by James Moore
“How many warnings I got to give you before you decide I’m serious!?” The alarms were louder down here, so she let herself yell as she pulled him in closer, pushing him against the wall. “You want to piss me off? You want to bleed?”
He winced as she pushed the weapon against his leg. “No! I’m sorry! I’m just scared!”
“Be scared! But be smart! I swear to God I should just kill your sad ass right now!”
Warburton closed his eyes and trembled, and Theresa smiled to herself. It was nice to be in charge. She could get used to it. “Seriously, piggy, you twitch funny and I’m taking off your stupid foot.” She thumped his leg a few times to make her point. “Blow it right the hell off. Test me.” She bared her teeth and stared hard into his eyes. He had to know she meant it. “Please.”
When he was finally calmed down a bit, Theresa let Warburton lead the way. His knees shook, but he walked.
Chapter Forty
Cody Laurel/Hank
WHAT’S HAPPENING?
You heard. We’re dying.
I don’t want to die.
How do you think I feel, Cody? I’ve barely had two weeks here.
You’ve been around a little longer than that.
Yes, I have, but I haven’t been active. Mostly I’ve been stuck sleeping inside of you. There was no resentment, just explanation.
So how do we fix this?
One of us is going to have to die, I think. If we keep changing, we’re going to fall apart.
What do you mean? He didn’t want to die. He wanted to get home to his parents and pretend this had never happened. There were video games to play, and a fervent hope that someday he would actually kiss a girl—hell—maybe even get to second base.
Can’t you feel it? Bad things are happening inside of us. Of course he felt it. The pain was there constantly. And the cold.
How do we decide?
Why don’t we just let the body decide?
How, Hank?
Just . . . just let it happen. Whatever the body decides, we just have to go with it.
I’m scared. If he couldn’t be truthful with himself, who could he be truthful with? And, okay, so Hank was maybe not completely him, but he was definitely part of the equation.
Me too. I don’t want to die. Cody took comfort in that knowledge. If dying scared Hank too, maybe Cody wasn’t the world’s biggest wimp. Just, you know, a contender.
So don’t.
Might not have a choice.
Maybe we do.
What do you mean? He could feel Hank’s curiosity, sense that he had his Other’s attention.
Let the body decide. But don’t give up on the mind.
Close your eyes. It’s time. Let’s get this done.
They closed their eyes just as the alarms sounded.
Chapter Forty-One
Not-Kyrie
NOT-KYRIE CARRIED CODY with ease; but his body was changing again and that meant she was losing the fight to haul around his deadweight. They were out in the hallway and running as much as they could. But the place was laid out like a maze, and they had no idea where the hell they were, as Sam kept pointing out again and again.
“You have to carry him. He’s getting too heavy.” She bent at the waist to set Cody down. Even as she did, his legs worked and he was standing. His body was weak and shaking, but he was standing. It was something.
“I’m good.” His voice sounded all wrong. Not Cody, not Hank, but something different.
His body had stabilized a bit too, locked halfway between the transformations. The skin around his eyes looked dark and bruised, and his flesh was pasty to the point of resembling clown makeup, but he was conscious.
“Are you okay?”
Hank shook his head. In her heart she knew it was Hank looking at her, not Cody. He was too calm to be Cody. “Feel like shit, but I’m up. Let’s go. We have to get to the west side of the building.”
“Why?” That was Sam.
“Theresa is here. She’s trying to break us out.” He walked as he spoke, and without even being aware of it, the other two followed him.
“Wait. Who is Theresa?” Not-Kyrie asked.
“Not-Tina. She gave herself a name.” Not-Kyrie frowned, and when she did, Hank 2.0 gave a grin that was pure Cody. “Looks like you’re behind the curve on this one.”
She hadn’t known either of the boys for very long, but what she was talking to was enough of Hank and of Cody that it was unsettling. Then he looked away from her and turned abruptly down a corridor that veered to the left.
Sam was right behind her and glancing in every direction at once. “We need to get the hell out of here. Seriously. There are guards.”
“I know. I can hear some of them coming. Get ready.” Sam nodded and listened, scowling. He was angry, she knew that, but he was also excited. They all were. They were bred for this: for danger and violence. It was a part of what made them what they were, whatever that really was. That was what they’d hoped to discover, after all.
Sam handed her a dart gun. “Whatever’s in these things, it’ll give us at least one less target when it hits, right?”
She took the weapon and flipped it in her hand a couple of times as she moved, examining the trigger and the barrel. Definitely not a regular gun, but if it fired, it would probably cause someone a world of hurt. It was good enough for her.
Hank was almost out of range and she moved to catch up with him, frowning again, puzzled. He moved like he knew where he was going, but that was impossible.
Wasn’t it?
Chapter Forty-Two
Joe Bronx
HE PUSHED BACK A strange sense of déjà vu as the guard opened the door to his cell. The alarms echoed madly in the hallway, and he could see lights flashing in the distance, even from his vantage point.
