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dochermesPROJECT REGULUS IV: THE CAULDRON OF NEW LIFE
12/14-12/17/1991
I.
Just outside town, in a little plaza of its own, Fenwick House was a six-story hotel with a three star Michelin rating. The rating would have been higher but it lacked twenty-four hour room service and a few other details. Its tan stone exterior was softly lit and an American flag waved from a post hanging off the roof. In the parking lot, every car without exception was in showroom condition, not a speck of rust and a visible dent. This wasn't policy, it was just the sort of clientele that Fenwick House attracted. The prices were kept deliberately elevated to discourage riff-raff. And yet crimes were committed there every night.
Pulling into an empty space was a maroon BMW that gleamed as if it had been waxed while entering the parking lot. Two men got out and examined their surroundings suspiciously. The driver was several inches over six feet tall, wide-shouldered and with a remarkably narrow waist. He was wearing a tailored grey business suit without a tie, the top bottom undone on the shirt. The bitter December wind did not seem to catch his notice at all.
Rigel seemed satisfied with the situation. He had a strong face, with a wide jaw and stern blue eyes under heavy brows. His thick black hair was kept short. Turning to his partner, Rigel said, "Deneb should be down at this point."
His companion was just six feet tall and gaunt, lean to the point of seeming almost frail but he gave off a sense of being dangerous that contradicted that. He also wore a business suit but in black, and instead of a dress shirt, he had on a rollneck pullover in red. The shorter man's narrow face was intense and even feral. "She has given clients extra time before to encourage repeat business," said Antares.
"Let's investigate." Rigel headed for a side door. The big man moved briskly and smoothly, like an athlete in peak condition. As he approached the door, he took a laminated ID card from a pocket and swiped it to unlock the door with a buzz. As he opened the door, he turned to look over his shoulder at Antares.
"We cannot use this card after tonight," he said. "When the employee has not shown up for work, someone will likely investigate and find the body."
"Inconvenient," Antares said simply. He closed the door behind him and heard the lock click. "What room is Deneb working?"
"She said 225. Should we use the stairs? We would be less exposed."
"Yes." In the hallway light, it could be seen that Antares had strange pale eyes... so light a grey as to be almost colorless. "I suggest I proceed to the room while you wait on the landing in case of trouble."
"Agreed," said Rigel. The two of them did not seem completely emotionless, just very reserved and self-contained. They opened the stairwell door and Rigel stood just inside, where he could watch the door and the hall. Without a word, Antares loped easily up the stairs, racing as quickly as most people could walk on a level surface. At the second floor landing, he peered suspiciously through the glass panel in the metal door before slipping through.
Antares found himself in a cool, dry hallway with subdued indirect lighting. The railings along one wall were polished brass, ebony benches stood at intervals and paintings hung in their own little niches. None of this mattered to his feral mind. He spotted the door with a silver number 225 and a round peephole just to his right. Since he had held onto the employee keycard, he swiped it through the electronic box beside the doorknob and heard the buzz of the lock unfastening. Bold as if invited, Antares opened the door and entered, quickly closing it behind him.
The suite was elegant to the point of being in dubious taste, with carpeting a little too plush, furniture too elaborate, the marble counters with chrome trim a bit overdone and even the draperies a bit gaudy with their wine-colored folds. Standing in the middle of the room, between the yellow silk-colored couch and the oval writing table was a naked woman.
Deneb had been tweaked before birth to be more beautiful than her source. At five feet four, with long legs, a flat tummy and perfect medium-sized breasts, she would appeal to almost any man. Her straight black hair hung to her shoulder blades and bright green eyes gleamed in a heart-shaped face. There was only one drawback.
Her skin was the dull greyish-white of a corpse. As she saw Antares, Deneb pouted. "The tan is wearing off faster and faster," she complained, holding out her arm. "We have to find a better method."
"Sirius is working on it," Antares said. "Your client?"
"Oh, I had to kill him to be prudent. Once he saw my skin change color, our secrets were no longer safe." She pointed to the bedroom. "I suffocated him with a pillow. Naturally, he did not suspect I was stronger than he was."
"He could not know about us," Antares said. "Get dressed and we will leave. Rigel is on sentry."
"I will take the Normal's money and credit cards, of course," she said as she strode into the darkened bedroom with a complete lack of self-consciousness. Her nudity did not affect Antares. None of the survivors of Project Regulus had sex drives, just as they lacked a number of other normal Human traits.
Antares looked around the room. Nothing here that he needed. He stole without any hesitation or guilt because these wese traits he had never been taught. Whatever he did, he had what seemed like a good reason to do, so doubt never touched him.
Emerging from the bedroom in a demure floral print dress, heels and appropriate accessories, Deneb was tugging on an ankle-length cloth coat. "The Normal had more than a thousand dollars in cash for me," she said. "Two credit cards. Sirius will know how to use them best."
"He is the most intelligent of us," Antares agreed, heading for the door. No one was in the hall. The two Regulites hurried down the stairs and, hearing them approach, Rigel had the outer door open. They all strode briskly across the parking lot to where the BMW waited. They were back on the highway within minutes, with no one at the Fenwick House having gotten a look at any of them and the security cameras being almost useless as usual. Deneb did not usually kill her clients, since they were more useful as regulars. But murder did not affect her emotionally anymore than the prostitution or the robbery did. Like the other Regulites, she was motivated solely by self-interest.
II.
The previous three weeks had been nerve-wracking for Bane, working at a problem outside his usual expertise. He had been approached by the family of Leon Herbert, convicted of rape and sentenced to twenty years despite the DNA testing coming back to prove he wasn't the guilty party. Bane had reviewed the trial and spoken to the officers involved at the arrest, and he soon thought he recognized the MO as belonging to Skinny Pete, a three-hundred pound repeat offender from Queens. Investigating in his own way, Bane got enough on Pete to charge him for the crime and he brought it to the prosecutor, who wouldn't even listen. Finally, on off-the-record advice from his legal counsel Taylor Worth, Bane had gone directly to the Attorney General. That did it, since the AG hated that particular prosecutor and promptly re-opened the case and called for a retrial.
As he walked along 42nd Street near Bryant Park, Bane was inordinately pleased with himself. It seemed certain that Leon Herbert would be found not guilty and reimbursed for time served and that Skinny Pete would be in the Tombs for a while. This was not at all Bane's normal area of activity and he was rather smug about having done a good deed without a single dead body being produced in the process. Of course, prosecutor Finkle hated him with a passion now, but Bane felt he could live with that.
It was a brutally cold day for mid-December, with the wind almost vicious and the sunlight brilliant. His pale grey eyes moved as restlessly as always over the crowds, at passing cars, at anyone in a doorway. Even though he was feeling cheerful, the habits of a life at war could not be dismissed. The Dire Wolf swung into a deli as he walked and emerged with a Reuben. Finding a bench, he devoured the sandwich and could have eaten a couple more. Although he was almost gaunt at six feet and one hundred and seventy pounds, Bane had enough appetite for a Sumo. This was a side-effect of the enhanced speed he had been born with. Finished in a minute, he threw the wrappers in a bin and started heading east again. His meeting with Taylor at the offices of her firm had included what he hoped would be the final signatures he would need to make on this case.
A few blocks further on, he swung right and started to walk faster as he neared 38th Street. Bane was beginning to feel light contact from Cindy's mind, a warm welcoming sensation like entering a cozy kitchen when coming in from a winter night. He was hoping something new was in the works for the Dire Wolf Agency. Since disbanding the KDF a year earlier and getting his PI agency back in service, Bane had only had a dozen cases, a few of which had been duds. He thrived on stress situations and was always looking for trouble. There was the ten-story stone building which Kenneth Dred had purchased in 1937, and which he had bequeathed to Bane to carry on the crusade. Once, a dozen Tel Shai knights had met there but now only Bane and Cindy were left.
