The Monarch (36 page)

“You've got the item,” she said, gesturing toward the cryocase in Nathan's lap. “What do we need her for?”

“This is useless without your sister's research. I might as well have your brain here.” Nathan said. Lara got the implication and winced yet again.

“She . . . she had a backpack,” Lara said, looking at the rising smoke in the distance that used to be her home. Then she looked back at the cryocase in Nathan's lap. “How did you get that in your lap?”

Nathan shakily raised his arms and showed her he was able to move. The limbs looked unstable and weak, but this was the first time she'd seen him physically move without the serum in years. She could tell that while he could move, he was shamed by the indignity of shaking and not being in control.

“When your sister destroyed her lab, she destroyed my regimen, as well. It's been hours since I had a neuro-­blocker injection,” Nathan said. “Now go back down there and find your sister's research. Don't come back without it.”

“What about the guards at the helipad?” Lara asked. They hadn't finished the cleanup job. There were still four guards alive—­assuming they hadn't run off into the jungle when the attack started.

Nathan reached a shaky hand down beside him and struggled to pull a gun up, showing her he was armed.

“You don't even look strong enough to pull the trigger. How are you—­”

Nathan grunted and shot a bullet into the ground at Lara's feet. The look on his face after seemed to say he was surprised he'd been able to do it too.

“Now get going. Go through the jungle in case anyone is following us. And no heroics,” Nathan said. Lara's eyes brightened for a moment. “If anything happens to you, who's going to fly me off the island?”

8:00
A.M.

L
EW PULLED HARD
on his leather belt, cinching it tight around his thigh, just above where a six-­inch piece of rebar jutted out. The pain was bad, but nowhere near as bad as it was about to get. He took off his duster and tore several long strips out of the lining before removing the canvas belt. Then he took what remained and hung it up in one of the empty displays in Kring's vault. He couldn't admire his work in the oppressive dark, but he imagined it was breathtaking. The duster wasn't very old, but it was a mess. This was the perfect end for it. He just hoped he wouldn't suffer the same fate.

He coughed from the dust in the vault and wiped sweat and grime off his face with a forearm. The attack aboveground had sent concrete crashing down from the ceiling, deadly rebar spears set free as the huge chunks exploded on impact. He dove out of the way of most of it, losing his cell phone in the process, but a short, energetic length of rebar had bounced around the vault until it found a home piercing his thigh.

“No time like the present,” Lew said, putting the cloth belt between his teeth. He clamped down hard, gripped the rebar, which was slick with blood, and after mentally counting to three, he yanked it out. He knew you weren't supposed to do that until you were in the ER, but his chances of climbing out were pretty slim and would be even slimmer with a spike through his leg.

Lew howled and grunted from the pain, biting so hard on the belt his jaw hurt. He panted and spewed saliva out around the edges of the material, taking deep, hard breaths through his nose until the waves of pain and nausea finally passed. He wrapped several strips of the lining around the hole in his leg with shaking hands, glad he couldn't actually see the wound. He'd need real medical treatment soon if he was going to keep his leg, but one limb was the least of his worries right now.

He felt around the room, tripping and limping over piles of debris, until he found the vent. No dice. It was blocked on the other side, the tunnels now just a container for detritus. He threw himself against the wall, grimacing from the pain, and tried to catch his breath.

“Think, Lew.”

After a minute or two, he felt around until he found a hunk of rebar about three feet long. Then he felt along the walls until he was back at the elevator. He took a few deep breaths and then shoved the rebar into the seam in the elevator doors and struggled to pry them apart. They slowly parted and he inched them open. Battery-­powered emergency lighting from the elevator shaft cut through, seeming as bright as laser beams, his priceless addition to the vault highlighted across the room.

“Nice,” he said, giving the duster a final two-­finger salute.

A few hunks of concrete lay at the bottom of the elevator shaft, but for the most part it had weathered the attack unscathed. Lew looked up and saw the elevator car hanging above him in the short, two-­story tube. He reached in and yanked on the ladder attached to the wall. It seemed solid.

“Now the hard part.”

