BLUE GENDER

"Children of the Blue"

11. Clues

Blue Eggs? What is going here?

Captain Junker was forced into hiding before he had a chance to peer into the other rooms. This warning came from the sound of vehicles descending the ramp toward the cavern.

Junker got behind those fuel drums once more.

Two large trucks entered the area. They appeared to have been built on the same chassis as a shrike carrier truck. However, the cargo area looked to have been substantially reinforced.

The vehicles pulled into the cavern and stopped not far from the row of chambers. At the same time, one of the smaller, side doors in the man-made dungeon opened. A thin, dark-skinned man with jet black hair and a mustache appeared from this side corridor. He was wearing a long white lab coat and carrying a clipboard.

A group of Estes' men—Junker saw them as little more than armed 'thugs'—got out of the trucks. They conversed with the man in the lab coat. Based on body language, William Junker had the distinct impression that these men were, to some degree, bullying the white-coated guy.

One of the storage racks in the area was full of small silver cylinders; they almost looked like miniature coffee thermoses. One of the armed men reached for this rack but the lab-coated fellow stopped him, seeming to tell him that he wouldn't need it.

This same man then waved his arm at two of the closed chamber doors.

After a few more words the men returned to the cabs of their trucks and the lab coated man returned through the door in which he had come.

Things happened slowly and deliberately at this point. As they unfolded, Junker became quite nervous that he had picked the wrong place to hide.

First, a large bulkhead that separated the cavern from the ramp descended and sealed the room. Second, a series of yellow warning lights sprang to life and a klaxon offered three loud buzzes.

Each of the two cargo trucks opened a rear hatch that swung to the ground and became a ramp. Then the doors to the sealed rooms eased upwards.

Then they came. First one, then two, then three and four.

Blue. Choppers.

The Captain was sure he was a dead man.

But something incredible happened. The creatures moved quickly into the cargo trucks. Once they were inside, the rear doors on those trucks raised shut while the garage doors on the sealed chambers also closed.

When all that was done the yellow lights stopped flashing and the exit bulkhead opened. The trucks revved their engines—the sound told the Captain that the vehicles were struggling with the weight—then slowly drove out.

Junker scratched his chin. Had he just seen that?

Things started to fall into place but he needed more answers. He knew where to get them.

The man in the white lab coat re-emerged from the side door with his clipboard. He was peering through one of the observation windows when a strong arm grabbed him around the neck.

"Hello, Doc," Junker whispered in his ear as the man struggled in vain.

"Let's say you and I have a chat."

---

Denise Karr and Gunther walked on either side of the village woman—her name was Celine—as the group discovered main street of the community. Marlene, few paces behind, was lost in thought about Yuji.

She expected him to return yet this morning but she was still nervous. Things weren't right in this place and, based on what Celine had told them the night before, this Farrow might be dangerous. Especially to Yuji.

So Marlene wasn't paying attention to the conversation.

Marlene did find herself paying attention to three men making their way through the area.

Now there were a couple of dozen people around. Some were cleaning the mess left from the previous day's attack; others were displaying food, clothing or other items they were willing to barter for.

But these three men were walking with an obvious purpose.

One was a hairy fat guy, another a shorter fellow, and the third was bald with a goatee. All three were dressed in loose-fitting hand-woven clothes.

However, they were wearing heavy military boots.

The men had crossed the main street, climbed a bank of ancient brick rubble, and moved off along a side pass.

She could see they were trying to blend with the townspeople but their quick walk and sturdy boots marked them as interlopers.

Marlene, almost subconsciously, steered away from her group and began to follow the three.

She climbed the rubble pile and saw that the side street was little more than an alley weaving between bombed-out buildings and burned structures. There were piles of rubble everywhere.

The men stopped by one of those piles. The man with the goatee squatted and started looking through the mess. The other two began surveying their surroundings as if on watch. Marlene instinctively took cover behind a wall.

She waited for several moments before daring another glance. When she did she saw the men disappearing around a shaded corner.

Marlene moved forward. The rubble pile the man had been searching yielded no clues as to the purpose of these men. So she moved further, following the way they had come.

Marlene came to a pile of stacked passenger cars that had burned to their metal chassis' decades ago. She circumvented this obstacle and saw that she was gaining on the men. Two of them were a mere twenty yards away on the far side of a small field of the debris.

Marlene's mind raced: Two of them. Damn it, Marlene. You idiot.

She stopped. She knew he was there. She could hear his heavy breathing. The other two men also stopped, turned, and returned toward her with an unmistakable air of cockiness. One of those two had an automatic rifle pointed at her—he had had it hidden under his clothes.

