Psion Alpha (49 page)

Brickert froze. The
Thirteen had just revealed what he, Natalia, and Anna had suspected all along:
the Thirteen and Aegis been listening in on all Brickert and Anna’s
conversations. Unbeknownst to the Thirteen, Brickert and Anna had been
regularly revealing false information to the enemy, keeping the Thirteen and
Aegis intrigued enough to allow Brickert and Natalia to live. “How—how—how’dchoo
know ‘bout that, man?”

“You think I wasn’t
aware of that little bug in your pocket?” The Thirteen cackled as he pointed a
knife at the pocket containing Brickert’s earpiece. He crossed the distance
between them and removed the earpiece from Brickert’s pocket. Pinching it
between his thumb and index finger, he held it up right in front of Brickert’s
eye. “Do you really think us so stupid?”

“Naw, man! No one
thinks you—”

The Thirteen jammed his
knife into the board right above Brickert’s head, silencing him. Brickert took
a deep, shaky breath, again sending a jolt up his teeth.

“I’ll talk!” Natalia
shouted through clenched teeth. “Don’t throw it! I’ll talk!”

The Thirteen paused. His
lipless mouth sneered. Brickert wanted to tell Natalia to shut up, but feared
such an outburst would earn him a blade in his gut.

“Anna … our trainer.
She gotta dozen people workin’ for her. I—I give you names, places, plans … I
give you everything!”

The Thirteen stepped away
from Brickert and stalked over to Natalia. A haunting smile hung on his face.
The closer he got the more the insanity in his eyes became apparent. Brickert
knew he could kill the Thirteen. He had no doubt. Was it really so important
that they conceal their abilities? Was it really worth dying for? One good
blast from each hand, and Brickert could free himself.

“Nancy, right?” the
Thirteen asked. “That is your name, isn’t it?”

Natalia nodded and
shrunk back from him.

Anna, you can’t let us
die here. You can’t. Not when we can save ourselves.

“Tell me the location
of her HQ,” the Thirteen ordered Natalia. “Now.”

“Okay. I’ll tell.”

“NOW!” The Thirteen
punched the board next to her head. She shrieked. Then he grabbed her face and
cackled again. “If you want to live,” he said in a sing-song tone, “spit it
out. I’ll send someone to confirm it.”

Tell him, Natalia
. That thought flooded
him with guilt. He didn’t want to be the one to disobey orders, but he couldn’t
watch her suffer anymore, nor did he want either of them to die.
Just get it
over with. Anna will forgive us.

“I can’t!” she yelled.

The Thirteen’s
mock-playful demeanor vanished. He punched Natalia so hard in the jaw that
Brickert heard her bones crack. Natalia’s skull slammed into the board, and her
eyes rolled into the back of her head. Brickert couldn’t do it. Sitting back
and watching when he had the chance to save her was inexcusable. He knew if he
somehow survived and she didn’t, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself.

“Stop!” he ordered the
Thirteen. “If she won’t say anything, I will!”

The Thirteen bared his
teeth at Brickert, then walked back to his table for a knife. His red-dyed
eyes, filled with a hellish fury, bored into Brickert’s as he approached. He
clenched the handle of the blade, fingers tightening and loosening in
anticipation of a potential kill.

“
One chance, Bobby!
ONE CHANCE! If the next thing that comes out of your mouth is anything but what
I want to hear, you’re going to smile out of your neck. Then, while you’re
bleeding out, you can watch me and your friend have some fun.”

The six Aegis had their
attention on the Thirteen. Natalia, slack-jawed and bleary-eyed, also stared at
him. The Thirteen’s knife tickled the underside of Brickert’s chin. Brickert
now wondered if giving up the information would even save them. This was a
Thirteen, not some common criminal who didn’t want to dirty his hands.
Thirteens gloried in such things.

It’s my only choice.

He closed his eyes.

What would Sammy do?

The words popped into
his head from out of nowhere. He’d never thought it before, but they burned
into his brain, diminishing all other thought. The answer to the question was
obvious. Brickert took a deep breath. He hadn’t pictured his death coming like
this. He always thought he’d somehow survive the battles and wars, dying as an
old man with lots of stories to tell his children and grandchildren. But he
didn’t see how he could ever face Sammy again if he disobeyed orders, put the
resistance and his fellow Psions in danger, and confessed what he knew in order
to save himself.

