The Hallowed Cure, page 31
Putting the safety of civilians before everything else did sound like Saul. I lightly thumped his arm, then looked to Sharpe again. “So back to Jack’s clone. You said it’s controlling the Hallowed clones and zombies. If we kill Jack, can we reason with them?”
“It won’t reverse their condition,” Sharpe said. “But they will cease working as a coordinated swarm, which, I suppose, may limit their hostility toward others. They don’t have the same overriding urge to feed that Mutes developed back in the war. I suppose, with enough time, we could find a way to communicate with them as we have with Mutes.”
“We’ve avoided killing panacea drones whenever possible,” Saul said. “Many of the survivors have family members who were affected.”
As I thought back to our building escape, I glanced at Lincoln, who had turned pale. I decided not to mention that we’d lasered forty or so of those “panacea drones” down in the street. I wasn’t happy about it, but we hadn’t had a choice.
And now that I knew that Jack could only control his zombie horde so far, I realized we must have escaped his radius when he pulled back his horde. Lucky us.
“I’m completely on board with blowing the facility sky high,” I said.
“So ... we’re here now. You have your reinforcements. When do we go blow up Jack Griffyn?”
“We’d actually planned to launch that operation tonight, with or without our reinforcements, because we fear the clone will expand the range of its control if we don’t act quickly,” Saul said. “It’s good that you arrived when you did, but we will need every able-bodied soldier we can recruit for this operation. I would also like to enlist Captain Sato’s help.”
“You’ll have it,” a woman said calmly. “In a moment.”
I spun to see Hahna Sato stride through the door in the lab like she hadn’t just somehow snuck past all of Saul’s sentries. She must have a way of tracking the communicator Frank carried. As her eyes swept across the room, she spotted Doctor Sharpe.
She smiled in a decidedly predatory manner. “Hello, doctor.”
Hahna unsheathed Despair. “Out of respect for your efforts to save Dios back in the war, I’ll make your execution painless.”
[ 28 ]
DUDE, DON’T AS ME IF WE SHOULD MURDER
SOMEONE
I’d never seen Doctor Sharpe literally leap over a table before. That was amusing. She fell right off the table, stumbled to her feet, and jumped behind Saul with wild eyes.
“Do not let her kill me!” Sharpe shouted. “You need me!”
Lincoln glanced at me with worry in his eyes. “Grant?”
“Stay out of her way,” I ordered.
“Captain Sato, please wait a moment,” Saul said calmly. “Let me explain.”
“No need for that.” Hahna stopped just inside the room and looked us over. “I’ve been listening through the bug I placed on Riven’s armor while I slipped past your somewhat disappointing security arrangements. She’s lying to you.”
“I’m telling the truth!” Sharpe shouted.
Belatedly, my hands slapped down my armor. I had a bug on me?
When had Sato planted that? And how was she consistently evading the jamming blanketing the island?
Hahna appeared visibly amused as she watched Sharpe cower behind Saul. “The bad doctor simply wants to slip back into the facility to pull her research data off the servers inside, which is why she’s spun this amusing fiction about a self-destruct mechanism.
Given the size of the data, she likely had no time to copy her research to a physical drive before she fled her facility. Once you lead her to the console—”
“That’s not true!” Sharpe shouted.
“—she will activate some sort of trap that will disable anyone with her, Hallowed or otherwise. She will then flee the facility with her data with the intent of selling it to another government who will then become her patron. She has no intention of destroying her former facility or Griffyn’s clone. That’s a mess she’ll leave to us.”
“That’s preposterous!” Sharpe said, and pushed out a little from behind Saul. “How could I restart my research? Without Cloud Nine, I—”
“—would have every single surviving world government salivating over what you can offer them,” Hahna interrupted. “The tragedy of Neo Tao Payoh will prove to governments around the world you have the means to create new Hallowed clones, turn people in panacea drones, and provide a mechanism to control both.”
“That is ludicrous,” Sharpe said. “Jack did that!”
