* * *
Rice and his men were gone quickly, after less than three minutes of grappling with the guidepoles on the harness that was strapped around their alien. Now the apiary lab was empty and silent, the only sound the quiet hum of the computers that were never powered down and the fainter noise of the air circulation units. It had been a long time since this place was this hushed, without even the sound of alien hissing to cut through the stuffy room.
Where was Darcy, anyway? Michael had speculated earlier that she’d gone home, but that couldn’t be—they were still under orders not to leave Presley Hall. A scarier, sadder possibility was that between Damon’s madness and her fixation with the alien’s behavior, she might be one of the butchered lumps of flesh within Mozart’s now-empty enclosure that Michael couldn’t bring himself to examine more closely. It was a cruel end for a young woman, and she didn’t deserve to die for being, like himself, another of Synsound’s foolish, dedicated puppets. Wandering from one piece of equipment to another, loath to stay but afraid to leave, Michael’s mind craftily filled in the voices that were missing from the room, all of them—from Damon Eddington, Ken Petrillo and the other dead subjects, to Darcy’s and that of the overbearing MedTech Security Chief who had just left. Payback on this project was going to be heavy, and this was a room full of ghosts; among the guilty, he was the only survivor.
Michael wasn’t sure, but he thought the next step was to call Keene, but he decided to leave that mess to the two Presley Hall security men who were still alive when he checked them. They could handle that end of things when they came around—no doubt Rice and his men had injected them with something to keep them out of the way. Pacing around the room and going from body to body with a sort of undeniable morbid fascination, Michael stopped by Ahiro’s corpse and stared down at the Japanese man. Alive, Ahiro had worn a perpetual slight frown that had accentuated the scar across his eyebrow and made him look continually ominous and unapproachable, definitely someone you didn’t want holding a grudge against you. In death, his face was smooth and surprisingly unlined, as if he’d had little to worry about during his lifetime beyond whatever orders were issued by… who? Michael couldn’t see Mr. Keene as having that kind of hold over this man who had been simultaneously unconcerned about Keene but passionate about fulfilling Eddington’s every wish, and he still remembered Eddington’s puzzled look when he and Darcy had first mentioned Ahiro. Obviously, Ahiro had acted on the orders of someone much more elevated in the Synsound hierarchy; Yoriku, perhaps, but at this point, Michael would probably never be sure. He thought briefly of going through the man’s pockets on the auspices of looking for the name of someone to call, and even started to bend and gingerly pat the side pockets of Ahiro’s black slacks. Abruptly Michael dismissed the idea; doing so would obligate him to do the same for Eddington, and frankly, that was Synsound’s job. They’d gotten themselves into this situation; they could handle the dirty work of notifying family members themselves. Before he straightened, however, Michael saw something white clipped to the inside of the right pocket of the dead man’s pants, a plastic card that would have been invisible when Ahiro was walking around. Curiosity wouldn’t let Michael ignore it, and a closer inspection showed it to be a computer keycard with a MedTech logo on it. Across the bottom in Ahiro’s spiky writing—Michael recognized it from the signatures on a hundred work orders and disbursements—was the name “Eddie McGarrity.” The name sounded familiar—had he seen it somewhere recently?—but he couldn’t tie it into anything. Perhaps among the blameworthy in this death-soaked project, there were even those at MedTech.
It was time to leave this place. Surely the orders to stay on the grounds were moot now that the project had been destroyed. The smell of blood crawled up his nose like wet metal and permeated the room, and Michael decided he might as well get out of here before it settled into his clothes and forced him to carry this ordeal home. He was still hearing voices in his head, whispers of blame as he remembered himself not, perhaps, protesting enough when all those men were fed to Mozart as part of Eddington’s experiment. As he gathered up the few personal items he’d brought in, he thought he could hear Darcy’s voice, too, unaccountably louder than the accusing murmurs in his own head. It wasn’t until he’d swept his belongings into a bag and stopped for a final look around that he began to think it wasn’t his imagination after all. Standing suddenly still and silent in the center of the bloodied lab, clutching his paper bag by its edges to halt the sound of crumpling paper, there was no mistaking it—
“Help…”
Faint, but there—somewhere.
