MBryO: The Escape

by Townsend, Dodie

  Truthfully, viewed through Maxim’s eyes, the residents were not sentient individuals, or living beings in their own right. They were supply houses for the MBryO project, and therefore expendable.

  Joshua and William found their way to the back of the warehouse. They paused in front of an innocuous looking door. It was ajar, as if the last person to exit had considered it unnecessary to close it. Getting through this particular door way was almost impossible in light of the building’s security protocols. The open door beckoned them onward.

  Cautiously, Joshua stepped into the room beyond. He was greeted by a cacophony of shrill cries and howls. Instead of brown boxes, metal cages in all sizes and shapes now occupied the rows of shelves lining the room.

  The growls and catcalls echoing through the noisy cavernous room sounded similar to that of a Terran petting zoo. But the occupants bore no resemblance whatsoever to the gentle menagerie that children would flock to see, let alone want to stroke or feed.

  The first few rows of metal cages and glass aquariums housed multitudes of hybrid birds and amphibians. There were turtles with alligator heads and birds with gaping holes where their beaks should be. Three headed snakes writhed in glass boxes, while yellow and black bumble bees the size of a man’s fist worked on building a giant honey comb. None of these were sentient beings, however.

  With childlike curiosity, William and Ian had often spent their nights exploring the labs and rooms housed on the basement floor. William had never sensed any psy-talent among this particular level of cage denizens during any of their forays into the cage room. The animals kept here were on the lowest level of the mutant food chain.

  The farther back they traveled, the more advanced the cloned mutations became, however. William examined a cage filled with a dozen or so furry, purple rats boasting three webbed feet and one eye each. They were intent on devouring one of their own. He must have been the runt of the litter because the bloody carcass was smaller than the others.

  On the other side of the aisle was an enclosed pen housing a four-legged, gray wolf with soulful black eyes, and ebony wings? His bared his pointy incisors in a warning snarl as the boys walked by, careful not to get to close to the fence. A seething anger and innate need to destroy oozed from his psy-pores. The critter was new to the warehouse and judging by the sleek glossiness of his coat, very young.

  Joshua and Will navigated the cages by memory, eventually coming to a reception desk set about two-thirds of the way into the room.

  The desk was a demarcation line. It was a symbol of how far Maxim had come in his cloning process. Until now, the shelves and cages had been filled with examples of mutated genetic experiments.

  Maxim Bryant had crossed the line when he began to clone the Xenaclon race again. It broke every RMB law ever written. If his actions were discovered, it was just cause for execution.

  Behind the desk were the ‘others’.

  MBryO had spent many years experimenting in the combining of genetic strands, both animal and human. The results were the mutants he kept inside the cages and pens in the front part of the warehouse.

  When Maxim had grown frustrated and bored with that project he had moved on to bigger and better things. He had become obsessed with the MBryO project and perfecting his evil cloning process. He kept the results of those procedures locked up and hidden in the cubicles behind the desk.

  No one monitored the desk at night. It was a useless waste of manpower since the residents were all caged and also due to the fact that the natives got restless after dark. More than one lab-tech had resigned after an excruciatingly tense night spent amid what they fondly called, the ‘freak show’.

  As quietly as possible, William and Joshua approached the desk. Behind the desk was a wide corridor, lined with small private cells. The white rooms were locked, but like the chem-labs you could see into the room through the glass windows placed strategically on either side of the door. The windows were made of one-way glass. This enabled the laboratory technicians to tend to the mutants inside, without ever having to come into direct contact with them.

  As usual, the lights inside the cubicles had been partially dimmed for the night. Their handlers hoped the recessed lighting would encourage the room’s occupants to sleep. But tonight, the psy-talented creatures behind those windows were far from sleep. Their senses had been on high alert since the four newcomers had entered the turbine shaft.

  William and Joshua’s mental cloaking devices prevented the security guards and the psy-talented creatures inside the building from intercepting their thoughts. But it didn’t keep the prisoners of those cubicles from communicating with one another.

