by James Moore
Theresa wanted to go to him, but the insistent tug in her mind pulled harder, making her look in the other direction. Despite her desires, she turned from Joe at the intersection, drawn to the call of the other voice.
She glanced back and saw no sign of Joe—just the bodies he’d left behind.
Chapter Forty-Five
Joe Bronx
THEY WERE EVERYWHERE, LIKE cockroaches. He knew about roaches. The damned things had come out of the woodwork in half the hotels he’d called home in the last five years.
The guards came for him, some of them moving cautiously, some of them braver than they were smart, all of them armed and trying to take him down.
And he reveled in it. They charged at him and Joe struck them down, knocking them aside or bending them until they broke, whichever served his purpose at that moment.
He should have been exhausted, but his body was singing with adrenaline and he felt as alive as he ever had. Not-Tina was an unexpected surprise. He fired four bullets at the crowd of guards coming for him and let out a battle cry at the same time. They did the sensible thing and broke ranks. The hallways were not overly wide, and they knew that the bullets he fired would find targets if they kept coming for him. Two of the rounds hit people and dropped them, dead or wounded. He charged past and held the weapon where they could all see it. They wisely ran away from him.
And then the hallway was empty for a moment. Joe listened, studying its length, trying to figure out what would happen next. He still didn’t know where the hell he was or how to get out. Of course, he had things to take care of before he left, but still, it would have been good to know how to escape when the time came.
The ceiling was solid. Instead of acoustic tiles, there was merely concrete. No way to easily escape from being seen, no way to sneak past the cameras. And there were cameras everywhere.
Damn.
A face peered around the corner, and he almost took a shot but stopped himself when he recognized the features. It was one of the Doppelgangers, one of the ones designed to replace him. She was looking at him with a cold, careful stare, taking his measure. He took careful aim and fired at the spot between her eyes. She was fast enough to get away, which was exactly what he’d expected.
Five bullets gone, which meant twelve more if he was lucky.
The girl came back into view along with two more, all three of them armed, and none of them carrying the dart guns. They were using real guns with real bullets. Damn.
There wasn’t much choice in the matter. He either retreated from them and risked getting shot in the back, or he charged toward them and cut loose with everything he had. Neither idea had much appeal, but the notion of dying a coward’s death was far worse.
“I’m coming for you!” He made sure his voice was loud and clear, and he punctuated the sentence with a bullet. The same girl he’d missed before didn’t quite get clear a second time and he saw a wound open in her shoulder where the bullet passed through meat.
The girl screamed and the oversized male with her took careful aim and fired. Joe had the same luck as the girl. He felt a bullet crease his side just under his arm as he charged. He didn’t let himself flinch, but instead took aim and fired again, aiming for the bastard with the decent marksmanship. His bullet blew a hole in the loser’s stomach. The weapon fell from the bruiser’s hands and he scrambled to cover the wound in his guts.
Joe had killed many times in his life, but never one of his own kind. He felt an odd twinge of guilt as he took aim again and fired a second round at the boy holding his insides in place.
The second bullet was a killing shot.
The third Doppelganger cut loose with a hail of bullets. Her weapon was automatic, and she didn’t waste time taking careful aim. Instead she fired a spray of bullets toward him as she screamed her rage in his direction.
Adrenaline roared through Joe’s body and he ignored the pain as three bullets slapped into him. None of them were lethal, but all of them were painful. He should have run away, he knew that, but instead Joe charged, loping forward like an ape until he reached the girl with the trigger finger and slammed into her with his full strength. She was a Doppelganger—that meant increased strength and reflexes—but like him she was furious and that made her foolish. He was wounded, bleeding and exhausted.
Joe smashed her into the wall hard enough to break bones. She did not scream, but instead let out a small gasp before she collapsed. He didn’t stop to think about her. Instead he looked to the other girl—the one he’d winged—and fired at her again from less than four feet away.
Like her boyfriend before her, she fell down, very likely dead or dying.
Joe stared down at the bodies for a moment and panted, his blood singing, his wounds wailing their agony into his system.
Three down. Two dead, one broken. He shook his head. Not what he wanted. He wanted them working with him, not dying because of him.
Still, he was standing and his enemies were falling. That was what mattered.
A camera looked blindly at him from twenty feet away. He hoped Evelyn was looking on, watching him destroy all she had worked so hard for.
“I’m coming for you, Evelyn!”
He didn’t wait around to see if she would respond—for all he knew there were intercoms in the damned place. Joe grabbed the weapons he could and ran, headed for Evelyn Hope and the answers to his questions. His blood fell from open wounds, and still he charged forward.
This was going to end, one way or another.
Chapter Forty-Six
Evelyn Hope
EVELYN WATCHED THREE OF her best—Sean, Mary, and Tori—fall to Seven and felt a shiver run down her back.
“That. He can’t just.” George was having trouble making a full sentence.
