Sooner Dead (Gamma World) - Mel Odom [127]
Riley never flickered. His rifle remained unwavering.
“Did you hear me?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s the deal. The next move is yours.”
Pardot swallowed hard and Hella felt the effort against the inside of her arm. “I told you to put your weapon down.”
“You got my men killed, you pompous little rat.” Riley’s voice was thick with emotion. He waved one hand at the dead lying around him. Only four hardshells seemed capable of standing. A few others moved on the floor. “I told you not to play with these people. I told you I wanted to take this insertion slowly. But you were in a hurry.”
“Put your weapon down, Captain. You have your instructions.” Pardot almost had that commanding sneer back, as if he were the one calling the shots.
“Yeah. I guess I do.” Slowly Riley lowered his rifle to the floor. Then he stepped forward. “Stampede, if we let you go—”
“You’re not letting us go; we’re letting you go.”
“Sure. Do you care if Pardot comes out of this in one piece?”
“No.”
“Okay.” Riley popped the blade from his forearm and punched it through Pardot’s skull. The exo whirred out of control. Pardot managed one shrill scream. “Hella’s fine.”
“Hella?”
Stepping away from Pardot, Hella let the man fall, not believing what had just happened. “I’m fine.” She trained her weapons on Riley, aware of the blood that dripped across her face shield and her blouse.
“Bring them down.”
The hardshells lined up at her command. They managed to pick up three men who were still alive in the tangle of dead. Then she escorted them down to the lab.
Riley and the other guards sat against one wall in the lab. The only sounds in the room were the cries of the wounded and the plaintive mewling of Alice Trammell as she succumbed to her disease. Colleen watched helplessly, crying silently as her daughter lost her battle.
Scatter and Ocastya talked in their language, and Hella sensed they were emotionally affected. They never looked away from Alice. Finally Scatter broke off and approached Colleen. “There is something we might be able to do.”
Colleen looked up at them, her eyes hollow and empty. “What?”
“Possibly we can save her. Will you allow us to try?”
“Yes. Whatever you need.”
Scatter stood on one side of the bed. Ocastya stood on the other. Each of them put one hand on Alice’s head, and they held hands. “Saving her body is impossible. The disease has taken that from her. But we may be able to save that part of your daughter that makes her the person you know.”
Colleen’s tears rolled down her face.
A lump formed in the back of Hella’s throat, and she couldn’t swallow it down. Tears slid down her face as well.
Scatter and Ocastya stood still as statues, their bodies gleaming. Then golden light pulsed along their skins. Alice’s pain-filled cries silenced, and she seemed to settle into a deeper sleep. For a moment Hella thought the little girl had perished. Then she saw a pulse beating at the hollow of her throat.
Ocastya and Scatter raised their joined hands over the little girl, and a stream of silver metal gleamed as it spun down and poured over Alice. In the space of a drawn breath, the liquid metal formed a shell over the girl. Then the medical machines screamed alerts as her heart stopped and her struggling respiration ceased.
“No!” Colleen stepped forward.
At the same time, Scatter took his hand from Alice’s head and held it out. “Alice?”
Incredibly the girl’s hand lifted. Only it wasn’t her hand. It was the silver metal shell. She gripped Scatter’s hand in her two-dimensional hand and sat up. The silver replica of the girl was perfect in every way, but she rose off her dead body.
Alice looked down at her torso and ran her free hand along her body. She looked up at Colleen. “Mommy?”
“Alice.” Colleen took her daughter’s hand. “Alice? Can you hear me?”
“I can.” Alice smiled and the silvery expression was childlike and innocent. “My stomach doesn’t hurt anymore.”
As Hella watched, the girl’s body thickened and filled in as the fragments replicated themselves. Ocastya and Scatter kept her hands on the