The Moreau Quartet, Volume 2

  She backed away from the window, toward the door. She had no idea what to do. What if they were on the base? What if they were Fed?

  The gaggle of academics preceded her out into the landing area. According to what she understood about the procedure, a bus would show up, take them to an office out on the base for the final bureaucratic processing before they got sent back to MIT or whatever. The group clustered by the edge of the landing field, waiting for the transport. Most of the uniformed people were back by the Sikorsky. Angel’s group rated one plainclothes Fedboy who stood out on the road and looked at his watch a lot.

  “The transport will be here in a few moments, gentlemen.” He didn’t look at them as he said it. However, the smell of his irritation slipped to Angel. She didn’t mind the delay. She needed time to think.

  She turned in a slow circle, looking at the airfield. Her view passed prefab buildings and helicopters, the ocean and the Golden Gate, and white fog hugging the bay beyond the body of the army base. She thought of making a run for it right then. But there was nothing around the airfield except muddy hillocks and earth-moving vehicles for maybe half a klick in every direction but one—and in that direction was the parking lot where the BMW was. The army boys would catch up with her somewhere out in the mud, and then she’d have to do a lot of explaining.

  If the moreaus were Fed, or if the Fed was after her at all, it was obvious that the bureaucracy around Alcatraz and the aliens weren’t in on it—yet. There might not be some general alert on her, but all it would take was one bright yahoo on the comm to DC and she’d be in deep shit.

  “Don’t kid yourself,” she muttered, “you’re in deep shit right now.”

  “The bus is coming,” said the Fedboy, looking at his watch one last time and stepping out of the road.

  Angel watched the bus approach. No, she wouldn’t bolt and attract attention to herself. She’d go through the bureaucratic red tape at the office, then she’d disappear. She could jump out a bathroom window or something and make it to the edge of the base on foot. Leave her car in the lot, she could call a cab when she was out on the street.

  The bus—a chartered Greyhound that was way too big for the number of people—pulled to a stop in front of the collection of academics. The doors slid open and Fedboy stepped in, waving the bunch into the back. As was the case on the copter, she was the last on board.

  She was primed for something to go bad, so when she took one step into the bus she picked up the smell immediately.

  “Oh, shit!” She turned to bolt out of the bus, and slammed into the already closing door.

  Fedboy took a step toward her. “What?”

  She turned back into the bus. The smell was like a dagger into her sinuses. She wanted to yell at the pink; how could he miss it? How could anyone miss it? The driver was on the verge of a panic attack, and over that was animal musk—canine and feline. The heavy smell of an animal on the verge of a kill.

  As she turned, she saw a well-concealed arm emerge from the luggage rack above the seat directly behind Fedboy.

  “Behind you!” she yelled at him. Too late.

  Be the time Fedboy had turned around, the whole creature had vaulted from the luggage rack behind him. He was a canine—no, lupine—moreau, the most savage looking one Angel had ever seen. Lupus stood a full head taller than Fedboy, the top of his head brushing the roof of the bus.

  Fedboy reached for his gun.

  Lupus backhanded him.

  Angel heard the crack as Fedboy’s head did a quick 120 degree turn. Blood spattered the window on the far side of the bus from a massive wound on the side of Fedboy’s face. He stumbled to his knees in front of Lupus. The wolf raised its arm and brought it straight down on Fedboy’s skull.

  Fedboy slammed into the aisle between the seats, made one spastic jerk, and was still.

  His gun had never left the holster.

  Human reaction times were much too slow to deal with a combat-trained moreau. The dozen academics were just beginning to realize something was wrong when Fedboy nose-dived into the rubber anti-skid tracking lining the aisle in the bus. As they turned to see a two-meter-plus wolf snarling over the carcass of the late Fed babysitter, two more moreys popped out from behind seats in the rear of the bus. Angel could barely see them from her vantage point on the steps by the door, but she heard the weapons cock.

