by Joel Ohman
The guard gulped and then nodded his assent. They stepped out of the door and into the hallway.
“She goes first.” Charley nodded reassuringly at the young woman. “Then you right behind her as if you are taking her somewhere. I’ll be right behind you, so don’t try anything.”
The guard nodded again and then set the pace down the hall, guiding Lucretia with a touch to her elbow.
Charley would have preferred to be free to explore alone, but he had to admit that traveling like this did have its benefits. Two guards escorting a patient were much less likely to draw suspicion than just Charley alone, skulking around in someone else’s uniform that was four waist sizes too baggy, down hallways he didn’t know. Lucretia could be a problem: he didn’t want to see her or her baby get hurt, but he didn’t see what other options he had.
He didn’t really care what happened to the guard, although he had seemed almost as terrified as Lucretia had been, which made Charley think that, with the guard’s age, he was likely a very new Blue Coat. Well, so was Charley. And Charley hadn’t simply gone along with the abortion—doctor-authorized or not.
“I’m sorry about what happened back there,” the guard burst out, as if he couldn’t hold it in any longer. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to be a part of that; I really didn’t.” He was almost whimpering now.
Lucretia didn’t turn around. Just when Charley thought that she was going to ignore him completely, she said simply, “I forgive you.”
“Thank you, thank you.” The guard sucked in a big breath and said, “I’m Shane. I really will do my best to help you get out of here. You can be sure of that.”
“Thank you, Shane,” Lucretia said, still looking ahead.
Charley was warming to the young guard, but if they were going to get out of here alive, and with some answers, it was important that he kept his promises. “Yes, Shane, you really will do your best.” Charley sighed inwardly and gently ran the tip of the razor-sharp scalpel along the outline of one of Shane’s ribs that were protruding from his back. “I’m sure of that, too.”
Shane jumped, sucked in a sharp gasp of air again, and quickened his pace.
The group walked along service stairs and hallways, then more stairs, more hallways. After about ten minutes, Shane abruptly said, “We’re almost there.” He gestured ahead to a large, brushed-metal door at the end of the hallway. Charley guessed that they were down to level 14 out of the rumored 20 levels below-ground, although he wasn’t sure. He mentally kicked himself for being too preoccupied with keeping his focus on Shane rather than keeping better track of where they were.
“I’ve never been inside, and I definitely don’t have keys to get in. I’m pretty new, so they’ve hardly given me keys to get into anywhere yet.” He looked back imploringly at Charley.
“I believe you,” Charley said with a snort. “Let’s see if Sharif has access.” He removed Sharif’s ring of keys from his own belt and handed them to Shane, motioning for him to start trying them.
Charley heard clomping footsteps approaching from behind. He turned to see a bespectacled man with frizzy gray hair coming toward them and waving his hand.
“Hey there! You! What do you think you’re doing? This area is off-limits!”
Charley looked abruptly at Shane. “Don’t stop trying the keys.” Then he turned and patiently waited for the frumpy, agitated man to make his way to them.
“Excuse me, sir. I’m going to have to ask you to stop right there.” Charley stretched out his hand and made what he hoped was an official-looking “stop” gesture as the man grew close. He slowed, but didn’t stop. “Sir!” Charley repeated. “What is your business down here?”
The man finally came to a stop and sputtered, “What business do I have down here? Why, this is my lab! I’m Doctor Svetkalm, and I demand to know your business down here!”
“Ah, yes, Doctor Svetkalm,” Charley began smoothly. “Here you are. We have a patient for you that is experiencing some sort of malfunction with her implant.” Charley gestured toward Lucretia.
“That’s impossible.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. I said it’s impossible. I don’t expect some blundering blue-coated wrench monkey like you to understand, but trust me when I say it’s impossible for an implant to malfunction without us knowing immediately. Besides, hardly anyone has those old-generation implants anyway. Not with the new ink.” The doctor looked at Charley in disgust.
