The Last Hero: Book 2 of The Last War Series

by Peter Bostrom

  About halfway down the new turn, Modi’s voice stopped him. “Doctor Bratta, could you please obtain some more precise images of the locks? I believe they may have changed.”

  “What if someone comes down the corridor? I can’t really explain stopping to peer at the locks, can I?”

  This time, Jeannie came through. “No, that would be a terrible idea, you’re right. Stop near one of the doors and polish your glasses on your shirt, though, and that should do you fine. Your head doesn’t need to be near them after all, just the camera.”

  Modi agreed. “Officer Tafola’s idea is sound. Please ensure that you hold your glasses relatively steady, and if you are able to obtain coverage from all angles that would be ideal.”

  Bratta did as they said. His hands were shaking a little, and Lockbreaker’s plates were slick with perspiration—whatever adhesive seal Modi had used to stick it to his hand, it was performing admirably—but he managed to get a reasonable view of the electronic locks. Well. He hoped.

  Modi hmmed and said nothing.

  “I’d suggest you get going,” Martha told him.

  “I’m on the guard channel and it sounds like there might be a patrol headed your way,” Jeannie added.

  He set off.

  Another turn—right this time, he decided.

  “Doctor Bratta, you need to reconfigure your Lockbreaker, now,” Modi said.

  “What? Why?”

  The head of engineering’s tone turned urgent. “Those are state-of-the-art devices, and they are extremely sensitive. The ID card you possess is not compatible with their design. There are however, certain weaknesses in the design that may be exploited, provided the Lockbreaker is adjusted precisely as I tell you. If you fail to do so, or you attempt to use the ID, the system will detect inconsistency and set off an alarm. I expect this would be disastrous.”

  Bratta swallowed. “What do I have to do?”

  “First, find a bathroom. Unfortunately, you will need to perform some small amount of rewiring to the power source.”

  “Er, sure,” he whispered, backtracking. He entered a bathroom he had passed earlier. “What now?”

  “Do you have access to the battery?”

  “Er … how long do I have?”

  “Only as long as you can manage without drawing suspicion.”

  “Whatever you’re doing, make it quick, Steve,” Jeannie added. “Please.”

  As long as he could manage without drawing suspicion? Well, that was … negative a few hours on a normal day. He wouldn’t have time to doff and don his shirt and Lockbreaker, which had taken five minutes to arrange in the first place.

  He winced at the inevitable solution. He was wearing his best shirt again. Not for long.

  Bratta scrabbled around in his bag for his tiny pocket-knife. Trying to keep his hand steady, he pulled the shirt away from oh-so-tender armpit flesh and proceeded to slice the fabric until Lockbreaker’s power and processing unit was easy to access. Then he switched his phone to its front-facing camera and propped it up on the back of the toilet, so he could see the unit on screen—which, as long as his glasses were pointed at it, Modi would be able to see. Ready.

  “Alright, Doctor Bratta. Firstly, you will be working on a live device, because the off button is temperamental and tends to shock the user.”

  “Come again?”

  “Do not be concerned. The rest of the device, barring the functional surface of the plates, is well-insulated. The odds of electric mishap are significantly less if you simply leave the off-switch alone.”

  “Uh … good?”

  “Now, if you simply follow my instructions…”

  Teeth clenched, Bratta carried out Modi’s commands as they came, only shocked himself a little once.

  “Congratulations, Doctor Bratta. Lockbreaker should have been successfully reconfigured.”

  “How am I for guards?” he asked.

  “No suspicion yet,” Jeannie replied. “But the sooner you get going, the better.”

  He rested his hand on the stall’s latch. Now that it came to it, he didn’t want to leave. It felt safe, hidden here. No one was looking for him. How sad is that? The thought came to him unbidden.

  No, he couldn’t spend the rest of his life shivering in a toilet stall. Bratta squared his shoulders and headed back out into the corridors.

