The screaming increased as techs ran for the exits. Slates began to hit the floor as the panicked people dropped them.
Two more bruisers had fallen by this time. That left one of them, as the fourth had cradled his broken arm before Cade kicked him the head, rendering him out or dead. The last bruiser backpedalled, dropped his baton and clawed at his holstered sidearm, trying to tear the covering flap out the way. A hurled baton struck him in the face. The man flinched and jerked aside. Then Cade was upon him, hitting him once, twice—the man sagged unconscious, thudding onto the floor.
Cade panted from the exertion. His knuckles hurt, but in a good way. He looked around and realized he was alone in the large chamber, alone with five unconscious security personnel and no technicians, who had all fled.
Now was the time to act before the greater security apparatus rolled into motion to subdue him. Cade laughed as he began to collect what he needed.
Chapter Sixty-Four
Speed, this was all about speed of attack. Cade wore tight-fitting pants and boots taken from one of the guards. It was enough so he wasn’t naked and could run over anything he wanted. He had a gun, several extra magazines in his pockets and a fully charged shock baton.
He checked the unconscious guards for the last time and chose the one that looked like the sergeant. Cade shook the man awake, hoisting him upright. Then he dug the barrel of the gun against the man’s lower back as he wrapped his arm around the guard’s throat from behind.
“You’re a dead man, got it?” Cade rumbled into the man’s ear.
“So are you, bub,” the guard said groggily.
Cade dug the barrel of the gun harder against the man’s lower back, making him arch in pain. “I can kill you now if you want.”
“No, don’t,” the guard panted.
“You want to live?”
The guard did not respond.
“You’re going to have to say it, or I’ll kill you now.” Cade pushed the barrel harder again.
“All right, all right,” the guard said, his face twisting with pain. “I want to live.”
“Good. You’re going to have to earn the privilege by running with me to your guard station.”
“I don’t know what you mean—” The guard gurgled and ineffectively clawed at Cade’s choking arm.
Finally, Cade eased the pressure, letting the man gasp for air. “Last chance,” he said into the man’s ear. “It’s your choice if you live or die. I don’t care either way.”
“I’ll show you what you want,” the guard said hoarsely.
Soon, with the guard in the lead, they ran out of the chamber and down a brightly lit corridor.
“Faster,” Cade said. “And remember, I’ll shoot you at the first sign of treachery.”
The guard sprinted. Cade followed on his heels. Speed, this was all about speed. Had the five received an alert a few minutes ago, and had they all run to the cylinder chamber? That was Cade’s bet. This was a huge complex, and huge complexes often had sub-stations.
“There,” the guard panted. “That’s the door. It’s locked, though.”
“You’re going to open it.”
The guard hesitated a second before he took out his ID and showed it before an electronic eye. The door opened—Cade shoved the guard through so the man stumbled. Shots rang out from within. The guard crumpled. Then a man shouted from within saying they’d shot Hendricks by mistake.
Cade rushed into the room firing. Three guards with guns went down with bullets in their heads. Cade kept going, finding several attached rooms, but there were no more people. Counting those back in the cylinder chamber, this sub-station must have held eight guards.
Cade didn’t check the dead men. There was no need and no time. He found a console of screens in the back room with camera shots from many different corridors and chambers. He studied the video pictures intently, and one of the camera shots focused his attention.
Yes, yes, this was interesting indeed.
He manipulated a keyboard. The controls were similar to the Descartes’s sensor equipment. Suddenly, the entire row of screens flickered, flickered again and shut down.
Did that mean the cameras were on the fritz or had some master control specialist elsewhere seen him in the sub-station and shut off his access to the cameras?
If that was true, they were already closing in again. Cade ran to the dead guards in the other room. He couldn’t run around half-naked anymore. That meant fitting into one of their uniforms.
This was bad. He was running out of time. Cade muttered a curse and started stripping the man he chose.
***
Cade sprinted down large, brightly lit corridors. He wore an uncomfortable uniform that was far too tight. The shoes worked better. He also wore a military cap, but lacked any communication devices. He’d already ripped the back of the uniform by flexing his muscles too strenuously. He couldn’t help that.
He knew where he was in relation to the cylinder chamber, the guard sub-station and the chamber he’d seen on one of the screens. He turned left into a new corridor and slid to a halt before the door.
It was locked.
He pulled out the guard’s ID and tapped it over the electronic eye. It worked. The door opened.
Cade rushed into the chamber. Two techs whirled around in surprise. He could have shot them, but he didn’t want to kill more people if he could help it.
“No,” one of them said. “Please don’t hurt us.”
“Listen close,” Cade snarled. “Show me how to get the obedience chips into my hands.”
The pleader shook his head. The other tech stared at Cade, dead-eyed.
Speed, he had to move. He couldn’t wait around to convince them. Cade lunged, with the shock baton at full power as he drew it from the holster. It zapped loudly as he stroked the side of the dead-eyed tech’s head.
The man went down hard, thudding onto the floor.
Cade faced the pleader, pointing the shock baton at him. The end actually smoked. Grinning evilly, Cade advanced. “You’re next, buddy. You want to go night-night with your friend?”