  From the back she could hear a familiar feline voice. “No one moves, no one breathes, no one says a goddamned thing.”

  The same cat that’d hijacked her BMW.

  She looked up at the driver, and she took in all the things Fedboy had missed—the sweat, the overpowering smell of human fear, and the cat. As Lupus growled over Fedboy’s corpse, a feline moreau uncurled herself from around the base of the driver’s seat.

  The feline’s motion was silent, fluid. She arose out of a space much too small for her, as if she was something insubstantial. Angel saw the driver shaking as the spectral cat slipped out from underneath him. “Drive,” she said.

  There was a sickening lurch as the bus jerked forward.

  Angel started to get up from her sprawled position by the door. The cat saw her. Angel suddenly found herself looking down the barrel of an automatic pistol. The cat was shaking her head. “You, of all people, should know better than to move.”

  The cat almost purred as she said it. Her tail did a slow oscillation as if it didn’t make any difference to her if she had to vent the rabbit.

  Angel sank back, with her back to the door. “You don’t expect to get off the base, do you?”

  Noises were coming from the rear of the bus, but she couldn’t see that section anymore. Lupus had walked out of her line of sight, and it sounded like he was shoving people into the seats.

  The female cat—for the life of her, Angel couldn’t place the species—kept the gun trained on her and one clawed hand by the driver’s neck. “In half a minute this bus will be very low on the priority list.”

  There was the sound of a distant roar, like thunder. Then a rattling sound like multiple gunshots and the sound of a cannon firing. The slice of blue Angel could see out the windows became smudged with black.

  Sirens began sounding in the distance.

  “What the hell—”

  The cat produced a rather convincing smile. “The base is under attack, what else?”

  The edge of a sign passed in front of one of the windows—they were heading for the Golden Gate bridge.

  “Who are you people? What are you people?”

  “Patriots, Lopez. That’s who we are.”

  It felt like the bus was accelerating. Angel wished she could see where they were going.

  “If you knew the full story, Lopez, you’d come with us willingly.”

  Fucking-a right she would. Go on, Angel thought, tell me another one. “While you’re scragging people left and right? Yeah, real willing.”

  Faster than she thought possible, the cat had crouched over and jammed the pistol under her jaw. “Shut. Up.” The cat spat the words.

  God damn it, what was she? Angel stared into those leonine eyes and tried to think what country had produced this.

  “Shut up and listen,” the cat said in a purring whisper. “Unlike you, we never stopped serving the country that birthed us. And you’re going to help us save it.”

  Angel stared into the feline’s eyes and began to make the connection. “UABT,” she whispered.

  United American Bio-Technologies was the company the government seized for violating the constitutional ban on macro gene-engineering. The Fed wasn’t supposed to be involved in the kind of experiments that produced moreaus. Engineering, especially on sentients, was very very illegal in the United States.

  But the cougar eyes Angel was looking at right now, as well as the Canis Lupus that had scragged the Fedboy were both very very American. These moreys
were Fed. And whatever project had produced them was very black indeed.

  The cat seemed pleased with Angel’s realization. “All we want is the information. Tell us where it is and this will all be over.”

  What the fuck could she do? She was backed into a corner, gun at her throat, back to the . . .

  Angel shrank into the stairwell, wedging herself in as small a space as possible. Her feet were flat against the front of the first step. If it wasn’t for that damn gun in her neck. “Don’t be a fool like that vulpine bastard. Tell us.”

  Angel glanced up at the driver. He was sweating, and he kept glancing down toward the two of them. The bus was slowing and she could smell the fear building in the man.

  Then Angel saw her briefcase, where she’d dropped it. It was by the feet of the dead Fedboy. “The briefcase, in the briefcase.”

  If the cougar would just stand up and get the case.

  No such luck. She didn’t even take her eyes off Angel as she called, “Ironwalker!”

