“Espeth,” said Chill, suddenly very interested. “What about her?”
“She’s getting closer, too. I think maybe they’re together, all of them. They’re still far away, but they’ve been feeling closer for, I dunno, I’m guessing a day now.” He shrugged. “It’s hard to keep track of time here.”
Pound’s mood seemed to improve. “Rescue? We could get rescued?”
Chill was suddenly aware of the camera, the hidden microphones. It didn’t seem like anyone was especially monitoring their every word, but you could never be sure. Anyway, Recall wasn’t looking very happy for somebody who expected to get rescued. “So,” he said, “what’s the problem then?”
Recall chewed his bottom lip and sighed. “They’ve stopped. Very suddenly, they’ve stopped.”
Jono was half-standing on his head, feet on the dashboard, still tangled in his sleeping bag. Angelo was on the floor next to him, along with an avalanche of canned goods that had rolled forward from the kitchen area.
Paige was hunched over the wheel, shaking her head to clear it.
Jono slid down until he was lying on his back, and began to climb out of the sleeping bag.
Angelo pulled himself to his feet and dusted himself off. “Everybody okay?” The others were all awake, of course, with the exception of Monet, who had been sleeping in the back. Her nearly invulnerable body seemed to have shrugged off being slammed into a bulkhead without her waking up. There were nods and affirmative murmurs all around.
Jono looked up at Paige. “What in blazes happened, Gel?” Paige looked away and rubbed her eyes. “I guess—I guess I dozed off at the wheel.”
Jubilee pulled the side door open and stepped outside iilto the grass, creating a little ball of glowing plasma in her hand to light her way. Jono looked out the window. He could see traffic passing on the freeway just a dozen or so yards away. They’d evidently gone off the road, run through the right-of-way fence, and come to a stop among some bushes.
Angelo glared at Jono. “I thought you were going to stay awake and keep her company?”
“I did!” He looked over at Paige. Her head was down, hair in her face. She looked miserable. He reached out and put his hand on hers. “It could have happened to anyone, luv. We’re all exhausted.” He glanced at the clock on the radio. At least it still worked. “It’s four a.m. Look, we aren’t going to bloody rescue anybody if we kill ourselves first. Let’s get this beast back on the road and look for a rest stop or campground or something.”
“Guys,” Jubilee’s voice called from outside, “you’d better come look at this.”
They all piled out of the Xabago. Stiff as they all were from the cramped and uncomfortable sleeping arrangements, it was a welcome chance to stretch. But Jono was more interested in Jubilee, who led them to the front of the Xabago.
Jono groaned. “A flat tire.”
Jubilee bobbed her head sideways. ‘Try two flat tires. The one on the other side is out too. Looks like that fence we hammered through did a job on them.”
“I don’t suppose,” said Jono, “that we have a spare?”
“On the back,” said Angelo. “I checked it when we last stopped for gas. The propane tank burned a hole in it.”
Jono threw his arms up. “Well, that does it then. We’re here for the night, what little is left of it. Paige, get on that phone of yours and call the auto club. We’ll get somebody out here in the morning to patch those tires. Meanwhile, let’s get some sleep.”
The others were shuffling back inside. Paige looked at the phone unhappily. “Jono, I’m sorry.” She walked off to place the call.
Jono watched her go, and wished he was absolutely, one hundred percent, completely sure that this had been an accident.
Despite its luxurious exterior, the interior of the Gulfstream jet was Spartan, a cramped metal pipe full of electronic gear, equipment racks, and ammo boxes for the retractable, wing-mounted guns. Outside, it looked just like any other corporate business jet. Inside was where the real business went on.
Black sat in one of a quadrangle of otherwise unoccupied seats in the middle of the plane, reading scouting reports as they came off the printer. Despite several reports of possible sightings, none of the scouts had turned up anything concrete. It was frustrating, but not alarming. It only meant that, after slipping the patrols last time, their targets had either spent a lot of time on back roads, or they’d simply found some place to lay low. It made them more difficult to find, but it also slowed them down. Eventually they’d make a mistake, and when they did, the Genogoths would be waiting.
