by PJ Manney
Struggling to hold down the bile that flooded his throat, he looked at his partner in horror. “Mother of God . . . you knew about this?”
“Just cooperate. It’s important. It’s the most important thing you’ll ever do. If you don’t, they’ll kill you, too.”
“You motherfucker!” The last two years swirled madly through his brain. “Was Lobo’s takeover a part of this?”
Carter didn’t look surprised at the jump in logic. “Yes. We had to separate you from Biogineers to get you to develop this. The timing of the attacks . . . was convenient. I knew if you couldn’t make bots, you’d come back to this for your father.”
“You sold me into slavery, asshole!”
“And you . . . weren’t the man I thought you were.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“You told me you’d do whatever it takes! And now you won’t!”
Josiah separated the young men. “What is it about this younger generation that makes y’all so unable to grasp the big picture?” He looked at Peter. “If you disobey me, we’ll kill you, but we’ll also kill your wife. If you’re so willin’ to be disloyal at this crucial moment, who knows how much you told her about the club or your thoughts about it? There can’t be any loose ends in a scenario as important as this.”
“I swear to God, I told her nothing! Carter knows it’s true! Tell him, Carter . . . Please . . .”
Carter said nothing, but at the mention of Amanda’s death, he looked like he might cry.
“You youngsters have to grow up and accept responsibility, or this country’ll be destroyed within a generation. You don’t care about your life, and that’s your choice. But do you care about your wife’s? Are you willin’ to make that choice for her? Please restrain Mr. Bernhardt,” Josiah ordered the two remaining guards. Then to Carter, “I believe we’ll need that processor now.”
Even though he knew it was pointless, Peter struggled in the guards’ grasp. He needed every extra moment the adrenaline gave to figure out how he could save himself and Dulles, because, so far, he didn’t have a clue.
With the guards’ tight grip on Peter, Carter carefully removed the processor’s connection from the magnet under Peter’s scalp. The moment of disconnection was disorienting. Peter felt . . . dimmer. Less connected. Had he been relying on information within the Cortex 2.0 so heavily, compared to information stored inside his own neocortex, that its removal would feel so immediate? Was his neuroplasticity so malleable that his brain bowed out in the presence of a better model and took a vacation? Panic set in. What if he forgot information? What if his life depended on it? What if he couldn’t get it back?
Meanwhile, Carter pulled the cigarette pack–sized box out of Peter’s back pocket and placed it on a small table that had been set next to Dulles. He connected the magnetized end onto the magnetic strip under Dulles’s sutured scalp to the Cortex 2.0 with a wire for quicker transmission. Then he turned to a laptop on the table and began to type in commands to wirelessly activate Dulles’s Hippo 2.0 and Cortex 2.0. Over Carter’s shoulder, Peter could see that the implants picked up electrical signals from Dulles’s brain, even with inflammation and incomplete neural growth and attachment to the electrodes. It shouldn’t have worked. But unfortunately, it did.
“Who else helped at Prometheus? You’re not smart enough to have figured this all out for yourself,” sneered Peter.
Carter looked hurt, but admitted, “Chang. He was buyable by more than just ATEAMO.”
It took Peter a moment more than he would have liked to realize, “You knew about him before he died?”
“Smartest guy in the room, and you don’t know shit,” Carter snapped.
Peter flinched as though slapped.
No one spoke for several minutes, each man focusing intently on the diagnostics of the chips and processor. Finally, all the components responded to each other.
Josiah asked, “Is he ready?”
“As he’ll ever be,” sighed Carter.
The secretary of state came face-to-face with Dulles. “What do you know about 10/26?” He paused, giving Dulles time to think his thoughts that the processor could record.
Peter saw the neural firing on the computer screen. God damn it. It was working.
Josiah continued. “Who was the architect of 10/26?” Again, a pause. “Who else knows? Who was involved with you? How long have you been a traitor? Are there any others within the club? Do you have further plans?”
