Prodigal (48 page)

Still lots of places to hide.

Especially the dormitory, which loomed over her like a ruined fortress. Lea took out her integrator, scanning for the same signals she had detected from the air. A faint trace revealed itself—enough for her to get a tenuous fix. She pinned it down to within fifty meters, a fixed position that never moved. Somewhere in that building, the source waited.

Lea moved in.

She proceeded more deliberately this time, crossing the wide-open space at a slow clip. Walking toward the dormitory, she watched for snipers, alternating between the rooftops and the entrance. The doors banged sporadically in a stiff wind, plastic tarps flapping over broken windows—a myriad of sounds that seemed to come from everywhere. Lea whipped her head around constantly, making sure that nobody approached from behind. When she finally reached the building, she ducked inside the opening and froze—heart pounding, senses overloaded, crazy with anticipation about what might lurk in the places she couldn’t see. Her surroundings replied with an inscrutable quiet, daring her to go farther.

Keep it together, Lea.

She took a minute to bring herself down, then stepped across the threshold. The howling outside faded into the distance, light filtered through a soiled prism that cast a pall over everything. Moist rot rose between the crevices, the reek of organic decay. None of the odors seemed fresh—just accumulated decomposition, the stench of years—which made Lea wonder how many of the prisoners might still be here, skeletons in their cells.

She took in the scope of the small room. The place had been stripped bare except for a vacant chair standing upright in one corner. Past that, a security station protected by a barrier of Plexiglas guarded the single point of entry—a vaulted door rolled halfway open.

Lea walked toward it, the cavernous space beyond expanding in her vision as she drew closer. Peeling cobwebs away, she leaned inside. Her gaze followed the long rows of cellblocks, stacked one on top of another, reaching six entire levels up to a skylight ceiling cross-hatched with thick, reinforced bars. Bleached red lines, still visible on the concrete floors, marked the routes that inmates were allowed to walk—a strict code enforced from the narrow gun galleries above, sealed cages from which guards could open fire on anybody making trouble. As she entered, Lea walked that same line—past the individual cells, looking through those flaking steel bars, the doors still shut after all these years. Compared to the Collective
gulags,
Rapa Nui was positively medieval.

Typical Zone mentality,
Lea thought in disgust.
Always doing things on the cheap.

But there was more to it than that. Reducing men to a primitive state had been the entire point of this enterprise—and so the Zone Authority built a dungeon to accomplish that task. Therein lay the brutal efficiency of the place, and the conditions that led to its demise. That the
Inru
should stake themselves out here seemed more than appropriate.

It felt like fate.

The signal pulse on Lea’s integrator grew stronger, sounding rapid-fire beeps from her hand. She reduced the scale on its tiny display, keeping the device pointed straight ahead, directional indicators twitching like a compass needle—but always on the same heading. A few meters later the readings abruptly jumped, surging through a secure corridor on the other side of the cellblock. Lea stared into that darkened hole, an electric tingle prickling her own senses—but only a suggestion, not the wave upon wave of neural energy she expected.

Lea approached carefully, listening for another presence. She heard only her own footsteps, dry echoes bounding down the corridor ahead of her. Stopping at the gated entrance, she wiped a layer of grime off a sign posted next to the door. Within the swipe of her handprint, bold letters spelled out with sinister intent:

MEDICAL WING AND INFIRMARY AUTHORIZED ENTRY ONLY

She tried the door. It opened with a sharp creak.

And near the end of the corridor, light bled into the darkness.

It flickered like a candle, urged on by a static discharge. Lea waited for a human form to materialize out of shadow, her right hand making a reflexive grab for the quicksilver. When that didn’t happen, she slipped inside—her eyes fixed on that one spot, her back pressed against the inner wall. One step in front of the other, she pushed herself to keep going, anxiety building up like steam pressure in her veins. The shocks grew louder, spitting ozone into the air, sparks infusing the oppressive decay with a taste of copper—a barrier that dared Lea to cross. As she neared the infirmary, she shuffled along and edged herself closer and closer to the open doorway. Perched at the edge, she then peered around the corner, the room beyond sliding into her line of sight.

Faded green tile, riddled with chips and cracks, enclosed the featureless space. It seemed more like a morgue than an infirmary, a cracked halogen fixture dangling on wires from the ceiling. Lea expected to find equipment stacked from floor to ceiling—but all she saw was an empty chamber, draped in a cascade of shadow and light.

With a small box at the center of the room.

At first Lea thought it was a bomb, the green LED on top blinking steadily on a countdown to zero. She quickly focused her integrator on the device, running an active scan to confirm her suspicions, but detected no explosives—only sporadic waves of the same energy she had detected outside.

It’s a goddamned emitter.

Lea turned the integrator off and stormed into the infirmary. She circled around the box, her anger building as she stared at the thing—bait to lure her away while the
Inru
made their escape. The proof of it lay scattered everywhere: bits and pieces of fresh debris, cryohoses and power lines, all oriented around scuff marks that led directly toward the exit—indications that something big had been hauled out recently. Lea checked a series of depressions in the floor and immediately recognized the dimensions. They were the exact size and shape of extraction tanks.

The hive
had
been here. Now it was gone.

And Avalon with it.

“Dammit,”
Lea fumed.

“Missing something?”

