So Braxton had inherited D-14 without the trouble or danger of hunting him. Gift-boxed in shatterproof, noiseproof, crazyproof, super-thick plastic. Because iron bars weren’t enough. Not for a Braxton Boy.
The barrier reflected his own face back to him. He hated looking at it. The mottled spots and oozing sores were a hideous reminder of his progressing decay.
He cleared his throat with a racking cough and hit the microphone button. “Keeping it tight, I see. My programming just won’t quit.” Braxton leaned closer until his breath fogged the plastic around the embedded microphone. “And I coded your every move, asshole. Remember that. You don’t exist without me. You’d be dead meat rotting in a cage if I hadn’t found you.”
D-14 made no sign that he heard Braxton. Ungrateful turd.
Braxton knocked on the plastic. Even with thick bandages wound around the sores on his knuckles, it stung. “Get your ass right-side up or I’ll stun code you right now. It’s time for harvest. Sit down on the cot.”
D-14’s eyelids didn’t even flicker.
Braxton’s jaw clenched. A flash of agonizing pain shot through his pulpy gums and the few teeth he still had. He’d slowed his own cell degeneration for a while using DNA from a test subject with some natural resistance, one who’d lived somewhat longer than the others.But D-14 would provide the ultimate solution. D-14’s cells were completely protected. He was in perfect health. All things considered.
Braxton’s health was now deteriorating nearly as fast as the Rats from that first group. The ones that had gotten the most ambitious version of his gene cocktail. They’d all started to decompose while still alive. A grisly spectacle.
Braxton had taken the gene cocktail himself before he knew about the potential side effects. There were none at first. Just incredible physical power and stamina. Lightning-fast reflexes. Boundless sexual energy. His senses had been razor sharp, his mind intensely clear. He’d felt like a god.
It took years for the altered cells to go crazy. Some Rats had lasted longer than others. One had lingered until almost a year ago. But they all went bad in the end. Necrotizing gangrene, nerve degeneration, overwhelming stench. Screaming pain. Prolonged suffering. Eventually, death. Never fast, never merciful.
Braxton began euthanizing his subjects as soon as their symptoms got to a certain point. Their deterioration was depressing to watch. Messy, too.
All the first test subjects were dead now. Or so he’d thought until he found D-14, who had a brother in the program. Both boys had escaped in the Midlands rebellion. He’d assumed that they’d died of the rot years ago like the others, but D-14 clearly had complete genetic protection in his cells.
And D-13, his brother, might have it, too.
Braxton badly needed to know if the younger man was alive. D-14, of course, was not talking. But he would.
Braxton would duplicate that magic in his own cells. He’d heal himself first. Restored to full strength, he’d use the cure to create a whole new race of slave supersoldiers. Not for Obsidian, though. Fuck Obsidian. They didn’t believe in him or respect his genius.
There was a huge potential market out there for his ultra-lethal supersoldiers. Big money to be made. He’d been courting investors and setting up secret labs for years now. This was the final piece of the puzzle.
And Obsidian had no idea.
He looked forward to putting his former employer out of business. The Braxton Boys would return stronger than ever with that gene glitch edited out.
His willing slaves. Every last one of them.
Braxton rapped the plastic barrier. “Pay attention. The silent treatment’s over, D-14. Tomorrow you get a new drug. You’ll tell me everything. The dose is tailored to your bodyweight, mods, genes. I’ll peel you open like a can of sardines.”
Still no reaction. Not that he expected one at this point.
“Okay. Don’t answer. But you will,” he said.
It was ironic that D-14 and his brother had been on the kill list even before the Midlands massacre. And now the D-14 mutation was Braxton’s only chance of survival. So the Midlands rebellion was lucky, in hindsight. D-14 had been destined to live. For him.
“Sit down!” Braxton barked into the microphone.
D-14 smoothly transferred his weight from one hand to the other. He didn’t seem to have heard the order.
“Calliope! Banner! Ibex!” Braxton bellowed.
