Chapter Thirteen #4
The thought made Rhiannon smile ferally as she paused for a moment.
She was one of those children. As was her partner in this endeavor.
In her opinion there was nothing wrong with either one of them.
They were even better than their Morphate parents in every way, their genetic code more refined, arranged with a finesse that only nature herself could possibly add.
Their Morphate parents could never have breached the security in this house.
It would be the new generation of Morphates that would save their race.
The idea made her smile as she stealthily moved into final position.
She waited, hoping a human stumbled across her, so she would be forced to silence her enemy.
Liam followed Devona up the stairs, watching her slow steps very carefully, a frown tugging his mouth. Devon never dragged herself. She worked with irrepressible energy that simply could not be subdued. Seeing her like this, so withdrawn and looking so tired, simply killed him.
“Do you mind if I ask why you were having a meeting with the preeminent Morphate in the Federated States?” he asked quietly. She stopped mid-step and turned to look at him, her soft jewel-like eyes suddenly smiling down at him.
“Of course. You used to be Secret Service. You would be very well versed on who Nick and Amara Gregory are.”
“I think every Joe Shmoe at the corner deli in Lightning, Kansas knows who Nick and Amara Gregory are. When you think of Morphates, generally their faces are the first you imagine. They are very public figures, fighting for Morphate rights in this country. And abroad, ever since the Traveling Act was passed. We let Morphates travel out of this country much sooner than other nations began to allow them into theirs. A lot of Morphates did what you are doing if they wanted to travel. Passed themselves off as humans.”
“I am posing as human for much more serious reasons than the right to go to the Bahamas,” she said heavily.
“Well, maybe you ought to go to the Bahamas. You certainly could use it. Push these weapons of yours onto your human developers already. Fulfill your contract and be done with it. It will take you out of the crosshairs, for the most part, and let you go back to a normal sort of life.”
“Just what is a normal sort of life?” she asked, the weariness in her voice suddenly sounding incredibly heavy.
“I’ve been searching for the key to Morphate mortality for fifty years.
Almost every day since the day we were liberated.
There were those of us who knew instantly what absolute power was going to do to some of us.
We saw the types of people, the dregs of society that Paulson was using for his test subjects.
From gangsters to psychotics … it was only a matter of time before one of them needed to be put down.
But how do you put down an immortal psychotic? ”
“So far imprisoning has done the job.”
“Only if a Marshal Force of Morphates is engaged. Until you, no human force has ever been able to catch and retain a Morphate hell-bent on its freedom.”
Liam nodded. The Marshal Force had a reputation for being the baddest asses in the world.
Putting the best of fighting-tactics training in the hands of an elite, indestructible force of Morphate men and women had been a brilliant and terrifying move.
It had been, as he understood it, the brainchild of another Gregory.
Kincaid Gregory, Nick’s brother. But that was beside the point, he knew.
“You’re changing that. You’re making it possible for human forces to stop a monstrous Morphate in its tracks.”
“Somehow those human forces will lack the prestige and glory of the Marshals. But at least they’ll be well armed.”
She turned to go back down the stairs. He followed her suddenly swift gait away from the west side of the house to the center.
Her goal became obvious as she took him to the vault.
As she breezed past the safeguards it was all he could do to keep up with her.
When they entered the prototype room, she went straight back to the box she had initially wanted to show him.
She keyed in the code and lifted the lid.
She reached in for a small, light, metal and poly fabric object and instantly Liam was fascinated. He had expected a gun. Something with the highest tech in laser sightings, like what was strapped to his hip.
“Here,” she said, reaching for his hand to affix the device.
The fingerless glove slid on easily because of the stretch in the poly fabric.
The metal was over the back of his hand and there were sensors across the palm.
There were four small holes like launch tubes.
“Micro darts. The sensors require simultaneous pressure inside the palm and with the thumb pressing the outer first finger knuckle. It might seem complex, but it prevents the darts from releasing accidentally or …”
“Or if you’re throwing a punch. No one with any training … hell, any instincts … would throw a punch like that. You lose all strength and physics. Well thought out,” he marveled.
“It had to be. It had to be deadly, quick and, more important, not be able to go off accidentally. The micro darts hold minuscule amounts of mercury and this metal plate along the back of your hand protects you from the radiation. This indicator will turn red if radiation or mercury leaks, even a single microgram. The darts are heat sensitive so they will not inject into non-flesh targets. In the event that some go astray or the shooter misses, the surrounding objects will not be unnecessarily contaminated by irradiated mercury.”
“Is it enough mercury to kill?” he wanted to know.
She grimaced. “The only way to truly test that is on a living subject, so you can imagine it is as yet untried. But using my own experience … I think you’d have to hit a vulnerable area with four of the twelve darts this contains, in, say, the carotids, to cause death.
You get three rounds of four and it reloads with this cartridge, like so.
” She rapidly ejected the loaded cartridge in the weapon as he might eject a clip from a 9mm, only horizontally.
Then she loaded in the small clip with just a push of a fingertip.
It was auto-loading, the mechanics grabbing onto the clip and sucking it into place. The load light turned green.
