by Sam Sisavath
“Swell,” she said, mostly to herself.
Porter looked around at the room again, this time with even more effort. Then, about ten seconds later, “Service center.”
“Yeah, yeah, service center,” Quinn said.
“I said that already, didn’t I?”
“Once or twice.” Quinn stood up, using her good arm to pull herself up by the railing. “Come on, we have to get out of here.”
“How long was I inside?” Porter asked, looking back at the now-empty tank next to them.
“I don’t know. I don’t even know how long I’ve been here. It could have been just a few hours after the warehouse, or a day, or a week.” She shook her head. “I don’t know, Porter. I just know we have to get out of here.”
“We have to get out of here.” He nodded. “You’re right. Too dangerous to stay.”
Glad we’re on the same page. I guess that’s something.
Porter began standing up—or tried to. He lost his balance halfway and stumbled into the railing and nearly went over it. Sticky goop flicked from his limbs with every movement he made, a constant stream of the stuff dripping to the floor below. Quinn made a mental note to watch her step when they got back below.
“Whoa,” Quinn said. “Steady there, big guy. If you go over, there’s no way I’ll be able to drag you out of here. You’re what, two-twenty bone dry?”
“I’m okay,” he said. Then, with as much conviction as he could manage, “I’m okay.”
Bullshit. Even you don’t believe that, she thought, but asked, “What are these tanks, anyway?”
“Re-sequencing.”
“I saw that on the computer monitor. But what do they re-sequence?”
“People. Us.”
“Us? You and me?”
“Just me. People like me.”
“What you were telling me back at the warehouse, about how your body heals itself if the damage isn’t too bad. But for severe cases, I’m guessing this is it? These tanks? They’ll work on Ringo, too?”
“I don’t remember the conversation.” Then, with confusion in his eyes, “Ringo?”
She glanced behind her, and he followed her gaze to Ringo’s floating nude form. “What’s the tank doing to him right now?”
“Fixing him,” Porter said. “Accelerating his cell regeneration. That’s how he came back the first time after you shot him. As long as the brain is fine…”
“Then he’s fine.”
“No, but he can be fixed.”
“Like you?”
“Yes…”
“So they were ‘fixing’ you inside that thing?”
“No.”
“But you said—”
“The chair.”
“What about it?”
“It doesn’t work on us. But the tanks do. They have…multiple uses.”
“What was it doing to you? What does re-sequencing mean?”
“Changing me.”
“How? Why?”
“It works the same way as the chair, only more...intense.” He shook his head. “It’s hard to explain.”
“So don’t,” Quinn said. “Save it for when we’re out of here.”
He made a move toward the stairs and almost fell again. Fortunately she was ready for it and grabbed him by the arm before he could topple forward. She helped him to right himself with some effort and wished she had two working arms, because everything was just so damn harder with only one good one.
And Porter really was a lot heavier than he looked. It didn’t help that whatever the substance was that lathered him from head to toe was definitely adding to his weight. It also made it a lot more difficult to hold onto him.
“You’re not going to make it down there by yourself without doing a header,” Quinn said. “So we’ll do this together. Deal?”
He gave her a wry smile and nodded. “My legs…”
“What’s wrong with them?”
“I’m having…difficulty transmitting signals to them.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“It’s better than the alternative.”
“Which would be?”
“Complete re-sequencing.” He glanced back at the tank. “You interrupted it. If it had gone through the full cycle, I would be…a very different man right now.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
She slid closer to him until she could wrap her good arm around his waist, mindful that one wrong step by either one of them would likely send him, and her right along, down to the floor below. Ten feet had never looked farther.
“Your arm,” he said.
Finally noticed, huh? she thought with some amusement.
“I know, it’s broken,” Quinn said.
“What happened?”
“I ran across another one of your former Rhim comrades. She was very pissed off with me.”
“You took her out?”
“I had no choice. She was trying to brain me with one of those staffs of theirs.”
“Is she dead?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care.”
She leaned in closer and changed up her grip around his slippery waist. Quinn got a sense of déjà vu—first Xiao and now Porter. This was starting to become a bad habit with these people.
Getting a better hold of him also meant getting more of the goop on her. She made a face. “Jesus, what is this thing? Baby oil and mud?”
“Spew,” Porter said.
“What the hell is spew?”
“What we call it. The liquid. It’s…not water.”
“Whatever it is, it’s disgusting.” Then, turning him toward the stairs, “You ready?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“No. But try not to fall and take me with you.”
“I’ll do my best.”
They had just managed the first two steps down the stairs when a booming voice that Quinn didn’t recognize bellowed out of the walls around them, through loudspeakers that she hadn’t noticed until now:
“Attention: We have an escaped prisoner on Level 5. Attention: We have an escaped prisoner on Level 5.”
“Dammit,” Quinn said through gritted teeth. “And things were going so well, too.”
“They were?” Porter asked. She couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or if he wasn’t sure if she was.
