by Utley, Todd
Then he saw something that really surprised him, a large military vehicle had crashed bay door number two of the maintenance area. “Okay maybe it’s some kind of militia group, maybe he pissed off the wrong rich guy. Probably one of those fellows that he stripped of billions. They had assembled a small army and had come for him, and they were doing a damn good job of it too.”
It wasn’t looking too good for his crew, he decided that it was time to release the SUPER A.I.R.S. Remote Defense Systems, this would wreck havoc on the intruders for sure, no one could stand up against armored robot soldiers with laser cannons. He would launch the destruct code soon to kill all of his own soldiers. He had to keep them from being captured and interrogated, but not until they had fought on his behalf. The A.I.R.S. would take care of the remaining intruders with ease. He opened the destruct code window for the intra cranial charges and selected the “ALL” option. He set the countdown for ten minutes. This would give him just enough time to escape while his army fought on down below. By the time they reached his office he would be long gone. He entered the activation codes for the A.I.R.S and selected the “KILL ALL” level of operation and then added priority of “INTRUDERS.” The A.I.R.S. could easily identify all noncombatants because Cyrus had linked the A.I.R.S. System to his numerical human I.D. system, the very one he used to kill individual soldiers by their number. With these settings the A.I.R.S. robots would kill everyone eventually but it would target the intruders first.
He went to a wardrobe in the far corner of the room and flung the doors open. Inside there was a complete arsenal of weapons both traditional and modern. He removed his full length black leather jacket throwing it over a chair at the workbench behind him. He strapped on two 45 autos with oversize clips across his chest and then put his coat back on. He selected a laser burst pistol and strapped it to his right thigh, covering it up with a flip of his coat. He lifted his left pant leg and strapped an 8-inch knife to his calf slipping his pant leg down over it.
The intercom on the table buzzed.
“Sir,” Glitch’s voice came through, sounding very shaky.
Cyrus pushed the little button on top the metal box.
“Yes Glitch what is it now?”
“Sir, I hate to tell you this but, well, I have not been able to stop the hack, our systems are locked, and I just got a notice on my skyphone that our account balances are all zero, you know anything about that?”
Cyrus yanked his finger back from the button in shock. Who could have done this? He understood a small private army getting to the compound. Probably tailed one of his less skilled watchers, which was understandable, but his accounts? “Whoever was behind this was good, really good, and they were doing it all at once, unbelievable!” Of course he had back up accounts that even Glitch didn’t know about, surely those were safe.
He mashed the button in on the box so hard that he caved it in.
“Glitch!”
“Yes?”
“Go downstairs and help those guards out, they could use a man like you right now. Go electrocute those bastards!”
He let go of the button and leaned back letting out an evil laugh. He had just sent the man responsible for this security breach on a suicide mission, and it struck him funny, very funny.
“He hated to sacrifice such a great hacker but sometimes you just have to cut your losses.”
“But Sir that would be suicide?”
Cyrus quickly moved back to the intercom box again like a giddy school boy doing a crank call and mashed the button.
“Yes Glitch, that’s right, but sometimes you just have to cut your losses!”
He let off the button and laughed.
“Oh my god!” He said, “what an idiot!”
“Okay, enough toying with the idiot” time to get back to work.”
He went back to the wardrobe and retrieved a small case that contained a high capacity data drive. He disconnected the fiber optic cable that linked it to the main frame one floor down. It contained his entire life work and much of Glitch’s. He would be losing Glitch today but not his work, he shackled it to his wrist with a digital titanium cuff set. It could only be disconnected by him unless someone cut off his hand.
He went to a narrow door at the back of the room but hesitated and looked back at the intercom box. He was thinking that Glitch might have one more stupid comment. He looked again. “Nope, guess not.” He turned back to the door and punched in a code on the keypad to the right of it then placed his hand on the ID screen. He had to get to the helicopter to make his escape.
The door slid open rapidly followed by four bright flashes of light that were stunning. He was stepping back now. “No, more like flying back. What was happening? He had crashed through the table in the middle of the room splintering it to pieces before slamming into the wall behind it where he slid down to the floor.
He looked down at his chest, and it was smoldering and bleeding profusely. He had been shot but how? He looked up but couldn’t believe what he was seeing. There in the light haze of the smoke stood a man that Cyrus Slade would have never guessed to be alive much less kicking his ass. It was Dodge Kerrington, the man himself, standing there in his inner sanctum larger than life, he was wielding a large laser rifle that was still glowing orange on the tip from having just been fired. He was solid muscle from head to toe and decked out in full black tactical gear donning several weapons strapped to various places on his body.
“How the hell did he get so big?” He figured it out almost immediately.
“Well played Dodge Kerrington!”
Two more men had entered, it was JC, and Alan, the rest of team Talon. Cyrus had been down now for about two seconds. He reached for one of his pistols with his right hand, but Alan was faster and fired blowing off three of his fingers. He reached for another weapon with his left hand and JC shot him in the wrist, blowing his left hand completely off. The three of them stepped forward into the center of the room in front of Slade.
