by Toby Minton
“We’ll put on a little show at low intensity, nothing like what you’ve been through.” He looked into her eyes as he snapped the manacle shut on her left hand, and the force of his presence hit her like a blow. The energy coming off him was so strong it should have been visible. “The hard part is over, Nikki.” He winked at her, so casually and quickly she wasn’t sure she’d seen it, then stepped back to let one of the technicians shackle her feet.
Nikki looked down and noticed the restraints in this backup tank were much heavier than the first set. They were solid cylinders that encased her legs from mid-calf down like metal boots. She also noticed the technician locking her in was none other than Doctor the Kid.
He was intent on his task, more so than it required. She wanted him to look at her, to give her some sign that he’d done what he’d promised. But he was not looking at her so hard he was fumbling what he was doing.
You didn’t do it, did you? she shouted at him in her head. What happened? Did you lie about wanting to help me? Did you chicken out? Look at me, you gangly, spineless, monkey-loving—
As he swung the cylinder shut, Dr. Doublecross looked up and met her glare. For a jerky second his face lit up. He looked so proud of himself and terrified at the same time that she thought he was going to fall over, which he almost did as he tried to wink at her while he pressurized the tank. His wink was so over the top, so everything Savior’s smooth, casual gesture had not been that Nikki almost laughed.
As Dr. Radij Allayne the Hero finished with the tank and made his awkward way back to his workstation, Nikki took a few breaths to keep her own emotions under control. He’d actually done it. He’d sent the message. She wanted to do more than laugh. She wanted to cheer, to dance, to tell the official-looking guys ogling her from the screen to take a good look while they could because the cavalry was coming.
Any minute now all hell was going to break loose. By “hell” she meant herself. And by “break loose” she meant bust out of this tank like she’d been shot from a cannon, grab Price by the ankles, and spin through the lab like a furious laughing tornado.
Savior started talking to the glowering group on the screen as the BioGel began filling the tank, but Nikki didn’t pay attention to his words. She was too preoccupied imagining everything she would do when she broke out of here. It wasn’t until the BioGel reached her neck that she realized how desperately she was conjuring scenarios.
The fear was still there, still very much in control of her limbs and doing a mad swirl in her chest that she’d been ignoring. Her body knew what her brain didn’t want to acknowledge. It knew that luck wasn’t about to let the cavalry show up before the torture started up again. Not the luck she knew.
At Savior’s command, the current of electric pain ripped through Nikki’s body, and her brain finally got the message. Her hope and fear got swept up in the wave of agony and swirled together until she couldn’t tell one from the other.
The wave ended as suddenly as it had started. Nikki dragged in a breath and blinked, focusing on relaxing her clenched muscles.
Compared to what she’d endured before, this wave had been fairly weak, but it had taken her by surprise. She’d had no time to steel herself, not that there was much she could do to prepare besides take a breath and clench her jaw so she didn’t bite her tongue. But she liked to know when the pain was coming, even the low-level stuff.
Until now Savior had always been right next to the tank when he gave the order. Always. Nikki had come to associate his close proximity with the electric fire water cooking her from the inside out. Maybe he was trying to break that association. That would explain his sudden niceness and feigned concern for her emotional wellbeing.
Nikki looked up to see Savior talking to the men on the screen but she couldn’t hear a thing. They must have shut off the tank’s intercom. Maybe they didn’t want the sponsors hearing her scream, not that these guys looked squeamish. They didn’t seem upset at all by what they were watching. In fact, the only person who seemed the least bit agitated was Radij.
As she watched, Radij blinked and dragged his gaze from his monitor to Savior, his surprise obvious as he stammered a response to a calm command. Nikki didn’t understand most of what she could see on Radij’s bank of monitors, except the genesis level of the collector. She’d made a point to figure that one out on her first day in the tank. She’d learned that once the level reached the green line at the seventy-five mark, she got to rest while they tried to activate the Gateway.
Right now, the genesis level was just over fifteen. That couldn’t be right. Her whole first day in the tank had yielded a measly twenty percent. When she’d told them to crank the juice on day two, not even the longest and most excruciating waves had yielded more than five percent at once. No way she’d put fifteen percent into that tank with just the one relatively weak wave. No way.
Obviously Radij felt much the same, judging by his reaction. Savior, however, took the news in stride. He’d either expected the result or was much better at controlling his reaction. He nodded and turned back to the sponsors before Radij even finished speaking. The dour Chinese hoity-toits seemed pleased.
At another command from Savior, Radij shifted the green target line from 75% to 100% capacity. They were going to max out the collector before they tried to open the Gateway again. From the optimistic looks on the other technicians’ faces, they thought the extra power would make a difference. Clearly, they thought their next attempt to open the Gateway would succeed. If the previous wave wasn’t a complete fluke, they’d fill the collector enough to make that attempt in an hour, at most.
