But here it was, his home, because Catherine was in it, waiting for him.
She turned around and smiled at him, and just like that, his tiredness and frustration and ill temper dissipated like smoke. He noticed out of the corner of his eye that dinner had been set out on a table and he drew in a huge breath of relief as he walked fully into the room, releasing the infrared sensor that held the door open. It slid closed behind him and he realized that he was truly home. The cares of the day slipped from his shoulders and everything in him lifted.
“Hi,” she said softly.
“Hi, honey,” he replied. “I’m home.”
Catherine laughed. God, it was good to hear her laugh. He smiled back and felt some muscles crack in his cheek. It actually hurt him to smile and he figured he’d better get used to it because seeing Catherine and not smiling . . . well, it was almost impossible.
“Couldn’t get in touch with you all day,” he growled.
“I heard,” she sighed. “But I was busy. Do you want to hear about my day or do you want to kiss me?”
Well, if she was going to put it like that. A few strides and he caught her in his arms and everything frustrating about his day just slid right out of his head. Her mouth was warm and welcoming and tasted like honey. And maybe it was honey, because something smooth and thick and warm moved through his veins as she moved in his arms.
He was lucky he had that first moment of gentle warmth because then it ratcheted right up to raw smoking heat in the space of a heartbeat and he was holding her tightly, kissing her hard, trying to figure out how to get her naked right . . . now.
She had the same idea and was frantically tugging at his sweatshirt, trying to pull it up over his head. He was way too tall so he pulled away from her and ducked so she could get the damned thing over his head. It was easier for him. By the time she got his sweatshirt and tee off he’d pulled off her sweater, unhooked her bra and unzipped her jeans.
Now he could kiss her, too. Light, biting kisses.
“I thought”—she unzipped his jeans—“we could have a cup of tea.”
He sproinged out of his jeans, cock red and swollen, already hopefully aimed at her like a divining rod that had found water. She grasped him, gave him a stroke with a tight fist and nearly brought him to his knees.
“Talk about our day,” she gasped. “Watch the sunset. Eat dinner.”
“Later,” he growled, and finished the job of getting them naked.
One day he’d do this nice and slow, he would.
Just not today.
She was like hot silk in his arms, moving slowly against him, rubbing against him like a cat, filling his head with heat and light.
The light was intense, a bright yellow glow so vivid it lit up his eyes even behind his closed lids. He lifted his mouth an inch from hers and opened his eyes, looked over her head. His breath rushed into his lungs on a gasp.
Catherine turned around in his arms, her gasp echoing his.
Magic. Utter magic.
The sun was just setting behind a hill and bright yellow rays, the kind kids drew with rulers and yellow crayon, shafted through the trees, lighting up the landscape with a glorious glow. The view she’d chosen stretched down to the valley and all the colors were intense—the dark green firs and spruces, the deep gray granite boulders, the blinding white snow. It looked like a fairyland instead of the dangerous, treacherous world outside their realm.
“So beautiful,” Catherine sighed, and fuck him if it wasn’t.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d looked out, either through the piped in view or on his outings, and considered the stunning beauty surrounding him. All he ever considered was perimeter security, lines of fire, presence or absence of threats.
Seeing the beauty of it was absolutely new and all due to the naked woman in his arms.
Keeping his eyes on the “view,” he bent to kiss her neck and discovered that if he bit her very lightly, right under her ear, she shivered. Actually, he knew that already. He’d discovered that last night but in the general overload, he hadn’t marked it down as important, but it was. Because here he had a whole body to explore, every inch of it with its own enticements.
That little spot behind her ear, the way her breathing stepped up when he touched her breasts, the way her head tipped back when she came . . . oh yeah, there were lots of things to learn and memorize.
And it occurred to Mac that maybe this was his new life. Coming into his quarters in the evening and
instantly shedding his cares because there Catherine would be, smiling at him. And they’d watch the sunset together, have dinner together, go to bed together, wake up together.
His quarters would become a home.