“What’s your jamming ratio?”
“Only when damaged or if you try to force it yourself rather than letting the machinery do the job. That’s its only flaw, I would say, because I’ve not known very many patient soldiers in my time.”
“Hard to be patient under the gun,” he shot back with a grin that was so unrepentant, she laughed at him. “But you haven’t known my soldiers. They are trained to think, not just react.”
“That doesn’t surprise me, considering their trainer.” She let go of his hand, allowing him the movement to cock up his wrist and play with aiming the darts. To his surprise, the moment he did a 3-D transparent holographic targeting field appeared in a three inch square over the top of his hand.
“Holy shit. Are these bad boys guided?” If he sounded impressed, it was because he was.
“Next prototype will be. This is just to help you aim. The one I’m fine-tuning now lets you shoot a tracer, then decide to follow it with guided darts. It keeps you from wasting ammo.”
Considering the toxicity of the payload, it was a brilliant idea. The finesse of it put NHK’s crude mercury bullets to shame.
“Veronica’s going to shit herself,” he said under his breath.
“Veronica almost underbid me for this weapons contract. Unfortunately for her, finances weren’t an issue for me. Tell her I am sorry for that. I have no doubt she would have done just as well given the right resources.”
“I wouldn’t say that. Brilliant as my partner is, she’s known about the mercury for quite some time and the bullets were the best she’s developed so far.”
“Again, I have unlimited resources, access to labs and minds far beyond this room. You’ve done well enough on your own.
” She turned to a second box and keyed in a code.
It was longer and clearly different from the previous one.
This box also required her retinal scan before opening.
She reached in and pulled out the last thing he would have expected.
“A knife?” How the hell was a knife…?
“A wasp knife,” she said as she walked over to the lab and pulled forward a beaker with a membrane stretched over the top of it.
She pushed the knife through the membrane, explaining every step of the way.
“It’s a play on a diver’s wasp knife. The tip has a sensor that arms it when it undergoes more than five pounds of pressure.
Then, if you use the knife, sending it hilt deep into a target, it triggers the CO2 cartridge in the handle.
Divers use it to inject an explosive hit into a shark, causing it to blow up.
I’ve put mercury in front of the CO2 delivery, so basically you’re stabbing and forcing an explosive dose of mercury into your target. ”
“And if you don’t hilt? Most people can’t sink a knife that deep … or in the heat of a fight …”
“Pounds of pressure will compensate. Provided the sensors in the knife are covered up to two inches deep, impact will set it off. The injectors are in the first two inches of the knife, so as a safety measure they won’t eject into open air.
” Liam watched the knife hilt hit the membrane and a forceful silver spray filled the beaker.
The membrane bubbled, threatening to rupture, but Devon expertly turned the knife, widening the slit enough to allow excess CO2 to escape.
The contaminated metal was heavier than the air and remained inside the beaker.
The knife was soiled so she didn’t withdraw it, just left it in the membrane and continued to show him the ejection ports, the armored handle, and how it could be thumbprint encoded, allowing only the designated user the ability to change the cartridge and reload the mercury as well.
It also locked the injectors so a man’s knife couldn’t be used against him.
The technology around the handle was so sophisticated it could be programmed specifically to a soldier, or more loosely to a soldier’s unit, using DNA identifiers.
“How do you keep it from going off when sheathing it?” he asked as she went steadily and expertly about cleaning up the knife, recharging the cartridges and making it user ready—making him one of the users by having him grip the handle briefly for a DNA read.
“Wouldn’t that technically meet all the injection criteria? ”
“You don’t sheathe it.” She reached back into her magical box, withdrawing a clip for his belt with a magnetic grip.
He could just slap the knife in as he did his gun.
Only the clip wouldn’t release the knife again, unless the right DNA was touching the handle, keeping him from being disarmed.
She reached for his belt buckle, undid it in a slow and careful way that became quickly erotic, and slid the weapon onto his belt.
He heard his breath growing louder as his heartbeat began to race.
Her fingertips brushed over his belly as she pushed aside the jacket he had hastily donned in order to look decent at dinner that evening.
“There it’s coded to your DNA and ready to use. ”
“I can’t keep it. It’s your prototype.”
“It’s the lab prototype. The one we use for tweaking and testing and for developing the next stage.
We have perfected models somewhere else.
Somewhere much safer,” she informed him absently, her fingertips lingering on the belt she ought to be refastening.
Instead she was brushing them lazily over the warmth of his taut belly.
She could still smell the atmosphere of the restaurant on him, combined with his signature scents.
Seeing him armed with her life’s work was a powerful, potent thing.
And yet her immediate urges were to summarily disarm him.
It made her smile wickedly, turning her eyes up to him in dark, beautiful need.
“There are more. So many more. And I’m going to show them to you. But, right now, I need a bath.”
She turned then and left him. Walking out of the vault and leaving him to stare after her. Never had anyone turned him on with the promise of weaponry and wetness all in the same breath. Realizing he was falling behind, he hurried after her, slowed down only by properly resealing the vault.