by Fonda Lee
Anya twisted over her shoulder to fix Javid with a look of furious scorn. “Let go of me, Javid. You’re hurting my wrists.” She turned back around. “Kevin, tell him to get his hands off me.”
“Let her go,” Kevin said in an offhanded tone.
Javid released Anya’s arms and steered her roughly into Nakada’s desk chair. “Be a pain, and I’ll tie you into it,” he warned.
Surreptitiously, Donovan tried to armor again, just around his bleeding shoulder. The effort brought tingling pain, like trying to move a frozen limb. How long would it take for the exocel suppressant to wear off? Keep playing helpless. Once you can armor again, all you need is for Kevin to get careless, to get too close for just a few seconds …
Kevin put a hand on Dr. Nakada’s shoulder and leaned in to speak with the sympathetic but firm voice of someone advising a wayward friend as to what’s good for him. “You’re a smart guy, Eugene, but easily distracted. You’re losing focus on what’s important here. I’ve helped you out a lot, haven’t I? Kept you safe, helped you get lab space and equipment and samples—whatever you needed. Set you up again after we got raided by SecPac—twice. Isn’t that right?”
“Ah, well, yes,” Dr. Nakada said, blinking rapidly.
“Why do you think I’ve gone to the trouble for you all these years?” Kevin squeezed the doctor’s shoulder and his voice hardened. “Out of the kindness of my heart? For the good of science?”
“No, I don’t suppose so,” admitted Nakada.
“So where is it, then? I’ve been awfully patient, Doc. What’ve you got for me?” He glanced meaningfully at Donovan, then back to the scientist. “Unless you’re lying and really have gone to the stripes.”
Dr. Nakada’s swallow was audible. “Well, it’s only a prototype but …” He picked his way through the clutter-strewn lab and unlocked a cabinet underneath the counter where his eerie petri dishes were arranged. Kevin followed him; Javid and Anya craned slightly forward as well. From his place on the floor, Donovan had to twist around awkwardly to see what was going on. His vision was still wobbly, but he saw Dr. Nakada bend and retrieve a tray of vials from the cabinet and set them on the counter. The vials were full of a cloudy orange liquid, like apricot juice.
Kevin picked up one of the vials and turned it over. “What does it do?”
“You asked for something more lethal and with greater range than the suppressant spray,” Dr. Nakada said. “So I developed a more potent compound that evaporates quickly upon release. Instead of suppressing the exocel, it does the precise opposite: It attacks the enzyme that acts as the ‘off switch’ for the exocellular system. With this enzyme blocked, the exocel would be instantly overstimulated, leading to spasms, paralysis, oxygen depletion, and death.” Nakada tugged the collar of his shirt uncomfortably. “Non-Hardened humans don’t produce the enzyme in question, of course, so it should have no effect on them, but on a Hardened population it would … theoretically … be an effective chemical weapon.”
Kevin held the vial up to the light. A wolfish grin stretched across his face. “Doc, you’re a genius.”
“Now, as I said, this is just a prototype.” Dr. Nakada tugged the tray of vials closer toward himself, as if intending to return it to the cabinet under the counter. “It hasn’t been tested, and I can’t say for certain that it’s safe to use around non-Hardened civilians. I’ll need additional time to conduct animal studies before …” He tried to retrieve the vial from Kevin’s hand, but the man held it out of reach and, smiling, tucked it into a pocket of his vest. He plucked another vial from the tray and handed it to Javid, who palmed it eagerly.
“Javid and I will keep some on hand for field testing,” Kevin said, patting his pocket. “As for animal studies …” Kevin looked back down at Donovan. “Seems we’ve got the perfect opportunity, right now.”
Anya stood, fists balled. “You said you wouldn’t kill him.”
“Did I say that?” Kevin looked to Javid.
Javid smiled broadly. “You never said that.”
Kevin clapped Nakada on the back. “Start packing up your stuff, Doctor. You know the drill.” Kevin was all efficiency now. “Javid, run on over to the SRP’s main house and get us resupplied. Let them know we’re taking Eugene with us. I want to be back on the road before noon.”
