Xenofreak Nation, Book Three: XIA

by Conway, Melissa

  The stucco covering the walls of the main building had been beige at one time, but was now cracked and crumbling, spotted with hundreds of spider webs that held a multitude of insect corpses. The busted-out windows were boarded up and spray painted with the message, ‘Danger. Keep out.’ Everything from the walls to the concrete was covered in a thin layer of some filthy, greasy-looking substance.

  The Warehouse had been deliberately uninviting on the outside, but underneath it, Fournier’s facility had been clean and sterile. Bryn wasn’t surprised to find the inside of this building had fresh paint and shiny black flooring. It was a huge open space with bare steel I-beams as columns. It was lit throughout by hanging fluorescent fixtures. Most of the floor was empty, but a strange structure had been set up at one end; a large geodesic dome with clear, flexible plastic walls. Connected to one of the structure’s triangular frames was a loudly humming row of what looked like air conditioners, but which she figured was probably a hospital-grade air purification system. Inside, there were white cabinets and tables holding electronic and medical equipment. A woman in a lab coat looked up from a microscope, but none of the other seven or eight people seemed to notice as Fournier and company trooped past. This was Fournier’s new bioengineering lab.

  Just like the Warehouse, the back wall had been allocated for office space, but here it hadn’t been built as part of the original structure. Fournier had brought in what looked to Bryn like a prefab school trailer, lifted on a raised platform. The bald xeno’s shotgun never wavered as Fournier took them up a set of metal steps and walked along the platform to the only door.

  “This is the control room,” Fournier said.

  Dillo opened the door to a small space so crowded with equipment it fairly hummed with electricity. A very thin man with a crooked nose looked up, his face the picture of surprise. He was sitting in one of two office chairs. On the desk in front of him was a holoscreen with two dozen camera views of the plant and Fournier’s house. The views of the fields were peaceful – there wasn’t an impala or cheetah in sight. One view showed Fournier sitting in his living room, apparently relaxing and watching a show on holovision. Padme had replaced the live feed with recordings.

  “What the…?” the man started to say.

  “Hands where I can see them.” Dillo sounded amused.

  The man slowly lifted his hands, staring in confusion at Fournier.

  “You’re fired,” Fournier said.

  Maddy pushed her sunglasses on top of her head and addressed the man. “You must be Curtis. Padme told me you were a wretched little man. I see she’s described you well.” She turned to Fournier. “Really, Nicolas, couldn’t you have found someone a little closer to her level of intelligence?”

  She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a holophone. Seconds later, Padme’s face appeared. There were hollows under her cheekbones and dark smudges under her eyes. Bryn knew from Scott that she was pregnant, but she looked thinner, in an unhealthy way. In the background of the holo, Bryn recognized the opulent salon on Maddy’s yacht.

  The Pakistani girl cringed when she caught sight of Fournier in the holo on her end, but Maddy was quick to reassure her. “He’s well under control, don’t worry.”

  Padme lifted a hand to rub the fur on one of her cow ears as if it soothed her. “Good.”

  “You heard?” Maddy asked.

  Bryn raised her eyes and caught sight of another camera dome mounted to the ceiling, a reminder that Padme had been watching and listening the entire time.

  “Yes,” Padme said. “The nanoneuron program is kept on a standalone machine, a portable 3D printer. I installed a tracking device on it. Pull the bottom drawer of the desk all the way out.”

  Dillo nudged Curtis aside and did as she asked, dumping the contents on the floor. He held the drawer up; taped to the back was a tiny pinkynail drive, the kind that connected to a holophone.

  “I told you where it is,” Fournier said. “The XIA have it.”

  “Shut up.” Maddy peeled the tape off the drive with her long fingernails and plugged it into her phone. Underneath the holo of Padme’s head and shoulders, the words ‘Globalocate 2020 installation in progress” appeared. A moment later, a window popped up in the lower right corner with a set of coordinates and an address.

  Maddy read it and glared at Fournier. “How did they get it?”

