And without hesitation, Tom entered, first noticing the strong smell of antiseptic. It reminded him of a hospital.
Violent flashes of memory froze him in place, images that he couldn’t quite grasp entering his mind. Inexplicably, his mouth was filled with the taste of rubber as he painfully began to remember.
The room was designed in a circular fashion, as what could only have been a control center—computers, monitors, and machines right out of a science-fiction movie, all surrounding eight beds.
Tom bypassed the technology, moving beyond it to go directly to the beds. They seemed to call to him as he moved closer to investigate. Leather straps dangled from the sides of the empty beds, and suddenly he could feel them—a phantom memory—as the straps were pulled tight around his own wrists and ankles.
Tom’s heartbeat quickened as he experienced the panic all over again—the taste of rubber in his mouth. He felt the prick of a needle in his arm as he struggled against the restraints.
This will help you sleep, he heard an echoing voice from the past say. But he didn’t want to sleep; he wanted to know what they were going to do to him. His entire body had gone numb and they were putting things … putting wires inside his head.
In a trancelike state Tom touched his head, feeling beneath his sandy blond hair, feeling the slight bumps of scar tissue from the procedure on his scalp.
He remembered the faces of the medical staff standing over him, preparing him for …
Preparing me for what?
He didn’t want to go to sleep—he’d learned to hate sleep, to fear it because of his illness—and fought futilely against the drugs that they had injected him with. And as he lost the battle against staying conscious, his panicked gaze fell on one face in particular—one face standing out in the crowd of men and women dressed in crisp white lab coats.
We’re going to help you, the man had said, a friendly smile on his face. We’re going to make you … special.
He hadn’t known this man before, but he knew him now, having seen his face only moments ago.
Kavanagh.
A hand dropped down onto his shoulder, and he turned with a gasp to face Victoria.
“Are you all right?” she asked, giving his arm a gentle squeeze. Tom winced, still hurting from Wells’s bullet earlier, but he didn’t pull away, finding comfort in her touch.
He turned his head slightly to look at the empty beds. “What is this place?” he asked. “I can remember pieces, but I don’t—”
“This is where they performed the procedure,” she started to explain, all the while holding on to his arm, as if attempting to provide him with some of her strength. “Where the other identities were created.”
Tom reached out to touch one of the pillows, the impression left by a head still evident. “I … I remember being here,” he said with a mixture of realization and horror.
Victoria stood beside him. “I’m no scientist, but I believe they placed the subjects in a comalike state and then used a process to download information directly into their brains.”
“How … how long were they … was I…?” he asked, unable to take his eyes from the now-empty beds.
“I really don’t know,” Victoria answered. “Weeks … could have been months. The personality that would be the sleeper was implanted first, along with all the information and skills that would be required for him or her to perform special functions once activated. The other persona was given false memories, complex histories of lives never actually led.”
He saw that she was staring as intently at the eight beds as he had. She seemed suddenly troubled, looking at to the floor.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
She reached down to the floor, picking up something and holding it up for him to see. It was one of the rubber mouth guards used to prevent the sleepers from biting their tongues while going through the implantation process. “It’s … wet,” she said.
Tom laid his hand on the bed.
“It’s still warm,” Tom said, his senses immediately becoming alert as he looked around the room. He imagined that the others would be warm as well.
“Where are they?” She asked the question before he could. “Where have the sleepers gone?”
And that was when they heard it. From somewhere in a darkened corner something made a noise to let them know that they weren’t alone.
Victoria raised her gun.
The first of the sleepers emerged from its hiding place, a child no more than ten years old dressed in powder blue hospital scrubs. It slowly stalked toward them, nothing even vaguely human registering in its eyes.
It’s like looking into the eyes of a wild animal, Tom thought.
The others emerged, as if following the first’s lead. There were seven in total, all dressed in a similar fashion, seeming to be around the same age. Probably the age he had been when awakened from the medically induced coma and placed in his handler’s care.
The children with murder in their eyes approached them, and he turned to tell his mother to go—to leave and continue the search for Kavanagh while he stayed here and tried to find a way to save these kids from themselves. But he was startled to see that she was already on the way to the doors.
Tom was about to call out to her, unsure of how to react to the fact that she was leaving his side unprompted. The pneumatic doors parted, and Victoria Lovett left the chamber without turning around.
Did she betray me again? Tom wondered. Abandon me to my fate?
But that was a worry for another time, he told himself, turning his full attention back to the advancing sleepers.
Just as the first attacked.
Victoria moved away from the lab, heading off in search of Brandon Kavanagh.
She hated to leave Tom, she really did, but ultimately what she had to take care of was more important than sticking by his side for a battle she knew he could easily handle.
As she walked the cold concrete corridor, her mind wandered, and she recalled the first time she had met him. She had just completed a job acquiring the latest in microprocessor technology from a leading Japanese technology firm and selling it to their biggest rival. She’d made quite the killing and was thinking of slowing down, for at least as long as her bank balance would allow, when one of her brokers—the individuals who often found her jobs—arranged a meeting with the head of Janus.