Javid nodded and turned to go, then hesitated. “Maybe we should go over to the house together.” He jerked his head toward Donovan. “I don’t like the idea of leaving you here with a stripe, tied up or not. There’s something about that one in particular. He’s always got some trick up his sleeve.”
Kevin glanced at Donovan. His lips twitched. “This shroom pet and I have a history. I’m not taking my eyes off him for a second. Don’t worry about one drugged, handcuffed stripe, Javid. Worry about the twenty of them that might show up if we don’t get our asses out of here right quick. Get over to the main house and get us sorted.”
“What about her?” Javid asked.
Kevin walked over to Anya and gently but firmly pushed her back into the chair. “Anya’s not going to cause any trouble. Are you?”
Anya glared, her mouth set in a defiant scowl, but she crossed her arms and stayed in the seat. Kevin smirked and turned away.
Javid left. Dr. Nakada set the tray of remaining test tube vials inside a metal box and latched it. He opened a closet door and began rolling out large plastic crates on wheels. The doctor was clearly no stranger to sudden Sapience-mandated relocations. His shoulders were slouched forward in resignation, and he didn’t look at anyone as he packed up the items in his lab with methodical efficiency.
Donovan tried to think past the pain, the grogginess, his mounting sense of horror and helplessness. He couldn’t let Kevin Warde escape yet again, with Anya and Dr. Nakada and a box of deadly chemical weapons. Once more, he tried to armor. This time he felt his exocel respond, a little slow and achy. Wait. Wait until you’re ready.
“You’re not being smart about this, Kevin,” Anya insisted. “Killing exos has never done us any good, and now it’s plain dumb. The exos would fight the Rii if they could. They could actually help us.”
Kevin helped to unstack the doctor’s crates and open them up. “You’re such a kid, Anya.” He didn’t sound angry, simply disappointed. “Getting a schoolgirl crush on a stripe, being starstruck by Saul’s speeches—it’s embarrassing, you know that? I’m so used to looking out for you that I’ve been making excuses for your bad choices, but I’m done with that now. You’ve got to stop screwing around and grow up.”
Kevin swept the contents of Nakada’s desk into a box. He turned, put his hands on the armrests of the chair, and loomed over Anya. “We don’t need exos. We never have. In fact, I thank these new shrooms for finally bringing the war we’ve needed for a long time. The marked people who chose to side with the aliens over their own kind—they’ve spent the last hundred years counting on peace, on the shrooms taking care of them, all while enjoying the perks that come from keeping the rest of us in line. They’re going to be the first ones to go. They made their bed and now they’ve got to lie in it. It’s justice, long overdue.”
Anya lifted her chin. “I don’t believe it has to be that way.”
“It does.” Kevin touched the vial in his pocket. “After the shroom pets are gone, we’ll still be here, those of us who know how to hide and fight and survive. We’ve been doing it all this time, and we’ll only get better at it. People are flocking to the cause, Anya. We’ll train and organize them, and we’ll take back our planet from the aliens—doesn’t matter which ones.”
“You’re insane,” Donovan said.
Kevin ignored him. “You know that when things go south, you’ve got a better chance with me than with anyone else. A better chance than with Saul. Who taught you to drive? To shoot? Who got the meds your mom needed when no one else could? Who got us through those three weeks in Boise?” Kevin put his hands on the sides of Anya’s arms and gave her a slight shake. “This week was just the beginnin
g; things are going to get worse. Anyone who plans to survive had better be with people they can count on.” Kevin leaned in closer to Anya; his harsh voice softened. “We’re practically family, Anya. Deep down, you know that, don’t you?”
Anya dropped her gaze and slowly nodded, her eyes swimming. Donovan’s heart seemed to seize. “You’re not her family.” Rage made it difficult for him to speak coherently. “You’re a predator. A psychopath.” But even as he flung the words, he could tell Anya wasn’t listening. Everyone’s got something decent about them, deep down. That’s what Anya believed. It was why she’d trusted Donovan—but it was also why, no matter what, she stuck by Kevin Warde.
You do whatever you have to do to look after yourself. She’d said that too.
At the lab bench, Dr. Nakada’s hands shook as he covered each of his petri dish samples and placed them, one by one, inside an insulated container. Donovan had lost all hope of trying to catch the doctor’s eye or sway his sympathies. Nakada latched the first two crates and wheeled them hurriedly out the door, as if he couldn’t leave the room fast enough.
