Chapter 9: Reach Out Of The Darkness
I knew a man that I did not care for
And then one day this man gave me a call
We sat and talked about things on our mind
And now this man he is a friend of mine
"How much longer are we going to wait?" Galen asked for the third time in ten minutes. He paced back and forth in front of Eliana as she leaned against a desk and checked over her rifle. Again. He was beginning to fear that she would listen to Burke's last piece of advice—that she should lead the group out of the base if he and Zeke were captured.
"We are going to give Josh and Gabe time to finish the modifications to the sensors." She nodded toward where the two men huddled around another desk, one of the sensors flayed open like a specimen for dissection.
"And what are these modifications going to do for us?" Galen asked impatiently, rolling his eyes.
"They are going to let us track the hostiles."
Galen sighed. Why were military people always so literal? To them, the objective was the only thing that mattered; how that objective was achieved was largely irrelevant.
"It's simple, Galen," Josh took pity on him and explained. "They don't give off the usual life signs that we were trying to detect before. But from the scans that Pete and Zeke took before they went into the control room, we know that they give off a low levels of an unusual type of radiation. We're recalibrating to pick that up."
"You understand the significance of those readings, Eliana?" Gabe asked as he made an adjustment with a tiny instrument.
"Yeah," she replied in a weary tone, finally setting down her rifle.
"Would someone like to tell me what they mean?" Galen asked, shuffling over to Gabe and Josh. He peered over their shoulders at the machinery. The wires and circuits were a perplexing maze, spelling out a message that only the others could understand.
"They aren't human." Josh straightened and stretched his back. "Some sort of robot, maybe even a cyborg with some human components. But this kind of radiation signature could only be produced by a machine with an nuclear power supply."
Galen brows shot up. "Now, how could they be machines? Machines that look like men?" he scoffed. "That... that sounds like something Pete would make up to tease me."
"Human-like robots were common by the end of the twenty-third century, Galen. Androids, cyborgs, synthetics, they went by many names over the years. Military drones were rarely this well camouflaged, unless they were infiltration units. I don't know what they are doing here as base personnel."
Eliana folded her arms over her chest, her face grim. "So how do we disable them?"
Josh turned toward her. "What do we have for ordinance?"
"Needler rifles. Four mags of explosive rounds." She cocked her head to one side. "Will those frag the sons of bitches?" Her tone was bitter.
Josh raised an eyebrow at her sudden vehemence. "I can't say for sure, but if not, we are very, very screwed."
"Are we seriously talking about trying an all out assault on these things?" Jed asked.
Eliana's expression darkened further. "They aren't going to just let us walk in there and take our people back. We need to know that we can kill them!" She slammed a fist onto the table.
"So we are going to get our friends?" Galen asked, relieved.
"Yeah, Galen. We don't leave our people behind."
Jed bristled. "I'm not suggesting we leave anyone behind. They are my friends, too," he said with a little heat. "But we are what, now nine people against a much larger force. We have no idea of their numbers or their weaponry—"
"We should be able to get an idea of the numbers we are up against." Gabe finished closing up the modified sensor and powered it on. He touched a couple of buttons. "It'll take a few minutes for it to do a complete scan of the area. Jed's right, though. We are making a lot of blind guesses. I'd like to see if we can get into their computer mainframe; that would give us a vital information about what is going on here."
"Can you do that? What would you need?" Eliana asked.
Galen looked back and forth between the two Albans, as Eliana pushed herself away from the table to release some nervous energy.
"If we could get into the control room, I could go in directly from one of those consoles Alan and I were looking at. But," he forestalled Eliana's objection, "since that's not an option, I can try to use that network access port." He pointed toward a small box on the wall.
"What's the downside?" she asked. "There has to be a downside or you would have done it already."
"Security," Gabe answered curtly. "Tapping into the network will surely give away our position. I might be able to reroute the signal to give us some time before they figure out where we are, but there's a chance it won't work. We all need to agree to take this risk."
"Well, I think it's worth the risk. Is there anyone else who doesn't?" Galen asked, looking around the room at the rest of the group. Their faces were set in grim determination, but every person shook their head.
"All right," Eliana took up her rifle and headed for the door, "Kezia and Nethaniah will keep watch in case we get visitors." She paused to squeeze Gabe's shoulder. "Be careful."