Maybe someday he would gather a new team, a second KDF, but it was too soon for that. The loss was still too sharp. The Dire Wolf had just placed his foot on the bottom step outside the front door when a gleeful woman's voice came from a concealed speaker, "Hey you!" He heard the locks buzz and click as the door swung ajar and he stepped into the tiny vestibule. In a second, the inner door opened and the grinning face of Cindy Brunner greeted him.
At thirty-two, the telepath had never looked better. Her Kumundu training and tagra diet had her at peak health. The lightly freckled skin and dark blonde hair were flawless, and the blue eyes gleamed clear and bright. Just over five feet tall and just under one hundred pounds, Cindy was slim and almost boyish in build except for the slightly oversized breasts which ran in her family. She was wearing a baggy Navy blue sweatshirt that said YMCA ALBANY on it, snug blue jeans a bit worn out at the knees and black canvas sneakers.
They embraced for a moment, with her patting his back a few times. "Lots of phone calls while you were in court," she said. "A couple in New Jersey want you to investigate strange voices in their attic. Slaughterman got loose AGAIN, he's out in Colorado somewhere and Department 21 Black asks if you want to go chase him. For what, the fourth time? Oh, and Bleak has something interesting."
Bane had stepped away to head for his office, but that stopped him. "Bleak?"
"Yep. He's heard rumors. Five people who match the descriptions of the Regulites are wanted for questioning in Pennsylvania. Separate incidents two weeks ago, a robbery of an electronics stores, extensive shoplifting, grand theft auto and a dead man found in a motel room. I thought that might interest you," she concluded with a hint of sorrow in her voice. "You remember Project Regulus?"
The Dire Wolf had stiffened a bit at the news. "I should have pursued them. When we realized five of the clones had escaped Project Regulus, I let them go. That was a mistake."
"What would you have done with them?" Cindy asked quietly. "They hadn't broken any laws at that point. The Mandate would have tried to claim them to experiment on."
"Yeah. I figured they deserved a shot at being free." He shook his head angrily. "That was a mistake, look at how they turned out. I need to talk to Bleak. I'm going after the Regulites immediately."
Cindy raised a slim finger. "WE are going after them."
III.
By a shabby two-story house near the outskirts of Edgewater, New Jersey, Rigel parked the BMW behind the big Ford van already in the short driveway. In the two years since they had escaped Project Regulus, their senior member Sirius had mastered the art of obtaining fake identification and paying in cash as much as possible. Complete lack of remorse made them all convincing liars.
Unlocking the back door and entering through the kitchen, the three Rigelites headed into the living room. They had purchased nothing decorative since renting this house, adding no personal touches such as pictures or knicknacks. Antares excused himself and headed upstairs while Rigel and Deneb opened the door to the guest room that Sirius had claimed as his lab. The bed and other furniture had been moved out to make room for an elaborate steel platform on which rested what looked like an old-fashioned bathtub made of a dark coppery metal. The tub was filled with bubbling opaque liquid, with various tubes and pipes circulating fluids from metal tanks. A compressor ran in one corner, powering the odd device.
As the two entered, Sirius straightened and turned to face them. He was a tiny man with a head marked by an oversized cranium and almost no hair. Beneath that abnormally high forehead, a wizened old face peered at them with sharp inquisitive eyes. Sirius wore black slacks and a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up a turn. He was measuring the amount of steaming liquid was in the copper tub with careful precision.
"Polaris is proceeding as projected?" asked Rigel as he stepped closer.
"Yes. So far, nothing unforeseen. When the Master charged this Cauldron with atomic fire, he left enough energy in it to operate for years. After Polaris emerges, we can begin on the next new Regulite," Sirius said. His voice was smooth and confident, that of a younger man than his appearance would suggest. "Deneb, you seem distressed."
"Look at me," she told him with just a trace of annoyance. "The tanning wears off sooner and sooner. How can I function with skin like this? You are our intelligence. It is your responsibility to fix this."
Sirius turned back to the Cauldron. "I have suggested make-up."
"That works well enough for Rigel and Antares. They have only their faces and hands to cover. My task as a sex escort requires completely nudity and physical contact. You need to find a new way to make my skin like a Normal's." The Regulite woman stopped to lean closer and peer into the seething liquid inside the Cauldron. "Another few months, you say?"
"At least three. We want Polaris to be five years old when he emerges, which shortens the gestation. It is the best I can do. I am not the scientist our Master was."
Relenting, Deneb softened her voice. "You have done well, Sirius. We all count on you. My stomach hurts, I need food. Join us."
"Not yet," the withered man said as he turned a valve just a hair. "Later. I need to adjust the temperature. This is a critical phase."
"As you wish." She glanced over at Rigel. "Are you hungry?"
"I am." He headed for the door back to the living room and she followed. Left alone, the man with the bulging forehead bent low over the bubbling fluids and began to talk in a barely audible tone. "Ah, my little Polaris, soon you will be born and there will be six of us..."
IV.
Two days crawled by in standard investigative work. Bane was starting to get cranky. He was not a patient man in the best of circumstances and he was used to cases where action started immmediately. Michael Hawk had instructed him and helped him get his PI license a decade earlier, and Hawk had accurately said that Bane would be a competent detective but not a great one. It was when the fighting starting that the Dire Wolf was in his element, not checking alibis or looking for clues. Now, as the second day of endless calls and checking with his network of observers came to its fruitless end, Bane was slamming doors and hanging up the phone with a bit more force than was necessary.
He shoved his chair back from behind him and stood up sharply. It was almost eight-thirty at night, and his stomach was gurgling. The Dire Wolf left the office and rushed up the stairs to the second floor where the conference room was. Most of this room was taken up by the long oak table with its twelve swivel chairs, but in one corner was a desk with a large monitor hooked up to the computer systems that Leonard Slade had devised for the KDF. Cindy Brunner had been working from there for the past two days, and as Bane entered she glanced up innocently while chewing half a roast beef and Swiss on pumpernickel.
It took a few seconds before she could swallow and speak. "Might have a few leads here, hon. Wanna take a look?"
"Absolutely," he answered as he came around behind her to check out the monitor. "I've sure gotten nowhere."
"Okey doke," Cindy said. "The first few avenues I tried came up blank. That was all day yesterday. Today, I'm using Trom facial pattern recognition. We have a few photos of the clones from Project Regulus that Eldritch kept in his files, so I compare them to any driver's licenses that have run through the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles in the past three months." She looked back over her shoulder at him. "This is not exactly legal, you might understand?"
"Like that has ever stopped us before. It looks like you have a match."
"Yep." She enlarged the photo area of a license to show a strong masculine face with a square jaw, blue eyes and thick black hair. The expression was neutral, even disinterested. "That's definitely Rigel One. His name is given as Timothy John Doherty, age 32, current address 258 Pennyworth Street, Edgewater New Jersey. I can't find anything else about this Doherty anywhere, his Social Security number isn't in use. BUT! look at this. The address checks out. According to city records, Doherty began renting it from Wasserman Realty four months ago and is residing there with his so-called younger brother and sister."
Bane gripped her shoulders and squeezed them affectionately. "I guess we know where the brains of this team are."
"And I've got the looks, too," she said blithely. "Nothing about the brother and sister except their names and ages, phony of course. What do you think?"
"Next stop Edgewater," Bane said. "It could be a real fight. The Rigelites we fought at Project Regulus were tough enough to be a threat." He turned and started to head for the door, then added, "Good work, Cin."