  Lupus came back into Angel’s line of sight, stepped over the corpse of Fedboy, and picked up the briefcase. Oh, well, Angel thought, it had been a good try.

  The brakes hissed and the bus slowed to a stop.

  The cougar stood bolt upright, turned, and leveled the gun on the driver. “Why are we stopped?”

  Angel didn’t need more of an excuse. She pushed as hard as she could with her legs, and the door gave behind her.

  Chapter 26

  The door opened more easily than Angel had expected it to. The kick that forced open the door of the bus shot her out over the neighboring lane. As she was in the air in the middle of the lane, she heard the screech of brakes and the sound of a deep-throated truck horn as the biggest cargo hauler Angel had ever seen bore down on her.

  Cougar, back in the bus, fired in her direction. Angel could barely hear the shots over the sound of the truck closing on her. The bus door swung shut again and its window exploded outward with Cougar’s gunfire.

  Adrenaline shot a spike into her skull and the pulse rushing in her ears competed with the truck horn in volume. She spent an eternity hovering over the asphalt, and she was afraid that the truck’s sloping chrome bumper was going to splat her before she even touched the ground.

  Even as the thought crossed her mind, her shoulder slammed into the concrete. She pumped with her legs and rolled. The truck was so close she could smell the grease on the transformers. She rolled out of the way as fast as she could, not looking at the truck. She didn’t want to know how close it was.

  She felt a breeze, smelled melting rubber, and heard the scream of a half-dozen locked disc brakes right next to her. She didn’t have to open her eyes to feel the mass of the truck’s cab shooting by her. She rolled once more, away from the truck, and made it to her feet.

  Angel finally saw where she was when she got to her feet and began running.

  She was bolting along the breakdown lane of the Golden Gate Bridge Freeway, maybe a hundred meters from the toll booths. Between her and the bus were three trailers’ worth of Biosphere Products’ algae derivatives. The tankers had come to a halt next to her, giving her some cover.

  The sound of more gunfire behind her encouraged Angel to run even faster.

  Fight-or-flight had kicked in big-time. Every cell in her body was screaming for her to get out of there. Her breath felt like a blast furnace in her throat. The world seemed cloaked in a bloody haze, but her senses seemed to be honed to a monomolecular edge.

  Her body ran on autopilot while her conscious mind grappled with how she was supposed to get out of this. Where the hell could she go? In a few seconds one of those moreaus was going to round the end of this algae tanker.

  Not even one second.

  Angel heard Cougar pounce out behind her before the cat started shooting. Angel dived between the two trailing tankers as the machine pistol started barking. The shots missed her, but a few of them punched into the tanker she hid behind. There was a gurgling sound, and a sour vegetable odor began to permeate the area. Below the joint she was straddling, a pool of blackish-green ooze began to spread.

  She only had a few seconds before the cat was on her. Angel bolted up the ladder to the top of the tanker.

  She pulled herself on top of the tanker just in time to avoid another round of fire in her direction. There was the sound of more bullets clunking home and an even thicker algae smell this time. The adrenaline spike in her head rang with a supersonic thrum. The taste of copper in her mouth throbbed in time to her pulse. Her nose was on fire from her own breath.

  She reached the opposite end of the tanker in two jumps, vaulting three hatches.

  The shots were getting closer, and they were coming from more than one direction now. Below her, the tanker was bleeding algae like an alien behemoth.

  At the end of the tanker she had a split-second decision to make. Behind her, Cougar was following her up, and she saw Lupus heading for the side of the first tanker. Instead of jumping to the next tanker and trapping herself, she jumped across—

  To the roof of the bus.

  In the air, she was already trying to think of where to go from there.

  She landed on the bus, and the moreys inside started shooting. Gunfire began slicing through the roof toward her. She ran down the length of the bus, bullet holes erupting in her path. She reached the front of the bus and leaped, blind, into the next lane.

  She landed, badly, on a slow-moving Dodge Electroline van. She had to grab an antenna to keep from rolling off the front, especially when the remote-driven program laid on the brakes.

