When Zack had jumped on the guard from the top of the elevator, he didn't have a chance. His gun fired once when it hit the wall, but the bullets went harmlessly into the ceiling. He was unconscious in less than three seconds. Max stood and looked at the red goo on the front of her leather vest. The stuff better come out or she was going to be very unhappy.
On the other side of the guards desk was the only exit besides the elevator. Alicia had told them that the records of who was in there were in the room on the other side of the door. There was a nurse's station, and then a long hall of rooms. She had no idea which one Bryn was in, or if there was another floor. With luck the records would show them.
They were worried about if the guard had gotten out to others that there was a problem, but it was too late to turn back now. Jhondie used the swipe card, and the other door opened. If it was still working, then the guard hadn't used the lockdown alarm. Maybe they would get lucky, and be out of here before anyone knew they were here. On the other side, one nurse looked up, surprised when three armed people came through the door.
Her hands went up immediately. She eyed them for a moment. They were painfully young. They looked to be the age of those kids running around the last few days. She didn't recognize them, but she was sure there were several that she had not met yet.
"Is there a problem?" she asked. "Everything is quiet down here." She gave them her best nurse's smile.
It hit them that she didn't understand they were intruders. The walls probably had soundproofing in them, so she wouldn't have heard the gunshots.
"There's been an issue," Zack said firmly. "We're supposed to move one of your patients to another location." He tried to sound slightly bored, like this was beneath him. A Manticore solider would not be babysitting.
"I…I haven't received any orders," she said, a little confused. Patient transport was arranged well in advance.
"We're giving you orders," Max snapped. She reached into her pocket for the ID, and felt more than a quiver of nervousness when her hand closed on nothing but lint. She couldn't remember getting it back from the guards upstairs. Damn, not a mistake she'd wanted to make. Maybe they could bullshit their way through.
Zack glared at her, and continued before she could say anything else. "We were given specific orders to move the patient immediately in response to a ground situation," he stated. "If you want to clear it, go ahead, we'll wait, and you can explain why you're personally holding up a classified operation."
He was counting on her being military and not wanting to disobey orders. If she'd been around here long enough, she'd learned not to ask questions. "Well, which patient did you need?" she finally asked.
"Asian female," Zack said. He had no idea what name Bryn was being held under. Would they know her by barcode? Time to play black ops.
"Do you know her admission code?" the nurse asked, feeling confused again. Didn't they know whom they were being sent after?
"We can neither confirm nor deny any further information," Zack said formally.
"Oh," she said. "Well, umm…actually we only have two at the moment. Would you know by sight who you were supposed to take?" She didn't like what was going on at all. She should call the charge nurse, or maybe Charlie outside, but they were making her too nervous. These kids had been all over the last few days, and she'd seen a few things that were very scary. For a nurse in a classified research hospital to find something scary, it had to be intense.
"Of course," Max snapped. She was getting a bad feeling. It was like right before a burglar alarm went off when she was picking up a few things from the over-privileged. Like time was running out.
The nurse stood, and took them down the hall, and then through a maze of corridors off of the main hall. Jhondie kept back a pace, and kept watch over where they were going. It was confusing, but she was building the map in her head. Finally they came to the first room. The woman inside looked like she'd been burned terribly. Her skin was charred, but she wasn't in any kind of special containment unit. They didn't want to think of what was being done to her.
"Not her," Zack said. Thank God that wasn't Bryn.
They went to the next room, and there she was, sleeping. There were several monitors that announced she was alive and well, but there was no way to tell what had been done to her, except that she was in restraints.
Jhondie came up behind the nurse with the last syringe of tranquilizer. Her hand went over the nurse's mouth, and she slid it into her. The nurse tried to fight, but there was no way she was getting away from the steel bands that encircled her. Within a few seconds she was limp on the ground.
Max grabbed the chart at the foot of the bed as Zack and Jhondie began to unhook the equipment. Four weeks ago the in vitro procedure had been performed. Ten days before it was determined to be a success and pregnancy had occurred. Three days before, she had miscarried. There was a handwritten note that the doctor thought that maybe she was so against the pregnancy that her body went along with her mind. She should be firmly drugged the next time, and kept down until she gave birth. Max wished the doctor were there. She would love to show him the error of his ways.
Bryn stirred a little. "No," she protested, weakly trying to push them away with her now free hand.
"It's me, baby sister," Zack said quietly. "We came for you just like we promised."
Her eyes opened slightly. "Zack?" she murmured. She looked away. "Not real, another lie." Zack wanted to kill Lydecker for what he had put her through.
