CHAPTER 88
“YOU’RE RIGHT and I’m not berating you for any decisions made in the field. Either one of you.” Siler and Wruck both relaxed a little. Would have reassured them more but my music changed to “Band on the Run” by Paul McCartney & Wings. I agreed—it was time to get our jailbreak running. And then some. “The Killer Octopus is a cloning ray, a brain devolution ray, and a death ray. Three in one, such a deal. Let’s go get it.”
“What is the plan?” Wruck asked, while Cliff explained how he was going to turn most of the people downstairs into dust piles and the team managed to keep him monologuing.
“Oh, sorry. Need you to shift into Ali Baba Gadhavi. You’re about to make a house call.”
Wruck changed. Normally he looked like an average, nice-looking American of Northern European descent. But right now, I was standing with a man of obvious Middle Eastern descent, kind of chubby, with a full beard, dressed almost exactly like Raheem, complete with a gingham kufiyah. Apparently the teddy bear look was in. However, this teddy bear had sharp claws and fangs, too. He wasn’t giving off an air of friendliness, either. He radiated cool authority. Good.
Pulled my goggles off and dropped them into my purse. Still had a lot of Poofs on Board. “Poofies, stay silent, avoid the nozzles, but Kitty and the others could use your help.” The Poofs sort of looked at me sleepily. Possibly there was help there, possibly not. Couldn’t take my purse with me, though—that would be a total giveaway. Took it off with great reluctance, took out as many clips as I could fit into the back pocket that didn’t have my phone, shoved some in my front pockets, and handed the purse to Siler. “Guard this and the Poofs, please and thank you. In between killing bad guys.”
“I loosened the restraints,” he said. “All five on the slabs can get free if no one notices.”
“You rock.” Put my gas mask on. I was unrecognizable with it on, unless you looked at my chest. So far, hadn’t seen any G-Company thugs who were easily spotted as girls.
“Hang on,” Siler said. He pulled his shirt off. Managed not to gape. Or stare at his chest. Much. Not that anyone could tell, in the gas mask. Had the realization again that I really worked with the hottest guys in the world. “Put this on, it’ll be loose and should hide, ah, that you’re a woman.”
Nodded, since there wasn’t a good way to whisper in the gas mask. Pulled on his shirt as suggested. Definitely baggy on me and therefore it was going to be good enough. Gave Wruck the “go” sign, which he got after the third time. Almost no one ever got my hand signals right off the bat for whatever reason. Had no time to be bitter, but made a mental note to put it onto my schedule.
Wruck and I headed down the stairs again. We weren’t going to have the element of surprise for long, but hopefully it would be long enough. Happily, Cliff was still monologuing, this time about how he could control the aliens.
“You see, I can alter how much or how little autonomy a clone has,” he said as we reached the bottom of the stairs. “The example clone had no autonomy, which was why it made the same ridiculous faces as Russell.” My music changed to “Summer Nights” from Grease. The one with the “tell me more, tell me more” chorus. Managed to control the Inner Hyena, but it took great effort.
“What about memories?” Adriana asked. “Does it share the same mind?”
“In a way,” Cliff said. “We lost the capability, thanks to all of you. However, while memory doesn’t go along with the package, ability does. Depending on the level of the clone, it can be as effective as the original. Or it can be a puppet. It depends on what we need.”
“Why do you even need DNA if you have that machine?” Christopher asked. Prayed Cliff wouldn’t share what he was doing. Or what he had been doing before Siler took care of the horrible business.
“Oh,” Cliff patted the Killer Octopus, “this is for fast work that doesn’t matter. To make really good clones, and to splice all of your DNA into those clones, we need a much slower and more effective process. But don’t feel left out—we’ll be taking more DNA from you, too.”
“Yeah,” LaRue said. “We lost what we had when you people destroyed our labs.”
Did my best not to consider the fact that the A-C genetics LaRue and the Reid clones had in them was Christopher’s. If we managed to pull this off, that DNA would never be replicated by anyone other than Christopher, ever again.
One of the Reids came running in from the other room. “They’re all dead!”
“What?” Cliff asked. “Who?”
“All the others! All of them!” He grabbed LaRue and dragged her into the other room.
She screamed like a banshee. Then they both ran back in. “Kill them all,” LaRue shrieked at Cliff. “Right now! They destroyed all the young ones, yours and mine!”
“Not all the good ones,” Cliff gasped, eyes bugging out.
“Every one, and all the clones of Casey you had hanging around, too,” the Reid clone confirmed, sounding angry and freaked out. “And the ones we were starting of him,” he sneered at Chuckie, who went pale. So much for the slim hope that no one else would know what Siler had had to do.
Cliff looked around and he looked furious. “Which one of you did this?” he snarled at the prisoners.
“Ah, we’re tied up or surrounded,” Jeff said. “Who in the hell do you think did whatever? One of your people, obviously.”
“Casey could have,” Tim said quickly. “I haven’t seen her around here.”
“She’s on a mission for me!” Cliff screamed, spraying spittle. “One of you must have slipped by us!”
“Or she’s betrayed you and gone for better employment,” White suggested.
“Could have been someone from G-Company,” Reader offered as an alternative. “I don’t know that their leader would like what you’re doing here.”
Nudged Wruck. “Take that as our cue and let’s roll.”
He nodded and stepped into the light. “What is going on here?” Wruck boomed out as we walked into the room. The voice didn’t sound like his. Hadn’t realized that he could alter his voice just as the troubadours could. “Clifford, I want answers and I want them now!”
Cliff, LaRue, and all the Reid clones gaped. It was kind of nice to see them all speechless for once. Didn’t expect it to last but, still, it was a small rarity and I enjoyed not hearing them.
“You!” Wruck pointed to Rahmi. “What are you doing here?” He strode through the clones and hostages—shoving the hostages away from the clones but in a manner that seemed random—and grabbed her arm, which, of course, looked like the Head Dude was grabbing the Insubordinate Lackey. Wruck dragged Rahmi over to me while the rest of our people who weren’t strapped down moved closer to the pile of guns. “We’ll deal with you later.”
“How did you get here?” Cliff managed to ask.
“You would question me?” Wruck snarled. “I own you.”
“You don’t talk to me that way,” Cliff snarled. “We’re equals.”
“You are my subordinate. At best. And I will teach you a lesson to ensure you never forget it.” Wruck strode toward Cliff.
And Cliff aimed the nozzle he was still holding at Wruck.