Kenny swung his leg again, intending to connect a toe to the man's temple. The soldier was ready this time. He caught Kenny's ankle and yanked, toppling Kenny's balance and dragging him to the ground. Kenny kicked away from the soldier's grip and tried to get back to his feet, but his sprained ankle buckled under him and he fell back to the ground. The soldier was on him in an instant. The man was much, much stronger than Kenny and he was better trained than Kenny. Kenny felt a fist slam into his lower back; he felt a sharp, stabbing pain. The soldier dropped another heavy fist into Kenny's lower back on the opposite side. This time, the stabbing pain was across his whole lower back, as if both of his kidneys had ruptured. It knocked the wind from his chest.
Kenny turned over onto his back just in time to catch another fist full in the stomach. The soldier hit him again, this time on the underside of his ribs. Kenny felt like his lung was collapsing. Another fist connected with his side and there was a roar of thunder. The soldier groaned and then slumped across Kenny's chest. Blood splatters dotted Kenny's face and a hole in the soldier's chest poured blood over Kenny's torso, warm and slick.
Kenny gasped for breath. His right ear was ringing. His hand and wrist ached from the kickback of the gun. He let the weapon fall from his hand and it clattered loudly off the metal floor. He felt frozen in place. A dead man was laying on him. He'd been the one holding the gun that killed him. He hadn't meant to pull the trigger. He didn't even remember pulling the trigger, but the blood was evidence enough.
Kenny pushed the soldier off of him. He dragged himself back to a standing position. He'd seen the men that Indigo had killed the night before, but this was different. He knew why Indigo had broken down and cried. He fought the urge to run screaming from the room. The computer array beckoned. He took his eyes off the dead man and summoned up all his will power to concentrate on the task at hand.
Kenny dropped to his knees in front of the server stacks and tried to regulate his breathing. This was a super-system, a huge interlinked array of computers. This wasn't like busting through Cormair's firewalls on the tiny computer he had in the Home. This was going to cost him. He knew he was going to hurt after this hack. He knew he'd probably loose consciousness. He extended his hands and began a tentative data hack. The sudden, surging, pulsating rush of signal almost swallowed his mind, as if he was being swept away by rapids. The base ran a massive network. Kenny waded into the data streams and started to pick his way through the jumbles of controls. He found the security systems and shut them down piece by piece, disabling each piece as he did. He found the gate controls and threw them open. He disabled the fire alarms and emergency safety systems. He hacked into their closed-circuit cameras and filled every monitor he could with static. He deleted every file and folder he came across. He wanted to stay in the stream and keep hacking, raze the entire network to the ground and make certain the Trust would have a nearly impossible time picking up the pieces and starting again, but the stress of the hack was taking its toll. His brain was screaming. Reluctantly, he withdrew from the hack and fell back into his physical body, drained. He collapsed on the floor and gritted his teeth as the headaches roiled through his brain and his body convulsed in pain.
"Good job, Subject Five," the brusque voice of General Tucker made Kenny's eyes snap open. The general stood above him, holding the Beretta. Tucker continued, "The second the alarms went down, I knew you were here, and I knew right where you'd be. I'm glad to see all the research and equipment we spent on you didn't go to waste. You're everything we hoped you would be. I think this display of your abilities is all the end data research that I need. You were an amazing achievement. However, I'm certain that Psiber 2.0 will be a much better operating system."
Waves of stark, bleak pain ripped through Kenny's body. Agony mixed with adrenaline and he struggled to fight his way to his feet.
"Subject Five, like all technology eventually becomes, you are now obsolete." General Tucker squeezed off two quick rounds. The first one hit Kenny in the upper chest above his heart, the second tore into Kenny's guts.
Kenny never heard the gun. The bullets seemed to hit him in slow motion. He stumbled backward into the server rack and slowly slid to the floor. His vision began to tunnel, a dark void on the edges of his sight illuminated by a brilliant gold light. Kenny felt his breath rattle in his chest. His vision went dark and then he felt nothing at all.