  “Tactical error on my part. With Padme in the wind, I decided to send it where I didn’t think anyone – particularly her – would look.”

  “Lovely. Well, I suppose that’s it then.” Maddy nodded at the bald xeno and Bryn instinctively stepped back, bracing for a shotgun blast.

  “Wait!” Fournier held up his good hand. “I can give you new eyes.”

  “What?” Maddy was obviously thrown by Fournier’s out-of-the-blue declaration, but she rallied quickly. “I’m not letting you operate on me! You really are a nutter, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not offering to do it myself. Ask Padme. I’ve perfected a technique to implant crocodile eyes into a human and I’m willing to trade that information for my life.”

  Maddy, who was still holding her phone, turned to Padme’s holo.

  “I want him dead,” Padme said, “but I owe you too much to lie. He can do what he says.”

  Fournier stood a little taller. “You’re losing the sight in your one working eye, aren’t you? I can give you better vision than you could even imagine.”

  Maddy stared at him, clearly torn, but after a moment, she gnashed her teeth and snapped, “I’d rather be blind. At least then I’d have the satisfaction of knowing you aren’t tormenting some other innocent girl with your perversions.”

  She turned and started to walk away. With a wave of her hand, she said with finality, “Kill him.”

  The bald xeno raised the shotgun to his shoulder, but never fired. Instead, he made a choking sound and slowly keeled over, dropping to his knees and then flopping forward in the doorway. Dillo stepped behind Fournier, placing Scott’s gun against his cheek and crying out, “Your Majesty! Get down!”

  Bryn didn’t wait to see what Maddy did, she pulled Mia backwards past the fallen xeno into the relative safety of the control room. The walls of a prefab certainly wouldn’t stop a bullet, so she whispered, “We should get down, too.”

  As she and Mia squatted by the wall, Curtis the programmer began typing madly, probably in an effort to wrest control of the security system from Padme. Bryn looked up at Dillo’s severe face as he stared upward, scanning the dark corners of the main building. She assumed he was looking for a sniper even though she hadn’t heard a shot. Fournier, too, was looking around, a small smile on his face, eyes bright with hope. None of the men noticed as Bryn tugged the sawed-off shotgun out from under the lifeless hand of the bald xeno and fit her finger to the trigger.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Scott didn’t think for a minute Chief Joe would pull the pin and lob the grenade back at them. The best use of it would be to disable the truck somehow – take out the engine or axle to prevent them from escaping – but Chief Joe wouldn’t attempt it as long as he might injure or kill Lupus, which was very much to Scott and the embattled XIA staff’s advantage.

  Lupus had gone limp again, like a two hundred and fifty pound sack of rotten potatoes. Scott grabbed two handfuls of his coverall and boosted his torso up enough for Alton to wrap his arms around his chest from behind. As Scott lifted Lupus’ legs, he glanced into the truck, where Shasta was kneeling over Bob. Her body language and movements – one hand over the other in the middle of Bob’s chest, elbows locked, arms pumping up and down – told Scott all he needed to know about Bob’s condition.

  He closed his eyes, just for an instant. Bob had asked if they would survive this and Scott had given him a pat answer: “We will if I can help it.” There would be time for regret and sadness later, but for now, he focused on the job.

  He and Alton had moved Lupus all of two feet when a muffled boom sounded somewhere in th
e building. It was obviously the grenade. There were two stairwells in the building, and he was pretty sure Chief Joe had sent someone into the other stairwell to blow the door and gain access to the second floor. From there it would be a simple matter of walking across to the stairwell where Scott and company were holed up. They were about to be boxed in.

  He looked up the stairwell shaft. From this angle, he could only see bottom of the second floor platform and the top portion of the door.

  “They’re coming,” he said to Alton.

  Lupus must have heard him, because he suddenly wrenched his leg out of Scott’s hand and kicked upward, narrowly missing his chin. Alton let out a wordless snarl of frustration and released his hold on Lupus’ upper body so he could reach for the rifle slung over his shoulder. With the butt facing downward, Alton jerked his arm back and smashed Lupus across the side of the head, shouting, “Hold still!”