“He can. He did.” And really, right then, at that moment, she knew he had to die. It hurt her, but she couldn’t let him stay around any longer. Subject Seven was simply too dangerous to let live, even if it meant she had to say goodbye to Bobby again, once and for all. She forced the threatening tears back and got to work.
She looked at the security monitors. On one of the screens, two members of security were dragging Josh off the floor and heading for medical as quickly as they could. He was screaming and thrashing. She could understand that. He was in agony. She could see how badly ruined his foot was, even on a small black-and-white screen.
On another screen, she saw Rafael react to his people falling to Seven. He didn’t crumble as she’d feared, but she could see him screaming at his subordinates. He was angry, and that was good. That was important, because the Doppelgangers worked best when they were angry. They were designed to think better and faster when they were enraged than when they were afraid. That was one of the things that made them such good soldiers. Fear wasn’t exactly alien to them, but it wasn’t the way they were wired to think and feel. They had been designed to be perfect stealth weapons and perfect killing machines, and that meant they functioned better in situations that would have left most human soldiers crippled.
And she needed Rafael angry. She needed him capable of thinking and reacting faster than Seven.
She slipped the headset on quickly and tapped the access code into her keyboard.
“Rafael.”
“Yes.” His voice was curt and hard. Good.
“He’s injured. Yes, he’s hurt—maybe even killed—some of your people, but they hurt him. Act quickly and you can take him down, do you hear me?”
He looked around. “Where is he?”
“North wing. Heading for the center of the compound.”
“He’s mine. Get everyone out of my way.” It wasn’t a request. He wanted Seven dead.
“Don’t forget the command phrase. Take him down hard and fast, before he can kill anyone else.”
Rafael didn’t answer. Instead he charged toward the north wing as quickly as he could, his two remaining Strikers in tow, both looking as ready for a fight as he was.
Chapter For
ty-Seven
Hank
HANK STAGGERED, HIS LEGS weak, his head swimming. His eyes refused to focus properly, and the only reason he was able to see worth a damn was because he was seeing from Not-Kyrie and Sam’s perspectives. It was disorienting, but he was able to view the world from their eyes and from Theresa’s as well.
None of which made it any easier for him to keep his balance. If that was what Joe went through, he had to admire the bastard’s self-control.
But there was no time for that. He had to get them out of this place and quickly, because he could feel his body and his mind trying to fall apart. Cody was whispering in his head constantly and that was a comfort, but it challenged his ability to focus. Maybe he was going to die—he was almost certain that he was—but he wanted them safe first. That was important. He needed them safe, because then dying would at least have a decent purpose.
Not that he didn’t prefer living, of course.
He could sense Theresa coming closer. That was good. That was a big plus.
“She’s coming. She’s almost here.”
“How the hell do you know that?” Sam was staring hard at him.
“I can smell her, too.” Not-Kyrie. He understood something that even she didn’t really get. Her senses were insane. He knew he could hear, see, and smell far better than Cody, but in comparison to Not-Kyrie, he was almost blind and deaf. He didn’t clarify but instead savored the puzzled look on Sam’s face. Sam was trouble. He had to think about whether or not he was going to tell the others about the boy betraying them. In any event, it would have to wait.
Theresa was almost there, and he could hear her being chased.
Bring them around the corner. Come left and then duck, okay? He spoke without words. She answered with words and thoughts, not aware that he didn’t actually need the words.
She’s coming. Take aim. Be ready.
They both nodded and all three of them took careful aim with the dart guns they’d liberated.
Theresa came in low and fast, literally running on all fours. She bounded around the corner at high speed and stayed low. They waited and fired as one, spurred on by Hank’s mental commands.
The darts shot through the air and nailed the guards. Hank’s target took one in the shoulder, Sam’s in the chest and Not-Kyrie’s got a dart in the side of his face and let out a scream worthy of a cranky baby.
All three of them were falling by the time the next group came around the corner.
How many?
“Lots!” Theresa answered, getting back to her feet. She dug around in a sack slung over her shoulder and danced out of the way of the three of them as she kept searching. “I got a grenade in here somewhere. Hang on.”
“A grenade?! Have you lost your mind?” Sam’s voice cracked, but Hank could also sense a thrill in the other boy’s mind. He wanted to know how much damage a grenade would do to their enemies.
“We’re in a hallway. Blow up the walls, and this place comes down on us.” Hank moved closer to the corner and took a look around the edge, assessing the damage as best he could, despite the way the room wanted to swim. He didn’t get a clear count, but there were twenty or more men in uniforms down that way.
Theresa moved up next to him and threw her grenade. It bounced and spun and rolled down the hallway and Hank felt his eyes grow to the size of saucers in his head. She’d actually thrown the damned thing, even after he warned against it.
“It’s a concussion grenade. Big noise, no explosion. Run.” Her voice was very direct and carried an edge of excitement.
Hank turned fast enough to make the hallway swim faster and started running. He could hear the guards down the hallway from them screaming as they realized what had been thrown.
Hank ran, and Not-Kyrie was right there, grabbing his arm and guiding him on, urging him to move faster and faster.
