Had to figure out how to see what was going on without being exposed. Mossy apparently had the same idea, because he took to the air and slowly flew back up the way we’d come. He returned shortly and beckoned to us. Followed him quietly and, for my part, very carefully.
My music changed to “Look At Me” by Sum 41. We were back by the elevator. There was a little alcove to the other side of it, and that’s where Mossy led us. It was a tight fit, and if Mossy had been human-sized all three of us couldn’t have done it. As it was, he had to light on my shoulder.
The rock went to chest height for me, but there was an overhang of rock right above us that made this a great little lookout spot. Because it was near the elevator, it meant that we could see the whole room, too, but someone in the room would have to look just right in order to see us. This was a sniper’s dream location.
My music changed to “Keep Looking” by Sade. Assumed this meant Algar felt it wasn’t sniper time yet and that I needed to examine the room. And what a room it was.
It was a long rectangle—we were at the corner, with a long side to our right—cut out of rock, so the acoustics were excellent. We were a story above the floor, and there were at least two stories’ worth of space above. The décor was typical Mad Scientist About To Take Over The World Chic, complete with lab tables at the usual 120-degree angle so popular with the crazed lunatic set. And, naturally, Chuckie was strapped to one of these. Still fully clothed, which was a rarity, but perhaps Cliff was holding off on stripping him to the waist for some reason.
That reason might have been that he had a bunch of other people strapped up to different lab tables throughout the room. Chuckie was at the far end from where we were, but the others were closer, on the middle of the opposite wall. Sadly, those others were indeed Jeff, Reader, Tim, and Buchanan. Didn’t see Siler and hoped he’d blended his way to some kind of safety.
Those four were strapped near something that looked a hell of a lot like the android-creation equipment we’d found in Stephanie’s lab during Operation Madhouse, complete with a wall of wires seemingly ready to go. But their tables also looked like the cloning bays we’d destroyed during Operation Infiltration. Had an extremely bad feeling about this, made worse by my music changing to Alice Cooper’s “Clones (We’re All).”
Chuckie was near a contraption that looked very like the death ray machine I’d seen in Bizarro World. Really hoped that’s not what it was, because this machine had far more than one nozzle on it. It was like four octopi had been attached to the cube within a cube within a cube, all attached by pipes at every corner. The arms were all thick and wide, like Doc Octopus’s, but, thankfully, without pincers on the end. They just had a wide-open hole, as if they were ordinary flexible pipes.
The Killer Octopus did not, thank all the Powers That Be, have a glowing Z’porrah power cube at the center, though, so it gave me a little hope that I wasn’t going to see everyone turned into little piles of dust.
Of course, the five guys strapped to the tables also had guns at their heads, which was, presumably, why Rahmi and Adriana hadn’t shot the place up the moment they were spotted. And the person holding the guns at the heads of my husband and friends was Leventhal Reid. As in, there were five Reids, and each one had a gun at the head of one of the five guys strapped down.
The others, including Kozlow, were surrounded by more Leventhal Reids. There were twenty more Reids encircling the newest captives. All of them brandishing semiautomatics. Had no idea which one was the real one, or, rather, the Original Clone, but, for me, it was like seeing my friends surrounded by twenty human vipers while five other vipers loomed over my husband and my other friends. Basically, this place was the worst kind of snake pit.
Everyone’s weapons had been taken away and were in a pile that no one was going to get to before they could be shot. Noted that Rahmi still looked like a G-Company thug. Had no idea if this was going to help us or just make her the first person Cliff had shot to teach everyone else “a lesson.”
There was only one LaRue, interestingly enough, and she looked as she always had to me, supercilious attitude and bleached blonde hair included. Or at least only one that we could see. Why ask why. And there was only one Cliff. But it definitely wasn’t the Cliff I knew. And another couple of reasons for Chuckie and the others not being stripped to the waist presented themselves—jealousy and comparison.
Cliff was in a white suit and sitting in a motorized wheelchair, which explained the wheel tracks I’d seen. He looked flat-out awful. He’d been a good-looking guy, always dressed well, always wearing a high and tight haircut, and though he was about ten years older than me and Chuckie, he’d always looked young and vibrant. He looked young and vibrant no more.
He was sort of shriveled, a bit hunched, and his hair wasn’t in a high and tight anymore. What there was of it was kind of long and stringy. His face was in profile to us and it was sunken in, as if he was a very old man.
He had a lizard on his lap, a large, fat Egyptian spiny-tailed lizard, if my memory of my natural sciences classes served. He was petting this lizard as if it was a cat.
To confirm my view that Cliff had chosen Blofeld as his new spirit animal, my music changed to the instrumental James Bond 007 theme. It would have been funny if everyone wasn’t captured and in mortal peril.
The entire thing was very reminiscent of Cliff’s lair in Bizarro World. What was missing, though, were banks of TV screens. Either they had no cameras set up anywhere or their reception here was next to nothing, because there was one TV screen and it was showing the Faradawn Treeship’s descent. And that was it. Had no idea if the bank of surveillance equipment was in another room that a hundred LaRues were monitoring or if Cliff just hadn’t had time to set that all up, but it was a lack that was working in our favor.
“Now that we’re all here,” Cliff said, rather pleasantly, ignoring Chuckie’s question, “I’m sure you’d like to know what I’m going to do with you.”
Sent up a fervent prayer that someone, anyone, would keep this guy monologuing. Had no idea if Francine could, would, or should. She looked like me, but didn’t sound like me.
“Oh, we’re, hah, dying to know,” Francine said. Sounding just like me. Troubadour talent was amazing and, right now, possibly all we had going for us.
“I figured you might. And you’re the center of it. Chain her up, we have something special planned for you.”
“I’ll bet.” Francine sounded bored. “You look as bad as Casey did.” She was damned good—clearly Serene’s training was topnotch. “You a clone, too?”
“You wish I was,” he growled.
“I wish you were dead,” Francine said conversationally. “But I’ve heard you can’t always get what you want.”
“I’m going to get what I want,” Reid said menacingly.