Casey eagerly shared the supposed location while Len and Kyle both took notes. The location sounded like it was near to the Gaultier Enterprises facility outside of Paris, which again meant that whatever or whoever was there, it wasn’t Cliff.
Tito arrived now. He was in a full hazmat suit and carrying a big medical bag. “I’d ask what’s going on,” he said to me, “but I’m sure I’ll find out soon enough.” Melville let him into Casey’s cell and Tito proceeded to perpetrate medical procedures upon her.
Prince, meanwhile, got close to the bars and started sniffing intently.
Tito finished up fast and exited the cell. While Melville locked it back up, Tito studied his phone.
“Missed a call from Rahmi?”
He shook his head. “We have new apps that allow me to diagnose what’s going on at a molecular level.”
“Wow, what will they think up next?”
“Ask Alfred. This came out of NASA Base.” Jeff’s father was one of the few male A-Cs with scientific aptitude, of which he had tons. I’d discovered that most of the advances we had were due to Alfred, though the Dazzlers—which was what I called the female A-Cs to myself—were no slouches in this area, either.
“Of course it did.” Managed not to say aloud that it was only because of White that the A-Cs hadn’t taken this planet over. Yates had tried for that, after all. But the son wasn’t like the father, and for that I was incredibly grateful.
Sadly, Stephanie had taken up Yates’ mantle. She was incredibly determined, quite talented and, as Jeff’s niece and Alfred’s granddaughter, had a level of safety most of our enemies didn’t—she wasn’t someone any of us could kill easily. Most of the A-Cs couldn’t even contemplate doing so. I could, but I didn’t want to devastate Jeff’s entire family. And Stephanie knew this, and used it to her advantage.
Thinking about Stephanie sent my mind right back to our Lunatic of the Moment. Cliff had been sleeping with Stephanie as well as with other women—this was why Stephanie had ultimately turned on him, the old hell hath no fury thing. But Cliff hadn’t been overly discriminating, and he was a master manipulator.
“What are you getting?” I asked Tito softly.
“She’s not contagious. I don’t even think she’s actually sick, though she looks horrible. There’s something wrong with her blood though. I’m getting weird readings.”
Turned to Melville. “We need to hose down our girl there. Immediately if not sooner. FLOTUS order and all that.”
“What?” Casey said. “Why are you suggesting that?”
“I think you’re faking.” As I said this, another option for why her eyes had been flickering around when she was lying presented itself, just as Prince started to growl. Knew that his growl was confirming what Tito was about to realize—most versions of the androids we’d encountered had blood of some kind inside.
Didn’t question my gut. If I was wrong, so what. But if I was right, this was one of the typical opening gambits. And we’d walked right into it.
Either Casey had become a willing android or they’d made one in her likeness. Or they’d cloned her for this in some way. Didn’t have time to find out. And I knew this because Casey looked straight at me and smiled. “See ya.”
Then her eyes started blinking in a way I recognized—in the Android About To Self-Destruct way.
CHAPTER 16
“EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY!” I did my best to channel Jeff’s bellow. No one bellowed like my man, but I was pretty good. I was also stupid, trusting, and had made myself and my team literal sitting ducks, but I’d go with pretty good on the bellowing and call it even right now.
Happily, everyone here had been in an action situation with me before. The K-9 guys scooped up their dogs, Len and Kyle went in between the K-9s and took hold so they were all connected to each other, and Colette grabbed Melville’s arm and headed back for the bathroom gate.
I grabbed Tito and Evalyne, who grabbed Phoebe. I zoomed us back to the bathroom in time to see the last part of Riley’s tail going through the gate. Didn’t stop to think, just threw the three of them through the gate behind the others. Either Colette had taken the time to calibrate it, or they were all headed to the Dome, which was where the majority of gates recalibrated to after each use.
Didn’t go through myself because I still had Kevin and Manfred here, plus however many A-Cs had answered Evalyne’s call, as well as all the rest of the D.C.P.D. that might be hanging about. The prisoners might not want to be blown up, either.
Happily, there was a fire alarm in the bathroom. Chose not to ask why it was here and instead pulled it, thanking whoever had designed this place for having some foresight. More foresight than me, at any rate. Then I ran back into the holding cells, Rage riding shotgun, which was always a good thing for me in these kinds of situations.
The Casey-Bot hadn’t exploded yet, but I had to figure it was just a matter of time. Of course, she was bending the bars of her cell, so she might have been holding off in order to create more damage. Or catch me, since it was obvious I’d been the target. Totally obvious. Now. Rage shared that I was indeed an idiot, but being stupid made me madder and that was fine.
Left her there—she hadn’t achieved much yet in terms of bar bends and I had a lot of people to clear out. I’d deal with her sooner or later, probably sooner.
Found the stairs and ran up, pulling my iPod and earbuds out of my purse as I did so. Some people wouldn’t have practiced this move for a danger situation, but those people weren’t me. I worked a lot better with tunes. Got the iPod clipped to my belt and the earbuds in before I reached the top of this set of stairs. Hit random and was rewarded with “Speak of the Devil” by Sum 41 hitting my ears.
Turned out there were several floors above where we were, and I checked the first one I came to, pulling any fire alarms I passed along the way. I had no idea if this added anything to the general cacophony or what, but figured it couldn’t hurt. Didn’t bother me because Sum 41 was handling ear protection, so to speak.
No people were in evidence. Ran up to the next level. No people again. Headed up the next set of stairs and ran into Kevin and Manfred at the top, literally.
“Ooof!” Managed to grab Manfred so I didn’t fall down, and he somehow was able to stay upright and not lose either me or Kevin.
“What’s going on?” Kevin asked.
“Casey’s an android of some kind and she’s going to blow.”
“Why are you still here?” Manfred asked, sounding shocked. Thought he knew me better than that, but then again, panic situations tended to focus a person on core personality traits, and Manfred was a protector.
“Um, because you two are still here. And, you know, everyone else.”
“Why ask why?” Kevin said to Manfred. “It’s Kitty.” He took a firm hold of my hand. “Get us to the gate.”
“But there are people in here!”