“Like the men who tried to rob your den?” Bryn asked.
“Exactly. They saw an opportunity and went for it. To their detriment, as it turns out.”
“But you’re not just taking advantage of the riots, you’re making them worse by fanning the flames.” She took a breath as something occurred to her. “Because you need the police to stay overwhelmed. You’re going to do something!”
“Clever girl.” He looked thoughtful for a moment. “How much did your father tell you?”
“Not a lot. He said he asked you to do this,” she gestured to her quills, “to protect me. And because he wanted to exploit what happened to me in order to turn people against xenos, which would then open the door for human cloning.”
“What?” Mia sounded aghast. “That’s ridiculous.”
Bryn didn’t feel the need to defend her father, but she thought Mia at least ought to understand. “He was the head of the Pure Human Society. He thought if we could clone human hearts, livers and kidneys instead of getting them from bioengineered animals, it wouldn’t be such an…aberration, I guess.”
“Your father’s vision was limited,” Fournier said. “There are hundreds of thousands of people whose lives have been saved with bioengineered organs – a process, as you know, that I pioneered. Coincidentally, every one of them is now protected against the typhoid.”
“But they aren’t protected against mobs of scared and angry people.” Mia said.
Fournier got that same fervent look in his eye Bryn’s father always used to get when he was gearing up for a lecture. “Transplant patients may be xenos, but they aren’t so-called xenofreaks. It wasn’t a lifestyle choice. No one will judge them for choosing to save their own lives. Just as you won’t be judged for getting a graft to save yours.”
“It cost me fifty-thousand dollars. Only the wealthy will survive this pandemic. Was that your intention?” Mia’s full lips twisted in a sneer. “To get rich through genocide?”
Fournier sighed. “Believe it or not, I’m doing this to save lives. It may sound melodramatic, but ‘sacrifice for the greater good’ and all that. There are so many things you don’t know.”
He paused to gather his thoughts. “Were either of you aware that lawfully bioengineered animals cannot reproduce?”
Bryn nodded. In the dark days before she’d come to terms with her quills, she’d done her research. Around the turn of the twenty-first century, genetically modified crops had been introduced into America’s food sources. The pros and cons were hotly debated, but it wasn’t until a rapidly-growing variety of cultivated grape resistant to pests, herbicides and harsh environmental conditions began to spread across the southern states that people began to really take notice. The grapevines invaded other crops and orchards, quickly killing them through strangulation and heavy shading. Eradication of the plant took almost a decade. The entire debacle set the stage for heavy penalties for any corporation responsible for letting a genetically modified organism loose on the planet, including bioengineered animals.
“They make them sterile on purpose so they don’t disrupt the ecosystem,” Bryn said.
“Correct. Which means all animals provided to the authorized xenofarms in this country come from government-mandated bioengineering labs. The farms then raise the animals in as sterile an environment as possible and slaughter them on demand for transplant hospitals. Do you know what they do with the rest of the animal after they’ve removed the useable organs?”
“They incinerate it.”
Fournier dipped his head. “Every xenofarm in the United States is contracted with a single company charged with disposing of the remains. Instead of doing so, that company has begun selling the skin and other parts on the black market.”
“Okay, so you have competition,” Mia said. “What’s that got to do with you supposedly saving lives?”
“My ‘competition,’ as you call them, are utterly ruthless. They’ve been fighting xeno regulation for years, because regulation would make the practice officially accepted, which is the opposite of their goal, to make it illegal.”
“Why make it illegal?” Mia asked. “It’s a simple dermatological outpatient procedure.”
“The majority of grafts are simple, as you say, but there are the more extreme forms of augmentation, those that require nanoneuron implantation.”
“Your specialty,” Bryn sent him a hard look.
“Who are these people?” Mia asked. “Animal rights activists?”
“No. They have a much more sinister goal than the ARA. On the surface, they’re a faceless corporation that doesn’t care who or what it hurts in its pursuit of money and power, but in reality, one man calls the shots. You might think the xeno black market would be small potatoes to him, but it’s become essential that he control it. Can you guess why?”
