by Matt Handle
Sawyer chanced a look over his shoulder to make sure his friends were keeping pace. Without the light of the fires, they’d have been impossible to spot, but through the hazy yellow illumination, he briefly saw that Angel was almost directly following his path while Tyler and Jenny had veered off to the right, angling around the pit left by the last explosion instead of running through it as he’d done. Just as he turned his head back toward their destination, so tantalizingly close, he heard the high whine of another missile from the drone and then everything went black.
***
Sawyer wasn’t sure how long he’d been unconscious, but it was the sound of voices that brought him to. His face felt like it had been seared, his flesh hot and pulled tight across his skull. His body was worse, pain tearing through his ribcage and right leg just above the knee. He managed to open his eyelids just wide enough to see through and immediately wished he hadn’t.
Jenny’s torn and bloody body laid no more than ten yards away, her eyes staring lifelessly up toward the full moon that only now peeked out from between the drifting clouds. Luna lay just past one pale, outstretched hand, the ends of the stuffed bunny’s floppy ears blackened by fire. The voices had been those of Mechler’s soldiers. Two of them stood over the poor girl’s corpse, talking briefly amongst themselves as they verified her death.
A shot rang out just outside Sawyer’s narrow field of vision. He quickly cut his eyes in that direction and saw a third soldier just past the other two. This one had just put a bullet into someone lying in the weeds. Tyler, Sawyer thought to himself, wishing somehow that he was wrong. Sawyer didn’t know whether the boy had survived the missile strike or not, but the soldier hadn’t taken any chances.
Sawyer felt a cold fury run through his body, temporarily washing away all thoughts of pain or weakness. He didn’t see any sign of Angel yet, but at least two of his friends were now dead. They’d come all this way only to be killed outside the very doorstep of their destination.
The crunch of a boot in the charred remains of the road just behind him brought Sawyer’s focus onto his right hand. He wasn’t holding the shotgun he’d brought with him, but he saw with a glance that it was still beside him, the trigger mere inches beyond his grasp. Without a second’s hesitation, Sawyer snatched the weapon up off the ground and swiveled backward, his ribs screaming in protest as he brought the big gun to bear on the approaching enemy. The soldier saw him lift the shotgun and squawked out in surprise, barely getting his own rifle pointed in Sawyer’s direction before Sawyer fired. The blast of the Mossberg blew a hole through the black-uniformed man so large that for the split second it took the soldier to fall down dead, Sawyer could actually see the ground fires behind the dead man through his missing torso.
As his target’s gory remains hit the broken pavement, Sawyer lurched forward to grab the man’s automatic rifle from his dead hands and then twisted back toward the two men standing over Jenny’s body. Both of them were now alerted to the danger he presented and they were aiming their guns in his direction. The one on the right managed to get off a shot, the bullet just missing Sawyer by inches, and then both of them lay in a heap beside Jenny, a bullet in each of their skulls.
It felt as if one or more of Sawyer’s ribs may have been broken by the explosion, but before he could spend more than a few heartbeats thinking about it, a volley of bullets tore up the pavement to his left, forcing him to roll right in spite of the pain that now enveloped his entire body. He managed to find a bit of shelter behind a large chunk of asphalt that now stuck up a good foot and a half from the ground and he scanned the area in an attempt to locate the shooter.
Seconds later, another shot that tore off the top of his shelter, raining pebbles down on his head, allowed Sawyer to pinpoint the fourth soldier. Like Sawyer, the man had found some cover, lying on the ground behind a small hill grown thick with weeds. Without a clear shot, Sawyer took a moment to look for any sign of Angel instead.
He spotted her curled up in a ditch not far from his own location. In the dim light, Sawyer couldn’t tell whether she was alive or dead, but for the time being, she was in a relatively safe place, out of the remaining soldier’s direct line of sight. Sawyer went back to staring at where the enemy was holed up, looking for some way to flush him out. This silent standoff lasted a good two minutes before he heard Angel moan in pain.
