Daughter of Regals (37 page)

It was coming for me
slowly. Its eyes looked so vicious I almost believed it was coming slowly just
to make me more scared. I backed away, put a couple of tables between us. But
Paracels moved too—didn’t let me get closer to him. I could hardly keep from
screaming, Morganstark’ But Morganstark wasn’t going to rescue me. I could
still hear shooting. He wasn’t likely to come in after me until he was finished
outside and the gates were closed. He couldn’t very well run the risk of
letting any of those animals go free.

Paracels was watching
me,
enjoying himself. “That’s the one thing I can’t understand, cyborg.” I
wanted to yell at him to shut up, but he went on maliciously, “I can’t
understand why society tolerates, even approves of mechanical monstrosities
like you, but won’t bear biological improvements like Cerberus. What’s so
sacred about biology? Recombinant DNA research has unlimited potential. You’re
just a weapon. And not a very good one.”

I couldn’t stand it. I
had to answer him somehow.

“There’s just one
difference,” I gritted. “I chose. Nobody did this to me when I was just an
embryo.”

Paracels laughed.

A weapon—I had to have a
weapon. I couldn’t picture myself making much of an impression on that thing
with just a knife. I scanned the room, hunted up and down the tables, while I
backed away. But I couldn’t find anything. Just lab equipment. Most of it was
too heavy for me to even lift. And I couldn’t do anything with all the
chemicals around the lab. I didn’t know anything about chemicals.

Paracels couldn’t seem
to stop laughing.

Goddamn it, Browne!
Think!

Then I had it.

Ushre had turned off my
power pack. That meant he’d built a certain kind of magnetic probe. If that
probe was still around, I could turn myself back on.

Frantically, I started ‘hunting
for it.

I knew what to look for.
A field generator, a small field generator, something no bigger than a fist. It
didn’t have to be strong, it had to be specific; it had to make exactly the
right magnetic shape to key my power pack. It had to have three antenna as
small as tines set close together in exactly the right pattern. I knew what
that pattern looked like.

But Paracels’ ape wasn’t
giving me time to search  carefully. It wasn’t coming slowly anymore. I had to
concentrate to stay away from it, keep at least a couple of tables between us.
Any minute now it was going to jump at me, and then I was going to be dead.
Maybe the generator wasn’t even here.

I reached for my knife.
I was going to try to get Paracels anyway, at least take care of him before
that thing finished me off.

But then I spotted it.

Lying on a table right
in front of the gorilla.

“All right, Cerberus,”
Paracels said. “We can’t wait any longer. Kill him now.”

The ape threw himself
across the tables at me so fast I almost didn’t see it coming.

But Paracels had warned
me. I was already moving. As the gorilla came over the tables, I ducked and
went under them.

I jumped up past the
table I wanted, grabbing at the generator. I was in too much of a hurry: I
fumbled it for a second. Then I got my right hand on it. Found the switch, activated
it. Now all I had to do was touch those tines to the center of my chest.

The ape crashed into me,
and everything went blank. At first I thought I’d broken my spine; there was an
iron bar of pain across my back just under my shoulder blades. But then my eyes
cleared, and I saw the gorilla’s teeth right in front of my face. It had its
arms around me. It was crushing me.

My left arm was free.
But my right was caught between me and the ape. I couldn’t lift the generator.

I couldn’t reach the ape’s
eyes from that angle, so I just stuck my left hand in its mouth and tried to
jam it down its throat.

The ape gagged for a
second, then started to bite my hand off.

I could hear the bones
breaking, and there was a metallic noise that sounded like my blaster cracking.

But while it gagged, the
ape eased its grip on my chest. Just a fraction, just a few millimeters. But
that was all I needed. I was desperate. I dragged the generator upward between
us, upward, closer to the center of my chest.

There was blood running all
over the ape’s jaw. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t—I had my tongue jammed
against the switches in my teeth. I just dragged, dragged, with every gram of
force in my body.

Then the tines touched
my sternum.

The blaster was damaged.
But it went off. Blew the gorilla’s head to pieces.

Along with most of my
hand.

Then I was lying on top
of the ape. I wanted to just lie there, put my head down and sleep, but I wasn’t
finished. My job wasn’t finished. I still had Paracels to worry about.

Somehow I got to my
feet.

He was still there. He
was at one of the tables, fussing with a piece of equipment. I stared at him
for the longest time before I realized he was trying to do something to the
surgical laser. He was trying to get it free of its mounting. So he could aim
it at me.

Strange snuffling noises
were coming out of his mouth. It sounded like he was crying.

I didn’t care. I was
past caring. I didn’t have any sentimentality left. I took my knife out and
threw it at him. Watched it stick itself halfway to the hilt in the side of his
neck.

Then I sat down. I had to
force myself to take off my belt and use it for a tourniquet on my left arm. It
didn’t seem to be worth the effort, but I did it anyway.

Some time later (or
maybe it was right away—I don’t know) Morganstark came into the lab. First he
said, “We got the gates shut. That’ll hold them—for a while, anyway.”

Then he said, “Jesus
Christ! What happened to you?” There was movement around me. Then he said, “Well,
there’s one consolation, anyway.” (Was he checking my tourniquet? No, he was
trying to put some kind of bandage on my mangled hand.) “If you don’t have a
hand. they can build a laser into your forearm. Line it up between the
bones—make it good and solid. You’ll be as good as new. Better. They’ll make
you the most powerful Special Agent in the Division.”

I said, “The hell they
will.” Probably I was going to pass out. “The hell they will.”

