Again, the fireplace at the flue exit on the seventh level served to heat up iron beams or keep them hot. I’d put an end to that today.
For the poor girl still chained to the iron table, I had come too late though, as for her it was over. No pulse, no breath, no life. Ugh.
Behind the door, the two-meters-wide hallway reached another twenty meters to the right. At this short end had to be the access to this level. To the left, a branch followed after ten meters.
I spared myself looking at the neighboring cells. It wasn’t time yet. I had to get through the door to the secret passage first, thirty meters beyond the branch, without being noticed by the camera—both were no problem, as the camera still wasn’t in operation—and then cover the two-hundred meters to the Cartel’s heart under the strip.
There it wasn’t as dead-silent.
“I don’t care how you do it. Throw the guests out if necessary, but get me that little one. She’s given us the runaround for long enough. Now go!”
The slightly ajar door to the conference room opened, and an athletic man in a black suit came across me. He never saw it coming, but the next moment, he lay on the ground, knocked out.
I climbed over him and checked the situation.
Except for the two Cartel bosses I already knew—Baldhead and Beanpole—I recognized the contours of two camouflaged armor suits in this conference room. They ran on battery, otherwise I’d have sensed their reactors earlier. Aha, so they could no longer do without bodyguards?
Until now, my plan had worked nicely. Step one—Velvet is spotted nearby, so the Cartel heads meet. Step two—Velvet is in Vegas, at their doorstep, so they withdraw to their safe bunker. Step three—Velvet deals with her targets.
Cautiously, I snuck past the two men and one by one patted the two suits’ shoulders. Their hulls immediately became gray and stiff.
Aghast, Baldhead glanced at the two statues who should have protected him. “What?”
I dropped my camouflage. “Hello. I’m Velvet, and you’re done.” And before they could pull any tricks from their sleeves, I served them both their paralysis and disarmed them.
Fine.
Time for step four. Wasn’t there an office with a computer? I dragged my three victims over so that I could keep an eye on them and began to look for interesting intelligence.
Mmmm—fingerprint sensor, retina scanner, and a DNA sensor for saliva samples, you’re really playing safe, are you?
No problem, all that worked with an unconscious person, too, and once I was inside, I had all I was interested in nicely lined up on the tidy desktop. No reason to hide something that nobody could access, right?
Under completed projects, I found a folder each for Sunburn and Rattlesnake, under ongoing projects the folders Rainbow, Sunrise, Wayfarer, and Orchestra. For each project, there was a nice status presentation with overall progress, risks, issues, and measures, subsequently followed by the important details.
Project Sunburn—where were plasma weapons currently built, and with which specifications? In the ZONE in Belgium and near the radioactive debris of the lander wreck at the Mekong. The ZONE near Houston had been written off as total loss.
Project Rattlesnake was closed down—Frostdragon belonged to the Cartel. Only the spinoff in southern California was a total loss.
The most comprehensive report covered Project Rainbow. USA and Italy were successfully implemented, as were Russia, Germany, Austria, and the Benelux remainders. The France operation would be rebuilt carefully, and Great Britain and Switzerland were offering significant resistance. In the Arabian countries, the usual methods weren’t working. Regarding Asia, the data referenced the pilot Project Sunrise, the status report of which documented the total failure for yet unknown reasons.
Project Wayfarer described the painstaking details of the Cartel attempts to claim all important transport capacities worldwide—and the countless difficulties with truck drivers on strike, the railroad worker unions, small business advancing in niches believed to be already closed, independent pirates challenging sea transport, and so on.
I was most interested in Project Orchestra. Where had my fellow graduates been taken to?
Highly cooperative instruments were deployed close to research centers. Dubious instruments were accommodated in pleasant settings outside larger metropolitan areas, reachable by reasonable means. Reluctant instruments were kept luxuriously and comfortably at the end of the world, on tiny tropical islands, in remote reservations or simply somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Finally, there were destructive elements with little hope. They had to live in a rather unpleasant setting.
Oh yes, and one instrument with the code conductor hadn’t been acquired yet—if she was still alive.
This last sentence at least told me that the people who knew about Johanna Meier’s survival hadn’t talked yet—or at least their knowledge hadn’t reached this headquarters yet.
There even was a brief dossier about Velvet. It was fun to read how little they really knew about me.
How much time did I have left? Too little, I guessed. There were already silent steps sounding from the Inferno entrance to the secret passage. I’d have been surprised anyway if no one had assumed the security chief’s role—who was peacefully sleeping at my feet—and directed the remaining Cartel armor suits through the secret passage to the Invasion to intercept Velvet there.
This data shouldn’t get into the wrong hands, and in some cases, all hands were wrong from my point of view. A pity.
My raw nanos need material.
—Correct.—
Eat the hard disks.
Chapter Ten
According to the sound of steps, six men in armor suits were approaching, all on battery but nevertheless with dangerous plasma guns, with the projectiles of which I wouldn’t want to refresh my acquaintance.
More armored men would guard the Invasion access. Escape was no solution—moreover, I didn’t want to give up my prisoners. So I had to take up the fight here and now—unless I could find a way to avoid it.
