Higgins and Morton stood to either side of the orange door uncertainly, their expressions mirroring each other’s indecision. Well, well, well, Rice thought smugly. Special little secrets in here for certain. Aloud he said, “Come on, guys, let’s go—open it up. It’s way too late to back out now. Besides, you know that MedTech’s private investigations rarely result in prosecution. We go in, clean out the jelly, and skedaddle.” Rice gave Morton a toothy smile that made the men on his team smirk. “What better service can you get?”
For the first time, Morton looked over at his subordinate for support, but the younger man avoided his boss’s gaze, fixing on a spot on the floor somewhere in the vicinity of his right shoe. “I really should check with someone,” Morton managed. “This is a highly restricted area. I—I’ve never been in here before.”
With ol’ Blue as jumpy as a scared fly, it was a risk for Rice to firm up his grip on the guidepole with one hand and unholster his laser pistol with the other. “My patience with this is about worn out, Chief Morton. If you don’t open this fucking door, I’m going to burn it apart and then you and everybody else can explore the other side to your heart’s content. This is your last chance; punch in the code or step aside.”
Surrendering, Morton angrily jabbed four keys on the pad. Without a sound, the bright orange door slid aside, exposing a short, wide hallway without the benefit of light. From its other end a rectangle of glowing fluorescent light beckoned, and it was in that direction that ol’ Blue suddenly began lurching, nearly dragging the team members off their feet in his eagerness to get to whatever was inside.
“Whoa!” McGarrity exclaimed as he fought with the center guidepole of the alien’s harness and dodged a reflexive twitch of the creature’s tail. It was the first time the Irishman had spoken since their arrival back at the Presley Hall loading dock. “I’d say this ugly son of a bitch is getting right passionate about our expedition, Chief.”
“I’ll give him a mini-squirt,” Rice said. His thumb found and pressed the button on the box that controlled the Surgealyn; four more seconds, and the alien’s struggles melted away and he stood among the five men, docile and nearly silent as he swayed gently like some huge, hand-trained tropical parrot. God, the Surgealyn was so powerful—Good thing, too. When they stepped through the brightly lit doorway, it was obvious that sometime in the recent past, the room had been occupied by one of Blue’s own kind.
“Well, guys, I think it’s safe to surmise that the stolen egg has hatched,” Rice commented dryly. Standing with his men and the two Synsound security workers, they all stared at what was left—and it wasn’t much—of a dark-haired man lying on the floor next to a shattered electronic keyboard. Most of the man’s chest and abdomen were gone and the ragged edges of his broken ribs showed as stained white around the bloody hole in the center of his body; traces of scarlet dribbled down the sides of the nearby keyboard and splattered the floor around the corpse. “Any idea who he was?”
Morton cleared his throat, a sick expression on his face. “I think his name was Damon Eddington. He was a musician, or a composer. Something like that.”
“I’ve heard of him,” Higgins piped in. “Seen his picture on the Syndisc covers, too. Most people thought his music was kind of… weird.” No one seemed impressed.
“Looks like somebody’s pet got real pissed,” Rice said flatly. A blood-splashed empty jelly vial was partially jammed beneath the body and he pointed at it. “And here’s why.” Rice’s keen gaze tracked an intermittent trail of alien saliva away from the corpse until he nodded at another open doorway. “Anyone know where that leads?”
“I used to know this place fairly well when I was working city security,” Morez spoke up when neither of the Synsound men seemed inclined to volunteer the information. “The trip down here got me kind of turned around, but I think that might be another way to the stage.”
Silence followed Morez’s response as the three MedTech specialists considered the possibilities. The air in the large room stank of death, and to their left was a wall of quartz glass that showed an expansive area filled with the remains of humans and animals alike. Cracked human skulls were scattered amid the splintered and picked-over skeletons of larger beasts that could no longer be identified. The creature that had lived in there before tonight had obviously been well fed; taken into consideration with the door and stairs leading to the other levels of Presley Hall, the gaping, unguarded entryway to the enclosure promised more dark events before the night was over.
