by Michael Todd
“These guys are amateurs,” she pointed out and rummaged through her purse. “They were hired to intimidate me, not kill me. I think I’d rather do some intimidating right back.”
“I don’t know about you, but I’m intimidated,” Robinson said honestly.
“Come on.” She yanked a small, expandable baton from her purse. “Weren’t you a boxer and into all that mixed martial arts stuff?”
“That’s different from a fight with thugs on the street.”
“Fine. Here.” She handed him a can of pepper spray. “Aim for the eyes.”
He nodded. They were out of time anyway, as the SUV came to a stop in front of the alley and effectively blocked it off from anyone trying to escape as well as anyone who might see what was about to happen. Five men exited the van, which was fine with Courtney. She didn’t intend to run anywhere.
Thick and gnarly-looking, but still amateurs, they seemed little more than gang thugs chosen because they looked intimidating with their baseball bats and brass knuckles. One even swung what looked like a bike chain. From what she could see, they’d not even been recruited from one of the more violent gangs either.
She wondered if she should feel insulted.
Well, no—maybe later when this was over. In these circumstances, five of them would be more than a match, even for her. Whoever had sent these goons had clearly thought that she would be alone. Thankfully, Robinson was there, and that evened the odds a little.
The men looked at their victims and quickly split into two groups. Robinson, the tall, muscular man with the look of a fighter, was targeted by three of them. Clearly, they thought the two remaining goons were enough to handle her.
“Come on, come on,” she mumbled under her breath as the assailants closed on her. She hoped that Robinson could at least handle himself until she had dealt with these two and she could help him, but she needed to focus on resolving her predicament first. Madigan had taught her that.
She pressed the button that extended the baton to its full sixteen-inch length as she took a step closer. Baseball Bat and Brass Knuckles paused, uncertain as to whether they needed to back away or still move forward. She had taken a more aggressive stance than they’d expected.
Yes, she would definitely go with offended, she decided.
Courtney took advantage of their brief moment of hesitation to go on the offensive. She stepped into her swing like Madigan had taught her and hammered the baton across Baseball Bat’s face. Hard stainless steel impacted on bone with a dull crack and the man took a few steps back before he dropped his bat to clutch his face.
She ducked out of the way of a heavy, brass-knuckle enhanced if ill-advised haymaker aimed at her skull before she rapped the weapon across the second man’s knees. He screamed in pain for a moment before she struck him across the head with it.
He dropped without another sound and she smiled. She couldn’t help a little pride at how much her abilities had improved. When she’d first returned, she’d thought that she wouldn’t have any practice now that she would no longer go into the Zoo regularly.
Screams of pain from the other side of the alley reminded her that she wasn’t in this alone. She spun toward the altercation. Robinson straddled the chest of one of the men and hammered his head with his fists while he yelled in frustration. The other two were still on their feet but staggered away and rubbed their eyes.
Her assistant might not be a great street fighter, but he didn’t lack for brains. He’d used the pepper spray first and followed up with his martial arts training on one of the unlucky men. It was a good idea, but it lacked the quality that Madigan had ingrained in her with each of their training sessions, especially since his efforts had degenerated into a rage-driven pounding.
Strike quick, and make it count. None of that ground-and-pound stuff that was so popular in MMA matches.
She closed the distance on the two remaining men, who barely noticed her approach before she rained pain down on them with her baton. Despite the obvious temptation, she managed to avoid headshots. She didn’t need the police to complain about excessive force and swung instead at their knees. They sprawled painfully and their loud protests brought a smile of satisfaction to her face.
“Hey, St. Pierre, knock it off,” Courtney yelled while she made sure that all their new friends were in too much pain to even try to stand for the moment.
Robinson looked at her and the crazed look on his face gradually faded away. He breathed heavily and rubbed his sore knuckles. “Right.”
“We don’t need to kill these guys,” she said and helped him back to his feet. “And honestly, it’s really not worth the paperwork.”
“Right,” he repeated, his voice rough from the yelling he’d done.
“Do you need us to call an ambulance too?” she asked and peered at his bruised and bleeding knuckles.
“I…maybe?” He shook his head. His hands shook as the adrenaline began to wear off. He looked around. “Did we really take five muggers down in an alley?”
“Not really.” She chuckled. “For one thing, these assholes aren’t muggers.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Sal said with a shrug.
Madigan didn’t reply immediately. It took a lot of concentration to drive in the heavy suit of armor that she wore, so she took the time to wait until they were over the last dune before she turned to look at him.
“It’s not a trick question,” she said. “How did you get the plant out the first time?”
He shrugged. “We were in the middle of a gunfight with a bunch of bounty hunters, right? I had the crazy idea that if I distracted them, the rest of our team could gun them down. To be honest, I thought I would die right there in the Zoo. When I saw a little baby Pita plant that hadn’t even started to flower yet, I wondered, why the hell not?”
“Well, I didn’t need the psychology behind it,” she said dryly. “I mean, how did you get it out of the fucking Zoo without us being torn to pieces?”