"We're here," Max said. "You're all fixed. Time to take you home."
There were tears in Bryn's eyes. She was so tired. She had resisted them and their attempts to re-indoctrinate her into Manticore. They didn't realize how strong their minds really were. Then two months ago, she had been taken here, and they had…had they? Was it another illusion? Was Max and Zack an illusion? She felt herself being lifted out of the bed. If this was another trick, it was perfect. She really could believe that Zack was carrying her.
They started to leave, Jhondie leading the way, when their headsets suddenly crackled, and Logan came on the line. "You've got company upstairs," he said quickly. Lydecker is on he way, but the other sixers were ordered to clear the building."
They paused, looking at each other. There was only one way out of the building, and it was cut off. Not for long, Max thought as she grabbed the chunk of C4 out of its bag. She wasn't sure how Zack scored it, but she wasn't going to complain now. She keyed her headset. "You know how many people and the deployment?" she asked, feeling more like a solider now than she had since she was nine.
"Five man team standard, in the Gamma Delta formation," Alicia returned. She had sat back down and heard Max ask. She froze out all other feelings for now. There was a mission to complete. She'd committed to it now, and she was going to stick with it to the bitter end.
"You sure?" Max asked.
"Open area to a closed area to another open area," Alicia replied coolly. "Gamma Delta is the best start point. Says so in the manual. It's what they were trained to do. They won't deviate."
Max deftly shaped the plastic in her hands so that the force of the blast would be in the proper position to take out the men at the top of the elevator. The blast should go out rather than up or down. The elevator would be destroyed, but they should be able to climb the shaft.
Without hesitating Alicia keyed the command line. "Get every sixer out of the hospital now," she snapped then closed it before there was a response, and flipped back to the remote team.
"What the fuck is the matter with you?" Logan yelled.
She glared at him hard. "I don't know if the building's been cleared yet," she snapped. "I'm not trading one of my brothers' life for Bryn's."
She could tell he wanted to hit her. Let him. She could stand the thought of betraying them. But she would not, ever, for any reason, kill one of them. She couldn't. Bailey had ordered them to clear, but she wasn't going to take any chances. Dad would know that she was about to do something grandiose if she was there. He would know that she didn't want to get any sixer hurt in the process. If Bailey wasn't there, he'd fill the place with sixers to stop her, but since Bailey was ready to kill them all, Dad would clear the place.
Max shaped the charge, and hooked it into the elevator. "They're still trying to open it," Alicia said, listening in on the occasional comment from above. "They'll think they actually did something good for once." Nobody missed the disdain in her voice for the norms.
Max swiped the badge, hit the up button, and jumped out of the car. The four of them jumped behind the desk, and waited for a few seconds. The blast rattled them down there. Now alarms were going off everywhere. Red lights flashed, and the sprinkler system came on overhead. There wasn't much time at all now.
Zack put down Bryn for a moment, and he and Jhondie forced the elevator doors opened. They appeared to be about three stories down. The cables appeared to be intact. Max had done an excellent job. Nobody was pointing and shooting. They must have been in the position Alicia had said. She was right about the norms. They forgot whom it was that wrote the manuals they were using.
Within a few minutes they were back on the ground floor. Zack had strapped Bryn to him, and hauled her up. The two girls went ahead and made sure everything was clear before trying to get the semi-conscious Bryn from the shaft. There were five bodies lying in the smoke filled hallway. They could hear people running around, trying to get patients out of the building that was starting to ignite. That wasn't their problem now.
"There should be a red-headed guy with a real crooked nose," Alicia said. He'll have keys to the jeeps out front. Max searched the guy fitting the description and found a set of keys. She thought he might be alive, but there wasn't any time to do anything about it.
"Got them," she said.
"They'll be parked right out front," Alicia said.
"That in the manual too?" Max said a little sarcastically.
"No," Alicia replied in the same tone. "Egomaniacs like to come through the front door because they feel important when others are staring at them."
Zack scooped up Bryn and they headed out. There were so many people running around that nobody even noticed them. They were just hoping that there wouldn't be any of Alicia's siblings to run into. The place should be filled with them, but they were curiously absent. They headed out the front door, and there was the jeep, illegally parked.
Max jumped in the driver's seat, and they tore out of there thirty seconds before another jeep containing Lydecker came tearing up the street. His radio crackled to life.
"All teams…"Bailey coughed. "All teams…blonde female subject…shoot to kill…take the rest if you can…kill resistors…authorization code Troy." There was a crunching sound like the radio hitting the floor, and then a hiss of static.