“We’re going to wait for Natty to join up with us and then he and I are going to walk us right up to the compound without the least bit of resistance.”
“Like hell you say,” Leon blurted, craning his head to Cassandra.
“I will drop the skin suit camouflage so they mistake me for Laney. There’s no way they’re hurting the queen bee. I’m guessing Natty gets a pass too. You two just stay between us.”
“Where is the golden boy?” Leon asked.
“He’s making his way up the mountain with his trusty compass. Should run headlong into us in no time.”
Leon gave Cassandra another dirty look. “You couldn’t run protection detail for him?”
“He’s becoming a man and you want me to infantilize him again? Some parent you are.”
“I’m with the bitch queen as opposed to the ice queen,” Cronos said. “That kid’s got to grow up some time.”
“I’m plenty grown up, thank you very much,” Natty said, literally tripping over them and their camouflage. “Got to see three of your best guys die firsthand trying to protect me. Remind me to give you the gory details some time, see how well you hold up.”
Leon clenched his jaw and scowled.
“That face he’s making, that’s him fighting the impulse to snap my neck, isn’t it?” Natty said. “See, as part of growing up, I’m learning to read people better and to be more sensitive to others.” Natty turned toward Cassandra. “Thanks for the scent markers. What perfume is that by the way?”
“Eau de Feral.” Cassandra said standing, “We ready to saunter right on into his secret lair?”
“Not quite,” Natty said, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her down. “Have some important information to relay from Laney. She doesn’t want us using our weapons against these creatures. She wants us to befriend them. But says we’ll never do it if we attack them first. Their minds are too regulated by fear. By then, not even she will be able to calm them with the psychic link she has to them.”
Cassandra snorted. “Good thing I can drop the skin suit then and pass for Laney instead of me. Being as I think Cassandra has used up any goodwill they might have toward her.”
Leon craned his neck to her. He resented comments that prompted him to take his eyes off the sentient serpents patrolling the area. “That’s how you found out what you know about them? You took them on head-on?” He read the answer in her eyes. “Anyone ever tell you that first you run recon, collect intelligence against the enemy, then, when you have the all-important information, you move in? And not before?”
The edge of her lips curled down. “I have a more trial and error approach to warfare that’ll grow on you with time.”
She turned to Natty. “And I’ve got news for you. This reptilian-fear-driven brain of theirs. They’ve learned to translate those instincts into rapid darting motions, moving just at the edge of your peripheral vision, cloaking devices, and fighting in the shadows. Their guerilla tactics are second to none. If there was ever a method of turning negatives into positives, I’d say they’ve mastered it.”
Leon started peeling off his armaments, starting with his rifle. Gestured for Cronos to do the same. He noticed Cassandra didn’t carry any. This woman is something else, yes. “You can leave the camo paint on,” Leon said to Cronos. “We’ll look less human and more like them that way. All except for Cassandra, of course, whose approach I pray works.”
He waited for Cassandra to change back to her Laney-likeness, and headed them out, away from cover, and up the mountain. Of course, by then, he’d lost sight of the patrol.
It didn’t take long for their party to run headlong into just the kind of trouble they were hoping to avoid.
FORTY-EIGHT
The team of doctors surrounding Laney on the lab table, when she started slipping away from them, revived her with shock therapy. It took multiple starts with the defibrillator to bring her around. She had remained in a more fragile state since being taken out of the liquid nitrogen than she’d been in prior to being frozen.
She bolted upright, panting, disturbed by the break in the psychic connection with Natty more so than with the electric shock.
Vargo, the doctor in charge, crippled partly by arthritis, moved too slowly for Truman’s taste. An older man. The only thing not broken down about him was his mind. He could only operate anymore with the robots’ assistance, correcting for the microtremors owing to his Parkinson’s, and his diminished range of motions, owing to the arthritis, and to the flare ups of pain that often caused his arms to spasm wildly in response. With the robots’ facilitation, he’d just finished grafting skin to her forearm over an area which had not survived the freezer burn. He hadn’t engaged them until two grafts of skin lay on the floor from his spasming instead of on her arm.