When the cry came again, Michael dropped the bag and ran through the gaping entrance to the alien enclosure, his heart suddenly pounding painfully inside his chest. Was it Darcy? It sounded like her, but it was so faint it was hard to tell, and he didn’t trust his overactive imagination not to lie when it told him that it was his companion bioengineer. Stepping into Mozart’s cage was like stepping into a portion of hell and the smell of decomposing flesh made Michael gag outright, temporarily blotting out the nearly inaudible call. It was little comfort knowing that the slowly disintegrating piles of… meat around him could never have talked; he was half-afraid that any one of them—or all of them—would sit up and grab at his ankle as he scurried past.
“Please…”
He hesitated at the mouth of the escape tunnel, fighting a sudden bout of claustrophobia. The voice was definitely feminine—it had to be Darcy. But how on earth had she gotten in here? If she’d gone in after the alien was freed, there would be no reason for her to be trapped. The only other way Michael could think of for her to end up inside the enclosure was—
Eddington!
Heart thudding, the older bioengineer scrambled into the tunnel, gritting his teeth against a concentrated smell that was ten times worse than it was in the larger outer chamber. He was shocked to see the walls of the tunnel encrusted with dark, gooey resin in deep, circular ridges that were clearly the instinctive setup for future nesting. Climbing over a corpse with sticky locks of blond hair showing above the whitish strands of cocoon material was like seeing a nightmare with his eyes wide open, and Michael hoped to God he found the source of the cry for help soon—
“Here…”
—because he really didn’t think the overloaded heart in his aging, pudgy body could take much more of this.
Finally, the side tunnel; too small for Mozart but Michael could fit—barely—and he inched his way along the steel-gray length, bruising his knees and elbows, banging his head too many times to count as he realized he was following a trail of sticky blood. He could see the other end of the tunnel where, true to Eddington’s cruel nature, it intersected the larger tunnel that had easily accommodated Mozart’s oversize body. The opening was clear, which meant that only one place could’ve held Darcy undetected for this long: the small escape hatch that Michael had nearly forgotten about. When he finally pulled himself to its edge and peered over, his mouth dropped open. Darcy was there, all right, her face pale and bloodless and seeming to float in the darkness below. He reached for her instinctively, finding her hands and wrapping his fingers around hers; her skin was moist, waxy, and frigid, the fingernails blue. “Darcy,” he managed, “are you hurt? Can you climb out?”
“Can’t,” she whispered, “he… got my ankle.” Her eyes were dull and barely open. “Listen to… me. Have to… tell you.” She fought to keep going, her voice fading in and out like the poor reception of an antique transistor radio. I was… right about… establishing a… bond, Michael. Remember? What I told you… before… what we talked about? Mozart, he… hesitated. Just for… a moment.”
Her voice dropped away and Michael reached for her, frantically checking for a pulse. He found one, but it was erratic and thready, and he didn’t dare try to drag her out of the tunnels by himself. Clambering his way down to the opening at the opposite end, intent on the telephone in the outer lab of the apiary, he couldn’t help but marvel
about the fixation that still existed in Darcy’s heart for this project. Lying there, too weak to reach the alarm and nearly dead, perhaps not expecting to survive as she forced herself to tell him about it.
Michael could have sworn she was smiling.
29
“Come on in.” Ricky Morez beamed at them from the doorway to his flat. “I’m really glad you both could come. You’re just in time—the nightly news is about to start and they’re supposed to show the piece about the Presley Hall attack.”
Rice stepped to the side to let Tobi go inside first, secretly impressed with Morez’s manners and flawless invitation. Rice had mentioned earlier on the phone that he was bringing a guest but he hadn’t said who, and if Morez had been surprised to see Tobi Roenick, nothing had shown on his face. Layered against the damp spring weather, Rice could feel perspiration building beneath the collar of the shirt he wore under a brightly colored sweater. Leaving his jacket in the front hall closet with Tobi’s didn’t help a bit, and Rice was beginning to wish he’d come alone or not at all. Losing a hundred credits to Morez was nothing compared to what Tobi would do to him if she ever got a hint that this date could be traced back to a bet made on an alien egg hunt. While he really had suggested this as their first date as a way of diffusing the strain of a one-on-one evening, Rice knew he would have a terrible time convincing her of that if the business about the wager ever came to light. Morez was okay, but McGarrity—that asshole couldn’t keep a secret if his mother’s life depended on it.
