Chapter Thirteen: Fire in the Hole
For ten seconds, no one moves. Simmons is a dark shape out of the corner of Hunter's eye. The guard seems to have forgotten how to breathe. Hunter eyeballs the radio; the man's thumb is a centimeter away from the "talk" button. It'll take him a second to hit that button and scream. Hunter can reach the guy in half that time. Maybe. Probably.
Or Simmons can shoot him.
"You make one move, pal, and I fire," Simmons says.
But there's a problem with that: the noise. The guard seems to realize this the moment Hunter does. He ducks to his left and disappears behind the corner.
"Section twenty-three! Breach! Breach!" he says.
Hunter starts to go after him. Simmons grabs his shoulder and whips him back around.
"Too late," Simmons says. "We need to move."
Hunter swears. He turns back to the room.
"We're gonna have to split up," Simmons says. "Each one takes some of that stuff, spreads it, and lights it. Any idea how long it'll take for more of those bastards to show up?"
"No," Hunter says.
"We'll play it by ear, then."
The room is tall, extending up into the next sub-basement. He can make out the dim shape of some kind of open elevator platform against the far wall. Hunter spots a light switch and flips it. He groans.
The walls are lined with stacks of sealed boxes made out of some sort of dark, non-reflective metal. That's not the problem. The problem is that each box is five feet tall.
"Oh you've gotta be kidding me," Simmons says.
Hunter walks over to the nearest cube and raps on it with his knuckles. It makes a dull thump. He can see no latches, no labels, no nothing.
"The hell do you open this?" Simmons says, somewhere behind him.
He prods the top. It bends. Hunter flexes his fingers and then jabs down. The metal gives easily and he punches clear through, up to the wrist. He pulls his hand back out and it's covered in a shimmery, pink liquid. It's got a weird, tangy smell.
This is what had seeped out of his robotic arm when Sideswipe had smashed it, this is what Hunter had seen running down the 'bot's leg after he was shot.
"It's energon," Hunter says.
He nudges the cube. It scrapes across the floor maybe six inches. He could lift one end, no problem. But it's too big for him to lift alone and between Simmons's screwed up shoulder and the fact that he doesn't have a cyborg body, he's useless.
"Shit," he says.
He could push it down the hall. But there's only one of him; they don't have time.
"Hey, Simmons," he says, "do we need to put this stuff in a lot of places?"
Simmons looks around the room. His eyes stop at the elevator and then crawl up the wall to the set of doors that must open into the sub-basement above them.
"It all depends on how volatile this stuff is," he says. "If we can get those doors open, spread it up to the next floor, it'll help."
Out in the hall, Hunter catches the sound of boots running. A lot of them.
"Good," he says. "'Cause we've gotta do it, like, now."
Simmons squints at the elevator. He mutters something to himself.
They have to barricade the door. One cube won't be heavy enough by itself. But two of them...
At the wall, the cubes are stacked four-high. They stairway down toward to the center of the room, one pile on each side, like gymnasium bleachers. Hunter leans down and hooks his fingers around the edges of a stack of two. His body strains. His legs actually groan. Energon sloshes inside the cubes.
"Simmons," he says, "need your help over here."
Hunter drags the cubes away from the rest of them. Simmons steps behind it.
"On three," Simmons says.
He pushes. Hunter pulls. The cubes grate over the floor. The noise in the hallway gets worse, all pounding feet and running legs and equipment jostling.
Hunter's back hits the door frame. He stops and goes around to the other side and helps Simmons push it the last few inches to nestle it up against the door.
"Damn," Simmons says, straightening up. He rubs his left shoulder. "Heavy, ain't they?"
Hunter counts at least fifty of the things in there, almost evenly divided, one staircase on the right, one on the left. He stops at the one on the right. The metal is too think to punch through on the sides. Only on the top is it thin enough.
Thick walls, thin lid, he thinks. They're giant, flammable pudding cups.
He eyeballs the first tier. Hunter hauls himself onto the cube.
"What are you doing?" Simmons says.
The top bends under his weight, but it doesn't break. He stands on shaking limbs, half expecting to take an impromptu energon bath. It never happens; he wobbles a bit and steadies himself on the next cube.