As she got up to join him, the blonde telepath added to herself, "Maybe I should start my own agency?" They walked up one more flight to the third floor where they had adjoining rooms. As Bane washed up and checked his gear, Cindy went into her room and stripped down to pull on her tailored suit of the Trom armor. She was not as constantly ready for combat as he was, and she didn't ordinarily wear the armor while in the headquarters building. With only her hands and face above the neck exposed, she pulled on a pair of jeans and then a long-sleeved white blouse with two breast pockets and a high collar. Over this, Cindy donned a denim vest she left unbuttoned; it was long enough to conceal the anesthetic dart gun worn at the small of her back. The vest had several inside pockets to hold the miniature KDF gadgets, although not nearly as many as Bane habitually had on him.
Brushing her hair in front of the mirror on her dresser, Cindy regarded her reflection thoughtfully. She had done her DohRa form earlier that day and felt warmed up and limber enough. If only her parents were alive to see how their oldest daughter had turned out. They had never known about her telepathy or Tel Shai. As far as they had known, Cindy was working for a group doing research into the paranormal, the Kenneth Dred Foundation. Ah well, she thought, how many parents really knew what their kids were up to? All set, she joined Bane out in the hall. Although they had been lovers for a decade, the rules were that her room was private and he seldom went in there, but she stayed in his room most nights.
"Want to eat before we go?" he asked.
"I'm good," she said. "I don't like having a full stomach in high stress situations. But if you want to grab something, that's fine."
Bane escorted her down the wide staircase. Every landing had bookcases taking up room. For forty years, Kenneth Dred had amassed the world's largest library on the occult and they were still finding rare volumes that no one had ever heard of. As they reached the ground floor, the Dire Wolf said, "I'll be okay. I had a big lunch." He led her through the rear panel of the walk-in closet by the front door. They went down steep concrete steps and along a narrow passage between the vault and the arsenal to a plain wooden door that opened into the underground garage. This was barely big enough to hold two cars at the same time.
"I'm gonna drive," Cindy said as she grabbed a set of keys off a wall hook. "I don't drive enough. Let's take the Mustang, okay?"
"Sure," he said. She got behind the wheel and reached over to unlock the passenger door for him. Cindy started the dark green Ford Mustang up, buckled her seat belt and adjusted the mirrors for her height. As she eased onto the wide ramp that led up to street level, a metal shutter automatically raised to let them out into a wide alley between the buildings. She looked both ways, but mostly relied on her telepathy to watch out for other drivers, and pulled onto Lexington Avenue.
"We passed through Edgewater a few years ago," she said. "So I know where it is, but what about finding the address?"
"I've got maps on my Link. When we get to Jersey, I'll put up directions." Bane watched the people on the sidewalks, he did not often get to ride and it gave a different perspective without having to concentrate on the driving. "Cin, did you think the Regulites were going to go bad like this?"
She shrugged. "I really didn't give it much thought. They have free will, I guess. But the way they were born fully adult and educated by Karl Eldritch of all people...!"
"Yeah, I guess the odds were against them being saints. Too bad, I really should have gone in pursuit of them when Project Regulus was destroyed."
"Ah, they hadn't done anything then, really. You gave them a fair chance and they made their choice." At a red light, she turned her head to meet his eyes. "You know, Jeremy, the past can't be unmade. All we can do is correct things."
The faintest of smiles touched his mouth. "You're right. There's the Tunnel coming up."
V.
A severely dark overcast sky with no moon pressed down on the city of Edgewater, seeming to even dim the streetlamps. Cindy Brunner made a right onto Pennyworth Street and parallel parked into an empty space that did not offer an extra inch. "Let me probe a little, okay?"
"Sure," Bane answered and watched silently as the blonde leaned back and half-closed her eyes to extend her perception. He knew not to comment while she was reaching out to contact other minds and a minute later, she made a vague grumbling noise. "Not these houses. Just regular people, way too regular actually. Boring minds. Let's go down the block and try again." She started up the car and rolled to the other end of the block, pulling next to a fire hydrant with a blithe lack of concern.
After a minute or so, she sat up straight. "Oh, my God," she blurted out. "What weird people. They're Regulites all right. It's hard to describe the way they think. They.. they really have no sense of right or wrong. They do whatever is to their best interest. They've killed a lot of people, Jeremy, and it doesn't mean a thing to them, not a thing."
"Bred to be sociopaths," Bane growled with repressed fury. "That damn Eldritch! He poisoned everything he touched. He brought these clones from birth to be that way. And I doubt if they can be taught to have feelings now..."
"No," she agreed quietly. "Their minds have dead ends. Oh God, it's horrible. They've been ruined. Wait. Three of them are coming out of the house. See them in the rearview mirror?"
"Yes. Big man, average-sized man, woman. Getting in that red BMW. That car stands out in this neighborhood, they're not good at blending in. We should follow them and take care of them away from the house. Then we can come back to the ones who stay behind."
"Makes sense," she said. "I'm going to let them get a few blocks away. As long as I'm locked on their minds, I don't need to keep them in sight." The BMW whipped past, barely pausing for the stop sign and headed west. Cindy waited a full minute, then fired up the Mustang and followed the car they could no longer see.
As they rolled through the night, Bane said, "Eldritch told me these clones are brought to full adulthood before being released from the Cauldron. I don't know how he educated them so fast. You'd think it would take years to teach them how to walk, speak English, act like normal Humans but he found a way. Maybe another Zhune gadget?"
"It's just worse and worse the more I think about it!" she snapped. "No childhood. No friends, no family, no daydreams or hopes or adolescent crushes. They're just taught what they need to carry out their jobs." After a second, she added, "I'm glad Karl Eldritch is dead. If anyone deserved it, he did."
They rode in silence a few more minutes, then she abruptly pulled over to the side of the road and turned the engine off. She was staring up a side road that went to the top of an elevation where a neat red brick house with attached garage sat. As they looked, the BMW stopped beside the house and its headlights went off. Bane asked, "You still locked on them, Cin?"
"Yes. Not that I like it! They're worse than Snake men, at least Snake men have real feelings. Jeremy, the female clone has been making money for them as a prostitute. It doesn't mean a thing to her. She's going in the house now, a middle-aged man is meeting her." A window of the house abruptly flared brilliant white and they could hear a gunshot. She grabbed Bane's arm with a sudden clench. "She killed him! Just like that."
But she was talking to an empty seat. The instant they had seen the gunflash, Jeremy Bane dove out of the car and hurtled up that hill toward the house faster than a real wolf. Cindy said, "Damn the man, he never waits," and jumped out of her door in pursuit. She could never hope to keep up. Before she had her feet on the ground, Bane was already at the house and charging the Regulites.
As the Dire Wolf lunged out of the darkness, the female Regulite had just emerged from the house. She got a glimpse of the black-clad form flashing straight at her and a white blaze of light exploded from the .22 target pistol in her right hand. Bane drew and fired in response so quickly that it seemed as if both guns had gone off in teamwork. Deneb's shot missed by a wide margin, but his 38 slug punched home squarely in the center of her abdomen and the follow-up shot caught her in the upper chest as she was already falling.
Both front doors of the red BMW slammed open. From the passenger side, a hulking brute in a long cloth coat straightened up, well over six feet six and wide enough that it wasn't clear how he had squeezed himself into the car seat. This was Arcturus, the laborer. He stomped toward the strange intruder like a rhino charging and immediately dropped dying to his knees as a bullet from Bane's long-barrelled 38 Smith & Wesson Masterpiece put a tunnel through his head. The Dire Wolf straightened and swung his gun around to cover the driver but was taken offguard as the remaining Regulite tackled him seemingly out of nowhere. Even before they both hit the freezing gravel of the driveway, Bane had driven an elbow up to get his attacker off of him and had rolled up onto his feet.
