by Rachel Caine
“Where are they?” Bryn asked. She raised her gun and pointed it at Mercer’s face.
He cocked his head, baffled. “Who?”
“The people who live in this house. The kids.”
“Oh, they’re in the back,” he said. “You’re free to go check on them if you’d like, but I promise you, their hearts are still beating. They’re just in a very deep sleep.”
“And where’s Annie?”
“Your sister. Ah, yes.” Mercer glanced behind him, toward a rounded doorway that led into a kitchen; Bryn could see a silvery refrigerator and a sink from the angle where she stood. “In there. Go on. I’ll wait here. By the way, the kitchen door has been jammed shut.”
McCallister started to follow her as she moved, and this time she was the one to give the hand signal. He didn’t like it, but he obeyed … mainly, she thought, because he knew Mercer was far too dangerous to leave unobserved.
She crossed to the kitchen and stepped inside.
For a second she didn’t see anything, and then she heard a scrape, and looked to her left. There was a recessed breakfast nook with a table and chairs. One of the chairs had been turned to face outward.
Annie sat on it, hands tied behind her, legs secured to the wood. She was breathing fast, and her hair was in her eyes, lifting and falling with each rapid gasp.
“Bryn, help,” she whispered, but that was all she had time for, because there was someone sitting behind her who slipped a plastic bag over Annalie’s head and twisted it tight at the neck. Annie immediately panicked, twisting against her bonds, the bag sucked tight into her open, gasping mouth.
“No!” Bryn screamed, and raised her gun.
“Careful,” said the man killing her sister. “I’m just making a point. Look.” He loosened the bag, and slipped it up just enough that Annie sucked in a deep, agonized breath. “Play nice, Double Trouble. I’m not going to tell you twice.”
Double Trouble. Oh, God.
The man torturing her sister was Fast Freddy Watson. His smile was like razors, and there was bitter triumph in it. “You fucking lunatic,” she spat. “Take that off of her. Now!”
“Nah, I don’t think so; I love watching you squirm,” he said, and snapped the bag back into place. Bryn watched helplessly as her sister arched against her bonds, sucking plastic as she tried to breathe. “How’s life after death?”
She fired a round right by his head, adjusted her aim. He ducked behind Annie, spoiling the shot. “Let her go,” she said. “She’s your leverage, you asshole!”
“Trust me. It’s not going to kill her. Just fuck her up a little bit.”
“I swear to God I’ll shoot you.”
“Gotta shoot her first!”
Behind her, she heard McCallister enter the kitchen. When she glanced back, she saw he’d brought Mercer, and he had his gun at Mercer’s temple. “Let’s call this a draw,” McCallister said. “I pull the trigger and you get no more antide-cay medicine, Freddy. We don’t want that, do we? Let her go.”
Annie was gagging on the bag. It was misted over from her breath, and Bryn had that double-vision nightmare again. She didn’t blink as she met Freddy’s gaze, just visible over her sister’s head. “I’ll put you down, Freddy,” she said. “Don’t think I won’t.”
“I know you would,” he said, “but we both know I’ll get up again.” He shrugged then, and yanked the bag off Annalie’s head. “Whatever.”
Annie coughed and sobbed and gasped, tears streaming down her face, and Bryn came forward, grabbed Freddy, and shoved him facedown onto the floor. “You got him?” she asked McCallister.
“Got him.” He put a foot on the back of Freddy’s neck, and kept the gun trained on the real threat. Mercer.
Bryn rummaged in the kitchen drawers, found scissors, and cut Annalie’s ties at the wrists and ankles. Annie pitched forward into her arms, sobbing wildly. “Shh,” Bryn said, and stroked her matted hair. “Shh, baby, you’re okay. It’s all okay.”
“No, it’s not,” Annie sobbed. “It’s never going to be okay. Never.”
“She’s right,” Freddy said. His voice was muffled against the floor, but he still sounded creepily sure of himself. “Poor little Annie. Not the first time she’s been through that. Right, Annie?”
“What …” Bryn looked at her sister, scraped the hair back from her face, and looked into her eyes. “Annie?”
