Intended Extinction (28 page)

She stared at him, listening intently.

“Now.” He leaned in close, lowering his voice. “I told you we had a job offer for you. It’s . . . slightly more covert than what you’ve been up to lately. We are in need of an analyst—someone who’s good with computers et cetera. You would be that analyst, Miss Dabbs.”

Wide eyed, Jordan readjusted her glasses. As much as the word “covert” left her ears stinging, she found herself wanting to know more. She tilted her head and asked, “I’m sorry, but what exactly will we be doing?”

Vane smiled. “Let’s just put it this way—we’re going to make the world a very, very safe place.”

Jordan knew for a fact that these guys, though initially shady, weren’t playing around. Even with the information available to the public, no one would take the time to organize all this just for a few laughs—especially
that
guy, who looked like he was in his mid-forties. She began thinking about her life.
Maybe this is my chance to do something spontaneous and adventurous for once.
She looked at the ground, caught in a daze of imagination.

She lifted her head and put on a confident face. “What are you paying? What are the benefits? I’ve already got a great job right now, why should I be convinced to do this?”

Vane scoffed and said, “There’ll be pay, Miss Dabbs. But an opportunity to uproot and destroy GenoTec is the best payment I can offer.” He took a few steps toward her. “Think about it.”

He handed her a piece of paper with something scribbled upon it. After reading, she looked up. “An address?”

“Yes,” he said, before stepping out of the cubicle, “it’s correct. When you’re ready, meet us at the old Central Railroad Terminal.”

I couldn’t
stop the bleeding coming from my cheek. And the horrible roads in the Dustslum weren’t helping.

Dodge had led us to a compact, silver Mazda still miraculously intact. Judging from the empty packages of medicine and used paraphernalia littered inside, it must’ve been a drug wagon. I noticed a familiar parcel on the floor, partly concealed by the passenger seat. I didn’t need anyone to remind me what it was. I felt for my forearm and turned away.

“Where did they say they were meeting us?” I asked. I gave up trying to stay the bleeding, and tossed the damp piece of fabric to the car floor.

“Some building near Verrazano,” he replied from the passenger seat, reloading his M580.

Celia held the wheel as steady as she could, careening through abandoned roads.

“Tara’s got the codes,” I reaffirmed softly. I looked out the window, trying to catch a glimpse of something recognizable.

The car remained silent. My words meant a whole hell of a lot more than a simple thought. With the Headquarters’ surveillance codes in our possession, there was only one more thing left to do. And it was about damn time.

“Justin’s probably got the whole place ready to commit suicide,” said Dodge after a long stretch of silence.

Celia and I couldn’t resist letting out soft chuckles. I began to long for Dodge’s humor. I missed the happy-go-lucky Dodge, who teased Bollis until morning, who made Vexin sprout bulbous veins, and who made my journey through the Underbed more enjoyable than it probably would have ever been. Being constantly on edge was certainly taking its toll on all of us.

A good half hour passed as we swerved through deserted cars, asphalt in upheaval, and a maze of ghostly skyscrapers. The more we made our way closer to the heart of the city, the more live cars started to pass and the more people began to walk the streets. Dodge and I slunk down into our seats, trying to remain hidden in our possibly incriminating attire; I was afraid someone might mistake us for the infamous soldiers who attacked the Turnmont.

“I always dreamed of this,” said Dodge, looking up at Celia with puppy-dog eyes. “It’s so romantic.”

She ignored his comment. “So many people are out and about now . . . it seems so unnatural.”

“Just try’n avoid an accident,” he replied, pushing his rifle between his legs.

I closed my eyes and felt the vibrations of the car take me away. If this was the only time I was going to have to myself, then I was going to take advantage of it. Thoughts of Justin and Vane entered my mind. Were we too late? Would we have to finish this without them? Vane had always brought a sense of security to our goal, but with him out of the picture, could we function? I tried reminding myself that this wasn’t about Vane. This was about justice, and whatever happened, we needed to stop GenoTec. I pictured Tara. I pined for her warm embrace. Watching her tiny red dot go inside of the Manhattan Branch felt like a year away. I never wanted to be separated from her again.

We had come so far, Tara and I. I still couldn’t get her stoic attitude out of my head ever since her solo mission. It was like she had truly embraced the new role we played. That didn’t mean I hadn’t changed either, but somehow I always felt she was way ahead of me. She was just better at accepting things. Maybe that’s what drew me to her. I needed that in my life.

The car jolted violently and bounced for a few more feet.

“Sorry,” Celia apologized, correcting the vehicle, and turning onto another abandoned street.

