The hallowed cure, p.33
The Hallowed Cure, page 33
And we’d just hunt her down later or blow up the facility her inside it. There were lots of ways she could still die. “Deal,” I said, and looked to Hahna.
Hahna nodded. “Deal.”
“Wonderful,” Sharpe said. “We’re all agreed. You should give the clone the good news.”
Right. I still needed to confirm with Jack. I depressed the pedal.
“We agree to your terms, but we have conditions.”
“Name them,” Jack said.
“We keep our weapons after we join you. Two Hallowed blades.
We can’t bring down your facility with those, but I don’t trust you not to just shoot us in the head once we surrender.”
“That’s acceptable,” Jack said, which surprised the hell out of me.
“I will ask, however, that you surrender your Hallowed armor. I can’t risk it being detonated in my facility.”
So much for that idea. I glanced at Hahna. “Okay with you?”
“I’m shocked he let us keep our weapons,” Hahna said, which mirrored my thinking. “He’s either overconfident or knows something
we don’t.”
“Or he’ll have a couple of Prescotts set up to shoot us with Godhammers,” I said.
“Regardless, I’m willing to take the risk,” Hahna said. “As you may have noticed, I’ve been doing just fine without armor.”
She didn’t have to boast about it. I depressed the pedal. “Agreed.
Where do we meet?”
“There’s an old industrial junkyard on the edge of my operational range,” Jack said. “We’ll make the exchange there. My forces will arrive in a single Cloudhopper, with two more in reserve. You may bring your Hallowed escorts. My agent on scene will handle negotiations once he arrives.”
“Who are you sending?” I wondered if any of his Tony Frost clones could talk.
“Someone you know well,” Jack said. “It’s a thirty-minute drive to the junkyard from the school in which you shelter. I will give you an hour to arrive. You won’t regret this, Mister Riven. Goodbye.”
I took one calming breath, then sat up. “I already regret it, you poisonous old fuck.”
“As I need not explain to anyone, this is obviously a trap,” Saul said. “He has a very bad reason to request the both of you, and not just because you’re our most powerful Hallowed.”
“I know,” I said. “But we’re trapping him right back, so fair’s fair.” I looked to Doctor Sharpe. “One last question before I forget. Can the Hallowed clones think for themselves?”
“They’re more than capable,” Sharpe said. “But again, under Jack’s control.”
“I know that,” I said. “But how are they even walking around?
They’re one-year-olds.”
“Not mentally. After we grew their bodies, we fast burned archived mental impressions and experiences from the originals into their synapses using basic forced cognition.”
I wasn’t even going to ask her to repeat that. “So they think they’re us. They have our memories.”
“Most of them,” Sharpe agreed. “Do you hope to recruit them yourself?”
I wasn’t about to answer that, especially since I might have to kill a whole lot of them very soon—and I’d already killed a few. “Saul, can you get your guy back here with a truck?”
“I’m still not sure this is a good idea,” Saul said.
“That makes two of us. You got any better ones?”
“At the moment? No.”
I looked to Hahna. “Get Doctor Sharpe out of here. She’s your prisoner from here to the facility. You can start by taking her back to her little science lab to pack whatever she needs.”
Hahna nodded and seized Sharpe’s arm. “Please come with me, doctor.”
Sharpe glanced my way once more before departing the room with Hahna. I was pleased I’d gotten rid of them so easily. I turned to Saul. “Saul—”
“I’ll explain everything to Mia,” he said.
I nodded with relief. “You don’t have to back me up on this. You can say you tried to stop me from surrendering myself, and then I kicked your ass.”
“Once she calms down, I believe Mia might actually agree with your decision.”
“And tell her...” I wasn’t sure what I could say to Mia, especially relayed through Saul.
“Why don’t you record a transmission for her in your helmet?”
Saul said. “Since you’ll be leaving it behind, you can record your own message for her in private. If she links up with us at the school as we both hope, I’ll make sure she knows your message is waiting in your helmet.”
