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  Eveline’s eyes widened at the sight of him. “Those are George’s clothes. What are you doing wearing my husband’s—”

  As her gaze fell to the butcher knife that Apollo held, her voice died in her throat.

  “I’m sorry,” Apollo said, striding toward her. “This is a message. I’m so sorry. He wanted me to tell this to you.”

  “Oh, God. B-10, it’s you. It can’t be. Dimitri, he wouldn’t dare.”

  “You’re no longer of any use to the Project, Eve,” Apollo said flatly, even as his eyes filled with unshed tears. “This is good-bye.”

  “Olympus is—”

  The woman never had a chance to finish.

  Status Report: Subject 2 of Subset A

  DK: State your name and age. Talk directly into the recorder.

  A-02: I am fifteen years old. I’ll be sixteen in January, but I don’t know the exact day. I don’t have a name.

  DK: What do they call you?

  A-02: Subject Two of Subset A.

  DK: May I call you Two?

  A-02: No, sir. That would suggest that we’re friends, and we’re not.

  DK: I see. You know, I was looking over your file earlier, and your test results are very impressive. Even at an early age, you showed an extraordinary aptitude for military tactics and logistics. Your instructors had high hopes for you.

  A-02: I know, sir.

  DK: Would you like to see the notes they wrote about you? They all believed that you were a natural-born leader.

  A-02: No, that means nothing to me now.

  DK: It says here that you’re fluent in German and Russian.

  A-02: Some Mandarin, too, but I can’t write or read it. We were learning Arabic when I left.

  DK: When you left. That’s an interesting way of putting it.

  A-02: When I deserted. Is that better?

  DK: I would like to talk about that.

  A-02: You have my files. Look at them yourself. My back hurts. I want to go back to my room.

  DK: You can’t yet.

  A-02: I don’t want to talk to you anymore.

  DK: You don’t have a choice.

  A-02: I hate you.

  DK: Do you hate a lot of things?

  A-02: I wish you were dead.

  DK: I’m sure you do. Now, let’s try a different question, shall we? Have you ever hurt someone?

  (Silence from 00:03:55 to 00:04:01.)

  DK: I asked you a question.

  A-02: I don’t want to talk about that.

  DK: You don’t want to talk about anything. Need I remind you that you aren’t here by choice, that cooperation will aid you more than disobedience?

  A-02: I don’t care.

  DK: You keep touching your arm. I know the IV is uncomfortable, but you must stop that. If we have to, we’ll restrain you again. Do you want that?

  A-02: No, sir.

  DK: Smart boy.

  EG: It should be taking effect any moment now. Pulse is 44; blood pressure is 91 over 58. Scan shows decreased function in the cerebellum and hippocampus.

  DK: How do you feel?

  (Silence from 00:06:07 to 00:06:22.)

  A-02: What?

  DK: I asked you how you feel.

  A-02: Oh (:05 pause), uh (:03), what?

  DK: How do you feel?

  A-02: Oh. I’m okay.

  EG: Pulse is 36.

  DK: Have you ever hurt someone?

  A-02: Yes.

  DK: Go on.

  A-02: I’ve hurt many people, sir.

  DK: What about kill?

  (Silence from 00:07:05 to 00:07:27.)

  DK: Let me repeat myself. Have you ever killed someone?

  (Silence from 00:07:42 to 00:07:50.)

  DK: Answer the question.

  A-02: I’ll kill you.

  DK: That’s not what I asked you.

  A-02: Someday, I’ll kill all of you, and it won’t be quick. You’ll suffer.

  DK: I have a feeling you’re going to be a tough nut to crack. That’s all right, I like a good challenge. We’ll get back to that question in a later session. Do you know what Hades is?

  (Silence from 00:08:26 to 00:08:31.)

  DK: Hades is the underworld in Greek mythology, but he is also a god. How peculiar that Hell can be both a person and a place. Wouldn’t you agree?

  A-02: I don’t know.

  DK: Someday, you will.