I lifted my head just enough to see we were traveling west, toward the Hudson.

After a few more terse miles, the buildings started to decay once more.

“Here. Turn here,” said Dodge, getting ready to exit the car.

Our small Mazda toddled into a vacant lot positioned between two humongous skyscrapers. Beyond a cankered, chain-link fence at the end of the space was the Hudson in all its glory. The view gave us sight of the lion’s den: GenoTec HQ and Axxiol. In the distance, Axxiol expelled steam and continued its day-to-day operations as if mocking our progress.

When we climbed out of the car, I saw a black SUV parked behind a blue dumpster, concealed from the street’s view. As we were gathering our supplies, I heard the crunch of gravel coming from the building.

“Back from vacation already?” said a playful voice.

I jerked my head to see Bollis, leaning against the dumpster, smiling.

“Don’t you even start,” said Dodge, shaking his head. The two friends approached each other and embraced, smacking spines like happy apes.

My heart dropped a little when no one else came from behind the building. I resumed collecting my things and shut the car door. The mini reunion commenced afterward as Bollis greeted Celia and me after a long four days. The relief of having Bollis leading us again was like having our very own Fabric Shield towering overhead. The burdens holding me down were starting to ease.

As we conversed, mostly informing Bollis about our recent run-in with GenoTec, my eyes sprung above his shoulder, locking onto the moving body emerging from the back of the skyscraper.

“There she is!” shouted Dodge triumphantly, and everyone turned to see Tara slowly walking toward us.

She glided along the dusty floor with a cute smile, happy to see everyone. Her hair was cut short, styled with baby bangs and longer strands coming off her temples. The back was done up in a ponytail stump, frayed and spiky. She had taken off her Oversuit, leaving the curves of her body to be strangled by her Undersuit’s spandex-like material.

As everyone went to see her, I fell behind, watching from a short distance. In my mind, I had imagined a much more dramatized gathering, full of daisy fields and cliché embraces. Although not what I had anticipated, I felt at peace.

Once everyone had their fill, Bollis led the pack inside, while Tara shyly waited around, glancing at me. This time I moved in, stepping only a foot away from her. First, we exchanged curt greetings, taking in the moment of respite.

And then at once, our bodies collapsed into each other, entrapped by our tightly wrapped arms. There was no sound, no exclamation of joy, just the simple yet profound assurance that we were both alive—together.

But that wasn’t good enough. I pulled us apart and smiled energetically at her curious face and laughed.

“We’re alive! We made it!” I exclaimed.

I picked her up by her waist and swung her around as she clasped onto my head, laughing. I brought her down and planted the biggest kiss I could muster on her irresistible lips.

“Justin!”

The boy’s eyes flickered and instantly his frail body felt the pounding, excruciating pains of the last five days. He could hardly feel his legs. His muscles were drained of mobility and strength. A huge, brown and black bruise covered his right arm. He was naked, except for the ripped pair of blue scrub bottoms loosely held around his waist.

Again, the voice shattered his sleep, calling his name and demanding that he get up.

“Can you hear me?”

Justin’s eyes shot open. Horrified breaths seized his lungs, and his body started convulsing. The only thing he could see were the piercing black eyes of Vane staring down at him from above.

The room was as white and blinding as the sun’s glare. A large, circular overhead lamp with six clustered lights hung above Justin. To his right was a sleek touch screen, supported by a swivel arm. He was lying on a white medical table, his arms and legs strapped down by polished robotic sleeves.

“It’s all right, it’s all right,” Vane tried to comfort, pulling the screen to his waist. He began to figure his way around the system to release the twitching eleven-year-old.

Justin couldn’t seem to say anything coherent. His lungs felt heavy, like they were filled with a gooey substance. He was inclined to cough, but nothing came. Everything was irritating him to the point of pure torture.

As Justin’s eyes violently scanned the room, he spotted a silenced pistol holstered in one of Vane’s thigh straps. Vane’s Undersuit was cut and ripped in various places. The leader’s face looked worn; hairs askew, eyes bloodshot. The only thing remaining of the old Vane was the flared nostrils and stern look of determination.

Focus failed Justin, and the boy began to writhe once more.

“Ah,” said Vane in a calm, triumphant tone. “Here we go.”

With a quick flourish, Vane tapped the glass screen and pushed it aside. Justin’s restraints receded into the table and became flush with the surface. Vane scooped the boy in his arms and carried him to the other end of the room, next to a tower of drawers.

