Dark Angel: Skin Game (3 page)

The young man's stomach turned acidic again, but this time it wasn't from fear. This time it was something far worse—shame ... guilt.

He didn't know how he'd ever get past this. Since joining White's unit, he'd done some things that he knew he'd eventually regret; but, goddamnit, he'd never killed an innocent man—not until tonight.

Shaking his head, hot tears running down his face, mingling with sweat and rain, Thompson knew that tonight would be his last in this stinking job. Fuck Ames White.

He and Hankins would finish here, drive back to the office, where they would make out their report, then he'd be done.

He would go home to his wife, take her and the baby in his arms, and tomorrow they would decide how far away they would move to try to put this night behind them.

Somewhere, in the post-Pulse world, there had to be a life better than this one.

Then, in Thompson's ear, Hankins screamed.

"Hankins!" Thompson shouted into his headset.

Nothing.

"Hankins, talk to me!"

Still no response.

Changing frequencies, Thompson sent out an emergency call to headquarters for reinforcements, and a general 911 call that would bring both the local cops and an ambulance. Then he switched back and called Hankins' name again.

More silence.

Stripping off his tie, he made a makeshift splint with the flashlight, so the beam seemed to shoot out the end of his

fingers; he tied it off, popped a new clip into the Glock, then took off up the stairs, fast as hell.

But not fast enough.

He found Hankins' body on the fourth floor, where it had been dragged from the stairwell—he knew it was Hankins, though there was no way to recognize the naked, bright gleaming redness of blood and exposed muscle and bone as any particular human.

Merely a skinned one.

Very fresh, this time.

And the scream he heard in his ears, now, was his own.

Leanly muscular, with spiky brown hair, icy blue eyes, and the empathy of a shark, Ames White pressed the palm of his left hand against his forehead.

He didn't know whether to laugh or scream, so he did what he always did: he smirked, even in the face of death ... he smirked.

White knew Hankins and Thompson were not the sharpest men on his unit; he had even suspected they were inept—but he'd had no idea that they were this lame.

Yet somehow this seemed typical. He was a man with a mission of almost cosmic importance, in a city, a country, that was a shambles, barely worth ruling ... though one took one's best option, right? And here he was, with this huge responsibility, surrounded by fools and incompetents. It seemed to White, these days, that he was constantly on the verge of a great victory or a humiliating defeat.

He wondered which column this one would end up in.

The upside of this, if there was one, was that at least he'd be rid of the bungling duo now. Hankins, of course, was dead. White glanced at the skinned body, then looked away again—what a disgusting mess. Thompson, huddled in a corner, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, cradling his

broken arm, seemed unable to tear his eyes from his partner's grotesque corpse.

White already knew the kid was washed up, he could see it in his face. And the fact that Thompson had nearly been taken out by a geriatric homeless person only compounded the failure.

The downside of this was the pair's ineffectiveness would reflect on him, and White despised failure, even if his was only one by association. Shaking his head, he turned to his associate, Otto Gottlieb.

Hispanic-looking with his black hair, dark eyes, and olive skin, Gottlieb was not in the know about government agent White's several secret agendas. In fact, Gottlieb's best trait— as far as White was concerned—was that the man did what he was told.

So far, Gottlieb had resisted the urge to grow a brain and start thinking on his own; but White was afraid that couldn't last forever. And when the moment came, he knew he'd miss Gottlieb. He didn't really like the guy—White didn't really like anyone, and prided himself on a superiority devoid of such weakness as compassion and sentimentality—but he had gotten used to having Gottlieb around, and his associate's presence somehow brought him peace.

Even if the man was a moron.

Motioning toward the two partners—one dead, one alive—White said, "Get him out of here, Otto. He disgusts me. Get him out."

"The body? Shouldn't we wait for—"

"No. That's evidence. Thompson, I mean. Lose him."

Gottlieb, finally getting it, nodded and moved to the other agent. Helping Thompson to his feet, Gottlieb drew the blanket around the man's shoulders and led him toward the door.

When they neared White, Thompson looked at his boss with golf-ball eyes and said,

"That transgenic skinned him so fast—so fucking fast. He skinned him."