And then the noise came and the air vanished from around them for a few seconds as the grenade detonated. He felt like he was floating for just a second, and then he felt nothing at all.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Sam Hall
SAM LOOKED DOWN AT Hank as the smoke cleared. The impact had been bad, but not rough enough to drop the other boy. He wasn’t well, and that was all there was to it. As Sam looked Hank over, Theresa and Not-Kyrie both stood back up.
A quick calculation: Theresa was facing the other direction and holding her head. The noise and concussive force had stunned her. Not-Kyrie was worse. If he was right, she was more sensitive to sound than any of the rest of them, and for her that meant it must have been like getting swatted by the world’s biggest baseball bat.
Hank still wasn’t moving. His head was turned just enough that if he’d been conscious, he would have moved it. It was at the sort of angle where one quick stomp on the back of his head would either kill him outright or leave him paralyzed. Especially a kick coming from someone strong enough to knock down an oak door, like Sam.
The only person who could point out that he’d betrayed them was down and out. If he was smart about it, he’d finish him off.
It was simple math, really.
“Damn it.” He mumbled the words as he grabbed Hank and slung the larger boy over his shoulder. “Let’s go! Places to be and all that crap!” He barely looked at the girls as he started moving. They needed to be elsewhere; that was all there was to it.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Evelyn Hope
EVELYN TALKED TO THE medics as she watched the animals running free in her zoo. Josh’s foot was a loss. They’d be amputating. It was that or let him bleed out.
Despite her fears, Seven had only wounded the Strike Team members. It was easy to forget exactly how tough they were. They were out of commission, but if the surgeries went well, they’d probably recover completely, given enough time to rest.
This was starting to look up a bit, and that scared the hell out of her. Where Seven was concerned, it was best to assume the worst at all times. He was . . . well, he was a monster. She knew it and couldn’t stop thinking it.
George cleared his throat and pointed to the monitors. Rafael was closing in on Seven. The thought made her pulse race.
“He’s ahead of you on the right, Rafael. Next corridor, halfway down the hall.” She spoke into the headset that communicated directly with Gabby’s Doppelganger and felt her muscles tense at the thought. Gabby loved Bobby. Gabby adored and revered the memories of his older brother, who was both hero and figure of legend in his mind. For years she had filled his head with tales of his older brother when it was bedtime. Gabriel was such a sweet boy. She knew in her head that Rafael was not as kind or as gentle. Her heart? That was a different story. He was a fighter, and a damned skilled one. She’d watched him take on ten men in heavily padded armor and mop the floor with them on a few occasions. He was well trained and designed to be as fierce as Seven. Truth be told, he was closer to Seven than a lot of the others, because like Seven he was an Alpha, and they were naturally stronger and faster than their counterparts, a happy coincidence that helped them keep control in almost any situation.
He had guns, body armor and the command phrase that would turn Seven into Bobby, stripping him of all of his combat knowledge and a good deal of his aggressiveness. He had every advantage, besides having two more of the Strike Team with him.
And she was still ready to pee her pants thinking about him going up against Seven.
“Be careful.”
Rafael didn’t answer, but he nodded, letting her know he’d heard her. Seven was too close by, and speaking would alert the enemy.
George spoke up, pointing his hand at another monitor. She was reminded again that he was the best assistant she could have ever asked for. Without being told to, he was keeping her up on the location of all the players in their drama. The rest of Seven’s collection of rejects was moving toward the exit. That would not do. A quick tap of a few buttons sent the elevator up to the surface level, removing their chance for an easy method of escape. T
he car would not move from that location until she typed in another code, and she had no intention of doing so. She wasn’t that foolish.
They weren’t going anywhere. She and the rest of her people had learned from previous mistakes with Seven. No escapes, not ever.
“Tell me again why we never put a damned intercom system in this station, George?” With a proper intercom she could have ended this. A simple command phrase and Seven would have been down and out. The information was classified, of course, but she doubted many people would have remembered the words. The phrases were set up to be awkward, nonsensical configurations that wouldn’t be easy to recall.
“Why else? Security. PA systems hardly lead to good security.” He sniffed as he spoke, and she knew that he was resisting the temptation to say he’d told her so, which he had. That was for the best. She was currently armed and in exactly a bad enough a mood to wing him if he decided to be an ass.
Instead of pulling the trigger, she quickly keyed into her communications and called for security to head for the elevator. “Bring out the real artillery. They are now armed. Shoot to kill.” She didn’t wait for a response but immediately switched channels again. “Right around the corner, Rafael. You’ll have visual in a moment.”
Rafael nodded, impatiently this time, and though she had no idea what he said, his Strike Team immediately crouched a bit lower, their hands holding their weapons.
It was time.
Evelyn licked her lips, which were suddenly too damned dry.
It was time for Seven to die.
Chapter Fifty
Joe Bronx
JOE SAVORED THE SOUND of the alarms for a moment, knowing that in a few seconds they would be gone. He reached into his pocket for the darts he’d set aside earlier.
