“Well, you’re right. I do need something. I need all of your Higgs projectors,” she said.
“All of them?” Ryan blinked. “But you already have one.” He wondered which of the twins she had killed to get it, but it didn’t seem important to ask.
“I want every last projector you’ve created. And you’re working for the military, so I know there are a lot of them.”
He was genuinely confused. “What are you going to do with them?”
Jean cocked her head. “I hardly see why you need to know. But I would have thought it would be obvious. I’m not wanted here in the United States. Any of our government’s allies would turn me over to them in a heartbeat. So I’m going where my skills might still be appreciated.”
“Turkey? You’re going to give all the Higgs projectors to the Turkish government?”
“I think they may be willing to pay handsomely for them. And I suspect they will be glad to put me to work for the cause. A cause I’m passionate about, by the way. Crushing the country that screwed me.”
“I’ll give you what I have,” Ryan said. “But most of them aren’t here. They took them to the front already. To use in the fighting.”
“There isn’t any fighting.”
“There will be. In fact, from the questions they were asking me, I’m pretty sure they’re planning some kind of preemptive—”
A monitor behind him shattered in a fountain of glass. “Enough chatter,” Jean said. “I can find them without you. If you want to live, then make it worth my while to keep you alive.”
“I’m doing it, I’m doing it.” Ryan crossed to a safe and entered a long series of numbers on a keypad. The safe popped open. Inside were a stack of cards kept together with a rubber band. They were the Higgs projectors he had held back for his own further research, although he had told the government people that he had surrendered all of them. In fact, this stack wasn’t all he had left, either. Ryan knew the value of redundancy.
“Happy?” he said. “Now take them and leave.”
It didn’t matter. She was welcome to them. All he needed was one. In fact, he wasn’t even sure he needed that anymore.
Jean snatched up the stack of projectors. “What are you grinning at?” she said.
“You can’t hurt me,” Ryan said. “I’ll be alive long after you and your kind are gone.”
“My kind?” She stared at him as if he was insane, but then her face cleared. She chuckled softly. “Oh, I see. It’s been talking to you.”
Ryan was so astonished he didn’t try to hide it.
“Been promising you things?” Jean went on. “Let me guess—it plans to consolidate all of humanity into your mind and make you eternal, bodiless, beyond pain and death. Do I have it right?” Her mocking smile collapsed into a scowl. “I’ve been listening to it for longer than you have.” She leaned forward, invading his space. “A lot longer.”
Kill her, Ryan thought at the varcolac. She’s a threat. Kill her.
“It’s been talking to me for years, in the prison, subtly speaking inside my head.” She leaned away again, and the mocking smile returned. “When you think about it, I have a lot more to offer than you do. I have the projectors, for one thing.” She held them up for him to see. “I’m smarter than you, more relentless, more ruthless. Less weak. Not so afraid of the world I can hardly step outside my door. You think your mind is a blueprint for the ultimate human? Please. I’m surprised you can tie your shoes.”
Ryan leaped up in a rage and attacked. He didn’t have his eyejack interface, but he had always known this confrontation was possible. He had prepared a panic button, a literal button on his personal Higgs projector that would blow everything near him into constituent atoms and teleport him to a safe, predetermined location. He reached into his pocket and pressed the button five times in quick succession and then held it down.
Nothing happened.
Jean shook her head and gave him a patronizing smile. “I’m sorry. I took the liberty of toasting your projector the moment I stepped into the room.”
Then the worst thing of all happened. The varcolac left him.
“Goodbye, Ryan. Next time you make a deal, keep your end of the bargain.”
Ryan started to panic. It was slipping away. It was leaving with her, choosing her instead of him. He couldn’t feel the energy and clarity of its mind anymore. He felt clumsy and slow, barely able to hold a coherent thought. It was as if his neurons were firing through molasses. At first he thought he was dying, but then he realized: this is what it’s like to be human. It was his normal state. He had always thought of himself as brilliant, but now, having tasted what it was like to be a varcolac… it was like the crash after an amphetamine. All he could think about was how to get it back.
“Don’t… go,” he managed.
Jean laughed and shook her head. “Oh, Ryan,” she said. “It was never about you at all.” She saluted him with his projectors and then disappeared.
Alex teleported into the High Energy Lab to see Ryan staring off into space with a grief-stricken expression on his face.
“I need two more Higgs projectors,” she said.
Ryan’s eyes wandered slowly over to her. Then he started to giggle.
“What’s so funny?”
Ryan waved his hands helplessly, his giggle turning into a manic laugh, though his lips were turned down, making it look more like he was crying.
Alex grabbed his arm and shook him. “Hey! Stop it. What’s wrong with you?”
He got himself under control, wiping tears from his eyes. “You want Higgs projectors,” he said bitterly. “Everyone wants Higgs projectors.”
Alex studied his face. “Who else was here?” she asked.
“Well, let me see,” Ryan said. He ticked off on chubby fingers. “First off was Babington and some military guy. A colonel, I think they said. Lots of colors right here.” He patted his chest. “They wanted all my projectors. All of them! Saw the demo and said they were needed for the war effort in Europe; no time to waste.”
With a pang, Alex thought of Tequila Williams and the team at Lockheed Martin. Some of them were probably heading to Europe right now with those projectors, to train the troops on how to use them. She thought of her brother Sean as well, on some secret mission somewhere. If war was starting, would he be on the front lines? Would he live to come home?
Ryan touched his second finger. “Next, Jean Massey was here, and guess what she wanted? All my Higgs projectors. I had no choice—”
“Wait, you saw Jean Massey? She came here?” Alex asked. She looked around as if Jean might jump out from behind the furniture.
“She took all the projectors I’d kept back from the military,” Ryan said. “I don’t have any left.”
“Why did she take them? She already had Sandra’s,” Alex said.
“She wants to sell them.”
“What, on auction?”
“To the Turks.”
Alex stared at him. “How did she even know to come here?”
“She’s a smart woman. She figured it out.”
“But she got here before I did. It must have been the first place she came from the prison. Even if she knew who you were from reading the news, this building is classified. How did she find you?” Alex crossed her arms. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Ryan looked up at her with haunted eyes. “I don’t have any more projectors. Go away.”
“That can’t be true,” Alex said. “You’re all about safety. Redundancy. You wouldn’t have put them all in one place.”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s all over now. It chose her. It left me for her.”
“What did?” Alex said. She didn’t understand what he was talking about. He looked like he was overcome by grief. Had he been abandoned by some lover? Though she had a hard time imagining Ryan Oronzi having a lover in the first place. A crazy thought occurred to her. She remembered some of the odd comments Ryan had made in the past. “Are you talking about… the varcolac?”