Annie whispered, “It happened before. The bag. Coming back. The bag.” She was shaking all over, and her face was ice white. If Bryn’s eyes were haunted, Annalie’s were blind mirrors, reflecting only panic and horror. “He likes it.”
Mercer sighed. “I told you not to play with her, Freddy.”
“I was bored,” Freddy said. “She’s fine.”
“She’s no good to us insane.”
“Annie! Annie, look at me. You’re safe now. It’s all right. Understand?” Bryn hugged her again, and got her to stand up with her. Annie’s skin felt damp and cold. Where she’d been tied, it was …
... Discolored.
“Annie?”
Her eyes weren’t just blind; they were ever so slightly cloudy. The whites were discolored.
There were livid red bruises on her skin where it had rested on the chair’s arms.
“Annie. Oh, God …” Bryn felt suddenly, violently sick, and had to fight the impulse to throw up. She turned, screamed out her fury, and pointed her gun at Freddy’s head. “You killed her,” she said. “You son of a bitch! You killed my sister! You killed her and you brought her back too many times!” Burning tears blinded her, and she came close, so close to pulling the trigger. That was why there were bruises. Why Annie’s eyes were cloudy, even though she hadn’t been long out of revival.
Because he’d been using up the nanites too quickly by torturing her.
Mercer said, “I needed leverage, Bryn. Something you cared about other than your own survival; I couldn’t count on you not being ridiculously self-sacrificing, what with your military service background. Now you’ve got good reason to work with me. Oh, and please don’t shoot Freddy; it’ll be hours before he’s any good to me again.”
McCallister shoved him face-first into a wall and held him there, gun at the back of his head. He was tight with fury, and the look he gave Bryn was black with it. “You want me to do it?” he asked. “Tell me and it’s done.”
Mercer held up a single finger. “As Harte expected, I’ve taken precautions,” he said. “You see, I don’t want to be one of the zombies. I have a counteragent in my system that will destroy any nanites injected in my bloodstream. If you put a bullet in my brain, it’s the end. No revival. No more drugs for your girlfriend or her sister.”
She wanted Mercer dead; God, she wanted it with every aching cell in her body, but it wouldn’t solve anything. Not now. “You can‘t,” she said. “We need him. God help me, we need him. I need him.”
Down on the floor, Fast Freddy rolled over on his back, looked up at Bryn, and laughed.
“But I don’t need you,” she said, and shot him in the face.
Twice.
Annie screamed and covered her face with her hands. Then she staggered away and threw up in the sink. Her shorts revealed telltale lividity bruising all along the backs of her thighs.
Bryn stepped away from the spreading pool of Freddy’s blood, avoided his still-moving fingers as they reached for her, and lowered her weapon. Without looking up from Freddy’s ruined face, she said, “Mr. Mercer. My sister needs a shot. Give it to her.”
“You know that won’t actually kill him.”
“I thought a brain injury renders you unrevivable.”
“Only in your first death. Once the nanites have the template of an uninjured brain, they can always put it back together. It just takes time. Do we have a deal?” Mercer asked. “Irene Harte and Pharmadene come crashing down. You act as my distributor. Deal?”
McCallister looked at Bryn for a silent tick of a second, and then stepped back and holstered his o
wn gun. “Deal,” he said. “But you get to clean up Freddy.” He went into the living room, came back with a soft throw that had been lying on the arm of the sofa, and put it around Annie’s shoulders. “Give her the shot, Mercer.”
Mercer opened his jacket and took out a slim silver tube. He shook out the syringe and injected Annalie, who watched with dull, traumatized eyes. “I’ll need to give Freddy another as well. That’s a serious injury; the nanites will wear out much faster than normal.”
“Or I could cut him apart and dispose of him in landfills,” McCallister said coldly. “I’m leaning toward option two.”
“He’s a good worker.”
“He’s a sadistic, murdering son of a bitch.”
“Well, everyone has flaws. I need someone I can trust to run the lab, and Freddy’s perfect for that purpose. I can control him. Leave him to me. Your problem is Irene Harte. She’s got considerable ambition.”
“Soon.”
