03. The Maze in the Mirror (41 page)

She smiled and took his hand and got up, impulsively.

"Brandy, for God's sake it's Bill Markham!" the man hissed. "Snap out of it! We're going to get you out of here!"

Something vaguely registered at that, but she wasn't sure what or why and she grew confused.

"Do you have any extras of your drug capsules hidden around?" he asked her.

She smiled and nodded. Yes, indeed she did.

"Take me to them."

Markham knew that there was something wrong with her, whether drug induced or otherwise he
didn't know, but that didn't matter. Time was wasting.

She led them through the now deserted kitchen, out back, then counted the boards, reached down, popped one up, reached in, and brought out the handkerchief with the capsules in them and held it up to him proudly, like a cat proudly showing off the mouse he'd just killed or a kid showing her secret and most favorite toy.

Markham took the pills and stuck them in his pocket, then turned to the other two. "Off that way. We want to be as far away as possible as quickly as possible. Anybody gets in the way, don't bluff- shoot 'em."

He took her by the hand and they started off, but he wanted to try again. "Brandy-Sam's okay. He's here. Dash is safe, too. It's all right."

The words bounced around in her.
Sam's okay. . . . Dash is safe . . . Dash safe
...

Several people saw them as they went, but such was the power Carlos had over the place that, even now, they couldn't conceive of properly uniformed men with a
familiar woman not being official.

Inside the Castle security headquarters they were going nuts trying to determine just what had happened. In the meantime, all hundred-plus security monitor alarms seemed to be going off at once, which made for less than ideal conditions.

A senior officer got sick of it, inserted his key, and reset the alarm system, bringing a bit of quiet to the place.

"Near as we can tell, somebody tried to blow their way into the substation," a sergeant was telling someone on the red phone. "No, they couldn't get in, but they sure as hell blew the
switch. It's gonna take weeks before anybody could get in or out of there-if we got all the parts. No-they couldn't get in. The security system clamped down instantly."

A monitor alarm sounded again. The officer sighed and got out his reset key again, but the sergeant on the phone glanced up out of habit at the one that was sounding. "Hold on. Something funny
is
happening. South side of the Castle. Looks like some of our guys taking that black bitch outside the perimeter. That's funny . . . Huh? Yes, sir.
Personally?
Well, all right, if you say so. I'll send a squad to cover. Right. Yes, sir."

He hung up the phone and turned to the others. "The Doc thinks we got penetrated somehow. That they're tryin' to get the bitch out."

The officer jumped up. "Send full forces there! Seal 'em off. Take 'em alive if need be!"

"Hold it, Cap," the sergeant responded. "He said he's gonna take a squad and do it himself. Just send cover to make sure they don't have a lot more out there in the bushes."

Up on the cliff, Markham was concerned about Brandy but also relieved by the ease with which it had all gone off. If he could just get her down that cliff to the water for pickup he'd let the medics handle the rest.

They had prepared the exit, as any good burglar does, before breaking in, and it was still there and still undisturbed. At the last minute Sam had insisted on some kind of rope ladder rather than just a rope. Brandy, after all, wouldn't be able to see and might not be in the best shape for a climbdown of maybe a hundred and ten feet. They had also picked a point where there was effectively
no beach, and the water below was fairly deep. If she or any of them fell, there was a chance that they wouldn't be dashed against sand or rocks. At the bottom and just to one side, tied to a piton stuck in the rock, was a rubber raft with a small but fast motor on it.

"Harry, you go down first, unhook the raft and be ready to start the engine-but don't start it yet," Markham said to one of the other men, who nodded and immediately went over the side. He then picked up a climber's belt with hook already left there for this, put it on, then took another one over to Brandy and put it snugly around her waist. She resisted it, but not much, confused as to what was the right thing to do. The third man uncoiled and handed him the safety line, then said, "Go ahead. I'll cover and come down last. Don't wait if you hear any shooting."

