Prodigal (49 page)

At full strength, the prosthetic would have flattened Lea—but Avalon could only muster enough force to bat her away, punching Lea across the jaw. The blow spun Lea in her tracks, knees buckling beneath her. Blood poured into her mouth as she went down for the second time, spilling over her lips as she crawled away. She somehow spied the quicksilver in the debris and dragged herself toward the weapon. Grabbing hold of it, she rolled over and tried not to cut herself with the poison blade.

Up against the wall, Avalon also spit blood. She and Lea rose to their feet at the same time, each one a battered reflection of the other. Avalon peeled away her remaining lens, confronting Lea with her cadaverous stare. It reminded Lea of who Avalon really was—and her own mission here.

Lea lowered the quicksilver. “I’m not your enemy.”

Avalon bared her teeth like a vampire. “You would destroy us,” she seethed, “all for the sake of a
machine.
”

“No,” Lea said, panting. “It’s over, Avalon. Bionucleics is a failure. There’s no need for any of this.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“Because you’ve got nobody else.”

Avalon stepped out from her corner, preparing the next attack.

“Phao Yin betrayed you, Avalon.”

“I know all about Phao Yin,” Avalon snapped, reserving all her spite for that name. “He was never on the
Inru
path. He was like
you
—he never believed.”

Lea backed away. Avalon had toyed with her up to now, deliberately avoiding the kill because she needed Lea to talk—but that motivation was fading fast. The next time would be for real.

“He believed in your potential,” Lea said. “That’s why he harvested the Mons virus.”

Avalon stopped.

“
Your
virus,” Lea implored. “That’s how all this got started. He used it as a template to develop the first Ascension strain—the same strain
you’re
now using to create the hive.”

Avalon shook her head, shutting Lea out. “That’s impossible.”

Lea kept the pressure on.

“It’s
real,
” she said. “It’s happening. Everything you ever hated about the Collective, about the disease pumping through your veins—you’re keeping it alive, Avalon. You’re
spreading
it.”

Avalon trembled, trapped rage breaking the surface.

“Help me stop it,” Lea finished. “Please.”

Her plea found its mark. A spark of humanity breached the neurostatic glow behind Avalon’s eyes, bringing with it a flood of horrors that Lea could only imagine. But a moment later it was gone, extinguished beneath the weight of Avalon’s training and experience—and all the history between them. She cocked her head to one side, her face an impenetrable barrier. Any hope Lea had of reaching her disappeared in that instant.

“Nice try,” Avalon said, and seized the offensive.

She flipped into a somersault, boots coming up under Lea’s chin. Lea blocked her with an elbow, blunting Avalon’s advance—but it cost her, nearly dislocating her shoulder in the process. Lea screamed and struck back with the quicksilver. The blade seared into the black of Avalon’s sensuit, but ricocheted off the hard surface of her prosthetic, drawing sparks instead of blood. Off-balance, Lea stumbled—right into Avalon’s grasp, which snaked around her throat and tightened. Lea’s vision instantly compressed, oxygen fleeing higher brain functions and routing itself to the animal core.

She plunged the quicksilver toward Avalon’s temple—but the
Inru
agent deflected her, the prosthetic hand clamping down on Lea’s wrist and forcing her fingers open. The weapon hit the floor again with the sound of shattering glass, this time gone forever. Lea put a knee into Avalon’s chest, kicking again and again, but it had no discernible effect. Avalon held tight, squeezing even harder.

Until Lea rammed her forehead into Avalon’s skull.

Avalon’s grip slackened, enough for Lea to pry herself out and land another punch—this one with her wounded arm. Both women screamed at each other, screamed at their torment, a tangle of extremities lashing out in mutually assured destruction. Avalon got in the final hit, picking Lea up off the ground and throwing her down on the tile with a horrendous crack. Lea felt herself go limp as she rolled away, coasting to a stop near the door with her back turned to Avalon.

Darkness descended.