This was not good. When she’d thought all hope was lost, Nikki had wanted the Gateway open. At the time, she’d thought that was her only way out of this place. But now that help might be on the way—they ARE on the way—her promise to help Savior was looking more and more like a mistake. That was an understatement. It was looking like betrayal. No, she’d never made any formal vow to oppose Savior, never pledged herself to Gideon and his crusade. From that point of view, she’d betrayed nothing, technically. But Michael wouldn’t see it that way. He wouldn’t say anything of the sort, wouldn’t even let his disappointment show in his eyes, but that only made it worse. She knew deep down that if their positions had been reversed, he wouldn’t have given up like she had.
Son of a bitch.
Whatever thrilling rescue Sam and the others had in mind, Nikki hoped it was already in motion.
Chapter 36
Michael
Gideon stopped and held up his hand. A few paces behind him, Mos halted in mid step and waited, his head turning slowly as he scanned the hillside. Another half dozen paces behind Mos, on the other side of the split trunk of one of the short, wide-topped trees dotting the arid landscape, Michael and Kate did the same.
For several long seconds, they held their positions. The only movement around them was the cool wind rustling the tall dry clumps of desert scrub that would hide Michael completely if he crouched. Good thing too, considering how little cover the low trees had provided during their slow approach.
Michael’s jaw trembled, his teeth lightly tapping before he could clench them together. He wanted to blame the cool wind for his shaking, but he knew it was all adrenaline and nerves. Walking into a fight without Nikki by his side left him feeling vulnerable, and alone, even though Kate was close enough to touch and Mos was between them and the compound with a laughably large machine gun held at the ready.
He focused on his breathing and waited, glancing over at Kate as he tried to center himself. She looked focused but not nervous, her blue-green eyes behind her glasses intent on everything around her. Like the rest of the team, she was wearing close-fitting fatigues made for the Wasteland—dappled, drab colors, breathable fabric, with a thin attached hood that she could pull up over her head or wrap around her nose and mouth in a dust storm. Her hair was pulled back in a short auburn ponytail with hair pins placed seemingly at random to hold back th
e parts that were too short to reach the tie.
Something about the hairpins helped ease Michael’s tension. They were so normal, so not what he would think about when preparing for an armed assault. In a small way those tiny pieces of the mundane made the situation seem not so overwhelming.
Kate looked over at him and smiled, and Michael felt a throb in his chest that sent a flush climbing up his neck. He could see the excitement in her eyes, and the confidence. She apparently didn’t share his doubts about the plan, or if she did, she was a lot better at keeping them to herself.
Michael wished he could do the same, but his concern was too close to the surface and just too big to suppress. This was his plan. He felt responsible for the safety of every member of the team.
Kate gave him a wink, and Michael felt a smile break through his tension.
Nikki winked at him a lot, and he hated it. When Nikki winked it meant trouble. She had an arsenal of winks each with a different meaning, every one of them bad. She had one that meant she’d just bested you in an argument. Another that somehow made you feel just as bad when you bested her. One that said “good job” but meant nothing of the sort. And even one that could make anyone, anywhere take a swing at her. After spending his whole life with Nikki, Michael considered winks physical sarcasm. When he saw someone wink, he assumed they meant the opposite of whatever they were saying or doing.
Apparently Kate was the exception. Her wink said everything was going according to plan, that everything was going to turn out even better than they hoped. Her wink also made a promise his imagination ran with. Suddenly, he couldn’t even remember the plan, much less worry about it.
She nodded her head toward Mos and said, “they’re moving again,” her amused expression saying she had a pretty good idea what he was thinking.
Michael turned away and followed after Mos, fighting down a stronger flush.
Mos and Gideon were moving more slowly now, both crouched low. Through the trees, Michael soon saw why. The ground rose slightly over the next few hundred meters before leveling out, and at the crest of the rise, he could see the gray concrete of the security bunker.
Gideon and Mos stopped before a thicker patch of scrub and waited for Michael and Kate catch up and take cover as well.
At a nod from Gideon, Mos spoke quietly into his com. “Bravo in position.”
Elias
When the call from Mos came in, one of the knots in Elias’s back relaxed, only to be replaced by another higher up. All teams were in position without incident. Step one down.
Now for the hard part.
Elias scanned the area in front of him, being careful to move only his eyes. He was forty meters from the east wall of the motor pool, lying facedown in a patch of scrub beside a slab of rock that would be his only real cover when the bullets started flying. It was a good fire position. With the rising sun behind him, he had a clear view of the hangar doors marching away from him along the south wall of the motor pool, and a decent view of the east entrance to the main structure farther in. From here he would provide cover while Coop disabled Savior’s vehicles, and he could lay fire on the primary hot zone as well.
On his far right, at the base of the ridge bordering the facility, Ace and Gram were in a similar position. Ace was not quite back to one hundred percent after her crash, and Gram was a long way past his prime when it came to field work, but neither of them had wanted to be left behind. And as much as he might have wanted to, Elias couldn’t afford to leave them. They were a necessary part of the plan. Their combined fire from cover would keep Savior’s response teams occupied. Theirs and Padre’s.
Elias ran his eyes over the ridge, but again he saw no sign of Padre. He was up there somewhere, having slowly crawled his way in under cover of darkness. From somewhere on the ridge, he’d watched the movement of Savior’s people, timed what few patrols there were, and identified the best spot for their strike by making his best guess about where Nikki wasn’t. From his vantage, Padre had directed each team’s advance over the past few hours, telling them when to move, when to stop, when to lie flat and wait.