“I’m sure you’re going to tell us – eventually.” Mia rolled her eyes.
“His corporation is huge, dealing not only in over-the-counter pharmaceuticals, but prescription medications and immunizations. He recently purchased both the xeno donor waste disposal company and the bioengineering labs I mentioned. With those acquisitions, the only thing preventing him from obtaining a stranglehold on this country’s xenoaugmentation trade is entrepreneurs like me.”
“And the saving of the people..?” Mia’s reminder was unsubtly contemptuous.
“Let me put it this way: if you had gotten your graft from someone who buys their skins, you would eventually discover you were not immune to the typhoid.”
That got Mia’s attention. “That would mean…”
“Yes. His bioengineers finally figured out how xeno immunity works, and they eliminated it. The skin flooding the market now doesn’t protect xenos. Nor do the transplants.”
“Why would they do that?” Bryn asked.
Fournier smiled, a bleak stretching of the lips. “The definition of immunity is freedom from disease. Illness is big business.”
“And this mystery man sells immunizations and drugs.” Now that she understood his argument, Mia’s contempt was less evident.
He raised his eyebrows, but then jerked his head around at a distant sound from outside. Bryn had heard it often enough to recognize it instantly.
Gunfire.
Chapter Twenty
Scott started after Nicola, but stopped, deciding of the two of them, Savvy was the one he needed to watch. He grasped the savant’s arm and pulled him down the hallway.
Savvy had that creepily amused smile on his face again as Scott dragged him into the empty main workspace. Nicola was nowhere to be seen, but he heard the faint chirp of the bird and followed the sound towards the tech room.
He found her standing outside the locked tech room door. Her feather eyebrows looked like thunderclouds over angry green eyes that reminded him of Bryn.
“Perky’s in there. I want her out, now.”
“You should have thought about that before you set Lo’s car on fire.”
“It wasn’t my idea.”
Scott jerked Savvy’s arm just enough to get his attention. “Why’d you do it?”
“Diversion,” Savvy muttered.
Scott glanced around the empty office. “For what?”
“Chaos.”
“Oh, not that again,” Nicola said. “He’s always going off about how chaos is what drives biology.”
“It drives change,” Savvy said. “Biology would be stagnant without chaos.”
“Whatever.” Nicola put a hand against the tech room door. “Can I have my bird back, please?”
“You want the bird? Answer me. Why’d you set fire to the car?”
“I told you I didn’t have anything to do with that!” Nicola cried.
“You just admitted you knew what Savvy was doing, which makes you an accessory. What was the diversion for?”
Nicola set her jaw stubbornly, and Scott practically felt his patience snap. He took a fistful of Savvy’s shirt and shoved him up against the nearest cubicle wa
ll.
“Stop it!” Nicola said shrilly.
Scott looked over his shoulder at her and snarled, “I will rip his head off if the two of you don’t tell me what the hell’s going on!”
“I don’t know,” she wailed. Her eyes shone with unshed tears, but Scott wasn’t fooled this time. Nicola wasn’t as innocent as she seemed. He let Savvy go as something occurred to him.
“The holophone in Savvy’s backpack. It didn’t have a battery, but that’s because he took it out and used it to power the incendiary device, is that right?”
Savvy turned his head away, and Scott took that as a ‘yes.’
“But you made a call at the roadblock first, didn’t you?” he asked.
“No.” Savvy met Scott’s gaze in a rare moment of eye contact, which Scott took as an indication he was telling the truth. He turned his attention to Nicola. “You. You called your father.”
Her face fell into a look of belligerent denial, but before she could voice her protest, Scott’s holophone rang. As soon as he answered it and saw Shasta, he knew something was wrong.
