Beyond These Walls (18 page)

Command Central, as London called it, was located on the fourth floor next to the west fire exit. I pulled Quinn’s ID out once again, running the strip through the lock on the steel fire door that led to the stairwell. Resden’s mistrust of their employees bordered on obsessive. Every door had a lock. Every lock a key.

I climbed the four flights of stairs wincing with each step. My cells seemed slow to heal as if the human world was negatively effecting my regeneration. Or maybe it was the plague. Either way my body felt much like Ragged-Altered-Annie. Battered, worn, and unloved. But like the threadbare toy each ache served a purpose. I shook the rag doll, listening for the telltale ping of the tiny microprocessor inside booting up.

Ping.

The fluorescent safety lights lining the hallway flickered and Ragged-Altered-Annie began to hum.

Time to play.

When I reached the fourth floor I took a few seconds to catch my breath and calm my fear. Fear was good. It made me strong. But it could also get me killed. After my endorphins settled, I used Quinn’s ID to open the fourth floor fire door. The hallway appeared empty, but I wasn’t fooled. Behind the closed door of Command Central they waited. Agents and Resden security. Men and women who’d waited all their lives for the chance to destroy a mutant.

Why keep them waiting?

I stepped into the corridor, moving fast and keeping to the shadows. Nobody’s microprocessing device inside the doll worked its magic, jamming all electronic frequencies within a hundred feet, rendering Resden’s electronic security useless, as I slipped past. Even if an agent spotted me they couldn’t leave the room, not unless I wanted them to. The doll had also jammed the electronic door locks. All around me lights flickered. Power rushed through me. I felt like Zeus with a stack of lightning bolts.

At the end of the corridor a half-empty box sat. A sign stapled to the front read:
Toys for Tots (No Mutant Toys Accepted).
I’d reached my destination. With one last squeeze of Ragged-Altered-Annie I tossed her headlong into the bin. It would take the HOA hours to find her and disable the jamming device.

Without electronic eyes and ears Resden’s security consisted of armed guards sweeping the corridors and hallways, but little else. Simple military mentality: Use force to achieve your objective. Overwhelm your enemy by sheer numbers. It had worked before. But us mutants had learned a trick or two from the first mutant war.

I glanced at the watch strung around my neck. Fifteen minutes to go. I had to find Quinn and fast. According to London Quinn was being held in one of the storage rooms on the same floor as the lab. The only way to access it was via the bank of elevators on my right. I headed for the elevators, keeping alert and ready. The sheen of my nine-millimeter against my palm reassured me somewhat as I stabbed the call button with the barrel.

I held my breath as the elevator doors slowly opened, revealing the glass and chrome interior, and nothing else. No agents. No armed guards. I stepped inside, pressed number 40 and grinned as the elevator shot upward through the central nervous system of Resden.

My emotions ran the gauntlet from the sick rush of excitement at the upcoming battle, to desperation to save Quinn and the rest of mutantity, to absolute terror. What if Quinn said no? What if, even after his capture, he still wanted to be human? Could I convince him to help me? The cold alloy in my gun hand and my heart said yes. But the rest of me had doubts.

Without judgment, emotion, or picking sides in this war, a computerized voice announced my arrival on the 40th floor. The doors whooshed open, and nobody shot at me.

Fuck.

So far this rescue was much too easy. And that made me nervous.

“There she is,” yelled a man dressed in a Resden uniform. A barrage of gunfire followed.

That’s better.

I ducked for cover, stabbing my index finger into the close doors button again and again. Behind me bullets shattered the glass panels and dimpled the steel frame of the elevator. Much too slowly the elevator doors closed, protecting me from another volley of shots. The elevator began to rise. “You missed,” I said into the empty, bullet-riddled elevator. “Better luck next time.” An alarm sounded and the elevator shuttered to a halt.

Shit. I’d spoke too soon.

My heart pounded in my chest. I’d never liked closed-in spaces. Not since sixth grade when a group of bigger mutated kids had locked me inside a walk-in freezer. I nearly froze to death, but Quinn had rescued me.

Now it was my turn to return the favor.

Taking a calming breath I scanned the dark interior of the elevator. The only way out was a trapdoor about two feet above my head. I tried jumping for it, but missed by a couple of inches, busting my trigger finger in the process.

