"Why did we not wait for the police," asked Maeda, looking nervously back.
"Too many unwanted questions," replied Rupert, eyeing his rear view mirror. "An anonymous tip is best…for now."
"But your friend…"
"He wasn't my friend," cut in Rupert, before thinking better about it. "I'll file a report once we get our business taken care of; I have a feeling the two cases are related."
"He had much respect for you, that man," noted Maeda, staring into the dark countryside as they drove. Houses dotted the horizon, windows dark. The world slumbered, and a man he had just met would never awaken again. It was a heavy thought; one that sat with the many other heavy thoughts they had had over the past few days.
"George was…he wasn't a terrible man," offered Rupert grimly. "For all his faults, he really did try to help people. I suppose we all have that in common," he added, and the men drove in silence.
--
"How could Risa be pregnant," Jodie asked. "With all those robotic parts?"
"I don't know," answered Pierce. "But those cybernetic enhancements didn't replace any part of her body; they were additions to improve and enhance what was already there. Like breast implants," he added thoughtfully.
"Can we keep our heads focused here," said Jodie, poking Pierce in the side. "Rupert and Maeda should be here any minute now, and all we have is more questions than answers. Like, who's the father?"
"Can't help but wonder that, myself," said Pierce. "She looked so different, too."
"So pale," agreed Jodie. "Even her hair…does the cybernetic surgery do that to everyone?"
"Most lose their hair," said Pierce absently, going through the report on the blood sample. "Then again, I'd never seen the procedure successfully done on a woman."
"Not to mention an expectant mother."
"It's possible she was impregnated after that surgery."
"Ew, gross," she said. "Who would ever…" she began, but seemed to reconsider when Pierce looked up at her.
"Who would ever what?"
"Never mind," she said, but she could tell by the sparkle in his eye just what he would be willing to do with a beautiful woman that was half machine. His dream come true, probably.
--
"This is remarkable," marveled Maeda, standing over the microscope.
"We were just discussing that," called Jodie. She and Rupert were busy cleaning the weapon ordinance, but alert to the discussion at hand. "I mean, a pregnant cyborg…?"
"More than that, I fear," began Maeda, stroking his chin. "Mister Pierce, do you have a file on the original Eve strain?"
"Not here," replied Pierce. "You don't think…?"
"They are not the same," said Maeda with a shake of his head. "But the similarities of the mitochondria are more than coincidence."
"Could they have been related," said Rupert, looking down the long barrel of a gun.
"Unlikely," scoffed Pierce. "Aya and Risa looked nothing alike."
"And if anyone's the expert of what Aya looks like, it's you, right Pierce," mumbled Jodie.
"More than that," argued Pierce, not sensing her sarcasm. "They were practically opposites in facial structure and appearance."
"The Eve strain probably would have sought Risa out as well," said Maeda thoughtfully. "And Risa was unable to pass through the Blockade, right?" All eyes shifted to Rupert.
"Seemed that way," he grunted, snapping the new long barrel into place. Though he had said nothing when discovering the package from Mr. Douglas, he was obviously rather pleased with the end result.
"So we can eliminate that possibility," said Pierce, satisfied.
"No matter the cause," said Maeda. "If the strain mutates any further, it would be big trouble for everyone."
"How so," wondered Jodie.
"The original strain here," pointed Maeda. "Allowed the Maya affected host to create neo-mitochondria creatures in the first incident. But here," he pointed to another slide. "Is the strain mutated, that we found in this Risa person. It allows her to control the artificial neo-mitochondria creatures that were created by the vector virus."
"So what," she said. "We catch her, we cut their strings, right?"
"This new strain is mutating again," replied Pierce. "Meaning that Risa won't be able to control them; the first host of the new strain will be the one pulling the strings."
"And they won't stop until that host is put down," said Rupert, realizing the direness of the situation. "Can you build an antibody from what you have there," he asked.
"No, we would need a counteragent for a proper antibody," said Maeda. "Like Aya's blood for the first Eve strain."
"Would Aya's blood be enough again?"
