Terminated (29 page)

“Yes,” Pansy said. “He’ll let me go. Because he knows—he knows that it’s the right thing to do.”

“So we’re all wrong, is that it?” Joe asked. “Wrong to want to fight to live?”

She shook her head to that. “I don’t know. I can’t answer for you, or for anybody else. Just me. And I say—I say I’d rather not be part of the next phase of humanity. I’m opting out.”

“You say you can stop this,” Patrick said to Manny. “Show us how.”

Manny pressed keys on his computer, and behind him, the blank white wall slid aside, revealing thick, floor-to-ceiling observation glass. Beyond it was a huge array of computer servers. “The room was originally built to house those big sons of bitches they used back in the sixties,” he said. “Punch cards and tape drives. It was upgraded with Crays in the eighties. What’s in there now is enough computing power to make Google envious. It’s running silent, but it’s hooked into every single broadcast tower in the cellular networks. Every commercial television tower and satellite. Every GPS network. I’ve spent the time you were gone working with every major infoterrorist group in the world to get this done, so I’m not just a criminal; I’m probably on everybody’s most-wanted list right now—or would be, if they knew who I was. See, Thorpe was right, but he was a doctor. He thought like a doctor, one-to-one relationship. I thought like a technician.”

“Nanites are machines,” Liam said. “Incredibly small, yes. Incredibly limited in some ways. But they are sensitive to certain very specific transmission signals. Thorpe’s cure was the key. . . . It didn’t destroy the machines; it turned them off using a code sequence.”

Bryn felt cold, now, but she said what they were all thinking. “You have a remote kill code and the means to deliver it. You don’t need the serum, or needles. You can kill it all, simultaneously.”

“As long as it’s in range of the transmission, yes,” he said. “But when I said it’s a kill code, it’s literal. If we push it today, it kills three people in this room: Bryn, Riley, and Annie.”

“Four,” Joe said. Manny looked stricken. “Sorry. Meant to tell you but we haven’t exactly had a chance to catch up. It was this, or being dead on a cell floor.”

Manny took in a deep breath. “Four people in this room. But it’s not only that. There are unknown numbers out there—the survivors from Pharmadene. The ones the Fountain Group has infected, deliberately. The ones already inoculated by other groups. I don’t have any idea how many lives this will take—thousands, maybe tens of thousands. My point is this: tomorrow, it will be more. How many days can pass before none of us can justify taking action?”

The silence was profound enough that Bryn thought she could hear Patrick’s heartbeat. It seemed fast to her. Hers was rushing, too, driving adrenaline into her body like shimmering waves of discomfort.
Fight or flight.
In this case, neither one would work.

“I’m not pushing the button,” Manny said. “I can’t. I’ve thought about it, every single day since you disappeared; at the time, it was a way to get back for what those bastards did. That’s why I put it together—revenge. Revenge and paranoia, because you know me, I’m paranoid and I admit it. But you called.
You came back.
” He shook his head, got up, and looked out the window at the array of machines. “And I’m not a strong enough person to make this call.”

“Nobody is,” Riley said. “You can’t.
We
can’t. You’re talking about playing God as much as those people are.”

“It has to be done.” That came from probably the most unexpected source: Annalie. She was still sitting down in the chair, looking young and sweet and utterly vulnerable. Her clear gaze was locked on Manny like a laser. “Guys, it
has to be.
Never mind us. Never mind who else dies that doesn’t deserve to. The point is, we stop it now
or it doesn’t stop
. Because if we don’t want to push the button on four people here, or a thousand out there . . . what happens at a million?” Her eyes filled with tears, and she blinked them away, fast. “I didn’t get a choice. None of us did, really. So I say push the button.”

“It’s not a vote,” Patrick said. “It’s your sister’s life, and I’m not letting that happen. I’ve fought too hard. I’m not going to just—give up. There’s another way.”

“Not one that works,” Manny said. He spun the computer around. “Just press enter. It’s ready to send.”

On the screen was a text box, a pop-up that read simply
INITIATE TRANSMISSION
?
Two buttons. The
OK
button was highlighted.

“Liam?” Manny said. The older man stood still for a moment, and Bryn saw a tremor in his fingers . . . but then he shook his head and looked away. “Patrick?”

“Fuck you,” Patrick said tightly. “No.”

“Pansy?”

“No,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”

That left the four of them. The infected.

“No,” Riley said, unprompted. “Not at that price.”

“You mean, at the price of your life?”

“That’s exactly what I mean,” she said, and Bryn thought she saw the same flat, predatory expression in her eyes that Jane had so often flashed.
We’ve changed,
she thought, and felt a chill.
We’ll keep changing. He’s right. We might still be human, but it won’t last.