  Not much further down the hall, the doors changed. Square windows looked into dark labs, and glowing panels beside them monitored for temperature, gas leaks, and other hazardous contents within. Even better, the laboratories were clearly labeled, although none of them seemed particularly interesting. The same black locks protected each door.

  He passed by “Sequencing,” “Computer Lab 3,” “Mus Musculus Trials” and “Macaca Mulatta Trials”—the muted sounds of macaques cooing and grunting to each other coming out from the latter—and stopped by “Incubators.”

  He held up Lockbreaker, and did everything he could—which wasn’t much, honestly—to prepare himself for the moment of truth.

  Silently, the door swung open.

  Hoping against hope that no one would happen past, Bratta turned on the lights and headed to the incubators. They were definitely the kind that could be used for, say, human fetuses, rather than developing bacterial cultures. There were viewing screens next to the machines. He recognized the technology, not from his years of research, but from his time in medical practices, so it didn’t take him too long to switch one on.

  Jeannie cursed in his ear, Martha not far behind her.

  “Are those … humans?” Jeannie asked. “They don’t look … right, do they?”

  “That’s because they’re monkeys,” Bratta sighed. “We use them for near-human testing. Nothing wrong here. Well, I mean besides the ethical implications of using monkeys as—”

  “Alright,” Martha said. “Keep going, then, I’m sure you’ll—”

  “Steve, they’re talking about you,” Jeannie broke in. “On the radio.”

  “Indeed they are,” Modi confirmed. “Although they currently appear to be merely gossiping.”

  “We need to patch him in, now,” said Jeannie.

  “I am currently occupied with video analysis, Officer Tafola, but if you simply click there … make sure he’s muted first. Don’t want to hear him breathing over the line.”

  A whole new channel assaulted Bratta’s ear. The guards, he discovered, were indeed talking about him. Or, more precisely, laughing. Mocking him for how he’d acted. Knowing he was muted, he indulged himself in an indignant sniff. It wasn’t his fault awkwardness had been the plan.

  “Get going, Steve.” That had been Jeannie again.

  So he switched everything off, and left.

  Next corridor over, he came to a door marked “Restricted Access Only.”

  “Lockbreaker should be sufficient, Doctor Bratta,” said Modi.

  He followed the engineer’s advice, and found himself in a much darker, plainer space. About ten meters away was a steel door with no windows, labeled “Productions.” There weren’t any other openings, and there were no signs anywhere to be seen.

  “Good work!” Martha chimed in, “This looks like the jackpot.”

  Bratta walked up to the door. Its mechanisms looked entirely different to everything he’d seen before. He pretended to polish his glasses again.

  “Commander Modi?”

  “Yes, Doctor Bratta?”

  “Is there … anything I should be doing about the lock?”

  “I am formulating the optimal course of action as we speak.”

  “Oh. Alright.”

  He listened to the security guards for a minute.

  “It … appears to be unlocked. I suggest being prepared to run.”

  Bratta gulped.

  “Steve, you—” Jeannie began.

  He opened the door.

  About thirty faces looked up at him.

  Oh. So that’s where everyone was.

  Oh dear.

  Chapter Si
xty-Eight

  MaxGainz Home Office

  Chrysalis

  Kepler-1011 System

  Bratta quickly took in the scene before him. A lowered laboratory floor was filled with rows of metal slabs. On each slab, a body. Most were covered by white sheets, like corpses at a crime scene, but a few bodies—a mix of Asian and others, all physically robust, mostly male—lay exposed. Judging by the color in their skin and the ease with which a host of spidery-limbed robotic surgeons moved their limbs, they were heavily sedated, but alive—or at the very least, only recently dead.

  Scattered throughout the room were white-coated figures—he assumed doctors, scientists, and technicians—as well as a number of well-dressed Chinese people who were guarded by twenty or so strong-armed marines, just like the ones who had smashed his phone on Zenith.

  In the stunned silence, his gaze landed at the back of the room, where a Caucasian man in a suit stood by a table separate from the rest. On it lay the untended body of what appeared to be a young man—distance made it difficult to tell—less physically impressive than the rest, and so pale he was nearly blue.

