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F Paul Wilson - Sims 05 (15 page)

BOOK: F Paul Wilson - Sims 05
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25

 

 
          
Luca’s
mind raced as he led his men from the emergency area to the lobby. First thing,
he had to seal the building and cut off any escape. But for that he needed to
know where the exits were, and the place to find out was Information.

 
          
As
they stormed into the dimly lit, high-ceilinged lobby he found the reception
desk empty; the entire population was two gray-haired ladies and an aging
security guard clustered before a TV monitor fixed on a wall. He hurried over
to grab the guard but stopped dead when he saw what they were watching.

 
          
Four humans operating on a pregnant sim.

 
          
The
guard turned, saw them, and stumbled backward, reaching for his two-way.

 
          
Luca
reached out and grabbed his arm.
“FBI!”
He shouted and
pointed to the monitor. “Take us to that operating room!”

 
          
“W-wait,”
the guard said. “You can’t just come in here and—”

 
          
Luca
squeezed his arm.
Hard.
“Now!”
He shoved him toward a hallway.
“Move!”

 
          
As
the cowed guard led them toward a bank of elevators, Luca turned to Stritch and
pointed toward the old ladies. “You stay here. Keep them away from the phones.”

 
          
Behind
his visor Luca repressed a sigh of relief. No need to worry about covering the
exits. The baby hadn’t been born yet. No one would be going anywhere until that
happened.

 
        
26

 

 
          
“She
is gone,” Madhuri
said,
her voice an octave lower than
usual.

 
          
“No!”
Betsy cried. To Romy’s horror, she’d had to watch while Betsy cracked open
Meerm’s chest and manually compressed her heart. She was still at it, working
like a mad woman. “We’ve still got a chance!”

 
          
“Betsy,
she is dead.”

 
          
Romy
looked at the anesthetist’s black eyes and noticed they were rimmed with tears.
Joanna’s too. Romy knew they mirrored her own. They all knew that Meerm wasn’t
coming back.

 
          
She
reached across and gently gripped Betsy’s forearms. “She’s right, Betsy.
Meerm’s gone. You did your best but—”

 
          
“I
should have brought her in sooner!” Betsy wailed. She leaned forward over
Meerm’s inert heart, and sobbed. “But I was worried about the baby!
Damn it, damn it, damn it!”

 
          
“You
did all you could,” Romy said, touching the back of her sweat-soaked scrubs.
“But she—”

 
          
Zero
burst through the OR doors. “We have to go! SIRG just stormed into the lobby,
armed to the teeth!”

 
          
“Who’s
SIRG?” Joanna said, gaping at Zero’s mask. “And who the hell are you?”

 
          
“A
friend,” Betsy said, ripping off her bloody gloves. She’d regained some of her
composure but seemed exhausted.

 
          
“And
SIRG,” Romy added, feeling her
gut
clench, “is a group
that wants to kill that baby.”

 
          
“Like
hell they will!” Joanna cried.

 
          
“Let’s
go!” Betsy said. “We’ve got a minute, maybe two at the most before they’re
here!”

 
          
“But what about Meerm?”
Romy said.

 
          
“We’ll
have to leave her.”

 
          
“No—”

 
          
“Romy,”
Zero said softly, “I grieve for her as much as you—more than you—but they won’t
be interested in Meerm now; they’ll want her baby, and we can’t let them have
her.”

 
          
“We’ll
take her,” Joanna said.
“Madhuri, Betsy, and me.
We’ll
put her in an isolette and hide her in a motel or something.”

 
          
“What’s
an isolette?” Patrick asked. He was still holding the baby and seemed very
protective.

 
          
“It’s
an incubator of sorts,” Madhuri said. “A special enclosed container we use for
preemies.
Keeps them safe and warm.”

 
          
“Good
idea,” Betsy said. “Since they probably know my car, we’ll leave it here and
take one of yours.”

 
          
Joanna
said, “We’ll rustle up a portable isolette and meet you at the doctor’s
entrance.”

 
          
She
and Madhuri bustled off while Betsy and Romy pulled a green sheet over Meerm’s
body. As the rest of them hurried out into the hall with the baby, Romy hung
back. She rested a hand on the lifeless form beneath the sheet.

 
          
“You
never had a chance, did you,” she whispered. “But things are going to change.
And whenever people talk about the change, they’ll mention your name.”

 
          
Small
goddamn consolation, she thought as she hurried away to catch up to the others.

 
        
27

 

 
          
Five
men in full gear, plus the guard, made for a claustrophobic ride as the
elevator crept to the fourth floor. When the doors opened, Luca and his team
piled out and followed the guard to the operating suite.

 
          
The
old man pointed to a pair of double doors. “The amphitheater’s through there.”

 
          
“That’s
where they’re transmitting from?”

 
          
The
guard nodded. “But the cameras are upstairs—through that door.”

 
          
“Any other way out?”

 
          
He
shook his head.

 
          
Luca
ripped the guard’s two-way off his belt and flung it against the tiles of the
nearest wall. “Stand over there and don’t get in the way.” He signaled to
Lowery. “You and Majesky take the stairs.
The rest of
you—with me.”

 
          
He
depressed the bolt catch release lever on his HK to chamber the first round and
stepped toward the doors. He didn’t expect resistance, but it never hurt to be
prepared. And besides, he knew of no better attention getter than a three-round
burst into the ceiling.

