The Osiris Contingency

by Virginia Soenksen

  Bewildered now, Alec shook his head.

  “Unfortunately, she’s rather accustomed to lying at this point,” Damian sighed. “But it’s true. You have an Agent in your midst, which I imagine is the last thing you and your leaders want. Tell me where I can find her, and I’ll correct the problem for you.”

  Damian sat once more, crossing his legs comfortably. Alec took a moment to size him up, then said, “You don’t strike me as the generous type.”

  Damian shrugged. “I don’t pretend that this doesn’t benefit me. But I’d advise you to take a moment and think what you want to do; spite me or save your mod friends.”

  Alec regarded Damian for a few precious minutes and then said in a voice that shook. “Get…stuffed…”

  Damian’s eyes flashed, as did the needle he procured from his breast pocket as he stood and approached the mod. Alec cringed in his seat but could do nothing to stop Damian as he pushed the needle into the chest port and slowly depressed the syringe. Alec’s chest rose and fell faster as the colorless serum snaked through the plastic tubing and vanished into his body.

  “Withholding information is like a poison, Alec,” Damian said in a low voice. “It eats at you from within, tainting everything you do and say until the lies and half-truths ruin what matters most. I lost my Agent because I didn’t understand that.” He stepped back, capping the used syringe and sitting again. “The truth serum now filtering through your nervous system will free you from that fate. It will take away your desire to withhold anything.”

  Alec was sweating now, his perspiring faced gleaming in the bright lights overhead. His breaths quickened, and he jerked

  frantically in the chair, fighting to get away as well as hold onto his sanity. Damian watched his struggles, commenting, “I suggest you don’t fight it; fighting just prolongs the pain. Better to just give in and let go.”

  The mod let out a roar, teeth clenching as he fought against his restraints. Damian only leaned forward, murmuring, “Tell me about Liane, Alec.”

  “Don’t…know…anything,” the mod panted.

  “Where is she hiding now?” Damian asked, his impatience only increasing.

  The mod shook his head, eyes shut as sweat poured down the sides of his face.

  Damian let out a deep sigh, then settled back in his chair as he said, “We have time yet. And I will wait for answers until you’re willing to give them. Everyone talks in the end.”

  Alec bowed his head, and soon his soft, hopeless sobs were the only sounds within the interrogation chamber.

  CHAPTER 19

  Everyone within Black Sun felt Alec’s loss, and the underground bunker was

  unusually subdued over the next few days. Liane wondered initially if Owen would evacuate the bunker, even going to him to suggest alternative hideouts. But he wouldn’t hear of it, confident in Alec’s

  ability to withstand the Agency’s

  interrogations as well as the bunker’s

  security.

  “We’ll use the escape tunnels if it comes to that,” Owen said when she continued to protest. “But I won’t abandon the one place we’ve been able to hide from the Agency over nothing.”

  Liane had given up after that, her mind too filled with her own guilt to muster much of a counter-argument. She would have hidden in her room had it not been for Seth; his anger at being left behind had faded the moment she told him what happened during the attack, and he forced her back into their normal routine. Most of the mods treated her just as they had before, save for a few sympathetic glances cast her way. But in one training session, Paz snidely mentioned Liane’s failure, causing Seth to snap, “You didn’t offer to go back and face the Agents alone; she was the only one brave enough. Now shut up and lay off criticizing her.”

  Time helped more than anything—time and distraction. Though Liane didn’t join any more patrols, she did resume her work with the recruits. There were more of them than ever before, most poor fighters but with plenty of rage to drive them.

  “It’s a dangerous combination,” Liane complained to Seth as they walked to the canteen together. “Entering a fight when you’re angry is bad enough when you know what you’re doing.”

  “Hey, I won plenty of fights as a kid when I was good and mad,” Seth laughed.

  “I recall you saying you had to outrun bullies,” Liane returned pointedly.

  “Maybe a couple of times. I never died, in any case.”

  “One should always come to terms with death before entering any fight.”

