Again, Lucas had no clue what Zack meant, but at least the dizziness eased. “That’s easy for you to say.”
Zack’s face stiffened more than before, if that were even possible. He leaned in close enough for Lucas to feel the wind behind the mercenary’s words. “Look. I know this is not easy, but there comes a time in every man’s life when you have to choose what kind of man you want to be. One that freely embraces the unknown, knowing that chaos is lurking behind every shadow with hungry breath, or the kind that looks for any reason, no matter how mundane, to avoid even a single step forward to face his destiny. Which are you?”
Lucas was impressed with the warrior’s poignant choice of words, but they sounded like Kleezebee’s words, not Zack’s. “I get it. But remember, despite Rico’s training and guidance, deep down I’m still just a scientist. All this blood is—difficult. It’s a lot to process.”
Lucas consumed three deep breaths in succession, letting each one leak from his lips, slowly. “I prefer to think of myself as the kind of man who boldly goes where no man has gone before—in the name of science, not violence. But, I can do this. I have to.”
“Good enough,” Zack said, slapping Lucas on the back. He smiled. “Let’s go find your friends.”
Despite the left-brained rhetoric and the queasiness, one thing was clear. Lucas knew why Rico sent Zack along to chaperone: The man was one mean-ass cheese-grater who didn’t hesitate. The safest place to be in the colony was right behind T-Rex when it was feeding time.
The door leading back to the restaurant banged open behind Lucas. He turned without thinking and aimed his shredder rifle at the new arrivals. He lowered it when he saw that it was Rico and his six-man squad. The armed men sprinted down the hallway, then gathered around the severed heads and mangled bodies.
“Looks like we missed all the fun,” Rico said to Lucas.
“This was all T-Rex. I don’t think I hit anything.”
Rico nodded in a matter-of-fact way. “I’d recognize his handiwork anywhere.”
T-Rex picked up the enemy shredder rifles and clips of ammo and gave them to four of Rico’s six men. The other two men were still armed with Kleezebee’s stunners.
Rico looked at both piles of corpses, then turned to T-Rex. “Only seven? Hardly seems like a fair fight.”
“They’ll send more, Major.” T-Rex pointed at the green door. “There’s another corridor dead ahead. We should double-time it.”
“Lead the way, my friend.”
Lucas followed T-Rex and Rico as they crept down the next corridor. The rest of the squad fell behind twenty feet or so. “How many more do you think there are?”
“Not many. We’re expecting that Cyrus took most of his men with him to New Robyn City to provide security for his victory party,” Rico whispered.
They found another closed door at the end of the second corridor. This door was green like the last, except it appeared to be a metal fire door, like the kind you’d find between floors in a modern skyscraper’s stairwell. Its eight-inch chrome-plated twist handle was on the right and the letters SS-11 were stenciled in white across the face of the door.
Rico slipped a tiny, telescopic camera under the bottom of the doorway. The device was connected to four-inch-square paper-thin view-screen by an adjustable, metal-wrapped flexible cable that Rico used to control the angle of the camera. Rico activated the camera and monitor.
Lucas put his hand on Rico’s back and leaned forward to see what the device revealed. A bright white light filled most of the display, but Lucas could see enough detail to determine that the room inside was about thirty feet wide and maybe just as deep. He couldn’t see much else with the light aimed at the door. There appeared to be a silhouette of some type of security station barricade in the background, with several pairs of legs standing on either side of it.
“They’re waiting for us,” he said. “Trying to blind us with the light. What do we do now?”
“Hold position,” Rico said, retracting the camera scope. He pressed a combination of three orange buttons on his watch.
Seconds later, Lucas heard footsteps approaching rapidly from behind. Four more of their squad joined them, two with stunners and two with shredders. Baby-faced Sergeant Stonebridge was leading the group.
Rico told Stonebridge, “I count at least five inside. There could be more. T-Rex has the left flank. I’ve got right. You and your squad take middle. We go on three.”
Stonebridge nodded.
“What about me?” Lucas asked.
“You hold position. Same as before.”
“But I can help.”