"Unlikely," replied Maeda. "Her blood had adapted to Maya's malicious mitochondria, after years and years of co-existing; for us to recreate that environment, under these circumstances, would be…would be…" He faltered.
"Impossible," finished Rupert.
--
The outside of the building appeared as it did before; dusty, old, and abandoned. But Jodie's ribs still stung from the impact of her earlier encounter with the building's resident ghost, and she was none too eager to test her luck again.
"Risa was here," said Rupert, astonished. "She used to complain about the slightest bit of dust."
"Maybe that's why she was here," mumbled Jodie. "To clean up the dust."
"This is where she was investigating when she disappeared," noted Rupert, glancing again through the folders they had brought with them. "We were never able to connect the company to anything else, though."
"Looks like bankruptcy did the rest for us," said Jodie, her eyes never leaving the boarded up windows.
"Protesters," said Rupert, still scanning the document. "Some fanatics firebombed it, too, back in '99, and the sponsors decided this area wasn't worth the risk."
"So they just upped and moved," said Jodie, surprised. She would have thought that low cost urban areas would be ideal for the work done by the fertility clinic.
"It's a business, just like any other," said Rupert, shutting the folder and holstering his gun. "Let's go."
--
"She's probably long gone," he assured her. But Jodie was taking no chances, her eyes darting nervously between the darkness before her and the thermal scanner she had Pierce dig up for her.
"I hope you're right," she mumbled. Part of her wished Pierce and Maeda had come with them; though she would likely have to watch over them, she found a particular comfort in being entrusted with their safety. She idly wondered if that was some part of feminine intuition, that desire to protect. But she shook the thought aside, seeing Rupert comb through the ruins with such business-like efficiency.
"Something's over here," said Rupert suddenly, tapping a decaying wall. A hollow sound came from beyond it. The two shared a brief look before Rupert rammed a gloved fist through the drywall, pulling back sections of the plaster. Dust and powder flew out, caking Rupert, and despite the ominous discovery of a passage beyond the hole, Jodie couldn't help but smile at seeing Rupert's clean shaven head and Italian suit lightly dusted with powder.
The next thing to pass through the hole was Rupert's handcannon; its menacing barrel peeked into the depths as Jodie lent him her flashlight, the cone of light barely piercing the darkness beyond.
Unlike the rest of the fraying building, the hallway beyond the wall was clean, almost immaculate. Someone had been taking care of this section.
"Let's go," said Rupert. "Stay close, and watch our flank."
"This is incredible," whispered Jodie. "Not a single one of these rooms is on the blueprints," she added.
"Maybe we should have started here after all," grunted Rupert, his eyes focused on the dim darkness ahead.
"It still looks deserted, though," offered Jodie. "Should we call Pierce and Maeda and let them know what we've found?"
"What have we found," countered Rupert. "Dust? A hidden section under a building that used to perform abortions? Nothing here is out of the ordinary just yet, and I want those two focused on making an antibody should this virus spiral out of control."
Jodie nodded rather than replied, agreeing with him but feeling no urgent desire to voice it. Men like Rupert fed off of such agreements, and she didn't want to be just another foot soldier in this game.
"Holy mother of God," breathed Rupert as he came around the next corner, his handgun lowering.
"What is it," asked Jodie, herself coming to see what had stunned a man who had seen practically everything there was to see.
A monstrous lab sprawled before them, larger than MIST's entire headquarters. Dim, green lights ran the entire length of the room, casting everything under a jade-like lighting. Canisters the size of office water coolers ran on opposite sides of the steel walkway, the hundreds of containers holding embryos and unborn fetuses. They shook with the occasion bubbles that they were fed by the network of tubes and cables, capable of dwarfing a telephone company's central hub.
"They must have been at this for years," said Rupert. "But how is it still running?"
Jodie opened her mouth to say something when she noticed something amongst the mass of wires above her. At first it looked simply like one of the larger tubes swaying with the liquid pressure, but when she saw the pale, grinning face above it, she raised her shotgun with a yell.
Too late it came, as the face descended towards her, gliding in a swift thrust of silent motion that not only knocked Jodie back, but dragged her dozens of feet. The poor girl was out the moment that Rupert turned, his handcannon raised.
