Eradicate Read online

  “I’m new. Just switched in.”

  “Oh.” She seemed to be weighing a deeper response, then shrugged. “Follow me.” She put the headwear back and walked away. Wesley followed.

  She led the way back to the main part of the kitchen, where cooks and chefs loaded bulk food stuffs for delivery to the public dining areas, and put more customized meals on serving trays for delivery, either to personal quarters or private dining rooms. He watched Miriam pull a slip of paper from a pocket in her apron and, as Wesley followed along, she loaded the covered serving trays onto the cart he pushed.

  “Okay, your delivery goes to the old HQ quarters. You know where that is?”

  “I can find anything.”

  She sighed and wrote something on the paper. “That’s the address. I need to warn you, the people you’re delivering to are…”

  “Demeaning?”

  “They struggle with the usual rules of decorum, especially with food service, it seems. Best bet is to say nothing if possible, deliver their food, and get out quickly. If they ask you to stay for any reason, tell them you have other deliveries on your run and you started with them. They might not care, but at least give it a try. Clear?”

  “Completely.”

  She put small cards by each of the covered trays, and Wesley glanced at the names. He tried to hide his glee. Miriam detected his reaction. “You recognize the names?”

  “I do.”

  “That’s good. That means you won’t have to ask who gets each meal. Do your best and get out of there. Okay?”

  “Got it.”

  “Thanks, Tracy. And good luck.”

  “Thanks.”

  And she was off, running back toward the kitchen. “I need a meal prepped for someone in one of the prison cells, and someone to make that delivery!”

  Wesley ignored her. Fate had given him a great opportunity, providing him with a plausible means to be in the fortress and making his way to the Wiley’s old quarters, where his assassination targets awaited. And he was delivering food that they’d ordered specifically, meaning they’d definitely eat what he’d deliver. He could use the food to deliver poisons. If he could keep his mouth shut and his eyes down, he might pull this mission off with as little drama as could be imagined. He’d come back, fake an illness, go back to change out of his delivery uniform, and escape back through the water pipe.

  He doubted he’d be that lucky. But he at least had a chance.

  He found a small alcove along the route and pushed the cart in. After ensuring he wasn’t watched, he pulled a small vial from his hidden supply pack, a slow acting, invisible, tasteless, odorless poison. He raised each lid and sprinkled the flakes onto the steaming entrees, replaced each lid, and sealed the vial.

  “You okay in there?”

  He set the vial down and turned, ensuring it couldn’t be seen. It was another delivery person. “Got assigned a delivery to the old HQ room. Just… preparing myself for the encounter.”

  “Oh, you poor thing.” She cocked her head. “You’re new?”

  He caught a glimpse of her uniform. “Yeah, Wendy. First delivery. From the commentary I’ve gotten it sounds like I’m going to regret my new job.”

  Her face turned more sympathetic. “You’ll be fine. Just say nothing, get them their food, and get out.”

  “That’s what Miriam said.”

  “She’s right.” Wendy started moving again. “Good luck.”

  He waited until she was out of sight, glanced around, and pushed the vial into the netting without putting it into the bag. No time. He pulled the cart back out and headed out into the main area of the fortress. He murmured the destination name to the computer, which provided him turn-by-turn navigation through the facility, steering him clear of the more populated areas. It wasn’t long before he reached the room, still adorned with a label bearing the names of Desdemona and Jeffrey Wiley.

  He mentally checked himself, felt the faint pressure of knives strapped to various points of his body. He’d not been able to smuggle any firearms in here, and would have to rely on his knives and his wits to survive any violent encounter. He’d do his best to avoid anything of the sort.

  He moved toward the door, not too fast, not too slow, and nodded in an offhand manner to the guard station outside. “Food service.”

  One of the men nodded. “Finally; they’ve been getting impatient in there. I’ll take you right in.” He punched in a security code. Wesley made sure his hat and germ mask were properly affixed, mentally rechecked the location of weapons he’d prefer to not touch during his visit to this room, and followed the guard inside.

