“Telepathy?” she asked.
“I did what I did with Cristopher,” he pointed out. “I haven’t exactly had access to other minds to read until now, and I kind of always know what you’re thinking anyway.” He reached for her, pulling her close. “One step at a time,” he told her quietly.
Mac nodded—because she had been thinking that even though they were both currently still alive, that status could change, fast. And even if they could go directly from here to walking into OI, the fact that Shane was now a Destiny addict filled her with fear and dread.
But he was right. There was no point worrying about that right now. They were facing so many obstacles between here and OI—any one of which could kill them.
Shane let go of her to cough again, turning to spit into the sink.
And Anna was there, holding out the mask. “Maybe this’ll help.”
Shane shook his head as he wiped his mouth with his hand. “You should put it on. But I’ll definitely take that.” He reached for the weapon she was cradling, as he turned back to look at Mac. “So what’s our plan?”
“Get the hell out of here,” she said. “Go find Nika and bring her home.”
Shane nodded. “Works for me. Door or wall?”
“Ceiling,” she told him, and blasted a hole right above the row of toilets, so they could use the stalls to climb up.
He smiled happily at her. “I love the way you think.”
Nightmarish images continued to swirl around Nika.
Anna, crying in the bathroom, when she thought Nika was asleep and couldn’t hear her.
Devon Caine, chasing Nika down the sidewalk as she heard her own labored breathing loudly in her ears, as she desperately tried to get away.
Her mother’s face, hours before she died. She was so small and so still and …
“Anna?”
Nika turned, and oh, thank God. It was Joseph. She’d found him. Or maybe he’d found her.
“No,” she said. “It’s just me.” Just like the last time they’d met inside of her mind, their words were both so clear, it was as if they were standing on the street and having a conversation.
He was looking at her so strangely, and he shook his head. “Yeah. Sorry,” he said. “It’s crazy—there are times when you look so much like your sister …” He laughed. “Of course, right now, I’m un-fucking-believably high, so my boot looks kind of like Anna to me. Still, as nice as it would be to linger here and listen to a little Pink Floyd, we really do have to hurry.”
“Who’s Pink Floyd?” Nika asked. And why did he think his boot looked like her sister …?
Joseph laughed. “Some day I’ll play you Dark Side of the Moon,” he told her, “and tell you all about my cannabis phase, aka the wasted years. You can learn from my mistakes. Or not. Some mistakes we just have to make for ourselves, don’t we?” He laughed and held out his hand to her. “Come on, Mini-Anna. We have to get out of here. Frankly, I have no idea how, but let’s start by making sure we don’t lose each other.”
He wiggled his fingers at her, and Nika laughed even as she wondered at the fact that, had anyone else called her Mini-Anna, she would’ve gotten all up in their face for it. She reached for him and clasped his hand.…
And her world exploded.
Shane linked his fingers together and held his hands out so he could give Mac a boost up to the hole she’d blasted in the bathroom ceiling. But before she did more than turn toward him, it happened.
Some kind of massive explosion went down. It rattled the entire building, the entire street, possibly the entire city. Mac could hear glass shattering, and she was glad they weren’t near any windows.
Pipes burst and water sprayed, and she lunged for Anna even as Shane did, too, and they all held on to each other as the floor shook.
The door popped open and Shane moved in front of both of them, clearly expecting an attack, but no one was there. He pushed himself forward, leaning against it, but it still remained unlatched, as if it had come unaligned.
When the blast finally stopped, the sprinkler system was going off, and Shane looked up at the water gushing down on them, like rain. “You have no idea how freaking hard I tried to get that thing to go on before,” he said, but Anna interrupted him.
“Oh, my God. Your gun!”
Mac and Shane both looked down where she was pointing and …
The barrel of the weapon he was holding had been bent, as if heated in some unnaturally hot fire and twisted, up and around.
Shane looked at Mac. “I hope whoever she is who did this, she’s on our side.”
