The Judas Contact (Boomers Book 1) (24 page)

All she had was a list of names. Switching screens, she logged into the remote server Simon had her memorize and began the file shift. It would take time for the server contents to be moved. Flipping back through the files, she found one on her directly.

Doctor Ilsa Blaine developed the microchip and has experienced the maximum success rate with it. However, the doctor is unwilling to accelerate her research to include human trials. Some errors in the subjects have already been noted. The DSR requested that Dr. Blaine be brought in for questioning and compulsion. Unfortunately, Dr. Blaine evaded security and remains at large.

Damn right she was still at large, and what the hell did compulsion mean? Scrolling back up, she found the notation about heroes again. Anti-hero sentiment flourished in the wake of the September 2001 attacks. A number of fringe groups, initially discounted, earned a more mainstream audience when they demanded to know why these vigilantes, with their propensity for property damage and parahuman abilities, didn’t stop the attacks or save
more
lives. What the fringe groups didn’t mention were the number of heroes gravely injured or killed in the immediate aftermath trying to do exactly that.

She’d never paid much attention to the news about heroes. She knew they existed and had from time to time seen them—particularly the dark-winged angel that soared high above. But like stars in a television show or movie, they seemed too remote to actually touch. That her college roommate turned out to be one had shocked her, but the idea that R.E.X. wanted to tag the heroes smacked of the need to control them.

Re-opening that file, she read the notations, focusing again on the two so-called “volunteers” admitted to the program. One transferred to Russia and the second remained “hospitalized” in their facility. Closing the file, she locked the screen so the server dump would continue.

“If you can hear me still,” she murmured, lips barely moving. “They have a ‘hero’ incarcerated here. I’m going to see if I can find them. Server download will take a few minutes, but they’ve got more experiments on levels eight and nine. Xenogenesis projects to create ‘heroes’ of their own.”

“Negative.” Garrett snapped at her. “Stay where you are. We’ll retrieve you and this hero when we come in.”

The other technicians on the floor apparently left while she worked. She didn’t see anyone else in the sea of white. Striding down the narrow aisle between worktables, she headed for the bank of sealed rooms in the center.

“It’s fine,” she murmured. “I’m alone.”

His growl cut off when Michael spoke. “Take no risks, doctor. Identify, assess, retreat. We’re going to begin evacuating the lower levels.”

Before she could ask how he planned to do just that, a fire alarm signal burst through the air. Her eyes watered as the sound punched into her eardrums. She picked up the pace. Each door offered an observation window. The first room’s occupant turned zoned out eyes to her and she recoiled. She didn’t even know what it had been, much less what it was. The putty like face shifted and slithered, like wet clay that couldn’t hold together.

The second room was empty. The third contained a body, but it was wrapped completely in a cocoon, like some kind of spider-webbing. The fourth room’s occupant rushed the door when she arrived and slammed into it. The door shuddered but held. Manic eyes stared at her, madness swirling like twin whirlpools in its eyes.

Yeah, she wasn’t opening that door.

“Who is it?” Rory’s voice broke with static. She could barely hear her over the klaxons that seemed to be gaining in volume. Red lights began to swirl all around the lab. External pressure doors switched from green lights to red. The lab was going into lockdown. Above, halon gas burst from the pipes. Fortunately, her suit had an oxygen source.

“I don’t know.” She tried not to shout the words. “It didn’t list any identities, just that two had been taken. One is here. One is in Russia.”

Rory’s response broke up.

“What?” The fifth room was also empty, but with the claw marks on the wall and overturned furniture coupled with a shredded mattress, she’d bet money that had been Summer’s room.

Bastards.

“Corkscrew and Dark Angel have been missing for months. Angel has big black wings, he’s hard to miss. Corkscrew—” The earbud screamed with feedback and Ilsa jerked, pawing at her head. She couldn’t reach it through the headgear, but she managed to knock it loose.

Ears ringing, she sucked in a deep breath and started running down the hallway. The rooms boasted everything from nightmares to emptiness, but the eighth scared the hell out of her. Inside the room, a blue-haired woman knelt in the center of the chamber—light sparkling and dancing around her. A band of light rotated like an atomic symbol crisscrossing and rolling together across her torso.

