Claire nodded, not smiling but she looked relieved.
"Good. Let's go."
Chris had turned back to look at the wall across from the hit. "I've got to check something first," he said, wanting to take a closer look at the corner door, it looked Like a security door. "You go, I'll be right there." "Forget it," Claire said firmly. She walked after him, her eyes red from crying but her chin set and deter– mined. "No way we're splitting up again." Chris leaned down to look at the door's locking mechanism and sighed, standing back up. They were probably at the self-destruct system already; the lock was complicated and unique, requiring a key he didn't have. Besides which, to the right of the door was a locked-down grenade launcher of some kind, one he didn't recognize, the bar holding it down labeled emer-gency release only. Just as well, we should get out while we still can, he thought, but wasn't happy about it. How much more powerful would Alexia become before another chance like this one? "Hey, hey, wait a sec," Claire said, and began rum-maging through the small pack around her waist. Before he could ask, she was holding up a slender metal key, shaped like a dragonfly. There was no question that it would fit the lock. "I found it back at Rockfort," she said, bending over and pressing it into the indentation. It fit perfectly, the lock releasing with a solid metallic clink.
"You're going to set off the self-destruct, aren't you," Claire said, not really a question. "Do you have the code?"
Chris didn't really answer, thinking that there were an amazing number of coincidences in life, and sometimes, they worked to one's advantage. "Code Veronica," he said softly, and pulled the door open, ready to take it all down, understanding that it was meant to be.
EIGHTEEN
THE BOY WAS DEAD, BUT THE GIRL WASN'T. And now the young man was trying to destroy Alexia's home, and it wasn't a game or an experiment or some– thing to observe, he had to die, in pain and misery. How had he dared to consider such a thing? He should be on his knees in front of her, a worthless supplicant for her to do with as she wished, how dare he? Alexia saw the siblings walking away from their treacherous deed, felt them wishing to leave as the auto– mated sequence began, lights and sounds flashing, sys– tems shutting down throughout the terminal. Their perfidy was useless, of course. She would be able to stop the destruct sequence with a minimum of effort, using her control over the organic to sever every con– nection in the facility, but it was the thought behind the act that so infuriated her. He had witnessed the glory of her capabilities, he had seen it and fled in terror… and yet he could fancy himself worthy to take a life such as hers? Alexia gathered herself, drawing all of her power in, becoming complete. She knew that the young man had picked up a weapon that had been sitting next to the keyboard, a revolver that someone had left behind. She didn't object, knowing that the firearm would give him hope, and that for a victory to be complete, the victor had to take everything. She would take his hope, she would take his sister's life and then she would take his. When she was whole, she imagined herself becoming liquid, traveling through the structure of her surroundings as easily as the organic extensions she controlled, and then she was doing so, moving to confront the interlopers. They were startled, as if they'd expected to succeed. She slid out from inside her organic carrier, unfolding herself, turning to look into their dull eyes, their winc– ing sheep's faces. She watched them watch her, curious in spite of her anger. They argued in front of her, he insisting that he would "handle" things, that the girl should flee. The girl ac-cepted, but reluctantly, insisting in turn that he should survive. Following that ludicrous statement, the girl turned and ran for the elevator. Alexia moved to intercept, raising her hand to smite the girl…… and a perforation opened in her flesh, distracting her. A bullet had entered her body. She turned and smiled at him, at the gun in his hand, and reached into herself, pulling the bullet out and tossing it toward him. As gratifying as his expression was, the girl was gone by the time she turned back. It was time to expand her boundaries, Alexia decided. To show him what she was, what she could do… and to put the fear of God into him, because as she closed her eyes, imagining, wishing, she stopped being Alexia Ashford and became Wrath, divine and merciless.
NINETEEN
"THE SELF-DESTRUCT SEQUENCE HAS BEEN activated," a recording intoned, reverberating through the room, crowding out the rest of its message. "You have four minutes thirty seconds to reach minimum safe distance."
Combined with the sirens and flashing emergency lights, Chris was on sensory overload before the fight even began. Alexia raised her hand to hit Claire, and Chris fired, the.357 bucking in his hand, the shot blasting over the self-destruct alarms, deafeningly explosive. Yes! A clean hit, right through the gut, and Claire was already at the elevator, pushing the button, stepping in– side…… but instead of bleeding, instead of faltering even a step, Alexia smiled at him. She lifted one of her slender gray hands and pushed it into her body, the flesh meld– ing seamlessly, flowing like water. A second later she held up the round he'd nailed her with and gently tossed it in his direction. Bad, this is very, very bad, Chris thought numbly, and then she started to change. The lithe gray female crouched on the metal grid and her liquid flesh started to tremble, to form tiny peaks and dips all across her body, the tissue bubbling, ex– panding. The peaks became mountains, the dips, val– leys, all of it gray and swelling as her limbs started to fold in on themselves. Her arms curved over and joined the growing mass, the legs disappearing into it, the tex– ture turning rough and striated, veins like cables rising, and she kept swelling. Her head rolled down and be-came part of the giant, rounded body of her, gray be– coming muscle-tissue red, the purple and blue of blood vessels networking across like a tide.
"You have four minutes to reach minimum safe dis-tance," someone said, but Chris barely heard her, he was backing away, becoming more and more convinced that this was not going to end well. The elevator was blocked, and she just kept getting bigger. Thick tentacles pushed out from beneath the elephan– tine mass, undulating like waves, spreading out across the platform. Chris's back hit a wall, stopping him, and the thing, the massive, tumorous thing suddenly rose up as if unbending from some non-existent waist, spread– ing giant wings, a dragonfly's wings, raising a contorted and deformed half human face. The face opened its mouth and a gigantic roaring shriek spilled out, the wings trembling from the raw power of the sound – and then it spit at him, a thin stream of yellow green bile that splashed on the plat– form at his feet, and began to eat through the metal. "Shit!" Chris shouted, and barely jumped out of the way as one of the tentacles slashed forward. He had to watch the mouth and tentacles at the same time…… and from rounded, quivering pink spheres that had grown up around the base of the giant body, moving things began to crawl out. Chris ran to the farthest corner from the Alexia-thing and raised the.357, not sure where to shoot. The small subcreatures were landing on the platform, some like flat, rounded rocks with tentacles, some like beetles, some like nothing he'd ever seen before, and they were all coming toward him, moving fast.
The eyes, if you can't kill it maybe you can blind it…
but the eyes were already blind, round gray holes with darkness underneath, and he'd already seen how effec– tive bullets were against her flesh. That decided it for him. Chris took aim and fired…… and the pulsating, bloated creature was screaming again, this time in pain, one of her wings fluttering down to the platform. A few of the small organisms had reached him, one of the beetle creatures leaping onto his leg, trying to climb up. Disgusted, he brushed it off, but there was another to take its place, and a third. A tentacle flew at his face, shot from one of the rounded stone shapes. Chris blocked it, but barely.