Eight
Dax Janner and Yasmine Zambrano
Memphis, Tennessee
August 16, 4010
9:55 pm
She doesn’t see me watching her. She doesn’t know that I am always watching because I can’t take my eyes off her. If Blythe knew how beautiful she was, how much I cared about her, or how long I’ve been waiting for her to return my feelings…
Shit.
We’re on a mission now, and I shouldn’t be thinking about Blythe. I shouldn’t be thinking about walking in on her and that asshole kissing, or his hands where mine should have been. Even now, the thought makes me long for five minutes alone in a small room with the arrogant jackass.
Maybe later.
Right now, on board the Neville I hovercraft, Jenica and Blythe are waiting for Yasmine and me to stage the diversion that’s going to clear an opening for them to swoop in and rescue the other Memphis refugees. Jenica’s intel showed at least one hundred of them still living underground, unable to come or go because of the steady and vigilant presence of the Enforcers waiting for us to show up. I’m watching the screen of my COMM device, which keeps me in touch with the other members of my team—team Alpha—and also lets me monitor the movements and progress of team Bravo, who are on board the Neville II and waiting for the changing of the guard shift at Stonehead to strike in five minutes. We don’t make a move until they do, as the attacks must be coordinated.
We know our only chance at getting this right will be if everything is as perfectly timed as it should be. At ten pm on the dot, the real fun will begin. As the guards switch out for the night, little Agata will use her EMP signal to cut the power, including the guards’ weapons. Despite the fact that I hate Gage with a passion, I can’t deny that his niece is useful; I guess we owe him for allowing us to bring her on this mission. As a way to repay my debt, I decide not to smash his face in for kissing Blythe.
This time.
I gaze up at the Neville I, taking one last look at Blythe and Jenica where they sit, waiting for us to do our part. The other eight members of our team are waiting in the back of the craft. I feel Yasmine shift beside me and know she’s as restless as I am to get going. My gaze lingers on Blythe for a fraction of a second longer than necessary before I return my gaze to the COMM device and note the time.
9:58.
I can hear Jenica’s voice through the speaker. “Bravo team is in position. Standby for EMP in two minutes.”
I look at Yasmine and find her staring at me, her gaze wide and knowing. She’s an attractive girl, a tall and willowy thing, with plump lips and almond-shaped eyes. Her Kevlar skin is cocoa colored and smooth, hinting not a bit at the toughness I know it possesses.
“You love her, don’t you?”
It’s not so much a question as it is a statement. There’s no inflection in her voice to tell me what she’s thinking, or why she would say such a thing. Of course I love Blythe; I found her, beaten half to death by MPs and sobbing her heart out over her dead family. I killed the men who hurt her, stole her away, rescuing her from arrest and certain death. I took her family’s place—Dog and me—and became her world.
Hell yes, I love her.
I nod, once, the only thing she’s going to get out of me on the subject. She nods too, as if satisfied with my answer.
“I can see why you would,” she says softly. “She doesn’t know what she has, though,” she adds.
After that, she goes silent, leaving me to wonder what the hell she meant by that. I’ll never understand women and their hints and ever-changing moods. I’m a man with basic needs: food, water, scratch, fuck. You have to tell me things outright and in plain English or I’m liable to miss them completely. Deciding to try to decipher Yasmine’s hieroglyphics when I’ve got more time, I turn my attention back to the COMM device, grateful that she decides not to elaborate right now. Not like we have the time to worry about all of that.
It is now 10:00 pm on the dot and at Stonehead Prison in Washington D.C., everything has just gone pitch black.
Every muscle in my body is tense as I step out from my hiding place, showing myself to the MPs patrolling the area. Everything that follows this moment depends completely on me and the frightened girl beside me. She doesn’t have to tell me that she’s afraid, I can feel it. I can see it in the set of her wide, almond-shaped eyes as she joins me in the middle of the road. Looking at her, I can remember my first mission as a part of the Resistance and I know her fear. Today, we are facing the very people who want us dead, who fear us because we are different.
