Lucky called Scott and swung away with her staff. "Where the fuck are you?"
    "I don't know. Where are you?" he asked.
    "Second sub-basement!" Phoenix yelled.
    "I'm in the room with the goopy tubes," Lucky told him.
    Scott passed this on to Phoenix.
    "That's the main floor—gimme the phone."
    "I can't, it's in my head."
    Directions were relayed rapidly. She headed for the stairwell. The scientists scattered pell-mell. The guards fired energy blasts and missed. Twenty identical men dressed in engineering uniforms charged at her, blank-faced.
    No time for stairs. She went through the floor and found herself in a large, dark room. At one end was an airlock-style door. On both sides were long rows of Plexiglas cages holding... people. Almost people. Some had strange skin colors, some had extra arms, or missing ones, some moved like animals. Some screamed incoherently, some too coherently. Her stomach twisted inside her.
    One of the engineering clones dropped down through the hole, landed beside her and exploded as if he'd been filled with napalm. She dove for cover. More of them were coming down. The floor was solid, the cage walls two inches thick. She headed for the door.
    She needed a distraction. As she passed the cages, one of the... people looked at her. The woman mouthed, "Please help me." Lucky slammed her staff against the cage wall as hard as she could and managed to break a small hole in it. She kept running.
    The cage's occupant slid through the hole as if she had no bones and hit the ground, then turned to the engineering guys, who continued to chase after Lucky with no expression at all. The woman screamed piercingly and seemed to expand like a cobra, attacked the first two guards. They exploded. Lucky fought down an urge to gag and kept going. She reached the door.
    It was computer-sealed magnetically. There was a control panel next to it. She thrust her hand in and ripped out the circuitry. The door unlocked. So did all of the cages.
    She shut the door behind her on the carnage, then headed down, her conscience writhing. As she turned toward the stair, she caught a bare whiff of some sort of gas and knew in no uncertain terms that she should not go anywhere near it. Down through the floor again, she sighed.

| Top |