Lew stuck the length of rebar through his belt loops at the small of his back and then stepped onto the ladder with his good leg, gripping the rung above his head. He bent his leg slightly and then launched himself up to the next higher rung, grabbing it with his relatively good hand and pulling himself up. After a moment's rest, he repeated the act—­again and again—­until he was high enough to drop down onto the elevator car's roof.

He took a minute to catch his breath before opening the trapdoor there. Sitting on the edge of the opening with his legs dangling into the car, he grabbed the opposite edge, and then let himself hang down, dropping the last few inches to the floor on his good leg. Pulling the rebar out of his belt loops, he used it to pry open the elevator doors.

Dust and smoke spilled in from the level four hallway, making him cough. He hopped in anyway and tried to get his bearings.

Rubble and small fires were everywhere. The emergency lighting was working here as well, but the cloudy air made it of little help for more than a few feet. Lew heard something behind him and spun around, grabbing at his empty holsters. He'd lost his weapons in the attack and hadn't even noticed. Unarmed, he raised the rebar over his head as the noise moved toward him. Several mice, rats, and a few rabbits emerged from the din and ran past him, disappearing down the wrecked hallway.

“Yeah, okay,” Lew said and followed the mini stampede, figuring they were headed for the closest exit instinctively. At one point there was so much debris he had to dig out a passage before he could squeeze by, but he managed to work his way the full length of the corridor, finally reaching the other elevator that led to ground level.

He summoned his strength and proceeded to pry the doors open. They were more stubborn than the other ones and when he finally got them open he saw why. Rock and debris had fallen down the shaft, crushing the elevator car like an aluminum soda can. With the doors open, it all came spilling out into the hall. Lew dove to the side, howling in pain as he landed on his wounded leg.

When the avalanche stopped, he coughed and waved at the air. He struggled back to his feet and climbed up the small mountain that had spilled out of the shaft and dug a space big enough for him to fit through. Looking up at the four-­story tube over his head, he whistled. The echo sounded like a bullet ricochet.

“This will be harder,” he said, wiping sweat and dirt off his face before grabbing the ladder that led fifty feet straight up. The ladder wiggled in his hands, some of its moorings likely having come loose in the attack. “Perfect.”

With little choice, he stuck the rebar in his belt loops again and started the long, rickety hop-­climb. If a second attack came now, he knew it would all be over, but chances were he wouldn't notice for long.

8:10
A.M.

“H
OW'S THE PAIN?”
Jonathan asked.

As they walked up the road, he'd noticed Sophia wasn't leaning on him as much. He held her arm around his shoulders, slouching so she didn't have to reach up, and his other arm was around her back, his hand on her side, his fingers lightly gripped her bare abdomen.

“Better,” she said, “but if I don't get to a medical facility soon, I'm going to be in trouble. Who knows what the bullet dragged into the wound with it.” Jonathan nodded. He'd been thinking the exact same thing, but hadn't wanted to make matters worse by saying so.

He looked over at Emily. She'd been quiet ever since her breakdown at the sight of the complex collapse. And she was hanging on to the gun as if it held the cure for cancer. He felt sorry for anyone she came across. Natalie was holding her free hand, as if she could sense that Emily needed human contact at the moment.

“If your father and Lara beat us to the chopper, any ideas about how we're going to convince them to fly us out of here?” Jonathan said. “Assuming he's still on the ground by the time we get there.” His Plan A was to just kill Nathan and Lara and then take the helicopter, but they were Sophia's family, and Jonathan wasn't all that sure he could kill someone with his daughter watching anyway. In fact, he knew he couldn't.

“In my bag there's a blue vial. He'll do just about anything to get it. And, of course, there's this,” Sophia said, grimacing as she pulled the USB drive out of her pocket and showed it to Jonathan.

“What's that?”

“All the research. The only copy, in fact. Without it, he could have God's brain in that box and it wouldn't help him. Believe me, he's not going anywhere until he gets this,” she said, sounding angry and almost vengeful. She put the drive back in her pocket.

“You think he'll really transport us out of here for it?” Jonathan asked.

