Children of Eden
Page 55

I only have one question for him. “If I say no, will you still help me rescue Ash?”
“Yes,” he answers without hesitation.
And because he says yes, I say yes.
Within minutes I’m in a brightly lit room, being prepped for surgery. A few breaths later, I slip into blackness . . .
 
 
. . . AND AWAKE to gunfire. Only, I’m not really awake. I can’t be, because even though my eyes are open I’m still seeing dreamlike images. My eyeballs tingle. Not just sensation, but movement, a rapid vibration that is maddening. I see . . . I don’t know. People, in a chrome room sickly with a green glow that seems to emanate from above. Small animals, hairless and pink, helpless in cages. Wires protruding from tubs of bubbling gel. The images dance incoherently, but I can’t tell if I’m seeing them with my eyes or my imagination. There’s shouting, too, and another bang. Another gunshot? Real or imagined?
No, it’s the sound of my own body crashing to the floor, jarring every bone. Except my skull. A hand holds my head, saving it from the hard ground. I sense a warm pressure on me, and feel unaccountably safe.
Finally my vision comes into focus, and I see Lachlan. He’s pressed against me, holding me down on the floor. I smile. I don’t know which parts are real, but this feels right.
“We have to get you out of here,” Lachlan says. “Did you hurt yourself when you fell? The hand that’s not cupping my head begins to feel along my body. I giggle when he brushes my ribs. The strange look he gives me when I do suddenly cues me in to what’s real, what’s not.
Gunfire. I had my lens implant surgery. We’re under attack.
I look around wildly from my prone position. I’m practically under the operating table. Strange, sharp instruments are scattered on the floor around me. I try to get up, but Lachlan holds me down.
“They’re at the front. Two, maybe three Greenshirts. Luckily your talented cybersurgeon is also a skilled hacker, and seems to have modified a couple of securitybots to do her bidding, and they’re keeping the Greenshirts at bay. Can you stand?”
“I was trying to,” I say testily, afterimages of some strange room haunting me, stamped on the back of my eyelids.
“There’s no sign of Flame.” There’s a gun in his hand. I don’t even know where he wore it. I didn’t seen a trace of it on his body.
“We have to get out of here.” He’s looking at me strangely, and my hand creeps to my eyes. I want to see them, but it isn’t exactly an opportune time to find a mirror. They’re puffy and tender, but the world looks the same as ever through them now. Those other images must have been a hangover from my anesthesia.
“The shots are coming from the front,” I mumble, trying to piece together the layout of Serpentine from the small amount I’ve seen. “Can we get out the back?”
“Maybe. But the fence is electrified again.”
We’re kept prisoner by the thing that is supposed to keep people out.
“Can you turn it off?”
“There should be a control box somewhere, but . . .”
I follow the direction of his gaze.
“It’s probably in the front,” I conclude dismally. “What are we going to do?”
“You are going to stay here. I’m going to give those ally securitybots a little help.”
“But . . .”
He flashes me a wry look. “You’re really arguing with me at a time like this?” I draw breath to protest again, but he places his fingers on my lips. “Hush. Stay.”
And because I’m afraid I’ll just get in his way (and may-be afraid in general, too), I stay, while he crouches, his gun held low and ready, and opens the door a crack. The shooting has stopped for now, and I can’t hear any movement. Have the Greenshirts been defeated, or the securitybots disabled? If the Greenshirts are down, I want to be glad. But then I picture Rook in his uniform, sprawled and bleeding. I don’t want anyone else to die, not even someone who wants to kill me.
Lachlan is looking through the crack, listening intently. His body is still and tense, so much power held in check. He can only see a sliver of the next room, but I can tell he’s using every sense to search for danger. After a long moment, though, I can see the tightness in his shoulders relax a bit.
He turns to me with a reassuring smile. “Looks clear. But stay down.”
I see his mistake in slow motion, though it takes place in a fraction of a second. He starts to push the door open just an instant before he turns his smiling face away from me, having lingered for a fatal moment. Is it my fault? Did I hold him with my gaze, releasing him too late?
His guard is down, just for a moment. But it is the wrong moment. There’s a shot, close and deafeningly loud, and he staggers back. I see a fine spray of blood fly through the air, but I can’t see the wound itself. He stumbles over a low stool and goes down, but he has the presence of mind to kick at the door as he falls.
For a second I hope . . . then a black boot jams itself against the frame and the door bounces open again. The Greenshirt shoulders it open and points his much, much larger gun—a rifle—at Lachlan. I don’t know if size matters in these things, but suddenly Lachlan’s weapon looks like a toy.
The Greenshirt doesn’t see me, on the ground concealed by the operating table. Not yet.
“Get up,” he barks at Lachlan.
Lachlan moans and rolls to his injured side. The Greenshirt kicks him, and it is all I can do not to cry out as Lachlan flinches and curls into a ball. I can’t tell how much blood there is, how badly he’s hurt. Is it worse than I thought? I think he was hit in the arm—bad enough—but had it gone through his chest and exited his arm? Why isn’t he fighting? He’s just lying there now, not moving at all. I have to clamp my hand over my mouth to keep quiet.
The Greenshirt screams at Lachlan to get up, then, with sneering mouth and a growl of disgust, slings his rifle over his shoulder, takes a pair of handcuffs from his belt, and kneels beside the apparently unconscious Lachlan.
Do something, Lachlan, I silently beg. But he doesn’t move. The Greenshirt clamps one handcuff on with a click that echoes in the room.
Instantly Lachlan comes alive, using his handcuffed arm—his uninjured one—to pull the Greenshirt on top of him. The Greenshirt, surprised, doesn’t let go of the cuffs in time and sprawls. Lachlan lets out a groan as his wounded arm grinds into the ground . . . but he never stops fighting for an instant. He jerks the handcuffs out of the Greenshirt’s grasp, flips the dangling end up so that it covers his knuckles, and punches the Greenshirt in the side of the head once, twice . . .