Stephen smiled a little deeper. He looked as if he was going to release Lisa and then he lunged into her instead. Stephen licked her neck. She yelled out, and started crying. Stephen let her go and she ran off to her corner.
Daniel considered killing Stephen. He couldn’t trust him and he’d just feel better without Stephen around. Of course, if he killed him now, he might start to smell before they were done.
Carl went back to typing. Jerome went off to find a chair. Stephen stayed put, smiling at Daniel.
Daniel turned to Carl. “How much longer?”
“Hard to say. Ten minutes. Maybe twenty. I’ll know when it’s done.”
Daniel let his hand rest on the pile of guns. Stephen was watching him, no emotion showing. Daniel, feeling caught, pulled his hand back and let it rest on the chair. He looked past Stephen, towards where Jerome was sitting. As if catching his cue, Jerome asked, “What are you doing with that stuff anyway?”
Daniel didn’t care for Jerome one way or the other, but this might be a good time to make an impression, to gather a follower.
Daniel announced, with pride, “Carl is copying the entire NVIA database, and then deleting it.”
Chapter 16
Cate and Marisol ran up the stairs. After a few flights, Marisol’s breathing was getting loud and Cate was starting to feel like every vee in the building would hear her.
“Let’s slow down.” Cate gestured to Marisol’s heels. They weren’t especially high, but they were noisy and probably slowed her down. Cate was wearing tennis shoes, so wasn’t worried about her rubber soles. Marisol took the cue, stopped and took her shoes off.
“There’s an army of vees out there.” Marisol expressed disbelief. “Someone must have opened the prison up.”
Cate hadn’t really thought about where the vees had come from, only that she needed to get out of there.
“Maybe the fire alarm opened the doors?” Cate suggested.
Marisol considered for a moment. “No. Not all doors open, certainly not in the prisons. We should…” Marisol looked up the stairs to finish her thought.
They started running up the stairs again, with much less noise now. Cate focused every ounce of energy she could spare into listening past the footsteps, listening for any noise that could suggest danger.
Physically, vees were like humans at their peak, if humans felt no pain and were flooded with adrenaline, so they could push beyond normal limits, running faster, lifting more weight, enduring longer without food or rest, and healing more quickly. It wouldn’t be hard for a vee, or several, to catch them in this stairwell, even with the head start they had. Her only hope was that the vees were still too distracted in the lobby to go sniffing for fresh food.
As they reached the third floor landing, Cate’s skin began to prickle. She gestured Marisol to stop. The two of them stood there for a second, holding their breath, and then Cate was sure of it. She had heard, or felt, a door open. Now she heard it close. Somewhere, someone had entered the stairwell.
They were in a trap. In the stairwell, they could only run up or down. Down was obviously bad. Up meant they stayed in a narrow space with no place to hide, or cover their sound and smell. Cate opened the third floor door and ushered Marisol out of the stairwell.
“What’s going on?” Marisol had the good sense to whisper.
“I don’t know,” She couldn’t be sure. “I heard someone on the stairs.”
“I don’t hear anything.” Marisol whispered.
Cate said, “Trust me, there’s someone coming.”
Cate wasn’t familiar with this floor. She usually went right to her office, sometimes to the cafeteria, rarely to the gym, and occasionally to a meeting somewhere in the building away from her lab, but she didn’t usually have time to explore. This looked like a call center. It wasn’t, of course, they didn’t do things like that here, but the floor was miles of cubicles in every direction, so far as she could tell.
“Maybe we can hide? Maybe he didn’t hear us?” Marisol sounded scared, even if her voice didn’t shake.
“They can smell us.” Cate wished she had something more reassuring to say. “Our best option is to get as much distance between us before he catches our scent.”
They were already moving away from the stairwell, crossing the cubicle field. The building was set up like a giant “H” with stairwells at the intersection of the middle line with each of the two vertical lines. The next closest stairwell should be straight across the field of cubicles. That seemed like an option, at least.