Saul really was smart sometimes. “I’ll do that. Thanks.”
“Just be careful.” He gripped my armored shoulder. “We’d both prefer you tell her yourself.”
“No plans to die if I can avoid it,” I agreed. “But, you know. Shit happens.”
Saul nodded. “It does indeed.”
[ 30 ]
STILL AN’T BELIE E YOUR MIDDLE NAME IS
DEAN
My message for Mia was straightforward. I love you, I have to do this, I’ll try to make it back but don’t be sad if I don’t. Pretty basic stuff. I’d never been good at putting my emotions into words, but I think, in that one case, I did a pretty good job. I just hoped Mia wouldn’t play my message for anyone else. Even if I was dead, that would be embarrassing.
Soon after, we were once more in the back of Saul’s local buddy’s truck. I left my Hallowed armor at the school. I hated leaving that armor behind, especially the jump boots, but Jack wouldn’t let me on his Cloudhopper if I wore it. At least I had Savagery.
Her weight in the sheath on my back offered comfort. Also, without my armor, I felt like I was truly somewhere else for the first time. Riding in the back of this electric pickup truck without armor was a reminder I’d never left Dios on a mission before this.
I’d never been anywhere but our manmade artificial island, and Neo Tao Payoh felt different. It was proof a whole world was out there, one I’d never seen. One I likely never would.
Even Presea had never felt this open, and there were so many odd smells in the air. I couldn’t even tell what everything was other than a general sense of “plants.” Either way, my lack of armor made the fact that I was now on the mainland feel more real.
If I died today, I’d least I’d gotten off the island once before I did so. Since I only had six years left, it might be interesting to see more
of the mainland before I died, assuming no one was shooting at us or trying to capture us. Touring the world before I died might be fun.
I refused to think about the cure Sharpe had offered for my panacea poisoning. We were going to destroy her data when we arrived, which meant the cure didn’t really exist. It was probably all a trick by her anyway, and I couldn’t put my survival above the entire world.
That was what Jack Griffyn did.
Doctor Sharpe rode in the cab with the driver, while Frank rode with us in the back. Lincoln and Saul were waiting for a second truck.
They’d be right behind us, but I still wanted to get to the junkyard as fast as possible to scout it for an ambush. Or rather ... to have Frank scout.
His sense of smell with his Mute third arm was still my ace in the hole. If Jack had placed snipers in the junkyard who planned to laser us down during the hostage exchange, Frank would sniff them out and deal with them. I’d even toyed with the idea of ambushing Jack’s forces when they arrived, but Jack—or his clone—was too smart for that.
Even if our hostages weren’t all killed in the crossfire, Jack had almost certainly made Caitlyn and the others wear bomb vests or something equally paranoid. He had to know I’d try to kill his people and take his hostages away if I thought I could pull it off, so he’d make it obvious I couldn’t. Besides ... Hahna and I wanted our free ride into his facility, so we had to play nice for now.
Assuming Doctor Sharpe was as good at betraying people as I hoped, we’d be free to go fuck up Jack’s clone as soon as she activated whatever ambush she had planned for us. I suspected Sharpe’s facility was automated like Cloud Nine Engineering, so there were a dozen tricks she could pull once she had access to whatever Nine AI was running the facility.
When we were still several blocks from the junkyard, Frank hopped out of the moving pickup bed without a word. He’d make his own way to the yard and contact us when he knew the junkyard was clear. Hahna and I got the junkyard more than thirty minutes before
the exchange, and the truck slowed down at the entry. The driver wasn’t going inside.
I hopped out, immediately followed by Hahna. We waited until Doctor Sharpe emerged from the cab. She eyed the metal and trash piles ahead with visible distaste.
I thumped the trunk’s cab to let the driver know he was free to leave. He backed up and left far faster than he’d arrived. I didn’t blame the poor guy. He’d never signed up to drive foreign super soldiers to a junkyard to meet a bunch of zombies and clones.
