by Tasha Black
There was a whirring sound that reminded Cordelia of the hush of a dental X-ray being activated.
The door popped open.
“Was that…?” she struggled to come up with an idea of what it could have been.
“Biometrics,” Dalton nodded, as they stepped inside.
“But how?” Cordelia asked. The building looked like an old tenement house. Like one of the unmaintained housing projects that were common in this part of the Scar.
“It’s something Mallory rigged up,” Dalton replied. “Uses the same kind of optics in West’s eye. It can map the pattern of blood vessels just below the skin. It’s harder to fool than fingerprint or retina scanners.”
“Isn’t that like… military grade security?” Cordelia asked.
“That is way beyond military grade,” Dalton chuckled.
Cordelia looked around at the bare bulb hanging from the ceiling, and the peeling wallpaper of the hallway.
“I’m surprised that was okay with her landlord,” she observed.
Dalton laughed.
They headed to the elevator, which was open and waiting.
Cordelia almost expected biometric buttons inside. But she was wrong. There were no buttons of any kind.
The doors closed automatically and the car began its ascent immediately.
There was clearly more going on here than Cordelia had imagined.
They finished their ride in silence. Cordelia found herself sidling up close to Dalton, finding comfort in the presence of her friend on this strange adventure.
The doors opened at last into an enormous room, clearly the entire top floor of the building. The unadorned concrete floor was broken up only by the occasional cement column, until it ended at walls of glass looking out in every direction. The city that spread out below this warehouse of a room was not the twinkling lights of downtown, but the outlines of dark buildings through the ominous fog that hovered over the Scar. In the distance, the sinister wink of the moon reflected in the runoff from the glacier that gave the city its name.
Tables and stations full of mechanical objects filled the room. If the terminator had been Santa Claus, this would have been his workshop.
Mallory’s home lab.
Not exactly what Cordelia had pictured when Mallory said she had some spare equipment in her garage.
In one dark corner, a big loft bed was built over a kitchenette, and wire cage shelving housed a t-shirt collection, as if it were on display in the goth shop at the mall.
So it was home, too.
Movement caught Cordelia’s eye and that was when she saw him.
West stood with his back to her. He hadn’t noticed them enter. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and his well defined muscles stood out in bold relief in the dim light. The crisscrossing scars only made him look stronger. His flesh was luminous in the moonlight, and his prosthetics glowed faintly.
Mallory knelt in front of him, her face obscured from view.
Oh no. What had she walked in on?
She’d expected West had moved on. But she certainly wasn’t ready for this.
“Oww,” West said indignantly, his voice echoing in the open space.
“I told you to hold still,” Mallory scolded him.
Mallory stood. Cordelia could see she was holding some kind of portable scanner in her hand.
Oh. Of course.
“Hey, guys,” she called to them, heading over to a computer to plug in the scanner.
West turned.
His face went slack with surprise when he saw her. Then he smiled slowly.
“I brought a friend,” Dalton told him.
Cordelia could hear the smile in his voice, but she didn’t care if Dalton was laughing at her. She was just glad, so glad, to see West.
29
West’s heart raced.
Cordelia.
He was surprised to see her, but glad, so glad.
She was too, he could tell. She was trying to hide her smile, but he could see it pulling up at the corners of her mouth.
God, he missed that smile.
How had he managed to ruin everything with her?
“So what are we doing here?” she asked in her crisp voice.
“Cord, I’m glad you’re here,” he said. Watching her blush did crazy things to him, so he turned to Dalton. “It’s time we all compared notes. There’s more going on here than meets the eye, and we all need to get on the same page, if we have any hope of seeing the big picture.”
“Good,” Mallory said. “Everyone have a seat over there.” She indicated a lab table by the window.
West strode over, pulled out a metal stool and sat, resting his elbows on the cool soapstone surface.
He noticed with satisfaction that Cordelia took the seat next to his as she had habitually done when they worked together.
Dalton and Mallory seated themselves across the table.
“Let’s start with what we have,” West began. “Crime in Glacier City shoots way up for no reason. Then Peter Watson and Major Andrews swoop in to save the town. It sounds too convenient, doesn’t it?”
They all nodded in agreement.
West glanced at Cordelia, he could see the wheels turning.
“It sounds too convenient, because it is,” West continued. “Dalton and I have been running into Alpha division men in the guise of criminals for weeks. They set this up from the beginning. And the new face of the Alpha Division force, Felix Gardner, is sporting tech stolen from the Palma leak.”
“And ousting you from Worthington Enterprises has given them access to everything,” Cordelia sighed.
“No,” Mallory said. “Not yet anyway. We’re still holding strong on that front. Since West signed all the patents over to me, I’ve been able to stall.”
West watched as Cordelia’s eyes got rounder. He was proud all over again of having done the right thing about those damned patents.