D-14 froze. Now that he could no longer make the constant micro-adjustments necessary to keep his balance, he toppled. His bare feet thudded and bounced against the plastic barrier, then slid down.
He hit the floor, rigid as a log. Deactivated.
Braxton used the keypad to open the electronic lock and hauled in his kit, pulling out needles, vials. D-14’s skin was mottled with bruises from Braxton’s daily jabbing and stabbing.
The stun code was a crucial security measure. D-14 had been one of the masterminds of the Midlands Facility massacre. Extremely dangerous.
But not to Braxton. All his boys had his control codes embedded in their ASP matrix, the beta version of inhibitory security programming. There were drawbacks, but it was better than nothing.
He struggled to maneuver D-14’s body into a better position, yanking on D-14’s rigid arm to drag him up. Then he saw the extended middle finger poking up from D-14’s clenched fist.
He was giving Braxton the finger.
“Fuck you back, you sick punk.” Braxton spat into D-14’s face.
His spit was bloody. Their eyes locked as the reddish slime rolled down over D-14’s jaw. Braxton moved around him, looking for a vein.
There. The bulging one on the back of his hand. Braxton stabbed the needle in. After six or eight tries, he hit blood, hot and dark, snaking up the plastic tube and into the vials.
“So here’s the plan,” Braxton said conversationally. “When I have you drugged up, you get packed into a pod and transported home. My home.”
An almost inaudible sound came from D-14. Like an animal in pain.
“Don’t want to go? I know, cool cage, right? But I need to be in my own lab to get up to speed with your gene mutation.” The tube pulsed. The vials filled. “Bet you’re ready for a change of scenery.”
D-14’s dark eyes glittered, fixed on Braxton’s face.
“Me, too. And guess what.” Braxton grinned. “You’re going to make me rich. Does that make you happy?” He wiggled the needle deep in the vein, just for fun. “Does that hurt? Is that a yes?”
Concentrated hatred blazed from D-14’s slitted eyes.
“You know, I was thinking,” Braxton crooned. “In case you run out of blood—it could happen—vitreous fluid from your eyeball would work just as well. Easy to suck out with a great big needle. Or hey—how about seminal fluid from your big swinging nuts? I wouldn’t even have to use a needle. I could hire a hooker to suck it out of you. And tape the action. Bet you’d love that.”
That sound again. Below the level of normal hearing.
“What did you say?” Braxton demanded. “I didn’t hear you.”
Silence.
Braxton stared into the man’s eyes. “Be good, D-14. You know I play rough.”
Braxton finished the harvest, taking his time, scribbling labels, dates. He pulled a rod out of his lab coat pocket, shaking until it snapped out to three times its length. A thin rod, just flexible enough to sting. Hard.
He’d found that punishing D-14 with the rod was easier on his damaged hands and feet than kicking and punching. D-14 shouldn’t be able to make the slightest sound when stun coded, but Braxton thought he’d heard something just now. Maybe he needed some reconditioning. The hard, sharp kind. He’d have all kinds of scope for that once he got D-14 back to a proper lab setting.
Though D-14 would never show pain. Rebel to the core.
Pharmaceutically blasting D-14’s prefrontal cortex altogether would be much safer from a security standpoint, but the man’s body would degenerate faster in that state. Braxton needed that b
ody well and strong.
First blow. Right across the face. The fucker didn’t even blink.
D-14 stared up at him. Blood streaming from his nose bubbled in his throat with each breath. Braxton could hear it. No serious injury. Braxton’s Boys could take a lot of punishment.
Which was fortunate, considering how much Braxton enjoyed dishing it out.
Chapter 9
Cutting onions helped. Tossing them into sizzling oil in a skillet. Stir-stir-stir with a wooden spoon. A simple sequence of tasks, one leading into the next. An anchor to keep Zade’s mind from spinning wildly out into orbit.
He’d been prepared to use Simone. He’d expected to enjoy having sex with her. How could he not? She was gorgeous, brilliant, fascinating, mysterious, highly sensual. He’d have to be dead not to be rock-hard for her.
