Intended Extinction (23 page)

I was
in the Armory when I heard Aiya’s voice. I cleaned up from my shooting spree in the range, racked the rifle, and escaped to Primary.

Thoughts of the impending mission combined into a storm within my mind. In the mix was Tara. With Celement tracking us, the Corrupt Vista on the horizon, and the subsequent assault on Jersey City, I wanted to be absolutely sure if Tara still felt something for me. Because behind everything I’d learned in the past month, the only true emotions I still held were feelings for her. If I was going to die out there, I needed some closure.

Maybe this wasn’t the kind of thing Genesis wanted me to be thinking of at the time. But to hell with that. I never really considered myself to be one of them anyways. No matter how much of a lifeless soldier I had become, I just wanted to finish this and go home.

I crossed Central, followed by Dodge and Celia. We entered Primary just as Vane stepped out of his office. I caught a glimpse of the inside, and was instantly looking around for Justin. He and I would often share looks with each other—our silent language. But he was nowhere to be seen.

That didn’t mean I had softened up to the kid.

Eventually everyone filtered in, including the eleven-year-old. He looked tired, with heavy bags underneath his eyes. In fact, everyone looked worn. Bollis and Dodge hadn’t gotten any sleep, and were about to potentially run into another mission. Dodge’s blonde hair shot upward and formed ridiculous waves. Bollis sat in contemplation. Even Tara, who never showed any wear, looked sore and exhausted.

I held my gaze upon her. It had started to become awkward between us. I felt like I was losing her.

After a moment of tinkering with a small tablet, Vane finally spoke to us.

“Well,” he said, in a different tone than usual. He spoke as if he had just seen a horrific car accident. “It looks like it’s time for us to move. After eight years of hard work, I hate to be rushed at the end, but I want this to be over, just as much as all of you do.”

I made a glance at Tara, who met eyes with me, surprisingly. I tuned out Vane for a second, centering my thoughts on Tara. She
had
to know what was going on between us. Why was she being so distant?

“So,” he continued, “I will not waste any more time. Before we can make our attempt at Jersey City, we
need
the Corrupt Vista back online. Celia.” His command to Celia prompted her to push a button on her device.

From the lone, basketball-shaped sphere in the middle of the table, came a holographic projection, slowly spinning. It was the tunnel that connected Central to the Corrupt Vista.

“The reason we need this base,” he said, pacing the room, “is because of its proximity to Axxiol. We need to activate the jamming frequencies from within the Vista, to be able to stunt multiple facets of Axxiol’s infrastructure, as well as disable an array of Jersey City security protocols.”

“Draining the Vista is the
only
way?” asked Dodge. “I mean, couldn’t we just jam them from here?”

Celia shot Dodge a polluted look.

“Unfortunately, no,” answered Vane, using the interface module in his hand to control the spinning holograph. He zoomed in on the tunnel, expanding it to the size of the table itself. “However, this will be a simple mission. It has to be, or we lose our head start on Celement. Celia, if you would explain our objectives, please.”

Celia spoke from behind her see-through monitor, “We have four objectives. First, we need to make sure the emergency drain vents are not obstructed. There are four of them, located in the bottom corners of the tunnel.” She highlighted their positions, making them visible to us.

“Why would they be obstructed?” asked Dodge.

“Diagnoses show that there has been a malfunction on one of the valves. I am just saying we need to make sure. All surveillance has been shorted, so there’s no way for me to see what’s been going on in there.”

“Great,” droned Dodge.

“Our next objective—I guess I should say
your
next objective—is opening the main door to the Vista. Just make sure you take cover on either side of the door, unless you wanna go for a swim.” The neon yellow highlight embossed the back doors of the hologram.

“How much water’ll come out?” asked Vexin.

I hadn’t paid much attention to Vex, whose pale skin was bruised. Underneath his eye, a bandaged gash made me smile a little. That was
my
doing.

“Well,” said Celia, “imagine Central, full of water.”