"Don't move," grunted Rupert, the barrel of his new Maeda Special leveled at her chest. "Don't make me do it, Risa."
"You still can't pull the trigger, can you," she said, pushing Jodie gently aside. "Jodie would have, you know. She would have killed me and not thought twice about it. But you…you Rupert, a trained killer, so thirsty for vengeance, and you can't do it. Why?"
"If you hurt her, I will," he said, deliberately cocking the hammer.
"Your hand is shaking," she said, a trace of sadness in her voice. "That makes me so happy, you know, that my life still means something to you," she added, looking at her mechanical arm. "What is left of it, that is."
"I know you're pregnant, Risa," he said, lowering his gun. "Was it…?"
She laughed bitterly. "You mean was it after us," she asked. "It is not what you think, Rupert," she said, her hand wandering to her stomach. "No…this was the brainchild of the monsters that locked me away her, with dozens of other women, dehumanizing us; first by implanting us with cloned embryos and then with robotic body parts."
"You mean…all this time…?"
She nodded. "There was no biological father to the child within me, this child trapped for years in my womb, the only part of me that was allowed to remain human. You see, these embryos, cloned from a dead woman, granted some of us certain abilities."
"Maya," breathed Rupert.
"Maya," whispered Risa reverently. "That's a good name…a mother's name. I doubt that made any difference to the men seeking to exploit the…side effects of the procedure."
"I'm sorry, Risa," he said. Was there anything else a person could say?
"Kind of funny, isn't it," she asked darkly. "That I would have to give up everything that meant life just to have one grow within me?"
"It's not funny," said Rupert, hearing the sadness behind her words. "You deserved better, Risa, no different than anyone else. You risked your life to protect others, and you only got this to show for it. That's not fair, and I know it. But we have to stop this now, before it gets out of hand."
"Stop this," she asked, her eyes narrowing. "These babies need to be born, Rupert. They just need someone to give them a chance."
"Spreading your vector virus across the planet, killing every man, woman, and child, is not giving anyone a chance!"
"I am not like my creators," she sighed. "Though I may look like a monster, I am not one…the virus, too, is not what it may outwardly seem."
"What do you mean? I saw it turn Brecklin into a monster…! After you killed him, of course."
"I did not kill him," she said bluntly. "He keeled over from a heart attack the moment he saw me," she smiled, the memory fondly in her thoughts. "Guilty conscience, I suppose." She paused. "As for the receiver…that was encoded," she admitted. "Using a matrix he once devised, to affect others," she added with a pause. "It was only fitting that it would be used against him, to make his last moments utter agony."
"But the vector imprints…they turn anyone into monsters, don't they?"
She shook her head. "If that's what they were encoded for; I have no such ambition to spread such a disease, to cripple the world."
"Then what does yours do?"
"It makes the world habitable for my babies," she replied. "That's all."
"By killing everyone else?"
She chuckled. "I am no comic book villain, Rupert," she said. "The virus affects airborne micro-organisms, and makes them less hostile to the weak, the newborn. Should these castoffs ever be born, they would surely die from the world as we have it, with pollution, disease, waste…the virus I have encoded only erodes that which hurts life. The virus you fear so much will only save lives."
Jodie lay in a heap, her lungs still burning, but her ears stood in attention, hearing every word that Risa said. Could it be true? Could all their worries have been for nothing? If what Risa said was true, she deserved their sympathy, not their anger. To be forcibly impregnated, the flesh and bones broken and sawed away to replace with mechanical limbs…she shuddered. No woman should have to endure that.
And though sympathy ran through every fiber of her body and tugged her every cord of her sympathetic heart, Jodie only hesitated a moment before she activated the homing beacon that Pierce had given her earlier.
--
Note: Sorry for the super delay, but as I've said before, this is to be my last fanfic. Dug this one up about halfway finished, and kind of threw a lot of elements together. Lots of familiarity to the story, I think, and maybe I've lost some of the character-specific focus that I first wanted, but I figure any addition to the shamefully small PE universe is a welcome one. Thank goodness a new one is coming out; can't wait!