by Gini Koch
Managed to get the name out. “Leventhal Reid.”
His grin went wider. “In the flesh.”
CHAPTER 85
“HOW ARE YOU HERE? I saw you die. And it wasn’t over a decade ago.”
A girl who looked a little younger than the kid in front of me stepped out. She looked vaguely familiar, too. “I checked, she’s not alone.” She gave me an icy look. And, as with Reid, I recognized this expression.
“LaRue? What the hell? I saw you die, too.” A year or so ago.
“Maybe you did.” She shrugged. “Maybe you didn’t.”
“You were shot through the head by Esteban Cantu. I watched you die.” Knew I had to be giving off supernova levels of stress and terror right now. Wondered if it would be enough to let Jeff know where I was, but then realized it wouldn’t be—this entire facility had to be blocked, otherwise someone would have found it by now.
“We’ve overcome death,” LaRue said with a superior smirk.
“Apparently. How?”
“Oh, let’s meet your friends first,” LaRue said.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Reid called in a singsong voice.
“I’m alone.”
They both laughed. “We have sensors, you idiot,” LaRue said. Yeah, it was definitely her. Someone or something had locked the door behind us, so had to figure they weren’t bluffing.
The rest of my team stepped out of the corridor and fanned out next to and behind me. Reid’s eyes lit on Serene, LaRue’s on Amy. Then both of them looked at Naomi and Abigail. The expressions on their faces were exactly the same—spiders looking at juicy flies.
“Who’s the guy?” Reid asked. “I was expecting your knight in shining armor.”
“He’s a friend.” Interesting. Somehow Buchanan had remained off everyone’s radar. What a pity he was going to be on it now.
“Why are we hanging back?” Adriana asked quietly. “They’re unarmed.”
“Heard that,” LaRue said.
I blinked, and somehow Reid had Adriana and was twisting her arm behind her back. Her expression said that he was hurting her. His expression said that he knew he was and was enjoying that he was causing her pain. If I’d needed confirmation that somehow this was really Leventhal Reid, I now had it.
“Let her go,” I said as evenly as I could. “You’ve made your point. You’re clones, but you’ve had that extra special A-C something added in.”
“Why shouldn’t we just have fun with her?” Reid asked.
“How about because the rest of us will kick your asses?” Naomi asked.
“You can try,” LaRue said. “We’d like that.”
“Okay,” Abigail said.
“No!” Buchanan and I shouted in unison.
Unfortunately, we both shouted slower than the A-Cs moved. Buchanan was able to grab Amy, but the rest of the girls all went for it.
Reid threw Adriana toward the open space between him and the hanging body beds. Lorraine and Claudia both went to catch her. Which they did, but they were staggered back a bit.
In the meantime, LaRue grabbed both Gower girls and tossed them toward Lorraine, Claudia, and Adriana. Serene happened to be between the Gowers and the others, so she got bowled over as they all crashed into each other.
This was done at hyperspeed, so took only a moment. And in less than that clear walls that had a bluish glow went up around the girls.
“There are booby traps,” Buchanan the Scout Master said to the troop that had just earned their Being Taken Hostage Badges. “By the way.”
“We guessed,” Claudia said. “A little late, but . . .”
“Don’t touch the sides,” Buchanan said quickly, right as Abigail’s hand was heading for one of the “walls.” “They look electrical.”
“Lasers, actually,” LaRue said. “Feel free to touch them.” The girls carefully moved into the center of the box they were in.
Reid snickered. “This area is really well protected. Father doesn’t like us to have uninvited guests.”
Father? “Ronald Yates is alive, too? Or do you consider Mephistopheles to be your daddy?”
They both laughed, nasty teenaged laughs. It was like being back in high school. “No,” Reid said. “Father doesn’t think we need to bring him back, in either form. I think he’s right. At first I didn’t agree, but I see the wisdom now.”
“So, is Father Herbert Gaultier? Antony Marling? Madeleine Cartwright with a sex change?”
More nasty teenaged snickering. “You’ll never guess,” LaRue said. “So don’t hurt yourself trying.”
