by Gini Koch
All the guns pointing at us glowed—first golden, then bright red, all in about a second. As the men holding them started to scream, the weapons blew up.
Buchanan pulled both me and Amy down and did the protective huddle, but there was no need—a glowing shield was around the three of us—blood, shrapnel, and body parts hit it and either bounced off or oozed down, but they didn’t reach the three of us. The men holding the guns weren’t so lucky—they were cut to ribbons.
I could finally see Naomi—her sleeves were pushed up and unlike the others she didn’t look worried. She looked angry and determined. She also had a syringe in her hand. And there were at least a dozen more at her feet.
Got a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. “Mimi, what did you do?”
She looked at me. “What I had to.”
CHAPTER 87
NAOMI LOOKED A LITTLE DIFFERENT than the other girls. There was a blue glow all around them from the Laser Cage, but Naomi was glowing a little bit more than the others.
“She got the samples before we realized it, Kitty,” Lorraine said, sounding just this side of panicked. Couldn’t blame her.
“They were pure,” Claudia added, sounding like she was already on the other side of panic. “The street versions are diluted, but what Naomi used isn’t.”
“Mimi, that wasn’t the answer.” We had to get adrenaline into her, and fast. But that meant we had to get back to the Embassy, or a regular hospital, because there was nothing in this facility we could trust, even if we could find where they might have normal medical supplies.
“Yes, it was. I can control it.” She glared at the Laser Cage and it exploded. “All of you, get out of here.”
LaRue and Reid looked at each other, then ran into their room and closed the door. I heard locks being turned. Didn’t think they were going to stand a chance against Naomi at the moment.
Our protective shield disappeared. “We need to move, they’re calling for reinforcements, I’m sure.” I shoved Amy toward the hallway.
Abigail tried to grab her sister, but Naomi was glowing more brightly and Abigail pulled her hand back with a gasp. “Sis . . .”
“Go,” Naomi said. She sounded funny, not unclear or slurred, but like she was buzzing, almost as if she was overcharged with electricity. “I can control it. And it’ll wear off. It did with Christopher, it will with me. In time.” She took a deep breath and let it out. “It’s so good to feel . . . everything again.”
Adriana dragged Abigail away. “We’ll be more help to her if we’re out and safe,” she said as she followed Amy, who wasn’t moving all that fast toward the exit.
Claudia, Lorraine, and Serene didn’t look eager to leave, either. I was sure that all of them wanted to help Naomi in some way. Based on Abigail being unable to touch her, though, I was also sure that Naomi was able to not get helped unless she wanted to be. And her expression said she didn’t want to be.
There was only one good option. “Malcolm, get everyone out of here.”
“Not leaving you, Missus Chief.”
I turned to him. “You have to. You’re the only one who can actually get the right people on this and I can’t do what I have to with all the other girls here.” I put my hand on his arm. “I know you want to stay to protect me, I know that’s your entire job. And you’re damned good at that job. But you’re also supposed to protect Jamie and right now, she and the other kids are in danger. No one’s expecting this. More computer hacking, more attacks, maybe, but not this.”
Buchanan looked at Naomi and back to me. “You’re in as much danger of being killed as you are being saved.”
“I know. But I have to try to help her, and get us both out of here alive, or I’ll never be able to look Chuckie in the face ever again. You know the Teenagers From Hell have called for backup by now. The girls can’t get out of here without your help—you know it, I know it, and they know it.”
“You’re full of it, Missus Chief.” He looked like he was going to continue to argue, but instead he jerked a little and nodded his head. “Fine. You be careful.” He took my hand, gave it a squeeze, then turned and headed off. “All of you, with me, now.”
The girls went after him. I looked back at Naomi. She closed her eyes. I counted in my head. In fifteen seconds she spoke. “They’re back in the Embassy.”
That timed out right for them to have made it back to the bathroom with the power cube in it if they were going at hyperspeed and not stopping to search for things or beat people up along the way. I wasn’t leading them, so it was a safe bet they hadn’t gotten lost or turned around.