“Maybe it was just another person, getting away from that mess in the lobby?” Cate said, for Marisol’s benefit.
Marisol gave a little smile, like she knew what Cate was trying to do. Cate might’ve continued to speculate, if she hadn’t just heard the door from the stairwell, the one they’d just come through, open and close again.
“He’s here.” Cate whispered.
Cate grabbed Marisol’s arm and began running. If it were a vee, they couldn’t outrun it, or hide. He would smell them out. They might have a chance of getting somewhere, finding someone, or figuring out something before they were caught.
They sprinted down the corridor, past the next stairwell, into another field of cubicles. They turned into one of the rows of cubicles, ducking down below eyeline, and started navigating the maze, hoping the maze would confuse the vee as much as it confused them. Once they were thoroughly enmeshed in the rows of desks and chairs, Marisol pulled away from Cate and stopped.
“We should separate,” Marisol whispered.
“That’s a terrible idea.”
“Listen,” Marisol hissed. “It can only track us one at a time. Separating might slow him down, give one of us a chance.”
Cate was about to disagree more emphatically when she saw Marisol’s face change. She looked horrified. And then Cate felt herself pushed to the ground, as if she had been used as a launch. Her face was still pressed into the floor as Marisol began to scream.
There was no one on top of her, after that initial push. Cate recovered from the shock of falling, stood up, and saw the vee. He was big, maybe 6’ 2”, and he was choking Marisol with one hand, forcing her to the ground. Marisol’s knees gave out and, as she collapsed, the vee leaned over her.
Cate launched herself at the vee. She flew into the side of his bent over body, knocking him to the ground, landing on top of him. As she kept pressure on his chest, she looked around for something to hit him with.
“What are you doing?” He asked, as if he were sincerely confused.
The only thing Cate could find and grab was a computer keyboard. She ripped it out and raised it over her head, but the vee was no longer confused. He grabbed her by her shirt and threw her into the nearest cubicle.
The back of her head hit the desk, as her body pushed the rolling chair across the floor. Cate lay crumpled on the ground.
That’s when the gun fired. Cate didn’t see what happened, but when she turned towards the sound, Marisol was standing, holding a gun, and the vee was lying on the ground, blood pouring out of his chest.
“You had a gun?” It was the only thing Cate could think to say.
Marisol regarded her as something of an idiot. “Obviously.”
Cate slowly moved closer to the vee, trying to see if he was, in fact, dead. She was looking at his body, thinking it would be pretty hard for him to have survived, so she didn’t see Marisol move. When she stood and turned around, Marisol had backed up a few steps and was now holding the gun pointed at Cate.
“What are you doing?” Maybe Marisol was just confused, scared.
“Your whole department is just a giant headache.” Marisol didn’t waver. “First the pigs, and now this.”
“I don’t understand. The pigs? What are you talking about?” Cate asked.
“So you weren’t in on Stan’s little secret? I guess that doesn’t really matter now.”
Cate was frightened, more so than she’d been a few seconds ago
, facing down a vee. Then, she hadn’t had time to think. Then, it was all adrenaline. Now, she was facing a colleague who was calmly staring her down across the barrel of a gun.
Marisol had changed. There was no fear in her. She held the gun on Cate and was in complete control of the situation. And understanding that, Cate knew what had changed, and knew what was coming next.
“Now,” Marisol demanded, “Why don’t you explain to me how you tricked the NVIA into hiring a vee?”
Chapter 17
It wasn’t the entire database, of course. That would probably take days to back up. They were stealing names and addresses of agents, as well as information on all suspected vees. That was one part of it. The other part was data associated with the research no one knew was going on here. That would all have to change.
The public hated when poor innocent monkeys were tortured for science. There were a lot worse things going on at the old NVIA, and no one would ever know about them if Daniel didn’t help that information get out.
“So, you just copying files?” Jerome asked.
“Copying and deleting, yes. Wouldn’t want them to be able to access that information again, would we?” At least, not to the files they only kept here.
