MirrorWorld Part 6

"Mrs. Winters," I say to the blond woman who freed me from SafeHaven by giving me a knife, knowing I'd use it. She's seated on the far side of the small room.

"Ms." She stands. "Going somewhere?"

"Yes."

She crosses her arms, drawing my attention lower. She's dressed in a black power suit that makes her blond hair appear brighter. "That's probably not a good idea."

"Coming here wasn't a good idea."

"You don't know that yet," she says.

"I'll know, one way or the other, soon enough."

She smiles. "That confidence of yours ... I wish I knew if it was real or just the lack of fear talking. Maybe we could find out?" She doesn't quite lick her lips, but I see seductive possibilities in her eyes.

I grin, not because the suggested invitation intrigues me-though it does-but because I know she's trying to distract me from noticing her left hand, folded under her right arm, sliding beneath the jacket of her suit. She's after something. Pepper spray. A Taser. Maybe even a gun.

"We can do this two ways," I tell her. "You can draw whatever weapon you've got and I can knock you unconscious-"

The hand beneath her jacket stops moving.

"-or you can get in bed, let me sedate you, and you wake up feeling refreshed."

She's thinking about it. Not a good sign.

"You've read my file," I tell her. "You know I'm willing and capable."

"But you don't know anything about me, do you?" Her expectant eyes irritate me. She's digging for an answer, maybe even hoping for one, but I have nothing to offer.

She makes her move, kicking suddenly so I have to lean away from the tip of her solid-looking shoe. By the time I've righted myself, I hear the telltale crackling of a Taser. She thrusts the bright-blue arc of electricity at my midsection. Fear or not, if she connects, I'm done.

But I react quickly, or rather my body does. Acting on some kind of body memory, using techniques I have no memory of learning, I catch her wrist with my right hand, squeezing a pressure point. A painful, cold sensation is rushing up her arm. She hisses in pain and drops the Taser, but I'm not done.

With my left hand, I squeeze a second pressure point at her elbow joint. It's like completing a circuit, doubling the pain and eliciting a shout. But her voice is cut off a moment later, when I release her wrist and give her a backhand slap behind her right ear, striking a third pressure point and once again completing the circuit, overloading her neurology. She drops into my arms, unconscious, just as the door swings open.

"What's going-"

I lift Winters and shove her toward the security guard. He instinctively moves to catch the woman. As his arms wrap around her, I punch the defenseless man in the temple. The pair drops together, limbs tangled.

It takes three minutes to lift Winters and the guard into the bed, gag them, and shackle them with the restraints, which they'll be able to remove once the sedatives I've given them wear off. I check them for cell phones but find nothing. No IDs, either. Winters has a blank, red keycard around her neck, which I transfer to mine. I take a set of car keys from her pants pocket and recover the Taser from the floor. The security guard carries a pair of plastic zip cuffs, a stun gun, and a radio. I pillage the nonlethal armaments, clip the radio to my belt (after turning it off), and pocket the cuffs.

I take one last look at the unconscious pair and slip out the door into an empty hallway. I'm at the end of a hundred-foot-long, straight-as-an-arrow corridor. The floor is checkered linoleum, a far cry from the oriental rug on the living-quarters level. The tan walls are barren save for the occasional room label and utilitarian sconce. An EXIT sign glows red from the far end of the hallway.

Stun gun in hand, I stalk down the corridor. The first three doors I try are locked. The fourth opens smoothly. I flick on the light. The room is identical to mine with two exceptions: there is a vase of roses decorating a countertop, filling the air with their scent, and a woman asleep in bed. She's not restrained, but she's not waking from the light, either, so she must be sedated.

I step inside and close the door behind me.

A heart monitor beeps slowly and steadily. An IV hangs by her bed, the needle strapped to her wrist. She's thin. Gaunt. Hasn't eaten anything substantial in a very long time. But I can see her beauty beyond the malnourishment. I lean in close to her face, inspecting the details. "Who are you?" I whisper.

A splotch of purple on her arms draws my eyes away from her face. I turn the limb over and find it pocked with deep purple bruising and long, thin scars, some of them blazing with red freshness. What the h.e.l.l are they doing to this woman? A chart hanging from the end of her bed catches my attention. I read the name. "M. Shiloh."

m.u.f.fled voices, just outside the door, spin me around. The door handle turns. I'm in motion before I can develop a course of action, but my body moves like fluid, bending around obstacles as they emerge and striking with force. The first man, dressed in a long white doctor's coat, is on the floor by the time my consciousness catches up. Clear fluid from a burst IV bag pools around him. The second, a security guard, twitches madly as the two metal p.r.o.ngs buried in his chest deliver a hundred thousand volts into his nervous system. Before he falls to the ground, I drop him with a punch. It's a low blow, hitting a guy who's being shocked, but I need him unconscious, and the stun gun won't do that.

