“You don’t talk to me that way,” Cliff snarled. “We’re equals.”
“You are my subordinate. At best. And I will teach you a lesson to ensure you never forget it.” Wruck strode toward Cliff.
And Cliff aimed the nozzle he was still holding at Wruck.
CHAPTER 89
BODY-SLAMMED WRUCK out of the way and made sure I was out of the way, too. Due to where we were when this happened, Wruck and I hit into some of the Reids and took them to the ground. My luck being what it was, lost my hold on my Glock and watched it skitter away from me.
The nozzle sprayed and the lights went out, only the backup ones didn’t come on. Had no idea if Siler or Mossy had helped make that happen, but it meant that I was in great shape because the gas mask was infrared.
Thankfully Rahmi leaped the other way, so what the ray ended up hitting was the elevator. Apparently the death ray portion was able to turn more than a person to dust. No one was going to be leaving via anything but the stairs now.
This also gave the rest of the room the impetus to take action. True to what Siler had told me, the five guys who were on the tables leaped off. Chuckie was nearest to Cliff and he kicked the nozzle out of Cliff’s hand, then tackled him, knocking the wheelchair over and Cliff out of it, and thereby leaving the Killer Octopus unmanned.
Wruck, meanwhile, shifted again and turned into himself. Or, rather, a version of himself. He was taller than I was used to, and looked a little less average and a little more unformed. Not unattractive but somehow beautiful in a way that was hard for a human to describe. Remembered how he’d told me that the Ancients looked like humanity, all of humanity. I could see it now. It was as if every feature and body type was there, even though he didn’t look like A Multiple Man. He looked like himself, only more so. And he glowed, just a bit. And, he had wings.
This was what the Anciannas race actually looked like—like our biblical descriptions of angels. Would have said, “Told you so,” to the room, but we were all a little busy.
He didn’t register for LaRue, not at first, not until he was right in front of her. But then her eyes opened wide and I saw the recognition hit. “You! You can’t be alive. There are no memories that say you are.”
Wruck grabbed her by her throat. “All my memories tell me you’re a traitor.”
Meanwhile, Jeff was trying to get into the fight and Christopher, White, Reader, and Tim were trying to keep him out of it, which was requiring all their strength. Meaning they were ignoring Francine.
Len and Kyle were not, however. They ran to her and started working to get her out of the shackles. Of course, a key would help with that. Had no idea where the key was, other than somewhere here.
Rahmi shifted to her own form and produced her battlestaff. Then she went to town on the Reid clones. Buchanan and Adriana were back-to-back, near Rahmi, fighting Reid clones as well.
My music changed to “Cloning Technology” by Fear Factory. Took the hint and ran to the Killer Octopus. Sure enough, it had a power cord. Unplugged it. The lights came back on. Not what I was hoping for. Had to get this out of here and away from Cliff’s control. Tried to move it. It was hella heavy and didn’t budge.
Noted that Chuckie was pounding Cliff, snarling about a variety of things, not the least of which were about Cliff threatening me, threatening his friends, and being the reason Naomi was dead. Cliff was in that crazy state where the adrenaline’s going strong, though, and he was snarling right back about all of Chuckie’s perceived personal attacks against him, so it was something of an even fight at the moment.
Cliff’s pet lizard had been kind of thrown when the wheelchair went over, but it waddled back, hissed, and attacked Chuckie.
Grabbed it to get it away from him. Now the beast was attacking me. Tried to get into its mind. Couldn’t. Knew there was a mind there, but it was a locked door to me. Held onto the lizard with both hands, keeping it at arm’s length, and contemplated a few things—I’d been able to connect with a freaking great white shark at a tenser time than this, the Turleens came here all the time and camouflaged themselves to look like tortoises and such, the Mykali had been here for ages and we’d decided they were sea slugs and not sentient, and Mossy had said that the tech in this machine wasn’t from Earth.
Held the lizard a little tighter. “You’re not just a pet, are you?”
It tried to grow, I could feel it. Fought against it, but it burst out of my hands. In its place was a very large lizard, one that made the Reptilians look extremely small and cuddly. One that looked very much like a larger version of the lizard it had been while, at the same time, being a smaller version of a T-Rex only with, sadly, slightly more useful arms.
It roared at me and grabbed at my face. It got the gas mask and ripped it off of me, but it wasn’t my head, so I counted that in the win column. I backed up. And hit the wall.
“It’s her!” Cliff screamed as he saw who I was. He looked at Francine, squinting madly, then back to me. “That’s the real one! Kill her! Kill her now.”
Might have happened. But I heard a different kind of roar.
The Poofs were large and in charge. This wasn’t a typical foe for them, though. There were six Poofs and one Alien Rex and the Poofs were having to really work at it. Would have helped them, but noticed movement out of the corner of my eye.
Spun to see Leventhal Reid aiming a gun at one of the Poofs.
Wasn’t sure if this was the “real” Reid or not and didn’t care. He was threatening my pets, my protectors, my Poofs. He was not going to be allowed to do that.
My rage spiked and I remembered what I’d told Jeff, Chuckie, and Reader not all that long ago—the only reason Reid could hurt me before was because I wasn’t enhanced. Those days were long gone. He might have A-C in there. So what? So did I. My music changed to M?tley Crüe’s “Goin’ Out Swingin’” and I waded in.
“I remember you,” Reid said as I kicked the gun out of his hand and the bullet fired into the ceiling. “You tried to kill me when I was younger.”
So, this was the Original Clone. The others couldn’t have that memory since they’d lost the ability to share those. And the original had been a well-made clone, literally Reid reborn. My stomach clenched and I froze.
Managed to talk. “Yeah and do you remember why?”