Sophia walked directly towards the two pairs of Blue Berets at the end of the corridor. The Berets were covering the east side of the BlueGene lab and this narrow, under-lit corridor was their chokepoint. She had Benito beside her. Like her, he was dressed in black fatigues, helmets, goggles and was carrying the standard-issue MP5SD submachine gun. Since there were no female Berets, Sophia had taken the liberty of wearing a gas mask to conceal her gender. Still, she would look noticeably slender. This was why she’d concealed Nasira and Lucia behind them. Nasira and Lucia had their weapons cocked and safeties off, but Sophia had kept hers and Benito’s uncocked. Nasira and Lucia would fire on her signal.

As they approached the Berets, Benito said in his best gravelly voice, ‘We’re taking the lab.’

Sophia cringed. The words had come out not so much gravelly as shaky and uncertain. He wasn’t walking like a soldier, and he was holding his submachine gun too tightly. It was like he was made of cardboard.

She waited for the soldiers’ response. They didn’t give one. She counted down from three. If she hit zero and they hadn’t responded, then she’d have to give the signal.

Three.

The two pairs of Blue Berets remained perfectly still, not bothering to acknowledge the newcomers’ existence. The operatives were meant to be the robots, not the Berets. She didn’t like this one bit.

Two.

The Berets were holding their weapons, but kept their aim down. That might be a good sign. But still they didn’t speak. Had they even heard Benito? Their lips weren’t moving, so they weren’t talking to one another.

One.

Benito was at her side, their footsteps in stride. They were getting too close to the Berets now and still there was no response.

Benito cleared his throat. He was going to speak again.

Zero.

She wasn’t going to let him.

She stumbled, her foot catching Benito’s leg. He fell. She leaped to one side, dropped her MP5.

Down on one knee, she drew her pistol. Round in the chamber, suppressor attached. Her first pair of shots struck the Beret’s chest. She aimed higher and squeezed off her second pair at his head. They struck the Beret on the bridge of his nose. He collapsed where he stood.

At the same time, the second and third Berets dropped.

She snapped her aim to the fourth. He had a second to take aim. His MP5 leveled on Lucia, but Nasira’s rounds struck him first. His MP5 splintered apart, the three-round burst ricocheting off and penetrating his shoulder. Another burst struck him in the chest and throat. Blood squirted from an artery. He slumped against the wall, shuddered violently. Collapsed.

Sophia checked her six. From the far corner, 250 feet, Cassandra had taken out the fourth Beret. All of the shots had been suppressed. It had sounded more like a staple-gun fight than a gun fight.

Sophia waved Cassandra and Renée over. They were clear to approach. Then she checked on Benito. He was lying on the ground, belly down.

‘Are you hurt?’ she said.

Benito got to his feet. ‘They could’ve just said hi.’

‘Any wounded?’ Sophia asked.

‘I’m OK,’ Lucia said.

‘I’m good,’ Nasira said.

Renée and Cassandra reached them, Renée carrying a satchel bag filled with their P90s and webbing belts.

Sophia told everyone to swap back to their original weapons and belts, but keep their Blue Beret fatigues on. If they were going to clear the bodies, they wouldn’t have time to change.

***

Sophia moved slowly along the corridor wall, Nasira opposite her. Benito trailed about ten feet behind. Ten feet behind him, Lucia, Cassandra and Renée covered their rear.

Nasira spoke softly. ‘Blue Berets have blocked us in but they’re holding their positions. How the hell is Cecilia going to get through?’

Sophia kept her attention on the corridor ahead. They weren’t inside the lab yet. ‘Hopefully she can’t.’

‘Then why are we here?’

‘If the Berets don’t deter her, then we’ll have to signal her to get out of here.’

‘It could be too late by then.’

Sophia halted, looked at Nasira. ‘Do you have a better solution?’

Nasira hesitated. ‘I’ll get back to you on that. If we’re still alive.’

‘Thanks.’

Sophia turned her attention to the BlueGene lab’s east entrance. It was eerily silent. The Berets hadn’t had time to get here first, so they wouldn’t have laid any surveillance devices or booby traps. But she checked, just in case.

The lab’s regulated cool air caused a burning sensation in her fingertips. She could make out three silhouettes among the aisles of black steel ahead. They were near the front-end node she’d used to access the Chimera vector codes. She was back here again. She didn’t want to be back, but there wasn’t much choice.

She gave her team signals to split: Lucia to the left, Cassandra and Renée to the right—Renée would continue and close in from the opposite side. They cautiously and silently moved through the aisles, crouched, rounds chambered in their P90s.

