In Death 21 - Origin in Death

left.
    There was a howl, more of rage than pain. She saw she'd winged him, that he was down, crawling, dragging his useless leg behind him.
    She let some of her fury free when she reached him, and kicked him hard over on his back.
    "Doctor fucking Wilson, I presume."
    "You can't stop it, it's inevitable. Hyperevolution, man's right to immortality."
    "Save the hype, 'cause it's done. And you're getting mortal all over the place. Where's Deena?"
    He grinned, young, handsome. And, Eve thought, completely mad. "Which one of her?"
    She heard the scream, desperate and terrified. 'No.'" To save time, she used the butt of her stunner and knocked him unconscious. She yanked off the security card he wore around his neck.
    She sprinted toward the sound and caught just a flicker of Deena rushing a doorway.
    It was marked STAGE ONE NURSERY, and through the glass Eve could see clear bins holding infants.
    When she saw Wilson inside, a weapon jammed under the soft jaw of an infant, she pulled up short. If she blasted inside, he'd kill. Deena possibly, the infant almost certainly.
    She scanned the corridor, looking for options. She saw doors marked STAGE TWO NURSERY, and beside them STAGE THREE, and felt her blood curdle.

T
    he kid was tireless, Roarke thought. She'd run, full out, down nearly a mile of corridor. He was only able to keep pace with sheer grit. Blood dripped into his eyes, seeped from his arm, and the little girl he carried weighed like lead by the time they'd reached the elevator.
    So did the fear at the base of his stomach.
    "I know how to get out. It'll take too long for you to take us all the way, try to get back. Nobody tried to stop us. Nobody's going to bother with us now."
    He made his decision fast. "Straight up and out. I have a car outside, ER lot. It's a black ZX-5000."
    For an instant, she looked like what she was. A near-teenage girl. "Iced."
    "Take her, take the code." He pulled a key card out of his pocket. "Swear to me, Diana, on your mother's life, that you'll go to the car, get in the car, lock it. You'll stay there, both of you, inside it until we come."
    "You're bleeding a lot. You're bleeding because you tried to stop it, you tried to help. And she sent you with us, like Deena sent me with Darby." She reached out for the child. "So I swear, on Deena's life, my mother's life, I'll lock us in the car and wait."
    "Take this." He gave her the earpiece. "When you're safely outside, you put this on, and tell the man on the other side where we are, how to get where we are."
    He hesitated, then gave her a stunner. "Don't use that unless you have no choice."
    "Nobody's trusted me before." She jammed the stunner in her pocket. "Thank you."
    When the door shut, he began to run.

E
    ve bellied over to Stage Two, used the card she'd taken to open the doors.
    Inside were five cribs. The children in them-hell, what did she know? A few months, a year. Even in sleep they were monitored.
    As were the children she could see beyond-Stage Three-who slept on narrow cots in a kind of dormitory style. Fifteen, Eve counted.
    The doors connecting the sections required no card. At least not from the Stage Two area. She could see Deena inside One, her hands in the air. Her mouth was moving. Eve didn't need to hear the words to know they were pleas. It was all over her face.
    Get him to put the kid down, Eve thought. Get him to lower the stunner, one damn inch for one damn instant. It's all I need.
    She nearly took her chances, but saw the speaker system by the door. Engaging it, she listened.
    "There's no point. There's no point. Please, give her to me."
    "There's every point. Over forty years of work and progress, and hundreds of Superiors. You were a great hope, Deena. One of our finest accomplishments, and you threw it away. For what?"
    "For choice, of living, of dying. I'm not the only, I'm not the first.
    How many of us have self-terminated because we couldn't go on existing, knowing what you'd made of us."
    "Do you know what you were? Street garbage, a nit, nothing more. Already in pieces when they brought you to us. Even Wilfred couldn't put you back together. We saved you. Again and again and again. We improved you. Perfected you. You exist because I permitted it. That can end now."
    "No!" She jerked forward when he jammed the stunner harder under the baby's jaw. "It won't gain you anything. It's over, you know it's over. You can still get away. You can still live."
    "Over?" His face was bright with excitement. A