"You screwed up. This was an unacceptable loss."

Now Thompson's eyes tightened and tears began to trickle. "I tried to get to him in time... I tried to help ... I..."

White smirked again, and shook his head slowly. "You just don't get it, do you?"

A wide-eyed blank look settled on Thompson's face.

"I'm not talking about Hankins. This transgenic saved me the trouble of firing his fat ass."

"You said ... it was an unacceptable ... loss...."

"And it is. The transgenic got the thermal imager." White grabbed the front of Thompson's wet raincoat. "And how long do you suppose it'll be before they figure out what it is, and what it's for?"

White released the young agent's coat. Thompson said nothing, his head turning back to Hankins on the floor. His lower lip trembled as he said, "You... you're a monster."

"No. They're the monsters—and you're fired. Get him out of here, Otto."

Gottlieb hauled him away.

Alone but for the body, White slammed his fist into a concrete wall, leaving a fist-sized dent.

To the glistening scarlet corpse, White said, "I can't believe you let a goddamn transgenic get hold of a thermal imager."

But Hankins said nothing—he just grinned stupidly back at his boss, his teeth huge in the raw red pop-eyed mask of his face.

Chaper Two

FREAK NATION

Jam pony mESSENGER SERVICE, 11:50 p.m. FRIDAY. MAY 7.2021

Her heart jackhammering, the transgenic the public knew only as 452 prepared to step out of Jam Pony into a cool night smeared red and blue by the lights of police cars.

She and a group of her closest friends—her brothers and sisters in the fight to be free—appeared to be in custody, about to be escorted by what seemed to be a cadre of SWAT officers.

Her long black hair hung loose and her black shirt and snug slacks were smudged with dirt—the aftermath of a vicious round of hand-to-hand combat with a hit squad attached to Ames White. But 452—Max to her friends—was still unbowed, and not even bloodied.

Nonetheless, blood could still flow—and some already had.

The hostage situation at Jam Pony had started by accident—literally. Earlier, before sundown, the lizardish transgenic Mole—brave but impulsive—and her towering friend Joshua—who the tabloids had termed a "dog boy"—had just picked up two transgenics headed for Terminal City, the ten square blocks of biochemical wasteland where the societal outcasts spawned by the gene-manipulating Manticore project had taken up residence. The transgenic squatters could

survive behind the fences, despite chemical and biotech

_

spills, where everyday humans would get sick and die; the transgenics—whether beautiful physical specimens like Max or Alec, or genetic "freaks" like the lizard man and dog boy—had been immunized against such poisons ... one nice thing Manticore had done for them, anyway.

Accompanied by a teenage boy named Dalton, the young woman, Gem—an X5—was pregnant and about to pop, so Mole was in a hurry to get her to the shabby sanctuary that was Terminal City. They had made it less than two blocks when a junk-piled truck backed into their path and what should have been a minor, bumper-bumping accident turned into a disaster.

Forced to make a run for it when a mutant-hating mob gathered, Mole, Joshua, and the two new arrivals had sought refuge at the bike messenger service where Max and two other transgenics, Alec and CeCe, worked. But the cops were already on their heels, and a full-scale hostage crisis quickly developed. Alec and CeCe had posed as hostages along with the ordinaries who became prisoners, though the handsome, usually self-centered Alec eventually outted himself as a transgenic, by coming to Max's aid.

At first Max had not been on the scene, and lizard-man Mole had terrified her friends; when she arrived, Max took over and before long the hostages realized that they and their "captors" were faced with the same challenge—staying alive.

Not so long ago, Max and the police department negotiator, Detective Ramon Clemente, had reached an accord that provided for trading half the hostages for a getaway van. Clemente's rooftop SWAT team had backed off, as promised, but Ames White—that CIA agent with an antitrans-genic agenda—had unleashed his own hidden snipers.

Max and company did not make it to the van. If Logan Cale hadn't jumped in on their side, blasting away with his own weapon, driving the snipers back, Max and her group might never have made it into the building again. But they did, hustling back into Jam Pony, after taking a casualty in the cross fire—CeCe—who within moments had become a fatality.