To his surprise, he found himself confronting someone exactly his size and build, with the same hair and face. In the uncertain light from the bulb over the front door of the house, he thought the Regulite even had the same pale eyes as he himself did. It was what he had feared. While he had been an unconscious prisoner, Karl Eldritch had taken cells from him and fashioned a new clone... Antares, the fighter.
The Regulite leaped at him with even greater speed than Bane himself possessed, because Eldritch had modified the being while it was still in the Cauldron. Antares swung a wide looping roundhouse that made a whistling noise as it blurred toward Bane. But although Antares was incredibly fast, he had little training. He was up against a man who had been in savage fights all his life, who had studied Kumundu under Teacher Chael of Tel Shai for more than a decade. Bane slapped that swift but unfocussed blow toward the side, forcing Antares off balance. The man's defenses were down, he was wide open. The Dire Wolf smacked the rigid outer edge of his hand down to the nape of Antares' neck with lethal precision and the sound of the man's neck breaking was loud and decisive.
As Bane loomed up over the corpse, he found his fists were trembling with emotion. How did Eldritch dare to have done this? The Dire Wolf lowered his arms and forced his hands to open and relax, as he exhaled sharply. Beside him, Cindy raced up and came to a halt so sharp she almost skidded.
"All three of them?" she gasped. "In the time it took me to get up here?"
Bane turned to face her with a puzzled sound in his voice. "Did you want to get in on the fight? I didn't think you would. Anyway, it was over quick and clean. Come on, we need to vanish before the neighbors report those shots."
"Well, no, I didn't want to fight them," she replied. "I was just surprised. Even for you, that was over quick. But yeah, we better make tracks." She headed back down the hill with Bane beside her and they drove away long before the first police car appeared with lights bars going full blast. As they headed back into Edgewater, Bane briefly recapped the encounter and made it seem like the most natural thing in the world. "What I want to know is why she killed the guy? If she let him live, he could be a repeat customer. Dead, he's a one-time profit."
"I got a glimpse of that in her mind. Something about how these clones can't disguise their dead-looking skin for too long. She was in a tanning booth for two days but less than a night later her skin would go all grey again. It's what keeps giving them away to what they call Normals." Cindy turned toward Pennyworth Lane again. "Yeah, I can see where that's a big disadavantage to a hooker. She figured it was less trouble to just shoot him and take his wallet. Like swatting a fly."
'VI.
Parking near the curb where Pennyworth Lane meet Browning Street, Cindy turned off the engine and peered through the gloom at the two-story house. Lights were on in several rooms, but no one could be seen at the windows. The blonde expanded her awareness, opening herself to perceive what minds were active. After a minute, she exhaled sharply. "All right. Seems like two Regulites. One is a Sirian, a scientist, very detached and disciplined and doing math in his head right now. The other is a Rigel... you remember them, the big guys. He's actually just sitting in an armchair, thinking. Very serious guy. And yet... something else..?"
Bane sat up next to her. "Like what? As far as we know, only five Regulites escaped the Project, one of each kind."
"That's what bugs me," she answered. "I'm getting another mind, underdeveloped, sleeping without dreams. Very strange." Cindy shuddered and came back to herself. "Well, I can't understand it right now."
During the drive there, Bane had unscrewed and stealthily discarded the barrel of his Smith & Wesson in a dumpster by a convenient mart. Now he fastened a fresh barrel in place from a group of three he kept packed in a concealed niche of the car. The illegality of this never troubled him. The Dire Wolf reloaded, examined the revolver and tucked it back in the holster behind his left hip.
"We're going to have a problem here," he told his partner. "I expect Rigel to resist arrest, try to kill me in fact, and I'll be justified in using deadly force. But the old one, Sirius... he won't struggle. He'll surrender and I absolutely cannot kill him in cold blood. I just can't."
"And I'm glad!" she told him emphatically. "If you were able to just execute people like that, I never would have fallen in love with you. Okay. So I guess we hand him over to 21 Black? We don't like doing it, but what choice do we have?"
The Dire Wolf shrugged. "We can't turn him over to the police, they have no idea how to handle Midnight War cases. I suppose we could keep him at the Brig on Hawk Island. But we never keep prisoners longer than we need to send them to some authorities. I guess 21 Black is the only option." He pointed at the house just down the block from them. "There's the circuit breaker box, by that window. I'm going to darken the house and go in. What about you?"
"I think I'm going with you, hon." She sounded uncertain. "I'll talk to Sirius. I have the dart gun if he tries to run and I want to know what that sleeping mind in there could be." Cindy unbuckled her seat belt and started to get out. She watched Bane drift across the lawn, a dim figure in black in the night, stopping to open a metal panel on the side of the house. A second later, all the lights in that house went out at once and she barely glimpsed the Dire Wolf swing around to leap through the rear door.
But she no longer paid attention to Bane. The instant the lights had snapped off, a desperate cry of "No!" had rung out from inside the house and even more stridently, a mental flash of anguish had touched her mind. Someone was in deep despair from having the lights cut out and she could not imagine why. Without pausing to consider, Cindy raced to the front door and dove into the darkened house.
In a hallway between a bathroom and a bedroom, a huge form loomed up in the darkness. Bane's night vision had kicked in enough that he could function but as he tackled the big Regulite, he realized that Rigel was also able to see to some extent. They crashed against a wall, Rigel grabbing Bane by the coat and getting a vicious elbow to the chin in reward. The big clone loosened his grip and his other hand clamped hard around Bane's throat, feeling for the windpipe. The Dire Wolf set his feet and blasted twenty full-power hooking blows to Rigel's torso in a few seconds, alternating left and right, fast as drumming. Ribs cracked and splintered under those punches. As strong and as resilient as Rigel was, he was in over his head against a Kumundu fighter. As the Regulite gasped and staggered back against the wall behind him, Bane seized the man's head and jammed it down to meet an upraised knee. The crunch of the clone's face collapsing was ugly beyond words.
Bane did not try to catch the body as it sagged to the floor. He could feel distress radiating from Cindy's mind and nothing in the world was more important to him. From a side pocket, he drew a pencil flash and followed the white thread of its beam through the house until he found her. "Cin? You okay?"
The little blonde turned to face him. "I'm fine, Jeremy, calm down. It's all over." She was standing next to the Cauldron of New Life, still and silent now with the compressors stopped. The wizened form of the Sirian had his wrinkled face buried in his hands, sobbing with full-body shudders that sounded as if he was choking. Cindy held up a hand to touch his shoulder, then lowered it without making contact.
"What's his problem?" Bane asked bluntly. "He looks unhurt."
"Look what's in here," she told him. Floating in the cloudy liquid of the Cauldron, lifeless now, was what looked like an embryo that had been close to being born. A boy, with thin dark hair and open eyes. Two IV tubes led into its wrists. "I guess.. when we cut the power, its life support stopped?"
"All over, all over," moaned the Sirian as he wept. "Beautiful Polaris. He was so close to life. Now, he will never have a chance." The Regulite's voice choked off.
The Dire Wolf stared down into the Cauldron. "I never thought of this. They were growing a clone themselves? A new type, Polaris he called it?"
"I guess so," Cindy said shakily. Her voice sounded as if she were about to start crying herself. "They wanted a child! They saw themselves as a family and they wanted a child." She hugged Bane from the side and buried her face against his shoulder. "It makes them seem so human."
