Demigods (20 page)

"When you wake up tomorrow," she said, planting the greatest, false memory that he would ever remember, "you will vaguely remember getting lucky with me in the back seat."

Then she kissed him on the cheek, and motioned for him to drive away. When he would find the red dress in the back seat of his car the next day, he would never doubt what he had believed to have happened.

Turning her attention to the woods, Viper stepped into them, still keeping her eyes closed. The triplets would not be able to pinpoint her there, but she did not wish to give up the environment either. Woods surrounded the facility, and it could lead to a premature clue to her intentions.

The sun began to set, and her timing was perfect as she opened the duffle bag, and began to remove its contents. Among them, there was only one firearm, and she only intended to use it if absolutely necessary. It was a Colt 45, and it was a classic, but she understood that it was in pristine condition, since she had taken it off one of the men that they had sent after her, rather than from the van that they had arrived in. He must have treasured it.

She secured the utility belt across her shoulder, for she was much too petite to wear it around her waste. This did not matter, because that was among the things that they had taught her. Adaptation!

She then began to load it with the very items that she required to complete her task. The most important among these was the C4, and the timing devices, because nothing should remain of their computers when she was done with them.

There were other handy devices, and she quickly gathered them up, before making her way further into the woods, where she would find a spot to rest for a moment as she awaited the perfect time.

With her hair back in a ponytail, and the black bandana covering the top of her head, Viper calmly opened her eyes, and peered through the radio pulse device, to see where everyone was inside of the facility. When she saw a figure that she had determined to be Charlie, she was disheartened, for two armed guards stood outside of the door of the room where he sat motionless, and obviously deep in thought.

"Oh, my dear Charlie," she whispered in an endearing tone as she watched him for a moment, "what have you gotten yourself into?"

Now she would have to change her strategy, while the timing had to remain the same. The computer brain that controlled the intelligent building would be executing the commands that she had entered almost twenty-four hours ago, whether she liked it or not.

Readying herself, she waited for the moment to arrive.

*            *            *

The colonel sat at his desk pondering the situation, and two possibilities seemed most likely, though both where quite unnerving.

The first was that Viper would try to hunt them all down, one by one, and such a task was exactly what she had been trained to do. Not only was she physically superior to any human on the planet, but she had also received about fifteen years worth of rigorous conditioning. It was all that she had ever known, and now it had blown up in their faces.

The second possibility was that she might run, and if she did, it would make it very difficult to terminate her. He would not be able to send entire units after her, for they would not have the ability to move, and engage as quickly as one of his single operators could, but she was better than any of them. For that matter, she was obviously better than an entire four-man delta team.

Needing a break from the thoughts that were now tormenting him, the colonel picked up the phone, and called home.

"Hello, Douglas," came the voice on the other end, after a ring and a half, as though she had been expecting the call.

"Hello, Emma," he replied as his mind found a happier place for a moment. "I just called to let you know that I have to work late tonight, so go ahead and eat without me."

"I was beginning to suspect that," she returned, ever aware that his job was a complicated one. "I'm sorry that your day did not turn out as well as you had thought that it would, when you left this morning."

"If it's not one thing, it's another," he said with a sigh, for his day had started with his biggest problem solved. Mirage had been shut down, but he soon had found himself back in the same boat, except this time, it was a G.E.O. that was far more deadly.

"Well, I hope that things work out," Emma told him, and after a customary goodbye involving a heart felt "I love you", they both hung up the phone.

The colonel leaned back in his chair with his fingers locked behind his head, and began to think about his wife for a moment. There was nothing more that he could do about Viper right now, and this was the perfect tonic to alleviate the symptoms of the chaos that she had brought upon him. Sure, it was not a cure, but it would have to do for now.

His moment of relaxation, however, came to an abrupt end as the lieutenant burst into the office, and stood at attention.

"I have good news, and bad," he declared once again, but the colonel was getting tired of such a presentation.

