"Ohh. I’m not dead," she patted her lap, offering Jelly a hug, "Come on, girl. Come and give your auntie Haloo a cuddle."
"Meow."
Jelly hopped onto the chair, and then onto the bed itself. She confidently strode along the surface intending to take up Haloo’s offer of a hug.
“Meow.”
"Haloo? What are you doing?" Jaycee’s trigger finger grew restless. "It’s weird."
"Mmm," Haloo scooped the willing Jelly into her arms and planted her lips on her fluffy forehead. "You’re such a good girl."
Wool blinked a few times, hoping she’d wake up from this bizarre daymare. It didn’t work - what she saw was very real indeed.
"Haloo?" Wool asked, sure that something bad was on its way, "Tell us what’s going—"
"—Mmm…" Haloo hugged Jelly as tight as possible and smiled at Tripp. Jelly loved every second of it. "She is a good little girl, isn’t she?"
"Okay, that’s enough." Jaycee aimed his firearm at the sitting corpse. "You don’t just wake up from death like this, Haloo. We want answers."
She giggled, enjoying how little the others seemed to understand. Suspense filled the room as a result.
"Oh, Jaycee," Haloo swung her legs over the side of the bed, intending to stand to her feet, "Something fantastic is coming."
CHAPTER SIX
USARIC Animal Compound
Sector Z118 - Medix
Handax stormed across the metal veterinary walkway. The fluorescent bulbs emitted a white light that was initially blinding to those who’d never been inside before.
A distinct waft of something very familiar crept under his nostrils - like that of a hospital.
"Right, is this the place?" Handax turned to Moses’ guard. "Is it?"
"Yes, this is where they keep them."
"Good," Handax turned to Leif and Moses. "Now, no messing around. Once we’re in, we grab what we can. We’re looking for the release mechanism."
"Release mechanism?" asked the first guard, who nearly soiled himself. "What are you going—"
"—Shut up," Handax spat in the man’s face and removed his balaclava, "You don’t say a goddamn word, you hear me?"
"No, don’t show me your face."
"Hey!" Handax grabbed the first guard’s chin and turned his face to his own. "Look at me. Remember my face, USARIC scumbag."
"Okay."
"We are going in there and doing what we need to do. Who’s in charge at Medix right now?"
"Wool ar-Ban."
"Don’t lie to me," Handax slapped the guard’s face and tightened the grip no his chin, "ar-Ban is on Beta along with the others. For the last time of asking, who’s in charge? Give me a name."
The guard knew he had two options. He could tell his captor the name of Wool’s replacement, or head butt a bullet.
"Her name is Katcheena."
"What a stupid name. How many people are in the compound?"
"I dunno, maybe twenty or thirty?"
"That many?" Handax pushed the man against the sliding door, "We need your palm print. Take your glove off."
The guard did as he was told.
"Hanny?" Leif asked. "You want us to keep our guests, here, on display?"
"I want these two cowards front and center. Use them as body shields."
"Oh, no…" the second guard burst into tears, “Please d-don’t—”
"—Hey! Stop crying," Leif lowered her gun in an attempt to calm the man down, "As long as you do what we say, you’ll be fine."
"B-But I d-don’t want—"
"—Bluergh, waaah!" Handax interrupted in severe mockery mode. "I don’t wanna die,” he finished and returned to his usual, venomous state. “Try telling that to the poor animals you bastards have locked up in there."
Moses took this opportunity to play the hard man. "Yeah, shut the hell up."
Handax turned to him. "Moses?"
"Yeah?"
"Be quiet."
Handax turned to the first guard and grabbed his bare hand. "We good?"
"Yes.”
He grabbed the back of the guard’s hand and slammed his palm against the glass plate. The door flew open, inviting them inside the compound. Handax turned to Moses and Leif. "If they run, shoot them. I reckon we have about two minutes. Someone is bound to set off the alarm."
"Let’s do it," Moses jammed the barrel of his gun against the first guard’s head and walked in with him. Leif did the same with her guard.
