Shockball (45 page)

“Nice try, woman.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

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Game Sphere

M
ilass had stolen my idea and was wearing a helmet and one of the Gliders’ uniforms. As he hauled me past the other players and the angry drone officials, I tried yelling for help.

“Stop him! He’s crazy!”

Someone snorted. “He’s not the one who nearly cost us a penalty by tromping out on the field.”

I turned to the stands. “Help! He’s going to kill me!”

A couple of men laughed. One woman yelled back, “If he doesn’t, I will!”

Everyone on the sidelines ignored us, which made it easy for Milass to drag me away and into the equipment pit. When we were out of sight, he shoved me against the wall.

“Well, little sister.” Rico stepped out of the shadows. “You’ve shown your superior ability once more. How did you get to the surface?”

“Teleportation.” I tried to duck around him, but that only got me thrown back against the wall by Milass for my efforts. “Get out of my way, Rico. I’m not going to let you kill him.”

“There’s nothing you can do to stop it. They won’t let you back on the field now. Listen. The sphere is in play. The Wind is about to blow itself out.“

“No!” I went crazy, throwing myself at him, clawing at his face, beating him with my fists. “He heard me, he heard me tell him! He won’t do it!”

“Even if he doesn’t make the score, he still dies.” He got my hands pinned to the wall and his face in mine in short order. “I’ve programmed the computer to administer five penalties to him. If they don’t make sphere-down by the end of the first interval, he gets automatically charged with delay of game and unsporting conduct and a few other things. Shock, shock, shock, shock, shock. Each one more severe. The last one is special. It’s three times the usual voltage.”

Milass laughed. “That should cook him like a Founder’s Day turkey.”

There was a strange moaning sound to one side of us, and I looked over. Kegide stepped into the light, and made the odd, keening sound again. In his arms were both of my cats. Juliet stayed curled up against his broad chest, but Jenner lifted his head, sniffed, then jumped down to come after me.

“Everyone leaps to defend you. Even your precious little pet.” To Kegide, Rico said, “Put the animal down and come here.”

Kegide shook his head.

“He doesn’t understand, Chief,” Milass said. “Let me do her. I’ve been wanting to for months.”

Rico took a pistol out of his tunic, raised it, and shot Milass in the face. The blast decapitated him. I screamed.

“Never tell me what to do,” Rico said to the headless corpse, still twitching on the floor. “I am your chief.” He turned to Kegide. “I gave you an order, follow it.”

“Jenner!” I shrieked.

Rico glanced down at the floor. My beloved pet was crouched right in front of him, ready to spring. “Kegide! Come and get this mangy animal away from me.”

Kegide didn’t move.

“Very well, I’ll do it myself.” My brother aimed his weapon at Jenner. I shoved just as he fired, and the shot went wide. Jenner stopped playing the hero, screeched, and dove under the benches.

“Kegide,” I shouted. “Help them! Get them out of here!”

Kegide carefully set down Juliet instead and came toward Rico, shaking his head, making the raspy, moaning sound.

“She’ll have them send you back to where we came from, remember?” Rico snarled at his enforcer. “Remember the little room they made you stay in? I took you from there, I gave you a life. You owe me that life, Kegide.” He shoved me into Kegide’s arms. “Show me your gratitude and kill her!”

Instead of snapping my neck, Kegide set me aside as gently as he had Juliet. Then he kept advancing on Rico, his hands outstretched.

Rico looked stunned at the big man’s betrayal. He lifted the pistol. “I should have left you there to rot, you imbecile.”

“Kegide!” I screamed.

Kegide lunged, and Rico fired the pistol. The enormous body stiffened, then dropped short to land at the chief’s feet.

I tried to get to him, but Rico grabbed me and put the hot end of the barrel under my chin. “Your turn.”

Duncan
. I closed my eyes.
I
can’t keep my promise
.

Someone stepped into the equipment pit. “It’s time to stop this,” he said. “Let her go, son.”

I opened my eyes. Joseph Grey Veil closed the door panel and leaned back against it.

He wasn’t carrying a weapon, or had anyone with him. His immaculate business suit and calm, unruffled appearance made him look as though he’d just left a medical conference. He looked utterly confident of his control over the situation.