He leans down and plunges his hand through the top. He shakes the energon off his fingers, leans back, and kicks the thing over. Thick, viscous liquid pours out, chugging like an overturned milk carton. He steps over to the next one and repeats the process. Energon begins to pool around the base of the stacks.
"Oh," Simmons says.
"Get over to the elevator and see if it works," Hunter says. He looks over to the other wall and frowns.
We need to get all of it to burn. But they must have some sort of safeguard, some kind of security measures or something.
The cubes have a weird texture, almost waxy.
Flame resistant?
The stuff puddling together on the floor would burn well enough, but they need a firestorm. A small lake won't do it. He needs to get as many of these things open as he can. He scrambles back down the line, punching holes in the next tier up. He catches a glimpse of Simmons struggling to push one over to the elevator, his shoes slipping in the mess on the floor.
A noise outside. Something bangs against the door. Hunter and Simmons freeze. They look at each other. Simmons lunges at his cube, pushing it the final few feet. Hunter moves double-time, his feet sliding beneath him as he backtracks.
He's got maybe half of them open when a man says, "We know you're in there. We have the area surrounded. Surrender now, before this gets ugly."
Hunter rolls his eyes. Simmons laughs. Neither of them says anything. The door bangs again. Their barricade holds.
"We're getting in there, one way or another," the man outside says.
Hunter's halfway down the second tier. He isn't even bothering to shake his hand off anymore.
"I'm giving you until the count of ten," the man says. "One."
Simmons curses low and harsh. Hunter doesn't look up to see why, he just keeps going.
"Two."
This entire side is coated. The puddle on the floor is an inch deep.
"Three."
He doesn't have more time. He hops off the last cube and sloshes over to the elevator.
"Four."
"Think they'll use explosives?" Hunter says.
"Five."
"Doubt it," Simmons says.
"Six."
Simmons hunches over the controls. It's a gray box with two buttons on it. He pushes the top one.
"Seven."
The elevator begins to rise. Hunter expects a grinding or whining, but it just glides up, off the floor with a soft whir.
"Eight."
Four feet up—ten—fifteen—they're level with the top of the stack.
"Nine."
Up past the ceiling of sub-basement three. Only ten feet left to the doors. Eight. Six.
"Ten."
Another bang, this one sharper. The stack of cubes against the door rattles.
"They're gonna batter it down," Simmons says. They're at the elevator doors for sub-basement two. There's a button on the wall. Simmons lifts a hand to it and pauses. "You might want to get out of the way."
Hunter nods and slips to one side.
"Opening… now."
The doors slide apart—
Wide eyes behind goggles. Then Hunter is out and into the hallway, slamming into the guard and knocking him down. He lands on top of him in a forest of legs. He grabs the nearest one and yanks. A man topples. He kicks another one. Something snaps. The man screams.
A flash and a loud boom! He looks up into the barrel of a gun. Then Simmons is there. He shoots the guard in the leg. The man lands on Hunter.
Hunter reaches, trying to grab a weapon, any weapon. One of the guards twists around. His elbow lands in Hunter's face. Hunter sees stars. Then his fingers close on something cold and hard. He rips it away and takes a swing. The man's head snaps back, his helmet flops. Hunter kicks free and scrambles to his feet.
Time freezes. Simmons stands near the door. At his feet is one of the guards, hands wrapped around his thigh. Blood smears the floor beneath him. His lips are pulled back. He moans through his teeth.
Three others lie in a pile next to him. Two of them are moving, one is not. The four remaining guards have their weapons up, pointed at the two of them. No one moves.
"Put your weapons down," Simmons says.
The standoff continues for two seconds. One of the guards suddenly eases a hand off his gun and raises them both into the air. He crouches, slowly, the rest following suit, and places the weapon on the floor. He eases back up.
"Get your wounded and get out of here," Simmons says. "And if I were you, I'd do it fast."
The lead guard nods. He turns and makes a whirling motion with one hand. Two of the others bend down. One of them pulls off his glove and presses his fingers into the unmoving guard's throat. He looks up and nods. The two of them start to heft the unconscious man up. The lead guard kneels next to the guy with the shot leg.
"Come on, Porter," he says. "Up."
He has to drag the guy to his feet. The third one is hoisted onto the shoulders of the last guard. His left shin flops.
Simmons watches them go. Only after they duck around a corner does he lower his gun.
A huge clatter and banging down in the room. The other group has broken through the barricade.
