by Vikki Romano
“Jesus fucking Christ, was that necessary?” Jimmy spat, pushing Jordan away to come to Calder’s side. “You OK, man?”
Calder could do nothing more than nod his head numbly. He was afraid to move, so weak he felt he could topple off the bench. When he started to list forward, Jimmy caught him and leaned him back, holding him upright.
“I need to find her,” Calder said, his voice rasping. “I need to find her before they kill her.”
“I know, but you need to rest up for a minute, take a breath. We need to figure out how to go about it.”
“No one…” he said. “No one but me.” His head fell back as his eyes closed.
“What?” Jimmy asked, searching Calder’s sweat-ridden face.
“I go alone.”
“Like hell,” Jimmy snapped, stepping back from him. “No way I’m going to allow you to risk your neck alone.”
Calder lifted his head and looked Jimmy dead in the eye. “This is not your decision. I don’t want anyone else hurt. If I die, it’s on me.”
Jimmy’s lips pressed into a hard line as the muscle worked in his jaw. They had known each other long enough; he knew Calder was serious and that there would be little recourse. Instead of arguing with his stubborn friend, he turned to Jordan with some purpose.
“So what can he do now, really?”
Jordan came over to them and removed the small discs from Calder’s body, replacing them in the small box in his hand.
“It’s hard to say,” he said, closing the box and shoving it into a pocket. “He’s got the extended vision, infra and spectral. His hearing will be amped up as well, but that fluctuates naturally as needed. He’s definitely stronger; no way to calculate how much though, not here. And his healing capabilities should be completely online now, so it will be quicker than before. The rest is a wildcard. Everyone’s bodies adjust to the augments in a variety of ways. With him, it looks like the opposite happened.”
“Can you explain so we non-tech folk can understand?” Jimmy asked with an overemphasized gesture. Jordan smirked and shook his head.
“Sorry, OK, well…” He scratched his chin for a moment before speaking. “In normal augment studies, the person’s biology will adjust to the augment. Adjust to what it does to be able to work comfortably with it. With Calder here, that didn’t happen.”
Calder glared up at him, nodding. He didn’t want to wait for an explanation.
“With you, it happened the other way around. Your biology, your mind changed the augment to suit itself. That’s probably why it didn’t take the initial install. From what I could tell from your readings, your scar tissue has developed a sort of buffer, and may have kind of melded with your brain.”
Calder offered a stronger glare, then glanced over to Jimmy.
“I have no fucking idea,” Jimmy said. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Now that it has been calibrated, it no longer controls you. You control it,” Jordan said matter-of-factly.
“Come again?” Calder asked, wide-eyed.
“You are in command of your augment. It will take some practice, but this is all you now,” Jordan said, gesturing to Calder’s body. “I made sure of that.”
“Control it? How?” Calder asked, patting himself down as if he could suddenly jump out of his skin.
“Most of it will be natural. It’s still wet-wired to your brain, so when you get agitated or angry, your adrenaline will kick in and, in turn, so will the augment. The vision and such, that’s stuff you’ll have to practice using, but the strength, that’s an immediate reaction adjustment, as is the healing.”
Calder looked at him skeptically, then looked back to Jimmy, who shrugged and gave him a questioning look. His eyes moved around the room until he spotted a crate on a shelf. He knew it was full of pulse rifles because he had opened it when he had been down there earlier. A crate like that would likely weigh upward of four hundred pounds.
Coming to his feet, still a bit shaky, he let out a breath and made his way to the crate. He eyed it for a moment, still amazed at the focus he now had, and, placing a hand on each side of the crate, lifted it off the shelf and carried it back to the bench… as if it weighed ninety pounds.
“Holy fuck,” Jimmy blurted.
Calder smiled. Yeah, now he was ready.
He opened the crate, threw one of the pulse rifles over his shoulder, stuffed a handful of charge cartridges in his pockets, and turned toward the lift.
“I’m going to get her,” he said, grabbing his jacket off the floor. “Don’t try to stop me.”
Not like they had any choice in the matter.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Gage Crewe looked through the microscope for the fourth time, randomly looking at the blood sample in the lens as he listened for movement. There was a commotion in the room across the hall earlier, but he needed to wait until the last of the orderlies left before he made his move.
After watching the last orderly close the door behind him out of the corner of his eye, he moved across the lab and made himself look busy with slides as he cautiously eyed the hallway through the windows that surrounded the lab.
“Condor One, moving,” he whispered, and immediately he got a response in his ear.
“Go ahead, Condor One. Hallway B clear.”
He set the samples down, walked casually out of the lab and across the hall, and waved his wrist past the entry pad to the right of the doorway. The panel beeped and the lock clicked open.
“Condor One, proceeding.”
“Affirmative, Condor One.”
After taking another quick look up both ends of the hall, he pushed the door open and quickly stepped inside, closing it behind him.
This was another working lab, equipment laid in several arrays on desks around the perimeter of the room. On the far side looked to be an operating theater, and next to that, a curtained-off area. A soft glow split through the darkness from beyond the curtains.
