Edge Of Midnight (The Mccloud Series Book 4)

by Shannon McKenna

  T-Rex hauled back, preparing for a spine-crushing kick. Sean’s good arm shot up like a spring, stabbing two fingers into the guy’s balls.

  An instant’s shock, a guttural howl as the pain hit the guy. Sean braced one leg against the wall, swept his other leg around to knock the guy off balance. There wasn’t enough time to roll away before TRex landed on him, splat, like a half ton of shit.

  Then, a hot burning sting in his thigh. Oh, no. Oh, fuck, no.

  T-Rex rolled off him. The hypodermic stuck out of Sean’s thigh.

  “Hey! What’s going on? Where have you taken Liv?” bellowed a loud male voice. Sean turned his head. Blair Madden was in the door.

  He opened his mouth to yell “Run.” He kept opening it, and opening it. His mouth had become a huge vast space in which his tongue was too small to be found. T-Rex aimed the SIG he’d taken from Sean, in slow motion. The gun blast reverberated endlessly.

  Madden’s eyes went wide, his hands went to his throat, clawing at the dark blood welling out. He dropped to his knees, face squished to the side. Wide eyes, looking straight at Sean. Astonished to be dead.

  T-Rex grabbed Sean’s bloody hand, slid Sean’s fingers through the trigger, squeezed. His giggle was incongruous, from such a big man. “I love it when shit like this happens. I am a genius. Am I not a genius?”

  You are a festering shithead, he wanted to say. A hot pimple on the ass of the universe, but he was too far away, his voice couldn’t make it across the gap. The guy heaved him up, flung him into the van.

  He landed on top of a soft, female form. He could smell her scent.

  It broke his heart, and yet he was grateful for even that much to hang on to, like a glowing silk thread of light. The thread got thinner as he floated further, until thin became nothing, and it was all distance.

  Miles plugged in the dusty dinosaur of a VCR into the outlet. He turned to Davy and Con, both leaning against the table, identical expressions of dread on their faces. “You guys ready for this?” he asked.

  They both gave him are-you-kidding grunts. He hit play.

  The recorder had been hidden behind a potted plant. The slice of white was the wall, the slanting blades of green were leaves. Minutes passed. Miles gnawed his nails. He’d never known Kev, but he was as invested in this as if the guy were his own long-lost brother. He was about to suggest fast-forwarding when they heard voices. A flash of movement. They leaned forward. Miles turned the volume up.

  “…just relax,” said a low, soothing baritone voice.

  Another flash, and they saw a face. A dark-haired man in a lab coat. A younger man, acne spots on his face. Shaggy hair. The lens was too low. They could only see the bottom halves of both men’s faces.

  “How long is it gonna take?” the younger guy asked.

  “Oh, not long at all,” the dark guy said. “A half hour, forty-five minutes at the most. Did you take the pills I gave you?”

  “Exactly at ten o’clock AM just like you said.”

  “Perfect. Sit down, please. You haven’t eaten, have you?”

  “Not since last night.” The guy sat down. “I could eat a horse.”

  “Hang on a little longer, and I’ll buy you a steak,” Lab Coat said.

  Kev had framed the vid to record the face of anyone seated in that chair. Lab Coat leaned over. They got a good look at his close-set dark eyes as he adjusted a helmet on the guy’s head. “Put your wrists here.”

  The guy obliged him, and blinked when the man wrapped on the heavy velcro wrist restraints. “Hey,” he said. “What the hell?”

  “Just procedure,” Lab Coat soothed. “Don’t turn your head. I have to adjust the sensors.” The kid sat still while Lab Coat, who had to be Osterman, rearranged the helmet. There were several quiet minutes while he hooked up a tangle of cables to a machine. Craig tried to chat, but Osterman brushed his attempts off with vague, absent replies.

  Osterman lifted a helmet onto his own head. “I’ll be wearing one too. I’ll feel everything you feel. It won’t be uncomfortable.” He rolled up Craig’s sleeve and yanked over an IV rack.

  Craig looked perplexed. “I’ve already taken the drug, right?”

