“What did you do?”
Will reached into a pants pocket and pulled out three chunks of glistening, near-translucent crystals. “I left one in place, then crushed and sprinkled one inside the power compartment. I’m hoping they think something went wrong and exploded the crystals. You can’t fly a carrier that size with less than three. If I did it right, they’re pretty much stranded unless they come up with a new set.”
“Brilliant,” Meara praised.
“We’ll see,” Will replied. “I hid in the luggage area when they came in. I wanted to get a closer look at the people they put on there, but I was afraid to stay that long. I dropped out of the craft when they went back to the building for the last one.”
“Unless the number changed since I eavesdropped, they only have one more victim to add to the transport. We’ll know shortly if what ya did worked.”
“This would be a good time for Peyton to show up.”
“I agree,” Meara said, looking around. “We’re still shit out of luck though.”
They watched the UCN guards return with the last person. Just before they got to the transport, the woman on it sat up, saw them, and screamed. One guard made a grab for her while the other worked to fish something out of his pocket.
“Bastard’s intending to drug her.”
“Meara, don’t…”
“I have to stop him,” Meara said, ignoring Will’s pleading as she lifted her bow. She shot an arrow that went flying with accuracy to split the front of his metal skull. Down the guy went to the ground, which told her that her aim had been accurate. The other guard and the woman turned to watch him fall.
The remaining guard looked out toward the trees trying to see who had shot at them, then promptly started running back to the building. A blast from a pulse cannon took him down before he’d gotten ten feet.
She turned to see Will with a weapon in his hand. “Where the feck did ya get that toy?”
“You shouldn’t have shot that guard, Meara. They would have knocked her out and we’d have rescued her later. You probably just announced us. Why did you do that?”
Meara shrugged. “She’s just a girl, William, practically a child still. I was trying to save her from more suffering.”
Will sighed, adjusted the handheld pulse cannon, and turned it on the still screaming woman. Too much could kill her. It had to be just the right hit. He aimed carefully and the blast glanced off the side of her head. She quieted instantly and slumped sideways on the levitating transport.
Unfortunately, all the commotion drove the AIs to come outside the fenced area and investigate. Both AIs approached the UCN guard that Will had shot and peered down in curiosity.
Meara looked at the portable pulse cannon. “Buddies always give each other the good presents. All I ever get from blokes is jewelry or flowers. Got another shot in that new toy of yers?”
While Meara waited for Will to answer, she pulled an arrow out and pushed a button on it. She put the now electronically humming arrow in her bow and cocked it back to take aim.
“Probably one more shot, but that’s enough to blow one of those AIs apart.”
Meara nodded. “Take out the one on the left. I’ll take out the one on the right.”
Away her arrow flew, and the moment it connected with the AI, the bot lit up with lightning bolts that dropped it in a scrambled heap to the ground.
Will took aim and his blast knocked the other bot to the ground, but it didn’t do the damage it was supposed to. “Shit. I forget to adjust the setting on the pulse cannon. Now it needs time to recover.”
“Come on then. We can’t give that metal head time to recover and send a distress signal.”
“Meara…” Will whispered roughly. But she was already running. “Fuck,” he said, jumping to his feet and heading after her.
By the time he caught up, Meara was on the ground with her legs around the struggling bot’s neck to hold him still. She was in the process of twisting his mechanical head off and had nearly succeeded.
“Are you trying to choke him to death between your thighs? I don’t think that AI is going to appreciate being between your legs the way I would.”
“If ya think I’m going to be wrestling bots in the future to get yer Tall Tommy to stand at attention, yer dead wrong,” Meara said as she grunted with the effort of what she was doing. “They’re making these bastards much better than they used to. There was a time when I could just pop off one’s head and be done with the job in under a minute.”
“I’m looking forward to having a sex life again. Stop before you strain something important I might want to enjoy,” Will ordered, stooping down. He finished twisting off the bot’s head and chuckled when Meara scrambled out of the way to keep the bot’s fluids from getting all over her.
