Daly was on the run from his former employer, a private corporation that had been taken over by U.S. government black ops. The med tech and his fellow employees had been experimenting in bio-enhancement technology, but the new covert project — Project Manticore — moved the experiment into using recombinant DNA to produce a superior combat soldier. When Manticore started using children as guinea pigs, Daly decided he’d had enough.
Another research scientist at the facility gave notice, and this encouraged Daly to make an appointment to see his boss, to tender his own resignation... and the next night, said research scientist was a hit-and-run fatality. The head of Manticore, the spookily soft-spoken Colonel Donald Lydecker, had said to Daly, “A dangerous world out there — what was it you wanted to talk to me about, Mr. Daly?”
So Ben Daly settled in, did his job, and waited for his chance. It wasn’t until well after the Pulse that he’d gotten away — Manticore was the kind of job you couldn’t quit... you had to escape from it, like the prison it was — and he’d stayed hidden for years, the last three in Seattle, working as a lowly (but alive) lab tech.
And then Daly had been tracked down by Seth. At first Daly thought the X5 had been sent by Manticore, but it quickly became apparent he was simply looking for a solution to the seizures that had afflicted him, and his siblings, since their youth. A runaway. Still, Seth’s turning up gave Daly a sudden, desperate desire to leave Seattle, and find some new rock to crawl under. If Seth, a kid on the run, working by himself, could find Daly, it was only a matter of time until organization-man Lydecker came calling.
Though he hadn’t been able to solve Seth’s health problem, Daly had informed the renegade X5 that tryptophan — a homeopathic neurotransmitter — could help control the symptoms. In an effort to keep from getting his ass kicked by Seth for failing to end the seizures, Daly had introduced the volatile young man to Logan.
Daly, of course, was unaware that Logan was Eyes Only; but he did know that Logan was an anti-establishment journalist from a very wealthy family.
“Maybe you can track down some doctor or research scientist,” Daly had said, “who can address Seth’s condition... maybe you can network with this Eyes Only character. Who knows?”
“Who knows,” Logan had said.
Logan suspected Daly didn’t care if the X5 got help or not. Likely the med tech only hoped that Seth would latch onto Logan as a new target of his dark moods. If so, Daly’s strategy had proved successfuclass="underline" the tech was in some little town on the edge of the Arctic Circle, and Seth was still in Seattle, playing a dangerous game with Logan Cale.
Sprawled on the couch, running shoes up on it, Seth might have been a patient in a psychiatrist’s office. Referring to Ryan Devane — the corrupt sector chief who had been selling everything from under-the-table sector passes to minority teenagers into slavery overseas — Seth said, “Problem solved.”
Few in Seattle, no matter their political persuasion, had any doubt that Devane was a bad man... many would have called him evil; but his position had been so well insulated, he couldn’t be touched... except by Eyes Only.
“Solved,” Logan echoed emptily.
“Did what you wanted,” Seth said.
“What I wanted, and more.”
“You wanted him stopped.” Seth smiled over innocently at Logan, who had settled into a chair. “I stopped him.”
“You killed him.”
Seth shrugged, folded his hands on his tummy, stared at the ceiling. “That’s pretty much the most efficient way to stop somebody.”
Shaking his head, Logan said, “The most efficient way isn’t always the best way.”
“I agree... but in this case, it was. You’re not going to lecture me on that ends-don’t-justify-the-means b.s. again, are you? They taught us ethics at fuckin’ Manticore.”
“I’ll just bet they did. They teach you anything about justice?”
The younger man thought about it for a long moment. “Justice was served... What’s next?”
“Never mind what’s next,” Logan said, rising, propelled by rage. “How the hell do you figure ‘justice’ was served by murder?”
Seth glanced over with an expression of mock innocence. “Any children sold into slavery lately?”
“That doesn’t justify—”
“Sure it does. Bastard got what he deserved.”
Logan began to pace, hands in the pockets of his slacks. “Seth — that’s not justice, that’s revenge.”
“Same difference,” Seth said, and swung into a sitting position, leaning back, arms outstretched on the back of the couch.
Logan said, “I wanted to stop him — expose him, entrap him—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa — isn’t entrapment illegal? I thought the ends didn’t justify the means?”
“When law enforcement itself is corrupt, certain extreme measures have to be taken. It’s a matter of degree, Seth — some laws go beyond politics. These are laws that have to do with society, with civilization, even religion.”
“Oh, shit, you’re not gonna go religious on my ass, now!”
“No... no. But ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’ is part of the social contract, Seth. You can’t—”
“Bullshit! The social contract got ripped up when the Pulse went down — where was the social contract when Manticore was makin’ me, like instant soup in a damn test tube?”
Logan stopped pacing. He sat down next to Seth. “Don’t make me regret taking you into my confidence.”
Seth’s grin was a terrible thing. “Thought you had a supersoldier to play with, didn’tcha? And now you’re afraid all you got is a loose cannon... am I on to something, ‘Eyes Only’?”
“Seth... please... We have the opportunity to be a team. To make a difference...”
“We’re already making a difference!” Seth sprang to his feet; now he was the one pacing, but there was a raving and ranting quality to the words that accompanied it. “Logan, you were unhappy when a corrupt official was ruining lives and selling children into slavery... and now you’re telling me you’re still unhappy, even though we stopped the mofo!”
“I’m not unhappy he’s been stopped—”
“But you are unhappy this blight on society is dead? Are you fuckin’ high?”
Logan sighed. “You were acting as my... agent. I feel responsible for that man’s death. And I don’t like it, not one little bit.”
Seth stopped in front of Logan and put his hands together in a prayerful gesture. “How touching... but your liberal guilt doesn’t negate the fact that the mission was accomplished and we saved maybe hundreds, who knows, maybe even thousands of kids from being sold into slavery.”
Logan could see he wasn’t going to prevail in this debate. And he feared the moral complexities would continue to elude this kid — the supersoldier genetic makeup perhaps had made Seth a literal killing machine.
Maybe over the long haul, Logan could convince Seth that justice didn’t necessarily mean the summary execution of everyone they went after. He only hoped he could control and shape Colonel Lydecker’s nasty lab rat into something positive for society.
Now Seth plopped down in a chair opposite the couch. A tiny, almost naughty smile formed on the sullenly handsome face. “I think it’s time.”
“Time?”
“Time we went after Manticore.”
Logan sighed again. “It is not time.”