  The chatter between the creatures, like white-noise, was at an all time high. In spite of his firewall, William found himself intercepting some of the conversation.

  “Father…wh-i-ill-ll…not be pleased,” twittered a shrill birdlike cry.

  “Father is never p-ul-eased,” returned the cat-like purr. “I do not care. I long to be released from this p-r-r-ison,” indifference to Maxim’s wishes marked the tone.

  “Janus?” probed a much younger, female voice from deeper inside the cavernous basement.

  “Yes?” the reply came instantly.

  “Are you fearful?”

  “No, Jenasus, I am not afraid of our brothers! If anything, I am afraid that they will decide to leave without taking us with them. I long for the freedom to be found outside this dungeon.”

  Joshua paused long enough by the desk to retrieve the cubicle keys from the middle drawer. Mercifully, the keys were numbered accordingly. Moving as quickly as possible, he and William moved into the corridor behind the desk.

  Working quickly they unlocked the doors to the cubicles lining both sides of the hallway. Some of the rooms held multiple occupants; usually siblings created from the same DNA, or mutated mistakes made by their father.

  Within minutes, the hallway was filled with an odd looking menagerie of semi-humanoid beings. Fear and excitement trembled through them.

  William smiled at the unusual looking fraternal twins called Jenasus and Janus. They were the same age as Ian and had often played with his brother after the nervous guards had locked the warehouse doors at night. Janus looked at him with a combination of excitement and relief.

  The twin’s genetic strands had been manipulated in different ways. Oddly enough, they were the exact opposite of one another. Telepathically linked, their expressions mirrored the actions and feelings of the other. However, Janus was fair and Jenasus was dark, like Pax Vitar.

  So far, Jenasus was the only one their father had been able to create that way. In William’s opinion, the difference in the twin’s coloring had been a natural mutation that was unexpected.

  Much to his father’s frustration, Maxim had been unable to recreate the result in his atrocious cloning procedures, making Jenasus as valuable to Maxim as Sasha was, in her own way. Jenasus was also one of a kind.

  As the captives exited their respective rooms, William held up a finger to his lips. He didn’t want to open up his psy-talent in case he alerted the security guards.

  The creatures in the hallway were non-verbal, dependent upon their telekinetic abilities to communicate with each other. However, they seemed to understand William’s signal to keep human noise to a minimum. With escape this close, none of them wanted to be discovered.

  Holding up one fine-boned hand, Joshua gestured for the rag-tag group to follow him. Intent only on escaping the building, he silently retraced his way back through the maze of shelves to the chem-lab door, as quickly as possible.

  William and the unlikely looking twins followed close behind him as they weaved their way through the cages stacked from the floor to the ceiling. The creatures locked inside twittered, growled and purred as they passed them by.

  Bringing up the rear of the group was a somewhat smaller replica of Dogg, minus the lion-like mane of reddish hair. His name was Bear and his snout was not freckled but shorter and darke
r than his brother’s.

  Bear was not as accomplished at staying upright as Dogg. Every so often, he would drop to all four limbs and lumber a couple of yards before standing up and walking toward the exit. Bear reminded William of the eughi monsters that ran wild back on Nyla 6.

  Joshua came to a halt at the head of the aisle leading to the wire pen where the wolf-like creature paced. Pausing, he stared at the silver fence before he deliberately side-stepped, choosing to lead the group through the next aisle over from the ominous looking winged creature.

  Not so, William, however!

  William wasn’t sure what drew him to the creature. Was it the strength of animal’s psy-talent? Or could it be the strands of sentient intelligence that tugged at the mental blockade of his mind?

  Whatever it was, the young boy paused at the end of the aisle and simply looked at the nervously pacing animal. The serious black eyes that stared back at him displayed mixed emotions. There was a desire for freedom trapped within those obsidian orbs.

  William thought the wolf was trying to communicate with him on some primal level. Not knowing why, he allowed himself to be drawn down the rows of shelving to the metal fence. The wolf halted mid-pace and seemed to hold its breath at the boy’s cautious approach.

