Origin in Death

20

«I should've thought of it. I should've known.» She had to calm down, Eve told herself. Feeney was on his way. They'd use the homer implant. They'd track the kid.

«You have thought of it,» Roarke reminded her.

«After it was too late to stop it. To use it. You got a top security fa­cility, you've got seasoned cops, and still she walks in, gets the kid. walks out.»

«She'd studied the system, Eve. She'd gotten through it once before. And her motivation was very strong.»

«Which makes me more of an idiot for not realizing the kid was key. She wants to stop it. Will kill to stop it. That's what I focused on. But the kid, more than a replica of her. She's from her.»

«Her child,» Roarke agreed. «Obviously knowing Diana existed was one thing. Seeing her, face to face, pushed getting her out to priority.»

«She wasn't trained the same as Avril,» Eve pointed out. «Look at her records. Languages, electronics, comp sciences, martial arts train­ing, international law and global studies, weaponry, explosives. Light on domestic sciences.»

«Training her to be a soldier.»

«No, a spook.» Furious with herself, she shoved at her hair. «I'm bet­ting spook. Infiltrate covert ops, move up the ranks. But she used her training to get out, stay gone. The murders looked professional be­cause they were. They looked personal because they were.»

«They… encoded her…« Roarke said, for lack of a better term, «… to do exactly what she did.»

«That's the point, and the point Legal will use if and when she goes to trial. See here? They shifted training with Diana somewhat. Trying to prevent her from repeating the same pattern. Add in more of the domestic sciences, push art appreciation, theater, music. Blah, blah. Maybe, maybe it would've worked. But here comes the intangible. She sees the person she considers her mother.»

He was working on the center, manually now, his sleeves rolled up, his hair tied back. «If they've based anything here, they've covered themselves brilliantly. Every area is fully accounted for.»

«Okay, forget that, forget it.» She pressed her fingers to her temples as if to clear her brain. «This is your place, your base. Where do you put it?»

He pushed back, considered. «Well, you go under. This isn't the sort of thing you can run cleverly in plain sight. That's the most fun, of course, but you can't mix this—or not all of it, not the core of it—in with the work-a-day. Some of the lab business, yes. With the setup they've got, you've plenty of checkpoints there. Certainly you could do alterations, sculpting, the subliminals, whatever you liked in any num­ber of locations. But for the creating, the—for lack of a better word—the gestating. You'd need maximum cover.»

«Sublevel, then.» She leaned over him, studied the screen. «How do we get in?»

«Are we breaking and entering, darling? You'll get me stirred up.»

«Cut it out. Nobody's stirring anything with a houseful of relatives. It's too distracting.»

«I'd point out they're all tucked up neatly in bed now, but the idea of breaking into the Center has me distracted. First you walk in.»

«One of the public areas. Emergency care, maybe. Most vulnerable to security, right?»

«Most likely. And as good as any. Let's have a look.»

«You look. I have to think. Would she take her along? Take the kid?»

Because she felt a certain kinship with Deena, she asked herself what she'd do.

«Doesn't seem to follow. You pull her out of what you consider a dangerous situation, you don't dump her into another. But she'd keep her close. She'd put her where she feels it's safe. With Avril, or where Avril can get to her. If so, she has to contact Avril. Already has,» she said, nodding to herself. «No move on Diana's legal guardians in Ar­gentina. I'm betting Avril got word to her, and Deena caught another flight back, or aborted the flight she was on.»

«Or never went at all,» Roarke suggested. «Tossed you a red her­ring.»

«Maybe, yeah, maybe. If she's had contact with Avril, she knows or will know that this whole thing's about to go public. What does she do?»

She paced. «She's got her mission. Most of what she wants is going to come down. But…« Case is basically closed, she thought, but was that stopping her from pursuing it, from doing what she could to fin­ish it out herself?

«She'll try to finish it. Hell, they trained her for this kind of work. They imprinted her to succeed. She's already gone rogue from her own underground. She's been in the Center once already that we know of. To kill Icove. But she doesn't attempt to do anything else there.»

«She's focused.»

