Mr. Lexington saw Dr. Gault and made a line straight for her. She decided a little snark was in order for his tardy response.
“Did the little girl give you some trouble?” She gave him her best smirk.
He stopped before her and looked at her coolly.
“I want my payment now.”
“You’ll get your payment as usual, Mr. Lexington. Deposited to your account in forty-eight hours.” She tried to wave him away dismissively, but he didn’t move.
“Not good enough this time, doctor. Payment now.”
“I don’t have time for this, so if you’ll…,” he didn’t let her finish, but put a hand up to silence her.
“You will make time.” The cold stare suggested he was in no mood for an argument and wouldn’t leave until he got what he wanted.
Dr. Gault could see from the corner of her eye that activity in the lab had ceased while everyone eyed the spectacle beginning to unfold. Dr. Miller had actually taken two steps back. The coward. She wasn’t used to being told what to do in her own lab, and she liked it even less coming from a nearly illiterate thug like the one standing before her. For sure, he wouldn’t be getting any more contracts for her. Not after the delay, and certainly not after speaking to her this way in her own lab. If he was lucky, he might get contracts picking up poodle poop in the park after she was done with him. She briefly contemplated calling for security to have him removed, but decided she didn’t want to deal with the hassle. There was work to be done and she didn’t want to waste it on the idiot standing before her.
She pasted on her best condescending smile.
“Fine. If it’s that important to you.” She tapped her dot phone for the lab’s accounting office. “This is Dr. Gault. Send Mr. Lexington his fee. Yes, I know, but he is demanding payment now. Just make the payment and then red flag the company from any further contracts with our labs.” She ended the call and looked down her nose at the man standing before her. “Satisfied?” She watched his eyes twitch as he checked his account via his retinal viewer. He made no comment but turned and left the room. “What an ass,” she said, as the activity in the room resumed. “All right folks,” she said, addressing the room. “We’ve got some work to do.”
“Um, Dr. Gault?” Ms. Miller warned as she began a physical inspection of her test subject. Ms. Miller was standing several meters back, as if afraid to approach. What was the girl afraid of? It wasn’t like she was going anywhere with the neural block on.
“I really think we should consider physical restraints.” She looked worriedly at the still, peaceful form of the girl before her.
“Whatever for?” Dr. Gault said distractedly, continuing her inspection. She noticed that the bruising and cuts she’d seen earlier appeared to be healing themselves. Fascinating. She grabbed some antiseptic wipes and began cleaning the exposed skin to get a better view. Sure enough, the injuries were already partially healed.
“If you remember from my psychological report, she overcame the block used in the Sarodian Test while the test was in progress.” She shifted several more steps back.
Dr. Gault smirked, and turned to give her the full force of her contempt.
“The result of an equipment malfunction due to old and improperly maintained equipment, I’m sure.”
“But…”
“What’s being used here is top-of-the-line, at least two generations ahead of what you used. I gave it to Mr. Lexington myself.” She stepped forward to emphasize her greater stature. “However, if you’d like to leave the room while the rest of us work, you’re more than welcome.” Man, she loved her heels. They were a pain to walk in, but they gave her a height advantage and made her legs look awesome.
Ms. Miller turned white as a sheet, took several steps back and ran from the room. Dr. Gault was a little taken aback. She’d definitely turned the intimidation dial up, but not that far. Huh! She wouldn’t have thought the little psychologist would be that easy to scare. She shrugged her shoulders and turned back to work.
***
Rayne floated without thought. Occasional memories flitted past her unseeing eyes. She grabbed for them, but they eluded her grasp. Like butterflies. Rayne liked butterflies. The thought caught in her mind and she stopped drifting. She remembered blue butterflies. She chased a single blue butterfly across the inky expanse of space. She chased it past spinning stars and pulsing supernovas. She chased it through brightly painted nebulas. She jumped from planet to planet like crossing a stream over rocks, following the butterfly as it danced through her fingers. She chased it through white, billowing clouds, across a blue, sparkling ocean, and onto an endless plain.
Lights flashed across the blackness of her closed eyes, like the flickering of a malfunctioned data screen. Sound came in staccato bursts; sometimes loud and sometimes quiet. There were voices speaking, but she couldn’t make out the words from the intermittent data stream. Her hair coiled like a snake on her head and then fell still, moved, and then fell still again.
The white dress she wore billowed around her knees. The long grass moved with a gentle wind and tickled her legs. She stopped and let the butterfly go. Twin suns dipped toward the horizon, turning the passing clouds a pretty orange. She closed her eyes and tilted her head toward the suns. She swayed with the moving grass and smiled as the suns warmed her face, and she felt the wind’s gentle touch on her skin.
Rayne turned and faced a towering jungle. The tops of the trees stretched to staggering heights, looming forward in the gathering shadows as first one and then the other sun sank out of sight. She backed slowly away, keeping a close eye on the shadows, not willing to simply turn and run and expose her back to the enemies within. She attempted to ping the depths, but the energy flared and dissipated in a shower of bright lights that fell and sank into the ground. Shots of electricity shot through her limbs, causing her skin to tingle and the hair on her body to rise. The signal to her optic nerve stopped flickering and the dream fled as she came to full consciousness. She was unable to move or open her eyes, but she needed to see what was around her and put out a broad spectrum ping. This time, instead of dissipating, it burst forth, leaving her with a very clear picture of where she was.