Could I? Asked differently—why should the guards who were needed inside the Invasion bother to disturb their bosses’ confidential meeting down here? That their security lead was incommunicado right now might be due to the meeting’s character—secret.
So I simply closed the office door, operated the little switch inside that made Please do not disturb light up outside, and waited for six pairs of feet to move past.
Five pairs met my expectations. One stopped and asked aloud, “All okay here?”
The boss’ voice please. “Get that damned woman!”
“Yes, at once!” The tapping quickly disappeared. Fine.
The way through the Inferno should thus be free now. There, the most unpleasant part of my mission was waiting. You must be strong now, Jo.
Nobody stopped me until I had reached the cursed seventh level again. Here, I needed no camouflage—with black walls, dim lights, noise-cancelling design, the entire dungeon-like complex was wrapped in an aura of hopelessness.
I didn’t want to know what went on in the heads of the men paying for this. Hermann and Dandy had given me more than enough insight. Yes, most of all, Dandy. For his kind, this environment was ideal.
I placed the two unconscious Cartel bosses down on the side of the hallway and opened a dungeon door, next to which Occupied glowed in dim red letters. The moment the first screams reached my ears, the absolute effectiveness of the noise-proof design became apparent—even with my refined senses, I hadn’t heard anything before.
A man in skintight black leather was leaning over a girl tied to a table. Her skin was covered with fine cuts and streams of blood. Her torturer just turned around. In the right hand he held up a scalpel, and in the left a pair of tweezers from which a small, bloody scrap of skin was still hanging. His cock rose hard from the open-front leather pants. “Who’s disturbing?” he uttered harshly.
“Velvet,” I introduced myself, puzzled by still b
eing able to have such a clear thought.
He was a lucky man, as there were so many more girls waiting for rescue. I reached him with three steps, batted the scalpel aside, and simply broke his neck. With four nano claw cuts, I removed the chains holding the girl.
“Velvet,” she whispered. Tears were running down her cheeks.
Her injuries weren’t immediately life-threatening individually, but the last cut had gone too deep. She’d lose too much blood before I could get her out.
With one hand on her wound, I said. “Quiet. You will live.”
This was a good test for my healing nano columns. March out, I commanded.
The healing only took me a few moments, but a noticeable amount of energy. That was a price I gladly paid, and well, I had needed more for myself before.
And withdraw.
As soon as my nanos were back, I took my hand away. “Can you stand up?”
“Don’t leave me alone.”
“I must help the others, too. You must be strong now. Get up.”
She dropped into my arms. Well then. So I had to carry her, at least to the door of the next occupied cell, where I placed her down opposite the door.
The kicked-open door unveiled a girl hanging from the ceiling by her wrists, with deep red scars around her body, and a naked man with a cat-of-nine-tails in his hand, who paused at my sight.
Again, I admired my own calmness. There was no room for hate or revenge in my heart—but neither for mercy. Surely the torturer would have deserved a dose of his own medicine. He’d been delighted by the metal shards in the whip tips. But this man died mercifully quick, too.
I had to hold his victim when I loosened the ties. She was unable to stand on her own legs, unable to even say a word, but her arms held me as if her life would depend on it. “It’s over,” I gently told her. “I’ll bring you out. All of you. And for that, you’ll have to bear me letting you go.”
I carried her to the hallway and dropped her into the arms of her fellow sufferer. She accepted this offer and let me go.
Phew.
I was slightly puzzled that no guards were molesting me while I freed two more girls who so far had fared better—ties and gags, cage, pillory, strained joints, bruises, and a few pinches, but otherwise they were unhurt. Lucky for their torturers, as I left them alive, still wondering about my inner peace.
Which left me behind the next door. I heard screams, spotted a saw and a blood-spraying upper arm, and something inside me snapped.
Chapter Eleven
—Healing completed.—
I watched the motionless body before me. Pulse and breath were normal. The well-formed female body had two arms—only the thin red line of a fresh scar ran around the right upper arm.
My left hand rested on the shoulder, my right on the elbow, and I noticed my healing column return to me. Then the anesthesia should also fade soon.
I felt surprisingly strong, as if I’d gained energy and not spent it. Why?
I was standing on soft and slightly wet ground. My right foot was sticking in a warm and nutrient-rich environment, and something was pulsating around my toes.
My gaze went down, where my claws had opened the butcher’s chest and uncovered his heart, where one claw had sunk into his aorta, so that his heart pumped his nutrients into my reserves.
Oh, Dragon crap! That guy was still alive!
No doubt, he had fucking earned a taste of his own treatment—but was that still me?
He wasn’t conscious. He couldn’t feel what was happening. No, this was no act of cruel revenge, but cold calculation—I’d have killed him anyway, so he could be useful first.
Now it was time to end this spooky game. I retracted my foot, kicked out once and thereby broke his neck. I stood by it—this kind of man, literally caught red-handed, shouldn’t get an opportunity to buy himself out. He’d have had a chance, because the Cartel’s decapitation hadn’t led any bribed policeman or judge back on the right track yet.
The girl on the table before me stirred. Quickly, I cut the ties around her neck, hips, and legs.
