Intended Extinction (33 page)

The intercom buzzed as Repik finished and we exchanged wary glances.

“We’ve got enough for five squads, Bollis,” assured Vexin, seeing the hesitation in our temporary leader.

“If Justin and Vane are already somewhere safe, let’s just get Repik now!” said Dodge.

“No,” Bollis said, “they’re close. We
need
Vane for this—”

“Yes, you do,” sparked Vane through my earpiece, and apparently through everyone else’s this time. “Don’t listen to Repik. Take your first right, we’re the fifth room on your right.”

We booked it down the next corridor and found the fifth chamber, surrounded by impenetrable glass. A red light glowed above the door and Bollis hammered the polished partition.

Three seconds later, the light flashed green and the door slid upwards.

“Awwww hells-to-the-yeah!”

I never thought I’d be glad to hear that voice.

Vane sat at a desk that spanned the length of the room. Four humongous screens covered the rest of the back wall, while servers and mainframes lined our right and left. He swiveled around and stood up to greet us. Justin rushed up to join, a wide grin spread across his face. Both of them looked like hell.

“Whoa, whoa, Ladynuts!” exclaimed Justin, but he was no match for Tara’s embrace. She didn’t care how much he squirmed, she held him tight. Even though he looked embarrassed and angry, I knew he was happy to see her too.

“What did they do to you?” she asked, kneeling to Justin’s height.

“Vane,” tried Bollis, “we were doing the best we could. We would’ve been here sooner—”

“We don’t have time for this,” replied Vane in a harsh, grizzled tone. “We’re losing our window to find Repik.”

“Did they hurt you?” continued Tara, directed toward Justin.

Justin looked at Vane and said, “No. We hurt
them
.”

“Yeah, I saw that,” I said, nodding to Justin’s makeshift syringe launcher resting on the desk.

“Oooh!” the boy bellowed. “Really? What did his face look like?” He fanned his hands out from his head and sang, “
Red, red, what’s your name?
Red, red, dead’s your game
.”

His little made up songs weren’t unusual, but I hadn’t heard them in so long that it caught me off guard.

Vane ignored the eleven-year-old. “Repik’s scared. He knows how dangerous we are. We are
so
close.”

“Do we have a location?” asked Vexin.

“The 72
nd
floor.”

“The squads are gonna be here any minute,” said Dodge, readying his M580.

“Does Celia have our back? The cameras?” Vane looked around, but no one said anything.

“She went dark,” said Dodge, more than eager to answer. I looked his way, seeing the worried fear within his eyes.

“We have to assume she’s still looping surveillance using our own heat signatures. Repik didn’t find the two of us, after all,” said Vane.

It went silent for a few seconds. Everyone’s breaths were tense. We knew what was coming.

“This is it, isn’t it?” asked Tara, looking around at the only people she trusted.

“If we don’t find Repik,” concluded Vane, “everything we’ve done will be kicked under the rug. We’ll be branded as terrorists for eternity.”

Justin’s cyan
eyes were ablaze. “This is complete bull—”

“Enough!” snapped Vane.

“You can do more from here anyways, dude,” said Dodge, trying to be helpful.

It had been decided. Justin had to stay. Vane said we couldn’t risk his life—which really meant he wouldn’t risk
our
lives if Justin caused something to go wrong. The boy had no official training of any kind—even if he
was
technologically smarter than the rest of us. It was the best possible scenario that he stayed put.

Justin attempted another defense, but everyone started moving outside. Our ten minutes was up.

Tara and I stood around him, giving him some sort of comfort.

“I don’t understand,” he began, “I’m as much a part of this as any of you.”

Tara sighed and kneeled to his level. “It’s not like that. Let us handle the bloody stuff—you handle things from here. You’re
much
more effective in here.”

He hopped in place, twirling in a circle. “Fine, but I’m gonna mess them up from in here—like, real bad.”

Tara grinned. “That’s the plan.”

Justin broke out into one of his low-pitched songs. “
I. Can. Set up. A. Channel. So we can talk.
”

“Good,” I said. “Do you think you can see what’s going on with Celia?”

The eleven-year-old jumped onto the chair and it rolled into the desk.

“Yo, I got this!” he shouted, turning around to manipulate GenoTec’s system.

Tara and I looked unsure about the situation, but we had no other option. She donned her helmet and we started for the door.

“Wait!” Justin yelled, hopping off the chair and approaching me. He got quiet and shifted his eyes.

“What?” I asked.

“Just promise you two will come back alive. ‘Kay?”

My first reaction might have seemed rude. I looked over at Tara, completely stunned. But when Justin didn’t have any kind of retort, I looked back at the boy, who had a serious, determined face.

I hope I didn’t regret saying this. I kneeled down to his eye level.

“I promise.”

