“I’m not through with you by a far sight, Martin. But first there’s a little loose end to tie up.” He nodded, and the young man stooped to haul Helix up off the floor.

In desperation Hector ran at the man and pushed him, causing him to drop Helix. He stood over her recumbent body, knees flexed, his arms tensed to do he didn’t know what. “Leave her alone!”

The man laughed and pushed Hector back into the dining table.

“As of right now, this isn’t your project anymore, Martin,” said Graham. “I’m taking you off it.” He held the tranq gun up again, pointing it at Hector this time.

“This isn’t about any project anymore, you ought to know that,” said Hector. “Just what do you think you’re going to do with her, anyway?”

“I’m going to take her back to the hive, where she belongs.”

“You can’t! They’ll kill her!”

“Or each other, preferably. There can only be one queen, right? With Helix and Lilith out of the way, the others will be much easier to deal with, I’m sure.”

Graham’s cohort bent to pick up Helix again, and as Hector rushed him he heard the click of the tranq gun, and felt the sting of a dart in his chest. His next step seemed to take hours as darkness closed in, taking Helix and Graham and the other man away with the fading light. oOo

Chango paced back and forth from Vonda’s home lab in a back bedroom of the house to the living room where Pele, April, Coral and Hyper sat waiting for her diagnosis. Vonda had banned her from the lab for asking too many questions. All she could do was stand at the doorway watching Vonda work, and then walk back into the living room, to bask in the collective anxiety of her peers, which drove her down the hall again, to watch Vonda peer into slides and hold vials of different colored liquids up to the light.

“Hey, come on,” Hyper approached her on what must have been her twelfth or thirteenth circuit, laying a hand on her arm to stop her restless movement. “Come on in the kitchen, Pele’s making sandwiches.”

They were putting away the bread and stacking plates in the sink when Vonda came in. She sat down at the table and April handed her a fresh cup of coffee. Chango stood rooted to the floor, waiting while Vonda spooned sugar into her cup, stirred it, and drank. Finally she looked up, staring at Chango and nodded. “There was blast in those tanks.”

April pounded her fists on the table. “That fucking son of a bitch! I’ll kill him.”

“We don’t know where he is,” Pele observed.

Hyper switched off the game show he’d been watching on holo and keyed up his com page. “I’m going to call Hector. This may help him against Graham.” He typed at his wrist keypad, waited, shook his head and typed some more. “No answer, I wonder if something’s happened to him. He was trying to build a criminal case against Graham. This evidence could help him.”

“What are we going to do?” asked Pele.

“We’re going to find Benny, and beat the living crap out of him!” said April.

“I don’t know what’s happened to Hector Martin, but he needs these tanks. He can get them tested in the GeneSys labs. It’ll carry more weight if two independent tests show there was blast inside them.”

Chango picked up the tanks. “You guys find Benny. I’ll go to GeneSys. If something’s happened to Hector, then Helix is probably in trouble too. I have to try to help them, if I can.”

Chapter 19 — Speaking In Tongues

Of all the old buildings Chango had been in, the Fisher was by far the most beautiful, and instead of being a ruin, its frescoes and pillars and inlaid floors were all lovingly preserved. She was glad she had reason to come back here, she thought as she crossed the mezzanine to the elevators. Before, they’d brought her in to lock-up through the garage, and when she was released, she’d been in too big a hurry to take it all in.

Above her, the second and third floor balconies were lined with brass grillwork. There were inscriptions in gold lettering over the archways, and the whole place was lit by great oblong chandeliers of overlapping frosted panels, like pine cones made of glass.

It was like a cathedral. A cathedral to industry, she thought, noting the inset semi-circles high up on the walls, just before the curve of the arched ceiling. They showed stylized pictures of animals, buildings, beehives, and bore labels such as “commerce” and “agriculture.” Here was one of the greatest architectural treasures of Detroit, happily preserved by the gods to whom it was dedicated. At this hour the ground floor was deserted, the shops shuttered. Her footsteps echoed as she walked the length of the gallery. The sound made her feel very small and exposed. She quickened her pace. Even the details have details, she thought, looking at the elevator doors - brass panels etched with lotuses and goldfish surrounded by an interlocking geometric border. How wonderful, she thought as she pressed the elevator button, for something so carefully made to still exist. A brass chart on the wall above traced the positions of the elevators with lighted numbers. Most of them were up above the tenth floor, but there was one two floors below, and rising.

When the doors opened, Chango saw Benny standing inside. He was grimy and streaked with sweat. He held a welding mask in one hand, a blow torch in the other. For a moment they both stood frozen, staring at each other, and then, like the chiming of a bell in a distant land, the elevator behind her pinged open. Chango spun on her heel and dove inside it, rolling to her knees and frantically punching the close door button. From around the edge of the doorway she saw Benny drop his equipment and run after her. He reached the elevator just in time to wedge his hands between the closing doors. His fingers protruded through the crack like pink, searching tentacles, and Chango hammered at them with her fists but her efforts were in vain. The elevator, sensing something stuck between its doors, opened them of its own accord and he stepped through, filling the small space with his presence. oOo

Before she ever opened her eyes, the smell of the air told Helix where she was, and filled her with panic, longing, and rage. She sat up to find herself against a metal door in a wide hallway with a cement floor and glazed cinder block walls. It was empty and quiet except for the distant hum of the vats. She got to her feet and tried the door. The handle turned, but the door wouldn’t budge. She pounded at the unforgiving metal but the booming of her striking fists brought her to a halt. She would not be heard by anyone outside, and she did not want to be heard by anyone inside. She turned again and slumped against the door. She was whole existences away from that scene on the playground, and nevertheless, here she was, where it really happened. The force of the returning memory held her motionless against the doorway, waiting for footsteps, for screams, for rending teeth and clutching hands, but these imminent horrors did not materialize.

Taking a long, deep breath she forced the terror back down her throat, swallowed it, and crept along the wall, towards the vats.

oOo

Chango lifted her eyes to Benny’s face and what she saw there backed her right up against the wall of the elevator. Ada’s tanks bumped against the paneling and she winced. They’d probably marred the fine grain wood. Benny approached her, reaching his big hands out towards her head. “What-what are you doing? Chango gasped as one hand fell on her shoulder, pinning her to the wall. “What have you done with Helix?” she fairly shouted in his ear just before he grabbed the back of her head and yanked it forward. He leaned closer. All Chango could see was her knees, but she knew he was reading the initials on the tanks.

“Well,” he said, pushing her up against the wall again, “I guess you’d better meet Mr. Graham.” He held her with one hand splayed across her chest, and pivoted to punch the floor button. He had to turn his head to find the right floor, and when he did Chango sank down, unbalancing his already awkward stance, and loosening his hold on her. She shrugged the tanks from her shoulders and in one fluid movement born of panic swung them around into Benny’s midsection. He doubled over at the blow, and she lost her grip on the tanks. They skittered across the elevator floor, bumping into the panelling on the other side. The doors were closing. Chango ducked around Benny and grabbed for the tanks, but he swung around, still bent at the waist, and pulled her legs out from under her. She turned her head as she hit the ground, saw the doors sealing together, and felt the floor pressing further into her aching cheek as the elevator rose.