by S. A. Lusher
“Just trying to figure why we got fucked over,” Jennifer replied.
The man just shook his head. “Luck of the draw,” he replied. “The universe sucks.” He turned to face Mark again. “Did you send out a call of any kind? Frost said you activated the secondary comms array,” he said.
“Don't tell him anything else,” Jennifer said.
“Shut up!” the man snapped, raising the pistol again. It looked particularly ominous being clutched by a skeletal metal hand.
“Boss, calm down, don't do something stupid again,” Frost said.
“Shut the fuck up, Frost,” the man snapped. He turned the gun back on Mark. “Did you send a transmission?!” Mark tried to respond, to say something, anything, but his throat had clamped down and he couldn't get a word out. “Tell me, now!” he roared.
Another look of pain tore across his features.
Mark only had eyes now for the huge black barrel in front of his face. He could taste his fear. The barrel trembled.
He heard a shot. Saw a bright flash.
Then there was nothing.
* * * * *
Jennifer stared in horrified disbelief, all other thoughts gone from her head.
Mark was dead.
His chin was resting against his chest now, his body slumped forward against the bonds holding it, all his muscles slack. Some of the blood had sprayed across her. There was a dark, bloody hole in his forehead. She shifted her horrified gaze to the man holding the gun. He was looking down at the body, then looking at the gun in his hand. He seemed vaguely confused. Then his features hardened and he holstered the pistol.
“With me,” he said to Frost as he marched out of the room.
They both left the room, closing the door behind them, leaving Jennifer alone with Mark's body.
* * * * *
“That was stupid,” Frost said. “Why'd you have us go to all the trouble of recapturing them if you were just gonna do that?”
“Not right now,” Enzo replied. He was rubbing his shoulder again, worry gnawing at him. He shouldn't be in pain, not with all the drugs he was taking. Frost was right, he shouldn't have killed that guy, he hadn't really meant to, but he'd been so fucking pissed, his shoulder burning up with agony...this whole thing was turning into a bust. But it didn't have to. The situation could still be salvaged.
Speaking of salvage...
“Did you get it? Did you get what I needed?” he asked as they walked briskly through the brightly-lit corridors of the once abandoned research center.
“Yes,” Frost replied. “It was a pain in the fucking ass, especially since those idiots woke up and I had to deal with that. But I got it. It's in the escape pod you had pulled into the hangar.”
“Good. I need to see it. Right now,” Enzo replied.
“What's so fucking special about it? What does it do?” Frost asked.
“Nothing you'd be interested in,” Enzo muttered. “Go get it and bring it to the primary infirmary immediately. And you do it, personally. Make sure nothing happens to it.”
“Fine,” Frost replied, breaking away from him down another corridor without another word.
Enzo watched his broad, retreating back for a moment, then continued his stride as another wave of pain washed over him. As he made for the command center of his makeshift research outpost, Enzo thought about Frost, about all the others he had spent the past five months culling from all corners of the galaxy. They were, well, almost all of them, former Rogue Operations personnel. When the shit had hit the fan and Hawkins' band of survivors had actually managed to make Rogue Ops' plans fail, and fail miserably, Enzo had disappeared for about a month, just lying low, because he knew Hawkins and the GA would be looking for him.
He'd gotten desperate in that month.
That's when he'd hatched his plan. He'd started digging, looking through a cache of Rogue Operations data that was stored at an isolated facility the government had never found. He'd hunted through all that data. It was like a redundancy database, where they stored a lot of their information. Most of it was useless now, but he'd gathered up a lot of things. For example: Rogue Operations was divided up into about fifteen different cells. He was familiar with some of them. He found information on the cell operating on what had once been Lindholm, the people Allan had put up with. There was the cell on Syberia that he had put down.
Ah, the memories.
There had been a cell trying to create a genetically enhanced super-soldier based off of Cyr tech. He imagined that's where that assassin in white had come from. Another cell was doing research on trying to make some kind of mega-bomb, also based off of Cyr tech. The cell doing research on that snowy planet they'd encountered the cyborgs on. Another one that was sent to exploit the creature on Arctica that Trent and Drake had killed. They'd never really got on with it, as they'd been destroyed by a lucky shot from the aforementioned mercs in orbit and by some kind of explosion that had consumed the entire facility.
When it all fell apart, these cells, these thousands of scientists, medics, technicians and soldiers had been scattered to the solar winds. Enzo had spent the next four months building himself an army. The majority of the people linked to Rogue Ops in the database were dead, those that remained were either in jail or in hiding. It had taken all of those four months, tens of thousands of credits and the expert hacking of two different geniuses, but Enzo had found them. Several hundred men and women who weren't ready to pack it in, who were still looking for a job, a purpose, a way out. Enzo had their way out.
He'd found references to the cell that Greg had dealt with. There wasn't much, given that they'd lost all contact shortly after they'd arrived in the system. But they had a confirmed case of the Necro Virus. Something they'd apparently found and dealt with once before, some twenty years ago. But what was really interesting to Enzo was the fact that, during that original case, they'd engineered two 'miracle cures' from the virus that were still in use to this day. These two cures had been used to treat chronic pain.
