The Post-Humans (Book 1): The League (22 page)

The blow Athan had delivered had made the man bite his own tongue.

“Who are you?” Athan tried to steady his breathing.

“Do you not even know why you’re here?” The man smiled. “Fascinating.” The man smiled, and got up from the floor, gun still aimed and steady. “We were hoping to lure you in, but we had no idea you’d be this quick to come running. You’ve been a menace, ya see? To the guys high up. Undoing hard work, I’ve been told.”

“How do you know me?” Athan hissed.

This was not what he expected; the man was admitting the company’s guilt.

“I know all of you, Sleepwalker, the whole gang! You called it The League didn’t ya?” he teased. “Crime fightin’ freakshow. Lucky you and your friends kept your heads down or we’d have you frozen in tubs, marked as scientific curiousities.”

Athan seethed.

I can’t lose my cool. Not here, not now.

“I want everything you have on the secret exploits of this company for the last year.” The demand was futile. The bald man held the cards now. Athan knew he wasn’t bulletproof.

“You are stupid aren’t ya? I thought you were one of the super hero guys, but you are just a fool. You were the one we wanted, you are the only one we needed out of the way for the plan to fall into place. And you came to us, and you don’t even know why.” He laughed again.

Athan felt hurt.

He and Brad had pieced together so much recently and he thought they were almost ahead of the game, but now the enemy was laughing at him.

“It was only a matter of time I guess, but we thought that kidnapping your girlfriend might have sent you here faster.” He raised his eyebrows and grinned again, showing his blood stained teeth. “We thought you would have put two and two together and figured out that we own the DPHR, but I guess that took you too long.” He shrugged casually. “So we’ve been keeping a nice box warm for you in case you decided to drop in.”

“You have Furnace?” Athan demanded. Fresh heat flushed his face and his fingers twitched.

“No
shit
! And we have your other pal Deadfall as well, but we have plans for her. We will have plans for all of you mutant scum once we get the device up and running.” The man winked at Athan.

This man was fearless and cold.

“Where
are
they?” Athan snarled from between gritted teeth.

“Same place you’re goin’ boy.
Mr Floyd
!” The man called, and Athan turned to see a massive man in the doorway.

He wore a business suit and tie and he had a military crew cut, but it was the same Terrance Floyd that Athan knew.

“Cal?” Athan said, confusion clear in his voice.

“I don’t know you.” The big man said with a stern face.

It was Terrance Floyd, a Post-Human that Athan had known as Cal, and he was one of them, he used to be in The League.

He was their friend.

“Take Mr Harper here to the restraint room, I’ll call some of the boys in to come and collect him. We’ve been ready for this guy for a while now. We have some special restraints for him.” The bald man laughed again. “Name’s Evan Boothe. Don’t forget the name boy, coz soon you’ll be just another one of my pets in a cage.”

“Cal!” Athan stumbled a few steps back, holding his wounded arm. “What are you doing working for this lunatic? They are killing people like us! They own the PHC! They are the enemy!” Terrance’s expression showed nothing but determination. “We were friends Cal!” Athan pleaded. He didn’t want to fight Terrance.

“You don’t make the rules. Come here!” Terrance launched forward and grabbed Athan by the jacket, but Athan responded with a right swing up under the big man’s chin. The shock glove did its thing again and Terrance reeled back, but then smiled, excited by the challenge.

Not many normal humans could give Terrance a punch that bothered him. Terrance leapt forward with another attack and Athan dodged it like a cat and caught the flying fist with his shock glove, delivering another crack of energy into the sturdy fighter. Athan was a little faster than normal people when he wanted to be, and in this case he had to be, a direct hit to the face from Terrance could smash most of the bones in his skull.

Terrance stumbled back clutching his hand with an evil grin.

What the hell is wrong with him…

“Let me go, Cal! This is bigger than us!” Athan pleaded, and clutched at his bleeding arm. He noticed he was shot in the upper arm through the flesh. It would heal, but not till he got away from Terrance and this Boothe guy.

