Extensis Vitae (6 page)

Nice
, he thought. He pressed the last guard, blocking his strike, feinting, and then landed a blow to the man’s upper arm, triggering the electrical pulse in the process. As the electricity crackled, the man shuddered and dropped like a sack of potatoes.

Reznik was dimly aware of an alarm going off somewhere. Cole was almost back on his feet, so Reznik gave him some of the juice, as well. He crumpled.

Turning back to the door, he saw four more security guards come racing through the sliding doors of the lobby. He steeled himself to make a charge at them, figuring they wouldn’t expect that.

“Hold it right there, Mr. Reznik!” Swanson’s voice cracked like a whip. The command in his voice made Reznik heed his warning. He turned and saw the administrator about ten feet away with a snub-nose revolver leveled at him.

“What happened to the rule about no firearms allowed in this facility?” Reznik asked sarcastically.

Swanson shrugged. “The rules don’t apply to me. I am the law here.”

And then one of the electrical pulses zapped his calf, and Reznik dropped his baton as his muscles contorted involuntarily. A second charge put him on the floor. Several more shocks followed and blackness closed in.

“Get him out of here,” came Swanson’s distant voice, and then there was darkness.

Chapter 4

T
he cool air blowing in the door of the Black Hawk helicopter felt refreshing after the stifling heat down on the ground. The mission had been a successful snatch and grab of another High Value Target. The mood was jubilant, made more so by the fact that they would be leaving country and would be back stateside in five days. Somebody had broken out a boom box and cranked it up.

“Hell yeah,” Reznik murmured as Maynard James Keenan’s voice cut through the heavy bass guitar riffs. He leaned back and closed his eyes for a moment.
Five more days, and then back to Bragg
, he thought.

He was sitting next to Nash, who insisted on having the outboard seat so he could spit his dip out the open door. The peacefulness of the evening belied the brutal war being fought in the shadows of the country below.

Reznik pulled the worn photo from his breast pocket and looked at it for the hundredth, maybe thousandth time since they’d been apart. In the picture, he was mugging for the camera, his arm around his girlfriend, Amanda. She was a cute blonde with blue eyes. Short and slim, she barely came up to his shoulder. They were standing on the summit of Mt. Evans, one of the Rocky Mountain Fourteeners they had hiked.

Amanda worked as a financial analyst for a mutual fund company in Denver. They had been dating for about four years now, having met when Reznik was still stationed at Ft. Carson. Now, since he was at Bragg, they had a long distance relationship going, but Reznik usually flew out to Denver once a month or so when he wasn’t deployed.
This time, though, I think I’m going to buy you a ring
, he thought. He started thinking over scenarios for how he wanted to do the proposal.

He yawned. The steady thrum of the chopper and the exhaustion that followed the adrenaline high of the mission were lulling him to sleep. He knew he wasn’t the only one.

“Oh…holy shit!” Nash’s cry snapped Reznik out of his reverie. His eyes popped open to see a fiery streak cutting through the darkness as it rose from the terrain below. It was strangely beautiful against the black backdrop of the terrain below and the fading pink sunset in the partly cloudy sky.

Then the warning klaxons started going off in the Black Hawk. Everyone who wasn’t already strapped in reached for something to grab on to as panic struck. The pilot swung the chopper into an evasive maneuver, but Reznik could see it would be too late. He clutched at one of his unused shoulder harnesses and managed to loop it around his arm.

The fiery streak of the rocket-propelled grenade exploded into the tail section of the Black Hawk. The explosion tossed the helicopter around and it began spinning out of control. People were shouting in terror—whether curses or prayers, Reznik would never be able to say.

The last time Reznik saw his friend Nash, he was falling backward in slow motion out the open door. His hand reached out and was close enough to grab onto, his eyes wide with fear and his mouth open in a silent scream. But Reznik couldn’t move—his body had gone numb, and he found himself frozen in place. Little did he know that his paralysis was due to the shrapnel that had torn away from the fuselage and lodged in his back, severing his spinal cord.

Reznik and Nash locked eyes for a moment before Nash tumbled away from the Black Hawk and disappeared into the darkness below. The helicopter spun out of control and quickly began losing altitude as Reznik tried to fruitlessly will his limbs into motion and grab on to something. His arm slipped loose from the shoulder harness, and then came the terrifying vertigo as he found himself tossed out the open door like Nash had been moments earlier. Smoke and fire were all around as the Black Hawk plunged into the mountainside.

***

A splitting headache and a sore back were his reward from the dust-up with the security team. Reznik looked around and picked himself up from the floor of the holding cell. The cell looked like it could have been taken from any small town jail. It had a hard cot on one wall and bars on two sides. The metal walls of the bunker made up the other two sides.

“What did I tell you about staying out of trouble?” a familiar voice asked.

Reznik looked around and saw Myrna seated in a chair near the door. She had her feet propped up on the desk. He couldn’t tell whether the look on her face was one of amusement or irritation.

He stretched his sore back and grinned sheepishly at her. “What Swanson wants me to do is madness. I told him no and that I was leaving, but he and his security goons weren’t happy with that answer.”

“I told you the word ‘no’ wasn’t in his vocabulary.”

“Yeah, you were right. So what happens to me now?”

She smiled. “Well, lucky for you, Swanson is desperate and I was able to talk him into letting me convince you to help.”

