“Yeah,” she looked at the power plant. “We just have to get through this and we’re home free.”
“I love you,” he pulled her into his embrace.
“I love you,” she hugged him fiercely, hoping that he didn’t feel the trembling that she couldn’t get control over.
And though they knew they didn’t have the time, and it wasn’t for anything more than attempting to appease their frayed nerves, they kissed. When they started moving forward, she forced everything out of her mind. The time to worry about Vanessa and her parents wasn’t just then. And she wouldn’t allow herself to think about the baby. Right now, Kat had to fight for their lives, and she was going to need every ounce of strength to make sure they made it out of that nuclear power plant alive.
Chapter Nineteen The Final Lap
“Are you ready?” Jason asked.
“Yeah.” She nodded and studied the building, “Piece of cake.”
“We just have to get to the pump control room, we’ve practiced the stimulation a million times now and we’ve had everything in place for weeks—”
“But we hadn’t planned on coming like this,” she whispered. “Not with three pistols and a knife—”
“Improv, babe. Come on, we’ve got this. It’s the nightshift, so there are less than thirty people here. Shoot to kill and let them scatter. All the training in the world hasn’t once prepared them to know how to handle someone breaking in to actually detonate the damn place, so they’ll panic.”
“And it’s just the one reactor, right?” She asked. “Not all four?”
“Just the one reactor, so it destroys the teleporter in the meltdown. No one will ever be able to trace us, not even if there’s anything left of it. The humans will seal this place up the same way they did Chernobyl.” He ran his finger over her cheek. “What is it, Kat?”
“I just,” she shook her head. “All these people, if they don’t die, then they’ll be displaced, and the environment will be uninhabitable—”
“Yeah,” he forced her to look at him. “But we both know they have this place slated to be destroyed for their agenda, so why not use it to suit our own purposes? Maybe take heart in knowing they have it down to blow all four reactors because the more people they kill, the better; the less work it’ll be when everyone gets here.”
“I know,” she nodded. “And it won’t be as bad, right? Not with just the one reactor reaching critical mass, right?”
“Yeah. I guess in comparison,” he shrugged then took her hand into his. “We don’t have much time, so we need to get to the pump controls as quickly as we can. Remember, we have to kill anyone that gets in our way, no hesitations, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Then you know where to go…do we need to go over it one more time?”
“No. Head to the turbine controls. Since we don’t have earpieces, we wait fifteen minutes after we separate to override the system, then shut it down.”
“And the equipment is all there. You just have to upload the program then shut the turbines down.”
“I got it, babe. Then we meet up in the control room.”
“I’m giving you seven minutes. Don’t forget to reset your watch the second you start uploading.”
“I won’t,” she nodded.
“Don’t forget, upload then watch. All you have to do is open the laptop, put in your password, and upload then reset your watch—”
“I will,” she assured him. “And then I’ll head to the control room.”
“Right, and if something happens to me there’s a fail-safe—”
“Don’t.” She slapped her hand over his mouth, “Nothing is going to happen to us. We’ll both be fine, and we’ll teleport right after you pull up the remaining control rods.”
“Kat—”
“No.” She grabbed his shirt with both hands and pulled him closer. “No, we’ll be fine. Piece of cake, we’ve practiced it a million times.”
“I love you,” he kissed her suddenly, the roughness so out of character.
“I love you, too.” She pulled him into a tight embrace, then leaned back and looked at him. “Follow that dream, right?”
“Yeah, we’re almost home free.” He nodded, then checked his weapon, “On my mark.”
She nodded and steadied her breathing. She looked down at her watch to make sure that it was already in stopwatch mode and the count was set to fifteen minutes. She followed behind him as they made their way through the building.
They always planned on coming during the midnight shift, so she was glad that at least this one thing had worked in their favor. At least with thirty people, there were fewer innocent people they would have to kill. Jason ran ahead and checked to ensure it was clear before they continued.