“Hey, Phil!” Eddie McGarrity’s voice boomed from one end of the couch in the living room as Rice and Tobi walked in. “Hi ya, Tobi. Come on over and meet my friend, Belinda.” A cooling flash of relief—safe!—swept through Rice as he saw the pretty young woman with auburn hair and gray eyes sitting next to McGarrity. If the Irishman was stupid enough to mention the bet now, it’d be a self-imposed social suicide for both of them. Thus far McGarrity hadn’t said anything rude or made a big deal out of Tobi’s unexpected appearance. The truth was, Rice would just as soon forget the damned wager had ever been made and let Morez keep his money. McGarrity might bitch about it, but it was a small price to pay to keep Morez quiet. For all Rice knew, that might have been the plan all along.
Introductions were quickly made as Tessa Morez brought in a tray bearing six wine goblets and a couple of straw-wrapped bottles of Chianti that had already been uncorked. Ricky was still pouring when they heard the familiar jingle that signaled the beginning of the six o’clock broadcast.
“Good evening from Manhattan’s Channel One,” said the newsman gravely, “your First Choice in News. Still running as one of our top stories this evening, we can now bring you complete coverage on the massive slaughter that took place last week at Presley Hall.” On his face was an expression that was appropriately grim. “As we previously reported when we first began coverage of the story, a Homeworld alien ran rampant through the first-floor crowd gathered at Synsound’s famous Presley Hall to hear a performance by the wildly popular group, the Helltones. While details were at first sketchy, today the final death count rests at seventeen with injuries totaling thirty-two more, four of whom remain in critical condition. New details include this footage—”
Here the anchorman’s face winked out in favor of a panoramic but suspiciously fuzzy shot of the carnage at Presley Hall showing sprawled bodies, both human and android. Bits and pieces of the alien were splattered across the floor, leaving acidic puddles of smoking residue amid the lurid crimson stains of human blood and milky android nutrient fluid.
“—shot after the alien was destroyed by this man—”
A new image showed a gaunt-faced man with a heavy black mustache. The dusky coloring of his face was nearly obscured by a large, dark-tinted eye shield coming out of a helmet painted olive-drab to match his military type uniform. Something like a radio microphone fed from his helmet to his mouth, and resting on one padded shoulder was a type of mini-rocket launcher manufactured a decade ago and now used primarily by mercenary guerrillas.
“—presumed to be either an illicit weapons or drug dealer. His identity and whereabouts remain unknown at this time.”
Rice and all of his companions except Belinda were listening with rapt attention and the more the story unfolded, the more absurd it became to them. The shot on the television changed again, this time to a grainy close-up of the alien when it had still been alive, presumably edited from the tape in one of the high-mounted security cameras surrounding the stage. The creature’s snout was covered with blood and filled with immense, spearlike teeth that made Belinda and Tessa wince. Ribbons of alien saliva and pieces of shredded flesh dangled from its jaws. Of the women, only Tobi maintained a calm, unchanging expression. Jesus, Rice thought admiringly, nothing ruffles her.
On the screen, the newscaster’s face rearranged itself, trying to project more compassion as he began to recite the casualties. “The families of the dead and the survivors and their families have each been personally invited by Mayor Kroschel to attend counseling sponsored by HeartWeb, the city’s newest emotional trauma counseling center and the fifty-third of its kind to open since the mayor’s term began.” On cue, the man’s expression went from sympathetic to solemn. “The creature that was destroyed is believed to be one of an infestation found in the city’s sewer system. A search and destroy team exterminated the other seven aliens found there earlier today, and the Health and Safety Commissioner has assured the city that there will be no further incidents.”