“Damn metal bastards. That hydraulic oil they use in them would ruin my clothes,” Meara said as she stood and surveyed their handiwork.
As she thought about what to do, the girl on the transport started coming around again. Meara smiled because she’d inadvertently rescued a kindred soul. “Bet she’s been giving those white coats all kinds of fits,” she said, heading to her.
Will’s answer was a grunt, but Meara chose not to get angry over it. He was probably more concerned about a small army of AIs coming to confront them. And there was a good possibility that would happen when the two bots they’d destroyed didn’t check in.
When she got the girl’s side, Meara pulled down the cloth covering her mouth so the woman could see at least part of her face. “Are ya okay?” she asked, patting the girl’s shoulder.
“Sadistic mother fuckers,” the girl said, lifting a hand to her head.
“Every last one of the bastards,” Meara said, echoing her anger. She couldn’t have been a day over eighteen.
The girl turned her head to look at Meara. “Are you a good guy?”
“Most days ya can call me that. My friend Will is here as well. He’s mostly okay too.”
“I can’t believe this is happening to me. I’m an engineering intern—was an engineering intern. I don’t know what I am now.”
“What’s yer name?” Meara asked.
“Phoebe.”
Meara smiled at the girl, keeping her hand on her shoulder. “Yer going to be fine, Phoebe. Will and I know a whole lot of people who can help ya get things back to normal. Help is coming soon. When they get here, we’ll get ya to safety.”
Meara’s gaze lifted as Will walked by her with the barely conscious, moaning UCN guard he’d blasted over his shoulder. Her chuckle at his irritated look had the woman turning her head to see what she thought was so funny.
“I assume the pissed off guy in black is with you, but who’s the guy in the coveralls?”
“Some sort of pilot of the craft they were loading ya into. Who are the people with ya, Phoebe? We counted nine.”
“Maybe it’s the other interns,” she said softly. “There were twenty of us who came out here to study for the summer. All but two of us were female. They caged us all like animals and then operated on us one by one. It started the day we got here. Some didn’t survive what they did. Others were taken away and we never saw them after that. Are you saying there’s only nine of us now?”
“I don’t know anything for sure,” Meara said. “But we’ll do what we can to find out. Can ya trust me?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Not really—no, but I’m trying to be reassuring. Is my empathy working at all?”
The woman on the transport laughed sadly. “At least you haven’t drugged me yet.”
“No, I stopped the other guy in coveralls—the one still on the ground beneath ya—from doing that very thing, but maybe it wasn’t for the best. Ya could skip the worst parts by sleeping through this chaos,” Meara advised.
“No,” Phoebe said firmly. “Whatever is going on with this place, I want to know about it. I’ve been out of control enough.”
Meara nodded. “I understand that be
tter than ya think. Can ya walk, Phoebe?”
Not answering her with words, the resilient and resistant Phoebe swing her legs over the side of the levitating transport and slide to the ground. The girl wobbled a bit but steadied herself with one hand on the transport.
“Good girl,” Meara said and waved a hand. “Now head into the air transport while I follow with this levitating table. Let’s see if Will can fly this big old airjet away from here.”
Sighing, Meara turned and reached down to haul the dead UCN guard up and put him over her shoulder. “Heavy bugger,” she grumbled, groaning under his weight. She tossed him onto the levitating table and started dragging it along with her.
“You’re one of them, aren’t you?”
“If ya mean a cyborg, the answer is yes.” Meara refrained from pointing out that the girl had been turned into one as well. She wasn’t a fan of denial herself but she’d seen enough to know that it could keep a person sane for a time.
“Cyborg. I guess that’s the right word for it.” Phoebe sighed wearily as they slowly walked to the carrier. “I haven’t been out of that place in months. Just breathing fresh air feels strange. My boyfriend… no, never mind. That dipshit cheated on me. We broke up just before I left. But my parents… they probably think I’m dead.”