“Just take him Floyd! Before he gets away!” the bald man yelled.

“Yes, Mister Boothe.”

Terrance feinted an attack and this time Athan had not anticipated the move. Terrance Floyd swung a backhand blow that threw Athan across the room and through the thin plaster wall that divided Boothe’s office from the next.

There was dust everywhere and a woman squealed at the sight of a bloodied man in a suit smashing through the wall.

Athan lay on his back amongst the shattered pieces of plasterboard. He gasped heavily through a couple of broken ribs, and coughed in the dust. Blood spattered from his mouth onto the front of his white shirt. “Crap.”

That wont come out
, he thought.

Terrance’s heavy figure appeared through the hole in the wall, with heavy fists ready to break any other bones that he needed to.

Then there was a pleasant surprise, a man in the adjoining office grabbed Athan under his arms and lifted him to his feet.

“I’ve got him, Mr Floyd!” the man yelled triumphantly.

Terrance thundered toward him and Boothe appeared through the hole with wide eyes.

Athan smiled with relief as he sunk back into the body of the man who had been holding him.

It was like the world was in slow motion.

Terrance stepped forward and yelled at the man even as Evan Boothe raised his gun and fired…

Athan rolled onto the soft fleshy ground between two pillars of bone.

It was beautiful.

Too close. And they have Cal…

He looked up into the dark metaphysical sky and tried to breathe deeply.

While he was in this place his body would heal very quickly, but he couldn’t stay, he needed to get out and warn Brad, who was still on level 13.

A few moments were all he could afford.

Athan forced himself to stand and looked about at the bony towers around him, he needed a doorway.

There.

Just over the next rise.

He shambled along clutching at his bleeding arm and cradling his aching chest.

He could feel tears burning in his eyes. Not from the pain, but from the guilt of knowing that his friends were being imprisoned to lure him into a trap. They could kill them at any time.

Kiranda would be losing her mind, and Deadfall would have lost her temper and made things worse for herself. And Cal! He was working for the enemy. He was helping them catch his friends.

Cal didn’t even remember him. They hadn’t been as close as he and Ian, but they were friends. This was more than a choice at stake here. Cal was being controlled somehow and if he can be, what about Kiranda, or Deadfall? They would become obedient weapons of the enemy.

Eventually he found the spot.

A familiar mind, close enough that he could communicate with Brad.

Athan stepped back out into the physical world through the security guard he had seen leave the elevator earlier. The man had been about to sip his coffee when Athan stepped out of his body into the kitchen in front of him.

The man shook for a moment and dropped the cup that broke on the tiled floor.

Athan pressed the receiver on his earpiece. “
Out now.
You hear me? No questions.
Out
!”

“
Affirmative
,” was all Brad said in reply, and that was all Athan needed to hear. He turned to the terrified security guard and stepped back into his body as if it were nothing, and the man sunk to the floor sobbing, he had never been so frightened in all his life.

Brad pulled the decryptor and hard drive loose from the computer and shouldered his bag.

Athan had sounded serious.

He pushed open the door; saw that no one had triggered his motion sensors so he threw them straight into his bag and then he ran back to the stairwell.

He nearly made it to the ground floor, but with only three more flights to go, there was a crash.

One of the doors in the stairwell swung open just down the steps from him and a security guard looked up and spoke into his earpiece.

Before the guard could raise a gun a sedative dart punched into his chest leaving him crumpled on the landing.

Brad struggled to reload as he jumped down the steps two by two, and over the fallen man.

Finally the corridor that led to the outside door was in front of him, and the work experience boy stood looking dumbly at the man with electrician’s bag running down the corridor.

“Why are you…” He began to ask, then ran too, probably thinking the building was collapsing down behind them.

There was a flood of light as the boy opened the outside door and stumbled outside.

A security guard threw him to the concrete.

The guard looked down at the boy, then up at his fellow guardsman confused at the age and size of the perpetrator they had caught.

