I WATCHED THE agents take Seeley from view and knew I was on my own. I kept having to wash away the image of Zoe lying unconscious in a dingy motel room and focus on the task at hand. Everything rested on my ability to be who I was before.
I couldn’t let Hammon or the others see the battle raging inside my head. The one that had mounted as I approached Xerox. With every mile, the call to return to my past, to resubscribe to my old programming, strengthened. It was difficult to ignore the familiar sensations rushing under my skin.
They were comforting and known. The ways to respond. To feel. The choice to be something different was still unmanifested. It would be easier if I had another foundation to stand on. Instead I was trying to imagine the kind of life I wanted without any proof of what could really be. The only tangible proof I had lay with who I’d been.
But I didn’t want to be her anymore. Right?
“Come with me, Number Nine,” Hammon said, stepping back into the elevator.
I followed without question. That was who I’d been. How I was trained to act. It was easy and natural. Maybe I was fighting too hard against my true nature? It would be easier to just follow the path already laid out for me.
The thoughts assaulted me as the elevator rose.
I took a breath, small so as not to arouse suspicion, and reassessed what I was here to do. I recalled images of Zoe. She’d helped remind me that I could choose. “Who do you want to be, Lucy?” I heard her voice whisper through the chaos in my mind as Hammon and his ensemble of agents led me from the elevator. I used her voice as my new foundation. For now, it was all I had.
We moved out across the main lobby. The eyes of passersby couldn’t help but watch us as we moved. They knew who I was, and I recognized many of them. I needed to get them all out to safety, and there was only one way to do that.
Compound evacuation. An emergency protocol that could only be activated on the security level, which I would need to get to. For that I would need a weapon.
We left the main lobby and went down the west stone walkway toward the west side of campus, where our living quarters were. They were guiding me home. Which I would have expected.
Hammon paused at the front of the hallway and turned to face me. “Things are finally beginning, Number Nine. Your presence will be required this afternoon to meet the president and the defense secretary. You should rest. Please understand the extra security is for your safety—and ours, since things have been unusual as of late.”
That was putting it mildly. I watched as three more guards joined the ranks. Six in all. Difficult but not impossible. Hammon nodded to the team surrounding me. They already knew their orders.
“I’ll see you this afternoon. It’s nice to have you home, Number Nine.”
I nodded, and before Hammon turned to leave, I was escorted away. I counted the steps I took as we moved. Down the hallway, around the right corner, down another wide walkway to a steel door. Across a smaller lobby. We walked in step without a word. I had to bide my time, wait until we came to a space I could use to separate the group.
Then the opportunity appeared: a doorway the group would have to pass through single file. It had an auto-lock security mechanism that, if engaged, would activate a thirty-second delay before the door could be reopened.
They moved into a common formation: three ahead, three behind. Three was much more manageable. I took a deep breath as the lead opened the door. One, two, three through. I took a step to follow, then launched myself upward with a twist and grasped the top of the door frame, kicking my legs forward and connecting with the first guard behind me. He stumbled backward into the other two as I dropped and shut the door. I pressed the lock button on the screen beside the door and heard the bolt slide into place.
Without taking a beat I grabbed for one of the agents with me. I hoisted him up and over my shoulder, slamming him against the far wall. Another raised his weapon on instinct, but I slid across the floor to meet his knees and knocked him to the ground, his gun crashing and sliding away from him. The first agent was back on his feet behind me, and from where I was kneeling on the floor, I sliced my foot up and connected with his gut. He heaved back as I pushed off the floor and slammed my heel into his nose. It knocked him out cold.
I rolled forward and yanked two blades from his sheaths, one attached to his thigh, the other in his boot. Without hesitation I turned and launched them both into the chest of the guard I’d knocked to the ground. He’d gotten to his feet and had just begun to draw his weapon when the knives sliced into his flesh.
I turned my attention to the final man. It all happened so quickly that he’d only had time to draw his weapon and get off a single shot. I dodged it with a slide across the floor and then was at his feet, grasping a fallen gun as I moved. He tried to step back and take aim at me again, but I was faster. I was up and only a foot from him, weapon raised. He met my gaze, his pistol in line with mine, but orders made him pause a moment before firing. And that was all I needed—one split second of hesitation. I fired one clean shot, and then all three guards were down.