He had no idea what the future held but he was pretty sure they could stay holed up here pretty much forever. In a couple of days, they’d go down to the lab where Catherine worked, infiltrate and see if Patient Nine really was the Captain.
And for the very first time in a year, his heart didn’t give a painful thump at the idea of Lucius Ward.
He had the woman in his arms to thank for that.
“You blasted my mind and rearranged all my neurons,” he whispered in her ear, and felt her shiver.
“Yeah?” she gasped.
One hand covered her breast, the other smoothed its way down her flat little belly.
“Yeah. Because not only do I have this woo-woo thing going on, I can now see into the future.”
“Oh!” He cupped her, feeling the soft cloud of hair against the palm of his hand, sliding farther down. The flesh there was warm, soft, wet.
“Oh yeah.” Two fingers circled her slowly and she gasped again when he entered her with a finger.
“Yeah. I can see me coming home here every evening and you waiting for me and us doing . . . this.” His finger entered her deeply and she clenched around him. Jesus. He spoke against her neck, biting his way up a tendon. “Actually, I think that in the interests of efficiency when you’re in here you should just be naked. What’s with all this time we have to waste with buttons and zippers? Just have you be naked. And I’ll strip just as soon as I get in the door.”
She was breathing heavily, getting wetter by the second. Mac opened his eyes and looked down at her breasts, nipples hard and cherry red.
It was a nice seduction but now he was trapped in it, too. The air had turned hot, hard to pull into his lungs. His legs felt weak. When her cunt clenched around his finger again it was too much.
“Put your hands against the window. Open your legs.” His voice was low, guttural. He considered himself lucky he could speak at all. On a sigh, she placed her hands against the window, the rays of the sun turning her into an ivory-gold vision. Mac looked down at the slender, strong back, narrow waist.
He grasped her hips and stepped closer to her. She knew what he wanted. She could feel it, just as he could feel what she wanted. She wanted this. Almost as badly as he did.
Her legs had opened and she arched her back, offering herself.
Mac didn’t have to use his hands. His cock did it all by itself, sliding into her honeyed heat until he was fully inside her. He bent over her back, holding her tightly, and put his mouth close to her ear.
“Hi, honey,” he whispered. “I’m home.”
January 9
Millon Laboratories
Palo Alto
The next evening, after carefully reviewing the data from Level 4, Lee decided to check on the official patients, up in the official facility. One in particular. He most particularly wanted to visit Patient Nine. Formerly known as Captain Lucius Ward.
Lee was still convinced that Ward—now forever Patient Nine—held the key to a breakthrough, or at least his brain did. It was time to see what was inside that brain.
Lee waited until the day staff had left the facility, with only a skeleton crew and security, none of whom were going to bother him. The security guards changed shifts at 10 P.M. and that was when he walked down the empty hallways. He entered Nine’s room, quietly closed the door behind him.
Patient Nine was upright in a chair, bands holding his forehead to the back, bands holding his wrists to the arms of the chair, bands around his knees and ankles. The bonds had been tested and required two hundred pounds of shear pressure to break, something Patient Nine could never marshal in his current state. He was completely immobilized.
Tiny sensors all over his body were transmitting every single biological marker to a highly secure computer. The data was visualized in holo charts next to Nine’s head.
Heart rate, brain waves, adrenaline level, all blood markers, even skin conductivity. Everything that made up Patient Nine, the very essence of Patient Nine, right there in white letters in the air.
His use was at an end. The military history of Patient Nine had made him a perfect guinea pig for the testing of the various iterations of SL, as was the case for the other three patients in Level 4. But they were recalcitrant, rebellious in the extreme, and had turned out to be almost more trouble than they were worth. Like Patient Nine.
Even nearly comatose, Patient Nine was rebellious, pitting his will against the chemical properties of the drug so strongly the effects were almost always vitiated.
Patient Nine’s EEGs were now so skewed as to be almost worthless.
Lee wanted to discover the hidden trip wire he had sensed watching the bonobo, but it was almost impossible given the fact that Patient Nine still somehow had reserves of willpower he was able to bring to bear.
Amazing, all things considered. But terribly unhelpful.