Justin mumbled indistinctly. His small body felt cold and slightly damp to Vane, who wanted nothing more than to stuff Justin in one of the drawers and continue on without someone to worry about. But he didn’t. He crouched down and propped him up on one knee, searching the bottom drawer for anything that would relieve Justin of his suffering.

“Hold still, damn it!” Vane chided, practically punching the release glyph on the second drawer.

The sleek compartment slid open and Vane relaxed a little. Organized in perfect rows lived tiny vials filled with a pale blue liquid. He snatched one with his free hand, and attached it to the injection mechanism that came partnered with each tube. With the small glass vial sticking out of the back of the gun-like device, he impaled Justin’s leg.

In a matter of seconds, Justin’s body reverted to a calm state and he started to breathe normally. Vane shut the drawer just as the door behind them slid open.

“Hey!” shouted a nasally male voice.

Vane’s movements were automatic.

The unlucky, yellow-garbed scientist felt his abdomen where two holes started to issue sticky blood. He crumpled to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

Vane holstered the weapon and turned back to Justin.

“Can you walk?” the leader said impatiently.

“What. The.
Hell
. Happened?!” snapped Justin, freeing himself from Vane’s grasp. The boy shook his head of blurriness and fell into the medical table, barely bolstering his stance. His breaths were heavy, his veins pumping with energy.

“I guess you can,” said Vane. He stood up and moved to the door, pulling the dead body inside and stashing it in the corner.

“How long have we been here?” asked Justin.

“A week.”

“Bastards . . . how come we’re not dead?”

Vane shook his head. “We need to get you some clothes.”

Justin looked down at his bare chest. He swore and asked how they would find anything his size.

“I have an idea,” said Vane, approaching the door again. “The scientists here sometimes wear these suits called slipdecks. It’ll fit. Now come, we’re running out of time.”

Before joining his guardian, Justin rushed over to the other end of the room where a long, sterilized table spanned the entire wall. He pressed the first glyph he could find, producing a shelf from below the counter.

Vane wore a malevolent face. “What are you—”

Justin held up his finger, and uttered nonsense to himself. He rummaged through the compartment and pulled out a handful of menacing syringes. The needles were four inches long, connecting to mechanized fillers. He stuffed more than ten into the bottom of his scrub pocket. Vane watched in annoyance as Justin opened another hatch and sifted through miscellaneous items, discarding unwanted supplies onto the floor. After the third shelf was pillaged, he flashed a grin, pulling out a large elastic band. He jogged to the drawers that Vane opened earlie, grabbed a vial-less gun, and tinkered with the elastic band.

Vane’s eyes widened.

“You’re not gonna have all the fun, dude,” said a proud Justin, brandishing his new weapon: a makeshift slingshot with syringes as darts.

Vane shook his head and turned to the door again, as Justin loaded a syringe.

The hallway was brightly lit; a tunnel of glossy white walls and lights built underneath the surface. The corridor spanned at least twenty yards in both directions, dotted with identical rooms. Voices could be heard from different intersections, but movement was nonexistent.

Vane emerged from the medical room, weapon held up. He moved right, coming down the hall like a prowling cat. Justin padded in tow, craving the satisfaction that came from nailing someone with one of his darts.

They continued through the hallway, turned right, and followed the next corridor for a few minutes. At the end of the hall they could see an opening to what looked like an enormous testing facility.

“Everyone here is working with Repik,” whispered Vane, speaking of their current floor. “But it’s two in the morning, so if we lay low, we should be able to go unnoticed. The slipdeck station is just beyond this room.”

Justin nodded and whispered, “How do you know this place so well, Vane-dawg?”

“I’ve been studying GenoTec more years than you’ve existed. That’s why.”

Justin smirked and said, “
Burn
. Wow, Vane I didn’t know you had it in you.”

Vane responded by moving forward. Justin’s bare feet slapped as the two prisoners infiltrated the large, library-sized room. They crossed to their right, avoiding detection. Justin’s view of GenoTec took a quick turn down reality lane, realizing that even evil had to sleep.

However, every few minutes, Vane would stop and hold his hand down. Justin would see a scientist pass between a row of shelves, yards away. Once the patrol had left, the mission would resume.

Data chips, computers, mainframes, engineering equipment, blueprints, and plans. The room was packed to the brim with sophisticated technology, most of which made Justin’s mouth water. He could hardly contain himself, becoming aroused at the sight of materials he could use to create more weapons, bots, and malicious devices. As he was licking his lips at a large crane arm hovering over a staging area, his face smacked into Vane’s rear.

“Pay attention!” Vane snapped in a venomous whisper. “We’re here.”

