The Cassandra Complex - Brian Stableford [137]
Arachne took the wafer and vaulted over the desk to reach the copier that would allow her to duplicate it repeatedly. “I gave the van driver the slip,” she said, “but they had a pretty good idea of where we are even before you set up the audible signpost. We still have half a chance while they’re trying to make their way through the maze, though. Pick up the gun, Lisa.”
Lisa knelt down carefully. She didn’t dare duck her head precipitately while it was still aching from the clumsy blow Helen Grundy had given her. She picked up the gun, but took due note of the fact that if anyone came hurtling through the door with heroism on his mind, she would be the first target to attract attention. Arachne had a switch within easy reach that would engage the door’s locks, but she hadn’t touched it—presumably because the idea of being locked in while the corridor filled with ambushers was even less appealing than the prospect of reckless heroic intervention.
Lisa contemplated asking Arachne to open the inner door, but it was probably safer to leave Morgan locked in. That way, he’d be okay no matter what happened in the outer room if or when Leland and his taciturn friend arrived on the threshold.
Arachne fed the wafer into the computer. She began decanting information onto the local disk before opening the connection to a subsidiary station that would allow her to transfer data slot to slot.
The sound of a slightly muffled explosion made Lisa start. “He’s shooting his way in!” she exclaimed.
“He can’t hack the locks,” Arachne told her, her calmness exaggerated by concentration. “He’s in too much of a hurry to be subtle. He’s a way off yet.”
No sooner had she finished speaking, though, than a second explosion sounded. Alarm bells now began to sound in profusion. The cityplex police would be on their way—but Leland had already pointed out that their response times left something to be desired, and the lunch-time crowds in the mall would be panicking by now. Aboveground, everything would be chaos and confusion.
The alarms weren’t loud enough to block out the sound of another door being taken off its hinges. This one seemed very close. Lisa had been aware for some time that Ginny’s pills had worn off, but while she was moving, she hadn’t lost her momentum. Now that she had nothing to do but stand still, the letdown could no longer be put off. She felt as if a heavy blanket had descended upon her. The sharp pain caused by Helen Grundy’s clumsy blow had become oppressively dull and constant now, and she had to clench her left fist tight, digging her fingernails into her palm, to fight the deadening numbness. She still needed help, though—and help came.
“Dr. Friemann!”
The raised voice came from the corridor; it was loud and clear enough to dash any hope that its owner didn’t know exactly where they were, and the jolt it delivered to Lisa’s slowing heart restored the sharpness of her consciousness so completely as to make the situation seem surreal and hallucinatory.
Lisa immediately eased Helen Grundy to one side and went past her to the doorway. She took the gun with her, but she held it limply at arm’s length, pointed at the floor.
She was relieved to note, once she was outside the door, that Leland was alone, and that his own already-raised weapon was a dart gun like the one the Real Woman had been carrying in the parking lot—so alike, in fact, that it was presumably the same one.
Leland looked down at the dart gun apologetically. “Cheap Bulgarian crap,” he observed, “but it fires straight enough.”
“One copy only,” Lisa said immediately. “All the experimental data, plus a map of the retrovirus. You take it and you leave. You’ll have everything we have—and as far as anyone else is concerned, you weren’t even here.”
“I’m not worried about that,” he said. “Were you with them all along, or have you been turned?”
“Neither,” Lisa told him. “I’m just trying to make the best of a bad situation. You