A telephone mounted on the bulkhead next to him rang. Somehow, as he picked it up, he knew it was another break. “Black,” he answered.
It was Leather. “One of our scouts has picked up a tow truck dispatch on their scanner. The vehicle fits the description, no mistake.”
“Where?”
“North of Baltimore.”
He leaned forward and tossed the reports aside. “Confer with my pilot and have a car waiting at the closest possible airport. Move your people into position and delay the tow truck if necessary. I want to be there when we close in.”
There was a pause. When Leather spoke, there was annoyance in his voice. “If we delay, we risk losing them again.”
“There’s more chance of that if you go after them in the dark. If they need a tow truck, they’ll stay put until we’re re'ady to make our move.”
Just beyond the trees and brush where the disabled Xabago sat, a small creek flowed over an abandoned beaver dam, around a tight bend lined with flood-deposited sandbars, under a small steel bridge that carried a single-lane farm road, and finally disappeared through a freeway culvert. Even in the moonlight it was picturesque, but Angelo Espinosa had never considered himself a poet. As he settled himself cross-legged on a sandbar to wait for the coming dawn, he told himself that he just came here to escape the crowded interior of the Xabago and to have a few minutes alone with his own thoughts.
Thus, he frowned when he heard the Xabago’s door squeak open and somebody walking through the brush toward him.
He expected possibly Jubilee, who was also a night-owl, or maybe Paige, who had ample reason to be restless this night. He was surprised when instead he heard Espeth’s voice speaking to him.
“Aren’t you sleepy, Espinosa?”
He glanced back at her, but didn’t change his position on the sand. “I could say the same of you. Going somewhere?” She seemed surprised at the question. “Where would I go? I’ve betrayed almost everyone I know to put this fiasco together. I finally found a place I belonged, a mission in life, people who accepted me, a chance to change the world for the better. That’s all gone now. All I want now is for my friends not to get hurt. None of my friends.”
“I’d play you a song, but my little violin is busted.” He clenched his jaw and watched a patch of clouds drift across the face of the Moon. Espeth made a little sound. He couldn’t see her clearly in the sudden darkness, but she made a little sound. Was she crying? Miss Leather Amazon? “Look,” he said, “maybe this men-in-black routine isn’t for you. Head home, sign up for Junior College, learn a trade. I hear that blacksmiths could be back in any day now.”
' That sound again. If she wasn’t crying, she was doing a darned good job of messing with his head. “You got family somewhere, right?”
It took her a moment to answer. She seemed to be pulling herself together. “I ran away when I was sixteen, hitchhiked to Seattle and met up with the ’Goths after a year on the street.” “Ran away? Where from?”
“Boise, Idaho.”
Idaho? Well, everybody had to be from somewhere.
“So, you could go back. Why’d you leave anyway?” Things got very quiet for a while, and when she spoke again, the tears seemed to have dried like spit on a hot sidewalk. “I had my reasons,” her voice was as hard as he’d ever heard it, “and I’m never going back.”
“Whoa, sorry.” He thought about his own estranged f
amily in Los Angeles. “Guess I can understand that ‘you can’t go home again’ gig.”
“I think,” her voice softened just a little, “that maybe you can. I wish you liked me better, Espinosa. A little genetic quirk aside, I think we’re maybe more alike than you think.”
“That,” said Angelo with a chuckle, “is what worries me, chica. It’s why I will continue to check my back for any projecting knife handles. Besides, no matter how much alike we are, you will always look better in a tank top.”
She didn’t laugh, but when she spoke again, he heard a trace of a smile in her voice. “That truck will be here in an hour or so. I’m going to try for forty-winks, or at least twenty-five. You coming?”
“Nah,” he said. “I’m gonna sit here and watch the sun come up. Father Mendoza back at the old parish used to say that when you watched the sun come up, it was God scanning you like a can of tomato soup at the supermarket checkout. Father Mendoza, he was a character. Sure could play b-ball though—”
Espeth didn’t seem to be listening. “Scanning,” she said. “We’ve made a terrible mistake, C’mon,” she yelled as she started sprinting back to the Xabago! “we have to get out of here. Now!”