“They probably do,” Meara agreed. The UCN had probably told them some story by now. It was exactly what they had done to all the families of cyber soldiers. “Ya can set them straight about things when we get ya back to where ya came from.”
Phoebe nodded and then climbed the ramp into the carrier. Her breath caught at all the others lying still and lifeless. “Fuck. Are they dead?”
“No, they’re alive,” Meara said firmly. “It’s a physical state called cybernetic hibernation. It only feels like death when ya wake up from it.”
Phoebe walked over and peered at each person in turn. “Where’s Anna?”
“Is Anna another engineering intern?”
Phoebe nodded. “She’s my… was my… best friend. If it hadn’t been for me, she would never have signed up for this summer program. We faked her application so she could come with me. She’s a theater major. She’s supposed to transfer to the Juilliard Performance School in the spring.”
When she turned and started to go back out of the door, Meara grabbed her arm. “Where are ya going?”
“I have to go get Anna. I can’t just leave her here. They’re moving everyone out and going to blow the place up.”
“How do ya know that?”
Phoebe wrinkled her forehead. “I don’t know how I know. I just do.”
Will walked up to Meara. “No. None of us is going in there. We need to wait.”
“Did I say anything?” Meara demanded.
“You were going to,” Will said.
Phoebe looked back and forth. “Are you two married or something? You sound like my parents.”
Meara laughed. “Let’s go for the ‘or something’ explanation. Will’s got a sordid past he’s still not made peace with. It puts a real damper on our budding romance.”
Phoebe looked at Will. “Life’s short, dude.”
Rolling his eyes at the kid’s chastisement, Will said, “No,” again and walked away.
Meara tilted her head in the direction Will had taken. She could see him tinkering in some sort of panel in the floor. When he pulled the crystals from his pocket, she knew what he was doing. She’d forgotten the original plan was to ground the carrier.
“Will’s determined that we wait for our friends to get here before we go into the facility.”
Phoebe looked back and forth between them. She swallowed hard. “If they decided for any reason that Anna wasn’t worth saving, they would have moved her to Section B. That’s where they took the engineers who refused to help them with their project. I heard that was also where they took those of us whose operations didn’t turn out well.”
Meara turned and looked at Will. “Are ya hearing this?”
“Yes. I’m hearing it,” Will admitted.
Meara turned back. The girl was better off not knowing what had happened to Section B. “When we get in there, we’ll look for yer friend. Our goal is to rescue everyone we can.”
Phoebe went to a seat and let her body drop down in it. “There’s a guy—some sort of scientist. I think he’s crazy. He struts around like he owns everyone he sees. He kept telling everyone that he was their creator. What kind of nut job does something like that?”
“We’re leaving. Find a seat, Meara,” Will said as he walked back by them. He climbed into the pilot’s seat like he hadn’t heard, but he had. Meara had wanted his help. Fine. Now she had it. Now he would kill. He had a promise to keep to the man who took his life from him. “We’re going to fly this thing out of here and put it by the other one.”
“Other one? You’ve rescued others of us?” Phoebe asked.
“Not like you. Just a couple of engineers and two female cyborgs like me. We’ve had a busy couple of days,” Meara said with a chuckle, sitting beside Phoebe. “Now don’t worry. Will and I are on top of things.” She reached out and squeezed the girl’s hand until she yelped. “Sorry, if I scratched you. Maybe I need to stop trying so hard to be reassuring. Apparently, it can be dangerous to a person.”
“It’s okay. Wow,” Phoebe said. “Guess it’s all catching up with me. I’m so tired all of a sudden.”
“I imagine ya are—ya poor thing. Maybe that guy I killed drugged ya after all.” Meara draped an arm around the girl’s shoulders as Phoebe started falling into her. “That’s it, honey. Just lean against me and rest a bit. I’m sure ya will feel better after some real sleep. Hibernation is not the same. Trust me—I know that well.”