Before she and Nasira identified the three figures, she wanted to make sure she wasn’t walking into a trap. Although, she reminded herself, with Berets blocking almost every conceivable entry to the BlueGene lab, they were technically already in a trap. The only advantage was that the Berets were spread so thin it would be possible for her team to quickly and aggressively punch out through a lightly enforced point. But that would come later. Assuming they survived that long.

She checked her watch. Three minutes until Cecilia’s estimated arrival.

Her team moved quickly and silently. Lucia was the first back, followed closely by Cassandra. Lucia confirmed it was Jay, Damien and Denton. Her finely tuned olfactory senses could detect a man ten miles away in the Belizean jungle, so Sophia had no reason to doubt her here.

Renée returned to tell her she’d managed to catch sight of Jay. ‘Pistol in one hand.’

Sophia ran her tongue along cracked lips, realizing how dehydrated she was. She pointed two fingers with one hand, indicating Renée and Cassandra, then ordered them to take up positions at each end.

She pointed to herself and said softly, ‘Nasira, Lucia and I will make first contact. Inverted wedge.’ She turned to Benito. ‘Wait in the corridor. I’ll come back for you.’

Benito didn’t look too impressed. The corridor had nowhere to hide. ‘By myself?’ he whispered.

She held a finger to her lips. Didn’t he know that whispering was louder than talking softly?

She waited for him to move silently—and excruciatingly slowly—from the lab before proceeding. She gave the signal and Renée and Cassandra split off to their aisles. Sophia felt like she was in a grocery store. But these aisles weren’t stocked with food. They hummed within their flat black steel, blue lights flickering.

She crouched low and moved into the aisle behind Jay. Nasira and Lucia took formation on both flanks. Renée and Cassandra would take a bit longer to reach their positions from the other end of the aisles. But this way they would be able to approach Damien and Jay from the opposite side.

Jay was in full view now, his back to her. With her P90 held low, she rose to full height and approached him silently. On her left, she could see Damien. He was pacing, hands fidgeting. A third person was kneeling between him and Jay.

Denton.

He was stripped to his shoes, pants and muscle shirt. They’d pinned his muscular arms into a stress position and bound his wrists with plasticuffs. Somehow, between escaping the Vector labs and returning to the BlueGene lab, they’d managed to capture him. Presuming Damien and Jay could be trusted, her odds had just improved. Slightly.

Damien was the first to notice Sophia. He stopped pacing and nodded to her. Behind him, she saw Renée’s knee emerge from the aisle on the other side. It disappeared a second later. It looked like she and Cassandra were in position.

Jay realized someone was behind him and turned around. Sophia forced her muscles to relax. She walked towards him, studying both his and Damien’s expressions. And, finally, Denton’s, whose lips twisted into a bizarre approximation of a smile.

‘Well, well,’ he said, ‘if it isn’t the Cliterati.’

Before Jay could stop her, she smashed the butt of her P90 into the bridge of Denton’s nose. Cartilage cracked and blood sputtered onto his undershirt. He slumped against a BlueGene cabinet.

‘Nothing like a cheap shot, right?’ He snorted blood from his nose. ‘I’m disappointed. I thought even terrorists had principles.’

‘Can it,’ Nasira said, towering over him with her P90 leveled at his head. ‘If we need patriotic paramoralisms, we’ll give Jack Bauer a call.’

Denton grimaced, pulled himself upright. ‘And if I need overblown alliteration, I’ll give you a call.’

Sophia curled her fingers into a fist. Denton saw it.

‘Go on, Sophia. Put me out of my misery,’ he said through scarlet-coated teeth. ‘Daddy just didn’t love me enough.’

‘So I heard,’ she said.

Denton spat blood. ‘Fortunately, I did not require it.’

‘What would you know about love, anyway?’

His face split into another approximated smile. ‘I could ask you the same. What loving daughter would kill her own parents?’

She struck him again, this time across the temple. ‘You killed them!’

He collapsed onto his side.

Three pairs of boots struck the tiled floor, echoing through the BlueGene lab’s aisles.

‘Returning the favor wouldn’t be particularly wise, Sophia.’

Cecilia’s boots were black as obsidian, while the pair of Elohim who flanked her were dressed in peculiar off-white combat suits Sophia hadn’t seen before. Their faces were hidden behind gas masks and red-tinted visors, and they clasped slightly out-of-date Pulsed Energy Projectile rifles, developed in 2006 by the Fifth Column, via the US military, and intended for US Marines. They’d been working on those things for over a decade, but they’d been quickly superseded in 2009 by a more powerful pulsed plasma laser weapon intended for the shocktroopers.