The guard looked at the empty bed and then looked around the room. Joe was bigger than he had been the last time he’d hidden in the corner of the ceiling, so the guard spotted him around the same time Joe landed on his face. Had he been using his brain, he would have looked into the room through the two-way glass, but he wasn’t that damned smart.
The next guard wasn’t much brighter. He was reaching for a large red button on the side of the hallway wall as Joe lunged at him. As if hitting the alarm would make a difference now that the alarms were already screaming.
He hit the button at the same time Joe hit his face. The man’s face shattered. The wall button had just sent an electrical impulse that started the alarms. Too late.
There were five men total who came to Joe’s door. The greeter and the button pusher were down and broken before the others knew what was happening. The other three had a bad problem on their hands.
Joe was feeling a little like shedding blood.
One of them had a gun. Not a normal gun, but something that was designed for short ranges. Joe could smell chemicals coming from the barrel. Just to make sure he didn’t get any new chemicals added to the stew, he grabbed the hand holding the gun and wrenched it to the side. A dart fired from the tip and bounced off the wall. The jerk with the gun watched the dart as it flew, like his entire life depended on it somehow pulling a fast one and flying at Joe all by itself.
While he was watching the dart, Joe kicked him in the chest. The man barely had time to grunt before he was bouncing off the wall too. That left two guards, both of whom were smarter than their companions. They tried to run.
Joe let them live, but he made sure they didn’t try to get any more help. They bounced off the walls hard enough to break a few bones, but not hard enough to suffer brain trauma.
He listened with his ears and with his mind. The alarms drowned out almost everything else, and he still couldn’t hear the others in his head. The silence enraged him. Was it the drugs? Had Evelyn and her vile minions killed all of his new family? He didn’t know, but the thought festered inside of him like a slow-moving poison and made him angrier still.
Evelyn Hope. She’d be coming soon. H
e knew that. No way would she be far off. She needed to see him, to watch him die. He knew that in his heart. Especially if she had killed his people. She’d want him to know first. How did he know that? Because it was what he’d want. He’d want to see her suffer before she died. How different was he from the only woman he could ever call his mother?
Enough. It was time to leave.
Joe looked the people over and saw no weapons, save more dart guns. They’d come to subdue him and little more. Not surprising, really.
He grabbed two of the guns. One he tucked under his arm. The other one, he had different plans for. He opened the cylinder and pulled out the first two of the four darts inside. A few seconds later he threw the emptied syringes to the ground.
Time to go. Time to finish this.
“Evelyn? Are you listening?” He looked around the hallway until he spotted what he’d known would be there. A video camera. “Can you hear me, Mother? I’m coming for you. This is over!”
He ran past the camera and darted to the right at the first intersection. He had no idea where he was going, but he had to go somewhere. He’d find someone to give him directions soon enough.
Chapter Forty-Three
Evelyn Hope
“GABRIEL?”
Gabby looked up at her and blinked the sleep from his eyes. “Yeah, Mom?”
“Does the moon always shine so brightly at noon?” Evelyn closed her eyes. She didn’t want to see him change. She wanted to see her baby boy, not the soldier he became. Still, that was a luxury she was not allowed just then.
Rafael stood at attention, his body rigid, his posture perfect.
“Yes, ma’am?” He didn’t question the clothes he was in. He didn’t ask for explanations. Rafael was a good soldier. In return, she was all business.
“I need you to assemble your team. Subject Seven has escaped. Get him. Get him now and take him down.”
“Do you want him alive?”
A damned fine question, that. “Preferably. Use the command phrase. Drop him as quickly as you can. But if it’s him or you, kill him.”
Rafael nodded as he slipped into his shoes. “Yes, ma’am.”
He left the suite they were staying in. He already knew the way to the barracks for the others. Their control parents had not come on the trip, so they stayed together in a separate area. By rights, Rafael should have been with them, but Evelyn wanted the comfort of having her son closer. And now she was sending him off again to fight against her other son. A monster. Her stomach roiled at the notion, her heart pounded in her chest. She hated this.
But at least he wouldn’t be alone. He’d be with five other armed and highly trained soldiers who were capable of bench pressing in excess of seven hundred pounds each. That thought should have comforted her, and yet she still felt the butterflies trying to tear her stomach apart.
Seven wouldn’t live through the night if everything went the way it should. Bobby would be dead, but that was a tragic necessity. If a sacrifice had to be made, she preferred losing Bobby to Gabriel.
Just in case, she double-checked her weapons. If he did get past Rafael’s Strike Team, he would be coming for her. She knew that. In her very soul, she knew that. And this time, she would be ready for him.
George entered the room without asking, his face pale and his mouth drawn down in a tight line. He was scared. He had every reason to be.
Just the same, the hand that held his pistol didn’t shake in the least as he checked it again.
“Let’s get to the office, George. The doors there are armored.”
George nodded and started down the hallway. That was good. She wasn’t sure if she could remember the way to the office.
Fear did that to a person. Made one forget things.
And she was so damned afraid.
Chapter Forty-Four
Theresa
WARBURTON STOPPED WHEN HIS phone started ringing, and Theresa stopped too, looking at him as if he’d lost his freaking mind.
