Welcome to Promise City

by Greg Cox

  “Oh yeah?” Tom snarled. “Tell that to my damn arm!” Peering past her shoulder, he saw that Kyle was still a few paces away from the guns. His son looked horrified at what was being done to him. Don’t worry about me, he thought. Just get those guns!

  “What did you do?” Tom accused Rosita. “Spear right through the vein? Or did you hit the bone, too?”

  “I’ve never done that in my life!” the woman said indignantly. She removed the Vacutainer from its plastic holder before handing it over to Grayson. “I’m a professional!”

  “A professional sadist maybe!”

  Keep looking at me, he entreated them silently. Don’t turn around!

  “What’s next?” Diana ranted, doing her part. “Are you going to dissect us for parts?”

  The guns were right where Cassie said they would be. Kyle held his breath as he crept along the back of the room, even as the bad guys tortured his dad. Despite Cassie’s warning, it had come as a shock to see both his dad and Diana at the mercy of Grayson and his accomplices. His father’s angry cries scraped at his nerves. What are those slimeballs doing to him?

  “Don’t get distracted,” Cassie whispered. She tiptoed after him. “Stick to the plan!”

  Easier said than done, he thought. It wasn’t her father being experimented on only a few yards away. Still, at least he knew now that he had done the right thing coming here this evening. From the looks of things, he had arrived just in time. Maybe.

  He inched across the room, wincing at every minor creak and tread. Thank God he hadn’t stepped in any puddles on the way here; he could just imagine his sneakers squishing loudly with every step. Too bad I’m not invisible like Cassie.The room was uncomfortably warm compared to outside. Perspiration glued his shirt to his back. It felt like hours before he finally reached the unattended weapons.

  He spotted his father’s modified Glock. His sweaty palms grabbed on to the grip of the gun. Suddenly, he was very grateful for the firing lessons his dad had given him when he was growing up. He bit back a gasp of relief.

  Made it!

  “Good job,” Cassie said. She pointed at the nurse bending over his dad. “That’s Rosita. You need to shoot her first, before she can use her ability.”

  In the back? Kyle didn’t want to shoot anyone, let alone an unsuspecting woman. He clumsily released the safety on the gun. Is Cassie serious?

  She frowned at his hesitancy. “This is no time to be squeamish, Kyle. You wanted to be the hero. Now do what you have to.”

  Kyle’s arm trembled as he raised the gun. He didn’t think he could go through with this. He had never shot someone before—if you didn’t count the time a disembodied intelligence from the future had taken over his body to assassinate Jordan. This time was different, though. He was in charge now. The blood would be on his hands …

  “Do it!” Cassie ordered. “Pull the trigger!”

  Kyle listened to his dad and Diana shouting. He wanted to save them, but …

  “I can’t!”

  He didn’t even realize that he’d spoken out loud until the bad guys spun around in surprise. Kyle recognized Grayson from his file, but it was the young man in the bathrobe who really shocked him. Kyle’s jaw dropped. His heart missed a beat.

  “Danny?”

  His dead cousin was standing only a few yards away.

  “It’s not Danny!” Cassie yelled. “He’s fake.” She shouted in his ear. “Shoot the old lady!”

  But he was already too late. The nurse scrunched up her face. Her solid-looking frame shimmered like a mirage before vanishing completely. She disappeared right before his eyes.

  “Huh?” Kyle stammered in confusion, his gun aimed at empty air. Now what was he supposed to do?

  Cassie took charge as usual. Grabbing on to his gun arm, she swung it to the right. “Over there! Now!”

  He squeezed the trigger.

  The deafening report of the gun pounded his eardrums. The recoil jolted his arm from Cassie’s grip. At first it looked like he’d fired at nothing, but then Rosita shimmered back into existence, clutching her side. Blood seeped through her fingers. Moaning, she crumpled to the floor.

  Oh my God, Kyle thought. Cassie had known right where the invisible woman was. I just shot someone. For real.

  “Rosita!” Grayson started to rush to the injured woman’s side, then remembered the smoking gun in Kyle’s hand. He halted halfway to Rosita. “Please, you’ve got to let me help her!”