The woman looked up, her eyes as blue as her hair, vibrant and alive. The light lashed forward and hit the door. Ilsa stumbled back as brightness seared her eyes. She shielded her eyes with one arm, but the door itself began to shimmer, shake, and liquefy.

“Okay, I can’t hear you, but I hope to hell you can all hear me. A blue haired woman is burning her way out of one of these cells…” A sudden scream from inside the room cut her off and the door hung limply, bound by one strand of the reinforced steel. Edging forward, she found the woman lying face down, hands planted against the floor as though trying to shove her way up.

“Are you okay?” Ilsa tried to skirt the door, but her bulky suit made that difficult.

“Don’t. Touch. Me.” The woman’s breathing was labored.

Ilsa jerked her head up. The gas. It was a fire suppresser, but it devoured oxygen. Inside the room, the woman might have had some, but not with the door half-melted. She turned and looked around for rebreathers—every lab had to keep them for emergencies just like this. Across the lab, the interior door shattered open. Drake and Rex entered.

Scooping up the black device, she pointed at the room where she stood and they came for her. Rex slid through the door and popped the breather into the woman’s mouth. Her glowing eyes opened and she punched upwards, power sheathing her hand.

The shifter flew backwards and hit the wall. Drake whirled, bracing himself between Ilsa and the woman as she rocketed out and hit him square. He slid backwards and Ilsa scrambled to get away from him. Blasts ignited the ozone and sparks exploded from a shattered monitor as her next strafing energy beam went wide.

“Holy shit.” She’d never seen anything like it. Rex launched out of the room and wrapped himself around the woman, transforming into some kind of bands that locked her hands down. But the power shimmering in the air intensified and, to Ilsa’s horror, Rex shattered and she was loose again. Another lab table exploded, a door and exterior windows exploded outwards. She dove to the floor as Drake took another beam square in the chest, blocking her.

A hand seized her collar and dragged her upwards, and she was face to face with the wild-eyed, iris burning woman.

“Stop. We’re here to—” But the power in her hands began to burn through the suit and the woman wasn’t listening. “Dammit, Scorpio.”

Like Garrett before her, the woman dropped like a rock. Ilsa’s knees slammed into the floor and she tried to catch the other woman’s head before it hit tile. Drake clambered to his feet and scooped both of them up.

“Let’s go, Rex.” He shouted the order. To her amazement, the shattered bits of Rex liquefied and began to trail back together, oozing into a pool and then upwards, to the shape of a man.

Slack jawed, she didn’t even fight Drake as he arrived at the stairwell and kicked a hole. Michael and Rory were there. Rory’s gaze pinned the blue haired woman.

“Corkscrew.”

“She’ll be fine.”

“Talk later,” Michael ordered, helping her stand and giving her a push toward the stairs. She obeyed, jogging up that last flight to the roof. Garrett stood in the open doorway, tense and furious. Relief rolled over his face as he caught her arm and pulled her out.

It was utter chaos outside. The others were slower to emerge, bringing some of the victims from the cells with them. Rex carried the blue haired Corkscrew in his arms, handing her off to Simon. It was the first time Ilsa realized the telepath was on the roof. Below, fire engines screamed into the facility lot and, above, a tornado raced toward them.

“What’s that?” Ilsa pointed.

“Just hang onto Drake.” Garrett retreated from her, avoiding everyone gathering close. Drake braced an arm around her and then they were swept up into the whirlwind. Her stomach lurched sideways and she couldn’t make out anything. The wind set them down a mile from the facility.

Trying to keep from throwing up, her head snapped up at the first boom in the distance and a fireball exploded upwards into the sky. Jerking off the helmet, she fumbled for the earbud. “Garrett?”

“I’m fine, Doc. I’ll see you back at home base. Michael and I are making sure it’s destroyed. All of it.”

Ilsa exhaled hard and doubled over, hands on her thighs. Everything inside her shook. She looked around the clearing as Simon, Rex and Drake hurried the rescued into vehicles. Rory knelt next to the blue-haired woman with Tempest—Ilsa understood the wild wind now—at her side. They were both the image of relief mingled with fury.

Next time, she would leave the hero business to the professionals.