Marlene was all too aware of how isolated an area it was—a valley in the middle of buildings and rubble.

The fat man's voice came from behind.

"Well look what we have here."

Marlene stood still but turned her head ever so slightly to see the man. He was brandishing a nasty looking hunting knife and strolling toward her with a big smile. He was missing several teeth.

The other two thugs completed the circle around her. The short one held the gun while the one with the goatee was holding a silver cylinder in his right hand but a side arm was in a hip holster.

"My oh my, ain't you just one tough little blondie. Gotta say, love the ponytails. Maybe I'll keep one as a souvenir," the fat man was next to her.

She could feel the warm stench of his breath on her neck as he slid her pistol from its holster and tossed it aside.

The short guy, the one with the rifle, was barely controlling his laughter. The one with the goatee appeared annoyed at the interruption but the look in his eyes said he could get used to the idea.

The fat man stood behind her. Marlene didn't look at any of them. She was silent and gazed ahead at nothing. The men may have mistaken the look on her face as the beginnings of a pout; a sign the prey was accepting its fate.

The fat man tapped two knuckles on her upper body armor: "All hard on the outside, ain't you sweetheart? I bet you're all nice and soft on the inside. Me and the boys here, we're fix'in to find out 'bout that. Don't go mak'in any sudden moves. I'd hate to have to cut you...yet."

The fat guy's hands slid along the sides of her battle suit, his hands and fingers groped as they moved.

She was trembling, that was true. The fat man probably thought it was from fear. Probably thought he had found himself an easy victim.

In reality, Marlene was trembling from rage. But she knew she would have to be cool to get out of this. She stood still and did not react. She stared forward and let her mind and her peripheral vision work.

Her mind saw that the man with the goatee was right handed and he already had something in that hand. Also, his attention was faltering as he slowly eyed her from head to toe and back again.

Her mind also told her that the fat man had stuck his knife in his waistband or somewhere because she could feel both of his hands as they explored.

Most important was what her peripheral vision was showing: The short guy had the barrel of his HK Mp5 assault rifle pointed at her. It was the only thing that had kept her from resisting the fat man.

"So where are the buttons on this thing, sweetie?"

The rifle-armed man was smiling and chuckling. As he did, the barrel of his weapon tipped downward, more toward the ground and less toward her.

Just a little…then a little more…then…a…little…more…

---

"Where'd Marlene go?" Denise finally realized she had gone missing.

Her and Gunther were standing with Celine and meeting with a couple of young kids who were asking them questions about all sorts of things.

A burst of automatic gunfire echoed into the area. Everyone stopped, except for Denise and Gunther who went running in the direction of the sounds.

---

The short guy holding the rifle was on the ground, his snapped neck in an unnatural position. His dead finger was still on the trigger.

The fat man had gotten back on one knee; his hands held his groin.

The man with the goatee had managed to get his pistol out of its holster but that was it. His right arm was straight up with Marlene's left hand on his wrist.

Marlene brought two stiff fingers from her right arm into the base of his throat, then twisted the pistol from his hand (it fell to the ground). She kneed him in the gut and then again in the chin when he slumped forward.

He joined his pistol on the ground.

She turned and watched as the fat man bore down on her, his knife ready.

He growled: "Bitch! I'm going to show you the meaning of pain!"

Marlene spoke to her attacker for the first time: "Pain?"

She brought a crescent kick around and knocked the knife out.

"Try…"

She came dangerously close to the big fellow then walloped him with a horizontal right elbow to his cheek. He lost more teeth.

"…having…"

The left arm brought its elbow across, too.

"…a…"

Her right fist found his fat gut with a good ole' fashion upper cut.

"…baby!"

A palm strike finished the job as it pushed the bridge of his nose into his skull. The fat man's snout erupted and he fell to the ground stone cold dead.

Denise and Gunther came running around the junked cars.

Marlene didn't need to look behind to know that the man with the goatee was reaching for his gun. She grabbed the hunting knife, turned, and let it fly.

THWAP!

It speared the thug in the heart. He was dead before he hit the ground.

---

Marlene explained to her friends what had happened.

When she was done, Denise focused her attention on the small silver cylinder the men had retrieved from the pile of rubble.

Gunther threw his arm around Marlene's shoulders, squeezed, then boomed a deep laugh while calling her by her old nickname: "You one tough cookie, Marks! You one tough cookie!"

Celine arrived and said she didn't recognize the attackers: they could be Estes' men.

