by Amy DuBoff
“How many total captives are there?” Edwin asked.
Ava shook her head. “Jared said one hundred, but I wasn’t able to confirm. More than are in this hallway, for sure, from what I saw on the monitors. And that’s not counting however many were taken from town last night.”
“The four of us can’t subdue that many if they’re all this aggressive,” Nick stated the obvious.
“We should fall back and come in with a bigger team and more concussion grenades,” Ava suggested.
“Hey, she’s coming around!” Samantha approached a woman lying near her. She kept her distance and had her weapon ready to fire. “Do you know who you are?”
The young woman startled awake. “Yes, I’m… I’m Emmie.” She sat up. “Where am I?”
Ava stepped toward her. “You’re in an NTech lab. Do you remember anything?”
“I’ve been in a cell, I think.” Emmie grasped her head. “Where’s Melissa? She was…”
“I don’t know—” Ava cut off when she noticed the other people rousing.
Questioning murmurs filled the hall.
“It looks like they’re themselves,” she told her team using the internal comms. “Let’s start the evac.”
Keeping their guns ready just in case anyone started to revert, Ava’s team shepherded the captives toward the exit.
“We’re coming out with twenty-six right now,” Ava messaged operational command and the warriors waiting in the lobby. “We’ll need concussion grenades and backup to continue the search.”
Ava’s group was in the final stretch of hallway leading to the lobby when she saw Colonel Kurtz, Luke, and a dozen warriors approaching.
“Luke! What are you doing in here?” Ava asked on a private channel.
“Kurtz thought I should come along as a guide to help access the computer network for evidence, now that things have settled down,” he replied.
“It isn’t safe yet…”
“If this armor is good enough to protect you, then it is for me, too.”
Ava looked down at herself and realized that a new set of claw marks had been raked across her chest. That settles it—this new set is officially ‘broken in’. “But I have weapons,” she countered his statement.
“And I have you.”
Good point. She sighed. “Okay, just stay vigilant.”
While they had been talking, two of the guards had begun directing the prisoners toward the exit, while the others prepared to press forward toward D Wing.
“Sir, I suggest you and Luke hang back while we clear the path,” Ava suggested.
Kurtz nodded and allowed Ava’s team to lead the way back.
The supplementary warriors handed two concussion grenades to her and to each member of her team. She stashed hers in a pouch at her waist.
They broke into a jog and kept the pace until they reached the point in the D Wing hall where they’d first encountered resistance. Her HUD indicated that no one was lurking around the first bend.
After the turn, the hall opened into the observation room. An open doorway on the left wall presumably led to the holding area.
“Should be through here,” Ava directed.
“And back there?” Kurtz asked.
“That’s a lab room—one egress point. I suspect Andrea and her accomplice, Jared, are holed up in there.”
Kurtz nodded. “They’re not going anywhere right now. I’ll keep watch with a couple warriors while you take care of the captives. Then we can deal with them.”
“Yes, sir.” Ava continued toward the holding corridor.
The open doorway provided a peek of the cells. The first two cells Ava could see were empty. She stepped through the opening and passed by a three meter segment of storage cabinets to either side, and then the passageway split in two directions. Cells lined both sides of the hall, and the doors to those on the left were open. At the end of that section, two Hochste were facing off against half a dozen wolves, behind which humans were huddled together.
“Some help?!” one of the humans shouted when he saw Ava.
Without hesitation, Ava fired sonic blasts with her handgun at the two Hochste. It took four blasts to take them down; the wolves behind them looked worse for the wear, but they dropped to the floor with grunts.
A wolf at the front of the group shifted back to his original form, a middle-aged man with dark hair. “They couldn’t be reasoned with,” he murmured.
“Are you injured?” Ava asked, stepping forward.
“Nothing that won’t heal,” he replied.
“Let’s lock up the Hochste until we figure out how to get them to change back,” Ava said to Edwin and Nick when they came up behind her.
The two Weres secured the large creatures in cuffs and anchored them inside cells on opposite sides of the hall.
Ava spotted the door controls and sealed them inside, just in case they were able to break free.
The other wolves had shifted back into their human forms, as well.
“What happened to the others?” a woman asked.
“They’re outside with our people. They attacked us while transformed, but they seemed fine once back in their human forms,” Ava replied.
“Probably thought you were one of the guards,” the first man said. “They opened all the cells at once. We were all agitated and in our Were forms, but the others were different—they’re like animals in that state. Vicious killers. We all ran for the exit when the cell doors opened, but then the Hochste, as you call them, came charging back, and we ended up trapped here.”
“We’ll get you to safety now,” Ava assured him. “More of our people are in the next room. They’ll get you out.”
“Thank you.” He bowed his head. “I don’t even know how long I’ve been here… or where ‘here’ is.”
“This is the planet Coraxa,” she told him. “We’re with the FDG.”
He looked surprised. “The Federation is involved?”
“Well, the FDG. The whole point is sorta that it’s not official,” Ava corrected.