  “No, that was just a mild hypnotic, to prepare you. This is the real stuff. X-Cog Three. The drug that creates the interface.” Osterman taped the needle in place, and winked at him. “Down the rabbit hole.”

  Craig’s eyes slowly went vacant, but Osterman’s smile remained, stamped on his face as if he’d forgotten he’d left it there. He snapped his fingers in front of Craig’s face some minutes later. “Can you hear me?”

  “Yes.” Craig’s voice was soft and vague.

  “Relax, and follow any impulse that comes to you.”

  After a moment, Craig fumbled for the pen that lay next to his restrained hand. It slid from his clumsy fingers. Osterman nudged it back into his hand. “Good boy,” he crooned. “Whatever comes to you.”

  Craig jerkily began to write. He dropped the pen, whimpering.

  “You’re doing well,” Osterman praised. “Let’s try one more thing.”

  Craig’s head flopped from side to side. “No, no, no, no.”

  “One more thing, Craig,” Osterman insisted. “Look at me.”

  Craig lifted his head. His eyes swam with tears. A thick thread of drool hung from his lips. He shook his head helplessly. “No, no, no.”

  Osterman adjusted the IV drip, turned several knobs. “Let’s try this again, Craig. Say whatever comes to you. Just follow the impulses.”

  Craig’s fingers scrabbled at the armrests. He looked bewildered. “F-fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth from this continent a new nation,” he said, voice slurred.

  “Very good, Craig,” Osterman purred. “Very good. Go on.”

  “In the beginning was the word.” Craig’s voice was clearer. “And the word was…and darkness was upon the face of the d-d-deep…” His voice stuttered off. “Darkness!” he shrieked. “Darkness! Darkness!”

  Osterman made an irritated sound, and adjusted a knob.

  Craig began to twitch and wail. Osterman bent over him, soothing him. He began to scream. They couldn’t see Craig’s face, just his hands jerking against the restraints, the chair shaking, Osterman’s elbows in the air, doing something they couldn’t see. He straightened to reach for something. Miles almost screamed himself.

  Craig was bleeding from his eyes, his nose. He shrieked, writhed. Osterman jabbed a syringe into Craig’s upper arm, and the boy flopped forward, eyes blank and blood rimmed. Festoons of blood and snot dangled from his mouth and chin. Osterman stripped off his gory coat, and flung it to the floor. The petulant gesture was bizarre, against the backdrop of Craig’s ravaged face.

  A voice offscreen asked a question. Osterman shrugged. “There’s nothing wrong with the machine,” he replied. “The interface is perfect. He responded to my motor impulses. It’s the drug that’s not right yet.”

  The garbled voice said something else.

  “He can’t handle the side effects,” Osterman snapped. “None of them can.” He touched the boy’s wrist. “His heart’s stopped. God-damn adrenaline spike. I need a shower. Get this place cleaned up. I’ve got another subject coming in an hour. I want this smell gone.”

  Footsteps, a door slamming. Craig’s head dangled at a pathetic angle in the awful helmet. Miles stared, his hand pressed to his mouth.

  He was used to TV action that came on fast and furious, afraid their spectators would get bored, change the channel. This video wasn’t afraid of boring them. It was a stern, implacable witness. It stared at the dead boy until the blood dripping off his chin slowed…and stopped.

  A shadow moved across the screen. It flickered, and went blank.

  Miles hung on to himself. He was not going to cry in front of Con and Davy. Or barf. He was cool, he was fine. When he opened his eyes, Connor’s face was buried in his hands. His shoulders vibrated.

  Davy’s broad, motionless back was as eloquent
as Con’s tears.

  Miles ejected the tape, and laid it on the table. Gently, as if it were a wounded, living thing. He picked up the other one, and cleared his tight, swollen throat. “You guys, uh, ready for this other one?”

  Connor made a sound, like a laugh, or a sob. “Oh, Christ.”

  “Play it,” Davy said harshly. “Get it the fuck over with.”

  Miles pushed it in, hit play and braced himself.

  It was a forest. Dappled green, sun. The handheld camera jerked with every step. The camera swung up, showing a curving bridge.

  “That’s the Korbett incline. The old Korbett Bridge,” Miles said.

