How many of the bodies behind me once lay upon that table?
Lyons is inside, as is Allenby and a third man I haven’t met. While the two doctors are dressed in long white coats, the stranger is dressed in black battle-dress uniform, otherwise known as BDUs. His hair is cut close—I run a hand over my prickly head—like mine is now. A gun is holstered on his hip. This man isn’t a security guard. He’s something else.
I look back at the roomful of green glowing bodies.
He’s the collector, I think, part of some kind of abduction unit, taking these people out of the world and bringing them here. But for what purpose?
I suspect the answers lie on the other side of the door. If not physically, then inside Lyons’s brain. After what I’ve seen, I have no doubt I can get him to reveal everything. But first, a little recon.
I grip the doorknob and twist it slowly. It’s unlocked and well-constructed. When the latch disengages, the door opens an inch without sound. Lyons’s voice is no longer muffled. “We’re moving forward.”
“He’s a wild card,” the stranger says. “He’s dangerous. Unpredictable. You should have told me before bringing him here.”
“You know why we need him,” Lyons says, his face turning red.
“And if he doesn’t cooperate?” the man asks. “If he gets violent? Refuses the treatment?” He makes air quotes with his fingers when saying, “treatment.” “How long are you going to let this go, and will you allow me to do what I need to if he becomes a problem?”
Lyons waves the man off and opens a refrigeration unit. “We will all do what we must.” He reaches inside and pulls out a syringe with a rubber stopper over the needle. It’s full of translucent, yellow-tinged liquid. He holds the syringe with both hands, like it’s the most precious thing in the world, like other people hold newborns. The fridge holds at least a dozen more prepped syringes. Whatever it is, it’s important and rare. He places the syringe into a protective foam holder on the countertop. “It’s taken years and a good number of lives to get this far. If we must resort to force, then we will.”
“Stephen,” Allenby says, admonishing. “You know that won’t work. He’s—”
“Someone upon whom subtlety is lost,” Lyons interjects.
Allenby shakes her head. “People could get hurt.”
The military man plants his fists on the countertop and leans toward Lyons. “This isn’t just business, it’s war, and people are already getting hurt. If a second augmentation makes him even crazier”—he looks at Allenby—“we’ll do what’s needed, whatever that might be.”
They’re talking about me.
I’m the one who might get violent.
He’s right about that, I think. Also about being dangerous and unpredictable, as they’ll soon discover.
“Katzman, please. Just stop.” Allenby paces, eyes on the ceiling, head shaking back and forth. Lyons has a cold streak beneath that grandfatherly exterior, but from what I know of Allenby so far, she doesn’t belong in a place like this. What are you doing here? As I watch Allenby, her head lowers, and her eyes track toward me. She freezes when we make eye contact through the glass, but then she just looks annoyed. “You just couldn’t stop yourself, could you?”
Katzman is fast, but he’s also the closest to the door. As he spins around, gun rising into position, I kick the door as hard as I can. The metal door strikes the gun barrel, twisting the weapon out of the man’s grasp. I’m on him in a flash, but this isn’t like knocking out Winters or assaulting the security guards. This man is a skilled fighter, and he blocks my first three blows, all of which would have ended the fight before it began.
The problem for my opponent is that I’m equally skilled—somehow—but nothing is holding me back. When he begins his counterattack, I dodge the first two punches, but when he launches into a spinning kick, I block it—with Allenby. I take her by the shoulders and rotate her into my position. Katzman’s kick connects with Allenby’s head with all the force intended for me. She slams into the door and falls to the linoleum.
When the soldier sees what he’s done, he reels back in shock. “Shit!” He looks at me. “You motherfu—”
My fist on the side of his jaw cuts him off. Even the most seasoned warrior can be slowed by the sudden realization that they’ve just injured a friend. He spills back onto the counter, knocking the syringe to the floor. The foam case fails to do its duty.
Glass shatters.
Liquid spills.
Lyons shouts, “No!”