"Just tell me what the hell it is that you need to say, lieutenant," he barked, not willing to play along anymore.

"The triplets have found Viper again," he stated, and without hesitation, he revealed why it was also bad news. "She is in the woods right now, watching us as we speak."

"For god's sake," the colonel yelled as he sprang from his chair, and rounded the desk, "get some guns out there."

Just as they had both reached the door to exit the office, the lights flickered and went dim, as the sirens began to sound.

"It's locked," his lieutenant told him as he desperately tried to open the door to no avail.

"What do you mean, 'it's locked'?" the aged colonel barked. "We're on the inside of the room!"

After trying rather quickly, a few more times, the lieutenant turned to answer him face to face.

"The whole building is electronic," he said in a tone that did little to hide his hysteria. "She’s locked us in!"

"Get a hold of yourself," the colonel calmly told him, as he made his way back to his desk, "and that's an order."

Picking up the phone, he found that it was dead, and when he opened his cell phone, he discovered that the signal was jammed. Suddenly, he found himself about as worried as the lieutenant, yet he did not allow it to show upon his weathered face, as he sat down in his chair.

*            *            *

The changing of events had caught Charlie by surprise, and at first, his brain did not allow him to figure out what was happening. It was only a moment, for then he began to realize what was happening. It was his precious Kitten, and he was certain that she was coming for him.

He stood from his chair, and approached the door, where he would try to figure things out from what was happening outside of the room. There was a lot of commotion going on, and they seemed to be rather confused, and unaware of what they should do.

"Both of you stay at that door," he heard someone demand, as he seemed to run past with at least two others. "We are going to cover the rear exit."

Charlie waited until he heard the rapid footsteps fade away, before he tried to communicate with the guards.

"What's going on out there?" he asked in a tone that was just less than a shout, and at first, he thought that he had not been heard, for the alarms were quite loud.

"Just sit tight, doc," one of them replied. "We're gonna keep you safe."

At this, Charlie simply shook his head, for he was the one to understand that it was not his safety that was in jeopardy, and although he longed for her rescue, he still feared for them.

"Be careful," he said in a tone that could not be heard by them, as he made his way back to the chair to await the outcome.

Leaning back, he began to wonder if it was all worth it. Should he have not helped her? None of this would be happening if he hadn’t, but he knew that they would have simply destroyed her, and started over again

No! He was certain that he did the right thing, and he would not allow his love for her to cause him feelings of guilt. Whatever these people were now going through was something that they had created for themselves, and they likely deserved the outcome.

*            *            *

The three soldiers had reached the rear exit, and postured themselves, two down and one up. They would have radioed that the position was secured, but something was interfering with all forms of communication, so they simply waited with their weapons locked on the back door.

They would not have to wait very long, as the back door opened ever so slightly, but the one in charge motioned for the other two to hold their fire. The doors could stop any round that they had, and he wanted to make sure that they had a clear shot at her. What he had not anticipated was the next chain of events.

Quickly, a hand reached in, and tossed a fragmentation grenade, which landed right in front of them. There was nowhere to find cover, and no time to respond, which produced a hero's reaction out of one of them.

Without thinking, one of the two in the lower position dropped himself upon the weapon, in hopes that it would spare the other two, so that they could continue the task, while the other two turned away, awaiting the sound of the blast.

A couple of seconds seemed like an eternity, and the blast never happened, so one of them turned just in time to see Viper's elbow, before it firmly hit the sweet spot on his jaw. The one that remained never saw anything other than stars.

*            *            *

Charlie stood up from behind the desk, and moved his way to the door. There was a brief commotion, and he had to know what was going on, yet before he made it half the way there, Viper entered the room, looking like Rambo as she approached him.

Before he could say a thing, she wrapped herself around him, and held him for a moment, in an embrace that did not seem to be good timing, while also being very welcomed.