He scanned the room for security and spotted the tiny red lights at the corners.
“Lab 23, scramble security.”
“Stand by,” he heard. Moments later, the red lights disappeared and he moved across the room. Letting out a controlled breath, he pulled the corner of the curtain aside to peer inside. He found a table with a sheet-covered form lying on it. Nothing more.
After one last look around the room to make sure everything was secure, he passed through the curtain and moved to the table. Pulling the sheet back, he ground his teeth.
“Negative,” he said, putting the sheet back into place. “Target DOA.”
Fuck.
The young man lying on the table was one of GenMed’s latest fatalities. Gage shook his head, biting his lip with another muttered curse. He had been sent in to save them, not tag them.
He was failing. He didn’t like failing.
GenMed had been burning through victims, or what they called subjects, for the past month and a half. His unit had watched civilians enter the building at intervals, but it became more apparent that something serious was going on when none came back out.
“Returning to base. Clear hallway C,” he said softly as he made his way out of the room and back to the hallway.
“Hallway C clear. You have two minutes.”
He stepped out and it was deserted as usual. Not many employees came back here, but on occasion he would see an orderly move from one room to another.
At first it didn’t strike him as odd, until he saw the clear outline of an automatic weapon beneath one of the orderlies’ scrubs. After a week of observation and tailing a handful of them, he’d noticed they were transporting people around the building on gurneys. That in and of itself wouldn’t seem abnormal if this were a hospital, but it wasn’t. This was a technical facility, a research lab, and people were disappearing.
“Take cover. Men approaching corridor B,” the voice said in his ear, and he quickly scanned his wrist on the
wall and ducked into another lab, his back against the door as he waited and listened. As they passed by, he pushed it open a crack and watched them. Two orderlies with another gurney.
Another victim.
This had to be their last. He would make sure of that.
Stepping out into the hall, he made his way behind the orderly pushing the body, very quickly jammed his gun into the man’s spine, and triggered off a pulse. In an instant the man jerked and fell backward, letting out a loud gurgle as the other orderly turned to see what was happening.
Before the man could signal an alarm, Gage grasped the gurney, swung his legs out, and caught the man around the neck, choking him to the ground with his knees. With both men down, he scrambled to get a glimpse of the person they were transporting.
He flung back the sheet and was horrified by what he saw. A young woman, probably once attractive, so bruised and beaten that her features were skewed, distorted.
“Fuck me,” he mumbled, and pressed his fingers to her neck.
A pulse. Faint, but there.
“Have a live one,” he stated, and as quickly as he could, he lifted the woman and deposited her on the floor before he threw both men over the gurney and wheeled them into the lab he had just vacated, locking the door behind him as he left.
Lifting the woman into his arms again, he heard a weak moan escaped her bloodied lips as he turned to take off down the hall.
“We have movement in corridor C,” he heard on his comm.
Shit.
Footsteps echoed down the corridor and, shifting the limp woman, he raced into another lab and swiftly locked the door.
“Scramble lab 18. Need an exit,” he whispered. The woman began to struggle, and he looked around the room for a place to set her down, maybe find some morphine shooters to help her until he could get her out of there. Scanning the room, he held still until the tiny red lights in the corners of the room vanished, then moved to set her down.
“Scrambled. Negative on the exit,” the voice stated. “Corridor B compromised. Stand by.”
“Need an exit now,” Gage said, setting the girl on the counter farthest from the door as he searched the room for sedatives. It was a research lab like the others, but this one only had equipment. He quickly opened drawers and cabinets, but found nothing that would be of use to her.
“Stand by, Condor One,” the voice stated. “Condor Two aiding extraction.”
“Negative,” Gage growled as he continued to search through the room. “Get me an exit. I will extract alone. Do not compromise this location.”
There was a pause, and it was then he heard the commotion in the hallway.
Crouching, he peered through the shuttered window and watched as a group of people went by. No orderlies this time. Several men in lab coats and two men with guns.
Fuck me.
“Exit… now,” he reiterated, going to the prostrate woman on the counter, lifting her into his arms. Strands of her dark hair were stuck to the dried blood on her face, obscuring it. If there was time, he would wipe it off to make her comfortable, but there was no time. Once the contingent of lab-coated men realized something was wrong, the alarm would be raised and he’d need to get out.
“Hallway B clear; move to C and take the stairwell to the roof. You have two minutes.”
Gage moved at lightning speed. Even carrying the woman with him, he moved silently, turning at the end of the hallway just as he heard voices where the group had exited earlier. As he pushed through the stairwell door, the alarms began to shrill.
“Heading to the roof, extraction now,” he said, taking two stairs at a time.
On the second landing he heard the door below him slam open and footsteps hurried toward him. Another flight of stairs and he pressed through the roof exit, allowing the door to shut behind him.
Taking in the surrounding roof, he searched the sky for the evac unit, but saw nothing.
“Where’s extraction?” he asked, running to the other side of the roof, away from the doorway. Ducking behind an HVAC protrusion, he set the woman down onto the gravel next to him.