Simmons gives a half smile.
"Not bad," he says.
"Yeah," Hunter says. The man's leg had dangled—limp, obviously broken. And he'd done it. He hadn't even thought about it, he'd just done it.
Simmons sheds his outer shirt, stripping down to a white tank-top.
"What are you doing?" Hunter says.
Simmons rips the sleeve off. He wads it up. Then he crooks a finger at Hunter and points to the cube on the elevator. "Pop the top."
Simmons stuffs one end of his shirt through the hole.
"A Molotov Cocktail," Hunter says.
"Yep," Simmons says. "We need some kind of fuse. I don't want to be around when it goes off."
Voices from below. Someone shouts, "Get that elevator secured!"
Simmons pulls a lighter out of his pocket.
"Get ready to run," he says.
Hunter glances into the room. He can imagine other guards down there, stepping through the energon. They have no idea what's coming.
"We should warn them," he says.
Simmons gives him a look.
"What?" Hunter says. "You let those other guys go."
"Eh."
Simmons flicks the lighter. He holds it to the shirt. They wait. The flame flickers. Cloth blackens.
"Come on," Simmons says.
"I've got it!" a voice from the level down.
The shirt crinkles around the edges and turns black. A flame springs up. Simmons flashes Hunter a grin.
"You really like this kind of stuff, don't you?" Hunter says.
Simmons turns, cups his hands around his mouth, and shouts, "Fire in the hole!"
He slams the lower button on the control box.
"Go! Go!" he says.
Hunter is already running. Behind him, the lift hums. He can picture is sinking towards the ground, flame spreading, the energon reflecting the glow. They sprint down the hall, past more doors. He sees no one else.
God, I hope they're evacuating, he thinks.
Simmons is panting. Despite the manic look on his face, he's pale and sweating.
"I can carry you," Hunter says.
"Not a chance."
The hallway stretches on. They're heading back toward the hangar, back toward the Headmaster bodies.
Simmons grimaces. He reaches up, grabs at his left shoulder. This time, Hunter doesn't give him a choice. He stops. Before he can really think about it, about how stupid this is, he scoops Simmons up into his arms.
"What the hell!" the man says.
"Just shut up and hold on!"
I can't believe I'm doing this. I can't freaking believe I'm doing this.
"Put me down, kid."
He doesn't bother with an answer.
"I'm serious. I will shoot you, I swear to god."
"Simmons, now isn't—"
A flash. The hallway turns white. Something slams into his back. The world tilts. His feet leave the ground and he's picked up, screaming, and thrown through the air.
Dr. Paul Berkman's first clue that something is wrong is when Mr. Dante, still in his Headmaster unit, straightens.
"Excuse me, gentlemen," he says and steps away from the operating table. He turns away. The orange visor over his robotic eyes blips. He's speaking with someone.
Dr. Berkman looks away.
They're almost through the final shell of the robot, what Mr. Dante refers to as the "proto-form." Once through that—the thickest, strongest layer—they'll be inside the chest cavity. He estimates that they have fifteen, maybe twenty minutes to go.
It takes two lab technicians to handle the laser cutter, what the staff has nicknamed the "lightsaber." So close to the fuel source and they don't want to risk damaging anything by using a bladed saw. Two other technicians stand on the table, one to monitor the robot's output, the other to monitor the laser cutter. The four guards in the room form a loose perimeter around them all. They're all armed.
Bad enough having Mr. Dante lurking around in that unit, he thinks, now I have to work with guns pointed at me.
Mr. Dante had, of course, said they were necessary. And while this particular specimen had been a handful, like the other, once they were this deep into it, it had gone quiet and still. A sort of shock reflex, Dr. Berkman speculates. Which makes the guards and the guns unnecessary.
The red robot hasn't moved for twenty minutes. Hasn't made a sound. From here on out, Dr. Berkman doesn't it expect to.
The edges of the incision glow a hot yellow, cooling to a deeper red up near the top. He has a cart standing by, ready to take the fuel source once it's been extracted.
Dr. Berkman looks at his watch.
An immense clap of thunder. The lights flicker. Dr. Berkman feels some sort of shockwave ripple through the room. The walls sway. The floor shakes and he clutches the railing to keep on his feet.
An earthquake? he thinks.
