by Hanks, Greg
“Consequences, Mr. Davis. Without them, people never learn.”
With a swift movement, the fat man obstructed Valiant’s view, kicked over Kyla’s chair, and unloaded three rounds.
Valiant’s screams were inaudible—at least to his ears. His whole life had just been erased. Everything he cherished about this world had vanished in the blink of an eye. He continued to scream as the man stepped across the room, preparing to finish the job. Tears of grief and dementia came crawling out of Val’s hysterical face. He didn’t care anymore, he wanted to die.
A bullet ripped a hole through the fat man’s stomach. He looked down to see sticky blood seeping through his fingers. Two more bullets pierced through his chest. He collapsed onto the floor and his weapon clattered across the wood. Valiant snatched the pistol and raised it to the other mysterious man.
“I’m on your side, hold on,” said the white-haired man in a gruff voice.
Valiant pulled the trigger, but nothing happened.
“He always shoots three,” the white-haired man said, holstering his weapon. “You don’t really think I’d let you get a hold of that thing and kill me, or yourself?”
Valiant closed his eyes and gave up.
“Mr. Davis,” the white-haired man continued, tapping across the hardwood floor, “my name is Vane. I have a proposition for you.”
51
Vexin seemed a little off-center as we stepped foot into the basement level.
Bollis’ explosion had been soft, but yielded a grand entrance. The storage room was quiet. Tarps were spread across the floor and the ceiling was nonexistent, exposing wires and ventilation.
“Looking good,” affirmed Celia, “the AI didn’t even flinch.” Once she acquired our attention, she gave a quick overview of the mission one last time.
We responded promptly and began to move. The only thing different about this mission started with Justin and ended with Vane. We had to split up in order to cover more ground, instead of our initial plan: a full-on assault. However, Repik remained the main objective. We couldn’t afford to give up eight years of dedicated work in exchange for our friends’ lives. It was just another joker card to my already unfortunate hand.
We divided our munitions between the two canvas backpacks, which were to be held by Vexin and Bollis. The Boomsocket and two RPG-88’s were allocated into Vexin’s pack, while the RAV-70 and Bollis’ generous supply of plastic explosives, sliderjets, and proxy mines were left to the other. Bollis’ homemade sliderjets were small, disc-shaped grenades that zoomed away when dashed to a surface. They would then explode upon subsequent impact.
No one said a word as we prepared. The door loomed a few feet away, taunting us. When the final backpack was slung, everyone approached the threshold, ready to commence.
“Mark, Vexin,” said Bollis. “Twenty minutes. That’s all you’ve got.”
We nodded as our route displayed itself in our minds. Vexin and I had basement duty. We had twenty minutes to scour the lower levels for any sign of detainment cells. Any more time spent further away from our target could cost us our mission.
I could sense Tara’s hatred for Genesis at this decision. In her mind, twenty minutes was unrealistic. She had vied for the opportunity to find Justin herself, but knowing her adamant attitude, Celia and Bollis shut her down. That was the reason I believed she should have been the one going after him. Not me—the one who disliked the kid more than anyone else there. For Tara’s sake, though, I decided to do it without complaint.
“We’ll meet on the fifth floor once you’re done. If either of us hasn’t found them before then, we’ve got to assume—”
“Let’s just go,” interrupted Tara. Bollis gave her the benefit of the doubt and gripped his ELBR.
“Hey,” said Dodge, before Bollis opened the door, “let’s keep our eyes open for Celement, too.”
“Copy that,” said Bollis, waving his hand over the square door-lock screen. The sleek slab whooshed upwards.
Our mission was a go.
We were standing in front of a white hallway, leading away in either direction. The floors and walls were polished, made of a sub-material with a see-through surface layered on top. The whole place looked modern and sophisticated.
“Celia,” said Dodge, “I sure hope you know what you’re doing with those cameras.”
“Well,” she replied distastefully, “the more you talk, the more likely I’ll mess up.”