Burke felt like every nerve in his body was on fire, every muscle trembled with overstimulated exhaustion. Even after the electricity was turned off, the pain continued to burn across his senses. His skin was being flayed off a layer at time, his bones splintered and cracked, his brain liquifying in his skull—at least that's what is his body told him was happening. But when he finally pried open his eyes again, there was no blood, barely even a bruise. He panted against the pain as he tried to think, to figure a way out of this situation.
He must have moaned out loud. "Pete?" Zeke whispered in a weak voice.
With an effort, Burke focused on the angel; Zeke looked as bad as Pete felt. Feathers littered the floor around him, some of them tipped with blood, and a few were entangled in the chains that bound him. Wet tracks trailed down his face.
"M'okay," Burke muttered unconvincingly. "You didn't tell them anything, did you?" He flexed his hands, testing again the straps that held him into the chair.
Zeke ducked his head. "If I'd actually known anything, I might have," he said, his voice wrecked from his own screams of rage and denial. "Why are they doing this? Why is Alan letting them do this?" He shook his head, not expecting any answers.
"It's like you said. It's not Alan," Burke said. "I know Virdon better than I know myself. He'd never say those things, never turn his back on us like he did. It's not him." He wasn't sure who he was trying to convince, Zeke or himself.
Before Zeke could answer again, the door opened. Schwartz and Mauser entered, followed by Virdon. He stopped directly in front of Burke.
"My men tell me you won't cooperate."
"Jesus, Alan, do you even hear yourself? 'Your men'?" He made a contemptuous sound. "'Your men' have been having a field day torturing us, so damn right I won't fucking cooperate."
Virdon's face flushed, his nostils flaring and his eyes bulging. Burke swallowed nervously. He'd never seen Virdon so pissed, so on the edge of true rage. But the Colonel's expression just as quickly shuttered over. "You're right. I shouldn't have sent my men to do something I should be doing myself." He reached down and grabbed the index finger on Burke's left hand. Burke's eyes widened as Virdon started pulling the digit backward.
"Zeke!" Virdon shouted over his shoulder. "I watched him die once. Do you think you can do the same?"
Burke heard Zeke's hoarse protests, but when he locked eyes with Virdon, he saw no compassion, no remorse in the older man's eyes. No sign of the friendship for which they had each risked their lives. "You son of a bitch—," he began.
Then the room erupted into chaos.
Gabe pointed toward a doorway a few yards away. "Down there. Three human life signs, plus two of the soldiers."
Eliana smiled tightly, one eyebrow arching upward. "I think your masking virus did the trick, Gabe."
"Yeah, but that only fools the surveillance cameras. Once one of them has eyes on us, we won't be hidden anymore."
She nodded, then turned to give quiet orders to the rest. "All right, we've got two hostiles and the status of Virdon is unknown. Head shots with explosive rounds to take out the soldiers. Everyone ready?"
When everyone nodded assent, she raised her rifle to her shoulder and quick-stepped down the hall, sweeping back and forth with the weapon as she went. She flattened herself against the wall next to the door, followed quickly by Matthias and Kezia. Nethaniah waited a short distance away with the non-combatants. She'd considered leaving them in a more secure location but was loathe to split up the group any more than it already was. Once they got Burke, Virdon, and Zeke, they would likely be in a fighting retreat with no time to rendezvous with the others. Besides, she didn't know when she might need the expertise of Josh, Gabe, or Jed to accomplish this crazy rescue.
She pointed two fingers at her eyes then at her gun. Check your targets before you fire. With their own people in the room, she didn't want them injured by friendly fire. She punched the button to open the door. As she rushed through the narrow space to make room for the others, she fired at the head of the soldier in the black beret. He'd already pulled his sidearm out of its holster, but he crumpled against the wall without getting off a shot. She heard two more sharp reports and turned to see the other soldier on the floor, his face a ruined mess of white fluid and glowing components.
In the middle of the room, Virdon fisted both hands around the grip of his gun, his expression wide-eyed and confused. He jerked the weapon from one potential target to another, as if trying to decide if he would fire on any of his friends. He backed away from the door until he hit the other wall, but the pistol remained pointed at the floor.
Eliana rapidly assessed the scene—Burke and Zeke's bindings, their injuries, the absence of other robots. She found herself wanting to rush to Burke's side, to reassure herself that he was unharmed, to set him free from his bonds. But Virdon was still an unknown, a potential time bomb that she needed to diffuse. Although she lowered her weapon from her shoulder, her finger remained on the trigger.
"Alan, are you injured?" She didn't see any obvious wounds on Virdon, but he was acting as if he were in shock.