It flooded her senses, begging her to let go. Avalon’s heated presence close behind wouldn’t allow it—nor did her hands, which slipped into the pocket that stowed the rest of her weapons. Lea found the Pollex first, one touch away from explosive release—but there was also the hand cannon, and one last trick she had to play.

Avalon swooped down, grabbing Lea and flipping her over.

And Lea shoved the cannon directly in Avalon’s face.

The
Inru
agent froze, like a cobra in midstrike. Lea held her thumb on the trigger, the barrel aimed at center mass—right between Avalon’s eyes. Even now, Avalon weighed her options, deciding whether or not she could evade the bullet.

“Nobody’s that fast,” Lea warned.

Avalon didn’t even twitch. “Go ahead,” she said. “Finish it.”

Lea dragged herself away, though she kept the cannon fixed on its target. She withdrew to a safer distance, giving herself some room to maneuver as she shuffled back to her feet.

“I’ve got plenty of reasons,” she told Avalon, “but I meant what I said.”

The cannon dropped to her side.

Lea kept the weapon in her hand, but turned the barrel inward and let go of the trigger. If Avalon wanted, she had her opening to resume the fight. In her depleted state, Lea doubted she could react in time to stop it. Ever the tactician, Avalon understood that as well—but slowly, inexorably, the
Inru
agent stood down. The two women then faced off, each waiting for the other to break the truce, a period of seconds that passed like hours.

But neither of them moved.

“So,” Lea began, “what do we do now?”

Avalon remained inscrutable.

“You haven’t thought this out, have you?”

“To be honest, I didn’t think it would get this far.”

“Neither did I,” Avalon confessed. “I assumed one of us would be dead by now.”

Lea smiled, just a little—but enough for it to hurt. “Maybe we need to try something else.” Wincing from the fire in her shoulder, Lea offered her hand to Avalon. “Trust,” she said, “for a change.”

Avalon didn’t give it up that easily. She eventually came forward, unsure of who was offering surrender—but that didn’t matter to Lea. They had already spilled enough blood and spent enough hatred.

Reluctantly, Avalon accepted. Her touch felt alien and cold.

As did her voice when she spoke.

“Only a fool trusts a spook, Prism.”

Lea yelped as Avalon spun her around, jerking her arm up behind her back. Fresh, exquisite pain tore through her body, while Avalon subdued her with a powerful chokehold. Lea fumbled with the cannon, blindly feeling for the trigger, not caring if she put a round through them both—but the weapon slipped out of her sweaty grasp, tumbling out of sight.

“Avalon—
don’t
…”

The
Inru
agent didn’t listen. She only tightened her grip on Lea, clutching her like a human shield. Lea made a weak grab for the Pollex, but Avalon blocked that move before she even got close. Lea was trapped, with no way out—at the mercy of a woman who could snap her neck on a whim. She gulped air in racking, torrid gasps, fully expecting each one to be her last.

But then Avalon relented, stopping short of killing her.

Lea held still. The room fell into an unnatural quiet, punctuated by an echo of dripping water—a focal point for her gathering senses. The picture assembled itself into a stark reality, as Avalon pointed her toward the entrance to the infirmary: a black hole of subliminal noise, sounds at the threshold of Lea’s perception. All at once, she
knew
somebody else was there—but not before Avalon sensed it as well.

“Show yourselves,” Avalon called out.
“Now.”

Slowly, men shimmered in and out of view, piling in from the corridor and assuming the color and dimensions of the green tile walls. Almost invisible, they formed a cordon between Lea and the door, each one materializing as they took up their positions, red optics glowing beneath their helmets. Heavy pulse rifles leveled off on a hot trigger, capacitors humming as if the weapons had a life of their own—four barrels pointed directly at Lea, and the woman who held her hostage.

Zone agents.

Lea was certain that they would open fire right there, but for some reason they held back. What they were doing on Rapa Nui she couldn’t even hazard to guess—but Lea seriously doubted that they had her rescue in mind.