“Who’s Doctor Feelgood, then?”
Unsurprisingly, they knew exactly what I meant. What I was saying always seemed super clear to the bad guys, go me. I could tell they got this reference because they looked at each other, smirked, then looked back at me. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” Reid asked.
We were moving into my normal definition of DEFCON Worse, meaning we were going to have to get the girls back the old-fashioned way—via my running my mouth. No worries, these two seemed open to talking.
“Yeah, I would. So, who?” They both shrugged and didn’t speak. Okay, had to keep them going. “How old are you two? I mean, seriously, you look fourteen and LaRue looks twelve.”
“Well, that depends on how you count,” Reid said.
“How do you count?”
“Differently,” LaRue said.
Okay, so this line of questioning wasn’t keeping them going, either. Time to go back to Yates—they seemed to enjoy talking about him. So many of the Megalomaniac League did. “So, Yates was the original Mastermind and you, well, the original you, was his first Apprentice, right?” I asked Reid.
He nodded. “He lasted a long time. Would have lasted longer but for you.”
“Yeah, I hear that a lot. So then you took over as the Mastermind and found your Apprentice, right? Or did you always have him picked out?”
“You don’t think it was me?” LaRue asked with a smirk.
“Honestly? No. Not saying you weren’t smart enough, but I’m willing to bet that whoever Leventhal’s Apprentice was is who you’re calling Father now.”
They both looked mildly impressed. “You’re not nearly as stupid as you look, are you?” LaRue asked.
Had no idea how to respond to that in a way that wouldn’t get one or all of the girls hurt, so I didn’t. Forged on with my Go-To Plan #1: Keeping the Bad Guys Monologuing. “So, your Apprentice is now the Mastermind. But he’s got a new Apprentice, and that’s not either one of you.”
Reid shrugged. “I wasn’t supposed to die so early. And again we have you to thank for that.” His eyes narrowed and he looked even more reptilian.
Time to continue running my mouth. “So, does the new Apprentice actually know about this facility and the two of you?”
“Which one of them is it?” Amy asked, before Reid or LaRue could reply. Figured I couldn’t kick her where they wouldn’t see so just had to let it go.
“Who?” LaRue asked.
“Ansom Somerall, Janelle Gardiner, or Quinton Cross. Which one of them is the new Apprentice?” Amy sounded furious, not that I could blame her.
LaRue and Reid both giggled. “All of them,” LaRue said.
“None of them,” Reid countered.
“What about Langston Whitmore, Thomas Kendrick, or Amos Tobin?” My question earned more giggles, but I’d kind of expected that.
I was far more used to hanging with the Crazed Evil Genius Brigade than Amy was, and even though we were currently spending time with the Megalomaniac Club’s Junior Auxiliary League, I was pretty sure I knew what they meant.
“Each one of them currently thinks they’re the real Apprentice. And maybe more aspiring evil loons do as well. But none of them actually know about this facility . . . or either one of you. And none of them are actually the real Apprentice. Esteban Cantu was, but he failed, in part because he did kill you, LaRue. So the Apprentice job’s been reserved, permanently.”<
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Both Reid and LaRue looked impressed and worried. “You’re just guessing,” Reid said. He sounded a tiny bit nervous.
“No, it makes sense,” Lorraine said. “There are two schools of cloning. One is normal growth—the clone is created as an embryo and is born and grows at a normal species rate.”
“The other is a forced gestation that speeds up the clone’s growth to maturity,” Claudia continued. “The clone grows from embryo to maturity at an accelerated rate, but then when maturity is reached, the aging process carries on normally.”
“The issue with forced gestation is that the clones can be unstable, especially mentally,” Lorraine added. “Though, from what we know of the two of you, it’ll be hard to tell if you’re crazier in these versions than you were in your original forms.”
“They’re not the same,” Serene said. “They have A-C DNA in them now.”
“How do they have all of their memories?”
