A dragons fate, p.3
A Dragon's Fate, page 3
part #2 of The Fate of Dragons Series
“Devin’s down!” Vairin heard the guard say. “Call for back up.”
Knowing that his time was running out, Vairin grabbed the stapler that was on the floor next to him, slipped out from beneath the oak desk and made his way behind the guard that was examining his dead coworker. The light from the flashlight was easy to avoid, and the darkness allowed him to move about undetected. He pressed the cold metal of the stapler against the back of the man’s neck.
“Don’t make any sudden movements or I’ll end you,” he hissed through clenched teeth.
The guard suddenly stiffened in response.
“Now tell your friend over by the door to place his gun on the desk and take five steps back into the hallway.”
“What was that?” the guard near the door asked.
“Michael, call for back up!” the guard with the stapler to the back of his neck yelled.
Vairin grabbed the man’s sidearm, yanked it from its holster and fired three shots at the guard in the door. The man fell dead before he could even tap his finger on his comm device.
“Look what you made me do!” Vairin hissed before smashing the sidearm across the back of the man’s skull.
The hollow sounds of gunfire echoed in the hallway outside Marcus’s door. He heard screams for help and those of men dying. No one had answered his pleas, and then someone had announced that there had been some sort of ruptured gas line. It seemed absurd to Marcus at the time, but it explained why no one had responded to his pounding on the door.
After that, he paced back and forth to work things out in his head. The lights going out didn’t bother him because the guards normally did that to him on a daily basis. It was when he heard the gunfire that he got truly nervous.
What in the hell is going on out there? He stopped his nervous pacing and slowly backed away from the door.
More gunfire echoed down the hall thrumming and rapping like the cadence of a marching band drum. He desperately looked around the room searching for a weapon but found nothing. He heard men scrambling past his cell and then the metallic repetitive rattle of gunfire, men screaming in pain and the silence of death.
Someone or something was attacking the facility.
Think, damn it! You’re a graduate from MIT. It shouldn’t be too hard to find something in this room to defend yourself.
He scanned the room for something, anything, to use as a weapon. The metal table and bench seat were of no use to him since they were bolted to the floor and wall. He might use the plastic food tray from lunch, but that wouldn’t do much good against the lightning fast bullets that were drawing closer.
The lights flickered on again as another series of gunfire rang out. The sounds of the bullets ricocheting off the metal of his cell door made Marcus flinch and cringe.
He looked at his cot seeing the flimsy wooden frame. It’s something.
He kicked at the sturdy wooden legs. After a few well-placed kicks, the wooden beams snapped free.
Now he had two splintered clubs roughly the length of his forearm. Marcus clumsily spun the makeshift clubs around doing his best to mimic the fighting he had seen in the movies. He thought he was doing rather well until he accidentally swung one stick high and wide, striking the only light in his cell, shattering the bulbs within it.
As he stood in the darkness he wondered how far and wide Union forest had gone to find that particular antique incandescent bulb. Incandescent lights were outdated and extremely rare. In fact, other than the one in his cell, the only other bulbs he’d ever seen were in museums.
Something struck Marcus’s door with a loud thump, and he jumped. Fear ran through his veins like a race horse desperately seeking the finish line. Ice-cold sweat beaded at his brow, and his left eye twitched. He wanted to flee, but there was nowhere to run. His hands went limp, and the makeshift clubs slipped from his hands. The clatter of the objects hitting the floor caused him to jump once more.
The all-too-familiar sound of the key sliding into the lock reverberated in Marcus’s ear. Panic gripped his heart in its iron grasp, choking the breath from his lungs; he struggled to draw breath or even squeak out a plea for his life. Never had he felt this afraid—even when he had been arrested and brought to the cell for detainment. He knew eventually Union Forest would release him after signing a mountain of non-disclosure documents regarding what he had found. Not once did he believe that he would die.
Marcus returned to the present when the key turned, and the tumblers clicked into place, allowing the door to swing open. All he thought of in his last moments where the things he would never do or see again: projects he would never complete, inventions yet to be invented, several sushi rolls he had yet to try, the taste of a freshly cooked pizza right out of the oven, or the stale taste of kale chips. He shook his head in disdain for thinking of kale chips in his final moments.
Don’t just stand here like some scared child that’s seen the bogeyman. Pick up the makeshift clubs, you idiot!
No matter how hard he tried, the fear continued to grip his heart with a stern ruthless vigor. His legs refused to bend, his arms refused to move, even his chest struggled to move enough for him to breathe.
The steel door slowly moved, the hinges wailing in protest. Marcus took a dozen steps back, bumping into the wall. Try as he might he could not get his body to meld into the concrete.
The door opened, and Marcus had to shield his eyes from the bright LED lighting reflecting off the white paint in the hallway. Some thick-necked musclebound brute stood silhouetted within the doorframe, panting heavily. The brute stood over a guard’s body, rifle in hand. The man’s neck had been broken.
