Into the Fire (32 page)

“You,” I growled, turning to Dr. Simon. His face was white as his shirt. “I should kill you here and now.”

“I had no choice!” he told me, as if he'd been waiting all this time to explain. “As soon as they knew about Lena, they wouldn't leave me alone—”

“And how did they find out?”

“You've got to! It's the law!” he started to babble, but Nora Jagger shut him down at once.

“How the fuck did you get in here?” she demanded.

I gotta say, in real life that face was even harder and meaner than it looked on the screen. Her eyes stabbed into mine and I swear I could almost physically feel their invasion—I never seen such ugliness of character, of
spirit
. I've spent my life mixing with the callous, the crazy, the psychotic and the damned, but almost every one of them had something, a redeeming feature, no matter how small.
With her you just knew there was nothing. She was evil jam-packed into a truncated body that she herself had brutally abused, lopping off pieces to make herself more fearsome, more able to perform the sick acts conjured up by her toxic imagination.

“How the fuck d'you think I got in here?” I spat back.

She was simmering so violently I almost expected her to explode; not just at me for getting in there, but also at the Specials who should've prevented it. Though what I think she was most angry about was the fact that I'd managed to catch her at such a vulnerable moment, without her limbs attached

“Where is she?” I demanded.

“Who?” she asked, every word spat at me like it was tipped with poison.

“Lena,” Dr. Simon informed her.

“Ohhh!” she cried, breaking into the cruelest of smiles, shifting position so she could prop her body up against a chair, apparently not in the least bit concerned by her nakedness. “
Clancy!
Come for the little woman.”

“Where is she?” I repeated, snarling the question directly into Dr. Simon's face.

He looked frightened enough to tell me, but I couldn't put the fear of God into him the way she could.

“You tell him, I'll rip you apart,” she threatened, “starting with your insides and working out.”

She meant it. I actually saw him buckle at the knees, his suave, confident demeanor gone in an instant, and it wouldn't have surprised me if he'd peed those perfect pants of his.

I looked at her, then back at him, neither seeming of a mind to say anything and I thought the time had come to take matters into my own hands. Without another word, I shot the glass outta the window and as smoke crept into the room, walked over to the line of artificial limbs in the machine, selected an arm and gave it a tug.

I thought they'd be plugged in somehow, but when I drew it out I saw it was actually just resting in a container of gray cellulose-like sludge that now dripped heavily onto the floor. Even worse, the
arm-socket that had been in the liquid was pulsing slightly, almost as if it was alive. I didn't care for that at all, and instead of threatening her with what I might do with it, I thought about just throwing it out the window as an example of what I'd do with the others.

“
No!
” Nora Jagger screamed, seeing my intention. “Don't you fucking
dare
!”

“Where is she?” I repeated, and she glared at me as if she'd never been so angry with anyone in her life.

“You'd better kill me!” she hissed, “while you've got the chance!”

“Tell me!” I shouted, leaning out the window, hanging onto her artificial hand like there was a body attached, threatening to let go.

She paused for a moment, thinking it through, trying to find an angle, but too distracted by me holding her arm like that. “I'll show you,” she eventually conceded.

“He shows me,” I told her. “You stay here.”

Finally she gave way. “I hope she's fucking worth it,” she said, those chillingly pale, goat-like eyes promising how brutal her revenge would be.

“I presume there's another way outta here?” I asked the doc.

He turned to Nora Jagger. She glared daggers at me one last time, then reluctantly nodded, giving her assent.

“Tie her up,” I told him.

You could see how scared he was—the whole time he was doing it he was visibly shaking. I got him to help her up and sit her in a chair, then secure her with bandages from his bag, covering him with my laser to make sure he did a good job. She cursed evilly and endlessly, most of it directed at me, but also at the doc and the Specials outside, leaving no doubt what she'd do to all of us if she ever got the chance. I gotta say, the range and venom of it, it was pretty hard to ignore. She got herself into a real crazy frothing frenzy, cursing and spitting, until eventually I decided I'd had enough and stuck a couple of plasters over her mouth.