“Stand by, Condor One.”
“Need extraction now. Breach imminent,” he barked, and then craned his neck when he heard a noise on the opposite side of the roof. Had Condor Two come up this way to help him extract? “Condor Two, what’s your position?”
There was no response from Condor Two, but whatever had come up the far side of the roof was approaching at top speed. As he pulled his weapon to cover himself and the woman lying next to him, the exit door flew open and several men with rifles poured out.
That was when all hell broke loose.
Gunfire erupted around him as the figure moving toward him suddenly swept left and disappeared into the shadows. The rooftop lit up with arcs and flashes of gunfire as the approaching gunmen took cover, the gravel at Gage’s feet kicking up as shots neared him.
Too close.
Diving to his stomach, he crawled to the far side of the HVAC vent and took aim on one of the gunmen, watching him fly backward and off the roof before he could even take the shot.
What the fuck was that?
As alarms began going off all over the building, floodlights snapped on and doused the entire roof with light. The figure he had watched approach in shadow was now standing in full view.
A man, probably six feet tall or more, but built like nothing Gage had ever seen before. Muscular to the point of oddity. He was dressed in black military pants, though he only wore an ammo vest on his torso, its pockets loaded with gear.
His dark hair hung loose and sweaty into his face, but when he turned, the man’s deadly blue eyes sent a shock through Gage that he had never experienced. They were cold and piercing in a way that wasn’t human.
Turning back to the gunmen, the man made quick work of dispatching them. He hadn’t used his weapons; he merely leaped upon them and snapped their necks from their bodies as if it were child’s play. And when nothing but corpses lay around him, he turned and stalked toward Gage.
Gage reloaded and, backing up, made sure he was between this monster and the woman he was trying to save. Going into a defensive crouch, he brought his weapon up and targeted the man’s chest. The man noted his move, but continued to approach, the look in his eyes nothing but savage intent. Gage took his shot.
The man reeled back a few feet, his hands going to his chest, before turning a deadly gaze upon Gage. His hands came away bloodied, but in the stark floodlights, Gage could see, astoundingly, that the wound he had just caused was healing before his very eyes.
How was that possible?
He knew at that moment that he had met his match, and the only thing he could do was protect the woman behind him as best he could.
Throwing himself over her, he cradled her head against his chest as he held out a splayed hand, as if to stop the monster that approached. Clenching his eyes shut, he prepared for his death, wishing at that moment there was someone he could thank, someone he could say goodbye to. There was nothing but void.
And nothing but silence, as the onslaught didn’t come.
When he opened his eyes, he saw that the monster had fallen to its knees and was reaching out for the woman in his hands.
And then, it began to roar her name.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The sight of Sierra’s battered face broke something inside Calder. To see her lying there like a trampled flower, it shattered the last ounce of civility he had left. He wanted to release the monster and shred every last person inside the building he stood on.
Save one.
The man with her was obviously trying to protect her, but Calder had no idea whose side he was on, and he wasn’t about to take any chances. He was done taking chances.
Disregarding the man, he stooped to gather her into his arms, but the loud whoosh of a heli engine broke across the expanse of the roof with a deafening roar, pushing them both back. As the he
avily armored aircraft came into view, gravel and grit kicked into the air, pelting them as it rose above the rim of the roof.
Calder let go of Sierra and turned toward the vehicle, its huge black body nearly invisible against the night sky as it pulled into position, its autocannons tracking toward them to lock on target.
“Get down!” he shouted, then dug his feet into the gravel and took off at top speed across the roof, bullets sending up shards of asphalt in a line speeding toward them. With one long stride he pushed off the roof and leaped into the air, his hands reaching out to catch the landing skid below the pilot’s door.
His movements were quick precision, ripping the door off its hinges, pulling the pilot out of his seat, and letting go of the vehicle to watch it careen sharply, the night lighting up in brilliant orange as it exploded on the campus below them.
The pilot struggled to come to his feet, but the man that had been protecting Sierra had already stalked forward and, without a word, put a bullet through the pilot’s helmet. He looked up then and pointed into the sky.
“That one’s mine,” he shouted to Calder as another unit roared into view over the far end of the roof just as a second unit rose behind them where the other had just exploded. The man immediately raised his weapon and began firing at the windshield and the heli swerved and began shooting in response, another cloud of shrapnel flying up around them.
Calder grabbed the butt of the rifle slung over his shoulder and pulled it into his hands, charging the cartridge as his thumb rolled over the mechanism on the stock. Walking toward the heli, he pumped charge after charge of pulse into its body, watching the static arc and crackle along its lines before it veered and clipped its rotor on the protruding stairwell at the edge of the roof.
The vehicle bucked and made a sharp roll, and without another moment to spare, he scooped up Sierra and, with the other man close on his heels, raced toward the other end of the roof as the heli fell out of the sky and exploded behind them, throwing them off their feet.
Calder landed sprawled against the far edge of the roof, Sierra tucked beneath him.