Sawyer sent a quick thank you to God that she was still alive, but he also knew Angel had just made herself a secondary target for the shooter. Hauling himself up off the ground, he limped forward two steps despite the fact he was now in the open and an easy mark. His ribcage felt like someone had wrapped it in razor-wire and he was fairly certain he’d taken some shrapnel in his right thigh, but he couldn’t pay any attention to these problems just yet. Every ounce of his concentration was focused on the hill fifteen yards ahead and the gunner hidden just behind it.
He didn’t know how many rounds his pilfered machine gun had left in it, but Sawyer pulled the trigger and held it there as he continued shuffling toward the hill, his bullets tearing the weeds from the ground along with big chunks of dirt. Halfway there, the magazine ran empty so he dropped the gun and plucked his pistol from his boot to use instead. Two loud pops sounded from the remaining weeds and Sawyer felt a bullet whiz by his left ear, but he was now practically on top of the shooter’s hiding spot and he could make out the vague shape of the man’s head and rifle just above the ground mere steps in front of him.
Sawyer pointed his gun at the middle of the dark, round shape he knew had to be his target’s head and pulled the trigger. The soft thump of the man’s face and rifle hitting the dirt told him what he verified seconds later. He’d put a bullet into the top of the soldier’s skull, killing him instantly.
With what little light the ground fires provided, Sawyer quickly searched the corpse, confiscating a security badge, a small hunting knife, and the automatic rifle. Then he hobbled over to Angel to check on her. It wasn’t good. She was unconscious and had lost a lot of blood from a wound to the side of her skull, her hair matted down and wet. He pulled off his shirt and tore it into two strips which he used to wrap around her head to try to staunch the bleeding.
He picked Angel up and cradled her body against his chest as he staggered to the doors of the building. His legs felt like they would give out with every step, but he knew he had to get her inside. Even though both the kids were gone, he retrieved each of them as well, going first to Jenny and then to Tyler. As gently as he could, Sawyer placed Luna on Jenny’s stomach and arranged the dead girl’s arms across the stuffed animal, hugging it to her one last time before picking her up and carrying her to lie close to Angel. Then he delivered Tyler’s body to Jenny’s other side and heaved a long, painful sigh. The loss he’d just suffered hadn’t really set in yet, but physical pain was washing over him in waves and he wasn’t sure he’d remain conscious much longer without some medical attention.
Deciding he’d just have to face whatever danger lay on the other side of the doors with what little remained of his strength, Sawyer slid the soldier’s security badge through the slot on the side of the doorway and then pulled the door open after he heard it click. He pointed his pistol into the widening crack between the doors and then stepped inside to meet his fate.
Chapter 17
The shriek of the security alarms felt like they would pierce Sawyer’s ear drums as he stepped inside the expansive lobby, but the place looked empty. Dim lights revealed a tiled floor, sedately painted walls, and a long reception desk along the far end of the room with a half dozen dim computer monitors spaced evenly across its length. At first, Sawyer didn’t see any sign of movement. Then he noticed the cameras mounted in each corner of the ceiling, their tiny green power lights glowing like the eyes of hungry insects, each eager to scurry down the walls and gnaw on him after he succumbed to injury or exhaustion.
Knowing he was being watched, Sawyer moved Angel and the bodies of both Jenny and Tyler inside as quickly a
s he was able and then closed the doors behind them. With no other choice, he tried to position Angel as comfortably as he could and then limped off on his own toward the middle of three hallways that extended from the lobby. Both he and Angel needed help and he couldn’t wait to see if she regained consciousness on her own. Doing so might just mean watching her die or giving the enemy time to regroup and ambush them here where there was no place to hide.
