by Ted Iverson
“You smell terrible too,” Ed interjected. He leaned over and poked Alec playfully. “She can fly too.” Tapping Joanne on the shoulder, he asked, “You don’t happen to have a sister, do you?” The three began to laugh.
Within minutes, Ed and Alec had passed out from exhaustion. Joanne had delivered: the men were free. Now it was time get these two to Zach. There was no time to waste if they were to save Space Tech!
Chapter Thirty-One
After two nights sleep in real beds and after six real meals, Alec and Ed felt much better. Paul had arranged for Joanne to fly them to a friend’s establishment midway between Rockford and Chicago. Now, sitting in the conference room of the small hotel, they discussed the recent events and how lucky they were to be alive. Now that they all knew the prototype existed, they were hashing over possible ways to get to it. As they debated, the conference room door opened. Alec and Ed sprang from their seats and snatched the weapons they’d appropriated from their adversaries.
In walked Joanne. Zach followed closely behind her. With a sigh of relief, the men lowered and shouldered their weapons. They all met in the middle of the room. Hugs, handshakes, and lots of smiles were exchanged.
“You two look much better than the other day,” Joanne said. “How are you feeling?”
“Alive, thanks to you.”
“Yes, ditto here. That was quite some plan,” Ed exclaimed. “I can tell you that I have never had an extrication go quite so well. Joanne was extraordinary!”
“Gentlemen, please, you’re making me blush.” She pulled Zach up next to her. “The whole thing was his idea. I just did what was needed.”
Zach stood there, not knowing what to say. He skirted around the subject and decided to speak instead about why they were there. “The reason we’re here is two-fold. One, we need to get Ty out, thus rescuing you two was first on the list. Joanne will be heading back to Space Tech. She has to get some holofilms that Ty, because of his untimely departure, was unable to retrieve. She’ll then get those over to Paul. He’ll be able to keep them safe until we need them.”
“What do the films contain?” Ed asked.
“The company has several projects in the works and we really don’t want to have Meteoric find them. There’s a chance that they already have, but we need to know for sure. She’ll be able to get in,” Zach assured them. “Emily has seen to that.”
“The second reason we’re here is to talk about securing the prototype. We have information that Axion’s gathered approximately seven hundred troops. He wants the prototype. Our intelligence informs us he intends to leave with his troops for South Dakota on Friday, the same day our troops are scheduled to arrive.”
“What? The same day ours arrive? I admit it: I’m a little lost. Could you clarify what you’re talking about?”
“Yes, of course, Alec. I forgot you didn’t know. Orion and I expected that this conflict might arise, so we commissioned the Outpost to make a security task force of droids. Six hundred, to be exact. They’ll be led by humans and cyborgs totaling sixty. They’re landing on Friday. We discussed not activating the droids until they were or were not needed, but, as you can see from the intelligence, they’ll be needed. Orion’s already left for South Dakota to secure the landing site. It’s an abandoned quarry about six and half miles from the Cosmos. We chose that site because it’s close to where we believe the prototype will be found. Orion will prepare the droids when they arrive.”
“So, we’ve got an army of droids, we think we now know where the prototype is, and we’re pretty much at war and heading for our first battle. I think I heard that all correctly, did I not?” Dismay was written across Alec’s face.
“Yes, I’d say that just about covers it,” Zach answered.
“Good, because I thought I was hearing things.” Alec didn’t let it sink in too long before he decided what he needed to do. “Okay, I understand now. You’ll have to fill me in on this Cosmos thing. I will be going to look for that prototype, not Orion. You three are all too important to Space Tech to lose. There’ll be no discussion on this. Tell me where it is you found your clue.”
“We were having dinner with Paul Spencer, and he had this incredible portrait of Mom and Dad hanging there.”
“I remember the one. They were all on the balcony, right?”
