“That pink stuff doesn’t hurt them, does it?”
“It’s absolutely harmless.”
“You better not be lying to me,” Handax hopped over the bench in front of him and reached the woman. “USARIC’s track record in truth-telling department isn’t exactly one hundred percent, is it?”
The woman squinted at Handax. “I can assure you, they are perfectly fine.” She couldn’t see past the balaclava. Inside, she was puzzled. She felt the need to keep an exterior air of confidence for the sake of her team. “Who are you?”
“It doesn’t matter who I am,” he said, clocking her USARIC name badge. “Consider me a freedom fighter… Katcheena Brooks.”
She turned her head away, angry at Handax’s intrusion on her person.
“Why are you wearing glasses?” He removed them from her face. The wired rims had no lenses in them.
“I like them.”
Handax chuckled, “Do you think they make you look intelligent?”
“—Hey!” Moses screamed from the door to the compound. He caught a medician reaching for the alarm button under her desk. “You! Get down on the floor or I’ll blow your damn head off your shoulders. Do it!”
Close to tears, the medician fanned her arms across the floor and sobbed against the tiled floor.
“Moses,” Handax called out, feeling a little sorry for her, “Come on, man.”
“She was going for the alarm, you know.”
“Just keep your gun on the guard.”
Moses turned his gun on his captive and thumped him on the arm. “Trying to distract me.”
Handax dropped Katcheena’s glasses on the floor and nodded over at Moses. “I’ll cut straight to the chase, Katcheena. My friend over there is going to absorb USARIC’s data. My other friend and I are going to release all the animals.”
Katcheena burst out laughing. “Oh, really?”
“Yeah. Really,” Handax jammed the barrel of his gun into her temple. He found her strange laughter puzzling, “And if you don’t do exactly as we say, I’m going to paint a pretty little death smile on your pretty little face.”
Katcheena’s flippant reaction was met with dumbfounded reaction from her many colleagues.
“I don’t think so,” Katcheena turned to her frightened crew and screamed at the top of her lungs. “Everyone, follow the agreed-upon course of action.”
She thumped the red button on the console, setting off the security alarms. The white walls turned blood red from the spinning cascade of the red emergency lights.
Handax shot Katcheena in the shin and kicked her against the console, “Stupid woman. Where are the animals?”
Her colleagues tore across the room and made for the opened emergency exits.
Leif and Moses didn’t know whether to take potshots at the fleeing USARIC medicians, or train their guns on their captives.
“Handax, what do we do?” Leif called out over the screaming and crying.
“Shut up, I’m thinking.”
“Handax? People Against Animal Cruelty Handax Skill?” Katcheena went for her bleeding leg, trying to fight off the urge to faint. “Just kill me, you dumb animal-botherer. I’m telling you nothing.”
“I mean it, Katcheena,” Handax pointed his gun at her chest. “Tell me where they are.”
“Never,” Katcheena’s eyelids closed slowly as she slumped off the console and hit the ground. Handax watched as the last of the medicians barreled through the door to freedom.
“Damn it,” he screamed over the alarm and waved Moses over to the console. “Do it. Now.”
“On it,” Moses made a dash for the console and unfastened his shirt sleeve.
“How long to absorb the records?”
“Depends on their interface,” Moses lifted the plastic cover from the flat screen on the deck, “Last check, they’re storing fifteen terabytes of data so, maybe, two minutes?”
“Get on it,” Handax watched Moses press his forearm to the screen.
“Cee-Cee, connect,” Moses yelled at his arm as the ink reformed into three lines. “N-Gage. Four, five, seven.”
“N-Gage connection complete,” advised the calm female console voice, “Commencing data download.”
“We’re in.”
Handax and Moses shared a brief smile. Something resembling victory was forthcoming – as long as they got out in time.
“Hey, babes,” Handax shouted at Leif, who kept her gun on the two security guards from behind. “Take care of those two and come help me break these doors down.”
“Sure.”
BLAM-BLAM!
She shot each guard in the back of their right leg. Both men wailed in pain and dropped to their knees, clutching at their wounds.
Moses raised his eyebrows in shock at what she’d done.
“What are you doing?” Handax shouted over the alarm. “I meant tie them up, not shoot them.”
“Tie them up with what?” Leif bolted towards him. “I don’t have any ties.”
Handax grabbed her hand and pulled her across the console. She jumped to her feet and ran with him to the three doors on the far wall.
“That was unnecessary. You didn’t have to injure them.”
“They’re only human, it doesn’t matter.”
“Guys,” Moses hollered after them, effectively chained to the console by his forearm. “The data’s downloading. I dunno what you have planned, but whatever it is, make it fast.”
Handax turned to the first door and aimed his firearm at the handle. “Stand back!”
KERR-ASH!
The door burst off its hinges, leading into the second compound. A pungent smell of death greeted Handax as Leif followed him into the frosty cryo-chamber.
“Ugh. What’s that smell?”
“Smells like rancid butter,” Leif stepped forward and accidentally knocked Handax’s heel. “Ugh, I think I’m gonna be sick.”
The lights fizzed to life and illuminated the contents of the small room. Leif’s face fell when she peered from behind her hand. “Oh my God.”
Handax took a look around and felt his soul machete through his chest and run away from his body, “I don’t believe it.”
More cages. But this time, stuffed to the brim with animal carcasses. Most of them had tails and were long dead.
“No, this is a mistake. This can’t be right.”
One of the in-built storage units caught his attention. He slid the compartment out and stared at the gray feline carcass inside it. One of the lucky ones, by all accounts.
He lifted its hind leg. What was once a Russian Blue was no more. Attached to its foot was a tag with a name written on it.
“Bisoubisou?” Handax muttered. “But she’s—”
“—She’s on Opera Beta?” Leif interrupted. “Has been for nearly two years.”
“Guys,” Moses hollered from the central control unit, “I’m nearly done. Get ready to get the hell out of here.”
The illness Leif felt in the pit of her stomach was hard to take. Handax lowered the cat’s hind leg as gently as he could to the surface of the cage. “She never went.”
“I hate USARIC,” Leif freaked out and thumped the cage, inadvertently shuffling the carcasses around, “We were supposed to set them free. How can we set them free when they’re all dead?”
“Calm down,” Handax took her by the shoulders and tried to shake her back to reality. “Leif, please.”
“They’re all dead. USARIC killed them all.”
“Leif, you’re hysterical. Calm down and listen to me.”
“Let go of me, I have to rescue the animals!” She pushed him back and darted out of the room.