Anaz-Voohri (29 page)

“Just a few minutes.”

Carrick’s epad buzzed. “I see no more headlights coming this way, colonel." That was the sentinel watching the country road at the intersection, five miles away from the mansion.

Carrick motioned toward Zack’s sturdy bag. “You better get your magic suit on, my friend.”

Feverishly, Zack pulled out the injection gun and applied the dose of nanobots to his arm. He removed his weapons belt then carefully opened the bag containing the jellyfish as he now called the armor. He slipped into it then zipped it up.

Carrick, the only one close enough to see Zack clearly, looked stunned.
“Fucking amazing!”

“You’ve seen nothing yet." Zack buckled his weapon belt back on. “Now I’m ready.”

“Everyone standby,” Carrick said in his com system. “Electric fence?” he asked in his epad.

The epad buzzed.
“Fence power down in three, two, one, now.”

“Let’s go,” Carrick ordered in his com system. “Let’s get these mother-fuckers!”

The vanguard cut the fence and the woods came alive with running soldiers. Zack stepped through the fence onto the freshly mowed grass, followed by many other troops. They converged toward the mansion from all directions. Zack wanted to make sure they wouldn’t be attacked from the rear, so he followed the fence to the gate and snuck behind the security booth. When he readied to fire, however, he discovered the guards gone, vanished. That couldn’t be good.

Worse, the gate that would logically close in case of emergency had been left wide open. It didn’t make sense unless... they were expected!

Sprinting to the forefront, Zack caught up with Carrick. “I think it’s a trap. The guards left and the gate is open.”

“The cowards probably ran and didn’t take the time to close it." Carrick didn’t slow down.

But Zack didn’t buy that explanation. Something smelled fishy, and it wasn’t his jellyfish. A flare went up from the mansion’s roof and the soldiers became visible like in full daylight on the empty lawn.

“It’s a trap!" Carrick yelled in his com system.

Automatic weapons and sizzling phase-guns fired from the second story windows of the mansion. Soldiers screamed and fell. More flares flashed and smoke filled the air. Men lay on the lawn, stunned through their bullet proof vests, or severely injured. A few smoldered, burned by phaser weapons.

“Take cover!" Carrick ordered while seeking refuge behind a parked car. “Where are our missile launchers?”

“Right behind you, Colonel,” a soldier answered.

Carrick stepped out of the line of fire. “Shoot through the windows!" A hint of hysteria tainted his voice.

“Aye, sir."
The recruit loaded, aimed then fired. The missile traveled toward the mansion, but about fifteen feet short of the building it exploded against an invisible wall that shimmered briefly. “No hit,” the soldier yelled.
“Target still intact."

“Fucking bastards.
The mansion is shielded? How is this possible?”

Zack had seen that kind of shield before, on the mountaintop where he’d met his sister for the very last time. “We are dealing with friends of the Anaz-voohri. What did you expect, an easy victory? Their masters have armed them well.”

“Charge the building!" Carrick ordered in
a frenzy
.

“I would advise against it, Carrick. I’m sure that shield is deadly.”

“I intend to find out,” Carrick said with scorn.

Just then, several soldiers hit the shield and screamed, incinerated on contact, sizzling as high voltage current coursed through their bodies. The stench of charred flesh filled the air along with smoke. In the distance, the cries of frightened horses in the stables contributed to the confusion. The next wave crawled toward the mansion then stopped and fired, but bullets, lasers and phase fire bounced off the shield at close range and threatened the soldiers themselves.

“Pull back!" Carrick ordered. To Zack he confided, an edge of panic in his voice, “This is a disaster." He pulled out his epad. “We need air cover. We are dying over here. Send all you’ve got.
Hurry!”

Soon, more phase fire sizzled, but it came from behind the soldiers. Turning to face the new threat, Zack realized ORION’s forces were spread too thin around the mansion. An army of hybrids had surrounded them and advanced on the ORION troops. Where had they come from?