“We need to find another way,” Sophia said. “There's something about my research I didn't tell you before. Something I only recently confirmed.”

“What is it?” Jonathan said, worry nibbling at him.

“The injected proteins do more than just unfold the prions back into healthy proteins,” she said.

Jonathan recalled what Sophia had told him in her lab, how replicating folded proteins had caused Nathan's disease.

“What else do they do?” Emily asked. He hadn't even noticed that she was listening. He'd almost completely forgotten she was a journalist. Wrapping her mind around a new puzzle was probably exactly what the doctor ordered. Besides, when she drifted back to hear them, Natalie had let go of her hand and was now holding his. He felt his heart slow and his whole body calm.

“The proteins seem to transfer the electrical impressions they were imprinted with in their host. They get mixed with the existing impression base, but there's a definite retention happening while experiencing the protocol,” she said. Sophia told him about the anomalous mice that could run her maze perfectly without ever seeing it before just by injecting them with the altered proteins from donors who had run it.

“Impressions,” Jonathan said. He stopped in his tracks and turned to face Sophia. “Wait a minute. You're talking about
memories
. Jesus, he's retaining the memories of the donors?!”

“More or less,” Sophia said, looking at the ground.

“What do you mean, more or less?” Jonathan said.

“My research was nowhere near complete, but aside from memories, there may have been some transfer of raw intelligence. Basically, the mice didn't just have new knowledge, their ability to apply that knowledge increased as well.”

“Oh my God,” Emily said. “Einstein.” Jonathan had been thinking the exact same thing.

“Jesus,” Jonathan said, thinking about what it would mean if Nathan used Einstein's brain for one of his treatments. He was going to make sure that didn't happen. “Let's see what we can barter with the serum and take it from there.”

“I think that's wise,” Sophia said.

“But if he won't play ball . . .” Jonathan trailed off, looking down at Natalie, but she didn't seem interested in what they were talking about.

“What is it?” Sophia asked.

“You have to understand that my only concern right now is getting Natalie to safety. If your father refuses to help . . . I'll need to convince him,” Jonathan said. Sophia looked at the ground again and nodded.

“I know. You probably won't believe this, but Natalie is my main concern right now too,” Sophia said. Jonathan looked her in the eye. She looked like she was telling the truth. She also looked like there was something she wasn't saying.

“What is it?” he asked. She stopped walking and took a cleansing breath.

“Nathan isn't my father.”

“What? But I—­”

“He's been lying to me my whole life,” she said as she continued walking toward the helipad. “But worse than that, he somehow convinced my mother to lie to me. Lara and I were barely out of diapers when he showed up, but I still remember my mother telling us he was our father and we were going to go live with him in a big house and never be hungry again. I've always thought of that day as the greatest day in my life. I've lost everything now. Even my history.”

Jonathan didn't say anything, just held her a little tighter, pretending he didn't see the tears snaking down her caramel cheeks. He felt a burning rising up inside him. Nathan was anathema to everything he touched. Jonathan had been hoping they were wrong and when they got to the helipad he wouldn't be anywhere in sight. Now he was looking forward to meeting this bastard one last time.

“What kind of resistance are we looking at when we get there?” Jonathan asked, changing the subject when it was obvious she didn't want to talk about it anymore right now. Sophia told him about the four posted guards. The attack might have scared them into the jungle, but he doubted it. The guards they'd seen so far seemed to be ex-­military hard cases. It would probably take more than a few bangs in the distance to send them running.

“Why does he have so many guards?” Jonathan asked.

“I've never had much to do with that side of things. When we were kids, there was always Thomas and a few bodyguards, but that was it. But even before he got sick, his style of business tended to attract a considerable amount of animosity and revenge seekers. When I came back from university, he'd replaced the bodyguards with ex-­soldiers and their numbers had doubled. Over the past ten years it's just gotten worse. The paranoia of the disease over the past five years once the symptoms showed up has exacerbated things as well. There was rarely a month that went by when we didn't hire more guards. I tried to ignore it all and just do my work, I'm ashamed to say.”