Flicker pulled back crying from me, but she was smiling. She kissed me sweetly and then said, “You just saved me!”
“How did I do that?” I asked puzzled.
“Your walk with God. All your memories are available to me and I confess that I’ve been pillaging through them. Over and over I’ve seen how much God means to you and how your specialness and confidence is a direct result of your faith. I want that. So I asked your Jesus to do that for me and now I’m His too! It’s wonderful!”
I hugged her to me, “Yes it is!”
We stayed like that for a long moment, until I knew we had to get going, but I hated to end this special time. “Alright my dear, time to invade hell.”
Flicker mumbled something.
“What was that?” I asked.
“I said you don’t appreciate how much this place means exactly that to me.”
“You have Jesus now honey. You’re not going down there alone.”
Flicker nodded, but I could still feel her reservations about the task at hand.
The buildings on the surface were ghostly still and devoid of any life. It was as if everything had been left in a hurry. They hadn’t even bothered to conceal the entrance to the underground laboratories. The blast doors to it were clearly visible from behind an opened false fronted wall.
The blast doors themselves were slightly ajar. Flicker and I glanced at each other and then together we approached the doors.
The scene within the laboratory was still lit by emergency lighting running off some backup power supply, even after a year and a half had gone by. It was eerie to say the least with the blue and yellow lights and the red flashing ones here and there going off and on repeatedly.
Whatever power the lights were on must’ve been separate from the rest of the facility, because all the equipment and the many screens and displays were all dead. The only sound was that of the tick tick of the lights, as they flicked from one color to the next. Perhaps the ticking wasn’t the lights, but instead a bomb. The place was supposedly rigged to explode. So why hadn’t it?
We didn’t talk into the silence, but we kept our conversation confined to our thoughts, as we sought to remain as quiet as the space around us was.
“So what do you suppose happened?” I asked.
Flicker shook her head, “The Code had fallen, but that would’ve been no reason to leave this place so suddenly.”
I followed her through a maze like array of corridors, until we came to a closed door.
“What’s behind here?”
“Where I was made.” Flicker said bitterly.
I touched her shoulder, “Correction, the place where someone messed around with someone who was simply already perfect and still is.”
She gave me a look and I could feel her in my mind seeing whether I was sincere or not. “You still doubt me?” I said somewhat hurt.
Her gaze fell and she said, “I’m sorry.”
I shrugged it aside and asked, “What we need, do you think it could be behind these doors?”
“Yes, if not in this room beyond, than in some of the chambers further on for sure.”
The door was a bulkhead of sorts and it was locked from our side. I started to undo the lock mechanism, when I noticed the dents in the door. A little frisson of alarm went through me at the finding of such dents in a door of such sturdy construction.
I heard a slight sizzling noise and I turned to see Flicker transforming. The metal parts of her hands and forearms seemed to melt out of form, only to reemerge into the form of wickedly sharp serrated blades that stretched out further than her arms had in a lethal display of hidden capability. At times I forgot just how lethal Flicker could really be.
“You’ve got to tell me how you do that?” I exclaimed in awe.
She shrugged, “It is very complex, but suffice it to say that I control the metal much the same as I do my armor suit.”
“Okay, that really doesn’t explain it at all.”
“I know.” She said, as she positioned herself in preparation to hack anything apart that came through the door.
I clutched one machine pistol in my hand, as with a loud protesting creak I pulled the hatch door open.
It was an utter scene of chaos inside the other room. Most of the alarm lights looked as if they’d been smashed. Only a few still glowed or flashed weakly.
I started to move forward, but one of Flicker’s bladed arms tapped me slightly, “Sorry for the hit to your pride, but I go first.”
I glanced back inside and said, “Ladies first.” It was with reluctance that I followed her inside the room, as there was little I could do to offset whatever Flicker got it in her mind to do, which rankled me deeply.
Flicker stopped and turned to me, “I know Utah. I promise to work on that, when this is all done.”
“Respect is an important thing for a man.” I acknowledged in response.
She nodded quickly.
To lighten the mood I shrugged and said, “Respect aside I’m glad you’re along to go in first Saber Girl.”
She didn’t say anything, but she moved forward again and I sensed a willingness to change in her that gave me hope that I wasn’t always going to be overruled by her, when she decided on a course of action different than my own.
It was hard to be silent, because the floor was strewn with a jumbled array of stuff. Computers, file cabinets, chairs, desktop knickknacks, and bones. Just bits and pieces of the bones for the most part. I reached down and picked something up and held it so Flicker could see.
It was a robotic arm like Flickers, only it had been mauled off where bone and metal alloy met. I saw a shudder pass through Flicker. I felt much the same, as I looked at the remaining small knob of chewed bone next to the robotic arm unit.
The robotic people like Flicker were beyond formidable, but looking around I saw bits and pieces of them strewn about almost everywhere. What monster had the Code created that could have done all this?