“For now,” Mallory added. “Their tech crew is about as sharp as a sack of wet mice, but they are persistent. And we can’t stay in a holding pattern forever. They will get the new tech eventually. And when they do…”
“The streets are already a war zone,” Cordelia murmured. “The new security force is worse than the criminals ever were. If Andrews can upgrade his men, that will be the end.”
“Then what?” Dalton asked.
“What do you mean?” she replied.
“Does Andrews strike you as the type of man whose endgame is to be Glacier City’s new chief of police?” Dalton asked.
“I never thought about it,” Cordelia admitted.
“He has,” Dalton said. “I guarantee it. This is a stepping stone to something else. We just need to figure out what.”
Mallory leaned forward.
“I can tell you from working with his people that they are most definitely treating this whole thing as some sort of field test. Gathering data on all their new toys.”
“So how do we find out what he’s up to?” West asked, trying to cut to the chase before his temper got the best of him.
“Peter and Andrews have been meeting at Worthington,” Cordelia offered. “But he won’t let me anywhere near the meetings.”
“You won’t need to be in on them, as long as you can get into the office when they’re done,” Dalton said with a small smile.
Cordelia raised an eyebrow.
“During my last meeting with Peter, I placed a small listening device under the edge of Peter’s desk—” he began.
“—West’s desk,” Cordelia interjected.
Damn straight.
West felt a burst of benevolence for her.
“Sorry,” Cordelia said. “But I thought we had good anti-snooping measures in place.”
“We do. I set them up myself. There is no way we could transmit a signal out of there without raising flags. So the device is record only. And since it is small, it will only hold a few hours of audio. It’s on a cycle, constantly recording over the old stuff to make room for
the new,” Dalton explained. “Next time Peter meets with Andrews in there, you’ll have to go in and retrieve it. You’re the only one with that kind of access.”
“Done,” she replied immediately.
“In the meantime,” West said. “We have to fight back. Make sure these troops aren’t passing the field test. But that’s too much for just Dalton and me to handle.”
“Way more than you should be handling right now,” Mallory warned him.
“What do you mean?” Cordelia asked, concern marring her soft features.
He knew he’d have to tell Cord the truth about his failing limbs, and what that meant for his future. But this was neither the time, nor the place for that kind of conversation.
“Nothing,” West replied, giving Mallory a terrible look. “Just that we might need some help.”
“But Andrews has a whole unit of highly trained soldiers. How can you compete with that?” Cordelia asked.
“I happen to know where we could find another group of specially trained soldiers that might be willing to lend a hand. If…” Dalton trailed off.
“If?” West asked.
“If we’re willing to give them access to the nanotech Med Pros used to stabilize me and help me control my… condition,” Dalton said without making eye contact.
“That’s Mallory’s tech,” West said immediately. “It’s her call.”
Mallory’s brow furrowed.
“Edward, I’d like to run a few tests first,” she said noncommittally, hopping off her stool.
“Fine by me,” Dalton said, following her across the lab.
Leaving West alone with Cordelia.
30
Dalton tried not to think about the enforced blood testing at Alpha Division, as Mallory swabbed his forearm with a cool alcohol wipe.
This wasn’t the same. He was here of his own free will. Mallory was his friend.
She seemed to sense his tension though, and stopped swabbing to look up at him.
“Everything okay?” she asked, her eyes warm with compassion.
She knew what he was thinking about, though she wasn’t saying it. And he was grateful for that.
“Fine,” he replied.
She nodded and finished up, before turning to grab a syringe.
Dalton knew there was something he should say to her. The road ahead was about to get rough, and he needed to make sure he didn’t have any unspoken words weighing on him.
“I always knew I was lucky that West found me, and took me in when he did,” Dalton told her. “But I only recently realized I was even luckier that you were the one West brought me to.”
“Just doing my job,” she shrugged.
But he could see she was pleased.
He placed a big hand on her shoulder, and she stopped to look into his eyes.
“I owe you my life,” he said earnestly.
Mallory grinned.
“If I had a nickel for every time someone said that to me…Well, I’d have two nickels, I guess.”
“Thank you,” he told her.
“You’re welcome,” she said.
He let go of her shoulder and she slid over a stand of vials from the table behind her.
She pulled up a stool and began to tie a rubber tourniquet around his right biceps. Her pale hands against his dark skin, prepping him for a blood draw, brought back too many memories. He closed his eyes.
“How does Project Cerberus know about our tech?” Mallory asked. “And why do they think it would help?”
“They drew my blood there, constantly. When they found traces of the nanotech, they brought in equipment to analyze it, fortunately I got away before they could do it,” he replied, remembering how close he’d been to having that last sample drawn from him.
“Interesting,” Mallory observed, pulling off the first vial of blood and attaching another.
“How’s that?” he asked.
“The nanotech was just a stop gap,” she explained, removing the second vial. “I only used it to suppress the reactions they put in place, until we could get to the bottom of what was going on with you.”