“I’d guess indoctrination,” Serene said. “Maybe using a form of imageering talent to distill and save all the information received from the most recent image. Probably both.” LaRue and Reid looked slightly uncomfortable again, so I figured Serene had called these right.
“Great, and thanks for the scientific confirmation, girls. What’s interesting to me though is that Leventhal, correct me if I’m wrong, but when I first met you, or your original, or whatever the hell you clones call the first version of you, he was really anti-alien. In a scary, One Ring To Rule Them All kind of way.”
“So what changed?” Adriana asked. “Because you’re definitely stronger than a normal teenaged boy should be.”
“Father saw the wisdom of us being reborn as hybrids,” Reid said. He smiled and looked incredibly proud. “He’s brilliant, you know. Smarter than Yates ever was. Smarter than either one of us, even.”
“Speak for yourself,” LaRue said. “But yeah, he’s so smart that you’ll never figure out who he is,” she said to me, as she smirked again. “He’s hiding in plain sight and you just can’t see him. Not that you’ll have too long to worry about it.”
“So, Leventhal, right now you’re Son, right? And then, when the current Mastermind gets old,” or I killed him, but figured that wasn’t the right thing to say at this exact moment, “you’ll take over as Father, make a new Son out of his DNA?”
“Impressive,” Reid said.
“Where does LaRue fit in? Is she Daughter, Mother, Cray-Cray Girlfriend, or what?”
“I’m whatever I want to be.” LaRue shrugged. “When you’re the idea person who can back it up with action, you get to be whatever you want.”
“Interesting.” Very interesting. Madeleine Cartwright had been the brains behind Titan and Antony Marling. Chernobog was a woman. The women were the ones coming up with the intricacies, the ones making the plans actually work. Something to ponder when we were searching for the most likely New Ideas Apprentice. Meanwhile, I moved Janelle Gardiner up to my #1 Real Apprentice Suspects slot. But that information also told me what I needed to know right now. “And thanks for the confirmation.”
They both looked at me. “What do you mean?” LaRue asked, sounding confused for the first time.
“You’re our Doctor Feelgood.”
CHAPTER 86
“WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?” LaRue definitely sounded nervous.
“You’re who’s come up with the first version of Surcenthumain and all the other versions, too. You were probably assigned to find and turn Herbert Gaultier to the cause, right? I mean, he wasn’t always Doctor Mengele.”
“No, he wasn’t,” Amy said quietly. “But I think Chuck called it right—by the time we were all in high school, he’d started to change.”
“He found a better option.” LaRue smirked.
Heard the sound of a lot of footsteps before Amy or I could think up a suitably cutting comeback. Buchanan, Amy, and I turned to see a variety of people toting guns come around the corner. It so figured that I wasn’t even surprised.
“What the hell took you so long?” Reid snapped. “We called for you at least ten minutes ago.”
“Sir, we were dealing with explosions in the main laboratory.”
Risked a glance over at Serene. Who was looking her usual Innocence on the Hoof self. She caught my eye and winked.
She had read the maintenance and security manual, hadn’t she? And “difficult” wasn’t the same as “impossible.” There was so much more to her than most of us ever saw. Wondered how much of it Brian saw.
But big guns being waved in my face tended to drag me back into the moment and right now was no exception.
“What the hell did you do?” LaRue growled. “Turn around and answer me!”
Did as requested and shrugged. “That’s for us to know and you to find out. See? I can do it, too. So, what do you plan to do with all of us? People do know we’re here.” Well, Mom knew but she was busy. Dad knew, too, though, and when we didn’t get back, he’d tell Mom and Jeff, and someone would figure out how to come after us. Right?
Chuckie would figure it out, for sure. So, great, no worries. And then, of course, he and Jeff and the others would come into a trap because by that time the Crazed Super Twins would have alerted whoever else they had on their speed dial that the facility was under attack. Presuming that hadn’t already happened, which was a big presumption, really.
Time to work our way out of this before the cavalry arrived.
“Well, as for what we’re going to do to you,” Reid said, “I’m going with torture. But that’s just me. LaRue might have other plans.” Nice to see that they’d ensured this Reid was exactly like the old Reid, only probably more so.