Jerome thought for a minute and then asked, “Don’t they have backups?”
Daniel smiled. “They do. We’re going for those next.”
The problem with buildings like this one is that they kept their own backups secure by keeping them on the premises. They couldn’t be “hacked” from outside, at least so far as Daniel understood it. Of course, he wasn’t on the outside.
Daniel glanced over at the monitors. The carnage in the lobby seemed to be wrapping up so Daniel said, “Unlock the front doors.”
A few keystrokes later and Daniel saw a couple of the vees trying the doors. When they opened, most of the vees started to leave, though a few hung around, checking bodies for loot.
Stephen, apparently bored with Carl’s typing and with the winding down of action in the lobby, started playing with the handcuffed guard’s hair and neck, running his fingers over him. The guard started sniveling.
“Leave him alone.”
Stephen glared at Daniel. “He’s in my way.”
Daniel ordered, “Then handcuff him to the rest of the guards.”
Daniel was surprised that Stephen looked willing to comply. He unhooked the guard and walked him over to the cluster of chained up guards. The one Stephen was escorting started yelling.
“Hey. No way. I did my job. I did my job.”
Daniel looked over to see what he was so upset about and realized Stephen was handcuffing him to the guard who was mid change. Ah. That would explain his willingness to cooperate. He was designing his own show. Still, the guard had done his job.
“Put him at the end.” Daniel called to Stephen.
Stephen stopped, mid cuff, and without a word, moved the guard to the end. The guard, for his part, looked mollified, but also like he felt too guilty to face his fellow guards. None of them said anything to him, though. Perhaps they realized they would’ve done the same.
Stephen began pacing in front of the guards. Daniel wasn’t sure why he cared one way or the other about what happened to Lisa, who was still hiding in her corner. Strangely though, he was relieved they weren’t going to have to have another talk about her.
The guards, on the other hand, deserved a little torture. They knew better than to make eye contact with Stephen. In a way, it made Daniel sad that they weren’t as scared of him, but even humans could smell the evil on Stephen.
Daniel knew Stephen wouldn’t be hungry yet, so he wasn’t planning on feeding. In fact, Stephen reminded Daniel of a cat who’d caught a mouse and wanted to play.
“Which one of you would like to die first?” Stephen asked, casually.
Daniel watched, dispassionately, as Stephen walked along the line of guards, evaluating each one. The guard who was changing looked like hell. That was typical. He didn’t have long to suffer in pain. Soon, all he’d know was hunger.
Daniel remembered it like it was yesterday. The one concern he’d had about being changed was whether or not he could feed on a fellow human. It seemed like such a silly thought now, for so many reasons, but at the time, he thought killing would be difficult.
As soon as he woke - if that’s the right word for feeling like you are dying for an endless number of hours and then, suddenly, feeling alive – as soon as he woke, the first need he had was to eat. He craved nothing more than to bite into a juicy neck or arm or leg. If a toddler had walked by, if a family member had been near, Daniel would’ve thought nothing of killing it, just to feed the hunger.
Fortunately, Kenneth had known he’d be hungry and had had two humans he’d considered expendable, humans who hadn’t kept Kenneth’s interest enough for him to care if they lived, ready for Daniel. Daniel hadn’t had to hunt for anything that first night. He hadn’t had to go looking for food when starving practically out of his mind. There had been many times since, when a food source was hard to find - times when he’d felt hunger again. Those nights came later. On his first night, he’d been well fed.
Stephen leaned over the guard to the right of the soon-to-be vee. The guard didn’t look at him, so Stephen grabbed his chin and pulled until the guard had no choice, their faces close.
“Would you like me to save you?” Stephen asked. “I can move you.”
Stephen smiled. The guard looked like he was going to cry. Stephen moved on without waiting for an answer, turning to the guard to the left of the soon-to-be vee.
“Or you? I could save you.” Stephen stood up. “But not both of you. Just the one I like better. Can either of you give me a reason to like you?”
