The Demon Plagues (38 page)

Minutes went by in silence, broken only by
the quiet blubbering of children and shifting bodies in seats, and
the sound of phones ringing repeatedly. Finally Daniel said,
“They’ll eventually send someone here, you know.”

“I know. But we can handle that. In fact,
just in case you get any heroic ideas – yeah, you too, big man,”
Huff said, pointing his muzzle at Larry, “nice definition by the
way, you must work out a lot – let me show you something.”

Flatfooted, without telegraphing in the
least, Huff tossed his rifle into the air, just a little lift that
left it hanging for an instant while he exploded into motion,
mule-kicking the wall behind him. His foot drove through the
drywall, the stud and out the other side, then came right back out
to take its place on the ground before he deftly caught the weapon
from its fall. The whole procedure had taken only fractions of a
second.

“What the hell are you?” Shawna gasped.

“Tiny Fortress,” murmured Elise and Larry,
simultaneous.

“Got it in one, give the dynamic duo a
prize,” Huff cackled. “This nano stuff is da bomb, yo.”

“Very impressive. You know, I used to play
dat gansta shizzle too, mister whatever your name is,” Larry
remarked.

“Oh, nigga, don’t even try it. You so out of
date you soun’ like a ol’ Richard Pryor video. And my name, if
that’s what you’ fishin’ for, is Huff. As in, suck it up, baby!” He
did the open mouth laugh thing again, and Bullion and Campbell
joined in, their amusement sounding hollow and muted behind their
face shields.

“So what happens next?” Daniel asked,
reaching slowly across to squeeze Elise’s hand in comfort.

“Just listen for the biggest sound around.
Once you hear that, we should get a few more visitors. Then, when
it’s all over, we make nice-nice and become friends and good
citizens and Australians.”

The Edens glanced at each other, confused.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Daniel.

“You gonna find out. For now, think about
your kids and keep wondering. You won’ catch me monologuing myself
into lettin’ these heroes get out of the trap, no suh.”

“I got to pee,” Daniela whimpered.

“Go on, baby, go pee and come right back,”
Huff said, his voice deceptively gentle. “Don’t run away, or I’ll
blow your little brother sky-high and you won’t be able to find him
when you get to heaven.”

“You are one sick bastard,” Shawna spat.

Suddenly affecting flat middle-America, Huff
remarked, “You better hope so, because if I’m not, I must really be
having a psychotic break, don’t you think?” That blinding white
smile filled his dark face, and she sat back down, Larry’s arm
protectively across her. “Better the devil you know.”

A sound began, a noise they had not heard in
weeks, and even then only once, a roaring blast that called to mind
an airliner low overhead or a fleet of double-rotor helicopters.
Everyone instinctively looked up, even though the roar seemed to
emanate from everywhere.

“That’s Raphaela’s shuttle,” Elise suddenly
realized out loud.

“Oh, you
are
a smart lady. No wonder
the Chairman likes you! Everybody say bye-bye. Go on, kids, say
bye-bye to Raphael as he – she? –it? – flies away into space.
Ground control to Major Tom! I’m a rocket man! I don’t care, I’m
still free, you can’t take the sky from
meeeeee.”
Huff broke
into a reasonably accurate rendition of the theme from Star Trek,
doing a little jig and shuffle. “All right. Now let’s talk about
Australia.”

“You’re crazy,” Larry said, meaning it with
all his heart.

“Only for you, big man, only for you.”

***

Skull led Holden and Lumpkins through the
streets of the lab complex at a jog, not hot-dogging or attracting
attention.
All quiet. It looks like my warning to Markis via
Forman did not get through in time. I’m not sure if I’m happy or
not. Either way, I have to make this work.

The main biolab entrance was set into the
side of one of the rocky hills, built there originally to insulate
and preserve it from the UGNA’s kinetic strikes. More importantly
now, the question was whether they had used this advantage to
improve security, creating a chokepoint with multilayered
defenses.

The men slowed to a walk as they approached
the built-out portion of the entrance, a steel shed that blended
roughly into the hillside. Skull could see a man in a well-lit
space behind a glassy barrier.
Foolish. The light in there
should be low, allowing better visibility to the guard and hiding
him from us.