His twitching body slides along the wall and collapses. Moving quickly, I drag both men inside the room and shove them in the bathroom. I don't find any sedatives in the cupboards, so I bind and gag them with spare sheets, take the guard's radio, and wedge a chair beneath the bathroom door's handle.

With so many people around, it must be morning, which means my time is short. I leave the room and move quickly down the hallway. a.s.suming all the unlabeled doors lead to more examination rooms, I jog down the hall, reading labels as I go. None sound interesting until I get to a set of double doors labeled DOc.u.mENTUM.

It's Latin.

What the h.e.l.l? I know Latin?

Doc.u.mentum means "proof" or, more loosely, "evidence," which is the same word etched on my plastic pendant; I don't think they're related, but it sounds like what I'm looking for.

I shove the doors and find them locked. I swipe Winters's keycard across the panel next to the door. It turns green, and I hear the lock click back. I shove the doors open, rush into the s.p.a.ce beyond, and stop in my tracks.

For the first time in my one-year memory, I'm shocked into silence.

Dead eyes stare at me. Hundreds of them.

The vast room is split in two. Both sides contain large numbers of ten-foot-tall, four-foot-diameter gla.s.s tubes full of green fluid. The tubes are lit from above and below, exposing the contents while leaving the rest of the room, which is black from floor to ceiling, in darkness. Serial numbers and bar codes are etched into the gla.s.s of each tube.

I step inside the macabre s.p.a.ce and let the doors swing shut behind me. On the right side of the room, the hundred or so specimen tubes are empty. But on the left ... The remains of tortured men, women, and children are suspended in the green liquid. While I know they feel no shame in death, their naked display is repulsive. But their nudity isn't the worst of it. Each and every person met with a violent and untimely end. Some have multiple stab wounds. Others were shot. A few were eviscerated. I see broken bones, some protruding from the skin, and caved-in skulls. It's a menagerie of violent ends.

That woman I found. Shiloh. Will she end up here, too?

Will I?

I shake my head. Not likely.

The sound of voices pulls me deeper into the room. A rectangle of white light glows, revealing a door on the back wall. Lit by lime-green gore, I walk toward the door, Taser in hand.

I look at the dead faces as I pa.s.s, my anger growing like a supervolcano. Who were these people? Mothers. Fathers. Innocent children with long lives ahead of them. I see different ages, from babies to gray-haired grandmothers. A variety of nationalities are represented. It seems like a perfect sampling of the entire human race, and since we're in New Hampshire, where only 7 percent of the population isn't gleaming white, many of these people must have been collected from around the country, if not the world.

While in SafeHaven, I heard stories from some of the older, higher-functioning patients who'd spent time at the New Hampshire State Hospital, which was basically an asylum for the "insane and feeble-minded"-like SafeHaven, but with a deplorable moral fiber. One of my many counselors, a young woman with high hopes, told me the lurid details, which was against all sorts of rules, but she, like most people there, could see I was "normal," aside from a complete lack of fear.

Hundreds of "patients" were sterilized as part of a statewide eugenics program. The hospital carried out lobotomies, electroshock, and insulin-shock therapies. A horror show, it was closed in 1983. Rampant abuse left patients worse off than when they entered. Those who died as a result of their abuse were buried in the hospital's cemetery and forgotten.

This ... is worse.

Not only were these people likely tortured and brutally slain, their corpses are on display. Objects of necro-admiration. At least the patients at the state hospital were put in the ground. Even if these bodies are still being studied, I don't see why they should be staged in a gallery.

I turn my eyes to the right. Given the number of empty chambers, Neuro Inc.'s collection still has room to grow.

The bright glow of the small door's window beckons me. The voices grow louder. Sliding up beside the door, I peek through the window. The room is some kind of large laboratory. Where Doc.u.mentum is black and green, the s.p.a.ce on the other side of the door is almost pure white, save for the table and countertops, which are black. Cabinets and refrigeration units, all with gla.s.s fronts, line the walls. Inside each is a collection of liquids and powders kept in vials, test tubes, beakers, and vessels for which I have no name. I see petri dishes, computer stations, and various scientific equipment. The only one of which I recognize is a centrifuge. At the far end is an operating table and a collection of surgical tools.

