Psion Alpha (42 page)

She’d brought two
industrial strength bags with her: one large and one small. In the large one,
she put the corpse of Clyde, and his dog in the other. While the death of
Clyde’s dog had made quite a mess, the owner had been relatively easy to clean
up after. Only two pieces: Clyde and Clyde’s right eyeball. The eyeball went in
a separate container, adequately padded and protected for proper preservation.

Before leaving, she
sprayed down the area and checked all surfaces with a revealing light to make
sure she hadn’t missed any blood or saliva. After wiping down every place she’d
touched, the apartment was spic-and-span. She hauled the bags down to Clyde’s
car, stowed them in the trunk, and drove the car downtown. After pouring some
Compound Q into both bags to dissolve all organic matter, the corpses went deep
into a dumpster, making any discovery highly unlikely.

“Thanks for the
memories, Clyde,” she said over her shoulder as she strode back to the car.

Her next stop was a
small house a block from the campus of the University of Washington. She
knocked twice and a fat, pale twenty-year-old came to the door. When he saw
her, he flattened out his hair and welcomed her in.

“Did you bring it?” he
asked. For the life of her, the Queen could not remember his name.

His apartment was a pig
sty with computer parts strewn everywhere and pictures of holographic women on
the walls. She gave him Clyde’s I.D. badge and he set it next to his computer.
The light of his holo-screen made his white skin look blue-green. His fingers
tapped on the keyboard. Then he pulled out a small device from somewhere under
his desk and set it in between a bottle of soda and a crusty coffee mug.
Carefully, he removed Clyde’s badge from the plastic casing and swiped it
through his gadget. Then, with painstaking effort to detail, made cosmetic
changes so the badge had her picture and the name
Kellie Plummer
.

“It worked,” he
announced proudly as he handed back the badge and its plastic casing. “Just
remember the changes are on the badge, not inside the company’s system. They
swipe it, they see your name and info. If they look any deeper than that,
they’re gonna know your badge really belongs to Clyde … Whoever. No way I’m
risking going to prison trying to hack N’s systems. You have the money?”

“Would you rather have
me as a payment?” she asked.

The fat kid gawked at
her as though he had just seen a UFO. “You—you—you serious?”

“Anyone else here?” She
dropped her voice to a conspiratorial tone.

“No! No one. Just me.”

“Then what are we
waiting for?” She reached into her shirt as though she intended to pull it
down, and instead pulled out a small pistol. Three bullets entered and exited
the kid. Without pausing, she went into his kitchen, found some matches, and
set his living room on fire with the alcohol from his fridge. Nine minutes from
the time she’d entered his house, she was back on the road. Her destination:
the N building.

The Queen was better
prepared for her visit this time. Not only did she have Clyde’s eyeball, but
she had Clyde’s altered I.D. badge. All lights were green. She pulled into the
parking garage and parked on the top level. This time, she wasn’t worried about
cameras. She strolled into the garage elevator with her head held high, and
rode the lift to the lobby.

She stopped at the
security desk and showed them her badge. With a flirtatious smile, she told the
guards, “I’ll be doing some very difficult work in the genetics lab tonight.
I’d prefer to not be disturbed. Is anyone else up there right now?”

“No, ma’am,” one said.

“That’s good to know. I
guess they all got my memo. Please see that I’m undisturbed.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The Queen gave them
both smiles. “You two are sweethearts.”

The elevator ride
seemed to take an hour. Multiple times, the Queen caught herself anxiously
tapping the container in her pocket holding Clyde’s eyeball. Her thoughts
cycled over the memos, instructions, and illustrations she’d studied so
meticulously for the last weeks. When she came to a stop at Clyde’s floor, she
practically leapt out. With Clyde’s voice, print, and eyeball, she had no trouble
gaining access to any room she wanted.

