“Thanks.”
“And call me if you need anything while you’re getting settled again.”
“I will.”
Ash caught the meaningful look that Summer and Merc exchanged. She wondered if they were having a quick, silent conversation about her. Ash took a bite of the quiche, pretending she hadn’t noticed.
She wished she could pretend all of this away.
“And that, love, is why I tried to avoid you and us,” Merc said.
When they were finished, he took their dishes to the sink. He leaned against the counter, his arms folded in front of him as he faced her.
“It feels like we’re caught in the upswell of a tidal wave, building and building,” Ash said. “I’m afraid of it crashing.”
He nodded. “Me too.”
“I’m really scared, Merc.”
He came over to the table and drew her into his arms. “We don’t have to know all the answers. We couldn’t if we tried. But we can hold on to each other, take things slowly.”
She nodded.
“We’ll get your tests done, then I’ll take you home. Maybe being back in your own digs will help settle you.”
She leaned her forehead against his chest. In a world where werewolves were real, where mind reading was a thing and mental manipulations were commonplace, she wasn’t sure she could ever feel settled again.
Merc led her out of the kitchen, toward the area where the laundry and elevators were. He held the elevator door for her, then hit a down arrow. She knew there was a lower level, but she’d assumed it was mostly for storage. The elevator, however, kept going for longer than it should have taken to go one floor lower. She sent Merc a questioning glance.
“Our labs are in a bunker.”
It was freaky they had a laboratory here, but then, all of this was freaky. She supposed that was what he’d meant when he told her about the Ratcliffs, but that hadn’t sunk in.
“It’s a very advanced genetic and bioengineering setup. The Omnis are hunting the researchers involved in the human modification trials. We’re trying to locate them and bring them here for their own safety to preserve the work that’s been done. We’re hoping to be able to reverse whatever mutations the Omnis let out into the world.”
She was on borrowed time. “I felt better when I thought this was all a game. I was going to stage an intervention to help you get out.”
He laughed. “I love that you would do that for me.”
“I was just pretending to go along with all the crazy stuff you were saying.”
“I know.”
The elevator doors opened to a clinical, white, shiny, clean hallway. Merc reached for her hand, which gave her strength. He seemed so solid and confident, capable of tackling any situation. He led her to a room that looked like a hospital intensive-care unit. It smelled as sterile, too.
Joyce Ratcliff came in, wearing a white lab coat. She smiled as she greeted Ash, looking at ease, as if testing for a mutant infection was a common thing.
She had Ash sit on the examination table, then rolled a stool close and took a seat. “How are you feeling, Ash?”
Ash looked from the doc to Merc and back again. “Scared. Stressed. Tired. Grouchy.”
“And she has no appetite,” Merc added.
“Those are all normal emotions and behaviors, given the circumstances. Don’t be hard on yourself.”
“Does it get easier?” Ash asked.
“Depends on the individual. Merc volunteered for the program, but he wasn’t properly informed about it. So he was basically tricked into being modified. Same with Liege and Bastion. Guerre was informed and chose to go forward. Nathan and I modified ourselves.”
“You changed yourselves? On purpose?”
Joyce nodded. “We were being forced to change other people—against our knowledge in the beginning, and then against our will when we figured it out. We decided to undergo the changes ourselves so that we could help others through it. We felt that if we were doing something with extreme side effects, then we should experience it ourselves so that we would know how to support others with their changes.”
“Why?” Ash asked. “I mean, why do any of this? Why not leave humans as they are, to their own evolutionary path?”
“Our work began, legitimately enough, in therapeutic research. We wanted to see if there were ways to bioengineer cures for human diseases. Our work was successful and garnering international accolades, which brought us to the attention of the Omnis. They forced us into their program by threatening my mom and our daughter. We discovered their work was much further along than anything in the outside world. We mined our way in to its very core, knowing that the only way to stop it was from the inside out. We’d reached that point when we were extracted and eventually brought here. But as for the why of it? Power. Whoever can control human genetics can control governments, resources—the future of humanity.”
Ash looked at Merc, finally beginning to understand the huge scope. “That’s what you’re fighting.”
He nodded.
That was important work. And though he and the others used methods that violated regular human ethics, they did it to preserve life as most humans knew it. And he somehow thought she could contribute to that work?
“I do.” He looked at Joyce. “Ash is highly skilled, but untrained, in psychometry. If she were to join us, she would be powerful. Her skills could rival Guerre’s.”
Joyce nodded. “You become more of what you are when you undergo the mutations.” She went to a tray that had been prepared with the implements she’d need for the blood draw. As she prepared Ash’s arm, she explained, “We’re going to need to do blood draws once a week for at least the next month. Some modifications stay dormant in a host. We don’t fully understand what triggers them to become active in any given situation, so we want to monitor you. And, of course, we don’t even know whether you’ve been infected. We’ll have to watch and see.” She gave Ash a hard look. “Are you prepared for that?”
Ash shook her head. “I’m not sure I am going to be joining you.” She avoided looking at Merc, but Joyce checked his reaction. “If Merc wipes my memories of all of this, will that affect my biology?”
“No. Just your awareness of any of these conversations and events.”