  Very slowly, William reached out and touched the padlock. Psy-talent emitted from his fingers and the metal fastener cracked at when he touched it, falling to the floor with a thud.

  His eyes on the wolf, William opened the cage and then backed slowly out of the aisle. When he reached the end of the shelves he turned and looked back at the creature. Then he turned and hurried after the others who were already at the door to the warehouse.

  The wolf watched the silvery wraith who had released him disappear around the shelves. Then he gave the air a wary sniff.

  Extremely cautious, yet sensing freedom, he slowly left the cage. The pads of his feet instinctively followed the group ahead of him towards the freedom he so desperately craved.

  Chapter Eight

  The elevator doors chimed opened, sounding overly loud to Pax’s anxious ears.

  Elias Abrams stepped carefully out into a darkened corridor. His psy-talent on high alert, Pax cautiously followed the older man out of the lift. As was his habit, he stepped sideways into a flanking position, his blaster covering the hallway.

  This part of the basement lay beneath the southern wing of the MBryO UNIX building. Accessible only through the elevator system, it was situated directly below Maxim’s private laboratory.

  According to Melara and Elias, the lab was state of the art. Funded by the DOD, it had every modern surgical tool imaginable and was outfitted with a bank of incubators lining the sterile gray and white walls.

  The incubators resembled enclosed aquariums with a saucer sized peephole built into the top of it. A green jelly-like substance filled the glass and chrome boxes, which were fed by wires and tubes, attached to, and running from, a heavy square base constructed of Myconeum alloy.

  Inside those incubators were Maxim’s cloned experiments, all in various stages of development. Lately, the number of his clones had dwindled considerably as the ‘Old One’s’ health had declined. No longer could her DNA be harvested daily. The harvesting had to be spaced out since the extraction procedure was slowly killing her.

  This inconvenienced Maxim to no end. But the ‘Old One’ was the last remaining female of a psy-talented race of people. There was no one else exactly like her in the entire world. He made himself wait longer and longer between experiments, giving her body time to recover before he continued his work.

  Only authorized personnel were permitted to observe Maxim’s cloning procedures. Elias had never witnessed the sickening assault personally. The thought of it sickened him to no end! But, he was aware that more than one DOD official had watched Maxim perform one of his evil experiments, from the glass paneled balcony located above the laboratory, which resembled a hospital operating room.

  His blaster raised, Elias led the way to a door at the end of the corridor. He paused with his hand on the knob. Pax remained close on his heels and their eyes met briefly before Elias gently turned the door knob.

  There was no access panel beside this door, giving visitors and passersby the erroneous notion that whatever was behind the door was totally innocuous. Elias had come prepared to break in, but the door was ajar; cracked opened just enough for him to see an inky darkness beyond.

  In spite of the stern control he had upon his psy-talent, Elias could not suppress his racing pulse. Success was at his fingertips. Finally, he was able to finish the mission that had inspired him to join MBryO six years ago. That mission was to free, to his knowledge, the last remaining Xenaclon female.

  Hesitantly, he pushed the door wider and stepped into the darkness that beckoned from within.

  “Freezhia?” he whispered aloud.

  His shields were still in place. He could not risk Maxim Bryant intercepting any sort of psy-message to the ‘Old One’.

  His heart sank as his call met with the type of dead silence that could only be associated with empty darkness.

  Anxiously, his fingers fumbled for and found the light switch beside the door, illuminating the windowless cell. Blinking quickly, his eyes had barely adjusted to the glare before he rushed into inside.

  His eyes assessed the spartanly bare furnishings. His heart lodged in his throat when he realized that an empty cot containing a crumpled blanket was the only thing occupying bare chamber.

  Pax watched the blood drain from Elias’ normally olive complexion. Abram’s proud demeanor had always projected an unbending will and strength of mind. And yet, Pax would have sworn in that moment that his broad shoulders sagged in defeat.