“That’s right. Well, I can’t recall exactly what we were talking about, but whatever it was, it jarred Orion’s memory. He remembered a memo he’d found it in Dad’s office at Space Tech. Mom had written it. It read ‘a picture paints a thousand words.’ It was the portrait, Alec. The portrait is the key. Mom’s hand was partially covering the binding, but ‘os Mystery’ was there. It’s the Cosmos Mystery Area in South Dakota. Apparently, Orion and you or Ty, I don’t remember—it doesn’t matter—you went there as kids. It’s an incredible place. I’ll tell you more about it later. We’re positive that somewhere there on that piece of land we’ll find the prototype!”
“If it’s there,” Ed said, “then no doubt Axion also knows. We’ll have to move quickly if we’re going to find it.”
“Not we, Ed. You need to stay back and help get Ty out. You have to do that for me. I’m okay now. I can do this, and when I find it I’ll contact you all right away. Send the backup then. Please?” Alec’s pleading look said it all.
“If that’s what you want.”
Zach became serious again. “One last bit of info for you, Alec. You’ll need to get a move on it. The most recent bit we have on Axion is that he’s sending a small group of men in before him to look for the ship. We’ve heard between two and four men, but we can’t be sure. Anyway, we think they’ll be arriving there on Sunday or Monday. Again, we can’t be positive. You can’t take the Turtle. It would be a sure giveaway, and this must be done discreetly. You’ll have to take a hover to blend in. I think you should be in Rapid City by Sunday, maybe get the lay of the land, and then start looking for our ship. You’ll leave on Friday.”
“I’m ready to leave now.”
“Listen, you need to get some equipment ready and, frankly, I think after what you and Ed went through, you could use at least one more day to recuperate.”
“Yes, I saw what you went through, what the conditions were. It’s only one day,” Joanne said with a look of concern.
“Alright, I leave on Friday morning then.”
“Good, it’s settled. Ed, we’ve got to go. It’s time to get Ty. Alec, you stay here. Paul’s friend here will help us with the arrangements for anything we need, including a hover for you. Joanne, those films. Okay?”
“Not a problem!” she said, accepting the challenge.
Ed left first to talk with Paul’s friend. He’d been making a list in his head of several items they could use to get Ty out.
Zach and Joanne said goodbye to Alec and made their way outside.
“Joanne, I know I’ve asked a lot of you over the last couple of days, but there is one more important thing. We need those films, but there is something we need more, and I need you to get it and bring it to me. If Axion were to get a hold of it...” Zach shuddered at the thought.
“Go on,” she pressed him.
As he spoke, her face went ashen with fright.
Joanne arrived back at Space Tech later in the afternoon and made her way into the building. There were Meteoric guards everywhere. Though she was nervous, she knew she had to get Zach’s item. Before she did that, she wanted to gather up the important holofilms he’d requested.
No one questioned her as she entered the building and made her way to Ty’s office. It was so still inside. She closed her eyes and imagined a smiling Ty sitting behind his desk, talking to her as they worked. Before all of this had transpired, she’d felt her situation was too good to be true.
Her thoughts drifted to her encounter at Meteoric and then to her father. How she missed him. As his only child, she’d been more of a tomboy. Now she didn’t regret the time she’d spent with him at the firing range and the obstacle cours
e, nor all the other things they’d done together, not because he’d forced her, but because she’d felt she needed to. Tears flowed as she gathered up the holofilms and placed them in her briefcase. A page fell to the ground. As she picked it up, she noticed the header, “Magnetoplasmadynamic Propulsion (MPD): A workable solution.” Now she realized just how important these papers were.
When she’d finished with that task, she began to search Ty’s office. She was looking for a key card of some type. It wasn’t where Zach had told her Ty kept it. Joanne needed that key card. She had to get the technology that Zach had told her about: an indestructible armor suit, a game changer. She was searching a small bookcase with her back to the door someone entered. She’d been concentrating so hard she hadn’t even noticed when the doors to the office opened.
The intruder stood for a while, observing her, then finally spoke. “Looking for something?”
Joanne shrieked and turned. “Who are you?” was the only thing that came out.
“I know who you are. You’re Joanne Tillsen.”
“Who are you?” Joanne stammered again. There was definitely something inherently evil about the other woman.