“Now,” Mercer said. For the first time, there was the glow of sincerity in his eyes, and real urgency in his voice. “Soon is too late. If you don’t stop Pharmadene now, there’s no stopping them, ever. Do you understand? It’s already gone too far.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the summit meeting Irene Harte is hosting tomorrow,” Mercer said. “At the Civic Theatre. Secret invitations went out last month via the State Department. Pharmadene is paying for the facilities and running the show, but the guest list includes state legislators, governors, judges, the heads of the FBI and CIA. The secretary of state is on that list as a guest speaker. Do you understand what I’m saying? It’s the beginning of the end, if they pull it off.”
McCallister had gone silent, watching Mercer. Bryn put her arms around her sister, trying to still her shaking. On the wall, a kitchen clock ticked seconds.
“She’s going to do it there,” Mercer said. “Kill as many as she can. Revive them. Addict the power players. They’ll have no choice but to buy in.”
“She can’t control this once it starts.”
“She can ride the whirlwind, and that’s all she wants. This is how it all starts, McCallister; this is how the end of the world happens for us. Tomorrow. I’m just guessing, but I’d think the most effective way would be gas pumped into the auditorium, mass deaths, mass revivals. The first generation of the new order. She’s got plenty of people to do it now; everyone at Pharmadene, from the CEO to the secretaries, is protocol-enabled, ready to die for her cause. That’s why it has to be now, before it’s too late.” Mercer checked the clock. “In two hours, they’ll be arriving at the Civic Theatre to prep it. You have until people start arriving to take out Harte and stop this.”
“God,” McCallister breathed. He didn’t seem surprised, only resigned; he’d expected this, Bryn realized. He just hadn’t expected Harte to move this fast, or this decisively. “He’s right. She deliberately left me out of this. She suspected me, or she’d have tasked me with security for the meetings.”
Mercer shrugged. “I would have killed her for you, but I believe in employing experts to do these kinds of things. And you’re an expert at this, aren’t you, Patrick? Isn’t that what you did in the bad old marine days?”
McCallister didn’t answer. He glanced at Bryn, a fast and apologetic brush of gazes, and then checked the clock. “He’s right about the meeting,” he said. “I have to go. I have to do this. Take care of Annie.”
Every instinct in her rebelled against that, against sending him out on his own … and against being left here, with the not quite dead Freddy and the not very sane Jonathan Mercer. But Annie couldn’t be on her own. She needed help, shots, and above all, she needed safety. “Take Joe,” she told McCallister. “Don’t go alone.”
He nodded, eyes locked on hers. Then he turned to Mercer and said, “If anything happens to either one of these women, I’ll find a way to keep you alive while I cut you apart. Understood?”
“Sure,” Mercer said. “Why would I kill my own employees?”
“Ask Irene Harte,” McCallister said. One last glance at Bryn, and he was gone.
Bryn pulled the blanket closer around Annalie’s shoulders. “I’m taking her out of here,” she said.
“Well, it’s time we were about our own business, too,” Mercer said. “I suppose I’ll have to clean up Freddy’s brains; I hate to leave a mess for the home owners. Hand me that plastic bag; I need to put it over his head to keep him from leaking Oh, relax, Freddy; I’ll tear an airhole for you.”
Bryn turned to get the bag.
She never saw Mercer’s blow coming, and never knew how he hit her, or what with, except that it had to be with something big and heavy. She heard a sound that might have been Annalie’s choked scream, and then she was down on the cold floor, trying to figure out what was happening, and why, why in God’s name he’d done that….
Mercer thought she was unconscious, Bryn realized. She should have been, but she guessed she had a harder head than he’d expected. Her body wasn’t quite within her control just yet, but she could hear as he pressed buttons on a phone and said, “Irene Harte, please. Yes, I’ll hold…. Ah, Irene, nice to hear your voice. Patrick McCallister will be at the Civic Theatre in about twenty minutes, thirty at the outside if he stops for coffee and doughnuts. I believe he’s going to try to take out your advance crew, and then get you for good measure. That concludes our deal, I believe. You get what you want, and you leave me strictly alone. Bye-bye, Irene.”
