Chapter 28 #2
“The kill switch is uploaded. It needs two full night cycles to activate. Kynan’s on his way to you now,” Andra announced.
“Yeah, well, we’ll be out of your hair in no time,” I said.
“Where’s the other one? I saw two of you come in,” the second guard said.
“Oh, Gary? He had to make a pitstop in the bathroom. He should be out any minute,” I replied.
Just then, Kynan entered, stepping around the pair. “What’d I miss?” he asked casually.
“We were just checking. This isn’t the usual delivery day, or guys, for that matter.” Suspicion crept into the first guard’s voice.
“That’s because the company changed all its routes. You know how it is, they got to be ‘efficient,’” Kynan said.
“Well, they should notify us of any changes. How’re we supposed to do our jobs?” the second guard asked.
“That ain’t my job,” Kynan said. “We’re busy enough the way it is. Updates should come from the schedulers.”
We’re down to thirty-eight minutes.
I started loading drinks into the box. “Well, if you don’t mind, I’d rather get off-shift on-time for once.”
“We’ll let you be. Will this be your new day and route?” the first guard asked.
“As far as we know,” Kynan replied. “They only give us our routes for one week ahead.”
“See you next week, then. What’s your names again?” the second guard asked.
“I’m Gary Thules. This is my partner, Will Hale. And the service guy is Juno something or other,” Kynan said, seeming to brush off Talon.
“Gary Thules, huh?” the first guard said. “I know a Gary Thules. He was also an enforcer, but he works the Ostros section, and he’s black—you’re white. What’s the coincidence?”
“Oh, shit,” Andra said.
“Crazy coincidence,” Kynan said.
The first guard motioned with his hand. “Your badges. Let me scan them.”
“Here’s mine,” Talon said, and he fired his blaster, taking down both guards with two shots.
“Let’s get to the lab and hopefully the third guard doesn’t decide to come check on his buddies before we leave,” Kynan said.
And then the third guy walked in. The old man’s eyes widened at the bodies on the floor and then at us. Talon fired, but not before the guard squeezed an alarm fob that he wore around his neck. Most didn’t wear the old fobs anymore, but he was an old guard. The alarms sounded.
“Well, there goes the easy approach,” Andra drawled.
“The alarms triggered a notification to the central security office. Reinforcements will be here in roughly twelve minutes,” Byte announced.
“Only twelve?” I asked.
“The nearest security station is only two miles from here,” Byte replied.
“Then we’d better move.” I took off running even before Byte displayed the HUD of the basement lab.
I ran through the tunnels. At least we didn’t have to worry about drones this time around, but human enforcers would be worse.
The three of us moved as fast as we could, but we had to slow down as we approached every door for Byte to unlock them.
“I’ll pull what I can before they find the dipstick and pull it, because they’ll definitely scour this data center to see what you guys were doing there,” Andra said.
We ran downstairs into the basement level and to a door that read Mainframe Room .
“It’s a lousy attempt at subterfuge. There are no mainframes stored in these data centers,” Kynan said.
Byte unlocked the door, and we entered. I nearly tripped over my feet. The floorplan was the same as the other lab except that all the rows of coolers stood open. I ran forward to the first row.
I nearly vomited when I came to the first cooler. A naked man was strapped to a gurney in a vertical position. His face had been cut away. Wires probed the bare flesh. Sections of his body lay skinned with wires, too. The most horrific part? He was awake, staring at me. “Byte, find me Nolan!”
“These computers have additional firewalls, but I’m working on it,” Byte said.
“Gods,” Talon said, a hand over his mouth. “What kind of monster could do this to another living being?”
“You said it: a monster,” Kynan said as he stoically walked the row with a hooded look.
I continued down the row as quickly as I could, searching for Nolan. Ten people on each side, all in various states of disfigurement. Some had more wires than others. One woman was fully cut in half with metal bars for legs. I stopped cold when I recognized her face.
Kynan stopped next to me. “I bet that’s Melene, Selene’s twin sister. What a pity.”
After seeing the first lab, I understood why Selene had betrayed us in Solace Station.
I might’ve done the same to save Nolan. But seeing these people—these victims—I knew that the people behind these experiments would never, ever release someone who’d been here.
They couldn’t allow their secrets to get out.
I forced myself to look away, rushing forward, only checking the male occupants.
“What the hell were they doing here?” Talon asked.