I looked to Flicker, but she shrugged, as if to say that she had no idea either.
Apparently sometime after Flicker’s transformation into robotic form; version 2.0 had been put in the works, only it had bitten back. Worse than that was the thought that it might still be alive.
It had been a year and a half since the collapse of the Code. It was a long time for anything to be still alive shut up in here, but looking around I had to acknowledge that there had been plenty for it to eat. If it was still alive it would be very hungry by now.
I was as bad as a kid freaking himself out by watching scary movies that his parents had forbidden him to, but I couldn’t shake the sense of foreboding that seemed to overwhelm me.
Stop it, I told myself mentally. Get what we came for and get out and make sure to lock the door on the way out.
Closing the door would not be the only thing that took place on our exodus from the facility. I’d make sure that this place blew sky high from the explosives that I had brought along with me. There was no way I was leaving this place for anyone else to find.
First we had to find the device, which was going to be hard given what a jumbled mess the place was. Where was Flicker?
She wasn’t in the room with me any longer!
I quickly moved over to another room and with relief I saw her. I was about to tie into her mentally for leaving me without notice, when something about her stillness gave me pause.
I stepped up beside her. She stood in front of an elevated table that had operation room written all over it. I stayed silent waiting.
“The very worst nightmares aren’t the ones that you can imagine, but they’re the ones that have actually happened.” Flicker said.
“What happened here on this table?” I asked softly wanting to provide her with an outlet for what she needed to share with somebody else, even though hearing of her torture was the last thing I ever wanted to hear about in life.
Her face quivered, as
tears dripped off her chin to land in the grime of the floor, “I was asleep and then I woke up, but I couldn’t move. I tried, even struggled to get up and then I realized that I had no arms or legs. I screamed and screamed. I can still hear the sound in my head. I saw them then, the scientist and their assistants all gathered about me. They were laughing! Two of them even picked up my own severed arms and started slapping each other with them! I can see it all as if it was yesterday.”
I felt on the verge of throwing up, but I didn’t stop her.
“Then came the real pain. They flipped me over and strapped me down fully conscious and started cutting into my back. I screamed, oh God did I scream, but it did me no good. I screamed so hard I blew my eardrums out and hurt my voice. Thankfully I passed out when they started to take off the back part of my skull. When I woke up I was under mind control and am what you see now, a freak.”
“You mean the woman that I love.”
Flicker looked away from the table to me and said, “You help make all this better somehow.”
“Glad to hear that!”
She studied me reflectively, “I did have one miracle happen in this twisted horror of what’s become of me.”
“What was that?”
She came close then and leaned into me, “I’m still a completely functional woman and one day I will bear your children proudly.”
We both kissed each other then with passion. Pulling apart we both knew what we wanted, but this certainly wasn’t the time or the place.
“Okay let’s get this thingy-ma-jiggy that we need and get the heck out of here!” I said with meaning.
We both started to look through the shattered debris of the room for the device that we had come for. Curiously, as we searched, I asked, “Why is it a miracle that you’re still a functional woman as you put it? You’re different from the other robot people?”
“Yes. They castrate the men and remove the woman’s ovaries. They do it to get rid of the hormones attached to passionate instincts that interfere with mind control. Beyond that they basically lobotomize them as well. The other robot people are basically walking vegetables. Without input they collapse to the ground without any motor or cognitive ability. Sever their link at the back of the neck and their helpless.”
“Why did they do it differently with you?”
“The main researcher liked my pre-existing cognitive abilities and thought it would be interesting to compare the composite analysis between those without a mind and someone with a mind to see if there was a noticeable difference in terms of performance.”
“Was there?” I asked already knowing the answer.
“A huge difference, but the higher-ups wouldn’t give her the go-ahead to make more like me, because they feared what would happen if the control link was severed. They’d lose control of their army and perhaps have them turn on them, which is exactly what I’ve done so their fears weren’t without cause after all.”
“If you were a threat to them why did they let you remain as you were then?”
“My creator had another idea. She was going to have me bred so they could run analysis on my babies to see if they inherited any advanced technological function. Thankfully your Agency took the Code out before that hellish experiment could get started.”
“I’d like to very much meet your research creator.” I thought with grimness and ill will of mind.
“You already have.”
I stopped and glanced up from my search in startlement at Flicker.
She explained, “Jane Sola, you know her as Jane Worthy.”
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner? I swear I’ll put a bullet in her brain when I get back!”
“No don’t do that. Not just yet anyway. Right now she’s being useful, but when she’s done I’ll deal with her myself.”
I shook my head, as I marveled at Flicker’s restraint. “It’s hard to imagine how after suffering as you have that you can hold off from administering justice richly deserved!”
“I have my reasons.” Was Flicker’s unhelpful response.
“You want to protect the Agency that bad huh? Or is it because you want to protect your brothers?”