  Seth shook his head, trying to cover his smile as he asked, “You feeling okay today? Any more muscle cramps, or numbness—”

  “I’m fine,” Liane said with more force than she intended. “It was probably just dehydration.”

  Seth looked like he had more questions, but before he could say anything a voice called out, “Oy! Lovebirds!”

  Seth turned with a laugh, Liane with a scowl, to see Neil leading a group of wide-eyed mods through the hangar. The reptile mod grinned, shouting, “Come meet your latest victims!”

  “Stop scaring them, Neil,” said Seth, waving to the new

  recruits. “Hiya—I’m Seth, and this is Liane.”

  Neil half-turned to look at the mods as he pointed at Liane and said, “She’s the one you have to worry about. She could crack your heads open like walnuts if she chose.”

  In a flat voice, Liane added, “I also rip out beating hearts and tear people limb from limb.”

  The recruits looked alarmed, though Neil just laughed. “I was telling them about the differences in the abilities of certain mods. Would you be up for a little demonstration?”

  Liane let out a sigh of irritation, but Seth nudged her with a smile, and she nodded.

  “Right,” said Neil, grasping hold of the metal supports lining the wall and climbing up. “Reptile mods get most of the development in the musculature of the body, but it’s distributed evenly.” He let go of the beam with one hand and both feet, hanging several meters above the ground by the tips of his fingers. He winked at one of the girls in the group, adding, “I could stay here all day.”

  Liane rolled her eyes as he went on, “Now wolf mods...they

  develop muscles for speed and jumping. Want to show us, Liane?”

  Still looking irritated by the entire display, she crouched and leaped up to a ledge high on the wall. She sat on the metal

  support jutting out, crossing her arms across her chest. Seth grinned up at her, never bored by her abilities.

  “I have to go slower up, but not so down,” said Neil, winding his way up through the beams and then down again with such speed that the pretty mod shrieked. He released his hands, dangling upside down by his ankles as he said, “But when a wolf mod wants to climb down quietly, they move like anyone else.”

  Grateful the demonstration was nearly over, Liane shifted to grasp the metal beam and make her descent. But she had only taken a step down before she felt her muscles seize and cramp. She felt her fingers loosen, her legs twitch and lose their hold on the beam. Fear flooded her, and she cried out, “I’m going to fall!”

  Then her muscles gave way completely and she plummeted off the wall.

  The recruits all screamed. Seth ran forward as if he was hoping to catch her, but it wasn’t fast enough; though Liane twisted to break her fall, she hit the cement floor with a sickening crack and a cry of pain. She was writhing and gasping when he fell to his knees beside her, demanding, “What happened?”

  “Muscles cramped,” she gasped, her left arm gripping her right. “Couldn’t hold on...my arm...”

  Seth looked down and was almost sick. Her forearm was bent at an odd angle, badly broken. Neil dropped beside them, his face taut with worry as he said, “Let’s get her to the medic bay.”

  They both picked her up, carrying her across the hangar to the curtained area. As soon as she was on the gurney Neil ran off shouting for a medic. Seth stayed with Liane, his face filled with concern as he whispered
, “I’ve never seen you fall before. Not ever.”

  Liane’s voice was strained as she said, “Something’s wrong with me, Seth. I don’t know what it is, but something isn’t right…”

  Looking more worried than ever, he asked, “What do you want to do?”

  Biting down on her lower lip, she said, “We need to go to someone with medical equipment and the ability to use it. Someone who I can trust.”

  Neil reappeared with two medics, and both Seth and Liane fell silent as they went to work on her.

  By the time Owen arrived, the medics had given her painkillers and set the bone. His piercing eyes looked around the bay, taking in Neil hovering nearby in worry, the medics at work,

  Liane’s drawn face, and Seth crouching anxiously at the bedside. They all went silent under his scrutinizing gaze as Owen demanded, “What happened?”

  Seth straightened, saying, “She had a mishap; fell from one of the beams.”

  From the corner, Neil said through a frown, “It was my fault, Owen, I was the one who suggested—”

  “Go see to the recruits,” Owen ordered. Neil made a retreat as the former Agent looked to the medics, saying, “Give us a moment.”

