by Greg Cox
She rushed forward, gently pulling the children's collapsed bodies off each other as she searched frantically for her servo. The kids' inert forms were dead weight, which left her struggling against gravity as well as time. If I can just find it in time, she thought desperately, I can still 'port us out of here!
But such furious exertion only used up her last breath faster. Cheeks bulging with exhaled carbon dioxide, she caught one brief, frustrating glimpse of metallic silver, poking out from beneath a pile of slumbering toddlers, before she burst out gasping, sucking in lungfuls of tainted air that sent her head spinning and turned her legs into overcooked spaghetti. She tried to focus her increasingly fuzzy vision, which fell helplessly upon an indistinct black blur atop the attendant's desk.
Isis was already out cold by the time Roberta's world went completely dark.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“YOU KNOW, WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT, SHE CAUSED MORE confusion than actual harm.” Walter Takagi tugged uncomfortably on the collar of his T-shirt as he and Dr. Kaur contemplated the gassed form of the woman he knew as Dr. Veronica Neary, prostrate upon the padded floor of the Developmental Deviations Unit. All around them, teams of security guards and child-care specialists tended to the unfortunate children who, with their caretaker, had been gassed along with Ronnie. Like these poor, defective kids didn't have enough problems, he thought sourly. “Ultimately, the project was only compromised, not irreparably damaged.”
“That's small comfort, Walter,” Kaur said soberly. The director of Chrysalis watched the unconscious children being carted away to the infirmary, a discontented expression upon her refined features. “After years of secrecy and meticulous preparation, we have now been infiltrated by two spies in nearly as many days, one of whom we actively welcomed into our ranks.” A slippered foot tapped impatiently against the floor, hinting at the degree of anxiety at work behind Kaur's composed exterior. “A most unsettling turn of affairs.”
Takagi gulped nervously. He had heard rumors about what happened to those who violated Chrysalis's acute code of secrecy. Like that American, Singer, who disappeared without explanation while I was in Rome, he remembered. Nobody even mentions him anymore.
“I take full responsibility,” he offered, secretly hoping that his willingness to own up to his mistake would count in his favor, perhaps mitigating whatever harsh disciplinary action Kaur had in mind. “She fooled me completely.”
“So it seems,” Kaur agreed. Takagi waited for the axe to fall, resolving to face his punishment with as much dignity as he could muster. Grisly visions of seppuku, lifted mostly from old samurai movies he saw as a kid, slashed their way across his imagination. To his surprise, however, Kaur merely sighed and gave him a thin, rueful smile. “ Unfortunately, Dr. Lozinak and I were equally taken in. Nor can you be blamed for the unwelcome advent of Mr. Seven. Clearly, our essential security was breached at some earlier point, perhaps via our New York operation.” She scowled thoughtfully. “I think it best that we declare a moratorium on recruiting new talent into Chrysalis until we get to the bottom of these incursions, and perhaps beyond.”
“Absolutely!” Takagi responded hastily. An overwhelming sense of relief coursed through his body, rendering him almost light-headed. Looks like I'm not dead meat after all! “That's a very good idea, of course.”
About a meter away, the guards hefted the last of the imperfect children off the floor. A glint of silver caught his eye, and he recognized the slim, metallic pen that Ronnie had used to put Dr. Lozinak to sleep. Judging from the alert expression that suddenly leaped into Kaur's eyes, she had spotted the suspicious device as well.
Without waiting for one of her bodyguards to retrieve the disguised weapon, she pounced on the pen herself. Lifting it from the floor, where it had lain hidden beneath the bodies of the narcotized toddlers, she held it up to the light, inspecting it carefully from every direction. “Of course,” she murmured intensely, her eyes narrowing in anger, “I knew there had to be a connection.”
Before Takagi's baffled eyes, she fished an identical pen out of the pocket of her lab coat. She held them side by side in front of her, then collected them both in her fist and forcefully thrust them both back into her pocket. “It appears that Mr. Seven and Dr. Neary, or whatever their real names are, are supplied by the same unknown agency,” she explained curtly.
