The Almost Girl – ebook edition (16 page)

“No, princess. They’re safe. This nanoplasm responds to programming only. It’s not self-aware.” He patted my head reassuringly, as only he could. “And they don’t eat anything; they have a special lithia core that keeps the heart pumping and the brain ticking. Once you compromise the spinal cord or the brain, it’s an automatic kill switch. Don’t worry, sweet; it’s all under control this time.”

“What are they called?”

“Vectors.”

The entire process disgusted and fascinated me at the same time. I couldn’t imagine, even then, how a dead person could be used as a soldier, and watching my father at work was the first time I was able to see the process up close and personal. I remained crouched in my corner, thrilled and terrified of being caught, watching as my father and his team worked the corpse from top to bottom.

Machines around the body beeped constantly, with long tubes of various sizes connected to the table. They were filled with metallic-colored fluids. Slowly, in succession, two of the tubes were emptied, and then combined into a larger tube before being injected into the dead man’s body. Two of my father’s assistants exited to another adjoining secure room filled with flashing computer screens. My father followed them just as the third tube with the silvery blue fluid slowly started emptying like the others into the body beneath it.

He punched some numbers into the keypad on one of the desktops. Something was starting to happen in the room. The corpse on the table bucked and began convulsing against the metal shackles connecting it to the table. I could see the bunched muscles of its arms and legs cording as if it were in terrible pain, even though my father had said that they couldn’t feel anything. And then suddenly, it stopped moving, and the only noise was the flatline sound of a long beep.

“Dammit!” I heard my father swear and punch the wall before stalking out of the room into his office, where I was hiding. He raked his hands through his hair as he studied some papers lining his desk, grinding his teeth in frustration. Not wanting to get caught in the crossfire of his anger – which could be nasty at times – I curled my body into as tight a ball as I could manage, pressing myself into the wall behind me, and prayed that he wouldn’t notice me.

“We did the sequencing right. What did I miss? What did I miss?” he muttered to himself before punching a button on the intercom and hissing to his assistants, “Get me another prepped body. We go again in thirty minutes!” Without even looking in my corner, he left his office through the outer door, slamming it behind him. A shaky breath left my mouth but I stayed curled tightly for several seconds before standing very carefully.

The area was empty… except for me and the Vector lying on the table. I couldn’t help myself, knowing that I only had a few minutes before my father or his assistants returned, and without hesitation, I punched in the code on the inner door. My birthday. In hindsight, I always wondered how my brilliant father could be so clueless or predictable as to use his daughter’s birth date as a code on one of the most dangerous areas in the facility. But the thought of it made me feel warm inside – he may not be the most demonstrative of fathers, but this was a sign, a sign that I mattered. Ignoring the warning clench of my stomach muscles, I pushed open the door.

Inside the room, I approached the body with trepidation, even though I knew it was not operational. The test had failed. My nose wrinkled against the suffocating chemical smell that caused my eyes to sting. Still, I inched nearer. Up close, the thing was huge – a dead giant of a man. His skin was a dull gray color, bleached out by all the compounds stopping it from decaying, but the metallic fluids now inside of him still gave his body muscular definition. Clad only in a pair of medical undergarments, his bare chest and arms were sleek and hairless, his head shaved. I moved closer to the table and placed my hand carefully alongside the hand caught by the metal shackle on the table. They were ten times the size of mine!

A long red scar on the giant’s side caught my attention and I bent closer. This was where the lithia cell my father had told me about would have been inserted to connect to the lower spine. I ran my finger along the cold line of flesh and shivered. It felt like clammy linoleum. The man also had a tattoo running along the top of his thigh that read, “Test Specimen 74.” Seventy-four of them they’d already burned through… no wonder my father had been so upset. It wasn’t like we had dozens of dead people lying around; as a society, we valued life too much.

I was so intent on staring at the number and thinking about how little of us were left in our tiny pocket of the world, that I didn’t feel the yank on my head until it was too late, and the tears were already springing to my eyes in agony as
something
hauled on my braid with brute, uncompromising force.

