H.A.L.F.: The Makers (30 page)

Dr. Randall inspected a smaller container that looked like the bottom half of a large, curved pea pod with a bubbled lid on top. In it lay a tiny Conexus fetus no more than twelve inches long. “Incredible.” His voice was a barely audible whisper. He walked slowly as he inspected the cylinders. “They’re – clones.”

Tex had stayed beside the door, and Xenos stood behind him, practically clinging to his back. “Yes,” he said. “All of them are her children.”

“Absolutely fascinating,” Dr. Randall said.

“She is there. In the room at the end of this one. Xenos and I will take no further part. Do as you will.”

“Thank you,” Erika said. “We’ll take it from here.” She smiled at him.

Tex did not return the gesture.

There were at least two dozen Conexus in various states of development growing in cylinders and smaller containers. Erika’s hairs were on end as she tiptoed amongst the rows of naked Conexus clones floating silently in the artificial wombs.

Tex had pointed the way to the back of the room but had refused to follow. Erika tried to understand his choice but couldn’t. He looked like he’d been starved. When they found him, he was naked and shivering, blood trickling out of his head. He was bruised and cut. The way Erika saw it, the Conexus had tortured him and the Regina was their leader. Why he would refuse to take out the one that was responsible for inflicting so much pain on him was beyond her.

Dr. Randall and Ian flanked her as they made their way through the rows of clones. All three stepped slowly and lightly as though any minute they might step on a bomb. Their rifles were held ready to shoot. Erika had been tense from the first moment they stepped over the threshold into the clone room. Her shoulder and neck muscles ached.

The large room of clones narrowed down to a small corridor wide enough for only one of them. Erika took point with Ian close on her heels. The purple glow of the tanks was gone. The tiny hall was formed of chiseled-out rock, dank and musty. It opened up to a small cocoon of a room that smelled of dirt and mold.

Erika moved to the right of the small doorway so that Ian and Dr. Randall could enter. They had to duck their heads to fit through.

The room was silent except for the low whirr of a robotic arm that extended down from the ceiling. It moved slowly and deliberately downward toward the exposed abdomen of the Regina reclining on a stone chair.

She was still, her eyes closed, her thin grey stomach exposed to the air. She lay in repose on a smooth stone reclining chair that looked as though it was formed from one large block of stone.

Dr. Randall whispered into Erika’s ear, “Do you think she’s asleep?”

Erika shrugged. Her nose wrinkled up from the foul smell of the place. A chill ran up her spine and she involuntarily shuddered. The Regina appeared unaware of their presence. Their timing was perfect, but Erika couldn’t make her feet move closer.

The robotic arm plunged a long needle into the Regina’s stomach. She didn’t flinch. Her eyes remained closed.

“What is it doing to her?” Ian asked.

They watched silently as something was sucked up into a vial attached to the needle. After watching for a few more seconds, Dr. Randall said, “I believe it’s harvesting her eggs.”

She truly is their mother.

Erika’s resolve to kill the Regina was melting. It was one thing to create the plan but another to carry it out. Resting supine before her, the Regina looked vulnerable and small. Erika stood at the side of her bed. “I don’t think I can do this.”

Ian stepped to the other side and faced Erika. “You don’t have to. I will.” He put the rifle to his shoulder and aimed at her heart.

Dr. Randall stood at her feet. “It’s a shame it has to end this way. We could learn so much from them if only –”

“If only they didn’t want to wipe us out with a deadly virus?” Ian asked. He squinted through the gun’s sights.

Another metal robotic arm came from the ceiling, its pincers holding a metal tool that resembled a scalpel. The blade of the instrument caught the light and glinted. Erika braced herself to witness the knife cutting into the Regina. Instead, it swung down swiftly toward Ian.

“Ian!” Erika shouted. “Move.” Erika lunged across the table. Her knee landed on the Regina’s naked stomach as Erika pushed Ian out of the way of the swinging knife.

Ian fell to the ground. Erika rolled off the table and tumbled down beside him. The knife had narrowly missed Ian and had nearly cut a hole in Erika. It grazed her back and sliced a rip into Erika’s shirt. Blood trickled down her back.

Erika helped Ian to his feet. The Regina’s eyes were now open. They stared toward the ceiling, wide and dark. The reclining stone chair that had looked as though it was hewn from a solid block of stone began to rise and put the Regina into an upright position.