“We’ve got a situation down here,” she said. Her normally tidy hair was mussed and her face tense. It didn’t look like she was in the parking garage, but in the background, he saw what appeared to be the dented front end of a truck. A flash of light exploded somewhere above her and sparks rained down all around. The view became a blur and everything went dark.
Shasta’s face came into view again as she lifted the holophone. She appeared to have ducked down behind something. In the dim glow emitted from the phone, Scott caught a glimpse of Lupus’ wolf face in profile. His eyelids were at half-mast and his black lips hung slack.
“The xenos outside stormed the place,” Shasta said.
Several loud gunshots rang out, followed by Alton’s voice, “I’m almost out of ammo!”
Shasta held the holophone closer to her face. “I sent Bob up – get the printer! That’s an order. Do you hear me, Agent Harding? Get the printer and get out!”
The call ended abruptly. Scott’s first instinct was to ignore Shasta’s orders and rush to help her, but Savvy was smiling again and his second instinct took over. He threw a swift punch to the side of the savant’s face, ignoring Nicola’s gasp of protest. Savvy’s knees buckled and he sagged to the floor just as Bob, cheeks red from exertion, rounded the corner.
Bob trotted over and immediately held his shaking hand under the holoscanner mounted next to the tech room door. He said his name for the voice recog-lock, but was breathing so hard it took him three tries to get the lock to respond. When the door swung inward, he hurried inside, saying over his shoulder, “I gotta initiate emergency protocols and shut the system down. Printer’s over there.”
Scott spotted a black container the size of a lunch box and strode over to the counter to retrieve it. When he turned, Nicola had entered the room. He started to chase her out, but she headed straight for the bird cage near the door. As if in greeting, Perky let out another of her jarring chirps.
It only took Bob thirty seconds to lock down the tech room. When he was done, and the secure door slammed shut behind them, Savvy was nowhere to be seen.
Chapter Twenty-one
Bryn sat next to Mia in frozen silence as Fournier and Dundee burst into action. Dundee ran out the front door while Fournier jumped up and crossed the living room. He opened a drawer in the bureau under his holovision unit and removed a pistol, which he tucked into the back of his waistband. Then he reached up to his ear, attempting to call out with the holopiece over his ear. Bryn saw the blue glow turn to red each time the other party didn’t answer. As Fournier tried another number, the sound of gunfire stopped.
Whoever he called this time picked up, and again Bryn heard his side of the conversation. “How did they get past security?” He scratched the side of his face, looking disconcerted. “Could be the ARA.”
The ARA, or Animal Rights Army, was defunct as far as Bryn knew, ever since its leader had been sent to prison. Why Fournier thought they might be responsible for the gunfire, she had no idea.
“No! Catch the dangerous ones first,” Fournier snapped. He blinked to end the call, shaking his head. He didn’t explain anything to them, but as if he was talking to himself, said, “Why would they do that?”
“I did it,” a voice from the front door drawled, “to create a diversion. Should be a familiar tactic to you.”
Fournier spun on his heel and reached for the small of his back, but Maddy made a sharp ‘tch’ sound and he stopped. She wore dark sunglasses and her long, white-blonde hair was hanging in a thick braid over one shoulder. She was dressed in a crisp black wool coat and slim jeans. Standing next to her were Dillo and two xenos Bryn hadn’t seen before, a bald man holding a sawed-off shotgun, and a thick-necked female xeno with short dyed-red hair. Dillo’s left arm was in a sling, but in his right he held a gun she suspected was the same one that used to belong to Scott. She doubted it was still loaded with plastic bullets.
Fournier’s face went florid with anger, but his eyes remained strangely blank. He was a man used to having the upper hand with his enemies, not the other way around. “How did you find me?”
“A little birdie,” Maddy said.
His lips thinned and his jaw clenched in enraged comprehension. “Padme.”
Maddy smiled and removed her sunglasses, revealing her one brown eye and one red. “A very lucky discovery on my part. Her head is simply bursting with interesting facts about you and your business dealings. For instance, she mentioned most of your men would be out storming a certain castle this afternoon, and you’d be particularly vulnerable.”
