“That won’t stop them for long.” I shrugged off my pack, removed the case and yanked it open, revealing the deadly packages inside. Four each and, according to Mist, created with a special combination of explosives and dragonfire that would devastate everything around them. “Split up,” I told the group. “Try to cover as much of the room as you can. Pay special attention to structural features that could collapse the ceiling, but don’t spend too much time on any one thing. Regroup near that big central column when you’re done. We’ll have to do this fast.”
They nodded and melted into the room, vanishing between endless rows of vats. I followed, pausing only to attach a bomb to the first glass cylinder I passed. The device stuck easily to the glass, and when I pressed the button on the side, a row of numbers flashed to life on the screen.
Fifteen minutes, counting down.
A hiss behind me turned my attention to the entrance, where a thin line of blowtorch smoke was drifting up from the locked doors. Snatching the case from the cement, I slipped farther into the chamber.
“Stop!”
The shout came as I was planting the last explosive on a vat in the center of the floor. I whirled, raising my weapon, as a man stumbled out from behind a pillar and hurried forward, eyes wild. He wore a white lab coat and glasses, had thinning brown hair and looked like all the other scientists I’d seen in this room tonight. But instead of running from me, he rushed the vat where I’d just set the last charge, throwing out his hands as if to protect it.
“What are you doing?” he demanded, gazing up at the sleeping vessel, as if making sure it was all right. “You can’t be in here! Get out!” Suddenly catching sight of the bomb, counting down the seconds in ominous red, his face went pale. “Oh, God. What have you done?”
“You need to leave,” I told him. “This whole place is rigged to explode. If you tamper with the devices they’ll just go off sooner. There’s nothing you can do now.”
“Dr. Olsen!” Pounding footsteps rang out behind us, and a younger man came to a gasping halt at the bottom of the vat, his white coat fluttering wildly. “Sir, we have to go!” he cried. “The vessels are coming, and those people have set bombs through the whole chamber. We have to leave while we still can.”
“No,” rasped the other scientist as my heart skipped a beat with the realization. “I won’t leave. You can go, but this is my life’s work! I won’t abandon them.”
Olsen. Something clicked in my head, a memory from not very long ago. Myself, and Martin in his office, staring at a name on a yellowed birth certificate.
Lucas knew your mother, Garret. That’s why he took you that day. Before he became a soldier, before she married a scientist and started working for the organization, they knew each other.
“John Olsen,” I said quietly as the younger scientist hesitated a moment longer, then fled, vanishing between rows of vats. I barely noticed him go. The older man looked up, and his gaze narrowed briefly in my direction.
“Do I know you, St. George?” he snapped, and when I didn’t answer, he dropped his attention to the panel again. “Look, whoever you are, you’ve done enough. If you’re going to kill me, then kill me. If not, I suggest you leave, before the vessels get here and bullets really start flying.”
I took a steadying breath. “You might know me,” I told the scientist in a voice that shook only slightly. “My name is Garret Xavier Sebastian. But I had another name once, a long time ago. Garret David Olsen.”
The scientist’s fingers froze over the panel. Slowly, he straightened and turned, as if seeing me for the very first time. Finally, one corner of his mouth twitched in a wry, ironic smile.
“Damn.” He sighed, shaking his head. “They told me you were dead. That you and Sarah had died in the raid. If I had known…” He trailed off.
“What?” I challenged. “Would you have done anything? Would you have searched for me? Tried to get me back?” I nodded to the huge tanks surrounding us, the Adult clones that hovered beyond the glass. “Or would you have kept working for them? Knowing that you were helping the Elder Wyrm take over the world? You must’ve known what she was doing. You can’t claim ignorance when you helped create this.”
“Helped create?” Dr. Olsen gazed up at the vessels, smiling. “You don’t understand,” he murmured. “These are my greatest achievements. The cumulation of my life’s work. Science and magic, blended together to create something entirely new. I would sell my soul, again, for the opportunities Talon afforded me.” His gaze swept to me again, hardening. “I will not see them destroyed by the boy I’d given up for dead!”
“Garret!” Ember rushed up, followed by the other three. “The vessels have blocked that side of the chamber and are heading in this direction.” She panted. “We can’t go back the way we came.”
I turned to the scientist. “Dr. Olsen,” I began, unable to call him…that other word. “You need to come with us. This place is going to blow in a few minutes. There’s no time—”
“No.” He shook his head, and his eyes were a little glassy now. “You don’t understand,” he went on, turning back to the panel. “This is my life’s work. I can’t leave them. I might be able to save a few.”
“You can’t save them,” I argued, suddenly furious. “If you stay here, you’re going to die, along with everything else in this room.”
“Garret,” Tristan said in warning, just as a shot rang out. Lightning fast, Mist turned and fired her pistol at the vessel who appeared between the vats, and it collapsed to the cement. But more were coming; I could see their shadows moving across the floor, blurry shapes of both human and dragon sliding behind the vats.
Torn, I gave the scientist one last, desperate look. He ignored us all, fiddling with the panel, muttering to himself. A light at the top suddenly flashed on, blinking red in warning, and an automated voice announced: “Warning, system override in process. Awakening procedure starting in five…four…three…”
“Dammit, we gotta move, Sebastian,” Matthews snarled at me. “Now!”
With an inner curse, I turned and fled with the others, pushing farther toward the back of the chamber. I didn’t know where we were going exactly, or how we would escape.
“Garret!”
I turned back to see Dr. Olsen watching me, illuminated red in the flashing light of the tank.
“Take the emergency elevator in the back left corner,” he called, his voice barely audible over the warning buzz coming from the vat. “It will take you up to the first floor, provided you have a key card to operate it.” He gave a half smile and mouthed something that I couldn’t hear, but in the dim light of the chamber, I could almost imagine it was, Good luck, son.
I spun and ran for the corner as shots followed me into the dark.
“Dammit,” Tristan muttered as I caught up to the group, taking cover behind a pair of large columns. “They keep pushing us back. I don’t see any way to go around them.” He glanced at the pillar, where one of the explosives stared back, blinking ominously. “Less than eight minutes to go.” He sighed. “At least it’ll be quick.”
“Fuck that,” Peter Matthews sneered, and raised his weapon. “I’m not going to sit on my ass and wait for it to explode. If I’m dying here, I’m sure as hell taking as many lizards with me as I can.”
“No one is dying,” I said firmly, meeting Ember’s gaze from where she huddled behind the second pillar. “There’s an emergency elevator that will take us to the surface if we can reach it. Ember, do you still have the key Dante gave you?”
She nodded, took the card from the cord around her neck and tossed it to me. “In case I have to Shift again,” she said, her voice strangely calm.
“Here they come!” Mist snapped as a half dozen gray dragons bounded toward us through the aisles. Gunfire followed them, sparking off pillars and ringing through the air. The tank above us cracked, leaking greenish fluid that steamed as it trickled down the glass.
“This way!” I called, and we ran for the back of the room, keeping our heads down, hearing the shrieks of the vessels as they gave chase. Ember and Mist Shifted while running, giving them greater speed and a little protection from flying bullets, while the rest of us wove around columns and tanks, trying to keep obstacles between us and the advancing guards.