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  “You got Jesús killed?!”

  “No. You did. You made the boy fall in love with you. I mean, if he wasn’t so infatuated with you, we could have just done what we originally set out to do, get the Hercules data—”

  “And leave me to die,” Nia whined, her eyes welling up with tears. “Right?”

  Marc paced around the parking lot.

  “That’s right. I used you, Nia. From the beginning, I’ve been using you, because you’re weak and gullible, naïve and fucking predictable. I’ve been working on this for a long time. I’m the one who sent Jesús Alvarez into Corp Hudson to begin with. I knew it was time to act after you beat the shit out of that Gunner dude outside of the Jazz Hall. I needed an in with the Corp, and they had an opening on their security team, so I sent Jesús in there as their newest executive security member. He needed to impress them, so I’ve been supplying him with a special additive to make him stronger.”

  “‘Special’?”

  “Yeah. But the problem is, it was only a temporary boost,” Marc went on. “And it started getting less and less effective, so I needed to get some insight into how it works and how I could improve it. I needed the best resource I could get…Hudson’s records. And when Jesús fucked that up, I had to go for the next best thing. Little miss prodigy Chelsea Romedrux. So I made Jesús befriend you so you would trust him enough to put yourself in bad situations for him. Having him kidnap Bobby and Charlene, telling you how to get to Hudson…even when I hooked you up with weapons…it was all to keep you focused on what I needed from you.”

  “Why?” Nia growled. “Why do all this? What are you trying to accomplish?”

  “I’m gonna make the perfect mercenary force—a team of invincible soldiers who solve problems all over the world, independent of corporate bosses or corrupt government; a team of mercenaries who follow their own rules and set their own prices. I’m building my own personal headhunters’ guild, signing up the best of the best and making them even more powerful using my additive. They’re gonna need to be more than human to take down the kinds of targets I’m looking at. I needed Hudson’s files to perfect this additive so it can be just as permanent in them as it is in the source.”

  “And what ‘source’ is that?”

  “You should know by now, Nia,” Marc snapped back. “The additive that strengthened Jesús was made from the same stuff running through you.”

  Nia staggered back.

  Marc smiled. “Now you get it. Finally.”

  “Who are you? What was Jesús trying to say?”

  “You know what he was trying to say.”

  He reached in his pocket and pulled out an old Polaroid photo. He tossed it on the ground. Nia slowly stepped forward and picked it up.

  She stared at the picture of four people: a man—clearly a younger looking Marc—along with a woman and two young, identical twin girls. Both girls were wearing gold necklaces with opal charms, identical to the jewelry Nia always wore around her neck.

  “You saw what I can do,” he continued. “You’re at least smart enough to know that I’m way more powerful than Jesús and way more powerful than you. You already know Hudson has yet to figure out how to get his creations up to your level, so how do you suppose I’m already past you?”

  A tear leaked from Nia’s eye.

  “No way. No fucking way!”

  “Do you know why they call you ‘Target Omega’? Because you were meant to be the end of the Hercules project, Nia. You…and your sister. But for there to be an end, there had to be a beginning. There had to be a ‘Target Alpha’. That’s me. I’m your father, Nia. I’m Alexander Black.”

  Nia started breathing hard, shaking her head. She tried to resist, but she couldn’t hold her tears back.

  “You’re lying! You’ve been lying to me from day one. I ain’t got no reason to believe you now. None of this is making any sense. If you are my pop, why did you hide it? Where were you all this time?”

  “You want the truth? Here it is. A long time ago, I met a woman named Shauntee Lawson. Remember last night when I said I knew a girl like you once? That was your mother. She used to be an assassin working for the Phoenix Group. We hooked up and she got pregnant with twins: you and Shauntia. That was after I escaped from Corp Hudson; after my body was changed by Hercules.”