As an apparent afterthought, she tilted her head and said, “Hello Bryn. Dr. Padilla. Having tea, are we? The two of you do get around.”
Mia stood. “We were just leaving.”
Maddy rolled her strange eyes. “Sit down. I already know you aren’t here willingly.” She glanced up at the ceiling, at a domed security camera, and shook her head at Fournier. “You thought changing the passwords would keep Padme out? She designed your security system. We’ve eavesdropped on every boring thing you’ve said and done today.”
Bryn turned to look out the picture window and saw Maddy’s yacht anchored just offshore. Was Padme on deck right now, waiting for Maddy to bring Fournier’s head to her mounted on a pike? Bryn didn’t doubt Maddy intended to kill him, since he was indirectly responsible for the death of her brother, but what was she waiting for?
Fournier must have been thinking along the same lines, because he asked, “What do you want from me? You would have killed me by now if there wasn’t something.”
Maddy pointed at him and then touched her nose, like he’d won at charades. “I’d like the nanoneuron program, please. Apparently, it’s the one thing Padme can’t access remotely.”
“I don’t have it,” Fournier said.
Maddy didn’t give an order, merely glanced at Dillo, who raised his gun and nonchalantly shot Fournier in the upper arm. Fournier let out an agonized cry and dropped to his knees right in front of Bryn. Blood bloomed on his sleeve.
Definitely not plastic bullets, she thought. As horrified as she was, she still found she had to resist the urge to take advantage of his weakness and smash him over the head with the teapot.
Maddy waited until Fournier’s moans subsided enough for him to hear her. “That was just a teaser. I assure you my friend is capable of much worse. Now take me to the control room and give me the program.”
Fournier produced a series of sounds that Bryn thought at first was sobbing, but turned out to be laughter. “I honestly don’t have it.” When Dillo raised the gun again, Fournier added hastily, “But I know where it is.”
“Fine. I’ll bite,” Maddy said. “Where is it?”
“The XIA has it.”
Chapter Twenty-two
Scott didn’t have time to search for Savvy. He didn’t think the little weasel would risk going down to the lobby, so he was eithe
r hiding on the floor or had taken the stairs to hide on another floor. If he’d attempted the latter, he was in for a disappointment, since the only door in the stairwell that wasn’t secure was the one leading to the lobby. Even getting into the parking garage from the stairwell required a holoscan of an employee’s palm.
Scott looked at Bob and asked, “You got access to the weapons room?”
Bob jerked his head to one side, producing an audible crack from his neck. “Heck, yeah.”
Scott doubted Bob had ever held a real gun in his life, but if hologaming had given him enough self-confidence to at least attempt to protect himself, it was better than adding to Scott’s burden.
“Let’s go.”
Inside the weapons room, he helped Bob into a vest and gave him a loaded handgun. “Safety’s off. Only use it if you absolutely have to.”
“We’re not going to survive this, are we?” Bob’s upper lip had beads of sweat on it, but his voice seemed calm enough.
“We will if I can help it.” Scott shrugged into his own vest, quickly fastened it, and then strapped a utility belt around his waist. He tucked four grenades into the belt before slinging a semi-automatic rifle over his shoulder.
“How are we supposed to get out of the building?” Bob asked.
“Shasta said to meet her in the parking garage.”
“When I was coming up, I heard her say the garage has been compromised.”
“They we’ll have to fight our way out. You up for it?”
Bob squared his jaw. “Alright.”
Scott nodded approvingly before grabbing some extra clips. He and Bob shoved them into every available pocket.
Nicola was waiting for them, arms wrapped protectively around the birdcage. After Bob secured the weapons room, Scott began striding towards the stairwell, the black case with the 3D printer in his left hand and a weapon in his right.
“Where are we going?” Nicola asked.
“Your father sent some of his friends,” he replied. “We’re the welcoming party.”
Xenofreak Nation, Book Three: XIA Page 9
