Rebellion (The Praegressus Project Book 4)

by Aaron Hodges

  “Jerry, where are you hiding, man?” the guard wheezed as he reached the top of the stairs.

  Sam didn’t bother to reply. Leaping forward, he punched the man square in the chest, driving the air from his lungs. Before he could recover, a blow to the head dropped him to the floor. Sam quickly dragged him across the room and tossed him in the closet with his friend. The man he guessed was Jerry was beginning to stir, but another knock to the head sent him back to sleep.

  Stepping outside again, Sam crouched low on the observation deck and looked out over the island. Despite the storm, the sky was quickly brightening, and he cursed himself for falling asleep. He was more exhausted than he’d realised, but it was too late to reconsider his plans. It was now or never.

  Movement near the residential block drew his attention. Squinting through the rain, he watched as a group of three figures ran from the building to a waiting golf cart. In the faint light, he thought one might have been a woman, but it was difficult to say. The three had barely scrambled onboard the cart before the driver took off. They lurched along the muddy path and disappeared beneath the lip of the cliff.

  Looking around, Sam noted a track running from the prison building to the clifftop, where it disappeared down to the lower levels of the island. Watching the spot where the track dropped over the edge, he crossed his fingers. If the cart was heading for the prison building, he guessed that would be the route they took.

  A few minutes later, the cart reappeared at the top of the track. He caught the distant whir of the electric engine as it settled back onto flat ground and raced towards the prison. A clang came from somewhere below. Leaning out over the edge of the platform, Sam watched as the prison doors swung open, emitting two men in blue guard’s uniform that matched the ones in his closet. Both carried rifles, but they appeared at ease, wandering across the muddy ground to wave at the cart.

  As the golf cart approached, Sam climbed onto the rails of the observation deck. The guards were preoccupied with the approaching cart, and he moved slowly so as not to draw their attention. Stretching his wings, Sam waited until the cart had pulled to a stop in front of the entrance to the prison, and then hurled himself from the lighthouse.

  The passengers in the golf cart were just stepping off when he landed amongst them. Taken by surprise, the guards never stood a chance. He dropped the driver first, a blow to his neck sending him sprawling against the steering wheel. Spinning, he took in the empty hands of the three passengers, and then leapt at the guards by the door.

  They were still frozen in shock as he landed between them. One tried to lift his rifle, but Sam was already too close and a blow to his chest dropped him like a rock. The other turned and tried to make it through the steel doors, but Sam caught him by the back of his shirt and hauled him back. He finished him off with a blow to the head, and then turned his attention to the passengers.

  As he’d hoped, the three were civilians, unarmed and clearly terrified by his sudden appearance. They flinched as one as he stepped towards them. Before any of them thought to yell for help, Sam darted forward and caught one by the shirt.

  “Not a word, or you won’t live to see tomorrow,” he growled.

  The man struggled to break free, until Sam lifted him into the air and shook him. His head rolled around and he gasped, but when Sam dropped him to the muddy ground, he didn’t make a sound. Scrambling back towards his colleagues, he stared up at Sam, lips clamped shut.

  Sam grinned. “That a boy,” he looked at the others, inviting them to try their luck, before nodding, “Good, you’re quick learners. Do what I say, and you might just make it off this rock alive.”

  Eyes wide, the three of them stared back at him. Of the two still standing, one was a man, the other a woman. After a moment’s hesitation, each of them nodded.

  “Good,” Sam waved at the doorway, “Shall we get out of this rain then?”

  Chapter 21

  Stepping through the giant steel door, Sam found himself in a grim, bleached-white room. Steel beams reinforced the walls and ceilings above, while a series of unidentifiable grey stains marked the linoleum floor. A metal detector waited ahead of him, and beyond a steel bench stretched down the middle of the waiting room. To the right, a window looked into an office booth where the guards who had unlocked the doors had obviously been stationed. Through the glass, he could see a computer screen displaying camera feeds of the facility. One depicted the muddy ground outside where the unconscious guards still lay, another the room in which he was standing.