All the while, Dulles kept giving Peter meaningful looks, as though desperate to convey something to him. Josiah couldn’t help but notice the silent communication. “You know each other?” Dulles closed his eyes.
“No,” said Peter. “We’ve never met. Until now.”
“I guess I’ll know the truth about that soon enough,” said Josiah. “I still hold out hope I haven’t misjudged you, son. I’m tryin’ to be sympathetic to the shock you’re in and give you the necessary time to reconsider your position.”
And what was his position? The club had cornered the world market in his technology, one of global importance in the future for both military and civilian applications, and if they were the only ones to control it, they would have extraordinary power to wield it as both a tool and a weapon. He was sure of that. But there were loose ends to everything he’d seen so far. There had to be a greater agenda, other than a ghoulish interrogation. What else would they be doing with the technology? Was it just this technology? What about the bots?
“Was getting the prosthetics and the bots the plan all along?” asked Peter.
Josiah was about to answer, but Peter cut him off. “No. I want Carter to have the balls to tell me what he knew.”
“Yes,” admitted Carter. “And frankly, your lack of cooperation isn’t reflecting very well on my nomination of you to join the club. I thought you’d do anything to survive.”
“You never told me what was at stake! How could you, of all people, think I would do this?”
Carter looked at him with pity. “You still don’t know what’s at stake.”
Amanda’s voice played back in Peter’s head, even without the Cortex 2.0: No, you had to make him do the whole dance . . . prove his loyalty, his belief in you . . .
“Who did you kill to finish your initiation?” asked Peter.
“Many Phoenicians have,” Carter replied. “All of us are capable of killing someone, if the good of the club and the country are at stake.”
“Who did you kill?”
Carter turned away, ignoring the question.
Josiah joked, “Carter, if your memory’s so bad as to forget someone that important to you, then you might need the Hippo 2.0 yourself!”
Who was “that important” to Carter? Were they important because of what the death meant to his membership or important because . . . he and the victim were close? Peter racked his brains. Who could that be? He felt so stupid . . .
“Wait . . . you killed . . . Nick?” The horror of it swamped Peter. “But he loved you like a son. He loved you more than he loved me! Why would you . . . nanowires? You killed him for nanowires?”
Carter was agitated, but remained silent.
“And me . . .” Peter remembered the questions in the amphitheater. “What have I done? You sacrificed me for my tech—to torture, to brainwash—and what will you do with the bots?” The room spun. He lunged at Carter, but the guards held him tight. “And will you kill Amanda? Personally? How will you do it? With your bare hands? Or is it all too dirty for you, and another member does it to prove their loyalty? How will you ever sleep again? There isn’t enough whisky or dope or coke in the world to make the memory of us all go away . . .”
Peter could see the questions taking a toll. He turned his venom on Josiah. “And who was your first victim, Mr. Secretary?”
“My initiation? Jack Ruby.”
“Jack Ruby died in prison.”
“Ruby might ’a technically been a prisoner, but he died of a pulmonary embolism a
t Parkland Hospital while bein’ treated for pneumonia. I dressed as a doctor, walked into his room, and injected fat into his jugular vein. He needed to die . . . loudmouth ass, all hot ’n’ bothered about his role in history and ready to blabber at his retrial too much for our likin’.”
Carter couldn’t take the questions anymore. “For Christ’s sake, Pete, just kill the man so we can all get the fuck out of here, get drunk, and go back to our happy lives!”
“Happy lives!” Peter turned to Anthony Dulles on the operating table. “And who did he kill to become a member?”
“Tony?” responded Josiah. “He was initiated before the loyalty test was instituted under club president J. Edgar Hoover back in ’63 . . .” He puffed up a little with pride. “I was the first.”
The processor was still working, even though Josiah had finished interrogating Dulles. Josiah allowed this continuing conversation to get more information out of the spy. What were Peter and the others saying they wanted Dulles to hear and think about? Why did Peter and Dulles still matter if they claimed they were so willing to kill them?