  “But Shauntee and I stopped getting along. She left the Phoenix to build a life with me, but I wanted to go back to war. So I left her—and you—behind. I found out later that Hudson was still looking for me, and they attacked the house while you and Shauntia were at school, and Shauntee was dead. They must have spared you hoping I could come try to rescue y’all or something. But I washed my hands of you and went about my business. I never came back so they just let you two go. That sound about right?”

  Nia grew even more furious.

  “Then come to find you and your sister were alive and growing up in an orphanage, and I heard rumors about twin teenage girls who were ‘athletically gifted’ or some shit. It hit me—what if my daughters grew up just as powerful as I was, or even more powerful? So I came back to check it out. I sent Kim to look into it to keep myself under cover, but by the time he got there, Shauntia was already gone.”

  “Where is Shauntia?” Nia asked.

  “Hell if I know. If the Phoenix Group got her, she’s probably following in her mom’s footsteps…becoming a contract killer.”

  “A what?”

  Marc—Alexander—turned away from Nia. “I’ve wasted enough time. For all I know the big man’s got a private helicopter waiting on the roof to fly Dr. Chelsea to the Barbados or something. I’m going up there.”

  “The fuck you are!” Nia screamed, raising her pistols. “After you put me through all this shit, you think I’m just gonna let you walk away and go about your business? You put Bobby and Charlene in danger, got Jesús killed, and you made a fool out of me!”

  Alexander turned back toward Nia. “No, little girl. You made a fool out of your damn self! Walking around wearing tight shit, carrying guns like you some kind of dumb ass cowgirl, not doing nothing but making smart people shake their head at how fucking stupid you were. Drawing the cops to you because you like being chased. No kind of style. No kind of stealth. Why, because it was fun? You like being shot at, like your face being on wanted posters, like having to watch your back all the time? You wondering why so many people treat you like shit…because you treat yourself like shit!”

  Nia held her guns steady. “I will shoot you.”

  He turned away again, waved and started walking away.

  The wind moaned around her and silence filled the air.

  The silence was broken by Nia’s scream, and then a gunshot echoed.

  Alexander shifted his head sideways, the bullet narrowly missing his ear. He neither broke his stride nor turned around.

  Nia fired again, and this time Alexander had to duck to avoid it. He stopped.

  “Okay, Nia,” he said, turning around once more. “I see you’re not going to let this go.”

  “You damn right I’m not. You owe me some answers, some real answers. You knew from the gate that I was your daughter, and even so…you let me get shot at, kidnapped, chased, damn near raped and dissected and all that shit…you ain’t care about me at all.”

  “You finally get it!”

  Alexander started running at Nia with his fists raised. Nia opened fire, but he swayed around the bullets and slammed his knuckles into Nia’s chest.

  She soared through the air like a rocket and collided into a parked minivan, her back smashing the doors in and cracking the windows.

  Nia crumbled to the ground and fell on her hands, letting out a hard cough at the same time. Blood spattered from her mouth onto the asphalt.

  “Yeah. You ain’t used to that shit, are you?” Alexander said with a laugh. “That’s always been your problem, Nia. You ain’t never know what it was like to be ‘normal’. You always had this strength, so to you it’s natural to heal quick, to dodg
e bullets, to know what’s coming. But the problem is that same strength that makes you think you’re such a badass is actually the reason you’re weak. You’re only good at taking out those enemies beneath your level, like a gamer who refuses to stop playing on ‘Easy’.”

  Nia clawed the ground reaching for her dropped pistols, but Alexander closed in and kicked them away from her.

  “I’m different, Nia. See, I know the best of both worlds. I was once a regular guy, before you were born. Then Hercules made me this way. But I was a soldier before that. And you know what soldiers do when we’re not fighting wars? We drill. Constantly. I trained myself to take the best advantage of this new power. I learned how to make myself invincible with these powers, because I trained myself to be damn-near invincible without them. But you, all you know is the power. That’s why you cry so much. As soon as something—anything—happens to you that you ain’t ready for, you break down like a baby. You go for your guns, you run, you hide, you look for somebody to love you. Because you’re weak.”