"What happened, Charlie?" she asked as she stared up at him with her pale green eyes that could never be hidden behind her current attire, with an expression that revealed her love. "You should have been back at the room."

Even in such a situation, she still clung to him, and it ate at his very most inner being. Here she was confronting the people that had caused her such great torment, but still she wanted his affection. His hesitation, however, caused her to speak again, before he could ever find a response.

"Take this card," she demanded as she handed it to him, and her tone had become hastened. "It is the only card that will allow you to get out, and I want you to use it, and go back to the motel room."

After he took it from her, she grabbed his face, and pulled his lips to hers. It was a passionate kiss, though certainly a shorter one than he had become accustomed to.

"No more questions," she demanded as he tried to speak, only to be interrupted by her tiny finger upon his lips. "Go out the back, and wait for me back at the room."

He did not want to leave her, yet he understood that this was her fight, and he was grateful that she had come to him in a time when he needed it greatly.

He did not feel empty when she turned him around with a simple twist of his shoulders, and he turned back to find her gone. He knew what she was, but he did not fear her.

Nonetheless, he understood that she knew what she was doing, so he did as he was told, and along the way, he realized that she had made it easy for him. There was a soldier barely regaining consciousness as he made his way to the exit, but the soldier was still too incoherent to ever even realize that someone had passed him by.

The others were obviously out cold, which made them only an obstacle, and Charlie soon used the card to exit the building, before making his way to his car.

He silently wished her well as he pulled away, and headed back to Tallahassee, never realizing that she had given him the card that she needed to exit the building herself, or that she had already figured out a solution to that problem.

*            *            *

Colonel McClure sat at his desk, as anxious as the lieutenant that sat near him, yet never revealed it upon his face. He was beginning to understand the true nature of the events, considering the fact that she seemed to have total control over the entire building.

"Is she going to kill us?" he was finally asked, and the answer was a welcomed one.

"That isn't likely," the colonel answered softly, ever aware of what they had created, but never aware of her intentions.

This still was not enough to calm the lieutenant’s nerves as he stared at the door, desperately trying to hide his trembling. He had never seen combat before, and as he faced the possibility of it, he understood that it would be with a monster.

"Don't get your panties in an uproar," the colonel told the young man after pulling a revolver from his desk. "She’ll never make it this far."

Before his sentence was finished, the door opened, and Viper was quickly upon the lieutenant, grabbing him up as a shield, as the colonel pointed his pistol in that general direction.

"You can spend your six rounds into his body, before I make it over there to you," she declared as she positioned him in a rear naked choke, "or you can toss the gun aside, and let me talk."

At this, the colonel decided to toss the gun aside, for he had a hidden backup, and needed a clear shot at her. Viper, on the other hand, applied the choke, and created a situation where the two of them could speak privately.

"Tell me why you hurt me," she implored with eyes that began to tear up, and he began to understand exactly what he had done, but he still reached for his 9mm taped beneath the desk, while doing it cautiously.

"I was told to create weapons," he answered as he found the hilt, and grasped it firmly. "You are certainly a perfect one."

"Why don't you join us?" he asked as he slowly pulled it from the tape as though she might not hear it. "You would be the best operative that ever lived."

At this, he began to raise the pistol, yet she already began to leap from ten feet across the room. Her bare feet were forward, and so was her upper torso, and he never had the time to react, as her tiny feet reached his shoulders, and slammed him backwards to the floor, while one hand grasped his throat, and the other one ripped his weapon from his feeble grasp.

"Joining you," Viper growled at him as he lay stunned beneath her, "Would be to call rape and torture acceptable."

Reaching behind her, she pulled the desk over for shielding, before she threw a C4 charge at the bulletproof window. It would not stick to it, so she had precisely timed it for such a task, and the blast stunned the colonel even further.

"I will never let you hurt anyone like that again," she told him before launching herself backwards over the desk, and through the opened window, landing a good thirty feet from where she began, with a perfect twist, and a roll, before ending up in a three-point stance.