  There was no one else in sight, but Sam doubted he’d seen the last of the island’s guards. The cameras would only help them notice him faster. Turning, he found the camera on the ceiling in the corner, and wandered over. Leaping up, he tore it from the wall, before moving back outside and taking down that camera as well. Hopefully it would buy him a few more minutes.

  On the far side of the room, another pair of double doors waited, but there was no obvious lock or handle to open them. Looking at his guides, he nodded at the doors.

  “How do they open?” he asked.

  The woman swallowed and held up her arm. A familiar steel watch shone on her wrist.

  “What’s on the other side?” Sam pressed.

  The woman glanced at the others, but any thought she had of lying evaporated as Sam stepped towards her. “The control room,” she stammered, “There’ll be more guards.”

  “How many?”

  She only shook her head, her mouth hanging open, eyes wide. She’d obviously run out of words.

  “It varies,” the man Sam had dumped on the ground earlier answered for her, “Five, ten, depends who’s on duty, what’s happening with the prisoners and…” he trailed off, clearly realising he’d said too much.

  “And the experiments, right?” Sam snapped. His eyes narrowed and he stepped towards the group, wings trembling. “What exactly do you three do here?”

  “We’re…we’re no one,” the man stammered quickly.

  Sam snorted. “I doubt that,” he nodded to the watches they all wore, “I recognise those. Pack quite a punch, when your prisoners are wearing shock collars, don’t they? Must be terrifying for you, having one of us free.”

  The three of them exchanged glances, but wisely kept their mouths shut.

  Scowling, Sam held out his hand. “Hand them over, all of you. Now!” he snapped when they hesitated.

  Sam pocketed two of the watches, and then nodded to the woman. “You, unlock the door for me,” he held out the third watch.

  The woman didn’t move, and growling Sam stepped forward and grabbed her by the wrist. She yelped and tried to pull away, but he didn’t budge. Shoving the watch into her trembling hands, he bared his teeth.

  “Do it,” he growled.

  Sobbing, the woman tapped a few buttons on the screen. Behind him, the steel doors groaned and started to open. Taking back the watch, Sam released the woman. She backed towards her comrades.

  Sam started towards the double doors. “You might want to lock yourselves in that guard booth,” he called over his shoulder, “I’d say things are about to get ugly.”

  Then he turned and darted through the gap that had appeared between the doors.

  “Problem with the camera, Je–”

  A guard was speaking behind the opening doors, but he broke off as Sam leapt inside, his foot lashing out to slam into the man’s knee.

  Screaming, the guard went down, but Sam was already moving past him. Here, the room was cluttered with desks and chairs. Old CRT monitors sat on the desks, and filing cabinets had been pushed up against the far wall. It looked more like a downtown office in San Francisco than anywhere in Alcatraz. Except for the men with guns.

  While they obviously hadn’t been paying attention to the cameras before he’d disabled them, they were quicker to regroup than the guards outside. Other than the first man he’d downed, the men were already scrambling back, putting tables and chairs between themselves and the intruder.

/>   As Sam darted forward, he glimpsed a glass window in the far wall. Inside was a kind of visitor’s room, with rows of steel tables and chairs—although Alcatraz hadn’t allowed visitors in decades. Beyond the tables, thick steel bars separated the room from the prison proper.

  But he was getting ahead of himself. Between himself and the visitor’s room were half a dozen guards. Unlike those outside, these men only carried handguns, but they would be no less deadly in the tight space.

  As the first pulled his weapon and opened fire, Sam ducked behind a desk. It was a thick wooden thing, probably weighing forty pounds, offering plenty of shelter. But Sam wasn’t about to let them pin him down. Gripping it by the bottom, he gritted his teeth, and hurled it across the room.

  It slammed down among the group of guards, crushing one and scattering the rest. The momentary panic it caused was all Sam needed to reach them. Even without his special gifts, Sam was larger than most men. Add in two extra limbs, enhanced strength and reaction times, and the men were hopelessly outmatched.