Even with such a terrible loss, they had survived much in this single day... but they still had a long way to go before they would be anything like safe. If just one cop out there noticed that the escorts in SWAT gear were not who they were supposed to be, the bloodbath would begin again.

If so, if she and Logan Cale died, at least they'd die together.

She loved this man, who once again was laying his life on the line for her and her cause—to protect him, she had told him she no longer loved him, and even tried to convince herself she could live without Logan Cale. But in the glare of the bright lights—courtesy of the cops and the media—she knew that wasn't true.

Logan Cale—tall, blue-eyed, with that spiky blond-brown hair and shy smile ... how she had longed to kiss him and tell him how she truly felt. But that was impossible now— that bitch Renfro, at Manticore, had made certain of that.

Even with Manticore burned to the ground, the mad scientists who had created her and Alec and Joshua and so many other troubled souls were still fucking with her life—

that oh so specific virus that the late unlamented Renfro had infected Max with still had no known cure, and if she touched Logan, if their flesh met in any way, well, she knew she would be the death of him.

Yet despite all the trouble she had caused him, the heartache she'd brought him, Logan had come to her aid again, hadn't he? Firing up at the snipers, helping Mole to keep the killers at bay while the others hightailed it back into the building. He even stayed by her side, providing cover fire as she dragged CeCe back inside as well. The standoff had gone on from there, lasting until well

into the evening, when White had finally brought in his SWAT-geared hit team. Max smiled at the thought. The hit team had been tough, really tough; but she and her brothers and sisters—and even some of the hostages, who were on the transgenics side by now—had taken the suckers down.

Max had worked hard not to take any lives. Joshua, face-to-face with Ames White—a man who had murdered someone dear to the normally gentle giant—had nearly broken the bastard in two. But Max knew how important it was not to kill—not to feed the media frenzy, fueled by White and others, that had convinced so much of the public that the transgenics were monsters, inhuman beasts worthy only of slaughter.

Now they had the opportunity to escape into the night and maybe, for a while anyway, be safe. Just this one last gauntlet to pass through....

Hiding within the bulky uniform of one of White's SWAT team members, his head covered by a Kevlar helmet, his face behind tinted goggles, Logan shoved the front door open and shouted, "Weapons down! Hold your fire. Team coming out."

Then Logan led the way out into the cool night air. The crowd behind the barricades pushed forward for a better look, their hatred a hot, oppressive slap riding the wind of their angry shouts: "Death to the freaks!" "Kill 'em all!"

Max wondered if they would ever be able to make people, those people, understand that all the transgenics desired was a peaceful, quiet life. The "freaks" just wanted to fit in like everybody else, and not be feared for—or judged by—their appearance.

Wasn't that what America was supposed to be about? She and her transgenic clan had been born in the USA, even if it was in a test tube, where they'd been genetically designed to defend this country—the very one that now seemed to want only their extinction—from the rabble on the street to the suits in high places.

With Logan and the others moving into the street, the cops suddenly seemed more interested in containing the crowd than dealing with the federal SWAT team. They backed out of the way as Logan led the parade toward the rear of a waiting police van.

Also dressed for SWAT team duty, complete with the helmet and goggles, Alec held a handcuffed Max by the arm while that lanky goofball, Sketchy—a really unlikely SWAT team member—escorted the cuffed Mole and Joshua. The lizardish Mole still puffed defiantly on his ever-present cigar, while Joshua, with his long brown hair and soulful canine-tinged features, looked more like a beaten puppy as Sketchy led him to the van.

"Federal agents," Logan announced, his voice cool and authoritative. "I need you to move back. Step away. We may have a biohazard here, people.... Make a hole!"

All of the cops—except Clemente, the intelligent, no-nonsense detective who'd served as negotiator during most of the siege, only to be usurped by Ames White—stepped back.

Clemente, a slender, well-chiseled African-American in his forties, looked like he probably felt much older now; but his brown eyes were still alert, and he obviously wanted to know what was happening. He wore a rumpled gray sport coat over a Kevlar vest, blue tie, and white shirt, his gold shield dangling from a necklace. As they passed, he said nothing, his pistol still in his hands, the barrel pointed toward the ground.