Carlos jutted the vehicle forward, inching impatiently toward the gate.
Alex buzzed feverishly now. “Update? Come on, guys!”
By now the Stuck had picked up their pace, leaping and sprinting towards the gate with supernatural speed. They were quickly closing the gap.
“I’ve got a car full of buddies here!” Alex pleaded. “Let us in! Come on!”
After one more interminable moment, there was a heavy clank and the gate began to swing open. Alex dashed back towards the vehicle and slammed the door behind him as Carlos peeled out through the opening, quickly followed by the other car.
As soon as they cleared the entry, the gate banged closed behind them, followed by several loud buckling noises as the Stuck crashed their hulk against the metal, crying out all the while for blood.
Deion leaned forward and patted his hand on Alex’s shoulder. “Great acting, bud, I totally bought it.”
Heaving, Alex replied, “I didn’t have to act. Those things still give me the heebie-jeebies.”
A quiet snarl issued from beneath the floorboards.
“What!” Alex hissed. “I’m just being honest.”
Leaving Joe concealed for the moment, the six of them exited the vehicle and approached the two frazzled soldiers who had left the gatehouse to greet them. A third was trotting down the metal staircase from the sentry ledge, a handheld comm device pressed to his face.
“Copy that,” he stated into the receiver. “About two dozen here. They attacked the gate but are retreating now.”
After a splash of static, Deion could just decipher most of the response. “…never seen them do this before, like they’re organized… small groups all over the compound… testing the walls for weak points?”
“I’ll keep you posted on our status,” the third soldier concluded as he reached their assemblage. He holstered the device and looked up at them, specifically addressing Alex. “Sorry for the hold-up back there. Still waiting on the damn clearance, but we weren’t about to leave you hanging.”
“Thanks, man,” Alex replied. He glanced quickly behind the guard’s shoulder then added, “Sorry.”
“Eh, don’t worry – we’ll get it sorted out. I wouldn’t want to be stuck out there with those things, either.”
“No,” Alex grimaced. “I mean for this.”
The soldier barely had time to register the question on his face before Carlos struck him on the back of the head from behind, rendering him unconscious. In a flurry of motion, Isaac and Alessa took out the other two guards in unison. Janie commenced dragging their limp bodies into the gatehouse with Alessa and Isaac’s help, while Deion and Alex looked on slack-jawed.
Amused, Carlos laughed good-naturedly, “You’re new to this, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Alex replied laconically. “Yes I am.”
Isaac returned, brushing his hands together. “And if everything goes as planned, you’ll be able to stay that way.” With the guards out of the way, the second vehicle had emptied out, the rebel soldiers joining their huddle. Isaac traded ratifying looks with each of the others. “You guys all set?”
Janie motioned to Deion and Alex and the rest of the squad. “Time to usher some citizens to safety!” Deion couldn’t help but smile at her cheery outlook – it was almost as if they weren’t all in the process of committing treason.
“Remember,” Carlos interjected, “basements, sewers, wherever you can find that’s shielded and underground. We all saw what happened at Raptor – never know what these lowlifes have up their sleeves.”
Deion and the others nodded their understanding, splitting into small teams and dispersing across the compound.
As Janie, Deion, and Alex headed away down the street, a long metallic creak erupted from the inside of the vehicle, and a moment later the rear window shattered into a thousand shards. Deion looked back to see Joe popping his head through the resulting hole.
“Looks like Joe’s ready,” he heard Isaac chuckle.
“Okay, team,” Alessa pronounced. “Let’s go track down Lizzie.”
44. AMBUSH
The situation at the walls was getting out of control.
The Developer anxiously scanned the dozens of live security cameras at various points along the compound’s borders, watching in astonishment. A pit formed deep in his stomach as he waited for the rest of the leadership team to show up.
The door slid open and the Doctor strode in, still peeling off his latex gloves from the lab. “What’s going on?”
“You tell me.” He nodded at the screen.
The Doctor stepped further into the room and peered at the camera feeds. “Most curious…” he murmured to himself, rubbing his chin.
Before the Doctor could hazard a guess as to what was causing this behavior, the door whooshed open again and the General stamped through the threshold. “Some of us have plans in the evening, you know.”
“Some of us might be better served by doing our jobs,” the Developer retorted, motioning at the display.
The General took one at the security feed and barked, “Why wasn’t I informed of this sooner?”
The Developer gave him a withering look. “As you said, you had better things to do.” He glared at the General pointedly until the door glided open one more time.
“You c-c-called?” the Economist blurted, holding one of the dinner napkins from the ballroom. The Draftsman followed close behind him, finishing the last bite of a steak sandwich and wiping his mouth with his handkerchief.
“Now that we’re all here, sit. I’ll brief you.”
They took their places around the conference table, and the Developer selected one of the video feeds. It filled the large screen and the Engineers watched, mouths agape, as a horde of mutated creatures threw themselves at the walls, trying and – thankfully, failing – to scale them.
“Those are… those are the former prisoners, right?” the Draftsman verified.
“Shoot them!” the General snapped, as if his soldiers could hear through the screen.