  As they left, leaving just the three of them alone, Owen came to sit down near Seth and Liane. He fixed both with a long look, then said at last, “It wasn’t just an accident, was it?”

  Liane looked away from him to Seth, who answered, “Something’s off. We want to go to a medic in the city, one Liane trusts, and try to figure out what’s happening.”

  Owen looked back to Liane, commenting, “All Agents are modified in some way. Do you know what exactly they dosed you with?”

  Liane struggled to keep her emotions in check as she shook her head. “No. And you can’t know if that’s why I’m weakening now or not.”

  “And you can’t be certain it isn’t,” Owen said pointedly. “I saw the testing facilities on the lower levels of the Agency, heard Agents screaming inside those rooms...”

  Liane stared at him as she whispered, “They never did anything like that to me. Damian wouldn't have let them.”

  Owen shrugged. “Maybe your Handler was better than most.” He stood, saying, “Go to your medic; see if he can give you the

  answers you need.”

  He left after that, leaving Seth and Liane alone to make their plans to return to the world above.

  CHAPTER 20

  It was pouring down rain over Chinatown, driving punters indoors and causing hawkers to stand under the awnings and overhangs with their merchandise. The two hooded

  figures didn’t seem to care, though, making their way through the alleys and around sharp corners. They paused for a moment under a storefront awning, and Seth asked Liane, “You’re sure about this?”

  Liane looked up, rain dripping from the edge of the awning onto her drawn face. There were dark circles

  forming under her eyes, and weariness in her voice as she answered, “No, but Ahmad has access to the same technology as the Agency. If we want to find out what’s wrong with me, this is where we need to go.”

  Seth let out an aggrieved sigh, then nodded and headed back out into the rain. She led them down another alley and into a tiny pawnshop. A chime went off as they entered the dusty confines, and a teenager with an electric blue mohawk sat up behind the register. Liane pushed back her hood, saying, “Tell Ahmad that Liane is here.”

  The youth gave them both an apathetic once-over, then went through the beaded curtain to the room beyond the storefront.

  Liane and Seth waited until a figure appeared. A good-looking, swarthy man with a well-groomed beard, Ahmad hadn’t changed much since their last visit, though his midsection had perhaps grown a little paunchier. He folded his arms, smiling with brilliantly white teeth at Liane as he said, “Here I thought you were gone for good.”

  “Not yet,” she said, unsmiling. “I have a few more things to do.”

  “Your video caused quite a stir,” Ahmad went on. Liane said nothing, and he gave a small shrug, “Or am I supposed to pretend that I didn’t recognize you?”

  “Actually, that will save us some explanations,” Liane said,

  taking off her dripping jacket. “I need your help. Or rather, the help of your lab downstairs.”

  He looked pointedly towards the holster at her waist, saying, “Guns stay up here since I know what you can do with them now.”

  Liane frowned, but pulled her gun from the holster and set it on the dusty counter. Seth did the same with his weapon and

  Ahmad beamed, gesturing them through the beaded curtain. “My facilities are at your service. Come on down and let’s see what I can do for you.”

  The three of them headed down the secret staircase, passing through sliding, bulletproof doors into the glass decontamination chamber. They waited for a few minutes, blue lights scanning over them to remove contaminants. When the scan was complete, the second set of doors unlocked, and they walked into the bright white confines of the laboratory. Ahmad led them to one of the workstations, weaving through the lab techs in clean suits as they went about engineering the mod serum that kept Ahmad in business. Sitting down on one of the open stools, he commented, “If I’d known before that you were being injected with the Titan Strain, I would have asked to do some tests of my own. Amazing, what you’re capable of.”

  “I don’t seem to be capable of much at the moment,” Liane said grimly. “I’m having muscle cramps, weakness, fatigue... A couple of days ago I broke my arm falling, and I never fall. I need to find out why.”

  “You healed up now?” Ahmad asked, putting on blue latex gloves. When she nodded, he gestured her to sit on the stool next to him. “Right, then let’s see what’s going wrong.”