  “Careful, Kyle!” his dad shouted from the couch. “He’s armed, too. Don’t let him do anything until you get his gun!”

  “Fine!” Grayson said, before Kyle could even follow his dad’s advice. He drew a small handgun from beneath his lab coat and slid it across the floor toward Kyle. He looked anxiously at Rosita, who was whimpering in pain upon the floor. “Is that good enough for you?”

  A crimson pool formed beneath the fallen nurse. Kyle swallowed hard. He swung the gun back toward the fake “Danny” and an attractive blond woman who looked only a few years older than he was. He struggled to keep an eye on all the players. “Go for it.”

  That was all the agitated mortician needed to hear. He grabbed a first-aid kit from a cart and rushed over to the writhing victim. “Somebody call 911!”

  “No!” Diana shouted. Still tied to a couch beside her partner, she raised her voice to get Kyle’s attention. “That clone has Danny’s ability. You can’t let anyone else in here. This whole place needs to be quarantined!”

  “Don’t listen to her, Kyle,” the blonde said. She was a stranger to Kyle, but she clearly knew who he was. “You don’t want to stop us. We’re only trying to spread the blessing of promicin to the entire world, just like Jordan Collier wants.”

  Cassie regarded the blonde speculatively. “You know, Kyle, she’s got a point there.”

  “She’s crazy, Kyle,” his dad warned. “She’s killed four people already. And wants to kill billions more.”

  “A single generation of sacrifice to ensure paradise for all who follow,” the blonde insisted. “That’s what Jordan always says, isn’t it?” Holding up her hands, she took a step toward Kyle. “I know you share our ideals, Kyle. We’re on the same side.”

  “Back off!” Kyle ordered. “I don’t know you, lady, but your argument would be a lot more convincing if you weren’t holding my dad hostage!”

  “We weren’t going to hurt him,” she insisted. “We were only—”

  “Shut up!” Kyle wasn’t going to listen to any more of this, not while his dad and Diana were still trussed up like lab animals. He waved his gun at the captives. “You two,” he ordered the blonde and Danny’s twin, “untie them now.”

  The blonde snickered at Kyle. “Is that your idea or Cassie’s?” She glanced around the lab. “Is she here with us?”

  “Cassie?” his dad echoed, puzzled. “Who is Cassie?”

  His redheaded muse was amused by the exchange. “You know, you’re really going to have to tell him about me one of these days.”

  Kyle’s face flushed in anger and embarrassment. He aimed the gun right at the blonde. “How do you know about her?”

  “Jordan told me.” She chuckled mirthlessly. “We share a lot of things. I’ve been feeding him classified info ever since I joined the Movement.”

  “April!” Diana suddenly realized. “You’re the mole. You’re the one who told him about my sister.”

  The blonde smirked at Diana. “Just figured that out, did you? Kind of slow on the uptake, Diana.” She shook her head. “Got to wonder what Marco ever saw in you.”

  “You’ll have to ask him,” Diana shot back. “When he visits you in prison.”

  “Dress it up any way you like, Abby,” Tom accused the blonde. “You’re still a traitor and a murderer.”

  Kyle put the pieces together. He looked to his dad for confirmation. “She works for NTAC?”

  “I belong to the Movement,” Abby declared. “Just like you do.” Despite his orders, she made no move to unbind
the prisoners. “Think about Jordan, Kyle. You think he’d approve of what you’re doing now? Or would he want you to step aside and let us complete his work?”

  “Jordan never forced anyone to take promicin!” He clung to that belief as tightly as he gripped the gun in his fist. “Never!”

  “Which is why he needs people like us,” Abby asserted. “To do the things that have to be done.”

  She sounded eerily like Cassie.

  “Just untie them!” Kyle shouted. There were too many people telling him what to do. He felt like he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. “I’m not going to debate this with—”

  An anguished scream yanked his attention back to Rosita and Grayson. The mortician was crouched over the injured nurse as he applied pressure to her wound. Agony contorted the woman’s face, which was pale and clammy. Trembling fingers clutched Grayson’s gore-streaked lab coat. There was blood everywhere.

  “Oh crap.” Kyle’s heart sank. “Is she going to live … ?”