“Please, no,” the pleader moaned.
“Then show me how to get the obedience chips.”
The tech swallowed hard, looking at a console behind him.
“Last chance,” Cade said. “But I’m not going to knock you out like I did your friend. I’m going to kill you.” He holstered the baton and drew the gun. “That’s fine with me anyway. You’re pissing me off and—”
“No! I’ll do it.” The tech whirled around and began to manipulate the console.
A few seconds later, on the far wall, five slots opened one after another. At each slot, a tongue of metal extruded. Upon each in padding was a cyborg obedience chip.
Cade moved swiftly, putting the five chips into his right pants pocket. “I want them all,” he said.
The tech started shaking his head. “How many do you think Earth has?”
“You tell me.”
“Twenty at most,” the tech said. “I think the actual number is eighteen.”
“And I have five of them.”
“Please reconsider. The chips are priceless—”
As the man spoke, Cade holstered the gun and yanked out the baton, hitting and shocking the tech, dropping him unconscious onto the floor. He hadn’t done it out of malice, but so the tech couldn’t warn others too soon after he left.
He had five cyborg obedience chips. When he had a moment, he would destroy them. Now was not the moment, though. He had to keep running. He had to stay free. Maybe attacking the guard sub-station had bought him a few more minutes. He had to get out of this area so he could plan. He had something Director Titus wanted—
I have to stay free.
Once more, Cade looked at the unconscious techs.
Go!
Cade did just that, sprinting for the door.
Chapter Sixty-Five
Cade ran down a corridor as he listened intently. He was sure c
ameras watched him. Could he have gotten lucky enough to sabotage the entire security system from the sub-station? Had that been why the screens went down? It seemed unlikely. The one thing that made him believe it might be so, though, was that his enemies hadn’t flooded the corridors with knockout gas.
He’d gotten a break, but he needed more—Cade turned a corner and came upon a door. This one opened when he tried. It was the first time since the guard’s ID had opened the chip chamber. He entered a large closet that contained janitorial equipment. That figured.
He closed the door behind him and examined the shelves. Maybe he could find something to—hello, look at that. There was a gray pair of overalls in back, some t-shirts and boots. Whoever did the janitorial work around here must be a big boy.
Cade tore off his ill-fitting uniform and put on the janitor clothes, including the boots, which fit just fine, thank you. He felt so much better in clothes that fit.
He heard—Cade put an ear against the door. The sound got louder and then became obvious. Boots, men wearing boots raced past. They must be security people. The Earth people were finally reacting to him. He kept listening at the door as the sounds drifted away.
Cade counted to ten and yanked open the door. He hurried in the other direction, hoping a second detail didn’t show up behind the first. He carried a big old mop in his right hand and a spray bottle in the left. It wasn’t much of a disguise, but it might give him a second—
“What are you doing?” an officer shouted.
The words surprised Cade as he turned another corner. He expected them to fire at him. Then the officer’s question penetrated Cade’s thinking.
“Get over here, you fool,” the officer shouted.
Before starting out of the closet, Cade had put the janitor hat low over his eyes and had hunched his head as he ran. He saw an officer in a brown uniform commanding two sets of men manning portable lasers, he would guess. They were using heavy lasers against him? That seemed like overkill. Each laser had a shooter and two attendants flicking tabs and studying readings. Behind the heavy weapons teams stood seven MPs wearing the ubiquitous brown uniform. These guys had blue helmets and holstered sidearms.
“Didn’t you see the military detail pass you?” the officer shouted.
Cade hadn’t said anything yet, just hurried to the checkpoint in the large corridor, trying to appear as if he was frightened of them.
“I’m talking to you,” the officer said.
Cade shook his head, shuffling toward them, almost reaching them.
“Idiot,” the officer said.
Cade wondered if he should attempt to subdue the lot of them: seven MPs, six heavy weapons men and one officer. Could he take them out before they wounded or killed him?
“Did you see anyone, you idiot?” the officer asked.
“No,” Cade said hoarsely.
Cade slid past the heavy weapons teams and began pushing through the MPs. He kept his head down and hunched his shoulders, but he towered over all of them.
“What’s your name?” one of the MPs asked.
Cade could feel the weapons officer turn to look back at him.
The officer made a tactical error then. He spoke before he acted. “It’s him. He’s the damn Ultra. Grab him, you fools.”
Cade released the spray bottle so he could hold the metal mop-handle with two hands. He used the janitor tool like a medieval quarterstaff and started swinging short, savage blows, knocking MPs away from him.
It was awe-inspiring. He moved faster than a man should, more like a leopard in human guise. Military police shouted, screamed and went tumbling. The metal pole bent too far. Cade released it and used a baton he’d been hiding. It sizzled with stun discharges and thwacked with inhuman force.
Shots rang out. An MP howled, his chest blown open by the military officer who’d missed Cade.
Then Cade flung the baton, following up with feet and fists. He hammered, banged heads together and found another baton. Then, it was over. Not all of them were unconscious, but many were. The rest groaned from on the floor.