With some keying on his computer console, Vargo got the robot surgical assistants to clothe Laney in an outfit that stole ambient energy, light, vibrations, the thermal variations in the room—they even borrowed from her own movements—and converted each energy source to heat to transmit to her body, helping with her shivering.
“What about the chip on her forehead?” Truman said.
“I don't dare mess with that,” Vargo said. “I could end up lobotomizing her.”
Truman didn’t take the news well. He didn’t trust Laney to not be working to undermine his efforts by way of the chip’s ability to allow her to leave her body at will, like some damn genie in a bottle. She was a prisoner who had a way out of her jail cell, albeit a temporary one, and that was dangerous enough.
He snorted a couple times to vent the burning sensation he was experiencing inside. His arms crossed in defiance, he said, “Very well then. I better get some countermeasures in place in anticipation of her tech-enabled treachery.” He paused just long enough to say, “I want her operating on the Nomads and Umbrage long before I get back,” then stormed out of the room.
“Before I can deal with the fall out of her subterfuge, I have one small project to attend to.” Once inside the hall, he whistled for Panno, Jacko, and Mudra. They materialized out of nothing, their invisibility cloaking making them appear only loosely tied to this dimension. The tremor they sent up his spine he was sure was deliberate, a reminder of who was really in charge here, as far as they were concerned. “One of the dinosaur lizards out there has gone AWOL. It’s a baby. The mother added some genetic modifications aimed at outdoing our policing efforts. Seems this one comes with no upgrades. So it can be killed. All too easily.”
“Of what possible evolutionary advantage is that?” Panno said.
“Apparently it’s a way out from the pain and psychic torture we dish out. We need to make it clear that it isn’t.”
Panno nodded and smiled. “How did you discover that?”
“Our scientists are getting better at capturing from the headsets some of the hazy images in their minds if they hold on to them long enough. If we run into Leon and his people, mum’s the word about our intentions, or they’ll likely fight to the death to protect it.”
“So we take them out,” Mudra said.
Truman shook his head. “Can’t risk that creature getting away during the skirmish and infecting the others with its passive-aggressiveness. The entire defensive perimeter around the compound could collapse.”
Mudra nodded.
“Grab your weapons and let’s go,” Truman said.
When Panno and Mudra departed, Jacko lingered. “I think I might have a solution in case you find it harder to contain the outbreak than you hope.”
Truman tensed, not liking the sound of that, but in the end, he nodded.
***
Leon and his entourage literally stumbled upon Laney doctoring a juvenile Nomad. At first he thought it might be the one that Truman’s men had dropped a net on earlier and managed to wound, hence the glowing-green blood trail, but this Nomad was too small. He lacked the spikes on his tail, and the ability to shoot fire out of his mouth as well, going by how he hissed at th
em, making every effort to do so. It was Leon’s guess that they had to reach a certain age of maturity before both those modifications kicked in.
The adolescent was just nine feet from head to toe and just twenty feet from the head to the tip of the tail. He was partly reclined against a tree, his abdomen exposed, for Laney to do her work.
The area was a bit too clear of ground cover for them to hide their presence once it was felt.
The Nomad had thus stirred at the arrival of the troop and cried out. The team in turn raised their weapons defensively. They’d left their original firearms behind, but then had circled back for them when they realized that, while the arsenal might provoke the sentient serpents, they might also keep them alive from other deadly forms of life wandering the Amazon jungle. Cassandra also wanted to see if dousing the bullets and blades in local poisonous herbs might make them more effective against creatures by now largely immune to traditional weapons, if they had no choice but to defend themselves. Funny how one cry from that beast was all it took for them to forget their orders to stand-down.
Laney regarded Leon and his men, then rushed to calm the creature. To the others, she yelled, “Put your guns down!”