“You did that. You will continue your research with unlimited funding, and when your secrets are inevitably stolen by others, it will spread across the world. The only way we prevent more Neo Tao Payohs is by destroying the facility, the data, and you, the lead researcher.”
“You’re bluffing,” Sharpe insisted, but I heard the slight tremble in her voice.
Saul frowned at Sharpe in what looked like real disappointment.
“Did you lie to me?”
“I did not!”
“Is there a self-destruct mechanism in the facility?”
“There...” Sharpe faltered. “I can initiate a series of catastrophic failures that will accomplish exactly the same thing, but only if you let me rescue my research first. It’s encrypted, but if Miss Alexander agrees to return me to my lab in Dios, I will share it with you and Cloud Nine.”
Of course Doctor Sharpe had tried to play us all. I felt like an idiot for listening to her. I’d spent way too much time letting her spin her fictional bullshit when I should have just been putting a sword through her skull. She’d turned an entire island of people into zombies.
I pulled Savagery off my back, then glanced at Hahna. “I’ve got it.”
“We’ve found a way to cure panacea poisoning!” Sharpe shouted.
That gave me just a bit of pause. “Nice try.”
“I am absolutely telling the truth,” Sharpe insisted. She grew bold enough to step almost all the way out from behind Saul. “Before she tossed Jack off a building, his cure was our top priority. We were very close. Haven’t you ever wondered why Lindsay hired Captain Sato to assassinate her father? Why hire Sato when Jack would be dead inside a year?”
“I had wondered that,” Hahna agreed, and lowered her blade.
“Riven, I believe she may be telling the truth, at least about this cure for panacea poisoning. If Lindsay Griffyn had known her father had but a year to live, why bother hiring me to assassinate him? Yet if she learned that Sharpe had found a cure, or was close to one...”
“She’d need to make sure her dad died anyway,” I whispered.
“Though I guess she didn’t know about all his clones.”
“I developed a cure that actually works,” Sharpe said. “We have a way to cure the affliction now killing you, Mister Riven, but only if you help me save my research.”
A new road stretched before me. Not just six years with Mia, but as many as we could manage. All I had to do was not immediately kill a woman who’d infected forty thousand people with panacea cells and turned them into drones mind-controlled by the clone of a psychopath.
All I had to do was risk that her research would fall into the hands of other governments and mutate and kill thousands more.
Sharpe now looked visibly more confident than she’d been when Hahna first entered the room. “You need me, Mister Riven. I can only cure you if you first get me back into that facility and keep me safe long enough to recover my research. All my research.”
“So you can do all this again.”
“I have no intent of doing this again, and you have no way to destroy the facility without my experience. It may not have a self-destruct mechanism, but I can trigger the equivalent. Without my
access, you will never be completely sure you’ve eliminated all Jack’s clones.”
“If you don’t betray us the moment we get you inside,” Saul said darkly.
“I won’t betray you,” Sharpe said eagerly. “Remember, there’s no way I can retrieve my data without your protection. We need each other. I am the only person still alive who the facility will recognize as its administrator, so without me, you have no access.”
“Riven?” Hahna asked. “What would you like to do now?”
The fact that Hahna had asked me that instead of just killing Doctor Sharpe honestly surprised me. Since when did Captain Hahna Sato put the life of one expendable Hallowed soldier above a worldwide threat like Sharpe’s new zombie button? Was my life worth the risk?
I thought about what Mia would say if she were here. I found myself just a bit glad she wasn’t. She’d learn about my choice later, when we were back together, and probably be angry with me. Yet she’d understand we couldn’t risk the world for us.
“No deal,” I said, and looked to Saul. “Step aside. We’re killing her right now, and then we’ll break into the facility and blow up Jack without waiting to be betrayed.”
“Now hold on,” Saul said. Before I knew it, he’d raised his rifle to point at me. “Miss Alexander gave me specific orders to recover Doctor Sharpe alive. Our objective was to capture her and bring her back to Dios to stand trial unless there were no other options.”