The brute took a step forward entering the darkness. The sweet sickly scent of blood, sweat and death permeated the massive figure. Marcus thought he heard his name being said but passed it off as his mind tried to make some sense of his eminent death. Panic gripped Marcus’s heart, and without thinking, he ran forward, scooped up a makeshift club and swung with all his feeble strength at the degenerate’s head. The brute swiftly sidestepped his paltry swing and snapped his massive hand down over his wrist. Marcus watched in horror as the brute twisted his wrist, causing him to drop his weapon and cry out in pain.
“Marcus! What are you trying to do, kill me?” the shrouded man demanded.
Marcus stood in bewilderment and confusion. The man’s voice was one he knew.
“V… Is that you?”
The display panel on the elevator wall dinged, showing Roger Smythe the elevator had arrived on the forty-fifth floor. As soon as Smythe stepped out of the elevator, he was bombarded with the sight of techs, scientists, and researchers running around in a mad dash. He counted over a dozen techs trying to locate Henry Morgan, his younger brother Rick, and the remainder of the special ops team they had sent over to retrieve their data core.
It had been two days since they’d last received any communication from their derelict employee. Smythe continued to harbor an extreme case of animosity toward Henry. There was something about the man and his sanctimonious attitude that made his skin crawl. If it had been up to him, he would never have let the fool go rescue his brother. Unfortunately, Mr. Perkins had ignored his objections and sent Henry and his foolish friend over to save the otherwise doomed mission to retrieve the offline data core.
Smythe passed a mirror, then stopped to check to make sure his hair and tie where arranged correctly.
“Now the fool will pay for his mistake,” Smythe quietly hissed through his tightly clenched teeth. He smiled into the mirror to make sure nothing was wedged between his teeth before moving on.
Smythe didn’t think for one moment that it was a coincidence that their satellites had gone offline and that they were unable to contact the tablet they had assigned to the special ops team, which Henry’s younger brother had been a part of. He knew they had disabled the device when they thought the team had been lost.
Smythe approached a tech. “Have you been able to reactivate the tablet we sent with the special ops team?”
“No, sir. It appears to have either been destroyed or was brilliantly removed from the net completely.”
“Is that possible?” He leaned in to view the tech’s name badge.
“Yes, it would be possible. However, that individual would have to have some seriously mad genius level hacker skills. I’m talking like Gandalf the White level skills.”
“Gandalf the who?” Smythe asked irritated.
The tech seemed baffled by Smythe’s question. “You don’t know who Gandalf the White is?”
The glare that Smythe gave the man caused the tech to wither in his seat.
“Kevin, my patience is growing thinner by the minute.”
“Um…yeah… So, was there a tech on the team?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think that individual was skilled enough to be able to hack into a system as well guarded as, let’s say, our servers or the national defense systems?”
Smythe groaned in frustration. “Yes.”
Kevin spun around in his seat with astonishment beaming on his face. “Are you freaking kidding me?”
“No.”
“Sir, if this individual was able to do that, then there is no way in hell I’m going to be able to find him or our equipment.”
“Damn it!” Smythe said.
“Did I do something wrong?” the suddenly nervous tech asked as he slinked farther into his chair.
Smythe wanted to hit the foolish idiot, but Mr. Perkin’s disapproving glare popped into his head, so he thought better of it.
“No, Kevin, you didn’t. I’ve already told you too much as it is. Just know that there was a tech with the team that was captured hacking into our network. He was sent over to assist with the retrieval of the data core. I don’t know why, but he was. I believe he and his associate may have compromised the mission and removed our device from the net. I hope I don’t need to remind you how imperative it is that we discover if the tablet and the team was either destroyed or that they survived and somehow disabled our device.”
The tech squirmed under Smythe’s glare.
“No, sir, you don’t. I will see if I can get Michael to assist me with this issue.”
“Thank you.”
Smythe patted the man’s shoulder as he stood up. He excused himself but noticed that the door to the boardroom was now open. He shuffled his way through the room avoiding scientists and security personnel. Before reaching the door, a staffer carrying multiple boxes full of various documents nearly bowled him over. He let her rush by without berating her because he knew that the order to destroy certain documents had been given.
Mr. Perkins had made the room his base of operations after losing communication with Henry and the team. Smythe agreed with his boss’s decision to move to the boardroom. It made more sense for Mr. Perkins to be in the trenches with the rest of the employees. This way the employees could see the man’s burning anger up close rather than from afar. Even amongst the current chaos, Mr. Perkins shouted at some poor sap who reported they still hadn’t been able to reestablish the link to their satellites in Ireland.
As he neared the dark mahogany doors, he stepped out of the way to let the poor fellow who was almost in tears rush passed him.
“Was that Malcom Wainwright?” Smythe asked when he sauntered into the room closing the door behind him.
“Yes, I believe it was.” Mr. Perkins answered without looking up from the reports he was reviewing.
“His team still hasn’t been able to restore our connection to our missing satellites?”
Mr. Perkins threw the reports across the room, screaming a series of obscenities. Smythe stood there like a statue in a storm. When the tempest was over, he adjusted his tie, brushed off his vest and took a seat.
“What do we know?” he asked.