Justin put a cold hand to my cheek, waited for a moment, then slapped me hard.

“Good! Now get to work!” he yelled, hopping back to the station on one foot.

“Little bastard,” I said to Tara, rubbing my cheek.

“That little bastard is
our
little bastard,” she said, no doubt smiling underneath her helmet.

The heavy, gleaming door slid shut when we caught up to the rest of Genesis. Bollis and Dodge were on either side of the corridor, crouched before it split three other directions. Tara and I turned into war machines again, making sure our rear was covered.

“Bollis,” directed Vane, lifting his head toward the end of the hall.

Bollis followed orders and crossed the intersection. He knelt just before the right turn. Beyond the corner, our destination waited—the second stairwell.

Through my earpiece, Bollis gave us the green light. We moved like scurrying rodents in an experiment maze. I watched our back, occasionally stealing a glance at Justin’s room, still visible from our new location. When we settled again, Tara switched me positions and I hunkered down behind the other guys.

A cascading, curved window lined the wall of the new hallway, creating a memorable sight. Jersey City lied on the other side of the glass, shrouded in darkness. The corridor was wide, dotted with couches, end tables, a twenty-foot long centerpiece of towering flora and diminutive garden décor, and enormous marble pillars jutting out from the right. Glass cubicles and conference rooms lined the entire right side of the hallway.

I looked outside, trying to discern parts of the beautiful view behind the glare of the bright room. Thousands of people were still alive down there. The future of our free world was represented by tiny, flickering lights. I was fighting for them. Though I would never think of myself as a hero, because I definitely had my own reasons for being there, too.

“Contact!”

The glass cubicle on the right shattered and the battle began. Our interim was over.

Everyone took cover. Gunfire pierced through the wooden eaves of the table I was up against, barely singing my shoulder pad, leaving a trail of ripped metal. Tara was still at the rear, recalibrating her sights for a potential preemptive strike.

“I spot twenty,” said Bollis.

“Nineteen,” added Dodge, returning to his post behind a pillar. Bullets were bounding off the enormous bulletproof window, creating a mesh of twanging sounds and surprising sparks.

“Here we go!” Tara sparked, defending our position from a second squad that was approaching from the first staircase. Vexin moved back to help her, leaving Vane, Bollis, Dodge, and I to deal with the first group.

I crouch-ran toward a pair of sofas and took cover behind a metal partition that held reading material. Hot bullets fell upon my location, pelting the barrier like a hailstorm. Dodge and Bollis gave me some cover fire, allowing me to kneel, aim, and lock on.

The battle continued for five minutes. My routine was simple: steady, line up, fire, advance. Repeat. The more we advanced, the more we pushed them back. Our tactic was working wonders, pummeling the first squad into oblivion. We moved passed the waist-high shrubbery wall, taking incredible shots along the way. Heads jerked back, shoulders and hips whipped to the side. Blood was a common element.

But I couldn’t stop. A switch had been flicked on inside my brain. I was a machine. I was programmed to pull the trigger. My reflexes knew the circumstance. Reloading was almost automatic. Finding certain trajectory points and cover spots was old hat. Each time my bullets connected, I felt a rush of warm liquid fill the basin of my stomach.

Was it my desire to show Vane my progress? Was it my rage for GenoTec and the unanswered questions? Was it the simple fact that Simone had brainwashed me? Or was it something entirely different?

Multiple grenades were tossed down the walkway, a “last resort” of sorts. With no other options, we darted out of the blasts, exposing ourselves to their barrage.

Dodge yelped in agony, scrambling back behind a pillar. He had been hit in the arm, blood trailing out of his tricep like acrylic paint. The rest of us found cover, unleashing our own wave of destruction.

I found one soldier popping in and out of a marble pillar. Bollis sprayed the enemy line with his ELBR, scaring my target into cover. I lied prone and timed a perfect shot that hit him square in the face. Blood covered the marble as I put another hole in his belly for good measure.

In a chain reaction of cover fire and retaliation, our group defended the front line with unmatched finesse. Dodge’s dexterity, Vane’s precision, Bollis’ supporting fire, and my . . . well I was in there somewhere.

When the resistance slowed, I saw something glint from the back of the hallway, running toward us.

“Heads up!” shouted Bollis from his position in front of me.

A simple soldier in black was toting something quite frightening. He held the device upon his shoulder, grasping the thick body like a bazooka. The weapon had a large cone shaped nose, proceeding to a large squared body. Inside the monstrous barrel of the juggernaut, something poked its head out. It looked like a harpoon. Following close behind, another soldier held four terrifying metal spikes within a canvas tote.

“Take him out,” said Dodge.