«So far,» Eve agreed. «Icove to Icove to Samuels. Because even if she does get in, compromises their database, their equipment… Hell, even if she blows the place up, key members are still around to put it back together. Take out the human factor first, then the system.»

She paced some more. «Don't take the chance on the government getting the system, covertly continuing the program. I put the clock on her with Nadine. She's got to move on it tonight.»

She stopped when Feeney came in. He was, if possible, more rum­pled than usual.

«I need that tracking.»

«I got the data from Samuels's records on the type of implant.» He looked at Roarke. «You got anything in here that'll track an internal?»

«I've got a few things we can put together in the computer lab. There's—«

«Go do that,» Eve interrupted, sensing a compu-geek mode coming on. «I'm going to outline the op.»

«What op?» Feeney wanted to know.

«I'll catch you up.» Roarke started out with him. «Have you ever worked with an Alpha-5? The XDX version?»

«Only in my dreams.»

«Your dream's about to come true.»

Eve gave them twenty minutes. It was all she believed they could spare.

«Got her?»

«Got something,» Feeney told her. «It's being jammed, and it's weak, but it matches the codes of the implant listed for Diana Rodriguez. We wouldn't be getting anything, I can tell you, if we weren't working with the Alpha, 'cause the jam is choice. Might not even get what we got with the Alpha, except the implant's within a mile of our location.»

«Where?»

«Moving north. West of here. Got that map ready?» he asked Roarke.

«Just coming. And on.»

A city map flashed under the fuzzy blip on-screen. «The Center.» Eve set her jaw. «She's less than a block from the Center. She's taking the kid and going in. Feeney, don't lose her. Contact Whitney. You're going to have to convince him to let you break Code Blue on commu­nications. Then you've got to convince him to get us a warrant and a team. Use the kid. Minor civilian, suspected abduction, imminent jeop­ardy. With or without, I'm going in. I'm changing to Delta frequency on my communicator. Use it only if you get affirmative.»

She spun to Roarke. «Let's gear up.»

She yanked on her weapon, strapped on a clutch piece. She opted against body armor as it was too bulky and annoying, but hooked on a combat knife.

When Roarke joined her he wore a knee-length leather coat. She had no idea what sort of weaponry and illegal electronics might be under and/or in it.

She'd leave it to him.

«Some couples,» he said, «go out to a club for an evening.»

Her smile was thin and sharp. «Let's dance.»

Diana slipped into the Emergency Room. She knew how to look in­nocent, and better, knew how to move so that she was all but invis­ible to most adults. She kept her gaze down, away from their faces as she passed by those waiting to be treated, and those who would treat them.

It was late, everyone was tired or angry or hurt. No one wanted to bother with a young girl who appeared to know where she was going.

She knew because she'd heard Deena tell Avril.

She'd known Deena would come for her. And she'd prepared for it. She'd taken only what she was sure she'd need and put it in her back­pack. Food she'd squirreled away for emergencies, her journal discs, the laser scalpel she'd stolen from Medical.

They thought they knew everything, but they hadn't known about the food, the journal, the things she'd stolen over the years.

She was a very good thief.

Deena hadn't had to explain when she'd climbed in the window. She hadn't had to tell her to be quiet, to be quick. Diana had simply taken the backpack out of her hiding place and climbed out with her.

There'd been something she'd scented in the air when they'd gone over the wall. Something she'd never scented before. It was freedom.

They'd talked all the way to New York. That was a first time, too. To talk to someone without having to pretend anything.

They would go to Avril's first. Avril would disengage the security, then Deena would go in and disengage the two police droids. It would be fast, she'd promised. Then she would take her and Avril and their children to a safe location where they would wait until she'd finished what she'd set out to do.

Quiet Birth would be shut down. No one would ever be forced to become again.

She'd watched Deena go into the pretty house, watched her come out again only minutes later. And it was righteous.

The safe house was only minutes away, and that was smart. To hide so close. They could stay there, undetected, until it was safe to go some­where else.

She pretended to go to bed.