He looked up at the
Thirteen’s bizarre, mutilated face, and what he saw made him smile. The
Thirteen didn’t like this. His lipless grin turned into a snarl as he dug the
point of the blade into Brickert’s skin.

“
Give me a location!
”

Brickert’s eyes bored
into the Thirteen’s. His voice was a whisper of death. It was time to tell the
truth. “Anna … is … behind you.”

The Thirteen whipped
around to check behind him. Months had passed since Brickert’s last sims
against Thirteens. He’d forgotten how quickly they moved. But as fast as he
spun, Anna was faster at point blank range. She, Justice, Al, Malm, Rohacik,
and Ludwig had gotten behind the Aegis without being seen. Those Aegis were on
the floor, bleeding out from neck wounds. Anna pierced the Thirteen’s
midsection with a large dagger of her own.

The Thirteen screeched unintelligible
words and thrashed, slicing at Anna with his own blade. His arm flew in a wide
arc that nearly caught her, but Anna thrust again, stabbing the Thirteen a
second time with a straight jab to his chest. The Thirteen staggered back,
stumbling to the floor of the shooting range. Anna produced a second knife from
her belt and used it to free the two captives. Al, Justice, and Ludwig carried
Natalia.

“Put another knife in
that guy, and let’s go!” Anna told Brickert, glancing at the knives stuck in
the board by Brickert’s head.

Brickert pulled the
weapon out of the board and held it in a stabbing position. Behind him, Anna ran
back to the warehouse where he and Natalia had been captured a week earlier,
leaving him alone with his captor. The Thirteen lay on the ground. Anna’s knife
still protruded from his motionless chest. Both wounds were leaking massive
amounts of blood, enough that Brickert couldn’t fathom the Thirteen surviving.
Not wanting to participate in anymore killing, especially something so cold and
deliberate, he tossed the knife aside and ran out behind Anna.

Her team swarmed the
warehouse. Everyone but Brickert and Natalia wore masks and gear suitable to
pass as a ragtag band of thieves. The sun had not yet risen, providing the team
with a cover of darkness. And, as far as Brickert could tell, the entire
warehouse security was recently deceased, which meant there was no one left to
stop them from raiding the pantry. Anna and Justice directed two teams around
the floor, locating and hauling crates of supplies out to the moving trucks.
Outside, one of the Elite attended to Natalia and Brickert’s wounds.

The loading took about
sixty minutes. When they finished, Anna ordered everyone back to the trucks.
They had laden all the vehicles with boxes, but only one truck, the one they’d
named Alpha Truck, had all the arms and equipment the resistance needed to
carry out its assault on chosen CAG targets. The rest were filled with a random
assortment of weapons and supplies to make them look like legitimate decoys. On
his way back to the trucks, Brickert realized he’d left his earpiece in the
shooting range. He informed Anna about it straightaway.

“Go get it now!” she
ordered.

Brickert ran through
the facility and stopped as soon as he’d entered the range. His earpiece lay on
the floor where the Thirteen had left it, but the Thirteen was nowhere around.
All he saw was a long bloody streak leading across the room. He grabbed the
earpiece, a knife, and followed the tracks.

The blood trail led him
to a small side door, which opened to reveal a short hallway. Two offices sat
on each side. The blood went into the nearest, the door of which was still
ajar. Brickert readied himself, then acted.

Blasting with one hand,
he slammed open the door and prepared to stab the Thirteen. The Thirteen,
however, was already dead. A giant pool of blood surrounded him on the floor
where he lay; in one hand, a knife, and in the other, a phone. A beeping came
from the phone’s earpiece, as though a call had ended, but the phone never
returned to the receiver.

“Oh no,” Brickert
muttered as he backed away. “Suck a duck!”

He turned and sprinted
through the building until he reached the trucks. Alpha Truck had already
started to pull out of the loading area, the second truck right behind it.
Brickert jumped into his truck, hoping that he hadn’t done something that would
get everyone killed.

