The Black Tide (Outcast 3)

But not before I took some precautions. The feeling that my time was swiftly running out was growing, and I needed to ensure this place—and the other labs—was destroyed if the worst happened and I was either captured or killed.

I dug one of the RTX devices out of the pack and pressed it up into the bottom lip of the nearest table. Like all plastic explosives, this one was extremely pliable but had the advantage of the detonator being inbuilt. I linked it to the remote firing mechanism then called the light to me and walked out to the next lab. There was a security panel to the right of the door—one that was both a fingerprint and iris scanner. I swore and headed back to the first lab. While such security measures weren't surprising, it was nevertheless frustrating. The longer I spent in this place, the more likely it was that my presence would be discovered.

I hauled the first man upright and half carried, half dragged him across the antechamber. I shoved one hand against the scanner then forced an eyelid open. The scanner did its work and the door opened.

The room beyond was large and bright, filled to the brim with medical equipment. There were also another two doors, one that led into an office and monitoring area, and another that led into a second lab. This room was also occupied. Not only were there three scientists and a guard, but also four rows of neonatal cribs and a final row of what could only be described as restraint cots. Any hope that they were all empty quickly died, not only because I could see small forms in the cots, but because the light screen monitors above each one were emitting the soft sound of heartbeats.

I let the scientist fall to the floor, half in and half out of the room, and then quickly stepped over him and moved to one side. My light shield shimmered slightly as it adjusted to the bluer light within the room, but none of the four people noticed—they were too busy looking at the unconscious scientist.

“Greg?” one of the other scientists said, then, when there was no response, swore and ran over. He bent and felt for a pulse, and then grunted. “Mark, help me get him into a chair. Betts, call the medics.”

As the woman walked over to a comms unit and the two men picked up the drugged scientist, I walked across to the nearest crib.

What lay inside was everything I hadn’t wanted to find.

It was a child. A physically perfect child.

A child with coffee-colored skin and the biggest smile I’ve ever seen.

But her almond-shaped eyes dominated her face and her nose was squashed so flat it was almost nonexistent. They were features I'd seen before. Features I feared.

This beautiful, happy little girl was born of wraith DNA.

Chapter Two

Rhea help us....

I closed my eyes and tried to contain the pulsing horror of not only what they’d achieved, but also what would inevitably come next.

Death.

Of this child, and of all the other children in the remaining cribs. Not just because of what they were, but because none of them showed any discomfort from the lab’s bright lights. My stomach churned at the thought, even if I understood the necessity of it.

And yet I couldn’t help but think of my own little ones, who’d never been given the chance at life simply because of what they were and the way they’d been created.

If we killed these children without thought, without even pause, then we’d learned nothing from the horrors of the past.

No doubt Nuri and her crew would say it was the horrors of the future they were trying to prevent.

The small babe gurgled, the sound so soft and merry it just about broke my heart. She reached up with chubby little fingers, and it was at that moment I realized she could see me despite the light shield.

I hesitated, and then lowered my hand into the crib. Her fingers latched unerringly onto one of mine, and her warm touch had my seeking skills flaring to life. There was no anger in this child, no hate. She was warm, comfortable, and happy enough, but she was also desperate for human contact. She wanted to be held—to be loved.

They weren’t unusual emotions for a child this young; even those of us born in the déchet program had wanted such things. Or, at least, those of us who remained capable of emotions had. Many déchet—but especially those designed to be soldiers—had been both chemically and physically neutered of any ability to think or feel.

But this little girl, with her big amber-green eyes that shone with intelligence, had not been mentally castrated—just as the little ones who haunted my bunker hadn't been. And, like them, her mental maturity seemed to be well advanced. She might be physically no more than five or six months old, but if what I was sensing through our connection was anything to go by, she was at least a couple of years older than that intellectually—if not more.

In fact, I’d go as far as saying there was a very old soul in this very young body.

Her grip tightened on mine, and I had this weird feeling she was trying to either tell or show me something. My seeking skills were dragged deeper into her mind, and what I discovered was a force as fierce as anything I’d ever encountered.

This child might have wraith blood, but she was also a seeker and a witch. While her power and abilities were at an embryonic stage, they were untainted and unrestrained, and promised to be a force every bit as strong as anything I’d seen Nuri produce.

But it wasn’t that she wanted me to see, but rather the fact she’d known I was coming.

That she saw me as her friend—her savior.

Me, the woman who’d been sent here primarily to scout the location, but also to kill any such finds as these children.