“Well, as you recall, that situation did force us to run for our lives to avoid certain death while your leg was bleeding out.” He focused on the jungle that drew closer and closer with each passing second.
“Yeah, but nothing like when Corvin grabbed one of the plants and started running,” Kennedy said with a chuckle.
“I think that’s because…well, it was small, and I immediately put it into a sealed container, so it didn’t have much time to release pheromones,” he explained. He honestly wasn’t entirely certain about how they’d survived that first time. It had been something of a perfect storm of errors that had ended up with too many people and animals dead.
“So… We get the small ones, stuff them into a bag, and that’s how we get them out without being torn apart?” She eased the Hammerhead to a halt a few hundred meters from the jungle.
“That’s it,” he agreed, slid out of the vehicle, and quickly ran a systems check on his suit before he drew the heavy rifle from the holster on his back that Amanda had designed. “The way we actually track these plants is by tracking the stronger radio waves that the goop in the flowers gives off. If the plant is too young to have flowers, we can’t track it. We’d be looking for a needle in the world’s deadliest haystack.”
“Fair enough.” Kennedy took a deep breath as they began the walk toward the Zoo. “How about breeding? Have you ever tried to get some baby Madies started?”
“Well, that’s up to you, really. I don’t know what kind of birth control you’re on, but—ow!”
Kennedy grinned as her power-armor-assisted punch to his shoulder made him stumble and flail a little to regain his balance. “You asked for that.”
“Yes, I suppose I did.” Sal grinned and showed no regret whatsoever. “I did try to breed Madie, but nothing’s taken. The flowers don’t have any pollen and none of the plants we’ve seen so far have any sort of seeding system that we know about. I actually think there’s something in the goop that grows the Pita plants—which makes sense, I
guess, now that I think about it. Anyway, breeding without the connection to some of the original goop seems out of the realm of possibility right now, which leaves us with the single option of—”
“Yeah, yeah, dig up another Pita plant,” she interrupted as they stepped under the heavy tree cover and into the Zoo. They instinctively became more alert as their weapons and sensors scanned the area around them. “Which brings us to the real question. How do you plan to do that again? Assuming that you don’t intend that we run out of here while the whole animal population of this fucking place howls for our blood.”
“Obviously, if we find any younger plants, we’ll definitely go with them,” Sal said. “If not…well, we’ll simply have to try Amanda’s new design out to scoop the things up, right?”
“Right.” She didn’t sound at all enthusiastic and her gaze scanned the trees above them. “What is the Zoo up to?”
“What?” Sal turned to look at her, a little confused.
“Nothing…” Kennedy shook her head. “Okay, what if we pull a Pita up while one of the big fights is in progress? The animals will be all be focused on the battle, and we can simply slip right out.”
“Well, if we work under the assumption that the animal population around here isn’t big enough to handle two large fights at the same time,” he said, “how do you propose we stage a fight like that?”
“Don’t stage it,” Kennedy said with a shrug. “Take advantage of it,”
“So, what, we wait around in the Zoo until all the animals are distracted by the fighting?” he asked. “You do realize that your position as the rational one in our little group is starting to slip right now, right?”
“Shut up. If anything, it’ll improve our odds of getting out of the situation alive should—heaven forbid—Amanda’s little contraption not work.”
“Yeah… I guess that makes sense,” Sal agreed. “But we can’t stick around here and wait for a fight to start. Set a time limit. Find a batch of plants as close to the border of the Zoo as we can, and set up camp in the clearing. The animals treat those plants almost with reverence and will quite often avoid attacking people who are around them, right? So, if we keep a low profile and don’t do anything to set them off, we can stick around here and wait until there’s some commotion elsewhere, grab the plant, and hightail it out.”
“Now that sounds like a plan,” she said with a grin. “Although you had better give me a good last fuck. Bring your A-game, mister, because I’m going with you.”
“Of course you are. This was your idea.”
“Overwatch, what’s your status?”
“I’m looking over the compound now.”
“What do you make of the defenses?”
“Well set. Taking the place won’t be anything resembling easy unless you guys want to bring in an artillery strike.”
“Nothing like that. We only need to make sure that the targets are in place before we strike.”
“I can neither confirm nor deny that, Base. I’ve only just set up here. I’ll let you know when I have something to report.”
Chapter Thirteen
It took them more than half a day to reach the closest collection of Pita plants, a detail that didn’t encourage them. The two of them alone wouldn’t last long against the kind of onslaught that would ensue if everything went wrong.
“Still, half a day is better than a full day,” Sal said. “Plus, we’ll be running like hell, so I have to think that we’ll cut the time down by at least twenty or thirty percent, don’t you?”
“We’re screwed, aren’t we?” Kennedy studied the plants morosely. It was a rather large collection and any other time, they would have been thrilled to see them. The bushes were almost as tall as Sal was—minus his armor—and were heavily laden with the bright blue flowers that were worth so much money. The larger ones were too heavy to get out of the Zoo with any kind of speed, but the plants on the edges were considerably smaller and some only held a couple of newly blossomed flowers.
