The Judas Contact (Boomers Book 1) (4 page)

Did he fly?
Ten stories from the roof to the ground. Ten stories and they weren’t a splattered pile of goo.
Where was Rory?

“She’s fine. Stop.” The whisky warm breath tickled her ear. She was wrapped completely around the giant of a man and beating on him. Her fists released obediently and her bloody palms swam into view. She’d clenched her hands so hard, crescent moon shaped cuts had formed against the skin. “We’re clear. Halo, out?”

Clear of what?
She wanted to ask the questions but, no sooner did they form, they drifted away on a peaceful haze. A door opened and Green Eyes set her down on something soft. She rolled onto her side, cheek tucked against a raspy blanket. It didn’t smell as sweet as he did and she tried to protest, but her eyelids drooped.

She couldn’t wait to analyze this dream when she woke up.

* * * *

“How much did you give her?” Rory glared up at him, her violet eyes sharp and fierce. He’d be more intimidated if he hadn’t seen her act like a cat in heat around Michael. That the Captain stood right at her back, calm as the eye of a hurricane, betrayed that the only one really upset about the scientist’s unconsciousness was Rory.

Garrett could live with that.

“Enough to calm her down. Relax.” He didn’t make the mistake of advancing toward her or even challenging her. Michael’s control, where Rory was concerned, remained spotty. The man literally couldn’t function rationally since she’d come into the picture. His cool-under-fire temperament took a swing toward the radioactive where his “girl” was concerned.

He glanced down at the unconscious woman. Her blonde hair fanned out against the pillow. His impressions of her were few. She had a tall, curvy build with warm, heavy breasts. She appeared to be in decent shape, though her wild heart rate and shallow pants when they arrived at the roof could easily have been due to the fear she experienced on the way up and not the climb itself. Her panic, however, had been genuine. The black pupils in her eyes swamped the color, like two great gaping windows to space.

No way would she have gone over the roof willingly and restraining her could have hurt her or him or both. Instead, he had used an injectable beta-blocker. At worst, she would experience a mild anterograde amnesia upon waking, but that would pass relatively quickly.

Perfect for questioning and release.

His jaw tightened. The last time he’d helped a victim out, he’d jumped a much longer distance and the woman had literally locked up, every muscle going rigid. Newspaper reports indicated she had no memory of how she got out of the burning building or what happened in the two to three days afterward. His identity remained intact and he still managed to save the girl.

A win-win in his book.

“What happened, by the way?” Rory was speaking again.
Of course she was. The woman rarely shut up these days.

Peace, Garrett.

He didn’t need Simon’s mental nudge to keep his thoughts to himself. He grunted and gave the telepath a bland look. The woman really didn’t shut up, but she’d turned out to be an incredibly useful ally, despite her dislike of Garrett. A feeling that was wholly mutual. Folding his arms, he leaned against the wall next to the cell’s cot. He’d keep an eye on the scientist until she woke. If there were any aftereffects, he might be able to administer a counteragent or deal with any potential fallout.

“What happened is you owe us an apology,
chère
. You know, for our overkill.” Rex, the lucky bastard, had no trouble tweaking Michael’s woman. He sat against the opposite wall, his right leg stretched out in front of him. The bare skin was interwoven with stripes of wood. The shapeshifter could become any kind of inanimate object and take on the properties of that material. His return to form from the bench he’d been at the labs had been severely impaired by the damage he took protecting Drake—the fifth and final member of their team—as the two of them blew out non-essential sections on the first floor to distract the security from their pursuit of the women.

“You guys may have been on to something.” A more grudging admission Garrett had never heard.

Michael wrapped his arms around the woman and leaned his face down to hers. “So, if we were right…”

“Does not mean I was wrong.” Her chin came up. “I got her out of the building, didn’t I?”

“With help.” Garrett tacked on with a tight smile. Rory’s violet gaze swung toward him and he waited for the temper.

But instead, she smiled. “With help, thank you.”