She returned to applying salves to the hybrid creature’s bleeding hide.
Leon eventually ordered the others to lower their weapons.
It was then that Natty burst into the clearing, stumbling into Laney the same way the others did. He’d allowed himself to fall behind the others to better conceal his subterfuge.
When he saw her by the lizard-man, he grabbed the weapon out of Leon’s hand and raised it at the Nomad, angry. Leon snatched the gun away from him. Natty regarded Leon with looks that could kill.
Cronos and Natty were the first to approach Laney, getting close to her and to the beast. They examined the Nomad briefly, but seemed more intrigued by her.
“You got some bio-enhancements, right?” Cronos said to Laney. “Can fly or eject fire out your butt?”
“You did this, right?” Natty said to her, eying the wounded creature. “Did your cyberpunk jujitsu on his ass and felled the mighty beast with your superior nano-infused strength and fierceness?”
She glanced at them, mildly amused, then was instantly weary. “No, it's just plain old me, looking after the living, same as always.” Eying Natty specifically, she said, “God sent me to you so boys with toys would never have to grow up.”
“Oh,” Cronos said.
“That's mildly disappointing,” Natty said.
“How then...?” Cronos asked.
“Natty didn't tell you that I can at least appear to be in two places at once?” Laney said, continuing with her doctoring.
“It didn't seem pertinent to your being my wife-slave.” Natty noticed she was looking at him differently, like maybe she didn’t have to doctor him anymore.
“Let's hope,” she said, “this self-mocking humor is a sign you're getting some distance on what a child-monster you'd grown into.”
He averted his eyes from her. So much for their period of détente. Working on one of the wounded Nomads must seriously have soured any lovey-dovey feelings she was harboring for him, at least in the short run.
Laney caught them up as she carried out her stitching of the Nomad with the assist of one of Natty’s surgical spider bots that used the strength in its cybernetic fang-tipped legs to draw the seams together, and its staple-gun mouth to apply the stitches. Forget the irony that, though mad at him about the Nomad’s fate, she was saving him with Natty’s tech. “I figured out how to make the holographic projection of myself look more solid and to relay feedback to the human touch to convince anyone reaching out for me that I was the real thing. It allowed me to slip away and rejoin you. The Laney they think they have prisoner back at their compound is the hologram.”
“So, it’s like we have a spy inside, sweet,” Cassandra said, nodding.
Laney eyed her sister testily. Not ready for whatever drama between them that needed to play out just yet. “Funny, me playing the spy,” Laney said, “but yes.” Laney appreciated the fact that her sister remained in warrior mode, wearing her camouflage skin. She’d morphed from Laney’s identical twin lookalike to her warrior guise upon seeing her and stepping into the clearing. It made it that much easier for Laney not to confuse how she felt about herself with how Cassandra felt about herself.
Finishing the last of the doctoring on the Nomad, Laney stood up to admire her handiwork on the creature. She also set aside the triage kit, just barely able to manipulate it, showing her progress with her thought projections. As she did so, Natty reached for a grenade under his shirt, pulled the pin and shoved it into the creature's mouth.
Leon gestured to Cronos to hold Natty back, which he did.
Moving quickly, Leon stuck his hand in the choking creature's mouth, retrieved the grenade and hurled it.
The grenade exploded off in the distance. The birds fleeing the trees at the noise sounded different. The outcries were those of hawks, crows, and vultures, and other birds of prey who alone had lingered in the vicinity to feast on the rising wake of dead bodies.
Natty, fighting against Cronos's restraining arms, said to Leon, “You weren't there to see what they did to your men!”
Leon lowered his voice and slowed his speech. “You aren't the only one with an imagination.” Leon’s eyes went vacant briefly. Pointing to the Nomad, he said, “He's hope for an alliance. Right now I'm more interested in changing strategy than keeping score.” Glaring at Natty, he added, “Maybe because I have been keeping score.”
