The room was large, but there was no question of hiding. Both Xia and Michelle had turned to face her, waiting patiently for her to close into range again, so that they could burn and bludgeon her. Song slumped over on the ground behind them. Behind her, in the soap-bubble barrier, Christopher Feld cowered. In the distance, she could see the dust and hear the grunts and curses of Leigh and Mitsuru’s fight. Alice looked uncertainly at the pistol in her hand.
She glanced over at Gaul, distant at the far end of the room, standing over the Source Well as if he was worried it would run away.
Boss? You have any more cards up your sleeve? Because this would be a great time to find out that we secretly have the advantage…
She glanced over at Gaul hopefully, but he just stared back, demanding and pitiless.
“Fine, have it your way,” Alice said sullenly, walking at Michelle and Xia as if she had nothing to be afraid of. “But this is a pretty sorry set-up for a man who can predict the future.”
28
Emily planted her hand firmly on his chest, as if she planned to claim it in the name of God and country. She glared at Rebecca, and Rebecca, still dressed in a hospital smock and still clambering out of a hospital bed, glared right back.
“You better back off, Rebecca,” Emily warned. “I’m not as you remember me, and I’ve got Alex elevating my power. You don’t stand a chance.”
“Yeah, not while you are like that,” Rebecca admitted. “For all your vaunted power, though, you still lack technique. Any skilled telepath would have noticed me waking Katya up, and having a little chat with her. Sorry about this, Alex.”
He was about to ask what she was sorry for, when it seemed as if he was stabbed, in the right thigh, the left shoulder, and between his thumb and forefinger on his right hand. When he looked at his hand, he saw most of an acupuncture needle protruding from the wound, and then he suddenly found his voice again, and yelled inarticulately.
The catalyst effect ended so abruptly that it was like being in a room filled with loud music only a moment before, and now is blanketed with an awkward, questioning silence. Emily’s presence in his mind receded like the tide, and its place, he found anger and a sense of betrayal, left behind like shells on the sand in the wake of a storm.
“Now that we are back to our normal footing,” Rebecca said, standing up on unsteady legs, “why don’t you tell me where Alistair is, before I decide to tear it out of your poor little brain, Emily?”
Emily smiled, kissed Alex full on the mouth, and then, before he had a chance to react, melted into water. He found himself again staring helplessly at his dripping wet chest and arms as Emily disappeared, still in too much pain to contemplate removing the needles that pierced him. Rebecca looked slowly around the room, at the water she was ankle deep in.
“She’s gone. Fucking hell,” Rebecca said blankly. “When did she start doing that?”
“Things got really complicated while you were away,” Katya muttered, splashing into the room. She saw Alex gingerly touching the needle in his arm and smacked his hand away. “I’ve composed the best narrative I can with a concussion. Just read it off my brain.”
Katya seized his arm firmly, pinning it to the trundle bed, and then smiled apologetically.
“Next time I see that bitch, I swear I will have figured out how to kill her. Now, hold still,” she said sweetly, “I’d hate to accidentally hurt you.”
Alex didn’t cry out while she removed the needles. He made faces, writhed, and swore loudly, but he didn’t cry out. He felt good about that.
“Hey, Katya,” Rebecca said, examining her stringy, greasy hair ruefully, “nice story. Now, if you give me a cigarette, I promise to forget to mention all that parts of the story that would get you suspended from the Academy, alright?”
“Sure,” Katya said hurriedly, tossing a pack of cigarettes to Rebecca, a book of matches tucked in the cellophane.
“Wait,” Alex said slowly, poking at his elbow, where the needle had been, “what did you do?”
“You won’t tell him, right?” Katya pleaded. “I brought you cigarettes.”
“Promise,” Rebecca said, lighting up and then, finally, smiling and looking a little bit like the woman he knew; if still skinny and wrapped in a wet hospital gown. “We are going to have a chat, later, though.”
Katya whitened, but she nodded. Alex looked at her questioningly, but Katya stolidly ignored him, and he was afraid to ask Rebecca at that particular moment.
“Okay, kids, here is the plan,” she begin enthusiastically, taking two steps in an attempt to pace and then stopping because of the splashing. “Katya, I need you to go find me some clothes — the stuff I was wearing should be down with the admission’s nurse station at the end of the hall. Alex, come on over. You and me, we are going to achieve an understanding, and then we are going to do some crazy shit that will save everybody. Those who aren't dead already. Mostly. Are we clear?”
“No way,” Alex said firmly, rolling off the soaking trundle bed and onto the flooded floor. “First off, the deal was that I would get here and get you up again, that’s it. Now, I am going to go find Eerie. Secondly, while I am really, really happy to see you up and around again, I and everybody else here is pretty pissed off at you right now. Fair warning.”
“Yeah, I know,” Rebecca said sheepishly. “Which is why saving everybody is a key part of my overall plan. You see, Alistair didn’t put me to sleep, he trapped me in my body and somehow cut off access to my protocol. I stopped telepathically screaming for help after a couple of days, and all I’ve been doing since then is thinking. I have a plan to make up for it, to you and everybody else. But I need your help.”
“Well, I’m not pissed at you, if that helps,” Katya offered, splashing her way out the door and into the hall.
“Sorry, Rebecca, but I am done being ordered around today,” Alex said, pausing to try to wring some of the water out of his t-shirt. “I’m going to find Eerie.”
“If you help me, I will find her for you,” Rebecca offered, “and I won’t tell her about what happened with Emily, over break.”
“Are you and Anastasia in some kind of extortion club that I don’t know about?” Alex complained. “That’s low, Rebecca.”
“I don’t have time to be nice,” Rebecca snapped. “Now. Yes or no?”
“Okay,” Alex said, sighing. “Alright. What do we do?”
Leigh was still faster than she was, but now that Mitsuru understood how the Ecofage Protocol worked, that wasn’t really a problem anymore. It didn’t really matter if Leigh managed to dodge all of Mitsuru’s attacks, because all Mitsuru had to do was bleed on her. Leigh had to be cautious about touching her, as much of Mitsuru glistened with the slick, caustic black blood that flowed like motor oil over her skin, thick and warm. Leigh had ducked and bobbed and weaved her way around Mitsuru’s strikes, but her arms, chest and neck were already splattered with sizzling black sores, and they were expanding.
Mitsuru threw a lazy kick at her head, and Leigh dodged it easily, moving inside automatically, just as Mitsuru thought she would. Leigh knew she couldn’t do much, up close, but it is hard to think clearly in combat, and like most fighters, she depended on a routine she had practiced until it was instinctual. She wouldn’t change her fighting style, not while she was under pressure. Mitsuru didn’t bother to dodge the punch that Leigh aimed at her head, because she was too busy tossing a handful of blood she had collected in her palm at the center of the vampire’s chest. Leigh’s punch hit with the force of jackhammer, and Mitsuru thought that she had probably broken her jaw.
It was worth it.
Leigh went stumbling back, brushing at the steaming liquid splashed across her chest in a panic, which was the worst thing she could have done. Wherever it touched her hands and arms, it clung, and then it started to eat away at the vampire, converting everything into more of itself, more of the crawling black nanite dissemblers. Even her long blond hair had small flecks of the black blood in it. The vampire may not have felt pain as her synthetic body dissolved, but Mitsuru saw the fear and impotent rage in her eyes clearly, and she took a guilty satisfaction in it.