by Greg Cox
Rather than complying with the officer's demands, Seven swiftly raised his servo and fired into the oncoming troopers. With expert aim, he targeted the guard behind the wheel of the small, threewheeled scooter. The driver immediately collapsed over the steering column, causing the vehicle to veer wildly out of control. The soldiers on foot were forced to scatter and scurry for safety, momentarily abandoning their pursuit of Seven, as they broke ranks in a chaotic attempt to avoid the runaway scooter. The guard in the passenger seat struggled to grab hold of the steering wheel, but the dead weight of his comrade's listless body obstructed the passenger's frantic efforts to regain control of the transport. “Watch out!” he shrieked in Punjabi.
Seven spared only an instant to observe the guards' momentary disarray. The cramped corridors, he knew, would prevent the two-man scooter from accelerating to a genuinely life-threatening velocity; at most, the driver and his passenger would merely be stunned when the vehicle inevitably slammed into one of the tunnel walls. Whenever possible, he reminded himself, keep enemy casualties to a minimum.
In the meantime, he meant to make the most of his reprieve, sprinting down the empty hallway at full speed, occasionally firing back over his shoulder at his pursuers. Tranquilized guards dropped like crunch- blossoms on Equinox IV, while their cohorts ducked for cover. The most persistent guards, however, undaunted by invisible beams or the wayward scooter, began firing back at Seven, the sound of gunshots ringing throughout the lengthy tunnel. Seven bent over as he ran, presenting as small a target as he could. Bullets whizzed past him, raising miniature clouds of dust and debris wherever they perforated the walls and floor of the tunnel. Seven knew that, no matter how distracted and rushed the marksmen, he couldn't evade the blistering hail of lead for long.
Clearly visible ahead, the promised exit beckoned to him, offering a much-needed escape route. He propelled himself forward with all his strength, relying on adrenaline to compensate, in part, for the weakness brought on by his long captivity. His lungs burned, and Earth's gravity felt as though it had increased by several orders of magnitude over just the last few minutes. A bullet chipped out a corner of the wall only a few inches from his head, spraying the right half of his face with powdered plaster. Almost there, he spurred his aching legs, keeping his gaze fixed immovably on the exit sign. Just a few more feet . . . !
With his peripheral vision, he glimpsed a cherry-red fire alarm mounted to the wall upon his right. Playing a hunch, he turned quickly and fired a thermal discharge at the ceiling. Not enough to ignite a serious blaze, naturally, but sufficient to activate any overhead sprinklers that might be lurking out of sight.
A piercing siren greeted his efforts, followed by an immediate torrent of water spraying down from concealed jets in the ceiling. Angry curses competed with the siren as the pursuing security guards, already rattled by the amuck scooter, slid and slipped on the suddenly soaking floor tiles. The artificial ( and entirely unnecessary) downpour also interfered with their marksmanship, granting Seven the grace period he needed to reach the once-distant exit. Good to know Kaur and her architects practiced responsible fire safety, he mused wryly, but how could they not, with future generations of superhumanity at risk?
The exit door was locked, possibly because of the security alert, but Seven slammed his shoulder against the barricade, breaking the lock. Escaping both the shrillness of the siren and the drenching spray of the sprinklers, he found himself upon the wrought-iron catwalk, several flights of stairs above the ground floor. Leaning heavily on a safety rail, painted a drab industrial green, he looked out over the enormous vertical shaft penetrating the hub of Chrysalis; after numerous hours spent in cramped cages and interlocking tunnels, it was startling to encounter so much open space. Elevator cables dangled from on high, extending through a circular gap in the floor to the sublevels below. That's where I need to go, Seven thought, taking an instant to assimilate the breathtaking view from his lofty vantage point. A butterfly design adorned the ground floor at least five levels below, adding a decorative touch to the vast excavation. Too bad , he reflected grimly, that this man-made chrysalis is more likely to disgorge dangerous wasps than any delicately ornamental lepidoptera, and in swarms th at may well consume Earth's fr agile hopes for peace .