I I’m looking forward to seeing what she’s capable of. She stands beside me cool and collected, the sharp angles of her face accentuated by the tight bun at the back of her head. Her eyes narrow as our enemy approaches and I feel her hatred for them. It matches mine.
“Identify yourselves,” barks one of the MPs, stepping toward me with his weapon set to stun.
If I weren’t focused on my mission, I might have laughed at this guy. Identify yourselves? Yeah, I’m so intimidated, Officer Asswipe.
Don’t even get me started on the fact that it’s 10:00 pm, dark as hell outside, and these jackasses and their expensive armor are lit up like Christmas trees. All they can make out about me is my long, bulky shape, but once they pull out the scanners they’re going to know what I really am. Then it’ll be time to run.
“Get ready,” I whisper to Yasmine as Officer Asswipe and two of his cronies start walking toward us. They leave behind about ten others, but I’m banking on our discovery drawing them away from the hideout’s entrance. Even if one or two stay behind, I know that Blythe and Jenica can handle it.
“You are in a restricted area,” the officer warns as he draws near, his weapon still pointed toward the ground, his finger ready on the trigger. His two friends are a few steps behind him, their weapons also drawn and ready. One of them holds a scanner. I brace my legs apart and bend my knees, ready to run.
The officers get closer and the glow from their solar-powered armor—now fueled by a full day’s worth of sun—casts enough light for them to see us clearly. I know what they see as they stop in front of me and raise their weapons: six feet, five inches of muscle and brawn stretched beneath dark brown skin, a buzz-cut head, and light brown eyes. What lies beneath will be revealed by the scanners. That’s when the fun will begin.
Their equipment starts going off like crazy, clueing them in to my bionic prosthetic legs and titanium ribs. The scanner of the second officer reacts to Yasmine’s Kevlar skin as they close in on us, weapons raised.
“Hands up, both of you!” barks Officer Asswipe, his gun trained directly on my middle. Yasmine is unflinching at my side as we silently comply.
The third guy speaks into a COMM device clutched in his free hand. “Sergeant, we’ve got two Bios here, one male and one female.”
A voice crackles from over the speaker. “Aside from their Bionic additions, are they armed?”
Officer Asswipe and MP number two both step forward to pat us down. My gut clenches in disgust as Yasmine’s officer allows his hands to linger a few seconds longer than necessary on her hips. To her credit, she continues staring straight ahead. She doesn’t even bat an eyelash.
“No weapons,” Officer Three confirms after getting clearance from One and Two.
“Take them out.”
The third officer wrinkles his brow and exchanges a glance with Asswipe. He glances as at the COMM device as if confused. “Sir?”
The voice retorts “Those Bios are probably from the hideout. They’d be dead within the next hour anyway. President Drummond has given orders to gas it.”
I hear Yasmine’s sharp intake of breath and it echoes my own fears. Thank God we got here in time with a plan in place. If we had only run a rescue mission to Stonehead, those left behind would have been killed. I have seen the damage their poisonous gas can do firsthand. I’m talking seizures, drooling and crapping your pants. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.
“Roger,” says Officer Three as he stuffs the COMM device back into the clip on his belt.
“On your knees,” says Officer Two as he exchanges the laser weapon at his hip for one of the ancient models that relies on bullets. They love to execute our kind with bullets instead of modern laser weapons, because they like to see our blood spilled. The others follow suit.
“No,” I respond, lowering my hands back to my sides. They curl into fists that I can’t wait to use on them. Yasmine does the same.
“Who the fuck do you think you are, you Bio trash?” Officer Asswipe hisses from behind his helmet. The word ‘bio’ rolls off his tongue like an epithet. “Get on your knees now, both of you.”
“No,” we both respond in unison.
This is what I hate about the MPs. They don’t just kill us. They strip us of everything, including our dignity. Taking our freedom and our lives just isn’t enough for them.
“Doesn’t matter,” Officer Two says, stepping forward and pressing his gun to Yasmine’s head. My gut clenches with irrational fear. If anything, the fact that they’ve switched to bullets at this point is good. No bullet can pierce her Kevlar skin. “They’re dead anyway.”
He flips up the visor of his helmet and stares down at Yasmine. “Shame, too. This one’s kind of pretty. I wouldn’t have minded a go with her if we had time.”