I led the way into the junkyard with Sharpe behind me and Hahna behind her. No one shot at us immediately, which was encouraging.
Frank was already somewhere inside, searching for enemies.
“So much waste,” Sharpe said distastefully. “I suppose with this much space, one is free to toss refuse everywhere. No need to worry about reuse, recycling, or soil and water contamination.”
“There’s junkyards like this in Dios too,” I told her calmly. “Plenty of them.”
“In Rocham, perhaps. Certainly not in Hatten.”
Sharpe had likely never been outside Dios’ rich research district in all her life before Jack sent her here. The real world must be a bit of a culture shock. Her disdain for this island and the mainland might explain why she’d been willing to infect everyone here with panacea cells.
To her, the people who lived here weren’t actually people. They weren’t human. They were research subjects, and her casual sociopathy was just another reason I didn’t want her walking around any longer than necessary. I needed her for now, but I wouldn’t always.
The problem was, Sharpe still knew I was planning to kill her.
She’d be ready for that, and the moment she got the opportunity, she’d try and kill me first. All of it would have to wait until Jack was dead again, though. Given I was Hallowed and Sharpe had never fired a gun in her life, I liked my odds.
I kept near the bigger piles of junk since those provided the most cover. I didn’t see anyone else in the junkyard at all. There also weren’t any conveniently placed hills overlooking the place, which
provided less possible sniper perches. I half expected a pair of Frost clones to step from behind the junk piles and engage Hahna and me in an honor duel, but we remained alone.
Once I reached the center of the yard, where junk piles blocked lines of fire from all sides save straight up, I settled by a big pile of stacked crushed cars and waited. A few minutes after we stopped, Frank arrived carrying Baku. It was comforting to know that we weren’t alone out here.
“This place is fragrant, but so far as I can tell, there’s no one else here,” Frank said. “Jack may actually be playing this exchange straight.”
“Thanks.” I glanced at Hahna. “How much time?”
“Twenty-two minutes until the exchange,” she said.
That was going to be a boring twenty-two minutes, but at least we weren’t getting our heads sniped off. “Keep an eye on our perimeter,”
I told Frank. “When Saul and Lincoln get here, link up with them if you can and stay out of sight. We’ll use your and Hahna’s panacea communicator to coordinate once we see what Jack’s brought to the party.”
The jamming, of course, had resumed shortly after I finished my conversation with Jack. Fortunately, Jack didn’t know we could communicate through his jamming with the set of panacea communicators Hahna carried out. That edge, too, would hopefully help us if things went wrong.
Frank leisurely slipped off into the junk piles. I doubted anyone would find him in here if he didn’t want to be found. I looked to Hahna. “Know any good jokes?”
“What do a tick and the Eiffel Tower have in common?” Hahna asked.
I was surprised she’d taken me up on my offer. I’d just been hoping to mess with her. She’d never really had a sense of humor back in the war.
“That’s a joke?” I asked.
“They’re both parasites,” she said calmly.
I considered her joke for a moment. “I don’t get it.”
“As in Paris,” Doctor Sharpe said from behind us. “The city where the original Eiffel Tower once stood. So Paris sites is a play on words.”
“How is that funny?” I asked.
“It’s not,” Sharpe said. “That’s the point.”
“What did the janitor say when they jumped out of the closet?”
Hahna asked.
I looked to the sky. “Forget I asked.”
“Supplies!” Hahna shouted.
Behind me, Doctor Sharpe snickered. I rubbed my face. What the hell had I just unleashed upon the world?
“You should take the cure Doctor Sharpe developed,” Hahna said.
I frowned at her, especially given Sharpe was right there behind us. “It’s bullshit.”
“It’s not bullshit of any sort,” Sharpe said. “I can cure you, Mister Riven. If you help me recover my research and return it to Cloud Nine Engineering in Dios, I can give you a long life with Miss Ashford.”