Flicker glanced at me startled, “You know?”
“It’s not hard to recognize the similarities. When are you going to tell them?”
“I don’t know.”
“If you don’t I will.” I thought with firmness of purpose.
“Utah……”
“There is nothing for you to be ashamed of or hide from! You have family that loves you and you should be in contact with them and not coasting around the edges primarily focused on just keeping them safe from a distance, as your one only contact with them.”
Flicker’s gaze grew accusing, “You have family and yet you don’t have anything to do with them!”
“That’s because as you well know they don’t love me. On a different topic I would really appreciate it if you would stop dissecting every corner of my mind!
She glanced down, “I’m sorry!”
“You’re forgiven. Now let’s get back to work so we can get out of here.”
She nodded and we both went back to searching.
Cautiously we made our way into other rooms in search of the device we had come for. I found bits and pieces of several, but none that were intact. It was beginning to look very grim for us in terms of our chances of coming out of here successful.
Always throughout our search into the outlying rooms we encountered the same destruction, as we had in the first room behind the bulkhead door. There had to of been a hundred or more people still in this part of the facility when it had been compromised and the bulkhead door slammed shut and locked from the outside.
They’d shut the door and locked all these people in with the unknown monster of their own creation. Somehow I guessed that was fitting in a way.
Flicker and I had spread out into different rooms to cover ground more quickly, but I was beginning to feel that it would do us no good. There simply wasn’t anything left whole in this place!
I kicked at a can in frustration and it clattered loudly along the floor in the stillness of the laboratory.
There was a heavy grunt from a darkened corner of the room behind me and in cold dread I half turned and was in time to see two huge red eyes open and stare right at me out of the darkness.
“What did you do?” Came Flicker’s instant response to my horror filled moment of reality.
“I woke up hell! Run!!!” I screamed out in my natural voice.
My scream of warning was drowned out by a bone chilling shriek of unbridled intensity that erupted from the darkness at the end of the room. Both of my machine pistols were in my hands chattering, as they spewed hot lead into the bulk of the beast I now saw dimly outlined in the corner.
The beast came at me then howling like a demented loon. I dropped down as a massive arm swiped through the air where I had just been standing. I dropped both spent pistols, as they would do me no good for I had seen the beast, as it had come for me and no pistol round would take it down.
In that horror filled moment, as it had raced toward me out of the shadows I’d seen it for the monster that it was even as I had watched the rounds of my pistols deflect off of its metallic laced hide. The beast was the horrifying product of deranged minds at play and I’d never been so terrified in my life by the sight of an animal, if that was what it could still be called.
They had taken what looked like the body of an adult male gorilla and twisted it into a fabrication that one would expect of hell. It was obscene to behold and a terror to the soul, as if it was possessed.
Its arms and legs were gone replaced with massive robotic replacements. It seemed that it’s hide shifted in a sort of plate-like armor, even as its head was encased in a metallic skullcap that only its red eyes glowed out of, as its slavering jaw was reared wide open to display metallic teeth of unnatural proportion. When I had ducked
under the swipe at my head I had never stopped moving.
We had to get to the portal and lock it before this demented creation of man broke free to the surface!
I ran the sprint of my life then. If I’d run straight I would never have made it, but instead I ducked left and right, as if I was evading phantom linebackers. I dodged through doorways and around corners, as the beast in wild anguish to taste my flesh roared shrilly in hot pursuit smashing through doorways and walls alike.
I wasn’t going to make it!
The monster pounded through yet another wall right on my heels and the exploding outward debris of the wall knocked me off my feet and across the room to wham up against the opposing wall. He would have had me then, but for the flashing blades that bit into his armor clad body and caused blood to spurt.
The monster roared and turned on Flicker, who backed away trying to lead the beast away from me. It was encouraging to see that the monster could bleed, but do a few axe strikes cause a large tree to fall?
Something changed then and a whole level of foulness previously unrecorded was revealed about the creature, as its nostrils flared wide in appreciation that Flicker was a female. Apparently all respect of species had been stripped away in the Code language that governed the beast’s actions.
It was an atrocity of human creation to inspire the great ape to become flagrantly erect in an unnatural desire for an individual not of his own kind. Not that the ape had a kind anymore.
Worse than that was how twistingly the ape had been modified from the natural. Its phallus wasn’t flesh, but instead it was formed into a speared shaft of unnatural proportion made of the same metallic compound as Flicker’s arms and legs.
This demented creation of foolish minds had been created with a purpose, which was to terrorize mankind and feed upon him, even as it gored females to a grisly death in a display of devilish significance in regard to the age-old enmity between the god of this world and the seed of a woman.
Flicker stood in paralyzed horror at the sight before her and I screamed out, “Get out of here!!!”
She snapped out of her trance, as the beast came down on all four legs and started to spring for her.
Agent on the Run (The Agents for Good) Page 7
