Chapter 56

The Gray Witch led them through the compound, blinding cameras, opening locked doors, and even turning off a robotic set of guards that patrolled the area. All without setting off the slightest of alarms.

With one more turn, she delivered them to a large surgical suite. Inside the suite, poised like mechanical spiders from an arachnophobe’s nightmare, they found several robotic surgical units. They sat parked and silent against the wall, their arms up in the retracted position, what looked like claws dangling from the spindly appendages.

One of them came to life, lights blinking on, arms moving, body squatting onto a set of wheels as it started crossing the room.

Kurt instinctively put an arm out to usher Kai behind him, but there was no need. The machine crossed the room toward a door on the far side, waited patiently for it to retract, and then eased through.

Kurt and Kai followed. They found what a hospital would call a recovery room. Eight people lay on beds inside it, all of them either dead, unconscious, or sedated. Kurt spotted Paul instantly and found Chantel a second later. Both had their heads shaved, but did not appear to have been through any surgeries yet. The others, whom he didn’t know but assumed to be the crew of the Isabella , were in similar shape. Gamay was nowhere to be found.

“We’ve got to get them—”

Before Kurt could finish his statement, the robotic surgeon moved toward Chantel. Kurt moved to intervene, but Kai called out to him. “It’s okay. She has control.”

Kurt fought against every instinct in his body and stepped back as the machine administered some form of antidote to the anesthetic the men and women were under.

Slowly they began to stir. Kurt looked at his watch. This was all taking too much time .

Kurt turned to Kai. “Where’s Gamay?”

Kai seemed confused. She shook her head twice and then started to cry. When she spoke, her voice was an almost exact match of Priya’s. “It’s too late for her.”

“Where is she?” Kurt asked again.

“She’s in here, with me.”

Kurt knew what that meant. And in that instant, he knew things were probably going to end badly. Paul and Chantel were waking up. The crew of the Isabella was coming around as well.

“What’s happening?” Paul asked.

“Where are we?” Chantel managed to say.

They were groggy and drooling and barely able to sit up.

“As soon as they can walk, get them out of here,” he told Kai. “Get them out to the dock. Find a boat and get out on the water, or stay hidden. This whole building is going to implode in less than seven minutes.”

“Where are you going?”

“To find Priya and Gamay.”

“I want to go with you,” Kai insisted. “I want to see her.”

“These people will never make it without you,” Kurt insisted. “Get them to safety. I’ll bring Priya to you. I promise.”

Kai accepted the needs of the others as much as she’d accepted being the leader of the escaped clones, as an obligation of righteousness. Kurt could tell she didn’t like it, which made him respect her that much more.

“Vaughn has them,” Kai said, channeling what Priya knew. “He walks on them like stepping stones.”

Kurt wasn’t sure what all that meant, but it told him one thing. He’d get a chance to deal with Vaughn, and some part of him wanted that as badly as he wanted to save his friends. He left the room knowing he stood little chance of freeing Priya and Gamay, but there was no world in which he would leave them behind without trying.