“Fuck you, you fascist sack of shit!” She growls defiantly, though her voice trembles slightly.
My eyebrows shoot up and I feel myself reaching a whole new level of respect for the little spitfire hurling insults while staring down the barrel of a gun. In response, he pulls the trigger. The sound is explosive. Yasmine rears back but maintains her footing as the bullet bounces off her head, falling to the forest floor in a steaming lump of dented metal. Shocked gasps ripple through all three of them as she glances up and smiles.
“My turn,” she rasps before sticking Officer Two with a right cross. His open face shield ensures that her punch lands right on his nose and as blood gushes in a crimson spray, she twists his arm behind him so quickly he doesn’t have time to react. He bends unwillingly at the waist, screaming in pain as she brings her elbow down on his straight arm. The strength of her skin—as hard as diamonds—shatters his armor as well as a few bones.
Realizing that they’ve underestimated us, the other two officers jump into action. Officer Asswipe doesn’t see it coming when I knock the gun from his hand. He takes a swing at me and I let him land it, taking the left hook to the jaw so that he’d get cocky. I see his smirk just seconds before his fist connects with my ribs in a right hook. The sound of his finger bones colliding with my titanium ribs is like music to my ears, which are topped off by his cries of pain as I give him a swift and painful kick to the middle with one of my titanium legs.
Officer Asswipe goes flying away from me and lands at the foot of a tree a few feet away, and I turn just in time to find Yasmine trading blows with Officer Three. I catch him by surprise and knock him out cold before he sees me coming. I can hear the crackle of the dead officer’s COMM device as, about a hundred yards away, the others officers check on their fallen comrades. They’ll be on us in a matter of seconds, which is exactly what we wanted.
“You good?” I ask as Yasmine bends to retrieve the unconscious MP’s weapon.
“Peachy. You think he’ll mind if I use this?”
I shrug, kicking at the officer with the toe of my combat boot. “I think he’s okay with it. Didn’t know you could fight.”
She shrugs as she checks the gun’s setting. I follow suit by taking an identical weapon from one of the others. “Dad was a martial arts instructor. It’d be dumb for me to not know how to fight.”
“I’m impressed.”
“Good, but those guys don’t look like they share your opinion.”
I glance up just in time to see eight MP’s rising up off the ground on their sleek hover bikes. They speed toward us, weapons trained and ready. I glance at her and arch one eyebrow.
“Think you can keep up?”
She snorts. “You just better hope one of those mechanical legs of yours doesn’t blow a gasket.”
“I’ll go left, you go right. Try to swivel in and out of the trees and make them crash. The fewer we have to take out ourselves with deadly force, the better.”
That’s a lesson drummed into me by the Professor. Most days I feel mad enough to kill every MP within a hundred mile radius, but he’s the leader of our Resistance and is all about working toward peace. He doesn’t want us getting our hands dirty unless we have to. But if it comes down between me and one of those hateful men in gleaming silver armor, the Professor’s just going to have to get over it because I’m going for the kill.
As soon as they are close enough to see us, we take off, Yasmine peeling off and going to the right like I’d instructed her. Behind us, the speeding hover bikes give chase, and I hear the hum of the Neville I hovercraft hurtling toward the hideout entrance. I know that the two guards left behind will be nothing for Jenica, Blythe, and the other members of Alpha team to handle. I hope we can divert the others long enough for them to load the trapped refugees into the hovercraft.
I pump my legs as fast as I can, the pistons installed at my joints making me faster than the bikes. I’m hoping to put as much distance between us and the hideout as possible.
I hear Jenica’s voice over the COMM device on my hip. “Alpha team moving in. Janner, report!”
“Kinda tied up right now,” I mumble as I run, darting in and out of the trees faster than any human ought to be able to. Through the COMM device I hear the sounds of the MPs’ weapons firing, followed by a struggle. Behind me there’s an explosion, and I glance over my shoulder to see an orange ball of fire and raining debris—all that’s left of one of the hover bikes.
“Halt! Stop where you are and put your hands up or I’ll shoot!”
