MBryO: The Escape (7 page)

The world came to the conclusion that cloning was a threat to the very existence of humanity, not to mention a heinously immoral act.

After that, Xenaclons were tracked down and disposed of. Most humans of that era considered it the same as euthanizing a rabid animal. The RMB or Robotic Morality Bureau was established to regulate the manufacturing of all robots and investigate any rumors of cloning activity. The result was that cloning was outlawed throughout the galaxy.

And now, Pax Vitar suspected the one known as MBryO was developing his own cloned prototype; a new generation of Xenaclons. This clone model possessed psy-talent, making it twice as deadly as any of the Xenaclons.

His motive was unclear, but nothing good could come from the project. And from what Pax had been able to discern from the four siblings, the process involved the painful extraction of human cells from two unwilling donors with specific genetic traits.

As of now, MBryO had deliberately excluded the desire to kill in his creation. But the possibility of a future psy-talented army of soldiers made Pax’s mind boggle.

As Pax neared the top of the bunker his own talent began to receive transmissions from the bunker. Dismayed, he listened helplessly as his new young friends broke every security protocol he and Melara had put in place to protect them.

Melara Sivanza…his mind shied away from thinking about the beautiful red haired Terran captain. Her presence on Nyla 6 disturbed him in far different ways than the others did.

He preferred to keep his feelings private for now, until he could better understand them himself. To do so, he erected a mental wall around his thoughts, to keep his psi-talented friends, in the dark, so to speak.

Alas, Sasha and Ian were too young, trusting and inquisitive to hide. He could already hear their childish excitement as they dashed from their respective laboratories to the open docking bay.

His stomach in his mouth and his blaster ready for anything that even came close to being dangerous, he braced himself, then rushed inside the gaping landing bay.

He arrived just in time to see the side of a late model space-hopper open and a britches clad, lion-like creature fill the doorway. With reddish fur and a full flowing mane the creature was as tall as any of the eughi’s on the planet. A smattering of dark spots spread across the creature’s canine snout. The creature stepped cautiously out of the space-hopper.

But, as strange as the creature was, it in no way compared to his elf-girl companion. No more than two feet tall, the female was as perfectly proportioned as any doll. She sat astride the creature’s shoulders; her tiny legs dangling down the creature’s chest.

Miniature to be sure, she was an exact replica of Sasha.

“Dogg…Gayla,” Sasha rushed forward to meet the odd looking duo, her hands reaching up to take the small female off the lion-like creature’s massive shoulders. “I thought never to see you again!”

“It fills my heart to see you too, Sasha! I, also, had doubts of ever seeing you again, little sister,” said the small female smiling.

Her arms encircled Sasha’s neck and she laid her childlike head on her shoulder. She was obviously happy at being reunited with her sibling, but totally exhausted from the trip across the galaxy.

“And you brother?” Joshua asked, reaching out to stroke the hairy shoulder of the mammoth creature beside him. “I should have known that if anyone could escape from our father, it would be you, Dogg.”

“Gayla and I had to follow you. We could not let you leave Terra without us,” his freckled snout spread into a wide grin. The creature made a snuffing sound to express his enjoyment of Joshua’s caress.

Melara had entered the docking bay from the opposite direction as Pax, her weapon drawn and ready to deal with any threat against her young charges. Her steely gaze analyzed the scene taking place in front of her.

She acknowledged his presence with a nod of her head. The four siblings were greeting the new arrivals, as excitedly as their stoic personalities would allow.

Pax followed her gaze to the reunion taking place beside the brand new, top of the line, space-hopper. The noisy retro-fitted engines were gradually fading as the ship finished shutting down.

“Relax, cowboy!” she whispered to Pax, sensing his tension. “They seem to know each other.”

In spite of her words, Pax noticed that Melara hadn’t holstered her blaster, however! Naturally filled with mistrust, neither of them was prepared to dismiss the unexpected arrival of the space-hopper as a possible threat, just yet.

He, too, kept his blaster trained on the ship!

“Melara, Pax Vitar, come! Meet our brother and sister,” Sasha’s beautiful voice trilled across the docking bay. “We must celebrate with burgers and root beer! They, too, have managed to escape from our father.”

