***
We have three and a half hours to infiltrate Stonehead, locate Olivia, and break her out of there as safely as possible. It seems like an infinite amount of time, but when you factor in all that could go wrong, it feels more like three and a half minutes. Each of us has our roles to play, but the pressure is on for Dax and me. Our disguises aren’t enough to get us through. It’s going to take a lot of bluffing and confidence to take on the roles of officers Knightly and Barnes.
One thing that will help is the bait we’ve brought. The Professor and Jenica have been at the top of the most wanted list for years. Throw in a few of the Resistance’s key players and it makes for one very tasty treat the officers at Stonehead will be salivating for. They are our ticket in. Balls and firepower will have to be enough to get us out.
Our first move is getting our prisoners looking like actual captives. They already appear exhausted, which they are, and with Blythe’s fresh bruises and Laura’s burn from the fight in Memphis, they look as if they’ve been in a struggle. We ruffle the Professor’s hair and then bend his glasses a bit before lining them up one behind the other and chaining them together using an intricate system of cuffs used by the MPs for transporting multiple prisoners. Each pair of cuffs is attached to the other by ionized chains. The negative ions of the chain are attracted to the positive ions of the cuffs, causing them to fuse together in a bond that can only be broken by a special device, a remote of sorts, which Dax now has control of. Once each of them is cuffed, he links them together in a straight line, hands behind their backs, with the Professor in front followed by Jenica, Blythe, Sayer, and Laura.
In the massive storage hold beneath our feet is a Military Police vehicle that is small but fast. It is what we will use to gain entrance to Stonehead, leaving our own hovercraft right where it is, masked by the clouds until we can return. We form a procession and take the stairs down to the storage hatch in silence, each of us sinking into our roles before we are even seen. I try to mimic the stiff cadence of an MP’s steps and notice that Dax has done the same. In my hands, I clutch the same CBX laser weapon I carried for the rescue mission in Memphis. I shoot Dax a frown lined in jealousy. His automatic ARX is far superior, but a gun is a gun. At the end of the day, I’m grateful not to be empty-handed.
Dax has some rudimentary piloting skills, which is enough to get us to the landing strip at Stonehead quickly and safely. As we land, a ground crew dressed in white flight suits comes racing toward us. They are probably surprised to see the craft, as Sergeant Barnes and Captain Knightly were no doubt presumed dead when they didn’t return from Memphis. Dax brings us in for a shaky landing and, within moments, we and our ‘prisoners’ are standing on the paved landing strip, surrounded by the curious employees of the facility.
“Is that who I think it is?” one of them asks, his wide brown eyes fixed on the Professor. “And you got his partner too?”
The Professor lowers his eyes, playing the perfect role of the frightened prisoner. Or, maybe he is scared. Jenica simply raises her chin, staring down the gathered men with an air of arrogant superiority. It’s no act; Jenica is above these men and she knows it.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” I bellow, jumping straight into my role as the commanding officer. “Someone find Warden Daniels and tell him to get down here. Tell him I have an early Christmas gift for him.”
Three men jump to do my bidding and we our prisoners across the tarmac toward an entrance. Before our mission, Dax and I were drilled over and over on our knowledge of Stonehead’s layout. We didn’t have a lot of time to steady Jenica’s schematic and get down the basics of where everything is in the country’s most secure, maximum-security prison. First, there’s a set of doors that won’t budge without the proper identification. Of course, a facility like this one hasn’t bothered with paper credentials in decades. It’s fortunate, then, that we have been injected with the DNA of the men whose identities we’ve stolen. It insures that the retinal and thumbprint scans go smoothly.
The doors slide open for us welcomingly, and we usher the Professor and the others down a long, narrow corridor shaped like a tube. The glass walkway is identical to the others around us, that tunnel their way to and from various levels of Stonehead. Of course, Olivia and the others are situated near the very heart of the prison, down a winding path of twisting tubes. During our initial rescue attempt, we had the benefit of my niece Agata’s special abilities. Her bionic cerebrum’s electromagnetic pulse knocked down Stonehead’s power just long enough for us to break through the many checkpoints requiring fingerprints, retinal scans, and voice recognition. Even though they were able to stop her with some kind of weapon—we still aren’t sure what kind—by the time we reached the center it didn’t matter.