And the rest was history.
The corridor suddenly became dark, and she noticed that the lights on the walls had been smashed. Alarm bells sounded in her head, but still she went on, driven by an overpowering sense of responsibility.
She’d had more than one meeting with the mysterious man, knowing at the time that he was part of a government agency specializing in the development and the international policing of high-risk technology. Victoria had found what he had to say fascinating and had been slowly drawn into his web.
The door to the office ahead was slightly ajar, a warm yellow light spilling out into the darkened hallway. She brought up her gun and, making sure that the safety was off, pushed open the door with her other hand, entering the room. It seemed to be empty, though his computer was still on and appeared to be performing some function.
Her curiosity took her around his desk to see what the computer was doing. She didn’t even hear him come up from behind.
He was sneaky like that.
“Well, look who it is,” she heard him say, and she quickly turned to face him. “I would have been here to greet you, but I was down the hall in the observation room, checking out what’s going on in the lab. Seven against one; it just doesn’t seem all that fair.”
Victoria slid her gun into the waist of her pants and stepped toward him. “Didn’t think I’d see you again after the last assignment you sent me on,” she said, smiling seductively.
“Didn’t go quite as planned, did it?” Kavanagh asked.
She shook her head. “Let’s just say I needed to be at the top of my game to get here today.”
/> “More so than usual?” he questioned, moving around her to get to the computer. “You are full of surprises, Victoria Lovett.”
She shrugged, acknowledging his observation. “We’d better get going,” she said, glancing at the watch on her wrist. “Pandora agents will be swarming in here in a matter of minutes. And I don’t think we want to be here when they do.”
Chapter 21
TOM DIDN’T WANT to hurt them, but the same couldn’t be said of his attackers’ attitudes toward him.
They were like wild dogs, the strongest of the pack attacking first while the others stayed back, watching with eager eyes.
The leader pounced, and Tom met the attack, placing his hands beneath the boy’s arms and throwing him to one side. The boy landed catlike, bare feet slapping on the linoleum floor, crouched and ready to attack again.
Not giving him the chance, Tom went at him, putting the pack leader on the defensive. The first blow struck the boy in the face, knocking him to the floor. He quickly recovered, shaking off the effects of the blow and springing up with what could only be considered a growl on his lips.
The sleepers had no real technique, implying that they had not completed their training—that the download of information into their brains had been interrupted, making them less dangerous than they would have been otherwise. A good sign, meaning that Tom hopefully wouldn’t have to fight them too long before he could subdue them enough to break them out of this place.
The leader lunged, a bestial ferocity burning in his eyes. No personality had yet been imprinted on the brains of these sleepers; raw, primal instinct was driving their actions along with what was likely Kavanagh’s final command, downloaded into their brains, driving them into a killing frenzy as they were awakened.
Eliminate the intruder.
But he wasn’t about to give them the chance.
The leader needed to be taken down first; quickly, efficiently, as an example to break the others’ morale and to lower their confidence. Tom let him come in close, allowing him to land a few strikes—even draw blood.
The sight of blood seemed to excite the leader, making his actions more erratic—more unfocused. Tom saw that as his opportunity, bouncing back away from the boy and snapping out with his leg, his foot connecting with the leader’s chest and sending him flying backward into the lab. Bouncing off a wall of storage lockers, the leader attempted to rise and then slumped to the floor, unmoving.
Tom turned to the others. They were looking back at him with cautious eyes, sizing him up.
Tom decided to help them out, running at them, attacking with a bloodcurdling scream. They were unprepared, almost on the verge of panic.
They attacked savagely, but he had them right where he wanted them, using their confusion to his advantage. They fought hard, kicking and throwing wild punches that could have killed Tom if they’d connected, but he wasn’t about to let them succeed. He would not allow them to perform the function for which they had been created.
He would not allow them to become killers.
One by one he brought them down.
His body covered in blood and sweat, Tom found himself standing among the unconscious, only a single boy and girl of the sleeper pack remaining. The pair tensed, eyeing him, waiting for him to attack, but he held back.
“It doesn’t have to be like this,” he said in his calmest voice. “I don’t want to fight anymore.” He opened his scuffed and bloodied fists, extending his hands. “I want to help; do you understand?”
There was something in their expressions, some sign that deep down they were attempting to overpower the animalistic rage that had overtaken them on being roused from their artificial sleep.
“Please,” he said, and started toward them.
The boy and girl watched him nervously. They were holding each other, their eyes roaming about the laboratory, their bodies trembling with fear.
“That’s it,” he said calmly, reaching out a reassuring hand. “I want to—”
The doors to the lab crashed violently open. Pandora soldiers swarmed into the room like locusts, weapons drawn.
“No!” Tom screamed, jumping in front of the young boy and girl, shielding them from harm.