“You lied,” Annalie said shakily. “You’re working with her.”
“I’m a businessman, and Irene has no real use for me now; it’s just as easy for her to pay me as kill me. She can always try to kill me later. McCallister, on the other hand— he’s much harder to get, so she’s perfectly willing to trade my life for his. And frankly, Annie, my life is really all that matters to me. Now, be a good girl and hit your sister with this pan, very hard, on the back of the head, and I promise not to let Freddy put that bag over your head ever again.”
“I can’t,” Annie sobbed. “I can’t. Bryn—”
“You will if you want to live,” Mercer said. “I’ll count to ten. One, two, three, four … Oh, all right, I suppose blood really is thicker than water. Don’t cry, Annie; listen to my voice. Condition Diamond.”
Annie abruptly stopped crying. The silence, in contrast, was eerie. Get up, Bryn thought grimly. She tried, and managed to push herself over on her side. Paralyzed nerves were starting to wake up and scream.
Annalie was staring at Mercer, slowly clearing eyes vacant as a doll’s.
“Now,” he said. “Take this pan, and hit your sister in the head with it, as hard as you can, until she’s not moving anymore.”
“Annie—” Bryn whispered.
Annalie didn’t hesitate. She took the pan, braced herself, and swung the skillet with brutal force.
It took three hits to crush Bryn’s skull.
The last thing Bryn heard, a faint and echoing whisper as she fell into darkness, was Mercer saying, “That’s my good girl.”
Chapter 13
She woke up to someone screaming, and for a moment she was back in the white room, hearing that awful birth scream through the glass….
... And then she realized that she was hearing it full-strength, somewhere a few feet away.
Bryn blinked and rolled over. The agony in her head was like spikes of steel driven deep, and she thought, That is bone digging into my brain. No, it couldn’t be. The back of her skull felt soft, but not shattered.
Busy little nanites. She knew it had been smashed.
She was lying on a blood-smeared kitchen floor, all alone, and there was a woman in a fluffy pink bathrobe standing in the doorway, shrieking like a banshee.
Get up, she told herself. You have to get up.
She managed to drag herself to her knees, then up to her feet. The woman stopped screaming and ran. Next stop, 911. Time was running out.
Annie. Mercer had take
n Freddy with him; he must have taken Annie as well. God, Annie killed me. Or had tried, anyway. Not her fault; she’d been controlled. She wouldn’t have done it on her own, not even out of fear.
Bryn had to cling to that. There was very little left to cling to.
Oh, God, McCallister. He was walking into a trap, and—on her insistence—probably taking Joe Fideli with him. She had to stop it. Stop him.
She had to find Annie.
Bryn gasped and lurched for the living room, past the sofa and the toys. She tripped, hit the door, and bounced off. Locked. Nice that Mercer had been so considerate of the family that he locked up as he left—only he hadn’t bothered to move the dead woman on the kitchen floor. The woman in the bathrobe was on the phone, shrieking out the address.
Have to get out of here.
Bryn twisted the dead bolt and made it outside, staggered down the steps, and broke into an off-balance run once she hit the sidewalk. The neighborhood was still quiet, but lights were coming on all over now, responding to the screams.
She had to get out of here, fast. At the very least, she’d be arrested for breaking and entering; even if no charges were filed, she’d be held long enough that McCallister …
She had to run faster. Somehow, she had to try.
It was ironic that the sun was rising, and it was a beautiful morning; birds were singing in lyrical melodies from the treetops. Morning glories bloomed on the fences. She left fat drops of blood behind her on the sidewalk, but fewer and fewer with each step as the injury’s last bleeder sealed itself. Her head ached unbearably, but she ignored that, concentrating on the pounding rhythm of her feet.
How long had she been lying there? How much time had it taken for the nanites to repair her broken skull?
Two blocks up was the convenience store. She dug for the keys and threw herself into the van, fired up the engine and sped away, not caring about traffic cameras or anything else. If she led a parade of cops to the Civic Theatre, fine. The more, the better.
The clock on the dashboard said she was already too late to get to McCallister to warn him, hours too late, but she had to try.