Chapter Eight
If anything can go wrong, it will.
—Murphy
We pulled into the underground garage in a convoy of two. Although it might have been more realistic to drive up to the front door, it seemed like too big an exposure to us. And besides, the underground entrance also opened onto a major reception area, so it wasn't completely strange.
Alec and I marched in first, scaring the hell out of the receptionists and a couple of suits loitering in the area. Then Denise and Syl walked in, followed by Max and Zack.
Denise, looking imperious as all get out, commanded, "I want Dr. Willingham here in thirty seconds." Denise was impressive, somehow she seemed taller and more magnificent than usual.
"Yes ma'am!"
In fact it was about forty-five seconds before the boss showed up. He bustled in with a major worried look and said, "You're early, and I thought you'd be at the front doors. But we're ready for the conference. Is Colonel Lydecker still on his way in?"
Oh oh, the plan was going off the rails faster than I anticipated. But Denise effortlessly ad-libbed, "The Colonel had a little problem that required his attention. You and I will start without him."
The doctor said, "Well, the conference room first then." Denise gave a meaningless hand-signal to Max. But that was part of the script, and not at all what we should be doing! I signaled frantically to Max to abort the mission, but she was emphatic in her refusal. I was deeply unhappy at being split from Denise just before the big-time shit was about to hit the fan. It would just make things worse if I didn't follow along, and if the truth be told, I guess that old Manticore discipline had taken hold. My subconscious apparently accepted Max as my superior officer. Man, all I really wanted to do was go paint a picture, Denise in the nude maybe, but no, I was following Alec down the hall while Denise went to meet my nemesis: Colonel Lydecker. Arrrghhh! I screamed to myself, inside my head.
So Max and Zack accompanied Denise to the conference room, and Alec and I went to the main lab complex.
-- --
(Denise)
Well, while Lowman and Alec were taking care of the lab, I attacked the conference room with my cadre of super soldiers. By the way, it's very cool to march along with Max, Zack, and Syl a step behind you, it makes one feel very safe. In fact, one can get to feeling overconfident as all get out. As I discovered when Max and I stepped into the conference room (Syl dropped back at the secretary's alcove and Zack did one of his famous fade-outs, good thing as it turned out).
As I took in the inhabitants of the conference, my entrails turned to water. But I was pretty sure I didn't let anyone see that. I just looked Colonel Lydecker in the eye and asked, "So Colonel, how's the baby killing business?"
I could feel Max grinning at me. Lydecker answered with a smirk, "It's easy, all you have have to do is shorten the range and don't lead too much. You, for instance, are in my sights." He lowered his voice at the end, it was very effective in scaring the shit out of me.
Max said, "Hi Brin, ready to switch sides yet?"
I gave the Max the 'Pipe Down' signal, both Lydecker and Brin looked surprised when Max hushed up. This of course, was all part of our contingency planning.
I started to ask the Colonel a pointed question, when there was a loud commotion from the hall. From all the crashing and banging you would have thought the building was being demolished. This wasn't part of our plan, but I was reasonably certain that it must be Zack and Syl getting testy out there. I wondered who they were fighting.
"Brin," I said commandingly and completely out of the blue, "attack 452!"
Brin automatically started to go into attack mode, and then realized what she was doing and stopped. But her moment of divided attention was all it took for Max to attack. This, of course, was preplanned between Max and me. Max was able to disarm Brin and they started a knock-down, drag out fight. What a fight it was, too! They both moved and hit so fast I couldn't even see where their strikes hit. The sound of flesh hitting flesh was amazingly loud. They crashed into walls, smashed the conference table, and finally smashed through the door into the hall. We followed their fight by the volume.
I pulled a gun out of my small-of-the-back holster. Max thought there was a good chance that no one would think to check to see if I was armed, and sure enough, she was right. So I pulled my gun and shot Colonel Lydecker in the leg, as he was gazing out through the remains of the smashed door into the corridor.
The director of the facility, and a couple of junior executives, were quite shocked at my precipitous action. For that matter, so was Lydecker. Still, he was game. He started to pull his own sidearm, but I aimed at his forehead and said, "I'll shoot again Colonel. You put that gun down and slide it away from you. And please remember, I've already shot you once, it will be easier for me the second time." I didn't mention that my hitting him at all was pure dumb luck, never having fired a gun before.
He slid his weapon towards me. "Now Colonel, I expect you have more weapons secreted about yourself; here's a tip, don't use them, for I have an itchy trigger finger. We will just wait here for one of my soldiers to to finish up and get back here."
Everyone in the room stared at me, wondering who the hell was I? Felt pretty good, really. "And if any of you junior executives decide to be a hero, well, you should know that this is a fourteen shot H&K 9mm handgun. It's not the most powerful handgun in the world, but it will kill you just the same. And I've been trained by a couple of X-5 genetically engineered soldiers, courtesy of our good friend Colonel Lydecker."
A low moan escaped Colonel Lydecker at that moment. Sweet, I thought. That bullet must be hurting him, I didn't think he'd allow himself to moan in front of anyone. Probably trying for a tactical advantage.
Finally, the fight out in the hall stopped, or at least became quiet. We were all curious as we all took little sideways glances at the entrance, waiting to see who had won, since the tactical advantage would go to whichever X-5 came through the doorway. Unfortunately for me, it was Brin and three of her norms, dragging a defeated Max with them. Still, I didn't see any more of my X soldiers, so maybe we could pull it off yet. They dumped Max onto the remains of the conference table. The Colonel looked at me—his look spoke volumes. I dropped my gun at his feet and sat down in one of the absurdly comfortable chairs that looked so out place in the trashed room.