Takagi was tempted to ask for more details, but decided, upon rapid consideration, not to push his luck. Best to keep a low profile for a while, he resolved, as much as he was dying to find out more about who this Gary Seven character was, until this whole fiascoh as time to f ade in people's memories. Assuming it ever does. Times like this, he couldn't help wondering if he wouldn't have been better off sticking with his comfortable teaching gig in Osaka.
Sprawled upon the cushioned and graffiti-covered floor of the DDU, Ronnie stirred fitfully, coughing hoarsely before dropping back into drug-induced slumber. Despite everything, Takagi was glad to see that she was recovering from the potent anesthetic gas used to subdue her. Kaur nodded at her personal bodyguards, and the two Sikhs took hold of Ronnie by her wrists and ankles, lifting her from the floor. “What would you have done with her?” the senior guard inquired.
Kaur stared at Ronnie as she would at a particularly virulent strain of bacteria. “Put her in with her partner,” she said harshly. “I'll deal with them both soon enough.”
Another guard, a survivor of the recently overthrown right-wing regime in Portugal, lifted a limp clump of glossy black fur off the caretaker's desk. “What about the cat?” he asked brusquely.
“I couldn't care less about the blasted cat,” Kaur snapped, her patience clearly nearing its limits. Exasperated, she clenched her fists and unleashed some of her pent-up frustration on the unlucky guard. “Adopt it. Eat it. Dissect it. Do whatever you wish with the miserable creature.”
Takagi couldn't help recalling Ronnie's final words to him, seconds before she fled the scene of her ill-fated confrontation with Dr.
Lozinak. “If anything happens to me, make sure my cat is okay.” Experiencing distinctly mixed feelings, he watched Kaur's guards carry Ronnie's supine body out of the depressing confines of the DDU. He took a deep breath, knowing he was going to regret this, and stepped forward. “I'll take the cat,” he said.
“Is that so?” Kaur fixed a quizzical gaze on Takagi, looking like she wasn't sure whether to be amused or annoyed. “And what in the world are you going to do with it, Walter?”
Takagi squirmed beneath the director's radioactive surveillance. He could feel himself losing every bit of credibility that he had somehow, miraculously, managed to hang on to. “Um, I thought maybe I'd donate the cat to the kids in Lot Epsilon.” Kaur continued to regard him dubiously, and Takagi groped for a plausible rationale. “They were quite taken with the animal earlier today, when, er, ‘Dr. Neary’ and I dropped in on the class. Noon seemed particularly fond of it.”
“Noon? Really?” Just as he'd prayed, Kaur's forbidding attitude appeared to soften fractionally at the mention of her brilliant and multitalented progeny. She shrugged and nodded to the Portuguese guard. “Fine. Give the cat to the children.” A trace of venom crept back into her voice. “The duplicitous Dr. Neary might as well make some small contribution to the project, despite her best efforts to betray us.”
Takagi gratefully took the flaccid, inanimate pet from the smirking guard, then scurried out of the classroom before Dr. Kaur had a chance to change her mind.
I hope Ronnie appreciates this, he thought peevishly. Whatever happens to her.
Squawks, chirps, barks, and yelps roused Roberta from a drugged, dreamless sleep. At first, she thought it was just Isis, being a pest as usual. “Go away, you stupid cat,” she muttered, trying to brush away the nonexistent feline. Slowly she realized, however, that not even Isis could sound like an entire menagerie. Uh-oh, she thought, a more discouraging scenario presenting itself to her mind.
With considerable effort, she forced her ey
es open, only to find herself lying upon a bed of straw, one cheek pressed against the dry fibers. The light immediately hurt her eyes and set her head throbbing. I feel hungover, she realized, but how come? She didn't remember drinking to excess, or even drinking anything at all. Oh yeah, the gas, she recalled. Unpleasant flashbacks to the shocking injustice of the Developmental Deviations Unit, and of the noxious white fumes filling her lungs, flooded Roberta's memory, bringing her more or less up to speed, or at least until her present rude awakening.