Justin poked his head around Vane’s legs and saw the words “Foyer” displayed across a shimmering door. Before they approached the threshold, Vane raised his weapon, so Justin made sure to secure a dart.

The door slid open faster than the boy expected, revealing a smaller room with an “L” shaped desk to their right. Vane dispatched the Volunteer sitting behind the counter and quickly ushered Justin inside. The boy noted the brutality of Vane’s actions. Not only was the leader killing without hesitation, but the precision and premeditated trigger-pulls solidified Justin’s concept of their agenda. Vane wasn’t there for surrenders and negotiation, he was there for blood.

Either way, it didn’t matter to Justin. The boy rejoiced in the grim headshot, ending the life of the thirty-something-year-old woman.

The Foyer was designed to prepare GenoTec scientists for their daily work through a series of decontamination procedures held upon a small, circular pedestal in the room’s far corner. On occasion, the pedestal donned scientists in their very own slipdeck: a flexible, spandex-like jumpsuit created to keep the skin protected from hazardous materials.

Vane moved behind the counter and pushed the corpse off her chair, engaging the pedestal. A crisp female voice enveloped the room saying, “Please step onto the dais for complete and total decontamination.” He nodded to Justin.

“What’s this thing gonna do?” the boy asked, frowning.

“Just get on,” Vane replied.

Justin obeyed, placing his weapon and extra bolts onto the floor’s sheen. He stepped onto the cold, steel platform, and admired the advanced technology. Immediately, robotic arms sprung upward and began to probe his body, spraying his pale and freckled skin with a purging mist and injecting antibiotics into his bloodstream intravenously.

“What the hell, man?!” he exclaimed, trying to squirm.

The robotic arms held him steady and finished their work. Once the mist had filtered away, leaving Justin irritated and fuming, the automated voice continued.

“Will a slipdeck be required today?”

Vane pushed a tile on his touch screen, and the robotic arms measured Justin’s body. Upon completion, the limbs receded back into the platform, and two sides of a skeletal coffin rose up, clamping over Justin’s figure, leaving only his head free. Enclosed and hating Vane with more intensity than a roaring fire, Justin could do nothing as the machine commenced. In no less than five seconds, the cage produced a thick layer of black foam upon Justin’s skin. Once he was completely covered, tiny mechanisms within the cage began to manipulate the foam until it hardened. Yellow paint was added to the shins, chest, and arms—GenoTec’s way of “signing” the product. Finally, the cage withdrew and the female voice announced the completion of the process.

Justin remained still as he admired his new suit.

My very own Undersuit,
he thought ambitiously.

He flexed his fingers back and forth, twisted his torso, and kicked his legs around. Vane observed from behind the desk as Justin’s face rose, accompanied by a mischievous grin.

“Holy hell, this is
tiiiight!
” he said, hopping off the podium and dropping into a handstand.

Vane strode over, overcome with annoyance. The leader of Genesis hadn’t truly spent time with Justin before. It was uncanny for Vane to have been with
anyone
—other than Celia—let alone the spastic boy. Even though he was incredibly aggravated by the eleven-year-old’s antics, Vane foresaw Justin’s monumental potential. The boy was more valuable and resourceful than any three adults he could have brought onto Genesis.

Justin hopped back up, began securing his weapon, and asked, “D’ya think they’ve got some sweet goggles around somewhere?”

“
Let’s go
,” boiled Vane, his back to the exit.

Before he could turn around, the door slid open, revealing a Volunteer who at first looked shocked. As the young man went for his weapon, Justin ratcheted a dart so fast that it met with the Volunteer’s neck before the rubber band swung back.

Vane pivoted, realizing Justin had just saved his life.

“Ha!” exclaimed the boy. “Did you see how fast that dart went?! I bet if—”

Justin clutched his abdomen, groaning in pain. The syringe-gun fell and the boy’s frail skeleton stooped to the floor. Vane hesitated for a moment before hovering over Justin like a vulture.

“Wh—what did th-they do to me?!” said Justin through gritted teeth. Another rise of pain shook him off balance and he fell to his side.

“Stay with me,” said Vane, propping Justin up onto his knee. “If they wanted you dead, you’d already be gone. It must be some kind of side effect. It’ll pass.”

Like a prehistoric raptor, Justin emitted quiet moans, trying to be strong. The pain came from within his belly, permeating the rest of his organs and bones. He started to sweat profusely, melting like an ice cube on the glossy floor.

Vane looked around, trying to figure out what to do next. If they didn’t move fast, there would be no chance in hell they were getting out of here alive. Their only hope was a small band of mercenaries.