Erika’s hands trembled as she reached for the gun she’d slung back around her shoulder when she’d jumped across the table to push Ian out of the way. Her hands were sweaty and her fingers slid off the grip as she tried to pull her gun into position.

The Regina reached out and grabbed Erika around the neck. Her hand was dainty, but her grip was unnaturally strong. Erika tried to pry the Regina’s fingers loose from around her neck, but her bony fingers closed tighter around Erika’s windpipe.

Ian raised his rifle again, but before he could get off a shot, the robotic arm with the scalpel swung toward him. He ducked just in time to miss it slicing his face.

A shot echoed off the stone walls of the room. The Regina’s grip was still tight around Erika’s neck, her eyes staring into Erika’s like two black mirrors.

Another shot was fired and then a third. The Regina screeched and loosed her grip on Erika’s throat. Erika coughed and gulped for air.

Dr. Randall fired another shot, and the Regina’s head whipped backward as her arms flailed. A bloom of purplish-red stained the chest of her otherwise immaculately clean silver tunic. Dr. Randall shot her in the chest again. Blood sprayed and spattered Erika’s hands and face.

The screeching stopped, but her eyes were still wide and her hands flailed at them. Dr. Randall fired at her one last time. She gasped for air and there was a gurgling sound.

The stone chair reclined again of its own accord as the Regina’s mouth moved like a fish out of water, gasping for air. Blood bubbled out of her open mouth.

“Come. Let’s leave this place,” Dr. Randall said.

He got no argument from Erika or Ian. Erika followed Dr. Randall back through the room filled with the Regina’s clones. Even through the glass and viscous liquid that held them, their chilling screams could be heard. The nearly full-grown ones jerked and flailed in their containers, their eyes now open and wide with terror.

Erika ran as quickly as she could past them, her heart heavy with guilt.
What have we done?

Thomas rifled through the papers spread across his computer desks. He pulled a packet of pages stapled together and handed it to Jack. “I hacked into Croft’s security system while you and Anna were on stakeout. Probably what triggered them to nab Anna,” he said ruefully.

“But also what gave you the information we need to get in there and get both Alecto and Anna out,” Jack said. He inspected the papers.

It was a chain of emails that had started a little over a week ago, with one from Croft’s personal assistant in London to the ‘head of staff’ in New York. Croft apparently wanted changes made to the fire-suppression system in the west wing of the apartment.

“Sprinkler system, huh. Alecto?”

Thomas nodded. “Read on.”

The command was passed by email from head of staff to head butler, who tossed it to the chief of security with a note at the top that said simply ‘Take care of this’.

The security chief apparently didn’t want to be at the bottom of the dung pile, so he passed it on to the security officer below him, who did the same until it landed in the inbox of one ‘R. Price’. Price appeared to be the lowest man on a very long totem pole. He was likely unaware of the purpose of the project or that the order had originated with Croft himself.

To their great fortune, Price didn’t have a clue how to go about finding someone to modify the sprinkler system so it could be manually operated by a switch or remote control. He’d contacted a local labor agency a few days ago. At least Thomas claimed it was fortunate.

“How, exactly, does this help us?”

“Because now we have a way in. I answered the ad two days ago and got the call yesterday that we’ve been hired.”

“Hired to rework their sprinklers? And we’re qualified for that how?”

“Well, you’re not at all qualified. But it operates on a computer system and I happen to be more than qualified to complete the task. Of course, it’s a moot point. They want to modify the sprinkler system so they can operate it by switch to turn it on. That way they can douse Alecto if she proves too difficult to handle. But since we’ll be taking her off their hands, they won’t have need for it anyway.”

Jack made a T with his hands. “Time out. One flaw with your plan. A big one, actually. They’ll recognize you. And even if we get in, there’ll be guards all over that place. We’re not just going to waltz in there, say ‘Hey, we’re taking Anna and Alecto for a walk’ and get them out.”

Thomas was apparently done talking about it. He swung back to the keyboard and commenced typing, his fingers a blur on the keys. “Fear not, Jack Wilson. I have command of the situation.”

A scary thought.
The guy had gone from manic to sobbing to catatonic to productive in the span of less than an hour. Jack couldn’t imagine what would happen inside the guy’s brain if a gun was pointed at it.

