“And so we did. For as long as it served our purpose. We are the Hadenmen. We are the destiny of Humanity. Nothing can be allowed to stand in our way.”
“Damn you, Moon,” Owen whispered. “What have you done to me?”
“I’m sorry, Owen,” said Moon. “I have no choice in this either.”
Owen’s human hand went for his gun, and a shocking spasm erupted in all his muscles. He cried out in pain despite himself, agony burning in him like a golden, consuming flame. He fell to the floor and lay there convulsing, his teeth bared in a straining rictus. Hazel went to help him, and immediately half a dozen Hadenmen grabbed her. Others grabbed Bonnie Bedlam and Midnight Blue and held them fast. Owen cried out again in pain and horror as his body betrayed him, until finally even his voice was silenced. Someone else’s orders moved in his brain, and he rose smoothly to his feet, a prisoner inside his head. He could feel the golden filaments stirring within him, threaded through every part of him like parasitic metal worms. He couldn’t even turn his head or move his eyes to see what was happening to Hazel, until the Hadenmen did it for him.
Hazel was struggling in the grip of the Hadenmen, and they were having a hell of a time holding onto her. Tobias Moon moved unhurriedly forward to stand before her, holding something in his hand. Owen recognized what it was, and tried desperately to call out a warning, but his voice was no longer his own. Hazel was so busy fighting to be free, she didn’t see Moon till it was too late. He gestured to the other augmented men, and using all their strength they were able to force Hazel to her knees and hold her there for a moment. Just long enough for Moon to press his spray hypo against Hazel’s neck and inject her with a massive dose of the drug called Blood. She cried out in shock and horror, tears running down her face as the old cold bliss of Blood coursed through her system again. And all Owen could do was watch.
Moon stepped back from Hazel and gestured for the other augmented men to let her go. “Enforced Blood addiction will control her for what remains of her life. She will not fight us. She won’t want to.” He looked at the empty hypo in his hand and then let it drop to the floor, as though embarrassed by it. He glanced at Owen, still frozen in place. “We do . . . what is necessary, Owen. That is the Hadenman way.” He turned back to study Bonnie and Midnight. “You are new factors in the equation. Your presence was not anticipated. Remain calm, and you will not be harmed as events progress to their inevitable conclusion.”
“Don’t . . . believe him,” said Hazel on her knees, and everyone turned to look at her again. Her face was pale and drawn, dripping sweat, and sudden shudders wracked her body, but her mouth was firm and her gaze was steady, blazing defiance at Moon. “You made a mistake, Hadenman. Blood is old news to me. I beat it before, and I’ll beat it again. Watch.”
Black Blood spurted suddenly from her nose and ran down over her mouth and chin. More welled up from under her eyelids and slid slowly down her cheeks. She opened her mouth, and Blood spilled out in a jerking stream as she drove the drug from her body by sheer force of will. Black drops beaded on her skin, oozing out of every pore. The drug pooled on the floor before her and soaked her clothes until finally it stopped, as suddenly as it began, and Hazel rose to her feet, the last of the Blood dripping from her. She smiled at Moon, and anybody else would have stepped back several paces.
“You screwed up, Hadenman. I’m not the Hazel you remember. The Maze changed me in ways you can’t even imagine. Now release Owen, or you’re all dead. You might have an army, but I can be an army if I have to.”
“So we’ve heard,” said Moon. “That’s one of the reasons why we must have you. But we won’t fight you. Owen will do that for us. Won’t you, Owen?”
And Owen’s hand drew his sword from his scabbard and held it steadily as his body turned to face Hazel. She started to reach for her own sword and then stopped herself. She faced him squarely, her eyes locked on his.
“Don’t do this, Owen. Fight it. You can beat what they did to you, just like I beat the Blood. We’ve been through the Maze. Nothing can command us anymore. Owen, stop. Please. Don’t make me fight you.”