While arguing, Peter weighed his options for his and Amanda’s survival, considering every conceivable scenario and means of escape. Without the Cortex 2.0, he had only one option . . .
“I’ll do it. But only because of Amanda. She shouldn’t pay for my mistakes, or her best friend’s betrayal. But I never want to see your fucking face again!” he yelled at Carter, so violently the guards lifted their weapons.
Shaking, Peter took a big, calming breath and turned to Brant. “So what am I supposed to do?” He tried to ignore the expression on Dulles’s and Carter’s faces. Dulles looked like he was the one who misread Peter. Carter looked unconvinced, but he didn’t voice his doubts.
“That’s my boy. You’ll realize in time you made the right decision.” Josiah handed the gun to him. “There’s a single bullet, so don’t get any heroic ideas, or you’re a dead man. One shot to his brain, please. And make it count.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Gripping the gun tightly in his sweaty palm, Peter circled Dulles’s head to face the heavily swagged and curtained picture window. Guns aimed, the guards repositioned themselves, Baldy in front of the window to face him and Blockhead to his side. Peter knew the most lethal place to shoot was the temple, the eardrum, or the brain stem. The latter was tricky, given how Dulles’s head was positioned on the operating table.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly to Dulles. “I wanted to save your life. But I don’t know how.”
Dulles looked deeply into his eyes, then closed his own in resignation. Peter placed the gun against Dulles’s ear . . .
. . . and yanked the processor off Dulles’s head with his left hand, leaving the Cortex 2.0’s box swinging in the air by the cord. With his brain in slow-time, he took careful aim at Baldy’s gun. But to those in the room, his shot was instantaneous.
BOOM!
The bullet passed through Baldy’s hand and partially shattered the window’s tempered glass as Baldy’s gun dropped to the carpet. Bullet-hole cracks radiated from the pane’s center, the glass hanging precariously in place from its sandwich of plastic laminate and metal frame.
Peter stuffed the Cortex 2.0 into his pocket and ducked as Blockhead shot, hurling his empty gun at Blockhead’s gun hand, knocking the weapon off bead long enough to let Peter dive for the partially shattered window and avoid the second shot. Baldy grabbed his bleeding hand and ran like an enraged bull for Peter, while Blockhead tried to readjust his aim. The bullet flew toward Peter, but even though he could almost follow its trajectory, he couldn’t run fast enough to avoid getting clipped.
It hit his outer thigh, but he hardly felt it with all the adrenaline. Hoping the curtains and rod weren’t tacked up for show, he threw himself at the window, grabbed the drapes and kicked both feet at the hole in the glass. The cracked window exploded onto the deck as Peter sailed through. He aimed his legs over the deck railing, twisting around like a midair diver to grab the rail and release the drape. He dropped, scrambling to the deck below.
Blockhead ran to the railing and leaned over, firing multiple shots down at him, but he ran inside the first available door for cover and slammed it behind him.
As bullets pinged outside, Peter limped quickly through the dark room. The iron smell of recent, bloody death stung his nostrils. He found them on the floor next to a bar, their drinks still cold with ice on the marble countertop. Surgeons were expendable, too.
Peter thought faster and time moved slower than he’d imagined possible, even with just his Hippo 2.0. He created a mental map from his memories of the ship and made assumptions about the rest. He had to go down and aft to get to the launch. He cut through a darkened game room, then lounge, and peeked through a door leading to an internal spiral stairwell. He was on the third level. Hearing and seeing no one, he ran down.
Within seconds, a laser pointer flashed near his eye before shots exploded next to his ducking head, embedding in lacquered mahogany walls. It was Angel Hair and Big Biceps. They knew where he was going. He dashed through the first available door on Level Two.
A narrow hallway revealed several doorways on both sides. These were crew quarters. Eerily still bodies of a half-dozen young men and women lay on their bunks. The club must have boarded the ship just after the day shift went to sleep and shot them in their beds with silencers. On a ship this big, they had to eliminate at least a dozen crew, including the captain. The night shift’s bodies would be stowed somewhere else.