  “Shut up,” Nia mumbled. “All you do is talk down on people like you’re so much better. But think about this, ‘pop’. Who’s fault is it that I’m the way I am? Who’s blood do I have flowing in me? And who wasn’t there to help me learn what I needed to learn? You’re the reason I have this power. You’re the reason that it’s all I know.”

  She finally stood up. “Everything you ever said about me is the truth. Everything that happened to me and the people around me was because of the things I did. I don’t deny that. But what you expect? I grew up with no parents. Worse, my own dad watched me continually fuck up and didn’t do anything about it but sit back and laugh and think of ways to use me.”

  “You making excuses now? You’re a grown-ass woman, Nia!” Alexander shouted at her. “Take some fucking responsibility for yourself for once!”

  “I intend to. It would be fucking irresponsible for me to let a man like you continue to walk this earth,” Nia stated, tightening her fists.

  Suddenly her muscles expanded. She looked like she gained double her original mass—all muscle.

  “Oh!” Alexander laughed. “So you finally know how to do the Breach, huh? Maybe there’s hope for you yet. Maybe.”

  She rushed forward in a fighting stance. Alexander just stood there, watching her as she closed in.

  Nia swung her fists back and forth at her father. He folded his arms behind his back and tilted his torso from side to side. Nia hit nothing but air.

  She swung her feet out, performing a sequence of roundhouse kicks, swirling like a dancer. Her feet cut the wind but did not come anywhere near her target.

  Nia sprang up after the third kick and launched into a knee strike combo. Alexander raised a palm and caught her left knee, deflected the right follow-up and had time to duck when Nia outstretched her left leg again before gravity took over and she landed.

  Pressing her fingertips to the ground, Nia started to breathe hard. She looked up at her father, who appeared to tower over her, the morning sun silhouetting his muscular frame.

  “Finished?”

  Before Nia knew what was happening, Alexander’s fist smashed into her cheek. Her skull made an impact crater in the ground. Her muscles trembled and shook, and her body returned to normal.

  Alexander stood straight up and turned his back. “Do yourself a favor, sweetheart. When you finally get up, get ghost. Get out of the city and disappear. Breach or no Breach, you ain’t got what it takes to be a part of this world. Oh, and you can keep that bike. Consider it me making up for all your missed birthdays or something if it makes you feel good. Just do what I told you to do.”

  Nia craned her neck to look up, watching her father as he walked further and further away. Soon he disappeared into the main entrance of the Hudson Tower.

  Then everything went dark.

  Thirty-Five

  Billy Casey and Chelsea Romedrux rode inside a private elevator deep within the Hudson Tower, reserved only for the highest-ranking executives and associates.

  “What do you think he’ll say?” Billy muttered.

  Chelsea stayed silent.

  “That’s not like you,” he went on. “You always have something to say.”

  “You tell me,” Chelsea finally said. “What does he usually do to people who screw up as badly as you did?”

  “Me?!” Billy growled. “You’re the one who had your fancy gun set to stun! You’re the one who arranged for me to take Nia alone.”

  “We couldn’t get the Security Soldiers, Billy. Like, Hudson doesn’t trust you to command them, and I’m not a member of security. It was up to us by ourselves. You forgot, didn’t you? Vincent failed and Jesús betrayed us. You were the last member of security we could even hope to rely on.”

  “What about Jason and the others?”

  “They’re…they’ve been transferred to another department.”

  “The odds were against us from the beginning,” Billy griped. “We were on our own out there.”

  “You’re the one who said you could handle it. You wanted to prove you were so much better than Vincent,” Chelsea sighed. “You could have humbled yourself and said ‘Uh, like, Mr. Hudson, I totally suck. I need you to back me on this one.’ He would have given you what you needed. But no…you had to be cocky. You had to be you.”

  The elevator chimed and they arrived on the 50th floor of the tower.

  “Well, time to face the music,” Billy mumbled. “But I’ll be damned if I’m taking all the heat for this.”