Panicked, I wondered whether my hair had gotten caught on the table somehow, and twisted despite the tearing sensation on my scalp to see what I was caught on. Instead, I found myself face-to-face with a milky-blue stare that was so devoid of any life that my terror made me freeze completely.

The giant was alive! But it wasn’t possible. The experiment had failed.

At the exact moment that I realized that the experiment hadn’t failed, the alarms in the room went off, and things galvanized into motion as the dead man broke through the steel shackle like it was butter – oblivious to the silvery-blue fluid that poured down its forearm from where the sharp steel edges had razored through flesh – and taking my head with it until I was half spread-eagled over its body. It was as if my head were on fire, my skin tearing off of my skull and my hair loosening in whole clumping handfuls.

Close up, its eyes were even more terrifying, sucking the life out of me with their blank deadness, completely devoid of any soul. The thing opened its mouth, and I started screaming. I didn’t stop screaming, not until hands pulled me back, and I felt someone cutting away its grip on my hair. Voices fluttered in and out. I could see huge steel needles being jammed into the thing’s side as people tried to hold the giant in place, until it finally shut down. I glanced at its face once more, and even though it was completely lifeless; its colorless blue eyes still stared at me as if the creature wanted to swallow me whole.

For years afterward, I couldn’t even look at them – their gray faces and milky-blue eyes, terrifying – a constant reminder of that moment when I’d been caught unawares. I’d never trusted them, not ever, not even when I’d led them. They were a means to an end, and Murek, the Legion Commander at the time, had loved them because of their absolute loyalty. Despite my own reservations, my father had been right. The Vectors had made excellent soldiers.

Finding myself in a new open cave area underground, I bring myself back to the present, clearing my head from my memories to focus on the task at hand. They are great soldiers, but their allegiance is and will always be to Murek and the crown – a loyalty that is programmed into the very fluid that runs in their dead veins. Even though the one in Caden’s house somehow recognized me as its general, I know that it had been a glitch – and one that will be quickly rectified. Nothing will stand in the way of getting Caden… not even me.

There’s only one exit out of the space at the far end, and I make my way there on silent swift feet. I am so intent on getting into the tunnel that I don’t sense the attack until it is too late, as something large and heavy tackles me to the ground. My night-vision glasses are jerked from my head in the collision, and I’m suddenly flying blind. Without losing a beat, I roll and kick upward with all the force I can muster, feeling my boots connect with a thick body and pushing it off of me. In a flash, I’m in a crouch, taking three steps back. I loosen my backpack and remove the swords from their sheaths against my back.

I can’t see it, but I know it’s one of the Vectors. It has a slight advantage because it can see me. I say slight because part of our training means fighting blindfolded. All of our senses are honed to the point of razor-sleek sharpness, and facing an opponent in darkness is par for the course. I take a deep breath and pull it into my center, letting it fill me and closing my eyes. I exhale and wait.

The air shifts to my left and instead of spinning away, I move toward it, at the last minute grinding to my knees and slashing outward with my blades. They strike into something thick and heavy – a leg or upper thigh. The thing makes no sound, but now I can hear it moving as it drags one foot slightly. It lunges toward me once more, and this time I wait and take the hit on my left flank, moving out slightly so that I don’t receive the full weight of the strike.

With Vectors, hesitation is the difference between life and death. Ignoring the pain, I whirl alongside the Vector’s body until I am facing its back. My swords don’t falter, swinging up and scissoring across the back of its neck in a smooth decisive motion born from years of honing the same move in training and in actual combat. I hear the thump of its head followed by the second thump of its body, and pull the thin penlight from my pocket, trying to filter the sharp light through my fingers. I’m still cautious. The creature had been waiting for me, but there’s no other movement or noise.

I retrieve my glasses quickly – they aren’t broken, thankfully – and find my pack. In the muted green glare of the glasses, the Vector’s shape is a dull outline. I quickly divest him of any of his gear that I can carry, including a wireless communications headpiece, which I tuck into my ear, and an electro-coil, a flexible strand of wire attached to a thick short handle, which I slip into my boot. I haul his body to the side of the area, and move toward the tunnel.