She sighed. “No, not really.” Then, taking a breath, “Hold on.”
“I’ll try.”
Not what I wanted to hear, she thought, but said, “Easy does it.”
“Attention: We have an escaped prisoner on Level 5,” the voice said again through the speakers. “Attention: We have an escaped prisoner on Level 5.”
Quinn shut out the voice and concentrated on the next few steps. They were doozies, with Porter clinging to her, and she had to fight the urge to yell at him whenever his hand strayed too close to her left arm. Just coming into contact with something—anything—sent stabs of pain through her, and she wondered if not chopping the useless damn thing off wouldn’t have been better than all the suffering.
She expected men in suits to burst into the room and surround them with every step they took down the stairs, but either God was on her side or someone else was looking after her (You up there, Ben?) because there were no signs of anyone converging on them.
At least, not yet.
As she maneuvered them carefully down onto the next step: “How big are these places, anyway?”
“Big,” Porter said.
“Yeah, but how big? How many people does it take to run them?”
“As many as it takes.”
“Are you trying to be an ass?”
“What?”
I guess not.
By the time they reached the bottom, Quinn was out of breath from simultaneously holding onto Porter and trying to survive him. He might have been a shell of his former self, but the man was still bigger and stronger than her, and his grip, even in its currently weakened state, was nothing to laugh at.
“We were conceived and given birth to just like you and Xiao and Aaron. But we were perfected in labs,” Porter had said.
She wondered now just how much more “perfect” Porter had been made. She had sworn (but could never really bring herself to believe it) that he had moved faster than humanly possible back at Gary Ross’s nightclub that night. And there was Ringo, who had shown the same kind of speed at his apartment when he overwhelmed her. Just a few minutes ago, Shorty had proven to be equally quick; the only way Quinn had survived the woman was by outsmarting her.
Thank God they didn’t get an upgrade up there, too.
As soon as Quinn set foot on the floor, she let go of Porter and snatched up the staff she’d propped against the stairs before going up. She stood very still and listened, slowing down her breathing, but she couldn’t hear anything. The speakers that had announced her escape had gone quiet when they were halfway down the stairs and hadn’t made another peep since.
Porter was leaning against his tank, waiting patiently (and still looking slightly confused, she thought) when she turned to him and nodded. He reached over and slipped his arm back around her waist, and they moved toward the door. She considered using the other door—the one on the other side of the room—but dismissed it. She didn’t know where that one led, but she had a pretty good idea about the one in front of her.
“You gonna die on me?” she asked when she felt Porter’s hand slipping a bit around her waist.
“No,” Porter said, and he retightened his hold. “Not part of the plan.”
“What was the plan? Or do you still think I’m not ready to hear it?”
“I…don’t remember.”
“Swell.”
Porter dripped spew with every step, but she could sense he was also getting stronger, moving with growing confidence.
She couldn’t help herself and glanced back at Ringo one last time. It would be so easy to sit Porter down and go back there, climb up the stairs, open the dome, and shove the staff through Ringo’s skull and finish him off for good.
So why didn’t she?
She wasn’t entirely sure, but maybe it was because she wasn’t quite at the edge yet. She thought she had already passed it—plummeted down the abyss with eyes wide open—when she abducted Ringo, or when she shot that injured man outside of Mary’s house without batting an eye.
But maybe, maybe she still had a little humanity left in her after all.
I’ll see you again, Ringo. I’ll see you again real soon.
She faced forward and could feel Porter’s eyes on her.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Porter said.
“I have to open the door.”
“Okay.” He untangled himself from her and leaned against the wall. His legs were struggling, but not nearly as much as they had earlier. “You want me to hold that?” he asked, holding out his hand toward the staff.
She handed it to him, then turned and faced the door. “On the count of three.”
He nodded, and when she got to three, Quinn jerked the door open and Porter tossed the rod back to her even before the door had fully swung open. She snatched the perfectly balanced weapon out of the air with her good hand and confronted—
A forest of black boxes and suddenly loud (too loud) whirring data servers on the other side. But no Hofheinz or friends of Shorty waiting for them.
And there was something else: Quinn hadn’t noticed it before, but despite the two rooms sharing a wall, she realized now that she hadn’t been able to hear a single noise coming from the much-larger warehouse while inside the re-sequencing room.
Soundproof walls. Nice.
She looked over at Porter, holding the door open with one hand. When Quinn shook her head, he pushed himself off the wall and half-walked, half-careened in her direction.
She grabbed him. “I got you.”
“Thanks,” Porter said as he wrapped one wet arm around her waist.
“Don’t say I never did anything for you.”
He grinned. “I won’t.”
She led him through the open door and past the first row of black boxes.
“How you holding up?” she asked.
“Good,” he said. “You?”
“My arm’s killing me.”
“At least you can still spell your own name.”
She smiled. Yeah, there’s that.
They continued past another row of shelves when Porter said, “Quinn.”
