She came out low, with Roarke taking high, into a wide, white corridor. The walls were tiled and glossy, the floors gleaming. The only color was from the large red «1» directly across from the elevator, and from the black eyes of the security cams.
«A bit like the morgue,» Roarke commented, but she shook her head.
There was no smell of death here. No smell of human. Just empty air pumped and recycled. They headed west.
There were archways right and left, with codes posted, again in red, on the walls.
«Lost Feeney. We're deep.» Roarke looked up. The ceiling was white, too, and curved like a tunnel. «And there's probably security plates to block unauthorized communications.»
«Have to know we're here.» She lifted her chin toward another camera.
«Maybe security's automated.»
She strained to hear. Voices, footsteps. But there was nothing but the quiet hum of the air system. The tunnel curved, and she saw the remains of a droid scattered over the white floor.
«I'd say we're on the right track.» He crouched to study the pieces. «Bug, equipped with stunners and signals.»
Because they looked like mutant spiders, they disgusted her on an innate level. And where there was one, there were bound to be more.
Her theory proved out when she heard the scuttle behind her. She turned, fired, as the bug droid rounded the curve. Three more came behind it.
She dropped to avoid the beam, clipped one, and was rolling to her feet when Roarke obliterated the third. The injured one let out a high-pitched signal before she kicked it, full force, and set it smashing against the wall.
«Damn insects.»
«That may be. But in a place like this, I'd say they're the first wave.» Anticipating, Roarke drew a second blaster. «We can expect worse.»
They hadn't made it another ten feet when they got worse.
They came, front and rear, and at quick march, in perfect formation. Eve counted more than a dozen before her back slapped against Roarke's.
Droids, she hoped they were droids. They were identicaclass="underline" stony faces, hard eyes, bulky muscle under what were outdated military uniforms.
But young, oh Christ, no more than sixteen. Children. Just children.
«This is the police,» she shouted out. «This is a sanctioned NYPSD operation. Stop where you are.»
They kept coming, and as one entity, drew weapons.
«Take them down!»
She'd barely gotten the words out when the explosion rocked her. She flipped her weapon to full stun, fired first in a sweep, then in quick, focused bursts.
Something seared her left arm, brought a quick shock of pain. Even as she fired into one of the oncoming's face, the one behind him fell on her.
She nearly lost her weapon as the force slammed her to the floor. She smelled blood, ripe and fresh, saw the human in his eyes. And without remorse, jammed her weapon against his throat, and fired on full.
His body jerked, convulsed, and was dead before she shoved him aside. She avoided, narrowly, the combat boot that kicked toward her face. Yanking her knife free she drove it up, into the hard belly.
Chips of tile flew, sliced at her exposed skin as she rolled. There was another jolt of pain, a pinch at her hip. She caught sight of Roarke battling two, hand to hand. And more were coming.
She clamped her knife between her teeth, thumbed to maximum blast, and flipped her clutch piece out of its holster. She somersaulted back, took one of Roarke's opponents out, cursed when she couldn't get a clear shot of the other, then began to fire two-handed, like a mad thing, at what remained standing.
Then Roarke was beside her, kneeling beside her. «Fire in the hole,» he said, dead calm, and heaved the miniboomer in his hand.
He grabbed her, shoved her back, and threw his body over hers.
The blast punched at her eardrums. She heard, dimly, shards of tile raining down. Then only her own labored breaths.
«Get off, get off!» If there was panic now, it was for him, so she pushed, shoved, rolled him away, then snatched at him again. He was breathing hard now, and he was bleeding.
A gash at the temple, a slice that had gone through the leather of his coat just above the elbow.
«How bad? How bad?»
«Don't know.» He shook his head to clear it. «You? Aw, fuck them,» he said, viciously, when he saw the blood running down her arm, seeping through her pants at the hip.
«Dings mostly. Mostly dings. Backup's coming. Help's coming.»
He looked her dead in the eyes, and he smiled. «And we're just going to sit here and wait for the cavalry, are we?»
The smile loosened the sweaty fist around her heart. «Hell, no.»
She pushed herself up, offered him her hand. What she saw around them made her stomach pitch and her heart shrivel. They'd been flesh, blood, bone. They'd been boys. Now they were pieces of meat.
She shut herself down, began to gather weapons. «We don't know what else we've got coming. Take all you can carry.»
«Bred for war, that's what they were,» Roarke said softly. «They had no choice. They gave us no choice.»
«I know that.» She shouldered on two combat rifles. «And we're going to exterminate, destroy, decimate what bred them.»
Roarke hefted one of the weapons. «Urban War era. If they'd been better equipped and more experienced, we'd be dead.»
«You had boomers. You had illegal explosives.»
«Well, be prepared, I say.» He aimed the rifle at one of the cameras, blasted it. «You've only used one of these a couple of times in sims down in the target gallery.»
«I can handle it.» She aimed, took out a second camera.
«No doubt.»
From their position, Diana looked over her shoulder. «It sounds like a war.»
«Whatever it is, it's keeping it off our backs.» For now, she thought. She'd estimated she'd had a fifty-fifty chance of coming out of tonight alive. Now she had to survive. She had to get it done and get Diana to safety.
But her palms were sweating, and that only lowered the odds. Avril had been the only person she'd ever loved. Now even that strong current was tame beside the tidal wave of emotion that swept her. Diana was hers.
Nothing was ever going to touch her child again.
So she prayed that the data she and Avril had accessed was still valid. Prayed that whatever was behind them would wait until she got through the doors marked GESTATION.
Prayed that her courage wouldn't fail.
At last the light glowed green. She heard the swish of air as the doors opened into an airlock. What she saw through it, through the glass, drained the heart out of her.
She made herself go in, made herself look.
While her vision blurred with tears, the monster, dead for a decade, stepped into the white stream of light.
Jonah Delecourt Wilson was fit and handsome and no more than thirty. In his arms he carried a sleeping infant. One hand held a stunner and was pressed to the child's throat.
At his feet was the body of a young Wilfred Icove.
«Welcome home, Deena. It's a testament to both of us that you got this far.»
Instinctively Deena pushed Diana behind her.
«Saving yourself?» He laughed, and turned the baby to the light. «Which one of yourself will you sacrifice? Infant, child, woman? Fascinating conundrum, isn't it? I need you to come with me now. We don't have much time.»
«You killed your partner?»
«Despite all the work, all the adjustment, all the improvement, he proved to be inherently flawed. He objected to some of our most recent advances.»
«Let her go. Give the baby to Diana, and let them go. I'll go with you.»
«Deena, understand I've terminated my closest associate, the man—well, men, as there are two more of him equally dead—who shared my vision for decades. Do you think I'd hesitate to kill any of you?»
«No. But it's wasteful to kill the children. It's wasteful to terminate me, when you can take me, use me. Study me.»