People shout. One of the technicians slips off the table. A lightsaber operator starts to go after him.
"No!" Dr. Berkman says. "Turn it off! Get the laser cutter off!"
These aren't tremors, he thinks. If it were an earthquake, we'd still hear it, it would be moving differently by now.
But there's no roaring, none of the noise of an earthquake. The movement is all wrong; the building is trembling, not rocking back and forth, not rolling like a boat on the waves. It's as if something large has smacked into them.
Did an airplane crash?
The hum of the laser cutter cuts off. Dr. Berkman turns to Mr. Dante and opens his mouth to say something until he catches sight of his face. His stomach drops out.
"Dr. Berkman," Mr. Dante says. "We must excuse ourselves. If you would be good enough to finish up here? Pack this up and get ready for immediate transport."
"But… now?" Dr. Berkman says. "I don't know if we can—"
Mr. Dante looks at him and Dr. Berkman's protest dies in his throat.
"We realize how unusual this is, but we really must begin evacuation. Now."
Dr. Berkman nods. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see his technicians staring.
"Of course," he says.
Mr. Dante ducks out of the room. Dr. Berkman watches him go. He swallows a few times. The building shakes. The railing beneath his hands trembles. Something has happened. The guards talk in low voices. His technicians aren't even trying to hide their eavesdropping.
Dr. Berkman clears his throat. Two of his people stop whispering and look to him. The others ignore him completely.
"People," he says. His voice cracks. He clears his throat again and, louder, he says, "People. You heard him. We have a job to do, so let's do it. And someone make sure Berenson hasn't hurt himself."
One of the guards shuffles over to where the technician fell off the table. The rest get moving. The laser cutter hums to life. One of the guards presses his fingers to his earpiece.
Why won't anyone tell me what's going on? he thinks.
The guards all look at each other, dread on their faces. At that exact moment, a shrill whistling cuts through the air.
"What?" Dr. Berkman says.
Bright lights strobe in the corners of the room, up near the ceiling.
"Dr. Berkman?" one of the technicians says.
Dr. Berkman finds his mouth too dry to form words. He licks his lips.
"A fire," he says. "Those are the fire alarms. Everyone! Get a move on it!"
The wheeled platform he stands on hovers over the table. He can't get the door latch to unlock. He sits down, slips his legs beneath the rails, and slides off. He stumbles and catches himself on the robot.
"You," he says to one of the guards. "Get up here. No, I don't care that this isn't your job, we needs hands up here! As soon as we're through I want you… to…"
Something has changed. Hub Two is strapped down and still, but something about it has changed. The head. The remaining optic has moved.
It's looking at me, Dr. Berkman thinks.
His mind blanks. Suddenly, though the robot is restrained, though its surrounded by the guards and their guns, armed with explosive, high-heat rounds, suddenly Dr. Berkman knows that isn't going to be enough.
"Oh," he says.
Agent Seymour Simmons twitches. He takes a gulp of air and starts to choke. His eyes snap open. He reaches up to cover his mouth as his lungs hack and heave. Simmons curls into a ball.
What? he thinks.
His eyes sting. They're watering and his nose is dripping.
The hell?
He's on the floor, covered in some sort of powder. Everything is blurry. He wonders if something is wrong with his eyes until he realizes it's smoke. The air is filled with it. The hall is dark, lit only here and there by a few, flickering lights. The floor shakes. He starts to lift himself up and winces.
He lifts a hand and probes his left side. He hisses as his fingers brush a sore spot.
Gotta be bruised, he thinks. It doesn't hurt enough to be broken.
He coughs again. The air is warm. Down the hall, through the smoke, he sees a soft glow.
Is it dawn already?
He rolls onto his un-bruised side. His lungs won't settle down. He lays there and tries to breathe.
Wait a minute, he thinks. I'm in a basement. Basements don't have windows. Then what the hell is that?
It can't be sunlight. He wouldn't be able to see sunlight. What it could be is a very large fire.
Oooh shit.
"Kid?" he says.
No answer. He doesn't see him anywhere.
"Kid! You in here?"
Nothing.
Where'd he go?
The building shudders. Simmons is suddenly aware that he's got another floor beneath him, that a large explosion has ripped through the building, and that, right now, something is burning.
"Come on, Hunter. Give me a shout! Lemme know you're okay."