Finally, Charley thought, some useful information. But he didn’t know how much longer he could push it, and this guy’s attitude was starting to get on his nerves. Time to try a different tack, Charley thought.
“I’m just following orders, doctor. You’re welcome to take a look at the patient.” Charley stepped to the side and inclined his head toward Lucretia, making sure to keep the scalpel palmed and at the ready.
The doctor didn’t move, instead looking at Charley quizzically. “I don’t know you …” he began slowly. “Or do I? And your friend here, fiddling with keys at my door—I’m the only one with a key to my lab. Well, me and Commander Orson, and I know that he sure didn’t hand out a copy to the likes of you.”
This doctor was clearly no idiot. Charley stepped forward in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. “Listen, doctor, we can get this all sorted out. Let’s just—”
“You stop right there!” The doctor took a step back and yanked a small spray bottle from the pocket of his lab coat.
Charley stopped, looked at the bottle of slushy red liquid, and then back at the doctor.
“Come any closer and you’ll get a face full of my special little concoction here. Instant and severe swelling. Your head will puff up like a tomato.” He glanced proudly at the bottle and then quickly back up again. “I created this by extracting a compound from mosquitoes. Each spray is equivalent to a hundred mosquito bites—equivalent in pain and swelling. As a guard, I’m sure you understand the need for advanced weaponry around here.”
Charley pictured Grigor’s crossbow and nodded at the doctor, never taking his eyes off of the spray bottle.
“It’s a marvelous little weapon, isn’t it?” the doctor exclaimed. “I’ve never told anyone about it, but I’ve been dying to use it in some kind of altercation like this.” He raised the bottle.
“I believe you,” Charley said, backing away.
“Ah, yes. I’m sure that you lummoxes are just being your usual incompetent selves.” The doctor looked disappointed. “Trying to follow orders and not really knowing where you are going or what you are doing, isn’t that right? Why just last week, one of you simpletons managed to drop an entire shipment of equipment down the stairs.”
A shipment? From outside of Meritropolis? Charley’s mind went into overdrive.
Doctor Svetkalm shook his head and laughed with a condescension that was really starting to grate on Charley’s nerves. “Anyway, as much as I would love to give the lot of you a good spray in the face with this, I can’t waste it on you nincompoops in case I should really need it. So, sadly, I will ask you to be on your way to bungle your orders somewhere else besides the entrance to my lab.”
“Of course, doctor,” Charley said, still wracking his brain for a way in, while keeping his head its normal size and not swollen like a pumpkin.
“Excuse me, are you a doctor?” a voice called out. Charley’s eyes widened as he looked over the doctor’s right shoulder to see Sandy approaching.
“Um, miss, you really shouldn’t be down here. Are you a patient? Are you lost?” The doctor turned sideways and backed against the wall, keeping both Charley and Sandy in his line of sight.
Sandy responded with a syrupy sweet smile. “Oh, I’m so sorry, doctor. I seem to have gotten really turned around. Maybe you could help me?” Charley raised his eyebrows as she twirled her hair and turned her hips to one side, mimicking a little lost girl.
“Well, certainly, miss. I will be happy to help you. And, yes, I am a doctor.” He made an at
tempt to smooth down his frizzy hair and lowered the bottle of red sludge ever so slightly.
Before Charley could even process what was happening, Sandy whipped her right leg out and kicked the bottle up and out of the doctor’s hands. It was a perfect punt that sent the bottle gyrating and wobbling end over end directly above Charley’s head and down the hall.
“No—no—no!” the doctor called out, his mouth gaping open. Charley and the doctor both lunged for the bottle, but it sailed just out of their reach, beyond their outstretched fingertips.
The bottle fell right into the delicate hands of Lucretia, who caught and cradled it as gently as a mother with a baby.
Lucretia smiled sweetly at Charley and the doctor tangled on the floor. Then she lowered the bottle and pointed the nozzle directly into the doctor’s wide-eyed face. “Let’s have a look in your lab now, shall we?” Charley’s eyes widened. He had underestimated Lucretia. Shane rose hurriedly and let the doctor by him to unlock the door.
