“Shit. Faraday cage,” he mumbled.
“Yeah, boss. We’ll work around it. I’m more worried about you, hermano,” Trevor replied.
Jamie closed his eyes, feeling something finally give around his right wrist. “What happened?”
“It’s been about twenty-six hours since we got teleported to a base in the Carpathian Mountains,” Kyle reported, having moved on to the ankle restraints. “I scouted out the compound for a while before infiltrating it. Place is carved deep into the mountainside, but it has space above ground. Pretty sure it’s an old Ukrainian base left over from the first Annexation War.”
“They’ve had you on this table drugged to the gills since we got put in the cells. I don’t know what the hell they’ve been shooting you up with,” Trevor added.
“Durand said something about test subjects,” Jamie said.
“Yeah, you’ve been their goddamn golden lab rat.”
“I don’t feel all that bad. Just…slow.”
The last of the restraints came undone and Trevor helped him to a sitting position, eyeing him critically. “Sedatives for sure, but I don’t know what all else they gave you. I need their data.”
A slim hand patted Trevor on the shoulder as Katie staggered by, face pinched with pain, her own Faraday cage cutting into her skin at the connection points. “I’m on it.”
Jamie peered around Trevor to see Alexei had managed to free Annabelle and Madison and was in the process of getting Donovan out of his cell. “We need to get out of here. What’s our status?”
“FUBAR, sir,” Madison said succinctly around a feral grin that promised things would turn around quickly.
“We’re about seventeen turns from the main entrance. There’s at least fifty guys with guns between us and the way out, but they have an old Kazan Ansat sitting out front behind the compound walls.” Kyle glanced over at Annabelle, who was staring at him through narrowed eyes. “Can you fly it?”
She bared her teeth in a hard smile. “Honey, I can fly anythin’.”
“What did they do with our gear?” Jamie asked.
“No idea,” Donovan said as he approached the lab table. “Katie hit the kill switch on our RealIdent chips before she passed out though, so even if we find our weapons, they won’t work.”
Biolocked weapons required fingerprints and electronic identification in order to be accessed. If their chips were fried, then their guns would be nothing but useless.
“FPSG?” Kyle asked as he finished opening up the last restraint. He held up the 9 mil with its suppressor that was not one he’d gone in the field with. “Dibs on the closest carbine.”
Trevor gave him a flat look. “Really?”
“You got a better idea?”
In the field, FPSG stood for First Person Shooting Game, which became bastardized, unofficial code across all branches of the military over the past hundred years for if you find a weapon, it’s yours to wreak havoc with.
“We need to get those Faraday cages off.” Jamie eyed his team before he let his attention settle on Alexei, who seemed way too tense. “They didn’t give you one.”
“I told Durand he was Strike Force, not a metahuman. He’s not in our uniform. Guess she believed me for some reason,” Donovan explained before shrugging. “Guess I lied.”
Alexei and Kyle were both metahumans. Jamie knew he should be angry about that fact; angry that they’d hidden their true capabilities from him. He could have altered their mission plans if he’d known. A lot of things might’ve been different, but none of that could matter right now. Jamie figured the two had hidden their powers for a reason and that was a story for another time, preferably when they were back on American soil.
“Data is secure and I have the codes for the Faraday cages,” Katie announced. She’d already taken hers off and the painful way she’d held herself had lessened. Small pinpricks of blood dotted her face where the biotech points had connected with nerves. The little cuts were already starting to scab over.
“Then get them off and let’s get moving,” Jamie ordered.
Faraday cages were used to disrupt a metahuman’s power much like a neuro-jammer gun did. But while the effect was the same, the use was different. Neuro-jammer guns packed a more powerful and immediate punch, while Faraday cages acted as a long-term prison, applying constant neurological containment that didn’t necessarily render its subject unconscious. Scientists had created them only a few years after the first documented existence of a metahuman, proving once again that humanity could build weapons for war, but spending money on a cure wasn’t worth a politician’s career.
