Dues of Mortality (55 page)

Ross
fell backward, howling in pain. He lolled against the wall, clutching
his bloodied limb. “You motherfucker!”

Gabriel’s
eyes flared at the sight like the brightest of stars. “You have
no idea
how long I’ve been waiting to do that!
You
arrogant little shit!
You have caused me such a fucking
headache!”

“
Damn,
man,” Xavier said, skittishly. He was about to exercise his
unconscious defense mechanism and say something smart-ass like “Isn’t
there anybody in this room you're fond of?”, but he wised up
fast and bit his tongue.

“
You
have been an exceptional pain,” Gabriel said to Ross. He
sauntered over to the wounded terrorist, keeping his Accelerator
pistol trained on his center. He picked up the MAG from the floor and
then fired the remaining shot from the Accelerator pistol into the
outside of Ross's abdomen.

Ross
let out a gurgled scream and squirmed on the floor like a worm trying
to escape oncoming footsteps.

Gabriel
was torturing him, Xavier noticed. Apparently, he had enough
knowledge of the human anatomy to know what would kill a man right
out and what would just hurt like hell until he bled to death.

Gabriel
sneered violently at Ross.

“
You
just couldn't help yourself, could you?” he asked him. “As
if the government threatening to start poking around and seizing the
whole
fucking thing
before
I get a chance to take control wasn’t enough,
you
had to come along looking to
blow
it all up
!”
He pointed the gun at Ross, taking erotic delight in his agony.

“
Maguire,”
Ross moaned spasmodically.

“
What
was that?”

“
Maguire.
It was...all...bullshit.”

“
Yes,
that. Well, you left me with no choice, Calvin. You kept yourself too
well hidden. I was hoping Maguire could convince you to back off. I
even threatened him. Told him I would anonymously release all the
evidence I was able to keep from the prosecutor during his trial, if
he didn’t get rid of you.” Gabriel shook his head like a
disapproving parent. “But when you hit MIT, I realized it
wouldn't be that easy. BioCore was the only target big enough to keep
you occupied while simultaneously drawing you out. So I told him to
do whatever it took to make you believe it was within your grasp.”
Gabriel was positively glowing now. He understood why Wallace had
indulged in talking so much shop to Hawkins and Jameson before
killing them. Gabriel was taking great joy in telling Ross what an
idiot he’d been.

Xavier
had decided he'd seen enough. He visually signaled Glenda to take
notice of the slab of a guard Ross had deposited just a couple steps
from her. A set of cuff keys were latched to his belt. Glenda
understood right away and began judging the distance between Gabriel
and the guard.

“
What
Maguire had in mind after that, I don’t know...and I don’t
care since I already killed him.” Gabriel said to Ross. “I
have to say, I was half expecting you to turn me down when I offered
you a piece. I was starting to believe you had no price. But, here
you are. And I was very serious about the offer...at first. The truth
is, we could've actually worked together. You would've become a very
rich man erasing Millenitech's competition.” Gabriel shook his
head slowly. “But for some reason when I saw your face in the
flesh a minute ago, I just changed my mind. I'm assuming I don't have
to tell you the deal's off.”

“
Jesus,”
Wallace groaned. He hadn’t had a thought in his head the past
minute or so—just a feeling that his suit was the only thing
holding him together.

Gabriel
turned to the old man like he was the dessert to his main course of
Ross tartar.

“
I
knew it, Jerome,” Gabriel said. “I knew impatience would
be your downfall. Add a little misdirection and you have a perfect
recipe for mutiny.”

“
You...you
always were a little too...
poised
for my taste.”

“
Really?
Is that why you enjoyed sending me to do all the shit jobs around
here? Of course, that's how I knew it wouldn’t be a problem
running off a few copies of you behind your back; you hated being in
this place more than I did. I tried to warn you, Jerome. Complacency
will always be the enemy of greatness.”

“
You
smug assho...”