Garrett’s moment of triumph was short-lived as Michael kissed her. He rolled his eyes and slanted a look at Simon. Michael lifted Rory, then carried her out of the room, tossing a “call us when she’s conscious,” over his shoulder.

Simon rubbed his forehead, probably blocking the couple from his mental radar. Not that Garrett blamed him. The pair constantly disappeared to have sex. They’d only been able to convince Michael to stay in his sniper’s nest because he distracted all of them more than was healthy on an operation.

“Any idea on how long it will take her to wake up?” A long yawn punctuated Drake’s words. The big black man had stood sentinel the night before.

“It could be hours.” Garrett tugged at the wrist of his black leather glove. “It could even be tomorrow. I tried to control the dose, but she was already in shock and on the verge of a real breakdown.” He glanced down at the woman on the bed. “Rory may have done her more harm than good.”

“Fine. You mind keeping an eye on her?”

Garrett shook his head. “I got this. You guys rest.”

Drake didn’t need to be told twice. He grabbed Rex and hoisted the shapeshifter up. Rex’s ability to transform himself into inanimate objects served them beautifully in the field. But the consequences, such as his leg’s refusal to revert to its human DNA, troubled them all.

What would happen if he turned one day and could never turn back?

Another problem for another day. For now, let us hope Rory’s suppositions about Doctor Blaine’s work prove fruitful.

He waved to the telepath as the man closed the door behind the others. Grabbing a chair, he dragged it next to the bed and slung himself down. He could use a smoke, but he could wait. He felt bad for the scientist. Though the emotion might shock Rory, who seemed to dislike him on principle, he didn’t like scaring people. Enough fear existed in the world, why add to it?

Propping one foot on the edge of the bed, Garrett leaned the chair back. He took out a slender wooden figurine from his pocket and ran his gloved thumb along the grain. When he was done whittling and sealed the wood, he could touch it with his bare fingers. While he hadn’t transmitted a poison to his work since childhood, he didn’t want to take the risk.

One undeserved death on his conscience was enough.

A movement on the bed pulled his attention. The scientist rolled over onto her side, one hand tucked under her head, the other extended to rest against Garrett’s booted foot. Her eyes remained closed and her breathing, even and steady. She slept, dreamlessly he hoped. Yet her fingers tightened against his boot. A curious sensation tugged at his heart.

Target Acquired
. The chip stuttered to life, the mechanical voice whispering into his mind. Garrett’s gaze narrowed on the tendrils of blonde hair brushing her cheeks. The urge to brush them away was as alien as the need to watch over her as she slept.

Target Identified.
Images flashed across his mind, almost too quickly, and pain sliced behind his right eye. The chip’s initial design allowed them to control the information flow. After their recent reactivation, they spit out data when they saw fit. He’d never cared for his implant, much less the mind bending headaches it provided.

Target Acquired: Ilsa Blaine

Field: Neuroscience and related applications

Abilities: Designs programmable bioware, enhanced understanding of brain chemistry

Suggested defense: Protect her

Suggested offense: Do not harm her

His spine stiffened. The cascade of images froze on one. A close up of her saucer wide eyes when he blew the roof door and looked inside. Fear roiled in the air around her. Her face was white beneath the tan. Her hands had trembled in his, but when he’d reached out for her, she hadn’t recoiled. She hadn’t pulled away.

She had stared at him with an odd mixture of relief and gratitude.

Shaking his head once, he squeezed his eyes shut as though trying to wipe the image away. Pain stabbed at his right eye and the muscle in his eyelid twitched.

It didn’t make sense. His gaze landed on her fingers curving around his boot. Gently, he tugged his foot free and slid a gloved hand against hers. Her grip tightened across his. Of course, she wasn’t conscious, but the tug at his heart doubled. Regulating his breathing, he roamed his gaze back to her face and concentrated.

Target Identified.
The chip’s mechanical voice reminded him and recited the exact same advice, right down to
protect and do not harm her
. In all their years of relying on the chips for data, he couldn’t recall a single time when it told him what to do.