He just hadn’t counted on having his mind blown to fucking smithereens.
Touching her equaled instant and total oblivion to anything else. Simone herself filled up his mind and crowded everything else out. From the fake name she used—Alison—to the critical importance of what he was doing and who he was doing it for. All gone. Whoosh.
Luke. This was about Luke, and he just fucking … forgot.
Zade wrenched his mind grimly back to the task at hand. Tossed in the potatoes, the chopped herbs. The other skillet was hot enough to sear steaks, so he tossed the dry-rubbed meat into the pan. A dash of pepper. More salt.
It sizzled and hissed. That was his brain right now. Cooked rapidly at high temperature.
Salad. He rummaged through the veg drawer and yanked out handfuls of various greens. Pre-washed, good to go. He liked being organized on all levels of existence. They’d wired him for that at Midlands and it had stuck.
He flipped the steaks, poking at them absently as his mind raced. Simone Brightman was wired up, just like him. Full set of mods. His ASP processor had been gulping in terabytes of data, measuring everything. Her reaction times, her physiological responses, her levels of stress and sexual hormones. He was almost certain that she had genetic mods and multiple implants, too.
She’d bitch-slapped her active compulsion patterns down like a boss. That was a heroic achievement, but she had no clue. She was balancing on a fraying tightrope over the abyss, and she didn’t even see the thousand-foot drop beneath her.
Maybe that was why she was still alive.
Still, she could easily kill herself fighting like this. She could go into shock, have a heart attack or stroke, get a blood-boiling stim fever. The researchers didn’t hold back on the cruelty.
But she’d survived so far. Simone was as tough as they came, despite being in the dark about her modifications.
The plan had been to get close to her and gain her trust if possible. That was still the plan, but now he knew that he could hurt her in ways that she couldn’t imagine. She was already battling her own compulsion patterns and suffering the inevitable consequences.
If he pushed too far, he could push her right over the edge.
Simone was a victim of Obsidian. As a fellow escapee, he owed it to her to bring her up to speed. But if they’d programmed her to be unaware of her mods, finding out the truth could be toxic for her. It could even trigger a fatal meltdown.
He desperately needed another lead. Without some new info from Simone, he had fuck-all to go on. Days kept sliding by. Days that could mean life or death for his brother. Every day the possibility that Luke was alive grew smaller.
It didn’t matter. His restless, grinding frustration drove him onward.
Rising smoke made him cough. Damn, he’d spaced out again. He dragged the pan off the heat and flipped the steaks onto a waiting platter, burned side down. One was slightly more charred. The other was perfect. Hers, then.
Simone needed taking care of it. That, and a hero. Not that he was available for that shit right now. Heroism, caring, any of it. Coaching her on the talisman trick had been a risk, but he had to throw her a rope, or he would have ended up at the nearest ER watching her sink into a coma.
He’d seen that movie before. He hated the ending.
He heard a faint squeak of bare feet on the stairs, her soft breathing.
“Whatever you’re cooking smells wonderful.” Her low, husky female voice stroked over his nerves like silky fur.
“Steaks for two. Hot out of the pan.”
“Mmm. Yummy.”
He braced himself before he turned to look. Good thing, too. She was a full frontal assault on his senses. His big red T-shirt made her glow like a pearl.
He took in every detail. Her hair rippled down, catching the light. Her soft lips still red and swollen from all the wild kissing. Dewy from her shower.
And that smile. She looked so different from before.
The T-shirt slid off one slim, pale shoulder. Well, yeah. It was way too big. Thanks, shirt. It hung to barely mid-thigh, showing off her long, shapely legs.
No underwear under there. Just warm, soft, scented woman.
“Um, Zade?” she offered. “Maybe lower the flame?”
“Oh, shit.” He lunged for a hot pad. “The onions.”
Rescued in the nick of time. Browner than they should be, but what the hell.
