"Recognize me, Bradley?"
He studied the sleek brown hair, deep-set black eyes, the taut, muscular body. Didn't ring any bells for him.
"You ruined my reputation. Turned me from saint to monster. I've never forgiven you for that, Bradley. It's a pleasure watching you hurt. It'll be a greater one watching you die."
There was a hint of a French accent, but it sounded strained like the throat producing it was unaccustomed to the accent. Finn realized who this had to be, and felt bile forcing its way through both his stomachs. He choked it back.
"Faneuil," Finn forced through cut and swollen lips.
"The same." A predator's smile. Finn spat in Faneuil's face, spraying him with blood, spit and a lost tooth. Faneuil fell back with a cry of disgust, groping for a handkerchief to wipe his face.
The strawberry blond man who was keeping a grip on Clara made a moue of disgust. "You never had any balls, Etienne. Why don't you hit him?"
"I'm not a thug," said Faneuil in a prissy tone and left.
The blond guy sighed, looked down at Clara. Gestured to Joan.
"She's next."
In the corner Joan reared up out of her coils, and spread her hood. The two thugs who had worked Finn over exchanged dubious glances about their next subject. Hartmann was huddled behind her, his entire body quivering with tension. He didn't have to worry. No one was interested in him right at the moment. This party was being staged for Clara's benefit.
"What does it matter, Pan?" Clara suddenly blurted out. "If I do what you wish, they'll die anyway."
"We may be able to arrange something," the man said soothingly.
"That's horseshit and you know it. I designed this virus. There isn't a vaccine, there isn't a chance you'll only catch a mild case. This is my mother, and my lover. I can't do this." Her back was rigid, the tendons in her throat were stretched and taut, and a pulse was beating wildly. But nothing showed in her voice.
The man's soothing, unctuous tone grated. "You can watch them suffer, or you can give them a humane death."
Finn knew her face so well by now. Every nuance, every flicker of emotion. He could see her calculating, deliberating, reaching a decision, and whatsoever that decision entailed, it left death in her eyes. Clara stared at the men. The words emerged, low and grating.
"All right, I'll do it." And she turned and stalked out of the room.
And while the physical pain was horrible, it was less agonizing than the nagging terror of this mysterious "Black Trump."
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
Faneuil and his assistant, Michelle Poynter, both dressed as Clara was in protective clothing, shadowed her around the clean room. She first tried packaging a totally different virus, one of her early, failed ones. But Faneuil stopped her at the onset.
"Don't play games with me," he said, his voice muffled by the respirator. He had Poynter line up the bottles of solution, the basic ingredients she should be using. The materials were specific to her latest work. They must have been spying on her all along.
"And we'd better see your wildcard cell cultures die," he said. "If not, one of your joker friends is going to die instead."
She eyed Faneuil, thinking hard. Both Black Trump strains used virtually all the same ingredients. Faneuil wouldn't know the difference; even another virologist wouldn't, without being familiar with her methods.
Even Black Trump I was too dangerous a virus to give them. But it was far better than recreating Black Trump II. And it would buy her time.
She got to work.
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
She had tried to lose him in a blizzard of technobabble. Virus sheaths, cell wall resistance, etc. It confused, but couldn't obscure the bottom line - she, Clara, his lover, his lady, had created a virus which would kill wild cards. All wild cards. Aces, jokers, latents. Leaving a world cleansed of their polluting influence. That's why they had tortured him. Finn wished they'd killed him before he had to hear this confession. Before he knew what she had done to "save" him.
"So what was I?" he asked and his voice emerged as an anguished groan. "Research? Did you fuck me so you could get some hot, fresh joker sperm?"
"Don't hate me, Bradley," she whispered through stiff, white lips. "I didn't know ... what you were like. I thought you were ... unhappy."
"Offering us the peace and contentment of the grave? Thank you very much, Clara. A little more van Renssaeler noblesse oblige."
"Bradley, please." He wanted tears, needed tears. He didn't get them. She was in clinical mode.
Instead, to his eternal embarrassment, the tears were his. The sob burst out of him. Tore at his chest and throat. The salt in the tears burned in the cuts on his face, and ate like acid at his soul and dreams.
Throughout all of this Joan and Hartmann were huddled presences in the corner of the cell. Finn plunged away from Clara. She didn't follow. That hurt too. Then Joan reared up, spread her hood, and hissed at him. Startled, Finn ran backwards, hooves skittering on the slick tile. Clara's hands were on his haunches. He bolted from her too. Irrational, he wanted her comfort, and couldn't bear her touch. He wanted the last few hours to be excised. He didn't want to know that while she had wooed him she had been killing him. He wanted to stop loving her.
Clara started for the door, but Joan shot across the floor, and blocked her daughter's escape.
"I want to live to be a grandmother," she said in her husky, humorous voice, that couldn't quite hide the fear and tension lurking beneath the surface. "I have a daughter again. I want a son. I want you both to stop fighting and grieving and guilt tripping each other, and think of something."
For the first time since Clara had begun her horrific confession, she and Finn actually looked at each other. Actually locked eyes. It surprised him a little - she was still Clara ... and he discovered that he still loved her, even as he hated her.
"Joan, I'm not James Fucking Bond with four feet. I'm a middle-aged out of shape joker."
"But you're both bright, so think of something," Joan insisted.
"Don't count on me," Hartmann offered. "This fucking body has a built in flight instinct. Danger rears its ugly head, and I'm gone. Nothing I can do to control it."
Clara ignored Hartmann. Stared thoughtfully at Finn. "You're stronger than a normal human?"
"A little. The extra weight helps. I got a lot of kick power in these legs ... but no, I can't kick out that door. And I think they'd notice if I tried."
"We need to clear the lab," Clara mused.
"A diversion," Finn amplified.
"The virus," they both breathed together.
Hartmann stiffened in alarm. "Won't that... kill us?"
"We wouldn't really use it," Clara said. "But they watch me whenever I'm near anything toxic so I couldn't even - What?" she asked when she noticed Finn staring speculatively at Joan.
"I remember the day when you dropped that religious nut cold in twenty seconds. With no permanent effects."
Joan stretched her mouth open in a travesty of a smile. Snapped shut her teeth. Clara was staring at both of them like they'd gone insane.
"Mommy dearest's got venom," Joan said sweetly and simply.
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
Her timing couldn't have been better; the lunch line hadn't yet started to form when she got to the cafeteria. The neighborhood had a deficit of restaurants, and in half an hour the cafeteria would be packed.