Laney eyed Natty with a look of betrayal. Natty, remembering the recent bout of clasped hands as they walked the forest together, hearts even more intertwined, his agreeing not to hurt the sentient serpents. She must have been wondering what happened between now and then. For the record, he was too. Perhaps it was PTSD. His mind—and his motivations—still more fragmented than he cared to acknowledge.
The creature stirred, still agitated, then slipped into unconsciousness.
As they all encircled the Nomad, pondering what to do about it, a voice to the back of them said, “We'll take it from here.”
They turned, weapons up, to see Panno, Jacko, Mudra, and Truman in the clearing. But they were too late to get the advantage.
They were outnumbered and Jacko’s tribesmen had better positions. Perched high up in the trees, and on the lower branches as well. The Ubuku colored up the forest about them with their bright-colored tattoos as if the tropical birds had all decided to come back to the place of strange sounds and even stranger activity.
Panno stepped up to Leon, staring him down. “So, you're the one I've heard so much about.”
“Didn't know my reputation preceded me.”
“Well, we'll have our time, I suppose.”
“I was hoping to show off what I can do myself,” Leon said, smiling. Then, he glanced at the Nomad. “But sometimes events are just greater than you are.”
Panno grunted. “Yeah, I don't care much for being upstaged either.”
He nodded to his men to drag away the lizard.
“What'll you do to it?” Laney said.
Panno grunted. “Do I look like I give a frig about lizard men, lady?”
Leon and his people watched as Panno and his group receded into the woods.
Truman threw Laney a scathing look. “Figured you’d be using your thought projecting abilities to work at cross purposes. I see you’re getting better at it. One would almost take you for the real thing. Ah well, no matter now.” He gave a mock salute to Natty and the boys. To Natty, he said, “How's life away from your blackboard treating you?”
“Apparently there's more to life than being an asshole.”
Truman chuckled. “Small wins.” He threw a withering glance at Cassandra, but ultimately said nothing, perhaps figuring her defection was a topic for another day. Then he disappeared into the jungle with the rest.
Laney watched the Nomad under her protection bei
ng netted and dragged away. Leon shifted weight, repeatedly having to rein himself in, expending more energy to fight himself than he needed for his adversaries.
They noticed the older shaman, Jacko, was the last to disappear, much as he did earlier, simply by becoming invisible.
“You want to tell me some more about those invisibility cloaks?” Leon said to Natty.
Natty gulped. “Yeah, sure.”
“I’m guessing they’re biomorphic, in keeping with the theme of the latest campaign.”
Natty was busy nodding when Leon noticed Natty’s injuries, peeling back his shirt to expose the extent of them. It drew his attention to his own, to Cronos’s injuries, and to Cassandra’s. “But first things first,” he said.
None of them were conscious of their injuries until now. But now that Leon had drawn their attention to them, Natty noticed his wound began to hurt.
FORTY-NINE
The group had remained in the sheltered clearing from which the Nomad had been kidnapped by Truman and his people.
Natty fussed with a device he was tweaking in his hands. He wouldn't sit still long enough for Laney to mend his wounds. Like the rest of them, he’d come by his scrapes unwittingly, brushing up against some branch or thorny vine, or shrub. The minor gashes were easy to ignore, especially in the heat of battle, until they got infected. By then delirium had likely set in. It was as good an explanation as to why he’d gone back on his pledge to Laney to do no harm to the sentient serpents as any. And it might also have explained why they doubled back to get their weapons not too long after abandoning them in the forest. With the rising delirium would have come a strengthened connection to their fear-driven brains, and a weakened sense of control from their higher brains.
Laney was showing exasperation with him that Leon picked up on even if Natty didn't because he was too absorbed in his new toy.
Leon also noticed that his own wound was worse, and bleeding out, while Laney showed a clear preference for mending her unappreciative husband.
Mind of a Child: Sentient Serpents (OMEGA FORCE and ALPHA UNIT Book 1) Page 42