  Angel could see the toll area now. It was obvious that the folks down there knew something was up. Northbound traffic had all but ceased, and she could see a patrol car, flashers going, rolling down the breakdown lane toward them.

  She had sat still too long. A bullet planted itself into the van’s roof perilously close to her head. The Electroline began rhythmically sounding its horn as its antitheft alarm went off. It sounded like a wounded animal.

  She leapfrogged two stationary cars until she had reached the median. Southbound traffic was still moving. She sat as long as she dared, and then she jumped across the median toward a mid-sized automated delivery truck. The truck was a moving target, and she needed to avoid the collision sensors in the front and the rear.

  She misjudged the height and hit the side of the trailer, broadside. She’d missed the collision detectors—the truck was still moving—but she barely had a grip on the top of the truck.

  Holes started blowing in the side of the trailer, all around her.

  Even when hyped up for combat, one of the lepus deficiencies was pitiful upper body strength. She pulled as hard as she could, but her arms weren’t strong enough to pull her up the sheer side of the trailer.

  Panic spread through her like a fever as more bullets slammed into the side of the trailer. She began kicking like mad, desperately searching for some purchase on the smooth side of the truck.

  Her right toe found something and she thrust herself up. Even as the jagged edge sliced into her foot, she knew that she had found a large bullet hole.

  The push landed her half on the top of the thing, her ass hanging out over the side. She had to scramble like mad to get a foothold before her grip slipped. Her feet slid around in a smear of blood before she anchored herself on top of the trailer.

  Even as she fought like mad to avoid becoming street-pizza, she had the satisfaction of seeing the two moreys on top of the tanker beat a retreat from the advancing patrol car.

  She managed to hang on until it made the off-ramp.

  • • •

  When it came right down to it, the way things were going, she should have expected the scene that greeted her. The autocab wove its way through Chinatown but never made it to the address she gave it because Post Street was roadblocked above Grant. br />
  Cops were out in force, as were at least twice as many unmarked sedans. Suited men in sunglasses spoke into small radios and sported stubby—but nasty-looking—automatic weapons. Two utility vans were parked behind this forest of lawful authority, right in front of that post-modern chromed-Asian monstrosity that Kaji Tetsami called home.

  The cab idled and waited for her to punch in an alternate destination.

  She stood on the seat and watched Mr. K’s quasi-legal organization collapse. She watched it for close to ten minutes. It was overwhelming. Suited agents came and went from the building. A few remained stationed next to the utility people. Some sort of argument was going on over there. One of the utility people was gesturing violently, waving a clipboard computer for emphasis.

  The other utility people got out the sawhorses and the little flashing yellow lights and sectioned off an area in the middle of the intersection of Post and Kearny. When they got out the jackhammer, Angel could figure out what they were doing and decided she didn’t want to see any more.

  She told the autocab to take her to the nearest available hotel. Since this was San Francisco, that only took half a minute. Most of that was the cab backing and turning around the mini traffic jam the roadblocks had caused.

  Not caring much about carrying cash, or computer records, or much of anything else, she stopped at a bank kiosk and downloaded two grand of Byron’s money. The desk at the Chancellor was run by a human, not a computer, and the man had enough reserve not to blink much when she demanded to pay cash for one room for one night. It didn’t really matter much to Angel that the hotel was going to have a hard time forgetting her. All the subterfuge was getting to be a little too much for her.

  When they handed her a stylus and requested she sign the electronic register, she signed it, “John Smith.”

  She got to the room, locked the door, and collapsed on the bed.

  “May you rot in Hell, Byron.”

  Mr. K, her only ally in this, had just gone under, leaving her very much alone.

  Angel stayed in bed a long time, staring at the ceiling and shaking. She was exhausted, but she was too keyed up to relax. She let her mind run around in circles. It was noon before she felt calm enough to do a few of the things she needed to do.