Joe just shook his head when Manny’s gaze flicked to him. That left Bryn and Annie.

Bryn held out her hand. Annie took it.

“Together?” she asked.

“Bryn!” Patrick grabbed her. “No. No, you can’t do this.”

“Yes, I can,” she said. “You don’t see it. You’ve never seen it.”

“Seen
what
?”

“The monster,” she said. “And I don’t want you to ever see that.”

She reached for the button.

Riley hit her from behind and sent her crashing face-first onto the corner of the desk; bone shattered, blood splattered. Bryn rolled, throwing her off balance, and managed to get her arm up in time to stop Riley’s knife from punching into her eye. It went through the meat of her forearm, and caught between the bones; she used that, and twisted, yanking it out of Riley’s fingers. She punched Riley, punched her again, tossed her into the wall, and buried the knife in the other woman’s chest, low and center, cutting her diaphragm. Riley screamed, lost air, and clawed at Bryn desperately, opening gouges and drawing blood.

“This,” Bryn managed to gasp out. “This is what we are now. No future, no family, no children coming after us. Just the monsters, until we’re gone, and we’ll get worse. This is the future.
Push the button!
”

Patrick had forgotten her sister, riveted by the horrifying violence she and Riley were inflicting on each other.

Nobody thought to stop her as Annie, weeping, walked to the desk and pressed
ENTER
.

Patrick screamed out a raw, wordless scream of denial and horror and loss, but it was too late. Her hand was steady and calm, and in the aftermath, Bryn went limp and sat back, waiting. They were all waiting.

Patrick rushed to her and took her in his arms, rocking her. “No,” he whispered. “No, no, God, no, don’t do this, don’t do this. . . .”

“I never should have come back in the first place,” she said. “I’m sorry. I love you.”

Annie sat down next to her and crossed her long, elegant legs, sitting Indian-style like the little girl she’d been, not so long ago. “Do you remember what happened to Sharon?” she asked Bryn.

“Sharon . . .”
She walked away from home. She never came back.

“Brynnie, I swear—I swear it was an accident. I never meant it—we were just arguing, the way we always did. She pushed me and I was in the kitchen cutting an apple, and I fell down. Then she slipped and fell on the knife, and it cut her on the thigh, and the blood—there was so much blood. I didn’t
try
to do it—I didn’t. I
wouldn’t
. Dad tried to save her. He used that belt, you know, the one in the bathroom? He tied it up in a tourniquet around her leg, right here.” She traced the spot with her fingertips on her own leg. “But she died. And they didn’t want anyone to know. Dad took her away, and Mom and I cleaned it all up. I don’t know where he took her. But I’m a monster, too, Bryn. From that moment, I was a monster. I never told anybody, but—I wanted you to know before we go. I’m so sorry.”

Bryn hugged her, and held on to Patrick. Riley was still bleeding, and although the wound seemed to be knitting closed, it was taking longer than usual.

Joe let out a slow, trembling sigh. “I feel—” He lurched, caught himself, and slid down into a chair. He ran both hands over his bald head. “Can I talk to Kylie and the kids?”

Pansy, tears coursing down her face, took out her cell phone and dialed a number. She held the phone up to him.

Bryn felt it, then. A lurch inside, as if something had started to glitch. A bad part in a smooth-running machine.

Annie’s breath caught, as if she felt it, too. Then she let out a slow sigh, and her head slid over to rest on Bryn’s shoulder.

There wasn’t any pain. She was just . . . gone.

That quickly.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Bryn told her. It was too late, but she said it anyway. “You were just a kid, sweetie. It wasn’t your fault.” She glanced down. Her sister’s eyes were open, and at peace.

Riley was still fighting, but it didn’t last long. She couldn’t speak, but the fire was there, raging and fighting, until it finally guttered out. Then she was gone, too.

Joe’s low voice stopped. Bryn heard Pansy let out a low, anguished sob.

Mr. French had laid his warm weight down in her lap, and he was whimpering with distress. He knew, too. Poor thing. She put a hand on his warm head.

“You have to let me go,” Bryn said to Patrick. “Please let go now. I can’t be a monster.
We
can’t be that.”

He knew. Finally, at last, he knew. She felt it in the way he kissed her.

And that was the last thing she felt.

One last glimpse of light, one last whisper of sound. Manny’s voice.
Get the . . .

She was curious, even now.
Get what?

But then it didn’t matter, and she was gone, too.

