Hercules 500 Page 4

  He looked mildly outraged that she would even ask. “I don’t think …,” he started, beginning to slam the door in her face.

  He didn’t get it closed. A hand the size of Anika’s head appeared from behind her and slammed into the panel hard enough it sent her neighbor reeling backwards. Anika glanced back and up at Chance and then turned to her neighbor. “And … uh … here he is! If you could just see your way to loaning …. Or I could just buy it from you?”

  The neighbor picked himself up from the floor, sized Chance up and apparently decided the quickest way to get him out of his doorway was to fork over some clothing. Going to his locker, he snatched several articles out without even looking at them and tossed them in her direction.

  Chance caught the clothing bomb.

  “Just keep them!” the neighbor growled.

  Anika smiled at him. “Thank you!”

  He sent her a sour look, but she turned away and ushered Chance back to her apartment. “You were supposed to wait there!” she snapped.

  “I am supposed to protect you. I did not like the sound of his voice,” Chance growled in a tone she had never heard from him.

  She sent him a startled look as they entered her apartment, but the anger she heard in his voice wasn’t reflected in his expression.

  “Why don’t we just see what we have here?” she suggested uneasily. “I have somewhere I have to be later this evening and I’d really like to get my belongings moved to the ship and settled in my cabin before that.”

  Chance dropped the clothing onto the couch and picked each piece up, examining it. Anika examined them when she could get a hold of a piece.

  She wasn’t terribly happy with their haul—two pairs of pants, one outer shirt, two odd socks and an undershirt. “This is some old, ugly shit,” she muttered. “We’ll have to get something better when we can. You’re way too pretty to be dressed so shabbily.”

  Chance stopped with one leg in and one out of the trousers.

  She looked at him questioningly.

  “You think that I am pretty?”

  Anika felt her face redden. The problem with always being alone was it could encourage a person to say their thoughts out loud. She hadn’t thought she had a problem with it, but obviously …. “I guess pretty is the wrong word,” she said with a laugh. “Handsome then.”

  He looked uncertain—because he was searching his memory banks for the word and definition, she supposed, and then he smiled at her.

  Her heart just seemed to stop for a minute.

  Oh my god! He’s a machine, you moron!

  She looked away with an effort. “We should get going—lots to do!”

  * * * *

  Detective Cole Parker paced the filthy, creaking floor of the derelict building they’d picked as their forward operations observation post. Ignoring the litter he kicked along the way and the little puffs of dust he stirred, he checked the time … again. It was the waiting that made him nuts. They’d been working towards this takedown for damned near a year and all he could think about was having it over with so that he wouldn’t have to worry about something going wrong.

  Because that was what was running through his head as he paced, every possible way they could fuck this up in the eleventh hour and lose damned near a year’s worth of work.

  “You think you could give it a rest?” Carlos growled irritably. “You’re starting to get on my nerves …pacing the place like a caged lion. You don’t watch out, amigo, you’re gonna step on a soft spot and those heavy ass bionics of yours is gonna make like a rock and we’ll have to go to the basement to scrape you up.”

  Cole responded with a rude gesture and moved to the monitors … again, staring at the images as if he could make something happen.

  They’d used drones to set up cameras along both alleys leading to the building their gang was operating out of. It had been risky, but they had to have eyes on the bastards at all points and they thought it better to set up stationary cameras than to take a chance on alerting their prey by having drones circling above their heads.

  Both options, unfortunately, had good and bad points, but they’d settled on the stationary cameras.

  Now he wondered if they’d left any spots blind.

  They’d assumed the seller would enter one or the other alley on foot, but they couldn’t know that for sure.

  And, unfortunately, they weren’t entirely certain of who that target was.

  They thought they knew it was a low level tech that worked at the main lab, but it might also be one of the custodians.

  They would be positive of which after tonight.

  They were going to catch him passing the stolen goods red-handed and then they were going to bust the entire ring of thieves—put a stop to the black market trafficking of rejected seedlings.

  They were supposed to be disposing of it as medical waste, but there’d been a dozen infants born the previous year that had genetic health issues that would have been eliminated if the women had used the legal route for obtaining spermatozoa—seedlings that had been carefully tested.

  Of course, none of the genetic medical problems had been severe—bad eyes and bad teeth could cost a parent, but they weren’t life threatening or even prohibitively expense health issues. The fear was that if they didn’t nip it in the bud the thieves would get more and more greedy and start passing on seriously defective seedlings—complete with genetic diseases and/or tendencies when they were just starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, within inches of eradicating all of the worst diseases that could be cut from the gene pool.

  There was a price, of course.

  People that carried bad genes weren’t allowed to procreate with them indiscriminately like they once had. They had to have their genes edited (expensive) or they had to carry someone else’s offspring if they wanted a child or, occasionally, children—or face the consequences of heavy fines above and beyond dealing with the afflicted off-spring.