The door behind Colonel Lydecker, which I had hardly noticed before, opened. And in walked our enemy, Homer Winston. I couldn't believe my eyes. That was when despair hit me deep. So I slid back into my chair and closed my eyes.
"So Colonel," said Winston, "you have things under control here?" He turned to me and smiled his kindly but oh-so-false smile, "so girl, you and your mother have been giving me trouble. We are going to repair that contretemps right here, right now. My plan cannot be stopped, not by you and not by the government, because you see, I am in control. I pay everyone, and I get what I want."
I was of the opinion that he was not paying enough attention to his allies, and would eventually get his. Max started coming to, with what I now recognized as X-series stoicism, that is without any moaning, noise, or drama of any kind. I slid down to the floor and cradled her head on my lap and gently rubbed her temples. I couldn't conceive of what it took to knock out Max, but it must have been one hell of a hard whack.
"You are no doubt wondering what this was all about," continued Winston, "You see, when Biotech started this whole business of trying to patent some of their research, they sent me boxes of material to sort through to bolster the case. But in amongst that material was information that they did not intend to send me, information that led me straight to Colonel Lydecker. At first I figured we'd go ahead and try for the patents, as they wanted, and I was forewarned about Manticore so I knew what to avoid publicly. But then this whole thing broke, and somehow or other you people defeated my hired muscle, and then some of you had the impertinent temerity to invade my personal space and steal from me, and I would really like to know how you did that, so I changed the plan. The good Colonel here, a competent enough government functionary, would surely be amenable to a plan that would profit all of us and make him independent of the politicos that infest Washington. So I called him, and now we're partners." He turned to Max and said, "And you my dear, with as many of your siblings as we can find, are going to be sold to the highest bidder. I think you will find that your talents will be put to good use."
At that, Lydecker picked up my gun, and shot Winston through his forehead. He said, "I don't play well with partners." He looked at me and added, "You can go now, I've had enough killing for today. And I've got 452 back, that's a victory worth celebrating."
"Colonel, you can't have Max, she's my friend." Well, that was an exaggeration, but she had come to help me and my family, and that counted for a lot.
He said softly, "I've got the guns, and the men, you'd best be going before I change my mind. I'm not usually soft-hearted enough to leave live witnesses. But you can apply for a job with me after you graduate from college, I admire a girl who can shoot like you."
Shit! I thought, that's why he's letting me live, because I shot him. That bastard!
I noticed Brin looking up at the ceiling with a frown. Then the whole building shook a little when an explosion from the basement went off. Lydecker looked worried and said something military sounding into his radio, but pitched too low for me to catch. Then I saw movement behind the Colonel, ha! he forget his back! In a well coordinated attack, Zack came through the ceiling tiles, Syl flew through the door from the hall, and Alec came from the other room. Alec captured Colonel Lydecker from behind, and snapped some handcuffs on him, I don't know where he got them, probably from some of Lydecker's own soldiers. Zack landed on Brin with his feet—he wrapped her up with a few heavy punches. Max put down two of the three normal troops before they could react, using one foot and one hand, without moving her head from my lap. I smiled at my troops. I assumed that Lowman was out in the hall, wisely staying out of sight.
-- --
Interlude
Jack-cat poked disconsolately through the ruins of the house. He was unhappy because the smell of charred wood so overwhelmed everything that he couldn't trust his nose anymore. He pawed at things, tasted this and that, kept trying to sniff stuff, and every once in a while violently shook a paw in an attempt to rid himself of water and crud.
He found his litter box, but it was disgusting, all full of water and soot. He couldn't understand it, it had always been freshly cleaned and filled every day of his life. So he carefully squatted down nearby and left a sign of his displeasure.
Later he found his food bowl, but there was no food in it. So he sighed heavily and turned around to head back into the woods.
-- --
Wow, was I ever glad to see Denise! That was a long time to worry that much, I swear my stomach acid was eating through the lining. Still, Alec and I had managed to set charges in the labs. We would check on our way out, but I was certain that the gene banks here were utterly destroyed. We had also stopped by the computer room, after chasing out the technicians on duty, we connected to Logan's machines, through the cutout address he gave us, and then we stole a number of backup hard drives. More explosive charges made short work of what was left. We found a bunch of backup dvd's and took them. I was worried about off-site backup, I hoped we could find reference to that in the drives we took. Anyway, that would take more research.
As we drove away I asked Max why we didn't just shoot Lydecker instead of leaving him and his troops unconscious or tied up, or both. She just shook her head and said something about enough killing for one day. Denise leaned comfortably against me and observed, "You know, we could have stayed home and your Colonel would've have destroyed the place for us, including executing Winston. No fuss, no muss."
We pondered that in silence until Alec said, "Yeah, but we would have missed all the fun!"
Epilogue
Jack-Cat was at his usual spot, lying under some logs at the edge of the woods, forlornly keeping watch on the cold and dank pile of charred wood and brick that used to be his house. He watched warily as a large crow walked across his lawn. He tried to catch a crow the day before, it had been a very unpleasant experience. A truck pulled into the driveway and parked, he eyed it with paranoid suspicion. The crow flapped away. His tail twitched violently as he watched five people get out and walk around, staring at the house; they appeared upset. There was something familiar about them, but they were too far away for him to smell.
When the slimmer of the two-legs came around the back, Jack-Cat raised his head. As the gentle breeze shifted around, his tail stopped whipping back and forth and then he caught her scent. Instantly, he jumped to his paws and rocketed across the lawn, leaping the last twelve feet into her arms. Denise collapsed sitting down in the wet grass, eyes watering from the smoke, stroking her cat.
The End