I didn't want to hear that, and I didn't think the doc did either. She should've been locked away long ago, or maybe put to sleep; anything other than having someone like her at large in the community.

I wouldn't've admitted it, but I gotta say, her ranting did rattle me a bit, so much so, in fact, that I decided to hang onto that arm of hers, ignoring the fact that it was still dripping gray sludge, figuring that in terms of trying to escape, it would put her at one helluva disadvantage.

“Let's go,” I said to Dr. Simon. “And you try anything, I'm really gonna enjoy blowing your brains out all over that expensive shirt.”

He led me to this door hidden behind a screen. It was only as I was about to follow him through that I glanced back and noticed a further door in the corner. I hesitated for a moment, then went to take a quick look, just in case. It was a games room, with full-wall screens, but there was no one in there and I left without giving it another thought.

The doc took me down what I guessed was a VIP emergency escape route, constantly turning around and glancing back like he expected to see Nora Jagger coming after us at any moment.

“She's not gonna find her way outta that any time soon,” I reassured him.

“I hope not,” he muttered, unable to stop himself taking yet another glance back. “I've never seen her that angry. You caught her the one time she has her prosthetics off. That's why there were guards on the door. Normally she wouldn't remove them for any reason.”

I don't know if it was 'cuz I was distracted or what, but we turned a blind corner and suddenly came face to face with a couple of Specials—someone had obviously remembered the escape route and sent them in the other way.

I didn't give them time to draw their weapons—nor me mine—I just swung at them with the only thing available, which was Nora Jagger's arm. Jeez, I didn't know what that thing was made of, but it sure packed a punch; both of them ended up on the ground, laid out cold by the arm of a woman who was tied up a couple of corridors back.

I turned around, half-expecting to see Dr. Simon making a run for it, but he was cowering in the corner, his main concern apparently whether he'd messed up his fancy clothes or not.

“Come on,” I ordered.

For a while we kinda half-walked, half-jogged, in silence; he was still occasionally glancing back, but I could also sense him turning things over, weighing up the situation.

“Lena's fine,” he told me, plainly trying to ingratiate himself. “You don't have to worry about that.”

“Pardon me if I don't believe a word you say.”

“Listen! For God's sake—! You saw her!” he cried, obviously referring to Nora Jagger. “She frightens the hell out of me!”

I was tempted to concede the point, but however much I agreed about how scary that woman was, I sure as hell wasn't gonna let him off that easily. “A pregnant woman?” I sneered, like he should be ashamed of himself, being a doctor and all.

He went quiet for a moment and I thought maybe he was feeling guilty, reciting that Hippocratic Oath to himself, but I was wrong; he had a much bigger surprise for me.

“It's not just that, is it?” he said.

“What d'ya mean?”

He paused midstride and stared into my face. “You do know, don't you?” he asked.

“I know everything,” I told him, dragging him on. “I know about the satellites, people being poisoned, Infinity trying to hush it up. And probably, 'cuz Lena lived in the tunnels all those years, that her and the baby's organs are worth a fortune.”

He never commented, just looked as if he was waiting for me to say more, and I began to feel uneasy. “What?”

“And?”

“What d'ya mean, ‘and'?”

“You don't know, do you?” he asked.

Jeez, why were people always saying stuff like that to me? I couldn't help being a dumb old big guy. Did I ever pretend to be anything else? I turned and gave him a real hostile flash of the look.

“Living underground hasn't just kept her healthy, Clancy, it's kept her uncompromised.”

“I know that!” I replied impatiently. He still wasn't telling me anything new.

“She's a
healthy
,
young
,
pregnant
woman,” he said, emphasizing each and every word.

“Thank God for that,” I commented.

“. . . The
only
one.”