  He rolled the cart in, well aware that the eyes of those in the room were on the meals, mouths watering as the scent of savory, hot food wafted over them. He wheeled the cart to a corner of the room and looked up just long enough to catch the faces of those there, matching name card and meal on the cart to seating location.

  He set the serving dishes before each of the diners, removing the lids only after setting each dish on the table before the identified recipient.

  He could sense their hunger… and a deep sense of unease in the room.

  His eyes, kept low, took in details around the room. Four empty bottles of wine rested on a table set off to the side and a strong hint of alcohol filled the room, perhaps a means of dealing with whatever discomforted them. As he moved the lids away, off to rest on the side table housing the empty bottles, he began catching snippets of conversation. Phrases like “explosions on the space station,” “lost Delilah,” and “how did Ravagers get to the Enclave.” He kept his face emotionless, moving at a speed he hoped communicated confidence and competence rather than haste. It took only a few minutes to replace a few pieces of silverware deemed too dirty for use, and he placed the crystal pitchers of water on the table, spaced evenly among the diners.

  After he scooped up a few empty dishes and set them on the cart, he kicked up the wheel locks and started for the door.

  “One moment.”

  Wesley frowned inwardly, trying to place the name. It must be Wanda. He couldn’t remember her particular variety of cruelty, and didn’t wish to find out. But he stopped, turned, and faced her, keeping his head angled downward, eyes facing the ground, waiting to learn why he’d been halted in his departure efforts.

  “Stay, please.” He felt a slight surprise; these people weren’t known to say “please” to anyone. “We’ll finish eating and you can get the rest of the dishes out of the way.”

  Wesley kept his head down. “I regret to say that I must return to deliver food to other—”

  “No, you need to stay here.” Wanda’s voice, pleasant at first, turned sharp, harsh, and Wesley resisted the shuddering urge triggered at her changed tone of voice. “No one will be inconvenienced. Someone else can take food to other people.”

  He didn’t know how many orders remained on the delivery list, nor did he know how many were working in meal delivery at this time. Was she right? He didn’t know, and by the time he’d thought it through this far, he’d taken too long to leave without making a significant scene. Resigned to whatever fate he’d earned, Wesley pushed the cart into the darkest corner of the room and try to flatten himself into the wall, keeping his eyes down. He periodically flicked his eyes up, trying to note where each of the diners sat, where their aids and personal bodyguards stood, where the furniture was located, and the location of the sole exit that he knew to be heavily guarded.

  He couldn’t help but notice that one of the men at the table kept staring his way.

  That couldn’t be a good thing.

  As they finished consuming the delectable entrees, Gordon suggested that they all stand and stretch their legs. Wesley noted that all of them appeared to be finished eating, not just Gordon, and so as they each stood and engaged in quiet gossip—one pair speculated as to the identity of Oswald Silver’s next mistress—Wesley slid in silently, stacking used silverware and dishes and carrying them back to the cart.
<
br />   He turned to return to the table for another stack of dishes… and found his way impeded by Gordon. Wesley dipped his face down, almost reflexively, and his eyes settled upon his boots. Gordon stepped closer and stooped lower, until, frustrated at Wesley’s continued efforts to keep his face hidden, he put his hands on Wesley’s cheeks and lifted the latter’s face up, until the two men were looking eye-to-eye.

  The eye contact triggered memories. Gordon had been the one. He’d been the one who’d fetched Wesley, told him how they’d built a terrific new testing ground for the nanobot replication enhancement Wesley developed, and invited Wesley to watch a demo. Gordon watched, not the demo, but Wesley’s face, waiting for the instant when Wesley realized what he was seeing, realized how his invention had been bastardized beyond any evil Wesley had been previously able to conceive.

  Gordon had held Wesley’s head in his hands, forcing Wesley to watch. Wesley could feel the man’s laughter as the innocents had died horribly, screams squashed short as lungs dissolved and the airflow required to continue agonized shrieks was forever lost. They’d build activation pods of the specially coded nanobots from the newly replicated models built from the raw matter of living people who’d just died.