First she went for the
cold storage units where she knew the anti-diaphoren-52 and lenolox-26 were
kept. The dark glass bottles hadn’t moved. She removed each from their
containers and hunted down two graduated cylinders. The detailed instructions
for quantities had been burned into her brain. She struggled to keep her hands
steady as she poured each liquid. She checked the measurements once, then
again, and finally a third time.

The Queen held up the
cylinder filled with anti-diaphoren-52 in the air. Lights from above filtered
through the liquid and glass, turning the drink into an exotic, orange mixture.

A toast to my freedom.

Waiting not a moment
longer, the Queen thrust the cylinder to her lips and swallowed the contents in
one gulp. No drops spilled despite its ghastly taste. Just as the original
solution had done, which she’d drank outside the fox’s penthouse, this liquid also
burned her all the way to her core. Her eyes welled up with moisture at the
sensation. Her breath came out in hot, sour gasps. Ten minutes later, she drank
the contents of the second cylinder: lenolox-26. Seconds later, she lay on the
floor, gripping her stomach. Three times she fought the urge to vomit.

Freedom
, she told herself so
many times that it became a word that had no end or beginning—
freedomfreedomfreedom—

When the worst of it
passed, and she possessed the strength to stand, she used the nearby counter
top to pull herself back to her feet. Her legs were two strands of licorice
trying to support a boulder. She put most of her weight on the counter and
rested her head on the cool surface, relishing its effect on her aching head.
Tenuously, she scooted toward her next destination.

In her debilitated
state, the journey took an eternity, especially when she had to access each new
area with Clyde’s eye, fingerprint, and voice. Eventually she came to the
splicing room filled with semi-clones of Sammy. As she hobbled past each tank,
she ran her fingers along the glass. This gave her the needed energy to keep
going.
Kill you
. At long last, she found the object of her greatest
desire. It was a machine—the machine she’d interrogated Clyde about for three
hours. As he’d spoken about it, she’d imagined this moment in vivid detail.

The machine looked like
a suit of armor with each part of the body peeled open to allow someone to walk
inside and wear it. Each appendage had tubes coming out of it, all heading toward
a console. She approached the console with more vigor than she’d felt since
drinking the anti-diaphoren and lenolox. Near the console was another
refrigerator, this one far bigger than anything she’d seen in the other parts
of the lab. Small glass bottles filled row after row, all of them labeled with
two to four letters, certainly abbreviations for longer, more complex Latin
numerals. But the Queen already knew exactly which ones she wanted.

She found them near the
bottom. There were four of them in total, though she was only interested in
two. They sat side by side in a perfectly straight row. The Queen imagined
Clyde obsessively arranging them just so, then sending out memos that no one
but himself could touch them. She wished that she had arranged
him
similarly. Seeing parts of him lined up like that would have been cute. She
rested her finger on each bottle, moving them ever so slightly so the pattern
was disrupted, never again to be straightened by him.

UDM.
Ū
ndecim
. She removed this bottle and set it aside. TDM
was next.
Tr
ē
decim
. This one held no
interest to her. QTDM came third.
Quattuordecim
.
She held this bottle in her hands for a moment,
pondering the treasures inside the clear liquid. QDM was the fourth, but Clyde
had warned her it would kill her.
Qu
ī
ndecim
.
She dared not try it.
Not yet, anyway.

She activated the
console controlling the machine and a holo-screen came to life. The Queen
followed the instructions she had memorized, and input her weight, height, and
other vital statistics. The process of setting up the equipment took almost an
hour. Everything had to be perfect, so she double and triple-checked each
detail. There would be no second chances if she messed this up. Only death. At
last, satisfied she had done everything correctly, the Queen hooked UDM and
QTDM into the uptake chambers and set the controls to voice activation.

Still suffering from
extreme discomfort from the liquids she had imbibed, she stumbled over to the
machine and placed herself inside as if she intended to wear it like a suit of
armor. For a moment, she simply rested. The darkness made her feel a bit more
at ease as she peeled off her clothes and tossed them onto the floor. Knowing
her moment of triumph was near, she spoke the words of command to the machine:

“Activate splicing
sequence.”