The man nodded. “Whoever you are or why you’re here, thank you. We owe you our lives.”
Murmurs of thanks passed through the crowd.
She smiled. “It’s what we do. But if you’ll excuse us, I need to find the others. They took some locals last night.”
“Other section of the hall,” the man said with a nod down the corridor. “I saw them brought in.”
She jogged toward where he’d indicated while the prisoners filed out into the outer administrative area.
The first few dozen cells were empty, but then Ava found smiling, relieved faces pressed against the plexiglass walls. They were speaking, but no sound escaped. The comms must have been muted.
She checked down the length of cells to make sure everyone was okay, and to make sure that everyone had seen that help had arrived. Her heart skipped a beat when she reached a cell containing her father, and then another holding her mother.
Ava tore off her helmet, and her parents pressed their hands against the plexiglass. She held one of her hands out to each while looking around for a master door release, but none was to be found. She held up her index finger and then ran back to the white room.
“I found the others!” she announced. “Where’re the door controls?”
“This might be the right time to track Andrea down,” Kurtz suggested.
“Yes, we’re well overdue for an honest chat.” Ava turned to Luke. “Will you go wait with the remaining prisoners in there to the right? My parents are among them. They’ll recognize you—without the helmet, of course. We should have the door open in just a few minutes.”
Luke slid off his helmet. “Got it.” He jogged into the holding corridor.
Ava glared at the lab door the warriors had been guarding. “Now for Andrea.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Ava stormed toward the lab door. “If Andrea thinks she can get away with hiding in here because we won’t root her out, she has
another thing coming.” The control panel next to the door was nonresponsive. This isn’t a room we can shoot our way into without risking too much damage. We need to examine that tech.
“Nick, a little help with an override?” Ava requested.
“I’m on it,” her teammate replied, jogging over.
Before he had a chance to interface with the control panel, the door suddenly slid open.
Ava instinctually took a step back, drawing her weapon.
Andrea stood in the doorway, her hands raised in defeat. She still wore her white lab coat and seemed unfazed by having multiple weapons pointed toward her. “You have me.”
“Yeah, you’re fucking right we do—” Ava began.
“No need to berate someone who willingly turned themself in,” Kurtz interjected. He approached the room. “You’re Andrea Mason, the director of this facility?”
“I am,” Andrea acknowledged. “My assistant and I became trapped in this lab when our medical patients broke free. They were in some kind of frenzy.”
“Your ‘patients’?!” Ava laughed. “We have all the evidence we need against you. You can drop the benevolent doctor act. You were what caused these poor people to turn vicious.”
Andrea’s eyes narrowed the slightest measure, focusing on Colonel Kurtz. “You must believe that I did what I thought was right, to help advance us.”
Kurtz grunted. “I don’t think so. We value the independence of people and the chance for them to choose what happens to their own bodies. Forcing genetic modification is never justified.”
“And if I told you they consented?” Andrea asked.
“I wouldn’t believe it,” Ava spat. “You’re finished.”
The director stepped forward through the lab’s doorway with a very reluctant-looking Jared following behind. FDG warriors kept handguns trained on the two scientists.
Andrea composed her face with a prim smile. “Then I suppose you should just take me away. I have nothing more to say to you.”
Jared moved aside under the watchful eye of a warrior.
“Oh, no! You’re not getting off that easily,” Ava said, rounding on Andrea. “You’ve been keeping people captive in a secret underground lab and think you can just get away with, ‘Oh, guess everyone knows what’s going on now, sorry’? No. You’re going to explain who you’re working for and what you meant to get out of this—”
Colonel Kurtz held up his hand to stop Ava from continuing.
Andrea shook her head. “Oh, Ava, it’s really too bad you didn’t want to learn more about yourself when you had the chance. So much passion that could have been directed into something more meaningful.”
“What I’m doing here is plenty meaningful. We just helped free more than a hundred people who would have been abused until they lost your interest and were discarded.” Ava scoffed. “For someone who seems to think of herself as a higher being, you sure know how to act like the lowest of the low.”
“Think what you will. There are stronger powers at play here than just me. Removing me won’t alter the work that’s been done.”
“Then we’ll find all your other labs, and whoever you’re working with, and stop them, too,” Ava told her.
The colonel turned toward Ava while the warriors stayed alert with weapons trained on the vampire.
Ava looked him in the eyes. “Let me force her, sir. ‘Any means’. This mission isn’t over, not by a long shot!”
“Do your worst, Lieutenant,” the colonel replied, then directed the two warriors, “Shackle that thing.”
“Your energy and conviction is something to be admired,” Andrea said as the warriors cuffed her from the front and shackled her legs. “You are certainly welcome to try, though you won’t be successful.”
Challenge accepted. Ava took a step toward her. “I have a way of getting things done.”
“Perhaps you will. I should tell you, though…” Andrea reached out toward Ava as though to cup her bound hand around her ear to whisper a secret.
Ava quickly stepped back. “Yeah, vampire-near-neck is a no-go.”
Andrea smiled. “Never mind, then. Maybe you’re better off not knowing.”