A
MAG blast silenced Wallace before he could finish his insult.

Calvin
Ross was getting weaker by the second. Blood flowed from his wounds
like a river, but it didn’t stop him from reaching his watch,
which was perfectly synchronized.

“
Hey,
lawyer,” he wheezed.

Gabriel
approached him with a wry smile. “You still here?” he
asked passionless.

“
Just
wanted to ask you if you knew what time it was.”

Gabriel
snickered. He glanced at his comwatch, deciding to humor Ross
and
himself
. “It's the witching hour for you, Calvin.”

“
Really?
Because I’ve got less than nine minutes.” Ross turned up
his watch-face so Gabriel could see.

A
black cloud of panic instantly cut off Gabriel's air. He squatted
down and nearly pulled Ross's arm from the socket.
A
countdown
.
The lunatic had planted a bomb in the
building! “Son-of-a-bitch!”

“
I'd
start running if I were you,” Ross coughed. He knew the
Gabriels of the world well. The threat of imminent death didn't scare
them half as much as the threat of being broke and powerless for the
rest of their natural lives. It was worse than any nightmare
imaginable. The lab would be the coffin of not only Wallace and the
clones, but of everything Gabriel had worked and waited for. The
entire operation would be exposed and over $400 billion would go up
in smoke.

“
Nooooooo!”
Gabriel shouted.

Glenda
didn't have to be told twice. She moved swiftly, pinching the cuff
keys from the guard’s belt. She got to Xavier and worked the
key into his cuffs. They clicked open.

Gabriel
pointed Ross’s own MAG at him and leveled it up to full power.
“Shut it down,” he commanded.

“
Did
you really think I would pass up the chance to blow this fucking gene
factory straight to hell?” Ross said.

“
Where
is it?”

Ross
put on the smirk of all smirks. His last breath would be a sweet one.
He broke into a pop tune melody and sang, “
First
you kill all the lawyers, and then the sun begins to shine
.”

Gabriel
screamed at the top of his lungs as he pumped round after round into
Ross at maximum velocity. It seemed as though he was expelling
lighting from his hands, so close together were the shots. The result
was a mosaic of pureed gore that left no indication that Ross had
ever been in one piece.

Glenda
and Xavier wisely used the gunfire to blanket their movements.
Glenda, even more wisely, made a point of blinding herself to the
sight of that Ross character being turned into hamburger.
Xavier
may have experience reconciling that sort of thing, but a lifetime of
nightmares were assured if
she
had to. She and Xavier then
proceeded through the cloning bay's inner door. The same doors that
required everything short of a urine sample to gain entry needed only
the press of a panel to exit. They hit the panel to the outer doors
and the couple completed their escape from the room just before
Gabriel's trigger finger gave out. Laying in a heap on the hallway
floor was the first guard that Ross had apparently encountered—the
one that had led Xavier down from the interrogation room by the neck.
Whether he was dead or just unconscious Xavier didn't know. His gun
holster was empty, but a backup stunner was cinched to the guard's
belt. The stunner he apparently didn't have opportunity to use while
Calvin Ross was cleaning his clock and otherwise disarming him.
Xavier snatched up the stunner and the moment the doors slid shut,
jammed it into the outside key reader. He fired its charge until it
was drained. There was no guarantee it would work, but any head start
was worth the try.

Miles
Gabriel ceased fire when he sensed the disturbance of the doors. He
promptly pursued the couple only to be stopped by a frozen door. The
sheet glass beneath the exit panel was spotted with scorch marks. He
punched at the panel repeatedly and the doors parted maybe six
inches. “Son-of-a...” Gabriel then stuck his gun-arm
through the gap and pushed with what little leverage he had. He kept
up the pressure until the entire right half of his body had extended
the gap and wiggled through. When he saw the couple running down the
end of the corridor that faced him, he smiled.

