The infinity cure, p.13
The Infinity Cure, page 13
“Everyone down on the ground!” A harsh voice rang out without warning, and they all jumped.
It was Agent Brooks. Conscious, standing, and holding his weapon.
Hiroe, who was closest to him, started to drop to her knees. Without warning, Brooks whirled and discharged his weapon.
Villanna fell clumsily to the ground, apparently in the midst of trying to rush the agent. She groaned in pain and clutched her shoulder.
“Villanna!” Louvin burst out. He involuntarily took a step toward her, and Brooks fired at him, putting a hole in his side. The young aquean stumbled but didn’t fall, and Brooks fired and hit him a second time, this time in his leg. He collapsed, but stubbornly crawled toward his sister.
Then Brooks put his weapon to the back of Villanna’s head. “Wait!” Louvin cried. “Look at your hand!” Brooks paused, glanced down, and swore. Ugly green and orange patches of fungus bloomed on his skin.
“Don’t shoot—she can help you,” Louvin said. “Look, I’m already getting better.” He rubbed more browning fungus from his face with the hand that wasn’t clutching his side.
“I already took the cure you gave me,” Brooks said. “I took it before I came here. It’s fucking useless.”
Demonte broke in. “That’s just a symptom suppressant, and it was a faulty batch, as you can see. Villanna has a real cure, though. She gave it to them and it’s working.”
Brooks considered this, staring at the colorful patches growing on his hands. Hiroe saw her only chance. She charged shoulder-first into the agent, knocking him to the floor and landing on top of him.
He grabbed her arms and she could immediately tell she was outmatched. She clung desperately to him until he got a hand on her neck and started to squeeze. Hiroe fought to breathe, but his viselike grip tightened. Spots swam in front of her eyes and her hold on him started to weaken.
“Stop,” a voice said. The agent’s hands left Hiroe suddenly, and she looked up, gasping hoarsely, head spinning. Demonte had picked up the dropped weapon and put it to the man’s temple.
“You got cuffs?” Demonte asked. Brooks nodded and reached toward his right pocket. “Stop,” Demonte said again and the agent froze. Demonte nodded to Hiroe. “You get it.”
She felt in his pocket and came out with a handheld device. As she turned it in her hands, trying to figure it out, Demonte had Brooks roll on his stomach and put his hands together behind his back. Hiroe touched one of his wrists with the device, hit a button, and thin plastic ties shot out and bound his hands.
Demonte knelt on him, a knee in the agent’s back. “I got him—you wanna check on them?” he asked Hiroe.
She ran to Louvin first. He had a neat hole in his leg, another through his side. She didn’t think either was lethal, but blue liquid was oozing from both wounds at an alarming rate.
Her sequined top was useless, so she tore off a strip of Louvin’s own loose shirt and tied off his leg above the hole. She wasn’t sure what to do with the wound on his side. She hurried to Villanna, also lying in a smear of blue blood.
“Tell me how to help him,” she said.
Villanna opened her eyes with effort, and Hiroe pointed to Louvin. Villanna spoke with effort. “The cart … look for … cauterizer.” She gestured weakly.
Hiroe ran to the table she’d been hiding behind mere minutes ago. She found the device, thankfully labeled, and took it back to Villanna, who gave her a few whispered instructions.
Hiroe returned to Louvin and gingerly tried it on his side wound in the front. His eyes flew open at the first sting of the device, but it worked, sealing his skin. He only flinched slightly when she repeated the procedure on the other side.
She was about to move on to the leg wound, but he put a hand on hers and she looked up into his eyes. “Help … Villanna.”
Reluctantly she left him, hoping the makeshift tourniquet would be enough for the time being, and returned to his sister. “Where were you hit?” she said coldly.
Villanna turned her eyes to her. “Why bother?” she said bitterly. “The disease will take me and Louvin now anyway.”
“We have to try,” Hiroe said grimly. “Tell me how to fix you.”
Villanna pointed to her right shoulder and unfastened the front of her hazard suit with her left hand. Hiroe pulled it off her right arm, pulled her shirt off her shoulder, and closed up the wound on both sides. Then she left her abruptly and returned to Louvin.
“Hiroe.” Demonte’s voice broke into her concentration as she closed the last hole in Louvin’s skin.
Demonte still knelt on the agent, and he nudged the back of his head with the weapon. “Tell her what you told me,” he said.
“You’re dead unless you come with me,” Brooks said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Hiroe met Demonte’s eyes. “What?”
Brooks continued in a monotone. “There’s a bomb, and this whole place is gonna go in fifteen minutes. I triggered it right before I shot the girl.”
“The whole—?”
“Everything,” he said. “All the buildings. The main house, the prison, this place.”
Hiroe struggled to comprehend. “But why?”
Brooks hesitated and Demonte prodded him again. “We don’t have time for this,” Brooks said, an edge of fear creeping into his voice.
“Then talk faster,” Demonte said grimly.
Brooks sighed, but he had no choice. “I was sent here to assess Faith’s progress in finding a cure for aquamycosis,” he said. “We had advance knowledge of the plans for a protest, so we used that as our cover story to gain full access from her. The people I work for don’t want a cure to be found.”
