Moses looked over at her running towards the second door. “Leif, what are you doing?”
“I’m going to rescue whatever’s behind that second door,” she aimed her gun at the door handle and blasted it with her gun.
BLAM!
Handax chased after her with trepidation, “Leif, don’t go in there. You don’t know what you’ll—”
“—No, Handax. I’m going in.”
He closed his eyes and allowed her to carry out her quest.
In the second enclosed compound, a series of cages housed more than a hundred cats. They howled at Leif as she entered the room, each of them vying for her attention.
“Oh my God!” Leif clapped her hands together in delight. “They’re here!”
Handax bolted into the room after her and took a look around. “Oh, wow.”
A torrent of ‘meows’ flew from the cages, each and every one of them desperate for freedom.
“What are they doing here?” Leif asked. “Why is USARIC keeping them?”
SNARL … SNASH … HISS!
Two of the cats in their cages displayed their frustration at having been kept holed up in their metal cells.
“I dunno,” Handax scoured the room and attempted to count the felines on display, “There must be a switch or something that releases them all. It’d take forever to open them one by one.”
“Hey, little guys,” she approached the cages and addressed the wailing felines, “It’s okay. We’re here to set you free.”
Leif clamped eyes with a white American bobtail who seemed happy to see her, “Hey, gorgeous. What’s your name?”
“Meow.”
Handax looked around the room for the release switch. “I can’t find anything here. The cages are bolted shut. No individual releases. I’ll check with Moses.”
“Okay,” Leif didn’t turn around to see Handax run out of the room. She focused her attention on the fluffy white creature and read the name on the tag attached to her leg.
“Fluffy? Ha. Figures, you sure are fluffy.”
“Meow.”
Fluffy ran the side of her face against the metal bars.
“Why are they keeping you here, Fluffy? What’s going on, pet?”
“Meow.”
Handax hopped up to the control bank while Moses absorbed the data from the control panel. The inked loading bar on his forearm snailed toward the crook of his elbow. “Careful, man. Don’t knock me or you’ll sever the connection.”
“How’s the transfer going?”
“I figure sixty seconds or so. Security are gonna be here any minute, now. We gotta get ready to run.”
“We gotta find that release switch,” Handax perused the console like a madman, “I’m not leaving those cats in there.”
“Cats?”
“Hundreds of them,” Handax said. “All caged up.”
“Ugh…” Katcheena spluttered from the floor, slowly waking up. Her leg bled a storm across the floor, “Ugh…”
Both Moses and Handax looked down at her.
“She’s seen better days, hasn’t she?”
Handax snorted, knowing full well that she was an unfortunate casualty of her employer’s war. “We’ll get her help when we get what we want. How long, now?”
Moses looked up at the panel and eyed the absorption bar. “Less than a minute. I hope.”
“You’ll… you’ll…” Katcheena tried through her bloodied mouth.
“We’ll what?” Handax asked, put-out by her drama.
“You’ll never get out… alive.”
“That’s as maybe, but as long as the animals do, we don’t care.”
By now, everyone had gotten used to the screaming alarms.
Handax crouched down and felt Katcheena’s neck, “I reckon you have about two minutes before you bleed out.”
Defiant, she spat in his face, “Go to hell.”
He duly ignored her instruction and wiped the phlegm from his face. “You can make this right, Katcheena. Tell me where the release switch is.”
“Never.”
“Suit yourself,” Handax rose to his feet and hollered at the second compound door. “Leif, get out of there.”
Leif ran out of the room and up to Moses and Handax. “Yeah, what’s up?” She spotted the bleeding security guards screaming for their lives by the main door.
“Katcheena, here, won’t tell us where the release switch is. It must be here somewhere, judging by the look on her face lift.”
“How dare you,” she retaliated and press her fingertips to her cheeks. The oily, plastic skin pushed around her skull, “I have not had a face lift.”
“Keep telling yourself that, sweetheart,” Moses nodded at a green button on the control deck, “Try that one.”
“No, don’t press that!” Katcheena cried. “It’s the fire alarm, you’ll soak us all.”
Handax looked at her dead in the eyes. “Really?”
“Yes, really,” she insisted. “The whole place will flood. If we don’t run, we’ll drown.”
“I guess it’ll release the cages if that were to happen, won’t it?” Moses kept an eye on his forearm. Hundreds of little black dots formed across his skin. “That would be a mighty shame. For you.”
“Ugghh…” Katcheena rolled around the floor in pain, covering her bullet would with her hand, “Don’t press it. Please, don’t press it.”
Handax and Leif shot each other a knowing glance.
“Leif?”
“Yeah, babe?”
“Hit the green button.”
“You got it,” she thumped the button and turned to face the second compound.
SCHTANG-SCHTANG-SCHTANG!
One by one, the cage doors burst open, releasing the one-hundred-strong tidal wave of furry felines to the ground. They tumbled, shrieked and scratched their way into the central compound area.
“Run, my darlings,” Leif pointed to the main door, “Over there. Run, run, run.”
Fluffy, the white American bobtail, led the charge. A huge variety of cats chased after her as they dispersed around the console.
“No, no,” Katcheena screamed at the top of her lungs. “What have you done? They’re not ready for release—”
“—We’re only doing what USARIC claims to be doing,’ Handax shouted at her. ‘Maintaining their welfare.”
“You idiots. You don’t know what you’ve done.”
A few cats became fascinated by the workstation’s swivel chairs. They spun them around, and dug their claws into the upholstery.
“Gaaah!” Ketcheena screamed as the influx of furry little felines descended upon her. “Get away from me!”
SCRATCH! GNASH!
Twenty-six cats tore away at Katcheena’s work suit and face, tearing her clothes to shreds and much of the skin from her face.
“Meow,” one particularly vicious cat who resembled Jelly Anderson clawed at her eyes, hungry for revenge.
“That’s one furious pussy, right there,” Moses gasped at the attack and turned to his forearm, “Nearly done.”
“Good,” Handax watched as the majority of the cats storm through the entrance and into the corridor, “They’re going.”
Leif pointed at the far wall in haste, “The third door?”
“No time for that, now—” Handax caught sight of the door leading to the corridor. Furious gunfire, followed by screeching from some of the felines, rattled along the walls and into the compound. “Oh, no.”
Just then, twenty-odd cats ran back into the room, trying to hide from danger.
“Someone’s coming,’ Handax yelled. ‘Someone’s coming.”
Moses kept his forearm held to the plate. “I need more time.”
“No, there’s no time,” Handax grabbed Moses’ shoulders, “Security’s coming. There’s only one way out.”