I pull my fist back to pummel Katzman into submission, but the first blow did its job. He slides across the counter, pulling a computer keyboard and mouse with him, and falls to the floor.
“What are you doing?” Lyons shouts. He should be backing away from me. He’s not a threat, but he’s standing his ground.
I rub my foot through the spilled liquid. “This is important to you?”
“Yes.” The word comes out as a gasp. He’s clutching his chest, falling back. He slides down against the counter, suddenly out of breath.
I recognize the signs of a heart attack but make no move to help the man. Instead, I open the refrigerator and take out the remaining vials, shattering them on the floor.
Lyons fumbles to open a pill case, which I’m assuming contains medication that could save his life. He stops when I lift up the very last syringe. His eyes go wide. Desperate. Revealing its worth. “Don’t.” I lower the syringe, looking at the liquid within. This is my insurance policy.
When I put the syringe in a protective plastic case and slip it in my pocket, he starts digging for his pills again. He’s not going anywhere fast—maybe nowhere ever again if he can’t get his pills—so I leave him there on the floor. I recover Katzman’s gun and head back into the Documentum room, mentally planning for how I’ll retrieve the Shiloh woman and get us both out.
That’s when the alarm sounds.
11.
The Shiloh woman is still out, despite the blaring, high-pitched shriek of the building’s security alarm. She looks frail. I consider leaving her behind, but it would be like abandoning a wounded bird in the clutches of a house cat—death would only come after drawn-out torture. The bruising and fresh scars on the woman’s arms suggest that she’s been tormented long enough already.
But can I keep her safe during my escape? It seems unlikely, but I picture her floating in green liquid, just another face in the death gallery, and know I can’t leave her behind.
I lean over her, tapping her face. “Hey. Wake up.”
No reaction. Whatever they’ve been lacing her IVs with, it’s powerful stuff.
With time running short, I slip the IV needle from her arm, undo her restraints, and pull the blankets away. She’s dressed in a loose hospital johnny. I lean her up. Her head lulls, but I catch it against my chest. “I got you.” Moving carefully, I scoop her up behind her back and under the knees. She’s light. Maybe a hundred pounds.
I head for the door, leading with Katzman’s gun, which is poking out from under the woman’s knees. The hallway is empty. I head for the distant exit sign, passing the Documentum room. There are voices within—shouting. Sounds like Allenby and Lyons. Katzman is either still unconscious or heading my way. I look down at the woman’s face, soft and peaceful. She doesn’t know it, but she’s depending on me to save her.
Just beyond the Documentum room, on the opposite side of the hall, are the elevator doors. Red numbers above the doors scroll higher. Someone is already on the way up, most likely security of some kind.
I move on, toward the exit sign at the end of the hall, which ends at a T junction and a row of windows, slanted at a forty-five-degree angle. Turning left, I see the exit door ahead. I try the knob with my left hand, balancing Shiloh’s weight on my forearm. It’s locked. A key-card terminal is mounted next to the door.
I gently place the woman on the floor and swipe Winters’s card across the flat card reader, but the light flashes red. I try again with the same resul
ts. The security alarm triggered by Lyons must have put the building in a lockdown. But there might be a way to override it. I sprint back to the T junction. Halfway between the end of the hall and the elevators, I had spotted a bright red fire alarm.
I round the corner and run for the alarm. It’s encased in a plastic dome to prevent it from behind triggered accidentally, but it lifts up easily enough. I wrap my fingers around the small white handle and pull. The alarm ripping through the hallway becomes a whooping siren. Strobe lights flash.
It’s all enough to keep me from noticing the opening elevator doors—that is, until someone yells, “Don’t move!”
But I move.
And the guard, who probably has no idea what kind of situation he’s just run into, doesn’t see it coming. Because he’s a low-level employee and probably doesn’t know the full extent of what goes on here, I’m merciful. I fire two shots. The first strikes his hand and knocks his weapon—a stun gun—to the floor. The second hits his thigh, far from the femoral artery. With a shout, he drops to the floor, clutching his good hand over his wounded hand over the hole in his leg.