“You’re getting better at comebacks, Cel,” said Dodge happily.
Our group of five sprung out into the hallway, taking high and low positions. The corridor continued down the length of the building with multiple intersections, like a huge maze. Rooms along the corridor were lined with glass, and there were even some openings in the wall, giving off the imitation of a hospital. Our timing tonight was perfect—the place seemed deserted.
“Moving,” said Bollis, starting his stealth walk toward the stairwell doors. Vexin held the rear as we continued. We came to a countertop on our left, a kiosk for information. Before Bollis emerged from the wall, Celia shouted.
“Wait! Get down!”
Our group squatted without a sound and pressed our backs against the wall.
“A heat signature just stopped behind that desk,” said Celia, swearing into our ears.
“Collateral damage,” growled Vexin.
Celia attempted to sort things out, but Bollis was already up, aiming his sub-machine gun at the helpless Volunteer.
“Don’t even think about pressing the panic button,” he said to the stunned, twenty-something-year-old woman sitting at the desk. Bollis probably knew this building better than her.
“Slowly wheel yourself to the wall. Hands on the armrests.” he continued. His voice was deformed from the communication unit in his helmet.
The shaking woman backpedaled.
“Bollis, be careful . . .” probed Celia nervously.
“Can you access patrol routes from this kiosk?” asked Bollis.
The girl didn’t answer, completely terrified.
Bollis stuck his head into the intersection, made sure it was clear, and then rounded the desk to press the ELBR to her skull. He repeated the question.
“Yes! Yes, I can!” she exclaimed, eyes clenched shut.
By this time, Dodge and Tara were clearing the remaining length of the hallway, leaving Vexin and I to make sure no one came down the north corridor.
“Good,” said Bollis, “you’re going to access them.”
The woman gasped in fear and released a few tears before Bollis pushed her back to the station. As she worked for him, I spotted a few yellow-garbed Volunteers making their way down the northern hallway. I brought my head back behind the kiosk wall and announced their arrival. The kiosk was cut out of the corner, and the rest of us were behind different walls, so we had a few minutes before the two scientists would find us.
“This is getting out of hand,” I whispered to the group. “Celia, can you do something?”
“Working on it,” she replied.
I held my rifle’s grip with great force, preparing myself for a potential elimination.
Bollis knew our captive had heard my voice, so he crouched down to her ear and whispered, “If you scream, we’ll have no problem doing this ourselves.”
“You’re just gonna kill me anyways,” she quivered.
“The patrol routes,” he repeated fiercely.
She went to work as Celia managed to overload some circuitry, starting a small electrical fire in the northern hallway. I poked my head around the corner to see the two flustered scientists trying to deal with the flames.
“That’s the best I can do,” said Celia.
“Okay, you’re in,” said the Volunteer woman.
Bollis knew GenoTec’s interface system by heart and went to work.
“This is gonna take a lot of stress off your back, Cel,” said Bollis, tapping away.
“I hope so,” she replied.
Afte
r rearranging crucial patrol patterns, he stood and withdrew a transparent strip of what looked like a piece of blue tape. He peeled apart an adhesive layer and placed the sticky side onto the Volunteer woman’s hand. She looked up at him with wide eyes before nodding off into unconsciousness. The biological reactant inside the tape flushed a high dosage of sedatives into the lucky host’s bloodstream. Celia had upgraded the potency to allow a longer period of unconsciousness as well as a lengthier recovery stage.
Bollis stashed her body underneath the desk and logged out of the station, making it seem like no one was assigned to the kiosk that night.
“Nice move Bollis, but if you’re getting to that stairwell, you’ve got to move now,” urged Celia.
We slithered our way past the two scientists and crossed the threshold into a massive room. We could have easily taken out the Volunteers, but we weren’t here for innocent blood. It wasn’t clear who was on Repik’s side—which I believe was one of his tactics. And who’s to say they deserved to die even if they were with Repik? Besides, this was supposed to be a covert operation. Knowing us though, I doubt things would stay that way.
