GEN13 - Version 2.0 (23 page)

“I’m thinking this would be a good time to surrender,” Burnout said.

Without warning, Sidestep howled out a battle cry as she charged the pair. Rainmaker and Burnout both started in surprise; it wasn’t the reaction they were expecting. Sidestep flung herself headfirst through the air, heading straight at them.

That’s when Rainmaker noticed the shimmering patch of air between them.

She felt like a total idiot. They’d fallen for the trick like a ton of bricks. She wasn't attacking. It was a feint to mask an escape through another portal. Rainmaker called up another lightning bolt, but knew it would be too late . . .

... until Sidestep stopped dead in mid-air. Fairchild had caught her by the ankle.

The extra second was all that Rainmaker needed. Fairchild released her grip. Before Sidestep could even reach the floor, Rainmaker hit her with a mild electrical blast. Rainmaker carefully modulated the bolt so that it didn’t kill Sidestep, or even do any permanent injury. But it was more than enough to shock her into unconsciousness.

That left only Highwire.

The team leader of Gen
¹⁴
looked as though she didn’t know' what to do next. She hadn’t expected her team to be beaten. She wasn’t prepared to fight all of Gen
¹³
by herself. And with Sidestep down for the count, even her escape route had been cut off.

As Freefall continued to nurse Grunge, the others edged toward Highwire. She launched herself into the air, flipping over the head of a startled Burnout, then ricocheted off the ceiling past Rainmaker, and bounced off the wall to zip around Fairchild.

The evasive maneuver would have worked, too, if not for the tiny snowstorm that Rainmaker had put in her path. Highwire hit the slippery patch of snow that had accumulated on the floor. Before Highwire could even register what was happening, her feet slid out from under her and she landed flat on her back. She tried to scramble to her feet, but Fairchild was already on her knees and pinning Highwire to the ground. There was no way she could match Fairchild’s phenomenal strength. Highwire was trapped, and she knew it.

Burnout and Rainmaker loomed over Highwire now, too. All three of the teens looked at her for a moment, the same thought running through each of their minds. Highwire seemed so small now, much more like a young girl than like the team leader for a gang of multiple murderers.

“Where’s the missile?” Fairchild asked.

Highwire stared up at them with her jaw set and a defiant gleam in her eye. She wasn’t going to tell them anything. On the other hand, she’d be very happy to spit in their faces... and gave it her best shot. The spittle didn’t reach quite far enough.

Fairchild glanced down at the spot of saliva on her tunic and sighed. She looked down at Highwire with more pity than hatred in her eyes. “Ivana didn’t even give you a real name, did she?” Fairchild said. As gently as she could, Fairchild flicked a finger under Highwire’s chin. It struck with a loud
THWAK!,
snapping Highwire’s head back and knocking her out.

Burnout and Rainmaker stepped back slightly to give Fairchild room as she stood up. “Guess we’ll have to find the missile ourselves,” Fairchild said. “Any idea where to start, Mister Lynch?

“Mister Lynch?’

They looked around. Lynch was already gone.

“Looks like he meant it when he said there was no time to lose,” Burnout said.

“He ran out on us?” Rainmaker said, not quite believing it.

“No,” Fairchild replied. “He trusted us to win.”

“ ‘First priority is the missile,’ remember?” Burnout added.

“Odds are, he’s already on it,” said Fairchild. “We’ve got to find him and help.” She looked over at Grunge and Freefall. “Grunge? Are you up to this?”

Freefall was helping Grunge stretch the loose ends of his rubber body together to make them meet. “I will be ... in a ... minute,” he grunted. “Get that bit... over there ... willya, Rox?”

Once the pieces were fully in contact with each other, Grunge willed himself back to human form. Even as the change began, the molecules that made up his chest and stomach reached out to each other. They started to
kni
t themselves back together, bit by tiny bit. The torn shreds of rubber united to form sinews, blood, and skin. By the time the change was done, Grunge’s flesh and blood body had pulled itself back together into a single whole once again.