The water falling from the ceiling was, almost ironically but not unexpectedly, making the smoke from the control room that much worse.
Shane moved from his lean against the door, opening it quickly and peeking out before shutting it again.
He did the same move again. And one final time, before shooting Mac a wait here with Anna glance, then opening the door far enough to slip outside.
He was back almost instantly, pulling them out into the hall with him, where the air was slightly less smoky.
“Whoever did this,” he said again, taking the clip out of the mangled weapon, and holding it instead as a club, “did the same to all the firearms in this area.”
And sure enough, many of the guards who’d been out in the hall had tried to fire their weapons—and had them explode in their faces. Others of the uniformed men were unbloodied, but were still, somehow, dead.
The emergency lights were flickering across the wreckage, creating an even more hellish effect.
Theirs wasn’t the only locked door that had been opened—all of the doors on the entire floor were ajar, and girls clad in hospital gowns like the ones Anna and Mac were wearing began to emerge. Slowly at first, and then faster, they poured into the hallways.
“Slow down,” an odd-sounding voice commanded from the smoke at the end of the hall. “No need to panic. No need to run. You’re safe now.”
“Who is that?” Shane asked.
Anna answered. “Bach,” she said, wonder in her voice. “It’s Joseph Bach.”
And yes, there Bach was—partly obscured by the smoke at the end of the hall. He was lit, but not by one of the emergency lights. Instead, the glow seemed to come from him, from within him. And from within Nika, who was standing beside him, holding tightly to his hand.
“Help is coming,” Bach told the little girls, and Mac realized why he sounded so strange. Nika was speaking in exact unison with him—as if their voices were one and the same. “You don’t have to be afraid anymore.”
“Neek!” Anna called as she realized her sister was with Bach, as she ran toward them.
Nika looked up at Bach, as if asking permission to release his hand. He smiled down at her and nodded. “We’re safe now,” he said again.
And sure enough, the team of Thirties and Forties came pounding down the hall to surround them, ready to assist.
And it was the weirdest thing, but as Nika let go of Bach, to throw herself forward into her sister’s arms, he vanished. He just disappeared—as if he hadn’t really been there at all.
“That was weird,” Shane said.
And Mac turned to look at him.
Shane smiled. “Yeah, right?” he said as he put his arm around her and pulled her close. “Like all the rest of this shit is normal.”
Mac held him just as tightly. “Get used to it.”
He laughed, and even though Mac wasn’t telepathic, she knew what he was thinking. Nika, Anna, and Mac were all safe—along with hundreds of little girls. But the life-threatening part of Shane’s day was far from over.
“Let’s get you back to OI,” Mac told him.
He didn’t argue. He just nodded.
And together, they headed for the stairs.
TWENTY-NINE
Bach regained full consciousness in the back of the OI van, where Charlie was at the computer, monitoring the situation on the ground and gathering information from Analysis
.
Jackie and her team of Thirties and Forties were working at top speed to clear the Brite Group’s floors of all children and raw product.
Because Child Services had been privatized, and there was no way to be certain that the Organization didn’t have connections that would allow them to kidnap the girls all over again, the children were being sent to the Obermeyer Institute, where they’d be cared for until their parents could be found. And for those girls with no parents, it was going to be their new home. A new beginning, surrounded by people who would nurture and respect them.
The dead guards and staff were of a lower priority than the kids and the drugs—but if there was time, they’d be photographed and fingerprinted so that Analysis could ID them at a later date.
But there wasn’t a lot of time.
Dr. Obermeyer herself had put in a call to the Boston Police Chief, requesting he keep all personnel away from the scene for another few hours. In return, Bach and his OI team would continue to remain on call to the city force, well into the future, to take care of any dangerously jokering addicts who threatened the civilian population.