The network of steel balconies and catwalks erected up and down the wide circumference of the great shaft looked oddly unpeopled at present; Seven guessed that the majority of the project's population were staying put in their own quarters and laboratories until the current security crisis was resolved. Only multiple teams of security guards prowled the catwalk and the ground floor below, leaving no sector of Chrysalis unexplored in their hunt for the intruders. Seven briefly regretted that he was wearing a scientist's white coat and not a security guard's blue uniform; with more guards than civilians on the prowl, he stood out like a sore thumb.
A sore, tired thumb, to be exact. Winded from the chase, he craved a few more seconds to catch his breath, but he knew he couldn't afford to rest for even another heartbeat. The sprinklers would not slow his dogged pursuers for long, and already additional teams of guardsmen were spotting him upon the catwalk. On the other side of the mammoth shaft, roughly a quarter of a mile away, a bearded guard shouted and pointed at Seven with the muzzle of his gun. More heads turned in his direction, both upon the sprawling catwalks and from the floor below. Behind Seven, through the ruptured doorway, he heard the splashing and yelling of his original hunters, drawing nearer by the moment. No time to linger, he realized, brushing the powdered debris off his face. Best to present a moving target.
Despite the fatigue poisons building up in the muscles of his tooweary legs, Seven started down the iron stairway leading to the lower levels of the catwalk. He took the dull green steps two at a time, grabbing on to the cool metal handrails to swing forward onto the next balcony-like landing. His heels slammed into the solidly-mounted grillework so hard that he could feel the vibration all the way up his legs. At least it's downhill all the way, he thought, until I get to that reactor.
No sooner had he reached the first of the lower platforms than the original security team arrived at the doorway he had smashed his way through only moments before. Seven was ready for them; aiming his servo back the way he had come, he disintegrated the landing outside the door, cutting the guardsmen off ( he hoped) from the lower levels. The iron platform glowed briefly, suffused with incandescent energy, before vanishing entirely, reduced to a cascade of free-floating atoms.
But the landing's instantaneous disappearance did not discourage his hunters entirely. To Seven's dismay, one of the guards tried to jump from the brink of the newly created abyss to the landing where Seven now stood; Seven watched in horror as the determined trooper fell short of his goal, instead plummeting hundreds of feet to the ground floor of the shaft, where his lifeless body came to rest upon the attractive blue-and-white tiles. His colleagues on the ground flocked to his splattered remains, but Seven knew they were too late to provide any medical attention or spiritual comfort. No ordinary mortal could survive that plunge.
Seven profoundly regretted the man's death, but declined to accept full responsibility for the tragedy. I can't protect every Homo sapiens from his own recklessness, he thought sadly. Saving the mass of humanity is difficult enough.
Having learned a deadly lesson from their comrade's fatal mistake, the surviving members of the security team clung tightly to the doorframe as they fired their guns at Seven, who struggled to keep one step ahead of the merciless fusillade. Bullets ricocheted off the metal steps and handrails, throwing sparks in every direction. The sharp reports of the gunshots drowned out the excited and irate cries of guardsmen both near and far.
More trouble rushed toward Seven from below. Glancing down through the grillework beneath his feet, Seven spied a second security team hurrying up the steps to intercept him. Within seconds they were only a level or two below him, and eating up the remaining distance at a furious clip. The barrage of gunfire fro
m the upper doorway slowed dramatically as the elevated snipers held their fire, reluctant to catch their own forces in their fire. A small silver lining, Seven noted gratefully, to an otherwise dire situation.
“Get him!” the guards called to each other. Multiple sets of boots stomped up the iron stairways, climbing toward the exposed intruder. “Don't let him get away!”
Having literally burned his bridges behind him, Seven realized he couldn't turn back even if he wanted to. With a fresh pack of Sikh guardsmen closing on him, Seven directed the servo's disintegration beam on the stairs and landing directly beneath him, halting the climbing guards' upward progress. Two levels below, the uniformed men backed away apprehensively, wary of Seven's obviously formidable weapon. Little did they know that he'd turn the ray on himself before obliterating any undeserving human beings. They're just foot soldiers, doing their job, Seven realized. Unfortunately, that job just happens to interfere with mine.
