It had been Foster who had asked that question. It was a reasonable question, since the former CIA man had just been put in charge of a hit against the biggest badass in the federal government, but Stricken figured the hesitancy was because Foster was still a little squeamish from his encounter with Franks in Vegas. No STFU man wanted to go up against a monster without monsters of his own.

“Of course not, Foster. I’m a firm believer in letting our subcontracted employees do the bleeding on our behalf.” He spotted exactly who he was hoping to find in the command center and walked directly toward her. “Hello, Dr. Bhaskara.”

She turned and nodded politely to the albino. “Mr. Stricken.”

Stricken liked the Project’s head scientist. She was an attractive Indian woman in her mid forties, with a British accent that reminded him of Mary Poppins, but she was every bit as driven as he was, and as far as he could tell, she’d never been weighed down with any of those pesky medical ethics some of these brilliant science types seemed to get hung up on. “Any new developments with our babies?”

Dr. Bhaskara sniffed. She didn’t like when he referred to the Project Nemesis prototypes as babies. “Of the thirteen we have decanted so far, the prototypes are still testing at peak efficiency. Their ability to learn is remarkable. There has yet to be a single testing failure, cognitive or physical, thus far.”

“What’re the new scores looking like?”

“Far better than expected. They are remarkable. Let me put it this way, Mr. Stricken. Take ten minutes to demonstrate the skills necessary and another ten minutes to explain the rules of the sport to them, and then they would easily win the Olympic gold medal for that event and their human opponents wouldn’t even have a chance.”

“I’m not rigging the Tour de France, Doctor, hilarious as that would be. I’m talking combat capabilities.”

“Weapons familiarity training has been going well. Since we last spoke I have tested the first prototype against captured vampires of various strains and ages. A particularly nasty, well fed, fifty-year-old specimen only survived two and a half minutes of hand-to-hand combat.”

“That’s my boy.”

“He is still by far the most capable of the prototypes, but I hope the others catch up.” Dr. Bhaskara was justifiably proud. “I have no doubt that if we had a Master to test against, our prototypes would stand an excellent chance at winning.”

That was probably pushing it. The doctor had read papers about Master vamps, but Stricken had dealt with them up close and personal. He wasn’t placing any bets. But luckily Stricken had a baker’s dozen of growth tanks that could pump out a new body every six months. And since this whole Project was stupidly illegal and he wasn’t even supposed to be testing, he’d done all that in secret. Once Franks was removed from the equation and he got an official go-ahead, he’d build hundreds of tanks. Then he’d have the quality and quantity to take all comers.