How many of the bodies behind me once lay upon that table?

Lyons is inside, as is Allenby and a third man I haven't met. While the two doctors are dressed in long white coats, the stranger is dressed in black battle-dress uniform, otherwise known as BDUs. His hair is cut close-I run a hand over my p.r.i.c.kly head-like mine is now. A gun is holstered on his hip. This man isn't a security guard. He's something else.

I look back at the roomful of green glowing bodies.

He's the collector, I think, part of some kind of abduction unit, taking these people out of the world and bringing them here. But for what purpose?

I suspect the answers lie on the other side of the door. If not physically, then inside Lyons's brain. After what I've seen, I have no doubt I can get him to reveal everything. But first, a little recon.

I grip the doork.n.o.b and twist it slowly. It's unlocked and well-constructed. When the latch disengages, the door opens an inch without sound. Lyons's voice is no longer m.u.f.fled. "We're moving forward."

"He's a wild card," the stranger says. "He's dangerous. Unpredictable. You should have told me before bringing him here."

"You know why we need him," Lyons says, his face turning red.

"And if he doesn't cooperate?" the man asks. "If he gets violent? Refuses the treatment?" He makes air quotes with his fingers when saying, "treatment." "How long are you going to let this go, and will you allow me to do what I need to if he becomes a problem?"

Lyons waves the man off and opens a refrigeration unit. "We will all do what we must." He reaches inside and pulls out a syringe with a rubber stopper over the needle. It's full of translucent, yellow-tinged liquid. He holds the syringe with both hands, like it's the most precious thing in the world, like other people hold newborns. The fridge holds at least a dozen more prepped syringes. Whatever it is, it's important and rare. He places the syringe into a protective foam holder on the countertop. "It's taken years and a good number of lives to get this far. If we must resort to force, then we will."

"Stephen," Allenby says, admonishing. "You know that won't work. He's-"

"Someone upon whom subtlety is lost," Lyons interjects.

Allenby shakes her head. "People could get hurt."

The military man plants his fists on the countertop and leans toward Lyons. "This isn't just business, it's war, and people are already getting hurt. If a second augmentation makes him even crazier"-he looks at Allenby-"we'll do what's needed, whatever that might be."

They're talking about me.

I'm the one who might get violent.

He's right about that, I think. Also about being dangerous and unpredictable, as they'll soon discover.

"Katzman, please. Just stop." Allenby paces, eyes on the ceiling, head shaking back and forth. Lyons has a cold streak beneath that grandfatherly exterior, but from what I know of Allenby so far, she doesn't belong in a place like this. What are you doing here? As I watch Allenby, her head lowers, and her eyes track toward me. She freezes when we make eye contact through the gla.s.s, but then she just looks annoyed. "You just couldn't stop yourself, could you?"

Katzman is fast, but he's also the closest to the door. As he spins around, gun rising into position, I kick the door as hard as I can. The metal door strikes the gun barrel, twisting the weapon out of the man's grasp. I'm on him in a flash, but this isn't like knocking out Winters or a.s.saulting the security guards. This man is a skilled fighter, and he blocks my first three blows, all of which would have ended the fight before it began.

The problem for my opponent is that I'm equally skilled-somehow-but nothing is holding me back. When he begins his counterattack, I dodge the first two punches, but when he launches into a spinning kick, I block it-with Allenby. I take her by the shoulders and rotate her into my position. Katzman's kick connects with Allenby's head with all the force intended for me. She slams into the door and falls to the linoleum.

When the soldier sees what he's done, he reels back in shock. "s.h.i.t!" He looks at me. "You motherfu-"

My fist on the side of his jaw cuts him off. Even the most seasoned warrior can be slowed by the sudden realization that they've just injured a friend. He spills back onto the counter, knocking the syringe to the floor. The foam case fails to do its duty.

Gla.s.s shatters.

Liquid spills.

Lyons shouts, "No!"

I pull my fist back to pummel Katzman into submission, but the first blow did its job. He slides across the counter, pulling a computer keyboard and mouse with him, and falls to the floor.

"What are you doing?" Lyons shouts. He should be backing away from me. He's not a threat, but he's standing his ground.

I rub my foot through the spilled liquid. "This is important to you?"

"Yes." The word comes out as a gasp. He's clutching his chest, falling back. He slides down against the counter, suddenly out of breath.