Stepping inside the door, Skull took two
rapid steps before the surprised sentry could react, shoving the
barrel of his assault rifle through the speaking grille. All very
low-tech, it was unable to stop a determined attack.

Edens. Too damned trusting.
“Just
freeze there, officer, and nobody gets hurt. Open that door. No,
really, open it or I just shoot you and open it myself. There you
go.”

The door buzzed open as the guard pushed the
release. “Lumpkins, sticky,” Skull ordered.

Lumpkins wrapped the guard’s hands and feet
together with tape, one layer over the man’s mouth, as the other
two dashed through the door. Down the entrance corridor, then they
split up, calling “clear” as they found no one working that time of
night – except their target.

“You are as beautiful in person as you look
on television,” Skull said as he walked into the room.

Raphaela lifted her fingers from the keyboard
in surprise, freezing in place, all except for her head, which
tracked his movements. “I am unarmed and unresisting. Please tell
me your intentions.” Her voice was calm, perfectly modulated.

Skull marveled a moment at the alien, just
admiring her sculpted perfection. “Better than plastic surgery,
this ability you have.”

“I decided it is best to be as attractive as
possible. It generally engenders positive reactions in humans.”

“To a point. I’m sure the human part of you
can explain where that advantage ends. But I’m not here to chat.
Come along with me. We’re taking a little trip.”

She stood, almost of a height with her
captor, though Skull was still taller. “May I ask where?”

“Out to your comet base. And why, you will
soon ask? Because I’m a suspicious bastard. Let’s go.” He reached
out to grasp her elbow, propelling her in the direction of the
door.

She twisted in his grip, suddenly not there.
Elbows and knees flashed, thudded into armor, an exchange of blows
ending with Skull pinning Raphaela bodily against the ceiling
overhead.

“That was stupid, and I thought you weren’t
stupid.” He effortlessly set her down on her feet, then resumed
propelling her down the corridors and out past the immobilized
guard. “Holden, see if there are some keys in the office for that
truck out there.”

They piled into the truck, Holden driving
them through the streets of the lab complex, suddenly anthill-busy
with flashing lights, sirens, and explosions in the distance.
“Where is your spacecraft?”

“In a hangar, at the runway.”

“Thanks for not lying. I detest it when
people lie to me.” Skull kept his grip locked on Raphaela’s arm to
discourage any more resistance, or escape. “Tell me, how fast can
your ship reach your base?”

The Blend stared at Skull for a long moment.
“At one gravity acceleration, about eight days. Is that what we are
doing? Going to my – to Raphael’s – base?”

“Among other things. Is there food and water
aboard?”

“There’s abundant water, and food for both of
us can be synthesized, though I don’t think it will be very
palatable.”

“As long as it keeps us alive.” They pulled
up in front of the hangar’s personnel door and quickly broke in.
The moderate interior space was filled by the shuttle. Skull
called, “Get that rolling ladder over here.” They climbed the thing
to stand on top of the wing. “All right, open it.”

Raphaela placed her hand on the whitesparkle
skin of the craft and its door appeared.

Skull stepped inside holding her close to him
in the pitch-black interior. He put his face next to hers. “Look,
with your technology in here I’m sure there are a dozen sneaky
things you can do to try to regain control of the situation, but
all of those are risky. I am stronger and faster and tougher than
any human being you have ever dealt with, and anything you do will
result in painful violence. So let’s cooperate for a while, shall
we? Turn on some lights.”

“Lights, low” she spoke, and there was light,
dim, ephemeral, but sufficient. His HUD began processing what it
saw, identifying very little.

“Gentlemen, it’s been an honor. Open the
hangar doors, then go rendezvous with Huff. I hope he held up his
end. All right, shut the door.”

Holden and Lumpkins watched as the iris
closed, then one pulled the rolling ladder away while the other ran
to open the hangar door. A moment later they raced across the base
in their stolen truck, the better to shuffle in with the official
vehicles racing hither and yon. Behind them they heard, then saw
the spacecraft roar into the night sky. A few minutes later they
pulled up in front of the house. “Huff, you in there?” Holden
called over his radio. “We’re outside.”

“Yeah, baby, come on in.”

They swaggered in the door to find the
tableau as expected, the rump Fortress Team in complete control of
the situation. Huff laughed. “Hey, now we got five. Any word on
Miller’s section?”