But he was helpless in the grip of the golden filaments, a prisoner in his own head. He struggled to make even the slightest move of his own and couldn’t, and his helpless screams of protest never left his mouth. He stepped smoothly forward and thrust his sword at Hazel’s unprotected breast. It was a killing blow, launched with inhuman speed, and anyone else would have died. But Hazel d’Ark had been a hell of a fighter even before she went through the Maze, and her reflexes were every bit the match for his. Her sword was in her hand and in place to block his blow in plenty of time. They circled each other slowly, blades flashing out to test each other’s defenses. Moon gestured for the other Hadenmen to stand back and not interfere. The experiment had to run its course. And still Owen and Hazel circled each other, looking for openings. The tech in the golden hand had access to all Owen’s fighting skills and knowledge, and used it all to launch a merciless attack. They were both incredibly strong and fast, fighters trained in the school of hard knocks and honed to perfection by the rebellion. No one else would have survived more than a few moments in this duel. But Owen and Hazel fought on, stamping and lunging and recovering, steel clashing on steel.
Owen boosted, and Hazel boosted with him, their speed and strength increasing to inhuman levels. Blows and parries were traded in a split second, arms and swords moving too quickly for the merely human eye to follow. They were operating on skill and instinct now, forced to the very edge of their swordsmanship in order to keep up with each other. The Hadenmen watched, fascinated, as their two victims fought on levels even they could not hope to duplicate. Yet. But in the end, Owen was fighting to kill, and Hazel wasn’t. He took advantage of that, leaving himself open to killing blows the tech in the golden hand knew Hazel wouldn’t take advantage of. And slowly, step by step, Hazel was forced backward.
She took her first cut high up on the forehead, blood trickling down into her left eye. She shook her head irritably, and saw drops of her own blood fly on the air before her. More cuts followed, here and there, real blood trickling down where black Blood had recently run. None of the wounds were anywhere near serious, but they were clear signs she was losing. Hazel had no doubt the Hadenmen would force Owen to kill her, if that was what it took. An uncontrollable subject was no use to them. They’d still have her body to dissect, and three live specimens to experiment on. She couldn’t keep fighting defensively and hope to survive. But she couldn’t kill Owen. Not Owen. So she did the only thing left to her. She disengaged, stepped back, and lowered her sword.
“It’s up to you, Owen. Do what you have to.”
Owen drew back his sword, his face an expressionless mask. Hazel braced herself. And Owen screamed. The sound burst out of him, full of pain and horror and fury. He dropped to his knees before Hazel, shuddering violently, his eyes wide and staring. Hazel knelt down with him, her eyes fixed on his, trying to reinforce his will with her presence. And Owen slowly raised his sword and brought it down with all his strength on his own left wrist.
Blood spurted thickly as the heavy blade bit deep into the human flesh above the golden hand. Owen cried out again, as much in triumph as pain. He forced his left arm flat on the steel floor, ignoring the spasming golden fingers, and his sword sheared clear through his wrist and dented the floor beneath. The severed hand skittered away, its gleaming fingers still flexing futilely, like a great golden spider. Owen shook with pain and shock, his gritted teeth showing in a death’s-head grin. He knew the fight wasn’t over yet.
He reached inside himself, concentrating on the golden threads that still infested him. He could feel them with his mind, still fighting him for control of his own body. He clamped down hard, seizing them with his will, and forced them out. And one by one, curling golden strands erupted out of the bloody stump of his left wrist, falling to coil uselessly on the floor. Owen laughed harshly, the awful sound full of agony and triumph, as the golden filaments were forced out of his body. Finally the last filament was gone, and Owen dropped his sword and grabbed his left wrist with his right hand. He squeezed hard, as he had once before on Haden, and the gushing blood slowed to a jerking pulse, trickling between his fingers. Owen concentrated hard, called up all his willpower, focused on the stump of his left wrist, and grinned triumphantly as he grew himself a new left hand.
He sat back on the floor, shaking with the effort of what he’d just done, and held up his new hand before him. It looked perfectly normal, utterly human, exact in every detail, and it felt warm and alive and his in a way the golden hand never had. He flexed his fingers, admiring the supple movements. And then he looked across at Hazel, kneeling opposite him with her mouth hanging open. He smiled easily at her.
“You were right as always, Hazel. Not for the first time, I owe my life and freedom to you.”
“I’ve seen you do some amazing things, Owen, but that is the best yet. I am really impressed.”
“We can be impressed with each other later,” said Owen. “We still have to fight our way out of here.”