Powerless would be the only way to describe what Indigo was feeling. She lay motionless under a jeep, trying to blend into the grass as best she could. She was sweating, partially because of the heat, partially from fear. Fear churned in her gut like surf crashing on a rocky shoal. The fear generated power, though. She could feel the skittery, crawling sensation of emotion in her brain that fueled her telekinesis. And that scared her just as much as the prospect of death.
She would not kill again. She didn't even want to injure. She had always thought that she could handle death, she had thought that it wouldn't bother her, but it had more than she ever imagined it would. It was worse than anything she'd seen in any movie. She wanted to swear off violence. No death, no pain. She didn't have the stomach for it. So when it came down to fighting, what good was she? She was a liability.
Indigo could hear the sounds of battle. Wrenching metal, the screams of men, and the staccato bursts of gunfire filled the air. She couldn't see John or Andy. Occasionally she saw a blur of color whip past the open space between the buildings and she knew it was Sarah. More soldiers were running into the battle from the main gate. The off-duty soldiers from the town must have been mobilized. There seemed to be dozens of men with guns running by her hiding spot. She felt exposed, as if one of them would look over and spot her at any second.
The sky seemed to grow darker. Indigo chanced a glance, rolling over once to be under the middle of the jeep so she could crane her neck to see. A thick cloud of blackbirds, thousands of them, blotted out the sun over the compound as Holly's army arrived. As the swarm neared, dozens of birds began dropping out of the sky, swooping down in smaller groups to peck and scratch at the soldiers.
Indigo looked back over her shoulder and saw Holly standing on the hill where she and John had just been. Holly was standing tall, her brown hair whipping wildly in the wind. Indigo began to hear incessant buzzing. Thick swarms of bees, wasps, flies, and beetles began to push into the compound, zigzagging through the soldiers and causing panic.
"It's the animal controller! She's here!" one of the guards shouted. "Find her and kill her! The animals will go away!"
Indigo heard another voice above her. "I got her." A guard in one of the small sentry posts on top of the wall was sighting down a sniper rifle at Holly. Fear, anger, and rage suddenly flared up in Indigo's heart and she lashed out with a telekinetic punch that hit the guard in the back as he pulled the trigger. Indigo panicked, realizing that she had launched out full-force. She tried to rein it back in, to divert its course. There was an extreme shockwave of pain in her brain as she did. The force bolt hit the soldier in the elbow, bumping his shot at the last second. He spun in the tower, but he wasn't knocked out of it. Indigo breathed a sigh of relief.
In the field on the hill, Holly suddenly spun to her right and fell out of sight in the long grass. The birds and insects stopped their focused attacks and began to dissipate.
Indigo's heart was in her throat. She couldn't run to Holly. She was trapped where she was, but what if Holly was hurt? Or dead? Indigo didn't even want to think about that possibility. She willed Holly to stand up, to regroup her animals. Indigo squeezed her eyes shut. She needed to get to Holly's side.
"Sarah!" Indigo screamed as loudly as she could. Her voice cracked as she shrieked into the upper octaves. "Sarah! I need you!"
She had given away her position. The soldiers heard her and she knew it. Several began walking carefully toward the jeep, weapons at the ready.
"You come out of there, little girl, and we won't hurt you. We're just going to take you in," said one guard wi
th a southern drawl.
Indigo threw a telekinetic whip along the ground, a low, heavy burst of force that hit the guards in the shins and upended them hard. Their guns fell as they hit the ground and Indigo picked the rifles up with her mind and lifted them to the roof of the warehouse building.
A soldier called out, "It's the Jap! This one can do things with her mind! We need to get to one of the disruptors."
Indigo caught movement out of the corner of her eye, a flash of color. Sarah. Indigo screamed for her again. She pulled herself out from under the jeep and shrieked. The flash of color suddenly diverted course and Sarah was in front of her in an instant, barelegged and out of breath.
"I need to get to that hill now! They shot Holly!"
"No sweat," Sarah said. She grabbed Indigo's arm and hefted her into a fireman's carry. Suddenly, Indigo's world became a blur of colors and a rush of wind, and then jolted back to clarity. She was next to Holly, who was still prone. There was another blast of wind as Sarah accelerated back to the fray.