She heard Deena and Avril arguing, in low voices. It would be done, Avril said, all they could expect to be done would be done in a day.

But it wasn't enough. Deena said it wasn't enough until she'd killed the root. Until she had, they'd never be free. They'd never be safe. It would never, never stop. She was going tonight, to finish it.

Then she told Avril exactly what she intended to do.

So she waited, and when Deena switched security to yellow to go out the front door, she went out the back.

She'd never been in a city before—that she remembered. Never been completely alone. And it was exhilarating. She had no fear, none. She reveled in the sound of her footsteps on the sidewalk, at the sensa­tion of cool air on her face.

She worked out her route and her movements by treating the whole business like a logic puzzle she was required to solve. If Deena was go­ing to the Center, she was going to the Center.

It wasn't far. Though she was on foot, she could run well, and run long. And Deena would have to park some distance from the target, then take the last two blocks on foot as well. If she timed it right they'd get there simultaneously, then she could follow Deena through the street-level emergency area.

By the time she was discovered, it would be too late—and too illogical—to take her back.

Simple was usually the most successful.

Because she knew where to look, she spotted Deena quickly. She looked ordinary, everything about her from the light brown hair, the jeans, the hooded jacket. The bag she carried looked like one anybody might carry—just a lightweight shoulder sack.

Simple is successful.

She was waiting, but didn't wait long. When an emergency vehicle raced up, Deena used someone's misfortune to slide into the confusion and into the center.

Diana counted to ten and bounded after. But she slowed, cast her gaze down, and moved with what she considered casual purpose once she was inside.

No one bothered her. No one asked what she was doing, and there was another burst of freedom in that.

She cut away toward Ambulatory, then watched from the corner as Deena casually dropped something in a recycler. Deena kept walking, even stopped a harried-looking intern to ask directions. Simple and smart.

When she reached a fork, alarms began to peal. Deena quickened her pace, still not obviously hurrying, and split off to the left. Diana risked a quick look back, saw smoke rolling into the corridor. And for the first time allowed herself a grin.

Deena came to a set of double doors marked STAFF ONLY. She swiped a code card in the slot, and the doors parted. Diana forced her­self to wait until they'd started to close, then sprinted forward and nipped inside.

Medical supplies, Diana noted. A lot of them. Some portable diag­nostic equipment, secured drug cabinets. Why here? she wondered, then heard the faint swish of a bag being opened. She eased forward, and found herself against the wall with a stunner at her throat.

«Diana!» Deena hissed as she jerked the stunner away. «What the hell are you doing?»

«Going with you.»

«You can't. For God's sake. Avril must be out of her mind by now.»

«Then we'd better hurry, get done, get back.»

«I have to get you out of here.»

«You've come too far to turn back now. Someone might come look­ing soon.»

«No, they won't, not where I'm going. And where I'm going, what I'm going to do, you can't have any part of that. Listen to me.» She took Diana's shoulders. «There's nothing more important than your safety, than your freedom.»

«Yes, there is.» Diana's eyes were clear and dark. «Ending it.»

Alarms were shrilling when Eve strode into the ER. So were a lot of people, she noted. But then, they would. Panic was as natural to some as breathing.

Health care workers, security guards were trying to restore order.

«This will be her work.» Eve badged an ER nurse who barely gave her a glance. «Emergency entrance has to be the weakest point. Add some disorder to the natural disorder an area like this has, and go about your work.» She glanced at Roarke. «Let's take a page out of her book.»

He looked down at the scanner he'd palmed. «Beacon is a hundred meters northwest. No current movement.»

They followed the trail, came to a dense cloud of smoke.

«Sulphur cube,» Roarke said when Eve cursed at the stench. «Kids tend to make them up. I did myself. Messy, smelly, and harmless.»

Eve sucked in a breath, moved into the stench at a jog. A mainte­nance worker wearing a safety mask waved her back. She shoved her badge into his visor, then kept going.

«Harmless?» she said on the other side. «How about the hour we're going to have to spend in fumigation?»