“You can see them there?” She nodded. “Did you make Malcolm go, or just tell him to go in his mind?”
“The latter. I’m not the bad guy, Kitty.”
“No, you’re just really scary right now, Mimi. Honestly. You need to come with me. We have to get some adrenaline into you, pronto.”
“No. I’m ending this. Now.”
As she said this, the door was unlocked and flung open, and Reid and LaRue came out, toting some impressively big guns. “Seriously? You two aren’t as smart as you like to think you are.”
Naomi laughed and the guns exploded, but the kids weren’t hurt. Hoped this was because Naomi knew we needed more information from them. “You want to threaten my family and friends? See how you like it.”
Reid and LaRue were lifted into the air, by nothing as far as I could see, though they were now glowing a bit, too. “Put us down, you bitch!” LaRue shouted.
“It’s really stupid to call the incredibly powerful woman holding you a good ways up in the air a bitch, kids. Just saying.”
Reid didn’t look frightened. “You know, Father said this might happen. That she’d OD. I wish he was here to see it.”
Holy crap, the Mastermind had foreseen this? What else was he prepped for? And who the hell was he? We needed him neutralized as if the safety of the world depended upon it, because it did.
“I’m not going to overdose you horrible little creep,” Naomi said.
I wasn’t so sure of that, but kept it to myself.
Both teenagers started to gasp and their eyes bugged out a bit. Figured Naomi was squeezing them in some way. Whatever way it was, it looked painful. Perhaps she hadn’t let the guns kill them not to keep them around for questioning but so she could kill them more slowly later. Like now later.
“Mimi, they have answers we need. We can’t kill them.”
She turned to me and her eyes were terrifying—open so wide I could see the whites all around her irises, and glowing, just like the rest of her. “I knew you’d say that. ‘Don’t kill them.’ My brother and aunt are dead. Who said ‘don’t kill them’?”
“Um, all of us.”
“I mean on their side!”
“Those kinds of things separate us from them, Mimi. It’s part of how you know you’re a good guy—when you only kill someone because you have to, not because you want to.”
She looked back at LaRue and Reid and released the hold on them so they could breathe. Maybe if they’d begged for their lives, or lied and said they were sorry, or just shut the hell up and gasped for air, things would have gone differently.
But they didn’t do any of those things.
LaRue smirked. “You know your husband loves her more than he loves you, don’t you?”
“And you know he’s in on all of this, right?” Reid said quickly. “And always has been.”
“He doesn’t, he’s not, and he never was,” I said. “Mimi, they’re baiting you because Father really hates Chuckie for some reason. They want you to give in.”
“You were his second choice,” LaRue taunted. “We all know it.”
“How would they know anything about this?” I asked her. “This is just part of their indoctrination.”
“Someone knows,” Reid said. “Or we wouldn’t.”
“Second choice, second choice,” LaRue said in a singsong voice.
“You won’t know anythin
g any more,” Naomi snarled.
“Mimi, they know you can read them. They’re trying to distract you, to play you, so you don’t find out the truth about who Father is, what else they have going on, and all that. We need to question them, and you need to not listen to their lies.”
She turned on me. “And you need to stop telling me what to do!”
“They must be programmed or indoctrinated or whatever to self-destruct, like the androids. At least in extreme cases.” Naomi certainly looked like an Extreme Case. She was glowing more brightly and was now floating above the floor.
“Why would we do that?” Reid asked. “We don’t want to die. We’re just telling her the truth.”
“You’d do it because you’re confident you’ll be brought right back, good as new, with all the old memories and all of the new ones intact.” They’d been inside their living quarters longer than just grabbing guns would have indicated. The chances that they’d taken pictures of themselves for download or upload or whatever they called it in their cloning process were high.
“I can’t wait to watch her kill you,” LaRue said. “When she sees that her husband still loves you more.”
“Oh, for God’s sake. He does not, you little twerps.”