Caught in the cross fire, the ORION soldiers didn’t stand a chance.
 
The cars they used for protection exploded in their midst, one after another.

Zack kept firing, but the hybrids wore protective gear not unlike his, and no bullets, laser, or phase fire could touch them. They kept their distance and blasted steadily. It became clear, however, that the four hundred soldiers wouldn’t hold until air cover and reinforcements arrived.

As he shot back, Zack shielded his friend Carrick with his own armored body. Carrick had given Zack his life back, and what better time to return the favor? As Zack watched the surrounding carnage with horror, two whole companies fell to hybrid weapons. With no possible cover, no protection against phase-guns, and flares giving away their position, they were trapped in a ring of fire, plucked one by one until only Zack and Carrick remained standing.

With most ORION soldiers out of commission, the hybrids grew brave and stepped into the circle of light to finish off the wounded. They approached Zack and Carrick menacingly. Back to back, the two friends kept shooting, to no avail.

Soon the hybrids ceased fire, and so did Zack and Carrick. It was over.

A man in a fancy paramilitary outfit, carrying a small crossbow, stepped forward and aimed at Carrick. “This one is The Nazi, the hybrid hunter." As others stepped forward, the man stopped them with one hand. “Back off. He’s mine.”

Zack moved in front of Carrick as the man shot his fancy crossbow. The short bolt bounced off Zack’s armor. The now enraged man kept firing bolts in Carrick’s direction. Finally, out of patience, he dropped the crossbow, pulled out a knife and charged.

Zack stepped forward, and the contact of the two armors sent both men flying in a different direction. This gave the other hybrids a pause. As Zack glanced at Carrick, a tall woman in a hunting outfit swiftly picked up a fallen bolt and rushed to stab Carrick from behind.

“Watch out,” Zack yelled as he lunged in an attempt to protect his friend.
Too late.
Zack fired, but his weapon had no effect.

Carrick turned just in time to face the woman but didn’t duck fast enough. He screamed as the bolt pierced his left eye, and he collapsed.

The roar of the rescuing fleet of Black Hawks shook the ground and the surrounding woods. As commandos dropped to the ground, the hybrids suddenly panicked and ran back toward the mansion where a pillar of light just opened. The hybrids rushed to the light and stepped into it, then ascended toward the waiting Anaz-voohri ship that had probably been there, cloaked all this time.

Tempted to run after them, Zack realized it would be futile to throw himself into the maws of the beast. Besides, his friend needed help.

As helicopters landed on the lawn and the Anaz-voohri ship flew away under heavy fire from fighter planes, Zack turned off his armor so he could touch Carrick. “How are you doing, buddy?" Zack propped Carrick to a sitting position against his thigh, trying not to jostle him.

“Fucking hybrid bastards!"
Carrick hissed. With a trembling hand, he seized the bolt embedded into his eye.

“Slow down, buddy. Don’t make it worse." Zack restrained Carrick’s hand. “Let the surgeons do that.”

“Fuck off!" Carrick jerked out the bolt from his eye. Blood surged and poured over his face, dripping from his chin to his uniform. “I’ll hunt these bastards down to the last one, if it takes the rest of my life.”

Zack moved aside to let the paramedics take care of Carrick. All around him, other medical staff took away the wounded. Most of them seemed beyond hope. So many lives lost...

Intense hatred distorted Carrick’s face... Although shocked by it, Zack couldn’t really blame his friend for hating the hybrids. Zack, too, had a score to settle... with the Anaz-voohri.

Chapter Twenty-One

China
- Beijing Center for Evolutionary Medicine

Tonight, Kin’s torture would finally end. He had enough of the agonizing injections that drove him to the brink of insanity. Every day since the ORION soldiers had killed his hybrid parents and brought him to the CEM in Beijing, Kin had endured the painful process that would make him one of ORION’s ultimate killing machines. No more...