He coughs. The pain in his ribs flares up. This fit lasts longer than the others. He has to stop and put his head down before he hacks out a lung.
That can't be good.
"Hunter! We need to get out of here. Where…"
He spots a dark shape on the ground. It's about ten feet away, closer to the glow. Simmons crawls over, covering his mouth and nose with his tank top. The thing is buried under ceiling tiles. Simmons slides them off and turns it over.
"Ah, geez kid," he says.
Hunter's face is slicked with what Simmons first thinks is blood. In the dim light, it's hard to tell where it's coming from. Simmons looks around for something to wipe it off with. He finds nothing but debris. He looks down at himself. His left pant leg has a long tear in it, from the ankle, up the shin, to his knee.
It's not easy tearing clothing while he's still wearing it. He ends up taking off half the pant leg to do it. He dabs the kid's face. That's when he notices how sticky the stuff is, how much darker than blood it is. Not the red of fresh stuff or the rust of old stuff, but a dark gray, almost black. It's coming from a gash on his forehead, above his right eye. Even in the dark, even with wound still oozing, he can see flesh closing up, scabbing over, starting to shrink.
Oh, that's just all kinds of freaky.
Hunter doesn't so much as twitch an eyelid. Simmons sighs and wipes his eyes and nose on his forearm. He can't wait for the kid to wake up. He's going to have to drag him out.
"You look like a heavy bastard," he says.
Something is wrong with Sunstreaker.
That is what fills Sideswipe's mind when he comes online.
He's lying on a table. Humans move around him. One of them stands next to his side, staring at him. Its mouth hangs open. It says something. Sideswipe doesn't understand the words. It starts to back away.
He's pinned down, limbs bolted to the table with metal braces. They're in the way. They're keeping him from Sunny.
He pulls. The restraints hold. He tries again, limb shaking, heaving. Humans scramble and slide off his chest. Dark shapes move on the ground below and his optic covers are slagged, his targeting systems down, but he doesn't need them to know the meat-bags are armed.
Pain in his right wrist. The joint creaks. He can feel it straining and he doesn't stop, can't stop because Sunny is in trouble.
The restraint gives. It tears away with a shriek and he wrenches his hand free. There's still something on his chest. He grabs it. It's a laser-cutter, buried up to the hilt in his internals. He pulls it out. The humans circle around to his head.
The cutter is on, still humming, still glowing. He brings it down on the bolt holding his left wrist. Bullets rip into his armor.
Sideswipe snarls and throws himself to the side. His feet are still secured. The table rocks and slams back. A familiar pop-hiss and one of those small, shiny explosives streaks overhead. It hits the wall in a burst of sparks.
He throws himself to the side again, harder this time. The table tilts. For one nano-klik, it hangs like that, balanced on two legs, and then topples over.
He hits the ground. Humans scream.
He frees his legs and rolls off and lands on his side. A flurry of movement as the organics move in. He's still got the laser-cutter clenched in his hand. He thumbs it, locks it on, and throws it. The glowing tip whirls through the air in an orange blur, right into the center of the group.
The humans collapse.
Sideswipe peeks over the edge of the table and almost gets shot in the face. He ducks down. Rounds slam into the underside of the table. There's another group between him and the doorway, the table his only cover.
Sideswipe gets an idea.
He grabs the edges of the table, sinks into a crouch, and pushes. The screaming takes on a new pitch as the whole thing screeches across the floor at them. Organics scurry out of the way. And then he hits the wall.
He's leaking energon and coolant all over the floor. Everything hurts. He's got a gash running down his front from chin to groin. He has to lean against the wall to stand up.
The few humans still left are standing in a gaggle, staring at him.
"Go," he says.
They all but trip themselves fleeing the room. Only then does he allow himself to slump, one hand clutching the gash.
Primus, he thinks. They got all the way through.
He can feel air brushing where it shouldn't be. When he moves, things shift around in a way that he knows isn't good. His internals are bared, fuel lines exposed. He needs to get out of there. He needs a medic.
Sunstreaker…
He needs his brother more.
Due to a very, very busy school schedule, the next update will be delayed a week. Sorry guys, but oh my god, I'm up to my eyeballs in homework right now. Thank you KayDeeBlu, lildevchick, and starfire201 for your reviews and your support.
Next chapter: Headmaster