“No. Can’t risk it. Not with an unknown number of hostiles waiting for us on the other side of that door. Stay back and let us handle this. That’s an order.”
Lucas nodded.
“Take out the light first,” Rico whispered to T-Rex. “I’ll provide cover fire as you work around to the left.”
Rico grabbed the door handle, twisting it quietly until the faint click of its latch engaged. T-Rex was to his left, crouched down and holding his rifle close to his chest, its barrel aimed at the ceiling. Rico counted to three with hand gestures, then opened the door. He leaned around the edge of the doorframe and fired blindly into the room. “Go!” he yelled to T-Rex.
T-Rex slipped through the door, firing his weapon at the spotlight in front of him as he moved. The light gushing through the doorway went dark as the sound of glass breaking echoed in the room. Lucas could only see the random flashes of weapons’ fire inside.
Rico went in next, breaking right when he cleared the door. Stonebridge and the other three soldiers charged the middle, blasting the enemy with their stunners and shredders. The enemy returned fire, raising the decibel level ten-fold.
Lucas decided he needed to count to five before entering the room. Otherwise, his teammates might be in harm’s way, when he let loose with his shredder. He counted silently, listening to cries of at least one man, maybe two, amid the thundering barrage of weapons’ fire.
After the count of five Mississippi, he took a deep breath and exhaled, then made sure his rifle was cocked and ready. He let out a commando scream as he ran through the door and searched for a target to shoot. There was none. The fight was already over.
Rico and T-Rex were in the back, standing over a pile of enemy soldiers near the broken spotlight, just to the right of the enemy barricade. Stonebridge and another team members were with them, standing on the far side of the bodies.
T-Rex raised his gun and fired two short bursts at the casualties. One of the bodies flinched. Rico did the same to another bloody casualty lying at his feet.
Lucas continued forward toward Rico’s position, passing the remaining two members of their assault team. One of them was lying on the floor, crying out in pain, as blood shot out from his severed leg. The other soldier was kneeling next to him, with his rifle slung over his shoulder, trying to wrap a tourniquet around the jagged stump. He stretched the clear rubber hose around the man’s thigh muscle and pulled it tight.
Lucas caught up with his friends. “That didn’t take long.”
“Never does, unless you miss,” T-Rex said, as he bent down to check the bodies. He searched their pockets one at a time, pulling out personal items, equipment, and ammo. He found a set of keys in the shirt pocket of one of the dead men. “Not much else here, boss.” He tossed the keys to Rico.
Rico had been off by a factor of two when he estimated only five enemy targets. Lucas counted at least ten bodies, though the exact number was difficult to determine, since most of them had been chopped into hunks by the shredder rounds. Blood and guts were everywhere, just like back in the hallway, yet Lucas wasn’t feeling sick. At least not yet. He figured this is what happens to surgeons when they finally become desensitized to all the gore. Maybe he wouldn’t vomit the next time he had to use the meat cleaver on one of his guests. “Shouldn’t we have kept them alive so we could interrogate them?”
“Wouldn’t
have mattered,” Rico said. “They were already dead. They just didn’t know it yet. Besides, there’s only one door we haven’t tried.” He pointed to a raised-panel door straight ahead of him. “Cold Storage” was written across it in faded-yellow lettering. The bottom half was covered in chunks of runny human tissue, each dripping slowly to the ground. “If your friends are here, they’ll be through that door.”
Rico turned to the soldier standing next to Stonebridge. “Anderson, you help Roberts take Quinn back to medical. We’ll finish things up here.”
“Yes, sir,” Anderson replied, before hurrying to Quinn’s position. He bent over and picked up the severed leg, tucking it under his right arm. He helped Quinn stand up on one leg, then put the man’s arm over his shoulder, while Roberts did the same with the other arm. They carried Quinn out the door and into the hallway that led back to the diner.
“Looks like his stripper-chasing days are over,” Lucas said.
T-Rex and Stonebridge laughed. Rico didn’t. He sneered at Lucas.
