Origin in Death

21

They should split up. Time-saving, more efficient, but the risks were too many. Her hip was a low, continual scream, but Eve kept moving, kept moving.

At every fork, every turn, every doorway, she braced for the next assault.

«There may be little else in direct defense. You'd assume with the level of security above, and the defense here, no one would get through.»

Rather than finesse, he blasted the locks on a door marked EXPERI­MENTAL STUDIES.

«Mother of Christ,» he whispered as they saw what was in the room.

Medical trays, preservation drawers, tanks filled with clear liquid. In them were fetuses at various stages of development. All were deformed.

«Defects,» Eve managed while her blood ran cold. «Failures or de­fective results, stopped when defects were observed.» She studied the electronic charts. Something worse than sickness was clogged in her throat.

«Or they were allowed to develop further, even created this way, so they could be studied. Experimented on,» she said, swallowing bile. «Kept viable until they were no longer useful.»

There was nothing viable there now. No hearts beat in the room but hers and Roarke's.

«Someone's turned off the life systems here, all of them.»

«There have to be more.»

«Eve.» Roarke kept his back turned to what couldn't be changed, couldn't be saved, and studied the equipment. «They haven't just been turned off. It's on a Yellow Alert.»

«Meaning?»

«Might be a level for the security breach, automated as you sug­gested. Or it could be a holding pattern before Red, and self-destruct.»

She spun back. «Deena couldn't have gotten that far ahead of us. She's not that damn good. If… Someone else set it.»

«Bury it,» Roarke said. «Bury all this and everything in it rather than have it taken.»

«Can you abort?»

He was working, manually, through his scanner. And shook his head. «Not from here at any rate. This isn't the source.»

«Then we find it, and whoever's running this show, before it goes to Red.»

She turned, pushed through the doors.

In the white tunnel outside, she saw Diana standing with her hand gripped on a younger, smaller version of herself. In her other hand was a laser scalpel.

«I know how to use it,» Diana said.

«Bet.» And Eve knew exactly what it felt like to have the beam slice through flesh. «But that would be pretty damn stupid as we've come to get you the hell out of here. Where's Deena? Has she set for self-destruct?»

«He did. She went after him. He had a baby.» She glanced at the sniffling toddler. «Our baby sister.»

«Who did she go after?»

«Wilson. He had her.» She lifted the toddler's hand a fraction. «Her name's Darby. I killed him, one of him, with this. I set it on full and aimed at his eyes. I killed him.»

«Good for you. Show me where they went.»

«She's tired.» Diana looked down at Darby. «I think they gave her something to make her sleepy. She can't run.»

«Here.» Roarke stepped forward. «I'll take her. I won't hurt her.»

Diana studied his face. «I'll have to kill you if you try.»

«That's a deal. More help's coming.» He hoisted the child.

«They better get here soon. This way. Hurry.»

She went off in a sprint.

Eve loped behind her, shoving her back at splits and turns until she'd checked for the all-clear.

The Gestation area was still unsecured. Diana bounded right in, and for the second time Eve had shock slap her back.

The room was full of chambers, interlocked and stacked like the in­side of a hive. In each chamber a fetus floated, in thick, clear liquid. A tube—she supposed to replicate an umbilical cord—attached each one to a mass she assumed was artificial placenta. Each chamber held an electronic chart and monitor, recording respiration, heartbeat, brain waves, listing the date of conception, the donor, and the date listed for Quiet Birth.

She jolted back when one of the occupants turned, like an alien fish swimming in strange waters.

There was a record as well of stimuli. Music played, voices, Languages, and the continual beat of a heart.

There were dozens of them.

«He killed Icove.» Diana gestured to the bodies on the floor. «This Icove anyway. He's going to destroy it.»

«What?»

«He's going to take what he wants, the ones he's picked, and destroy everything else. Deena was going to destroy it, but she couldn't.» Diana looked around. «We came in here, and we knew she couldn't. She went that way, after him. One of them. There may be more than two.»

«Get them out of here.» She swung to Roarke. «Get them up and out.»

«Eve.»

«I can't do both. I need you to do this. I need you to get them to safety. Fast.»

«Don't ask me to leave you here.»

«You're the only one I can ask.» She gave him a long last look. Then she rushed in the direction Deena had taken.

She passed into a lab, what she realized was a conception area. Life was being created in clear dishes in smaller chambers than the ones in Gestation. Electrodes hummed bloodlessly.