Behind the pair with Cecilia, a dozen more Elohim fanned out onto either side.

Sophia leaned against a BlueGene cabinet, head down, trying to breathe.

Emotions don’t control you, you control them. Get it together.

She turned back to face Cecilia: a welcome sight despite the precarious situation.

Cecilia wore her hair in a French twist, usually reserved for special occasions. Today was clearly one. Matching her Elohim, she wore an off-white cotton trench coat, collar up. Below her white and navy striped scarf, Sophia could see a para-aramid bullet-resistant vest.

‘Of course, a reunion wouldn’t be the same without our mad scientist du jour,’ Denton said.

Cecilia took three steps towards him, stopped sharply. ‘That implies a certain degree of intelligence. Which is lacking in the ranks of the Fifth Column.’

‘I’ve been saying that for years.’ Denton had pulled himself up to sit against the BlueGene cabinet behind him. ‘Perhaps I can quote you for my resignation letter?’

‘I don’t think that’ll be necessary.’

His smile dissolved. ‘Neither do I.’

Cecilia brushed her side-swept bangs from her eyes. She turned to Sophia. ‘Where’s Benito?’

Sophia crossed her arms tight over her chest. ‘Safe.’ She looked over at Lucia. ‘Can you get him?’

Lucia disappeared, returning moments later with an edgy Benito at her side, still dressed as an awkward Blue Beret.

Cecilia pinched a fingertip of her cinnamon glove and pulled it free. Every movement was efficient, seemingly effortless. ‘It’s been some time, Benito.’

Benito folded his arms, then seemed to change his mind and stuffed his hands in his pockets instead. ‘Yes. Hi.’

‘This will be over soon,’ Cecilia said.

She was calm. As always. She held her com, a device attached to it with a thin white cord. It was the same type of finger-prick device Sophia had used to decrypt the Chimera vector codes.

‘I’d like everyone outside the lab to stand guard,’ Cecilia said. ‘Except Sophia, Denton and Benito.’

The Elohim dispersed. Sophia’s own team, including Damien and Jay, followed them out.

Cecilia pocketed the com. Her cool gaze found Denton.

Denton’s attention was on the finger-prick device. ‘I see you’ve brought your own,’ he said. He grinned. ‘Shall we use mine or yours?’

Cecilia walked around him, cat-careful. She pressed her finger into the tip of the device, wiped her finger on the shoulder of Denton’s undershirt, then pricked his finger. She wrapped a Band-Aid over her own finger, then slipped her glove back on.

Swapping the com for a P99 pistol—Sophia’s favorite—she aimed at Denton’s head. ‘Give me one good reason why I don’t kill you now.’

Denton looked unconcerned, as though he hadn’t even noticed the pistol. He probed a loose tooth with his tongue. ‘Without me, you’ll never make it out alive.’

‘I guess that makes two of us,’ she said. ‘Oh, and Denton, I’m completely aware you have a trigger automatically transmitting a copy of the decrypted code just for you.’

He smiled. ‘I’d rather anticipated that you’d anticipate that.’

‘And yet I don’t know why you’d bother going to such trouble since you can’t possibly decode and sequence it in order to make it work.’

He winked at her. ‘I just love it when you talk techno.’

‘As much as you love torturing children for scientific research?’

He appeared to consider it. ‘Almost.’

‘Not that it matters, of course,’ Cecilia said. ‘You’ll be dead in a few minutes.’

‘Not quite,’ Renée said from behind Sophia.

In one fluid movement, Denton released his hands from the plasticuffs and pulled a pistol from his waistband. A USP Compact Tactical. He aimed it at Cecilia. The plasticuffs dropped to the floor, along with a bent paperclip.

‘Hold your fire, Renée,’ Denton said. ‘The Fairy Godmother has yet to inform us of the Akhana’s location. Except the Belize base, of course. Renée finally found the opportunity to share that information with me.’ He smiled. ‘I know there’s more than one.’

Sophia heard the click as Renée switched her P90 fire-selector wheel to safe.

She dropped to her knees, grabbed her own P90, rolled and swiveled onto her back. She aimed at Renée. The P90 was already cocked. She flicked her fire-selector wheel to automatic.

‘Beyond this place of wrath and tears looms but the horror of the shade,’ Sophia said. ‘And yet the menace of the years finds, and shall find, me unafraid.’

Denton laughed. ‘Renée’s inner layer of programming is just a tad less predictable than that. But two points for effort, Sophia.’