Now it was my turn to pause midstride. “What d'you mean?”

“There are no others.”

I stared into his face, searching for an angle, a way he was trying to trick me. “You're lying.”

“No! I promise you, as far as we know—in the City anyway—there hasn't been a successful pregnancy for several years.”

I dragged him on again, resuming our hurried progress, trying to pretend I was unimpressed when in fact I was utterly overwhelmed.
Jesus!
Gigi had mentioned something about seeing no babies—that was the reason: there
were
none.

“So what were you planning on doing?” I asked.

He shrugged, like there was only one rational course of action. “Deliver the baby—all those healthy genes, stem cells—and
sperm!
Think of all that wonderful fertile sperm—”

“Jesus Christ!” I protested.

“It's a boy,” he told me.

“I guessed that,” I said, knowing that at some point that might be a cause for celebration.

“You can't take her, Clancy! You owe it to humankind—”

“Go fuck yourself,” I said, not believing I'd once had so much respect for that man.

“Please!” he begged, but I just shoved him on.

He lapsed into silence, leading me down yet another corridor, plainly still deep in thought. I was just starting to get that bit impatient, to wonder if he was up to something, when he stopped at a door much like the one that had led off Nora Jagger's quarters. And ya wanna know something? This time I could actually feel Lena, I could
smell
her, the second the door slid open.

I started to shake, telling myself I had to be careful, that it was everything I maintained my concentration: now would be the worst time of my life to make a mistake. I entered as cautiously as I could,
checking the room for any suspicion of an ambush, completely ignoring the figure I could feel lying on the bed 'til finally I simply couldn't do it anymore.

She was just lying there, unquestionably tranquilized, staring at me as if she was unable to take it in, her wrists electronically clamped at her side.

“Clancy?” she whispered, like she couldn't believe it, that it was just another dream.

I switched off the locks, allowing myself to give her just the briefest of hugs. As much as I wanted to live that moment, to kiss her, hold her, even cry a tear or two, I knew it was everything that we got away.

“Come on,” I said, helping her out of bed, relieved to find her dressed.

“What's that?” she asked dazedly, frowning at Nora Jagger's arm.

I just shook my head; explanations would have to wait for later. “Let's go.”

“Where?”

I turned and glared at Dr. Simon. “He'll show us.”

The doc took us out a different door, down another of those interminable long corridors and through some heavy double-doors into a ward I instantly had a bad reaction to. My first thought, with the line of beds in front of me, was that it was a recovery room, but then I noticed other things: bars on the windows, equipment and apparatus that looked in no way beneficial to anyone's health. People had been tortured there—in fact, if I listened real closely, I swear I could hear them still screaming.

“What the hell is this place?” I asked, but the doc ignored me, heading toward the door at the far end of the room.

I don't know if it was the place that distracted me, or maybe 'cuz Lena was still a little groggy and leaning her warm body against mine, but I must've had a momentary lapse of concentration, 'cuz the doc saw his opportunity and suddenly, instead of being a couple of paces in front of us, was a dozen or more.

At first it didn't seem like a disaster, just a pathetic attempt to escape, but I'd underestimated the guy. The reason he'd been so deep in thought was 'cuz he'd been planning how to lure us into a trap.

He started shouting at the top of his voice, so excited that at first I couldn't understand what he was saying, and nor could the voice recognition system either, not until he slowed down and his words became that bit clearer.

“Lockdown!
Lockdown!
” he screamed, and heavy bars descended from the ceiling, creating various different compartments in the room, with us in the central one and him in the one with the door.

I dropped Nora Jagger's prosthetic arm, fumbling for my laser, intending to force him to free us, but he was out of that room surprisingly quickly.

“I'm sorry!” he called back, once he was outside. “You can't take her! You don't have the right!”

“Come back here!” I shouted, but already I could hear his running footsteps fading up the corridor.

“Shit!” I cursed.