The distraction was enough. The first guard had only just looked up as Brad leaped off the steps and kicked foreword at the guard, hitting him square in the face. This knocked the guard to the ground where he hit his head, the second guard looked stunned a moment, then caught a dart in the neck and collapsed next to his comrade.

The boy stayed on the ground holding his head.

He’ll be fine. Just a few bruises.

He needed to get out fast.

The electricians van was gone, and he stood at the edge of the street about to make a run for it when a motorcycle pulled up along side him.

Aadi lifted the visor. “Quick my friend!”

It was all happening so fast that Brad didn’t have time to think about where Athan might be.

He leapt onto the back of the bike behind Aadi and held on. They didn’t have far to go, but he knew they would have to lose prying eyes first.

He desperately hoped they had what they needed.

TWIGS SNAPPED UNDER Terrance’s feet and low hanging eucalypt leaves slapped at his face as he ran through the undergrowth.

He was exhausted.

He had been on the run for hours.

The sound of motorbike engines screamed behind him like a pack of wolves chasing down the kill. It sent him forward with renewed fear and vigour.

He took a moment to catch his breath and look up through the treetops at the sky. The low position of the sun told him that it was evening, not long till dark. He would move more effectively in the dark.

Terrance had been living a quiet life in rural Victoria, away from cities and people. He loved the peace and quiet and he enjoyed the simple labours that earned him his income. Some days he helped put up fences, some days he’d repair a shed or plough a paddock. The people out there didn’t ask questions about where he had come from or who he was before. He was just Terry, the hard working farm hand.

Everything changed when a man from Melbourne turned up at the pub and apparently recognised him. The man asked about him and left quickly to make a phone call. Terrance Floyd didn’t realise his shitty luck. He was too preoccupied with socialising with the local farmers.

The man was PHC.

Terrance had grown careless. He still looked the same. Wore the same flannelette shirts and had the same shoulder length hair, even the short beard. He hadn’t bothered to disguise himself. He wasn’t good at this stuff. He was always the muscle, not the brains.

Terrance didn’t waste any time.

He packed a small bag and left the shearers’ quarters just before the PHC arrived. They arrived in two trucks and a brand new black car. It glittered in the light beneath the gum leaves as it rolled up the driveway, kicking up dust.

Terrance was already halfway up the hill behind the property when they pulled up at the farmhouse. He squatted on the hill and watched. A dozen men in khaki uniforms disembarked from the trucks with firearms and spread out around the house and the surrounding outbuildings.

This wasn’t fair on the farmer and his family.

This was between them and him.

The owner of the farm and his wife were being dragged from the house. She was screaming.

Terrance unzipped his backpack and pulled out his trusty little binoculars and watched. He couldn’t help himself.

There was discussion.

Pleading.

Lies.

The farmer had deemed Terrance trustworthy and a friend, he wasn’t going to sell him out.

Then a short bald man in a dark blue suit got out of the black car. Terrance sensed he was in charge. He seemed to be negotiating with the farmer.

There was a gesture from the bald man and one of the officers aimed a gun at the farmer’s wife. The farmer was a good man, but he wasn’t going to let his wife die. After some discussion the bald man sent two officers over to the shearers’ quarters.

Shit.

He had a hunch about how this story would end. He jammed the binoculars back in his bag and started running toward the bush. He hoped he could lose them in the national park behind the property.

Bang, bang!

He heard the shots echo through the hills that surrounded the property. They were too close.

Two bodies crumpled to the dusty ground.

Screaming motorbike engines cut through the trees.

They weren’t far behind him now. They must have raided the sheds back at the farmhouse. He recognised one of the motorbikes as the vehicle he would use to bring in the sheep. And he remembered filling the fuel tank.

He cursed under his breath.

It was one of the few times he actually remembered to do it.

As dusk filled the bush with shadows he began to hear voices calling out to one another. Torches flashed amongst the trunks of trees.

He was exhausted.