Markham had just threaded the rope around his own loop and was about to do Brandy's, when he heard a voice behind him; a rich, Latin-accented voice, say, "That will be quite enough, gentlemen. Put down your weapons and stand away. Brandy, come to me-
now!"

She hesitated a moment, then walked away from Markham and towards the sound of Carlos' voice in the darkness.

Markham couldn't do a damned thing to help her, so he sighed and looked at his companion, then said, "He who fights and runs away . . ." and dove off the cliff top as something shot close to him.

His companion hadn't gotten the idea, and instead of throwing his gun away, Mark brought it up to fire. A blast caught him square in the chest and
pushed him back off the cliff and down.

"I hear a motor down there!" one of the Castle security squad said, going to the edge. "They got a god damned
boat
in here!"

"Rapid-fire rounds for effect down there. You might get lucky and hit something," Carlos told them. "And cut that ladder loose."

He turned to Brandy, carefully removed her climbing belt, and tossed it away. There was the sound of a lot of gunfire, and he turned and shouted, "Cease firing! Cease firing, I say! Either you got them or you didn't by now. Either way they are no longer our concern." He took Brandy and caressed her face. "It is all right, girl. I will overlook the belt because you came when I called, but never, never allow anyone to put anything on you again."

"I hear more engines out there," one of the squad said. "Jesus! What they got out there? A friggin'
navy?"

Carlos was suddenly concerned. "All of you- come with me! East! We may have won a minor skirmish here and lost the war. That way! As far away as we can get. Stick close to the coastline and be wary of enemy troops.
Andele! Andele! Move it!"

The torpedomen in the water knew from their infrared sights that things had gone wrong, and they weren't about to wait any longer than the minimum for anybody who made it there to get clear. They had started their engines and were aligning their torpedoes now, so they had a crack at the place before somebody on shore got smart and launched some boats or something.

They fired their torpedoes, turned, and gunned their engines out of there and tried to get as far in the opposite direction from land as they could.

The torpedoes bore in with deliberate speed, their computer brains matching the picture of their target with the reality ahead and then to each other's speed for maximum effect. They struck, exactly where they were supposed to, simultaneously.

The base of the Castle cliff erupted in enormous fireballs, illuminated as well with dancing electrical displays of brilliant blue that seemed like living, snake-like monsters crawling all over and into the cliff face. All the lights in the Castle and perimeter, every thing of power up there, went abruptly dark, only enhancing the light show.

A sudden calm followed, as if the worst had been done, but then, abruptly, the entire cliff shook as if grabbed and shaken by a mighty hand, and then there was an explosion of such force that it was felt even by the fleeing agents well out to sea. The entire structure lifted up, then seemed suspended for a moment, then dropped back, collapsing in upon itself, making a massive structure fold and crumble as if made of sand, leaving in the end only a great depression where once the cliff had stood.

12.

Loose Ends

It was well hidden, way back in the jungle, beneath the ground and beneath the foliage, too, camouflaged against being obvious from any angle. It also wasn't fancy, but it opened for Carlos and Brandy.

When it was obvious that there was no additional enemy force further down, Carlos had sent the men back to establish a defensive position on the southern coastline. He wanted no one else to know where he was going now.

With the explosion that knocked them both to the ground and shook the very earth and everything on it, Carlos knew that any of the men who survived would realize that there was no going back now-and no pills tomorrow. They would spend a day frantically trying to find him, any not killed in the blast or knocked into the sea, but they would not, any more than the enemy would, and after that they'd be in too much misery to be any sort of threat. A little after that, they'd all be dead.

Carlos hadn't paid much attention to Brandy of late, but he had scanned a recent report from the security psych on her indicating that she'd cracked, flipped out. It didn't matter to him. In fact, that made things all the easier. He was pretty sure now, no matter what those damned computer
analyses had said, that Sam was the one who'd blown the siding at his place and that Sam indeed was now after Brandy and her captor. That was why she was so important to him. That most of all.