An automated response
came from the console’s speakers. “Sequence activated. Beginning process in ten
seconds.”

The machine surrounding
her body whirred to life and slowly closed around her as the seconds counted
down. By the time the automated voice reached “four,” the machine had enveloped
her in pure darkness. Her heart thudded in her ribs as she waited for the
process to begin. She had expected lights to turn on inside the machine, but it
stayed pitch black. The soft whirring sounds continued, and the Queen felt
liquid pour in around her. It rapidly filled past her ankles, then knees, and
soon her hands were submerged in it. The smell reminded her of salt water. The
water level climbed until it reached her chin, then stopped. The aroma of the
salt became even more pungent with the liquid only centimeters beneath her
nose. She wiggled her fingers. The liquid was more viscous than water.

Next, something touched
her limbs in several places. It took her time to realize that needles had
inserted themselves into her skin. She felt nothing, and wondered if the liquid
immersing her had anesthetized her from the penetrations. The needles went
three to four centimeters into her arms, ribs, thighs, calves, back, buttocks,
and neck. She dared not move for fear of injuring a vital organ. A sensation of
deep, penetrating cold followed where each needle had embedded itself. By
design, the liquid’s warmth countered the cold, preventing her from shivering
in reflex.

All in all, the process
was simple and anti-climactic once she got used to the freezing cold traveling
through her body. When the process ended, the liquid drained out of the machine
as the needles withdrew from her body. It left her with a strange feeling of
fatigue as she stepped out and began to dress. She felt no different than she
had twenty or thirty minutes earlier, but she knew it would take time for the
splicing to take effect.

The illness in her
stomach from the anti-solution had long since dissipated. The cold sensation
was nearly gone, too. The Queen found it hard to believe she’d worked and
planned and waited so long just for …
this
. After she finished dressing
and composing herself, she left the lab and returned to the elevator. The
acceleration of the lift made her lose her balance, but she caught herself on
the wall. All at once a splitting headache racked her skull. The Queen couldn’t
remember the last time something as simple as a headache had afflicted her.

When the elevator came
to a stop, she stumbled into the lobby, still holding her head. The security
guards saw her. “Are you all right, ma’am?”

“Fine,” she answered
without looking. “Just a migraine.”

“Do you need—?”

“Leave me alone.”

She staggered to the
garage elevators. By the time she reached Clyde’s car, her head throbbed so
intensely she thought it might explode. Her vision blurred as she started the
vehicle, but she drove anyway. Her driving wasn’t pretty and certainly not
safe, but she made it to her little apartment. She double parked in the lot and
opened her door. When she leaned to get out, she spilled onto the concrete,
scraping her hands and arms. Her stomach lurched and she vomited onto the
pavement and herself.

The headache spread to
her shoulders, arms, wrists, palms, and fingers, leaving her whole upper body
burning and throbbing. Even her fingernails ached. After three failed attempts,
she managed to get on her hands and knees to crawl toward her building. Every
time she placed a hand or knee on the ground, an intense, agonizing bolt shot
up to her core. When she reached the door, she used the handle to pull herself
to her feet, nearly collapsing again.

Staring up at the
twenty-one arduous stairs awaiting her, the Queen could think of nothing she
wouldn’t give for a ground-level apartment. Each step took tremendous effort
and determination. Twice she fell down, barely stopping herself from tumbling
to the pavement. At the top, she dangerously swayed before leaning her weight
in the direction of her room. She thumbed the I.D. plate and the door unlocked.
Her body, combined with her hand drooping on the handle, opened the door and
she fell onto the carpet. As she lay in the dark on the coarse rug, she heard
her door close on its own. Fire spread through her body. Each individual organ
protested, screamed, pleaded to know what she’d done to them. Her breaths came
as labored gasps, hot and ragged.