And, maybe if the next few things hadn’t happened, things would also have been different.
But happen they did.
CHAPTER 88
BUCHANAN RETURNED, with Jeff and Chuckie in tow. Adriana returned, with White and Gower in tow. And the reinforcements the Crazy Super Twins had called arrived, with lots and lots of firepower in tow.
Vacillated between being glad to see everyone and wishing they’d stayed home. Maybe with Chuckie here he could calm Naomi down. Then again, should someone hurt him, that would undoubtedly flip Naomi over to the side of Kill ’Em All. And I wasn’t sure if she’d be selective about the “all.”
Naturally the bad guys started shooting, because that was what was expected of them. They seemed unclear on the concept of who to shoot, though, as at least some of the bullets were aimed for the floating teenagers. Perhaps the bad guy reinforcements were freaked out about glowing people floating in the air after bombs had already gone off elsewhere and they were standing on the shredded bodies of their work buddies. Could not imagine why that would throw them.
“Shoot the glowing bitch!” LaRue shrieked, as the rest of us hit the ground and rolled under the body beds. “Bomb her! Blow her up!”
“Bombs,” Naomi said, as if she’d just remembered something. My purse was lighter and I saw some small orbs spinning in the air. Great, Naomi had remembered something—that she and I were carrying explosives courtesy of Serene. And no one made better explosives than Serene.
“Kill all of them!” Reid shouted.
“Okay,” Naomi said. She sent the bombs into the reinforcements.
“Run!” I shouted to the others. “Serene made those!” Heard Jeff and Gower curse. Yeah, they’d also experienced Serene’s explosives firsthand.
I was closest to the reinforcements and, therefore, the bombs, and decided now was the time to run like hell for the other side. Could run on all fours or I could stand up, risk the bullets, and go a hell of a lot faster. Decided to go for living dangerously and left the ground like I was leaving the blocks for a race. I was able to stay low as I zigzagged through the hanging beds. Slammed into Adriana and dragged her along with me.
White and Gower had both grabbed Chuckie, Jeff had Buchanan, and all of us were running for the far end of the room.
“Down!” Jeff bellowed and we all hit the ground, moments before the bombs went off. Hyperspeed, it was probably the best A-C talent going. Why the Flash and Quicksilver weren’t considered higher-level heroes was a mystery, really.
The explosions were loud, almost drowning out the screams of the dying. Not quite, though. The body parts splattering throughout the room were a rare treat. The special fluids in the glass tanks, along with the shattered glass, were adding a unique thrill to the whole situation, too.
“Mimi, what are you doing?” Chuckie shouted, sounding horrified.
“Making them pay,” Naomi said calmly.
“Don’t worry, some of the parts are the pre-clones or whatever we’d call them. That sounds less reassuring said aloud than it did in my head. By the way.”
“Of all the commando raids in all the world, why did you have to go on this one?” Jeff asked, as we rolled out of the way of falling bodies and steel girders, because, of course some of the explosion had affected the cables and beds set up, and it was crashing down around us.
“Just lucky, I guess.”
The rain of parts, cables, beds, and metal stopped. “I hope you’re bringing more reinforcements,” Naomi said conversationally. She still had Reid and LaRue held up in the air. “You know, I can see everything. The entire universe. And beyond it, to all the other ones.”
“What is she talking about?” Gower asked as he and White held Chuckie down.
Now wasn’t the time to explain that multiple universes existed. Now was the time to share that we were well on our way to DEFCON Oh My God. “Dude, she is not in her right mind. She’s injected at least thirteen syringes full of Surcenthumain Pure. She did it to protect us. But it’s, ah, affecting her. Like, for instance, she may now think—”
“Chuck, why did you marry me if you still love Kitty more?”
“That. She may think that.”
“Seriously?” Jeff asked. Chuckie looked too shocked to speak.
“Wow, Jeff, the personal growth is impressive and I’m really hoping I get to reward it somewhere in the near future. The two teenagers she’s holding up in the air? They’re really good at baiting her. Just like we were all in high school with them. Because they know her weakness.”