“We know that Henry and what was left of the ops team made it to the drilling site. The last images from the satellites show that they had accessed the control deck. After that, nothing!” Mr. Perkins slammed his fist down on the table, causing the dark caramel-colored liquid of his Tennessee whiskey to splash against the curved walls of his glass.
“Shall we continue to plan for the worst,” Smythe asked, “that Morgan and the others evaded the Beast, have ascertained what was stored on that data core, and have turned it over to the authorities?”
Mr. Perkins walked over to the window and stood there for several minutes watching boats move about in the Lower Bay, something Smythe remembered Henry doing.
“Honestly, Roger…I don’t know.”
Have you been able to erase all records of project T183 from the servers and network as I asked?”
“I believe I have,” Smythe said. “Are we abandoning this project then, sir?”
“Not at this point. I believe now more than ever this project will be the only thing that keeps you and me from falling into the cold dead hand of the reaper. Plus, I don’t want anyone discovering the secrets of that project. If people were to find out the truth, it would create widespread panic that we wouldn’t be able to stop.”
“That reminds me, sir. What do you want to do about Mr. Silver and what he discovered about the project?”
“Do you think he could be a threat?”
“Yes, I believe so.”
Mr. Perkins sighed but never turned from the window. Smythe saw the weight of Mr. Perkins’s charge settle upon his shoulders.
“Give the order.”
“Are you sure?” Smythe wanted to be sure he hadn’t misunderstood the command.
“Yes, I’m sure. No one can know about project T183 beyond you, the team on site, and myself.”
“Very well. I will deal with this personally.”
There was a quiet nervous rap on the mahogany door.
“Enter!” Mr. Perkins shouted.
A short squirrelly man dressed in the standard black security uniform opened the door and then handed Smythe a sealed confidential envelope. Smythe broke the seal and pulled out the report.
His eyes widened in shock.
“What is it?” Mr. Perkins asked as he approached.
“Sir, the facility on Robin’s Island has been attacked.”
“Isn’t that the one where Silver is being detained?”
The muscles in Smythe’s neck tensed. “Yes, sir, it is, and he’s escaped.”
Marcus opened the door and half stepped, half fell out of Vairin’s vehicle. His old friend had found the decrepit vehicle, a rusted four-wheel-drive monstrosity that should have been sent to the junkyard eons ago, on Robin’s Island after their escape. The owner had removed the original combustion engine and replaced it with the newer electrical E.V. engines found in most vehicles these days.
However, that is not what made this vehicle so grossly hideous in Marcus’s eyes. It was the fact that the vehicle’s owner had added massive rubber mud flaps with a skull and crossbones embossed on them, a lift kit that increased the vehicles height to more than double, which he doubted was street legal, and installed enormous tires that he swore were normally found on construction vehicles.
Those modifications were just those on the exterior of the vehicle. Inside the cab were random wires that ran from beneath the vehicle’s dashboard, connecting to the most random of devices. Marcus marveled as to why someone would go to such great lengths to modify this rust bucket. In his mind no sane person would want to be seen driving a vehicle like this.
The door screeched in protest when he tried to pull it closed.
“I think this thing is stuck,” he said. “Are you sure this was the only vehicle you could find?”
“What’s wrong with this beauty?” Vairin responded with a smile.
“Beauty? Vairin, please tell me you’re joking, because this is probably the ugliest truck I have ever seen in my life.”
Vairin patted the vehicle’s side panel and several large chunks of rusted metal fell off. Marcus groaned and massaged his temples.
“I can fix that,” Vairin said sheepishly as he picked up the pieces and tried to put them back in place.
Marcus gave up on closing the door. He figured anyone who wanted to steal this piece of crap was more than welcome to it.
“So, where are we?” Marcus asked.
“New Jersey, just east of the turnpike near Cotters Lane.”
“Okay. You said you had a hideout somewhere around here, right?”
“Yup! Right over there,” Vairin said, pointing toward an old cat food manufacturing plant.
It was a squat three-story building with more boarded up broken windows than ones still intact. Colorful-worded graffiti took over the lower sections of the building, and an old sun-bleached sign depicting what appeared to be a calico cat licking its paw with the words Happy Kitty Cat Food above its head fixed itself to the top section.
“You’re kidding, right?” Marcus asked as he looked over at the old manufacturing plant.
Vairin approached the building’s door. “What? Do you have something against cats?”
“No. But…who in their right mind would want to go in there?”
“That’s exactly the reason we’re here,” Vairin said with a smile. “No one would ever think to look for you in a place like this. Plus, we got it for a steal of a deal!”
“I guess you’re right.” Marcus looked up at the building again. “Vairin, if I get tetanus in there, I’m going to hold you personally responsible.”
Vairin laughed as he punched in the security code for the main door. The panel flashed green and emitted a series of three beeps from the panel before the door unlocked. Marcus looked up at the calico cat on the sign and sighed.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
“Oh, come on, Marcus! It’s not that bad once you get inside. I admit on the outside she looks a little rough, but you need to see what Kenzey has done on the inside.”