The soldiers aimed their guns, squinting down the barrels of black metal weaponry as Christian Tremain strode into the room, Agent Abernathy loyally at his side.
“Stand down!” Tremain ordered, and the soldiers grudgingly obeyed.
The director looked around, a snarl forming on his face. “What the hell is this place?” he asked.
Tom wrapped his arms around the shivering pair. There was a moment’s hesitation—their muscles stiffened, ready to attack—but as if sensing he meant them no harm, they allowed him to pull their trembling bodies against his.
“This is where I was born,” he said, the enormity of the words hitting him with the force of a tidal wave. And he held the shivering children tighter, making a promise to himself that he would never allow something like this to happen again.
“That’s that,” Kavanagh said, and Victoria watched as he removed a disk from the computer tray, placing it carefully into a plastic case and then into his briefcase. “Let’s go.” He motioned her toward the door.
They walked side by side down a hallway toward a section of corridor that appeared to end abruptly with a concrete wall. She was about to say something wise, a crack about his sense of direction, when the wall slid aside at his approach.
He glanced briefly over his shoulder, a sly grin on his face.
“Coming?” he asked her, stepping through the entrance.
There was a metal staircase on the other side, leading down into what looked like some kind of private subway station. There was a sleek, bullet-shaped car on the track, waiting to take them both to freedom.
“Fancy,” she said, eyeing the vehicle.
“Isn’t it, though?” he commented. “It connects all the other installations in my network,” he explained. “It’s a maglev system: powerful magnets lift the carriage off the rails and propel it at about three hundred miles an hour.”
His eyes twinkled at her as he spoke. “I’ve always hoped I’d get to use it.”
He approached the craft, sliding an entrance hatch open to reveal a cockpit of sorts and fourseats behind it. He tossed his briefcase inside.
“I hate to break it to you, but you’re not,” she said, pulling her gun and leveling the weapon at him. “Step back from the train,” she instructed.
Kavanagh chuckled. “You can’t be serious,” he said.
And suddenly at that moment Victoria hated him more than she’d ever hated anyone. She hated him for all the obvious reasons, of course—the cruelty to which he had subjected the boy she perceived as her son being the most prominent—but she hated him most right then because he still believed, after everything she had been through, that she had remained loyal to him.
That I’m still one of the bad guys.
“You’re working for them now?” he asked in disbelief. “How much are they paying? I’ll double it.”
Victoria shook her head. “Never thought I’d say the words, but it’s not about the money anymore.”
“Dear God, have you grown a conscience?” Kavanagh asked, feigning shock. “I know a few doctors who could remove that for you…”
“Shut up, Brandon,” she said, jabbing the gun toward him. “All the misery you’re responsible for—what you’ve done to those poor kids—it’s done. I’m done.”
“ ‘Those poor kids,’ ” he repeated, his eyes never leaving hers. “Or is it one kid in particular, Vicky?”
She said nothing, but he could read her—read her body language.
He chuckled and shook his head. “I’ve created a monster.”
“Enough,” she snapped. “Raise your hands and—”
Somewhere within the installation something exploded. It was a powerful, roaring sound in the distance, but it shook the very platform beneath her feet, causing her to mome
ntarily lose her balance.
And then Kavanagh was upon her.
Tom was drawn to the sound of their voices.
He’d checked out Kavanagh’s office and, finding it empty, had been ready to start his search for the founder of the Janus Project, to tear the place to the ground to find him—as well as Victoria Lovett.
Victoria. Tom clenched his jaw, struggling to make sense of all the jumbled ideas and feelings her name alone brought up in him.
He thought about what Madison had told him soon after he regained consciousness aboard the transport plane. He’d awoken to find Madison right there beside him, holding his hand, and he’d squeezed back so tightly he was worried he’d hurt her. But Madison didn’t let go, just smiled down at him, her eyes so warm and gentle. “I knew you’d come back to me, Tom,” she’d said, and in that moment he understood that what they’d been through together had changed her as much as it had changed him—and had created an unbreakable connection between them.
Then Madison had asked Tom about Victoria, if it was possible for him to forgive her. He had been sure of his answer, positive that he would never allow himself to. Victoria Lovett was nothing but a lie.
But Madison had said maybe that wasn’t totally true. She told him that after his capture at the Crypt, it had been Victoria who had sat with him, holding his hand, just as Madison was doing then.
Victoria had been acting just like a real mother.
Tom gave his head a shake, trying to clear out the confusion and focus. There would be time to deal with all of this later, when Kavanagh’s plans were stopped and he was finally in Pandora custody or dead.
Standing in the doorway, preparing to head back in the direction he had come, he thought he heard the sound of voices coming from the end of a corridor that at first glance seemed to be a dead end. He moved carefully toward the darkened section of hallway and found the entrance into the chamber beyond.
Stepping through onto the metal staircase, Tom took in the sight of the underground transport station as well as Victoria holding Kavanagh at gunpoint.