His gaze returned to Cecilia, as though Sophia was nothing more than an irritating mosquito. ‘I need you alive because your Elohim have this lab covered, and you need me alive because my cowboys are posted at every facility exit. And we’re in lockdown, so there aren’t many exits.’

‘Sophia,’ Cecilia said. ‘Put your weapon to safe.’

Sophia swallowed. It was over. She switched the fire selector to the white ‘S’ for safe.

It was then that Damien and Jay appeared on either side of Renée, their SIG Sauer P226 and P229 pistols aimed at Sophia.

‘Put your weapon down and stand up,’ Jay said.

Sophia’s cheeks burned fiercely. Sniveling cowards.

Slowly and with great reluctance, she placed her P90 on the floor. Although she knew she was screwed, in some shielded part of her mind she retained a sense of distance, of control. Within this calm she could think. Observe. Analyze.

Denton nodded at Cecilia. ‘And you as well, Godmother. Both of you, hands on your head.’

Moving slowly, Sophia got to her feet, hands moving to the back of her head. Cecilia was doing the same. Everything was going bad, fast.

Denton walked to Cecilia, pulled a knife from the inside of her right boot and stepped back. He pulled a hands-free from his suit pocket and slipped it into his ear. He held down the push-to-talk switch, his other hand playing with the knife. ‘Oscar Five Delta to Echo Four Golf. Disable the jammer. Over.’

He paused, then angled Cecilia’s knife under the fluorescent light, reflecting a beam into Cecilia’s eyes. She squinted, but didn’t give him the satisfaction of any more.

‘Acknowledged,’ Denton said. ‘Oscar Five Delta out.’

He released the switch and pointed the tip of the blade towards Cecilia. ‘Give your Elohim precise instructions to scout the facility exits for shocktroopers and report numbers.’

Cecilia’s gaze narrowed even further. With one hand, she pressed the switch below her jaw. ‘Echelon Zero to Echelon Six. Recon facility exfils, report back. Over.’ She waited. Probably listening to the Elohim commander’s response. ‘Echelon Zero. Out,’ Cecilia said. She released the switch. ‘They’re moving now.’

‘Congratulations,’ Denton said. ‘You get to keep all of your limbs. For the moment.’

Sophia could only listen as Denton spoke into his microphone. He gave the order to re-enable the jammer and send all Blue Beret troops to the BlueGene lab. He then contacted Tango Zero—the shocktroopers—and requested they come to him, attack Sophia’s team posted outside and force them away. Then the shocktroopers were to enter the BlueGene lab and relieve Denton of his babysitting duties before the Blue Berets’ arrival.

Sophia felt like a cold stake was driving into her stomach. She could do nothing to warn her team that they were about to be attacked by shocktroopers.

Denton paced back and forth. He opened his mouth to say something, but paused. All Sophia could hear was her own breathing and the faithful hum of the BlueGene nodes. Then she heard the nearby chatter of muted gunfire. Subsonic rounds flying almost whisper-quiet through the corridors outside, striking metal and flesh. And then silence again.

Denton grunted. He turned to Sophia. ‘Your mistresses don’t put up much of a fight, do they?’

Grace led her five shocktroopers, armed and uninjured, into the BlueGene lab. Sophia didn’t want to know how many of her own were dead.

Denton strode to Cecilia, ripped off her earpiece and radio, gave them to the nearest shocktrooper.

Without being told, Damien approached Sophia. He took her radio and removed her earpiece. She gave him no resistance, just glared at him. Damien avoided eye contact. Coward.

As if the six shocktroopers weren’t enough, the Berets arrived. Only sixteen of them, Sophia noted. She took a small amount of satisfaction in knowing her team had laid waste to almost the entire Blue Beret regiment stationed at the facility.

Denton snatched Cecilia’s com from her breast pocket. ‘I’d use it, but I’m sure you’ve had it re-encrypted,’ he said, and handed it to the Blue Beret sergeant. ‘Not a problem, of course, thanks to the virus I embedded in the second encryption layer.’ He grinned. ‘Pipe your output through that, bitch.’

Sophia realized immediately what Denton had done. The moment Cecilia pricked his finger and unwrapped both encryption layers, the virus had launched into action. Probably sent the damned Chimera vector codes right into his back pocket.

Denton moved to the lab entrance. The shocktroopers parted to let him through.

‘Renée,’ he said, ‘Sophia is to remain alive until I give the order.’

‘Colonel.’ Renée nodded and marched straight for Sophia.

Denton hesitated at the entrance, his gaze still on Renée. ‘The good doctors