The Police Chief wasn’t happy—he was, no doubt, getting calls from corporate “constituents” with ties to the Organization. But his dwindling troops couldn’t handle the drug problem without OI’s help, so he’d negotiated Dr. O down to thirty minutes.
And the clock was ticking.
“He’s finally awake, ma’am,” Bach heard Charlie say into his headset. “Hang on, I’ll check.” He turned to Bach and asked, first, “Sir, can I get you anything?”
Bach shook his head, even though he wanted desperately to reassure himself that both Anna and Nika were safe. But he knew they were. Even while he was not fully conscious, he’d heard Charlie report that they were being taken, under heavy guard, back to OI.
“No, I’m fine,” he said. “I’m … What’s my integration level?” It had dropped, considerably. He could feel the abrupt loss of power.
Charlie leaned over to check the other computer, and confirmed it. “You’re down to around seventy-three, sir. You know, you actually hit eighty-five for a while there.”
“I did?” That didn’t make sense. Bach’s legs were feeling sturdy enough to stand, so he came over and checked the computer himself. And yes. He’d spiked a second time—all the way to eighty-five.
He checked the other information on the computer, and—funny—that second, even bigger spike happened at exactly the same time that all of the windows had been blown out of the Brite Group’s floors.
He vaguely remembered working with Nika to disable all firearms in the entire building, and to deliver a giant smack-down to any of the guards on the premises. He remembered being able to identify all of the men who were employed as the Organization’s guards by their mental footprints—something he’d never been able to do before. And he’d made the choice, and it hadn’t been a hard one, to act as both judge and executioner to all who knew and understood exactly what their duties there had entailed.
“Was anyone injured on the street below the building?” Bach asked Charlie now. “From the window glass?”
“No, sir. We don’t know where that glass went, but it didn’t hit the street or the sidewalk.” Charlie cleared his throat. “Sir, if you wouldn’t mind, Jackie Schultz has a question that’s … well, it’s a little odd, sir. She’s found a room, on the security floor, that appears to be some kind of lounge, with a service elevator that goes directly to the basement.” He paused. “Sir, the room contains three dead men—two guards and a man in a lab coat—who were killed considerably differently from the others.”
“How differently?” Bach asked.
“Jackie’s wearing a camera,” Charlie told him, “so you can see, but I have to warn you, sir, the pictures are pretty graphic. All three of the men were beheaded.”
And indeed they were. “Thank you, I’ve seen enough,” Bach said, and the picture on the screen switched to that of Jackie, looking grim and pale.
“Sir, we’ve got a psych specialist—Dr. Rita Labrenze—in the car with Nika and her sister—they’re nearly back at OI, so they have been talking for a while. I’ve requested that Dr. Labrenze ask Nika specifically about this room—without going into too many details—and she honestly has no memory of this particular event. I’m wondering if you—”
“No,” Bach interrupted. “This is not something we did.”
“With all due respect, sir,” Jackie said, “Dr. Labrenze believes it’s possible that neither Nika nor you would know if Nika had lashed out, unconsciously, perhaps—”
“I was deep inside Nika’s mind at all times, Ms. Schultz,” Bach said. “I appreciate your concern, but she didn’t do this.”
“My concern,” Jackie said, “is based in part on the fact that you were battling the effects of a powerful sedative, while dealing with a huge increase in your personal integration. With all due respect, sir,” she said again, “it’s just something to keep an eye on.”
“I will,” Bach said. “And as long as I’ve got you—have you encountered any girls—prisoners—who are pregnant?”
“No, sir,” Jackie said, then exhaled hard. “Oh, Jesus, Dr. Bach, really?”
“I’m afraid so. Nika encountered at least one. We’re estimating her age to be about seventeen. I’m also virtually certain she’s an untrained Greater-Than.”
“I’ll check again,” Jackie said, “but … A Greater-Than being used in genetic experiments? And I know I’m making an assumption here, but … Chances are, sir, that she was spirited away at the first sign of trouble.”