The square room was fitted with a modern, tube-shaped chandelier, an information desk, and one door leading to the daunting stairwell.
Bollis turned to Vexin and I. “Twenty minutes.”
Tara lingered, holding the manual door open, staring at me through her thick visor. Without facial recognition, I knew she was giving me a look of dependence. She was counting on me to rescue Justin.
“We’ll find him,” I said, speaking to only her.
Her delicate hands clutched the door for a moment longer, and then she was gone.
“I’m overriding the door,” said Celia.
“Focus, you idiot,” Vexin seethed, giving me a short glance before stepping to the blank wall.
I took the scolding in stride and fell in line beside my caustic companion. I was focused—I just had more than one thing to focus on.
In a few minutes, fissures appeared in a rectangle shape. There was a whooshing sound before the cut out section raised and separated, revealing the entrance to the basement.
“If you’re so eager, by all means, take the lead,” I said, ushering him to the steps. I could dish it just as well as he could. He scoffed. That’s all I would ever extract from him.
Our boots tapped erratically as we flew down three stories. Once we neared the bottom level, shouting voices came into earshot. We stopped on the second-to-last switchback and peered through the small space in the center of the staircase.
“Harris,” spat an angry GenoTec scientist, “any word from B2 or B3?”
Two men were standing over a few dead bodies. The floor was covered in blood and it looked like one of the corpses had something sticking out of his face.
“No. Nothin’.” Harris—the taller, brown-haired volunteer—began to drag the bodies into the stairwell landing.
“Damn it! Who was on duty when this happened?!” shouted the leader, wearing a new kind of uniform I had never seen. It latched to his body like a glove, colored dark gray—unlike the baggy, yellow drab they usually wore. It almost looked like our Undersuits.
“Mason and Carter,” Harris replied.
The angry scientist stepped forward, his face only inches away from his subordinate.
“If Repik finds out about this—”
“What do you mean?” the boy retaliated. “Of course he knows. It’s Repik—there’s no way we could cover this up.”
“Hell. You’re right. Well, Repik knows we’re dealing with him. Maybe he’ll cut us some slack.”
“What about the kid? We couldn’t even contain an eleven-year-old kid. How’s that gonna look?”
My eyes grew large and I checked to see if Vexin had heard. They were alive. Justin and Vane were alive. I registered an uptake in my energy levels. Hope started to return. Tara’s jubilant face erupted into my mind’s eye.
The scientist in charge stepped over the corpses and looked back at Harris before leaving the room. “It doesn’t matter now. Just clean this up and find them. Without the door code, they’ll never reach Level 1.”
“But B2 and B3 said they’ve searched everywhere—”
“I don’t care what B2 and B3 say. They’re down here—so find them!”
The lead scientist exited, leaving Harris alone and frustrated.
I stepped down to Vexin and tapped his shoulder. We were going to beat GenoTec to the chase.
“Celia, did you get all that?” asked Vexin as we pushed our way to the next level.
“Loud and clear. I wouldn’t expect anything less from those two,” she said, and informed the others.
“No way?!” yelled Dodge from my ear.
“How?! What happened?!” replied Tara, the most excited I had heard her in a month.
“It doesn’t matter,” scolded Vexin. “We’ll find them and meet you soon.”
“Good work,” said Bollis.
Vexin and I came to the second landing and readied ourselves at the door.
“Okay Mark, Vex,” announced Celia, “this is one of the larger testing facilities. Please understand I’m juggling two surveillance loops here. Try to be quick.”
That was true. Celia was managing two parties now; our debt to her had just tripled.
“Is there any way to find them from your end now that we’ve narrowed it down?” asked Vexin.
“I’ve only got heat signatures, Vex.”
“Wouldn’t Vane have that foyer door code memorized by now?” I asked. “They could have left the basement already.”
