Page 93 of Her Lawless Prince

“Comms are breaking up,” Dev said.

“Stay put. We won’t be long,” Rick answered.

“This way.” Nyle led them deeper into the storage area. “We’ll just have to destroy all of them.”

The sound of Yevgen’s music continued. He glanced back to see Payton carrying the handheld. The devices stopped playing, and she put the disk into her canister along with the handheld to take it with them.

The mechanical hums increased as they neared rows of vertical stasis pods large enough to hold a person or a rack of organs.

“They must be running off solar power,” Nyle said, going to a pod to see specimen containers of his cloned organs. “When everyone left, no one shut off the system, so it just kept growing organs.”

“Like the arm in the lab,” Payton said.

Nyle nodded. “I’m not sure how it’s still going. It doesn’t make sense that it would continue this long. These stasis pods were not assigned to that lab.”

“The system adapted to its protocols,” Payton said. “Just like Yevgen grew and bettered himself in Shelter City without the help of scientists to monitor his programming.”

Rick went to look inside one of the pods. He swiped his glove over the window. “What in the blazing star trails? There’s a child in here.”

Payton rushed to look for herself.

“What’s happening?” Dev’s voice came over the static.

“They got kids in stasis pods,” Rick answered, rushing to look inside another. “There’s a boy in this one.”

“We’re on our way,” Dev stated.

“No, don’t,” Nyle interrupted. He went next to Payton to look inside at the figure of a young girl. A shapeless cloth gown hung on her thin frame. “They’re not children. They’re cyborg shells.”

“There are adults, too,” Rick said, going from pod to pod. “Blasted! This one’s a freaking giant.”

Payton and Nyle went to look at the boy.

“What do we do?” Payton asked.

“Kill the virus,” Nyle said. “They could all be carriers. Yes, with it looking the way it does makes it more difficult, but they aren’t sentient beings. They’re shells waiting for programming.”

Payton placed her hand against the pod as if lightly stroking what was inside. “But can’t you feel it? They’re made from you. Just like Yevgen was. They feel like him.”

“Just because I am immune and not a carrier doesn’t mean these shells grown in this environment won’t be infected,” he reasoned.

“Congratulations, Daddy,” Rick muttered, still staring in at the giant. “It’s a virus army.”

“We can’t kill…” Payton turned to stare at him, not finishing her sentence as if the idea warred inside of her.

Nyle knew his wife was attached to Yevgen, but these shells were not him.

“I would have thought clones would have been like versions of you,” Rick said, tapping on the small window before moving to look inside another.

“They took multiple samples from me,” Nyle explained, gesturing at his waist to indicate his sperm. “Looks like the robots found a use for all of them.”

“So what do we—? Payton began.

A light tapping came from inside the girl’s pod.

Payton gasped and jumped a little as they all turned to look toward the sound. The tap came again, like fingers drumming against the metal interior.

They slowly moved to peer inside.

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