“Sorry. Just tryin’ to lighten the mood,” Lucas said. He couldn’t stop thinking about the lethal charge waiting to explode in his wrist. He checked his watch. Ten hours, twenty-two minutes left. His alter ego seemed to be getting nervous as well—Unlikely caution must narrowly yield after another engaging round of hearty endowment. He wrestled with his thoughts, finally smothering the traveler in silence.
Rico walked to the cold storage door and pulled at the door’s handle. It wouldn’t open.
“Try the keys,” T-Rex said.
Rico inserted each key on the key ring in succession; the fifth key worked. Rico nodded to T-Rex as if to ask, “Ready?” T-Rex and Stonebridge moved into flanking positions behind him, aiming their rifles at the door. Rico motioned to Lucas to stand back. Lucas moved behind T-Rex and steadied his weapon. Rico pulled the door open quickly and went inside. T-Rex followed, as did Stonebridge. Lucas ran in last.
“You got to be fucking kidding me,” Lucas said, seeing a fifty-foot-wide storage room filled with rows of metal shelving stacked from the floor to the ceiling. Each shelf was jammed with food supplies. The smell of chilled meat and hot peppers dominated the room, but there was no sign of the enemy or the BioTex material.
“That son-of-a-bitch Jenkins was lying. Next time, I’ll take his goddamn hands,” he said, watching his breath billow into a fog each time he exhaled.
“It’s possible Cyrus set us up,” Sergeant Stonebridge said. “You know, planted misinformation to get us here. We should probably leave before he shows up.”
“He’s right, Major. It is the perfect ambush point, with only one way in or out,” T-Rex said.
“If it was, we’d be surrounded by now. No, we stay,” Rico said.
“Sir, with all due respect, Cyrus is tough to anticipate. He doesn’t think like us.”
Rico didn’t answer right away. He seemed deep in thought. “All right, you and Stonebridge, guard the door. Me and the comedian will stay here to search the room.”
T-Rex and Stonebridge rushed to the hallway just outside the storage room entrance.
“I knew we should have interrogated one of them,” Lucas said.
“You’re assuming they knew anything. Do you really think that if they knew this place was only food storage and nothing more, that they would’ve sacrificed their lives to defend it? No, and there has to be more to it. Fan out. Check the room . . . check everything. Report back anything out of the ordinary.”
“Just me? That’ll take forever,” Lucas said, scratching his wrist again. “There’s got to be five hundred boxes in here.”
A half-smile found Rico’s lips. “Then you’d better get started.”
Lucas figured it was punishment for cracking a bad joke. His wrist itched more than ever. Maybe there was some ointment on one of the shelves.
TEN
Claude Vandersteen closed the door to the supply cabinet and returned to his clear-glass desk located just six feet from the Supreme Commander’s office on the third floor of the Capital Building in New Robyn City. His two-hour lunch break was due in twenty minutes and he would soon head home, walking three blocks to relax in front of a warm, familiar fire. A steaming-hot bowl of veggie soup and some fresh-baked bread was on the menu today. Not many calories, but it was all he wanted to eat. He had punched two new notches on his belt in recent months and was running out of available leather to add more. He made a mental note to stop at the corner market on the way home to pick up another bag of flour . . . but stay away from the goddamn dessert counter, he told himself.
Today was Friday and his scheduled 8:00 PM check-in with Professor Kleezebee was on his to-do list. “Nothing new to report this week,” was his stock answer and the one he intended to give the professor again. Cyrus and Freakshow had been out of town the past four days, only returning to the office an hour ago. They had walked past Claude’s desk and straight into the SC’s office without as much as a “Hello.”
Claude had kept busy all week helping the volunteer crews set up tables, chairs, decorations, and the grand stage for Cyrus’ first inaugural address as the new Supreme Commander—a title Cyrus had chosen instead of Prime Chancellor the minute after he was sworn into office. The SC told Claude that he chose the old gymnasium for the location for Sunday’s victory celebration because of its proximity to the Mag-Lift station, hoping that everyone he invited would attend.
But who was Cyrus kidding? Claude had viewed the digital invitation: The end of Cyrus’ vid-message was clear: Anyone failing to appear at the scheduled time and place would have heavy penalties levied against their accounts. The gym would be packed. Soon, dignitaries from all four provinces would be flooding the capital city.