“The code changes every hour. I had to manually override it to gain access. They would definitely need that code.”
“Give us a body count then” said Vexin, referring to resistance within the next room.
“There’s not . . . that’s weird,” she began. “The room’s completely covered in heat. I can’t pick out individual signatures.”
Vexin sighed in frustration. “All right. We’re moving in.”
“Okay, just remem—zzshhzz.”
“What did you say?” I asked, putting my finger to my ear.
“I—chszzzz—and then—zzzsschhhrrr.”
“Celia, you’re breaking up,” said Vexin.
Our end continued to crackle after which Celia went completely dark.
“Damn it,” I said.
“We can do it without her, come on,” said Vexin, telling me to equip my suppressor. I nodded and grabbed the four-inch, embossed cylinder from my lumbar pouch and screwed it to the tip of my pistol. Once we had secured our weapons, Vexin opened the door to the testing grounds.
The room before us was larger than I had imagined. Our feet stood upon a metal, grated catwalk at least thirty feet above the ground level. There were two sections to the facility, divided equally by two adjacent half-partitions. We took cover behind the south partition, having a grand view of the left section below. The catwalk system wrapped around the entire perimeter and from what I could tell, we were the only ones on top.
Crouching, we peered through the railing and found a mess of machinery and scientists. In the middle of the left section was a giant mechanized box. It stood about ten feet high and had a bunch of wires and tubes sprouting out of it, connecting to smaller boxes and attachments. Men and women in GenoTec drab, as well as those same spandex-like jumpsuits, milled about the floor, conversing, observing the machine, and jotting down copious notes. The only thing I could hear was an extremely loud buzzing noise that permeated the room.
“Do you see anything?” Vexin asked.
I broke my gaze from the scientists and started to observe the rest of the section. Beside the multitude of personnel, there just wasn’t any way to tell.
“Do you think Vane would waste his time in this room to get the door code?” he asked again.
“No,” I said frankly.
“If I were Vane,” he said, “I’d try and grab a patrol, closer to the upper level. But w
e need to be sure.”
Without speaking, he started to creep forward, going to get a glimpse of the other section, past the small outcrop of wall. As he rounded the corner, he motioned for me to come get a look. I followed him, not really worrying about the sound of our steps, considering the amount of commotion coming from below. We could’ve shouted if we wanted to.
“What is it?” I asked, rounding the corner, practically leaning on his shoulder. But then I saw it. Something that shot fear into my veins.
The identical section didn’t have a box-shaped machine undergoing scrutiny. Instead, surrounded by multiple scientists, stood a middle-aged man. He was naked except for a pair of black tights. His arms were outstretched, held by taut wires. He had see-through bracers that sprouted a bunch of translucent tubes. The tubes draped the floor and ran to a sophisticated mainframe. A similar see-through mantle surrounded his neck and expelled more tubes toward the computer system. Every few seconds, the tubes would shoot a red light back to the server.
“What the hell?” I said.
“Mark . . . isn’t that . . .”
“Isn’t that what?”
“That huge computer. I’ve seen it before.”
“What?”
“I can’t . . . remember where. But I’ve seen that before.”
“We’ve gotta move. I just don’t think they’d risk coming here.” Vexin’s comment bothered me to an extent. What did he mean?
We took one last glimpse at the experiment and turned to go back. The door slid upwards, but this time, someone was there to greet us. The man could barely get his confused thoughts together before Vexin pumped his torso with a few rounds of lead. The silencer made no kind of sound amidst the rattling hum. With blood staining his yellow work uniform, the Volunteer fell to the floor. Vexin dragged the body to where we were crouched and hoped that everyone would be staying on the lower floor for now.
“Celia went dark, can you guys still hear us?” asked Vexin, looking up the long shaft of stairs.
“Yeah, we’re here,” said Bollis from the other end of my ear. “We can’t reach her either. We don’t hear any alarms, so I’m guessing it’s just a bad signal. Where are you?”