She knew they were getting closer, the simulator missing some things but the several trips they had made to bring equipment was a huge help with controlling her nerves, the familiarity helpful in that regard. They ran to the end of the corridor and leaned against the wall and Jason tapped her shoulder. She nodded and took the lead. She ensured her gun was ready, then peered around the corner. There were three men standing at the far end of the room, while two stood by the controls.
She motioned with her hand that there were three men in the rear of the room. Those would be his, and he just needed to hit one because they were banking on the good-ole human instinct of flight. There were two men at the controls. It wasn’t their lucky day, which she felt sorry about, but she had to focus. It was them or her and Jason, and put that way, she didn’t have a problem taking them out—much.
With her left hand, she did a countdown and when she signaled, they came into the room and fired simultaneous shots. Her second shot hit its target; fear had completely immobilized him when he saw his comrade go down mid-sentence, so he was an easy shot. Jason fired a second shot then walked farther into the room and moved around the machinery and fired a third shot.
Kat slid onto the floor and pulled the laptop out from underneath the control box, and Jason was there to pull it up and open. He typed wildly, and the computer screen went through several pages then beeped. She moved to the controls and, just as they had practiced, turned the dials to the necessary settings. Then Jason decreased the water level and temperature that was routed to the steam drum.
Jason pulled her over to him and grabbed her wrist and counted down from three and they hit the start buttons on each other’s watches so that their times were off by less a second.
“I love you,” he kissed her quickly.
“Love you, too, see you in, ow!” a bullet grazed her arm. Jason pulled her toward him and they rolled under the equipment. “Dammit, they’re here.” She pulled the second gun from her harness.
“Just a flesh wound,” he examined her arm. “Good thing I kissed you,” he winked.
“He’s at your ten, babe,” she looked for anyone else.
“I’ve got him, are you clear that way?” He asked.
“Yeah,” she moved into position.
“On my count, I’ll take him out and cover you.”
“‘Kay,” she maneuvered herself so she could bolt to the door. “I’m ready.”
“If it looks clear, be sure to stop long enough to grab his earpiece. I’ll see if I can break into the frequency.”
“I already had that on the agenda,” she looked at him with a smile.
“Love you.”
“I know,” she winked when she looked over her shoulder one last time.
Jason smiled, then counted down. He took his shot and she smiled as she ran toward the door, him getting a head shot sure to swell his ego since he always complained about his lack of weapons training. When she made it to the door she looked around then bolted toward the dead Hybrid and pulled out his earpiece. She pried his weapon from his hand and slid it across to Jason, who gave her a dirty look that she ignored. She had two and he only had the one gun and a knife, to hell with leaving him unprepared.
She pulled the d
ead Hybrid’s knife and slid it into her boot, then slid a cartridge to Jason and ducked, him taking a shot toward the other entrance enough to let her know that her time was up. She slid to the opposite doorway and stopped long enough to glance at him once more, Jason having the same thought because he nodded at her before returning fire.
According to her watch, Kat had less than thirteen minutes to go. Not caring, she ran around the big room and came in through the same door their enemy had entered and shot him from behind. She then starting running back the way she came. She was sure Jason was annoyed that she wasted time going back to make sure he was clear, but she didn’t care. She needed the peace of mind more than he needed to feel like Rambo. She followed the corridor down to the end then made her way to the turbine control room.
Kat ran to an empty room just across from the turbine room, wiped off the earpiece, then set it into her ear. The second the earpiece was in place, Kat heard that Jason had company yet again. He was drawing heavy fire and still wasn’t anywhere close to the main control room. She looked down at her watch and swore. Nine minutes left.
Deciding to break protocol and turn the turbines off sooner than planned, she crept along the wall and peered inside. There were only two technicians in the huge room. She studied everything to be sure there weren’t any Hybrids lurking. When she was sure it was clear, she took out the two unsuspecting humans and holstered her weapons in her shoulder harness.