“Your ticket holders are gonna get a real show tonight,” said Rice. He nodded toward the opening. “Put ol’ Blue in there and give him a triple dose from the box before you close it up. That’ll hold him for a good three hours, until we can come back and pick him up.” McGarrity and Morez moved to do as Rice instructed, expertly steering the oversize alien through the waiting entrance.
“What does this mean?” Morton asked Rice as he and Higgins watched the alien being caged. “Are you saying there was an alien in here?”
“Here”—MedTech’s chief of security smiled placidly— “let me explain it.” He stepped closer and his hands snapped forward. “Dream time,” he said simply.
“Wha—hey!” Morton and Higgins both yelped as Rice pricked them simultaneously in the upper arms with lancets of Surgealyn. “What was… was… wha…”
Neither managed a complete sentence before they slid to the floor.
Rice held up the uncapped tips of the anesthetic vials for McGarrity and Morez to see. “They’ll be out for hours,” he announced. He tossed the used lancets at a nearby trash can, then carefully adjusted his gloves. “Hopefully this won’t take longer than that.” He motioned to his men to follow him into the waiting stairwell.
“But what if it does?” Morez asked worriedly. “What if ol’ Blue comes around? There’s no telling what kind of smells are in that enclosure. We didn’t even check it.”
Rice glanced at the cage’s window wall and saw ol’ Blue, crouched quietly on the other side, massive head hanging low from the effects of the anesthetic. He shrugged. “Well, the missing alien should be one of ol’ Blue’s own hive, and besides, Blue’s still fully harnessed. If he goes a little crazy, we’ll be all right as long as we can get close enough to grab the Surgealyn control.” He paused at the bottom of the stairs, listening. From somewhere deep in the building, the three of them could hear the throbbing of a concert in full swing on Presley Hall’s main stage.
“I hope you boys are ready to rock and roll,” Rice said softly as he grabbed the banister and took his first step. “I got a feeling the time has come to get down to the serious hunting.”
25
It had been easy to follow the smattering trail of alien saliva through the disorienting maze of underground hallways and stairwells. Too easy, in fact. Now, of course, the fun times were at an end and Rice, McGarrity, and Morez discovered that the stairs they were climbing ended in a dual choice: more stairs up and to their left, or a bidirectional hallway directly in front of them, and not a gloppy wad of Homeworld alien spit to be found.
“What the hell!” Rice hurried a few paces in one direction, then tried the other. “Did the thing suddenly dry up or what?”
“For all we know, the bastard sprouted wings. This is great,” McGarrity said in disgust as the group faltered and stopped. “Which way?”
Rice grimaced and scanned the landing again, but it was useless: he couldn’t spot any more droplets of the telltale greenish slime. “Hell, anyone’s guess is as good as mine.” He glanced around a final time, checking the shadows among the industrial pipes and joints overhead just to be sure, but with no luck. At last he shrugged and pointed at the stairs. “He’s been down level so long, maybe he’ll keep going up. Let’s try that way.”
Shifting under the weight of his backpack, Rice turned and began climbing with his men close on his heels.
* * *
Michael heard the audience scream louder with delight and looked up from
digging into his bag for the last piece of candy to see an alien leap on the stage with the Helltones.
“I’ll be damned,” he said. Eyes wide, he dropped the empty paper bag on the floor and stood, trying to see around the people in front of him—who were also standing and jumping and craning their necks in an effort to see this surprise addition to the show. Michael’s seat was pretty good, but not made to provide visual access when the entire assembly of concert attendees decided to stand. As a result, he could only get a glimpse of what was going on down on the stage now and then through the mass of bodies that seemed to visibly swell with excitement at the sight of the alien.