He leaned forward in a pathetic attempt to spit on them but DC kicked him right in the mouth knocking all of his front teeth out and smashing his head into the concrete wall. He was down on the floor, and he fell over but still managed an angry growl. The three men stood between him and his escape, they were heavily armed and he was out numbered, he had nowhere to go and he knew it.
“Get up!” DC yelled.
“GET UP!
Cyrus struggled to his feet and spit out a bunch of blood and a couple more teeth as he backed away. He was holding the stub where his left hand had been severed with what was left of his right hand, and bleeding profusely. “You know, I never expected you to be the one . . . , the one to do this to me Dodge Kerrington, you surprised me.”
DC stared at him for a second, and said . . . ,
“Thanks”
Then he opened fire.
Alan and JC immediately joined in as Cyrus backed up into the corner and took on the fire as they emptied their clips into him. He was still leaning against the wall when they stopped firing and then he fell forward flat on his face dead. When he hit the floor, his bullet riddled body was severed in half at the waist. They had cut him in half with gunfire.
It was one of the Black Ops Team members out at the farm that had figured out how to get them into Cyrus’s inner lair. They were studying the blue prints of the compound one night comparing the prints to the video feeds of Cyrus’s office. They hacked Cyrus’s Web cams that he used to video conference with others in his organization. They could see from the video that his office was entirely too shallow for the original space that was there. The rooms on the other side of the wall from his office were too shallow as well. The team Captain ordered two members to scout the roof area just above Cyrus’s office for any openings. As suspected they found the sliding roof panels that would allow Cyrus to escape in his helicopter.
Cyrus never expected death to be on the other side of that door. He thought he would have a clear path to escape. Now he lay on the floor
as dead as a man can get. They would make sure no one moved his body out of there for well over an hour.
Chapter 34 Down on the foundry floor, the firefight had escalated into all out war. Glitch had ignored Cyrus’s suggestions of suicidal actions and realized that his partner was no doubt escaping on his own with no intentions of saving anyone but himself. Glitch resorted to doing what he knew best, he sat down at his computer and went to work. He performed a master reset of the entire server system by sending the security Captain to the generator room to shut off the main power. He disabled the backup battery feed first so that it would go completely down. He inserted a special micro drive containing a master boot file into his best PC before the main server powered back up.
Within two minutes his fingers were flying like lightning across the keys. John couldn’t see or do anything because Glitch’s clever thinking to shut off the power had disabled the hidden com link cable in the server room. It relied on its power feed coming from the server port where Toby had plugged it in. The command center lost all video feeds and all control of systems within the compound for several minutes. They had to rely solely on the helmet cams and com links to guide their teams. The one good thing that came of the reset was that it killed the commands that Cyrus entered to deploy the A.I.R.S. system. As a result they remained harmless, still concealed behind the vending machines.
Down on the foundry floor, the fight raged on. Toby and Todd had herded as many people into the oven as were willing and many that were not. They closed the doors and Toby employed his genius plan of turning the handle from the inside using the large pipe wrench on the nut. The two seals in the rafters above had been taking on so much fire from Slades men below that they were forced to take cover behind a ventilation unit. They were pinned down there for several minutes before regaining control of the area in front of the oven.
During that time several guards attempted to open the door using the outside handle but it was useless due to Toby’s prior work on it. It was locked up like a fortress. Todd, Toby and several volunteers were now busy taping the door cracks and other holes in the oven with the metal duct tape that Todd got for them. They finished with the doors and began spreading and taping the metal window screen over the air vents. It was absolutely crucial that they get it sealed well so that Cyrus’s death signal couldn’t get in.
Glitch decided to use manual controls to take full command of the A.I.R.S. Robots. He thought Cyrus was already long gone having escaped, but never dreamed he was dead. He figured the only way he was going to get out of there alive was to blast his way out with the remote control battle robots. Several team Chaos members were badly injured in the fire fight and were being taken out for medical attention now and at least eight had been killed. John had Restoration request placed within minutes at the surrounding life centers and their procedures were already underway. They would all be restored within the hour and reunited with their families by nightfall.
The A.I.R.S. gunships blasted through the vending machines and burst out into the foundry floor just seconds before Cyrus’s death signal began transmitting. Unfortunately the signal came from the transmitter built into his escape helicopter which was programmed by his skyphone. The phone was obliterated by gunfire but Cyrus had already set the timer for the intra cranial charges prior to being gunned down, the death signal was about to be launched from the small helicopter sitting idle in Cyrus’s escape bay. The man was dead, but part of his plan was still alive.
It was the strangest thing to see. All of Cyrus’s remaining men dropped dead right where they were. Some were crouched down behind equipment and boxes, others were running across the foundry floor while firing, but every single one of them just dropped. All gunfire ceased, even from the robots as Glitch realized what had just happened. He sat in his office watching it happen through the eyes of the A.I.R.S. He only paused for a moment and then began firing again. Inside the oven, nobody knew what was happening, they could hear firing and some feint voices but that was it, the oven was heavily insulated so the sounds outside were very muffled.