“Royally,” he agreed. “I mean, if Amanda’s little contraption doesn’t work, that is.”
“So, what is this contraption of hers?” she asked. “And why haven’t we used them before?”
He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he dropped his suspiciously heavy pack and proceeded to withdraw a couple of tall, rectangular boxes comprised of what looked like a sealed environmental chamber. There was a small difference from those the specialists usually carried around in that the bottom was open with four sharp prongs that protruded.
“Here’s how they work,” Sal said. “You find a plant that fits inside, plant the chamber around it, and seal it off from the air so it can release the animal-triggering pheromones inside. Once the plant is sealed, with the prongs dug deep into the ground, you pull on this lever here.”. He indicated one at the top of the mechanism and immediately below the chamber. “That activates the prongs to cut underneath and draws the plant up into the chamber with enough soil to allow it to survive long enough for us to…you know, get the fuck out of Dodge.”
“Right, okay,” Kennedy said. She now at least had a solid grasp of the mechanics of what the machines were supposed to do. “But again, how come we haven’t used these handy little devices before?”
“For one thing, it was an idea that Amanda had after she became aware of our little situation, and she asked us to try the design out in the field, so we haven’t actually had it that long. Secondly—and this is the reason why nobody else designs or uses contraptions like these—there’s a massive downside that comes if you’re wrong about them.”
“Good point,” she conceded.
“Besides,” he continued as he tinkered with one of the items, “the sex has been mind-blowing. I didn’t want to give that up just yet.”
She smirked and even laughed a little, but it sounded forced. Hell, the joke had been forced. He had tried to keep their spirits up, but the fact remained that they were about to risk their lives on a theory. One of his theories, sure, but that meant he would be the one to blame if things went badly. He took a deep breath and scrutinized the patch for plants that might fit into his little container.
“Wait, so you brought two of these little things. Again, why?” Kennedy peered at him from over the hedge of Pita plants.
“Well, there are two of us,” Sal said and carefully avoided her gaze. “I thought that since we’re out here breaking records for the number of Pita plants removed from the Zoo, we might as well go for the double.”
“Right, and if both of us carry the plants, how do you suggest that we fight the creatures attacking us?” she asked.
“My pack has more than enough space to fit two of these little contraptions,” he replied. “We simply need to shove them in quickly and we’ll be on the run in no time, don’t worry. We will set a world record and nobody will ever know about it.”
“Hey, Sal?” Kennedy called after a few long minutes of searching. “I received a message from Anderson.”
“Really?” He looked up from his search. “How? I thought you didn’t get messages to phones from this deep, just your sat phone?”
“Who knows? Maybe we’re close enough and this little clearing helped us out,” she said. “Anyway, he’s asked us to retrieve a hard drive at these coordinates.” She circled the bushes to show him. “That’s closer to the wall and not ten klicks from here. We could get there and be back here before nightfall.”
Sal tilted his head and swept her with a challenging look. “Are you trying to postpone our plant collection?”
“It’s that obvious, huh?” She immediately looked guilty.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he responded with a grin. “Let’s go pick up Anderson’s hard drive.”
In all honesty, it was an easy choice to delay the life-threatening action they’d both dreaded for the entire day. The duo wasted no time before they pushed through the jungle once again. Sal wasn’t sure if it was because the animals didn’t like the wa
lls that were slowly erected or if it was simply a lazy day among them, but they had no unpleasant encounters. They set an easy pace unimpeded by any of the wildlife all the way to the first wall between the Zoo and the southern half of the African continent.
The coordinates they’d received led them along the wall for a while before they reached the spot where they were supposed to pick up Anderson’s hard drive. Unfortunately, he hadn’t put any tracking marker on the item, which made it difficult to find in the middle of a damn jungle. Most of the rest of the day was spent in a frustrating search for what was supposed to be something small and hidden. After a while, he wondered if they shouldn’t message Anderson for something more specific but remembered that they’d told him to ditch the phone as soon as he sent them a message. So much for hope and good ideas.
Kennedy, thankfully, was able to revive the hope.
“Either the Zoo is starting to grow metal boxes,” she exclaimed over the short-distance comms, “or I think I found our package!”
Sal abandoned his search and hurried to where she stood over a small, metal box. It was one of those used to place supplies out in the Zoo for longer periods of time, made to survive the elements and the changes that the jungle could bring as well as the attacks of the various animals. For a short while, anyway. He didn’t think there was much in the world that could survive this place for too long without eventually being absorbed into the ecosystem.
His partner pried the box open and crowed over a shiny little black slip of tech nestled in black rubber foam. That was, he mused, intended to provide more protection.
“What do you think is on it?” he asked as Kennedy tried to connect it to her suit.
“I have no idea. It’s not compatible with any of the plugs in my suit, and it’s encrypted against broadcasting whatever’s inside. I guess we’ll only find out when we get it back to Anja. If anyone can crack this little fucker open, it’s her.”
Sal nodded agreement. It was hard to tell in the darkness of the jungle around them, but there were tiny little changes that told him that the sun was about to go down.