Kevin brushed Anya’s hair back and put his mouth near her ear, whispering things Donovan couldn’t hear. Donovan jerked against the handcuffs, rattling them against the metal table leg. “Anya, don’t listen to him.” The fury coursing hard through his veins cleared his head completely. “Kevin! You and your trigger-happy gang of thugs, you’ve no idea how deluded you are.”
Kevin turned around, his eyes slitted. He walked toward Donovan and crouched in front of him, well out of reach. “You’re one of my biggest regrets from last year, stripe. You were the one that got away from me.” Kevin pulled out the vial of orange liquid and wagged it with anticipation. “Life rarely gives us second chances. You were about to make yourself useful to science earlier. No reason why that can’t still be the case.”
Donovan stared the man down. “Killing me won’t change a thing. It’ll make you feel smug for a few days, but that’s it. Even if your weapon works, the Rii will conquer Earth, and you don’t have a clue what you’re up against.” Donovan shifted as if trying to alleviate the pressure of the handcuffs on his wrists, while sliding himself into a more mobile position. Get him angry. Get him closer. “That’s the problem with you, Kevin. You confuse killing your enemies with actual victory. Brett scored a real victory. He fooled you and led SecPac to destroy the Warren. All you could do was torture and kill him, but he’d already beaten you.”
That hit a nerve. Kevin’s expression turned venomous.
Donovan plowed into the opportunity. “Go ahead, break open that test tube. Be sure to get the whole thing on video and play it to yourself at night to get off on what a big-time exo-killing patriot you are.” He was on a roll now. “Maybe you’ll even convince yourself that you’re half the Sapience leader that Saul is. At least he’s an opponent I can respect.”
Kevin started up, murder dancing in his eyes. Donovan readied himself. This was some surreal replay of a nightmare he’d been in before: He was a captive about to die. But this time he felt no terror, only determined hatred. If he could wrap his legs around the man and pull him forward …
Kevin didn’t come a step closer. “Soon.” The word was a promise. “I’ll have the others wait outside and we’ll have our time together. Not as much time as I’d like, but believe me, I’m going to enjoy every second of it.”
“Don’t move, Kevin,” Anya said. “Or I’ll shoot.”
Kevin turned around. Surprise and fear leapt into Donovan’s chest in a double beat. Anya had opened the desk drawer and taken out Dr. Nakada’s revolver. She stood pointing it at Kevin’s chest. “I’m not going to let you kill him.” Her voice wavered, but her thumb pressed down firmly on the hammer, cocking it. “Put that vial on the desk, and your gun too.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Kevin’s voice was calm but furious. “Put the gun down, Anya. Does this stripe really mean that much to you?”
Anya was breathing hard. “Just do what I said, Kevin.”
Kevin’s mouth twisted. He walked toward Anya, his hands open and at his sides. “Do it, then. Me or him. Make your choice.”
“Anya, shoot him!” Donovan cried. He lunged but the fixed table didn’t move an inch. “Don’t let him take the gun from you. Shoot him.”
“Is he worth it? Worth betraying me, and the cause, and all of humankind? Worth ruining your own chances?” Kevin advanced until he was within six feet of Anya’s outstretched gun hand. “You think he cares about you more than I do?”
“I do.” Donovan’s voice was a helpless whisper. “Anya.”
Anya’s gun hand trembled. The barrel drifted downward, and Anya’s eyes overflowed with tears of frustration. Kevin reached out and put his hand on the gun. Gently, he lifted it from Anya’s unresisting hands. Putting a thumb between the hammer and the frame, he carefully de-cocked the revolver, then opened the cylinder and removed the ammunition. Donovan felt the sense of momentary hope die, whimpering in his chest, as Kevin tucked the empty weapon into his waistband. Anya hugged herself, her downcast eyes full of shame.
Kevin’s hand shot out and grabbed her around the throat, pulling her forward. Anya gasped. “If you ever do that again,” Kevin snarled, “I’ll kill you.” He released Anya roughly and turned his back on her.