1/19/2015
12/14-12/17/1991
I.
Just outside town, in a little plaza of its own, Fenwick House was a six-story hotel with a three star Michelin rating. The rating would have been higher but it lacked twenty-four hour room service and a few other details. Its tan stone exterior was softly lit and an American flag waved from a post hanging off the roof. In the parking lot, every car without exception was in showroom condition, not a speck of rust and a visible dent. This wasn't policy, it was just the sort of clientele that Fenwick House attracted. The prices were kept deliberately elevated to discourage riff-raff. And yet crimes were committed there every night.
Pulling into an empty space was a maroon BMW that gleamed as if it had been waxed while entering the parking lot. Two men got out and examined their surroundings suspiciously. The driver was several inches over six feet tall, wide-shouldered and with a remarkably narrow waist. He was wearing a tailored grey business suit without a tie, the top bottom undone on the shirt. The bitter December wind did not seem to catch his notice at all.
Rigel seemed satisfied with the situation. He had a strong face, with a wide jaw and stern blue eyes under heavy brows. His thick black hair was kept short. Turning to his partner, Rigel said, "Deneb should be down at this point."
His companion was just six feet tall and gaunt, lean to the point of seeming almost frail but he gave off a sense of being dangerous that contradicted that. He also wore a business suit but in black, and instead of a dress shirt, he had on a rollneck pullover in red. The shorter man's narrow face was intense and even feral. "She has given clients extra time before to encourage repeat business," said Antares.
"Let's investigate." Rigel headed for a side door. The big man moved briskly and smoothly, like an athlete in peak condition. As he approached the door, he took a laminated ID card from a pocket and swiped it to unlock the door with a buzz. As he opened the door, he turned to look over his shoulder at Antares.
"We cannot use this card after tonight," he said. "When the employee has not shown up for work, someone will likely investigate and find the body."
"Inconvenient," Antares said simply. He closed the door behind him and heard the lock click. "What room is Deneb working?"
"She said 225. Should we use the stairs? We would be less exposed."
"Yes." In the hallway light, it could be seen that Antares had strange pale eyes... so light a grey as to be almost colorless. "I suggest I proceed to the room while you wait on the landing in case of trouble."
"Agreed," said Rigel. The two of them did not seem completely emotionless, just very reserved and self-contained. They opened the stairwell door and Rigel stood just inside, where he could watch the door and the hall. Without a word, Antares loped easily up the stairs, racing as quickly as most people could walk on a level surface. At the second floor landing, he peered suspiciously through the glass panel in the metal door before slipping through.
Antares found himself in a cool, dry hallway with subdued indirect lighting. The railings along one wall were polished brass, ebony benches stood at intervals and paintings hung in their own little niches. None of this mattered to his feral mind. He spotted the door with a silver number 225 and a round peephole just to his right. Since he had held onto the employee keycard, he swiped it through the electronic box beside the doorknob and heard the buzz of the lock unfastening. Bold as if invited, Antares opened the door and entered, quickly closing it behind him.
The suite was elegant to the point of being in dubious taste, with carpeting a little too plush, furniture too elaborate, the marble counters with chrome trim a bit overdone and even the draperies a bit gaudy with their wine-colored folds. Standing in the middle of the room, between the yellow silk-colored couch and the oval writing table was a naked woman.
Deneb had been tweaked before birth to be more beautiful than her source. At five feet four, with long legs, a flat tummy and perfect medium-sized breasts, she would appeal to almost any man. Her straight black hair hung to her shoulder blades and bright green eyes gleamed in a heart-shaped face. There was only one drawback.
Her skin was the dull greyish-white of a corpse. As she saw Antares, Deneb pouted. "The tan is wearing off faster and faster," she complained, holding out her arm. "We have to find a better method."
"Sirius is working on it," Antares said. "Your client?"
"Oh, I had to kill him to be prudent. Once he saw my skin change color, our secrets were no longer safe." She pointed to the bedroom. "I suffocated him with a pillow. Naturally, he did not suspect I was stronger than he was."
"He could not know about us," Antares said. "Get dressed and we will leave. Rigel is on sentry."
"I will take the Normal's money and credit cards, of course," she said as she strode into the darkened bedroom with a complete lack of self-consciousness. Her nudity did not affect Antares. None of the survivors of Project Regulus had sex drives, just as they lacked a number of other normal Human traits.
Antares looked around the room. Nothing here that he needed. He stole without any hesitation or guilt because these wese traits he had never been taught. Whatever he did, he had what seemed like a good reason to do, so doubt never touched him.
Emerging from the bedroom in a demure floral print dress, heels and appropriate accessories, Deneb was tugging on an ankle-length cloth coat. "The Normal had more than a thousand dollars in cash for me," she said. "Two credit cards. Sirius will know how to use them best."
"He is the most intelligent of us," Antares agreed, heading for the door. No one was in the hall. The two Regulites hurried down the stairs and, hearing them approach, Rigel had the outer door open. They all strode briskly across the parking lot to where the BMW waited. They were back on the highway within minutes, with no one at the Fenwick House having gotten a look at any of them and the security cameras being almost useless as usual. Deneb did not usually kill her clients, since they were more useful as regulars. But murder did not affect her emotionally anymore than the prostitution or the robbery did. Like the other Regulites, she was motivated solely by self-interest.
II.
The previous three weeks had been nerve-wracking for Bane, working at a problem outside his usual expertise. He had been approached by the family of Leon Herbert, convicted of rape and sentenced to twenty years despite the DNA testing coming back to prove he wasn't the guilty party. Bane had reviewed the trial and spoken to the officers involved at the arrest, and he soon thought he recognized the MO as belonging to Skinny Pete, a three-hundred pound repeat offender from Queens. Investigating in his own way, Bane got enough on Pete to charge him for the crime and he brought it to the prosecutor, who wouldn't even listen. Finally, on off-the-record advice from his legal counsel Taylor Worth, Bane had gone directly to the Attorney General. That did it, since the AG hated that particular prosecutor and promptly re-opened the case and called for a retrial.
As he walked along 42nd Street near Bryant Park, Bane was inordinately pleased with himself. It seemed certain that Leon Herbert would be found not guilty and reimbursed for time served and that Skinny Pete would be in the Tombs for a while. This was not at all Bane's normal area of activity and he was rather smug about having done a good deed without a single dead body being produced in the process. Of course, prosecutor Finkle hated him with a passion now, but Bane felt he could live with that.
It was a brutally cold day for mid-December, with the wind almost vicious and the sunlight brilliant. His pale grey eyes moved as restlessly as always over the crowds, at passing cars, at anyone in a doorway. Even though he was feeling cheerful, the habits of a life at war could not be dismissed. The Dire Wolf swung into a deli as he walked and emerged with a Reuben. Finding a bench, he devoured the sandwich and could have eaten a couple more. Although he was almost gaunt at six feet and one hundred and seventy pounds, Bane had enough appetite for a Sumo. This was a side-effect of the enhanced speed he had been born with. Finished in a minute, he threw the wrappers in a bin and started heading east again. His meeting with Taylor at the offices of her firm had included what he hoped would be the final signatures he would need to make on this case.
A few blocks further on, he swung right and started to walk faster as he neared 38th Street. Bane was beginning to feel light contact from Cindy's mind, a warm welcoming sensation like entering a cozy kitchen when coming in from a winter night. He was hoping something new was in the works for the Dire Wolf Agency. Since disbanding the KDF a year earlier and getting his PI agency back in service, Bane had only had a dozen cases, a few of which had been duds. He thrived on stress situations and was always looking for trouble. There was the ten-story stone building which Kenneth Dred had purchased in 1937, and which he had bequeathed to Bane to carry on the crusade. Once, a dozen Tel Shai knights had met there but now only Bane and Cindy were left.