  And Wesley had snapped, his mind blown away, beyond repair, the pacifist realizing his invention would be used as a tool of extermination.

  Back in the present, Gordon seized his face once more, squeezing in order to force Wesley’s gaze straight forward.

  Wesley saw the recognition hit. “You?” Gordon hissed. He pulled the hat and facemask off and Wesley’s thin disguise evaporated. “It’s actually you? You’re supposed to be…” But he lost track of whatever it was Wesley was supposed to be, because he realized the only thing Wesley’s presence could mean. Gordon turned to the others, still engaged in idle gossip. “We’ve been infiltrated by the enemy in this very room. Guards! Seize this man and—”

  But he never finished his commands.

  Wesley, realizing that he’d been recognized and that he couldn’t wait for the poisons to do their work, had pulled a long knife from his boot, leaped forward, wrapped the arm of his free hand around Gordon’s forehead, and ripped the blade across Gordon’s throat. Blood gushed from the open wound, and Gordon’s body shook in shock as he tried frantically to do anything he could to close the fatal tear in his jugular vein. Wesley threw the man forward, toward the guards who’d recognized the threat too late to save Gordon, thwarting their advance, and dove beneath the massive wooden table.

  He lunged further beneath the table and grabbed the legs of the closest person. He recognized the color of the clothing as Wanda’s as he dragged her down to the ground. She screamed and threw an elbow at Wesley’s face. He grunted as his nose cartilage shifted unnaturally; the coppery scent of his blood seeped into his nostrils. He dodged the next blow and lunged forward, wrapping an arm around her right shoulder, across her torso, and gripping the fabric of her blouse below her left arm. He rolled and stood, pulling her up as he did so. He put the long end of the knife hilt between his teeth before he reached his left arm forward, pinning her arm behind her back, and then let his right arm retreat, pulling her other arm behind her as he did. He now held both her arms tight behind her back and kept her body in front of him as the guards opened fire. He squatted down slightly and could feel her body shudder as the bullets meant for him struck her instead. Her body convulsed violently as the guards ceased firing. He slammed her forward, catching her temple against the massive table, and felt her go limp, unconscious or dead instantly. He pulled her back up in front of him, having to bear the entirety of her weight now. He could still use her as a shield, but the armed guards had spread out, increasing the angles of fire with which to hit him. He couldn’t use her body to block all of their gunfire at once.

  Wesley pulled the knife from his teeth and hurled it at the guard directly across the table, then used both arms to pick Wanda’s body up and hurl it at the nearest guard. The man leaped aside, easily dodging her body, but made a fatal mistake. He looked down at the dead woman, failing to keep Wesley in his line of sight. By the time he looked up again, Wesley was on him. He seized the hand that held the gun and used his teeth, ripping away the flesh and tendons of the man’s wrist, blinking in surprise as he tasted blood, wondering how he’d thought to do something like that. Wesley easily freed the gun from the man’s hand and took possession as he moved behind him, making him the second victim of friendly fire in the room. Wesley let the man fall to the ground and dropped at the same time, firing under the table at the guard on the far side. The man’s knee exploded and he screamed in pain. Wesley rolled under the table and away from his latest human shield and fired at the legs of the remaining guards. The men dove away from the shots. Wesley stood quickly and fired two more shots at each of the three living members of the Thirty, striking two in the neck and the third in the shoulder.

  With everyone else in the room on the ground or beneath the table for cover, Wesley jumped up atop the wooden surface, tearing the scrubs away and throwing the pieces over the sides of the table, distracting the remaining armed guards as to his true location. They continued to fire at him from beneath the table, having realized he’d run out of bullets in his current weapon before Wesley realized he’d lost count. Wesley searched his regular clothing for the items he needed, noting where the thumps and splintered wood were concentrated; angles showed that the two surviving guards had positioned themselves at opposite ends of the length of the huge table, and both were firing up at him at angles, pinning him to the middle of the table.