  “We are too late,” he breathed dejectedly.

  Elias knew that if they were caught, Maxim would have them tortured and killed. Elias dropped the wall he had put around his psy-talent. Uncaring that their plan might fail or that he was putting them at risk of being captured; he sent mental feelers throughout the massive building.

  An onslaught of telekinetic energy emitted from his mind. The sentient tendrils curled, writhed, explored and gently probed all four corners of the basement, trying to pinpoint the presence of anyone in the vicinity. Finding no evidence of psy-presence, Elias focused his attention on the floor above, seeking an answering response to his probes.

  Pax instantly felt Elias’ mental breach. Reacting instinctively, he turned to cover the hallway with his blaster.

  Elias had located what he was looking for in the laboratory on the floor above them.

  “We must hurry!” he grunted. He had his blaster ready as he led the way back to the waiting elevator doors. They were barely inside when he pushed the up button.

  “She is very weak and her energy is drifting far away. If we do not reach her soon, she will be lost to us forever.”

  The elevator opened with its customary chime. Elias and Pax stepped out into the sound proofed observation area, unsurprised to find a trio of Terran Cadets waiting for them, blasters armed and ready. Apparently, Elias’ mind probe had not gone unnoticed, no matter how gentle he had been.

  A seasoned combat officer, Elias wasted no time firing his blaster, hitting the soldier on the left in the shoulder. The force of the bullet spun him backward onto the glass balcony. Like a bouncing ball, the man rebounded off the thick panel to the floor.

  The man in the middle fired his own blaster simultaneously. Elias figured the kid was fresh out of the Academy by the fear in his eyes. In his haste, the kid fired too quickly and his shot went wide. He did manage to blow a hole in the key board mounted on the wall, however. The smell of burning circuitry assured him it was rendered useless for the immediate future.

  Taking advantage of the cadet’s mistake, Elias stepped toward the panicked looking youngster and swung the butt of his blaster against the kid’s head, knocking his visor to the floor. Elias watched in satisfaction, as like dominoes, the young cadet crumple
d down on top of it.

  The kid was young, barely wet behind his ears. Elias really hadn’t wanted to harm him. Hitting him had seemed more humane than blasting him to kingdom come.

  Quickly, he turned around to see how Pax was faring. The third guard was older, more seasoned and battle scared. Elias remembered the day the man had been deployed to MBryO, right alongside Melara Sivanza. He had recognized a kindred soul, perhaps a veteran from the Xenaclon Wars.

  The man had been the biggest of the three guards facing them when they emerged from the elevator. He stood well over six feet, weight an easy two hundred pounds, and every inch of him was solid muscle.

  Knowing that the man would not go down without a fight, Elias had decided to take on the two lesser threats and simply hoped that Pax could delay the bigger man until he was done.

  The other two dealt with, Elias looked around just in time to see Pax reach up and punch the veteran guardsman in the head with the butt of his blaster. The guardsman had lost his weapon in the resulting scuffle, and blood was spurting down the front of the man’s uniform. But somehow he remained on his feet. Trained in hand-to-hand combat, he was aiming blows that would have felled most men. Pax managed to field each one.

  Knowing that time was of the essence if they were to reach his beloved Freezhia in time, Elias reached out and grasped the man’s neck just below the carotid artery. He applied just the right amount of pressure to the nerve endings there and within seconds the man slumped to the floor, out cold.

  Elias ignored Pax’s offended expression at his, unasked for, intervention and turned his attention to the angry demon standing in the laboratory down below.

  With his flowing mane of blond curls, fine-boned facial features and billowing diamond studded robe, Maxim Bryant resembled an avenging angel. He watched the ineffective resistance from the DOD’s security detail in disgust.

  Menacingly, he walked around to the head of the inert figure lying on the medi-bed. Suddenly a lethal looking laser scalpel appeared in his delicate hand. It was aimed threateningly at Freezhia’s vulnerable throat. Elias’ heart dropped.