  His own genes weren’t sterling. One of the perks of serving one’s country and/or being a first responder, though, was that he was required to pass his genes on—even if they needed a little tweaking and the government paid for that tweaking.

  And he had been both—a soldier and now a cop.

  His … well, he wasn’t likely to produce a genius, but he had no seriously horrible genetic diseases or defects.

  Not that he was ready for that responsibility—yet.

  Which was one of the things that made him nervous about the operation.

  The bait was personal—very personal—but it had seemed safer to gamble with his own seed than something that could be far worse. They at least knew it was safe if, worst case scenario, they lost the batch.

  But if they lost the batch, he thought abruptly, he might never know where his children ended up or what their situation was.

  He shook the thought. It wasn’t likely they would end up in an institution for orphans as he had and that was the most important thing.

  Anybody willing to go through this to get a kid wanted that kid, he told himself.

  Almost right on the dot, Carlos made an announcement.

  “We’ve got movement.”

  Adrenalin shot through Cole’s system. He touched his com unit. “Game time, gents.”

  “Shit! More movement.”

  “What?” Cole demanded. “What the fuck?”

  Carlos shrugged. “Must be a couple of buyers.”

  “Now?” Cole growled irritably. “Same alley?”

  “Opposite side.”

  “Well their bad luck. Big son-of-a-bitch,” he added when he’d caught a glimpse of the shadowy figure as he passed one of the monitors. “I’m gonna go give the guys a hand. We only have two stationed at that door. Tell them to let the buyers through. I’m heading their way to back them up,” he threw over his shoulder as he jogged to the door and went out.

  “Like he ain’t been champing at the bit to get in the middle of it!” Carlos muttered after he�
��d warned the men stationed at the target door.

  Not that he hadn’t identified a potentially disastrous situation. The dude was huge and having Cole as backup, with his bionics, would be like having a squad at their backs.

  * * * *

  Anika was tired enough after several trips to carry her belongings to her cabin on the ship at the space port and a search after that of several secondhand clothing stores for a couple of decent clothing changes for Chance, that it had steadied her nerves over her rendezvous for the night.

  At least until it was time to head out.

  She didn’t want to take Chance. She was afraid he might be damaged.

  Which was stupid, of course, particularly since he’d clearly been designed for home security, but she’d damned near spent every dime she had on him.

  And he wasn’t replaceable in any sense of the word.

  On the other hand, she was scared shitless of the people she would have to deal with and the monsters that could be lurking everywhere in that neighborhood.

  The only other option she had, though, was just to forget the whole thing and she was not leaving her children in that place to be collected by somebody else!

  She wouldn’t have been able to walk away even if her mother hadn’t already made arrangements and made a payment to hold them. Now, they weren’t hypothetical anymore. They were hers.

  She couldn’t just abandon them regardless of the danger of going after them.

  Uneasiness began to set in almost as soon as they’d set out, though, despite her determination and the more anxious she got the faster her tongue moved.

  “I’ve never been in this part of city, but I’ve heard all sorts of things and I know for a fact that it’s a high crime area so we’ll both have to keep quiet and keep an eye out for trouble. I mean, I don’t see any reason for anybody to target us specifically. I wouldn’t think they’d be able to tell I have a significant amount of money on me, but you never know, and I wouldn’t want to get caught up in a crime that was going down close by. I mean dead is dead and I would be if I got shot, I imagine.”

  Chance closed a hand around her upper arm, pulling her to a halt. “Your nervous chattering is attracting unwanted attention.”

  Anika gaped at him in disbelief and gathering outrage.

  Unfortunately, she was afraid he was right.

  The more she chattered trying to comfort herself, the more people glanced at her.

  She was giving away her fear and that attracted predators.

  She nodded jerkily, therefore, instead of blasting him for having the nerve to scold.

  From that point onward, her tongue seemed glued to the roof of her mouth. It was all she could do to keep enough wits about her to recite the address and repeat her plan in her head.

  And it was still Chance, not her own observation, that brought them to a halt at the building address she’d been given.

  There was a large hand written sign that stated that the entrance was down the alley.

  Anika stared at the sign and finally moved to peer down the alley.

  It looked like a cave.

  There was one flickering light over a door … way at the other end.

  Anika glanced up at Chance.

  He met her gaze. “I will protect you, Anika.”

  Anika nodded a little jerkily even though she hardly registered what he’d said and started down the alley reciting the mantra ‘get my babies’ in her head all the way to give her enough starch to keep her knees from buckling.

  She was almost relieved when they managed to make it all the way down the alley without being attacked.

  She tapped on the door panel using the peculiar rhythm she’d been told to use, and then chewed her nails while she waited. Finally, she heard a bolt slide on the other side and the door was opened a sliver. “Yeah?”

  “Belinda and Lyle of Beauterre sent me,” she stammered.

  “Who’s that with you?” he demanded suspiciously.

  Thrown by the fact that the man had mistaken Chance for a human man, Anika stared, trying to jug her brain into functioning. “A … friend,” she said finally. “I wasn’t coming by myself!”