Lee looked him straight in the eyes, knowing that somewhere inside there was an intelligence listening and understanding, though Nine’s body was beyond his control.
Lee leaned forward, just barely, satisfied to see Nine’s eyes widen slightly. What was about to be said was important and Nine understood that.
Lee held a tablet in his left hand, tapping quickly to input instructions with his right. The baxter sac moved slightly as the feed valve opened. A flood of 59 was heading toward Nine’s system, enough to overwhelm him.
They were beyond scientific testing now. Nine was going to be sacrificed so there was no use proceeding by increments, following the protocol of the scientific method. What was about to happen was more in the nature of art. A forcing of the situation to give Lee a sense of the power of the drug.
The clear liquid of 59 was making its way down the tiny tube. It was viscous and would take its time. Which was fine. Lee watched Nine carefully. He could read the monitors without taking his eyes off Nine’s. Heartbeat, slow. EKG, 64 beats a minute with some extrasystolic arrhythmia. EEG showing minimal cognitive function. Hormonal levels consonant with the lack of effect of advanced dementia. So far so good.
The liquid hit the subclavian vein, started moving through Nine’s system. There would be heat, pain, soaring adrenaline levels. Soon it would be moving through the blood-brain barrier, right into the brain itself.
Ah. EEG spiking in ragged waves.
Patient Nine had given Lee endless trouble so he allowed a touch of pleasure in his words. It was useless calling Nine by his real name. Captain Ward. The good Captain had left his identity back with his cognitive functions a year ago. He was no longer Captain Ward of the U.S. military, he was a miserable and diminished thing, barely more than an animal, only a native but low-level endemic hostility keeping a few cognitive functions alive.
But Lee hoped Nine was getting the message. He hoped it fucking hurt.
For a second, for just the smallest possible space of time, the scientist in him dropped away and the naked human stood there. Raw and needy, desperate to fulfill his mission, desperate to make it back home to a country he’d last seen when he was seven years old. Desperate to come back a winner, a hero, the man who was going to single-handedly place China at the top of the heap for generations and generations.
And he was going to do it not by weaponry that drew blood, not by megatons of explosives, but by the force of the mind, honed and sharpened by decades of study until it was, in and of itself, the finest of weapons.
His goals were so clear he saw them daily, nightly. He saw the steps to get there, the necessary passages, the hurdles to be overcome not with violence but with knowledge.
And it seemed that what stood between him and his worldchanging goal was sitting slumped and beaten in front of him. Lee had been so certain that a man like Lucius Ward would make the perfect test subject. A man who by training and nature w
as a perfect soldier would turn into his perfect soldier by the alchemy of modern biochemistry and yet, and yet . . .
Nine had blocked him every step of the way. Lee was a year behind schedule. Even that lump of obtuse protoplasm of Clancy was able to excoriate him, a man who to all intents and purposes was barely sentient in Lee’s book.
Captain Ward. It was all his fault.
Well Captain Ward was over. Usefulness gone, he was now merely an obstacle to remove. But not before making him suffer. His last thoughts on this earth would be of pain and defeat.
“Your men are here,” he hissed.
Ward—no, Nine!—blinked. The frontal cortex flickered. Nine’s face was impassive—there wasn’t enough cognitive function to fine-tune the facial muscles—but the message was getting through.
“Your men have been here all along. Six survived the fire that night at the Cambridge lab. I have them, everyone except McEnroe, Ross and Ryan. They’re in hiding, on the run, accused of treason. I have no idea how they have evaded every single law enforcement agency in the country, but they can’t last forever. The rest of your team, Romero, Lundquist, Pelton—they’re here. Except they are Patients Twenty-Seven, Twenty-Eight, Twenty-Nine. They don’t remember their own names. They’ve been here all along, right here, underground. And if you think we’ve put you through the wringer, you should see the shape they are in. Your men, the men you failed to protect.”
If this had been an old-time cartoon, Lee reflected, smoke would be coming out of Nine’s ears as his brain melted. The EEG looked like the tracing of an earthquake. It was very possible there was subdural bleeding.
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