“Okay, seriously?”
“What? I have to answer it.” He was sounding awfully defensive.
“Rules ain’t changed. You say a word about me, I’ll blow that foot right off your leg.”
He nodded, but he looked annoyed. He was starting to think she was a joke, and that pissed her off.
“Evelyn, yes. I’m here. I just got here. What’s going on? Why the alarms?” He nodded in response. “Yes, well, there was no one at the main desk. I waltzed in here like I owned the place. Yes, I’m aware that I own the place, which is why I’m firing whoever was supposed to be in reception.”
Seriously? She stared at him. These guys were idiots.
Warburton started pacing. “Evelyn, none of the Doppelgangers here are ready for combat. You know that. It’s going to be your kids or no one.”
How many of us did they make? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
He looked back at her—a nervous flicker of his eyes—and licked his lips. And she knew right then that she should have been paying better attention to what was going on around her, because damned if she didn’t know at that exact second that he’d betrayed her with some comment or code phrase.
He had the same problem that everyone had: he thought she was stupid. Tina wasn’t dumb, and neither was Theresa. Tina knew enough to watch the made men around her and to understand more about them than they realized. Her common sense gave Theresa an edge. Theresa knew what Tina knew.
She turned her head just in time to see the attackers coming for her from behind, all of them moving fast and trying to be quiet, a task made easier by the alarms going off.
She saw them. They saw her. She fired first. The weapon had a lot more kick than she’d expected, and the first bullet blew a hole in the wall next to the first man in line. He let out a yelp and she fired a second time, compensating for the explosive power of the weapon. The bullet struck the man in his hip and spun him around before he hit the ground. Long before that time came to pass, Theresa had aimed and fired twice more. Two more guards fell to the ground. She didn’t bother to see if they were dead or alive. All that mattered to her was that they were no longer an immediate threat.
By the time she turned back to Warburton, he was running, his little body jiggling and wiggling and panting as he ran for all he was worth. When Tina was a kid, she’d watched footage of a panther taking down a deer in the middle of some sort of jungle. Theresa remembered it only in flashes, but she could access the images if she tried. She felt like that cat as she charged, covering the distance between the two of them in a second.
She leaped and landed on Warburton, her unexpected weight on his upper back staggering him and sending him to his knees. He fell hard and grunted and cried out as he dropped to the ground. She moved away from him, landing on her feet and stopping her forward momentum with ease.
Warburton was panting hard when she walked up to his prone body. He looked back at her with wide, tearing eyes.
Tina would have pissed herself. She wasn’t strong. Not like Theresa was. Theresa knew that, even if Tina didn’t. Lucky for both of them, it was Theresa in charge right then.
“What the hell did I tell you I was gonna do?” She hissed the words past clenched teeth.
“I. Please. I didn’t.”
The bullet slammed into Warburton’s ankle at high speed, and lead expanded as it hit the bone. The bone shattered. Warburton screamed as the impact shredded his foot into a ruin of meat and bone.
“You’re useless! I should kill you!” Her rage grew. The more he screamed, the more she hated him for his weakness. This little pig was one of the people responsible for creating her? The idea made her sick. “I should kill your wife and your kids! Give me a reason not to kill them, you stupid loser!”
He was beyond the ability to speak. Josh Warburton was screaming in pain and holding what was left of his leg in an effort to stop the bleeding.
Without another word, Theresa turned away from him. He was nothing. Less than nothing.
>
She had things to do.
Theresa. We need you.
“Tell me where I’m going.”
The voice didn’t respond with words. Instead she felt a tug in her mind, telling her what direction to go. She followed the feeling, moving toward the left as soon as she could. As she moved, she did her best to keep her eyes and ears open, and she also pulled two more prizes from her bag of weapons. Only one of them had bullets. The other was much worse.
When she heard the sound of moving feet, she stopped and slid against the wall. The noises were coming from ahead of her, at the closest intersection, and from the right. The odd pulling sensation in her head was still coming from her left, meaning that the noises probably weren’t coming from her friends.
She was half right.
A man in a black uniform sailed through the air at the intersection screaming the entire way, at least until the wall stopped him. He crumpled to the ground in a broken pile, and a second later Joe came into her view, his face set in a savage sneer and his hands already covered with blood.
Despite the situation, she felt her blood pressure surge. Damn, he was a handsome sight, even in the worst of situations. Maybe because of the situation. She didn’t know. She just knew he confused her.
He looked directly at her and shook his head. It wasn’t a sign that he didn’t want to see her, but a quick communication. His eyes told her there were plenty of opponents coming and that if she stepped into the mess he’d made, she’d be in for a world of trouble.
Theresa nodded and tossed one of her guns toward him. Joe grinned as he snatched the weapon out of the air and dropped to the ground at the same time. He rolled his body to the side and crouched against the wall, looking back the way he’d come.
A moment later he was moving, charging toward whatever was chasing him. She heard the sound of the gun firing again and again, but the noise was quickly swallowed by Joe’s roar of anger.