“It seems this lab is designed for merging flesh and technology. It’s a cyborg soldier project; we’ve arrived when the project is still underway. The body plates and armor were to arrive tomorrow,” Byte said.
I found Nolan in the third row. He was missing his left arm and parts of his torso. Nearly a third of his face had been cut away and replaced with metal “skin.” He was staring at me with his remaining eye, but it seemed like he was looking through me.
“Hold on, buddy, I’ll get you out of there.” I rushed to remove the gurney.
Cal, you can’t save him. Byte’s voice came directly in my mind.
Kynan put a hand on my shoulder. “Look at him. He’s on life support. That’s the only thing keeping him alive right now. If you disconnect him, he’s gone.”
“If there’s any consolation, the files indicate that all these volunteers are brain dead.
That was their first step in the project to prevent any trouble.
The doctors are maintaining these patients until they can install the amps they’re designing that would allow operators to operate them,” Byte said.
“But they can’t implant amps more than a few days after birth,” Kynan said. “When the amps weave their threads through a fully formed brain, it would kill the person.”
Talon rushed up. “The explosives are set.”
I snapped to face him, only to turn back to Nolan.
“We need to hurry. How much time do we have?” Kynan asked.
“Four minutes,” Andra said.
I grabbed Nolan’s hand. It was cold and hard like a corpse while mine was trembling and sweaty. He didn’t even blink; I squeezed my eyes shut. Fury tightened my chest. Whether Byte helped me or not, I couldn’t tell, but I felt an icy calm spread through me.
Then I abruptly unplugged his cables. The screen next to him flashed red, and his eye slowly closed. “One less barrel,” I said, and when Nolan didn’t respond, the silence was the loudest I’d ever experienced. I damn near sobbed.
“Time to go,” Talon said.
I turned my back on my best friend.
My body operated on autopilot as we ran through the hallway, upstairs, and toward the docking bay.
“Reinforcements have arrived. You cannot get to the truck. The side entrance is your nearest safe exit,” Byte said.
My HUD map changed, and we backtracked and ran to the side entrance. I felt numb, as if I was just a passenger, like Byte, in someone else’s body.
“Enforcers are attempting to block all entrances. You’re still approaching the safest exit, but there’s a security patrol inbound. You won’t escape before they arrive,” Byte said.
“And then there’s the problem of us not getting back to my truck,” Talon pointed out.
“I’m counting on Byte to help with that,” I said.
We burst out of the side entrance. The patrol vehicle screeched to a stop, and we pulled out our blasters.
Talon took down an enforcer before he’d fully emerged.
The second enforcer was getting out of the other side of the AV, and I couldn’t get a bead.
Kynan went ahead and fired, and his shot hit the hood of the car.
“You really are a lousy shot,” I said.
The first enforcer rolled clumsily to his feet and ducked behind the vehicle’s door.
“Not good. They’re wearing body armor,” Talon said.
A second car pulled up, and more AVs were pulling around from the front side of the building.
“Damn it,” Kynan said.
What we needed to do was take out the enforcers here and steal their AV, but we couldn’t do that with them wearing armor.
We couldn’t go forward… and going back into the data center would be suicide.
Those crates of food were actually explosives, and there were crates sitting in the lounge, at the docks, and a couple of extra packs in the lab.
“Byte, what should we do?” I asked.
“The option with the highest probability of survival is to gain access to an AV. If you cannot, your next best option is to allow yourselves to be arrested, and Andra and I will hijack systems to regain our freedom,” it said.
“Unless they zap us again,” I said.
A half-dozen more patrol vehicles penned us in. Enforcers, using their vehicles as shields, aimed their blasters at us.
“Drop your weapons!” someone ordered.
When Talon dropped his blaster, Kynan and I followed suit.
Talon said, “By the way, you’ll want to cover your ears and duck in three… two…”
I dove to the ground just as it rumbled. Then a massive cacophony of explosions rent the air. The wall behind us gave a loud crack. I expected it to bury us, but by some miracle, it remained standing.
Talon recovered first. He grabbed his blaster, sprinted at the nearest AV, and managed to yank down one enforcer, shooting him at point-blank range.
Kynan and I ran, but a few enforcers were recovering, and blaster shots pelted the ground before our feet, stopping us cold.
Talon was in the process of climbing into the AV when another vehicle sped forward, slammed into the vehicle, and knocked Talon back several feet.
He struggled to get back up. Kynan took a step to help him, but I held him back when I saw what itchy trigger fingers these guys seemed to have.