Probably thought he was. Obviously, he’d forgotten what I’d said to him, the last time we were together.

“Lend me your pistol for a minute,” I said to my brother. “Then you can shoot me.”

“He’s not going to shoot anyone else, are you, Jericho?”

“Why are you here, old man?” Rico’s voice changed, went flat. “You’re supposed to be at your lab.”

“Yes, I know. Unfortunately, I would have been, if I hadn’t gotten a signal from Ilona Red Faun. She told me Cherijo would be here.”

Rico’s grip on me tightened. “Ilona lives?”

“Sorry, I forgot to mention it,” I said.

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll find her later.” He sighed. “Well, Father, I’m surprised you were able to get tickets. Have you seen my team play?”

“Yes. They’re quite competent.”

“We’ve been trying to get to the World Game for five years. I think changing the starting offense line was the key to winning the semifinals.” He sounded like a little boy now, trying to impress his daddy. “I made some other changes, got them to stop whining about penalties. Thanks to you, I learned a little pain goes a long way.”

Joseph got tired of listening, and held out his hand. “Jericho, give me the weapon.”

“Don’t you want your daughter?” Rico’s free hand turned my face toward his, and he gave me a leisurely kiss. I didn’t move. “She’s everything you said she would be. Beautiful. Intelligent. Resourceful. Sensual.” He stroked his free hand down the front of my body, and patted my right thigh. “I’ve thoroughly enjoyed having her all these months.”

I thought about telling Joseph that he’d never touched me, but I wasn’t sure what might set either of them off.

“She doesn’t belong to you.”

“She’s been very happy in her loving brother’s arms, Father.”

“Loving?” Joe let his upper lip curl. “You tried to kill her four times when she was an infant.”

“She was so small and helpless, it was practically irresistible. Can you really blame me for what I did when I was a boy?”

“No. I failed in that, Jericho. I failed to recognize the genius behind the psychosis. Even after all the studies.”

The studies. When he’d raped his own son.

“Shoot him,” I said to Rico. “Or shoot me, because I don’t want to listen to another word of this.”

“But you don’t get a choice, little sister. See, I’ve had fantasies about this sort of meeting. I never dreamed I’d have the two of you together. Have the chance to exterminate both of you at the same time. My esteemed parent, and my brilliant sister. Scientist and experiment, all rolled into one. Do you want to know why I really bought a shockball franchise?”

“Why?”

Rico giggled. “He hates the game, don’t you, Father?”

“She’s nothing. A failure. The experiment never worked,” Joseph said. “Let her go. Come back to the estate with me. We can talk about the future.”

“That’s a very good bluff, Father. Unfortunately, I was around long enough to see just how successful number ten here was. She’s the one you were waiting for. I think it must have taken superhuman effort for you to keep your hands off her.”

“We can talk about everything back at the estate.” Joseph looked at me. “Bring her with us, if you like. She has no clinical value to me, but we can use her in other ways.”

“You want to share her between us?” Rico sputtered an incredulous laugh. “What a provocative thought. There is more of you inside me than I imagined.”

I told Joe what I thought of him. In no uncertain terms.

Rico’s grip on the pistol shifted. “Her speech patterns leave a great deal to be desired. No, if she is a failure, Father, let me put her out of her misery.”

Our creator looked bored now. “Very well.”

Rico’s hand tightened on my thigh, then he moved it around toward the small of my back, and gave me a shove. “Give Daddy a kiss good-bye, Cherijo.”

I stumbled forward, and Joseph caught me in his arms. He lowered his head as if to kiss me, while I shrieked and twisted against his hold.

But he didn’t kiss me. He whispered against my ear, “I love you. Run.”

The interior lights went out. Joe pushed me behind him and lunged toward Jericho. My brother shouted something obscene, then I heard the pistol fire as I turned around. I saw the pulse hit Joseph’s chest, watched as the front of his torso exploded.

“No!” In spite of everything, I reached out.

The emergency lighting flickered on.

“Go…” Joseph wheezed, and staggered the last couple of steps so he could fling his ruined body on top of my insane brother.