  Lupus finally stopped struggling, but it was too late. Scott heard the door bang open, and figured from the sound of the shoes drumming across the platform that several xenos were taking position to ambush them.

  The platform creaked alarmingly under their weight, and someone cried out, “Get down! Get down!”

  The barrel of a gun appeared over the edge. Alton took aim at the same time Scott reached for a grenade, but it was unnecessary. With a loud groaning snap, the edge of the platform broke away from the bottom of the stairs. Still attached to the wall, it crashed down, folding up against the wall and dumping its cargo of men. Two were hurled to the floor, one clung to the now vertical platform like a gecko, and the fourth managed to jump on top of the truck. Scott saw the man jump, his arms shooting out for balance as he attempted to stay upright on the wet surface, but he slipped and went down, sliding across the roof until his feet hung off the edge.

  The man clinging to the wall had dropped his gun and wasn’t an immediate threat, and Alton was dealing with the men who’d hit the floor, so Scott ran over, leapt up onto the deck of the truck and grasped the fourth man’s ankles. He stepped back off the deck and hung his full body weight from the man’s lower legs, effectively pulling him from the roof.

  Shasta was still giving Bob CPR, when one of the injured security guards stuck a pistol in the xeno’s face and said, “Hands in the air.”

  Scott was fine letting the guard handle that one; there was still the matter of getting Lupus in the truck.

  He started to go help Alton, but saw there was no need: the other three xenos were laid out on the floor around him. Alton, flexing his hands in satisfaction, began heading back towards him just as another xeno kicked the second floor door open again. The new xeno was armed with a rifle, and as the barrel lifted, Scott reached for his weapon. He opened his mouth to shout a warning, but the xeno behind the rifle fired twice in rapid succession. Alton stopped cold, but didn’t fall. Confused, Scott noticed the angle of the xeno’s rifle barrel was off, as if he hadn’t been aiming for Alton at all.

  Scott turned towards Lupus in what seemed like slow motion. Two rapidly growing stains on the wolf-faced xeno’s orange coverall revealed him as the target. When Scott spun back around, Alton had dropped flat to the ground and rolled to look up at the rifleman, who grinned and saluted before disappearing behind the door.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Bryn was still on her knees in the control room. The shotgun was much heavier than the other two guns she’d held. The first had been Carla’s little handgun, which she’d used to bluff her way out of a tight situation. The second had been a few days ago when she’d taken Jason’s gun and actually fired it at someone. On both of those occasions she’d used the guns as a last resort, aware each time that her impulsive decision to use them opened herself up to violent reprisal.

  Dillo and Fournier had yet to notice she’d taken possession of the shotgun. It occurred to her that she still had time to set it back down, to relinquish the questionable control it gave her.

  Her hand tightened on the cold barrel and she muttered, “I don’t think so.”

  “What are you doing?” Mia whispered.

  “Taking my life back.”

  “You’re going to get us killed.”

  Bryn glared at Fournier’s profile. “Not before I take someone with us.”

  She shifted her gaze to the shotgun. There was a little switch near the trigger that had already been flipped to reveal a red dot. From what Scott told her, the red dot meant the safety was off and the shotgun was ready to fire, which made sense, since the bald xeno had been about to kill Fournier. She thought about how he’d been holding it before he fell, and lifted it, placing the heel of the stock against her shoulder.

  Curtis the programmer made a triumphant little sound, and Bryn stood up in order to peer over his shoulder at the holoscreen. It looked as if he’d managed to connect to the live camera feeds. He raised a hand and swept it through the holo, scrolling through camera views until he stopped at one inside the main building but outside the prefab control room. The camera he accessed must have been located nearby; the view looked down on Dillo and Fournier. Curtis spread his fingers, zooming out. Maddy was crouched about ten feet away from Dillo, who was subtly gesturing to her with the hand sticking out of his sling, urging her towards the control room.