  The camera swung left, focusing on a rock formation. It swung around and plunged into the woods, alongside a barbed wire fence.

  “He’s fixing the location,” Davy said.

  Whoever held the camera got down and wiggled through the grass on his belly. The image came to rest, and the lens zoomed in. A black van in the woods, back doors gaping. A large man was digging a hole, his T-shirt plastered to his big body. His hair was crewcut, high and tight like a marine. He flung the shovel down, and headed to the van. He pulled out a body, trussed in black plastic, dragged it by the feet, head bouncing over rocks. He flung it into the hole. Went back for the next. The camera moved as the guy’s back was turned. Wiggling closer.

  “Oh, shit, Kev,” Davy whispered. “You idiot. You had him.”

  The next time the image stabilized, the guy was tipping another body into the grave. They heard the thud as it hit. The lens zoomed in, gave them a leisurely look at the lantern jaw, the blue eyes. The guy leaned to grab the shovel. He froze, eyes fixed in the direction of the camera. “Hey!” he yelled. He yanked a gun from the back of his jeans.

  The image swirled, spun, jerked. A confusion of green, of sky, of earth, of shouts, thudding feet…and the screen went blank.

  They stood there for several minutes, mired in speculation.

  “I want to talk to Professor Beck again,” Davy said. “If Sean would ever come back with my damn car.” He grabbed his cell, dialed. “Pick up your phone, punk,” he muttered. “Sean? Where the hell—” His voice broke off, listened. When he spoke again, his voice had changed.

  “I see. Yes. My name is Davy McCloud,” he said. “I’m the brother of the man who owns this phone. Is he there? I need to speak to him.”

  He listened. His lips went white. “How long ago?”

  They all heard the questioning tone of the next burst of words.

  “Of course,” Davy said. “I’m aware of that. I’ll come down as soon as I can.” He held the phone away from his ear as the guy reiterated his demand. “As soon as I can,” he repeated. He snapped the phone shut.

  “Detective Wallace, from the police department,” he said. “They found Sean’s phone, in a pool of blood. At a murder scene.”

  “Murder scene?” Con’s voice sounded strangled. “Whose murder?”

  “Blair Madden,” Davy said. “Shot in the throat, in the parking garage. No Sean. No Liv, either. The filthy son of a bitch got them.”

  There was a moment of blank disbelief, and Miles spun around to check the monitor. “Wait. Don’t we still have Liv on the Specs?”

  Liv’s icon blinked away, its position unchanged. “It’s just her cell,” Davy said. “She doesn’t have it on her.”

  “Who do we squeeze?” Con said grimly. “Parrish? Or Beck?”

  “Beck’s closer,” Davy said. “Stupider. If he hasn’t skipped town.”

  Miles’s mom bustled in, with her usual kick-ass timing. “I have some sandwiches.” She looked around, smile fading. “Is everything OK?”

  Miles took the tray, set it down, and gave her an impulsive kiss on the cheek. “Mom, I need the keys to your new car.”

  Chapter 26

  “I am mortified that you were put through such an ordeal.” Osterman was literally groveling, and it was not enough to smooth the feathers of Charles Parrish, the CEO of Helix. The man was hysterical.

  “How did he connect me to you? Ask yourself that! Those thugs attacked me! I have bruises!” Parrish’s voice cracked with outrage.

  “I’m so sorry. I’m dealing with this little problem as we speak—”

  “This little problem? Is that what you call it?”

  Osterman winced. “I know that it’s a serious breach of—”

  “Your inappropriate methods of dealing with problems are what got us into this!” Parrish raged. “Every risk you take exposes Helix to bad publicity that could cost our sharehholders hundreds of millions!”

  “I understand, but in my own defense, I must remind you that—”

  “You have no defense,” Parrish snarled. “What you have is a huge expense account. One or the other, Osterman. The next hint I get of any misconduct, we cut you loose. You take full responsibility for whatever mess you’ve created, and we will be shocked and sad.”

  “Mr. Parrish, I—”

  “I thought your organization was legitimate! I trusted you, Osterman! I allowed my own daughter to participate in the program! Now I find that the person I entrusted her to is a violent criminal?”