Or she’d ripped the heads off of her guards and doctor, and made her escape.
“If she is still there,” Bach warned, “she could be very dangerous. She was working with the Organization, possibly under duress—but we don’t know that for sure.”
“Understood,” Jackie said.
“It sounds like you’ve got the situation under control,” Bach said. “If that’s correct, I’ll head out to OI.”
“Absolutely. I’ll see you back there, sir,” Jackie said, and Charlie cut the connection.
Bach sighed and glanced at Charlie, who was watching him expectantly. And a little warily.
“I’m guessing,” Bach said, “that you’d prefer to drive.”
Mac insisted on going, first thing, to talk to Elliot.
Shane had a shower on his to-do list, along with a nice meal, a glass of beer, and about four hours in bed with his woman, definitely not sleeping.
Then, and only then, would he be even remotely ready to hit the hospital for his impending heart failure.
But Mac needed facts. And she had a boatload of questions, most of which, Shane was willing to bet big money, weren’t going to be answered. Like, how long would it be before Shane went into withdrawal and needed more Destiny. Okay, that one Elliot probably knew. But Mac also wanted to know if it would be more or less difficult to subject Shane to the procedure that would stop his heart if he were simultaneously jonesing for more of the drug? And, wasn’t it possible—if the procedure wasn’t doable due to Shane’s experiencing withdrawal symptoms—that injecting him with an additional dose of Destiny would increase his risk of jokering?
Which was when Mac shared some information that Shane wasn’t previously aware of. While most addicts tended to joker upon injection of the drug, in rare circumstances, some addicts had been known to joker spontaneously.
Of course, that was an eye-opener for Shane—spontaneous jokering? And although it was clearly rare, it would undeniably suck if it happened to him and he killed Mac instead of made love to her.
So he followed Mac into the hospital and down to the room where Elliot was no doubt still sitting at Stephen Diaz’s bedside.
Except when they got there?
It was Diaz who was sitting beside Elliot’s bed.
“What happened?” Mac asked. She was stunned.
Shane was, too. Until he did the math. “Elliot took a hit
of Destiny, too.” Holy shit.
Diaz nodded grimly, opening his robe to show the nearly completely healed scars on his chest. “With a higher integration level himself, he was able to boost my healing powers,” he told them. He looked at Shane. “Apparently, he got the idea from you. As soon as I was healthy enough, he had me stop his heart and …” He looked down at Elliot, who was lying motionless in the hospital bed. “It all worked, exactly as he thought. The relatively mild damage done to his heart was repaired as his system detoxed and burned off all traces of oxyclepta di-estraphen.”
“But that’s great,” Mac said. “If it actually works—”
“To a point,” Diaz said. “Because here he is, in a coma. Just like Edward O’Keefe.” He dropped a bomb. “Who died two hours ago.”
“Oh, shit.” Mac grabbed for Shane’s hand, and he took it.
“Yeah.” Diaz nodded grimly.
“O’Keefe was in his eighties,” Shane pointed out.
“Not when he died,” Diaz said. “Elliot told me he had the health of a fifty-year-old.”
“Has anyone run an autopsy?” Mac asked.
“No, not yet.”
“Let’s do that,” Mac said.
“Does it really matter?” Diaz asked. “We won’t have the results back before we need to stop Shane’s heart.” He looked at Shane again. “Elliot’s going to die, and you are, too.”
Mac grabbed Shane with one hand and the Greater-Than with the other, and pulled them outside of the room, slamming the door behind her. “You don’t fucking tell a man in a coma that he’s going to fucking die!”
“But he is,” Diaz said just as hotly. “I tried to change the future, but I failed.” He started to cry. “I would have died for him.
Why didn’t he let me?”
“Because maybe he believes that you both can live,” she said, hugging him tightly. “That’s the future he’s trying for.”
Diaz couldn’t speak.
“Did you actually see him die?” Mac asked. “In your vision?”
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