Leaning back, she whispered to Avalon, “I had nothing to do with this.”

Avalon twisted her arm some more. “Then we’ve got a problem.”

Lea had to give her that one. Plenty of people wanted both of them dead, so it didn’t really matter which one of them was the target. Her only question was how the agents had tracked them here.
No way the Zone Authority cracked T-Branch,
Lea thought—which left Avalon, who wouldn’t make that kind of mistake.

What the hell is going on?

The answer walked in behind the agents.

He wore the same mercenary gear as the others, but couldn’t have been any more different. Unlike the agents, he carried himself with discipline and precision—the mark of military training, not the kind of mosh fight that passed for boot camp in the Zone. Even with features hidden beneath his visor, Lea recognized him.

“Tiernan,” she said.

His name came out in a snarl, an accusation riddled with scorn and loathing. As Tiernan pulled his helmet off, he refused to meet Lea’s eyes—but she glared at him anyway, long enough for him to get the message and face up to her.

“You okay, Lea?” he asked.

“I was doing fine until you showed up,” she replied. “So what’s the story, Eric? You been keeping tabs on me? Or did you just happen to be in the neighborhood?”

Tiernan stepped forward, though he kept his distance. He cast a wary eye on Avalon, who watched the exchange with even greater suspicion.

“Let her go, Avalon,” he said, “and we can all get through this.”

“Don’t bet on it,” Lea said, shifting herself to make sure the agents couldn’t get a clean shot at Avalon—not that it made much difference. If they really wanted her, they wouldn’t think twice about going straight through Lea. “We’re both as good as dead. You might as well pull the trigger now, Eric—save your boss the trouble.”

The agents seemed game, slapping their rifles to tighten up the beam.

“Hold your fire!”
Tiernan shouted, blocking their line.

Thugs that they were, the agents visibly chafed at the order. For a moment, Lea believed that they would turn their guns on Tiernan.

“I need them alive,” he said. “That’s the contract.”

It was the only threat the agents took seriously. One by one, they lowered their rifles, but kept weapons at low ready. Tensions, however, had escalated on an exponential scale, one breath away from exploding. Even with a bottom line at stake, Zone agents could only be pushed so far—the essential nature of a beast that Tiernan didn’t fully understand.

But Lea did.

Tiernan returned to her, his pleading evident beneath a stone façade.

“Stay cool,” he said, “and you just might make it out of here.”

“First things first,” Avalon interjected. “Tell your men to drop their weapons.”

Tiernan shook his head gravely, still focused on Lea.

“Not going to happen,” he intoned, so the agents wouldn’t hear. “They have their orders, and I have mine.”

“Then she dies.”

“If that’s the way it has to be.”

Lea guessed Tiernan was bluffing. If he didn’t care about what happened to her, he would have already given the order to shoot—and that gave her an idea.

“Don’t believe him, Avalon,” Lea said suddenly. “He won’t let you kill me.”

Tiernan forced down a swell of panic. “What the hell are you doing, Lea?”

“Just playing the game, Eric,” she told him. “So how long have you been on Bostic’s payroll, anyway? Was it after you started fucking me? Or was that part of the job?”

“Don’t do this,” he said.

“Why not?” she asked. “We’re all friends here.”

“I’m trying to
help
you, for Christ’s sake.”

Lea grimaced, an approximation of a smile. “See?” she said to Avalon. “He doesn’t have the balls to do it.”

Avalon hitched her even closer, fingernails biting into the skin of Lea’s neck. Slowly, the two of them began to shuffle toward the door.

“Out of the way,” she ordered.

Tiernan drew a pulse pistol, pointing the muzzle at Lea’s head.

“Don’t make me,” he growled.

Avalon stopped, awaiting some cue from Lea. The Zone agents, meanwhile, began to spread out—flanking positions, creating a kill zone with the two women in the middle. The situation was deteriorating rapidly.