MoonRush (19 page)

The stated goal of the group had been to design a container meeting certain specifications. While the exact purpose of the container was never detailed, Buton had immediately known it for what it was. His colleagues had been only a small step behind him in ascertaining its use. Buton, as well as most of the think tank
members
, had found the entire project distasteful, but when he had expressed his concerns regarding continuing, he was made to know…without being explicitly told…that his tenure, continuing residency
,
and eventual citizenship depended on his successful participation.

Still
,
he and the rest of the group walked away. No one could force him to create a weapon of mass destruction. When none of the hellfire they promised materialized, Buton had assumed the project had been shut down. How very wrong he was. The consortium must have found another group of less civic
-
minded scientists to do its bidding.

Jarod’s voice broke into his ruminations. “Yeah, um… This is a little time sensitive here, Buton.”

Buton mused for a few more moments, mentally doing some extrapolations from his brief encounter with the bomb’s specs. Once he had a theory with a greater than
87
percent accuracy did he speak.

“Calculating the outer dimensions
,
along with the
probable
density of the bomb…” Buton looked up, catching Jarod’s eye. “I would suggest we get three blast doors between us and the explosive device.”

It took Jarod a second. “Damn!”

And then the
y were running for their lives.

* * *

One moment Cleo was wrapping the young lady’s injured leg…wrenched but not broken…and the next she was struggling alongside Jarod
,
trying to sprint with the semi-conscious woman between them. She had no idea why they were running
.
S
he only knew that if Jarod’s face was any indication, she had better pick up the pace. All of the earlier alarm bells in her head came back with force, adding desperation to her every step. This was flight or fight, and she was flying.

It was clear that the alarm had not spread to the entire station, as patrons continued to filter out of the arcade, the discotheque and the casino, passing by the bar as they did so. The rest of the denizens of the station appeared far too chemically altered to even register the damage, much less respond to any sort of emergency.

Cleo darted a look at Jarod, asking what in the hell was going on with her eyes. The look he shot back at her made her not so sure she wanted to find out. Maybe right now she just needed to focus on putting one foot in front of the other.

That became a problem within seconds. Cleo and the rest of the group found their forward progress slowing to a near halt as they ran into the human blockades. Jarod, his demeanor harsh
er
than Cleo had ever seen it, wasted no time in clearing the hall.

“There’s a bomb!”

Okay, so now Cleo knew what was going on. She really wished she didn’t.

Jarod continued, “If you want to live, run as fast as you can in that direction!
Now!
” He thrust a finger down the hallway toward the blast doors.

The panic spread immediately, starting a stampede. They were moving now, but with such a chaotic energy that it was almost worse than the blockage problem. Cleo put her head down and did what she could to keep her feet under her.
Even though
she wanted to put as much space between her and the bar as she could, she didn’t want to die in the process.

Although
,
as Jarod’s frown deepened, Cleo wasn’t so sure
that
she had any control over her fate at the moment.

* * *

As the crowd
’
s panic grew, Rob’s adrenaline response increased in direct proportion. Facing death was nothing new
, but
from a bomb on a space station? A little bit new. He readied his bag
of
tricks inside his prosthes
e
s while hopping on one of his “feet
,
” making sure he had access to anything he might need. Those spider
Tasers
might come in kinda handy in a mob like this one. And even the hydraulic screwdriver-slash-drill-slash micro-pneumatic nail gun could be a nice addition to the party.

And man, what a party
!
Rob found himself bumping into
people
dressed
in
the weirdest
ways
. He had already seen what the arcade had to offer,
and
they were now
rushing past
the club exit. Rob bumped into two devils, got feathers up his nose from an angel
,
and stepped on the heel of a teched-out lizard
lady with tiny holographic d
isc
s for scales. The d
isc
s worked together as a vid
-
screen, turning her “skin” into a collage of pop culture images. Distracted by the pictures darting around the lizard, Rob stopped looking where he was going and bumped hard into someone against the wall. A sharp groan was the protesting reply.

