Selim was boiling with rage, all fear consumed in the white heat of his anger "Nobody says such things of my mother!" He yelled "I will make you regret it soft meat!"
He lunged at Farrell but the man slapped him hard across the face, knocking him to the floor.
"Hey!" Isaac sprang to his feet, putting himself between Selim and the minder "You can't hit him, he had an operation! I'll tell my Mom!" Farrell grabbed him by the upper arms and slammed him into a wall.
"You ugly little mutant!" He said nastily "Your 'Mom' ain't coming back."
"What do you mean?" Isaac's face was a mask of distress.
"Iversson upset the boss lady, she's gone!" He drew a finger across his throat with a grin "So from now on you better start showing me more respect."
"I don't believe you!" Isaac screamed at him, almost hysterical "You … you … fucking liar!"
"Watch your goddamn mouth when you speak to me you little shit!" Farrell belted him hard across the face "That goes for you too," He spat at Selim "Unless you want me to knock some more sense into you!"
"I do not fear you, coward." Selim said in a low voice, straightening up from where the blow had knocked him down "My father has hit me harder than that in play. Let my friend go or you will regret it!"
Farrell did not release his grip on Isaac "Your father, huh?" He spat "No wonder the two of you are so hideous, being related to that big ugly motherfucker, Christ! I only saw him once and it almost made me lose my lunch!"
"Mei'Savir?" Selim's mouth dropped open "You saw him? Where is he?"
"In deep shit, that's where he is. The science team fucked him up so bad he can't even move." He gave a nasty laugh at Selim's look of shock "That's right! And without Iversson standing up for your spoiled ass, you and this little piece of shit here got a big surprise coming!"
Selim's eyes glowed bright yellow with rage as he glared up at Farrell. Though he lacked the quick temper of both his parents, he'd been learning to fight and hunt and kill ever since he was old enough to walk. Seeing his only friend treated like this on top of the awful insults against his mother and father had pushed him over the edge. Pure, adrenalin-fuelled instinct told him that here at last was the moment all the lessons had been leading up to.
A clicking growl rose up from deep in his throat. Farrell looked startled at the inhuman noise but still didn't loosen his grip on Isaac.
Then Selim attacked, moving so quickly the minder barely had time to realise what was happening. He sprang on the bed to gain height and then launched himself at Farrell, landing on the man's back, his claws leaving gory tracks. The minder dropped Isaac and flailed at him but Selim hung on grimly with one hand, raking the claws across his victim's face and hammered his fist against the back of his head. Farrell stumbled across the room like a drunk, flailing at his small aggressor. Then Isaac leaped to the defence of his friend. He wrapped himself around their tormentor's leg, razor talons slicing through clothing and digging into flesh as he tried to keep from being flung against the wall. As the minder bellowed in rage and tried to rip Isaac off him, Selim took advantage of the distraction to sink his needle teeth into Farrell's neck. The big man screamed as blood began to pour down the front of his shirt.
As Farrell staggered around, trying to fight both children, his legs got tangled round Isaac and he went down, striking his head hard on the sharp corner of the table. After a moment the two boys managed to pull themselves out from underneath his heavy unconscious body and stood looking down at him.
"Is he …is he… dead?" Isaac looked over at Selim anxiously.
Calmly his friend held two fingers to the man's throat, as if this was all perfectly normal "No." He said, wiping Farrell's blood off his mouth with the back of his hand "He is still breathing. But he is out cold." He trotted off to Isaac's battered toy box and came back with a jump rope. Then he grabbed hold of the minders hands, pulling them behind his back.
"Selim! What are you doing!" Isaac hissed.
"Tying him up."
"You can't do that!"
"Yes I can, it is easy." Selim pulled the knot tight"I have often used ropes to bind prey." He paused and looked thoughtful "My father would probably want me to dispatch him now."
"Dispatch? What does that mean!?"
"Kill him."
"NO!"
Selim looked up in surprise "You do not want him to get up do you?"
"No but – "
"Isaac, we cannot afford hesitation."
"Can't we just leave him here?" His friend pleaded "I don't want to get in trouble!"
Selim finished tying the knot and stood up. He looked down at the unconscious man for a moment, then at Isaac's stricken expression. Then he shrugged "Very well, I won't kill him but we must go! If my Father is here we need to find him and my Mother too. They will put a stop to all of this."
"But… Farrell said that your father was gonna die!"
"You do not really believe that?" Selim gave a little chirrup of disgust "Like you said; he is a …what was the word again?"
"Dumbass?"
"Yes, that word. My Father unable to move? Ridiculous! He could not be defeated by such as this, he is invincible! This soft meat must be lying." He waved Farrell's words away with a dismissive hand.
"But he said my Mom was gone too!"
"Another lie."