S
he didn’t feel it, that exact moment when the world came back; it happened in slow stages. A flare of light peeking in between her fluttering eyelids. A dreadful dry taste in her mouth, like smothering on dust. The shock of nerves sparking like short circuits.

Pain. A lot of it, slow hot waves washing up and down her body like tides.

Faces.

“She’s coming back,” someone said. She heard the words, but she didn’t understand them. Her brain felt sluggish and unresponsive, late to a party her body had already crashed. “Sinus rhythm. Oh my God.”

She was so tired. Closed her eyes a moment, and opened them because someone was rubbing knuckles against her breastbone. “Ow,” she whispered. Her lips felt painfully dry. As she blinked away fog, she felt the firm pressure of a straw against her lips, and automatically sucked in a mouthful of sweet, cool water. She swallowed it, took a second mouthful, and then the straw was withdrawn.

“Hey.” The voice was rough and familiar, and this time, when she blinked, she saw that it was Patrick. He looked . . . different. He’d grown his hair out, hadn’t he? Thinner, too. She reached out clumsily, more of a flail than a controlled motion, and he took her hand in his and kissed the back of it.

She remembered, then. Not everything, just pieces . . . Manny. The computer. Annie’s slim fingers pressing
ENTER
.

Going away.

“No,” she whispered. “Can’t—can’t come back—”

“You didn’t,” Patrick said. His eyes were shimmering with tears, but he blinked them away and didn’t let them quite fall. “Not on your own. Manny said that if you were healed well enough before the nanites died, your autonomic system might come back online. So he shocked you until your heart started beating again. It wasn’t the nanites that brought you back.
We
brought you back.”

She shook her head. But she had to admit, the pain she was feeling . . . That was something the nanites would have fixed. “Can’t be,” she said.

“Want proof?” He reached to the bedside table that held the cup, pitcher, and straw, and picked up a hand mirror. “Look.”

She was a mess. Bruised. Her nose had been broken and reset, and was braced with tape and a metal band over the bridge. Her face had healing scratches, and she remembered Riley clawing at her in desperation, trying to live.

When she touched them, the bruises ached. So did her nose, with a constant dull throb.

Healing, but healing slowly. At a human rate.

And something else. A dull ache farther down, low in her torso. Familiar, but something she’d forgotten until now.

“I’m bleeding,” she said, and pointed down. For some reason, it made him smile. Sure.
He
wasn’t the one menstruating.

“Yes,” he said. “Because you’re alive, Bryn. That’s the real proof.”

Pain was proof. Pain and discomfort and messy, inconvenient
life.

Bryn caught her breath on a sob. All those things she’d given up, however unwillingly—love, family, children, home—was all there again. All alive, like her, with possibilities.

“Annie?” she asked. Patrick’s smile faded, and she felt tears catch fire in her throat. “Oh, no.
No.
”

“We couldn’t bring her back. I’m sorry, we tried. It was—I don’t know. Riley was too badly hurt, we couldn’t save her, but Annie . . . Annie should have come back.”

Maybe she hadn’t wanted to, Bryn thought. Maybe, for Annie, she’d found what she wanted out there in the darkness beyond. Maybe she’d found Sharon.

“And Joe?”

“Home with Kylie and the kids,” Patrick said. “It’s over, Bryn. Most of the deaths were disconnected—rich men dying of heart attacks all over the world, or car crashes, or strokes. The Fountain Group’s gone, and they’re not coming back.”

“Military?”

“Pentagon briefing went down yesterday. The deaths are going to be covered up; most of it was still in volunteer trials. They’ve destroyed whatever samples survived. It’s useless, since not only do we have the kill switch, we shared it with hackers all over the world. They can’t find all of us, and it’s lost its strategic advantage.” His hand rested warm on her forehead for a moment, and it felt so good. So
real.
“You went into a coma for five days. We didn’t know if you were planning on coming back to us.”

“We?” She smiled a little. “You and who else?”

“Well, Manny and Pansy and Liam, but mainly . . .” He bent over and picked up Mr. French, and the bulldog stretched out on her, staring at her with soulful eyes. He whimpered a little and licked her hand. She petted him, and he wiggled happily. “Mainly this little guy. He slept next to you the whole time.”

“And so did you,” she said.

He smiled, and that was enough of an answer. He stood up, stretched, and said, “I’ll let everybody know you’re awake. Get ready for a stampede. Kylie wants to bring the kids to see you when you’re well enough.”

“Not yet,” she said, and took his hand. “Just you right now. Just you.”

“Just us,” he corrected, and kissed her.

It felt like life.

Short or long, happy or unhappy . . . it was hers.