He'd built this bunker himself, out of his own sense of paranoia, when he'd discovered how far any back door might be to this place. Nobody knew of it, nobody but he ever went here, and everyone who had designed and built it was dead, the records, plans, and the like destroyed.

The food was all in sealed vacuum canisters that would keep it for a century or more until needed. There was a water line in from an underground pump and a septic system to remove waste. The power, from a superior super battery system developed for the Company, had come on only when absolutely needed-until now when he turned it on. It was totally self-contained, and as long as he wasn't wasteful with it, there was enough power there to last for up to three years. He didn't expect to be here all that long, but he believed in thinking and planning ahead.

Being entirely underground, it was cool and comfortable, and the air system was basic but nearly impossible to spot unless you were looking for it.

"We will stay here, my sweet, and not move or make a sound outside for many long weeks. They will search, but find nothing, and eventually conclude that we perished in the blast of the Castle. Then, only after all is gone and we are the only two humans here, even if it takes a year, we will go to where I have a boat hidden and we will go to my back door and we will take our rightful place among the alternate Company, or I will build a
new organization and opposition from scratch if I must." He looked at her and sighed. The report had said she hadn't spoken since she cracked. "And you don't even know what I'm talking about, do you? It doesn't matter, my sweet. Not a bit."

He looked around the place, found a compartment in the wall, and opened it, then checked it with some relief. "Ah! Do not worry that we no longer have your little pill, my dear. In here is something much better, something familiar that will correct the imbalances I induced and make things quite nice. I need it, too, you see, but don't worry. There are over a thousand capsules here, and plenty more once I am again free to roam. This little stuff will keep us both healthy, fix what ails us, and keep us very happy here."

He relaxed and started to undress, then snapped his fingers. "Spare clothes! Of all the things I forgot! Ah, well, we shall both be
au natural
for a while, then. Come! We will take our first joint 'fix' together and have an hour of relaxing bliss, followed by a lengthy time of conjugal magic. What more could one ask in a hideout, eh?"

It was one of the ultimate ironies of the situation that the "juice," as she had called the alien viral agent when previously hooked on it by those in Carlos' organization, would this time be the best thing Brandy could have.

The organism, a symbiote, immediately set up housekeeping in the brain and then began rearranging all the interior furniture to suit itself with an eye to making it the ideal long-term place to live. Once it determined the way brain and body worked, it was in some ways far superior to not
having it there. The body, all of it, worked better. You developed a taste for and ate just the right amount of what was good for you. It cleaned out the arteries, monitored cholesterol levels, strengthened muscle, trimmed fat, and made you incredibly efficient. It wasn't that it was truly intelligent; it was just as adaptable as hell.

The enormous rush as new agent was fed in to replace and replenish the old, who could not reproduce in the normal way inside a Type Zero human body, caused direct stimulation of the pleasure center so you were highly rewarded for doing it regularly. It was also a tremendous shock, that reawakened all the old memories and sensations of the old addiction.

In its native Type Three world, it reproduced when you did, exchanging material during the sexual act and renewing itself that way. That didn't work in Type Zeros, but, of course, it wasn't smart enough to realize that, so when you woke up you were incredibly turned on. Only after that were you somewhat on your own, in a glow-like high but mind sharp, thoughts clear, and hungry for what was good for you.

Of course, one of the first things it also did was order the brain to begin making again those key enzymes Carles' process had blocked. This one would allow no other addictions.

She didn't come back to anything near normalcy right away. It was a slow process, but each time she got a new jolt more and more of it came back, more and more was shocked back into consciousness. Even when it began, some sixth sense inside her told her not to betray this to Carlos.

Between the shock of the drug and her own
fixation, she realized what she had to do-if she could physically manage to do it. She had hoped that the efficient little bug in the juice would clear up her sight, but while she mentally
thought
there was some slight improvement, she realized it wasn't going to be like last time and if her vision could be cleared up it would take a great deal of time.