Jack flung the pages of email printouts onto the nearest stack of papers.

Thomas didn’t look up or stop typing as he talked. “And you caught the other good news in that memo, didn’t you?”

It had looked like corporate buck-passing to Jack. “Missed it.”

Thomas turned his head toward Jack long enough to roll his eyes at him. “The first one. It’s from London.”

“And?”

“And, since it came from Croft’s personal assistant in London, that means that Croft isn’t here. He’s across the pond. We’ll have only Lizzy to deal with.”

Thomas thought it was good news that Lizzy was in charge of Croft’s New York operations instead of her father. But Jack wasn’t so sure. On his road trip with Anna, she’d given him an earful about Lizzy Croft. There was bad blood between the two women. Cousins, it turned out. Anna had described Lizzy as ‘pathologically set on proving herself’ and referred to her as a loose cannon. If Anna Sturgis was wary of the woman, Jack figured Thomas shouldn’t be too quick to assume she’d be easy to get past.

Jack’s stomach began its now familiar twitching. It was a feeling he had come to recognize meant bad things were likely to happen.

For the next twenty-four hours, Jack became an errand boy. His first stop was to meet a guy at a parking lot a few blocks away. He waited in the chilly November morning, shuffling his feet and blowing into his hands to keep them warm. A few minutes past what was supposed to be the meeting time, a middle-aged man waddled up to him and handed him a set of keys. “The van,” he said and walked away.

The keys opened a nondescript white van. It was at least ten years old and a basic model without many amenities. But it started on the first turn of the key and ran smoothly.

Jack picked up blue uniforms at a uniform supply store with names embroidered on a patch on the chest. One said ‘Ed’ and one said ‘Steve’. Jack was glad Thomas stayed with the Steve identity for Jack. He wasn’t inclined to be yet a third person.

He dropped off his first round of parcels to the house. Thomas immediately handed him a list that required another trip to the hardware store, one trip to the drugstore, a jaunt to a gun shop and a pickup in an alley behind a Chinese food restaurant. Jack had gotten used to not asking too many questions. His last pickup of the day was no exception.

The air was chilly and damp. The potholed alley glistened black from the light drizzle that had fallen all morning.

A man in a waiter’s uniform was waiting for Jack beside the back door of the Chinese restaurant. He was smoking a cigarette he’d rolled himself, and the smoke mixed with the vapor of his breath as he spoke in heavily accented English. “What are you planning to do with so many canisters of Zissnine?”

Jack told him the truth. “I have no idea. I’m just the errand boy.” Jack held out a paper bag filled with cash.

The waiter handed Jack a green duffle bag. It was lighter than Jack expected for the bulk of it.

“Make sure you don’t break any of those open by accident. Very nasty for you,” the man said and disappeared through a rickety wood door.

When Jack finally got back to the apartment, Thomas wasn’t at his computer station. Jack’s heart skipped a beat. He called out, “Thomas?” as he dropped the bags onto the couch.

“I’m in here,” Thomas called back from the bathroom.

Jack sighed with relief then set about unpacking the bags and parcels he’d toted in. He carefully opened the duffle and stared at the canisters. There were eight. Each was about six inches long, aluminum and had a pin at the top. They looked like oddly shaped grenades. Jack had no idea what Zissnine was, but he assumed the gas masks that Thomas had him pick up at the guns and ammo store were a clue.

Thomas had Jack purchase enough ammo to arm a small militia.
How many security guards does he expect to run into?
Jack hoped he had the stomach to pull the trigger if it came to that.

When Thomas finally emerged from the bathroom, he was a different person. He’d cut his hair into a neat, tightly cropped cut and died it so black that it looked blue. His scruffy beard was gone, revealing deep hollows beneath his high cheekbones. He looked at least five years younger and less like a vagrant. Jack could now see his resemblance to his sister.

“Your turn,” Thomas said. He tossed a package of hair dye to Jack.

“Nope,” Jack said. He put the box of hair dye down on the coffee table. Jack wasn’t particular about his appearance. He generally chose comfort over fashion. But Erika liked his hair longer rather than shorter, so he wasn’t thrilled about cutting it. And he’d worked hard to master the messy beach-hair look. “It’s not like they’ll recognize me. Messing around with a hair disguise is a waste of time for me.”