MBryO: The Escape (10 page)

So far, Jenasus was the only one their father had been able to create that way. In William’s opinion, the difference in the twin’s coloring had been a natural mutation that was unexpected.

Much to his father’s frustration, Maxim had been unable to recreate the result in his atrocious cloning procedures, making Jenasus as valuable to Maxim as Sasha was, in her own way. Jenasus was also one of a kind.

As the captives exited their respective rooms, William held up a finger to his lips. He didn’t want to open up his psy-talent in case he alerted the security guards.

The creatures in the hallway were non-verbal, dependent upon their telekinetic abilities to communicate with each other. However, they seemed to understand William’s signal to keep human noise to a minimum. With escape this close, none of them wanted to be discovered.

Holding up one fine-boned hand, Joshua gestured for the rag-tag group to follow him. Intent only on escaping the building, he silently retraced his way back through the maze of shelves to the chem-lab door, as quickly as possible.

William and the unlikely looking twins followed close behind him as they weaved their way through the cages stacked from the floor to the ceiling. The creatures locked inside twittered, growled and purred as they passed them by.

Bringing up the rear of the group was a somewhat smaller replica of Dogg, minus the lion-like mane of reddish hair. His name was Bear and his snout was not freckled but shorter and darker than his brother’s.

Bear was not as accomplished at staying upright as Dogg. Every so often, he would drop to all four limbs and lumber a couple of yards before standing up and walking toward the exit. Bear reminded William of the eughi monsters that ran wild back on Nyla 6.

Joshua came to a halt at the head of the aisle leading to the wire pen where the wolf-like creature paced. Pausing, he stared at the silver fence before he deliberately side-stepped, choosing to lead the group through the next aisle over from the ominous looking winged creature.

Not so, William, however!

William wasn’t sure what drew him to the creature. Was it the strength of animal’s psy-talent? Or could it be the strands of sentient intelligence that tugged at the mental blockade of his mind?

Whatever it was, the young boy paused at the end of the aisle and simply looked at the nervously pacing animal. The serious black eyes that stared back at him displayed mixed emotions. There was a desire for freedom trapped within those obsidian orbs.

William thought the wolf was trying to communicate with him on some primal level. Not knowing why, he allowed himself to be drawn down the rows of shelving to the metal fence. The wolf halted mid-pace and seemed to hold its breath at the boy’s cautious approach.

Very slowly, William reached out and touched the padlock. Psy-talent emitted from his fingers and the metal fastener cracked at when he touched it, falling to the floor with a thud.

His eyes on the wolf, William opened the cage and then backed slowly out of the aisle. When he reached the end of the shelves he turned and looked back at the creature. Then he turned and hurried after the others who were already at the door to the warehouse.

The wolf watched the silvery wraith who had released him disappear around the shelves. Then he gave the air a wary sniff.

Extremely cautious, yet sensing freedom, he slowly left the cage. The pads of his feet instinctively followed the group ahead of him towards the freedom he so desperately craved.

The elevator doors chimed opened, sounding overly loud to Pax’s anxious ears.

Elias Abrams stepped carefully out into a darkened corridor. His psy-talent on high alert, Pax cautiously followed the older man out of the lift. As was his habit, he stepped sideways into a flanking position, his blaster covering the hallway.

This part of the basement lay beneath the southern wing of the MBryO UNIX building. Accessible only through the elevator system, it was situated directly below Maxim’s private laboratory.

According to Melara and Elias, the lab was state of the art. Funded by the DOD, it had every modern surgical tool imaginable and was outfitted with a bank of incubators lining the sterile gray and white walls.

The incubators resembled enclosed aquariums with a saucer sized peephole built into the top of it. A green jelly-like substance filled the glass and chrome boxes, which were fed by wires and tubes, attached to, and running from, a heavy square base constructed of Myconeum alloy.

Inside those incubators were Maxim’s cloned experiments, all in various stages of development. Lately, the number of his clones had dwindled considerably as the ‘Old One’s’ health had declined. No longer could her DNA be harvested daily. The harvesting had to be spaced out since the extraction procedure was slowly killing her.

This inconvenienced Maxim to no end. But the ‘Old One’ was the last remaining female of a psy-talented race of people. There was no one else exactly like her in the entire world. He made himself wait longer and longer between experiments, giving her body time to recover before he continued his work.

Only authorized personnel were permitted to observe Maxim’s cloning procedures. Elias had never witnessed the sickening assault personally. The thought of it sickened him to no end! But, he was aware that more than one DOD official had watched Maxim perform one of his evil experiments, from the glass paneled balcony located above the laboratory, which resembled a hospital operating room.

His blaster raised, Elias led the way to a door at the end of the corridor. He paused with his hand on the knob. Pax remained close on his heels and their eyes met briefly before Elias gently turned the door knob.