«The fact it reeks to heaven and back is part of the fun.» He coughed, winced. «When you're twelve. Forty-six meters, east.» He adjusted his earpiece. «We've still got her,» he told Feeney on the other end. «Got that. He says the commander's authorized backup. Feeney'll be guiding them in using the beacon. As long as he can hold it.»

«Just so it's long enough. She couldn't pull this off alone. I don't care how smart she is. She's got to be with Deena.»

«Smart timing. Make your sortie not only through the weak spot, but at the weak point in time. Late night, holiday eve. A lot of the sec­tors would be shut down, skeleton staff. People's minds are on their holiday plans, or they're aggravated they have to work while others are sitting about eating turkey or watching the game on-screen.

«Through there.» He nodded toward the secured doors. «Wait. She's heading down.»

Eve tried her master through the security slot, and was rejected. «Get us through.»

He pulled a device out of his pocket, attached it to the head of the slot, then tapped keys. «Try now.»

The second swipe opened the doors.

«Just a different kind of cloning,» Roarke told her. «She must've done something similar herself, blocking out any code but her own. Target's still descending.»

«From where?» Eve demanded, and Roarke tilted the scanner, aimed it at a floor-to-ceiling drug box. «There's your point. Elevator, has to be.»

«How the hell does it open?»

«I doubt it's 'open sesame.'» He ran his fingers over one side while she searched the other. «It can't be manual. Too easy to trigger it acci­dentally.»

Eve gave it a vicious shove and earned a pitying glance from Roarke.

«It's fused to the wall.»

«Not on this side,» he mused. «Switch.»

He worked the opposite side while Eve bellied down to search the floor for any signs. «It's got glides. It's on a glide.»

«I'm getting it,» he muttered. «I'm getting it.»

He pried open a small panel, studied the controls with satisfaction. «Now I've got you.»

«Where is she? Where's the kid?»

Rather than respond, he handed her the scanner and got to work on the controls. «Code slot has to be around here somewhere, but this should be quicker than hunting it up.»

«She's stopped descending, moving west. I think. We're losing the signal. Hurry.»

«There's a certain amount of delicacy required to—«

«Screw delicacy.» She whipped off her coat, tossed it aside.

«Pipe down for two bloody seconds,» he snapped. Then sat back on his haunches as the cabinet and wall slid left. «You're welcome.»

«Sarcasm later, hunt down lair of mad scientists now.»

Authorization required, the security panel announced when they stepped in. Red sector only. «Try your master,» Roarke suggested.

Incorrect code. Please insert correct code, and stand for retinal scan within thirty seconds…

Eve pulled back a fist. Roarke cupped his hand over it. «Don't be hasty, darling.» Once again, he affixed his scanner to the panel, tapped keys. «Now.»

Incorrect code. You have twenty-two seconds to comply…

«Or what?» Eve snarled as Roarke reconfigured. «Again.»

Code accepted. Please step to the rear of the unit for retinal scanning.

«How the hell do we get by that?» Eve demanded.

«She did. I'll wager she's done the work for us.»

The scan beam shot out of the panel, but it wavered, then pulsed twice.

Welcome, Doctors Icove. Which level do you require?

«That's good.» Roarke's voice held quiet admiration. «That's bloody good. I wonder if this Deena would like a job.»

«Return to previous level,» Eve ordered.

Level One is requested.

The doors slid shut.

«Fast work on compromising the scan,» Roarke commented. «Smarter than disengaging. Bound to be an alarm trigger for that. This way you skip some steps and add the irony. I could find quite the happy position for Deena.»

«Damn it, damn it, the signal's gone. Make sure Feeney has the last coordinates.»

She drew her weapon as the computer announced arrival at Level One.

She came out low, with Roarke taking high, into a wide, white cor­ridor. The walls were tiled and glossy, the floors gleaming. The only color was from the large red «1» directly across from the elevator, and from the black eyes of the security cams.

«A bit like the morgue,» Roarke commented, but she shook her head.

There was no smell of death here. No smell of human. Just empty air pumped and recycled. They headed west.

There were archways right and left, with codes posted, again in red, on the walls.