  His momentary distraction was just the opening Abby had been waiting for. “Kyle, watch out!” Cassie shouted as the blonde snatched up a metal tray from the cart by the couch and hurled it at Kyle. Alerted by Cassie’s cry, he threw up his arm just in time to deflect the flying tray. It clattered to the floor along with scattering medical tools and bandages. A test tube of blood shattered into pieces. Red stains splattered the room.

  Abby yelled at the Danny clone. “Run, Carl! Get out of here now!”

  She lunged at Kyle, who instinctively raised the gun to defend himself. It went off before he even knew what was happening. A crimson flower blossomed above her heart. For a single endless moment, she stared back at him in shock before she toppled backward onto the floor.

  She was dead before she even hit the tiles.

  No! Kyle thought. I didn’t want to do that!

  The sight of her lifeless body transfixed him.

  “Kyle!” his dad shouted urgently. “Carl! The clone! You’ve got to stop him!” The urgency in his voice cut through his shell-shocked daze. “He’s just like Danny!”

  Diana yelled at him, too. “He’ll infect the whole city!”

  What? Kyle looked up to see the imposter making a break for it. Diana’s warning reminded him how much was at stake. Leaping over Abby’s bleeding corpse, he took off after Carl, who got as far as the reception area before Kyle caught up with him. Wearing only a bathrobe, Danny’s twin fumbled with the lock at the door. It clicked open.

  “Hold it!” Kyle hollered. Both hands held on tightly to his gun as he swung it toward the fleeing clone. “That’s far enough.”

  The false Danny froze at the doorway, his hand resting on the doorknob. Only a slim wooden door stood between him and thousands of vulnerable people. Kyle remembered all the funerals he’d attended after the Great Leap Forward. Including his cousin’s and his aunt’s.

  Not again, he thought. There has to be another way to bring Heaven to Earth.

  Wasn’t there?

  The clone looked back at him. “C’mon, Kyle. Get real. You’re not going to shoot me.” Danny’s face smiled slyly. “We’re flesh and blood.”

  “You’re not my cousin!”

  “I am now.” He looked and sounded exactly like Danny. “You’re the shaman and I’m the carrier. We’re two parts of the same prophecy.”

  “Stop him, Kyle!” his dad shouted frantically from farther within the plasma center. The couch rattled against the floor as he tried furiously to escape from his bonds. “If he gets away from here, it will be fifty/fifty all over again!”

  Cassie appeared behind Kyle. “He says that like it’s a bad thing.”

  “But if I let it happen, it will be my fault this time.” Kyle shook his head. He kept the gun aimed squarely at the imposter’s head. He had already hurt too many people tonight. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t live with that.”

  “Hypocrite!” A livid expression rendered Danny’s face almost unrecognizable; Kyle didn’t remember his cousin ever looking so furious. “You’re happy to preach the gospel of Jordan Collier to anyone who will listen, convince people to take promicin even though you know it will kill half of them, but you’re too weak to get your hands dirty when it matters most.” He snorted derisively. “What exactly do you think you’ve been doing since Collier came back?”

  He turned his back on Kyle and twisted the doorknob. A cold breeze entered the building. It was dark outside.

  “Don’t do it, man.” The gun shook in Kyle’s hand. “I don’t want to hurt anyone else.”

  “Then you don’t know what you’re doing,” the imposter said. “And who you really are.”

  He stepped over the threshold.

  Kyle fired.

  Danny died all over again.

  Numb with horror, Kyle dragged the body back into the building and slammed the door shut. A tear trickled down his face as he slumped against the door, exhausted and drained of feeling. The gun slipped from his fingers. He barely heard his dad and Diana shouting to him from the donor area. He’d untie them in a moment, but right now all he could do was stare at the dead man on the floor.

  What’s happening to me? What have I become?

  Cassie stepped over the body. She snuggled against him, resting her head upon his chest.

  “It will be all right, Kyle. You’ll get over this. We’ll get over this.”

  He wasn’t so sure. “I’ve killed two people, Cassie. Maybe three.”

  “There’s a first time for everything.” She smiled knowingly. “Think of this as a learning experience.”