“Uh, Lieutenant…” Samantha cut in during the break in conversation. “The cell doors?”
“Right!” Ava’s original task came back to her. “Log into the computer system, Andrea. I could force you, but we both know it will end the same way.”
Andrea rolled her eyes. “You really think I’ll just hand over the keys that easily?”
The three members of Ava’s team removed their helmets and simultaneously transformed into their Pricolici forms, their specialized body armor flexing around their muscular frames. They advanced on the scientist.
Ava smirked. “I’m thinking you might.”
Andrea looked the three Weres up and down like she couldn’t be bothered with them, but she sighed. “No need to be that way about it.” Her eyes flashed red for a second, then she took a step toward the computer console in the center of the room.
The three Weres stayed on her heels with Ava close behind. They watched over her shoulder while she logged into the system, then immediately prodded her away from the computer before she could try anything nefarious.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Ava asked.
“Oh, you have no idea,” the other woman replied. She looked to Colonel Kurtz. “You have access to my systems. Are we done here?”
Kurtz met her gaze and nodded. “We’ll finish the interrogation at FDG headquarters. I’ll escort her out.” The colonel motioned for the warriors who weren’t on Ava’s team to take charge of the prisoner.
“We need to secure him, as well.” One warrior nodded toward Jared, who’d continued to stand still while the assigned guard stood menacingly over him.
“Yes, we’ll release the remaining prisoners and move out,” Kurtz agreed. “Ava, why don’t you and Luke begin going through the computer system and pull out the relevant information?”
“Yes, sir, we’re on it,” Ava acknowledged. She scanned over the panel and located the controls for the cell doors. A master switch was divided into left and right sections. She activated the unlock for only the right, remembering the two Hochste they had left in the cells to the left.
“Should be open now,” she announced. “And you should check on those two other captives we subdued earlier to see if they’re back in their human form.”
“Hochste?” Kurtz prompted.
Ava nodded. “I hope whatever Andrea did to them can be undone.”
The scientist scoffed in response.
“Maybe Luke can take a look at the research and see what he can figure out,” Ava suggested.
“Excellent,” Kurtz agreed.
Voices carried from the holding area while the townspeople began to file out. Ava spotted her parents in the middle of the crowd with Luke. They smiled at her and she ran over to them.
“I’m so sorry to have put you in danger!” she exclaimed. “I didn’t know they—”
“This had nothing to do with you, sweetheart,” her mother soothed. “You got us out. NTech would have done what they did whether or not you were here.”
“I’m glad you’re okay. Did they do anything to you?” she asked her parents.
“They injected us with something, but there has been no signs of a change. Someone overheard them say something about an error in the coding, and that we were useless until it left our systems,” her father replied.
“We’ll verify with the experiment logs and testing.” Ava smiled at them. “I’m sure it will be fine.”
“Still feel like myself!” her father patted his chest. “But hungry.”
Ava’s stomach growled. “That makes two of us. I’ll be busy for a while, but maybe we could get a late lunch or dinner?”
“We look forward to it.” Her mother reached up to brush the hair from Ava’s forehead.
“See you soon,” she told them. “Luke, can you help with the data
extraction?”
“Sure. I’ll get started.” He walked over to the console.
Ava’s parents took each other’s hands and followed the last of the townspeople out the exit.
Four warriors entered the holding area to retrieve the Hochste.
Ava wasn’t sure four would be remotely sufficient if the creatures were in a mindless rage, but she figured they’d come for backup if it looked like it was going to be a problem.
Two minutes later, the four Were warriors returned escorting a ragged-looking woman and a muscular man.
The woman’s face dropped when she caught sight of Ava. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t know what I was doing.”
“I’m fine,” Ava reassured her. “This armor is built to take a beating.”
“Even still—” The woman cut off when she saw Andrea. “You! You bitch!” She tried to charge the scientist, but the warriors stopped her.
“Get her out of here!” Ava instructed when she noticed the woman’s eyes taking on an orange cast.
The guards hurriedly complied.
Andrea watched her go with a surprisingly smug expression.
“She knew you.” Ava evaluated Andrea. “Did you do something extra-special to piss her off, beyond just being your charming mad-scientist self?”
“Poor Tim got too attached to her before his accident. Melissa didn’t take the news of his passing well.”
Ava barely resisted attacking Andrea herself. She took a deep breath while she waited for the guards escorting the Hochste to get a sufficient head start.
The colonel watched his warriors go. “I’m afraid I’m going to need your team. You and Luke keep working on the computer. Privates?”
“With pleasure,” Edwin said while he, Nick, and Samantha positioned to flank Andrea.
The remaining warrior went ahead with Jared, then Ava’s team followed Andrea, and Kurtz brought up the rear.
Once they were out of sight, Ava allowed herself a moment to relax. “How can anyone be so cold?”
“It’s like she’s lost track of what it means to have a free life,” Luke replied from the computer monitor. “She was a bit detached when I interacted with her before, but I never saw anything like this.”