Page 36 of Into Darkness (Night Prowler 6)
He waited for her to speak. When she didn’t he said, “No exam today, madam.”
He always called her that. He was an evil little fucker, but she had to admit, his manners were impeccable.
She stayed silent, enjoying the look of irritation that flickered over his face. No doubt he’d hoped she’d weep with joy, or thank him, or even have the decency to look relieved.
Instead she kept her expression as bland as her cotton shift, and waited. She’d become an expert at that, and knew that almost anything you needed to know could be determined by watching, waiting, and keeping your mouth shut.
In her mind, she imagined crushing his sternum with her teeth, ripping his heart from his chest, and devouring the still-pumping organ while he looked on in helpless horror. It brought a faint smile to her face.
“This way, please.” He gestured to the airlock. The door slid open with a near-silent siss of pressurized air, and her flat expression vanished along with her determination not to speak.
“Out? Why? What’s happening?”
Dr. Evil said, “The Chairman has sent for you,” and she knew from both his tone and the spike in his heartbeat what a bad idea he thought it.
Explains all the extra cigarettes he’s smoked in the last few hours. She wondered just how long and how vigorously he’d argued against allowing their most valuable prisoner out of her cell.
But what did the Chairman want? Why, after all these years, would he summon her?
This was one case where waiting and watching wouldn’t help; she’d have to go and find out.
But first a bit of fun.
Faster than he could move or scream or even blink, she crossed the room and was at his side, smiling. “Well, we don’t want to keep the Chairman waiting, do we?” she breathed into his face, and gently laid her hand on his arm. Beneath his starched lab coat, it shook.
“Harm me and you only harm yourself, you know that, madam,” said Dr. Evil, his eyes wide and terrified, his voice doing no better than his arm. In fact, his whole body was shaking.
How many years had it been since she’d attacked him? She didn’t remember exactly; a decade at least. Maybe two. With the collar someone had fitted around her throat when she’d been unconscious when first brought to this facility, she couldn’t Shift, and therefore was far less of a threat, but she still had her speed and her strength, which had been enough to beat him bloody on more than one occasion.
So long ago, though. He probably thought since she was past fifty now and had been docile as a lamb for years, all the fight had been leached out of her. He probably thought the memory of what they did to her when she acted out or disobeyed had weakened her will, that perhaps the all-too-vivid recollections of billy clubs and stun guns and high-voltage electrodes against her temples had been an effective deterrent.
Wrong.
“I know,” she said lightly, “but at least this time it will be worth it.” She placed her hands on either side of his head.
It took only a single sharp twist, and it was done. Dr. Evil slid to the floor, tongue protruding, eyes still wide and terrified.
His shaking, however, had stopped.
Twenty-five years of needles, poking, and invasive examinations by this man, ended with a flick of her wrists. Wondering who they’d send as a replacement, she calmly went and sat on the bed.
A disembodied male voice came over an invisible speaker. “Subject. Lie face down on the floor and put your hands behind your back.”
Subject. Not prisoner or citizen or even her own name. Subject was meant to remind her that she was property, a thing owned by people more powerful than she, a lowly peasant beholden to a sovereign under the theory of the divine right of kings.
She wasn’t a peasant, though. She was a Queen, no matter what they called her.
She did as she was told. In a few moments, through the airlocks filed a team of hulking men with rifles. Dressed in combat black
, they wore face shields, gloves, and boots, so not a single inch of skin was visible. Not even their eyes were visible behind the mirrored shields.
While the others kept their gun sights trained on her, one of them put a knee to her back and cuffed her. He hauled her to her feet. Without a word—and, curiously, without a glance at the body on the floor—he shoved her ahead of him into the first airlock. Four men stepped in behind them, and the doors slid shut.
A whoosh of suction from above, that same siss of pressurized air when the rear doors had closed, and another set of doors in front of her opened. A rifle poked into the small of her back, which she took as an invitation to step forward.
Once through all three airlocks, she stood blinking in a long, bright, sterile corridor. More of the black-clad men with rifles lined either side, down its entire length. She said loudly into the silence, “Not a great plan, boys, lining up on both sides. How many do you think would be killed in a cross fire?”
This caused more than a few of the men along the walls to shift their weight from one booted foot to the other.
