The Immortality Virus (35 page)

That explained his sullenness. He believed she had turned him in. “Do you think if I had told them anything, I’d have come down a shit hole after you?”

“Maybe. If they promised to take you off the blacklist in exchange for finding me and turning me in.”

Sam cleared his throat. “Matt, I’ve been with her since she left your office. She didn’t tell the cops anything.”

That wasn’t entirely true. He hadn’t been a part of a couple of private conversations, including one with Captain Flint, but she appreciated the vote of confidence.

“Are you suggesting you came down here to rescue me?” There was definitely a note of skepticism in Matt’s voice.

“I thought there might be a nice bonus involved in saving the boss’s life,” Grace said. She meant to come across lightly, but Matt took her seriously.

“Grace, if you actually find a way to get me out of this alive, I’d marry you.”

Grace snorted, but halfway through she realized how serious he was. “How about you just give me half your fortune and save us the trouble of a divorce?”

“How about you convince me there’s some way out of this before we get caught up in negotiations?” Matt spread his arms wide. “We’re in a cell with armed rebels outside–and they’re not all that sane. If you can get us past them and out of the sewers, then there’s still the matter of The Establishment that wants to arrest me and execute me for murder. I imagine they’ve been following you and will find you quickly.”

All true. “Give me a minute to think.”

To their credit, Matt and Sam stayed very quiet while she mulled things over. The immediate problem, getting out of the sewers, wasn’t her biggest concern. She had a feeling that for Matt, at least, delivering him alive would get the Rats more money. The bigger problem was The Establishment’s bloodlust.

Had he killed his father?
If he hadn’t, and if she could prove it, then she might be able to wriggle him out with truth. It was a long shot, given that The Establishment had already made up their minds, but she wanted to know. She wanted to know what kind of man he was and whether she should hand Jordan over to him.

“Convince me you didn’t kill your father,” Grace said.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Matt asked. “The Establishment won’t care.”

“I care.”

Matt shot a fleeting glance at Sam, who looked between them in interest but did not interrupt.

“I-I don’t have any proof,” Matt said. “I did steal the holosuit. I did give it to Jordan to help him escape. He did use it to kill my father on the way out of the building. He even–” Matt paused and tried again. “In his last few diary entries, he even suggests that I gave him signals that I wanted it done. In his mind, I did order him to do it. I think he was rationalizing. He’s not really the killing type.”

“So that’s your hurry to get him before anyone else does,” Grace said. “He’d give evidence against you.”

“That’s
part
of my hurry, yes.”

“You’re not really convincing me,” Grace said. That wasn’t entirely true. A small part of her wanted to believe in the sincerity she heard in his voice.

“I told you I don’t have any proof,” Matt said. “It’s all down to my word. That and the idiocy of having Jordan, of all people, kill my father. I could have hired a real hit man or better yet, made it look like an accident. But have Jordan do it and then let him walk out of the building with a holosuit?”

He had a good point. She decided to stop grilling the part of her that wanted to believe him and instead grilled the part that didn’t. Why didn’t she want to believe him? Because of her innate distrust of rich people? Because he’d sent her off on a mission without all the information–information which would have implicated him in the murder of his father?

“As I said,” Matt said through her haze of questions, “it doesn’t matter of I’m guilty or not. The result is the same either way–except perhaps if there really is a God and an afterlife.”

“What we need right now is a crucible,” Grace said, thinking out loud. “It’s time for everyone involved in this to come together and for the truth to come out. We may not survive it, but what’s life without some risk?”

Matt eyed her warily. “What do you have in mind?”

“It’s a novel idea, really. I’m going to tell the truth.”

It was at least two hours before Blondie returned to their cell. During that time, Grace became more determined that telling the whole truth was their best hope of survival. After all, everyone else knew the truth, why not a few more? Why not a few Rats with the means and will to fight?

“I hear you got something to say to me,” Blondie said. She looked tired. She didn’t hold herself upright as much as before. “I got lots of problems here. People keep dropping bombs in. Maybe you know something about it?”

“Yeah,” Grace said. “I do. I’ll tell you all about it if you let us out of here.”

Blondie shook her head. “I might let you two out, but he’s worth a lot of money to the cause. Tell me what you got to say, and I’ll decide if it’s worth letting you go.”

“Fine, then. I’ll tell you why they want him.” Grace took a deep breath and glanced back at Sam and Matt. Sam looked resigned. Matt stared stonily at the wall.

“There’s a guy I was hired to find called Jordan Lacklin. He’s the one everyone’s really after.”

“What’s so special about him?” Blondie asked.

“He released a virus about four hundred years ago,” Grace said. “A virus that created a change...The Change. You may have heard about it.”

Blondie turned fully toward Grace, her interest clearly piqued. “How do you know it was him?”

“Trust me, I know. Medicorp had him locked up until a month ago, but he got out. Now everyone wants a piece of him for their own reasons.”

“The guy who fucked up the world, huh?” Blondie said. “Interesting.”

“Some people want it put back the way it was,” Grace said. “Some people don’t. There’s going to be a bit of a war about it, I imagine.”

“I imagine so,” Blondie said. “Wondering which side I’m on?”

A little bit, but Grace didn’t say so.

“My own,” Blondie said. “I don’t have time to solve someone else’s ethics and philosophy problem. We just survive down here the best we can. That’s what we are–survivors–and we’ll make it whatever happens.”

Did that mean they weren’t interested?

“On the other hand, if we find him first, that could give us a lot of power.” Blondie turned away for a moment, considering. “Better than any money we’ve ever got our hands on. Something like that could really put us on top.”