Lea spun around at the sound of that voice, back toward the doorway where the devil waited. She was just as Lea remembered, only more vivid—a nightmare vision in black.

Avalon was alone. Nothing stood between them.

“You’re a hard woman to find,” Lea said.

“You’re all too easy,” Avalon replied. “No army this time?”

Lea tasted anger. “You saw to that,” she said. “What about your
Inru
?”

“You’ll see them soon enough.”

Avalon circled around slowly, a predator stalking prey. Lea matched her move for move, maintaining an even distance.

“I came here to talk,” she said. “Just you and me.”

Avalon continued to prowl, boxing Lea in. “I have some questions of my own.”

Lea crouched, combat ready, assuming a defensive stance. Both of them held back, at least for the moment, probing each other for clues and weakness.

“I’ll tell you what I know,” Lea promised, “but I don’t have the answers you want.”

Avalon ejected a stealthblade above her prosthetic wrist.

“Then I’ll have to settle for your head.”

The quicksilver thrummed in Lea’s pocket, pressed tightly against her arm. There was a slim possibility that she could reach it before Avalon buried a stealthblade in her skull—but there was also the Pollex, with enough explosive to take out the entire room. A single flick of the detonator cap would do it, putting an end to this here and now—no second chances, no escape. The lure of it was almost too powerful to resist. Lea had no wish to commit suicide, but she also couldn’t allow Avalon to walk away—not before she accepted the truth.

“Take it easy,” Lea said. “I didn’t come here to kill you.”

“I’m not giving you a choice,” Avalon replied, with no malice or emotion. “Neither of us is prepared to give up. Neither of us can change. But we both need something from the other—which, I’m guessing, neither one is willing to give.”

“Try me.”

Avalon halted. Lea couldn’t tell what went on behind those lenses, but it might have been surprise. Avalon lowered her weapon, still keeping it at the ready.

“The hive,” she said. “You know what we’ve been doing.”

“Yes,” she answered.

“The harmonic wave,” Avalon continued, “the disruption of our matrix—you’re the one responsible.”

Lea’s own expression contorted in astonishment.

“No,” she said, almost too stunned to answer.

Avalon hardened, raising the blade again.

“We assumed it was a flaw in your design,” Lea explained quickly. She backed even farther into the room, Avalon menacing her the entire way. “We didn’t even
know
about the hive until we found your lab in Chernobyl.”

Avalon kept coming. Under the sporadic halogen glow, she seemed more like an apparition than a human being.

“I have no reason to lie, Avalon.”

“CSS is all about lies,” she retorted. “Everything you do is a lie.”

“I’m not CSS. Not anymore.”

“Too bad. You could use their help right about now.”

In a blaze of motion, Lea ducked and whirled, extending her leg in a kick that targeted Avalon’s knees. Avalon sensed the attack well in advance, leaping out of the way before Lea could even make contact—but that was the point. Lea used the time to scramble away, getting enough distance to reach for her quicksilver. When the two squared off again, she held the weapon over her head—slowly withdrawing the blade from its sheath, wielding it like a Japanese
tanto.

“I don’t need any help,” Lea growled.

Avalon glared at the sight of it, flexing her prosthetic. “I owe you for this.”

The quicksilver cut a radiant path through the air, trailing an ionized hiss.

“Come any closer, and I’ll give you another one,” Lea fired back.

“You got lucky once,” Avalon said. “That won’t happen again.”

“Then bring it on. I’m getting tired of this dance.”

Avalon lunged at her, catapulting her body across the space between them. A razor-sharp glint of metal bore down on Lea, intuition screaming for her to get out of its way. She twisted sideways to dodge the blow, which missed by centimeters, the stealthblade whistling past her face with enough force to send her reeling. Lea countered with a blind stab into Avalon’s wake, but the
Inru
agent was already on her flank. Another fist popped out of nowhere, connecting firmly with Lea’s chest. She flew into the back wall and crumpled into a heap, the quicksilver flying out of her hand.

Lea gasped, inflating her depleted lungs, her vision blooming with bright spots. She swiped madly at nothing, clawing the air with her fingers in a vain attempt to protect herself while she struggled to her feet—shaking off the impact and counting her bones, hoping like hell that none of them were broken.

Avalon stood by, leisurely waiting for Lea to get back up.

“Tell me what I want to know,” she said.

Lea hunched over, recovering her breath, fixed on Avalon with haggard eyes. “I already did,” she replied, forcing the words out. “I don’t know what happened to your goddamned hive.”

“Let’s try that again.”

Avalon launched herself like a ballistic missile, raising the stealthblade to impale Lea through her shoulder. Instinct cleared Lea’s head and tightened her muscles, giving her a burst of energy that would last only for seconds if it lasted that long. Lea hit the floor while Avalon coasted right over her, momentum carrying the
Inru
agent so fast that she couldn’t stop herself—and slamming the stealthblade deep into the brittle wall.

Lea kicked Avalon’s feet out from under her, knocking her off-balance enough to take the advantage. She pounced on Avalon, landing a chop against her throat and tearing at her face, ripping one of her lenses free. A silver eye, raging with colors deep within, saw right through Lea. Avalon drew back her free hand to fight Lea off, but Lea pinned her back against the wall—pummeling every piece of vulnerable skin she could find.

Then the stealthblade snapped, setting Avalon free.