Toby would have loved to communicate with John at command but his com link was dead now due to the sealed oven being radio signal proofed. The fact that their phones were also useless was certainly a good sign. The gun fire outside was less frequent now but seemed bigger. “There must be some big guns.”
There were 74 people inside the oven waiting hopefully and nervously for good news. There were lab techs, auto mechanics, guards, watchers, maintenance workers, and even a geneticist name Alice. She had her arms around Toby holding on to him and she was a nervous wreck just like the rest of them.
Three floors above, in the secret room behind Cyrus’s office, JC picked up the small case that was once attached to Cyrus’s wrist. His hand was gone so, well, problem solved. JC found Slade’s severed hand and used his finger tips on the digital lock to open up the case. He smiled when he looked inside.
“Hey guys check it out, a super drive, looks like a new project for me huh?”
DC came over and took a look.
“Nice, and I’ll bet it has some very interesting information on it.” JC closed it up and they went out through the book case passage and into Cyrus’s office. They still had one more man to round up, Glitch.
They went down the corridor and found two guards dead just outside an office, no doubt the head bombs had gotten them too. There were no other doors that had guards posted so they figured this might well be Glitch’s office.
Glitch saw them coming up the hall on his monitor and had taken evasive measures. Alan and DC stood back as JC kicked in the door and the two of them rushed in with JC right behind. Glitch was waiting behind the door and as they passed by he attempted to slip out the office door but ran right into JC who was just coming in behind the other two. JC grabbed him by the throat.
“Where do you think you’re goin you little weasel?”
Glitch went for his side arm but JC was way ahead of him and had already taken it. Glitch realized that he was finished unless he could talk his way 0ut of it.
“Please don’t kill me,” he said, “I’ll cooperate, I’ll even help you get Cyrus, just don’t kill me, I’ll go peacefully I promise.”
JC let go of him and holstered his side arm. DC and Alan were right beside them now.
Alan said, “We appreciate your offer to help us get your boss squirt but he’s in two pieces up the hall there, what else ya got to offer us?”
Glitch knew he had no other bargaining cards so he immediately tried to run past JC to get out the door. JC reached out and snatched him up by the neck and shook him like a rag doll. As he did the electricity began to flow out of Glitch and through JC Just like it did before with Cyrus. He had to be very stressed for the power to come out. JC got it started for him and that was all he needed.
DC tried to help by pulling Glitch off of him but the electricity began flowing through him as well. JC and DC were in direct contact with Glitch and they were getting the worst of it. Alan only had one hand on DCs shoulder but he couldn’t let go, it was just too powerful, they were all getting fried. Alan was doing everything he could to reach his thigh holstered nine mil but his body wasn’t cooperating. JC and DC were completely incapacitated now and were hoping that Alan could do something. Glitch had arcs of electricity flowing steady now out of his chest and down his right arm into both JC and DC and he knew he had them down and out. He had now diverted some attention to Alan who was further away and still able to move a bit. He was reaching out toward Alan with his left hand and darts of electricity like small bolts of lightning were randomly hitting Alan every two or three seconds. Alan had his right hand on the nine mil but couldn’t pull it because every time he tried he got zapped. His right hand was still on DCs shoulder and he couldn’t let go. He knew he had to shoot Glitch or they were all going to die.
He would have to do it in between arcs. He waited for the next dart of blue arcs to hit him, it did and he mustered all of his streng
th and pulled the nine mil as fast as he could. He put two rounds right into Glitch’s chest where the power seemed to be coming from.
Glitch was badly wounded and the electricity was weakening. JC used the very last of his strength to pick Glitch up off the floor and slam him against the door frame as hard as he could.
“A little help here!” He said.
DC threw himself back as hard as he could and broke free of the flow. He pulled a ten inch knife from the sheath on his thigh and lunged forward jamming it into Glitch’s right ear with so much force that it went all the way through his head pining him to the old wooden door frame of the office. Alan emptied the nine mil into Glitch as they all stepped away from him. The electricity subsided and Glitch went limp, he was hanging there on the knife by his head.
JC collapsed but Alan caught him and let him down easy into a desk chair. He didn’t look so good, in fact none of them did, but JC got the worst of it. He was badly burned, even his hair was singed and it was still smoking.
“What in the world was that?” He said, “what kind of freak has electricity in him?”
DC checked for a pulse to confirm Glitch was dead then he went over to JC to look him over. He was still talking but he wasn’t making much sense and it seemed as though he might be blind in one eye. It was too soon to be sure. They all three sat there for a moment trying to catch their breath and get the feeling back in their arms and legs. DC shook his head.
“I think that little freak could have kicked Cyrus’s ass. I never dreamed he’d be the one to nearly kill all of us!”
The other two nodded in agreement and they all started laughing.
Alan called it in to command that Cyrus and Glitch were both dead and that they were coming down. With Glitch dead the A.I.R.S. robots were now motionless and were only seconds away from being completely destroyed by the team forces. The humvee with the turret mounted laser canon drove into bay two with the team Captain in the gunners seat. He opened fire on the A.I.R.S. robots blasting them to pieces.