The attack took just over a second.
Geez, I have good aim.
“Switch to lethal response!” shouts a strong-sounding woman still inside the elevator. “This is Alpha Unit. Target is armed. All units switch to lethal response.” Through the wailing siren, I hear various teams confirming the news. I also hear the sound of readying weapons. I have successfully roused the hornet’s nest.
Running backward, I retreat—not out of fear, but the desire to free Shiloh. A shadow inside the elevator shifts, and I squeeze off a single round.
Someone yelps and ducks back inside.
I keep the security force at bay with two more equally spaced rounds. They saw how fast their man went down. When I reach the T junction, they finally get up the nerve to return fire. A barrage of bullets scorches the air where I stood a moment ago. The rounds punch into the slanted, tinted glass window, which spiderwebs but doesn’t shatter.
While the security team continues to fire blindly, I swipe the key card. The light shines green. Whatever lockdown was put in place by the first alarm has been undone by the fire alarm. The door is unlocked. I whip it open to find a stairwell. But it’s not empty. A team of five security guards turn their heads, and guns, in my direction. I duck back as bullets punch into the backside of the metal door.
The blind fire from the elevator continues until magazines run dry.
In the moment of silence that follows, I heft Shiloh over one shoulder so I can run and fire at the same time. Holding her is a risk. She could get shot. But I’m willing to bet both our lives that the security guards won’t shoot at an unconscious woman. Me? I might. No, I would. But they’re not me.
I lean against the corner wall of the T junction, poke my head around the corner, and fire two more missed shots into the elevator. A moment later, a second barrage tears up the hallway and the window at the end. When the firing stops, I step out into plain view, weapon raised, ready to charge into the elevator and finish things. But before I can, a door at the far end of the hall bursts open.
Five soldiers in black armor, complete with helmets and face masks, storm into the hallway. They’re armed with laser-sighted MP5 submachine guns. I can’t beat them. Not now. But my gambit has paid off. They haven’t opened fire.
Yet.
That changes when the Documentum doors swing open and Katzman steps out. He points at me and shouts, “Kill him!”
I turn and run.
Bullets chase me, punching into the window ahead as they buzz past. Despite the order to kill me, the soldiers are obviously trying not to hit Shiloh. There’s a good chance she’s going to die anyway, but they haven’t left me with much choice. I put a few more holes in the now loose and sagging window, lower my shoulder, and slam into it like a hockey player against the boards.
The abused pane bends outward, resists for a fraction of a second, and then gives way. Instead of punching through the glass, as planned, the window lifts up and falls beneath me as I leap out of the window. I land hard on my ass, feet forward, like a kid on the world’s biggest slide.
Startled shouts pursue me but fade quickly as I begin my glass-on-glass carpet ride down a several-hundred-foot-long, forty-five-degree slope. The windows beneath shriek as we etch a path of scratches in our wake. Our escape is going to cost Neuro Inc. a lot of money, though I suspect the damage is a negligible expense compared to losing the contents of the syringe in my pocket.
I lean forward, watching the ground quickly approach. Looks like a five-foot drop at the bottom, but the building is surrounded by a carpet of thick grass that should cushion our fall. Shiloh’s the lucky one. She’s as limp as a rag doll in my arms. Of course, I have no trouble staying loose, either. A lack of fear means that I’m free of the thirtysomething hormones dumped into the body when afraid. My muscles are relaxed. My heart rate is regular. There’s no tunnel vision, meaning I’m still able to focus on the larger picture, planning moves in advance, rather than just reacting.
With five stories to go, an explosion blows out the third-floor window directly below us. I glance up. Katzman is above us, shouting into a two-way radio, no doubt directing the unit waiting for us below.
When we reach the fourth-floor window, with just a moment to spare, I roll hard to the left, throwing myself over Shiloh and then yanking her back on top of me. We whip past the open window and the startled faces of the team waiting to put a bullet in my head.