Ludwig sat in the
driver’s seat; the female Elite, Erin Malm, occupied the passenger side. “What
took you so long?” she asked Brickert.

Brickert buckled
himself into the back bucket seat. “Sorry. Rough day.”

“It’s about to get
rougher,” Malm said.

It took Brickert a
minute to see what she was talking about. Up the street to the north of the
weapons facility, a mini-tank rumbled toward them, clearly intending to block
the exit of the loading yard. Malm had already un-holstered her weapons. Ludwig
slammed his hand against the steering wheel and let loose a stunning range of
obscenities.

Anna’s voice came over
the radio. “We need to take the tank out before I can get Alpha Truck clear.
Plack, Rohacik, Byron, and Pratt take the frontline with blasts. Draw their
attention away from my truck. Chartrand and Keogh snipe from cover. Ciochetto,
Malm, and Simmons grab some damage-makers. If we don’t blow our way out of here
soon, who knows what kind of trouble we’ll attract. All the cameras around the
block are out, but we can’t leave witnesses.”

Brickert and others
jumped out of the trucks while Malm took the small door into the cargo space to
unload one of the big guns. Four of the Psions took the front line in front of
the trucks while the other team members got into position. They didn’t have
much time. The mini-tank had three automated guns: one on top and one on each
side. As soon as they turned the corner into the loading yard, the guns buzzed
to life and spat hundreds of bullets per minute.

The Psions’ blast
shields gave Malm, Simmons, and Ciochetto enough time to assemble their heavy
pieces. Malm had a small rocket launcher, while Simmons and Ciochetto both
chose handheld anti-tank weapons. With the rocket, Malm took out the side gun
closest to Brickert. The impact of the rocket shook the mini-tank, but left it
largely intact. Ciochetto and Simmons did the real damage. A moment before the
anti-tanks fired their devices, the occupants of the mini-tank leapt from the
back of the vehicle. The mini-tank did not survive two assaults at such close
range.

“Snipers, take out the
infantry,” Anna ordered.

Before the Thirteens
and Aegis could even get their footing, Chartrand and Keogh—the Ultras—cut them
down with a precision and speed that shocked Brickert. When Anna gave the all
clear, Brickert and the others broke ranks and hurried back into the trucks.
Justice’s truck rammed the wreckage of the mini-tank, shoving it aside with
brutal callousness. Brickert let out a whoop of triumph, only to realize that
his celebration was premature. Four more mini-tanks rolled down the street
toward the storage facility.

“Mobile combat
maneuvers!” Anna said. “Justice, make way for Alpha truck. The rest follow in
tight succession.”

Anna’s truck, the Alpha
truck, was the only vehicle that needed to make it back to Glasgow in order for
the mission to be considered a success. The other trucks waited while she
pulled out first, quickly followed by Justice, whose truck provided rear cover
for Anna. Once Justice and Anna’s trucks had cleared the area, the other three
trucks moved out of the loading yard. Anna and Justice’s trucks turned left,
away from the procession of tanks. The last three drove straight at them. Less
than a hundred meters separated the two groups of vehicles.

The four tanks blocked
the four lane road, each of their noses pointed toward the lead truck, driven
by another Elite, Daragh Keogh.

“No sign of any tanks
in our direction,” Anna said. “Do whatever you need to keep those tanks
occupied. I need distance between them and me. Byron’s your honcho.”

No sooner had she
spoken those words than a female Aegis appeared out of the top hatch of the
closest mini-tank. Resting on her shoulder was a rocket launcher. She pointed
it at Keogh’s truck. Malm leaned out the passenger window and shot at the
Aegis. Her third shot clipped the Aegis’ arm, but the Aegis still fired the
rocket.

Natalia’s in that
truck!

The rocket ignited and
flew low, the Aegis’ aim tilted from Malm’s bullet. Keogh’s truck tipped onto
its right side and skidded down the middle of the road. Brickert watched,
unblinking and unbelieving. A second rocket streaked through the early morning
sky. This one came from one of Anna’s trucks. It slammed into the flank of the
mini-tank and flipped it upside down, crushing the Aegis in the process.