  The man looked like he might argue, but he finally relented, stepped out to examine the alley and then allowed them in.

  They were met by two other men who rudely ran their hands all over them. “Any weapons?”

  Anika’s indignation overcame both fear and caution—briefly. “You put your hands all over me,” she growled. “Did you feel anything?”

  The bastard leered at her.

  Chance stiffened.

  She whipped a look at him and shook her head fractionally. Some of the tension, to her relief, left him.

  They were led to another room. A light in the ceiling illuminated two men seated at a rickety table almost like players on a theater stage. There was a microscope set up between them.

  The older man studied both of them through narrowed eyes and finally nodded. When he did, the other man pushed the microscope across and turned it around. “Have a look.”

  Realizing what it was, Anika felt her heart leap into her throat as she rushed forward to look.

  She could see spermatozoa swimming around in the tiny capsule beneath the lens, hundreds, maybe thousands of them. The tube that held the capsule held two other capsules and she saw live spermatozoa in both. Feeling dizzy, she lifted her head and examined the tube. Naturally enough, it was labeled with the sperm quality, but it also had the sex.

  Two girls and a boy, Anika read.

  Slowly, that sank in and images filled her mind of fat little cherub faces.

  A son and two daughters, she thought, almost too stupefied to take it in.

  From out of nowhere, tears stung her nose and began to fill her eyes.

  She struggled to get a grip.

  The man across the table leaned forward and snatched the tube out of her hands. “I’ll take the final payment and we’ll call it a done deal.”

  Anika gaped at him, too stunned to react for several moments, feeling a spurt of fear for her little seedlings. Finally, she remembered she’d been instructed to bring cash—something almost unheard of these days. Digging in her pocket, she dragged it out and handed it to the man.

  He tucked the tube with her babies in it in his shirt pocket and counted the money.

  “You’re short. It’s supposed to be twice this.”

  Anika gaped at him in shocked disbelief. “My mother paid the other half. This is the balance.”

  The man sneered at her. “The balance is whatever the fuck I say it is,” he snarled. “Come back when you have the rest.”

  Anika’s chin wobbled. “But … I don’t have any more. Well, not that much.”

  The man shrugged. “I guess we won’t be doing business.”

  Anika looked up at Chance unhappily.

  He looked away and then, before she could say a thing, he’d leaned across the table and lifted the man by his neck.

  He looked like a fish out of water—mouth gaping, eyeballs bulging as if they would pop out of his skull at any moment.

  The sound of three guns being cocked filled the air.

  It flooded over Anika as if she’d stepped beneath an icy waterfall.

  Chance ignored the deadly threat. “You were paid the amount agreed upon,” he growled. With his free hand, he plucked the tube from the man’s pocket and handed it blindly to Anika.

  As terrified as she was, she grabbed ‘her children’ and clutched it to her chest.

  “Tell them to back off,” Chance growled.

  The man gobbled a few times, but nothing really intelligible.

  Chance shook him and let him go.

  All hell broke loose before the man hit the floor.

  Several shots rang out.

  A door behind the table exploded inward and armed men poured through.

  By that time, however, Chance had jerked Anika around and was marching her swiftly toward the door they’d come in.


  Two men met them as they got to the doorway leading to the room that let out into the alley.

  Chance released his grip on Anika, grabbed both men, and slammed them together.

  They knocked heads with a sickening crunch and crumpled on the floor when he let go of them.

  Chance grabbed Anika and lifted her over the two men. It was done almost without breaking stride.

  Anika was caught up in a profound state of shock by that time, though, and it seemed like everything around her was moving in slow motion.

  She heard gunshots, and other sounds of struggle, but she was so cocooned, she couldn’t even feel alarm.

  They met up with a third man as they burst through the outer door and into the alley.

  Chance snatched the tube from Anika and shoved it in his mouth just as the stranger, who was damned near as big as Chance, grabbed his shoulders and slammed his forehead into Chance’s.

  The sound of the impact penetrated Anika’s shock—briefly.

  The stranger staggered back with a look of surprise and then his eyeballs rolled back in his head.

  Two things happened when the cop slammed his forehead into Chance’s.

  He swallowed the ‘evidence’ he’d taken from Anika to protect her.

  And something … cracked, or maybe popped, inside Chance’s head and a rush of what almost sounded like rushing water or air filled his mind or his ears, or both.

  Ignoring both circumstances since he could do nothing about either at the moment, Chance grabbed the cop and slung him toward the door they’d just left by. He slammed into it. There was the sound of breaking wood and the stranger fell through the hole he’d made.

  Bright lights surrounded them abruptly and a voice over a megaphone. “Columbus PD! Halt! Stay where you are! Hands up!”

  Chance dropped to a crouch and Anika thought he was about to sprawl on the ground. Instead, he shot back up, grabbing her along the way and ….

  Well, he left the ground as if he’d been shot through a cannon, taking her with him.