Uprising

by David Ryker

  “And now Toomey—is it Toomey? Or Grigori? I’m getting both names.”

  “That is why I fear this was more than just a dream. I sense that Toomey was not his given name, and that he thinks of himself in more than one way. For us to know that means we actually did have some sort of contact with the Kergan entity.”

  Schuster felt a pang of yellow fear. “And that means he had some sort of contact with us, too.”

  “That on its own doesn’t concern me,” said Sloane. “We are quite safe from him, at least physically, here in this prison. But if a bridge was somehow made between our minds, it may indicate that the Kergan entity is near the God Element lode that contacted us.”

  Schuster fought hard not to bathe this personal universe in yellow light, but it wasn’t easy. The thought of Kergan having access to that much of the element, especially now that they realized it had some sort of consciousness of its own, was terrifying. And they were much closer to Earth now than they’d been on Oberon One.

  “That’s really bad, isn’t it?”

  “It’s certainly not good,” said Sloane as an image of Ceres filled the void. “They have limited resources on the Gestalt ship that made it through the wormhole from Fomalhaut, but they might still be able to unearth the element, depending on how deep below the surface it is.”

  “Could they build another wormhole generator?” asked Schuster.

  “Unlikely, given the resources available aboard the ship. It doesn’t have the sheer raw materials that Oberon One had. Also, my sense is that the other Gestalt in the universe have abandoned Kergan the way they did me. As hybrids, we’re no longer considered part of the species.”

  “I have a feeling they might forgive him if he opened a wormhole on the Earth’s doorstep.” An image of Earth replaced the one of Ceres. “And the element is the only thing Kergan needs that he can’t get on Earth. If he can mine it, all he has to do is bring it to Earth and he can build the technology right under everyone’s nose.”

  “Possible.” The Earth faded and turned into an image of the vicious-looking Gestalt ship they had encountered at Oberon One. “However, the attenuated race looks nothing like humans and may not even survive in the Earth environment, which would leave only Kergan to build the Span singlehandedly—”

  The thought struck their linked minds at exactly the same moment, and the ship suddenly disappeared, morphing into a device that looked to Schuster like a small satellite. He’d never actually seen it, only its effects, but he knew exactly what he was looking at, and it scared the universe into all kinds of yellow.

  “Kergan doesn’t need to build the Span receiver,” said Schuster. “He just needs to build an attenuation amplifier.”

  For the first time, Schuster felt strong emotion emanating from Sloane, and it matched his own fear right down to the color.

  “He could create his own army on Earth,” said Sloane. “With Toomey’s genius and enough of the element, they could create a new hybrid empire right here in this part of the galaxy, without any of the other Gestalt.”

  Schuster felt and watched the space around him fill with cold water, until he couldn’t breathe and his extremities felt frozen and sluggish.

  “It’s not real, Dev,” Sloane reminded him. “You can’t drown here. Calm yourself.”

  “Sorry,” said Schuster. “I still have a long way to go before I understand this place.”

  “Don’t worry. Eternity is the blink of an eye here.”

  “Very funny.” But it was enough to allow the yellow all around them to fade, and for him to regain his equilibrium.

  “We can’t know any of this for sure,” Sloane pointed out. “This could simply be our imagination, such as it is.”

  “We have to prepare like it’s real and it’s already happening,” said Schuster. “That’s how they teach you in the Marines. It’s the only chance we have if it turns out we’re right. And there’s no downside if it turns out we’re wrong.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  Before he could answer, the chime of a door panel pulled Schuster from the warmth of the astral realm back to the cold, hard reality of his suite at New Alcatraz. It took him a moment to recover before answering.

  “Yes?” he croaked.

  “Visitor.”

  Schuster rubbed his eyes and took a deep breath. This news was going to take some time to process, but he didn’t have time for distraction. He needed to come up with a plan, and he assumed his visitor was Quinn, which meant they could begin working on one immediately. Of course, it would require them getting out of prison, but it wasn’t like they didn’t have experience in that department.