He carefully did not look at her as she entered the kitchen and made her way to the fridge. He needed to maintain some functioning brain cells to serve dinner.
That resolve disintegrated when he heard the suck-pop of the rubber seal and glanced her way.
She was bending over to snag a beer from the bottom shelf of the fridge.
Yeah. He kept looking hungrily until she straightened up and turned.
She perched on a high stool at the bar and sipped her beer. There was a whole counter between them, for which he was grateful. Her smile was shy and incredibly seductive, at the same time.
He cast around for a conversation starter. “So what’s your story? You said you’re an engineer. Didn’t say what kind.”
“Biomedical,” she told him. “I specialize in treatments for brain lesions. Devices for neurosurgery. That’s my main specialty.”
He was surprised at how forthcoming she was. “Have you made anything that’s on the market already?”
“Patents granted, so yes. More in the pipeline, still more in the planning stages. I have lots of ideas. And not enough time to develop them all.”
Zade was impressed. “You don’t look old enough to be that far along in your career. I put you at around … twenty-four?”
“Almost twenty-seven, but I got a head start,” she told him. “I finished my undergrad degree when I was seventeen. Then I went for my doctorate.”
He whistled. “Good for you.”
She held up a hand. “I meant to say my first doctorate.”
“Oh.” And he fixed cars as a side hustle. No degrees, not even in Advanced Nothing. They didn’t hand out certificates for the kind of stuff he kicked ass at. Though it was extremely lucrative. He had several millions stashed in a neutral country that was fighting the good fight against tax disclosure legislation.
“I have two,” she said.
“You’re amazing,” he said.
“I just have a few really useful tricks up my sleeve, that’s all. Photographic memory, for instance. And I’m compulsive about figuring things out once I start them. I’ve been obsessed with neurology since I was a kid.”
Of course she had a photographic memory. They all did. It was part of the core mods package. Zade hated what those bastards had done to him with a white-hot, unending hatred, but even he had to admit that photographic memory was pretty goddamn useful. He could no longer imagine life without it.
Auxiliary data banks in his brain with fast cyber-connectivity rocked, too.
He loaded himself up with the skillet, the steak platter, and the breadboard. “Could you grab the salad and your beer?” he asked. “Let’s get dinner on the table.”
She lay down the salad bowl and slid into one of the places he’d set at the table as he pu
t down the food and spun the platter around so that the perfectly done steak was on her side. “This one’s yours. Grab it while it’s hot.”
She did so, and sliced off a bite. He watched attentively as she chewed.
“So?” he demanded. “Not too done?”
She looked amused. “Delicious,” she assured him. “Tender. Succulent.”
He relaxed a little and loaded up his plate. They both dug in. Hungry as they were, the food slipped right down, and it was a few minutes before either one of them could be bothered with conversation again. By the time he’d buttered up a chunk of Italian bread, he was ready for another whack at it.
“So why the human brain?” he asked. “What’s so compelling about that?”
She thought about it, a small frown between her brows. “Because of my mom, I guess,” she said. “I never really put it together. But I suppose it’s pretty obvious.”
He hesitated. His research into her life had yielded enough info to know when to slow down and tread carefully. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“She died right before I turned fourteen. A rare neurological illness.”
“Oh. I’m really sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to … uh … ”
“It’s okay,” she said. “I don’t mind talking about her. I can’t believe I never made the connection before. But I got all hung up on neurology after she died. Started studying it night and day. Ever since my accident.”
He gnawed on another chunk of bread. Letting her talk.
“I was in a car accident, just a few months after my mom died,” she went on. “A head-on collision. I don’t remember it myself. I was in a coma. When I woke up, I’d lost several months of memories. After that, I just threw myself into science. Studied all the time. Never looked back.”
“That’s interesting.” He kept his voice bland, but he seethed inside. Evil bastards. True to form. She was a grieving kid who’d just lost her mom, and they just wound her up like a clock. Didn’t give a fuck about hurting her.
My Next Breath Page 7