Accidental Creatures

“Hyper! What are you doing here?”

He shot her an alarmed look hurried to her side. “Let’s get out of here,” he murmured, taking her arm and leading her across the mezzanine to the exit doors.

“Hyper, what is going on?” Chango asked as soon as they were outside. “How did you get here? Why didn’t they take me to county? How did you get them to release me like that?”

Hyper kept walking, so fast Chango had to trot to keep up with him. “Remember this?” he held up a data card, the GeneSys logo flickering in and out of view with the passing streetlights.

“Helix’s card.”

“Not Helix’s, Hector Martin’s. I got worried when you disappeared. I talked to him. He’s the one who got Graham arrested.”

Chango nodded and took this in. “We went to U of D Mercy,” she said, Hyper’s pace making her voice ragged. “There’s an old biopoly research institute there, an abandoned vat for Helix, but GeneSys security showed up. They got me. I’m sure they got Helix too, but she wasn’t in the lockup.”

Hyper nodded and said nothing, his eyes sca

“Be

“Graham arranged it,” said Hyper pausing on a street corner to face her. They were already three blocks from the GeneSys building. “Martin told me he had someone in Vattown working for him. From what you say it sounds like that’s Be

“What happened to Helix?”

“Martin’s taking care of that end of things. He got Graham arrested. The security files show that she was taken to Martin’s lab. He’ll get her out.”

“What do we do now?”

Hyper shrugged. “What do you want to do?”

Chango looked around her at the quiet, dark streets, the shadows and the secrets that they held. “Let’s find Be

oOo

They had no difficulty retrieving her car from where she’d left it at the U of D campus. As Chango drove to Be

“I don’t know, Hyper, I’d rather just confront him.” Chango pulled around the corner and parked, out of sight of the apartment building.

“You’d rather just get killed too, apparently. If he’s done all you think he has, then he probably has a gun, and no compunction about using it on you.”

Reluctantly she nodded.

The building was dark and quiet. Chango waited at the bottom of the stairs while Hyper knocked on the door, but there was no answer, and no light coming from underneath it, either. “He’s gone,” Hyper called softly to down to her.

She had the simple lock on Be

They went through the drawers of Be

oOo

Awkward under the weight of her sister’s dive tanks, Chango pushed open the door of Josa’s Bar and stepped inside, followed closely by Hyper. Human voices and the smell of smoke and growth medium surrounded them. There was a good-sized crowd, buzzing with the excitement of the morning’s riot. The place wasn’t packed though. This was no victory celebration.

Chango spotted Vonda at the far end of the bar, conversing with Josa. Without a word to Hyper she walked towards her, attracting as many glances for the determination of her stride as for what she carried on her back.

“Vonda,” she said, closing on her.

Vonda turned, her eyes widening as Chango hoisted the tanks from her shoulders and slung them onto the bar. They hit with a solid bang, immediately silencing all conversation and riveting attention to herself and Vonda.

“I found them at Be

Suddenly she was surrounded by a hubbub of voices and bodies, but she kept facing Vonda, kept talking to her. “That plan of Be

Vonda didn’t say anything. She just stared at Chango, and then at the tanks. But Pele was at Chango’s elbow. “How do you know Be

“He was supposed to be on lookout.” Chango kept looking at Vonda. “And Hyper talked to Helix’s father, Hector Martin, who said that Nathan Graham has somebody in vattown working for him. Somebody he told to turn that strike this morning into a riot.”

Vonda examined the dust clouded gauge on the tanks, aimed the release nozzle at the wall and twisted it experimentally. “They’re empty,” she said, looking at Chango over her shoulder. “But maybe I can get a residual sample from the valves.”

oOo

Graham strode down the hall to his office, fresh anger at his recent imprisonment burning inside him. It had only taken an hour or so for his lawyer to intimidate security into releasing him, but it was just a temporary reprieve. He was going to have to do something of a permanent nature about Hector Martin. The best thing would be to discredit him, get him dismissed from GeneSys in disgrace. It would take some doing. There was very little that a man of Martin’s professional standing couldn’t wiggle out of. Except possibly corporate treason. A

There was a light on in his office. His secretary would be gone by this hour, and in fact, the reception area was dark, the desk empty. Graham opened the door to his i

“Oh good,” Graham said, “I was going to call you.”

“Were you? I thought you’d forgotten about me.” Be

Graham laughed. “You’re talking about your payment, of course. But you’ll never get paid if you kill me. Besides, I’m not through with you yet, son.”