Disturb (22 page)

“Albert? I don’t believe…”

There was a distant bell. The elevator was coming down.

Bill pivoted back towards the staircase, then hit the brakes.

Was Rothchilde really in the elevator? Or did he just send the elevator down to force them up the stairs, where he was waiting?

“Dammit. We have to hide. The gun.”

Theena handed it over. Bill ushered Theena back into the lab. He needed a vantage point, a place where he’d have a clear shot. There were three large counters, lined up in rows, each running half the length of the room. Bill pulled Theena behind the corner of the farthest one, crouching behind the built-in sink.

“Albert really shot Manny?”

“While I was giving him CPR. Then that mob guy came up in the elevator, and Rothchilde shot him in the arms and legs.”

“Why would he do that? I thought they worked for Albert.”

“To be honest, I think he did it because he liked it.”

Bill fumbled with the gun. He found the button that released the clip, and was shocked to see there was only one bullet left. That plus one in the chamber. Two bullets didn’t seem like a whole lot.

“Should I use the intercom, try to talk to him?”

“I don’t think it will help.”

“So we should just wait here and shoot him when he comes in?”

Bill jammed the clip back in. “That’s the idea.”

He rested on one knee and kept a bead on the doorway. The adrenaline was wearing off, and Bill tried to come to grips with their situation. He was planning on killing someone. It went against everything he knew, everything he was. His education, his sheltered upbringing, his lofty morals, his profession; none of it mattered any more.

After Kristen’s death, he’d made an oath to never hurt a person again.

I don’t have a choice,
he told himself. Rothchilde was going to kill them both. If it didn’t happen today, it would happen soon enough. The man had too much to hide, and murder was his only out. Plus, the son of a bitch enjoyed it.

Self-defense, self-defense, self-defense.
It echoed in Bill’s head, his mantra. But he kept seeing Manny after he shot him, falling to the ground, gasping for air. Then he saw Kristen, her vitals slipping away moments after he gave her the injection that was supposed to heal her.

There was a noise in the hallway. Footsteps.

Bill no longer wanted to hold the gun. He wanted to drop it and run away.

The door opened.

Theena nudged him. Rothchilde stuck his head in the door and took a cautious look around.

Bill knew he couldn’t do it. Maybe his morals were too strong. Maybe he was afraid of the guilt. Rothchilde was only ten feet away, a sitting duck, and Bill’s hands shook with effort but he couldn’t kill the man like this.

He fired a bullet into the ceiling instead.

Rothchilde dropped to the ground and rolled behind the opposite counter.

“We’ve both got guns.” Bill’s voice was wavering as much as his hands. “There’s no way to get out of this cleanly.”

“Exciting, isn’t it?”

So exciting that Bill wanted to retch.

“Theena? Are you with Dr. May?”

Bill put his finger to his lips, but Theena was too angry to hold back. “You’re a killer, Albert.”

“I know. It’s very empowering. Listen, darling, I need your help. I have a… specimen, and I need you to make some N-Som out of his brain. If you do that, I’ll let you both go.”

“It’s over, Rothchilde!” Bill tried to sound confidant. “Just walk out of here. You have time to get out of the country before this story breaks.”

“Theena, honey. Listen to me. This can’t end peacefully, but I promise you’ll survive. You have my word. Take Bill’s gun away from him. Just take it away, sweetie. He won’t fight you.”

Theena grabbed the gun and pulled. Bill had been gripping the weapon loosely, and she pried it away before he could react.

He looked into her eyes, unable to speak. The depth of her betrayal left him devastated.

Theena raised the gun. Her face was so sad, the saddest thing he’d ever seen.

“Bye, Bill.”

Then she sprung up over the counter and launched herself at Rothchilde’s hiding place.

Bill reached out, realizing her intent too late, trying to stop her. He watched her disappear behind the next counter.

The gunshot was deafening.

A
lbert Rothchilde felt incredible.

He thought he knew power. Rothchilde grew up ordering servants around. He was a corporate hot shot who planned hostile takeovers for the thrill of it. A wall street maverick, with long term investors from around the world following his lead time and again. A man to be feared, by his competitors, his employees, the prostitutes he beat up.

But he hadn’t known true power until today.

Firing people, hurting people, crippling them financially, all of that was child’s play.

Murder was the ultimate rush.

It made everything pale next to it, the feeling of taking someone’s life. Better than sex and money and drugs. Better even that the billions of dollars he’d earn with N-Som.

His gun, a 9mm Sig-Sauer that he’d only previously used to shoot targets at firing ranges, felt like an extension of his body. Killing Halloran was just a taste. Shooting Manny and Carlos made him realize what an intoxicating addiction this had so quickly become.

Now, crouched behind the counter in the lab, in an actual gun fight, Rothchilde felt like a god.

He was caught completely by surprise when Theena jumped in front of him and fired.

Missing.

The bullet passed so close to his face he felt the breeze. The sound was thunderous, both terrifying and exhilarating. He sat there, transfixed, as Theena pulled the trigger again and again, the gun clicking harmlessly, her expression changing from anger, to confusion, to fear.

The smile slithered across Rothchilde’s mouth like a snake.

“Out of bullets?”

Theena raised the gun to strike him with it, but she was a mere mortal. Rothchilde was a greater deity. He gave her a firm punch in the nose and she fell backwards, her black mane falling over her face when she landed.