Xavier
glanced behind them and saw Gabriel taking aim. He looped an arm
around Glenda’s back and the couple assiduously picked up
speed, breaking into a zigzag. Gabriel had already proven to be a
good shot and Xavier wasn't about to give the asshole a chance at
first prize. Thankfully, he and Glenda were already approaching an
intersection. As they rounded the right-hand corner, a MAG blast
chunked a section of wall to their right. A piece of the debris
nearly took out Xavier’s eye. He shook it off without losing a
step and they angled onto another stretch of hallway that seemed
infinitely longer than the last. However, at the very end of
this
stretch was a stairwell door that Xavier just bet opened up to a
magical land of sunshine and rainbows...or the equivalent, which was
just about any place where they weren’t being shot at. They
paused for no more than a second to gauge the distance and then lit
off toward the door. Xavier tried unsuccessfully not to think about
Gabriel catching up to them before they hit it. When he saw a red
polished alarm switch on the wall, he thanked the gods for approving
his parole and he threw it down. A raucous torrent of alarm bells
sounded and a cannonade of cyclical strobe lighting flooded the hall.

“
What’s
that?” Glenda screamed.

“Fire
alarm
,” Xavier answered.

No
sooner had he said that, when a computer generated voice intoned from
every surface around them. “DECONTAMINATION ON SUBLEVEL THREE.
LOCKDOWN ENGAGED.”

“
Lockdown
?”
Xavier said. “
Oh,
shit
!”
He pulled harder on Glenda's arm as they made for the door even
faster.
No,
no, no!

Instead of getting soaked under
the shower of sprinklers, Glenda and Xavier saw a series of recessed
ceiling panels slide open the entire length of the corridor. Behind
each panel was the outgrowth of a narrow nozzle about six inches
long. Some of the panels hadn't even completely opened when they
began spewing sallies of a foamy white substance directly into the
hallways. The foam expanded in seconds and by the time Glenda and
Xavier hit the stairwell door they were hip-deep in the generally
harmless, but potent antimicrobial, antibacterial,
anti-damn-near-anything.

Xavier thrust down on the door's
non-responsive handle. “No!” he shouted.

“
That
wasn’t a fire alarm you hit, was it?” Glenda asked.
“Because fire alarms
want
people to leave, right?”

“
There
was probably a biohazard symbol nearby and I didn't notice it,”
he said.
Stupid!
“
The program thinks this
floor has been exposed to a toxic threat! It probably won’t
release us until decon can be confirmed!”

Miles
Gabriel rounded the corner, looking like a human marshmallow. The
entire floor was deluged in lumpy white billows. It was like swimming
through a pool-sized, carelessly drawn mug of beer. The shit was
everywhere, in his eyes, in his mouth; he was blinking and spitting
with every step. He had to get it out of his face before...Wham!
Gabriel suddenly fell backward, solidly floored by a jarring right
cross. Xavier had clocked him hard, articulating a measure of revenge
for that cheap shot back in the warehouse. Unfortunately, the true
object of Xavier's attention had now skidded off into the layers of
foam coating the floor. He began a frantic search. If he could get
Gabriel's gun, then Xavier and Glenda could blast their way out.

****

The guard peered into the
hallway, paying absolutely no attention to Richard Kelmer.
“DECONTAMINATION ON SUBLEVEL THREE. LOCKDOWN ENGAGED,” he
heard again. He'd heard that same warning voice before during evac
drills, but this was the first time it had ever singled-out a
specific floor. He glanced between Kelmer and the handfuls of
scurrying workers charging for the exits.

Oh,
shit,
he
thought.

Something
had escaped
—a bacteria, a virus, or both. Wallace
could think all he wanted, that guys like him were just a bunch of
brainless ex-jocks who'd suffered one too many concussions in
high-school football, but the guard knew exactly what these eggheads
were working with in this place. And he knew since, officially, the
facility didn't even exist, that going down with the ship was all
that was left to anyone on sublevel three. Best to be up and out
before someone decided the whole building was ground zero.