  “Send them in,” he said finally.

  As it turned out, his visitor wasn’t Quinn, but the conversation still focused on making a plan.

  6

  “Did you tell the bastard to go pound sand up his ass?” Bishop said through a mouthful of seaweed cake.

  One constant about prison, at least at their level, was the quality of the food. It would keep you alive, but you wouldn’t be very happy about it. Quinn himself was pushing his own food around his polycarbonate tray, his appetite long gone. At least the gravity in the mess in New Alcatraz didn’t change the closer you got to the center of the room, which made it a little better than its counterpart on Oberon One.

  “I wasn’t going to speak for you men until we’d had a chance to discuss it,” he said. “We need to seriously consider this.”

  “Consider whut?” asked Ulysses. “Workin’ fer Zero after everythin’ he’s done to us? Ferget it, bubba. Cyborg peckerwood c’n go suck mah big toe.”

  “Aye, and he can suck my big somethin’ else,” echoed Maggott, who was on his third helping of slop. Taking on six men in the courtyard had obviously worked up an appetite.

  Quinn sighed. He knew they’d be defiant at first—he would have thought something was wrong with them if they hadn’t been—but he also knew he had to talk them into it.

  “It’s our only way out of here that I can see right now,” he said.

  “Whuddaya mean?” said Ulysses. “I keep tellin’ yuh, Tiffany Tranh will get us outta here, just wait n’see.”

  “And how many of your calls has she returned?” asked Quinn. “How often has she come to visit you here? She was working for Zero the whole time!”

  Ulysses shook his head. “Y’all don’t know whut yer talkin’ about. What we had was real, dude.”

  “If she was working for Zero, that meant she was working for Drake. She won’t be able to help us in this, because it would tip him off that Zero was behind us getting out.”

  “Let’s say we’re interested,” Bishop interjected. “Just for argument’s sake. Putting aside the fact that you just pointed out that Zero is an untrustworthy snake, we don’t know how or when he’s going to get us out, and we don’t know who we’re supposed to extract once he does. We don’t know where this person is, or what’s going to happen to us after that. Am I getting that right?”

  Quinn sighed. “Pretty much. But you have to admit, it’s no worse of a plan than we usually have.”

  “He’s got ye there,” Maggott said with a shrug.

  “That’s not a good reason to take such a huge risk, big guy,” Bishop replied. “At least in here Ellie can visit me and Peg can visit you. If we bust out, what happens to them?”

  That was one of Quinn’s first thoughts after talking to Zero. The two women were still free, at least, and as far as they knew they wouldn’t face charges for collusion in the Jarheads’ supposed crimes. But they were both living in a tiny hotel room that Peg had rented, and it was quickly eating through what little money she had, and Ellie was quickly using up the electronic cash on the wristband she’d been given by Drake when they were staying at the UFT government Tower.

  “Peg says her company is holdin’ her job for her in New York,” Maggott said, worry etched on his wide face. “But they cannae keep payin’ her fer not workin’ while she’s here in San Francisc
o.”

  “Her company,” Bishop mused. “It’s weird to think of Han and the others as civilians now, let alone as Peg’s bosses.”

  “Whut was the deal with them, anyway?” asked Ulysses. “I dunno about y’all, but it sounds mighty suspicious to me that yer old buddies didn’t go on that mission with yuh in Astana, then they testify against yuh, then they suddenly got enough money t’open their own security comp’ny in New York, of all places.” He shook his head. “Somebody in the Saints ever pulled a stunt like that, they’d end up as nothin’ but a pair o’ shoes in the harbor, if yuh get what I mean.”

  Quinn did get what he meant, unfortunately, because the same thoughts had crossed his mind when he first learned about Precision Security Inc. after Ben researched them. They had needed serious start-up capital to open their offices, and they started getting government work the day they opened their doors. He didn’t want to think that way of his former comrades in arms, but the evidence made it hard not to.

  “I hear you,” he said. “But we need to take things one step at a time, and I think our first priority needs to be getting the hell out of here.”