Chill clenched his fists, tugging at the shackles that held his wrists to the chair. It didn’t do any good, but it made him feel better.
“I want to show you something.” Sharpe’s voice came from the shadows. He stepped into the light pushing a pedestal on which a suit of futuristic armor stood inside a support gantry. Various thick cables and umbilicals snaked away from the suit into the darkness. Chill was reminded of a space-shuttle sitting on the launch pad.
The armor was perhaps six and a half-feet tall, pale metallic blue, dozens of overlapping plates cunningly designed to mimic all the movements of the human body. The primary material seemed to be some kind of plastic composite. Chill had seem similar stuff in the university’s science labs, bulletproof, light as balsa, and stronger than steel. Pound was right. These guys were for real.
Sharpe smiled. “This armor is the end product of years of work. You might say that my entire career is tied up in this suit. Here, let me show you.” He pointed at the arms. “Car-bon-nanotuhe reinforced composite armor. Thin as an eggshell, but nothing short of a cannon shot will penetrate. Under that, a layer of linear micro-motor ‘muscle’ that will amplify the wearer’s strength ten-fold.” He pointed the helmet. “This incorporates a real-time satellite data uplink, and full sensory feed with global positioning. We’ll be in constant communication with the wearer, see what they see, hear what they hear, and know, to the inch, where they are at all times.”
Chill sneered at him. “Nice mecha, Sharpe. Why don’t you just strap one of the goons I keep hearing in the dark out there into it and go hunt some mutants, or maybe beat up some old ladies, if it’s more your speed®
There was a look of mock surprise on his face. “No, you don’t understand. The armor is for you. You are going to be my mutant hunter. ,
“So I’ve heard,” said Chill, dryly.'“When hell freezes over, not to make a pun.”
Sharpe laughed. “Interesting you should put it that way.” He pointed at the heavy yoke that covered the shoulders of the armor. “This,” he explained, “is what we call the power amplification system. We’ve tuned it specifically to you and your mutant abilities. It taps into the energy generating abilities dormant in all mutants and uses this energy to amplify your mutant aura.”
“I’m not,” said Chill, “really into that whole New Age, crystal, pagan thing, but if you’d like to leave some of your literature—”
“Joke if you want.” A harsh edge crept into Sharpe’s voice. “I’m talking about an invisible energy field that all mutants generate, one tied to their special abilities. Perhaps you’ve been jealous of other mutants’ greater powers, the well-known ‘Iceman,’ for instance. Well, with this suit, you’ll have your chance to equal him, perhaps even ultimately surpass him.” His eyes narrowed. “You’re going to become a living weapon, a soldier, my soldier.”
“See,” said Chill, “there you go with that again. We are not going to work for you Sharpe, none of us. We’ll fight you with our last breath.”
Shatpe’s fingers traced a flat, blade-like antenna on the side of the helmet, then its twin on the other side. “That would be a formidable threat, assuming fighting would do a bit of good. This is the mind control unit. We’ve spent years developing the technology. Despite some earlier problems, I’m convinced we’ve got it right this time. We picked up some very useful tidbits from a super-criminal called ‘the Controller,’ who is currently in government custody.
“In fact,” Sharpe continued, “we were just about to give it a try.”
To Chill’s alarm, a headpiece lowered over his brow with an electric whir. He struggled against his bonds with all his strength, but it was useless.
“I had in mind a very simple test. I’m going to come over therfe, and give you the opportunity to spit in my face. You’d like that. I’m sure.” He turned to someone out in the darkness and nodded. “Let’s give it a try."
He moved and positioned his face only a few inches from Chill’s. “Wouldn’t want you to miss,” he said.
A wave of hate washed over Chill. Well, Sharpe had asked for it. '
He didn’t move.
He couldn’t move.
He didn’t feel anything. In fact, it was as though he suddenly couldn 7 feel anything at all. Hate, anger, rebellion, initiative, he observed them pass through his mind and disappear in the distance, like the lonesome whistle of a night train. He observed this, recorded it, and felt nothing. Like a robot. Like a machine.