Sandy helped Charley to his feet and gave him a wink. “You’re welcome.”
“How did you—?”
“Oh, it was so boring up there.” She waved her hand dismissively. “I couldn’t let you have all the fun.”
“Well, thanks.”
“I recommend we hurry, though. I might have made a slight mess finding my way down here.” She laughed and looked over her shoulder the way she had come.
“Tell me about it,” Charley said wryly.
“We’re in,” Lucretia said, the spray bottle still aimed at the reluctant doctor.
They stepped into a room full of impressive equipment and instruments of which Charley could make neither head nor tails.
“Start talking, doc,” Charley said. “Give us the tour: the ‘nincompoop’ version, if you will, please.”
The doctor straightened his glasses and made a face, “I will do no such—”
“Let me stop you right there,” Charley said, interrupting him and walking over to a glass beaker. He held it over his head, and without looking away from the doctor dropped it on the floor with a crash. “Whoops. I would hate for us to wander around in here unsupervised and accidentally break some of your previous equipment …”
Charley paused, looked at the doctor’s still tight-lipped expression, and then shrugged. He picked up a gigantic bulbous Florence flask, a smaller flat-bottomed Erlenmeyer flask, and wide-mouth glass bottle. Charley shifted the glass lab equipment precariously away from his chest and spoke slowly. “There was a guy in my underground chemistry class who could juggle five beakers at once. I always wanted to learn how he did that …”
“Okay, okay, just stop! I guess since you are already in here …” The mad scientist of a doctor didn’t actually seem to need much encouragement to show off his lab—even if it was to his assailants under undesirable circumstances. If Orson was the only other person with a key, perhaps the doctor was just as eager to show off his lab as Charley was to see it.
“So, over here is where I first isolated the mosquito-bite compound. It was a tricky bit of chemistry—and I have been so excited to show someone, but, quite naturally, I had to keep it as my little secret.” He glanced over at the bottle in Lucretia’s hand. “Until now, of course.” He looked longingly at the bottle and then broke his gaze away.
“Over here is a new little project that I’ve been working on that uses a hormone that the slox, the slug–ox, naturally secretes. I started by—”
“Doctor, tell us about the implants,” Charley interrupted.
“Yes, yes, of course. The implants. I suppose that is what you would want to know about, not my own side projects. Well, let’s see. Where to start …” He scratched his scalp. “Okay, so, the implants are not built here, although they are stored here. I would need far more sophisticated equipment than what I have here to be able to fabricate a fully functional implant. I don’t have the equipment to even build an old chip implant, let alone one of the new nano implants that are housed in the Score ink. I have told Commander Orson time and time again that what I really need in this lab is a fourth-generation—”
“Doctor …” Charley prompted.
“What? Oh, yes, yes. Well, the implants aren’t fabricated here, as I was saying.”
“So where are they fabricated?” Sandy asked.
“Somewhere outside of Meritropolis. Orson never shares any of that kind of information with me; he doesn’t appreciate my talents. My job is simply to test and calibrate all the implants and prepare them for insertion—piece of cake, really. Getting the new nano implants that go in the Score ink ready is as easy as stirring paint. That is why I have time to work on my side projects. Why, just last year, I was able to conduct this marvelous experiment with the ink from a squostrich, where I—”
“Show us an implant,” Charley cut in. Their time in the Tower was running short.
“Well, I would, but I don’t have access to any of them at the moment. I have to follow a strict protocol with Commander Orson—both he and I need to key in at the same time and all of that.”
Charley took a chance. He pulled the tracking chip from the bion out of his pocket and showed it to the doctor. “Do you know what this is?”
“My, where did you get one of those?” The doctor rubbed his hands together and peered closer.