Meara hugged the girl close and Phoebe’s body shuddered in relief over the comfort. Moments later the girl’s weight sank heavily against her. Unfastening them both from their confinement, Meara easily lifted the girl and carried her to one of the empty pods.
Will had glanced back the moment Phoebe quit talking. He now watched Meara tucking the quiet girl into a medical pod like a mother would a sleeping child. “You drugged her, didn’t you?” he asked.
“Yes. I had to, Will. Hibernation doesn’t work on her and we can’t have Phoebe running back to that place to save her friend who’s probably dead by now. She’s gone through enough for someone so young.”
Sighing, Will nodded. “I put all that together as well. The AIs were saying Section B isn’t in need of transport because everyone there has been terminated. You’re thinking her friend’s in Section B?”
“Yeah,” Meara said, satisfied she had the girl as comfortable as she could make her under the circumstances. “But I’d rather think about something else right now if it’s all the same to ya. I need to stay calm and focus on what’s left to do.”
Will nodded. “Maybe Section B is a lie meant to keep the bots doing what the person running the show wants them to do. Maybe the people held in Section B aren’t actually dead yet. Maybe they’re just in the crazy bastard’s discard pile waiting their turn to killed when the building gets destroyed.”
Meara sighed. “I’m glad ya at least believe they’re holding people now. I consider that real progress for ya.” Meara walked to the front of the craft and slid into the co-pilot’s seat. She watched out the window as Will flew the same path they’d flown yesterday. “I’m assuming ya also heard what Phoebe said about the crazy scientist who worked on them. That doesn’t make me hopeful that anyone’s left untouched.”
“Yes. I heard her very clearly. There’s only one person I know who fits that description so well—that bastard, Creator Omega.”
Meara blew out a breath at the depth of anger in the way Will spat the man’s name. “Well, we’ve rescued a few more from him today. I’m going to let myself feel good about that for now. I suggest ya do the same.”
“I didn’t mean what I said about not going in.”
Meara shrugged. “I suspected as much. I’m still
grateful ya said that in front of Phoebe.”
Will nodded as he searched for a landing space next to the airjet they’d hijacked earlier. He hadn’t done this much cloak and dagger stuff since his early military days. “We’ll check that everyone is safe, leave a message for the others when they find them, then head inside the facility to investigate who’s left. Do you need to wake up the New World Companions to keep them from having problems?”
Meara glanced sideways at Will as he set the giant carrier gently down like he’d been flying them all his life. He’d morphed from complete reluctance into let’s-get-this-done captain mode. He’d pulled off his head covering and his face mask on the flight over. It made her all warm inside to see that much of him again.
“The New World Companions can go another day without waking, but that’s the limit. The engineers might be coming around, but I can knock them once more. Ya know, I wondered what it was going to take to get ya interested in this mission.”
“Revenge,” Will said flatly, tugging his head covering and face mask back into place. “The chance for revenge is more than I can pass up when it comes to that bastard.”
“First I need to go call Lucy again and let her know what we’re doing. Hang tight until I get back.”
“You do that. I’ll find a way to leave a note for Peyton and his men,” Will said.
12
Lucy moaned as she came around and soon realized she was strapped to the cyber chair. She allowed herself a bit of time for her head to clear before reacting. When her eyes focused, she saw Marcus sitting on the floor with Rachel asleep in his lap. He smiled a crooked smile when her gaze met his and kissed the top of Rachel’s forehead to gently wake her up.
“Your patient’s awake,” Lucy heard him whisper. “You check her and I’ll call Kyra.”
“How long have I been out?” Lucy asked, her voice barely a croak. Before she’d finished speaking, Rachel was leaning over her and peering into her eyes with the help of a light scope.
“Five hours,” Rachel answered. She patted Lucy’s shoulder. “You had some complications, we had to…”
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