“I’d never trust you to do that anyway.”
“It’s impossible to truly quantify the breakthroughs we’ve had in the past two years with panacea cells, but all other accomplishments in human history pale by comparison,” Sharpe continued, as if she hadn’t heard me. “With proper treatment, we can eliminate disease for everyone, Hallowed and humans. We can end aging. We can end death itself.”
“For rich people,” I reminded her. “You’re not going to give your miracle cure to anyone else.”
“Producing enough for everyone is simply a problem of scale.
That’s solvable.”
“You’re not listening.” I kept my eyes on the sky. “It’s not that you can’t cure everyone. You won’t. There’s no way the rich assholes in Dios will ever let anyone give your miracle cure to people on the street. They want cheap and disposable labor, not poor people who live forever.”
“He’s probably right about that,” Hahna said.
Sharpe huffed angrily. “So because my research may be misused, we should destroy it?”
“Pretty much.”
“Humanity must evolve. My treatments can ensure that. How they are produced and distributed is a problem for Miss Alexander and others to solve.”
“And that’s your problem,” I reminded her. “You never consider anything beyond your research. Not lives. Not people. They’re all numbers to you.”
“That’s not true! I understand those who help me drive my research forward are people. I stand in awe of their sacrifices. I’m simply rational enough to understand that people die every day. If we must sacrifice a hundred to save a thousand—”
“Save it,” I snapped. “I’m not debating how many people we can justifiably kill with you, and I’m not injecting anything you created in your zombie lab. Just make sure you hold up your part of the bargain.”
“You need have no doubt about that,” Sharpe said quietly.
“Hey, Riven?” Hahna asked.
I sighed. “Yes?”
“A skeleton walks into a bar,” she said calmly. “What does he say to the bartender?”
“Let’s just stop with the jokes now.”
“I’ll have one beer and a mop.”
The faintest chuckle escaped my lips. “Goddammit, Hahna.”
“Made you laugh,” she said proudly.
“It’s time to sit quietly and not get ambushed,” I told them. “Right now.”
Sixteen very awkward minutes later, the sound of distant rotors told me Cloudhoppers were on approach. Jack was right on time, and my already nervous stomach accelerated its flips. Were Caitlyn, Reese, and Amber really on that Cloudhopper? Or were they all dead?
Yet Jack wouldn’t have killed them if he wanted Doctor Sharpe alive, and if he wanted her dead, he’d have let me kill her. He’d have no need for an elaborate ruse to kill Sharpe himself.
He wanted Sharpe’s access to the Nine AI in the facility. He knew I wanted Caitlyn. We had a deal until we each got what we wanted, at which point we’d try to kill each other again.
Nothing unreasonable about that.
I sighted the first Cloudhopper a moment later. Two others flew in escort, but those slowed and hung out to provide cover as the third descended toward the center of the junkyard. There was a big clearing where it could probably land if the pilot was good, which reminded me the pilot was a Hallowed clone being controlled by Jack Griffyn’s clone using organic wireless.
It might also wear the face of someone I’d fought beside back in the war.
“Update from Vega,” Hahna said. She meant Frank. “No hostiles on the ground. Lincoln and Bishop are ready to move in on your order. Bishop also doesn’t have a shot into this area with his rifle, so you’ve chosen our location well.”
“Nice,” I said. “Don’t order anyone in yet. Let’s see who else shows up.”
How did Jack control his Hallowed clones? Did he literally possess their bodies, or did he just tell them what to do and trust them to do it? As the lead Cloudhopper came in for a landing, the pilot appeared at least competent, but I didn’t know if Jack had ever gotten a pilot’s license.
The lead Cloudhopper landed in the open space in the middle of the junkyard with its rear end facing in our general direction. While it had doors in the side that Hallowed could drop from, it also had a loading ramp in the back we used to get on at Cloud Nine Engineering. That loading ramp lowered once the Cloudhopper was down. Its rotors spun down to an idle.