Maybe someday he would gather a new team, a second KDF, but it was too soon for that. The loss was still too sharp. The Dire Wolf had just placed his foot on the bottom step outside the front door when a gleeful woman's voice came from a concealed speaker, "Hey you!" He heard the locks buzz and click as the door swung ajar and he stepped into the tiny vestibule. In a second, the inner door opened and the grinning face of Cindy Brunner greeted him.
At thirty-two, the telepath had never looked better. Her Kumundu training and tagra diet had her at peak health. The lightly freckled skin and dark blonde hair were flawless, and the blue eyes gleamed clear and bright. Just over five feet tall and just under one hundred pounds, Cindy was slim and almost boyish in build except for the slightly oversized breasts which ran in her family. She was wearing a baggy Navy blue sweatshirt that said YMCA ALBANY on it, snug blue jeans a bit worn out at the knees and black canvas sneakers.
They embraced for a moment, with her patting his back a few times. "Lots of phone calls while you were in court," she said. "A couple in New Jersey want you to investigate strange voices in their attic. Slaughterman got loose AGAIN, he's out in Colorado somewhere and Department 21 Black asks if you want to go chase him. For what, the fourth time? Oh, and Bleak has something interesting."
Bane had stepped away to head for his office, but that stopped him. "Bleak?"
"Yep. He's heard rumors. Five people who match the descriptions of the Regulites are wanted for questioning in Pennsylvania. Separate incidents two weeks ago, a robbery of an electronics stores, extensive shoplifting, grand theft auto and a dead man found in a motel room. I thought that might interest you," she concluded with a hint of sorrow in her voice. "You remember Project Regulus?"
The Dire Wolf had stiffened a bit at the news. "I should have pursued them. When we realized five of the clones had escaped Project Regulus, I let them go. That was a mistake."
"What would you have done with them?" Cindy asked quietly. "They hadn't broken any laws at that point. The Mandate would have tried to claim them to experiment on."
"Yeah. I figured they deserved a shot at being free." He shook his head angrily. "That was a mistake, look at how they turned out. I need to talk to Bleak. I'm going after the Regulites immediately."
Cindy raised a slim finger. "WE are going after them."
III.
By a shabby two-story house near the outskirts of Edgewater, New Jersey, Rigel parked the BMW behind the big Ford van already in the short driveway. In the two years since they had escaped Project Regulus, their senior member Sirius had mastered the art of obtaining fake identification and paying in cash as much as possible. Complete lack of remorse made them all convincing liars.
Unlocking the back door and entering through the kitchen, the three Rigelites headed into the living room. They had purchased nothing decorative since renting this house, adding no personal touches such as pictures or knicknacks. Antares excused himself and headed upstairs while Rigel and Deneb opened the door to the guest room that Sirius had claimed as his lab. The bed and other furniture had been moved out to make room for an elaborate steel platform on which rested what looked like an old-fashioned bathtub made of a dark coppery metal. The tub was filled with bubbling opaque liquid, with various tubes and pipes circulating fluids from metal tanks. A compressor ran in one corner, powering the odd device.
As the two entered, Sirius straightened and turned to face them. He was a tiny man with a head marked by an oversized cranium and almost no hair. Beneath that abnormally high forehead, a wizened old face peered at them with sharp inquisitive eyes. Sirius wore black slacks and a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up a turn. He was measuring the amount of steaming liquid was in the copper tub with careful precision.
"Polaris is proceeding as projected?" asked Rigel as he stepped closer.
"Yes. So far, nothing unforeseen. When the Master charged this Cauldron with atomic fire, he left enough energy in it to operate for years. After Polaris emerges, we can begin on the next new Regulite," Sirius said. His voice was smooth and confident, that of a younger man than his appearance would suggest. "Deneb, you seem distressed."
"Look at me," she told him with just a trace of annoyance. "The tanning wears off sooner and sooner. How can I function with skin like this? You are our intelligence. It is your responsibility to fix this."
Sirius turned back to the Cauldron. "I have suggested make-up."
"That works well enough for Rigel and Antares. They have only their faces and hands to cover. My task as a sex escort requires completely nudity and physical contact. You need to find a new way to make my skin like a Normal's." The Regulite woman stopped to lean closer and peer into the seething liquid inside the Cauldron. "Another few months, you say?"
"At least three. We want Polaris to be five years old when he emerges, which shortens the gestation. It is the best I can do. I am not the scientist our Master was."
Relenting, Deneb softened her voice. "You have done well, Sirius. We all count on you. My stomach hurts, I need food. Join us."
"Not yet," the withered man said as he turned a valve just a hair. "Later. I need to adjust the temperature. This is a critical phase."
"As you wish." She glanced over at Rigel. "Are you hungry?"
"I am." He headed for the door back to the living room and she followed. Left alone, the man with the bulging forehead bent low over the bubbling fluids and began to talk in a barely audible tone. "Ah, my little Polaris, soon you will be born and there will be six of us..."
IV.
Two days crawled by in standard investigative work. Bane was starting to get cranky. He was not a patient man in the best of circumstances and he was used to cases where action started immmediately. Michael Hawk had instructed him and helped him get his PI license a decade earlier, and Hawk had accurately said that Bane would be a competent detective but not a great one. It was when the fighting starting that the Dire Wolf was in his element, not checking alibis or looking for clues. Now, as the second day of endless calls and checking with his network of observers came to its fruitless end, Bane was slamming doors and hanging up the phone with a bit more force than was necessary.
He shoved his chair back from behind him and stood up sharply. It was almost eight-thirty at night, and his stomach was gurgling. The Dire Wolf left the office and rushed up the stairs to the second floor where the conference room was. Most of this room was taken up by the long oak table with its twelve swivel chairs, but in one corner was a desk with a large monitor hooked up to the computer systems that Leonard Slade had devised for the KDF. Cindy Brunner had been working from there for the past two days, and as Bane entered she glanced up innocently while chewing half a roast beef and Swiss on pumpernickel.
It took a few seconds before she could swallow and speak. "Might have a few leads here, hon. Wanna take a look?"
"Absolutely," he answered as he came around behind her to check out the monitor. "I've sure gotten nowhere."
"Okey doke," Cindy said. "The first few avenues I tried came up blank. That was all day yesterday. Today, I'm using Trom facial pattern recognition. We have a few photos of the clones from Project Regulus that Eldritch kept in his files, so I compare them to any driver's licenses that have run through the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles in the past three months." She looked back over her shoulder at him. "This is not exactly legal, you might understand?"
"Like that has ever stopped us before. It looks like you have a match."
"Yep." She enlarged the photo area of a license to show a strong masculine face with a square jaw, blue eyes and thick black hair. The expression was neutral, even disinterested. "That's definitely Rigel One. His name is given as Timothy John Doherty, age 32, current address 258 Pennyworth Street, Edgewater New Jersey. I can't find anything else about this Doherty anywhere, his Social Security number isn't in use. BUT! look at this. The address checks out. According to city records, Doherty began renting it from Wasserman Realty four months ago and is residing there with his so-called younger brother and sister."
Bane gripped her shoulders and squeezed them affectionately. "I guess we know where the brains of this team are."
"And I've got the looks, too," she said blithely. "Nothing about the brother and sister except their names and ages, phony of course. What do you think?"
"Next stop Edgewater," Bane said. "It could be a real fight. The Rigelites we fought at Project Regulus were tough enough to be a threat." He turned and started to head for the door, then added, "Good work, Cin."
