Einstein Dog (34 page)

Bertrand swallowed hard. Their lives depended on the success of Breeze and Blizzard's plan. In that sickening moment Bertrand knew there was no choice but to kill or be killed, and he wanted more than anything to live.

Now!
They heard Breeze issue a signal to her partner.

Immediately Bertrand could sense her moving away from the load, out into the open. A burst of automatic weapon fire crackled outside, followed instantly by a yelp.

Out! Out!
Einstein cried.

They kicked and clawed the crate apart, emerging amid a flurry of broken panels into the lurid underworld light of AMOS. About ten metres in front of them the astonished guard swung his rifle away from Breeze toward the disintegrating box, terror disfiguring his young face. Before he could shoot a white form lunged at him from his blindside, knocking the guard off his feet and sending the rifle skittering across the floor.

No! the guard cried as the fury descended upon him, tearing and slashing with claws and fangs.

Bertrand clambered down from the pallet, scrambling on all fours to snatch up the guard's rifle. “Stop!” he bellowed, pointing the thing in the general direction of the combatants. “Stop!” he commanded.

The terrified guard looked into the barrel of the gun desperately. “Get him off!” he pleaded. “Get him off me!”

Blizzard glared at Bertrand and growled, his lip curling. He seemed not to recognize his friend. Only after a few seconds did the fierceness dissipate, and even then it seemed to Bertrand that the dog backed away reluctantly.

“Stan!” the guard's radio squawked. “What the hell's going on down there?”

“They're onto us upstairs,” Bertrand shouted. “Get Breeze. We've got to get out of here.”

Blizzard obeyed, fully recovered from his frenzy now.

“Don't kill me,” the guard begged.

Let's move,
Einstein urged.
They'll be down here in a second.

The next thing Bertrand knew they were running, all four of them. Breeze had been winged, but she could move more swiftly on three legs than any human could on two. It was Bertrand who slowed them down.

“We're going the wrong way,” he panted as they loped along. “We have to get back to the ramp, disable it, keep them from sealing the place off.”

Cap and Genie are already on that,
Blizzard reported.
What we need to do is buy them time.

“How?”

We need to create a diversion,
Einstein said.
Keep the guards too preoccupied to push the “Close” button.

“Oh,” Bertrand said, not having a clue how they were going to do
that
.

Gunfire and shouts of alarm echoed through the AMOS facility. Coming from the receiving area, Genie guessed.

Blizzard and Breeze have made their move. It's time we made ours.
She said.

They don't have any guns, sister, and no way of shooting 'em even if they did,
Cap responded.
It's not us doing the shooting; we're the ones being shot at.

If it had been anyone else snivelling and fretting, Genie would have ignored it. There was no room for sentiment in the middle of a firefight. But this was Cap: a hardened street dog, tough, independent, stoic. That he showed such tenderness, particularly for Einstein and the boy . . . it made Genie think.

No, not think,
feel
. Forgotten emotions crowded in on her. Suddenly she was afraid. She shook herself violently, as if the strange sensation could be shed like water. But it couldn't.

Still, they had no choice.

She fixed Cap with a sad gaze.
We must stick to our plan, brother
.

He was on the verge of bolting, indecision quivering in every limb. Cap's spirit demanded action. His nature would not allow him to go about his task methodically while others were in danger. Genie hesitated too, and thanked Cap for awakening her feelings . . . but she knew what was right and needed to be done. The iron in her soul would quiver but not bend.
We must disable the ramp, brother, or AMOS and Hindquist will survive.

Dammit, Genie!

For our siblings and friends, as well as for us, we must push on.

Isn't there some other way out of here?

Genie closed her eyes and sighed. She wanted to lie. Training, instinct, and better judgment all counselled against the truth, but she gritted her teeth and rejected deceit.

There are other ways out,
she said,
but only one way in for the police: the loading ramp. If it closes, Hindquist wins. Believe me brother, he wins.

For a second, no longer, Cap weighed his sister's words. Then resolve hardened his features and he gestured in the direction they'd been headed.
Go!
he shouted.
Let's go!

Genie knew the AMOS floor plan by heart.
The mechanical room for the loading ramp is just round the corner,
she announced, switching her K-Pack to cannon mode.

More automatic weapons fire erupted from the receiving area, short bursts and answering volleys.
Bertrand must have got his hands on a gun,
Cap cried.

Genie barely heard his jubilant report. All her senses focused round the corner, on the mechanical room doorway. Hindquist should have posted guards there. He knew it was the weak link in his defences and would be targeted by a knowledgeable enemy. She sniffed and listened. Nothing. He'd been preoccupied, she supposed, overwhelmed by the catastrophic events that threatened AMOS. The room was unprotected.

Go!
Genie said to Cap.

What!

Go help Bertrand and the others. They need you. Keep them together and move in this direction, always in this direction. I can disable the ramp on my own.

But how . . .

GO!
she roared.
It's not guarded. You're not needed here.

Help them!

Genie heard Cap's claws scrabbling as he twisted and ran back down the passage toward the receiving area. She concentrated her entire being on the mechanical room. As she rounded the corner she retrieved blueprints, wiring charts, and layouts from memory. Any second now she expected the whine of hydraulic pumps to kick in as the ramp began to shut.