There was no access panel beside this door, giving visitors and passersby the erroneous notion that whatever was behind the door was totally innocuous. Elias had come prepared to break in, but the door was ajar; cracked opened just enough for him to see an inky darkness beyond.

In spite of the stern control he had upon his psy-talent, Elias could not suppress his racing pulse. Success was at his fingertips. Finally, he was able to finish the mission that had inspired him to join MBryO six years ago. That mission was to free, to his knowledge, the last remaining Xenaclon female.

Hesitantly, he pushed the door wider and stepped into the darkness that beckoned from within.

“Freezhia?” he whispered aloud.

His shields were still in place. He could not risk Maxim Bryant intercepting any sort of psy-message to the ‘Old One’.

His heart sank as his call met with the type of dead silence that could only be associated with empty darkness.

Anxiously, his fingers fumbled for and found the light switch beside the door, illuminating the windowless cell. Blinking quickly, his eyes had barely adjusted to the glare before he rushed into inside.

His eyes assessed the spartanly bare furnishings. His heart lodged in his throat when he realized that an empty cot containing a crumpled blanket was the only thing occupying bare chamber.

Pax watched the blood drain from Elias’ normally olive complexion. Abram’s proud demeanor had always projected an unbending will and strength of mind. And yet, Pax would have sworn in that moment that his broad shoulders sagged in defeat.

“We are too late,” he breathed dejectedly.

Elias knew that if they were caught, Maxim would have them tortured and killed. Elias dropped the wall he had put around his psy-talent. Uncaring that their plan might fail or that he was putting them at risk of being captured; he sent mental feelers throughout the massive building.

An onslaught of telekinetic energy emitted from his mind. The sentient tendrils curled, writhed, explored and gently probed all four corners of the basement, trying to pinpoint the presence of anyone in the vicinity. Finding no evidence of psy-presence, Elias focused his attention on the floor above, seeking an answering response to his probes.

Pax instantly felt Elias’ mental breach. Reacting instinctively, he turned to cover the hallway with his blaster.

Elias had located what he was looking for in the laboratory on the floor above them.

“We must hurry!” he grunted. He had his blaster ready as he led the way back to the waiting elevator doors. They were barely inside when he pushed the up button.

“She is very weak and her energy is drifting far away. If we do not reach her soon, she will be lost to us forever.”

The elevator opened with its customary chime. Elias and Pax stepped out into the sound proofed observation area, unsurprised to find a trio of Terran Cadets waiting for them, blasters armed and ready. Apparently, Elias’ mind probe had not gone unnoticed, no matter how gentle he had been.

A seasoned combat officer, Elias wasted no time firing his blaster, hitting the soldier on the left in the shoulder. The force of the bullet spun him backward onto the glass balcony. Like a bouncing ball, the man rebounded off the thick panel to the floor.

The man in the middle fired his own blaster simultaneously. Elias figured the kid was fresh out of the Academy by the fear in his eyes. In his haste, the kid fired too quickly and his shot went wide. He did manage to blow a hole in the key board mounted on the wall, however. The smell of burning circuitry assured him it was rendered useless for the immediate future.

Taking advantage of the cadet’s mistake, Elias stepped toward the panicked looking youngster and swung the butt of his blaster against the kid’s head, knocking his visor to the floor. Elias watched in satisfaction, as like dominoes, the young cadet crumpled down on top of it.

The kid was young, barely wet behind his ears. Elias really hadn’t wanted to harm him. Hitting him had seemed more humane than blasting him to kingdom come.

Quickly, he turned around to see how Pax was faring. The third guard was older, more seasoned and battle scared. Elias remembered the day the man had been deployed to MBryO, right alongside Melara Sivanza. He had recognized a kindred soul, perhaps a veteran from the Xenaclon Wars.

The man had been the biggest of the three guards facing them when they emerged from the elevator. He stood well over six feet, weight an easy two hundred pounds, and every inch of him was solid muscle.

Knowing that the man would not go down without a fight, Elias had decided to take on the two lesser threats and simply hoped that Pax could delay the bigger man until he was done.

The other two dealt with, Elias looked around just in time to see Pax reach up and punch the veteran guardsman in the head with the butt of his blaster. The guardsman had lost his weapon in the resulting scuffle, and blood was spurting down the front of the man’s uniform. But somehow he remained on his feet. Trained in hand-to-hand combat, he was aiming blows that would have felled most men. Pax managed to field each one.

Knowing that time was of the essence if they were to reach his beloved Freezhia in time, Elias reached out and grasped the man’s neck just below the carotid artery. He applied just the right amount of pressure to the nerve endings there and within seconds the man slumped to the floor, out cold.

Elias ignored Pax’s offended expression at his, unasked for, intervention and turned his attention to the angry demon standing in the laboratory down below.

With his flowing mane of blond curls, fine-boned facial features and billowing diamond studded robe, Maxim Bryant resembled an avenging angel. He watched the ineffective resistance from the DOD’s security detail in disgust.