“Oh, cool!” exclaimed the girl on Michael’s left. The dyed pink and yellow mini-braids that went down the center of her otherwise shaven scalp bobbed with approval in time with her gold skull earrings; to Michael, it sounded like she’d said “Kew-al.” “A ’droid alien!’” she continued loudly. “Is this like a rave or what?” Her hand flashed to her face and the glowing blue contents of a vial of jelly disappeared into her mouth.
On the stage beneath his balcony location, Michael saw the alien android take a swipe at the lead singer and thought it was amusing that he was the one the performance manager had programmed the thing to attack; after all, the singing android was a parody of the alien creature itself. The immense vidscreen showed it all as, apparently unconcerned, the Helltones’ lead singer continued to belt out his harsh lyrics beneath the circulating, multicolor laser lights—
“…with each bloody thrust…”
—as the bigger alien android rebounded across the stage and wrapped a huge, clawed hand around his head. “Drink deep, baby,” the singer bayed at the microphone, and his voice was still going strong when the alien ripped his mechanical head free of his body and flung the two pieces in different directions.
Michael’s gasp was lost as the audience screamed its approval, and he barely made out the alien android’s answering cry. Straining to see past the crowd, Michael’s heart abruptly began to pound heavily. He knew that sound, had heard it a thousand times, two thousand. It sounded so real, so very much like…
Mozart!
The creature on the stage was in a paroxysm of rage as strings of its greenish saliva mixed with the sudden white splash of the demolished android’s nutrient and lubrication fluids. Michael had seen the alien fight more times than he cared to remember, but never like this— maddened beyond anything previous. Michael realized there must be dozens of shattered vials of jelly down there, each dropped dose pushing the creature deeper into its battle frenzy. His hands went to his mouth in shock as the band member closest to the alien was the creature’s next victim, and for all their gruesome lyrics and dangerous appearances, the singing band members were placid, defenseless concoctions of synthetic flesh and plastic skeletons. Limited cellular programming made the lead guitarist continue his strumming motions despite the crush of jaws that severed its elongated fingers forever. Long hair swinging, the second guitarist was gamely singing the backup lyrics when his chest was torn apart.
Around Michael, the concert attendees were going wild, delighted with this unannounced addition to the Helltones’ show. Michael was far too shocked and frightened to share in their enthusiasm; a hellish premonition of what was to come made the swishy combination of candy and soda in his gut abruptly want to boil up. “It-it can’t be,” he stuttered. He looked around imploringly, but there was no one who looked like an usher or even a vendor, and security in the balcony was generally nonexistent. With mounting horror, he saw dozens of people in the balcony alone intensify their exhilaration with doses of jelly—how many more vials were being opened on the main floor?
Desperate, he turned toward the girl next to Jim. She was whipping her head from side to side, braids streaming in time to the thinned-out music and not at all bothered by the fact that half of the band was now in a multitude of sloshy pieces across the stage. “Yeah!” the young woman screamed at the stage. “It’s about time you guys did something different!”
Unexpected anger made heat rush to his face. God forbid you should get bored, Michael thought with completely out-of-place annoyance. The Helltones have been around for a whole month—what on earth will you want next week? “Hey!” he yelled to her, waving his arms to get her attention. “Listen to me—it’s not an android! It’s real—we should all get out of here!” But she only glanced at him and rolled her eyes before going back to her involvement with the physical beat.