But it was too late. The soldier kneeled, gripped the contraption, and fired. A nasty, silver spear flung out of the weapon, sprouting eight smaller prongs as it floated through the air, almost suspended in time. When it hit, splintered wood and synthetic debris flew everywhere. A shade of dust fell upon the battleground, blinding our vision. I couldn’t think; I could barely breathe. I don’t know why it happened then, but the cataclysmic volume of war bludgeoned my skull. I fell back against the window and slumped to the ground, fighting a migraine from hell.

The rest of Genesis continued firing away, taking advantage of their thermal vision, while Vane and I dealt with the choking air. Out of commission for another few seconds, I placed a finger up to my ear and called for Tara.

“What’s your status?” I asked.

“We’re about to join you,” she said, panting heavily, “Vexin used the RAV-77.”

That made sense. I wonder if their corridor looked like a sea of crimson, though. I stood up, trying to spot her through the dispersing mist. Before I could answer her back, I felt Vane’s overwhelmingly massive body tackle me to the floor, just as another spear crashed into the ground three feet away from me, splaying the floor open like a zipper.

The two of us gasped for air underneath a shower of pebbles and wood chips.

“He’s down, he’s gone!” shouted Dodge.

“Move!” announced Bollis.

Vane and I recovered quickly and hobbled out of the cloud. The crackling gunfire seemed to disperse. I emerged from the dust ready to find the next piece of cover available. I spotted a bright green tree supported by a raised slab of marble and called it home.

With Tara and Vexin reunited with our group, we plastered the next length of the corridor, knocking out ten more Volunteers. Each one fell with a trail of murky blood, staining the beautiful white floors and furniture. I popped out of cover for the last time, aiming upon a woman soldier. Two trigger-pulls later, her head received three through-and-through wounds.

The other men were retreating, trying to escape through the stairwell door. We pursued the final guards to their death, jumping over barriers and lunging like lions. I caught up to Bollis just as he put an end to a crawling enemy. I was still running though. I flew down the last portion of the corridor—filled with dead bodies—trailing the last soldier.

“Mark!”

I disregarded Vane’s chide and leapt through the air, latching onto my prey’s ankles. We came crashing down and our weapons flew from us. I ripped his right leg toward me, pulling his body to my jaws. He struggled violently and attempted to kick in every direction. I instinctively dodged and retaliated with an elbow slam to his throat. While he was gripping his neck, I grasped his shoulders and dragged him over to a large shard of three-inch-thick glass sticking out of the ground like a shiv. I shoved his body onto the spike, impaling his back and torso. It finally broke from under him and his lifeless body crumpled to a gruesome pulp on the now blood-soaked floor.

I looked up to see the wreckage. The floor was fissured in many places. Chunks of marble, wood, and see-through flooring were littered throughout the curved hallway. There were rifles and pistols and all kinds of machinery left on the ground, including the monstrous harpoon weapon. I walked over to it and crouched to get a better look.

“Is your arm going to be a problem?” asked Vane, nodding to Dodge.

“I’ll be fine,” said Dodge. “It’s just a graze.”

The rest of Genesis regrouped around me, still hot from battle.

“We need to keep moving. Repik’s cornered,” grunted Vane as he started to trudge down the beleaguered corridor.

But everyone stopped when someone started coughing violently.

All eyes were on Bollis. He took his hand away from his mouth, showing a patch of red on his glove.

“We better get moving then,” he said, wiping the blood onto his chest pouch.

There was silence as we accounted for our timetable.

“We need to pull out all the stops,” said Vane. “What kind of firepower do we have left?”

“I’ve saved my dragon’s breath rounds,” said Vexin.

“Two packs of plastics and a few sliderjets,” said Bollis.

“We’re getting low on ammo,” said Dodge, filtering through Bollis’ pack.

“All right,” concluded Vane, nodding, “use everything.”

Dodge pulled a few more magazines for his M580, Vexin started loading his shotgun with his incendiary dragon’s breath rounds, Tara loaded two new clips into her CT-46, and I found a surplus of GenoTec ammunition for my MLM. Bollis took out six sliderjets, placing them in his chest and lumbar pouches, while Vane armed himself with discarded GenoTec equipment.

We consolidated our supplies into one of the two black canvas backpacks, with Vexin as the designated carrier. I looked at the group before following them down the hallway. Visors were cracked or broken; Oversuits were tarnished, scratched and dented. Paint flaking away, flesh exposed, Undersuits ripped. Exhausted, with adrenaline spewing out of our ears, our team of six would never stop until Repik answered for his crimes. And . . . whoever else was responsible.

Before ascending the staircase, Dodge spoke up.

“The alarm stopped.”

Everyone listened.

“Volunteers are going to be coming to work soon,” answered Vexin.

“What happens when they find
this
?” asked Dodge, gesturing to the massive amount of corpses.

“That depends on the success of our mission,” said Vane.