His tactic had bought a few more seconds, but left him effectively stranded on a steel platform several dozen feet above the floor. It also made him vulnerable to a crossfire between the two teams of security guards. Not a very tenable position, Seven concluded, searching his surroundings for a viable alternative. His cool, analytical gaze fell upon the dangling elevator cables, stretching from the desert floor high above them to unseen sublevels of the immense underground complex. The cables were approximately four hundred yards away from the edge of the steel landing, a considerable jump, even for him. A hundred feet below, the pool of blood spreading from the body of the fallen guard tellingly illustrated the terminal consequences of failing to make the jump. It was a long way down indeed.
“Nothing else to do,” Seven muttered. A quick blast from his servo disintegrated the guardrail separating him from the empty space between the ledge and the cables. Placing the weapon in his pants pocket, he hastily shucked off the confining white lab coat and wrapped the fabric over the palms of his hands, so that a ribbon of white cloth linked his hands like shackles. He backed up against the wall of the shaft, to give himself as much of a running start as possible—little more than a yard's worth—then ran toward the edge of the landing, asking his already overtaxed legs for one more Olympicscaliber feat.
His feet left the safety and support of the ledge and Seven hurled himself into the gap, his hands stretched out in front of him. Forward momentum carried his fragile human frame toward the hanging cables even as gravity pulled him down, causing him to descend toward the floor in a long, sloping arch. Startled onlookers gasped in astonishment at the intruder's death-defying dive even as Seven focused entirely on the potentially lifesaving elevator cables. A self-generated wind blew against his face, but he kept his eyes open until, maybe sixty feet above the floor, he came within reach of the cables. Hands swaddled in protective cloth grabbed on to one of the thick steel cords, abruptly arresting his descent. The impact of his sudden stop nearly yanked his arms from their sockets, but he held on to the greasy cables through the fabric of the lab coat, swinging precariously for a few seconds before catching on to the cable with his ankles as well.
Made it! Despite the extremely unfinished nature of his mission, he allowed himself a moment of elation. That was a riskier stunt than I usually like to pull, he admitted. Good thing Isis wasn't around to see him taking chances like that; he'd never hear the end of it. From now on, I'm inclined to leave the death-defying leaps to Evel Knievel.
Using the now-greasy lab coat to control his descent, and protect his hands from friction, he slid down the elevator cable toward the hole in the floor. Caught by surprise, the guardsmen let him slide most of the way unopposed, realizing only too late what he was up to.
Bullets rang against the floor tiles in a last-minute attempt to target Seven before he dropped out of sight. The would-be saboteur felt very relieved that Kaur had not yet had a chance a raise a generation of marksmen with genetically perfect aim.
Ducking his head, Seven rode the cable down through the center of the floor's ornate butterfly logo. The din of gunfire grew more distant as the elevator shaft continued through at least four feet of solid concrete, eventually emerging from the ceiling of a large, starkly unadorned cement bunker. A single elevator car rested at the bottom of the shaft, going mercifully unused at the moment. Seven waited until he was only ten feet or so above the roof of the elevator before letting go of the cable and dropping onto the top of the car.
The minute he hit the elevator, he dived onto all fours and rolled swiftly to one side. He was just in time; one level above, the frustrated guards had finally thought to fire their weapons straight down the elevator shaft. Multiple gunshots shredded the top of the elevator, but Seven had already hopped onto the cement floor beside the elevator car. He pressed the nearby Up button, sending the punctured elevator back up the shaft, effectively stopping any of the guards from mimicking his rapid descent down the cable—at least for a few minutes.
He looked around quickly. According to both Roberta and the map in the corridor, the nuclear generator was located on this level of the complex, a prediction confirmed by the large painted warnings painted on the wall in front of him:
CAUTION! ATOMIC POWER STATION NO UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL PERMITTED!
The warnings were printed in English, Hindi, Punjabi, and Chinese, and accompanied by a bright yellow rendering of the universal sign for nuclear radiation. Even more daunting were the two armed guards flanking what appeared to be the only entrance to the power station.