Beyond that was a preservation area. Refrigeration units, every one labeled. Names, dates, codes. There were operating rooms, examina­tion cubes.

She came to a door, saw another corridor, another tunnel beyond. Stepping into it, she swept her weapon, and spun back inside as a laser stream blasted the wall.

She swung the rifle off her shoulder—braced it so she could fire it with one hand—and gripped her blaster in the other. She sent out a stream of fire, right, left, right, then dove out, firing right again.

She saw the man fall, white lab coat spreading up like wings. As she rolled, she caught a secondary movement and fired blindly left.

There was a howl, more of rage than pain. She saw she'd winged him, that he was down, crawling, dragging his useless leg behind him.

She let some of her fury free when she reached him, and kicked him hard over on his back.

«Doctor fucking Wilson, I presume.»

«You can't stop it, it's inevitable. Hyperevolution, man's right to immortality.»

«Save the hype, 'cause it's done. And you're getting mortal all over the place. Where's Deena?»

He grinned, young, handsome. And, Eve thought, completely mad. «Which one of her?»

She heard the scream, desperate and terrified. «No.» To save time, she used the butt of her stunner and knocked him unconscious. She yanked off the security card he wore around his neck.

She sprinted toward the sound and caught just a flicker of Deena rushing a doorway.

It was marked STAGE ONE NURSERY, and through the glass Eve could see clear bins holding infants.

When she saw Wilson inside, a weapon jammed under the soft jaw of an infant, she pulled up short. If she blasted inside, he'd kill. Deena possibly, the infant almost certainly.

She scanned the corridor, looking for options. She saw doors marked STAGE TWO NURSERY, and beside them STAGE THREE, and felt her blood curdle.

The kid was tireless, Roarke thought. She'd run, full out, down nearly a mile of corridor. He was only able to keep pace with sheer grit. Blood dripped into his eyes, seeped from his arm, and the little girl he carried weighed like lead by the time they'd reached the elevator.

So did the fear at the base of his stomach.

«I know how to get out. It'll take too long for you to take us all the way, try to get back. Nobody tried to stop us. Nobody's going to bother with us now.»

He made his decision fast. «Straight up and out. I have a car outside, ER lot. It's a black ZX-5000.»

For an instant, she looked like what she was. A near-teenage girl. «Iced.»

«Take her, take the code.» He pulled a key card out of his pocket. «Swear to me, Diana, on your mother's life, that you'll go to the car, get in the car, lock it. You'll stay there, both of you, inside it until we come.»

«You're bleeding a lot. You're bleeding because you tried to stop it, you tried to help. And she sent you with us, like Deena sent me with Darby.» She reached out for the child. «So I swear, on Deena's life, my mother's life, I'll lock us in the car and wait.»

«Take this.» He gave her the earpiece. «When you're safely outside, you put this on, and tell the man on the other side where we are, how to get where we are.»

He hesitated, then gave her a stunner. «Don't use that unless you have no choice.»

«Nobody's trusted me before.» She jammed the stunner in her pocket. «Thank you.»

When the door shut, he began to run.

Eve bellied over to Stage Two, used the card she'd taken to open the doors.

Inside were five cribs. The children in them—hell, what did she know? A few months, a year. Even in sleep they were monitored.

As were the children she could see beyond—Stage Three—who slept on narrow cots in a kind of dormitory style. Fifteen, Eve counted.

The doors connecting the sections required no card. At least not from the Stage Two area. She could see Deena inside One, her hands in the air. Her mouth was moving. Eve didn't need to hear the words to know they were pleas. It was all over her face.

Get him to put the kid down, Eve thought. Get him to lower the stunner, one damn inch for one damn instant. It's all I need.

She nearly took her chances, but saw the speaker system by the door. Engaging it, she listened.

«There's no point. There's no point. Please, give her to me.»

«There's every point. Over forty years of work and progress, and hundreds of Superiors. You were a great hope, Deena. One of our finest accomplishments, and you threw it away. For what?»

«For choice, of living, of dying. I'm not the only, I'm not the first. How many of us have self-terminated because we couldn't go on exist­ing, knowing what you'd made of us.»

«Do you know what you were? Street garbage, a nit, nothing more. Already in pieces when they brought you to us. Even Wilfred couldn't put you back together. We saved you. Again and again and again. We improved you. Perfected you. You exist because I permitted it. That can end now.»

«No!» She jerked forward when he jammed the stunner harder un­der the baby's jaw. «It won't gain you anything. It's over, you know it's over. You can still get away. You can still live.»

