“What?” Handax kept his pathetic hold on the man as he got nearer.
“Kill you stone dead,” he smiled in the face of execution and nodded at Handax’s gun, “You gonna use that on me?”
Handax glanced at the shaking cats and created a compromise, “Will you let me go if I walk out of here?”
“Your two buddies did it. I never saw you. You’re wearing a mask. ”
Handax thought over the offer for a few seconds. Freedom beckoned.
“Go on, get out of here.”
Handax kept his gun aimed at the man and gripped the top of his balaclava with his free hand.
“Hey, no. What are you doing? Don’t show me your—”
Off came the balaclava, revealing Handax’s tear-strewn face.
The mercenary thumped his fists together in a state of fury, “You imbecile. I’ve seen you, now.”
“Yeah, you know what this means. Don’t you?”
The mercenary held up his hands in shock, “You don’t have to do this, you know.”
“I have to do this.”
BLAM!
Handax shot the mercenary in the chest, killing him. He blinked a few times and attempted to process what he’d done. “I can’t run,” he muttered and accepted his fate. He turned to the cats, “But it means you guys can. Go on! Get out of here. Quick.”
The cats stood looking at him, suspended in disbelief.
“Don’t just stand there staring at me, you morons. Run.”
Still no response. Any moment now, USARIC would breach the compound and terminate anything turning oxygen into carbon dioxide without question.
Handax did what he had to do. It was for their own good. He ran at them barking like a dog as loud as he could, “Woof, woof!”
The cats shrieked and jumped into the air. Most of them bolted toward the door and down the corridor.
“Go on. Go, go,” he shouted after them and waved the few that remained toward the door. He stomped forward, acting the violent beast, “Grrr.”
The final few startled kitties chased after their counterparts and vacated the compound, leaving a thoroughly disheveled Handax to take a deep breath.
Leif and Moses were dead.
Handax would join them thirty seconds from now. He stepped up to the console and lifted Moses’ left arm. The absorption process was so close to being complete. The data that had successfully transferred was useless in the body of a dead man.
Handax carefully set his friend’s arm to the console and took a seat in the chair. He rolled up his sleeve and swiped the three inked lines across his forearm.
“Individimedia, access. Enable broadcast. Handax T. Skill.”
The ink formed a row of dots across his skin. His thumbnail lit up a soft green and pink, throwing a shaft of light at his face.
A screech of tires slamming to a halt barreled from the far end of the corridor. The worry vacated his mind. He looked at his forearm and moved his thumb to allow the light emission to his eyes.
“This is Handax Skill from P.A.A.C, People Against Animal Cruelty. I hope someone is watching. We take responsibility for the assassination of Dimitri Vasilov. We breached the animal compound at USARIC’s headquarters at Cape Claudius, which is where I am broadcasting from.
“If it moves, shoot it,” a voice shouted form within the corridor.
Handax continued his last will and testament into his forearm. “I know someone out there is watching. What USARIC has done is unforgivable. What we found when we breached the compound is even worse…”
The footsteps grew louder and louder, as did the angry shouting of orders to kill everything on sight.
“Remy Gagarin’s cat, Bisoubisou, never boarded Opera Beta. We found her body at the compound along with hundreds of others. Those we found alive we set free. USARIC has killed three of my team. Moses, Denny, and Leif. They’ll deny it, of course. They’ll claim they went missing and have no involvement. In a matter of seconds, I’ll be joining them.”
“Over there!” yelled an umpteenth USARIC mercenary as he entered the room, “Hey, you. Put your arms above your head and drop to your knees.”
Handax obliged the official and faced his forearm, still broadcasting, “Can you hear that? Here they are, look.”
He tilted his forearm forward, displaying a dozen USARIC mercs looking back at him with their weapons drawn. In that very moment, Handax’s broadcast evolved into a live feed for his inevitable execution.
One viewer who saw Handax’s Individimedia broadcast was seven-year-old Jamie Anderson, who watched the events play out on a holographic image in his bedroom.
“Handax? Is that you?” Jamie muttered in astonishment.
Upside-down footage of the heavily armed USARIC mercenaries greeted the viewer.
“We will not lie down until USARIC reverses its decision to use animals for space exploration,” Handax’s voice emitted over the broadcast as the image lowered to the ground. He’d dropped to his knees.
The first mercenary hooked his finger around the trigger of his gun, “Hey, blue hair. Are you broadcasting?”
“Death to human scum who practice inhumane—”
“—Stop that Individimedia broadcast, right now!” ordered the mercenary.
Handax squeezed his eyes shut and yelled at the top of his lungs. “Death to human scum who practice inhumane treatment of animals—”
BANG-BANG-BANG-THUMP!
Jamie shrieked and held his hands over his mouth as the point-of-view of the live feed crashed to the floor. Not seeing the violence play out on the footage was much worse than seeing it. Handax’s arm slapped to the floor, offering the viewer a front-row ticket of a first-person death.
Jamie Anderson’s mind went into overdrive. He stared at the screen, open-jawed and traumatized. After a moment or two, he turned his opened bedroom door, “Mom!”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“I don’t get it. I saw Haloo die right in front of me. On the operating table. No pulse, nothing.”
Jaycee’s suspicion didn’t subside as the crew approached Botanix. The door had been shattered – the result of an explosion.
He vented his frustration – quietly, and confidently. He kept his grip on Tor’s Decapidisc, forcing the man forward, “Ain’t that right, Russian?”
“I don’t know,” Tor said.
“Yeah. You don’t know very much, do you?”
“Whatever that pink stuff is, it’s done no lasting damage,” Tripp whispered back. “You think you saw her die. But you’re no medician.”
Wool glanced at Tripp as they approached the door to Botanix. “Well, I am a medician, and something isn’t right, here.”
Haloo reached the door and ran her palm over Jelly’s head. “Look, girl. We’re here.”
“Meow,” Jelly shuffled around in her arms, wanting to get down. Haloo wouldn’t release her. Instead, she kissed Jelly on the head and looked into her orange eyes.
“Are you ready, honey?”
“Mwaah,” Jelly’s saw something in Haloo’s face that terrified her. She squealed and jumped out of her arms, landing paws-first to the floor, “Meow.”
She made a bee line for Wool legs and took refuge behind them.
“Hey, girl. What’s up?”
Jelly whined and tilted her head up to Wool. Her inner-suit had split open across her two front arms.
“You’ve damaged your skin, girl,” she crouched to her knees and held Jelly’s arm, “How did that happen—?”