… AND STUMBLED WHEN MY FEET SEEMED TO
COME down on the sidewalk out of nowhere. The heat was like walking into a
wall; for a moment, I couldn’t find my balance. Then I bumped into somebody.
That kept me from failing. But he was a tail man in an expensive suit, certain
and pitiless, and as he recoiled his expression said plainly that people like
me shouldn’t be allowed out on the streets.

I retreated until I
could brace my back against the hard glass of a display window and tried to
take hold of myself. It was always like this; I was completely disoriented—a
piece of cork carried down the river. Everything seemed to be melting from one
place to another. Back and forth in front of me, people with bitten expressions
hurried, chasing disaster. in the street, too many cars snarled and blared at
each other, blaming everything except themselves. The buildings seemed to go
up for miles into a sky as heavy as a lid. They looked elaborate and hollow,
like crypts.

And the beat—I couldn’t
see the sun, but it was up there somewhere, in the first half of the morning,
bidden by humidity and filth. Breathing was like inhaling hot oil. I had no
idea where I was; but wherever it was, it needed rain.

Maybe I didn’t belong
here. I prayed for that. The people who flicked glances at me didn’t want what
they saw. I was wearing a gray overcoat streaked with dust, spotted and
stained. Except for a pair of ratty shoes, splitting at the seams, and my
clammy pants, the coat was all I had on. My face felt like I’d spent the night
in a pile of trash. But if I had, I couldn’t remember. Without hope, I put my
hands in all my pockets, but they were empty. I didn’t have a scrap of
identification or money to make things easier. My only chance was that
everything still seemed to be melting. Maybe it would melt into something
else, and I would be saved.

But while I fought the
air and the heat and prayed, Please, God, not again, the entire street sprang
into focus without warning. The sensation snatched my weight off the glass, and
I turned in time to see a young woman emerge from the massive building that
hulked beside the storefront where I stood.

She was dressed with the
plainness of somebody who didn’t have any choice—the white blouse gone dingy
with use, the skirt fraying at the hem. Her fine hair, which deserved better,
was efficiently tied at the back of her neck. Slim and pale, too pale, blinking
at the heat, she moved along the sidewalk in front of the store. Her steps were
faintly unsteady, as if she were worn out by the burden she carried.

She held a handkerchief
to her face like a woman who wanted to disguise the fact that she was still crying.

She made my heart clench
with panic. While she passed in front of me, too absorbed in her distress to
notice me or anyone else, I thought she was the reason I was here.

But after that first
spasm of panic, I followed her. She seemed to leave waves of urgency on either
side, and I was pulled along in her wake.

The crowd slowed me
down. I didn’t catch up with her until she reached the corner of the block and
stopped to wait for the light to change. Some people pushed out into the street
anyway; cars screamed at them until they squeezed back onto the sidewalk.
Everybody was in a hurry, but not for joy. The tension and the heat daunted me.
I wanted to hold back—wanted to wait until she found her way to a more private
place. But she was as distinct as an appeal in front of me, a figure etched in
need. And I was only afraid.

Carefully, almost
timidly, I reached out and put my hand on her arm.

Startled, she turned
toward me; her eyes were wide and white, flinching. For an instant, her
protective band with the handkerchief dropped from the center of her face, and
I caught a glimpse of what she was hiding.

It wasn’t grief. It was
blood.

It was vivid and fatal,
stark with implications. But I was still too confused to recognize what it
meant.

As she saw what I looked
like, her fright receded. Under other circumstances, her face might have been
soft with pity. I could tell right away that she wasn’t accustomed to being so
lost in her own needs. But now they drove her, and she didn’t know what to do
with me.

Trying to smile through
my dirty whiskers, I said as steadily as I could, “Let me help you.”

But as soon as I said
it, I knew I was lying. She wasn’t the reason I was here.

The realization
paralyzed me for a moment. If she’d brushed me off right then, there would have
been nothing I could do about it. She wasn’t the reason—? Then why had I felt
such a shock of importance when she came out — to the street? Why did her
nosebleed—which really didn’t look very serious—seem so fatal to me? While I
fumbled with questions, she could have simply walked away from me.

But she was near the
limit of her, courage. She was practically frantic for any kind of assistance
or comfort. But my appearance was against me. As she clutched her handkerchief
to her nose again, she murmured in surprise and hopelessness, “What’re you
talking about?”

That was all the grace I
needed. She was too vulnerable to turn her back on any offer, even from a man
who looked like me. But I could see that she was so fragile now because she
had been so brave for so long. And she was the kind of woman who didn’t turn
her back. That gave me something to go on.

“Help is the
circumference of need,” I said. “You wouldn’t be feeling like this if there was
nothing anybody could do about it. Otherwise the human race would have
committed suicide two days after Adam and Eve left the Garden.”

I had her attention now,
but she didn’t know what to make of me. She wasn’t really listening to herself
as she murmured, “You’re wrong.” She was just groping. ‘I mean your quote. Not help.
Reason. ‘Reason is the circumference of energy.’ Blake said that.”

I didn’t know who Blake
was, but that didn’t matter. She’d given me permission—enough permission, anyway,
to get me started. I was still holding her arm, and I didn’t intend to let her
go until I knew why I was here— what I had to do with her.

Looking around for
inspiration, I saw we were standing in front of a coffee shop. Through its long
glass window I saw that it was nearly empty; most of its patrons had gone
looking for whatever they called salvation. I turned back to the woman and
gestured toward the shop. “I’D let you buy me some coffee if you’ll tell me
what’s going on.”

She was in so much
trouble that she understood me. Instead of asking me to explain myself, she
protested, “I can’t. I’ve got to go to work. I’m already late.”