She'd often taken part in lockdown drills: abort the loading, get everything down the ramp, seal up AMOS. A drill isn't the same as the real thing, though, she smiled grimly. In the mayhem Hindquist's minions had lost focus. The window of opportunity had been kept open longer than she could have hoped.

Boom! Boom! Boom!
The cannon bucked in her harness as the mechanical room door blew open, wrenched off its hinges. Genie clambered into the concrete cavern, scanning quickly. Backup generator, meters, wires, hoses . . . Hidden in the jumble of equipment were the vital components she had to disable, but she couldn't remember exactly which wire, which motor, which hose was critical to the ramp's operation.

A clicking sound emerged from an electrical box behind her, followed by the whir of a motor. With a groan, the huge ramp assembly began to swing shut like a gigantic jaw. Genie resisted the impulse to fire randomly into the room. She didn't have enough ammo or time to disable the machinery that way.

Her firing had to be precise. The noise of an indiscriminate assault would prevent her from locating the vital component she needed to identify. She watched the wires and hoses intently. Another click, more whirring, and one of the hoses twitched like a flexed muscle.

Boom! Boom! Boom!
She cut the line with a perfectly aimed volley, its fluid gushing out onto the mechanical room floor.

When he heard the first burst of gunfire echoing up from the receiving area, Hindquist allowed himself a brief cry of exultation. The guard he'd left behind must have found the boy and Einstein.

“Well done!” he said.

Things were tilting in his favour. The plant was going into lockdown mode. Then it would be a simple matter of tracking down the infiltrators and eliminating them. Genie would have to be among the casualties.

He still couldn't believe she'd betrayed him, but couldn't prove she hadn't, either. She had to die. Doctor Molar had plenty of genetic material to resurrect the breed, and they would be able to collect genes from the male SMART dog, too. Soon the canine project would go into full-scale production.

“Look out, world,” Hindquist smirked.

Too bad about Genie, but it would be best to start from scratch, with dogs that had no connection to the world outside. Their loyalties would be forged completely in the AMOS training facility.

These pleasant musings were shattered by more bursts of automatic weapons fire. “What?” Hindquist said, frowning as the full implications of the fire pattern sunk in.

Then he roared. The guards in the receiving area were engaged in a pitched battle.

“Back!” he bellowed at the line of troops sweeping toward the Research and Development wing. “Back to shipping. The enemy is behind us!”

The battle now would be for the soft underbelly of AMOS: its portal and ramp. Suddenly, with a sharp stab, Hindquist became aware of a potentially fatal error. He hadn't posted guards at the mechanical room door. That's where Genie would strike if she had betrayed him.

A file of troops jogged past, heading for the receiving area. Hindquist waved them on like a frantic traffic cop. “Go! Go!” he urged, then followed. The line charged into the cavernous shipping area and was greeted by a volley of gunfire. Bullets whizzed overhead, smacking into the boxes and crates behind them, pinging off the metal storage racks. The soldiers retreated in disarray.

Suddenly Hindquist's heart clenched like a fist. “The ramp!” he groaned. It was still down.

“Close the bloody ramp!” he bellowed into his radio.

“But we'll be trapped up here, sir!” the frantic commander objected.

“Close it now and get away from here. Go with the truck.”

“Yes sir.”

Then Hindquist heard something that made the hair stand on the back of his neck: a dog howling in the night. He tilted his head and listened. There it was again. Yes, he was sure of it. But the sound wasn't natural. It was no dog baying out there in the darkness. It was the plaintive, mechanical wail of a police car's siren. And another. And another. Three units in the distance.

Coincidence?

“Don't be a fool!” Hindquist mocked. The girl, Ariel, had not been neutralized. She'd called the police from outside AMOS' jamming radius.

“Get the ramp hoisted and get yourselves out of here now!” he yelled.

Like an awakened behemoth, the ramp shuddered and began to rise.

“Good!” Hindquist cheered. He would send troops to block any of the secret exits Genie might use, then continue mopping up. Even if police swarmed the place, Advanced Military Ordinance Supply would go undetected. The subterranean zone was perfectly concealed. You could set off a stick of dynamite and no one upstairs would hear it. If only the guards and truck could get away, the secret part of Hindquist's operations might escape detection.

He ran through these scenarios rapidly as the ramp began to close. Watching nervously, he prayed for the smooth docking of the massive slab in its locking rings. About a third of the way through the procedure, though, the unthinkable happened. Hindquist heard three muffled explosions from the mechanical room. Then the ramp stopped dead, quivering in midair like a gigantic diving board.

“No!” he gasped. “No, it can't be!”

“It's jammed, sir!” the frantic guard was shouting upstairs. “It's not responding at all!”

Outside the sirens were getting closer, their wails converging into one morose song of accusation.

“I'm out of here!” the guard yelled.

“Come back!” Hindquist hollered. “Stay at your post!”

But there would be no calling him back, Hindquist realized. His troops upstairs would be in full retreat. The power of AMOS had been broken in that sector, and soon the last vestiges of his authority in the underground regions would collapse. Still, even in defeat there was work to do. A plan to execute.