That’s when the screaming starts.

REVERSAL OF FORTUNE

 

I bolt down the narrow passageway without any thought for my own well-being. All I can hear is Shae’s bloodcurdling scream, and it chills me to the bone. It sounds as if she’s being gutted while still alive. I’m flat-out running because I know the Vectors have no use for her, and while I am still upset at her betrayal, there’s no way I’d want my sister to suffer or die at the hands of those things… and especially not the big one.

But as I draw closer, I can see that he’s not there. And neither is Caden.

I refuse to panic, or even imagine that somehow the big one has already taken Caden back. I take a deep breath – first, I have to help Shae. The infrared green vision of my goggles identifies thrashing movement down the tunnel in front of me, and I click a button on the side of the arm that magnifies the image – there are only two of them and I recognize Shae’s wiry thinness immediately.

The Vector lifts her body and slams it into the side of the wall like a sack of potatoes. I dart forward, ducking my head and full-on tackling him to the ground. There’s a dull thud as our bodies crash to the dirt, and I’m rolling, sword in hand, before I can even take another breath.

The Vector is just as quick and already on his feet facing me. I spare a glance at Shae. I can smell the rusty odor of blood in the cramped space. Dread makes me dash forward, but I misjudge the Vector’s movement, as his fist catches me in the solar plexus and knocks all the air out of me.

Gasping, my knees buckle and I swing my blade weakly across its side, but not before its elbow catches me in the back of the head. My face smashes against the rough rock of the tunnel, and I can feel the sharp sting of my skin peel off against the stone even as stars blind my vision. The Vector is on top of me before I can move, bashing my weapons out of my hands. I curl into a ball to protect myself, because I can’t get a strike in edgewise.

Shae claws at its body from behind, and distracted, it slams a heel in her direction. I hear a vicious thump – presumably her body against the tunnel wall behind us – before it swings back to me, blows crunching into my ribs like a jackhammer. The pain is excruciating, but I force myself to stay focused.

Somehow, I have to get out of this, if only to find Caden. If I don’t, we are all lost. The thought gives me a boost of strength as my hand slides down the side of my leg into my boot to grasp the handle of the electro-coil I took off the other Vector earlier. With a lurch, I flip my body around and jam my legs against the wall with all the force I can muster, wrapping one knee around the thing’s head. In quick succession, I twist to the side and jerk my knee backward, but I’m not quick enough.

I’m thwarted as the Vector’s knee smashes into my skull, disabling my glasses… and suddenly, I’m blinking as my eyes adjust from infrared vision to shadowy darkness. In that second, it’s on top of me, crushing the breath from my chest with its weight. Fingers close around my windpipe and I can only kick wildly, my strength seeping out of me, clawing at its face and head in desperation. But it’s too strong and I can’t find the leverage to get out from under it.

Suddenly, the Vector crumples like a dead weight against me, its steel fingers loosening around my neck, and I’m wheezing long breaths of the stale tunnel air like it’s the freshest I’ve ever breathed. A flashlight flicks on and Shae’s there, a dripping electro-coil in her hand and the severed Vector’s head a few feet away from where she’s standing.

“Don’t you think we’re even, because we aren’t,” I rasp, squeezing out from beneath the creature. Shae smiles weakly and helps to kick the rest of the Vector’s body off of me. “Where’s Caden?” I ask her, and then say in the same breath, “How badly are you hurt?” Even in the dim light of the flashlight, I can see that her shirt is soaked with blood and she’s holding her middle with one arm.

“Just a scratch,” she says, but I know that she’s lying – there’s too much blood and a heavy, foul odor of charred flesh. “Don’t worry; Caden’s safe. He’s outside. The big one shot me… he got too close, and I couldn’t slow Caden down, so I told him to go, and then I backtracked.”

“Outside where?”

“He’s safe,” Shae repeats resolutely, and I glare at her. There’s nothing but mistrust left between us. My eyes narrow.