Garrett walked down into the lab at the Hampton’s house slowly. He’d dreaded this day since they’d shut down the R.E.X. facility. They had the papers they needed to give Ilsa her new identity, and he’d worked with Simon to find a new place for her to live. She would have the rest of her life to forget the nightmare of the last two weeks and be free.

But the last thing he wanted to do was let her go. He’d worked it out, the logic, the pros, and the cons. He was prepared for the argument. What he wasn’t prepared for was to not wake up with her in his arms, every morning, as he had this week. It was a strange sort of wonderful to go to sleep with someone. Stranger still to wake up with her.

He wouldn’t think about not being able to touch her. This wasn’t about him. It was about her. She deserved a life. A real life.

“Are you going to stand up there staring at me all day, or are you going to bring down the coffee?” She sat perched at the laboratory workstation. Corkscrew—Amanda—slept in the converted hospital room they’d constructed. An I.V. dripped fluids into her arm and a monitor kept them apprised of her respiration and pulse. They kept her asleep for now, because every time she woke up, she’d flipped out. Drake had to repair another van after she blew it apart and Rex worked on a wall upstairs where she’d taken out the shields on the windows. Their other patients weren’t so hard to contain or deal with. Of the six they rescued, four were already on their feet and trying to figure out what had been done to them. Two were clinically depressed according to Ilsa, but she was already making inroads.

He warily watched the retriever sprawled at her feet as he set the coffee mug down next to her. Simon had delivered her dogs the night before, and she’d already set the two depressed patients up with a dog each. But this one never strayed from Ilsa, sleeping in the bed she’d made him in Garrett’s room. He didn’t want the dog to touch him, however.

The dog thumped his tail, but didn’t rise. Satisfied, he glanced at Ilsa who captured his face in both hands and kissed him. The action chased away his thoughts about the plans he’d made for her, and he couldn’t resist slipping an arm around her. The weight of another person felt so damn good.

“Good morning,” she murmured, nuzzling the corner of his mouth. “You snuck out before I woke up.”

“I had to finalize some things.” And the sinking sensation in his gut returned. It really was best for her to be away from them. They’d made a whole new host of enemies taking out the facility and researching the others. Before they were finished, they planned to shut every single one down.

“Rory told me.” She kissed him once more and sat back down. She used her bare foot to pet the dog and picked up her coffee. “I wanted to come down and check on Amanda. I’ve found the frequency they tuned her chip to. It’s a bad implant. I’m going to have to remove it.” She hit something on the screen to show him a scan. He recognized the brain and the odd-shaped rectangle had to be a chip.

“I need some more equipment though, specialized. I’d rather do it in a hospital, but we’re going to convert the back half of this lab into a surgical center. Simon is getting the plans together for me. I also want to get her a little more stable before I open her up. She’s already had too much done to her.” She sipped her coffee and sighed. He’d made, and he was slowly getting used to, the hazelnut brand she liked. It didn’t matter if it tasted like crushed nuts if it made her happy.

“About that…” Garrett cleared his throat. “We need to talk.”

She flicked a look up at him and then at her watch. “Okay, I’ve scheduled some time with Jackson this afternoon. I want to see if I can get him to take a walk with me on the beach. Dogs are great therapy.”

“Yeah.” He sucked in a slow breath and took a step back. The distance would help him keep his perspective. “We’ve got a place for you in Seattle. I know it’s not ideal, but you’ll have equipment, a new identity, and a chance at a real life. You can continue your research with animals if you want or work on something else.”

He cleared his throat again, meeting her clear-eyed gaze solemnly. “It’s going to get really messy over the next few months. You’ll be safer. The Infinity Corporation has set you up as a professor. It’s a small school, but you will have a stable income, and I’ve arranged for accounts to be created for you, so you won’t have to worry about funding.” It sounded so much better in his head. “You’ll leave Monday.” Four days. Just four more days together and then he would send her away.

He hated it.

“Anything else?” She lifted both brows and took another sip of coffee.

“It’s for the best. Like I said, it’s going to get hairy. If they didn’t know you were involved before, they do now. They’re going to look for you. Safer is better.” He clamped his mouth shut since all he did was repeat himself.