  “Lies,” Osterman protested. “The McClouds have made me a scapegoat for their brother’s death, and they are trying to ruin my—”

  “I don’t want to know the sordid details.”

  The connection broke.

  Osterman slammed the phone down. How dare Parrish speak to him like this? If Helix was worth billions, it was due to Osterman. The cutting edge treatments for paralysis, spinal cord and brain damage, the immensely profitable weapons applications, all of it was fruit of Osterman’s tremendous effort and sacrifice. He alone was strong enough to take the necessary ethical burdens upon his conscience, for the greater good of humanity. To create a legacy for future generations.

  And the man had scolded him!

  So it gave Parrish the shivers that his precious daughter had participated in Osterman’s progam? He remembered Edie. Thin, big wary eyes. Artistic. A psychic component that made her family nervous.

  Oh, how he’d longed to see what an interface with Edie might yield. But she was Parrish’s baby girl. Her brain was off-limits.

  Still, as it often happened, his fascination with Edie had launched a new avenue of research. He’d begun experimenting with artistically gifted geniuses, not just math and science types, which had widened the scope of test subjects nicely. The results were tantalizing, though not yet in shape to publish or patent. He’d found many talented Edie clones without rich fathers to protect them. In fact, the Edie experience had marked the beginning of his preference for working with girls.

  And Gordon had been so happy about the girls. Keeping Gordon happy was a very important consideration. In fact, he was intrigued by the thought of playing with Cynthia, once Gordon finally reeled her in. She was quite gifted, if the online music reviews were to be trusted. He’d never tried an X-Cog interface with a musical talent before.

  He had a vivid spontaneous fantasy, of putting the X-Cog crown onto Edie Parrish. Compelling her to kneel before him, open his pants and perform oral sex upon him, obedient and docile as a lamb.

  While Charles Parrish watched, of course. Tied and gagged.

  He had conducted similar experiments, although he usually compelled the subjects to service Gordon, not himself. Using the X-Cog master crown required concentration. Sexual pleasure was distracting. The few times he’d tried it, he’d found it more irritating than exciting.

  But for Parrish, he would exert himself. Oh, indeed he would.

  Cindy huddled in the plush marble bathroom stall, and punched in a text message to Miles. The Haven had proved to be a luxurious complex set way back on a wooded hill in a little town named Arcadia.

  She pulled the beacon out of her pocket, followed the printed instructions to start transmission. It had two days of battery juice.

  No way could she keep up this charade for two days, but hey. Nobody had asked her to do this. If they
felt like it, they could come for her. If not, tough luck for her. They might be too busy hunting down all the other bad guys, and she didn’t blame them if they were.

  And with that stern pep talk, she punched the beacon code into her SMS, and pushed send. She had no excuse, other than a nervous pee which produced about two drippy drops, not to go face Jared.

  The common room was lined with books, couches and computers. Jared grinned when he saw her, and flagged down a handsome older guy in a flapping white lab coat who was striding across the room.

  “Hey! Dr. O! Let me introduce you to—”

  “Not now, Jared. I’m busy.”

  “But it’s the new recruit I was telling you about,” Jared persisted. “You told me you wanted to meet her as soon as I brought her in!”

  Doctor O turned with a scowl, like he was going to bite Jared’s head off—until he saw her. His face went blank. Then he smiled.

  Cindy’s neck prickled. She was used to attention from guys, but this felt different. And that toothy grin as he strode across the room did not reassure her one bit. Oh, my, what big teeth you have.

  “And this lovely young lady’s name is…?” he asked.

  She shook his hand. A warm, strong grip. A nice, manly man handshake, and yet, she suddenly wanted to pee again. “Um…Mina.”

  “Wonderful to meet you, Mina. I hope Jared’s treating you well.”

  “Oh, he’s been great,” she assured him.

  “I’ve been explaining the testing phase,” Jared told him. “I figured, since it’s so late, we’ll have dinner and get started tomorrow.”

  “No, Jared. I need her today,” Dr. O said.

  Jared looked bewildered. “But she hasn’t done any of the—”

  “No need for pretesting,” Dr. O said. “She specializes in acoustic physics, right? Give your cell phone to Jared, please, Mina.”