She walked along the edge of the roof taking slow pointed steps. Armond watched her with a curious eye. She wasn’t walking with purpose, she wasn’t trying to be covert, hell if he hadn’t seen her when she first appeared he would have now. She began twirling with every second step, almost like she was dancing on the roof of the building.
Armond tilted his head to the side and smiled. He then released the arrow, it flew up into the air and as she spun it lodged itself into the back of her head.
Her hands slumped to her sides as her feet went out from under her and his eyes widened at the sight of her body twisting to the ground below.
Reaching beside him to a nook in the tree he pulled out a new arrow, set it into the bow and again waited and watched.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“How many Annoronians will stand with us?” Alpha asked Morris as they stepped back into the main room. Morris didn’t have to answer; the room was filled with Annoronians. Each of them stood to attention at their arrival, each of them armed with the nine-fifty pulsars and awaiting commands.
To look at them all together you would think them human, even possibly duplicates like Alpha and Bravo. They wore uniforms of snug figure-hugging pants that ran down into their boots. Their jackets hugged at their chests and did up at the sides with four shiny silver clasps. But they were not human, their skin much paler and with the slightest of green tinges. Their hair was another giveaway, flat single colours almost wig-like in their appearance.
“Looks like they are ready,” Bravo Two said moving to stand beside Alpha. “What is the plan?”
“We get to the others, regroup at the hospital then take back our lab,” Alpha said looking to Morris.
“Alright, let’s go,” Morris said, stepping into the blue tube.
Getting back to the hospital was far easier with an Annoronian escort. They avoided two separate traps and disabled a third, making their way to the back entrance of the hospital in less than half the time it had taken to get to the Station in the first place.
Making their way into the abandoned emergency department, Alpha tried to find signs of his team and the women. The building, though empty, didn’t echo any sounds that would reveal their position or help him seek out the others.
“Where do you think they would go?” Alpha asked Bravo Two. “Where would you go?”
“Some place that is defendable from all sides, but has a way out too. But that could be anywhere in a hospital, the departments are designed to have more than one way in and out.”
“But the roof would have a better vantage point than indoors, and would have the fire stairs as an alternate exit strategy,” Morris offered.
“Perfect, let’s go,” Alpha said, heading towards the lift doors.
“I don’t think the lift will work,” Morris said to the resounding snickers of the Annoronians.
“I am aware,” Alpha said as he slid his knife in between the doors and pried them open.
The lift was below them on a basement level and the wires that controlled it sat still and covered with cobwebs. “That is why we are climbing up.”
“Why not take the stairs?” Morris asked, pointing to a stairwell sign to their left.
“Kilo will have them set up with some kind of trap of his own, he wouldn’t want to make it too easy should Doctor M get here before we did,” Alpha said, letting Bravo Two step past him into the elevator shaft. “He will be waiting at the top with what weapons he could find, if we were the enemy he would be able to easily send us falling to our deaths.”
Bravo Two climbed the shaft, the walls lined with beams and supports she barely needed to use the wires hanging down the middle. Just as well too, as each time she did grab one for support, a clang reverberated up the empty chamber.
“Trust me,” Alpha said, turning to begin his climb behind Bravo Two. He didn’t look back, but knew that Morris and the others were following, they were not as careful as Bravo to not touch the wires and the clangs came more frequently. Kilo would have heard them coming, probably even saw them enter the emergency department from the rooftop.
Alpha and Morris caught up to Bravo Two, and they reached the top floor together. The doors slid open and startled, Bravo Two lost her footing.
Alpha and Morris grasped for her. Morris lost his own hold and Kilo grabbed him just as Alpha latched onto Bravo Two’s left arm.
Morris quickly grabbed her right arm and Kilo held on tight as Bravo Two dangled over the enormous drop.
Alpha looked down but couldn’t see the bottom, the arms of all the Annoronians below them were blocking his view. When Bravo Two had slipped, all of them had reached out. All of them were ready to save her.
Alpha and Morris pulled her up to the doorway where Kilo stood, fire extinguisher at the ready.
“Lend us a hand,” Alpha said as he hoisted Bravo Two higher. Kilo grabbed Bravo Two’s wrist and lifted her out of the doorway. Alpha and the others followed them through to the dark room of the top floor.
“Where are the others?” Alpha asked, looking around at what had to be the mechanics room for the building.
“On the roof,” Kilo said, pointing to a door across from them. “Waiting for my signal that you are not Doctor M’s Drones.”
“The Drones?” Bravo Two asked, looking between them all.
“Drones are human, they can’t fight against whatever control Doctor M has over them,” Alpha explained.
“She keeps the device on her,” Morris offered. “It is the only one left after the war. It was nowhere near as effective as they thought it would be. It only worked on about ten percent of your adult population.”
Alpha reached for the handle to open the door to the roof.
“Wait,” Kilo said, holding up his hand. “I have to knock or they will blast you.”
“Blast me with what exactly?” Alpha asked, taking his hand away from the door handle and stepping back a few feet.