Indigo gently rolled Holly onto her back. Holly's eyes were wide and she was trembling. "Am...Am I dying?"
Indigo looked down at Holly's stomach. A small dark spot was slowly growing near the waistband of her jeans. "Don't be stupid," Indigo said. "You'll be fine." The bloodstain was spreading at a frightening rate. Indigo tore the sleeve from her coat with a telekinetic push. She bunched it up and jammed it to Holly's side. Holly moaned loudly as the fabric touched the raw wound. Indigo heard voices; the soldiers were coming after her. They had abandoned their rifles for a futuristic-looking weapon that reminded Indigo of a Star Trek phaser. Anger welled up in Indigo and she threw up a telekinetic wall and began to bulldoze the soldiers back to the compound. She saw the sniper in the tower taking aim. She threw up a wall in front of herself; the bullet was slowed by the force shield and dropped to the ground harmlessly. She threw another telekinetic punch, hitting the soldier in the face. He fell backward beneath the wall of the guard tower, out of sight. A wave of wicked, biting pain shot through Indigo's head and radiated down her spine. It was so intense that it made her eyes water. She pressed her hands to the sides of her head and squeezed as hard as she could until the throbbing receded to a manageable level.
"These guys are starting to piss me off," she muttered. Holly's face was ashen and she was trembling. Shock. Indigo grabbed her by the shoulders. "Holly! Holly, you gotta stay with me! We need you! Andy and John and Sarah can only fight for so long, Holly. We need your powers!"
A hint of color seemed to come into Holly's cheeks and her eyes lost the faraway look. She blinked hard and tried to speak but no sound came out.
"Holly, listen to me: If you cannot get us a diversion of some sort, we are going to be in a heap of trouble. Big time trouble, Hol. You have to dig deep here and summon up something."
Holly's eyes suddenly welled with tears. One slowly filled the corner of her eye and slid down her cheeks to her ear. She slowly shook her head. "Can't do it." Another tear slid down the other cheek.
"What do you mean you can't do it? I'll help you. I'll hold you up. You just worry about the pheromones or whatever it is you do."
"Too tired," said Holly. "Can't...focus. Never summoned that many animals before..." Holly's eyes closed and she started to go slack in Indigo's arms. Indigo shook her and Holly's eyes blinked open. A few more tears slipped from her eyes. "I'm sorry, Indigo. I failed." Holly closed her eyes and Indigo heard her breathing change into a lower, shallower rhythm. She had passed out.
"Holly?" Indigo shook her again. Holly's head rolled to the side, her eyes still closed. "Holly? Wake up!" Holly remained unconscious. Indigo stripped off her own jacket and covered Holly with it. She took a good look at Holly's left hip. The sniper's bullet had hit her just off the iliac crest of her pelvis, more of a deep graze than a piercing wound. It was bleeding plenty, though.
A sudden explosion from the compound shook the ground and a fireball shot into the air over the warehouse. The gunfire and sounds of conflict ceased. Indigo held her breath. Plumes of black smoke rose into the air, clouding the sky. As quickly as it stopped, the gunfire and sounds of violence started again. Indigo released her breath, shuddering.
Something reached her ears above the battle sounds, a rapid, chattering, clicking noise, thousands of high, short whines in succession, a massive wall of sound. Indigo turned and looked behind her, toward the thick forest to the east. A dark cloud of flittering, jerky movement was beginning to emerge from the leafy shadows. It moved as a whole in an amoeba-like fashion, stretching and shrinking, oozing forward and retreating. Objects seemed to be darting in and out of the cloud. Indigo squinted, and suddenly she realized what was coming.
Bats.
Sarah raced back to the fray after dropping Indigo at the top of the hill. She wanted to stay and help Holly, but John and Andy needed her more at the moment. Without Sarah there to deflect bullets, Andy was a sitting duck. Bullets couldn't kill him, but he had already taken better than two dozen hits and he was slick and stained with his own blood. He was slowing down. Sarah could see that the blood loss was taking its toll on Andy.