  As one raised his gun, Sam’s wing tip flashed out and sent it flying. At the same time, he kicked out at another guard, sending him toppling back into the glass window. To Sam’s surprise, the glass didn’t so much as crack, and the man slumped to the floor with a moan.

  A gunshot echoed through the room and Sam ducked as a bullet whizzed past. Hurling himself sideways, he tackled another guard, knowing if he allowed himself to stand still they would have him. Using his momentum, he picked the man up and charged the gunman. The man in his arms screamed and struggled to break free, but a second later Sam crashed into the other guard and the three of them went down in a pile.

  On the ground, Sam was thankfully hidden from sight of the last guard. He finished the men off with a few solid blows, catching a fist to the jaw in the process. Then rolling to his knees, he sprang into the air, his wings beating down to carry him across the room, seeking out the last man. He was making a break for a red panel in the corner, but when the man glanced back and saw Sam approaching, he stumbled and fell.

  Sam was on guard before he had a chance to recover. Dragging him away from what Sam assumed was the alarm, he slammed the guard down on one of the desks. The man groaned and tried to fight him off, until Sam punched him squarely in the stomach. Gasping, the man’s face turned white as he strained to suck in a winded breath.

  Sam crossed his arms and took a moment to survey the room. None of the other men were moving, and nodding to himself, he returned his attention to his new captive.

  “Listen very closely,” he whispered, leaning in close, “I’m not going to kill you—even if you probably deserve it. Well, not so long as you cooperate.”

  The man had finally managed to catch his breath. He stared back at Sam, jaw clenched, and shook his head.

  Sam sighed. Reaching down, he caught the guard by the wrist. Grasping one of the man’s fingers, he slowly began to bend it backwards.

  “A colleague of yours taught me this,” he said conversationally. The guard tried to bat him away with his free hand, but Sam was implacable. “Doctor Halt. I don’t suppose you know him.”

  The guard screamed as the bone in the finger snapped with a sickening crack. He tried to break away, but releasing his hand, Sam caught him by the throat and pulled him close.

  “Listen up,” he growled, his face less than an inch from his prisoner’s, “I don’t have time to mess around. Next thing I break will be your arm. Now, tell me, how do we go about releasing all the prisoners up here?”

  The guard stared back at him, mouth open. “What?” he croaked, aghast.

  “You heard me,” Sam said dangerously, “I’ve seen those prison movies. There’s far too many cells in Alcatraz to open them all manually. You must have electronic locks on them. So where’s the button?”

  The guard swallowed. “You’re insane. Don’t you know…who’s in there?”

  “Traitors? Terrorists? The worst of the worst? Or so I’m told,” Sam replied, “Seems like a fun bunch. So, how do I let them out?”

  For a second it looked like the man would refuse, but he gave in when Sam gripped him by the elbow and began to bend back his arm. Dragging him across to the computer, Sam watched closely as the man navigated through the menus, ensuring he didn’t set off any alarms. Unfortunately, Sam had never used a computer before, and he was quickly lost in the complexity of the system, but his prisoner didn’t know that. Finally, the option to ‘open prison cells’ popped up on the screen, and after a last fearful look at Sam, the man selected the ‘okay’ button.

  The distant rattling of steel wheels echoed through the room. Sam gave the man a tap on the head, knocking him face first into the computer. Leaving him unconscious at the desk, Sam rose and strode into the visitor’s room, then onwards through the wire gate into the prison proper.

  Striding out onto the concrete floor, Sam watched as the first prisoners stepped hesitantly from their cells. They looked around at each other, shoulders hunched as though expecting a trap. Sam rubbed his jaw where the guard had struck him as he waited for the prisoners to notice him.

  Each wore an orange jumpsuit, although many were worn with age. Those who emerged were obviously in poor shape. Most were little more than skin and bone, their eyes sunken pits in their starvation-ravaged faces, their cheeks and jaw bones stretching their pale skin.

