Blood and Fire (McClouds & Friends #8)(156)

Yes, his standards edged ever higher. That pleased him, this slow but steady ma toward complete perfection. Utter control.

But it was a sensation he was not at liberty to enjoy today, with his staff scattered to the four winds, or dead, or falling to pieces. And he had the little ones to think of, too, the two children produced from the last of the viable embryos obtained from Magda. He’d had them brought over today with the notion of showing them to Bruno, for entertainment value as well as professional curiosity. He wondered, for instance, if that mechanism of noble self-sacrifice that had worked so well with Lily would work with the babies, too. If his son would feel an immediate bond with the children because of shared DNA. After all, look what mere sex had reduced him too, poor boy. Fascinating question. Brain candy.

Still. It had been self-indulgent to order the children delivered today. There was no one to attend to them when they woke from their drugged sleep. Hopefully that would not happen for hours yet. Their pod leader had been sent away, not being privy to the secrets of his enterprise. He’d decided years ago to outsource early child care for reasons of cost-effectiveness. Changing diapers and wiping mouths did not require millions of dollars of specialized training. The pod leaders were well paid to do exactly as he requested and to tell no tales—but they weren’t welcome on the premises today.

Once the actual programming of the children began, he used only DeepWeave programmed staff, so as to avoid misunderstandings. Only a DeepWeave alum could understand the totality of his vision, or have the necessary loyalty and commitment.

He sighed and swung the chair over, clicking on the video monitor of the quiet, out-of-the-way room where the children lay in their drugged sleep. No movement.

He swung over to the opposite bank of computers and checked the tracer embedded in Zoe’s clavicle, as well as the ones in Zoe’s cell and Rosa Ranieri’s. Zoe’s signal was stationary, but the two cells were clustered together, on the move. He hit the key that brought the overlaid satellite photo onto the map and zoomed in. Yes, it appeared to be the same vehicle. So it was true. They’d left Zoe unconscious in the storage unit, and one of the McClouds was driving his wounded brother to the emergency room. They had not determined which brother was wounded, but it hardly mattered. McClouds were interchangeable.

He grabbed the earbuds, listened. Muffled cursing and groans were all he heard. No conversation. King sat there, drumming his fingers. He disliked leaving the nerve center of his operation unmanned, but Melanie had not presented herself. Anger simmered inside him. He pulled up Melanie’s mortal commands from his personal database to have them fresh, at his fingertips. He’d ask her to swallow her own tongue. Choke to death at his feet. That would calm his nerves nicely.

He strode toward Parr’s room, thinking about the groaning, whining McCloud with his bullet wound. Odd. The research he’d done on the McClouds would have suggested utter stoicism in the face of pain. But one never knew. Some of the toughestseeming people were as soft as butter inside. And the opposite was also true. Take Lily Parr. Remarkable toughness. The riff about fertilizing her ovum for his next crop of research subjects had sprung into his mind out of nowhere while editing that video for Bruno, but the more he thought about it, the more the idea appealed.

Then again, he’d be gambling with the genes of her wretched failure of a father. Still and all. Chances were, her mother’s attributes would predominate. Howard had been intelligent—that trait he shared with his daughter in full. But he’d had none of Lily’s courage, her drive.

He mused about it tenderly as he inserted the key, imagining the results of the union of himself and Lily Parr. Their beauty, their fire. They might well surpass his and Magda’s progeny, in terms of potential.

The door swung open.

He stood, frozen, while the information battering at the doors of his perception simply would not enter. He noticed the video still rolling. A seventeen-year-old Lily Parr, taking a shower. One of his favorites.

Then the doors of his realization burst inward, all at once.

Melanie lay dead in the corner, mouth gaping. Her jaw, neck, and chest red with blood. Eyes bulging. How . . . ?

The red dots on her arms came into focus. Transdermal Melimitrex VIII. There was at least five times a fatal dose stuck onto her wrists. He’d taken them for drops of blood at first glance.

Death had released control of her bodily functions. He gagged delicately. The silence of the place seemed suddenly menacing.

King backed out of the room, staring to the left, the right. This was unprecedented. Himself, alone in this huge place, with no allies. Just ten drugged teenagers in the programming room, two drugged toddlers in the far wing—and two hostile elements on the loose.

He sidled down the corridor, punching Julian’s code into his com.

“Sir?” Julian said. “We’re on our—”

“Get back here!” he hissed savagely. “Parr killed Melanie and escaped! I’m alone, and I don’t know where they are in the building!”

King hung up, peeking into the control room. Neither Ranieri nor Parr appeared to be in there, so he sped to the locked cupboard in the back, pulled out the revolver. Furious at himself for the arrogant choice of the Walther PPK as his emergency weapon. He’d liked the streamlined elegance of the small weapon. He’d considered it to have more a ceremonial value than anything else. Who could have dreamed of a situation in which he would need even six shots, let alone the seventeen of a semiautomatic? He’d molded an army to take care of those gritty details for him, and where were they all now?