  Wesley pulled the pins of the two grenades and threw them at the walls nearest to where the guards hid beneath the tables, facing away from the walls. So intent were they at firing at Wesley’s dancing footsteps atop the table that neither of them heard the thump as a grenade hit nearby, and neither noticed the grenades ricochet off the walls and roll to stops nearby. Wesley counted, then took two long strides and leaped off the short side of the table toward the exterior door. His jumping ability was better than he’d estimated; enhanced by the adrenaline coursing through him, Wesley hit the wall hard and heard a snap as a rib cracked.

  The grenades exploded an instant before his left foot hit the ground. His ankle twisted at an awkward angle and he collapsed in a heap.

  The legs and columns supporting the table’s bulk splintered into wood chips, and the ends of the table collapsed downward. He didn’t know if the explosions had killed the two surviving guards, or if the heavy ends of the table had crushed them.

  But the sound of weapon fire ceased.

  He breathed deeply for several moments, then calmed himself to resume his normal respiratory rate. Ankle throbbing, he rose to his feet, shaky, and limped back amongst the carnage. He found a gun belonging to the first guard he’d killed and picked it up. He walked around to each of the others in the room; if there was any doubt as to whether they lived, he put the gun against their forehead and pulled the trigger.

  When he’d finished, his ankle finally gave way and he collapsed to the ground, the pain finally overcoming the adrenaline and ending his ability to fight any longer.

  He hadn’t realized it at the time, but the two guards who’d led him into the room had re-entered the room when they’d heard the sounds of gunfire. They were the two who’d died beneath the collapsed table. They’d contacted New Venice security before they’d gone in, and a moment after he’d collapsed, Wesley heard the fresh arrivals burst into the room. He heard the sound of several people retching at the sight of the carnage; someone yelled for them to fetch Jeffrey and Desdemona.

  He heard them arrive, recognized their voices from the conversation they’d had with Roddy while they’d been crammed inside the flying sphere. Their voices were calm, issuing orders to the numb, shocked members of the security force. He heard them say that there was only one survivor, and it took him a moment to realize they were talking about him.

  He didn’t feel like he was still ali
ve.

  He barely registered the fact that he was lifted and placed upon a stretcher. He only vaguely made out the words “tried for multiple counts of murder” and “death penalty.”

  It was only when he felt the stretcher start rolling that he forced his eyes open, and found himself looking into the faces of two people who could only be Roddy’s parents. The woman was asking, in a voice that sounded like it was recorded on low quality equipment and played back on a view screen with a damaged speaker, if he understood the charges.

  Wesley motioned, as best he could, that he needed the power couple to lean closer to hear his words.

  When they did, he whispered. “Your grandchildren are safe at Micah’s place.”

  And then he lost consciousness.

  Chapter 20

  New Phoenix

  Deirdre maintained her composure until she’d left the private dining room, until she’d gotten far enough from the room’s gatekeepers that they couldn’t see her. Then she leaned back against the nearest wall and looked up at the ceiling, trying to process what she’d learned.

  She’d spent much of her life believing her mother dead, believing, like millions of others, that Delilah Silver had perished in a train crash while traveling between cityplexes. Her father had maintained that illusion, never telling Deirdre that Delilah was alive and well, spending her time working aboard the space station. She’d learned only when the deceptive Jeffrey and the odious Desdemona had told her the truth of her mother’s continued survival, a survival confirmed by long-time family friends telling her of her mother’s recent death. She’d come to terms with the fact that her parents were capable of lying to anyone about anything at that point, and it had firmed her resolve to help anyone fighting the Phoenix Group’s ultimate aims.

  But at some level, she’d believed that she’d get the chance to see her mother once again, to ask why they’d done what they’d done, and perhaps, just perhaps, see a sign of remorse, a chance at a possible reconciliation. Logic said otherwise; her parents weren’t the type to apologize for anything, and would bully others into apologizing for even hinting that a Silver apology was due them.