Before he passed by the person completely, fuchsia caught his eye. It was the girl from the arcade, and she was limping. Her “friends” were nowhere in sight. Big shocker there. She clearly was in need of help.
Although
he knew
that
he might never get back to them, he separated from the Rogues and pushed against the current of people racing from the danger. He used the lever action of his prosthes
e
s to give him greater stability as he fought the flailing limbs and occasionally deadly designs of the clubbers’ outfits. Seriously. When did razor blades become a way to accessorize?

Rob pushed over to the girl hugging the wall. She hobbled along, her speed slightly faster than a snail
’s
. She looked to be two steps away from falling down and being trampled by the mob. Rob yelled at her over the chaos, doing his best Arnold impersonation. “Come with me if you want to live
!
” He extended his hand.

Startled recognition washed over her face as she grabbed Rob’s arm. He called on his “legs
,
” turning on the jets in a single burst, just enough to get them both forced back into the stream of moving people. She stumbled a bit, but then wrapped her arm around Rob’s neck, found her footing
,
and
kept
pace with Rob as he sought out his team again.

The girl was latched onto him as if her life depended on it. Rob could definitely get used to this. She spoke over the noise. “Thank you! I would’ve…You were…” She struggled for words as they both fought to stay upright. Her eyes darted downward, landing on his artificial limbs. “Those things are…awesome!” She blushed
,
and then gave Rob a huge grin. He was pretty sure his heart was trying to get out of his chest from the way it was pounding.

And then she knocked his socks off. Or, you know, she would have if he actually wore socks. “That was
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
you were quoting
from
back there, right?” The movie was totally ancient
,
and this girl knew it. Rob was now officially in love.

Now he just had to figure out a way
to shoehorn in “I’ll be back.”

* * *

Buton raced along
with
his fellow Rogues, seeking to get as far away from the blast as humanly possible. Unfortunately, that was not the only issue. It wasn
’
t good enough to simply get out of danger
for
themselves. Buton felt a certain responsibility for every patron they encountered. Any
one
left behind would have felt like a physical blow. He was relieved that he hadn’t designed the bomb, but had he done enough? He could have alerted the authorities, followed up,
and
done
more
.
His
lingering sense of guilt, exacerbated by their present circumstances, would not
release
its hold on his soul.

After clearing the crowds from the arcade and the club, Buton finally passed the first of the blast doors. He pushed his way over to the side of the hallway,
looking for
the box with the controls. He spent all of ten seconds hacking into the keypad lock
and
opening the access panel. Jarod, Cleo, Rob
,
and some badly bruised girl with blonde hair and a pink stripe
in it
groped toward Buton’s location, forming a tight circle around Buton as he worked. Buton ascertained the sequence for emergency protocol
,
and then waited for the entire press of people to finish passing before he jabbed at the buttons to close and lock it down.

One.

And then they were racing on once more. They passed by what appeared to be a restaurant, the exiting customers clogging the
hallway
arteries even further. At least at this point, word of the bomb seemed to have spread, as the
general
panic and the direction of the movement was away from the bar. Buton and the rest of the Rogues did what they could to push the group forward, infecting them with their urgency. And then they were past the second door.

He waved at the crew to keep going. They had no time to waste in niceties like waiting for one another. Once again, Buton got the door shut, this time cutting his time by 46 percent.

Two.

Buton whirled away from the closed door
,
only to find himself face
-
to
-
face with Cleo
.
T
he rest of the Rogues
were
right behind her.

“If you think we’re leaving you behind, you’ve got another think coming, Buton.” She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him away from a very large man with pink wings on either side of his head
.
He
fell heavily just where Buton had been. “Besides, you’d be helpless without me.”

Logic dictated that he should argue for them to leave him to what he was doing, but Cleo’s hand on his arm felt…surprisingly pleasant
,
considering their current crisis. He did the mental equivalent of slapping himself and lurched back into motion.