Katie worked quickly to unlock the Faraday cages with hands that only shook a little from her own release as her body regulated itself back to normal. It would take more time than they had available to them for everyone to get back on an even keel. Escaping wasn’t going to be easy, but it was going to be far worse for the enemy than for Alpha Team.
Jamie slid off the lab table and nearly slid to the floor as his knees buckled, the room spinning from vertigo. Only Trevor’s firm hold kept him upright as the other man dragged Jamie’s arm over his shoulder and took on some of his weight. Jamie pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead, eyes squeezed shut as he forced himself to ignore the sudden throbbing ache centering itself there.
“Right, let’s get the fuck out of this place,” Kyle said, sounding tense.
Jamie blinked his eyes open and met Kyle’s worried gaze before focusing on the rest of the team. “We’re not on American soil, which means our laws don’t apply. Katie? Don’t hold back. None of you hold back.”
His order was the equivalent of ripping a pin out of a grenade and dropping it in the middle of an unsuspecting crowd. Metahumans who worked with the MDF abided by the rules and laws overseeing their powers in the field even if their enemies did not. But they were a long way from home and Jamie didn’t think even the United Nations would be pissed at them for breaking out how they did.
Kyle picked up the nearest carbine and checked it over with the casual thoroughness of a man who considered guns an extension of his body. Trevor grabbed himself a rifle as well, though he never let go of Jamie. Jamie would have demanded one except his vision still wasn’t settled and he knew he probably wouldn’t hit what he was aiming for. Alexei, Katie, and Annabelle grabbed the remaining weapons while Madison opted to go empty-handed. They’d be relying on her power the most to get them through the tougher spots.
They headed for the door, with Katie, Alexei and Annabelle ranging themselves behind Madison as she took point. Donovan and Trevor kept Jamie between them in the middle. Kyle was the last to leave the lab, taking up the rearguard position. His sniper rifle was long since gone, but that didn’t mean his aim was anything less than deadly. Two turns later proved that when a pair of guards came up behind them arguing in Russian and Kyle took them out between one syllable and the next. The report of the gun echoed in the hallway. Jamie wasn’t surprised when the alarm went off seconds later.
“Think that’s our cue,” Trevor said mildly.
They moved at a fast clip, Katie’s telepathy clearing the way five bodies out by controlling the enemy to a standstill long enough for someone to take them out with a bullet. Those she couldn’t grab telepathically died by way of energy projectiles or streaks of fire. A lucky few managed to find cover but were taken out by Trevor or Kyle as the group ran past, secured behind Trevor’s telekinetic shield. For all their powers, they’d poked a damn hornet’s nest, and more terrorist soldiers kept rushing in to take a spot vacated by the dead.
Alpha Team kept moving.
At one hallway junction, eight soldiers stood in their way. Annabelle used her anti-gravity power to wrench their guns away and hoist the weapons to the ceiling where they floated like dangerous decorations. Stripped of their ability to attack, the men and women hoping to stop them found their minds taken over, their bodies felled by bullets, energy projectiles, or balls of fire that burned them down to the bone
. Those carrying rifles switched out for the ones Annabelle handed over, magazines filled with ammo.
They’d taken Jamie’s orders to heart, giving no quarter for the terrorists who’d sought to hold them hostage for some misbegotten scientific purpose. Who knew how many trafficked victims had died here, forced to endure an unknown process barely begun on Jamie and which he’d survived only due to his changed DNA.
He didn’t care that some of the terrorists pleaded for mercy; they weren’t worthy of it in Jamie’s eyes, not after what they’d perpetuated.
The hallways should have been a bottleneck, but Katie carved them a way out every time with her telepathy. She followed Kyle’s shouted navigation orders from the rear while he covered their retreat with Trevor’s help. Telekinesis kept them shielded off and on, with Trevor working to manipulate holes in his shield so the others could still attack while staying covered. They’d practiced this maneuver time and time again in training, enabling them to pull it off seamlessly during their escape.