"But if they find out I'm missing they'll send people after me! And what about the monster? I'm not sure – "
"Isaac, I am sure!" Selim gripped the other boy's arm urgently "We need to get out of here before Farrellwakes up or he'll start making too much noise. We need to find my parents and maybe Iversson too, they will protect us."
As they slipped through the door that Farrell had left unlocked and pulling it shut with a click they began to run down the corridor. Outside the large glass windows of the corridors of Island South the stormy sea raged soundlessly, artificial lights throwing strange watery reflections onto the walls and ceiling. The two children ran on silent feet, not really knowing where they were running to – just trying to get away.
As the came to a corner Selim slowed, flattening himself against the wall and motioned for the other boy to do the same. Isaac skidded to a halt behind him and waited, fidgeting nervously as his friend edged forward to peer down the next stretch of hallway. Something that Farrell had said was bothering him.
In fact everything Farrell had said was bothering him.
The exotic was unnervingly quiet, prowling through the dark like a shadow.
Iversson's heart was in her mouth as she walked next to him. All she could hear was the strange ghostly, white-noise caused by the fathoms of water that surrounded them on all sides. There were moments when she had to clamp her lips shut to prevent herself from breaking the silence to alleviate her nerves. Just as she thought the tension alone might drive her mad he spoke.
"Scientisssst?" He did not look at her "There is something I must… asssk you."
She swallowed "Yes?"
"You performed the operation… on my sssson?"
A little tingle of dread ran all through her "Yes, I oversaw it."
"Selim's illnessss," He said slowly "Is it because… he is... a hybrid?"
She thought for a moment, grateful to have something else to occupy her mind than fear of the dark. Some people would have already been falling over themselves to tell this violent creature what he wanted to hear, but Iversson had backbone. She was an inherently honest person and besides, in spite of the fear she found herself feeling a little sliver of sympathy for him. She knew only too well the searing hot misery of a parent with a sick child, who can't help but ask themselves over and over again "Was it my fault?"
"It's hard to isolate what causes cancer," She said finally "But I think I can say with a degree of certainty it's unlikely that was the reason."
"How can you… know this?" He sounded suspicious.
"Because Isaac hasn't developed it." She said simply "And genetically the two of them are identical. If he remains clear that would seem to suggest other factors are involved."
"Such as…?"
"Environmental ones perhaps. Diet, exposure to radiation… or sometimes it just seems to be bad luck."
He seemed to be thinking "The… facsimile; he has not become ill?"
"When I found out about Selim's tumour I had them do a brain scan on Isaac immediately," She told him "He's clear. And Selim is recovering at an astonishing rate. I don't think I've ever heard of anyone healing so fast after such a serious operation."
"That is no great… mystery!" He said irritably "He is… my sssson."
Iversson frowned. She just couldn't work him out; on the one hand she had evidently not been wrong about his savagery or his capacity for violence, he had proven as much since she set him free. On the other he clearly cared about his son and weirdly she found that, on this subject, they shared some common ground. Isaac and Selim were remarkable in their ability to heal, their accelerated growth, their sharpened instincts, their intelligence … even though, as he had pointed out, she had no genetic link to either of them she shared his pride. Isaac certainly would not exist if it hadn't been for her and without her help Selim would probably not be alive. In an odd way, she felt that linked him and the two children to her just as strongly as any bridge made out of the slippery double helix of DNA.
A skittering noise in the corridor behind made her jump and caused him to stop dead, as if his whole body was listening. When no more noise came he began moving forward again.
"I can't see anything." She said, more to herself than to him.
"They are all around us," He purred "I hear them... I… sense them."
"What?! Where?" She couldn't see anything but she was almost ready to climb on his shoulders at the thought.
"Silence!" He put one hand at the side of his mask. Then he stood with his head cocked for a few seconds as if listening "We need to leave," He said suddenly "Now."
He began to move more quickly down the corridor and she tried to keep up, stumbling along in the dim light for a few moments before he turned impatiently and grabbed her by the arm, pulling her along behind him.
Iversson shrank inside her skin at the physical contact, but she forced herself to bare it, not wanting to be left alone in this freezing, submarine tomb. She gritted her teeth, only occasionally speaking to tell him a right or a left turn.
"How far … is it to this lift?"
"Down to the end here, around the next right hand turn and then left -" She said.
A blood freezing shriek echoed out of the darkness behind them and he began to speed up, her feet almost lifted off the floor "I thought – you could – kill them – easily!" She said, the breath being jolted from her lungs as she ran faster than she had in years.
"It would take… too long to kill… all of them."
"How many are there!?" She gasped in horror.
"You do not …want to know!"
As they rounded the corner at a dead run, there was a creaking, groaning noise of metal breaking and tearing and the floor gave way underneath them. She didn't even have a chance to scream as the shadows closed over their heads.
"Come on!" Lex hissed "Get it open!"
"I'm going as fast as I can!" Rathbone fumbled with the biometrics, jamming his fingers onto the sensor pads.