“You can’t stop me with that gun, Saul.”
Saul lowered his weapon. “I know. What I hope I can stop you with, however, is reason, and perhaps the loyalty for which you are known. Caitlyn gave unambiguous orders to bring in Doctor Sharpe alive. Captain Sato, didn’t she give you the same instructions?”
“She gave me the same orders you received,” Hahna said calmly.
“They ended with ‘unless there were no other options.’ Given we now know this woman assisted in what was effectively the murder of thirty-nine thousand civilians, I believe there is no other option but to execute for attempting genocide.”
“I didn’t do that!” Sharpe shouted. “Jack did that!”
She kept trying to blame everything on Jack. On his clone. Yet the truth was becoming more and more obvious. Jack hadn’t done this. Sharpe was the cause of all of it.
Yet even in the face of two determined with big fuck-off swords, Saul wasn’t backing down. “If you kill Doctor Sharpe now, you’ll be murdering a defenseless prisoner who surrendered into our custody.
Also, we must eliminate all chances Jack Griffyn can again resurrect himself through his clones. Do you believe we can do that without her?”
None of Saul’s other arguments would have stopped me from killing Doctor Sharpe, but that last one did. I couldn’t risk something like what Doctor Sharpe had done here in Neo Tao Payoh happening anywhere else, but I also couldn’t risk letting a Jack Griffyn clone escape. And if Sharpe’s facility was anything like the rest, we could search for days and not find them all.
If Caitlyn had been with us, I could ask her to hack into the facility and do all the stuff that Sharpe was offering to do. Blow it up. Yet Caitlyn was nowhere to be found. I didn’t have Caitlyn, or Mia, or Caley and a couple of Cloudhoppers full of military-grade explosives.
I had me, Lincoln, Frank, Sato, Saul and his Special Tactics buddies, and some Hallowed weapons that were better at cutting through people than entire research facilities. Even if we somehow found the right structural supports to cut through, we’d just bring the whole damn facility down on top of us, and with no guarantee of actually killing Jack Griffyn—or his clone.
I looked to Lincoln. “Linc?”
“What?”
“What do you think?”
“Dude, don’t ask me if we should murder someone. You’re in command here!”
“One problem at a time, Riven,” Hahna said calmly. “First, we dispose of Doctor Sharpe, eliminating the chance that she will escape and resume her research. We then evacuate the island and inform the Republic of Singapore of the facility in which Jack Griffyn’s clone remains confined. If we convince them of the danger, they can nuke the facility at their leisure.”
I stared at Hahna. “Nuke?”
“It’s an inordinately large bomb,” she said calmly. “More than sufficient to destroy the facility, and given the island is now ninety-five percent zombie, the collateral damage will be minimal at best.”
I knew what a nuke was. It had just never occurred to me, until now, that we could drop one on Doctor Sharpe’s facility and blow the whole thing up without ever going inside. Nuking the place sounded like a reasonable option. That sounded like a really reasonable option.
“You can’t nuke my facility,” Sharpe whispered. “You simply can’t do that!”
I looked at Hahna. I looked at Lincoln. I looked at Saul, and then, I looked at Doctor Sharpe. The very real terror in her eyes convinced me we’d finally happened upon a way to solve this problem that was better than any other now available to me.
Kill the mad scientist. Nuke the site. It was the only way to be sure.
I motioned with one armored hand. “Saul, I’d like you to step aside now.”
Saul stepped aside. Sharpe desperately clung to him until one hard shove sent her tumbling across a table. She gasped and scrambled for the closed windows. She desperately jiggled locks like a rat trapped near rising waters.
“You’re certain this is how you want to handle it?” Saul asked.
“I don’t want to do any of this,” I told him. “But given what’s at stake, and given all she’s done, I think this is the best option we have right now. We can’t risk her escaping to zombify another island filled with people.”
“I didn’t do that!” Sharpe screamed desperately.
I walked toward her, blade raised. Sharpe backed up, found the corner, and sank into it before dropping onto her butt. She stared at her hands as if seeing them for the first time, but she didn’t sob. I didn’t pity her. I was more disgusted than anything else.
