9
A very frightened and bedraggled Rufus followed two official looking men into a staircase lit by dull lamp lights. He had remained in a cell for over a day now, despite his earnest confession of everything he'd told Gus and Nkiruka. He'd even given them Rip's address – he felt more than a little bad about that. He also could see no way to avoid it; these men were frightening, beyond frightening even. Rufus admitted to himself he simply wasn't Henry; cut from a different cloth, and with the loss of the servers and the apartment, he now had nothing to disguise this fact from anyone.
He felt his stomach churning – dropping lower with every step down the stairs. They'll kill me, he thought. I'm as good as dead. Where in God's name do these stairs lead? Should have been released by now. F*cking fascists, he thought, talking to strangers has never been illegal.
Where are you taking me? I know my rights.”
There was a brief silence.
We're taking you to see someone.”
Down here? Nobody's supposed to be down here anymore.”
Silence.
I don't deserve this. Let me go. I won't say a word to anyone.”
Be quiet,” one of the men ordered. “and walk.”
The staircase led down, down, flight after flight. Rufus wondered how on earth people with such advanced facilities hadn't installed an elevator here.
He also noted the walls were no longer the immaculate white of a self cleaning surface; a crumbling brick had replaced it. Still they kept on descending until at last reaching an end in front of a squat brown metal door, which the man leading unlocked by keying in a series of numbers on the keypad built into the adjoining wall.
The two other men looked at each other. They appeared to be in conversation with each other though Rufus didn't understand how; their mouths remained closed but their eyes locked for the most brief of moments. They definitely had some sort of consensus between them. One nodded his head in approval.
The younger man behind him tapped Rufus on the shoulder.
You're first from now on,” he said curtly. Both men took out their guns.
Don't try to run. You'll only hurt yourself.”
Rufus began to move through the dark passage, aided by the flashlights on his captors guns. The way was fairly long and it took the three men around ten minutes to reach the end where another door waited patiently.
It was unlocked. One of the men ordered Rufus to open it. The rusty hinges moaned horridly and revealed a void of impenetrable dark, smelling of rank and rot.
Rufus noticed the two guards moving closer to him and before he could stop them he felt two immensely strong hands around each of his arms. They picked him up and threw him into the oily black of the room and slammed the door behind him.
Relief washed over David Cordon as the door shut behind Rufus. Despite all his years in the military and tactical services, the Colonel's assurances, and even the presence of Gene Charrington – perhaps the most experienced member of the team besides its leader – despite it all, God himself seemed to have cursed the task at hand. A heavy presumption for an atheist, he thought to himself. If God exists he would lay a curse on mankind for creating those monsters, and once again for harboring them.
No time to lose focus,” Gene admonished him over the skullcom. “We still need to seal this tomb up again.”
Cordon nodded his head and tried to respond to his compatriot but found his pathway blocked. The skullcom, so nicknamed by the Spotters, had been a development of the military in the late 30's, it allowed men and women to communicate to each other using only the brain's speech signals. Provided the person had the necessary implant – two microchips inside the Broca's and Wernicke's area, the parts of the brain linked to speech production and recognition – a person could communicate telepathically with others without the use of their physical speech centers.
Except that it wasn't working. He reached out to Gene, who was stalking quickly down the hallway in front of him but suddenly found himself unable to extend his arm. He tried to call out but a ghost muffled his voice. All that he managed was a faint, “G . . . ge.”
Still, for Gene, whose hearing had been augmented years before, the sound was easily loud enough to hear. The whites of his eyes glowed bright in the dark hall. He saw Cordon stumbling roughly into the wall.
Suddenly, a loud bang and screaming shot through the closed door.
Shit, looks like you’re hacked, buddy,” said Gene to Cordon. The slumped man's eyes were rolling wildly back into his head.
Gene reached down and grabbed the collar of Cordon’s body armor. As he dragged the other man toward the opposite end of the hallway, toward the door that might seal them safely away from danger. Cordon began flailing spastically. Someone's entered his nervous system, Gene thought. He looked behind him. The noise from the door reached a crescendo of wretched screams. It was Rufus, crying a dreadful threnody.
The sound ceased.
Gene braced himself as the door was flung open violently. It bashed into the wall with such force that it dislocated the top hinge. Gene held his grip on Cordon and hurried toward the other doorway peeking backward from time to time, vangarding against the danger he knew was coming.
The entryway remained clear only a moment before one last shriek rent the air and Rufus flew through the air into view. He flew almost weightlessly, far into the hallway looking like a torn rag doll. Blood covered the man's face and arms and left a gruesome trail behind the skidding body. Finally, it stopped and remained still, lifeless.
There’re two more o' the little blokes!” a booming, dumb voice exclaimed.
Shit, thought Gene, only moments now. He was almost to the door, another twenty feet. He continued to lug Cordon as the giants came into view. He could probably take them in the narrow hallway, but not with Cordon like he was. He tried to call the Colonel on the skullcom but found himself unable.
That meant one thing. Hacked. He too was being hacked. He dropped Cordon, who struggles had ceased moment's before; his expression remained blank, mouth drooling, eyes half shut, his face a pallorous and sickly white. Stuck in some inexorable malaise.
Gene checked the interior of his brain. He was a more skilled operator than Cordon was, or had been, but if he didn't find the root of the problem quickly it would become systemic, and he wouldn't be able to defend himself against anything, let alone the triplets.
As his consciousness receded into the inner reaches of his cyber psyche, two enormous ugly heads thrust simultaneously through the doorway, knocking into each other.
Blockhead! Yous gottda last uvum. Dis’s mine.”
William's gigantic face swiveled, etched with disgust for his brother, and without so much as a nod punched his brother Bert in the center of his stomach. Bert doubled over coughing a horrible retching slimy cough and William rushed through into the hall. He was so tall he was forced to stoop. He shoulders nearly scraping the edges. His yellow eyes focused on Gene and Cordon.
Gene saw this, but only half-mindedly, as he continued to search for the unknown affecting him; he plumbed the depths of code. First, he reached into his communication units, then his optical augments, then his hearing augments, his joint microprocessors. Finding nothing. He searched his muscle enhancers, his shock absorbers, and ultimately found a small change made in the microprocessors of his medulla – the enhancement designed to consolidate each of the augments into a fluid one, the code had been changed, just pieces here and there, almost unnoticeable but easily fixable. He switched into autistic mode and rewrote the code.
His full attention snapped back to life, just as William stomped up to him. Gene stood his ground under the towering creature, who lunged at him viciously. Gene avoided the grasp but miscalculated the brute's intentions; William’s hand found Cordon's ankle, picked up the limp man and swung him around wildly. Gene watched in horror as Cordon's body struck the walls and ceiling. He heard his bones crack and break in a sickening staccato even before William let out a thunderous roar and flung the man toward Gene.
Gene deftly jumped aside to avoid the flying body. He looked down at his partner, and saw that he was dead. Already Gene's eyes could see the heat flooding from his body. Rescue was out of the question. The only objective left was withdrawal.
He crouched near the side of the hall, pressed a hand to his other forearms and launched a taser shard. The device, a small disc pronged with three minute spikes, shot into the monster's leg and struck out with a furious electrical charge that crippled him immediately.
William went down on one knee, groaning like a beast, and Gene retreated to the breach door. Bert and Tom had also managed to put aside their differences long enough to both get into the hall and made their way toward their fallen brother.
Upon reaching the door Gene threw himself inside and sealed it behind him. He lost no time walking back up the stairway. The deep wails and pounding fists of the predators echoed like a vicious dirge. He said a silent prayer for Cordon and walked back up the way he’d come.