Her eyes wide with fear, she jerked up, and her first glance went to her right arm. Her features changed to amazement. “What?” was all she could bring up.
“Come, now.”
She supported herself, and then she swung to a sitting position. There she paused another moment before determinedly jumping on her legs. I reached out to support her, but she waved me aside. “Thanks. Will do.”
She examined the dead. “Thanks again. Let’s go?”
I let her go first. Outside in the hallway, my first four saved ones were waiting. They welcomed her with a quiet nod, then the newcomer turned back to me. “And now?”
“We’ll fetch the others. You know the way?”
She nodded and pointed at a branch a short way back. “I’m Katrina, and you?”
“Velvet.”
“Fuck me. You’re real? No matter. The guards won’t leave us alone for long.” She led me down the side passage. “You won’t like what you’ll see here.”
“I didn’t like what I’ve seen so far, Katrina.”
“Why are you here anyway? Look.”
The door opened to a little hall—no, that wasn’t quite the right word. Nine cells each lay on both sides of a wide platform, but three meters deeper and without ceiling.
From the platform, you could thus oversee the entire cell, which wasn’t much. The furniture of each individual, two meters long and one meter wide plain concrete cell consisted of a bucket. There was no bunk, no mattress, no stool, no individual light except for the shine from the dim passage.
“Somewhat impractical. How do you get an inmate out?” I asked myself.
Katrina pointed at a two-part ladder near the door. “If you’ve been squatting in the dark for three days, without fresh water or food, you’ll do almost everything to get out. Or one of the guards will climb down to you—you don’t want that, either. Every girl can hear the screams.”
“Get them out. All.”
A surprised call from the far entrance told me that we wouldn’t remain alone for much longer. A guard must have spotted the two sleeping Cartel bosses—thus I had lost my hostages, and they at least had to guess now that Velvet was down here and not somewhere upstairs in the Invasion. Down here, I was trapped with my girls, though.
Hurriedly, I covered the distance. Oh no, they were two. One was still leaning over the men on the floor, and the other observed the hallway and saw me coming.
“Damn!” he shouted and corrected the aiming of his pistol.
Too late—I closed the two dozen meters in an instant, beat the pistol aside and cut his throat with one strike of my claw. With a loud bang, one shot went off. The bullet angrily ricocheted between the walls.
His partner made an attempt to capitulate, so I only knocked him out. Were my two prisoners still sleeping?
“Give me a gun, and I’ll do it,” Katrina offered.
“These two are our life insurance,” I objected, but handed her one gun anyway and took the other one myself. “Can you handle it?”
“I’m a farmer’s daughter. I hit a can across thirty yards.”
“You’re quite cool.”
“Thanks, same to you. I’ll cry and puke later, okay? If I’m still alive. But I’d rather die from a bullet than being tied to such a table again, you bet. Or what are your plans?”
In lieu of an answer, I pushed her down and rolled over the floor myself. A hardly recognizable silhouette had appeared at the entrance, and the first hot plasma round hissed over us.
“Craaap!” Katrina screamed.
Indeed—the pistol caliber was quite useless against an armor suit. I didn’t waste a second on the attempt but left the pistol lying and extended my roll to a leap forward.
The second plasma shot grazed my left arm—the hallway was simply too narrow to entirely dodge—and burned like hell, but then I had reached the shooter.
Surprise!
&
nbsp; One touch sufficed, and his armor suit became a prison in which he couldn’t even move a finger.
At the same time, his statue would be a great cover against plasma shots from his partners, whom I already heard closing in. This would become unpleasant. But first, I had to focus on the pain in my arm.
Without my armor, I wouldn’t have that arm anymore. Even so, the wound looked ugly. I could well imagine how much pain I’d feel without the soothing from my Analogy—I’d probably long have fainted.
“Dragon cool,” Katrina commented. “Darn, you’re fast.” I heard her standing up again. “But we’re Dragon screwed anyway. We’ll never get out of here.”
I gave her an encouraging wink, even if it came hard to me for the pain. “We’ll make it.”
“You’re injured.”
“Right. Hurts like hell, but I’ll have to stand it now.”
“Fine. At least they won’t get me alive.” She made a grim face—her stance appeared much less convincing. Brave, but dangerous. She needed a setback.
“Take one of those guys in front of your chest and see that you stick out as little as possible. These guys know how to use their plasma rifles. If you stick out a leg, they’ll burn it away, and while you faint from pain, they can clean up.”
“Ugh.”
“Exactly. Or get lost here and let me do my job.”
“Do you think you’ll fare better?”
“I’m Velvet. I have a few more tricks up my sleeve.”
“So.” She briefly looked back to the two Cartel bosses.
I grabbed the opportunity and became invisible.
“Heck—where are you, Velvet?”
Her face showed insecurity. Then her survival instinct won, and she withdrew to the side passage—with her gun and one Cartel boss. Smart girl.
I assumed a post next to the door with my injured arm toward the wall. Being invisible, I had a chance to get one or two guards before the first shot went off—only my scorched arm wasn’t entirely recovered and thus not entirely camouflaged.
Lioness’ Legacy IV—Torment Page 4