She was in a medical facility or lab. She lay on a gurney, unable to move, surrounded by people and equipment. Equipment that these people would use to take her apart and steal her freedom. That was so not going to happen. Rayne searched through her body and found her own nervous system had been disabled. She felt the cool metal of the neural block and cursed. She waited for the T80 inside her head to finish cycling through its reboot and then used the adjacent pathways it had built over the last several months to bend it to her will. She opened her eyes into the harsh light and immediately shaded them with her secondary lids. She took several moments to find calm in the anger that threatened to overtake her. There wouldn’t be any killing today. Lena had said she couldn’t kill them, but they were going to pay for trying to steal her freedom.
Rayne sat up, swung her legs off the gurney, and pulled the neural block from her head. She stood as a doctor in a white lab coat and pretty face turned to face her. The doctor’s eyes grew as big as saucers just before falling unconscious from a fist to her face. Rayne snorted. Whoever it was, they certainly couldn’t take a punch. The people in the room began to scatter. Rayne made no attempt to follow or attack, but set about doing what she could to destroy every piece of equipment in the room. They wouldn’t be doing tests on her anytime soon.
***
Lex made it to the lobby of the research facility. He wasn’t happy. The payment for the girl’s capture would barely be enough to cover his expenses. More than a few of his men were injured and it would take most of what he’d been paid to cover the cost. Not to mention the time off they’d need to recuperate. The loss of any further contracts with the research facility were not terribly troubling, but he’d have to do some d
amage control and kiss the right butts to counter anything the doctor decided to do. She was a powerful, well-connected woman and crossing her wasn’t a good idea.
It had been a long day and he decided to have a cool drink before going back to the office to wrap up. He paid for a drink from the vender in the lobby and sat back, looking out the large glass windows. He was mildly surprised to see that the sun was rising. Had he been going for that long? Come to think of it, he was rather exhausted. Maybe he’d wait and get some sleep before going back. That’s what he had office staff for anyway.
He had nearly dozed off when alarms began to sound. He looked up and saw people moving in an orderly manner toward the exit. He didn’t smell any smoke, and was sure he would have felt any explosion. He stood and joined the others as they moved out the door. He stopped as he heard the sound of running feet, turning to see a dozen terrified lab techs and doctors running his way. Lex stepped aside as they barreled through the crowd in their panic to get out the door. Assuming something was terribly wrong, the others joined in the hysteria and a full-blown stampede ensued. The crowed pushed and shoved, crushing each other in their attempts to get out the door.
Lex was definitely curious now. He wondered idly if some stupid idiot had taken the neural block off the girl. He heard a commotion from further inside the building that sounded like breaking glass. Half a dozen burley security guards ran through the lobby and disappeared around the next corner. Several seconds later, he could hear punches and heavy objects hitting the ground or walls. He moved back to where his drink rested on the low table and took a long swallow. He winced as one of the security guards went flying across the hallway, through the window and into the outside shrubbery.
Yup, she’d gotten loose. Somebody else’s problem now, though. He leaned up against a pillar to watch the rest of the show. Several more guards sprinted through the lobby and down the hall. He took another sip of his drink wondering what it would be like to have someone like that on his payroll. He winced again as the girl blindsided them just as the guards rounded the corner. Damn, she moved fast. Two were down in the blink of an eye and Lex raised his brows as she lifted the third, who must have weighed nearly one hundred thirty kilos, and tossed him through the window to follow the other. The girl tipped her head back and let out a primal scream completely at odds with her human form that raised the hackles on the back of his neck.
She stalked toward the now deserted lobby and exit. She glanced his way as she walked past and he controlled a shiver at the black film covering her eyes. He tipped his glass her direction as she walked out into the morning sun, pausing briefly at the top of the steps and then walked toward a waiting air car before speeding away. It wasn’t until she left that he realized he’d been holding his breath. He let it out and took a long pull from his drink, just as Dr. Gault staggered into view. Lex choked and nearly blew his drink out his nose.
The doctor looked like she’d just walked in from an all-night drinking binge. Her hair was down and a total mess, her make-up was smeared and running down her face, and her left eye was black and starting to swell shut. Her lab coat was hanging off one shoulder and she was limping, not from any apparent injury, but because one of the heels on her shoe was broken and dangling by a thread as she attempted to walk. She staggered drunkenly past and pushed through the lobby doors without a glance, swaying in the early morning light for several long minutes before turning and walking back inside. She stopped short when she saw him.
“I need your team. The girl escaped.” Her eyes seemed a little out of focus.
“I see that.” Lex smiled and took another sip of his drink.
“Get your team together.”
“I don’t think so.”
“What?” she asked in confusion and anger.
“My company has been red flagged, if you’ll remember, and even if it wasn’t, the answer would still be, no.” He set his drink down, gave her a short, two-fingered salute and walked out the door.