As she got up to join him, the blonde telepath added to herself, "Maybe I should start my own agency?" They walked up one more flight to the third floor where they had adjoining rooms. As Bane washed up and checked his gear, Cindy went into her room and stripped down to pull on her tailored suit of the Trom armor. She was not as constantly ready for combat as he was, and she didn't ordinarily wear the armor while in the headquarters building. With only her hands and face above the neck exposed, she pulled on a pair of jeans and then a long-sleeved white blouse with two breast pockets and a high collar. Over this, Cindy donned a denim vest she left unbuttoned; it was long enough to conceal the anesthetic dart gun worn at the small of her back. The vest had several inside pockets to hold the miniature KDF gadgets, although not nearly as many as Bane habitually had on him.
Brushing her hair in front of the mirror on her dresser, Cindy regarded her reflection thoughtfully. She had done her DohRa form earlier that day and felt warmed up and limber enough. If only her parents were alive to see how their oldest daughter had turned out. They had never known about her telepathy or Tel Shai. As far as they had known, Cindy was working for a group doing research into the paranormal, the Kenneth Dred Foundation. Ah well, she thought, how many parents really knew what their kids were up to? All set, she joined Bane out in the hall. Although they had been lovers for a decade, the rules were that her room was private and he seldom went in there, but she stayed in his room most nights.
"Want to eat before we go?" he asked.
"I'm good," she said. "I don't like having a full stomach in high stress situations. But if you want to grab something, that's fine."
Bane escorted her down the wide staircase. Every landing had bookcases taking up room. For forty years, Kenneth Dred had amassed the world's largest library on the occult and they were still finding rare volumes that no one had ever heard of. As they reached the ground floor, the Dire Wolf said, "I'll be okay. I had a big lunch." He led her through the rear panel of the walk-in closet by the front door. They went down steep concrete steps and along a narrow passage between the vault and the arsenal to a plain wooden door that opened into the underground garage. This was barely big enough to hold two cars at the same time.
"I'm gonna drive," Cindy said as she grabbed a set of keys off a wall hook. "I don't drive enough. Let's take the Mustang, okay?"
"Sure," he said. She got behind the wheel and reached over to unlock the passenger door for him. Cindy started the dark green Ford Mustang up, buckled her seat belt and adjusted the mirrors for her height. As she eased onto the wide ramp that led up to street level, a metal shutter automatically raised to let them out into a wide alley between the buildings. She looked both ways, but mostly relied on her telepathy to watch out for other drivers, and pulled onto Lexington Avenue.
"We passed through Edgewater a few years ago," she said. "So I know where it is, but what about finding the address?"
"I've got maps on my Link. When we get to Jersey, I'll put up directions." Bane watched the people on the sidewalks, he did not often get to ride and it gave a different perspective without having to concentrate on the driving. "Cin, did you think the Regulites were going to go bad like this?"
She shrugged. "I really didn't give it much thought. They have free will, I guess. But the way they were born fully adult and educated by Karl Eldritch of all people...!"
"Yeah, I guess the odds were against them being saints. Too bad, I really should have gone in pursuit of them when Project Regulus was destroyed."
"Ah, they hadn't done anything then, really. You gave them a fair chance and they made their choice." At a red light, she turned her head to meet his eyes. "You know, Jeremy, the past can't be unmade. All we can do is correct things."
The faintest of smiles touched his mouth. "You're right. There's the Tunnel coming up."
V.
A severely dark overcast sky with no moon pressed down on the city of Edgewater, seeming to even dim the streetlamps. Cindy Brunner made a right onto Pennyworth Street and parallel parked into an empty space that did not offer an extra inch. "Let me probe a little, okay?"
"Sure," Bane answered and watched silently as the blonde leaned back and half-closed her eyes to extend her perception. He knew not to comment while she was reaching out to contact other minds and a minute later, she made a vague grumbling noise. "Not these houses. Just regular people, way too regular actually. Boring minds. Let's go down the block and try again." She started up the car and rolled to the other end of the block, pulling next to a fire hydrant with a blithe lack of concern.
After a minute or so, she sat up straight. "Oh, my God," she blurted out. "What weird people. They're Regulites all right. It's hard to describe the way they think. They.. they really have no sense of right or wrong. They do whatever is to their best interest. They've killed a lot of people, Jeremy, and it doesn't mean a thing to them, not a thing."
"Bred to be sociopaths," Bane growled with repressed fury. "That damn Eldritch! He poisoned everything he touched. He brought these clones from birth to be that way. And I doubt if they can be taught to have feelings now..."
"No," she agreed quietly. "Their minds have dead ends. Oh God, it's horrible. They've been ruined. Wait. Three of them are coming out of the house. See them in the rearview mirror?"
"Yes. Big man, average-sized man, woman. Getting in that red BMW. That car stands out in this neighborhood, they're not good at blending in. We should follow them and take care of them away from the house. Then we can come back to the ones who stay behind."
"Makes sense," she said. "I'm going to let them get a few blocks away. As long as I'm locked on their minds, I don't need to keep them in sight." The BMW whipped past, barely pausing for the stop sign and headed west. Cindy waited a full minute, then fired up the Mustang and followed the car they could no longer see.
As they rolled through the night, Bane said, "Eldritch told me these clones are brought to full adulthood before being released from the Cauldron. I don't know how he educated them so fast. You'd think it would take years to teach them how to walk, speak English, act like normal Humans but he found a way. Maybe another Zhune gadget?"
"It's just worse and worse the more I think about it!" she snapped. "No childhood. No friends, no family, no daydreams or hopes or adolescent crushes. They're just taught what they need to carry out their jobs." After a second, she added, "I'm glad Karl Eldritch is dead. If anyone deserved it, he did."
They rode in silence a few more minutes, then she abruptly pulled over to the side of the road and turned the engine off. She was staring up a side road that went to the top of an elevation where a neat red brick house with attached garage sat. As they looked, the BMW stopped beside the house and its headlights went off. Bane asked, "You still locked on them, Cin?"
"Yes. Not that I like it! They're worse than Snake men, at least Snake men have real feelings. Jeremy, the female clone has been making money for them as a prostitute. It doesn't mean a thing to her. She's going in the house now, a middle-aged man is meeting her." A window of the house abruptly flared brilliant white and they could hear a gunshot. She grabbed Bane's arm with a sudden clench. "She killed him! Just like that."
But she was talking to an empty seat. The instant they had seen the gunflash, Jeremy Bane dove out of the car and hurtled up that hill toward the house faster than a real wolf. Cindy said, "Damn the man, he never waits," and jumped out of her door in pursuit. She could never hope to keep up. Before she had her feet on the ground, Bane was already at the house and charging the Regulites.
As the Dire Wolf lunged out of the darkness, the female Regulite had just emerged from the house. She got a glimpse of the black-clad form flashing straight at her and a white blaze of light exploded from the .22 target pistol in her right hand. Bane drew and fired in response so quickly that it seemed as if both guns had gone off in teamwork. Deneb's shot missed by a wide margin, but his 38 slug punched home squarely in the center of her abdomen and the follow-up shot caught her in the upper chest as she was already falling.
Both front doors of the red BMW slammed open. From the passenger side, a hulking brute in a long cloth coat straightened up, well over six feet six and wide enough that it wasn't clear how he had squeezed himself into the car seat. This was Arcturus, the laborer. He stomped toward the strange intruder like a rhino charging and immediately dropped dying to his knees as a bullet from Bane's long-barrelled 38 Smith & Wesson Masterpiece put a tunnel through his head. The Dire Wolf straightened and swung his gun around to cover the driver but was taken offguard as the remaining Regulite tackled him seemingly out of nowhere. Even before they both hit the freezing gravel of the driveway, Bane had driven an elbow up to get his attacker off of him and had rolled up onto his feet.