  Bishop crossed his arms over his chest, something he usually did when he was about to challenge Quinn.

  “And so I’ll ask this again,” he said. “What do we do after that? We pull off this mission for Zero, and afterwards he just joins forces with us against the bad guys? He is the bad guy, Lee!”

  “And we still dinnae know anythin’ about Chelsea, or Gloom n’ Ben,” Maggott pointed out. “Or even Dev, fer that matter. What’s tae become o’ them if we break out?”

  “Those are all excellent questions,” said Quinn. “Obviously we don’t know the specifics, but I’m positive they’re all at least safe. Chelsea is with her family, Gloom and Ben would be in here if Drake had any interest in pressing charges against them, and Schuster is pretty much untouchable. No one will harm a hair on his head because his brain is too valuable.”

  “And we ain’t valuable to nobody except Zero,” said Ulysses, finally seeing the light. “That’s whut yer sayin’ here, ain’t it?”

  Quinn scanned his friends, seeing the lines that had started to form on their faces over the past few months, the bruises from the blows they couldn’t fend off. He knew his own face looked the same, and they all carried pain with them constantly in places that were covered up by their prison jumpsuits.

  “I’m saying we can rot here in New Alcatraz, fighting for our lives every day,” he said. “Or we can take a chance on the outside. At least out there, there’s hope that we can do something that matters. In here, we have nothing but days and months and years, and a never-ending lineup of inmates who dream of being the ones who killed the Jarheads of Oberon.”

  Quinn saw Bishop’s eyes widen. “Lee—” Bishop began, but Quinn cut him off, raising his hands to calm his friend.

  “Okay, Geordie, I get it. Maybe that was a little dramatic, but—”

  Bishop responded by pointing behind him, just as Quinn caught the looks on the other two’s faces. Maggott was scowling and rising from the table while Ulysses was curling his fingers around the polycarbonate knife on his dinner tray. Quinn turned to see a group of eight inmates standing a few meters away, all of them with shaved heads and eyebrows.

  “Et tu, my brothers?” Ulysses sighed.

  “I only et one, honest,” the lead man said with a gap-toothed grin. “And don’t go callin’ us yer brothers, dude. You ain’t no Saint, yer just a Jarhead without a uniform. You made yer choice, hoss. Yer gonna have to live with it.”

  “Fer as long as yuh live, anyway,” echoed the Saint beside the first one. “So you won’t have to worry ‘bout it much longer.”

  “I take it all back, Lee,” Bishop said from behind Quinn. “You’re right. I’m pretty tired of this shit.”

  Inmates nearby automatically rose from their tables and stepped to the outside of the room, leaving a clearing where the fight could unfold without them. It was as natural to prisoners as being told when and where to shower: you just did it because it was expected of you. Quinn, meanwhile, raised his fists to either side of his head, another automatic response to the situation. That was just life in prison.

  “Inmates!” a deep voice shouted. “Stand down or we will subdue! This is your only warning!”

  It was Van Dyke, the senior guard, bellowing the standard order for inmates to disperse, and the men they were facing complied automatically, though the two who had spoken made sure to point directly at Ulysses in a menacing fashion to let him know this was only justice delayed, not justice denied. Quinn didn’t care—right now, all it meant was they could go to bed with fewer bruises tonight, and that was a win.

  But as the men split up in front of him, the space they made was quickly filled by four newcomers, three men and a woman, all of them in armored black smartsuits with visored helmets: the hallmarks of Morley Drake’s personal army.

  Shit, he groaned inwardly. Now what?

  “Inmates!” Van Dyke barked, far too loudly for being as close as he was to them now, which erased any doubts in Quinn’s mind that he was ex-military. “You will accompany me to the outer corridor immediately!”

  His fellow Jarheads shot Quinn a glance, obviously recognizing who these people represented. He shrugged—it wasn’t like they had a choice.

  “Hands behind your backs!”