Handax pulled his balaclava over his head and thumped the guard on his back. "Let’s go."
Handax entered the room and took a look around. A vast laboratory, the size of a football stadium.
Dozens of medicians in white coats busied themselves at their computers to his immediate left. None of them saw him or his colleagues enter the compound.
To the right, a series of metal cages containing dozens of chimpanzees. Many of them hopped around and made a noise. The rest were asleep or covering their ears trying to get comfortable.
Dead ahead of them was the main console. A woman with red-rimmed glasses attended to the control bank. On the far wall behind her stood three doors.
USARIC medicians swarmed the place. It was hard to know where to start.
BLAM!
He fired a shot into the ceiling, startling everyone in the room. They turned in fright to see a masked Moses and Leif threatening to kill the security guards. "Good people, can I have your attention please?"
The medicians held their breath and threw their arms up in total and utter surrender. The woman with the red-rimmed glasses dropped her clipboard to the ground in shock. “Oh, my word.”
"Now, I know this looks weird," Handax held out his arms and clutched his gun tighter than ever. "I can assure you we are not here to hurt anybody. In order to make sure none of you hit the alarm, I’m gonna need you all to get on the floor. Nice and slowly—"
The cheering and hollering from the caged chimpanzees threatened to overwhelm Handax’s statement.
"—Would you shut up, please."
They wouldn’t shut up - they were chimps. If anything, the fact that a stranger had made contact with them exacerbated their excitement all the more.
"They’re chimpanzees," said the woman with the red-rimmed glasses hit a button on the console. "Leave them alone."
Pssscccchhhhh…
Handax swung his gun at the woman. "What did I just say?"
"It’s not an alarm, look," she said, nodding at the chimp cages. A soft, pinkish gas emanated from the seams in the wall. One by one, the more excitable creatures slowed down and fell asleep. "I’m just quietening them down."
"That pink stuff doesn’t hurt them, does it?"
"It’s absolutely harmless.”
“You better not be lying to me,” Handax hopped over the bench in front of him and reached the woman. "USARIC’s track record in truth-telling department isn’t exactly one hundred percent, is it?"
The woman squinted at Handax. “I can assure you, they are perfectly fine.” She couldn’t see past the balaclava. Inside, she was puzzled. She felt the need to keep an exterior air of confidence for the sake of her team. "Who are you?"
"It doesn’t matter who I am," he said, clocking her USARIC name badge. “Consider me a freedom fighter… Katcheena Brooks.”
She turned her head away, angry at Handax’s intrusion on her person.
"Why are you wearing glasses?" He removed them from her face. The wired rims had no lenses in them.
“I like them.”
Handax chuckled, “Do you think they make you look intelligent?”
"—Hey!" Moses screamed from the door to the compound. He caught a medician reaching for the alarm button under her desk. "You! Get down on the floor or I’ll blow your damn head off your shoulders. Do it!"
Close to tears, the medician fanned her arms across the floor and sobbed against the tiled floor.
"Moses," Handax called out, feeling a little sorry for her, "Come on, man.”
“Just keep your gun on the guard."
Moses turned his gun on his captive and thumped him on the arm. "Trying to distract me."
Handax dropped Katcheena’s glasses on the floor and nodded over at Moses. "I’ll cut straight to the chase, Katcheena. My friend over there is going to absorb USARIC’s data. My other friend and I are going to release all the animals."
Katcheena burst out laughing. "Oh, really?"
"Yeah. Really," Handax jammed the barrel of his gun into her temple. He found her strange laughter puzzling, "And if you don’t do exactly as we say, I’m going to paint a pretty little death smile on your pretty little face."
Katcheena’s flippant reaction was met with dumbfounded reaction from her many colleagues.
"I don’t think so," Katcheena turned to her frightened crew and screamed at the top of her lungs. "Everyone, follow the agreed-upon course of action."
She thumped the red button on the console, setting off the security alarms. The white walls turned blood red from the spinning cascade of the red emergency lights.