Our descent slows thanks to the friction created by my jeans and the soles of my feet. When we reach the bottom, I have time to sit up, get Shiloh into my arms, and inch over the edge. I land on the grass, bending at the knees to keep Shiloh from being jolted too hard—again. If she wakes up anytime soon, she’s going to hurt.
Better than being held prisoner or kept in a tube.
With the woman over my shoulder again, I glance up. No one in sight. Not a single man is willing to follow my escape route. I dig into my pocket, remove Winters’s keys, and push the lock button. A distant horn beacons me onward.
12.
The horn guides me like the returning sound waves of a sonar ping, but I try not to cram the car’s lock button too many times lest I advertise my destination. I doubt anyone inside can hear the horn over the two alarms reverberating through Neuro Inc. Even outside, I can hear the blaring sirens. Hell, I can see the windows vibrating with each shrill whoop.
I round the corner to the front of the building. A massive parking lot stretches out before me. It’s full, but not just with cars. A steady stream of confused Neuro employees hurries out the front doors, filtering into the parking lot. They’re a blessing and a curse. They’ll help me disappear, but they’ll also slow me down, giving the security teams time to reach the parking lot. I slow my stride, shift Shiloh into both arms, and do my very best to look afraid.
The first person who sees me looks at Shiloh first, then at me. She reels back upon making eye contact and hurries away. She either recognized me or my attempt at fear went horribly awry. I give up trying to look afraid and calmly strut into the parking lot, which is swirling with more people than a football tailgate party.
Walking calmly with the woman in my arms while showing no fear garners far less attention. A few people look my way, concern in their eyes, until they see my rock-solid confidence. It’s like some voice in their heads is saying, “Don’t worry. He’s got it under control.” And they go right back to chatting about what could have caused the double alarms. It’s a far greater mystery to them than the fate of the unconscious stranger dressed in a johnny. It’s also possible that Shiloh isn’t the only unconscious patient being brought out of the building. I didn’t get a look in the other rooms. They might have all been occupied for all I know.
I push the lock button. The horn responds, pulling my eyes to the right. Winters’s orange SUV is easy to see. Unfortunately, so is the woman my worried face sent runni
ng. She’s got a man in tow, but a quick assessment of the man reveals he’s not a threat. For starters, he’s pudgy and soft. But it’s the medical kit he’s holding, along with the red cross on his white polo shirt, that reveals he’s a medic, which, if I’m honest—and I always am—could come in handy.
“There he is!” the woman shouts, pointing at me.
The people around us turn and stare, but my continuing calm and the medic’s arrival make us a nonevent compared to the continuing evacuation. It probably helps that no one seems to recognize Shiloh. Or me.
“What’s wrong with her?” the medic asks me. He’s out of breath. Hands on knees.
I motion to the back of the SUV and click the unlock button. The rear lights flash yellow. “Get the hatch so I can lay her down.”
He nods quickly and opens the hatch. “Good idea.” He climbs inside the SUV and puts down the back seats. He turns to me and waves me in.
This is going to be easier than I thought.
I gently place Shiloh into the back of the SUV and the medic, supporting her head in one hand, helps guide her inside. Once she’s settled, he puts his fingers on her wrist and stares at his watch, checking her heart rate.
A hand on my arm turns me around. I’m ready to deliver a number of attacks, but it’s the concerned young woman. “What happened to her?”
“I rescued her,” I say.
She turns to the Neuro building. “Is there really a fire?”
A quick glance around reveals that no one is watching us. In reply to the woman’s question, I quickly squeeze, tap, and slap the same three pressure points that knocked Winters out cold. But here’s the thing: a very small number of people are resistant to the technique. This woman is one of those people. Instead of falling unconscious into my arms, she reels around and says, “Oww! What the hell was that—”
The butt of my empty handgun against the side of her head does a much better job. I catch her in my left arm and lay her down in the empty space beside Winters’s SUV. When I stand back up, the medic is staring at me with wide eyes. Eyebrows turned up in the middle. Lips pulled tight to the sides.
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