Reznik shook his head. “Not gonna work. This is a suicide mission. I need to get out of here and get back to my fiancée in Denver. I was planning on proposing the next time I saw her.”

Myrna had a funny look on her face—part pity and part anger, it looked like. “You really don’t know what has happened, do you? How much did Swanson explain about the outside world?”

“He said something about there being nothing left except this Colony and the others, and that Denver didn’t exist anymore or something like that. I don’t know…he didn’t make any sense.” Reznik sat on the bunk and put his head in his hands.

“That bastard. What did he promise you in return?”

“Nothing really. He just said that he’d help me be on my way after I helped him.”

“That’s not right. He’s trying to bargain with you when you don’t even know the terms.” She got to her feet. “I’m going to have to explain a lot to you. Do you realize I’m sticking my neck out for you? Will you promise not to get in any more trouble while you’re under my care?”

Reznik felt a little guilty about that. She had treated him well all along. “Yes, I promise,” he said as she approached the cell.

She swept her hand over a control pad on the cell door. It beeped, and then with a
clank
the lock disengaged. “Proximity reader—it scans the embedded chip in my hand,” she explained to his curious look. “Why don’t we go back to my lab and I’ll fill you in on everything?”

“Sounds good,” he said. “Maybe on the way we can grab something to eat and drink?”

“Good idea.”

As they stepped out into the corridor, Reznik noticed that two new guards were waiting outside the door. Myrna led Reznik down a short hallway to the room with the main security desk. He recognized Cole sitting behind the desk.

Cole gave Reznik a glare. “Myrna!” he called out. “Can I have a word?”

Myrna sighed. “Will you give me a minute?” She walked over to Cole. “What is it, Jason?”

Cole said something in a hushed voice with a glance at Reznik. Myrna looked irritated as she responded to him. After speaking for a moment, Myrna walked back over and waved for Reznik to follow.

“Everything all right?” Reznik asked once they were back in the main corridor.

“Yes. Jason’s a little over-protective sometimes, that’s all.”

“Well, I didn’t give him any reason to like me very much.”

“That’s very true,” she said with a laugh. Reznik liked the sound of her laugh—it was fresh and genuine.

“Are the two of you together?”

She shook her head. “We used to be, but he has a hard time with the ‘used to’ part sometimes.” Reznik nodded.

They approached the dining room and went inside. Several people were eating at the tables and having casual conversation. All the conversation died as soon as they noticed Reznik. Curious looks and hostile stares met him wherever he looked.

“It’s not polite to stare, people,” Myrna said with some irritation. A few people mumbled and went back to what they were doing, but most continued to watch, some with undisguised hostility.

“I see my reputation precedes me,” Reznik quipped quietly to Myrna.

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, but that’s no excuse for the icy glares. Especially since we are pinning our hopes on you.” She continued walking, but halted when she saw that Reznik had frozen in place.

“That’s a robot!” he said in shock. A robot had just wheeled out of the kitchen area carrying bowls of food in its four arms. It was about as tall as an average person, and was cylindrical in shape. It had a couple of sensors on its square head that were supposed to look like eyes.

“How observant,” she said sarcastically. “But yes, we have a few of them around to aid in cooking and cleaning and the like. They also do some work in the reactor chamber, sanitation section, and anywhere else that would be too hazardous for humans.”

“
How can I be of service, sir and madam?
” the robot asked in a surprisingly human voice. It arranged the food it had been carrying on the counter.

“Sandwiches sound okay?” Myrna asked Reznik.

“Sure, that’s fine,” Reznik said.

“
Yes, madam
,” the robot replied after Myrna ordered two meals. Its four arms reached out in different directions, and, moving in a blur, it assembled two large sandwiches with a generous helping of potato salad on each plate.

“Thanks,” Reznik replied as he took the plate from the robot. He wondered if it was even necessary to thank a robot.

“
It was my pleasure, sir
,” the robot replied. Reznik followed Myrna farther along the counter to pick up a glass full of what looked like Kool-Aid and a fork and a napkin. They sat down at a table in the corner.

Reznik thought the sandwich was roast beef, but he couldn’t be sure. The meat didn’t have any flavor, and the sandwich mostly tasted like mustard. Nonetheless, he scarfed it down, as he was famished. The potato salad tasted like potato salad and was fairly good. The Kool-Aid could have been fruit punch, and had the aftertaste of sugar substitute.

“How was it?” she asked when they were finished.

“It was all right—not sure about the mystery meat, though.”

She smiled. “Doesn’t taste like the roast beef you are used to, huh? Well, this meat is grown in a lab.” She laughed at his surprised look. “What did you expect? You don’t see any cows grazing in any pastures around here, do you?”

Reznik snorted in laughter. “I guess I had no idea of what to expect. I still don’t know enough about what the hell is going on to form solid expectations at this point.”

“We’ll get to that soon, I promise. If you’re ready…” Reznik nodded and they got up and left the dining facility.

Their security escort caught up the them again before they got far. Myrna led them back down the stairs past the level with the living quarters. They reached the bottom of the stairs, turned right, and went past the makeshift medical bay where Reznik had woken up. A little farther down, Myrna stopped outside a laboratory and swiped her hand in front of the sensor. After a soft
beep
, the door slid open.