So far, everything had gone according to plan, but Elias knew that was bound to change in the next few minutes. He’d learned long ago that a solid plan lasted only until the first enemy was engaged. Once the first shot was fired or the first door breached, the battle took on a life of its own. It went where it wanted with little regard for the wishes and plans of those involved.
Over the years, he’d tried to exert more control over the ebb and flow of engagements by spending more time and effort planning, by employing new and better equipment, by constantly drilling and training the soldiers under him, like most COs, he was sure. But the more he tried to control a battle, the more it tended to spread and adapt.
One of his first instructors at OCS had told a much younger and much more cocksure Elias that trying to control every aspect of an engagement was like trying to contain an oil spill with your bare hands. He’d followed that with, “But you damn well better find a way.” Elias had spent far too many years trying to obey the command, and far too few recognizing the truth that had preceded it.
He’d never stopped planning, but after some hard lessons that had cost him his pride, and too many good men and women their lives, he’d started accounting for the chaos. These days, every plan allowed for the unpredictable.
He’d accepted that there was no controlling the uncontrollable. The best he could do was plan carefully for what he could see, and then trust the men and women serving under him to do what was needed—an easier task these days. The team he’d assembled since joining Gideon was the best he’d ever commanded. They were not only good at their jobs, they were good at adapting when the plan crumbled, which made his ops planning a little easier.
This mission should be no different. It should be like any other he’d planned with this team. This particular plan even minimized the risk to most of the team by keeping the enemy off balance and focused on a few special soldiers with gifts to protect them.
But it was different. Elias couldn’t pretend otherwise. This time the mission involved two people he was finding it harder and harder to see in harm’s way, yet those were the very people he was placing on the front line. With those particular soldiers, he was finding it increasingly difficult to play the role of CO.
Too bad, old man, he told himself. That's all you are to them—likely all you'll ever be—by your own choice. At best, he was a donor, nothing more. When Savior had asked him to contribute to the program eighteen years ago, Elias had been honored, proud.
So much had changed, so quickly. Today, the only thing Elias remembered with pride about his time with Savior was the night he took the children, all of them, out of there. The rest was one long drawn out mistake.
A small part of him worried that this plan was a mistake, but Elias couldn’t afford to listen to that voice, not at this late hour. At this point, he had no choice but to push those worries aside and trust. Trust the plan. Trust his people.
He touched the com collar at his throat. “All teams standby. Move on Padre’s call. Padre, the show’s yours.”
Michael
“Bravo, you’re up,” Padre said calmly through the earpiece. “Nice and easy.”
Michael looked up as Mos quietly confirmed the order. Mos gave him a nod and adjusted his grip on his weapon. Gideon just looked at him, his face an unreadable mask under his hood.
Michael pushed through the scrub and crept slowly toward the low concrete structure on his own. This task only he could perform. Before they struck, they had to be sure Nikki was in range.
His eyes drifted to the massive building beyond the security bunker as he slowly advanced. She was in there somewhere. So close now. So close he should be able to—
He stepped through what felt like a curtain of burning cold energy. He stumbled to one knee and sucked in a breath as a wave of energy coursed through him. Awareness of Nikki returned suddenly, like someone had fl
ipped a switch. She was here. Nikki was here—and she was hurting.
Michael felt his skin hardening, his muscles tensing with the power suddenly filling them. He looked back at the others, at Mos holding Kate back with one hand, both of them with concern plain on their faces, and at Gideon with his cold, knowing mask.
“Hit me,” he grunted. “Hit me now!”
Mos hesitated, but thankfully Gideon didn’t. He uncoiled from his crouch with surprising speed. He stepped forward and struck, his blackened fist hammering down onto Michael’s back.
Sharp pain flared at the point of impact, but the flood of energy still pouring in from Nikki washed it away as soon as Michael registered it. Through the link, it felt like Nikki was being burned from the inside out.
“Again. Harder!” Michael stood, and Gideon’s fist slammed into his stomach, his chest, his face. Michael heard Kate choke back a cry. He understood why. Gideon’s alien limbs were strong. With his armored fist, he was dealing vicious blows that would cripple a normal man, but Michael barely felt the last one. The constant flood from Nikki was working too quickly. He was already passing the point where Gideon’s blows could hurt him.
Gideon reared back again, but Michael grabbed his fist to stop him. Another attack was pointless unless they turned to something more damaging, like the heavy machine gun in Mos’s hands. But it was too early for that. They had a plan to stick to.
The energy from Nikki cut off suddenly.
As Michael took cover behind the nearest scrub, he focused on the link and what he could read of Nikki’s physical and emotional state. She was alive and as close to well as could be expected. Whatever they were doing to hurt her, it wasn’t causing lasting damage. But the hope he could feel surging in her was tamped down by frustration. Since she wasn’t fighting, even after the boost Gideon’s attacks had to have given her, Michael knew she was being restrained, which meant the pain he’d felt from her was Savior trying to power his Gateway.