  “Jack needs to see this,” Martha whispered unsteadily. “The world needs to see this.”

  The room exploded into action. Guns swung up and the unarmed personnel ran for the back of the chamber, the well-dressed ones shouting into phones and mouthpieces. Bratta shook, but his muscles had completely frozen.

  “Unmute him, unmute him!” Jeannie’s voice screeched through the line. “Quick, while they’re all still receiving him!”

  “Why?” Modi retorted.

  “Here, I’ll do it!”

  Bratta found his voice.

  And screamed.

  Around the room, armed guards clutched at their heads and ripped out their earpieces. That was … that was good, right?

  “RUN, Steve!” Jeannie yelled.

  He ran.

  “And that is why, Commander Modi,” she added, sounding smug. “Steve’s scream is … bracing.”

  Bratta wondered if this was really the best time for gloating. But then, Jeannie was the expert.

  He skidded out of the restricted access door.

  “Doctor Bratta, I am sending through a map of what you have seen of the facility so far to your heads-up-display. It will direct you to the most likely route of escape.”

  A green map marked with a red trail flashed in front of his right eye, and he nearly stumbled into a wall. He held out a hand to brace himself, wincing as Lockbreaker cut into the flesh of his palm, and pelted onward, following the trail.

  “He can’t make it alone,” Jeannie said, voice hard. “I’m going in there to get him. Get an extraction team ready. I’ll meet them outside the facility.”

  “Officer Tafola! Don’t go in there, it’s too dangerous—”

  “It’s done,” said Jeannie. “Hang on, Steve, I’m coming.”

  Modi groaned into his ear. “It would appear I am the only remaining member of your handler team with sense, Doctor Bratta. Please take the next left.”

  Bratta wheezed for breath in reply.

  And caught the sight of a troupe of guards running towards him from the other end of the junction.

  “Nope nope nope,” he managed.

  “Doctor Bratta, take the next right and loop back around, perhaps they might—”

  He rounded the corner, only to see another group of marine-types charging at him from the other direction. He shrieked a little.

  “I can’t outrun them!”

  “No you cannot.” Modi’s voice was frustrated. Frustrated, but subdued. “A shuttle is being prepped for launch, it will be there in—eight minutes.”

  “I’m coming,” said Jeannie, puffing through the microphone. “Eight minutes is seven minutes too long.”

  No. He wasn’t going to die here, he was not, he had a million and one things on which to lecture Modi on user interfaces and the very least, and he had to rub it into Jeannie’s face that he’d done it where she’d failed, and …

  The guards were closing. Even in the labyrinthine corridors, they’d have a clear shot in moments.

  Bratta drew the electromagnet from his bag and pegged it behind him towards the oncoming guards.

  “Grenade!” one of guards yelled, and they scattered.

  He had a good lead on them by the time they realized it wasn’t exploding.

  “Decoy!” the same guard yelled, and they swarmed around the corner.

  Past the waiting electromagnet.

  Bratta grinned at them and pressed the switch on his “watch.” Their expressions went from confident to confused screams as their weapons were ripped from their hands, their belt buckles were pulled towards it, and at least one high-speed wallet hit someone in the face.

  He ran.

  And he never switched the electromagnet off.

  “Well done. I am recalibrating your path—I identified a side entrance you passed on your way here, it should be extremely close.”

  The red line flickered and reappeared. Bratta gasped for air, heavy bag bumping against his leg painfully, but he kept running.

  Before him, a door.

  “Your card! Lockbreaker is misconfigured for this one!”

  He rifled through his pockets madly—ah, there it was!—and hit the sensor.

  The little light turned green, and he stumbled into a narrow alley.

  Safe. Or close to, anyway. The streets of Chrysalis shouldn’t be too hard to lose pursuers on, surely. He slumped against the wall to catch his breath.

  “Doctor Bratta!”

  “Wha—”

  A giant hand closed around Bratta’s throat. He smelled… cheese? Old cheese, and black and blue flesh and a grip too strong and oh no no no….