  Dillo, Fournier and Maddy were not the only people the camera picked up, however. A shadowy figure was walking stealthily across the roof of the control room, zeroing in on Dillo. Bryn heard tiny creaking sounds above her head. Whoever it was, he hadn’t gotten close enough to the edge to see his targets – or to be seen by them.

  Bryn was still watching the holoscreen when Maddy made a break for it, running the short distance to the control room door. As she burst into the room, Bryn swung her way, shotgun ready. Maddy skidded to a stop as soon as she saw the gun. If she was surprised that Bryn was armed, it didn’t show.

  “Oh, please,” Maddy said, reaching for the barrel to push it away.

  Bryn didn’t let her touch it. Instead, she raised the shotgun, aiming for the ceiling. The blast put a fist-sized hole in the roof and slammed the stock back against her shoulder. Maddy slapped her hands over her ears and Dillo looked furious, but his face changed when he heard footfalls drumming across the aluminum roof. Whoever it was, Bryn must not have hit him.

  She caught Maddy’s eye and nodded towards Curtis’ holoscreen. Maddy turned in time to see the shadowy figure disappear from view before Curtis waved a hand to shut the screen down.

  Maddy’s chin lifted as she gave Bryn an assessing look. “So you’ve chosen sides.”

  “You mean between bad and worse? I suppose.”

  Bryn looked around the control room. There were no other doors, even though the prefab structure seemed larger on the outside than the interior suggested. She swung the shotgun barrel so it was pointing at Curtis.

  “How do we get out of here?”

  He shrugged and answered evasively, “The door.”

  She sighed, impatiently shifting her weight from one leg to the other. “I mean, where’s the escape tunnel? Fournier has them in all his buildings.”

  Curtis’ eyes slid to where Dillo was still standing in the doorway, holding the gun to Fournier’s head. Curtis’ expression told her there was no way he was going to answer honestly with Fournier looking on. Bryn briefly debated whether to ask Fournier himself, but decided it would be a waste of time.

  “Call Padme again,” she said to Maddy. “She’ll know.”

  Maddy pulled her holophone from her pocket just as Bryn caught the sound of raised voices echoing from outside the prefab. Dillo forced Fournier across the threshold into the control room and shut the door, leaving it open a crack so he could look out.

  “We got company,” he said.

  Bryn figured either the rest of Fournier’s men had returned, or the six soldiers being held by the female xeno had somehow overpowered her. Either way, they were trapped.

  When Padme didn’t answer her holophone, Maddy stomped over to Fournier and
thrust a finger into his face. Shaking with anger, she said, “If your men hurt her, I will roast you over a slow fire. Do you understand?”

  “You know she’s as valuable to me as she is to you,” he responded coldly.

  “Oh, that’s right. The clone you forced her to carry. Whose is it? Yours? Or some rich fool who thinks it will help him live forever? If that’s the case, I’m sure you’re disappointed you won’t be able to deliver. Pun intended.”

  “Have you aborted it?”

  “Padme would never do such a thing. It’s not the child’s fault you like to play God – for money.”

  “That…child…is worth more to humanity than money.”

  Maddy let out a short laugh. “Of course it is.”

  She continued to berate him, but Bryn tuned her out and looked around at the four walls. It struck her that this was the second time she’d been trapped in one of Padme’s control rooms. She’d escaped from the last one, but the circumstances had been vastly different. Now she wasn’t threatened by fire; she was caught between two opposing forces, neither of which considered her all that valuable.

  Like Curtis said, there was only one door – one obvious way in and out. The control room didn’t have so much as a closet. Even though she’d asked him about an escape tunnel, an actual tunnel wasn’t possible because the prefab had been constructed on a raised platform. The sniper hadn’t come up the platform steps, so how had he gotten onto the roof? After she’d fired the shotgun, he’d run out of view of the camera towards the right end of the prefab.

  The desk took up the wall to the left, and metal shelving had been installed along the back wall, but nothing marred the smooth surface of the wall to the right. Unlike the rest of the space, which was crowded with equipment, the only thing along that wall was a narrow cot with a blanket and pillow.