He couldn’t even feel the horror.
Sharpe stared into the subject’s eyes, and watched them go flat and cold. Satisfied, he stood and smiled with delight. Dozens of technicians appeared out of the darkness and began to work on the armor and on the subject.
Happersen walked up and handed him a digital clipboard. “I imagine you can sign off on this phase now.”
Sharpe nodded, took the clipboard, signed, and handed it back.
“That seemed to go well,” said Happersen, adjusting his glasses.
Sharpe chuckled. “Fortunately for you. The penalty for failing that particular test could have been quite harsh.” He watched Bouille as she positioned the virtual reality training goggles over the subject’s eyes. This done, she turned to him. “We should get this started with the others. It will take about twelve hours to imprint the basic command protocols on them. After that, we can downlink new modules and commands in the field using the armor’s satellite link.”
“Excellent.” Sharpe walked over and put his hand on the armor’s chest. “When can we have them suited up for fiela-tfials?”
Bouille frowned. “I’d like a few weeks to do tests and drills here before we take them on a real mission.”
Happersen just chuckled and shook his head. “Boss doesn’t work that way. Better get used to it.”
She looked nervously from Sharpe to Happersen and back again. “Twenty-four hours,” she said, “maybe twenty if we do double shifts and cut some comers.”
“Do it,” said Sharpe. “I want to see what our new hounds can do.” He turned back to Happersen. “Which brings me to another matter. We need a target. Find me a mutant, Happersen. Nothing too ambitious this time out. We’ll save Magneto for another day.” Then he smiled wistfully. “But once we have a full platoon of Mutant Hounds at our disposal, who knows? No mutant will be safe, and each new captive will just be cannon fodder to throw against the rest.”
“Scanners,” Espeth explained to the groggy Gen Xers. “The scouts have radio scanners. I always think of them in terms of police calls, but of course they could pick up a tow-truck dispatch. I just wasn’t thinking.”
“Nope,” said Angelo sarcastically, “you weren’t.”
“Look,” she said, “I told you as soon as 1 thought of it.”
Ev and Monet came swooping o
ut of the sky like a pair of hawks and landed softly next to the group.
“Either, this place is ground zero for a mortician’s car rally,” Ev said, “or we’ve got Genogoths coming north and south. Lots of them. I figure we’ve got four or five minutes to get out of here.”
“And all we are,” said Jubilee, “is surrounded, outnumbered, and running on two fiat tires. Lots of time.”
Ev looked at the Xabago’s front tires. “Monet, this thing might fall apart if we tried to lift it in one piece, but what if we each grab a wheel hub and just keep the front end off the ground?”
Monet looked exasperated. “We’re the heavy hitters on the team, and we get used as a pair of spare tires.”
' 'Jubilee also looked exasperated. “Who are the heavy hitters on the team?”
“I wouldn’t say that I carry your weight,” said Monet, “except that it looks like I’m about to do it again.”
Angelo shoved Jubilee through the door into the Xabago. “You drive,” he called after her. Then he turned back to the others. “Didn’t have the heart to tell her that no steering was involved. Look,” he said, “if we could get across this little patch of rough ground to the farm road, we might have a chance of giving them the slip up in the hills.”
“We’ll do it,” said Ev, “if we have to drag the blasted thing.”
Paige sighed. “And we’ll leave tracks that the Mole Man could follow.” She looked at the stream.
Jono leaned over to meet her eyes. “Is that a plan I see cooking, luv? If so, out with it.”
“Plan,” she said, urging Angelo and Espeth into the Xabago. “They get away. We stay behind to cover their escape.”
“That,” said Jono, “is a plan?”
Paige shrugged. “Only one I’ve got, old-son.”
They watched as Ev and Monet dragged the Xabago along, leaving deep furrows, tom grass, and crashed underbrush. Finally they got it onto the road and made pretty good time getting away, the front end hovering while the wheels pushed.
Generation X - Genogoths Page 9