The next second, Kevin jerked. His eyes and mouth flew open, and a sharp yell of surprise and pain escaped him as he rose onto his toes and then toppled forward like a statue, twitching and spasming as he went. His forehead smashed hard into the edge of the metal table that Donovan was handcuffed to, dislodging his ball cap, and he collapsed to the ground. Anya stepped over him and jabbed him in the back again with the short black object in her hand, and Kevin’s body jumped on the floor, limbs beating against the ground as electric current poured through him. Kevin’s eyes rolled back in their sockets. His legs gave a few last involuntary jerks before he fell limp.
Anya dropped to her knees and began rummaging frantically in the front pocket of Kevin’s pants. She pulled out a set of keys and hurried over to Donovan, her fingers fumbling as she found the thin handcuff key and fitted it to his restraints.
Donovan stared, speechless at what she’d done.
“What?” She paused just long enough to look down into his bruised face. A quick, scoffing expression puckered her mouth. “It’s funny how no one ever sees that coming.”
The key turned in the handcuffs and they opened. Donovan yanked the metal from his wrists and without wasting a second, scrambled over to Kevin’s prone form. He pulled the man’s hands together behind his back. “You have no idea how long I’ve been wanting to do this.” Donovan slapped the handcuffs over Kevin’s wrists, ratcheting them tight. “By authority of the Global Security and Pacification Forces, I charge you with being Earth’s biggest asshole.”
He rolled Kevin over onto his back and patted him down, taking the handgun from his waistband, the empty revolver, the smaller, second gun from his shoulder holster, and the sheathed knife clipped to the man’s belt. Carefully, he removed the vial of nerve agent from Kevin’s vest pocket, breathing a sigh of relief that the tube hadn’t broken in Kevin’s fall.
Anya touched him on the arm and he looked up. Dr. Nakada stood in the doorway, looking down at them, his thin face frozen in surprise.
Donovan got to his feet. “Javid will be back soon, possibly with more members from the Sapience cell,” he said. “We have to leave. Now.”
Anya ran outside and pulled the truck as close as possible to the entrance of the Biological Sciences Building. Donovan found a roll of duct tape, bound Kevin’s ankles and knees together tightly, slapped a strip of tape over his mouth, and dragged the man down the hall to the elevator.
“Maybe we should just leave him,” Dr. Nakada suggested.
“No way,” Donovan panted, hauling Kevin along by the armpits and wincing from all the wounds that made physical exertion difficult. Nakada was right; leaving Warde behind would speed their escape, but Donov
an would be damned if he was going to let the man ever roam free again. “It’s hard enough for me to not kill him right now. I’m not taking any chances.”
He maneuvered Kevin into the elevator and rested against the wall as the slow contraption climbed up to the ground floor and let them out. Dr. Nakada went out first and stacked the two crates he was carrying next to the ones he’d brought out earlier and left by the door in preparation for departing with Kevin and Javid. Donovan side-eyed the doctor with disgust. A few hours ago, Nakada had been willing to help him try to save exo lives. Then Kevin had shown up, and the scientist had submissively handed over a weapon to take those same lives. He operated on the bodies of people he knew Kevin had murdered, and he would’ve stood by and let Donovan become the next of those victims. Nakada was a coward.
Anya was already waiting by the pickup. Donovan hefted the bound and gagged Kevin into the truck bed, taking pains not to be gentle about it. Kevin was already stirring, his forehead a swollen shade of purple where it had struck the lab table. Donovan dropped the truck bed cover and latched it.
They loaded Nakada’s crates into the rear of the cab. There was barely enough room for the three of them on the front bench. “You’d better drive,” Anya said, handing Donovan the keys. “I can squeeze into the middle between the two of you.”
Donovan climbed into the driver’s seat. He studied the steering wheel and dashboard uncertainly. Anya gave him an incredulous look. “Don’t tell me you don’t know how to drive a regular car.”
“I’ve driven petroleum burners before.” It was the sort of thing everyone learned in training, then filed away as a skill unlikely to ever be needed. Donovan put the truck’s key into the ignition and turned it. To his surprise, it came to life on the first try with a deep grumble.
“Hey, it likes you,” Anya said.
Donovan took the truck out of park and touched his foot to the gas. It didn’t move at first; then it jerked like a whipped ox, throwing them all forward. Anya gripped the dash. “It’s a little temperamental.”