  “Well, hello there,” the … the creature said in a voice of gravel and strain and … American accent? A strange dialect—Louisianan, or something?

  Beyond the fact that definitely, yes, quite definitely indeed, this appeared to be the third of these … entities that had tried to kill him so far—which was just hilarious, almost certainly made him a galactic expert—it looked … familiar. Where had he seen it before? It was a rather strange moment for déjà vu, but then again, it might have been the oxygen deprivation.

  Then the thing lifted him up, and he got a good look at its face.

  “Rya—Mitch Ryan?” he choked.

  Oh God. He … it, was. The old veteran marine captain that had taken over that embassy.

  It answered with a broad grin, black-scabbed lips stretching and cracking over darkened gums and approximately seven rotting teeth.

  Bratta was no dentist, but—well he wasn’t really breathing right now either, although Modi was saying … something?

  The creature rolled its shoulders and tossed him across the alley like he weighed nothing. As he slammed into the opposite wall, Bratta heard a crack.

  Through swimming vision, he saw it walking towards him. He heard it speak, its voice dark and guttural, even through the accent. “Game over, intruder.”

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Lieutenant Patricia “Guano” Corrick’s Warbird

  Hangar Bay

  USS Midway

  Orbit above Chrysalis

  Kepler-1011 system

  “Lieutenant Corrick, Alpha flight is green light for launch.”

  Exactly what she wanted to hear. “Roger that.” Guano punched the throttle, opening it fully. Her Warbird leapt towards open space, flying out of the hangar bay like a dart, leaving an expanding silver trail behind it. To her left and right two other craft—Biter and Spud’s ships—flew out alongside her, similarly painting space with glittering water vapor.

  With Roadie in the infirmary with a gunshot wound, leading the attack wing was left to her. Her first time commanding a whole strike group—her feet tingled against the rudder pedals.

  “So hey,” said Flatline, behind her, “how’re you doing over there? How’s things going? You feeling stressed yet?”

&n
bsp; “Actually feeling pretty good,” said Guano, turning toward the swarm of Chinese fighters. “Guess we get to see how good these J-84’s really are.”

  Flatline didn’t seem impressed. “You know how good they are,” he said. “Better than us. And we’re the first wave going up against them—”

  “Cut to the point,” said Guano, fiddling with the dials on her console. Her HUD was full of green contacts. Chinese fighters. They hadn’t been cleared to engage yet—only when they crossed the line. “What are you trying to ask?”

  “I’m asking,” said Flatline, “if your weird combat meditation bullshit is working, because now would be a very excellent time for it to be working, if you know what I mean.”

  She took a deep breath of the oxygen mixture in her suit and let it out slowly. She knew the feeling the strange thing gave her. She felt nervousness, flying into battle against overwhelming odds. She felt excitement, doing what she loved. She felt fear, knowing she might be killed.

  She should have felt nothing at all.

  “It’s—it’s not working,” she said, but there was no time to dwell on it. “Doesn’t matter. We’ll make do.” She had to lead her wing. Guano flicked onto the shared channel with Biter and Spud. “You boys ready to take down some reds?”

  “Roger that,” said Biter, his voice charged. “I’m primed and weapons-hot.”

  “Maintain weapons safe,” said Guano, shaking her head even though the guy on the other end of the radio couldn’t see it. “I say again, do not engage unless they cross the line.”

  Her ship sped towards the Chinese fighters. Eight targets—no, ten. She locked up the first one, painting it with her targeting radar. The space-fighter equivalent of pointing a gun at them. A giant fuck you to their former allies.

  “What if they shoot over the line?” asked Biter. “Does that count?”

  She thought for a split second. “If its owned by the PRC, and it crosses the magic ten click mark, light it the fuck up. And whatever fired it.”

  “Copy,” said Biter.

  Eight kilometers. Seven. Six. The Chinese ships were a similar distance away and doing the same speed. The white box around the green dots flashed an angry red, missile lock tone blaring in her ears.