  Liane nodded, her eyes following his movements as he drew out a clean needle and syringe. Soon her blood filled several vials, and Ahmad wordlessly began to work. Seth lingered nearby, and he didn’t need to say anything for her to know how uneasy he was with the entire scenario.

  Ahmad had been testing for a half hour when he stopped, swirling a test tube of plasma as he grimaced and said, “Well, that’s not good.”

  Seth straightened in his seat, frowning, while Liane demanded, “What is it?”

  “Hematologic abnormalities,” Ahmad said, lowering the tube. His dark eyes were serious as he went on, “How long were you dosed with the Strain?”

  “I don’t know for certain. Maybe since I was ten.”

  He fixed her with a searching look. “You know one of the

  primary drawbacks of modding? Dependency. When you enhance and alter your genetic structure repeatedly, eventually you don’t just bounce back to normal. You have to maintain your serum levels or suffer through withdrawal.”

  With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Liane asked, “Is that what’s happening with me?”

  “It would make sense. Muscle cramps, blood abnormalities,

  fatigue; that’s what mods go through as well when they stop

  using. Doesn’t kill you, just makes you wish it would.” Ahmad smiled to himself, “That’s why dealers like me stay in business.”

  From behind them, Seth asked, “So what do we do? Is there a risk she’ll get worse?”

  “I have no idea; this isn’t just regular modding, this is the Titan Strain.” Ahmad kept his gaze on Liane, and it turned calculating as he asked, “You wouldn’t happen to have more of it, would you?”

  Liane shook her head, and he gave a low chuckle. “That might be a problem for you then, unless you’d consider heading back to the Agency. They’d be able to get you back on the serum you need.”

  Her temper blazed at the thought as she spat out, “The only way I’m going back there is if they drag me back.”

  Ahmad let out a sigh, then reached into a drawer and pulled out a small handgun, pointing it at her as he said, “In about three minutes, unfortunately, that’s exactly what will happen.”

  Liane’s eyes darted back to Seth, who was ra
ising his hands as one of the lab techs trained a gun on him as well. She turned

  furiously back to Ahmad, but a ringing alarm drowned out anything she might have said. Overhead, the sound of pounding, booted footsteps rang out along with the alarms.

  “That will be the Agency now,” Ahmad said regretfully. “Sorry, Liane, but I had to save my own skin.”

  The door at the top of the steps burst open and Liane whirled towards it, her eyes widening as she saw that the stairwell was filling with Agents in black body armor. Leading the charge was Damian, his eyes alive with the thrill of the hunt as he ran through the sliding doors of the clean room. Agents followed him, ten fitting inside before the sliding glass doors closed and an electronic, melodious voice said, “Maximum capacity reached. Please wait for decontamination.”

  Damian was shouting behind the glass as the other lab techs rushed over to override the doors. Their efforts didn’t seem to be working, and Damian was soon pacing in front of the door like a caged tiger. Through the flashing blue lights, his dark eyes

  remained fixed on Liane.

  “I wish there was another way,” Ahmad said earnestly, though the gun never wavered. “I mean it; I’ve always liked you.”

  She tore her eyes away from her Handler to glare at Ahmad, saying through gritted teeth, “But that didn’t stop you from

  turning me in.”

  “Just prioritizing my own life, when all things are said and done.” The dealer settled back, saying over the pounding on the glass, “Now we wait. It will be over in about a minute, by my count.”

  There was a blur of movement from Seth, and then a

  tremendous crash of shattered glass. Liane flinched as Ahmad toppled to the floor, out cold thanks to Seth bringing a rack of beakers down on his head.

  Seth tossed the rack aside, muttering angrily, “Never liked you, anyway. Let’s go!” Snatching up the gun of the unconscious lab worker, he waited just long enough for Liane to retrieve Ahmad’s weapon before grabbing her wrist and pulling her up in a run. The two of them jumped over the unconscious forms of Ahmad and the lab worker, heading towards the back entrance of the lab. She glanced back once, just in time to see Damian pulling out his gun and firing furiously at the control panel of the doors.