The Mastermind knew us well. He knew Chuckie well. There had to be a clue in there somewhere. Reid and LaRue knew who Father was and I might have been able to trick them into telling me, or giving me enough clues to guess. But that wasn’t an option any more.
“Naomi,” Jeff shouted, “are you out of your mind?”
“Yes, she is. I keep on saying it, but no one listens. She’s higher than anyone has ever been, in the history of the world.”
“How can you allow it, Jeff?” Naomi asked, sounding sad.
“Because I know he loves you more,” Jeff said. He got up slowly. “Naomi, look at me.” She didn’t turn. “Look at me,” Jeff said, Commander Voice on full.
Naomi turned in the air. “Why?”
“I’m the strongest empath in the galaxy. I can read him. I can read you, too, you know. Your powers are so out of control that the blocks in here can’t affect my ability to read you. You know you’re not thinking right. Chuck loves you. He loves you as much as I love Kitty, and as much as you love him.”
“Why isn’t he saying so?” she asked petulantly.
“Because we’re not letting him up, in case you try to hurt him,” Gower said, as he got to his feet. “You need to stop this, right now. Let those children go.”
“No, no, no,” I said quickly, as I scrambled to my feet. “They’re bad kids. The worst, really. We don’t want her to let them go, we just don’t want her to kill them. Yet,” I added for honesty’s sake.
Naomi cocked her head and all of a sudden, all of us were floating in the air in front of her. I could feel her in my mind, so I was sure everyone else could, too.
“Get out of my head, Mimi,” I said. “You’re not ACE. You don’t have the right to do what you’re doing. You want to rummage around in heads? Rummage in Reid and LaRue’s heads and figure out who Father is.”
“ACE . . .” She looked away, but not at anything, more like she was looking off into the distance, or at something only she could see. “I . . . can see ACE. He . . . needs help.”
“So do we. We need to know who Father is. All this can stop if we can find the Mastermind, Mimi. You know that.”
She looked back at all of us, and, once again, I had the
hope that we’d all be able to laugh about this somewhere down the line.
Her expression softened as she looked at Chuckie. “I love you.”
“I love you, too. Mimi, please put us down, come down, and let’s go home,” Chuckie said gently. “Please, sweetheart.”
“You’re afraid of me,” she said sadly.
“You’re scary right now, Mimi. I told you that earlier. Of course we’re all afraid of you.”
“I don’t mean you, Kitty. I mean Chuck. He’s afraid of me.”
“I’m afraid of what you’ve done to yourself,” Chuckie said. “I want my wife back, Mimi. Please, sweetheart, we need to get you home so we can get that drug out of your system.”
“No!” She dropped us.
Fortunately, she hadn’t had us up too high, and also fortunately, Jeff, White, and Gower hit the ground first, so Jeff caught me, Gower caught Chuckie, and White caught Adriana. Buchanan landed, rolled, and came up without missing a beat.
“We could have done what Malcolm did,” I said as Jeff put me down.
“Sure you could, baby. We just wanted to be impressive. We also,” Jeff said quietly, “need to be ready to run like hell.”
“Mimi, we need to help you,” Chuckie said, with more than a little desperation in his voice. Yeah, he was Mr. Anti-Drug. Having his wife OD herself willingly was definitely one of the nastiest things to do to him. And the kids had said Father knew she’d do it, too. Meaning this was likely to be part of a long-term plan. Always the way.
“You will not take my powers away again!” Naomi was glowing more brightly and she looked, if possible, even angrier and crazier.
“Dude, what is the first rule of Just Say No? It’s don’t tell the addict you’re going to get them clean until they’re ready.”
“That’s not the first rule,” Chuckie said, as Naomi looked around and, apparently just for fun, brought down the area where the teenagers had been living. Meaning we weren’t going to be able to get any information out of there. “But your point is taken. What the hell are we going to do?”