The hallway was a long one and every twenty feet or so was a spotlight in the ceiling that provided illumination. A couple of them were burnt out, but when Sawyer stood under the closest working one, he took a moment to examine his wounds. His knee wasn’t as bad as he feared. There was a three inch gash in it, but it wasn’t particularly deep. It was still bleeding a little, but he figured it wasn’t anything some antiseptic, a wrap bandage, and some rest wouldn’t take care of. His ribs were another story. Although there was hardly any blood on his torso, and most of that was probably Angel’s from carrying her, a deep purple bruise, six inches wide and twice as long was already spreading around his side, just under his chest. Every step brought another wave of pain as the broken ribs dug into his muscles. He wasn’t short of breath, so he was fairly confident he hadn’t punctured any organs, but if he didn’t at least get himself wrapped up tightly and pop a Percocet or two, he didn’t think he’d be winning many more firefights. The narcotic would probably turn his aim to shit, but without it, he’d likely soon be lying somewhere on the floor as helpless as Angel back in the lobby.
Just up ahead was a bank of elevators. Sawyer was positive they wouldn’t be functioning, but he struggled up to the buttons and mashed one anyway. It lit up and to his surprise, one of the doors whooshed open, dinging to let him know it was available at his convenience. Paranoia warned him that it could be a trap, but he didn’t see that he had much choice. Stairs were practically out of the question given his condition. Holding his gun out in front of him, Sawyer limped inside the steel box and examined the multitude of backlit buttons on the inside control panel. Before he could choose one to press, the doors whooshed back shut, blocking out most of the sound of the alarms and offering a blessed respite from their noise. Then something happened that he didn’t expect at all.
***
It didn’t take Erika long to find out what had set off the alarms all over the Biomech facility and it had nothing to do with her. As soon as she sat back down at her laptop, she hacked back into the security system and accessed the logs. They didn’t contain a great deal of detail, but they did clearly document the threat as being an outside one identified via security surveillance.
Once Erika had this bit of information, she closed down the log window and accessed the camera’s data files that were stored on the mainframe. It proved a dead-end, only being set-up for nightly batch updates rather than a real-time interface, so she went to Plan B and hacked into the cameras’ software directly. What she found nearly floored her. She had no idea that Mechler’s military connections had given him access to drone aircraft, much less the kind of firepower that the tapes displayed. She watched in growing horror as she saw Sawyer and his friends dash down the hill toward the building as the Predator loosed its missiles at them, finally hitting them just before they reached the front doors. She wiped tears from her eyes as she witnessed the soldiers kill Tyler and then saw Sawyer carry the dead and wounded inside after dispatching Mechler’s goons.
Switching to the interior lobby feeds, Erika saw that Sawyer was hurt himself and as he approached the elevators, she made up her mind on what she had to do. If she had any hope of her recent activities remaining unknown to Mechler, her next move would dash that chance forever, but she didn’t hesitate. If there was ever a time for her revenge, this was it.
Erika patched herself into the elevator’s intercom system and leaned as close as she could to her laptop’s internal microphone, wanting nothing to be lost in translation.
Sawyer heard Erika’s voice crystal clear as it came from the elevator’s speaker.
“Please state your business,” she said in as calm a voice as she could muster.
Sawyer decided that after the events outside, there was no point in deception and he was in no mood for discussion anyway. “I’m going to kill every last one of you for what you did to the world with that plague and what you just did to my friends with that drone,” he growled.
This was followed by a good 30 seconds of silence. Sawyer figured someone was gathering the next violent welcoming committee and was about to push one of the buttons when Erika’s voice replied. “Bring your friend into the elevator with you then press B2. If you give me a chance, you may find I can be of assistance in your efforts.”
It took most of Sawyer’s remaining strength, but he got Angel onto the elevator and followed the intercom voice’s instruction on which button to choose. After a downward lurch, the doors reopened and Sawyer found himself facing Erika as she stood in the hallway, unarmed and looking more scared than dangerous.
“How bad is she?” Erika asked as she looked at Angel, forgoing introductions for the time being.
“Head wound,” Sawyer replied. “She’s losing blood and needs to be stabilized ASAP.”
“I’ve taken control of the security cameras for the time being, but it probably won’t last long,” Erika told him. “I know a doctor in the building that might be willing to help, but we’ll need to move fast. Do I have your word that you won’t harm me or him until we’ve had a chance to talk?”