“The FBI?” Hiroe asked confusedly.
“Not the FBI.” He spoke rapidly, his voice inflectionless. “Aquamycosis was a lucky break for a group of—investors looking to annex more ocean territory. It’s been very convenient in distracting aquean rights activists who have been trying to hold them back.”
He nodded at Demonte. “When you gave me the cure—at least I thought that’s what it was—I realized it was much farther advanced than anyone in my agency thought. I came here to verify it. It seemed like the cure was real, so I went to the final option—destroying it and all the research.”
“What about all the people here?” Hiroe demanded.
Brooks continued flatly. “The tragedy will be yet another media distraction as well as getting rid of the cure—and all the people that helped find it, and many high-profile activists too. I was going to leave as soon as I set it. I’ll take you all with me, but we’ve got to hurry.”
Hiroe said, “So you’re saying we can—?”
“Get away in water cars. Only I can tell you what direction we need to go to get far enough away so we don’t die when it blows.”
“How do you turn it off?” Hiroe demanded. “You set it with a remote control, right?”
He nodded. “But there’s no off switch. Designed that way so no one could stop detonation.”
Hiroe thought frantically. “There are so many people here!” she said. “Scientists, leaders, celebrities … did you say the activists? No, Louvin helped them escape.”
“All recaptured,” Brooks said levelly. “Now I suggest we get going.”
Hiroe looked pleadingly at Demonte. “What should we do?”
He shook his head grimly. “I don’t know, but if we just sit here, we’re gonna die anyway. He prodded the agent again, more roughly this time. “Where’s the bomb?” he asked him.
Brooks didn’t answer, and Hiroe felt fury rising in her. “We’re not going anywhere, so if you don’t tell us where it is, you can just sit here and die with the rest of us,” she said.
“Out there,” Brooks said with reluctance, cocking his head. “In the sand, in that big patch of red coral.”
Hiroe remembered the striking coral display from the VR tour. “That’s not far from the trench,” she said. “Would it help if we could get the bomb down there?”
“Don’t know,” Brooks said. “The only safe thing is to leave, but it’s gotta be now—it’ll take at least five minutes to get far enough away in a car.”
Hiroe looked at Louvin and then Villanna. Both were weak and in pain. Trying to find the bomb would be out of the question for both of them. “Demonte, could you—do you think you could—”
He shook his head. “I can’t leave you alone with him,” he said. “If he hurt you, or got away and called his men—” He broke off, his eyes imploring. “Plus when it comes time to swim with the bomb—I’m just not that good. You are. It has to be you, Hiroe.”
Icy dread gripped her, made her limbs heavy and weak. But there was no time to hesitate any longer.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
She used Demonte’s guest code to unlock a water car, then piloted it out toward the main house. She was already having trouble taking normal breaths, the interior of the vehicle bringing back memories of the one she’d nearly drowned in.
The lights throughout the garden still lit every feature brilliantly, and the red coral was easy to spot. She pulled the car to a stop in the sand next to it.
She fumbled in the back until she found the scuba masks and strapped one to her face with trembling hands. Then, fighting not to hyperventilate, she pressed the door open button.
The cold water washed in with a rush, the air inside the vehicle bursting from it in large clouds of bubbles. The pressure of the water pinned her against the interior for a few seconds, but once the vehicle was full, Hiroe was able to float toward the door and pull herself out.
Her limbs threatened to go catatonic as they had the last time she was in the water, but now there was no Louvin to help her. Louvin. She thought of the soft green of his skin, his expressive eyes, his trusting embraces. She thought of Demonte, of the ferocity of feeling she’d felt coming from him through Bruno. She felt strength returning to her arms and legs, and she swam.
At first she struggled to make progress, feeling hysteria rising in her chest, but then one of her hands caught the water just right, her legs bent and kicked out together, and she surged forward and was off. She ran her hands through the sand between pieces of coral, swimming over the bed, looking frantically for the bomb.
After what felt like an eternity, she saw a small green light flicker, dug her fingers into the sand, and unearthed the device.
It fit neatly in the palm of her hand. Hard to believe it could wipe out acres of buildings and hundreds of people in a flash.
She gripped it tightly, which hampered her strokes somewhat, and made for the trench.
The lights of the estate went right out to the edge, but the gap itself was dark and impenetrable. Hiroe steeled herself. Louvin. Demonte. She dove into the darkness.
She propelled herself downward, her legs finding their stride, sending her deeper as her hand skimmed the rock. The water seemed to grip her as she went down, feeling the side of the trench with her free hand, praying she could find her way back.
She lost track of time, intent on going as deep as she could as fast as she could. The weak green light of the device through her fingers was her only visible companion. Then she glanced at it again, and the light was suddenly red.
She didn’t know if that meant there were five minutes left, or one, or thirty seconds. She drew her arm back and flung the device downward as best she could, hoping to give it some additional momentum as it sank.
Then she brought herself upright. She was now in full, complete blackness. She felt something soft and cool clutch her ankle and stifled a scream, imagining Elise’s little hand, finally reuniting with her again. Kicking wildly, she shook whatever it really was from her leg. I’m sorry, she told her in her delirium.