Handax shot Katcheena in the shin and kicked her against the console, "Stupid woman. Where are the animals?"
Her colleagues tore across the room and made for the opened emergency exits.
Leif and Moses didn’t know whether to take potshots at the fleeing USARIC medicians, or train their guns on their captives.
"Handax, what do we do?" Leif called out over the screaming and crying.
"Shut up, I’m thinking."
"Handax? People Against Animal Cruelty Handax Skill?" Katcheena went for her bleeding leg, trying to fight off the urge to faint. "Just kill me, you dumb animal-botherer. I’m telling you nothing."
"I mean it, Katcheena," Handax pointed his gun at her chest. "Tell me where they are."
"Never," Katcheena’s eyelids closed slowly as she slumped off the console and hit the ground. Handax watched as the last of the medicians barreled through the door to freedom.
"Damn it," he screamed over the alarm and waved Moses over to the console. "Do it. Now."
"On it," Moses made a dash for the console and unfastened his shirt sleeve.
"How long to absorb the records?"
"Depends on their interface," Moses lifted the plastic cover from the flat screen on the deck, "Last check, they’re storing fifteen terabytes of data so, maybe, two minutes?"
"Get on it," Handax watched Moses press his forearm to the screen.
"Cee-Cee, connect," Moses yelled at his arm as the ink reformed into three lines. "N-Gage. Four, five, seven."
"N-Gage connection complete," advised the calm female console voice, "Commencing data download."
"We’re in."
Handax and Moses shared a brief smile. Something resembling victory was forthcoming - as long as they got out in time.
"Hey, babes," Handax shouted at Leif, who kept her gun on the two security guards from behind. "Take care of those two and come help me break these doors down."
"Sure."
BLAM-BLAM!
She shot each guard in the back of their right leg. Both men wailed in pain and dropped to their knees, clutching at their wounds.
Moses raised his eyebrows in shock at what she’d done.
"What are you doing?" Handax shouted over the alarm. "I meant tie them up, not shoot them.”
"Tie them up with what?" Leif bolted towards him. "I don’t have any ties."
Handax grabbed her hand and pulled her across the console. She jumped to her feet and ran with him to the three doors on the far wall.
"That was unnecessary. You didn’t have to injure them."
"They’re only human, it doesn’t matter."
"Guys," Moses hollered after them, effectively chained to the console by his forearm. "The data’s downloading. I dunno what you have planned, but whatever it is, make it fast."
Handax turned to the first door and aimed his firearm at the handle. "Stand back!"
KERR-ASH!
The door burst off its hinges, leading into the second compound. A pungent smell of death greeted Handax as Leif followed him into the frosty cryo-chamber.
"Ugh. What’s that smell?"
"Smells like rancid butter,” Leif stepped forward and accidentally knocked Handax’s heel. “Ugh, I think I’m gonna be sick."
The lights fizzed to life and illuminated the contents of the small room. Leif’s face fell when she peered from behind her hand. "Oh my God."
Handax took a look around and felt his soul machete through his chest and run away from his body, "I don’t believe it."
More cages. But this time, stuffed to the brim with animal carcasses. Most of them had tails and were long dead.
"No, this is a mistake. This can’t be right."
One of the in-built storage units caught his attention. He slid the compartment out and stared at the gray feline carcass inside it. One of the lucky ones, by all accounts.
He lifted its hind leg. What was once a Russian Blue was no more. Attached to its foot was a tag with a name written on it.
Bisoubisou Gagarin
"Bisoubisou?" Handax muttered. "But she’s—"
"—She’s on Opera Beta?" Leif interrupted. "Has been for nearly two years."
"Guys," Moses hollered from the central control unit, "I’m nearly done. Get ready to get the hell out of here."
The illness Leif felt in the pit of her stomach was hard to take. Handax lowered the cat’s hind leg as gently as he could to the surface of the cage. "She never went."