I glanced at the gold hand railing that circled the elevator. It looked sturdy enough. Only one way to find out for sure. I jammed the heel of my boot against the railing and launched my body toward the trapdoor. It refused to budge. Damn Redsen, Arthur, and the guy that invented elevators. I didn’t have time for this.

The stench of gun smoke and fear seeped into the elevator. Resden’s guards weren’t highly trained soldiers or agents for that matter. Hell by my lack of bullet wounds I doubted the guards had ever fired their weapons until today.

“Open that door,” one of the guards said. “Hurry.”

Why the rush? I wondered, checking my weapon. Two rounds left. Where these drones in a hurry to die? I sure as hell wasn’t. Killing might seem glamorous to teenage boys like these, but this wasn’t a video game. In a real battle gunfire hurt your ears and stung your eyes. Shell casings flew and confusion reigned. Terror clogged your heart. And if you were lucky you survived the friendly fire of your teammates. Maybe even get off a shot or two. It wasn’t like Cyborg 8. Not a ricen bomb or unicorn in sight. I slid a fresh clip into my nine-millimeter and flexed my broken finger.

Too bad too because right about now I could really use a restart button.

Chapter 38

Keeping my weapon trained on the doors, I waited, my heart fluttering inside my chest. At the first crack of light through the steel doors I fired. The answering scream and muffled thud suggested I’d hit something.

Good.

After my initial shot an eerie silence filled the elevator. Minutes ticked by. Minutes I didn’t have. I glanced at the timepiece around my neck and sighed. Five minutes until the first bomb exploded.

Four and a half.

Four minutes.

Somehow as I watched time slip away it seemed to slow, as did the rapid beat of my heart. My sense of urgency faded and my limbs relaxed. Covering a yawn, I blinked, forcing my eyelids to stay open. My body felt heavy, leaden. But in a nice way, like a warm bath or hug. I wanted to snuggle up, close my eyes, and dream of kitty-rats.

What the fuck?

“Shit,” I said, sniffing the sweet smell swirling around me. Nitrous oxide. The guards were pumping laughing gas into the elevator shaft. The thought struck me funny, and I laughed, but quickly sobered.

I had to get out of here.

Pressing my shirt over my mouth I dug my heels into the hand railing once more and sprung for the trapdoor, this time with true desperation, and a giggle.

Much to my surprise the door popped open.

I jumped again, this time catching the edge of the opening with my freshly healed finger. I pulled myself up, giving thanks to every gnome, fairy, or elf who’d ever put up a fight. Without them I wouldn’t have had the strength to heft myself through the trapdoor to freedom.

Or semi-freedom at least.

I was still trapped inside the elevator shaft, but I no longer found it nearly as humorous. My eyes searched the shadows for any means of escape, finding only one, and not a good option at all. My escape route consisted of four dangling cables and the floor above. With a glance down I weighed the odds of a forty-story fall versus a head full of laughing gas and three armed guards. The cables won out, but just barely.

I grabbed the closest cable and began my ascent to the floor overhead. The plastic dug into my skin, blistering my tender flesh. I tried to remember high school, and Mr. Devers gym class rope technique, but nothing came to mind. I knew high school had been a waste of time. This proved it. Gym and Algebra. Neither worked as promised. If I survived my death-defying climb and Quinn’s rescue I was going to complain to the school board.

Before I reached the safety of the forty-first floor my first timed explosion detonated, shaking the foundation of Resden and deafening me. Heat shimmered through the elevator shaft.

I glanced down, preparing to fry like a Fey-sucker in a bug zapper, but only a small plume of smoke appeared below me. A dozen or so more alarms shrieked in response to the explosion but inside my ruptured ears, it sounded like the mutant teacher from Charlie Brown.

Waaa-waa-waa.

Shaking my head to clear the annoying buzz I struggled to climb the rest of the way up to the forty-first floor. When I finally reached it, I released the cable and leapt for the small steel beam between the elevator shaft and the steel doors. My heels landed on the edge, teetering back and forth for a few seconds. The end of my life flashed before my eyes filled with the bruised faces of garden gnomes and angry fairies. If I survived, I’d seek a more suitable profession. Maybe fashion model or crash test mutant.