With so much damage, though, the change wasn’t easy. Throughout the process, the pain and effort showed itself through the grimace on Grunge’s face. Even after he’d completed the transformation, a blackened burn mark remained where his rubber body had been melted.

One of the benefits of Grunge’s gen-active nature was a healing factor that allowed his body to repair itself far more quickly than normal. On the first day his powers manifested, Grunge had been shot in the chest three times by Ivana’s guards. He still remembered the pain as the bullets tore through his lungs and heart. By rights, it should have killed him. But instead, the wounds sealed themselves up within minutes. He spit up the bullets while they were still warm from friction and body heat.

Yet, Grunge’s metabolism didn’t make him invulnerable. The healing still took time. The more extensive the injuries, the longer the process took. And it was far from painless.

“Gee/,- Pookie, that looks bad,” Freefall said. She reached over to touch the blackened area gingerly.

“AAAH!” Grunge screamed, jumping away. “Don’t touch it!”

“Maybe you should wait here,” Fairchild said, concerned. “Get some rest.”

“What, and miss ... the big ... finish?” Grunge said, wincing from the pain. “You guys know ... you can’t make it... without... the Grunge-man.” He forced a grin. “ ’Sides, the important... thing is ... it missed ... my tat.”

It was true. The winged skull tattoo on Grunge’s chest was unsinged.

“We don’t have time to argue about this,” Rainmaker said. “Anybody who’s coming, let’s go!”

CHAPTER 14

The team raced through the halls of the vast complex en masse. Some ran. Some flew. With the world at stake, everyone was moving as fast as they possibly could.

“This place is a ghost town,” Grunge said, trying his best to keep pace with the others. “Is it just me, or is this creeping anyone else out, too?”

“Ivana said the facility was decommissioned,” Fairchild replied, showing no signs of getting winded as she ran. “I’d guess her helpers have been ‘decommissioned,’ too.” ~

“There’s, like, a
zilli
on doors here!” Freefall complained, as she sped along without touching the ground. “How are we supposed to know which one’s it?”

“Just look for the signs that say, ‘This Way to Armageddon,’ ” Burnout replied, soaring through the air beside her.

“Mister Lynch is going to want our help,” Fairchild said. “I think he’ll leave the right door open for us.” “He’d better,” Burnout said. “Look!”

The group slowed to a stop as they reached an intersection of two corridors. The two nearly identical hallways branched off in opposite directions.

“Bogus,” said Grunge. “So now what? We split up?” Rainmaker shook her head. “No need. I’d say it’s this way.”

“How’d you figure that?” Freefall asked.

“Check it out.” Rainmaker pointed down one of the corridors. In the distance, they could see signs that said

“RESTRICTED AREA” and yellow and black ones with the international symbol for radioactive material.

“Works for me,” said Grunge.

With that, they were back on their way.

Before long, they overtook their mentor. He was standing beside a sliding glass door and using his fingers to probe the edges of a metal panel that was embedded in the wall.

“It’s about time you all showed up,” Lynch said.

“Yeah, well, I stopped to do my nails,” Freefall replied.

“What’s that?” Fairchild asked, indicating the panel.

“Retinal scan,” Lynch said. “Unfortunately, I doubt that any of us has the proper retinal pattern to open the door. And without tools, I haven’t had much luck with it so far.”

Kat looked through the thick glass door. The door led to a small chamber only a few feet square. On the other end of the chamber was a reinforced door, similar to the one that had been on their cell. The whole set-up reminded her of an airlock. Clearly, at one time, this had been a security post. That kind of security suggested that there was something that needed to be extremely secure on the other side.

“Bulletproof glass?” Burnout asked.

“Yes,” said Lynch, “but it wasn’t made with us in mind.”

“That’s my cue,” said Fairchild, rearing back.

“No, wait!” Lynch said.

But it was too late. Fairchild punched the door with all her might. The heavy glass cracked and buckled as it flew off its track.

Instantly, the complex exploded into a pandemonium of noise. Alarms blared. Red lights flashed.

“Sorry, Mister Lynch!” Fairchild shouted over the din. “Guess Ivana knows we’re coming now!”