Simon.
He pulled his gaze away from her, but continued to hold her hand. It wasn’t her fault they’d busted into her life and turned it upside down.

I’m here. What’s wrong?
The almost immediate mental reply carried just a hint of exhaustion. Garrett kicked himself. Simon had controlled a lot of guards during the operation. Of course he was tired.

Nothing. Sorry, I didn’t think you were resting, man.
The chip’s bizarre advice could wait.
Get some sleep.

Garrett, I was merely resting my eyes. What’s wrong?
A sensation of ruffling breezed through his mind. He waited to see what Simon made of the message. The others didn’t like it when Simon poked around in their brains, but Garrett wanted his advice and he’d called him, not the other way around.
Protect her? Odd advice.

Yeah, have the chips ever done that before?
Each one was subtly different, more so since they’d reactivated during the Aurora Graystone operation a few weeks before.

Not that I have experienced. It’s different enough that I imagine the others would have mentioned it.
Yeah, Garrett agreed with the thought. They were tight. Working together as an underground cell for fifty years, more than a hundred fifty years before any of them would be born, had a way of doing that. They didn’t have time for secrets.

The anomaly of Michael falling for his target aside, they made decisions as a unit, executed them as a unit, and lived with the consequences as a unit.

Did it give you any indications of what you should protect her from?

He considered the telepath’s question, working his way through the experience. The images it had scrolled across his mind were too many to recall, but the last one focused on her escape from R.E.X. labs. The rigid fear in her face relaxed into relief as he pulled her through the door—no one pursued them in that moment. Rory proved more than capable of eliminating the threat on their back trail. But something scared the hell out of her—something beyond the security guards, the alarms, and his fearsome expression. He was far from handsome and barely remembered the muscles it took to smile, much less practiced it.

The facility we took her from? All I see is the door, the fear, and her just before I pulled her out.
He waited as Simon rifled through his mind.

Perhaps. I’m seeing little else. Rory dispensed with the last of their pursuers on the ninth floor. By then most of the guards were dealing with Drake’s chaos or were below on the second and third floors, too far away to get to them.

It really didn’t comfort him that Simon sounded perplexed.

Listen to the chip for now. Michael’s need to protect Rory turned out to be a positive for us.

But Michael’s primal need and a chip’s mechanical advice were two entirely different things. Garrett slanted a look back down to the sleeping woman. She wasn’t a threat. In fact, if anything, she was their victim. Rory’s invitation to lunch precipitated an—
Simon?

Yes, I’m still here, just beginning the decryption on the data Rory took from Dr. Blaine’s computers.

Why did they go after her?
It all went down rather quickly. Security didn’t object to Rory’s admission. The third floor laboratory was secured, but hardly classified top secret. Otherwise, why would they have admitted an “old college friend?” The most the women did was chatter about Ilsa’s work and squeal over shoes. Nothing in the interaction suggested a security breach, yet there were guards there to “take Dr. Blaine into custody.”

The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. Corporate security could detain, but they didn’t have custodial powers unless …
is R.E.X. Laboratory government funded?

His gut clenched. Where the Boomers originated, corporations ran the world, divided them into sectors, and people worked for them or were used by them. The villains had won, converting the world into pure capitalism, funneling their human projects—like Garrett’s mother—into prisoner camps. Heroes were a corny, unstable piece of history, and greed dominated all.

It’s possible, Garrett. They may not be fully funded, but they may have government contracts. It works differently in today’s world than it did in ours.

Maybe that was so, but greed started somewhere. What if R.E.X. was just another piece of the destructive conglomerates that destroyed his childhood?

 Flexing his grip, he held her hand a little tighter. They wouldn’t be allowed to detain her or incarcerate her. He’d watched his mother wither and die under the heel of oppression. He would protect the scientist from the machine.

Even if it meant he had to snap her neck to do it.

* * * *