“We found some chemicals when we arrived, highly flammable ones. We made kind of a flame thrower with them.”
“A flame thrower?” Alpha repeated, raising his eyebrows, the impressed smirk returning to his lips. “After you then."
Kilo stepped up to the door and tapped a pattern of five knocks; three close together then two at one second intervals. He pushed on the door handle, the weight of the door working against him groaned and creaked as he forced it open.
While they climbed the shaft the sun had breached the horizon and morning sky threw light into the dark room, illuminating their faces, but also blinded them to what was out on the roof itself. If Alpha and the others had been a threat, they would not have made it through the door safely.
Alpha dropped his gaze and held up his hand to shield his eyes from the sun above. The mostly bare feet of the women he had helped free stood ahead of him.
“Hand out the weapons,” Alpha called as the last of the Annoronians joined them on the roof. “Take note how to use them, and don’t waste any shots, we do not have much ammunition to spare.”
“We need a plan,” Morris said, coming to stand by them. “How do we take the lab if she is already inside?”
“She won’t be,” Alpha said. “She might be past the main walls but the pod areas are protected by much more complicated systems. She won’t risk destroying the lab to get through.”
“So you say,” Morris said, looking out at the group. “But are we supposed to trust your intuition? Are we supposed to gamble our lives on your word?”
“No,” Alpha replied, “We will scout ahead. Kilo, Juliette, Bravo, and I. We will confirm that Doctor M is not yet inside.”
“I will go too,” said the redhead from the ship.
“And I as well,” said Morris. “If you are right and she has not yet made it inside, I can help you get past our traps, and back to the group quickly to devise the plan of attack.”
Alpha nodded. “Very well. Let the others know of our intention and get ready to set out, we leave in five minutes.”
“See if you can find any shoes, the path to the Opera House is not without risk, but if you have something on your feet it will make it easier,”
Images of Bravo Two flooded his mind. He pictured her bleeding on the battle field beside the many fallen. Her blood glimmering brilliant red in the light of the sun. Her eyes dark, lifeless.
“Alpha, are you ready?” Kilo asked, pulling him free from his daydream.
“Ready?” Alpha questioned his mind slowly catching up to the reality of what was happening. “Ready, yes. I am ready. Let’s go.”
They climbed slowly down the fire stairs, the final ladder section was rusted with age and refused to lower to the ground. Alpha jumped down the final few feet and moved aside so the others could follow. Kilo, Bravo and Juliette landed silently with ease. The redheads’ eyes widened at the sight of the distance she would need to fall.
“I am not sure I can do it,” she said, clinging to the ladder, Morris on his way down towards her. “It is too far.”
Kilo moved to stand beneath her. “What is your name?” he asked, looking at the tremble in her hands as she clung to the rusted rung of the ladder.
“Fa,” she replied without looking at him. She squeezed her eyes shut as tightly as she gripped the flaking steel.
“Fa, I am right here beneath you,” Kilo said calm and collected. “Open your eyes.”
Fa shook her head and the ladder creaked. Morris came down upon her, realising she was not moving further he paused a few rungs above.
“Fa, jump down,” Morris ordered but Fa clung on tighter her body jostling the ladder and it moaned under the strain.
“Morris shut up,” Kilo called. “Fa, look at me.”
She opened her eyes slightly, they searched for him and when their eyes met they widened as she locked onto his gaze.
“Listen to me closely Fa, if you let go of the ladder I will catch you when you fall.”
“Are you insane?” Fa replied, still firmly grasping the ladder.
“Fa, trust me, I will catch you.”
“Why should I trust you, what is to stop you from letting me fall, cracking my head open on the ground?” Her eyes drifted to the cement.
“Fa, look at me not at the ground,” Kilo said, taking a step to the left to be in a better position when she dropped. “Now, when I count to three you are going to have to let go of the ladder.”
“I still don’t think I can,” Fa repeated but kept her eyes retrained on Kilo.
“You can, and you have to. We have to get to the Opera House; we have to stop Doctor M.”
“Okay,” she whispered, taking a few deep breaths and loosening her grasp on the rung.
“One, two, three,” Kilo called to her and surprisingly on three, she let go and fell right into Kilo’s arms. He held her tightly as she wrapped her arms around his neck.
“You didn’t drop me.”
“I told you I would catch you,” he said, lowering her feet to the floor and releasing his hold.
Morris dropped down beside them heavy footed and huffed. “Let’s move. We have wasted enough time don’t you think?” He stepped around the others to take the lead towards the Opera House.
Kilo let Fa go and they joined the others, keeping to the shadows as they made their way towards the park.
Avoiding the traps was easy with Morris taking point. He had supervised most of their construction over the years and appeared happy to be deactivating them as they went.
“You said that Doctor M had someone on the inside, do you know who it is?” Alpha asked Morris as they ducked in between trees, trying to keep a low profile.