“Definitely,” Grace agreed.

“I suppose you know where he is?” Blondie asked.

“I think so,” Grace said. Her mind flew to Alex and the graveyard. She hoped he had everyone ready for her because ready or not, here she came.

“Where?” Blondie asked.

“If I tell you, then you’ll go without me. I don’t want to stay here. We all go with you, show you the place, and then leave.”

Blondie considered for a moment.

“You know we’ll kill you if you’re wrong.”

Grace nodded solemnly, but didn’t let her true feelings show. Death threats didn’t mean anything to her anymore after everything she’d been through.

“I’ll get my people together,” Blondie said.

* * *

Her people turned out to be just about everyone who lived down there over the age of fifteen.

“You’re taking everyone?” Grace asked.

“If you’re right, we may have to fight for this prize,” Blondie said. “So yeah, we’re taking as many as we can. Now, which direction?”

“West,” Grace said, “in Old Overland Park.”

“West!” Blondie shouted, not quite loudly enough for everyone to hear, but loudly enough that the message began to filter backwards.

Blondie assigned personal guards to each of her prisoners. She kept Grace close by her side at the front of the mob and had the others march in the middle or in back. She seemed to want them to stay separated, which was smart. It would be harder for them to make a break for it once they reached the cemetery.

Grace still had every intention of making it work–somehow. She just had to hope the others would be smart enough to come to the same conclusion and make their own breaks. She thought Sam would. Matt was another story–half-calculating, half-coward, she didn’t know what to expect from him.

Blondie led them through tunnel after tunnel, twisting and turning through corridors that dipped beneath the rail and then popped up again on the other side. The swell of the rebels behind them seemed to push them along, but Blondie led the way.

“This is about a twenty mile walk,” Grace said. “How are we going to–”

“We’re here,” Blondie said. They had just come upon an abandoned subway train that still seemed to be in working condition, although the thing should have been decommissioned three hundred years ago. It wasn’t one of the fast, modern light-rail trains that connected the city and outer areas. This one wouldn’t go any faster than one hundred and fifty miles per hour. Blondie gestured at it with a wide grin on her face. “Your chariot.”

They stepped into the front train while one of the rebels slipped ahead of them into the driver’s compartment. A loud stampede told her the rest of the Rats were cramming themselves into the other cars as quickly and haphazardly as they could.

Blondie gave them five minutes. When the stampeding died down, she motioned at the driver, who started the train.

It wasn’t just slower, it was also bumpier. The driver didn’t seem to want to push it to go too fast–they couldn’t have been going more than sixty miles per hour. Twenty minutes later, they climbed out and made their way down different tunnels–older tunnels–underneath Overland Park.

With more direction from Grace, they made their way to a manhole cover within half a mile of the cemetery. Now she had nothing left but hope–hope that Alex was there and he had drawn substantial forces to that location.

* * *

Grace started heading north. They were only a few blocks from the graveyard where they would have this out. Graveyards were known as places of death–everyone knew that. Walking among the dead was akin to asking to join them. Their spirits still dwelt there, where their decayed corpses lay in well-preserved slumber.

As they approached the outer wall of the graveyard, Blondie shuddered. “Is there another way we could go?” she asked.

Grace smiled and shook her head. “Oh no, this is the only way.”
The crowd behind them had slipped back and the swell of the Rats no longer seemed as suffocating. Up the way, the man handing out religious flyers stared at the approaching horde with wide eyes. He did not even ask them to repent as the head of the group wandered by. Instead, he gathered up his flyers and fled across the street in the opposite direction.

The Establishment must already be here, Grace decided. That’s why he ran.

The wrought-iron gates of the cemetery approached. They were wide open–an age-old chain lock hung uselessly from its hinges–but there was no need for chains to keep people out of this place.

“We’re not going in there,” Blondie said.

“That’s where Jordan Lacklin is,” Grace said.

“He’s dead?” She grabbed Grace by the shoulder and spun her around. “You lying bitch!”

“He’s not dead. He lives there. He wanted to be with his wife, who’s buried there.” Grace was making this up as she went, but it sounded good.

“No one lives in a cemetery!”

“Are you afraid?” Grace asked.

Those seemed to be the magic words. Blondie spun Grace back around. “You go first.”

She entered the iron maw of the cemetery, wondering where The Establishment forces were, wondering where Alex and Meg were and how they were doing, and wondering what that man who lived in the cemetery would make of all this. He had come here for peace, and yet, here they were, trespassing on his morbid sanctuary.

“Who’s there?” Blondie demanded.

It took Grace a moment to spot what Blondie had seen. Blondie must have incredibly sharp eyes, she thought. But there in the distance, she saw it–a figure barely visible in the moonlight. No–two…three…four…

She lost count, but now was not the time for math. Now was the time to…duck!

She threw herself behind a large headstone with a childlike angel’s face carved intricately in sleek white marble. An instant later, the marble face disintegrated into nothingness as the blast of a disruptor shattered its artful visage.

A few feet away, several of the Sewer Rats began to fall victim to the onslaught of disruptor fire. A woman fell to the ground, writhing and clutching the stump of an arm that had disintegrated nearly to the shoulder. The woman caught Grace’s eye and moaned, but didn’t ask for help. Good thing, because Grace stood frozen in time, her body in the present but her mind in the past.

There were six of them...no, more. They fired their weapons, bursts of deadly red, aiming to kill. Grace fired again and again until suddenly, her hand disappeared from under her weapon. A strangled yell escaped her throat, already sore from screaming through Ethan’s torture. Her hand! Her hand! She couldn’t fight without her hand.