She rolled her eyes at him. “You are so weird. Amy I think we’ll want to save, so that we can make another one that will be a lot easier to handle. Oh, but don’t worry—it won’t upset your late father. He never really loved you, or your pathetic mother.”
It was a good thing Buchanan was still holding onto Amy, because she tried to lunge at LaRue. Who smirked. She was big on smirking. This was really like being back in high school, only the “cool kids” were scary sociopaths with a lot more power than I had. Wait, come to think of it, this was exactly like high school. All we were missing was Chuckie getting beaten up, and if we didn’t get out of this before too long, I had a horrible feeling that was going to happen also.
“Is Amy’s dad actually around?”
LaRue did the teenaged giggle thing. “No, we didn’t need him. Cloning is expensive. We only use it for vital personnel.”
“There are a lot of bodies around here.”
Reid smiled. “Yeah. There are actually more ways to clone than the two your small minds came up with.”
“Well, isn’t that extra special? So, what, you have these bodies around as spares?” Just like Gaultier had had in the Secret Lab of Hot Zombies.
“Shut up,” LaRue snarled at Reid.
“What happens to the grunts?” Buchanan asked. “Do you use them for parts after they’re dead, or before?”
“We’ll kill the guy,” Reid said quickly, apparently doing his best to get them back onto the List of Upcoming Horrors track and to keep said grunts from thinking about Buchanan’s very appropriate question. “He’s just a human. The others we can use.”
“True, but no matter what you’re going to want, we have to keep your girlfriend alive.” LaRue nodded toward me. “We’ll need to use her to get the data Ronaldo and his team couldn’t actually find.” She shot me another evil little smirk. “They all trust you, after all.”
“How fast do you possibly think you can create a clone from any of us?”
They both looked at the bodies on the hanging beds and in the tanks, then back at me. “Fast,” LaRue said.
“It won’t be as good as we are,” Reid said. “But it’ll do the trick. We don’t need it long-term. Just long enough to get our data and the other things we really want.”
“Your children,” LaRue confirmed.
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Heard a growl from the cage. Realized it was coming from Serene—she looked almost as crazy and ready to kill as when we’d first met her. Abigail hugged her, possibly to keep Serene from throwing herself at the cage to get to LaRue. Claudia and Lorraine just looked furious. Adriana looked as though she was trying to determine how to short their cage out. I couldn’t see Naomi; she was behind Claudia and Lorraine.
On the plus side, I was now enraged. Still had no idea of what to do, but at least I’d be able to do it at full hyperspeed.
“You’re not killing or using anyone else,” Naomi said. “And you’re not touching those children, ever. I won’t let you.”
Both teenagers smirked now. “What are you going to do to stop us?” LaRue asked. “Other than give us all your DNA, I mean? We’ll let you watch us dissect your brother before we render you for parts, though. Graves are so easy to rob.”
Took a good look at the girls. Still couldn’t see Naomi, but all the other girls now looked worried, but differently than they had before. But the many guns all cocked, which brought my attention back to imminent death.
“You two women, step over near the others,” Reid said.
“Um, no thanks. Not into the whole Laser Cage idea.”
“Well, you can stand there and be riddled with bullets,” LaRue said.
Thought about it. Moved so I was behind Buchanan and therefore directly in the line of fire. “You don’t actually want to kill me. Not yet. And I’m not letting you kill my friend.”
Amy joined me. “Me either. I’d rather die protecting someone I care about than live like you two do.”
“I’d rather you two got into the cage and prolonged your chances of staying alive and being saved,” Buchanan said softly.
“Too bad. Not doing it.” Reached back and took his hand in one of mine and Amy’s in the other. “Better to die like this, anyway. I know how Leventhal there likes to kill his female victims. Going down in a rain of bullets is far, far better.”
“Fine,” LaRue said. “Kill them all. We can still get their DNA from their dead bodies.”
The men with the guns didn’t look as if they’d have any issues shooting us all dead. But they never got the chance.