***
“Anything yet?” Dr. Gault stopped her pacing to look over the tech’s shoulder.
“Nothing yet, ma’am. Give it some time. The face recognition is going to take a little while to propagate planet-wide.” The tech was being patient, but having someone not technically your boss stand over your shoulder while you worked was irritating. But the boss had said give her access, so here she was. He glanced back at her, not for the first time wondering where the swollen black eye had come from. She would have been pretty otherwise. He wondered if she was single, but quickly decided it wouldn’t be worth it. “If we’re lucky, we may get some hits locally and can then work the trail from there.”
“I’m not paying you to get ‘lucky’, I’m paying you for results,” she growled and began pacing the room again.
Definitely not worth it, the tech thought to himself. This was going to be a long day, which he sincerely hoped wouldn’t turn into a long week. If she stood over his shoulder the whole time, not only would she wear a hole through the floor with her pacing, but he would likely be forced to jump out the window. Maybe he could sneak some alcohol in.
The tech sat up as he received an alert from his console. This was definitely a lucky hit. He typed quickly at his data screen as the doctor appeared beside him.
“You have something?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Where?” she asked impatiently.
“The Athena Fleet Command building.” He jumped at her reaction.
“What!?”
“Ma’am? Why would your test subject be there? I thought you said she was on the run?”
“Why, indeed.” Her face set into an angry mask and she began walking toward the door.
“Do we call the retrieval team?” he asked as she reached the door.
“No. I’ll handle this myself.” She stalked out the door and he admired the view as she went. Nope, not worth the trouble, he thought as he returned to his work.
***
“Where is she, Jason?” Dr. Gault asked without preamble. She wasn’t surprised by the call.
“What, no hello? That’s not very polite, Lizzy.”
She flashed her visitor’s badge as she walked through security.
“Where’s my test subject?”
“Maybe if you said ‘please,’ or how about this, maybe if you can remember her name.” His voice was calm and controlled, as always, but she detected a note of contempt mixed in as well. She found herself moving toward blinding red fury as she walked. He had better be ready to move when she found him because anything not nailed down would be flying at his head.
“Don’t mess with me, Jason! So help me, I will bury you!” She ignored the stares she drew as she stalked through the halls.
“Calm down, Lizzy.”
“Stop calling me that! And I will not calm down until I have my test subject back! You took her from me and you will give her back.”
“I did nothing of the sort. My marines found her walking the streets and simply picked her up and brought her to me until it could be determined what should be done with her.”
“What needs to be done with her is to have her transported back to my facility where she belongs.”
“I don’t think that’s for you to decide any longer.”
“What?!” She was approaching the JAG offices where she’d last seen her ex and cast around in hopes of seeing him.
“Why don’t we discuss it? Does right now work for you?”
“Absolutely. You wearing your helmet?”
“I don’t think there will be any need for that,” he replied with infuriating calm. “Take the next door on your left. Conference room number 2005.”
The line went dead as Dr. Gault burst through the door. She stopped short and looked around at the small gathering.
“Ah, Lizzy. Thanks for joining us.” Her ex stood and greeted her while the rest of the people in the room turned.
“Would you please take a seat so we can get started?” He indicated a chair at the end of the large, conference room table.
Dr. Gault moved suspiciously toward the offered chair. This wasn’t any type of court proceeding. There was no one of high enough rank for that, but there were several junior officers whom she vaguely recognized. If they didn’t have ‘admiral’ in their title, she didn’t bother with the name. She had a number of admirals in her back pocket, though, and she was sure that trumped whatever was on display here. Dr. Gault sat as she arranged the chess pieces on the board inside her head. She could deal with this, whatever it was. She was, after all, the smartest person in the room.
“Jason, would you mind telling me what you’re up to?” She looked around the room and noted several civilians, whom she didn’t recognize, several of her ex’s marines and, as the captain sat back, her test subject.
The girl locked eyes with her and Dr. Gault could swear her hair shifted of its own accord. Her stare showed no fear, but rather a predatory alertness that was distinctly uncomfortable. The girl’s lip curled into a snarl, but she made no other show of aggression as the female marine sitting next to her lightly placed a hand on her forearm. She noted the marine’s smirk as she glanced at the doctor’s swollen black eye.
“I’m doing exactly what I said I’d do, Lizzy. We are here to determine the placement of this young girl. Rayne, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“Maybe you’d like to make the introductions, since I’m not familiar with everyone in the room.”
“Certainly. I believe you’ve already met Rayne.” Did she detect a hint of humor in his voice? She certainly couldn’t miss the smirks from the marines in the room. The girl didn’t react, but kept her predatory gaze locked in place. “To my right is Capital City’s Deputy Attorney responsible for the Child Services Division, Nancy Atwater. To my left is my personal attorney whom I think you’ll remember, Ms. Kuvinka.”
Dr. Gault frowned. What possible reason could he have for bringing his personal attorney here? For that matter, why was an attorney from the Child Services Division here? It didn’t make sense and she was having trouble placing them on the board.