Her first attempt to sit up was a complete flop. The minute she lifted her head from the straw, a wave of dizziness hit her and she had to retreat back to a horizontal position. Too fast, she concluded groggily, no good. She took it much more slowly the next attempt, gradually rising onto her knees. The dizziness washed over her again, but she was ready for it this time; her head reeling, she closed her eyes and waited for the queasiness to pass.
All right, she thought, after a few rocky moments. That's better. Cautiously, she opened her eyes again, confirming what she already suspected: she was back with Gary Seven and the lab animals again, but this time on the wrong side of the prison bars.
In fact, she was stuck in the same cage as Seven, who, to her dismay, looked exactly as she'd last seen him. He hung, silent and all but lifeless, from the handcuffs that shackled his raw, reddened wrists to the bars of the cage. A single guard, posted outside the cage, watched both prisoners warily, one hand resting upon the grip of his holstered pistol.
At the moment, Roberta paid little attention to the guard. “Gary?” she addressed her fellow inmate. Despite six years spent saving the world together, she had never felt comfortable calling him by his first name. Sometimes it slipped out, though, especially at moments like this. “Gary? Can you hear me?”
His silence unnerved her. Something was seriously wrong here. She'd seen Seven unconscious before, but seldom for long; as she knew from experience, he had five times more stamina and endurance than your typical twentieth-century human.
Unlike Seven with his cuffs, Roberta was free to move about the cage. Bracing herself against the nausea she experienced whenever she moved too fast, she crawled over to where Seven's immobile body drooped. Craning her neck so that she could see his face, she tried urgently to bring him back to the world of the living.
“Gary? It's me, Ro—” She glanced sideways at the watchful guard. “It's Agent 368. Can you hear me? Are you okay?” She slapped his face gently, then again with enough force to sting. Despite her efforts, Seven's chin continued to rest upon his chest. His sealed eyelids didn't so much as flutter. “C'mon, Gary, wake up! Give me a sign you're still in there.”
Roberta's heart sank. Seven was more than simply out cold; this was like some sort of trance or coma, and she had no idea how to snap him out of it. Attempting to check his vital signs, she had to strain to detect any pulse or heartbeat at all. The last time I felt a pulse this weak, she recalled, the guy turned out to be Undead.
Not exactly an encouraging sign. She shot an angry glance at the solitary guard, whose mute indifference to Seven's wretched state infuriated her. “Don't just stand there!” she shouted at him. Instinctively, she searched her pockets for her servo, only to find it missing. “I know you have plenty of doctors here. The best in the world, probably. Why don't you call someone? This man needs medical attention!”
For a moment, she thought her tirade had produced results. Keeping careful watch over Roberta, the uncommunicative guard walked over to a videophone mounted on the wall by the exit. About time, she thought, assuming the sentry was, however belatedly, calling a doctor for Seven.
Such hopes were crushed, though, when the stern, immaculate face of Sarina Kaur appeared upon the video screen. “The woman is awake, Director,” the guard reported gruffly.
“And the man?” Kaur inquired. The guard shook his head. “Still silent as death.” Kaur sighed in disappointment. “I see.” Roberta tried not to take it personally as Kaur apparently decided to make do with Roberta instead. “Thank you for informing me, Bhajan. I will be there shortly.”
No need to hurry on my account, Roberta thought. The formidable director of Chrysalis was no Florence Nightingale, that was for sure. Roberta awaited her next meeting with Kaur with extreme apprehension. Why do I suspect that we're not going to share a lovely Indian lunch this time around?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“THEY SAY A CAT MAY LOOK ON A KING. IS THAT WHY YOU WATCH ME so attentively?”
Only four years old, young Noon already knew he was destined for greatness. His mother had told him so frequently, and she was the director of the entire project. His genes made him stronger and smarter than ordinary children, and even among his similarly gifted classmates, Noon stood out as someone special. His mother said he had genuine “leadership potential,” and she should know; she had engineered him herself.