«Over?» His face was bright with excitement. A fever. «Barely be­gun. In another century what I've created will be existence for the hu­man race. I'll be there to see it. Death is no longer an obstacle for me. But for you…«

He swung the stunner up, and Eve was through the door. Before she could fire, he swung the baby up like a shield, and dove with it.

She hit the floor, rolled to avoid a stream that blasted the doors be­hind her. The air burst with the wails of infants, the shriek of alarms.

«This is the police.» She shouted it over the din, and bellied to cover. «This facility is shut down. Throw out your weapon, put the kid down.»

The comp unit just over her head shattered with another blast.

«Well, that didn't work,» she muttered.

She couldn't return fire, not when he had the infant. But she could draw it, she decided, and gauged the distance to the doors leading to the corridor.

She saw a movement outside the glass, wasn't sure whether to curse or cheer when she saw Roarke position himself.

«You're surrounded, Wilson. You're done. I've already taken out two of you personally. You want to make it three, that's up to you.»

He let out a scream, and as she gathered herself to charge the far doors, she saw the child he'd held fly up. She had an instant to jerk her body around, but Deena was already leaping into the open.

Wilson's blast hit her in midair, just as her arms snatched the child.

«You'll die! And suffer and sicken and stumble your way through what pathetic lives you have. I would have made men gods. Remember who ended it, remember who damned you to mortality. Initiate fail­safe!»

He rose, his face alive with a mad fervor. When he aimed at Eve, she fired even as Roarke slammed through the doors. Wilson went down between their blasts.

Fresh alarms shrilled, and a passionless computerized voice began to drone.

Warning, warning, fail-safe has been initiated. You have ten minutes to safely evacuate these facilities. Warning, warning, these facilities will self-terminate in ten minutes.

«Perfect. Can you stop it?» she demanded of Roarke. He scooped up a small device beside Wilson's body. «This is just a trigger. Single mode. I'd need to find the source before I could begin to override.»

«Can't.»

Eve rushed to where Deena lay on the floor, still holding the scream­ing baby. «We'll get you out.»

«Get her out. Get the children out. Can't override. Multiple sources and levels. Not enough time. Please get them out. I'm already gone.»

«Police and medical assistance is on the way.» Eve glanced back toward Roarke. «I hear them coming. Kids in the adjoining rooms. Get them out.»

«Take her, please take her.» Deena struggled to pass the baby to Eve.

She fumbled to hitch the infant under one arm. And saw Deena was right. She was gone. Where her clothes had been singed by the blast, burned skin was exposed, some to the bone. Blood was already seeping out of her ears, her mouth. She'd never make it out the doors.

«Diana, and the little one?»

«Safe.» Eve looked at Roarke for confirmation. «They got out.»

«Give them to Avril.» Deena clamped a hand on Eve's arm. «Please. Please, God, give them to Avril, let them go. Deathbed confession. I'm giving you a deathbed confession.»

«No time. Roarke.»

She pushed the baby at him. «Get those kids out. Now.»

Warning, warning, all personnel must evacuate. This facility will self-destruct in eight minutes.

«I killed them all. Avril knew nothing about it. I killed Wilfred Icove, Sr. Wilfred Icove, Jr. Evelyn Samuels. I intended… Oh God!»

«Save it. You're right, you're gone. I can't help you.» She heard chil­dren crying, screaming, feet pounding, and kept her eyes on Deena's face. «We'll get everyone out.»

«Gestation.» Deena gritted her teeth, hissed against the pain. «If you take them out of the tanks, unhook the tanks, tamper… they'll die. They can't…« Blood slid out of her eyes like tears. «They can't be saved. I was going to do what Wilson did, knowing that. But I couldn't. You have to leave them, save the rest. Please let them go. Avril… She'll take care of them. She—«

«Are there any others, in this facility?»

«No. I pray no. Just care-droids this time of night. Wilson… Wil­son must've shut them down. Killed Icove replicas. Son of a bitch. I'm going to die where I was born. I guess that's okay. Tell Diana. Well, she'll know. The little one…«

«Darby. Her name's Darby.»

«Darby.» She smiled even as her eyes began to film over.

Her hand slid off Eve's arm.

Warning, warning, this facility will self-destruct in seven minutes. All per­sonnel must evacuate immediately.

«Eve, the nurseries are cleared out. The response team's taking the children up. We have to move. Now.»