  For the first time, he was truly scared of her.

  And himself.

  * * *

  Kyle left before the paramedics and hazmat team arrived. Tom had seen that his son was deeply shaken by what he’d been forced to do, but Kyle had brushed off his dad’s attempts to comfort him. He had staggered out of the center like a zombie, barely saying a word.

  I’ll have to talk to him later, Tom promised himself, make sure he gets through this. He knew from experience just how hard it was to live with killing someone, even in defense of others. Especially the first time.

  Selfishly, he hoped that Kyle wouldn’t turn to Jordan Collier instead.

  Diana took charge of the cleanup operation. Per her instructions, only positives who had already survived exposure to promicin were allowed on the site. Grayson and Rosita were both dosed with the inhibitor before being shipped off to quarantine. Thankfully, it appeared that the injured phlebotomist was going to survive.

  Unlike Abby and Carl.

  Their bodies were destined for immediate cremation.

  Along with Danny’s, Tom guessed. Shawn will understand, I’m sure.

  “This entire place is going to have to be sterilized,” Diana stated. She sighed wearily as she contemplated the bloody aftermath of tonight’s horrors. “But at least we recovered Danny’s remains and shut down Abby’s insane project. Thanks to Kyle, of course.”

  “Yeah,” Tom agreed. “That’s something, I suppose.”

  He just hoped their victory hadn’t cost his son his soul.

  “How are you doing?” Diana asked him. “You feeling any different?”

  “Not really.” His arm still stung where Rosita had poked him, but that was all. “No abilities that I’ve noticed yet.”

  “Well, we’ll have to get you tested when we get back to HQ, but I’m guessing that those U-Pills staved off any infection.” She offered him a comforting smile. “Prophecy or not, chances are you’re still the same Tom Baldwin.”

  For now, Tom thought.

  TWENTY

  THERE WERE ONLY five Marked left.

  Or four, depending on how you counted.

  Wesley Burke had died three days ago. Killed in a “freak accident” while honeymooning in Niagara Falls with his latest trophy wife. A suspicious “gust of wind” had hurled him over a railing overlooking the Falls. His body had been smashed to pieces on the rocks below, his precious bodily flui
ds washed away in the churning froth. Curiously enough, no one nearby, not even his horrified bride, had felt more than a breeze.

  That this tragedy had occurred only forty-eight hours after Richard Tyler’s escape from custody implied an alternative explanation for Burke’s demise.

  The Marked were being hunted once more.

  Sheik Nasir al-Ghamdi had not waited for Tyler to track him down. The dashing Arab was slumped facedown on the round oak table in the parlor of Wyngate Castle. A smoking pistol still rested in his hand. A bullet hole marred the checkered head cloth covering the back of his skull. A crimson stain spread across the fabric.

  Clear plastic sheets, draped over the walls and furnishings, protected the parlor’s elegant decor from ugly blood spatters. Frankly, George Sterling would have preferred to use another location for today’s unpleasantness, but security concerns had trumped convenience. Wyngate was the most secure location available on such short notice. Or at least the only one the surviving Marked could all agree on. Besides, he reminded himself, what does it matter if we make a mess? It’s not like I’m going to be living here much longer …

  He pried the Glock from the sheik’s lifeless fingers. He handed it to Song Yu, who, along with General Roff and Kenpo Norbo, was seated around the plastic-shrouded table. “Your turn.”

  She accepted the handgun without hesitation. “For the cause.” She smiled grimly. “We will meet again, my friend.”

  He admired her courage and commitment. “Absolutely.”

  Calmly, her face displaying nary a flicker of trepidation, she placed the muzzle of the Glock between her lips and pulled the trigger. A single explosive report splattered her brains across the walls behind her. Her body lurched against the back of her chair before bouncing back toward the table. Her face hit the tabletop, exposing the gory wound at the back of her skull.

  “Christ almighty!” Julian Roff reacted. The decorated military leader was proving to have little stomach for this kind of wet work. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that!”

  Kenpo averted his eyes from Song’s remains. He looked distinctly green around the gills. “Are you quite sure we can’t simply take a cyanide pill instead?”