«Lost Feeney. We're deep.» Roarke looked up. The ceiling was white, too, and curved like a tunnel. «And there's probably security plates to block unauthorized communications.»

«Have to know we're here.» She lifted her chin toward another camera.

«Maybe security's automated.»

She strained to hear. Voices, footsteps. But there was nothing but the quiet hum of the air system. The tunnel curved, and she saw the re­mains of a droid scattered over the white floor.

«I'd say we're on the right track.» He crouched to study the pieces. «Bug, equipped with stunners and signals.»

Because they looked like mutant spiders, they disgusted her on an innate level. And where there was one, there were bound to be more.

Her theory proved out when she heard the scuttle behind her. She turned, fired, as the bug droid rounded the curve. Three more came behind it.

She dropped to avoid the beam, clipped one, and was rolling to her feet when Roarke obliterated the third. The injured one let out a high-pitched signal before she kicked it, full force, and set it smashing against the wall.

«Damn insects.»

«That may be. But in a place like this, I'd say they're the first wave.» Anticipating, Roarke drew a second blaster. «We can expect worse.»

They hadn't made it another ten feet when they got worse.

They came, front and rear, and at quick march, in perfect forma­tion. Eve counted more than a dozen before her back slapped against Roarke's.

Droids, she hoped they were droids. They were identical: stony faces, hard eyes, bulky muscle under what were outdated military uniforms.

But young, oh Christ, no more than sixteen. Children. Just children.

«This is the police,» she shouted out. «This is a sanctioned NYPSD operation. Stop where you are.»

They kept coming, and as one entity, drew weapons.

«Take them down!»

She'd barely gotten the words out when the explosion rocked her. She flipped her weapon to full stun, fired first in a sweep, then in quick, focused bursts.

Something seared her left arm, brought a quick shock of pain. Even as she fired into one of the oncoming's face, the one behind him fell on her.

She nearly lost her weapon as the force slammed her to the floor. She smelled blood, ripe and fresh, saw the human in his eyes. And without remorse, jammed her weapon against his throat, and fired on full.

His body jerked, convulsed, and was dead before she shoved him aside. She avoided, narrowly, the combat boot that kicked toward her face. Yanking her knife free she drove it up, into the hard belly.

Chips of tile flew, sliced at her exposed skin as she rolled. There was another jolt of pain, a pinch at her hip. She caught sight of Roarke bat­tling two, hand to hand. And more were coming.

She clamped her knife between her teeth, thumbed to maximum blast, and flipped her clutch piece out of its holster. She somersaulted back, took one of Roarke's opponents out, cursed when she couldn't get a clear shot of the other, then began to fire two-handed, like a mad thing, at what remained standing.

Then Roarke was beside her, kneeling beside her. «Fire in the hole,» he said, dead calm, and heaved the miniboomer in his hand.

He grabbed her, shoved her back, and threw his body over hers.

The blast punched at her eardrums. She heard, dimly, shards of tile raining down. Then only her own labored breaths.

«Get off, get off!» If there was panic now, it was for him, so she pushed, shoved, rolled him away, then snatched at him again. He was breathing hard now, and he was bleeding.

A gash at the temple, a slice that had gone through the leather of his coat just above the elbow.

«How bad? How bad?»

«Don't know.» He shook his head to clear it. «You? Aw, fuck them,» he said, viciously, when he saw the blood running down her arm, seep­ing through her pants at the hip.

«Dings mostly. Mostly dings. Backup's coming. Help's coming.»

He looked her dead in the eyes, and he smiled. «And we're just go­ing to sit here and wait for the cavalry, are we?»

The smile loosened the sweaty fist around her heart. «Hell, no.»

She pushed herself up, offered him her hand. What she saw around them made her stomach pitch and her heart shrivel. They'd been flesh, blood, bone. They'd been boys. Now they were pieces of meat.

She shut herself down, began to gather weapons. «We don't know what else we've got coming. Take all you can carry.»

«Bred for war, that's what they were,» Roarke said softly. «They had no choice. They gave us no choice.»

«I know that.» She shouldered on two combat rifles. «And we're go­ing to exterminate, destroy, decimate what bred them.»