As he checked himself in the mirror of his hospital cell, Kin willed himself to blend with shadows. Instantly he disappeared against the background, and when he moved, he became a blur, a light smudge the casual eye wouldn’t notice. His captors probably didn’t expect this side effect of his treatment and would be in for a surprise.

The eager scientists had grossly underestimated Kin’s abilities. Otherwise, they’d have taken more security measures. Probably due to Kin’s hybrid genes, the recombinant DNA injections had triggered some natural defense mechanism. Now, at any time he chose, Kin’s skin color and clothes would blend with the environment like that of a chameleon.

At the clunk of the automatic door unlocking his room, Kin came back to the visible world and to the task at hand.
Time for his evening meal.
Resolutely, he stepped into the hallway and forced himself to walk casually toward the cafeteria. He hoped Shani would be there early, too.

Although his mind refused to go along with ORION’s brainwashing propaganda, Kin had led his captors to believe that he’d accepted his imposed destiny. The lie had gained him a limited amount of freedom inside the secure facility. Tonight, Kin would take advantage of his privileges to escape, but not alone. He’d take Shani with him.

The teenage girl born from a hybrid mother in Beijing, waited for him in the brightly lit cafeteria. How pretty, how fragile she looked. Although she was a warrior like him, she was too thin, too pale, her eyes too big in their sockets. Her long black hair had lost all
luster
.

He joined her at the table. “Are you ready?”

Shani nodded.

“I’m too excited to be hungry,” Kin whispered. He wanted to take her hand but too many guards watched from the mezzanine above.

Shani smiled and indicated her tray. “You have to eat. We don’t know when we’ll get our next meal.”

She was right. “I’ll get something." Kin rose, went to the buffet and dished out a cupful of fried rice on a plate.

When Shani spotted Kin returning, her eyes lit up like stars. She hadn’t been at the CEM very long, but Kin could tell she wouldn’t survive the treatments if she stayed. The scientists treated hybrid offspring as lab rats to advance their research. They didn’t seem to care if the weakest died.

“I will follow you anywhere,” Shani said as he sat down.
“Under one condition."

“What condition?" Taking her along in his wild escape represented a risk. But what else could he do? Leave her to die? Worse... she could become an ORION agent.

Shani stared at him seductively. “Promise me that you will never leave me once we are outside.”

Kin had to smile. He liked the girl, more than he would admit to anyone, even to himself. “I promise." And he meant it. “Once outside, let’s get married.”

Shani rewarded him with a glow that flushed her pretty face and gave lovely color to her high cheeks.

Given the superhuman strength and endurance he had developed during his extended stay at the Beijing CEM, Kin had no doubt his escape from the secure facility would succeed.
Shani,
however might constitute a problem. She, too, had some training, but not as much. Like Kin, she’d hid the fact that she could run fast and jump as high as any Ninja. Kin also hoped his newfound ability of blending with shadows would compensate, somehow, and give them a better chance to evade their captors.

“Meet me in the flower garden out back." Kin rose and left the cafeteria. In the hallway, he turned toward the back of the building. Nodding to the guards at the door, he went out for a walk in the enclosed garden.

The soft breeze carried the chirp of the cicadas and the sweet fragrance of lilacs. In the free world, people celebrated spring and romance, and soon Kin would, too. Despite the slight chill of the night, he felt warm and the blood pulsed hard throughout his body. He sat on a dimly lit bench and waited for Shani. She wandered out with nonchalance and came to sit next to him.

They’d made a habit of chatting after dinner. Although the guards frowned upon fraternizing patients, they knew these two by now and turned away whenever Kin and Shani stole a kiss. Kin counted on their laxity. The bench stood in front of a hedge of ten feet lilacs in full bloom. Behind the lilacs, the high wall rose, topped by coils of razor wire.

Kin encircled Shani’s waist and whispered in her ear, “When they turn away, we leap over the wall.”

“I love you,” she said softly, melting Kin’s heart but steeling his resolve.