Blood Pact

regarded him levelly. "I won't let this go. You can't make me. You might as well help; it'll be over sooner.”

    Her eyes were too bright and he could see the tension twisting her shoulders and causing her fingers to tremble slightly. "Look, Vicki . . .”

    "I don't need a babysitter, Mike. Not you. Not him.”

    "All right." He sighed. She'd asked for his help. While it wasn't exactly the kind of help he wanted to give, it was something. "I'll check the alibi and I'll run a picture over to Hutchinson's. I don't think you should be alone, but you're an adult and you're right this will go faster with both of us working on it.”

    "All three of us.”

    "Fine." Too much to expect she'd want Fitzroy to butt out, "What'll you be doing?”

    She set her empty coffee mug down on the table with a sharp crack. "Tom Chen wanted my mother's body specifically. In the time he was at that funeral home, he passed up two other women of roughly equal age and condition. I'll be finding out why." As she stood, she knocked her knife to the floor. It bounced once, then slid across the kitchen floor, across tiles still whole, still covering . . .

    How could she have forgotten where she'd left her mother?

    The eggs became a solid lump the size of her fist, shoved up tight against her ribs. Eyes up, she stepped over the knife. Another two steps took her off the tiles.

    Gray-blonde curls and perhaps a bit of shoulder.

    Just one more board. . . .

    "Raise right leg." As Donald spoke, he fed the stored brain wave pattern corresponding to the command directly into the net.

    In the open isolation box, the right leg trembled and slowly lifted about four inches off the padding.

    "Hey, Cathy, we've got a fast learner here. Remember how ol' number nine's leg flew up? Like he was trying to kick the ceiling?”

    “I remember how Dr. Burke was worried he might have damaged his hip joint," Catherine replied, continuing to adjust the IV
    drip that nourished the rapidly deteriorating number eight. "And at least we didn't have to manipulate his leg for the first hundred times like we had to on all the others.”

    "Hey, chill out. I wasn't saying anything against super-corpse. I was only pointing out that number ten seems to have quantitative control.”

    "Well, we are using her brain wave patterns.”

    "Well, number nine used my brain wave patterns for gross motor control." He echoed her supercilious tone. "So he should've had the advantage.”

    "I'm amazed he learned how to walk.”

    "Ow." Donald dramatically clutched at his heart. "I am cut to the quick." Rolling his eyes at her nonresponsive back, he tapped another two computer keys. "And it's painful going through life with a cut quick, let me tell you. Lower right leg.”

    Surrendering to gravity, the right leg dropped.

    "Raise left leg. I've got a feeling that number ten's going to be the baby that makes our fortune.”

    Catherine frowned as she moved to check on number nine. There's been too much talk of "making fortunes" lately. The discovery of new knowledge should be an end in itself; the consideration of monetary gains clouded research. Granted number ten represented a giant step forward as far as experimental data was concerned, but she was by no means as far as they could go.

    There was something she had to do.

    The need began to force definition onto oblivion.

    "Frankly, Vicki, I'm amazed your mother didn't tell you all this." Adjusting her glasses, Dr. Friedman peered down at Marjory Nelson's file. "After all, we had a diagnosis about seven months ago.”

    Vicki's expression didn't change, although a muscle twitched in her jaw. "Did she know how bad it was?” She could refer to anyone's mother, not that the illusion of distance helped. "Did she know that her heart could give out at any time?”

    "Oh, yes. In fact, we'd agreed to try corrective surgery but, well . . ." The doctor shrugged ruefully. "You know how these things keep getting put off, what with hospitals having to trim beds.”

    "Are you saying budget cutbacks killed her?" The words came out like ground glass.

    Dr. Friedman shook her head and tried to keep her tone soothing. "No. A heart defect killed your mother. She'd probably had it all her life until, finally, an aging muscle couldn't compensate any longer.”

    "Was it a usual condition?”

    "It wasn't a usual condition . . .”

    Vicki cut her off with a knife-edged gesture. "Was it unusual enough that her body may have been stolen in order to