Page 5 (1/2)

When Deucalion found nothing useful in the drawers of Victor’s workstation, he switched on the computer

CHAPTER 11

RIPLEY, IN THE MONITORING HUB, was also in a dile and smart as he was, he couldn’t survive a battle with the Werner thing Patrick Duchaine, also an Alpha, had been overpowered and torn to pieces in Isolation Room Number Two

Certain beyond doubt that he would be killed in a confrontation with this creature, he h not because he wanted to live The unfocused anxiety that every day tor hours--as well as the fact that he was in essence a slave to his maker--made life less of a joy than it was portrayed in the warm and cozy novels of Jan Karon, which Ripley sometih he would have been relieved to die, he ainst suicide, genetically wired into his brain, restrained hi battle with an adversary that inevitably would destroy hirotesquerie conjured words out of an insectilespeech--"I alanced at the control console and quickly tapped titches that would cycle open the outer doors to Isolation Rooms One and Three, which at theword, he at once ad word and evidence of a rebellious attitude Subjects was a more accurate word Rooms One and Three held no subjects for observation

"Free Werner Werner free, free"

When the servoears to click, the Werner thing looked toward the source of the sounds and cocked its grisly head, as if considering why Ripley had taken this action

Having seen the lethal quickness hich Free Werner sprang upon Duchaine, faster than a snake could strike, Ripley struggled to think of a way to buy time, to distract the mutated security chief The only hope seeue

"Quite a day, huh?"

Free Werner continued to stare toward the huain, "Vincent said to me, ‘A day in the Hands of Mercy can be like a year with your testicles in a vise and not allowed to turn off the pain’"

The palpi around the insectilesound of the four dozen three-inch-thick lock bolts retracting from the architraves

"Of course," said Ripley, "I had to report hi upside down in a re-education box with a catheter in his penis, a collection hose up his rectum, and two holes in his skull to allow the insertion of brain probes"

Finally, as the bolts finished retracting and the two vault doors on the transitionopen, Free Werner turned his attention once more to Ripley

"Of course, as primary lab assistant to the Beekeeper … that is, to Mr Helios, there’s no place I’d rather be than in the Hands of Mercy This is the birth-place of the future, where the Million-Year Reich has begun"

As he spoke, Ripley casually reached toward the control console, intending to tap titches and cycle shut the doors that had just opened If he could slip into one of the transition modules just as the door closed, before Free Werner could follow, he ht be safe

When he had been security chief, Werner had kno to operate the console But the genetic chaos that the Beekeeper referred to as catastrophic cellular ht have scraht havoc with his body His cognitive power or his ht be so diminished that he would not kno to open the vault door and get at his prey

In that gargly, hissing voice, Free Werner said, "Don’t touch the switches"

CHAPTER 12

HAVING NARROWLY ESCAPED death-by-Mercedes on the rain-slickened streets of a city soon to be under assault by Victor Frankenstein’s berserk killing machines, Carson O’Connor wanted an Acadiana fried-redfish poor boy

Acadiana didn’t advertise You couldn’t see it from the street Locals didn’t tell tourists about it For fear too much success would ruin the place, locals didn’t tell other locals about it all that often If you found Acadiana, it ht kind of soul to eat there

"We already had dinner," Michael reminded her

"So you’re on death row, you eat your last meal, after dessert you’ll be electrocuted, but they ask if you want to delay execution long enough to have a second last onna say no?"

"I don’t think dinner was our last meal"

"I think it could have been"

"It could have been," he admitted, "but probably not Besides, Deucalion told us just to cruise the neighborhood until he called"

"I’ll have the cell phone withlot You couldn’t park on the street near it, because it was approached by an alleyway The only diners who dared to leave their vehicles in the alleyere cops

"With this car, we’ll have to park a block away," Michael said "And what if we get back, and so to steal this spavined heap"

"The Helios e, Carson"

"The Frankenstein eup, and we have to be ready toI can’t sleep, but I can get a po’ boy Look at irl for protein deficiency" She turned off the street into a backway "I’ll park in the alley"

"If you park in the alley, I’ll have to stay with the car"

"Okay, stay with the car, we’ll eat in the car, we’ll get married someday in the car, we’ll live in the car with four kids, and when the last one goes off to college, we’ll finally get rid of the daht"

"I’e" She set the hand brake and switched to the parking lights, but didn’t kill the engine "And I’ on the floor, were a pair of Urban Sniper shotguns with fourteen-inch barrels

Nevertheless, he drew a pistol from a side scabbard under his sport coat This was not his service pistol, which he carried in a shoulder holster This was a Desert Eagle Magnues, which could stop a grizzly bear if one happened to be wandering around New Orleans in a foulher right hand under her jacket, cross-body, on the butt of her Desert Eagle, which she carried on her left hip

All of these weapons were illegally obtained, but Victor Helios posed an extraordinary threat to her and her partner Better that their badges should be pulled than that their heads should be torn off by the soulless minions of a mad scientist

Never before in her police career had the words soulless h in the past few days, h the rain, around the front of the car, to a door under a lighted sign that said 22 PARISHES

The chef-owner of Acadianaa low profile There were twenty-two parishes--counties--in that area of Louisiana known as Acadiana If you didn’t know this, the cryptic sign ious organization

Behind the door were stairs, and at the top lay the restaurant: a ooden floor, red-vinyl booths, tables draped with red-and-black-checkered oilcloth, candles in red votive glasses, recorded zydecothe diners, the air rich with aromas that made Carson’s mouth water

At this hour, the custo by a clock different fro after having tucked their spent johns in bed for the night, insomniacs, and some lonely souls whose closest friends aitresses and busboys and other lonely souls who on a regular basis took their post- these disparate people seeht one day be saved fro