Daniel watched, fascinated. He didn’t consider himself kind. Not even when he was human. He’d always been too selfish to be kind, but he wasn’t cruel. Stephen was a good villain. He had no discernible sense of morality.
Neither guard spoke, though surely, the one on the right, who had started crying, wanted to. Stephen kicked the guard’s foot and he started sniffling, but didn’t look up and didn’t speak.
“Not even a little begging?” Stephen walked over and kicked the other guard’s foot. “You just have to grovel for a second or two and you’ll be better off than the rest of these guys.”
Daniel looked at Jerome, to see how he was enjoying Stephen’s show. He was pleased to see a look of distaste hiding behind Jerome’s passive expression. That was the word for what he sensed growing in himself, distaste. He didn’t care if the guards all died, but at some point in his life he’d learned it’s not polite to play with your food.
Still, he wasn’t ready for another confrontation with Stephen. He needed the rest of this night to go smoothly. It had been a mistake taking the two vees with him. Now that he was stuck with an entourage, they needed to follow him. Too many things could go wrong if they cast out on their own, or worse, tried to take control. Jerome was a follower. That was obvious. Stephen, on the other hand, was playing his own game.
Instinctively, Daniel checked on Lisa, crouched in her corner, hands over her ears. Hear no evil, see no evil didn’t mean you were safe from evil. If it kept her quiet, he wasn’t about to point that out, especially because just then, the moaning started. It sounded like someone fighting to wake up from a nightmare. The guard was about to become a vee.
“Uh oh.” Stephen stood over the guards. “Looks like time’s up.”
The guards to either side starting moving away, as far as their restraints would take them. The one who had been crying just a moment ago, caved.
“Let me out. Let me out.” He was leaning as far away as possible and yelling at Stephen. “I’ll do whatever. Please?”
Stephen just started laughing. Daniel noticed Carl had turned around to watch. Jerome was still transfixed. Stephen walked to the nearest desk and sat down to observe from a distance.
The new vee stopped moaning and lifted his head. He ap
peared, to Daniel, like he was strung out on some drug. His eyes were unfocused, his mouth agape. He didn’t seem to know where he was.
Then he perked up, like an idea had just occurred to him, or he smelled a cup of fresh brewed coffee like all those happy humans on TV commercials. He turned, slowly, and looked at the guard to his left, who was practically lying in the lap of the guard beside him.
The vee lunged for him, not realizing his arms were secured behind him. He missed when he was stopped by the cuffs. He tried again, catching a tooth on the guard’s sleeve, ripping his shirt. The human guard pulled away further, lifting his legs in an athletic feat Daniel was sure he could never accomplish, and kicked the vee in the face. It had the effect of temporarily stunning him, and the guard kicked him again.
The vee sat up and turned the other way, facing the crybaby, who instantly started pleading with the new vee. “Joe. C’mon man. You don’t want to do this.”
Joe was beyond hearing. He lunged at the guard, catching his shoulder and scratching it. The guard flailed out with his legs, kicking at Joe, managing only to kick him as high as his thighs, which had the unfortunate result of tipping Joe closer to him.
Joe lunged again, and this time he caught the guard’s cheek, ripping it open. His face started to bleed, and the guard began screaming. The guard on the other side of Joe tried kicking him again, Daniel assumed to distract him, but now that he had tasted blood, nothing would turn his attention.
Joe managed to simultaneously prop his legs under him and lunge at the screaming guard, which gave him just enough leverage to bring his mouth down on the guard’s neck. He sank his teeth in and began drinking.
The guard’s screams eventually grew more quiet until, finally, they died. The only sound clearly heard was the sucking noise the new vee was making as he drank up what was left.
Stephen got up and walked over to Daniel. Like a spell had been broken, everyone seemed to come to life at the same time. The surviving guards started openly weeping, moaning, or staring away from their dead colleague. Carl turned back to the computers. Joe finished his meal and sat up, looking out at the room like he was starting to get his vision back.
The V to Z Trilogy (Book 1): Caged Page 9