“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”
“They found us.”
Oh, dammit.
They stepped out from behind the rack of servers where they had been hiding. Men in suits that made them look like accountants instead of foot soldiers for a sinister shadowy organization that shouldn’t exist, but did. They were in no hurry, and maybe they didn’t have to be because there was nowhere for her to turn—not the tank room behind her and especially not with her one good arm busy keeping Porter from keeling over.
They were armed with sleek black stun batons, and one of them pressed a button on the side of his stick, discharging blue electricity that arced across the top half. If he had meant for it to be intimidating, she had to admit it worked.
“Were you looking for Porter, or is all of this just a happy accident?” a voice asked.
Quinn sighed as he came out from wherever he had been hiding behind her. Even though she was hoping to never see him again, a part of her knew it was never going to happen. The man, like Ringo, had the tenacity of a cockroach when it came to making her life miserable.
“Just hand him over to the boys,” Hofheinz said, his face even more insect-like under the room’s mood lighting. “You and I have other business, Quinn.”
“I don’t suppose I have any say in this?” Quinn asked.
“I’m afraid not.” Hofheinz nodded at one of the suited men. “I don’t want her harmed.”
“What about him?” one of the men asked.
“Porter’s tough. Do what you have to in order to subdue him. Try not to damage the brain and he’ll be fine and dandy; worst-case scenario, we can always put him back into the spew.”
Quinn felt Porter’s grip around her waist loosening a bit. It wasn’t obvious, and she only noticed because they were essentially connected at the hip. That gave her hope because it meant that despite whatever fog he was currently under, Porter had enough alertness to know what was happening or what was going to happen. It wasn’t much, but it was better than a Porter that was always five steps behind her.
Unless, of course, she was reading the whole situation wrong. For all she knew the loosening of his grip around her waist could have just been a twitch on Porter’s part. Or maybe he was just too weak to hold on fully and it wasn’t the signal that he understood the situation and was getting ready to let go of her so they could both fight.
God, I hope I’m right, Quinn thought when the closest suited man took the first step forward and the three flanking him did the same.
She took a reflexive step back, with Porter shuffling his feet next to her even as he lessened his grip even further. Hofheinz, meanwhile, had stepped back until he had separated himself from the action as much as possible.
The man in front of Quinn hit the switch on his stun baton, sending another arc of electricity around the weapon, and Quinn swore she could feel the tingle even from ten feet away as the air became charged—
Thoom!
It was some kind of explosion and it reverberated across the entire building. She felt the vibrations through the soles of her bare feet all the way up to her teeth, but it wasn’t the blast itself that surprised her and everyone in the room—it was where it had come from:
Above them.
Chapter 28
The entire room shook for exactly five seconds, starting from the ceiling before traveling down along the walls and floor, then rattling the glass doors of the data boxes around them. Between the third and fourth seconds, Quinn saw a blur out of the corner of
one eye a split second before Porter crashed into the closest suited man with absolute wild abandon.
Jesus, Porter!
The two figures became tangled as they slammed into the floor and kept going, the thick goo coating Porter flicking off and splashing everything around them while also providing a lubricant against the smooth tiles. Before Quinn could even fully process what had happened, the two shapes bounced into the base of a shelf and ricocheted off and kept going. One of the suited men spun and raced after them, and the sight was borderline comical. She might have laughed, if only her life wasn’t at stake.
The remaining two Rhim operatives were just as stunned as she was as they turned to look after their comrades. Quinn took full advantage of the distraction and charged forward. One of the men had a bald head and he was spinning back around when Quinn swung the staff—the swoosh! was music to her ears—and struck him in the cheek.
The weapon was improbably light and easy to wield with even just one hand, and she’d gotten a taste of its full power and knew being struck by one was like being tackled by an NFL linebacker with a full head of steam. The smooth end dug into Baldy’s cheek and tore loose a chunk of flesh, just before striking the bone underneath and sending streams of blood across the space between matte black shelves.
The fourth suited man was already fully around (Damn, they’re fast!) and moving even before his partner went down. This one had a full head of hair, and she got up close and personal with his bright blue eyes as he slammed into her chest and sent her flying back into one of the racks. Air expelled from her lungs in a rush as she crashed into the glass—it spiderwebbed behind her but somehow refused to shatter.
Her entire body shook from the impact, and Quinn would have screamed if she wasn’t too busy gasping for breath and trying desperately not to let go of the metal staff. An arc of electricity flashed in front of her face as Blue Eyes hit the switch on his stun baton and stabbed it forward like a knife.
She swung with the rod, aiming for his head.
He lifted his left arm at the last second, and there was a familiar echoing crack! as his arm broke, and Quinn thought, I know how that feels, buddy!
Blocking her counterattack at the cost of his broken arm had momentarily paused Blue Eyes’s charge, but it didn’t last for very long. Before she could pull the staff back to swing again, electricity seared the air between them as the baton shot forward, this time going straight for her face.