  Then the doors slid open and Billy looked down the awaiting corridor…

  And his heart started pounding.

  Six of Hudson’s armored Security Soldiers stood in the hall, holding rifles.

  Chelsea started trembling.

  A digitized voice emanated from one of the Soldiers.

  “Research and Development Department Head, Dr. Chelsea Marie Romedrux. Please come this way.”

  Chelsea gulped, but slowly did as she was told. Billy started to follow her.

  “William Robert Casey. Please Remain Still.”

  The Soldiers leveled their rifles and aimed them at Billy, all at once like automatons. He stopped in his tracks.

  “What?! What the hell’s the meaning of this?”

  One of the Security Soldiers took Chelsea by the arm and guided her behind the group. Heavy footsteps approached from the other end of the hall. Chelsea looked ahead and saw the towering Maxwell Hudson himself emerging from the shadows.

  Hudson stopped behind the group of Soldiers and glared at Billy with no expression, like a being without a soul.

  “Mr. Casey. I’ve decided to move up our discussion regarding your future with Corp Hudson.”

  Billy started to say something. Then he looked at Chelsea. She looked in his eyes one more time, then moved behind Hudson, turning away.

  Billy’s blood ran cold.

  He immediately reached for his gun holster. He grabbed nothing but air. He forgot that the only weapon he’d carried that day was the knife…the one he left in Nia’s belly.

  He slapped at the elevator buttons, but they did not respond.

  Billy Casey took a deep breath, turned back toward the people in the corridor facing him, and closed his eyes.

  “Well I’ll be damned.”

  Then the deafening scream of automatic gunfire filled the air and the muzzle flashes played on the reflective walls of the corridor and on Hudson’s opaque glasses.

  Chelsea stood still, facing away, pressing her palms to her ears, her eyes shut tight.

  The Security Soldiers stopped firing and lowered their rifles, smoke rising from their barrels. Billy’s body slumped to the floor, blood spilling out everywhere.

  Hudson spoke, “My apologies, Dr. Romedrux. I am aware of how you hate the sight of death.”

  “It’s not that, Mr. H,” Chelsea muttered. “I kind of liked him.”

  “Did you?”

  “Yeah. His body was totally awesome for e
xperimentation. Great biology. It’s a shame he didn’t have the brains to match.”

  The two started walking away from the executive elevator. The Security Soldiers moved in and picked up Billy Casey’s body. They dragged it into the compartment; one Soldier pressed a key and the doors immediately closed.

  “Perhaps the others will be more to your liking,” Hudson went on. “While you were away, your staff completed the initial analyses of Jason Priest, Don Thompson and Cherie Wilson. The results have been sent to the terminal in your laboratory. The HEX project can proceed as planned.”

  “Coolness,” Chelsea smiled. “You’ll at least be glad to know Billy got one thing right. Jesús Alvarez is totally dead. Now, about that other problem…”

  Maxwell Hudson and Chelsea Romedrux reached the end of the hall and entered another private elevator, one more narrow than the executive elevator. There was a single button on the panel inside. Hudson pressed it and the doors gently closed.

  There were several small monitors on a wall in the elevator. Each monitor showed images around the exterior and lower floors of the Hudson Tower. Hudson and Romedrux examined them.

  “You did well. You have flushed out Target Alpha, doing what I could not after all these years,” Hudson said with a small smile. “It was clear that if we paid enough attention to his daughter, he would eventually show himself. And now, if our security cameras are any indication, he is coming to see us.”

  “After hiding and pulling strings all these years, he just, like, decides to deliver himself to your doorstep?” Chelsea laughed. “This is gonna be so awesome. Now, what about that bitch?”

  “Doctor,” Hudson grumbled. “Language.”

  “Sorry. I mean Nia Black. She’s still out there. Her father gave her an old fashioned spanking, but she’ll get up. She always does.”

  “I have taken care of that.”

  “You mean him?” Chelsea gasped. “Like, no way. He can’t do the job. You know he can’t, Mr. H.”