  Case Notes 4:

  Hades

  Twelve stories above the ground, with a knee-high brick ledge the only thing between him and a vertical death plunge, Hades watched the streets of Philadelphia through binoculars. From the rooftop terrace, he had a perfect view of the outdoor venue where the bioethics conference was being held.

  Even though the event wouldn’t begin for another nineteen minutes, more than half the chairs were already occupied. Men in expensive suits and women in fancy business attire loitered about. Reporters crowded like vultures around the outskirts. On the stage, two men assembled a microphone.

  Easing into a sitting position, he put down the binoculars and picked up the two eight-by-ten photographs he’d been given.

  They were of a man in his sixties with a drastically receding hairline and a bushy white beard that gave him a passing resemblance to Abraham Lincoln. One was of the man’s profile, the other a frontal view.

  Hades knew the man’s name, but it meant nothing to him.

  After staring at the photographs for a good thirty seconds, he returned them to their folder. His eyes swept over the small array of objects laid out around him. A half-empty water bottle. His prepaid cell phone. Military-grade binoculars. A small duffel bag filled with a tangle of clothes, and beside it, a black gun case he had concealed beneath the laundry. The sniper rifle, assembled, calibrated, ready to fire.

  He glanced at his watch. It was 9:44 a.m. Sixteen minutes until the seminar began.

  He drank some water and settled back against the wall, looking upward. Roiling black clouds brewed overhead. To some people, the dark sky above and the urban labyrinth surrounding him would have left them feeling small, insignificant, humbled. It had the opposite effect on him.

  Sitting on the cold concrete, looking up at the encroaching thunderheads, he felt like a god in creation. A god trapped in blood and skin, but a god nonetheless. Becoming what he was destined to be, with the storm as his witness.

  So different from other humans. Exceptional. Better.

  Alone.

  Evolving.

  Fourteen minutes.

  His gaze drifted to the steel door that led to the stairwell. He wasn’t worried about someone walking in on him. He had slept on the roof overnight and spent the entire morning here, eating protein bars he had brought with him. The building was under construction, without running water or electricity. The elevator was an empty shaft. No furniture, blackened lamps. Just the shell of a building.

  Twelve minutes.

  He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a heavily creased newspaper clipping. The text was worn into nothing. Of the headline, which had originally read “Senator Lawrence Hawthorne’s Plans for America,” only the first three words remained legible.

  He didn’t care about that. The important thing was the photograph included with the article. Senator Hawthorne and his family. The senator had brown hair, but his wife and daughter were both blondes.

  Hades stared at the photo. Lovely Elizabeth. What was she doing now? Was she having a good day at school?

  Ten minutes.

  After returning the newspaper clipping to his pocket, he got on his knees and picked up the binoculars. The third row of seats was now completely filled. There were several men in attendance who had beards, but none with his target’s distinctive color. He wasn’t concerned. The Lincoln impersonator was scheduled to give the introduction speech, so it was unlikely he’d be late or a no-show.

  Eight minutes.

  He turned his attention to a brown-haired woman who had stepped onto the stage. She seemed to b
e talking to one of the two men near the microphone. Her back was to him, but even then, he had a pleasant view of her legs and ass.

  Hades wondered what she was talking about. He hoped she would be standing next to the target during the opening address.

  Her dress was pale—maybe white or lavender, he couldn’t tell. Either way, the blood would make a striking contrast against the shiny satin.

  Six minutes.

  The target walked onto the stage and spoke with the brunette in the pale dress. The woman’s mouth opened, and her head tilted back. She must have been laughing, but with her words lost to the distance between them, she might just as well have been screaming.

  In any case, she would soon scream. They all would.

  Four minutes.

  Hades felt like the approaching storm front. Bursting with lethal energy. Volatile. They couldn’t see it now, but a tornado was brewing and would soon be upon them. And then it would strike, hard.