To his surprise, he found himself confronting someone exactly his size and build, with the same hair and face. In the uncertain light from the bulb over the front door of the house, he thought the Regulite even had the same pale eyes as he himself did. It was what he had feared. While he had been an unconscious prisoner, Karl Eldritch had taken cells from him and fashioned a new clone... Antares, the fighter.
The Regulite leaped at him with even greater speed than Bane himself possessed, because Eldritch had modified the being while it was still in the Cauldron. Antares swung a wide looping roundhouse that made a whistling noise as it blurred toward Bane. But although Antares was incredibly fast, he had little training. He was up against a man who had been in savage fights all his life, who had studied Kumundu under Teacher Chael of Tel Shai for more than a decade. Bane slapped that swift but unfocussed blow toward the side, forcing Antares off balance. The man's defenses were down, he was wide open. The Dire Wolf smacked the rigid outer edge of his hand down to the nape of Antares' neck with lethal precision and the sound of the man's neck breaking was loud and decisive.
As Bane loomed up over the corpse, he found his fists were trembling with emotion. How did Eldritch dare to have done this? The Dire Wolf lowered his arms and forced his hands to open and relax, as he exhaled sharply. Beside him, Cindy raced up and came to a halt so sharp she almost skidded.
"All three of them?" she gasped. "In the time it took me to get up here?"
Bane turned to face her with a puzzled sound in his voice. "Did you want to get in on the fight? I didn't think you would. Anyway, it was over quick and clean. Come on, we need to vanish before the neighbors report those shots."
"Well, no, I didn't want to fight them," she replied. "I was just surprised. Even for you, that was over quick. But yeah, we better make tracks." She headed back down the hill with Bane beside her and they drove away long before the first police car appeared with lights bars going full blast. As they headed back into Edgewater, Bane briefly recapped the encounter and made it seem like the most natural thing in the world. "What I want to know is why she killed the guy? If she let him live, he could be a repeat customer. Dead, he's a one-time profit."
"I got a glimpse of that in her mind. Something about how these clones can't disguise their dead-looking skin for too long. She was in a tanning booth for two days but less than a night later her skin would go all grey again. It's what keeps giving them away to what they call Normals." Cindy turned toward Pennyworth Lane again. "Yeah, I can see where that's a big disadavantage to a hooker. She figured it was less trouble to just shoot him and take his wallet. Like swatting a fly."
'VI.
Parking near the curb where Pennyworth Lane meet Browning Street, Cindy turned off the engine and peered through the gloom at the two-story house. Lights were on in several rooms, but no one could be seen at the windows. The blonde expanded her awareness, opening herself to perceive what minds were active. After a minute, she exhaled sharply. "All right. Seems like two Regulites. One is a Sirian, a scientist, very detached and disciplined and doing math in his head right now. The other is a Rigel... you remember them, the big guys. He's actually just sitting in an armchair, thinking. Very serious guy. And yet... something else..?"
Bane sat up next to her. "Like what? As far as we know, only five Regulites escaped the Project, one of each kind."
"That's what bugs me," she answered. "I'm getting another mind, underdeveloped, sleeping without dreams. Very strange." Cindy shuddered and came back to herself. "Well, I can't understand it right now."
During the drive there, Bane had unscrewed and stealthily discarded the barrel of his Smith & Wesson in a dumpster by a convenient mart. Now he fastened a fresh barrel in place from a group of three he kept packed in a concealed niche of the car. The illegality of this never troubled him. The Dire Wolf reloaded, examined the revolver and tucked it back in the holster behind his left hip.
"We're going to have a problem here," he told his partner. "I expect Rigel to resist arrest, try to kill me in fact, and I'll be justified in using deadly force. But the old one, Sirius... he won't struggle. He'll surrender and I absolutely cannot kill him in cold blood. I just can't."
"And I'm glad!" she told him emphatically. "If you were able to just execute people like that, I never would have fallen in love with you. Okay. So I guess we hand him over to 21 Black? We don't like doing it, but what choice do we have?"
The Dire Wolf shrugged. "We can't turn him over to the police, they have no idea how to handle Midnight War cases. I suppose we could keep him at the Brig on Hawk Island. But we never keep prisoners longer than we need to send them to some authorities. I guess 21 Black is the only option." He pointed at the house just down the block from them. "There's the circuit breaker box, by that window. I'm going to darken the house and go in. What about you?"
"I think I'm going with you, hon." She sounded uncertain. "I'll talk to Sirius. I have the dart gun if he tries to run and I want to know what that sleeping mind in there could be." Cindy unbuckled her seat belt and started to get out. She watched Bane drift across the lawn, a dim figure in black in the night, stopping to open a metal panel on the side of the house. A second later, all the lights in that house went out at once and she barely glimpsed the Dire Wolf swing around to leap through the rear door.
But she no longer paid attention to Bane. The instant the lights had snapped off, a desperate cry of "No!" had rung out from inside the house and even more stridently, a mental flash of anguish had touched her mind. Someone was in deep despair from having the lights cut out and she could not imagine why. Without pausing to consider, Cindy raced to the front door and dove into the darkened house.
In a hallway between a bathroom and a bedroom, a huge form loomed up in the darkness. Bane's night vision had kicked in enough that he could function but as he tackled the big Regulite, he realized that Rigel was also able to see to some extent. They crashed against a wall, Rigel grabbing Bane by the coat and getting a vicious elbow to the chin in reward. The big clone loosened his grip and his other hand clamped hard around Bane's throat, feeling for the windpipe. The Dire Wolf set his feet and blasted twenty full-power hooking blows to Rigel's torso in a few seconds, alternating left and right, fast as drumming. Ribs cracked and splintered under those punches. As strong and as resilient as Rigel was, he was in over his head against a Kumundu fighter. As the Regulite gasped and staggered back against the wall behind him, Bane seized the man's head and jammed it down to meet an upraised knee. The crunch of the clone's face collapsing was ugly beyond words.
Bane did not try to catch the body as it sagged to the floor. He could feel distress radiating from Cindy's mind and nothing in the world was more important to him. From a side pocket, he drew a pencil flash and followed the white thread of its beam through the house until he found her. "Cin? You okay?"
The little blonde turned to face him. "I'm fine, Jeremy, calm down. It's all over." She was standing next to the Cauldron of New Life, still and silent now with the compressors stopped. The wizened form of the Sirian had his wrinkled face buried in his hands, sobbing with full-body shudders that sounded as if he was choking. Cindy held up a hand to touch his shoulder, then lowered it without making contact.
"What's his problem?" Bane asked bluntly. "He looks unhurt."
"Look what's in here," she told him. Floating in the cloudy liquid of the Cauldron, lifeless now, was what looked like an embryo that had been close to being born. A boy, with thin dark hair and open eyes. Two IV tubes led into its wrists. "I guess.. when we cut the power, its life support stopped?"
"All over, all over," moaned the Sirian as he wept. "Beautiful Polaris. He was so close to life. Now, he will never have a chance." The Regulite's voice choked off.
The Dire Wolf stared down into the Cauldron. "I never thought of this. They were growing a clone themselves? A new type, Polaris he called it?"
"I guess so," Cindy said shakily. Her voice sounded as if she were about to start crying herself. "They wanted a child! They saw themselves as a family and they wanted a child." She hugged Bane from the side and buried her face against his shoulder. "It makes them seem so human."
1/19/2015