The door behind me unlocked, and I flung myself into a backward handspring with such force that it launched me through the now open door and into the approaching agents.
We collapsed through the frame into the hallway, and I sprang up off my fallen enemies. Two still twisted on the floor, and I took the third down with a roundhouse kick. His head slammed against the wall, and I yanked his pistol from his belt. I put two bullets into the man trying to climb to his knees and another into the man beside him. The shots echoed across the hall, and I knew others would hear.
I had to be quick. I placed a final bullet in the third soldier and didn’t wait to see if any would recover. I raced down the hallway, gun in hand, and around the corner. I knew the anatomy of this building like my own. At the end was a small closet. Inside, on the ceiling, was an entrance to the ventilation system. I couldn’t just run back out the way I had come but needed to get across to the other side of the building. I used the metal shelves as steps, hoisting myself up and into the shaft.
I pulled myself along in an army crawl, drawing on all my strength to move as quickly as I could manage. The light from the main lobby shot through the vents, and I knew I was crossing the middle of the building. I took the path left, into the security section of the campus, steadily breathing and measuring my distance. I paused as an exit approached. I was over the main control room. One breath and I kicked through the grate. It fell into the room. I dropped down on top of it to see three unarmed men wearing headsets and moving away from me, hands raised.
Innocent, maybe, but then were any, really? Everyone on this campus knew about the Grantham Project. They’d all interacted with the children who had grown into teens and then had a hand in slaughtering them. Even if they hadn’t been on the team, they knew what was happening. Knowing and saying nothing was as bad as pulling the trigger.
That’s what I told myself as I committed to the plan. I shot two square in the head, one after the other. They collapsed to the floor, blood trickling down their pale faces.
The third man cried out in fear and started begging for his life.
“I need you to begin a campus-wide evacuation,” I said.
He stood, shaking his head in shock. I took a step closer, and he flinched.
“Okay, okay, okay,” he babbled as he turned toward the computer and started keying in the codes. A moment later he hit a red circle button in the top corner of his keyboard and stood back to face me. “It’s done.”
“How long does it take?” I asked.
“We’ve never done it before. I don’t—”
I didn’t have time for this. “How long should it take!”
“Ten minutes,” he said.
“What do they do with the prisoners in an evacuation?”
“They put them in lockdown.”
“Can I get in?”
“Not without all the proper codes.”
I thought a moment. “Can you tell me where they’re holding Agent Tom Seeley?”
He swallowed nervously and turned back to the computer. He pulled up an image of the agent stalking back and forth inside a celled room.
“Can you override lockdown protocol on his cell?” I asked.
He nodded and pressed a handful of keys before turning back to me. “It’s unlocked.”
I cocked my gun.
“Please, please,” he begged, tears collecting in his eyes. “I have kids.”
I hesitated.
“I have little kids,” he said.
He deserved to die. Kids or not. His kids hadn’t stopped him from looking on while they tortured and trained me. Or stopped him from saying something when orders came through to destroy the footage. Or when they’d assigned us all to be executed like sick dogs. His kids hadn’t caused him to hesitate then. Why should I?
From the depths, Zoe’s voice, warm and comforting, came to me. “Who do you want to be, Lucy?”
My hand quivered, and a moment later I lowered my weapon. He looked shocked, and for a moment we stood there. My training and instincts told me this was weakness, but the warmth Zoe had awakened in me was more powerful.
“I’m going to burn this place to the ground,” I said. “If you want to see your children again, leave with the others. If you do anything other than walk through this door and head for the exit, I will know. And I will not show mercy twice.”
He nodded and passed me without a second thought. Up until the door shut me into the room alone, I thought to put a bullet in his head. Then he was gone, and I returned to the plan. I searched the screens around me, looking for my prize. I had one last order of business to settle before I could put this place behind me.
Then I saw him. Standing in his office, ignoring the warnings going off around him. Too confident to be troubled.
Time to go see Director Hammon.