“So?” Dalton asked.
“So, it’s not what keeps you level. At least not anymore. There may be traces in your system, but the bots aren’t self replicating. After the first few months, you were able to control the change on your own. I never did get the answers I was looking for, but I felt you’d already been a lab rat long enough.”
She finished, removing the tourniquet from his arm and slipping the needle out.
“So it’s just… me?” he asked, incredulous.
“One hundred percent pure Dalton,” she smiled as she smoothed a bandaid over the sore spot on his arm. Tiny cartoon ninja turtles peeked up at him.
“So if we share this?” he asked.
“It will be a temporary solution,” Mallory said, straightening up. “If it works at all.”
“What do you think?” Dalton asked.
“I think we better hope it works long enough,” Mallory said, her eyes on the wall of glass overlooking the ugliest part of the city.
Dalton looked out over the Scar for a moment, too. This wasn’t the only part of the city that needed saving. Hell, even the saviors needed saving.
He glanced at West and Cordelia, their heads close together.
“And I think we better get back to those two,” Mallory said, echoing his own sentiments perfectly. “Before they start making out, or punching each other, or whatever it is they do nowadays.”
31
West watched Dalton disappear with Mallory. Then he turned to Cord.
She looked nervous. But she wasn’t hopping up or moving away from him.
They needed to talk - about so much. But West was determined to take it slow. He couldn’t risk scaring her off again.
“Thanks for coming,” he said.
“Sure,” she turned to him with a small smile. Her straw colored hair shone like gold under the overhead light. Her eyes were so blue.
“It’s good to have you on board,” he told her, trying not to lose himself.
“We make a good team,” she replied softly.
Team.
“We do,” he agreed.
It would be so easy to lean in and brush her lips with his, lose himself in all that delirious sweetness. She wouldn’t push him away, he knew it.
No.
That was how they’d gotten into this mess to begin with. And she would only regret it.
He needed to tell her the truth. About some things at least.
“Dalton told me about Jess,” he said quickly, tearing his eyes from hers before he chickened out.
She pressed her lips together and looked down at her hands.
“Don’t be mad at him, Cord. He didn’t have much choice, it was an important part of our decision to move forward with all of this,” West explained.
“I’m not mad. It wasn’t fair of me to ask him to keep it from you in the first place. I just…” she trailed off. Too polite, as usual to confront him for his unforgivable behavior.
“I understand,” he told her.
Her eyes snapped up to meet his again.
“Do you?” she asked.
“I let you down. Both of you. I thought I had a good reason, but it doesn’t really matter why. I don’t blame you for not trusting me,” he told her.
She studied his face, as if she were trying to read him.
“I should have been honest with you. I was afraid,” he told her, opening up instead of giving in to his instinct to shut down and lash out at her for doubting.
“Me too,” she said at last.
Something squeezed his heart, and he fought the urge to hug her.
“I want to get Jess back on track for her treatment. As soon as we work out a few… glitches,” he told her. There were the words he had wanted to say, the words he should have said from the beginning.
The words that could lead to questions he didn’t want to answer.
“Gli
tches? Does this have something to do with what happened to Sean Cooper?” she asked with a furrowed brow.
“Mallory’s on top of it now. We should be ready to start moving forward again soon,” he assured her.
The tension on her face relaxed a bit and he saw the old Cordelia again. The gentle, watchful expression, the lively eyes that told him she was two steps ahead of him.
He smiled down at her, happy as a child.
She licked her lips. The tip of her velvet tongue stroking the beautiful shy smile he loved sent the blood thundering in his ears.
“Cordelia,” he said.
The word was a prayer, an incantation.
Her lips parted slightly, her eyes were slightly hazy, as if in anticipation.
He leaned toward her, splitting the distance between them, decimating it.
She held her ground, the delicate pulse at the base of her throat thrumming.
He was close enough to see the light freckles on her cheeks, to inhale the scent of her lotion.
The moment was like a drug. He couldn’t just kiss her, though he knew with wild certainty that the kiss was inevitable now. He wanted to live, for a while, in this nimbus of anticipation. Enjoying her, before claiming her. Taking it slowly, slowly, just like she wanted.
Cordelia’s eyes widened and West realized she was looking over his shoulder.
“We’re in,” Mallory announced from behind him. “Dalton is setting up a meeting with Sterling.”
32
Cordelia tried to remember to breathe.
West had been about to kiss her. She had wanted him to kiss her.
And Mallory had totally seen what was going on. Hadn’t she?
She studied her friend, who was nodding at West in a very professional way.
Oh, brother.
Now Cordelia had missed what West said. And she knew Mallory was only acting professional because she had seen what was going on.
Nothing like having your failed personal life under a microscope. Mallory was practically watching a soap opera every time she was around them - lust, betrayal, greed, kidnapping, even a guy with an eyepatch. All it needed was a couple of commercials for fabric softener and personal injury lawyers.