The Developer sighed. “Obviously they have tried that. Whenever rounds are fired, they retreat into the woods and reappear at a different location a few minutes later. It’s like they’re testing our defenses.”
“Eugene, did you kn-know?” The Economist looked to the Doctor expectantly.
“I had not seen any evidence that they possessed that level of intelligence, no,” he replied. “Certainly not enough to coordinate an attack.”
“Disastrous,” the Draftsman muttered under his breath.
The Developer heard him. “Let’s not overreact. The walls have not been breached. The citizens are unaware. No one has even been injured – no human, anyway.”
“But what do we do?” the Economist wondered aloud, his voice inching towards the shrill.
The Developer shrugged his bony shoulders. “Any ideas?”
The five of them traded glances across the table, but no one spoke up.
Of course, he groaned internally. It would be up to him to figure it out, as usual.
There was a knock at the door.
“What is it?” the Developer snapped.
The door slid open and a masked guard poked his head in. “Someone named Phoenix here to see you?”
“It’s not a good time.”
“She says it’s urgent, sir. Something about a breakthrough on the satellite footage – she’s ‘found what you’ve been looking for,’ she said.”
“Send her in,” the Doctor directed from across the table. The Developer shot him an affronted scowl, and the Doctor mouthed back, “The girl?” in explanation.
“Very well,” the Developer relented as he issued a command on the virtual keyboard to clear the screen.
The guard disappeared and the door whooshed closed behind him. A moment later, it opened again and the tall, vivacious blonde strutted through.
“Phoenix,” the Developer greeted in his usual nasal whine. “We appreciate your efforts, but we’re kind
of in the middle of something. Can you make it quick?”
“Oh! Sure, of course.” She pursed her lips and squinted her eyes, laying a pointed fingertip across her lips as if engrossed in thought. “Where to begin…?”
Drumming his knuckles on the table impatiently, the Developer prompted, “You told the guard you found something?”
“Oh, yes!” Phoenix exclaimed. “Now I remember.” The smile faded from her face, and her countenance grew icy. “In fact, I remember everything.”
The Doctor cleared his throat uncomfortably, and the others shifted in their seats.
“Nothing to say? Any of you?” she demanded, her eyes cold with fury. “You especially,” she glowered at the Draftsman. “I almost trusted you,” she spat.
“Guards!” the Developer shouted.
The door glided open and two masked soldiers entered.
“Remove her,” he commanded.
The two guards marched briskly to her sides, but instead of grabbing her arms as the Engineers expected, they stood shoulder to shoulder with her and glared at the bewildered men sitting at the table. “We’re not going to be able to do that.”
“What do you mean?” the General rasped. “That’s an order!”
The door opened once more and another soldier stormed in, gun held aloft. “Too bad we’re not taking orders from you.”
It took the Engineers a moment to register that these guards’ uniforms were soiled and tattered, not the usual neat and precise garb of Paragon’s military, but before they could puzzle out what exactly that meant, one final surprise expelled any other thoughts from their heads.
A bone-chilling snarl issued from behind the third soldier, and one of the mutated creatures leapt through the doorway with inhuman speed, landing crouched in the center of the table with a crash. The Engineers eyed its powerful sinews and clutched the arms of their chairs in terror as the beast bared its teeth at each of them in turn.
“This is my old friend,” Phoenix announced. “You might remember him from some of your earlier experiments. He’s got a few bones to pick with you as well.”
The second soldier left Phoenix’s side and punched the keys on the door pad to seal the entrance.
Phoenix nodded. “Now that we’ve got your attention, let’s talk.”
“Let’s,” the Developer rejoined.
In the commotion, no one had noticed his fingers gliding over the virtual keyboard projected on the tabletop in front of him. The screen behind the table flashed to life, and a security camera revealed a sparse prison cell, a solitary figure slumped on the hard cot.
When the prisoner looked up, the Engineers and mutineers alike gasped, all except for the General, who chuckled darkly instead.
It was Regina.
45. TERMINATION
Lizzie couldn’t quite believe her eyes. Her mother was alive?
Isaac and Alessa tore off their masks in unison to get a better look at the screen.
“How can this be?” Alessa demanded.
“Who says the feed is live?” Isaac countered.
“It is,” the Developer insisted. He made to point at the timestamp in the lower corner, but only succeeded in lifting his hand before Joe pounced in his direction with a growl.
From the other side of the table, Lizzie heard a whimper and the splash of something wet trickling to the floor. She looked over to find mortification and terror waging a war on the Economist’s face.
“That doesn’t mean anything,” Lizzie retorted. “You can program whatever you want onto the screen.” She wanted to believe, but it was too good to be true, especially coming from these cretins – she couldn’t let herself hope.
“Then let me prove it. I’ll bring you to her,” the Developer offered.
Lizzie glanced at Carlos. He raised one eyebrow almost imperceptibly, still holding his gun rigidly towards the table. He was curious, too.
“You may wish to take into account,” the Developer added, smirking triumphantly, “that she’s located in a secret holding cell that no one besides me and him,” he motioned at the General, “knows exists.”