Cade found another baton at full charge in an MP’s holster. He walked among the bruised, zapping them until everyone was unconscious except for him.
This time, he picked up a comm unit. He debated using the heavy lasers to burn corridors and set off alarms. Yes. He rotated one and started burning, the laser slicing the wall and causing smoke to billow. He continued doing so—which tripped an alarm somewhere. It howled with urgency.
Cade ceased burning and sprinted down the corridor away from where he’d been. He started listening to comm chatter and soon learned he was in Kansas City, in a restricted area. He surmised that Kansas City consisted of subterranean tunnels and corridors. Ah-ha, this was Group Six territory. The Director was on his way.
Cade listened a little more. The Director had been interrogating—the speaker didn’t say, but he did give away where the Director had been. It was in Blue Area, Level 3, Corridor 4, Room 3.
Cade began paying closer attention to signposts painted onto the walls. In a minute, he’d oriented himself. As he did, he found another unlocked door into another damned janitor’s closet. He went into it and closed the door behind him.
Then, on instinct, he shut off his comm unit, opened it and took out the small power pack. Maybe someone somewhere could use the unit to trace his whereabouts.
As before, Cade heard men in boots rush past.
He stood in the big closet, panting, thinking, trying to come up with a plan that might work. Whom had Director Titus been interrogating? Maybe it was worth the effort to find out.
Despite his successes so far, Cade was beginning to feel lost and very alone. At least he was on Earth. Yes. He was alive and free. How he’d gotten here from where he’d last been in the 16 Cygni System—that hardly mattered. Freeing his wife and fellow soldiers was the world to him now.
Chapter Sixty-Six
How to hide, being that he was a big brute of a soldier, was the question. Cade stuck to what had worked so far. He pushed a janitor’s cart down the corridors. It actually worked surprisingly well. Janitors were some of the invisible people that others hardly noticed even when they saw them.
Cade leaned low as he pushed the cart, so he didn’t seem quite the giant he was compared to the puny humans. Besides, janitors had a bad rap. If they were too big, people figured they must be dumb. Thus, Cade passed through kilometers of corridors as he pushed his cart, as klaxons blared and as the security people swarmed the areas closer to the breakout point.
Then, though, security people revived those Cade had rendered unconscious. The soldier figured that was the case, anyway. They surely asked questions and learned about the janitor disguise.
Before security people started interning janitors, Cade was sauntering farther way while wearing a white lab coat. Unfortunately, his did not fit well. Before anyone thought to look twice, he entered a lunchroom and used a shock baton to knock out five techs taking a break.
One of the techs was a big old guy, a fat man. Cade devoured the rest of the man’s lunch and donned his lab coat. It fit well. Cade didn’t bother with any extra padding as a fat-man disguise. He used the man’s ID card, though.
Cade had been switching off, using a variety of IDs that he’d picked up. Perhaps what had helped him so far was that no one had ever created such mayhem down here like this. It was on the order of inconceivable, which gave him an edge. He ranged freely, using brute force when needed. Yes, he used plain old-fashioned violence to solve his problems. If a security person asked him too pointed a question, Cade slugged him in the face. If someone shouted at him to stop, Cade did until the person reached him, and then Cade slugged him in the face.
Somewhere once, Cade had heard a lecture that said violence never solved anything. That person had been more than wrong, but a blithering fool as well. It was quite impressive the number of problems violence could solve. Now, it might not have been a nice solution, or it may not have bee
n an elegant solution and some could argue it wasn’t an ethical solution, but it certainly solved the problem.
Why had men designed Ultras in the first place? As problem solvers—that of dealing with unconquerable cyborgs killing one world after another.
Cade finally reached the Detention Center. He was headed for the Interrogation Cells. In the lobby, guards asked why he was here.
“The Director sent me,” Cade said.
“At a time like this?” asked one.
“I’m supposed to fix the mind scanner,” Cade said in a patient voice. “It’s vitally important, if you know what I mean.”
The guards traded glances until one mumbled, “I wish they’d start telling us before sending people here. Go on in.”
Cade did just that, moving through the doors and past a checkpoint. Soon, he moved down an empty corridor. It would appear that Director Titus’s name was magic. No one wanted to anger the man. And by what Cade had seen so far, Titus was easily angered.
He dealt with two fools showing up who asked too pointed of questions, leaving them tied and gagged in a side room. Soon thereafter, he entered the Interrogation Section and found a board that indicated who was where. Dr. Halifax was in Cell 10. The board did not say why the sly Canidae Vulpes was there, but there he was just the same.
Cade moved down the halls, kept his opinions to himself when he saw someone who didn’t ask what he was doing here and finally reached Cell Number 10.
Cade peered through a two-way mirror and saw Halifax pacing back and forth as he wrung his hands. The olive-skinned doctor looked worried and kept shaking his head.
Cade pressed a switch and opened the door. “You,” he said gruffly. “Come here.”
Halifax whirled around, staring at him with real fear. “Look, I want to help, I really…” Halifax began blinking and frowning at him.
“Get over here now,” Cade said gruffly.
“Cade? That can’t be you. They have you—Cade,” Halifax hissed, hurrying to the door.
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