When they finally came out into the cool night air, boots soaked in blood, they arrived to a welcoming committee they could’ve done without. A large half circle of men and women ringed the entrance, aiming their assault weapons at them on Durand’s orders. She didn’t seem nearly as confident as she had at the processing plant, well aware of the fragility of human limitations against metahuman powers, no matter how many humans she ordered into the line of fire.
“Give up. You have nowhere left to run,” Durand told them in accented English.
“Who said anything about running?” Katie replied right before she did what she did best.
Hacking came naturally to her, always had, always would. Computers, bioware systems, weapons, smart buildings—you name it, she could hack it.
The human mind was no different.
Jamie watched as Durand’s face went slack, blank-eyed, the trickle of blood coming out of her nose a bright crimson stream that quickly grew into a waterfall as Katie turned her mind into so much mush. Katie held herself rigidly still, one hand clenched into a tight fist, head held high as she burned out the thoughts and personality of a woman until nothing at all remained.
When it was over, Durand stayed standing only out of reflex, hands slack at her side, mouth fallen open and eyes droopy. No awareness of the world around her came through. All that remained was skin and bones and then not even that after Alexei used his pyrokinesis to light her body on fire.
“Is not your kill, da?” Alexei said into the sudden silence.
Katie nodded slowly, ceding Durand’s death over to him. Jamie sighed softly, thankful that Alexei recognized just how precarious Katie’s position was. Telepaths were a rare breed and one of the more feared metahumans when it came to their powers. The public didn’t know the full extent of the damage a telepath could do, but they could guess. It’s why so many laws regarding privacy of the mind targeted them, why Katie could never use her full strength back home without clear orders from the chain of command.
Here, no such barrier existed. Jamie had torn it down for her on his order, but it was her team who had her back and always would.
Some of the terrorists threw down their weapons and ran. Others stayed where they were, egging each other on to shoot. The bullets ricocheted harmlessly off Trevor’s shield. Kyle pushed his way to the front, pressed the muzzle of his rifle up against the shield, and watched it slip through just enough to breach the barrier under Trevor’s careful manipulation.
Kyle took shot after shot and never missed.
“Nice shooting,” Jamie said, grinding his teeth against the ache growing in his head. “Now let’s get to that bird.”
Trevor had wrapped their escape route in a telekinetic shield, keeping it safe from any attack that might destroy it. His quick thinking saved it from being turned into scrap metal by an RPG that made a lot of noise and fire and smoke, but that was about it. Trevor winced at the hit, but didn’t complain. They ran for it, the telekinetic shields merging together to form one large invisible dome over their current location.
Annabelle scrambled into the pilot’s seat, shouting at Donovan, “I’m gonna need your eyes!”
Jamie shoved Donovan toward the door to the navigator seat with a single order. “Go.”
He went.
Madison took his place, helping Jamie through the side door Trevor had hauled open. She shoved him down in the nearest seat and strapped him in despite his protests. “I can do it myself.”
“Aw, it’s cute that you think so, but you were listing sideways for half our run out of there,” Madison said.
Alexei and Kyle scrambled in last, with Alexei moving across to slide open the other side door in the transport compartment. Both men strapped themselves down with a lifeline dangling from a cord running the length of the helo. The heavy-duty hook snapped into their belts and they took a brace position seated at the door, weapons aimed outward, ready to fire. Beyond Trevor’s shields, the terrorists were shouting at each other and still shooting at them.
The helo shook as Annabelle got the engine going, the heavy whir of the rotary blades starting up humming in their ears. Katie dug up enough ear protecting headsets for everyone and they put them on, the ear cushions worn almost through to the speakers.
“Gonna need you to drop your shields, Bones,” Annabelle said over the staticky line.
“I do that, then we’re dead. We need a distraction so they stop shooting us while we get in the air,” Trevor replied.
“I can help with that,” Kyle announced. He dug one hand into his pocket, coming up with a slim black device that Madison promptly swiped out of his hand.
“Remote detonator for…shit, man. How many bombs did you plant inside their base?” she asked him, giving him an approving look.