There was blood on his knuckles. Her blood. He anointed his forehead with it, and then stood up.

“Come out, Dr. May. Or I kill her.”

“Don’t do it, Bill!”

Rothchilde reared his hand back to strike her. She stared at him defiantly, her jaw thrust outward, her eyebrows furrowed in anger. It turned him on a great deal.

“Okay, Rothchilde. You win.”

Bill stood up from behind the counter, his hands over his head. The look on his face was pure defeat. This was a man with no hope left.

Delicious.

He wanted to feel Bill’s fear, know his defeat at the hands of a superior male. A chest shot should do it. Or perhaps he should shoot his legs first, have him crawl around and beg for his life.

Rothchilde brought the gun around.

“No!”

He glanced at Theena, amused.

“Don’t tell me you have a little crush on Dr. May. I didn’t think you were capable of feelings.”

“You kill him, I won’t help you.”

“I think I’ll be able to convince you.”

“I can’t make N-Som by myself, Albert. It’s a two person job.”

Rothchilde hesitated. He knew nothing about the manufacturing process of drugs, and had no idea if she was lying of not. If he killed Bill now, he’d be able to relive the whole gun battle. But if Theena really needed two people…

Rothchilde stared hard at Bill. Shooting him would be so sweet. He’d heard the term ‘itchy trigger finger’ in countless old westerns, and fully understood what it meant.

“I can still push N-Som through CDER. You’d have approval in a few days.”

The President of American Products frowned. He normally didn’t deny himself pleasure, but the hassle he’d save himself if the FDA accepted N-Som was greater than his bloodlust.

“Fine.” He lowered the weapon, exercising his absolute self control. “I have a head in this bag. How many doses can you extract from it?”

His little wench had gone submissive, pouting. “Ten to twelve.”

That was perfect. Rothchilde could envision an N-Som cabinet next to his wine cellar, vintage Cabernets alongside the last thoughts of the dozens of people he would kill. Like a personal collection of snuff films that he alone could savor.

“Get started. I don’t have all day.”

He tossed the garbage bag to Theena. Her repulsion was priceless.

Rothchilde sat in a chair and kept a bored eye on the doctors while they set Halloran’s head in a vice.

They were all too busy to notice the EEG machine sitting on a table in the back.

Manny’s EEG machine, scribbling down a continuous jagged line of Beta waves on an endless ream of paper.

M
anny opened his eyes to pain.

It was an alarming experience. Not the pain—he was used to that. But the feeling of waking up. That was something he hadn’t done in a long time.

He looked around and discovered he was in the lobby of the DruTech Building. There was blood all around him. When he tried to sit up, he realized the blood was his.

“You don’t look so good.”

David was staring at him, reflected in a chrome garbage can that had fallen over.

It was one of those moments of instant clarity, like a fog lifting. All at once Manny understood.

He only saw David when he looked in a mirror.

Manny had seen David at Dr. O’Neil’s place. He’d gone there to warn the doctor, to tell him he had to hide. But David had gotten there first. The apartment looked like a slaughterhouse. David had been sitting on the sofa, eating a box of chalk.

Manny had tasted chalk, too.

He tried to remember prior conversations with David. They all involved a mirror of some kind. Through the vanity mirror in Townsend’s bathroom. In his bed back at DruTech, which faced a dresser with the oversized mirror. Was there a mirror at the hospital?

“The window, next to your bed. You could see my reflection in there.”

Manny stared at the garbage can.

“I’m you.”

“Don’t act so surprised. This is news to me, too.”

“You’re not really my brother. You’re me.”

“We’re two sides of the same coin, Manny. This is what I’ve been trying to tell you. This is what that drug has done to us.”

Manny closed his eyes, tight as he could. He tried to remember the night of the banquet, when David killed Dr. Nikos. But the memory didn’t exist. He remembered going into the bathroom, seeing David, and then nothing else.

“That memory is mine, Manny.” When David talked, it was like a speaker emanating from the middle of Manny’s head. “It’s like we’re two people, sharing one body. I have my thoughts, you have yours.”

Manny began to shake, the tears streaming down the sides of his head.

“How many people have we killed, David?”

“Do you want to see?”

He didn’t. God help him, he didn’t want to see.

“I think I can show you the memories. They’re yours, too. We’re of one mind.”

“Please, don’t.”

The feeling was similar to deja vu, like suddenly remembering something that you’d known all along, but many times stronger. The memories flooded into his head all at once, overpowering him. He saw everything… Dr. Nikos… Dr. Townsend… Dr. Fletcher… please make it stop… Dr. O’Neil… Dr. Myrnowski… no more oh god there’s more… a big man with a gun… and then a smaller man, the ax chopping and chopping…

Manny threw up. He watched David throw up as well.

“How about Theena?”

“She’s in the lab, downstairs. We were going to kill her, too. But we’ve been shot a few times.”

Manny touched his chest and David let him see the shots, relive the experience. The small man, Dr. May, Albert Rothchilde…

“We should be dead.”

David agreed. “But we’re not. We can’t die. Not like before. I won’t die again like before.”

Manny had been in gym class when the assistant principal pulled him aside, gave him the news that his older brother David had killed himself at the juvenile correctional institution. The institution he’d been sent to because Manny tattled on him.

“You’re not really David. David’s dead.”

“His body, yes. But your memories keep him alive. Your guilt made him grow. And the N-Som—well, you know what a bad deal that turned out to be.”