“It sounded like they went down fighting,
from what I could hear,” Holden replied, tapping his helmet by his
ear.

“Yeah, that’s what I got too. Crazies. Okay,
Mister Chairman and all you little chairmen, you heard the sound,
you saw the sign. The boss is away with the alien, gonna fly now,
and all we gotta do is come to some kinda understanding,
a’ight?”

Daniel Markis nodded, eyes locked with
Huff’s. “Okay, an understanding. I understand one of you just,
what, kidnapped Raphaela and hijacked her ship? And now you want to
go to Australia? Why?”

“Oh, you just gonna have to wonder about all
that,” Huff replied. “Now here’s the deal. I’m sure somebody gonna
be showing up to check on you pretty soon. So in a minute you’re
gonna pick up that phone and have a long-range transport airplane
fueled up and ready to go on the runway. Make sure it’s got food
and water and at least nine parachute rigs, easy ones that anyone
can use, nothing fancy. Then we drive over and take off. I’ll tell
you where we’re going when we get in the air. All right, go ahead,
pick up the phone.” Huff waved his assault rifle in the general
direction of the children, who cringed.

Daniel picked up the telephone, careful, and
dialed flight operations. A few minutes later and it was all
arranged, surprising but not unusual for the Chairman. They saw
flashing lights pull up in front of the house, and Lumpkins pulled
a blind slat open with his fingers. “Three SUVs.”

Daniel said, “That would be my
transportation. Our transportation.”

“Three vehicles?”

“Probably has my PSD in it. You mind if I
talk to them? Might avoid some…misunderstanding.”

Lumpkins called, “Two people comin’ up the
walkway.”

Markis stood. “Let me meet them at the door.
You got the kids under the gun, nothing will happen.”

Huff nodded.

A moment of conversation, then another
moment, an argument that Markis won, as he always did, sheer force
of personality. Karl and the rest of the PSD backed up to the curb
across the street, leaving the vehicles sitting and running, empty,
waiting.

“All right. Five of us, five kiddies, let’s
get it on.” He seized the nearest, almost-eight Elizabeth, and the
others did the same, gun muzzles pressed to necks. “Come with us,
everyone, into the vehicles. I think we’ll take them all. Grownups
drive.”

They drove through the surreal streets of the
Carletonville complex, their flashers and the Chairman’s face
passing them by checkpoints and staring emergency personnel. The
military jet transport sat alone on the tarmac, engines running and
ramp lowered. “Drive straight in.” They complied.

The loadmaster made as if to object until he
saw the driver of the first vehicle, then backed up fast as the
armed nano-commandos stepped from the SUVs. Huff pushed Elizabeth
onto Lumpkins’ arms and grabbed Daniel Markis by his collar,
yelling over the idling jets. “Everything better be copacetic on
this plane, because your kids are my collateral. Here, take this,”
he handed Markis an envelope. “Read it when we’re gone. Now you
daddies and mommies back these trucks off the plane and we’ll be
taking off. If you hold up your end, all the kiddies come home safe
and sound. If not, it’s on your head. Can you dig it?”

Markis yelled over the jet noise, “You can’t
be serious! These are our children! Leave them here, I give you my
word you’ll fly away, no problem!”

Huff stuck his face in Daniel’s. “I said, Can
– You – Dig – It?” He laughed uproariously. “Edens, come out to
play-ayy…” He shoved Daniel stumbling back toward the nearest
vehicle.

Larry lunged forward. Five assault rifles
came up to point at his chest and he stopped. Eyes hot with
helpless fury, Markis grabbed Larry’s arm and pulled. He motioned
Elise and Shawna back, signaling them to drive the SUVs off the
plane. He had to scream at Larry, shoving him bodily away from his
children, the Nanos grinning with their power and their
invincibility and their guns and their hostages until he complied,
streaming tears of rage.

As the airplane roared down the runway with
his son and daughter Larry punched the side of the truck three
times, bellowing hoarsely. Shawna threw her arms around him,
holding on to his bleeding fist.

Daniel stared at the plane until it dwindled
in the distance, then opened the envelope, looking inside for
something to make sense out of the situation. He read the message
inside in the light of the vehicle headlamps, then crumpled it.