The laptop was secured underneath the wall of equipment that she ran toward. She flipped open the lid and typed in her password and swore when she realized that she couldn’t start early. Damn, damn, damn! Her only consolation was that Jason had killed the Hybrid that had cornered him in the corridor, but he was definitely behind schedule and running low on ammunition.
She heard the telltale sound of the earpiece being taken out of the dead Hybrid’s ear, the swooshing, scratching sound of Jason’s fingers grabbing onto it and maneuvering it into his ear. She felt relieved knowing that they had an open line of communication. Not that they would use it because other Hybrids were listening, but it somehow gave her comfort and made her feel closer to him. She hid behind a piece of equipment and kept watch on the two entrances as she glanced at her watch. She was thankful that all sounded quiet on his end.
She heard him fire three consecutive shots, screams escalating after the second shot was fired, and then stopping after the third. Her watch beeped, and she hoped that he was ready because she could hear his going off for just a second before he shut it off. She hit the upload button on her laptop, then reset her watch for seven minutes.
She watched as the computer program loaded onto the system, then ripped the USB cable free when it was completed and powered down the turbines. She gripped the computer under her arm and held her weapon at the ready as she ran through the building toward the control room. He had given her seven minutes to upload the program, switch off the turbines, then get to him. In training, it had taken only four minutes, but he was all about contingency plans, so had given her plenty of extra time just in case.
“Got ‘cha,” Brody stepped from one of the rooms and slammed into her. The momentum sent her colliding into the wall, and the laptop crashing onto the floor.
When he grabbed her wrist, he held it in such a way that she couldn’t help but loosen her grip on her pistol. She clenched her jaw when it crashed onto the floor, but she twisted her wrist and spun so that she got out of his grasp and punched him in the face, then kneed him in the gonads. She grabbed a handful of his hair and slammed his head into her knee.
She shoved him aside, turned to retrieve her weapon, and collapsed onto the floor when someone punched her in the face, a sharp pain radiating that traveled to every nerve ending in her body. She reached up when someone grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled her onto her knees. She instinctively let all of her body weight drop down, probably losing a large majority of her hair in the process, but thankfully fell to the floor and kicked the person’s feet out from under them.
She grabbed her gun and dropped her knee onto Wyatt’s chest, and was bringing the gun around when Brody grabbed her in a chokehold, and lifted her off her feet. She choked and gagged as he applied pressure. She reached for her ballistic knife and brought it down and sliced his forearm, him reflexively releasing her as he screamed out in pain.
“We got your girl, McCarthy.” Wyatt grabbed her and slammed her into the wall, then shoved his gun painfully against her temple.
Kat shoved off the wall, which pushed Wyatt off of her. She turned with her knife at the ready, but Wyatt had anticipated her move and grabbed her hand, then twisted her arm so that together they drove the knife into her upper thigh. Kat actually saw stars when the knife penetrated her leg. The agony of it being so close to the still bloodied gash she had received on the train nearly caused her to black out.
Sirens started to blare overhead, and the lights dimmed when the turbines finally gave out. The emergency lights came on, and the sirens grew louder, which concealed the clanking of the knife falling to the floor.
“Let her go, Wyatt, or none of us makes it out of here,” Jason said. “Do you hear those sirens? That means you’re stuck, I’ve locked your ass in, and you’ll go up with the place if you don’t let her go!”
“Your parents told me to come and make you a deal. You stop the reactor from blowing and come peacefully, and I’ll let her live.” Wyatt laughed as he dragged her toward the control room. “Of course, that’ll just be to poke and prod her since she’s a freak.”
“You bring her to me, let her walk in of her own free-will, and I’ll stop the reactor.”
“Oh, right. I’ll just let her go so you two can teleport and disappear off the face of the planet, sure. Ah, yes, but you always took me for the fool, didn’t you?” He asked bitterly.
“Listen to me, dammit!” Another alarm sounding, “We’ll all die in here, Wyatt, all of us, unless you let her go. There isn’t enough time for you to get back to your teleporter, and in a few more minutes, I won’t be able to undo anything, the temperature in the core so high that nothing can be done to stop the inevitable.”
