“Why?”
“Because the runt and his two shadows might be prisoners,” Hickok said.
Blade’s brow creased in consternation. The gunman used the term “runt” to describe only one person: Lynx. “Are you telling me that Lynx, Ferret, and Gremlin might be here too?”
“Afraid so,” Hickok said.
“What did you do?” Blade asked. “Bring the whole Family along?”
“They snuck on board the aircraft with me,” Hickok explained. “I don’t know what happened to the dummies. We hid out when the silver yahoos came on the aircraft. I didn’t see hide nor hair of ’em after that.”
Blade scanned the length of the corridor. “Do you know how long it will take to search every cell?”
“It wasn’t my fault,” Hickok reiterated.
Blade sighed and moved to the nearest door. “How do we open one of these.”
Hickok nodded toward the black button on the wall. “Press that.”
Blade did, and the cell door hissed open. The cell was empty. “This will take forever,” he remarked.
Hickok glanced to their left, then suddenly grabbed Blade’s right wrist and pulled him into the cell.
“What is it?” Blade queried.
“The door at the end of the hall was opening,” Hickok said. “I didn’t wait to see who it was.”
Blade spotted another black button on the interior wall near the door and pressed it. The door closed.
Hickok pressed his ear to the door. “I can hear somebody comin’,” he stated.
Blade placed his right ear to the door. He could hear the tread of multiple footsteps in the corridor, increasing in volume as they neared the door. Voices became audible.
“…until morning,” a deep voice was saying. “I am incapable of fabricating a falsehood. When I told you your friend was not seriously injured, I spoke the truth.”
“But he’s still shaking, yes?” responded a familiar speaker.
“That’s Gremlin!” Hickok whispered.
“His body absorbed an enormous voltage,” the first voice stated.
“Nervous system and muscular control are directly affected. I told you he would recover in an hour. It has not yet been twenty minutes. When you see him in the morning, he will be fully recovered.”
“I hope so,” said a third voice.
“That’s Ferret!” Hickok said.
Blade knew their voices as well as the gunfighter. He frowned, annoyed.
Escape was no longer a simple matter of finding an exit from the prison.
Now they would need to rescue the three mutants, then seek an exit—and in the process increase the risk of detection and recapture. But there was no other option. Lynx, Ferret, and Gremlin were adopted Family members. The three mutants had thrown in with the Family and had aided the Warriors on numerous occasions. Abandoning them was out of the question.
“Where is the guard on duty?” asked the deep voice, sounding as if he was right outside the cell door.
Blade tensed. They had left his cell door open after knocking out the guard! If whoever was out in the corridor kept going, they would reach the open cell and discover the unconscious guard!
“You will remain here while I go back to the guard station at the end of the hall and use their phone,” the deep voice directed. “I’ll patch into the Rice O.D. Locator Computer and have the guard’s location pinpointed within seconds.”
“Is that how you found Barney so fast?” Ferret asked.
“The computer registered Barney’s deviation from his assigned work area the second he departed with you,” the deep voice said.
There was the sound of a single person moving away.
Hickok nudged Blade. “Should we try and free ’em?” he whispered.
Blade shook his head. He leaned next to the gunman’s left ear. “No. We don’t know how many are with them. That one doing all the talking sounded like one of those silver jokers. We’ll wait.”
Hickok nodded.
More talking arose in the corridor.
“Lynx! Lynx! Snap out of it!” Ferret said.
“He’s in bad shape, yes?” Gremlin mentioned.
“I just hope he comes around like that big bastard said he would,” Ferret declared.
Silence.
Blade waited, straining for the faintest sound. Finally, the man with the deep voice returned.
“Most peculiar,” he stated. “The duty guard is in a cell not far ahead.
You four! Check Cell forty-four immediately.”
Boots pounded on the floor. Within ten seconds, someone was shouting from the direction of Cell 44. “He’s in here, RH-10! He’s been attacked!”
“Is he alive?” RH-10 asked. “Yes, sir! But he’s unconscious!”
“Revive him!” RH-10 ordered. His voice lowered. “There must have been an escape. We didn’t pass anyone on the west stairwell, so the escapee might be using the east one. You six! Take the east stairwell to the ground floor. Detain anyone not in uniform.”
“Yes, sir!” someone responded, and boots tramped off to do his bidding.
“You two will remain here. I must return to the guard station and activate the alarm,” RH-10 said. He walked off.
Blade’s mind was racing. If he’d understood RH-10’s directions, then Hickok and he were in a cell on the north side of the hallway. To the left was east, to the right west. RH-10, obviously one of the silver men, was heading for the west end of the corridor, where the guard station was apparently located. Six other men were on their way to the stairwell at the east end. Four more were in Cell 44. And only two were guarding Lynx and others.
“Should we try and free ’em now?” Hickok questioned softly.
Blade thoughtfully chewed on his lower lip. There were only two avenues of escape from the cell block, the two stairwells. The silver man was at the west end, the six others on the east side.
Even if Lynx, Ferret and Gremlin could be freed, how could the five of them manage to use the stairwells unseen? The answer was simple: they couldn’t. He glanced at Hickok and shook his head.
Minutes elapsed.
Someone in the corridor coughed.
The next moment the entire corridor was rocked by the blaring wail of klaxons.
Blade’s frustration was mounting. They had been so close to freedom!
And now they were trapped inside the prison, while their enemies were scouring every nook and cranny to find them. He felt cornered and helpless, and the short hairs on the nape of his neck were tingling. Out of the frying pan, into the fire!
Chapter Nine
Gremlin placed his hands over his sensitive ears and grimaced in discomfort. “The sirens are too loud, yes? They hurt Gremlin’s ears!”
Ferret, standing two feet away, supporting Lynx, his left arm draped around Lynx’s waist, his right bracing Lynx’s chest, nodded.
Two of the men in black were four feet off to the west, their hands on their batons, alertly watching the three mutants.
RH-10 hurried toward them from the guard station at the west end of the corridor. “Security will lock every exit from the building,” he announced. “Blade will not escape.”
“Blade?” Ferret said in surprise.
“The cell chart indicates Blade was being detained in Cell Forty-four,” RH-10 said. “Somehow, he must have neutralized the stasis field. Most exceptional. No one has ever done that before.”
“You’ll never catch Blade,” Ferret said.
“He was captured once,” RH-10 noted. “We will apprehend him again.”
“Blade doesn’t make the same mistake twice,” Ferret said, baiting the silver figure.
“We shall see,” RH-10 commented. “In the meantime, we must confine the three of you.” He lifted his right arm and motioned with his whip at the closed door. “Place the one called Lynx in there,” he directed the two men in black.