She touched the side of the trench once more to orient herself, then flung her arms and legs into pushing her upward.
The motions and techniques had come back to her quickly, but her lack of practice in decades caught up to her now. Her shoulder and thigh muscles burned and her left leg twinged, threatening to cramp. She reached out and could no longer feel the wall. She couldn’t see anything either. She closed her eyes and swam, expecting at any moment a blast that would end her consciousness for good.
Instead, she saw a growing brightness through her eyelids. She opened her eyes to the lights of the gardens. She’d drifted away from the edge of the trench during her blind upward climb, but it wasn’t as bad as she feared. She struck out toward the glow, traversing the blackness of the trench below her, and swam past the red coral, past her incapacitated, waterlogged vehicle.
She hadn’t had time to think about how she’d get back inside. She swam toward the main house, then tacked right toward where she hoped the infirmary was. Everything looked different from the outside.
Hiroe’s mask vibrated suddenly, a short warning burst, and from the corner of her eye she saw a yellow light begin to flash. The filter was failing. Her chest tightened as if the air had already stopped flowing. Ahead she saw a building, she wasn’t sure which one, and kicked faster.
A low booming sound came from behind her, accompanied by a tremor that felt like it went through her to her bones. Suddenly she was propelled forward by a forceful current of water. She was approaching the wall of the building fast, too fast. She reversed her stroke, trying to fight the water, but was unable to slow down.
She saw that the structure looming ahead of her was one of the tunnels connecting two buildings. Her mask vibrated again and the flashing light turned from yellow to red. In a last desperate push, she managed to dive lower, still pushed uncontrollably by the current. She felt her hair graze the underside of the tunnel as she passed under it. Her lungs burned as the mask lost power and the oxygen in the air she was breathing became depleted.
She plowed into the ground, sand and stones tearing into her skin as she skidded along the ocean floor. But it didn’t matter because she was losing consciousness, her arms and legs helpless as her vision darkened.
The mask had become a suffocating prison and she tried to tear it off. But she didn’t have time—the world went black and then it went away.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The lights behind the bedroom curtain grew slowly brighter. They were programmed to mimic sunrise and sunset; when she’d first moved in, it had affected her mood not to have some sense of night and day. She was more acclimated now, but she still liked to start her day feeling like the sun was rising.
She was already beginning to stir, responding to the false daylight, when Louvin kissed her the rest of the way into wakefulness.
Hiroe rolled over and smiled at him. Sometimes she forgot momentarily when she awoke who would be next to her or if she’d be alone, but she could always tell before she opened her eyes. “What’s up?” she asked sleepily.
“We have three graduates today, remember?” Louvin asked, stroking her hip and kissing her lips.
Hiroe sat up, all traces of sleep falling away. “I forgot!” she said. Her stomach fluttered with nervous excitement. She saw Louvin studying her face and knew he still worried about her, even though she’d taken this role willingly. She kissed his nose. “I can’t wait!” she said.
Demonte came sleepily out of the bathroom as she approached it. She greeted him with a lingering kiss, still marveling over the strange twists of fate that had finally brought them together—and the fact that both her lovers had rescued her from the water on separate occasions.
After feeling the shockwaves of the explosion, Demonte had gone out looking for her and brought her unconscious body out of the water in time for her to be revived. Back on land, they’d danced around their attraction a short time longer, but it was useless to deny what they’d seen in one another’s minds while connected via Bruno.
Demonte still ran Static but had moved in more or less full-time with her and Louvin. His news organization was a self-propelling juggernaut since breaking the twin stories of Faith Benedict’s gruesome search for a cure and the attempts to thwart it. Brooks had been convinced to act as whistle-blower in exchange for Villanna’s supposed cure for the aquamycosis he thought he had. By the time Brooks realized he didn’t really have the disease, the story had broken wide open.
Hiroe reluctantly extricated herself from Demonte’s embrace; she was already running late. She showered quickly and donned her wetsuit, then hurried downstairs barefoot to get a cup of coffee.
Since Villanna had inherited Faith’s estate and vast fortune from prison, she’d shared it with Louvin so he could convert much of it into a healthcare facility treating aquamycosis patients, and the main floor was completely transformed.
Villanna and Louvin hadn’t developed aquamycosis despite their extreme exposure to it. It didn’t take long to discover that the combination of Faith’s fungal invader’s spores and Bruno had created a powerful antidote, and they’d gotten a megadose from the explosive sporing.
Luckily, Louvin had carried much of the substance away with him that night, thinking he might be able to find an intact piece of Bruno in it somewhere, and it had been studied and then synthesized.
The cure was widely available by now, but the estate was a coveted place for aqueans to receive treatment—though cases were dwindling rapidly, and there were fewer applicants every week.
On the main floor of the house, Hiroe stopped by a fish tank. She reached in gently and felt the stirrings of a presence in her mind. Louvin had eventually found a tiny scrap of Bruno at the bottom of his bag. Whether it had come off by accident when Bruno was flung at Faith, or whether Bruno had left a bit of itself deliberately, they weren’t sure, and it couldn’t communicate with them yet.