“Oh, how very Shakespearian of you, and I’m glad. I was so in the mood for a tragic romance this evening.” He laughed. “And this time it will be so much better because you’ll get to see me in action.”
“Dammit, Wyatt!” Jason shouted when their watches started to beep indicating that seven minutes had passed. “That’s your last chance to let go of my wife and run your ass back home. Once I pull up the remaining rods we can all bend over and kiss our asses goodbye.”
“So I’m supposed to just let you waltz out of here?” He stepped into the control room, Jason nowhere in sight. “I don’t think so.”
“We’ll all die, Wyatt,” she struggled against him. “Just go. Leave us alone, we don’t want to hurt anyone, just live in peace—”
“I knew I should have killed you the second he saw you in that damn ballroom,” he spun her around to face him and grabbed a large amount of her hair, then pressed her against him painfully. “I always suspected he was defective, but I knew it when he looked at you.” Then he pushed her so that Brody grabbed her and contorted her wrist so that she dropped onto her knees. He pressed the gun against her temple.
“None of this would even be happening if that insane human would have killed you like he killed his wife! I did everything for him! I broke him out of the mental hospital and drove him to your house. Drove him, for crying out loud! I let him out at the fucking curb! All he had to do was kill you.” He released the safety. “Then those assholes in Mexico! You can’t get good help even when you pay for it! Those bastards were so greedy that it got them killed.” He took a deep breath, almost like he was trying to calm himself. “If they would have killed you, this would be a moot point, but no! They thought they were so smart by double dipping—”
She stood so quickly that neither Brody nor Wyatt was prepared for it. She managed to punch Wyatt in the
face before Brody gripped her hair and shoved the gun against her temple again. Wyatt’s admission infuriated Kat. Then another thought dawned on her.
“Why would you hurt her? Was that to hurt me?” She yelled at Wyatt.
“What?” He rubbed his cheek and glared at her.
“You let Lauren die,” she said. “You could have saved her.”
“What?” He asked again, but this time laughed. “No, I’ll admit that I’ve killed my fair share of Hybrids, but that was pure luck.”
“Liar!” Kat fought against Brody.
“As much as I wish I had thought of it sooner, because believe me, that one was a pain in the ass, I didn’t kill her. You, on the other, will be a different story. I’ve dreamed of this night for a very long time now,” he looked around the room. “Come out, come out, wherever you are, Jason. It’s about time—”
Sasha came into the room through the far entrance and fired two shots. “He’s over here,” she called as she maneuvered behind a piece of equipment for cover.
Kat pulled away from Wyatt and started to stand, but he grabbed a handful of her hair and used it to snap her back toward him. Then he slammed her painfully into the control panel and pressed her face against the instruments. Her teeth ripped open her inner cheek and blood filled her mouth.
“Sasha, override the system,” Wyatt yelled. “Brody, you’ve got his position, so find him then kill him. Jason, we’ve got you outnumbered and I’m about to kill your girl, I wouldn’t want you to miss it. It would have been so nice to see your face when I killed your little friend so many years ago, but this will make up for it.” He forced the gun against the back of her head.
Kat wasn’t sure if it was the admission of him murdering Brandon Stapler or him sounding so sincere that caused the energy surge. Nor did it matter. The energy that had been slowly fueling up inside her reached critical mass. She squeezed her eyes shut and concentrated on the electricity so that it flowed from her heart up to her head.
She envisioned the gun in Wyatt’s hand and willed the energy to burst through her. But there wasn’t enough, her injuries and exhaustion were too great. Then she felt him. Jason wasn’t far and helped her. He somehow sent her the last of his energy. She took a deep breath and focused, the exertion nearly making her black out. But she accomplished what she intended. Wyatt screamed as his hands first charred from the electricity then caught on fire the second he released her. Without the support of his hand, Kat fell to the floor and didn’t even have a second to recover before Brody grabbed her and pulled her to her feet.
Sleeper Cells Page 29