My body steadied and I forgot all about the pissed off gnomes and fairies. Since, I hadn’t died yet saving Quinn once again became my primary focus. The second bomb would explode in ten more minutes. This one was much closer and more powerful than the first.

Pulling my combat knife from the tongue of my boot, I stabbed the steel doors that separated me from floor 41 and pushed with every ounce of strength left in my shaking arms. Sweat dripped into my eyes, stinging my already inflamed corneas. I stopped long enough to wipe the perspiration from my brow and curse my lack of upper body strength in four different languages.

Sometimes I hated being a girl.

Like a virgin on prom night, after a lot of grunts and an array of strained muscles, I finally achieved my objective. The doors popped open and I stumbled inside, landing face down on the plush carpet of the research wing of Resden Enterprise.

Grabbing the nearest doorknob for support, I hauled myself up, coming face to face with the stuff of nightmares. A nameplate with shiny gold letters that spelled out my worst fears:

London Resden-West

Head of Mutant Research

Son-of a bitch.

Chapter 39

That bitch.

Who the hell was she? A long lost cousin? A wayward blood tie from the mutant war days? As far as I knew the Resden line died with me, but what if that wasn’t true? What would happen if Arthur had another heir? With me out of the picture would London inherit Resden? Was that her plan all along? Had she sent me into Resden to die, but not before I killed the one man standing in the way of her succession? Dear old Grandpa. As plans went I had to admit it was a damn good one.

I glanced down at the inky map outlined on my palm and gave a small laugh. Black smears like running clumps of Tammy Fey-Sucker Baker mascara circled my hand. Apparently Resden could invent one hell of a killer virus, but it failed in the endeavor to develop a sweat-proof marker.

I shrugged. Losing the map didn’t bother me. It was likely bullshit anyway. If Quinn was inside Resden I’d find him. If not, I’d blow the place apart and hope to hell the vaccine went with it. Let’s see how London liked inheriting a pile of rubble.

Scanning the empty hallway I noted a large metal door at the end. Someone at Resden didn’t want the average mutated joe to know what secrets lied behind door number 1. Not only was the door solid steel, but the lock was the stuff of lockpicking nightmares. Even the nimblest of fingered mutants couldn’t break it. I smiled, yanking my only grenade from the pocket of my jeans.

Why bother with finesse at this stage?

I pulled the pin from the grenade, released the handle, and threw it at the steel door. Five and a half seconds later a barrage of metal projectiles and steel door bits flew my way. I ducked down, shielding my eyes with my forearms. Chunks of skin splintered off my body, like flay of Indeara, but the pain quickly dissipated.

Glancing down I checked for internal organ damage. Nothing. Like a mutant kitty I had nine hundred lives. At least that’s what I told myself every time I did something stupid, like tossing a grenade at a metal door.

Once the smoke cleared at the end of the corridor my eyes focused on the shredded bodies of three agents, their dark blue suits and sunglasses ripped to pieces by the blast. I stepped through what used to be a solid door, fanning the smoke from my eyes, and into a room bigger than my entire apartment complex. Large metal machines and computer systems filled the darkened space. It looked almost like a mechanical graveyard complete with the skeletons of the dead and dying. A PC hummed, coughed, and sputtered in front of me before the screen winked out. I stepped around its carcass, searching the shadows for any sign of Quinn or the mutant vaccine.

A shiver ran up my spine, whether from adrenaline or fear I wasn’t sure. But I proceeded forward, moving deeper into the darkness, and whatever secrets it hid. Unable to see the bright pink of my combat boots anymore, I used my hands to guide me, running them along the edge of what I assumed was a wall. I tripped, smashing my knee into the ground. When I stood, cursing the blackness, a wet warmth slid down my leg. Blood, I thought without needing to double check. The stench of copper and rust confirmed it.

But whose blood?

“First steps a mutant bitch,” a voice rose from somewhere on my left. I spun toward the sound and aimed my nine-millimeter. If worse came to worst I could fire off a round and pray the muzzle flash offered enough light to get a bead on my opponent.

“Relax Indeara.”

This time I recognized the deep timbre and it sent a wave of fear through me. “Quinn?” I called into the darkness.