"They did something to him!" Burke called. "He's on their side now." Kezia was undoing the straps binding him while Matthias worked to free Zeke from the chains.
Eliana frowned. She needed to get Virdon disarmed before she let Jed come in to treat him. She held out her other, empty hand to try to draw his attention away from her rifle. "Alan, look at me. We want to help you, but you've got to give me that gun."
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Burke lever himself out of the chair. Kezia caught him when his legs buckled, but he pushed himself away from her toward Virdon. He stumbled into Eliana, and she wrapped her free hand around his waist to buoy him up as he leaned heavily on her. She could feel his muscles quivering with the effort of staying upright, could see the dark, sunken skin under his eyes and along his cheekbones. Other than a couple of cuts on his face, she didn't see any other wounds. Yet he was obviously struggling against some hidden injury.
When he spoke, his voice was surprisingly strong and filled with emotion. "Alan, I don't know what they did to you, but come back to us."
Virdon stopped the furtive darting of his attention around the room. His pupils were blown wide, the darkness leaving only a narrow sliver of color. "I can't Pete. If I stay with you, with them," he waved the gun around, making Eliana's heart jump, "it'll end in disaster. This is my duty, to help protect this place." His expression transformed from confusion to a hard, flinty glare. "You." He raised the gun again, pointing it at Burke's chest. "You shouldn't be with these creatures, Pete. They'll corrupt you, make you forget your mission."
Burke slid a foot forward, despite Eliana tugging at him to stay where he was. "Al, these aren't 'creatures'. These are our friends. They saved my life. They save all of us when Urko wanted to kill us. C'mon Al, I know somewhere in there, you remember all that. You know Zeke and Eliana. You know they are our friends. Come back with us. Come home to Alba." He shuffled another foot toward Virdon, and Eliana mustered all her willpower not to pull him back as he wavered unsteadily.
Virdon's jaw muscles twitched but the barrel of his pistol held steady. "I can't, Pete. I'm toxic, for God's sake. Don't you remember what Grul said? I'll bring despair and death. If that's my destiny, I'd rather do it here than back there. I have to give up. I have to..." He glanced around at the metal walls, a sob hitching in his chest. "At least this place already feels like a tomb. You should go back, make yourself a new life while you can."
Burke took a final step so that Virdon's gun was pressing lightly into his chest. "You really want to do this, Al?" Burke asked, his voice rising. "Maybe you are willing to give up on the friendship that's kept us both alive for the last year and a half, but I'm not. I don't give a crap about any prophecy. This," he flattened his hand on Virdon's chest and could feel the bounding heart beneath it, the way it heaved as Virdon gulped air, "is all I care about. This connection between me and you. Because much as I love the life I could have in Alba," he said with an apologetic glance at Zeke and Eliana, "I'd still walk into the desert with you tomorrow if you said we needed to go to Houston. C'mon, pal. I know you're in there somewhere. Fight it. Fight whatever they've done to you."
They stared at each other. Then Virdon's face crumbled, his shoulders slumped.
"I don't know how, Pete. I don't know how to stop feeling this way. How to come back from looking into the abyss?"
Burke pointed at the machine adhered to Virdon's forearm. "Take that thing off, for starters. Disconnect yourself from whatever network you are sharing with these machines."
With sudden decisiveness, Virdon relaxed his grip on the pistol, reversing it to surrender it to Burke, who tucked it in the back of his waistband. Now that Virdon was no longer a threat, Eliana signaled to Kezia that the area was safe for the others to join them. Jed, in particular, was badly needed to deal with Burke and Zeke's injuries. She glanced back to see a determined look on Virdon's face. How had she missed the taut, hectic flush of his skin, the jittery tension in every line of his body?
Virdon reached down and yanked on the commcon unit. It came away from the tender, underside skin of his forearm with a sticky, wet sound. Virdon's grimace of distaste quickly turned to one of pain, a growl low in his throat building as he tore it free. The rectangular patch of skin beneath it was red and raw looking. He dropped it to the floor as it emitted a series of popping noises, and the smell of burning electrical components permeated the air.
Eliana turned to see Jed and Josh leading the remaining group into the room; they immediately rushed to where Zeke still slumped on the floor, hugging his injured arm close. "Matthias, Netheniah, keep an eye on the hallway. We could be getting more company if we don't get out of here soon," she ordered.
Virdon flashed Burke a wane half-smile as the younger man squeezed Virdon's shoulder. "Welcome back, Al. Everything's going to be okay."