Vexin looked dissatisfied.

Even though Vex was horribly rude and acidic, he was an incredible asset to the group. It took me a while to see it—and every ounce of patience—but Vexin was just as focused and adamant about Genesis’ goal than anyone else. At first, I hated him more than anything. He had verbally shattered me each time I trained with him. However, once I became comfortable around him, a certain connection began to grow. It was a porous, spiky bond, but a bond nonetheless.

“All right,” she continued, “your next objective is sealing off the breach. The emergency hull repair system managed to fix most of it, but there’s still a leak. You will have to physically place a patch from the inside. There will be a repair kit in the Vista.”

“Are our suits waterproof?” asked Tara.

“Of course,” replied Celia. “Finally, you will just have to turn on the emergency power systems. Once you’re in there, I’ll direct you to where they are. And . . . that’s it.” She smiled faintly from behind those thick glasses of hers.

“Are we clear?” asked Vane. I could tell how impatient he was. I hadn’t ever seen him this nervous. Celement must be worse than I thought.

Everyone nodded. We were ready.

“Just be careful, please,” Celia added, mostly directed at Dodge. “We still don’t know what caused this.”

“This one’s in the bag,” said Dodge, stretching and standing up. The rest of us got to our feet and the hologram disappeared.

After everyone was dismissed, we all found ourselves in the locker portion of the Armory. It was finally time to don our Oversuits. I was excited, having only seen Bollis do it once before. Maybe the mission could count as my last training session, before the final plunge. Thankfully, Simone’s fear extinction helped me fend off encroaching peril. No matter how many times the little demon in my head told me I only had a month’s training, I could approach the situation with a calm demeanor, fully focused.

“You two remember how this works?” Bollis asked Tara and me.

“I think so,” said Tara, placing all of the plating on the bench in front of her. She examined them, wondering where to start.

I first took out the sabatons. They were slim-fitting, following every curve of my foot, with a pointed toe and a tongue that curved up as it met the ankle. A thin piece of the material continued upwards, denoting the shin-plate.

Vexin lifted his leg upon the bench and began to assemble his armor.

I mimicked him and stepped into the boot’s skeleton.

A reactant inside my Undersuit activated micro magnets within the Oversuit material, and the boot clamped onto my foot and shin. Once the greave had connected, more layers fanned out, encasing the majority of my calf.

Next, were my cuisses, or thigh-plates. I held them up to the light, admiring the intricate Kevlar-metal design. Similarly, when I placed them upon my thighs, they locked into place and more layers surrounded the extremity.

I continued with the rest of my armor, placing them and watching the magnetic forces pull together and latch each plate with precision. My cuirass was thick and dense, wrapping around to my spine, while the vambrace and rerebrace allowed my arms full mobility. The last pieces were the pauldrons, securing my shoulders with a round sheet of protection. Once everything was in place, I felt invincible.

I clipped on a lumbar pouch—a grouping of three satchels that hung at my lower back. We used the pockets to hold ammunition, grenades, or other trinkets.

At last, I could wear the helmet. I plucked it from my locker and ran my gloved hand over the sleek visor. I was taken back to the night Bollis and I met, when I first laid eyes on the strange thing. It was indeed layered with flexible dragon scales. Each helmet was fitted to the shape of the user’s head, which required a split on each side of the cheek areas. The cracks would automatically come together once the helmet was worn. I stuffed the sphere underneath my arm and felt the little boy inside of me scream with excitement.

I glanced at Tara, who looked just as attractive as before. Her Oversuit was specifically designed for a woman, with changes in the armor to accommodate her figure. I thought back to our first encounter, seeing her in normal clothes. That was an entire dimension ago.

The Oversuit sported a pale, chalky color. Contrasted with the blackberry Undersuit, we looked sleek and robotic. Dodge, Vexin, and Bollis had yellow highlights and designs painted professionally upon different armor pieces.

With our suits calibrated and set, we were just getting started.