  He finished the rest of his water and then stowed the empty bottle and folder in his duffel bag. Even though he began packing up what he didn’t need to have out, he wasn’t worried about being caught in the act or in the aftermath. He figured that in the immediate panic, the attendees would assume the shooter was among them. Only when the bullet was recovered would they learn it had come from a high-precision rifle. In the worst case—and most unlikely—scenario, where a sniper was immediately suspected, the chances of his whereabouts being discovered before he escaped were nil. There were too many high buildings and open windows, so many places he might have fired from.

  Anyway, by the time the authorities arrived, he would be long gone.

  Two minutes before the seminar was scheduled to start, the target stepped up to the microphone. Everyone stood and applauded.

  Through the binocular lenses, it was like watching TV with the audio muted. The crowd below didn’t even seem like actual people, but like a gathering that merely resembled humans.

  Hades could have shot the man then, but he waited. He wanted everyone to sit down, get nice and comfortable. Additionally, there were still others arriving. The more witnesses, the greater the panic. Part of the execution was in the message.

  At 10:05, he set his binoculars on the ground, within easy reach, and retrieved a pair of acoustic earmuffs from the outer pocket of his duffel bag. The plastic shells fit snugly over his head, cradling his ears in layers of insulating foam. Once he adjusted them, he moved the rifle into position. Through his gloves, the gun felt even colder than the concrete he knelt on.

  This wasn’t his first time using the sniper rifle on a human target, so he wasn’t afraid he would miss or screw up. The rifle was comfortable in his hands. Familiar. Less like a complex weapon than like an extension of his arms and eye, a part of him. It made him feel complete, filling the emptiness that lived inside of him.

  The scope’s lenses were stronger than those of the binoculars. When Hades directed the rifle at his target, the man’s face filled the scope’s crosshairs, his forehead at dead center. Hades paused and then shifted toward the brunette.

  For some reason, the woman reminded him of the scientist. The one who had helped him from the sensory deprivation tank when he had fallen into such a deep K-hole he couldn’t move his limbs. The one who had stood by apathetically as he was electroshocked over and over, recording his vital signs. The one who held his jaw still as a feeding tube was forced down his throat, and he kept gagging, and it hurt so much.

  He should have been the one to take care of that cold-blooded bitch, not Apollo and Artemis. Who cared about making it look like a domestic homicide? She deserved to suffer for everything she had done to him.

  Staring at the brunette, he played with the idea of pulling the trigger. There were five cartridges in the magazine. Five names to carve on gravestones. Five new notches to add to the tattoo on his left forearm.

  No. He had a job to complete. The job was the only thing that mattered.

  He returned to the man and watched tensely as he addressed the crowd. As the man smiled directly at him, his breathing quickened. Excitement shot down his spine like a lightning bolt, lifting every hair on his body. His heart pounded, and his body was racked by a delicious tremor that shook him to the core.

  In the air, he could detect the smell of ozone, of the approaching storm. It was a strong, heady odor, like hot gunmetal or sweat. It stung his nose as he breathed it in.

  He’s staring at his killer and he doesn’t even know it, Hades thought as he turned the rifle’s bolt, jacking a round into the chamber. He’s going to die and he doesn’t even know it.

  He curled his finger around the trigger and squeezed it. The recoil rang through his arm like the gong of a bell, reverberating deep into his muscle and bone. The buttstock lurched against his shoulder. Through his earmuffs, the gunshot was reduced to a distant thud, probably a lot like the sound the man’s body made when it hit the floor.

  Wasting no time, Hades set down the sniper rifle and snatched up his binoculars. He afforded himself thirty seconds to watch the chaos.

  As he’d hoped, the brunette had been splattered. She had been standing close to the old man, well within the fallout radius. Blood oozed down her dress, a nice contrast.

  For a moment, the brunette stared blankly at the crowd. Everyone seemed frozen in shock, except for the one or two people still clapping, confused. Then the woman’s mouth opened in a silent scream, and like a spell broken, everyone began to panic.

