Ryan hesitated, deciding for a moment that he had totally lost his mind. The two women were identical except for the fact that one had a homicidal grin pasted on her lips and was holding a bloodied blade in her hand.
His attention was distracted by the beginning of a short, brutal firefight. He remembered the comment about how the sec men at the Melissa Crichton Institute were efficient enough, as far as they went, but they’d never come up against murderous fighting machines like Jak, Trader and J.B., and they were hopelessly outclassed by them.
One of the Mossbergs roared, the charge starring out across the room, the pellets narrowly missing Abe, galvanizing him into rapid motion. He dived at the table where the others had helped themselves to their weapons, snatching up his own stainless steel Colt Python, distinguished from Jak’s blaster by its four-inch barrel against the albino’s six-inch barrel.
There followed a devastating assault by Ryan’s friends, led by the vicious crack of the Armalite, overlaid by the snarling Uzi and the boom of the Le Mat, with the other handblasters all playing their part in the abattoir symphony.
The sec men were overwhelmed.
Apart from that single round from one of their Mossbergs, they never filed a shot in retaliation, being cut down where they stood, their bodies dancing and whirling as the bullets tore them apart in fountains of thick blood.
The stillness was frighteningly loud in the big room, scented with cordite and death.
Ryan had personally taken out two of the hapless guards with his SIG-Sauer, but now he turned back to face the twin figures of Krysty Wroth, one vengeful, one avenging.
“Don’t anyone shoot her,” called the Krysty who stood close to the nearer door into the bedroom.
The Krysty who was much nearer to Ryan hadn’t moved since the shooting began, as if the noise and dying had somehow disorientated her.
Now she shuddered as though an invisible life force had been injected into her. Her green eyes came back into focus, staring this time past Ryan, past him at the doppelganger standing a few steps beyond.
“Yes. That’s right, that’s right. Chill the twin, first among equals.”
“Move your ass, lover,” said the other Krysty. “Rest of you cover the doors in case we get more company.”
Ryan took a few cautious paces to his left, toward where Trader was already hurriedly levering more 9 mm shells into the Armalite. He had only the barest idea of what was going on, but logic told him that one of the two women had to be the real Krysty and the other was some kind of genetically engineered false copy.
Common sense said that the murderous Krysty had to be the imitation.
Everyone was watching the bizarre duel, including Professor Crichton, who was sitting up on his bed, hands to his chest, breathing hard, having miraculously avoided being hit by any of the hail of full-metal-jacketed death.
The first Krysty, with the knife, had backed away a little, glancing down at the lake of blood that lay across half the floor, careful not to slip in it.
The second Krysty, unarmed, was advancing, smiling, arms out wide, like a wrestler.
Dean had sidled around to stand by his father, reaching up to take his hand for reassurance. “Which one’s the real Krysty, Dad?” he breathed.
“Don’t know. Don’t know what’s going on at all.”
Doc was near them, and be whispered a quick explanation of what they’d already found outabout the two Ellisons, the identical dogs and the failed experiments resulting from altering DNA.
“No good ever came from tampering with Nature and trying to emulate the Almighty,” he said. “I think that the notorious Dr. Robert Oppenheimerthe destroyer of worldswould be the first to confirm that. Were he still alive.”
Ryan had never heard of the man, but he nodded anyway, his gaze fixed to the fight.
“Come on, Krysty,” Mildred called encouragingly.
Both the redheaded, green-eyed women turned toward her, smiling.
They closed on each other, and the unarmed Krysty grabbed at the wrist of the armed double, keeping the knife away from herself. But, from then on, the fight was seriously weird. Every move one would make, the other would instantly counter, like a pair of mirror images locked in identical combat.