Hahna stepped forward with Despair raised. I stepped in her way.
I raised Savagery to stop her from moving forward.
“There’s no need to burden your soft heart,” Hahna said. “Let me.”
“It’s not about that,” I told her. “I made the decision to execute this prisoner. I should be the one to kill her. If it turns out to be a mistake, I’m not letting it fall on anyone else.”
Hahna watched me a moment. Then, with what might be approval reflected on her face, she stepped aside. It was time for me to murder an unarmed woman in cold blood.
As I remembered the secretary whose chest I disintegrated a year ago when I attacked Jack Griffyn, I reminded myself it wouldn’t be the first time.
Doctor Sharpe looked up at me with more visible resentment than fear. “Without my AP gas, our island would have fallen. I saved Dios and found a cure for your fatal disease, and this is how you thank me? Savage. Imbecile.”
I walked over. I raised my blade.
“All I’ve ever wanted is to elevate humanity beyond these fragile mortal shells,” Sharpe whispered. “Panacea was the key to everything. Now you stupid, simple-minded brutes will execute me and doom humanity by doing so.”
She sure did think she was important. It was probably why she’d been willing to turn an island full of people into zombies. I visualized my cut and made Savagery glow blue. I’d kill her in one strike, without pain, and be merciful if nothing else.
An ear-splitting tone filled the room, making me wince even inside my helmet. Doctor Sharpe screamed and covered her ears.
Even Saul winced, but Hahna simply looked annoyed.
The tone ended. A voice replaced it.
“Hello, Mister Riven!” Jack Griffyn—or his clone—spoke over what I belatedly realized must be the school’s public address system. “I hope you’re hearing this. I’m amplified and adjusted the signal to emit from every active speaker on the island. Before you do anything rash, like targeting my facility or taking Doctor Sharpe back to Dios, you should know someone dear to you has joined me here.”
“Fuck,” I whispered. Savagery hung frozen above Sharpe, ready to fall.
“Miss Alexander, would you be so kind as to tell Grant what you just told me?”
After an impossibly long moment, a voice I dreaded hearing replaced Jack Griffyn’s.
“He hasn’t captured Mia or Caley, so don’t try to—”
The sound of a human choking cut Caitlyn off, and I clenched my armored fists as I knew who I heard choking. Caitlyn, of course, would never ask me to risk the mission to save her, even if meant she, her sister, and Amber would die. Our world was more important to her than that.
Jack knew Caitlyn would never beg me to spare him, of course.
He’d never counted on Caitlyn actually asking me to surrender. He was trusting me to save her against her wishes.
Jack spoke again. “I have Miss Alexander, the younger Miss Alexander, and Miss Mason with me. Yet I am willing to spare them all if you bring me Doctor Emilia Sharpe, alive. Deliver her to me at a location upon which we mutually agree, and I will return your employer and her two charming escorts.”
“He’ll do it,” Sharpe whispered. “He’ll kill them all if you kill me.
You need me!”
“The jamming now blanketing the island will remain lifted for ten minutes,” Jack continued. “If you accept my offer, contact me on the following frequency so we can set up an exchange for our respective hostages.”
He offered a radio frequency I hoped Saul would be able to find, if we needed it. I didn’t know how to work a radio, at least not on this island.
“If you do not contact me, I’ll dispose of whom I no longer need and take my chances with the meager forces you have left,” Jack continued. “I look forward to hearing from you, Mister Riven. I know I can always count on you to protect your friends.”
The PA went silent. I stared at the woman I’d been one step from murdering, and then looked to the others in the room with me. I’d been willing to sacrifice my own life and cure to protect the world, but could I sacrifice Caitlyn, and Reese, and Amber?
“I can destroy him for you,” Sharpe whispered. “We can destroy him together, but only if you get me back into that facility. I need my research. You need your friends. We can still help each other, and I can cure you. All you need do is let me live!”