“Halt!” one of the guards commanded Seven, raising his rifle as he stepped between Seven and a lowered steel door. “Identify yourself!”
Seven knew he couldn't outdraw both armed guards with his servo—his reflexes weren't that fast—so he clicked the transport function of the servo instead, summoning a cloud of roiling, luminous plasma that appeared from nowhere between Seven and the guards, shielding him from their view. Alarmed by the shimmering smoke screen, both guards fired randomly into the fog, not realizing that their bullets dematerialized the moment they entered the plasma, instantly converted into pure energy. Both guards discharged a full clip of ammo in a vain attempt to shoot the intruder on the other side of the glowing cloud; Seven used the sound of their weapons to target first one guard, then the other, with the servo he quickly drew from his pocket. The tranquilizer beam, not being composed of matter, passed through the plasma unobstructed, silencing both gunmen within seconds.
Seven canceled the transporter command, banishing the unnatural mist back to subspace, then hurried forward through the last blue wisps to the sealed entrance to the reactor. The subdued guards were slumped on both sides of the lowered steel door, dozing contentedly. Seven methodically searched the pockets of the nearest guard, quickly turning up an electronic passkey, which he inserted into a slot next to the door. “Open sesame,” he muttered, reflecting a thorough grounding in Terran folklore and literature.
Hidden motors thrummed as the door began to slide upward, receding into a slot in the ceiling. Seven did not wait for the barrier to disappear entirely, ducking beneath the door the minute there was enough room to squeeze under. “No one move!” he ordered, announcing his arrival to the startled technicians in the control room. He held the servo in an overtly threatening manner. “As recent announcements confirm, I am indeed armed and dangerous.”
The half-dozen technicians present backed away from the entrance nervously, most of them abandoning their posts at the control. A single techie, however, risked Seven's wrath by slapping his palm down on a large red button, triggering an immediate alarm. Seven swiftly turned the servo's beam on the security-conscious offender, causing that individual to droop in his seat, but the damage had already been done. Sirens blared overhead, no doubt alerting all of Chrysalis of his incursion into the reactor's control room.
Seven sighed, but shrugged his shoulders. No matter, he thought. Kaur and her security forces were bound to guess my intentions eventually, especially after seeing me slide down that ca
ble to this level. He gestured with his servo, forcing the remainder of the technicians to line up against the back of the room, in front of the startlingly old-fashioned computers with their refrigerator-sized housings and large, rotating spindles. “All right,” he instructed the cowed techies. “I want you all to leave here as quickly as possible, taking that gentleman with you,” he added, nodding at the tranquilized whistleblower, now slumped over his control panel. Seven's gaze zeroed in on one particular technician, who struck him as older and most likely to be in charge. “Except you,” he specified, singling out his chosen candidate: a lanky European, whose security badge identified him as Ryan Johnson, Chief Engineer. “I need to talk to you.”
The other technicians needed no further encouragement to make themselves scarce, abandoning the control room in record time. Seven waited for the last two engineers to depart, carrying their droopy colleague between them, then used his stolen passkey to bring the metal door crashing back down. The control panel next to the door was rudimentary in design, at least to Seven's standards, so it took him only a moment to reprogram the locking mechanism, effectively sealing the control room off from the security teams that were probably arriving on the scene at this very minute. They'll need an acetylene torch to get through this door, he thought approvingly. That should give me all the time I need.
“Sorry about the delay,” he said to his sole remaining hostage. “Thank you for waiting.” He walked between the rows of consoles, quickly familiarizing himself with the layout. The fundamentally crude and antiquated nature of the controls made his current task easier, but appalled him nonetheless. He glanced out the wide Plexiglas window at the huge concrete silo housing the reaction chamber itself and shuddered accordingly. I can't believe that the people of this era think they can play with nuclear fission so haphazardly. At the rate mankind's building these slipshod power generators, they're sure to stumble into a serious meltdown or two within a decade. “How do I initiate the self-destruct procedure?” he asked Johnson.