  “Welcome to the greatest prison break in history,” Sam boomed when he thought enough of the prisoners had emerged from their iron shells.

  As one, the men and women looked around at him. Their confusion turned to open fear as he spread his copper wings. A few darted back into their cells, while the others sank to their knees.

  When no one spoke, Sam shook his head and went on. “I mean all of you, in case that wasn’t clear,” he gestured at the open door behind him, “The guards are unconscious. You’ll want to take their guns before you go overrunning the rest of the island. Don’t kill too many people. Or do, they probably deserve it.”

  The prisoners still didn’t move. Rolling his eyes, Sam waved a hand and started forward. There were two levels to the prison, with cells on the ground floor as well as a second level of cells attached to a boardwalk above. Sam strode down the narrow lane between the two blocks. The men and women shrank back as he approached, but he ignored them now. The prisoners were just a distraction—though he was glad he’d had a chance to help them. Conditions obviously weren’t exactly humane in Alcatraz, and he doubted many were the criminals the government claimed them to be.

  No, these people were like his own parents, arrested for unfounded suspicions of treason—or for merely being related to someone so accused. They were all older, at least in their thirties, and he supposed in a way they were the lucky ones. It was their children who would be tortured and experimented on, forced to fight and suffer and kill just to survive.

  Children like himself.

  He shuddered at the memories, and forced his attention back to the task at hand. Ahead, an old elevator with iron grating for doors loomed in the wall. It was a far cry from modern, but he guessed the government had wanted it to blend in with the dated architecture of Alcatraz. If one didn’t know the prison’s history, it looked as though it had always been there.

  Pulling open the iron grate, Sam stepped inside. There were only two buttons. He pressed the bottom one and yanked the iron grate shut again. Somewhere above, a motor ground into gear as the elevator lurched and began to descend. Turning, Sam looked through the iron grating at the dimly lit prison.

  Several hundred faces stared back.

  Grinning, he pulled thumbs up as he slowly dropped out of view. Silently he wished them luck.

  Then he was alone in the darkness in the elevator.

  Chapter 22

  Liz shivered as she dropped through the clouds. The rain had long ago seeped through her thin clothes, soaking her to the skin. The flight had been a rough one, but at least it had been short. They had spent the day building a pyre fo
r Jasmine—placing her body inside the battered car and filling it with dried branches. With the fall of night, Liz, Mira and Maria had said their final farewells, and then set the car alight. They had fled the park as the first downpour broke over the city.

  But they had not anticipated the storm. Liz had only managed to fly a few blocks with Maria on her back, before the powerful winds forced her back down. After that, they had traversed the winding hills of San Francisco on foot. Fortunately, Chris’s grandmother was fit for her age, and it wasn’t until they reached the harbour that Liz had to carrying her again.

  Now, her wings creaked as she drifted down through the storm. The wind tore at her, forcing her to retract her wings closer to her body for fear of them being torn apart. On her back, Maria clung to her shoulders, further hampering her ability to manoeuvre. The old woman might only weigh a hundred and twenty pounds, but Liz was already counting the minutes, trying to guess how much of the one mile between mainland and island they’d already traversed.

  At least the storm provided them cover from prying eyes. With the rain and fog hanging over the harbour, even Liz could not make out the distant beacon of the lighthouse. Somewhere to her right she glimpsed Mira swooping through the clouds alongside her. Maria had given the girl the handgun and grenades to carry, and while Liz was glad she didn’t have the extra weight on her, she was more than a little nervous at the thought of Mira with explosives.

  Finally, Liz decided they had to be close. Tucking her wings closer to her side, she drifted down through the clouds. Slowly the fog cleared, and she saw the waves crashing against stony cliffs below.

  Bingo.

  Then she frowned as her keen eyes made out figures moving across the ground. There were hundreds of people pouring from the main building in the middle of the island. Their orange jumpsuits stood out against the muddy ground as they swarmed across Alcatraz.

  What the hell is going on down here?