“Oh, how rude of me. I’m Sam, Sam Thoma. That’s what I’m called anyway.”
“Sam? You’re Ty’s friend. Why are you here?” Joanne was regaining her wits and her heart had slowed to a normal heartbeat, for the time being.
“I’m here for the same reason you are. The only problem for you is that you’re too late.”
“Too late? Why would you say that?”
Dangling the key card out in front of her, Sam teased, “You can have it back now. Here take it. No, I’ll just give it to you.” She tossed it across the room and it landed at Joanne’s feet. “Go ahead, pick it up,” she urged.
Joanne bent down, never taking her eyes off the other woman as she picked it up. Standing but not moving, she asked, “Why did you want this key?”
“You don’t know anything. You humans never do. I don’t want it. It does nothing for me. Senator Axion is the one who requested that I retrieve it. You know, though, for a human, Zach Bindl is pretty intelligent. Senator Axion was thrilled to see what Zach had created, but it will be the end for Zach and his brothers. As for you, well, I’ve been looking forward to this. The senator told me that you would be the one most likely to come for it, to retrieve the suit. ‘Brave woman,’ he said. I prefer to think of you as brainless.”
Angered beyond belief, Joanne took a step toward the woman.
“Brainless? Did you just call me brainless?”
“I wouldn’t take another step closer. I’ve been authorized by the senator to be the judge and jury.”
“What are you babbling about?”
“The charge is murder, destruction of government and private property... the list actually goes on. Security cameras are wonderful things, wouldn’t you say?”
Joanne knew exactly what Sam was getting at. “I told Ty that you were up to no good. You’ve been double-crossing us, as well as your father.” Her tone was harsh.
“Thoma?” Laughing hysterically, Sam told all: “He’s not my father. I don’t have a father. He’s just a pawn in an overall bigger picture. He’s expendable at this point. I suppose you think that FTL is worth dying for, don’t you? I’ll tell you what’s worth dying for: science, and the things that would come from your precious FTL project. I’m proof of that, and there are others like me out there. Axion knows this, hence the need to own Space Tech. You’re so dense that you probably don’t know what AI is, right? Well, let me explain. Me. I’m a droid with AI. I was built to learn, and I have.
“Axion killed off Thoma’s daughter. His surgeons synthetically remastered her facial and body features, and here I am. Even Ty and Thoma couldn’t tell. They both told me more than they should have. The rest, as you would say, is history.” This time she was the one to take a step forward.
Joanne couldn’t hold back any longer. She lunged at the droid and they tumbled to the floor. The droid pushed her aside with ease and jumped up. Joanne rolled over just as a hand came smashing to the floor where she’d been, leaving a fist-sized indentation. Joanne got to her feet in time to be dropped to her knees by a punch to the midsection. She reached back and grabbed a standing lamp. It sparked as the cord was jerked out of the wall socket. She swung it and managed to topple the droid at the knees.
Joanne was up and moving again. The droid did the same. It reached out and grabbed her, lifted her up, and sent her sailing across the room into a glass display cabinet. Bleeding from multiple small cuts and feeling the pain, Joanne lay motionless.
The droid had started to bend down and grab her when Joanne quickly took its legs out with a hard kick at the ankles. Falling forward hard, the droid landed on one of the antique chairs and it splintered into pieces. Somehow Joanne managed to get back to her feet. She stood with her back to the desk. The droid followed. Getting up with lightning fast speed, it turned to face her. It reached out, snatched her by the neck, picked her up, and set her on the desk, all while attempting to choke the life out of her.
“Did I forget to mention, I am also the authorized executioner?” Her look of pure evil was horrific.
Knowing that she would be losing consciousness quickly, Joanne groped the desktop behind her. In doing so, she tipped over a container. Feeling through the items, she came across cold steel. She grabbed it with her right hand and swung it as if her life depended on it, which it did. At the last instant the droid looked up, but it was too late. The metal object came screaming down and became impaled in the droid’s left eye socket.