Hazel grinned. “After what we’ve just been through, that should be the easy part.”
They scrambled to their feet and faced Moon, side by side, gun and sword in hand. The Hadenman didn’t seem to know what to say or do for a moment. “Hazel was right,” he said finally. “That really was very impressive. Even the regeneration tanks take months to regrow a severed limb. But in the end, it’s just another ability of yours it’s imperative we obtain for ourselves. You must surrender. You cannot hope to win.”
“Hell with that,” said Hazel. “We’ve fought armies before. We’re still here, and mostly they’re not. Bring them on, Moon. Bring them all on.”
“Lack of confidence never was one of your problems, Hazel,” said Moon. “But I still have a card or two to play.” He gestured at Bonnie and Midnight, still held captive by Hadenmen. “You will surrender, or we’ll kill your friends.”
“Sure,” said Midnight Blue.
“Right,” said Bonnie Bedlam.
And Midnight vanished, air rushing in to fill the space where she had been. She reappeared a moment later on the other side of the room, battle-ax in hand. She swung the ax double-handed and cut off the head of the Hadenman nearest her. Even while the head was still tumbling from the jerking shoulders, she’d vanished again. She teleported back and forth across the laboratory, blinking in and out of existence just long enough to behead another dozen Hadenmen before any of them could even react to her presence.
And Bonnie was suddenly a blur of motion, slipping lithely out of the grasp of the Hadenmen holding her. Razor-sharp blades suddenly protruded from hidden sheaths in her hands and elbows, and Bonnie sliced through her Hadenman captors with vicious skill. They fell back, fingers, hands, and limbs dropping away from them as Bonnie smiled her sharp-toothed smile and drew her sword. Midnight teleported in to stand at her back, and the two of them took up their fighting stances, blades at the ready.
“You caught me napping last time,” said Bonnie to Moon. “Just thought I’d return the favor.”
“Say the word, Owen,” said Midnight, “and we’ll reduce these metal bastards to their component parts.”
“Bunch of damn metalheads,” said Bonnie, grinning nastily. “I’m going to rip your rivets off.”
“Sounds good to me,” said Owen. He looked at Moon. “We don’t care how many of you there are. Let them come. Let them all come.”
“Right,” said Hazel. “This madness stops here. No more tests. No more pain. No more death.”
“You mustn’t fight us,” said Moon, and for the first time his buzzing voice sounded uncertain. “This is not necessary.”
“Yes, it is,” said Owen. “We’ll never surrender, and we’d rather die than be made over into you.”
“ That . . . is not logical.”
“No. But it is very human. Dammit, Moon, think.
Remember.
Remember who you used to be. The Tobias Moon I knew would have fought with us to stop this horror.”
“That was a long time ago,” said Moon.
“No, it wasn’t,” said Owen. “That was yesterday.”
And he reached out with his mind, trying to reestablish the old mental link that had bound together all those who had passed through the Madness Maze. He could feel Hazel standing beside him, strong and sure and true, and their minds fit perfectly together, like two pieces of a larger jigsaw. Bonnie Bedlam and Midnight Blue were there too, backing them up, like strange echoes of Hazel. Together they reached out to Moon, pushing aside the machine barrier the Hadenmen tech had constructed between them, and the combined power of their joined minds swept the barrier away and linked with Tobias Moon. And he woke up.
The four humans dropped back into their own heads again and studied Moon cautiously. He was breathing heavily and shaking his head. The other augmented men backed away from him, looking at him as if he were infectious. Finally Moon turned and looked at Owen.
“I remember,” he said slowly. “They made me forget so much when they rebuilt me, but I remember now. I could have hung on to my memories if I’d chosen, but I didn’t want to then. I wanted so much to fit in, I was even prepared to give up part of who I was. But now I’m back, all of me, and I know I can’t be just another augmented man. Because I’m more than that. Maybe more than they can ever be. So I stand with you, Owen. Even though we’ll probably die together.”
“Welcome back, Moon,” said Owen, grinning widely.
“Just in time for the big fight,” said Hazel. “Looks like it should be a good one. Even though most of us probably won’t see the end of it.”
“What the hell,” said Moon. “I already died once.”
“What was it like?” said Hazel.
“Restful,” said Moon.