I recognize the signs of a heart attack but make no move to help the man. Instead, I open the refrigerator and take out the remaining vials, shattering them on the floor.

Lyons fumbles to open a pill case, which I'm a.s.suming contains medication that could save his life. He stops when I lift up the very last syringe. His eyes go wide. Desperate. Revealing its worth. "Don't." I lower the syringe, looking at the liquid within. This is my insurance policy.

When I put the syringe in a protective plastic case and slip it in my pocket, he starts digging for his pills again. He's not going anywhere fast-maybe nowhere ever again if he can't get his pills-so I leave him there on the floor. I recover Katzman's gun and head back into the Doc.u.mentum room, mentally planning for how I'll retrieve the Shiloh woman and get us both out.

That's when the alarm sounds.

The Shiloh woman is still out, despite the blaring, high-pitched shriek of the building's security alarm. She looks frail. I consider leaving her behind, but it would be like abandoning a wounded bird in the clutches of a house cat-death would only come after drawn-out torture. The bruising and fresh scars on the woman's arms suggest that she's been tormented long enough already.

But can I keep her safe during my escape? It seems unlikely, but I picture her floating in green liquid, just another face in the death gallery, and know I can't leave her behind.

I lean over her, tapping her face. "Hey. Wake up."

No reaction. Whatever they've been lacing her IVs with, it's powerful stuff.

With time running short, I slip the IV needle from her arm, undo her restraints, and pull the blankets away. She's dressed in a loose hospital johnny. I lean her up. Her head lulls, but I catch it against my chest. "I got you." Moving carefully, I scoop her up behind her back and under the knees. She's light. Maybe a hundred pounds.

I head for the door, leading with Katzman's gun, which is poking out from under the woman's knees. The hallway is empty. I head for the distant exit sign, pa.s.sing the Doc.u.mentum room. There are voices within-shouting. Sounds like Allenby and Lyons. Katzman is either still unconscious or heading my way. I look down at the woman's face, soft and peaceful. She doesn't know it, but she's depending on me to save her.

Just beyond the Doc.u.mentum room, on the opposite side of the hall, are the elevator doors. Red numbers above the doors scroll higher. Someone is already on the way up, most likely security of some kind.

I move on, toward the exit sign at the end of the hall, which ends at a T junction and a row of windows, slanted at a forty-five-degree angle. Turning left, I see the exit door ahead. I try the k.n.o.b with my left hand, balancing Shiloh's weight on my forearm. It's locked. A key-card terminal is mounted next to the door.

I gently place the woman on the floor and swipe Winters's card across the flat card reader, but the light flashes red. I try again with the same results. The security alarm triggered by Lyons must have put the building in a lockdown. But there might be a way to override it. I sprint back to the T junction. Halfway between the end of the hall and the elevators, I had spotted a bright red fire alarm.

I round the corner and run for the alarm. It's encased in a plastic dome to prevent it from behind triggered accidentally, but it lifts up easily enough. I wrap my fingers around the small white handle and pull. The alarm ripping through the hallway becomes a whooping siren. Strobe lights flash.

It's all enough to keep me from noticing the opening elevator doors-that is, until someone yells, "Don't move!"

But I move.

And the guard, who probably has no idea what kind of situation he's just run into, doesn't see it coming. Because he's a low-level employee and probably doesn't know the full extent of what goes on here, I'm merciful. I fire two shots. The first strikes his hand and knocks his weapon-a stun gun-to the floor. The second hits his thigh, far from the femoral artery. With a shout, he drops to the floor, clutching his good hand over his wounded hand over the hole in his leg.

The attack took just over a second.

Geez, I have good aim.

"Switch to lethal response!" shouts a strong-sounding woman still inside the elevator. "This is Alpha Unit. Target is armed. All units switch to lethal response." Through the wailing siren, I hear various teams confirming the news. I also hear the sound of readying weapons. I have successfully roused the hornet's nest.

Running backward, I retreat-not out of fear, but the desire to free Shiloh. A shadow inside the elevator shifts, and I squeeze off a single round.

Someone yelps and ducks back inside.

I keep the security force at bay with two more equally s.p.a.ced rounds. They saw how fast their man went down. When I reach the T junction, they finally get up the nerve to return fire. A barrage of bullets scorches the air where I stood a moment ago. The rounds punch into the slanted, tinted gla.s.s window, which spiderwebs but doesn't shatter.