Carlos groaned, an echo of Lizzie’s thoughts. This was beginning to sound like a trap.
But she didn’t see a way around it. She knew it was a risk, but the Developer was holding the cards – she had to play this one last game to get answers.
“All right,” Lizzie conceded. “Let’s go.”
“Joe and I are coming with you,” Alessa advised.
“He comes too,” the Developer contended, nodding toward the General.
“What? No way,” Isaac shut down.
“You need my fingerprint to get in,” the General spurred.
“Maybe we should have Joe here gnaw it off,” Carlos suggested, a sadistic glint in his eye.
A quiet yelp sounded from the vicinity of the Economist.
Alessa sighed. “No need to be barbaric.”
“All right,” Carlos relented. “This one doesn’t have the cojones to try anything with Joe around anyway,” he taunted.
“I would know,” Lizzie derided.
The General gave her the stink eye.
“Then it’s settled,” Alessa declared.
She and Lizzie moved toward the door, followed by the Developer and the General. Joe scraped deep claw marks in the tabletop dragging his bulk to the edge. Then he vaulted with surprising grace, landing just inches behind them, growling low in his throat. To their credit, the Developer and the General only briefly flinched.
Reaching for the door panel, Alessa warned, “Do not try to solicit help. Dismiss any guards we come across. Otherwise, Joe will take care of them – and you.”
Joe breathed down the backs of their necks in confirmation.
As they stepped into the corridor and followed the winding route to the prisons, Lizzie’s heart pounded in anticipation. If her mother had truly survived, maybe she might be able to forgive herself. Maybe Regina would know how to set this all right.
They descended several flights of stairs, and the walls changed from glossy white enamel to dull gray cement. Finally, they reached the cell.
Lizzie could see her mother through the backside of a one-way mirror looking into the chamber. She looked tired and a little gaunt, but otherwise no worse for the wear.
“How long has she been here?” Alessa exacted.
“Five weeks, give or take,” the Developer replied. “She left the night before the explosion, got far enough away by morning to be safe from the blast. Took us a couple days after that to locate her and bring her in.”
“But why?” Lizzie pressed. She must have left right after their fight, when Lizzie had tried unsuccessfully to convince her to back down, for the last time. “Why would she come to you?”
“Because I programmed her to,” the Developer shrugged, eyeing Lizzie from behind his greasy bangs.
Alessa wasn’t having it. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It’s my side project – v2 of the memory alteration. This latest iteration added behavior control. When we started taking more losses than was planned for as a result of this misguided rebellion, I realized it might someday soon become critical to control reproduction to ensure our survival. So I figured out the code, and Regina here served as one of my early test subjects. I enumerated a set of conditions, and when they were met, she executed the command to turn herself in.”
The General nodded appreciatively. “I figured you needed this room for some, uh, extracurriculars, but this surpasses even my expectations.”
Lizzie glared at him, eyes bleeding with loathing, then turned to the Developer. “What ‘conditions?’” she demanded.
“Well, as you know, the gene pool here was carefully selected, and like I said, we were getting worried about the level of loss. So first I addressed that problem. I made it physically impossible for her to reveal whatever she knew or suspected about the citizens being vaccinated, that way her followers wouldn’t have the option to leave. And the other bene
fit to that was that if anyone figured out that she was withholding information – as you did, Phoenix – it would only serve to undermine her authority.”
Lizzie glanced over at Alessa, and something seemed to click behind her eyes. Perhaps she realized, like Lizzie, that she had been duped by the Developer’s manipulations of Regina.
“Next, I set a condition to trigger the return command if and when the rebels ever decided to stage an all-out attack. I figured as long as they weren’t inflicting violence, it wouldn’t hurt to try other means, like your diplomacy, Phoenix.”
Lizzie was sick of him calling her that, but her mind was too flummoxed to tell him to stop. “But when did you do this to her? How? I don’t understand – I’ve been by her side for months.”
“Regina was actually the recipient of my very first working dose of the v2 technology. It was back, hmm, coming up on two years now actually. Shortly after you’d been recaptured, before we outfitted you for the drama.”
Alessa put her hand on Lizzie’s arm, an incredulous expression scrunching her features as she worked to piece it all together. “I remember Janie telling me,” she breathed, “that when Isaac and I got caught, a few weeks after you, Regina went underground and disappeared for a few days. She told everyone she was following up on a lead in your whereabouts, but it didn’t pan out. No one questioned her, Janie said. We wouldn’t think to – we didn’t even know about the stitch yet.”
“The ‘stitch?’” the General rasped. “That’s what you’re calling it?”
Lizzie and Alessa ignored him.
“So when I saw my mom that last night, and she told me we were ready to attack, she involuntarily triggered something in her head that told her to return to Paragon,” Lizzie grasped.
“I’m very good at what I do,” the Developer bragged, looking unhinged as he failed to rein in a manic smile.
Rage boiling up in her chest – at herself, the Developer, all of Paragon, even, irrationally, at Regina – Lizzie realized she just needed to get her mother and get out of here.
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