Eve got to her feet, turned. She saw Roarke still had the infant. «The Gestation area. She said it couldn't be tampered with or they'd die. Prove her wrong.»

«I can't.» He gripped her arm, pulled her out. «The life support, the artificial wombs, are integral to the system. If it's disengaged, the oxy­gen's cut off.»

«How can you—«

«I looked. I've already checked. If there was time, there might be a way to bypass. There isn't. We couldn't get them out, Eve, we couldn't get the chambers out and up in time, even if we could bypass. We can't save them.»

She saw the horror of it in his eyes, the same cold horror that was balled in her gut. «We just leave them here?»

«We save her.» He shifted the baby awkwardly, and with his hand gripping Eve's began to run. «We move now, or we're all buried here.»

She ran, past the husks of what she'd killed, through the shattered bodies of boys who'd been created to kill. She smelled death, and her own blood, Roarke's blood.

They'd shed it, and still it hadn't been enough.

Nothing stops the vicious and the ugly, she remembered. She'd said it herself.

Warning, warning, red line for safe evacuation has been reached. All re­maining personnel must evacuate immediately. This facility will terminate in four minutes.

«I wish she'd shut the fuck up.»

She kept up the limping run. Her hip was now an insane symphony of pain. A glance at Roarke showed her his face was bone-white and clammy under the smears of blood.

She saw the elevator ahead, its doors shut.

«Can't leave them unsecured.» Roarke's voice was labored, and Eve was nearly as horrified when he shoved the baby at her as she was with the countdown. «Wasn't time to augment the security and keep them open.» Instead he swiped a card, once, twice.

«Buggering hell. Gotten sweaty, bloody, too. Won't read.» He dug out a handkerchief and began to polish it off while under his breath he cursed in Gaelic.

Hooked in her arm, the baby screamed as if she were pounding it with a hammer.

Red line plus sixty seconds. This facility will terminate in three minutes.

He swiped the card a third time, and they leaped inside. «Street level,» he shouted, then cursed again when Eve pushed the baby at him. «What? You've got her.»

«No, you've got her. I'm in charge of this op.»

«Screw that. I'm a bloody civilian.»

Eve tapped a hand on her weapon. «You even try to give it back to me, I'm stunning you. Self-defense.»

Red line plus ninety seconds. All personnel should be at maximum safe distance.

«Cutting it close,» Eve mumbled as sweat rolled down her back.

«Is there any other way?»

«This thing could go faster. This son-of-a-bitching thing could really go faster.» She gritted her teeth when the warning announced red line plus two minutes. «We're still in this when it blows, it'll take us out, too, right?»

«Likely.»

She stared at the controls as if her wrath could speed things up. «We couldn't have gotten them out. No matter what we'd done.»

«We couldn't, no.» He rested his free hand on her shoulder.

«You brought that one so I'd have to leave the rest. So I'd have to go, get her out. So I'd have something tangible to make me move my ass.»

«I also figured you'd be the one holding her on the way out, while she's screaming my eardrums ragged.»

Terminate in thirty seconds.

«If we don't make it, I love you and blah, blah, blah.»

He laughed, and shifted so his arm wrapped around her shoulders.

«I'll say the same. It's been a hell of a ride so far.»

When the final countdown commenced, she reached up, gripped his hand.

Terminate in ten seconds, nine, eight, seven…

The doors opened. They flew through them together. She heard the count go down to three as the doors secured behind them.

She snatched her coat from where she'd tossed it, and bolted through the room with him.

There was a rumble under her feet, a wave of vibration. She thought of what was below her, in tanks, in hives. Then pushed it away, shoved it back. Her nightmares would begin soon enough to go back there now.

She shrugged back into her coat. If her hands shook, he was the only one who knew it. «This is going to take me a while.»

He glanced toward the line of cops.

«Take your time. I'll be outside.»

«You can pass that one onto one of the uniforms. We'll have CP here shortly to deal with the minors.»

«I'll be outside,» he repeated.

«Go get treated,» she called after him.

«In this place? I don't think so.»

«Got a point,» she replied, then moved forward to do the job.

Outside, Roarke went directly to his car. Only more relief washed over him when he saw Diana lying on the backseat with the younger girl curled against her.

He opened the door, crouched down when Diana's eyes opened. «You kept your word,» he said.

«Deena's dead. I know.»

«I'm very sorry. She died saving… saving your sister.» He held out the baby when Diana opened her arms. «She helped save the children.»

«Is Wilson dead?»

«Yes.»

«All of him.»