“I’m sure she’s already expecting us,” Lynch shouted back. “I was thinking more of that!”

The team looked up to where Lynch was pointing. Inside the small chamber, vents near the ceiling had already started pumping out jets of sickly yellow gas. There was no way to know whether the billowing clouds were de- ’ signed to leave intruders unconscious or dead. Either way, the chamber was obviously designed with the intent that the glass door would seal off the gas, preventing it from reaching anyone in the corridor. With the door broken, Gen
¹³
had no such protection.

“I’m on it!” said Rainmaker.

Rainmaker whipped up a strong wind, powerful enough to redirect the flow of the gas and carry it far down the hallway. But redirecting it wasn’t really enough. They had to stop new gas from coming, too. Burnout studied the vents.

“Hope that junk isn’t flammable,” he said. “Everybody better back off, just in case.”

Burnout waited for his teammates to move back and flatten themselves against the reinforced walls. Once they were safely out of the way, he hit the vents with a superheated blast. To everyone’s relief, the gas neither burned nor exploded as the white-hot flame fused the vents closed. Only a small trickle of the gas continued to escape in tiny spurts.

“It’s clear!” he called.

Fairchild and Freefall rushed forward and repeated the trick that had gotten them out of their cell. Freefall negated the weight of the heavy door on the far side of the chamber to reduce its resistance as Fairchild smashed it with a kick. To her surprise, the door bent inward, but stayed in place.

“This really must be the place,” Fairchild muttered. Yet, even this stronger barrier couldn't stand up to a second kick. It crashed down to the floor beyond with a resounding, metallic clang.

The echo of the sound hadn’t even faded before Fairchild leaped over the fallen door into the adjoining room, with the rest of the team pouring in behind her .. .

... only to dive for cover. A hail of semi-automatic machine gun fire raked through the space where they’d been. Only Fairchild held her ground. The bullets hurt as they hammered her body, but they couldn’t do much more than that.

The Uzi’s rapid-fire muzzle flash cast an eerie light as it illuminated Ivana’s features from below. Her face was twisted in a grimace of hate and frustration, but she couldn’t hide the simultaneous streak of perverse enjoyment that she felt as well.

“Once and for all,” she cried, “why won’t you just
dieVr
   '    '

Ignoring the shower of hot lead, Fairchild raised a hand to shield her face against the barrage and looked around at her surroundings. The banks of computer consoles clearly marked this room as the launch center for the complex. Yet, even if that hadn’t been enough to give it away, the huge picture window overlooking a Trident II missile would have cinched the deal. The missile stood inside an enclosed silo on the other side of the window. Only the upper portion of the missile was visible through the window. The sheer size of what could be seen—roughly seven feet in diameter, with more of the ICBM extending both above and below the window—hinted at what lay beyond. It was more than enough to send a chill down Fairchild’s spine. The sight filled her with a sense of both awe and dread.

The number of chairs and consoles suggested that the launch center had been designed to be operated by a team of several people. Somehow, though, Ivana had jury-rigged it all to a central control panel so that she could run it by herself. More important, her efforts had obviously been successful, since Fairchild could already see smoke from the missile’s jets rising in the silo.

Fairchild didn’t know whether Ivana had already set an automated countdown in motion, or whether she hadn’t yet triggered the launch. Either way, there was no way of knowing how much time was left before the missile would fly. Every second counted.

As Fairchild started toward Ivana, Ivana whipped her free hand toward her. The skin of Ivana’s hand shredded from the inside as lengthy strips of molecularized razor wire shot forth from her fingers. They sailed across the room like a pack of darting snakes.

It was one of the perks of Ivana’s years as head of the sci-tech division at I.O. that she had the opportunity to indulge her yen to improve her body in any way she saw fit. While many people might think of “surgical improvements” in terms of tummy tucks and nose jobs, Ivana had been inclined more toward bionic enhancements and sub-dermal weapons systems. Ivana’s body now held more hardware than a handyman’s shop ... or a small armory. It didn’t make it any easier for Ivana to pass through metal detectors without incident, but it did mean that her artificial skin concealed any number of truly nasty surprises.