Sawyer wasn’t about to trust this woman so quickly, but he also didn’t see much other choice if he wanted to save Angel. He offered Erika a handshake and locked eyes with her before letting go.
“Any tricks and I promise I’ll do you more harm than you could ever imagine,” he told her quietly.
Erika gulped involuntarily before responding “Fair enough.” Then she joined Sawyer and the still-unconscious Angel inside the lift. “My name is Erika Ling,” she told him. “The doctor I’m taking you to is a bit more risk averse than I am. Let me do the talking.”
By the time they reached bio-engineering, Erika’s nerves had settled a bit and Sawyer looked like he might join Angel in the realm of unconsciousness at any minute. After exiting the elevator, he grimaced with every step as he carried Angel’s limp body down the hall, his broken ribs grinding together every time he moved.
Erika led him to a small laboratory which contained a stainless steel operating table and a rolling tray covered in surgeon’s tools. Sawyer laid Angel down on the table and then slumped against the wall where he slid to the floor until he came to sit on the cold tile. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes, relieved to get a moment’s respite. Erika told him she’d be right back and then walked to Benjamin’s office so she could use the doctor’s desk phone to call his apartment upstairs.
As she expected, Ben answered by the second ring despite the hour. Erika’s wristwatch said it was now a quarter ‘til four in the morning, but the alarms were still going off in the building and they were loud enough that even the most exhausted person would have trouble sleeping through them. He recognized her voice immediately.
“What’s going on?” he asked her. “Are you okay?”
“For now,” she answered. “But I need you down in your lab right away. Please hurry” And then before he hung up she added, “Don’t stop for anyone and come alone. I’ll tell you everything once you get here.” She disconnected the call before Ben could ask any questions. If he knew the truth, she wasn’t sure he’d come.
Erika’s fears were well founded. When Ben arrived a few minutes later, unshaven and hair matted in crazy directions, she led him into the lab where Sawyer and Angel rested and she thought the older man might have a stroke right in the doorway.
“Tell me these aren’t the intruders that set off the alarms,” he said, already knowing the answer.
Sawyer started to get up and Ben motioned for him to remain seated. “Don’t!” he told him. “Just don’t.”
/> Ben turned back to Erika, his face ashen and his eyes wide with fright. “Erika, I warned you. He’ll kill you the minute he finds out about this. Why did you bring them down here?”
“Because they need our help, Ben,” she said. “And they might be our only chance to defeat him. I watched the security feed. The big one there killed four soldiers singlehandedly, while wounded.”
Ben glanced again at Sawyer and then looked back at Erika, understanding dawning on him. “You mean to tell me you hacked into the security system?”
“I saw them, Ben. The monsters you described. He has two dozen of them in that locked part of the building, just waiting to be unleashed. We have to stop him!”
Still sitting on the floor, Sawyer wearily raised his gun and pointed it at Ben. “I hate to interrupt,” he told them. “But doc, my friend on the table there might be bleeding to death and I’m not feeling so hot myself. I’m asking you as nicely as I can in my current condition. Stop talking and start fixing her up or I’m going to put a bullet in you just like I did the soldiers outside. Got it?”
Ben opened his mouth to say something and then shut it. He moved to the table and began examining Angel’s wounds, leaving Sawyer and Erika to stare at each other as he worked.
“Who’s this guy you’re so afraid of and what in the Hell could be worse than the monsters wandering all over the country already?” Sawyer asked her.
Erika filled Sawyer in on Calvin Mechler, her late husband, Doctor Steele, the zyborgs, and almost everything else she’d discovered in the last 24 hours as Ben cleaned Angel’s wounds and stitched her up. The only thing Erika left out was the bit about Steele’s watch. She wasn’t sure why she kept this detail to herself, but she thought it might be something to keep in her back pocket awhile longer. Sawyer asked a few clarifying questions here and there, but Erika found him remarkably accepting given the nature of her story.