Our next destination was to grab our loadouts—our weapons of choice. Earlier, Dodge had mentioned that while everyone was trained to use all of the weapons, each person had their specialty. Bollis walked up to the rifle rack and snatched his short barreled, close quarters fashioned Electromagnetic Burst Rifle or “ELBR.” The sub-machine gun accommodated his demolitions forte. When he was arming charges or setting mines, he needed to make sure he could draw his weapon without having much room to do so. His range of explosives included plastics, remote and proximity mines, electro-grenades, and tiny projectiles called sliderjets.

Dodge was our marksman. He moved to the opposite side of the rifle pillar and grabbed his sleek, long-nosed M580. The M580 was a single shot, high-powered, long range rifle that could put a hole through two elephants standing side-by-side. It was meant for a dead eye—someone who only needed one shot. Dodge also specialized in our sniper rifle, the .60 caliber, armor piercing MR-F39 or as we called it, the “Ramrod.” I had only seen Dodge use it once, but when he did, nothing remained of the targets. The only thing keeping the user from being knocked down was a sophisticated damping mechanism that stopped overheating and restrained kick-back. The squared, heat-sensing scope could spot someone in incredible definition, two miles away.

Heavy weapons were Vexin’s tools. Weighing in at 60 pounds, the “Boomsocket” was our grenade launcher. It used three-inch, tennis ball-sized canisters, which detonated on impact. This was our deadliest defense, considering the destruction created when one of those shells made contact. Vexin was also savvy with my personal favorite, the RAV-77. With its long, v-shaped nose and 200-round barrel magazine, the heavy machine-gun could unload its entire clip in about 20 seconds. The recoil alone knocked me down onto my butt, but Vexin could use it while standing. The RAV-77 was truly a monster. Lastly, Vexin used his prized possession—the Stauss 4—a deadly shotgun, prepared with armor-piercing shells.

When it came down to Tara and me, we didn’t have specialties. We used the standard CT-46, an assault rifle with a three-round burst fire. It was equipped with a holographic sighting system and two, side-by-side 30-round clips. Everyone also came set with a bulky, electromagnetic handgun, and were all trained to use the RPG-88, a stocky rocket launcher, designed to fire quick, accurate explosives. Most of our rifles came standard with a four-inch suppressor and anti-personnel rounds.

Needless to say, we were ready to do some damage. When I learned about the difficulty of infiltrating GenoTec, I began to understand why all of these weapons were needed. Slate and Repik weren’t fooling around, and we had to be careful. Hopefully, we wouldn’t ever have to use most of it.

Each weapon came with unique magnets that corresponded with ones inside our Oversuits. Instead of having to deal with textile straps, weapons could be attached to our back or thighs, making drawing and holstering much more efficient.

Everyone started to filter out of the Armory, leaving Tara, Justin, and me alone. I wanted to talk with Tara, but the boy was still tagging along. If he didn’t leave, I was going to shoo him away. It might have been my last time to have the dreaded conversation.

“You guys are friggin’ lucky!” he said, tinkering with an unloaded pistol. “I don’t wanna be stuck wid Vaner and Tat girl. This blows.”

“I don’t know about
lucky
,” replied Tara, snapping her rifle to her back.

“You can do more damage from here, anyways,” I added.

“She doesn’t even let me do much,” he mumbled, still on about Celia.

“Well, why don’t you see if she needs help prepping,” I said, instantly letting Tara know I wanted to talk.

“Fine, you tooth-groins. But you owe me. I only came to the Underbed because I thought I’d be killin’ Tarmucks.”

Tara wasn’t looking at me. Her eyes were at the door, watching Justin leave. Why were we walking on eggshells? I waited until she turned around. She looked as if she were anticipating something.

“Tara . . .” I began, but felt really awkward all of the sudden. Just as I opened my mouth to finish, a voice blared above.

“Mark? Tara?” said Celia. “It’s too late to duck out now, just so you know.”