Now we have the liberty to walk through these doors without attracting suspicion, though we do gain the attention of every officer we pass in the tubes. They stare, openmouthed and envious, clearly unable to believe that two officers were able to bring down the most wanted criminals in America and a few of their accomplices to boot.
When we reach the main doors leading to the wing of the prison reserved for criminals marked for execution, we are met by Captain Rodney Jones, the dedicated soldier tasked with heading up The Enforcers, whose sole mission is the capture or termination of all Bionics. Dressed in a simple uniform of slacks and a button-up shirt decorated with medals befitting his high rank, he is still as menacing as he appears when decked out in his armor. He is as tall as Dax, which is insane, and twice as broad. No way is he that big naturally. If I had to guess, I’d say he takes full advantage of the steroid injections offered to the Military Police. To level the playing field, the government says. His dark eyes are narrowed and gleaming dangerously as he approaches. He is flanked by several other officers as well as Callius Daniels, the infamous warden of Stonehead.
Just behind them are a series of doors leading to small rooms where prisoners are processed in and questioned. I shudder as I remember passing these rooms on our first mission. The door to one is hanging wide open and the white tiles are bathed in blood… Olivia’s blood. It takes everything I have not to open fire on the MPs right then and there. Instead, I grip the butt of my weapon tightly with one hand and execute a perfect salute with the other.
“Captain Jack Knightly reporting,” I say in a soldier’s rough bark.
Dax salutes as well and the other officers return the gesture—all except Jones. He is circling us and eyeing the prisoners with a predatory smile. “Well, well,” he says, his booming voice reverberating from the walls and ceiling, “I must say I am surprised to see you Knightly, Barnes. When you didn’t return from Memphis, we feared the worst.”
Dax launches into the story we fabricated to explain our—or rather, their—absences. “We took a chance on following a Resistance aircraft, sir,” he says in perfect imitation of a subordinate soldier. “They were trying to escape as the other Bios attacked us. Captain Knightly and I pursued the craft and shot it down. Imagine our surprise when we found them inside.”
Jones’s eyebrows shoot up. “You deliberately defied orders, but I am willing to let that slide, Barnes,” he says with a shrug. “Sometimes following your instincts is worth it. And in this case…” He trails off, sauntering toward Jenica with a smirk. He leers at her, leaning much too close, so close I’m sure she can tell what he had for lunch. But she doesn’t move an inch. “I’d say it was more than worth it.”
Jenica is defiant, staring the captain down as he glares at her. After a few seconds, his eyes shift toward the rest of our prisoners. “Excellent work,” he says, clapping his hands together loudly and spreading them wide as if welcoming the prisoners to Stonehead. “Have them processed in and caged, Warden,” he says to Daniels. The warden is a rail-thin snake of a man with shifty, beady eyes and pointy teeth. I don’t like the way he’s eyeing Jenica’s headgear, as if she’s a shiny new toy he wants to play with. No one talks about it, but everyone knows
that the torture of the Bionics is a regular occurrence on his watch. The government has assured the people that the ‘decommissioning’ of a bionic enhancement is humane. But behind closed doors, parts are removed without anesthesia, and of course, many who lose their parts cannot live without them. Those that can are now mutilated beyond repair and most likely wish they were dead.
“Make sure they’re comfortable,” Jones adds with a chuckle. “Meanwhile, I’ll put a call in to the higher-ups. I’m sure they will want to interrogate America’s most wanted terrorists.”
Dax and I step away as the warden and his officers step forward to take the Professor and the others. My jaw clenches and my fingers curl around the butt of my gun as their shackles are deionized and they are separated. Blythe’s scent curls up through my nostrils as she’s taken past me, shoved roughly by a guard. Her eyes meet mine for a brief moment, and I can see her fear. I want to tell her everything is all right, but have to settle for letting my facial expression do the talking. Though, I don’t know if the desired effect is achieved since this face is not mine.