Roaring louder as he destroyed one android after another, Mozart—and Michael was sure it was him—was awash in dripping hues of yellow and red as the light show danced over him and the severed pieces of the band members. Feedback razored through the speakers from the shattered instruments, twisting along Michael’s nerves like the feel of biting into aluminum foil, and if the people around him in the balcony were getting into the Helltones’ newest performer, those directly in front of the stage were ecstatic. The only person who seemed to have a brain about what the situation really was had been the guy holding the video camera for the giant vidscreen, who had gotten the hell out of there at the first sight of the alien—no fool there; if it wasn’t on the program schedule, he wasn’t worrying about taping it. No one down there had the sense to connect his abandonment of his post with the alien and the sudden appearance of two dozen security men running toward the stage. Some people, in fact, were shouting a parody of rhythm to Mozart’s screams and pushing through the mob toward the stage, waving their arms at the alien and trying to sing along with the fragmented words that were still coming from what was left of the lead singer’s head at one side of the floor. Junkies, Brangwen saw in dismay, their opened vials clutched high as they worked their way amid their fellow ticket-holders, all no doubt brethren to the long-dead Ken Petrillo. Every one of them convinced they heard the same righteous wailing of love and music embedded within the alien’s screams.
The audience’s approval as Mozart annihilated the last of the band members was thunderous, their adulation consummate as the creature finished his presentation by spinning and crushing what remained of the Helltones’ lead singer’s head—the top half, stuck in a recorded loop of “My knife of lo—CHIK! My knife of lo—CHIK! My knife of lo—CHIK!”
Horrified, Michael clutched the edge of the balcony and watched in a daze as Mozart, his work on stage completed with a final, vicious hiss at a microphone before he pulverized it, reared and faced the audience.
Some of the fools were trying to struggle past the throng of shouting security guards and clamber onto the stage itself, reaching happily for what they still thought was an android that wouldn’t harm them. The first to die were two of the faux leather-jacketed security men, taken out in a swift flash of teeth and claws that only an unfortunate few were close enough to see—those witnesses were next, slaughtered still in the act of turning tail and trying to flee.
Pandemonium ensued. In the overhanging balcony, Michael found himself screaming uselessly at the people below, beating on the balcony’s railing in an effort to make people hear his cries of warning. From up here it looked like people were spontaneously disintegrating in small explosions of blood and body matter seconds after Mozart reached them; Michael’s shouts were lost in the chaotic combination of those who were still convinced it was all part of the show and those who’d had a sudden change of heart and decided to get the hell out. Abruptly Michael turned to flee, his choice with the later group; having seen from up close what Mozart could do, the bioengineer had no desire to join the firsthand experience club. Better to be among the survivors who would remember and have nightmares than be one of the mucky puddles of remains.
Mozart was tearing a bloody path through the first three rows when Michael pushed his way to the side aisle and headed for the exit while others in the balcony couldn’t make up their minds whether to stay or go. Still babbling at people who wouldn’t listen, unable to stop himself, Michael was halfway up the aisle when he passed three men in armored w
hite uniforms that he didn’t recognize. The police? Some sort of special army unit? He had no idea, and his thoughts were too disjointed to sort it out right now. One thing he was sure of: Whoever they were, the three guys who were sprinting into the fray and headed for the edge of the balcony, pulling out an assortment of weapons as they went, were probably the only hope left for the people on the main floor.
26
“Let’s go, people—come on, clear it out!” Rice shouted at the people scrambling around in the balcony aisle. “Let us through, damn it!” He glanced back at McGarrity and Morez. “So much for keeping this quiet!” His words could barely be heard over the yells and screams of the crowd. He had thought the panic was contained on the first floor, but for some reason it had started spreading upstairs, too.
“No kidding, Chief.” Morez pointed over the balcony’s railing. “Look—there’s our hatchling, down on the main floor.”
“Where—aw, crap!” Thirty feet below the balcony, a full-grown alien was energetically cutting his way through anything soft within reach. Still swearing, the security chief struggled to get the backpack off. He was unzipping it when his men leaned on the railing, their weapons ready.
“Pretty good size for his age,” McGarrity said grimly. He and Morez didn’t need to be told to fire on the alien, and a moment later the sound of weapons fire split the commotion caused by the fleeing and screaming crowd; another instant and the noise doubled as the people who hadn’t been leaving decided it was time to head for the hills. Finally the ones who still believed it was all part of the show were getting a clue.
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