"I hate USARIC," Leif freaked out and thumped the cage, inadvertently shuffling the carcasses around, "We were supposed to set them free. How can we set them free when they’re all dead?"
"Calm down," Handax took her by the shoulders and tried to shake her back to reality. "Leif, please."
"They’re all dead. USARIC killed them all."
"Leif, you’re hysterical. Calm down and listen to me."
"Let go of me, I have to rescue the animals!" She pushed him back and darted out of the room.
Moses looked over at her running towards the second door. "Leif, what are you doing?"
"I’m going to rescue whatever’s behind that second door," she aimed her gun at the door handle and blasted it with her gun.
BLAM!
Handax chased after her with trepidation, "Leif, don’t go in there. You don’t know what you’ll—"
"—No, Handax. I’m going in."
He closed his eyes and allowed her to carry out her quest.
In the second enclosed compound, a series of cages housed more than a hundred cats. They howled at Leif as she entered the room, each of them vying for her attention.
"Oh my God!" Leif clapped her hands together in delight. "They’re here!"
Handax bolted into the room after her and took a look around. "Oh, wow."
A torrent of ‘meows’ flew from the cages, each and every one of them desperate for freedom.
"What are they doing here?" Leif asked. "Why is USARIC keeping them?"
SNARL … SNASH … HISS!
Two of the cats in their cages displayed their frustration at having been kept holed up in their metal cells.
"I dunno," Handax scoured the room and attempted to count the felines on display, "There must be a switch or something that releases them all. It’d take forever to open them one by one."
"Hey, little guys," she approached the cages and addressed the wailing felines, "It’s okay. We’re here to set you free."
Leif clamped eyes with a white American bobtail who seemed happy to see her, "Hey, gorgeous. What’s your name?"
"Meow."
Handax looked around the room for the release switch. "I can’t find anything here. The cages are bolted shut. No individual releases. I’ll check with Moses."
"Okay," Leif didn’t turn around to see Handax run out of the room. She focused her attention on the fluffy white creature and read the name on the tag
attached to her leg.
"Fluffy? Ha. Figures, you sure are fluffy."
"Meow."
Fluffy ran the side of her face against the metal bars.
"Why are they keeping you here, Fluffy? What’s going on, pet?"
"Meow."
Handax hopped up to the control bank while Moses absorbed the data from the control panel. The inked loading bar on his forearm snailed toward the crook of his elbow. “Careful, man. Don’t knock me or you’ll sever the connection.”
"How’s the transfer going?"
"I figure sixty seconds or so. Security are gonna be here any minute, now. We gotta get ready to run."
"We gotta find that release switch," Handax perused the console like a madman, "I’m not leaving those cats in there."
"Cats?"
“Hundreds of them,” Handax said. “All caged up.”
"Ugh…" Katcheena spluttered from the floor, slowly waking up. Her leg bled a storm across the floor, "Ugh…"
Both Moses and Handax looked down at her.
"She’s seen better days, hasn’t she?"
Handax snorted, knowing full well that she was an unfortunate casualty of her employer’s war. "We’ll get her help when we get what we want. How long, now?"
Moses looked up at the panel and eyed the absorption bar. "Less than a minute. I hope."
"You’ll… you’ll…" Katcheena tried through her bloodied mouth.
"We’ll what?" Handax asked, put-out by her drama.
"You’ll never get out… alive."
"That’s as maybe, but as long as the animals do, we don’t care."
By now, everyone had gotten used to the screaming alarms.
Handax crouched down and felt Katcheena’s neck, "I reckon you have about two minutes before you bleed out."
Defiant, she spat in his face, "Go to hell."
He duly ignored her instruction and wiped the phlegm from his face. "You can make this right, Katcheena. Tell me where the release switch is."
"Never."
"Suit yourself," Handax rose to his feet and hollered at the second compound door. "Leif, get out of there."
Leif ran out of the room and up to Moses and Handax. "Yeah, what’s up?" She spotted the bleeding security guards screaming for their lives by the main door.
Star Cat Page 6