  In their mad dash for the exit, the attendees shoved and pushed past one another. When one fell, the others crawled over him. Even the most elegant, refined individuals regressed to shrieking primates, their panic sloughing off millenniums worth of evolution. Mankind’s true nature, flayed and exposed.

  Mesmerized, Hades watched as a man in a tuxedo was thrown to the ground and trampled under the stampeding feet. When the crowd surged forward, the man did not get up.

  He couldn’t hear their screaming, but he felt it resonating through his body.

  He hated to pull himself away from the scene, but there was no time to waste. Reluctantly, he sat back down and began disassembling the rifle. Although not originally a take-down rifle, the gun was a custom piece that had cost close to ten thousand dollars, designed specifically for swift disassembly and concealment. The bipod was similarly compactable.

  Normally the dismantling process was performed calmly and methodically, but as he worked, his hands trembled. Quiet spasms of ecstasy racked his body.

  Once all the pieces were returned to the rifle case, Hades latched it shut and put it in the duffel bag, along with the binoculars, bipod, and earmuffs.

  As expected, he encountered no one as he left the building. Dressed in a hooded jacket and jeans, he easily blended in with the midday crowd. When the police cars sped past, sirens wailing, he didn’t stop or look back.

  The smells of food vendors, burning charcoal, and exhaust fumes filled his nose, but he detected the aroma of spent gunpowder beneath those other scents, warm and constant. He loved that odor. It was nostalgic and the one thing in his life that remained almost ever-present.

  In the listless hours before the kill, he had formulated multiple escape plans in the event that the assassination failed or circumstances beyond his control prevented him from returning to his car. Those precautions proved unnecessary. He reached the vehicle without trouble and put the duffel bag in the trunk.

  By then, the excitement of the kill was beginning to gutter out like a dying flame. Very rarely did he feel any emotion for very long. Most of the time there were just facial expressions caused by muscle memory, a ghost’s contortions of a stiff leather mask.

  During the long journey home, he indulged in a recurring fantasy that the entire world was falling away behind him. Every time a town disappeared beyond the horizon, it ceased to exist. The people he passed died the moment he lost sight of them.

  Normally, this mental game soothed him, but when his excitement soured into nothi
ng at all, he felt only bitter yearning. It was less like an emotion than like a hollow that ached to be filled. An absence of sorts.

  So what if the world didn’t truly exist? He would still never be a part of it. He could never lose himself in the lie.

  He stopped once, only long enough to change the car’s license plates. The rest of the time, he drove in silence. He didn’t like music. Whenever he listened to music, he felt like he was an actor in a movie, playing a role set out for him with a predetermined fate, which only further deepened his sense of derealization.

  By the time he returned to the neighborhood of Georgetown, the storm in Philadelphia had traveled south into D.C. as if in pursuit of him. Thunder exploded like bombshells overhead. Rain fell in sheets, pounding into the car roof with a steady machine-gun rattle and pummeling the trees planted along the curb. The road and lawns were swamped. Loose petals, dead leaves, and litter flowed into storm drains.

  He drove past luxurious, multi-million-dollar houses and stopped in front of a tall stone wall filigreed with red ivy. Security cameras peered out from among the leaves.

  He rolled down the window and punched a code into the keypad mounted next to the wrought-iron gate. The gate swung forward, allowing him entry, then closed behind him.

  The mansion itself was an architectural goliath, three stories tall with an extended colonnade. To Hades, it brought to mind a prison.

  He pulled into the detached garage, next to the other car already inside. His motorcycle was parked against the back wall. As per orders, he left the rifle inside its case, in the trunk.

  As he stepped outside and shut the garage door, a pair of massive Rottweilers appeared from around the corner of the house.

  The dogs slunk forward, their muscles rolling beneath their slick black fur.

  “Grün,” Hades said.

  At once, the dogs swarmed him, wagging their docked tails and nuzzling his legs. They poked their damp snouts against his limbs, taking in the new and exciting odors he brought with him. He scratched one dog behind the ears and rubbed the other’s belly when it rolled over, panting in adoration.