“However many they had on hand in their weapons locker. It took me a while to figure out where you guys were being held. Figured I’d keep myself busy while I searched for all of you.”
“I like you.” Madison strapped herself down in the seat next to the door as she forced the detonator out of stasis mode. “Ready when you are, Icarus!”
Ten seconds later Madison detonated all the armed bombs linked to the remote at the exact same time. The earth shook beneath the helo’s landing wheels, a dull rumbling roar echoing up from inside the base. The soldiers outside paused in their attempts of targeting the helo as a soft orange glow from within the aboveground buildings started to grow brighter.
Trevor dropped his telekinetic shield as the helo lifted into the air under Annabelle’s sure hands. Kyle and Alexei kept their fingers on the triggers of their weapons as they laid down suppressive fire against the few terrorists who kept trying to shoot at them even as an explosion ripped through the base. Fire and smoke burst into the air, chasing them into the night sky.
8
Long Way Left to Go
Night flying through mountainous terrain at a low altitude by way of instrumentation and Donovan’s night vision eyesight took all of Annabelle’s formidable concentration. As such, when she demanded directions to a destination when they were ten minutes out from the burning base, Jamie quickly worked through their options to give her one.
“Kraków Base in Poland,” he finally decided. “Closest NATO-backed base with a joint representation from the EAMSG. We won’t make it to Paris in this bird.”
“Copy that,” Annabelle replied.
She dropped out of the conversation and Jamie left her to pilot their way to tentative safety in unfriendly skies. He leaned his head back against the thin padding covering the fuselage and took stock of his team. They’d closed the side doors when it became clear the terrorists couldn’t deploy any aerial assaults against them. Alexei and Kyle had each claimed a seat, with Kyle resting his head on Alexei’s shoulder, still too damn pale for Jamie’s liking. Trevor felt the same way, judging by how he carried the first-aid kit he’d scrounged up over to Kyle’s seat.
“Eat this,” Trevor ordered as he shoved a ri
pped-open emergency nutrient ration bar into Kyle’s hand. “Metahumans require higher caloric intake on a daily basis. You need energy to heal.”
“I’ll be fine,” Kyle muttered.
“Yeah, I can see that. But humor me, all right? You look like a goddamn ghost.”
Kyle scowled at him and looked like he would have argued, except Alexei poked him in the face without opening his own eyes and said, “Eat, Kilyusha.”
Kyle sighed heavily and took a bite of the tasteless ration bar. He made a face but kept eating as Trevor did a cursory check-up on him. Trevor’s fingers lingered gently against his neck where the black bruise hadn’t faded much, but neither had it spread any further.
“You said you lost half your blood volume? How fast are you regenerating it?” Trevor asked.
“I don’t know. Fast? Give me another six hours and I’ll be fine. I’m over the worst of it. Would you quit poking me?”
Trevor slapped two more ration bars into Kyle’s hand. “Finish these and I’ll leave you alone.”
Kyle didn’t argue the order, just ripped open the second ration bar and started eating it in large bites. Jamie watched as he ate them quickly, probably not only because he was starving, but because the taste was just that bad. No one liked field rations, no matter what country produced them. Kyle looked up between one bite and the next, catching Jamie’s gaze. They stared at each other for a few fraught seconds before Kyle wrenched his gaze away and pointedly ignored Jamie.
It made him feel like shit, but Jamie couldn’t try to mend what was broken between them right now because they weren’t alone.
Jamie watched Trevor give Alexei a quick exam before moving on to his next patient, which Jamie wasn’t surprised to see was himself. Katie had already helped him wipe off most of the blood on his chest, but no one had a jacket to spare. They’d all been stripped down to pants and the shirts of their combat uniforms after being captured, their tactical gear lost to the explosion. Trevor had managed to dig up an emergency foil blanket from the first-aid kit which he wrapped around Jamie’s torso, tucking the edges over his shoulders.
In the Wreckage: (M/M Sci-Fi Military Romance) (Metahuman Files Book 1) Page 11