Menacingly, he walked around to the head of the inert figure lying on the medi-bed. Suddenly a lethal looking laser scalpel appeared in his delicate hand. It was aimed threateningly at Freezhia’s vulnerable throat. Elias’ heart dropped.

Maxim Bryant’s icy blue gaze collided with his.

“Ah…at last! We’ve been expecting you, Elias Abrams!” The voice oozed like melted butter through the laboratory’s speaker system.

“Move away from her,” Elias ordered through the glass barrier.

Raising his blaster, he sighted down the barrel. A red pinpoint of light appeared in the center of Maxim’s high forehead.

“I was wrong to underestimate you, my friend,” Maxim smiled benignly up at them, apparently unmoved at the threat of being shot. “Your mental defenses are exceptional. Very similar to the ‘Old One’! Xenaclon warrior, I presume? You aren’t swarthy enough to be Barriosi.”

Not waiting for a response, Maxim answered his own question. “No, it’s definitely Xenaclon. I must congratulate you; you have one of the few minds that I cannot penetrate at will. With some sort of misguided connection to this one, I assume?”

“Drop the scalpel and move away from the medi-bed. Or I’ll shoot you where you stand,” Elias grated.

Under no circumstances would he give Maxim Bryant the satisfaction of knowing how important Freezhia was to him and his people. Killing her would guarantee the extinction of the Xenaclon race.

The deadly tone in Elias’ voice assured Pax that Elias meant every word he said. His tone seemed to have no impact on the man down below them, however.

Pax examined the balcony, looking for a way inside. The observation deck was built in a hexagonal shape. Elevator doors were built into the wall down below, allowing the MBryO UNIX lab assistants to wheel the gurneys in and out of the cloning center. The elevator led directly down to the chem-labs located in the basement. They did not come up any higher.

Discarding that route into the lab, Pax searched for another way in, other than simply jumping through the thick glass panels in front of him. Quickly scanning the area, he spotted the door leading down into the lab on the far side of where Elias was standing.

He calculated the time it would take to descend the steps into the lab against the mere seconds it would take for Maxim to use the laser scalpel on the hapless female lying below. The need for caution won out. He would have to let this play out Elias’ way.

“And risk endangering our friend here with flying glass? I do not think so,” Maxim returned, still smiling. “I suspect that you will do everything in your power to avoid harming her… correct?”

Looking into Elias’ stern face, Maxim allowed himself a smug smile. Maxim enjoyed having the upper hand, for once, in the mental game of hide and seek the two had played so adroitly during the past six years.

“You should not have returned, Elias Abrams. Security was alerted the instant you entered the building through the turbine. We have monitored your movements very closely. I must thank you for bringing my sons back to me. My sources tell me that Terran drones are, even now, closing in on the area where the stolen spacecraft disappeared. It will not take them long to discover where the rest of my family is hiding. They will surely be returned to me in time.”

“MBryO will never get its hands on them again,” Elias growled.

“I admit, it was a brilliant plan, Elias,” Maxim droned on as if he had never spoken. “Too bad, it is destined to fail.”

“There will be no escape for you, your young accomplice there, or the beautiful Captain Sivanza this time. It is she piloting the space-hopper hovering in the atmosphere above us, am I right? I am sure she is preparing to pick you up, as we speak!”

Maxim rattled on, reveling in the sound of his own voice and the psy-anger he sensed radiating from Elias, yet did not show on the man’s stoic face. “Even now Terran Guards have been deployed to the launch pad atop the building, waiting to apprehend her and effectively cutting off your escape.”

At that very moment alarms began to echo throughout the building. As Pax watched the cameras mounted discreetly along the walls swiveled toward them.

He figured Terran Guards were now covering all the hallways, not to mention the exits into and out of the building. With a whir small holes opened in the ceiling and warning lights descended through them. Flashing red and blue lights reflected off the sterile white walls, signaling an intruder alert.

“Zander’s-tar-pits,” Pax bit off. He was tired of waiting. And he really didn’t like the ugly gleam in Maxim’s blue eyes when he mentioned Melara’s name.

Like a hypnotist wielding a spinning amulet, Maxim seemed to have mesmerized Elias with his lilting speech. He was rooted to the spot and now that they had been discovered time was of the essence.

Not so, Pax. Aiming his blaster at one of the empty incubators lining the far wall of the laboratory, he squeezed the trigger.

Things happened pretty fast after that.

The incubator disintegrated, shooting streams of green mucous into the air, covering the pristine surfaces of the equipment close to it. Surprised, Maxim dropped the laser with a clatter and covered his head protectively as thick glass fell through the air.

Pax carefully squeezed the trigger, firing systematically at the floor close to Maxim’s feet. The man must have had nerves of steel because he never flinched. He did back away from Freezhia, however.