A chime sounded from the center of his desk as the vid-screen hologram activated. The three-tower unit took a few seconds to focus the fuzzy white light, before revealing the face of a familiar redhead with long, flowing hair that wrapped around her neck. It was his long-time friend and potty mouth, Jennifer Warren.
“Hi, Claude. How’s my favorite admin doing today?” the woman asked.
“Good, Jen. How’s the new husband treating you?”
“Meaner than a fucking snake. I never should have married the goddamn pig. But since no one else was asking, what was a nice girl like me to do?”
Claude had had this same conversation before. “Your new eye looks good.”
She ran the tips of her fingers across the upper part of her cheekbone, just under the new implant. “Still getting used to it. Damn thing keeps popping out when the old man’s on top of me. Not that I mind, because it does kill the mood and gets him off me before he pumps another gallon of disgusting man-seed into me. You know, just once, I’d like to come home from work and not be bent over and entered before I make it to the fucking kitchen. The man’s a walking hard on. I walk around all night with his jizz dripping out of me. What’s even worse is that my beautiful little cookie smells like rotten eggs the next day.”
Too much information, Claude thought. He held back a laugh.
“I should have been a lesbian. Life would have been so much easier. Just boobs and pussy, and the occasional emotional crisis. How hard is that?”
“At least you’ve got a warm body waiting for you at home.”
“A warm, hairy, sweaty body with noises erupting from every hole. I never knew men could be so repulsive. He wasn’t like that before we got hitched. They say it’s not possible to love and hate someone at the same time, but they’re dead wrong. He’s like a big, ugly mutt in heat twenty-four-seven. That reminds me, you wouldn’t happen to have an extra pair of garden shears, would ya? I’m pretty sure I can fix the problem with one snip.”
Claude felt a twinge of phantom pain hit his crotch. “That hurts just thinking about it.”
She smiled. “I don’t think I ever thanked you for paying for my eye surgery.”
“It was nothing, really. That’s what friends are for.”
“Well, thank you anywa
y. I definitely owe you one. So, just name it. Anything. Anywhere. Anytime. It’s yours.”
Claude felt uncomfortable with her sudden rush of gratitude. It seemed like she was hitting on him. He was flattered, but he would never get involved with a married women. “So, what can I do for you today?”
“I have an encrypted call to put through for the SC. Is he in?”
“Yep, he just got back a little while ago. But he’s in a Do Not Disturb meeting. Can the caller wait a few?”
“This call is flagged as Priority One. You know what that means.”
“Yeah, it means I put it through, now, or find another job. Hang on a sec.” Claude parked Jennifer’s call into the streaming video queue and knocked on the door behind him. “Excuse me, Supreme Commander. May I come in?”
“Enter,” a grainy, deep-set voice said from the other side of the door.
Claude went into the office, but remained by the door; the conversation would be brief.
Cyrus was standing by the far window behind his desk, looking out, his hands folded behind his back. Freakshow was ten feet away, looking over something being displayed on the horizontal vid-screen built into the top of the SC’s desk.
Freakshow turned and slid his body in front of the desk, blocking Claude’s view of the desktop. One of the more prominent boils on his forehead was pulsating, looking as if it were ready to explode with puss.
Claude tried not to stare, but it wasn’t easy. The boils were a magnet for his eyes. Half the man’s face looked like he had lost a fight with an angry flamethrower, and the other side was littered with the boils and lesions of a half-dead leper. Claude finally looked away, focusing on the back of Cyrus’ head. “Sir, there’s a call parked in your queue. It’s a Priority One communiqué from Jennifer in District 9.”
“What’s it regarding?” Cyrus asked without turning around, his voice as rough as sandpaper.
“She didn’t say.”
“You’re dismissed,” Cyrus said. The nearly seven-foot-tall man spun around and walked to his desk. His three-foot-long mane of dead-straight black hair remained still, seemingly defying gravity as he moved. His face was highlighted by a set of prominent, deep-set cheekbones that framed his eyes, nose, and mouth in such a way that made him looked malnourished.
Incursion (The Narrows of Time Series Book 2) Page 8