 
          
He
kicked open the doors and stepped through.
“All right—!”

 
          
Empty.
The place looked like a cyclone had ripped through it, but not a soul in sight.

 
          
“What the—?”

 
          
He
turned, ready to go out and bang that guard’s head against the wall for sending
them to the wrong room when he noticed the shape under the bloody sheet on the
table. Three quick steps took him to it. He hesitated, then reached out and
pulled it off.

 
          
A dead sim, bloody, carved open from chest to groin.
Looked
like Jack the Ripper had been at her. He saw the gaping belly, the empty
uterus.

 
          
The
pregnant sim…this had to be her…but where—?

 
          
Oh,
no…oh, no…

 
          
His
knees felt gelatinous, his arms weak, the HK a hundred-pound weight in his
hands as he turned and saw the TV monitor—where the operation was still in
progress…at this table…on this sim…right in this room.

 
          
They’d
fooled him…played him for a grade-A-prime sucker…

 
          
He
looked up toward the spinning ceiling, saw a camera pointed his way from the
balcony.

 
          
“Lowery?”
he whispered into his comm mike. “Lowery, what’s going on?”

 
          
A
helmeted head popped into view next to the camera. “They’re running a movie of
the operation.”

 
          
“Stop
it, Lowery,” he said, softly at first but with his voice rising. “Stop it right
now!”

 
          
“I
don’t know how!”

 
          
“Yes,
you do, goddamn you!” He was screaming now. “Yes, you fucking well do! Now do
it! ”

 
          
“Okay,
okay!”

 
          
Luca
heard the clinking release of the bolt on Lowery’s submachine gun, followed by
one three-round burst, then another. The monitor went blank…

 
          
…but
its final image had been Patrick Sullivan holding up a very human-looking baby
girl…and Luca remembered how the Sinclairs had feared the birth of a girl…and
he also remembered all that crap he’d read about inter- and intragenomic
competition…

 
          
I
took him a moment to piece it all together, but then suddenly he knew what had
terrified them.

 
          
You
slimy bastards! After what you did, you had the nerve to look down your noses
at me?

 
          
Now
more than ever he wanted that baby.

 
        
28

 

 
          
Racing
along the hallway, Romy hung on Patrick’s arm and stared at the baby. She
couldn’t take her eyes off that pink, perfect little face.

 
          
“You
weren’t exaggerating, Patrick,” Romy told him. “She is truly beautiful.”

 
          
Behind
her, she heard Betsy say, “Skip the elevators and take that stairway at the far
end of the hall.” Then in a lower voice to Zero: “I need to talk to you about
that baby.”

 
          
The
two of them fell behind as Romy and Patrick entered the stairwell and started
down. On the ground floor they exited and found themselves at the doctor’s
entrance. Joanna and Madhuri were already there with what looked like an
oversized clear-topped bread box on wheels.

 
          
“We
took the elevator,” Joanna said, eyes wide, “and we saw a SWAT guy in the
lobby. He had ‘FBI’ on his back,” Joanna said. “Are we in trouble?”

 
          
“They’re
not FBI,” Romy told them, trying to keep the dread out of her voice. They must not
get this baby. “They’re dressed-up thugs.”

 
          
Patrick
passed the baby to Madhuri who kept her wrapped in her arms as they made the
frigid pre-dawn dash across the near empty parking lot to Joanna’s minivan.
Patrick loaded the isolette into the rear while Romy helped Madhuri and the
baby into the front seat.

 
          
As
Joanna started the engine, Romy spotted Betsy hurrying their way. Behind her
she saw Zero leaning against the brick wall outside the doctor’s entrance. Her
heart twisted. His posture was strange, as if he was sick.

 
          
“Is
something wrong with Zero?” she asked Betsy as she arrived.

 
          
“He’s
a little upset. I don’t have time to explain now. He can tell you. If you need
us we’ll be at—”

 
          
Romy
raised a hand. “Don’t say it. Better if we don’t know. That way they can’t make
us tell.”

 
          
Betsy’s
face blanched. She nodded,
then
hugged Romy. “Get the
hell out of here before they find you.”

 
          
The
three women and the baby roared off.

 
          
Romy
watched for a few heartbeats, praying for the baby’s survival,
then
Patrick was tugging on the sleeve of her scrubs.

 
          
“Romy.
Let’s move.”

 
          
Zero
reached the van a few seconds before they did. He pulled off his ski mask as he
climbed into the rear seat, moving like an arthritic old man.

 
          
“Will
you drive, Patrick?” he said in a voice barely above a whisper.

 
          
As
they got moving, Romy turned in the passenger seat and looked back. Kek was in
the far rear; Tome sat next to Zero who was staring at the floor in silence.

 
          
“What’s
wrong, Zero?”

 
          
“What?”
he said, blinking and looking up at
her.
“What’s
wrong? Everything’s wrong.”

 
          
“Meaning?”

 
          
“Please
don’t ask me about it.” The lost look in his yellow eyes constricted Romy’s
throat. “Not yet.”

 
          
“Where
are we going?” Patrick said as they shot out of the parking lot.

 
          
“To
pay a visit to someone who has answers I need.”

 
          
“Who?”

 
          
“Ellis
Sinclair.”

BOOK: F Paul Wilson - Sims 05
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