Angel Hair burst into the hall. Peter assumed Big Biceps would try to head him off. Angel Hair’s laser sight glowed dark red on Peter’s black T-shirt.
Diving into a room, Peter slammed and locked the door. Bullets blasted at the door and around the frame, but the hardwood gave him a few seconds. The room was internal, with no window or porthole. There were two dead bodies; a young blond woman in a lower bunk and an older brunette in the upper, both shot in the head.
Angel Hair kicked at the door, but the solid wood was tough. Peter thought he heard him speak, maybe into a headset. As slow as time seemed to Peter, he didn’t have much of it until reinforcements arrived.
Frantic, he yanked open the closet. A small set of golf clubs leaned in a corner. He grabbed the largest iron and climbed into the top bunk with the older woman’s corpse. He burrowed under the bedding and tried to become as small as possible against the wall, arranging the corpse in front of him as though she had not been touched. As he turned her head on her pillow, he saw the entry wound was relatively small, but the back of her head appeared intact. They had used hollow points, which caused maximum internal damage, but would not penetrate far.
Angel Hair shouldered the door open. He looked for Peter immediately behind the shredded door and in the closet. When he bent over to peek under the bunks, Peter pushed the cadaver and bedding in front of him and he and the corpse fell on top of the killer. Angel Hair shot at the nearest body like crazy, but the corpse bore the brunt of the hollow points, sheets and blankets dancing with the impact.
The gun jammed. In the seconds it took for Angel Hair to rack the slide back a couple of times to clear it, Peter leapt, bashing the killer in the head with the golf iron. Angel Hair finally ceased moving, embraced by his victim.
Peter left the jammed gun behind. Brandishing the iron, he dashed down the hall toward the tender.
He burst into a laundry room. There was another door at the end of the line of washers. This opened into an equipment room, filled with wetsuits, inflatable rafts, and other water gear. Another spiral stairway plunged into a dark hall. It was the bottom level, where the beach deck lay astern.
He slid the golf club in his jeans’ belt loop head up, like a sword. The stairs were metal and very noisy and he ran down them as quietly as possible. Only at the bottom did he recognize the mother lode hidden in the shadows: cabinets contained scuba tanks, diving weights, harpoons, masks—the works. He loaded an underwater harpoon, grabb
ed an empty scuba tank and some diving weights, and threw them over his shoulder like a bandolier.
The other wall had mechanical controls, numerous levers, seal wheels, and gauges—mechanisms to open and close parts of the ship’s stern.
Feet pounded upstairs.
Not sure what did what to what, he grabbed every lever and switch and moved them to the “On” or “Open” position. The aft wall opened slowly from the top, like a drawbridge. Metal gears ground and rarely opened seals hissed.
Someone outside the opening wall yelled and footfalls pounded down stairs. He dodged left as a bullet ripped through his left bicep and three more missed his head. He whipped around, firing the harpoon gun, and nailed Baldy through the left forearm and into his ribs. Screaming, Baldy dropped his gun. With a hastily tied bandage wrapped around his right hand, now Baldy had a useless left hand as well.
Peter loaded a second harpoon. Outside, Big Biceps’ attention was split between aiming his gun at the lowering wall and untying the tender’s tie line so the speedboat wouldn’t be pulled up out of the water. Big Biceps jumped off the rising deck into the tender to wait for Peter.
Josiah screamed from above, “Get the processor!”
The beach deck rose far enough that the lowering door would soon meet the deck and crush anyone between. Gears screamed as both decks slammed into the other at a forty-five-degree angle.
Peter ran up the twelve-foot hill of the wall toward the tender, lugging the steel scuba tank and the harpoon gun. Josiah ran for the farthest aft rail two decks above. He fired, but missed without a good, clean shot and retreated to the stairs to get a floor closer.
The wall was too steep and slippery to climb just by foot, so Peter used his good right arm. He slid back a couple of feet and tried again. He managed to grip around the side of the dropped wall, using the adjacent exposed wall’s left edge for leverage.