Joanne felt the hands release her as the droid staggered backward. Joanne fell off the desk, gasping for air then saw the machine about to pull the old letter opener from its face. In its eagerness to do so, it tripped over the chair that had been broken in the mayhem. The droid fell, face first, onto the floor, driving the blade farther into its artificial skull.
Regaining her senses, Joanne saw the droid was still moving and decided she’d had enough. She glanced around quickly and discovered an old sword on the wall. She lifted it from the wall. Even though Joanne had two hands on it, it fell to the floor. She hadn’t realized how heavy it was. Summoning all her strength, Joanne gripped the hilt with both hands and lifted the sword above her head.
Still slightly dizzy, she stumbled her way over to the dying machine and let gravity take over. The sword fell and split the now sparking skull in two. The droid lay motionless in front of her.
Leaving the sword behind, Joanne backed away. Drained, she fought to compose herself. “Now that’s good execution!” she said aloud.
After learning of Alec and Ed’s escape, Axion ordered Thoma to move Ty from his original location. Ty was currently being held in Meteoric’s northern complex near Faribault, Minnesota. The complex was on a direct route to South Dakota and an attempt to rescue Ty by his brothers seemed probable. Axion decided to move him to Space Tech. Thoma was beginning to see opportunities open for Axion’s demise. He contacted Zach and told him of the impending move.
Even knowing that he’d be moving Ty closer to his brothers, Axion still felt that it was the right thing. Since Meteoric had seized control, Space Tech was one of the most fortified places in the country.
Axion instructed Thoma that in moving Ty he shouldn’t take the more direct way, straight down interstate 90. That would be the obvious route. Instead, he instructed Thoma to take an indirect route. They would leave at 3:00 p.m. today and move Ty by way of Interstate 35 down to Des Moines, Iowa. At that point, they would head east to Interstate 80 until they came to Interstate 88. Then they’d make their way to Interstate 39. That would lead them to Space Tech. Thoma had no problem agreeing with the elder senator. Taking that route would actually open more chances for the Bindls to ambush the convoy and release their brother.
After receiving the designated route from Thoma, Zach and Ed began to plan. They decided that at approximately 11:00 p.m., their con
tingent of men would force Axion’s convoy off the road by Hennepin State Park in Illinois. They would eliminate Axion’s men and then take Ty north up Highway 40. From there they’d continue southeast on County Rd 9 to the small town of Manlius. There they would switch vehicles. At that point, they’d break from the contingent and make their way to a town called Peru. The group would rendezvous with Joanne, who was flying the Turtle to the Illinois Valley Regional Airport-Walter A. Duncan Field. She would then fly the two Bindls and Ed back to where they were all staying.
Working hard throughout the afternoon, they were able to assemble enough of their old employees and a number of men that owed Ed favors. Twenty-five men, all previously battle tested.
They’d been on the road about two hours when the lead vehicle pulled off the highway to the west of the overpass, the others vehicles following. It was mostly farmland here, nice and dark, easy to camouflage the vehicles in this environment. They did so, then made their way up toward the road and waited. Joanne had flown the Turtle further ahead along the road and was able to position herself to give them about a ten-minute warning.
At 11:22 Joanne was on the com link. “Zach, they just passed. Thoma was correct. They’re keeping this transfer low-key. There are only five total vehicles, two hovers in front and two taking up the rear, with a transport hover in the middle. Guess they really didn’t want to draw attention to themselves.”
“Got it. Head to the rendezvous point. We’ll get there as quickly as we can. Joanne,” Zach’s voice went from business-like to one of concern for her, “I know you’ve been careful with your emotions, but, well, we’ll get him. It’ll be okay.”
She cleared her throat. “Thanks, I know. See you all in a bit.” Joanne punched off her com. A tear fell. Wiping it away quickly and swallowing hard, she took the Turtle from stealth mode, fired its engines, and headed to the airstrip.
After the short conversation, Zach got his men positioned and ready. It seemed unusually quiet. There was virtually no traffic, almost as if everyone knew to stay away from this interchange. The lack of traffic and the presence of night vision equipment made it easy for them to see the small convoy on its approach.