That particular fact stuck with him.
Of course, he'd already tried these two treatments and they'd both failed, but the idea was there. He had to get his hands on some Necro Virus. That was buried in the database, too. Before everything had gone to shit, they'd been looking into a recovered Cyr database that had listed a potential site containing the Necro Virus. When he'd been building his army, he'd gone and recovered it. Then he'd just needed some test subjects.
After some digging, he'd found the Cimmerian. It was perfect: a research vessel with a lot of people onboard heading out to an isolated location. So he'd had Frost and a few other personnel slip onboard after cutting a deal with the captain. They also had tracked down a long-abandoned research facility on the moon of a pretty useless solar system way out there to use as a base of operations. Enzo didn't like Frost, but the man was good at his job. Apparently, he'd been one of the very few survivors from the ship that Trent and Drake blew up over Arctica. He'd gotten to an escape pod in time. Then, he'd been reassigned to the unnamed world they'd fought the cyborgs on. After managing to survive that, he'd also been involved in a galactic chase when they'd been going after the artifacts. Enzo was impressed.
It was odd to think that Frost had been operating behind the scenes like that for so long. It was the main reason he'd hired the man and made him his second in command. He also wasn't the only one Enzo had run into during the 'recruiting' process...
“Ah, Mister Rains, I've been looking for you!”
Enzo sighed as he stepped into the command center.
Doctor Azzo Matheson, the man they'd rescued from the unnamed, snowy world, was waiting for him. Not someone he really wanted to talk to, given that, confidentially, he didn't actually care about most of what Matheson was doing. The tall, whipcord thin, olive-skinned man wore a surgeon's smock and small, round, wire-frame glasses. Not something he needed to, something he merely wanted to. He said it 'added to his visual aesthetic'. Matheson was running about th
irty different experiments on the Necro Virus. The main reason Enzo let this go on was because he'd hired on all these people under the auspice of making a shitload of money by developing and selling patents off of the virus, among other things, too.
All he wanted was a cure for his fucking pain.
He'd found Matheson in a research lab somewhere, working under tight supervision for the GA. When he'd offered the man the deal, the doctor had taken it immediately, looking to get away from the heavy censorship of the government.
“Just tell me how the pain cure is going,” Enzo said. His shoulder was flaring up bad again and he didn't have the patience for the man. He couldn't believe he'd killed that fucking guy. He usually didn't lose control like that.
Matheson's features fell and he cleared his throat. He looked down at the infopad in his long-fingered hands, his bald head gleaming in the bright lights. “Very well then. We've had no significant progress on that front,” he replied succinctly.
Enzo sighed. “Fine. What else?”
“We've come a long way towards the creation of new forms based on the original strain. We're slowly beginning to understand what actually causes the mutations. And progress is continuing in creating the...well, the creature. We're working on a name for it at the moment.”
“The cure, Matheson, how's the cure coming?”
“Still can't get that one to work.”
“Fine. Control of them? How's that one coming along? That's the big one. Being able to sell control of these things is the only thing standing between us and more money than god.”
“I thought you didn't believe in god.”
“It's just a saying, Matheson. And I don't.”
“We're making some progress. Based on the information from Greg Bishop and Kyra Mercer, Director Williams did manage to enforce some kind of control over a Berserker once through technology. We're still figuring that one out.”
“Fine. Keep on it.”
“Indeed,” Matheson replied.
Enzo turned away from him, pausing to check in with a few of the techs that were keeping this shit heap of an outpost running. There were so many problems but they were all small by comparison to the tidal wave of pure horror that was his shoulder. After checking in with them, he stepped out of the command center and into his personal infirmary he'd had set up in what had once been a break room. Natalia Petrov was alone in the infirmary, sitting at a workstation. She glanced up at he came in and offered him a tight smile.
“Hey, need help,” he said, causing her smile to fade.
“It's hurting again?” she asked, standing and crossing to a medical cabinet.
Enzo nodded and took a seat on the examination table.
She sighed. “It shouldn't be.”
“Goddamn right it shouldn't be,” Enzo muttered, absently rubbing at it.
Over the past six months, things had only gotten worse. The pain had been with him for thirty years now, starting when he woke from a bad car accident that cost him his right arm. Nothing had helped for very long. Finally, he'd given in about four months ago and gone to a black market medical clinic, top-of-the-line, and had them surgically implant a device directly into his shoulder that fed a small but continuous amount of painkiller into his system. He had to take a pill every six hours to counteract the most noxious effects of the painkiller and for about three months it had actually worked. He didn't feel anything there.
Then, maybe a month ago, it had come back.
Slowly, at first, but it had been building. He'd been increasing the dosage and trying new concoctions. It was the main reason he had made Natalia such a high-ranking official in his own private army. At twenty eight, she was young, but she was a medical genius. She'd been involved in the genetically engineered super solider project, one of the one's that didn't blow up in Rogue Ops' face. He looked at her as she approached with a new syringe. Okay, that wasn't the only reason he'd hired her. She was drop-dead gorgeous.