At their backs, they could hear horrible cries, scrabbling and banging at the security door that had just shut behind them.
As the next door slid open they raced through and hastily pressed the pad to seal it again, then bolted down the corridor, skidding and slipping on the polished floor.
"Are you sure you want to lead these … things right to your kid?" He panted.
"How do you know they're not already headed for him?" She spat back "You idiots bring them here! You let them escape and now they're coming out of the fucking walls!"
He didn't argue; she was right and she still had the gun.
She suddenly skidded to a halt outside one particular door "That's not where your son is!" He said, confused.
"No, but it is Iversson's office, I remember from before. Use your pass, I need to get in!"
"What the fuck for?"
"Because I need my weapons back and I'm taking a guess that's where she put them!"
Both of their heads jerked round as a distant shriek echoed down the corridor, muffled by the security door – for now.
"A guess?!"
She didn't answer but pointed the gun at him "Open it!"
"I can't, I don't have authorisation to get into the Professor's office!"
Without a word she pointed the gun away from him and shot the lock out, then kicked the door hard. It swung inwards, slamming against the wall with a crack and she darted inside.
"Woods!" He shrank back against the wall as another shriek cut through him. When she didn't answer he went in after her. He found her yanking at a large locked drawer without success, rattling it. When it didn't open she snatched up a long metal letter opener off the desk and began picking the lock. "At least it's just a regular lock on this drawer, thank God Iversson's old school!"
"Whatever you're doing hurry the fuck up?" He peered around the door frame then looked round, eyes wide with fear "They're at the last door – we've got to go!"
"We need weapons that are going to work against the hard meat, not this human rubbish." She said grimly "I need hunter's weapons! My weapons!"
"You don't know they're even in there!" They could now hear a rhythmic banging noise in the corridor outside. He looked like he was going to be sick "They're going to be through that door any minute!"
"Make yourself useful then," He looked at her in bewilderment "Push that desk in front of it!"
Dumbly he obeyed, though he what furniture could do against a creature that wasn't stopped by bullets he couldn't imagine. The desk was very heavy and it took all his strength to shift it across the thickly carpeted floor. He wedged it shut as tightly as he could; even though the door was heavy the locking mechanism was broken now. He heard her triumphant exclamation behind him, a clunk and a ping as the drawer sprang open. Then to his horror a tinkling crash as the reinforced glass in the security door shattered and then… hissing breath getting louder and louder as the things padded down the hallway outside.
He turned to see her strapping blades onto her hands and snapping a metal gauntlet around her wrist. She slung a holster around her waist into which she slid several wicked-looking knives, a few clusters of strange objects, a weird looking gun and another larger gauntlet. In one hand she held a short, solid looking metal stick.
Then she lifted up a large metal mask and pushed it onto her face.
She turned to face him, transformed. The glowering visor made her look inhuman and strange and he almost shrank away from her. Then her head flicked towards the door as one of the creatures hit it heavily from the other side. She twisted the short stick in her hands and suddenly it expanded to become a long spear, blades shooting out of either end.
"They're gonna get through any second!" He said, in abject terror now "We're trapped! They're going to do to us what they did to Haagens!"
She turned to look at him but before she could say anything the door began to move – the heavy desk being pushed slowly but inexorably further and further back. As the smooth head emerged through the ever widening gap she levelled her spear and stabbed at its forehead but the thing thrust a long clawed hand into the room and deflected the blow, slithering through with sickening ease.
She lunged, using the spear to impale it through the sternum and it sprang backwards leaving the spear still embedded in its body, steam rising from the wound. The creature hissed and bared its fangs, drool streaming from its open maw, it tensed. Without hesitation she pulled her gun and shot it in the head, the white hot heat blowing the creature and its corrosive blood backwards across the wall. The blast illuminated the whole room and left his vision full of blue after-echoes.
She kept the door covered with the gun a few moments more but no more monsters seemed to be outside. Then she reached up and touched the side of her mask, looking from side to side, scanning for something.
"It's clear for now." Her voice sounded almost ghostly, inside the mask.
"I don't understand, how can they be over here?" He coughed, gagging on the smell of dissolving metal "They're isolated over on North and I posted guards on the bridge – "
"You really don't have any idea what you're facing here, do you?" She strode over to the oozing, fizzing corpse and calmly pulled the spear from its abdomen "Your staff might be guarding the bridge, but if they can get into the ventilation system they can move around without even being detected."
She inspected the smouldering spearhead for a moment, seemed to decide it was worth salvaging and retracted the blades, slotting it into a holster on her back. Then she pulled open the door, having to heave the desk back out of the way to do it.
The hallway outside was empty.
"What's the matter?" She nodded through the door "Scared of the dark?"
He swallowed "Can I get one of those guns?"
She gave a hollow chuckle "Very funny. Now get moving."