“No, she usually took those calls in private,” Morris replied, jumping over an open manhole. “It had to be someone with influence though.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because whenever Doctor M needed more women, whoever it was made sure she had them. We would be sent out to collect them from one of our traps, usually we would lose one or two to the trap itself, but the others would be swept up easily.”
“But the female population is minimal, isn’t it?” Kilo asked, jumping over the same manhole.
“The human population, yes. But the duplicates from the war, the ones like you, there are still many of those. More females survived the war than the males, we do not know why.”
“Look,” Alpha said, pointing to the body that lay ahead on the grass, green ooze dripping from its eyes and ears.
“Did more of you do this too?” Morris asked leaning down to close the corpses eyes.
“I don’t know, it could have been Doctor M.”
“Why would she kill her own kind?” Morris asked, “It makes no sense.”
“She could have been against her. You know, like you are now,” Bravo Two said walking towards them.
“Maybe.”
“What is that?” Bravo asked as she knelt and turned the body over slightly. A crude arrow stuck out from the base of the female’s skull and it oozed more green along with a chunky brown mush.
Bravo Two looked up at the building beside them.
“She was shot, then fell from up there,” she said pointing up. The others followed her gaze.
“The rebels killed her,” Fa said a tremble in her voice.
“We don’t know what happened for sure,” Alpha said, helping Bravo Two to stand. “But we need to get to the Opera House or we will all end up exactly like her.”
“Alpha is right,” Morris added. “We have lost many, let’s make sure we have a chance to save some.” His gaze falling on Bravo Two.
They nodded and moved along towards the Opera House. The streets were deserted, not a single Drone stood in their way which was either because Doctor M had pulled them into service or because they were all dead.
“We should take the park, follow it around to the back where we can see if Doctor M has made it in yet,” Morris suggested but Alpha had other plans.
“If we get to higher ground,” he said, looking at the crumbling buildings around them. “We will be able to see without alerting her to our presence at all.”
“But she was shot down from one of those buildings. How do you know Doctor M doesn’t have someone in the shadows? A sniper lying in wait,” Morris said, beginning to walk towards the park.
“Morris, we must be sure, and the only way to see clearly is to scout from on high. If she is in, we will know, she will have guards posted outside and the rest will be with her inside, protecting her lab.”
Morris stopped to listen to him.
“We need to know where she is and gather the rest of our team before we take the chance of her seeing us, that is why we are here remember?”
Morris pursed his lips, “Fine, what do you suggest?”
Alpha scanned the buildings around them. They all looked too close to tumbling down for him to risk going inside. Then his eyes landed on a crane perched between two buildings. “There,” he said, beginning the walk towards it. “We will get a great view from up there.”
The crane was taller than the surrounding buildings and was attached to a truck parked between two of the towers. The trucks tires were gone but the weight of it appeared to be resting on four legs that jutted out from the trucks underbelly and lifted the bare rims from the road below.
“Who is going up?” Fa asked, stepping back further away from the crane. “It is awful high.”
“I will go,” Alpha said, grabbing hold of the trucks door frame to pull himself up.
“Me too,” Morris said, quickly pulling himself onto the back of the truck. The crane creaked and moaned and they jumped down quickly.
“It won’t hold us both,” Alpha said. looking up at the metal ladder.
“I will go,” both Juliette and Kilo said together.
“I am smaller than all of you,” Juliette said, looking up at the crane as it lurched into the sky. She swayed slightly then stumbled back a
step before Morris grabbed her arm.
“You can’t go, I will,” Kilo said.
“No,” Fa whispered without thinking. Morris glared at her.
“I will go, you are not that much lighter than me,” Morris snapped.
“But you know where all the traps are to get the group to the lab safely, and Alpha’s team trusts him to lead them. You both are needed far more than I, so if the crane falls…”
“Don’t say it,” Bravo Two said, laying her hand on Kilo’s arm.
“Let me go, I can do it. But how will I tell you what I am seeing? If I fall before I get back down, or the crane collapses, you won’t have the information you need,” Kilo asked, grabbing hold of the door that Alpha had.
“Take this,” Morris offered, holding out his hand. A small green gel lump sat in the middle of his hand.
“What is it?”
“Put it on your throat, it will transmit your voice to this.”
He held up a larger green cube covered in holes.
Kilo did as he said and pulled himself up to the trucks roof.
“Be careful,” Fa said as she watched Kilo take the first rung on the ladder up the crane.
“I will.”
His voice echoed softly through the speaker in Morris’s hand.
Kilo climbed higher, his heavy breaths coming through the speaker as clearly as if he were next to them on the street. When they could barely make out Kilo’s form in the light of the sun, he spoke.
“There are so many bodies.” Kilo’s words cut through them like a knife. They had seen the images on the street camera feed and Kilo’s words brought those images back for all of them.
“There is a lot of movement outside of the building. I don’t think she is inside yet. There are sparks flying from the right side. Maybe they are trying to cut their way in?”
Alpha looked at Morris who was staring intently at the little green box in his hand.
“Can he hear us with that thing?” Alpha asked.
Morris shook his head as Kilo’s voice came through again.
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