No wonder the sleek black cat had gravitated toward him as soon as Dr. Takagi had dropped the animal off at the classroom, explaining that the cat's owner, Dr. Neary, was currently indisposed and could not look after her pet. Noon had immediately taken custody of the cat, and was now supervising her inspection by the other children, who had lined up to pet the kitty in his arms. “Be gentle. Don't frighten her,” he admonished an obviously excited little boy named Joaquin, although, to be honest, this cat did not act at all afraid. Instead she purred contentedly, enjoying the attention, as she carefully observed Noon and his playmates. The cat's unruffled demeanor reminded the well-read toddler of yet another archaic quotation, this one attributed to Montaigne: “When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not a pastime to her more than she is to me?”
How true! Noon considered, stroking the cat's velvety head. Dr. Neary had called her pet Isis, he recalled. An appropriately regal name, in his opinion.
Dr. Erickson stood behind Noon, watching the children take turns welcoming Isis. The cat's arrival had completely disrupted the day's educational activities, but neither Dr. Erickson nor the other instructors had objected too heartily; Noon suspected that they hoped all the commotion over the cat would help the class forget about what had happened to Shirin earlier that afternoon. So far, he noted, their strategy seemed to be working.
Not that Noon himself had really forgotten about the way the little girl had been removed from the class, after having another of her scary fits. He felt bad for Shirin, whom he assumed he would never see again, but there was nothing anyone could do about it; his mother had explained to him once that a certain amount of experimental error was unavoidable, and because of that a few unlucky children had mental or physical defects that could not be corrected. It wasn't fair, he understood, to force these poor, damaged kids to stay in the same class as perfect children like himself; in the long run, Shirin would be happier with the other inferior kids. Maybe someone should give the flawed children a kitten, too, he thought generously. I'll bet that would cheer them up.
“You know, class,” Dr. Erickson began, attempting to turn the children's fascination with Isis into a learning experience, “in the outside world, where things are much more primitive and unfortunate than they are here, there are many boys and girls who can't even come near a cat because of allergies.”
“What are allergies?” asked Suzette Ling, who was much more interested in math and machines than books. Noon rolled his eyes; he had read all about allergies months ago.
“Allergies are a genetic defect,” their teacher explained, “that cause people to become sick whenever they're exposed to some common material, like fur or flowers. In fact, to tell you the truth, I'm intensely allergic to peppermint. I get a sore throat and a rash every time I take a bite of anything peppermint.” A few of the children gasped in horror, but Dr. Erickson gave them a reassuring smile. “You children are very lucky. You've all been carefully designed to have no allergies at all, so you can eat and touch most everything without getting sick. Any questions?”
Suzette's hand shot up like the rockets she loved to
design. “What does ‘sick’ mean?”
The five-o'clock bell interrupted what Noon considered a long and rather unnecessary lecture on the history of human infirmity. He already knew that ordinary people were a lot more fragile than he and his classmates were, even if this salient fact had somehow escaped the attention of Suzette and some of the other kids. “Their food actually comes back up their throats and out of their mouths?” Liam MacPherson asked, appalled and intrigued by the grotesque notion of regurgitation. “They can't help it?”
“Well, no,” Dr. Erickson admitted, “although now is probably not the best time to go into that.” She clapped her hands together to get everyone's attention. “No more classwork for today. Everyone line up by the exit so we can get to the dining hall in a prompt and efficient manner.”
The children closest to Noon crowded forward to stroke their feline visitor a few more times before leaving the classroom. He clasped the cat protectively against his chest as he looked hopefully at Dr. Erickson. “Can I take her with me to the dining hall?” he asked.
The instructor gave the matter a moment's thought, then shook her head. “Probably not a very sanitary idea,” she pronounced, inspiring an eruption of groans and pleas from the class. “Tell you what, though. If you're all very well behaved at supper tonight, then maybe I'll let the cat stay with you in the dormitory tonight. Maybe.”
Noon knew this was the best they were likely to get, so he reluctantly placed Isis back onto the floor and joined the other children by the exit. Dr. Erickson flicked off the lights as she and her partners escorted the children out of classroom and into the hall, leaving the cat behind.