“So you’ll continue to monitor me?”
“Yes. We have to, for your own wellbeing. Summer was modified with a new strain of mutations, but they are, so far, benign. We don’t know if you were changed, or if you were, what type of changes you might have been given. There’s a huge range of outcomes that we have to watch for, including a hyper-immune reaction to the modifications that would need support.”
“Okay. Let’s do this.”
Merc put his arm around her. “I hope it was just some kind of bug interaction and nothing more malignant, love.”
She leaned against him as Joyce pulled a vial of her blood. “Me too.”
31
Ash got out of the black SUV that Merc had used to drive her home. It took up half her driveway.
The yard service she’d hired to take care of her lawn and garden had already started work for the season. Everything looked lush and well-tended—just as if she’d never left.
Her yard was all that remained of her old self.
Merc grabbed her backpack and mentally opened her locked side door. He broke into her reverie by guiding her into her cheery kitchen. It had two windows—an east-facing one that looked out over the drive, and a south-facing one that was covered by the wide eave at the front of the house, keeping the hot sunlight soft and indirect.
Merc carried her backpack into her room and left it on her bed, then did a full walk-through of her house. She waited for him in the living room.
“All clear.” He stopped in front of her, just inches away, but she was emotionally miles from him. “Want me to stay? I can sleep on the couch.”
“No. I really do need time alone.”
“Righto. If you need me, yo
u just have to speak to me”—he tapped his forehead—“here. You don’t even need to phone me. I’m going to stay in town with Acier, so I’ll be nearby.”
Ash nodded.
“Good luck at work. I’ll check in with you tomorrow night.”
God, it felt wonderful that he cared and that she wasn’t facing this alone.
“You aren’t alone in this. You have me, Summer, Selena—all of us.”
“When will the test results be back?”
“A few days. Joyce and Nathan want to be thorough in their examination.”
“Okay.”
Merc slowly gave her a smile, his eyes so heavy with emotion that breathing was hard for Ash. He was feeling the same things she was. He caught her cheek in his hand, then bent down to kiss her other cheek. He didn’t say the words, not audibly or mentally, but she still felt them.
I love you.
Did that come from her or from him?
Ash stood still while Merc left. She didn’t move as she listened for his car to back out of her driveway. She remained still for the longest time after that, trying to get her bearings.
She was home, but she wasn’t the same person who’d left a week ago for a second trip to Valle de Lágrimas. She knew things no sane person should know, things that only made sense in the context of a role-playing game, things that would haunt her forever.
And somehow, she was supposed to just put one foot in front of the other and move on with her life.
And hell. Just standing in the middle of her living room for what felt like an hour was fucking odd. She was odd. Changed forever, whether or not she took the human modifications—whatever that meant.
She forced herself to go into her room and unpack. Pretending to be normal was about as close as she’d get to it again. She did her laundry, put her toiletries away, selected an outfit for work in the morning.
And completely closed her mind to the thoughts screaming at her. Merc had opened her locked door without a key as he had so many times in Colombia. Presumably, any mutant could do that. She had no defenses against Flynn or any Omni enemy accessing her place, but she knew Merc was protecting her, even though he wasn’t on site to do it.
She was safe.
For now.
Merc parked in the lot outside the warehouse in Fort Collins where Acier lived and had his workshop. He didn’t knock, just walked in. The place always looked like the entrance to a Halloween horror house, with its black walls and blocked windows. He wondered if Acier had a problem with sunlight because of his modifications. He hadn’t come through the same training camp that Merc, Bastion, and Liege had. In fact, his origins weren’t well understood.
Acier heard his thoughts and glared at him. “What—you think I’m a vamp? Just open the curtains…upstairs. In your room.”
Merc hadn’t been aware that he’d slipped behind him. Acier held himself in such tight control that he rarely let the rest of them in on his thoughts, though he freely helped himself to theirs. “You’re a freak, Acier. Never know what to expect with you.”
“I’m not a freak. You are. Ash kick you out?” Acier asked.
“Yeah. Can I crash here? I want to stay close in case she needs me. Flynn’s fucked her over good.”
“You think she was modified?”
“I can’t tell. Something about her feels different, but whether that’s the emotional trauma of learning about us and seeing me fight the ghouls or if it’s because she’s fighting off something he injected into her, I don’t know. Both, maybe.”
“Sorry, man. That’s rough. Sure. You can hang here as long as you like. You know the layout. Pick a room.”
Merc nodded toward the weapons room. He could smell the scent of metal, wood, varnish, oils, cleaners, sweat, and ash—a unique blend of odors that defined the weapon smith’s space.
Acier grinned. “Working on some knives for Selena. She and Bastion are on their way over to test a set. It’s the second set I’ve made for her. The first weren’t quite tuned to the way she moves in a fight. I think this set is gonna be perfect.” He paused, listening.
Merc felt Bastion’s presence before the two walked in.
“Speak of the devil,” Acier said as Bastion and Selena came in.
“Since when am I a devil?” Bastion asked.
“Don’t worry. Merc thinks I’m a freak.”
“Well, you are,” Bastion said.