But the blood suddenly drained from Virdon's face, and his eyes rolled upward. Burke tried to catch him as he started to fall, but in his own weakened condition, the two of them ended up in a tangle as they slid down the wall to the floor. Jed pushed past Eliana before she could move and ran a sensor over Virdon.
"He's in some kind of shock. His entire system is going crazy," the healer said aloud. He flicked open his kit and pulled a microinjector. After attaching a vial, he pressed it to Virdon's neck. "This should stabilize him long enough to get him out of here. But he's going to need treatment back in Alba, the sooner the better." He turned the sensor on Burke next. "And you aren't much better."
"I'll be fine, just help us up." Beside him, Virdon stirred with a moan, his eyes popping open with sudden alertness.
Jed pressed his lips into a thin line. "No, you aren't. Whatever they did to you, it overloaded the nanites in your system." His look of concern deepened as he laid a hand on Burke's chest, his eyes hooded with distant focus. "They're all destroyed." The nanites that Jed had injected into Burke after his life-threatening injuries three months ago had continued to work inside his body, repairing damage both old and new. Without them, he would heal much more slowly.
"Look, just give me a perk-me-up like you did Alan, so we can get the hell out of here. How's Zeke?"
"Other than the broken arm, minor cuts and bruises. He'll heal faster than you will."
Eliana leaned in. "Are they ready to move, Jed? We really do need to get out of here as soon as we can."
He finished injecting a cocktail of medications into Burke then snapped his kit closed. With Eliana's help, he got both men onto their feet.
Galen padded over to his friends. "I'm glad to have you both back," he said, his voice choked with emotion.
"Thanks, Galen." Burke bumped the chimp's arm with the back of his hand. Virdon nodded, all this strength and attention on moving. As he passed, Galen shouldered one of his arms, lending his strength to keep him going.
"Especially you," Galen added quietly to Virdon. "I don't know how I'd put up with Burke's jokes without you around."
Burke went to Zeke, a quick hand on the angel's head to show his concern, then they were all filing out the door into the hall.
They'd made two turns through the maze of corridors before the Kirtland soldiers caught up with them. There was no warning, no standoff; they turned a corner and the group of four solders were on top of them before they could backpedal. It was as if they'd stepped out of the walls themselves.
Virdon was flattened against the wall by Galen to get him out of the way. Eliana stepped inside the reach of the first soldier who pointed a sidearm at her and jammed her rifle under his chin. When she pulled the trigger, the top of his head exploded and the rest of the body dropped to the floor with a heavy thud. Virdon heard the quick, popping reports of other needler rifles, punctuating the louder shots fired by the more primitive firearms the soldiers carried. Matthias stood over the body of another soldier, a stream of blood dripping off his fingers from a grazing wound gouged out of his forearm. Josh struggled with a third and was thrown against a wall, the soldier's gun coming up to bear on him. But before the robot could fire, Misha stepped in behind him and put his massive, hairy hands on either side of the android's head. With a squeeze and a heaving jerk, he twisted the head. The ragged synthetic flesh tore away, gushing white fluid as, with a roar, he pulled the head completely away from the body, trailing wires and metal components beneath it.
Gabe and Kezia grappled with the final soldier. The android held onto Kezia's rifle and they found for control of it. Gabe's arms wrapped around their opponent's torso, trying to knock him off balance. He closed his eyes in concentration.
Suddenly, the final soldiers topped moving, his hands dropping from the rifle as he dropped into a limp heap. Gabe and Kezia stepped back in surprise. There was not a mark on the android.
"Eliana! Zeke!" Josh screamed, his voice panicked. He knelt next to Jed. The angel slumped against the wall, his wings tucked in tight beneath him. "No, no, no!" Josh keened, tears streaming down his face.
Jed's eyes were open but unseeing, a red hole gaping in his forehead just above his left eye. His mouth was wide with surprise. A mat of bloody material stuck to the wall above him.
Zeke stumbled and sprawled on the Jed's other side, plucking at Jed's armor. He cupped his hands around the ginger head, shaking his slightly. "Jed? Jed, wake up! We have to go!" Burke knelt behind Zeke, one arm wrapped around Zeke's shoulders to keep him from collapsing completely. "No! No, he'll be all right. Someone get the med kit. Someone do something!"
"He's gone, Zeke," Burke murmured in his ear. Burke had seen enough death at the hands of apes to recognize it. "I'm sorry. He's gone."