Sewer system, my happy little ass, Rice thought in disgust. He saw a flicker of a frown pass across Tobi’s eyes and knew she felt the same. The rest of the account was sufficient considering it was a hurriedly fabricated yarn to cover up the public deaths although they were pushing it a bit on the low death count, but… sewer system? That was the part Rice and his men had protested, but clearly some muckity-muckin the MedTech hierarchy had overruled his suggestion that they find somewhere else to place the blame. Stupid, stupid; the whole concept of underground tunnels was too easily distorted by the viewers that MedTech was foolishly assuming were inattentive. Their chief of security didn’t have to stretch much to imagine the questions and essays that would pepper the newspapers for weeks to come, column after column of hysterical speculation every time some half-dead drunk or jelly junkie thought he saw an oversize rat anywhere near a manhole cover. The first of many such questions Rice predicted would land his way, in fact, was being vocalized in this very room by McGarrity’s date. A perfect example of the conclusions to which people were always inclined to jump.
“Gee,” Belinda said with a shake of auburn curls. “The sewer? That’s under the whole city… isn’t that an awfully large amount of ground to cover? How can the police be sure they got them all?”
Bingo, Rice thought. This time he lucked out and didn’t have to answer; McGarrity beat him to it. “Motion scanners,” Eddie told her. “The men and women wear them around their wrists while they walk through the pipeways.”
Belinda frowned at her date and McGarrity had the good grace to look slightly ashamed. Her pretty, pixie-shaped face had taken on a look that was half disbelief, half irritation at being fed a line of bullshit. “No way, Eddie. I always heard those creatures basically hibernate until they have a reason to come out of it. I wouldn’t think a man just walking around would be enough to bring them out. It certainly didn’t do it on Homeworld—if you remember, we lost over a thousand people before we had a decent idea what we were up against.”
“You’re right, of course,” Rice said, joining the discussion to redeem McGarrity as the newscaster spiraled into something else with an inane smile and Tessa silenced the screen with a flick of the remote. Down-to-earth McGarrity didn’t have the best imagination and he could easily sour the entire evening by continuing to treat his new girlfriend like the undereducated bubblehead she clearly wasn’t. Time to save his unimaginative butt. “But the army has scouting dogs that the tactical units send ahead. They’re a
lot like the canines taught to find bombs and drugs, except these animals are trained to detect hibernating aliens and sound an alarm. The aliens usually wake up when they hear the dogs, the motion detectors pick up the movement, and the crew knows where to go to kill them.” There were a thousand holes in his quick story, but he thought he could get away with it as is. Part of it was actually true, but he had a strong hunch Belinda wouldn’t appreciate the knowledge that the scout dogs had an average life span of a single mission; rarely did a dog flee fast enough to avoid being killed by the revived aliens.
“Really,” was all Belinda said. She was still frowning, but Tessa and her husband smoothly turned the conversation in the direction of the coming meal and the spaghetti with meat sauce that had been promised to McGarrity. A good thing, too; in less than a week, Rice had answered enough questions about the Presley Hall farce to last him a year and he could feel unintentional impatience starting to taint his mood. Suffice to say that an appropriate amount of money had changed hands and ended up in certain well-connected pockets within the media; thus the right people had been… persuaded as to the content of the “real” story of the terrible tragedy at Synsound’s Presley Hall. Overall, Rice was pleased at the final results: It had taken longer than anticipated to locate, but the hatched alien had been destroyed, Synsound had shuddered a bit on its corporate foundation, and the silence of the press would ensure the continued secrecy of MedTech’s high security team and private research nest. This problem was over, and life, all in all, was a good thing again.
Now if he only knew how the hell Ahiro, the dead ninja, had gotten into MedTech’s underground lab to begin with.
30
Three months had passed.
Spring had a tentative hold on Manhattan, trying valiantly to push out a few weak green buds along the spindly branches of the rare tree that still tried to grow in the inner city. In the full grip of summer, only the park areas—Central Park in particular, under careful supervision and who knew what kind of chemical experimentation by MedTech—could be said to be lush; right now, however, those trees and the grass were engaged in the yearly struggle to renew as much as any of their more unfortunate inner city brethren. Still, partly because of warmer than usual weather and a steady diet of gentle rainfall, leaves were finally starting to make tiny appearances here and there.
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