“This is an implant, alright, although this is quite outdated tech. The implants we use today are much smaller—nano and all that—and much more organic than these old chips. I’m sure there are still quite a few of these floating around in various places … and in some of the higher-level animal combinations, too, I’m sure.” He turned quickly toward Charley, recognition dawning in his eyes. “Say, are you the bion hunter? I know it wasn’t a guard that bagged him, but I’m doubting you really are a guard. A bion would definitely be a good candidate to have a tracker like this.”
“But why?”
The doctor opened his mouth to answer, but didn’t get the chance.
“Someone’s coming.” Sandy gestured urgently toward the door they had shut and locked behind them. She looked around the room rapidly. The door was the only one way out.
Footsteps clacked down the hallway outside and then stopped. There was a regimented tap-tap-tap on the door.
“Doctor, please open the door. We are looking for someone.” The taps took on a greater urgency. “Doctor, we know you are in there. We need to talk to you.”
Charley looked at the doctor and silently motioned for him to answer the door. Then he signaled Lucretia for the spray bottle. Charley noticed that after Lucretia handed over the bottle, Shane moved to shield her from the door as they both backed away. The doctor’s eyes gleamed; he could hardly take his eyes off his bottle of mosquito potion, as he slowly opened the door. Maybe he would get his wish to see it in action after all.
The doctor was shoved aside and three guards rushed in, but Charley was right there.
He sprayed three times: two direct face shots and one spray to a bat-wielding hand.
The results were instantaneous. All three guards dropped their bats and began screaming. The two guards whose faces had been sprayed looked like walking pimples: top-heavy and swollen so full of fluid that they lurched from side to side. The guard whose bat hand had been sprayed rolled on the ground and furiously scratched his arm, which had already swollen to three times its size.
“Magnificent! Just magnificent!” the doctor whispered gleefully, clapping his hands and bouncing on his heels.
“I think I’ll take this with me,” Charley said, looking at the bottle in his hand with growing respect.
“Yes, yes, I can’t have that laying around in here now. I can always make more, of course.” The doctor cackled and looked at the three guards, still moaning and scratching themselves feverishly. He had clearly lost interest in the intruders and was absorbed completely in the outcome of his work. “Go, go, I want to inspect these three before more come. When Commander Orson shows up, I can pretend to be trying to figure out wha
t kind of hellishly clever compound some rogue bio-terrorists used on them.”
“Let’s go!” Charley waved toward the door. “Shane, can you get us all outside undetected?” Charley raised the spray bottle and narrowed his eyes in determination. “The only answer is yes.”
“I’ll see what I can do—I mean, yes. Follow me. I think I know a way.”
Shane set off in long, loping strides, while Charley, Sandy, and Lucretia followed closely behind.
Fifteen minutes later—three minutes of which had them huddling in a supply closet while a herd of what sounded like 20 guards thundered by, ten minutes of which they spent creeping up an access stairway, and two minutes of which had Charley ditching Sharif’s uniform and putting his old clothes on—they took a communal intake of breath and willed themselves to walk slowly and naturally out the front door and past the guard post manned by Sharif’s cocky little partner.
“Where’s Sharif?” The diminutive guard drew his chest up and stood directly in front of Charley. He looked from Charley to Sandy and back again, then looked at Lucretia and Shane, and asked, “And who are these two?”
“She’s with us. And this is Sharif’s replacement while Sharif’s on a break,” Charley said.
“Sharif’s still on break? It’s not time for his break. Anyway, I’ll sort this out.” He squinted his eyes at Shane’s name badge. “Shane, is it? Get yourself over to the guard shack and bring me the log book.” The little man pointed insistently at a hut recessed into the ground a few feet away.
Eyeing Charley nervously, Shane read Charley’s face. “Yes, sir,” he said, trotting over to the guard shack.
The little guard then turned his sights on Lucretia. “And you, I’ll need you to wait here with me while I see if you can leave.” He turned to look at the log book Shane had just placed in front of him.
“Maybe you didn’t hear me. I said that she’s with us. And we’re all leaving—NOW,” Charley commanded, spraying the tiniest squirt of potion directly onto the little guard’s buttocks. Charley hoped that the spray would still be effective through clothing.
