The Games Read Free

button.
    “Hello,” he croaked.
    “Dr. Williams?” The voice coming through the speaker was young and male. He didn’t recognize it.
    “Yes,” Silas answered.
    “Dr. Nelson had me call. You’ll want to come down to the compound.”
    “What’s happened?” He sat up straighter in bed, swinging his feet to the carpet.
    “The surrogate went into labor.”
    “What? When?” It was still too soon. All the models had predicted a ten-month gestation.
    “Two hours ago. The surrogate is in bad shape. They can’t delay it.”
    Silas tried to clear his head, think rationally. “The medical team?”
    “The surgeons are being assembled now.”
    Silas ran his fingers slowly through his mop of salt-and-pepper curls. He checked the pile of dirty clothes lying on the floor next to his bed and snagged a shirt that looked a little less wrinkled than its brethren. Above all else, he considered himself to be an adaptable man. “How long do I have?”
    “Half-hour, maybe less.”
    “Thanks, I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” Silas clicked the phone off. For better or for worse, it had begun.
    T HE NIGHT was cool for Southern California, and Silas drove with the windows down, enjoying the way the wind swirled around the cab of the Courser 617. The air was damp, tinged with a coming thunderstorm. Eagerness pressed him faster. He took the ramp to Highway 5 at seventy miles per hour, smiling at the way the car grabbed the curve. So many times as a youth he’d dreamed of owning a car such as this. Tonight his indulgence seemed prophetic; he needed every one of those Thoroughbreds galloping beneath the low, sleek hood.
    As he merged onto the mostly empty interstate, he punched it, watching the speedometer climb to just over a hundred and five. The radio blared something he didn’t recognize—rhythmic and frenzied, almost primeval, it matched his mood perfectly. His anxiety built with his proximity to the lab.
    Over the years he had become accustomed to the occasional midnight dash to the lab, but it had never been like this, with so many unknowns. A vision of Evan Chandler’s grossly jowled face entered his mind, and he felt a rush of anger. He couldn’t really blame Chandler. You couldn’t ask a snake not to be a snake. It was the members of the Olympic Commission who should have known better.
    He switched lanes to avoid a mini-tram, his speed never dropping below ninety-five miles per hour. His dark eyes glanced into the rearview, scouting for a patrol. The ticket itself wouldn’t bother him. He was exempt from any fine levied by local authorities while on his wayto and from the lab, but the time it would cost to explain himself would be the real expense. All clear . He pushed the gas pedal to the floor. Minutes later, he hit his brakes, downshifted to third, and cut across two lanes to catch his exit. He was now out of the city proper and into the suburbs of San Bernardino.
    Silas passed the brightly lit main entrance of Five Rings Laboratories without taking his foot off the gas. He didn’t have time for the main entrance, the winding drive. Instead, he veered left at the access road, whipping past the chain-link fence that crowded the gravel. At the corner, he spun the wheel and hooked another left, decelerating as he neared the rear gate. He flashed his badge to the armed guard, and the iron bars swung inward just in time to save his paint job.
    The lab grounds were vast and parklike—a sprawling technological food web of small interconnected campuses, three- and four-story structures sharing space with stands of old growth. Glass and brick and trees. A semicircle of buildings crouched in conference around a small man-made pond.
    He followed his headlights to a building at the west end of the complex and skidded to a stop in his assigned parking spot.
    He was surprised to see Dr. Nelson standing there to greet him—a short, squat form cast in fluorescent lighting. “You were right. Twenty minutes exactly,” Dr.