Roarke hefted one of the weapons. «Urban War era. If they'd been better equipped and more experienced, we'd be dead.»

«You had boomers. You had illegal explosives.»

«Well, be prepared, I say.» He aimed the rifle at one of the cameras, blasted it. «You've only used one of these a couple of times in sims down in the target gallery.»

«I can handle it.» She aimed, took out a second camera.

«No doubt.»

From their position, Diana looked over her shoulder. «It sounds like a war.»

«Whatever it is, it's keeping it off our backs.» For now, she thought. She'd estimated she'd had a fifty-fifty chance of coming out of tonight alive. Now she had to survive. She had to get it done and get Diana to safety.

But her palms were sweating, and that only lowered the odds. Avril had been the only person she'd ever loved. Now even that strong current was tame beside the tidal wave of emotion that swept her. Diana was hers.

Nothing was ever going to touch her child again.

So she prayed that the data she and Avril had accessed was still valid. Prayed that whatever was behind them would wait until she got through the doors marked GESTATION.

Prayed that her courage wouldn't fail.

At last the light glowed green. She heard the swish of air as the doors opened into an airlock. What she saw through it, through the glass, drained the heart out of her.

She made herself go in, made herself look.

While her vision blurred with tears, the monster, dead for a decade, stepped into the white stream of light.

Jonah Delecourt Wilson was fit and handsome and no more than thirty. In his arms he carried a sleeping infant. One hand held a stun­ner and was pressed to the child's throat.

At his feet was the body of a young Wilfred Icove.

«Welcome home, Deena. It's a testament to both of us that you got this far.»

Instinctively Deena pushed Diana behind her.

«Saving yourself?» He laughed, and turned the baby to the light. «Which one of yourself will you sacrifice? Infant, child, woman? Fas­cinating conundrum, isn't it? I need you to come with me now. We don't have much time.»

«You killed your partner?»

«Despite all the work, all the adjustment, all the improvement, he proved to be inherently flawed. He objected to some of our most recent advances.»

«Let her go. Give the baby to Diana, and let them go. I'll go with you.»

«Deena, understand I've terminated my closest associate, the man—well, men, as there are two more of him equally dead—who shared my vision for decades. Do you think I'd hesitate to kill any of you?»

«No. But it's wasteful to kill the children. It's wasteful to terminate me, when you can take me, use me. Study me.»

«But you're flawed, you see. As Wilfred proved to be in the end. And you've cost me beyond measure. All this, about to be destroyed. Two generations of progress. Fortunately, I have countless generations to rebuild it, improve it, then see it flourish. You'll all come with us, and be a part of that. Or you'll all die here.»

Another stepped out of the opposite door, and had a sleepy toddler by the hand. «Keep your hands up,» he ordered her, and stepped for­ward.

«Transportation's waiting for those selected,» the first told her.

«What of the rest?»

«Once we're clear? Fail-safe. A difficult sacrifice. But we under­stand difficult choices, don't we? We have all the records we need, and the funds, the time to rebuild. Move forward.»

As she did, Diana pulled the laser scalpel out of her pocket and aimed it at the eyes of the one holding the toddler.

The little girl screamed, and began to wail when the man holding her hand convulsed and fell. Equipment exploded as Diana swung the beam. Even as Wilson returned fire, Deena shoved Diana to the ground, then dove toward the younger child. As she scooped the tod­dler up, spun, she saw Wilson, and the infant, were gone.

«Take her.» She pushed the screaming child—her child—into Diana's arms. «You've got to take her. I've got to go after him. Don't argue! Just listen. Someone must be trying to get through—all the fire we heard.»

«You're hurt.»

«It's nothing.» Deena dismissed the burn on her shoulder, and pushed past the pain. «You get her to safety. I know you can. I know you will.» She pulled Diana into her arms, kissed her, kissed the little girl. «I have to stop him. Now go!»

She sprang up, ran out of the nightmare, and into hell. Diana strug­gled to her feet under the weight of the child. She had the laser still, she thought, and would use it again if she had to.