«All we found, yes. The facilities are gone. Destroyed. The equip­ment in them, the records, the technology.»

Her eyes were clear, level. «What are you going to do with us now?»

«I'll take you to Avril.»

«No, you can't. Then you'll know where we are. She won't stay if you know, and we need time before we go again.»

She was a child, he thought, with two other children. Yet in some ways, she was older than he. All of them, older than he. «Can you get to her, with them, on your own?»

«Yes. Will you let us go?»

«It was all your mother asked, the last thing she asked. She thought of you, of what would be best for you.» As his own mother had, he thought. His mother had died doing what she'd thought best for him. How could he not honor that?

She got out, her hand gripping the younger child's, the baby in the crook of her arm. «We won't forget you.»

«Nor I you. Be safe.»

He watched them until they were out of sight. «Well, Godspeed,» he whispered, then took out his 'link and contacted Louise.

It was nearly two hours before Eve joined him. She took one look at the mobile clinic beside his car and hissed. «Look, I'm tired. I want to go home.»

«Soon as I do a little triage, you're off.» Louise pointed toward the mobile. «Unfortunately I don't have fumigation facilities on board. The pair of you reek.»

It was coming onto dawn. Rather than waste more time, she sat in the mobile. «No tranqs, no blockers. It's bad enough without me get­ting goofy.» She gave Roarke a hard look, but he merely smiled.

«I don't mind the tranq myself. Smoothes out nasty edges.»

«He zoned?» she asked Louise, and hissed as the wand rolled over her arm wound.

«A little bit. Mostly just exhausted. Lost considerable blood, too. Bad gash in his arm, and with that and the head wound, I don't know how he managed to stay upright this long. Same for you. I'd rather take you both into the clinic.»

«I'd rather be in Paris drinking champagne.»

«We'll go tomorrow.» Roarke stirred himself enough to sit beside her.

«You've got a houseful of Irish relatives.»

«Right you are. We'll stay home and get drunk instead. My Irish rel­atives should appreciate a good drunk. If not, well, they're no true re­lations of mine, are they?»

«Wonder what they're going to think when we get home, stinking, bloody, and beat to shit. God damn it, Louise!»

«Easier on you with a tranq. You called it.»

Eve blew air out her nose, then sucked it in to brace for the next medical onslaught. «I'll tell you what they'll think. That we lead full and interesting lives.»

«I love you, darling Eve.» Roarke nuzzled a kiss at her throat. «And blah, blah, blah.»

«More than a little zoned,» was Eve's opinion.

«Go home and get some sleep.» Louise sat back. «Charles and I will come early. I'll give you another treatment.»

«The fun never ends.» She hopped out, didn't quite disguise the wince at the jar on her injured hip.

«Thank you, Louise.» Roarke took her hand, kissed it.

«All in a day's work. I live a full and interesting life, too.»

Eve waited until the mobile pulled out. «Where's Diana, and the other two?»

He looked toward the sky, noted the stars were going out. «I couldn't say.»

«You let them go.»

His eyes were tired, but perfectly clear when they met hers. «Did you intend to do differently?»

She didn't speak for a moment. «I contacted Feeney to request he shut down the tracker. No need. When the place blew, the homers dis­engaged. Officially, Diana Rodriguez is dead. Lost in the explosion that took place in the Quiet Birth facilities. There's no record of the other two minors. There won't be.»

«And no one exists, officially, without records.»

«There's technology for you. Avril Icove is missing. I have a deathbed confession that clears her of all involvement with the homi­cides under my jurisdiction. Even without it, the PA doesn't intend to charge. It would be an inefficient use of departmental time and funds to attempt to locate her, at this time. Federal authorities may think different.»

«But they won't find her.»

«Unlikely.»

«How much heat will you take over this?»

«Minimal. Nadine's going to blast this out of the water in a couple hours. What was in there, belowground?» She turned to study the cen­ter. «It's gone. Governmental authorities may be able to identify and track some of the clones, but most of them will blend into the main­stream. They're smart, after all. Far as I can see, it ends here.»

«Then let's go home.» He cupped her face, kissed her brow, her nose, her lips. «You and I, we've a lot to be thankful for.»

«Yeah. Yeah, we do.» She gripped his hand once, hard, as she had when death had been seconds behind them.

Then she let it go to walk around the car, slide in beside him.

The world wasn't a perfect place, and never would be. But just now, watching dawn come over her godforsaken city, it seemed like a damn good deal.

The End