Deathstalker 08 - Deathstalker Coda

had come, and then kicked the door all the way open and barged into the lab, sword and gun in hand. He looked quickly about him, but the whole place was deserted. A few machines still hummed and chattered to themselves, working on unknown problems, but most of the tech had been shut down. There were animal cages stacked against one wall, but they were empty. Half the lights had been turned off, leaving half the lab hidden in shadows. Douglas moved slowly forward, breathing through his mouth so he could listen for any sound, and then he froze as he made out a single silhouette standing at the back of the lab. For a moment they stood there, studying each other, and then Anne Barclay stepped forward into the light.
    Douglas almost cried out, at the sight of what had been done to her. She was hunched over by the bulking tech that protruded from her back, and more showed here and there through her flushed rose red skin. Her musculature had been twisted and distorted by the strains of implanted servomechanisms, and there were fresh scars on the sides of her shaven head. Her face was still hers, but her eyes glowed golden in the dim light. Old ridged scar tissues made ugly patterns on her bare body. She lurched forward another step, the power in her remade body giving her strength but no grace. Anne saw the horror in Douglas’s face, and produced something like her old smile.
    “Hello, Douglas. If you came to save me, you left it a bit late.”
    “What have they done to you, Anne?” Douglas said softly.
    “Oh, they’ve done a hell of a lot to me, Douglas, and all because of you. You did this to me, during your dramatic escape from the court. Of course, you were so busy getting away that you didn’t look back, to see what the falling masonry had done to me. But that wasn’t the worse thing you did. You escaped, and you didn’t take me with you. So really, everything that’s going to happen now is all your fault.”
    She raised a hand, and a disrupter barrel emerged from a slit under her wrist. Douglas threw himself to one side, and the energy beam just clipped his ribs, burning the skin and setting fire to his cloak. He threw it from him, and dodged behind a piece of heavy machinery.
    “Anne, don’t do this! I came to get you out of here!”
    “Too late, Douglas. Too little and too late.”
    She swept the heavy machinery away with one swift heave, and advanced on him, a sword in each hand. Douglas reluctantly aimed his disrupter at her, but at the last moment he shot at her leg, aiming only to wound her. Anne avoided the beam easily. And then she was upon him, her two blades moving faster than any human eye could follow, and Douglas was forced to fall back, step by step, using all his skill and strength just to defend himself. He was ten times the swordsman she was, but she was ten times stronger, and faster.
    They dueled back and forth across the lab, smashing delicate tech along the way, Douglas using every trick and technique he knew just to stay alive. Anne had been remade with tech and drugs and the Boost, and she was inhumanly competent now. Douglas fought his way out of a corner that would have trapped him, but already his breathing was coming hard and harsh, and his sword arm ached from parrying viciously hard blows. He knew now that the only way to stop Anne would be to kill her, and he wasn’t sure he could do that.
    So he did the only thing he could. He dropped his sword and gun on the floor, and stood before her empty-handed. Anne stood very still, checking out the possibilities of a trap or a stratagem.
    “Anne,” said Douglas. “This is me. Remember. Remember how it used to be. We were friends. And of all the friends I had, it seems I’ve hurt you the most. I never meant for this to happen. I won’t kill you, Anne. You . . . you do what you have to.”
    Anne slowly lowered the blades in her hands. “Damn you, Douglas. This isn’t fair. I need to kill you.”
    “Then kill me.”
    “You won’t kill me? You won’t even do me that one final kindness? You think I want to live like this?”
    “Come with me, Anne. To the Rookery. They have all kind of tech there, some alien. There has to be someone who can help you. Who can undo what these bastards did to you. Don’t just give up! The Anne I remember never believed in giving up. It’s never too late . . .”
    “It is for me. I should have died. This is my punishment. I deserve everything that’s happened to me, because of all the awful