I covered my mouth in horror, backing away. Then I remembered Duncan and the explosives, and frantically groped for the door.

Someone’s gentle hands eased mine away from the panel. “Wait, patcher.”

It was Ilona Red Faun, and with her were about a dozen of the outcasts. They filed in, surrounding me in a protective circle. None of them looked angry, but they were all staring at Jericho, who was still trying to get out from under Joseph’s body. His pistol waved wildly in the air.

“Ilona, you traitorous bitch. I’ll kill you. I’ll kill all of you!”

The outcasts descended on Rico and Joseph. I watched how carefully they disarmed him, the way they lifted him out from under Joseph’s body. For a moment, I thought the worst, until I saw the look on Ilona’s face.

“No.” Even knowing the depths of his depravity and insanity, I couldn’t condemn my brother. He’d been a victim of the grandfather of all monsters. “Ilona, he needs to be hospitalized.”

“He has done enough, patcher. Even you said you could not cure him. That he will never get better.” Ilona knelt beside Milass’s headless corpse. She placed her hand on his chest. “He killed my brother, didn’t he? Yet Milass was always loyal to him. He would never disobey Rico. He loved him.”

I hadn’t known Milass was Ilona’s brother. That explained a lot.

She sighed, then got to her feet. “This is our chief, our problem. Let us deal with it in our way.”

Rico was screaming and demanding the outcasts obey and release him. The pistol disappeared into someone’s pocket. Then he was silenced by a dozen hands, clamping over his nose, mouth, and throat. The last thing I saw was him swallowed into the center of the tight circle of bodies, his eyes wide and unblinking.

I couldn’t stop them, couldn’t process what was happening. All I could do was think of Duncan. “Ilona, I have to get out of here.”

“We will take care of them, patcher. Go.”

I put on my helmet and went out to the sidelines, in time to see the Gliders’ defense leave the field and the offensive team trot out to take their positions. The Scoreboard remained at zero on both sides.

Reever had heard me.

I walked up to one of the players I knew. “How much time remaining?”

“Two minutes before interval end.” Small Fox glanced at me and his eyes widened. “Patcher? Is that you? What are you doing here?”

Beyond us, Ilona and the outcasts silently vacated the equipment pit and returned to the spectators’ stands.

I hoped that now, at last, our brothers were at peace. “I had to talk to Rico.”

Ilona went over to a security drone and said something. The drone immediately buzzed past me and entered the pit. A minute later more drones descended on the sidelines. They’d be notifying arena security about the dead bodies any moment.

I adjusted my helmet. I had to do it now.

A drone intercepted me as I started toward the field. “You were seen going into the equipment pit with the dead man. Security wishes to interview you about the nature of his demise.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, keeping my voice low and rough. “Can’t this wait until after the game?”

“Do not leave the arena,” the official warned me.

I saw the drones carrying the bodies out of the pit. My brother was dead. My creator was dead.

My husband was going to live.

I hid behind an equipment rack to do what I needed, then emerged with my new face. When the interval clock sounded the one-minute warning, the Gliders lined up for the last play.

This was it. My last chance.

There was only one person who could walk onto the field and not be automatically stopped by the officials. Knowing that, I headed for my husband.

A drone buzzed in front to me. “The team owner must not disrupt the game—”

“I’m just going to have a word with my players,” I said, in a low growly tone. “One minute.”

Confused, the official rolled back out of the way. My Rico-mask worked, but only for a moment. Someone must have identified Rico’s body, because a horde of drones left the sidelines and headed for me. At the same time, the play was called, and the sphere put into motion.

I had fifty meters to cover before I could get to Reever, who was heading directly for the touchzone, so I ran.

I ran the way Xonea had taught me, with fast, long strides that pulled at the muscles in my legs. If we survived this, I was going to be sore as hell.

Duncan!

Reever looked over, saw me. His face turned to stone and he kicked the sphere into play.

He thought I was Rico. I peeled off my Lok-Teel mask.
Duncan! Stop
!

Reever worked the sphere toward the wide white line. But why? Then I remembered the drones carrying the bodies out. He must have thought Milass’s headless corpse was mine.