Slim with a medium bust and nicely toned muscles, she had pale skin, blood red hair and sharp, glowing blue eyes. The idea that she looked and acted a lot like Eve hadn't been lost on him. In the dark, lonely nights, Eve was often what he thought of. Enzo never liked to think of himself as a loser who pined for the girl who had rejected him, especially when he was good at getting women to get into bed with him, but, well, there it was. He missed her. He thought he might have loved her. She represented something painful.
She represented probably the perfect woman for him...back when he wasn't a completely shitty human being. Back when he was respected, not feared. Back when he had control, integrity and honesty. Back when he controlled the pain, not the other way around. Natalia was as close as he could get to that.
He slept with her every chance he got. And she seemed amenable enough to it. She'd admitted she was sexually attracted to men of power and dominance.
“Lie down,” she said as she came over and set the syringe down on the table next to the state-of-the-art examination table.
“Why?” Enzo replied, but he did.
“I want to make sure it's not something else,” she said, activating the scanning protocols.
Enzo sighed. “Just give me a higher dosage, okay?”
“No. If if isn't something wrong with your implant, then I want to try a new cocktail of pain meds,” Natalia replied.
She was probably the only person in a light-year that could tell him no outright and not set him off. He simply laid there and waited for the scan to finish.
“I'm worried about you,” she said, quietly.
“I'll be fine,” Enzo replied.
“Forget the act, we're alone,” Natalia said.
He looked up at her, then sighed and looked away. “You aren't the only one that's worried.”
“I'm worried you're going to do something stupid.”
He snorted. “I do something stupid every day of my life.”
“You know what I mean...he found it, didn't he? Frost found that machine and brought it back down to you, right?”
“...yes.”
“Enzo, don't use it. Please.”
“I might have to.”
“Give me more time.”
He sighed heavily. “That's what they all say. 'Just give me more time, I'm sure I'll come up with the answer.' It's been thirty years, Natalia.”
“I know. Just...please...” The examination chimed. She glanced down at it, frowned. “Sit up,” she said, grabbing the syringe.
“Gear's working fine, isn't it?” Enzo asked, sitting up and swinging his feet over the edge.
“Yeah. Now hold still.”
He waited while she raised the syringe, flicked it a few times, pressed the plunger in a small bit, then shoved the needle in through the port they'd built into the metal part of his shoulder and filled the sub-dermal distribution device with the new cocktail of meds. When she was finished, she pulled it out and set it aside.
“Here,” she said, reaching into her pocket and pulling out an unlabeled silver bottle. Enzo accepted it, rattled it, then popped the top.
“How much?” he asked.
“Two every four hours,” she replied.
He sighed and put two out into his hand, popped them into his mouth and dry-swallowed them, then he resealed the top and pocketed it.
“How's everything else going?” she asked as he stood.
“Fine. We recovered one of the survivors from the ship, then blew the ship up. No risk of contamination from up there. Come on,” he said, leading her out of the infirmary and back out into the command center.
“What now?” Natalia asked.
“I need an extra dose of 'painkillers',” he replied.
“Oh,” she said with a small smile.
Enzo stopped in the control room and looked around, scanning the faces. He spied an attractive, busty brunette. Her name was Ashley. He'd had her several times before. He got her attention, pointed at her, then nodded his head towards the door at the back, which led to his office
and private living quarters.
Without a word, she nodded and rose, coming to join him and Natalia.
* * * * *
Jennifer sniffed and kept shifting.
She felt a horrible mixture of emotions: terror, guilt, shame. She'd finally lost it when they'd left her alone in that room, her control slipping. She'd burst into tears and had stayed like that for what felt like a long time. She felt embarrassed. It had been over a decade since she'd broken down in tears. But Mark was dead and it might be her fault for telling him not to say anything more. Finally, after a long time, she had cried herself out and reminded herself of the cold, hard truth: what was done was done, all she could do was react to it and go on from there. The only positive thing to come out of her crying fit was a discovery.
The black cords holding her to the chair weren't as tight as she'd originally thought.
She'd been working them, shifting around, and they were loosening just a bit. Finally, carefully, Jennifer raised herself straight up and manged to get the first of the two cords holding her into place up and over the back of the chair. After a bit more shifting, she had the other one up. Perfect. Unfortunately, her hands were still bound and her ankles were still fitted to the chair's legs, but she could fix that last problem pretty easily. She stood up and, after a bit of shifting around it, she had the chairs legs free of hers.
Tossing the chair away, she stood up and popped her neck, relieving some of the tension. She'd been doing that a lot lately, but she had good reason to be tense. As she did this, the lights suddenly went out. Jennifer felt her fear return, but she pushed against it, instead moving towards the door, standing just to the side of it.
She waited there, listening to the sounds of her own breathing. Abruptly, dull, brick-red light filled the room. Emergency lighting. A second later, the door opened. Someone stepped in. Jennifer didn't hesitate, the second the man turned to face her, she head-bashed him in the nose. The man screamed and her face was sprayed with blood. She kept up the attack, shouldering into him and shoving him back against the wall as hard as she could. There was a sharp crack, the man cried out and then he collapsed into a heap on the floor.