The mechanical voice of the MP closest to me, crackling through his helmet, doesn’t stop me. I know they’ll kill me anyway, and worse, they’ll turn right back around and kill Jenica and Blythe, who right now are rescuing those left underground in the hideout. Instead, I veer to the right, hard, forcing the three bikes left to scramble to follow me while avoiding the trees.
I hear the whine of a weapon, the preliminary heating that occurs just before their stun guns fire. Once the core temperature of the weapon reaches near volcanic proportions, the weapon’s red-tinted rays can stun or kill, depending on its wielder’s intent. I hit the dirt right as a red beam shoots over my head, tucking and rolling just in time to avoid being hit. In my crouched position, I wait for the shooter to get closer.
Just as he zooms over my head, turning his bike at an angle to take another shot, I uncoil my legs and shoot straight up, my legs propelling me several feet above the ground. I grab the foothold and hang on for dear life as the driver swivels and swerves in an attempt to shake me off.
“Shoot him! Shoot him!” he yells to his buddies. Just as I grab onto the side of his bike with both hands and pull, my biceps straining painfully, he turns it so the other two have a clear shot at me. I struggle to climb aboard the bike, and once my foot hits the footrest, I’m good. I am able to swing my other leg over the side of the bike until I’m straddling the seat, right behind my pursuer—who by now is freaking out. He turns and points his gun at me but I capture his wrist, twisting it painfully behind his back. I use his pain and dismay to catch him off balance and throw him from the seat. Scooting forward, I lower my head over the handlebars just as another red beam shoots over my shoulder.
I rev the engine and send the bike hurtling through the trees, feeling a bit more confident now that I’ve got a bike and a weapon on me. We don’t have many guns at Resistance headquarters, and most of us have learned how to fight hand to hand. I could turn and pick them both off, but that would leave me blind to the trees surrounding me and I’m in no hurry to relinquish my bike anytime soon. If I can get it back to the hovercraft in one piece, ma
ybe I can talk Jenica into letting me bring it aboard and take it home.
Glancing over my shoulder, I see that the two remaining officers are closing in, one right behind the other. In a risky move, I purposely slow my bike, letting my back bumper kiss the front of his. I stand on the seat of my bike facing him and leap into a front somersault, narrowly avoiding being hit by another red beam and landing on the nose of his bike. He raises his gun to shoot again, but not before I grasp him by the front of his helmet, twisting and throwing him from the seat before shooting him with my gun—which is set to stun. He’ll be out for hours.
After I slide into the driver’s seat, another shot from my stun gun takes care of my final attacker and sends both him and his bike crashing into a nearby tree. He falls limp on the forest floor as his bike slams into the tree, going up in a ball of orange and red flame just like the first one.
Finally alone and able to take a few breaths, I snatch the COMM device from my belt and call Jenica.
“Alpha team, this is Janner reporting.”
A few seconds and Jenica is on the line. “This is Swan. We’ve infiltrated the hideout and located the refugees. All Military Police personnel guarding the entrance have been subdued. What is your status, Janner?”
“Four MPs on my trail, all stunned and one possibly dead but I’m not sure. Going in search of Zambrano now. She had four on her tail and went in the opposite direction. Once I locate her we will return to the craft within a few minutes. I’ve got a hover bike.”
“Roger that, Janner. There are way more of them here than our intel reported. It will take a while to get them all loaded up, and we sure could use you two to help watch our backs. Get here as fast as you can.”
“Roger,” I reply, switching channels on the COMM device so that I can find Yasmine. “Zambrano, this is Janner. Are you there?”
Silence.
I frown, lifting the device to my lips and trying again. “Zambrano, please report, this is Janner. Need to know your location.”
Even more silence.
“Shit.”
By the time the curse has fallen from my mouth I’m back on the bike, turning west in the direction I remember Yasmine taking. I swerve in and out of the trees, keeping my eyes peeled for her. Times like this I wish Blythe was with me. Her bionic eye can pick up heat signatures and save me a lot of time. And right now, time is of the essence because if I can’t get to Yasmine before it’s too late … well, it’s just not something I want to have to think about.