Selena elbowed Bastion. “Let me at least get my knives from Acier before you insult him.”
Acier led them deeper into the warehouse, going to the big room where he often ran simulations. “Don’t worry about horse-brains over there.” He nodded toward Bastion. “I have your knives ready. Want to give them a test run?”
“Oh yeah. Your simulations are better than the ones Liege runs at the fort.”
“I think he worries about going too hard on you, after what happened to Summer,” Acier told her.
“There’s a big difference between Summer and me: I’m a trained fighter.”
“C’est vrai,” Bastion said. “But I still wish you weren’t.”
“We’ve talked about this,” Selena replied. “I feel as worried for you as you do for me when the ghouls come.”
“So. We will get through this lesson, then. Be smart, mon amour. Remember that ghouls have a rhythm in their fighting that is identifiable. Watch for it.”
Merc was surprised by the diminutive size of the two blades on the table in the sim room. Only eight inches in length, half of which was handle, the curved hawksbill blade reminded Merc of ghoul talons. He was curious to see what Selena could do with them. Getting close enough to use short blades like that was like stepping into a meat grinder.
Also on the table was a new gun Acier had built specially for Selena. It looked like a cross between a long-barreled pistol and a short-barreled shotgun. It had a fourteen-inch, heavy-walled, cylinder-bore barrel with a bead sight and a twelve-inch pistol grip.
“You’ll get twenty- to forty-feet range with this,” Acier told Selena. “The modified magazine holds Aguila Minishell ammo, eight and one in the chamber, twelve-gauge one-and-three-quarter-inch slugs. If your aim is true, you should be able to incapacitate eight or nine ghouls. Their adrenaline is such that unless you get a heart or cranial shot in, you’re likely to just slow them down and piss them off.”
“That’s the median number of ghouls when we find a cluster,” Merc said. “Sometimes it’s fewer than that. Sometimes more.”
“You’re not going to have time to reload in a fight with the monsters,” Acier said. “So make your firepower work for you. And take two of these pistols to each fight. They’re light. Just over five pounds loaded. I can fit you with holsters for these.”
“You running the simulation with the gun and knives?” Merc asked, looking forward to seeing their newest team member in action.
“Just the knives, this go around,” Acier said. “We’ll see how she does with them—I may still have some refinements to make. She can take the shotgun back to the fort for practice. When she’s ready, we’ll put the whole show together.”
Selena palmed the knives, flipping them this way and that, getting familiar with the way they felt. She grinned at Bastion. “There are some things I miss about my old team, but we sure didn’t have an Acier.”
“Non. But he is in talks with them to revamp their tools. So they will soon be as cool as we are.”
“Ready to go?” Acier asked Selena.
“Ready.”
The lights went out. Merc felt the familiar rush of anticipation. Even though this was only a simulation, and one he wasn’t participating in, it still held lessons for him. Their training was never finished—ghouls continued to evolve. It would be a quick death to take them for granted.
When any of them were running simulations for the other, they weren’t mechanical or virtual scenarios—they were actually mental creations that looked, smelled, felt like actual fights. Sometimes, the team replayed an encounter that d
idn’t go well. Sometimes the simulations were amalgamations of several different encounters. Sometimes, they were entirely made up. You never knew what the sim runner was going to hit you with.
This time, Selena found herself on patrol inside Kiera’s compound. Merc thought Acier was smart in taking the opportunity to train Selena in an area that was likely to be hit. They all were tasked with protecting Liege’s daughter, and the work she was doing with women in need in her compound, so this little bit of extra exposure was brilliant.
Merc could smell the adrenaline filling Selena’s veins. Her heart was pumping faster in anticipation. That was one of the many things he liked about Acier’s simulations. He made them feel real. Selena already had her knives in her hands—a deviation from a real-life chance encounter.
Selena moved through Kiera’s compound. It was night, but tall lamps brightened the buildings. Ground lights illuminated the pathways. Mutants didn’t need light to see at night, but it didn’t hurt either.
Up ahead was a rustling in some shrubs. Selena’s focus went toward the sound.
Listen with your whole body, Selena, Acier coached her. Everyone could hear what he was telling her. Your skin feels energy before your mind registers that its source is near. Your body can feel vibrations in the ground that you don’t hear. The air moves in ways that speak to what’s near you.
Selena was tense, her body at taut attention.
Be at ease, Selena, Bastion said. Straighten. Breathe. The tension you’re carrying can fatigue you as much as an actual encounter. And when your body is so locked down, you’re not getting the signals you need to be sensitized to.
Since everyone else was piping up with their advice, Merc added his: You got this, love.
Selena squared her shoulders, stretched her neck side to side, flexed her fingers around the knives in her hands. When she moved forward next, she was still hypervigilant but more attuned with the world around her. Acier’s simulation was so powerful that even Merc forgot they were standing in his warehouse. He felt like a slacker sending one of his teammates into danger alone while he hung out and watched. His heart was pumping. The fucking ghouls had gotten close enough to shred him that night in Valle de Lágrimas—causing pain that wasn’t easily forgotten, despite how quickly he healed.
O-Men: Liege's Legion - Merc Page 30