When they first broke through the steel doors of the warehouse, the soldiers took up defensive positions around a perimeter and fired on them. Sarah had stopped the initial volley of bullets with a bare hand. These were no longer the rubber, non-lethal, riot-control bullets they had used at the Home, they were now metal slugs meant to kill, not immobilize. The bullets had torn up the skin on her hand. When she ran past Andy, she paused long enough for him to bend a shank of steel around her hand like a steel boxing glove to protect it. He had taken a clip of bullets in the back during that time. If it hurt him, he hadn't let Sarah know.
Sarah sprinted around the compound, a blur of motion too fast to comprehend, knocking bullets from the air and keeping the soldiers off-balance by slapping gun barrels when she could. None could get a bead on her as long as she was in full speed and when she needed to breathe, she would race to a far corner of the compound, stop, suck in as much air as she could, as quickly as she could, and then race back to help Andy. The legs of her nurses' scrubs had been shredded quickly from her speed. The top was becoming frayed rather quickly as well.
Andy was an unleashed machine of destruction in the compound. If he could grab it, he bent it. If he could throw it, he threw it into something else. If he could jump in the air and wreck it by landing on it, he did so. He wasn't restraining himself. There was something frightening and terrible about his actions; Sarah could tell he didn't care if people died or not. If they were in his way, they were going to get crushed. Andy's skin was cut and torn and bleeding freely so that he was stained a dark crimson. He looked like the villain from a slasher movie, more frightening than anything John Carpenter or Clive Barker ever dreamed because he was real.
John had come into the fight after Sarah and Andy had been battling their way toward the front gates for almost five minutes. Sarah didn't know where he'd come from, but she was thrilled to see him. John had mingled into the fight like a ninja: One moment there were men firing at them, a split-second later those men were laying on the ground and John was standing in the middle of the bodies. John had made it to the center of the compound where he had taken refuge behind a jeep that Andy had already smashed. It lay a few feet from the front wall of one of the buildings, giving him the reassurance that no one was sneaking up on him from behind. He had collected the rifles of several soldiers and was using them to keep the soldiers from moving any closer. Firing with uncanny accuracy, John's shots were disabling, but not lethal.
When he first got there, John gave Andy and Sarah a briefing on Posey and Sebbins, and where Ken, Indigo, and Holly were and what their plans were. Sarah had to swallow her initial shock at Sebbins' death. It was neither the time nor the place to mourn.
When Sarah returned from saving Indigo, John was crouched behind the jeep with a rifle at the ready and Andy was lying on his back on the ground next to John. S
arah joined them. She cowered behind the jeep, sidling next to Andy. "What do we do now?"
John stood quickly and squeezed off three rounds. He hit a power coupling and a shower of sparks exploded from it. The power line fell from the coupling and hit the ground near where the soldiers were taking cover. A few of them had to bolt from their position to avoid it. John shot again and one of them went down hard, clutching his knee.
"Why haven't they hit us with explosives?" John wondered aloud.
"They tried," said Andy.
"What do you mean, 'tried'?"
Andy chuckled. "They tossed a grenade at us. Sarah practically caught it and sprinted it back to them. She was back here by the time the thing went off. I think it killed one of them. If it didn't kill a guy, it made a few of them really unhappy."
A loud volley of gunfire strafed the wall of the building, startling them.
Sarah craned her neck and glanced at the soldiers hunkered down around the compound. There seemed to be dozens of them. There was nowhere they could go.
"We're not getting out of this, are we?" asked Andy.
Sarah put her hand on his shoulder. He was sticky with blood and sweat. "Don't say that," she said.
"I'm being a realist. There's too many of them. We either have to kill every man on this base or we go down."
John turned and shot again. When he dropped down he spat on the ground in disgust. "More bad news: They finally brought out that disruptor that they used to shoot Sarah the other night."
"They're looking to end this, aren't they?" asked Andy.
"I think so," said John. The sound of a helicopter became audible. Sarah instinctively looked up at the sky.
Andy sighed. "They're going to freeze me again, aren't they?"
"Probably," said Sarah.
"We gave it our best shot," said Andy. "We tried. We failed. I hope Holly, Ken, and Indigo get out of here. Sarah, maybe you should go, too. Take John. If you go fast right now, you should be able to make it. Get out."
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