Denise had information, however, that startled them all.

She was holding the silver canister. It had a series of buttons on it and lights, some more prominent than others.

"Look at this," the veteran shrike technician said. "Turn your sensors on."

Marlene and Gunther complied and Denise did the same thing.

None of the detectors beeped or blinked.

Then Denise hit a switch on the cylinder. Suddenly all of their sensors screamed in panic that the Blue were nearby.

Denise turned off the cylinder and the scanners went silent once more.

"This is the source of our scanner interference. I don't know how and I don't know why."

"We'd better find out," Marlene said as she looked at the dead bodies of her attackers once more. "Because this place is getting dangerous for us."

---

There was a nest. Yuji followed Farrow directly toward it.

They were a few miles away from Estes' base. The nest had been built into what had once been a multi-level shopping mall. The shaggy, skin-like material the Blue used to make their homes covered the structure.

Farrow had loaned Yuji a heavy-duty shrike similar to his own.

As they approached the nest Yuji wondered if he had made a miscalculation. He wasn't in his Double Edge so he would get no battle assistance from activated b-cells. Furthermore, while he knew how to pilot just about any shrike unit this was still a new vehicle to him…a stranger.

However, the two Sleepers approached the large-nest (Farrow had said it was a small nest) without seeing any Blue.

"Where are all the Blue?" Yuji asked over the tactical radio.

"Patience. Mother always told me—"

"Yeah, yeah, patience is a virtue," Yuji interrupted.

Farrow said nothing but Yuji sensed he had just angered him.

There were many entrances to the nest. Farrow led Yuji toward the largest one. The two shrikes rolled inside.

There were a fair amount of holes and rips in the skin of the nest. This allowed strands of sunlight to shoot through from above. All the holes made Yuji wonder if the nest wasn't very, very old.

"I'd better turn on my sensors," Yuji said aloud over the radio.

He activated his bio-magnetic scanner. It shot to life showing Blue dots all around his unit. Hundreds of them.

"Geez, looks like there's interference here, too," Yuji said.

"I don't use the scanners," Farrow explained. "My own senses are much more reliable."

The shrikes motored into the center of the nest. This was a wider area with pillars of slime and shaggy skin between the high ceiling and the ground.

Yuji's knew that the center of the nest should be crawling with Blue. Yet despite what his sensors said, not one could be seen, not even eggs.

"Farrow! Where are the Blue?"

"They are coming," Farrow told Yuji. "They are coming."

---

"Explain that again," Junker insisted to Raul--the man in the lab coat.

"Yes, of course," the scientist repeated.

The two men were still in the large cavern. They were standing outside of the chamber where the Blue eggs were stored.

"When the eggs of the Blue are ready to be hatching they release an enzyme. We have learned to block that enzyme until such a time as we wish this hatching to happen."

Junker had learned that Raul was scared of Estes and Estes' thugs.

He was scared because they were constantly threatening to kill him.

"When do you hatch them?"

"When Mister Estes tells me to. Or the man named Farrow. We hatch them a few at a time and then the men come and be taking them away."

Junker concluded: "Like when a village doesn't pay their tribute?"

"I believe that is true, yes."

"And you let them do it? You know how many people you've helped kill?"

Raul bowed his head and answered: "I am aware of this, yes. But I have no way of leaving. Mr. Estes will kill me."

"What if I can get you out of here?"

The man smiled at Captain Junker. William asked another question.

"So there's no nest? What about the Blue you just piled into those trucks?"

"No," Raul answered. "A nest is not far from here. It was deserted but—"

"But what?"

"But Mister Estes' men are taking Blue from here and putting them there."

Junker muttered: "Yuji."

---

Yuji's scanner was so cluttered with signals that it was useless. He switched it off one second before his unit took a severe hammering.

"What the--?"

He turned his shrike and saw four choppers converging on his machine.

"Farrow! It's the Blue!"

Farrow was standing a little ways away, watching. Yuji couldn't help but notice that the Blue were focused on him and paying no attention to Farrow. It was like he—Yuji—was the only one there.

Yuji opened up with his main gun, aiming for the exposed cores. His shrike was sluggish, his aim off.

The Blue converged.

There was a small silver cylinder attached to the rear of Yuji's shrike.

He fired and fired but the Blue came in closer.

"Farrow…I need some help here. Farrow! Farrow?"

NEXT FACTOR:

12. Duel

Celine: "We're tired of living like peasants under the thumb of that overlord. We're tired of having our food taken and our town attacked. We're done being afraid. Tell me what you need us to do."