  They complied, and Van Dyke and another senior guard slid the black rubber restraints over their wrists as the soldiers in black stood motionless, the mirrored surfaces of their visors reflecting the sallow lighting of the mess hall. Quinn saw that each of them was carrying weapons on their belt. What that meant for him and his companions was anyone’s guess.

  When they were properly shackled, Van Dyke nodded to the soldiers, who nodded back and took the Jarheads by the arm. The rest of the inmates watched with mild curiosity as Quinn and his men were marched toward the door that led to the corridor, obviously wondering what was waiting for them on the other side. Many, no doubt, were hoping it was something painful.

  They reached the door, but before it opened, the blacksuit nearest Quinn—the lone woman in the group—suddenly swung a fist down into his groin, sending a jolt of slick agony up his nether region and into his guts.

  “What the fuck?” he grunted, trying to keep from dropping to his knees on the concrete floor.

  “Bastards!”

  The man to Quinn’s right let out a sharp whoof as Maggott drove his massive shoulder into him, pinning him against the wall. Before Quinn could yell out for his men to stand down, all four of the blacksuits had produced their Tasers, including the one who had just been tackled—obviously the armor had taken the brunt of Maggott’s blow.

  “Sweet Jesus,” Ulysses moaned. “Not again.”

  An instant later, the world was bathed in blue light as thousands of volts targeted to particular points in their bodies and brains coursed through them, forcing each of them to the floor, where they laid twitching and flopping like fish on dry land. The last thing Quinn heard before passing out was the cheers of the inmates around them.

  “Sorry about that,” said a female voice. “You didn’t deserve it this time.”

  The fuzziness around Quinn’s peripheral vision was beginning to clear. The first thing he noticed was that his restraints were gone. The second was that the sky was whizzing past the windows in the airship, indicating they were flying somewhere in an airship.

  He heard the others beginning to come around as well as he took stock: all of them had free hands, which didn’t make any sense, and one of the black suits had just apologized.

  And suddenly a thought cut through the fading haze in his brain and the fading agony in his testicles.

  “You,” he husked. “You’re not Drake’s people.”

  “Bingo,” said the woman.

  She and two others were seated across from them in the airship’s passenger area. Quinn assumed the fourth was up front acting as pilot, which mea
nt their trip would require more than just programming in a destination for the autopilot.

  “Uniforms are different,” said Quinn. “But I never forget a Taser.”

  Beside him, Maggott twisted his neck, first to one side and then the other, emitting a series of loud cracking noises.

  “The amount we get shocked, ye’d think I’d be fookin’ used to it by now,” he groaned.

  “Ah’m worried that ah’m startin to like it,” echoed Ulysses, rubbing his eyes.

  “I really am sorry,” said the woman. Quinn was struck by how sincere she sounded. “Last time we didn’t have a choice because you were fighting so hard, which I suppose shouldn’t have surprised us. This time I had to come up with an excuse to Taser you; Zero said it was the only way we could knock out the tracking chips they shot into you when you arrived at New Alcatraz.”

  Quinn nodded, remembering the induction process, which consisted of being stripped, searched, hosed down and given a uniform, followed by an injection into the sinus cavity behind their ears.

  “Can’t imagine why they felt the need to do that,” he said. “But why did you hit me?”

  “I knew that if I did, Maggott wouldn’t be able to stop himself from defending you. That would give us our excuse to take you all out.”

  Quinn had to admit that, despite the ache in his nuts, it had been a good plan.

  “How’s Zero going to explain this to Drake?” he asked. “I’m pretty sure the general would have a problem with Zero stealing his favorite punching bags.”

  “He told Drake he wanted to torture you all a little more as revenge for what happened to his career after the viral video,” she said. “And to be honest, Drake doesn’t care what happens to you four, as long as Schuster is left alone. Within limits, obviously—he’s not going to sit back and let Zero play cat and mouse forever. That’s why this mission needs to get underway and finished as quickly as possible.”

  Quinn felt hot anger flare in his chest. “I didn’t even give Zero an answer!” he snapped. “You showed up less than an hour after he left the prison!”