“Yes you do.”

“Well, alright, I do, but-there must be some way we can get you out, there must be some way we can stop him. Colin, I’m sorry this happened to you, but maybe it’s a blessing in disguise. With you on the inside, it might help us prepare for whatever Graham is going to do.”

Colin grinned badly, “In the first place, I can’t do shit in here, Dr. Martin. They’ve got me locked up under guard in this room along with everything else that can be damaged by the vapor, all their electronics and communications equipment, and in the second place, I want to go home!” Hot tears sprang from his eyes, “They make me sit in that fucking chair, day and night. I can’t get any sleep.”

One of the tetras who was holding him leaned forward towards the pickup camera. “We keep him here because of the vapor,” she said, her voice was husky from disuse.

“But the man needs to sleep, Immelene, at least let him lay on the floor.”

“Hey, thanks,” said Colin sarcastically.

Immelene and her sister looked at each other. “We could do that,” they said.

“Why don’t you try asking them to let me go, Dr. Martin,” said Colin, “I think you gave up a little early on that one.”

“Alright. Will you let him go?”

“No.”

“We’ll keep him.”

“Why? What possible use could you have for him?”

“Hey,” said Colin, indignant.

“I’m sorry, but really, what do they, or I should say, does she, intend to do with you? They haven’t been taking any... samples of anything, have they?”

Colin stared at him wide eyed, “What do you mean?” he asked, horrified.

“Anything, skin, hair, whatever.”

“No.”

“Okay, so she’s just keeping you there. Oh, I could never get her to tell me why. She never tells me anything. Now you know, Colin. Now you know what I’ve had to put up with all this time. The stress is unbearable, isn’t it? She’s... impenetrable. Here she is, this thing I’ve created, but now that she’s here, I’m irrelevant to her.”

“Graham knows about the egg,” said Colin.

“I know.” Hector’s face, animated a moment ago with angst, became suddenly still.

“I didn’t know what to tell him,” Colin said carefully, “we never did find out what happened to it.”

Dr. Martin’s face seemed to shift to a different facet of his personality. He looked very hard at Colin, even as a hologram, it was a little tough to take. “I can tell you what happened to it. It hatched. Her name’s Helix, and Graham tried to get her killed this morning.”

“Look, I didn’t want to help him but he had goods on me. I’m sorry, Dr. Martin, but even this is better than going back to Alive!”

Martin’s jaw was stiff. He nodded ever so slightly. “Then you understand, now, that your survival lies with the tetras. Try to get through to Lilith, convince her that Graham is a real threat, if you can.”

“Oh sure, you bet. Anything else?”

“I’ll call again later.”

“I’ll hold my breath.”

oOo

Chango parked her car on the street across from the U of D Mercy College campus and took a backpack out of the trunk. They walked to the now defunct biopoly research building. An old maple tree grew next to the wall on one side. Chango, Helix and Benny stole across the grass to the shelter of its shadows. Benny pointed up, and Helix saw that one of the tree’s branches brushed against a window on the second floor. Without a word Chango scaled the trunk and climbed out onto the arching branch. It swayed slightly under her weight. Helix wondered if it would support her. Chango was a few minutes with a small, silver instrument, its whir a counterpoint to the chirring of crickets. “Sst. Come on.”

Helix gripped the trunk of the tree with her upper arms. Her lower arms were useless as far as pulling herself up was concerned, but at least she could use them for clinging. Her feet scraped against the bark and she hauled herself up into the leaves. Below her she heard Benny grunting as he climbed the tree. Chango had the window open, and she pushed her backpack in before climbing through. Helix followed her and found herself standing on a second floor balcony overlooking two large, empty vats. “They’re empty,” said Helix.

“Yeah,” whispered Benny, climbing through the window. “This place has been closed up for years. But look.” He pointed to a stack of barrels in the far corner, “maybe some of it is still good.”

“Do you have any idea how many of those barrels it would take to fill one of these? Besides, how do we get them down?” They were stacked ten high.

“There must be a ladder around here somewhere,” said Chango.

“And you call me crazy,” said Helix. “What if some of that spills on you?”

“That’s why I brought this.” Chango opened the flap of her backpack and showed her the sleeve of a divesuit. “It was Ada’s.”

Helix glanced about the building again. “What kind of security do you think they’ve got in here?”

Chango shrugged, “Judging from the window, not much, ‘course you never can tell.”

“I’ll stay up here and keep lookout,” said Benny.

There was a ladder at the far end of the building, down a long aisle past the dingy flanks of the vats. They carried it back to the tanks and stood at its base, looking up.

“Christ, I don’t know about this,” said Chango.

“They look heavy.”

“I don’t know if the ladder will hold, they’ve got to weigh fifty pounds apiece.”

“I might be able to do it. At least I can try to see if they’re any good. Put your suit on.”

Helix climbed the ladder, alternately grasping the rungs with her upper and lower hands. As she went she glanced at the wall of stacked barrels beside her. Some of them were corroded, possibly leaking. She reached the top of the ladder. The last row of barrels was just above her head. With her upper fingers she grasped one of them by its bottom rim.

She wedged her fingers underneath the barrel and inched it out until she was able to lift it free. She grasped the barrel with her lower arms. The ladder wobbled precariously as she reached for the rungs with her upper hands. She clung there a few moments, until the swaying stopped. She was just about to start down when the first floor doors burst inward and ten or more GeneSys security guards ran in, brandishing tranq guns. “Run!” she yelled at Chango, and heaved the barrel towards the approaching guards.

oOo

Chango scrambled for the stairs as the barrel crashed to the floor behind her. She heard yelling as the guards scattered to avoid the splashing growth medium. Where in the hell was Benny? she wondered as she pounded up the steps to the balcony. He was gone from his post by the window and he certainly hadn’t done much of a job of warning them. Chango paused at the window, looked back and saw Helix, still on the ladder but surrounded by guards. There was nothing she could do now but get away and get help.

Outside, the building was bathed in flashing green and yellow lights. Chango dropped to the ground and crouched in the shadow of the tree. She heard the squawking of a transceiver from a levvan parked in the street. She scanned the broad spread of mowed grass before her. She didn’t see anyone there, didn’t see anyone around the levvan either, though that didn’t mean no one was there. She ran, bent at the waist, over the grass, the night air cool against her skin, her breath and the pounding of her heart roaring in her ears, drowning out the transceiver and the chirring of crickets. She thought she heard shouts, but she kept running.

She’d gone four blocks before she noticed the levcar following her, gliding silently along the magnetic roadway. She never would have known it was there, except she caught a glimpse of it as she turned one corner, and then saw it again, a block further on. She cut through an alley, narrow and paved only with cloncrete, but when she got to the street on the other side, there it was again, closing in on her. Her heart pounded in her chest like it would burst. To her left was the university medical center, a cluster of buildings with a large driveway in front, leading to an underground parking structure. She’d been here before. Between the close set buildings was a labyrinth of walkways. If you were in a levcar, you had to park it, and walk to the building you wanted. She headed for the main entrance and veered off onto a cloncrete sidewalk bordered by hedges. Behind her, in the night, she heard the distinct sound of car doors slamming, and footsteps running. Chango zigzagged between buildings, the footsteps behind her growing closer. She thought she could make out two sets. There were shouts, and something whizzed past her head, very fast. She ducked around another corner and she was in a cul de sac between two tall sandstone buildings, a high brick wall running between them.