Calista chose that moment to wander in through the docking bay, her intelligent green eyes calmly assessed the new arrivals. She stopped just inside the bay doors, her attention focusing intently on the strange looking creature beside her humanoid friend.

In size, it was similar to a eughi, but that was as far as the resemblance went. Its snout was sprinkled with dots and a luxurious mane that dropped to its shoulders. Calista probed the creature’s mind delicately.

“Curious,” she snuffled in her feline way. “Intelligent! But not feline!” With an uncommon disdain for a creature that walked on four legs.

Dogg simply look back at Calista impassively. With a sniff of disdain, he didn’t bother to reply to the odd looking female’s simplistic psy-talent.

Sensing no threat from the strange looking eughi, Calista ambled over to Sasha’s side and nuzzled the blond girl’s thigh with her soft nose. She was obviously basking in her new friend’s feelings of joy.

Elias Abrams chose that moment to step out of the space-hopper, hands in the air.

Sasha’s expression changed abruptly. Reflexively, Joshua and William stepped protectively in front of the girls. Pax and Melara divided instantly, taking up positions in the shadows pooling on either side of the open bay doors.

“Move out of the way so I can cut this MBryO space-slug in two!” Melara gritted between clenched teeth.

“You may be at ease, Melara Sivanza,” said the creature known as Dogg. “Elias Abrams means no harm! It was he who helped us to escape from our father.”

“I know who he is!” Melara returned grimly. “Elias Abrams is in charge of security at MBryO and as such not to be trusted. He’s, also, Maxim Bryant’s right hand man! His henchman! Can either of you geniuses explain to me how he managed to block his presence from every psy-talent in this docking bay?”

“Only someone with far superior psy-talent than ours could have maintained his guard for so many years,” Joshua stated, observing the older man suspiciously.

Elias Abrams was obviously in tip-top shape, but his dark hair prematurely gray at the temples.

“Even our father failed to penetrate the wall he keeps around his mind,” Gayla said admiringly. “And he is far stronger than any of the other telepaths at MBryO…except maybe the ‘Old One.”

“The only humanoid with that sort of power would, no doubt, be descended from the Xenaclons,” Ian reasoned, assessing Elias’ muscled physique! “Even the Barriosi are not that powerful.”

The Barriosi were allies of the powerful Xenaclon race.

A combination of curiosity and youthful excitement bubbled up in Ian. For a moment he let his mental defense guard down. Everyone in the docking bay intercepted the flashes of research articles as the boy mentally flipped through the pages of everything he had ever read, heard or studied about the Xenaclons.

The dark-haired man did not look like the pictures he had seen of the genetically enhanced soldiers. And in all his research he had never ran across any mention of a Xenaclon with telepathic abilities. But he would bet his next birthday that Elias was a true descendant of the original cloned warriors.

“Zander-tar-pits!” Melara cursed harshly, reeling from the massive overload of information her brain had received in such a short amount of time.

“Mister, you have about five seconds to give me a reason not to blast you to bits!”

The atmosphere in the docking bay was extremely tense, as both Melara and Pax waited for Elias Abrams to make his move.

Pax’s finger gently caressed the trigger of his mass-blaster.

The Xenaclon Wars had happened more than a century before. But a mere hundred years was not nearly long enough to forget the crimes the Xenaclons had committed against humanity. His own ancestors had regaled him with stories of their atrocities.

It was the doll-like Gayla who eased the tension.

“The ‘Old One’ trusts him!” she said, simply.

“And he could have returned us to the MBryO project when he discovered us,” Dogg added. “But he did not!”

“Maybe he planned to use you and Gayla to track us down and force us into going back with him,” Melara countered fiercely.

She knew firsthand how determined Elias Abrams could be.

Abrams had been her boss back at MBryO. She had taken orders from this man. Not once in the past six months had she sensed even one crack in his cold exterior. How could he have worked at that evil place, been privy to the experiments taking place in the bowels of the building and still live with himself. Didn’t he have any conscience at all?

“I had my reasons, Capitana Sivanza,” Elias’ words reverberated in her mind. She was aghast at the thought that this man had been reading her thoughts for months now and she hadn’t been aware of it.

“I, too, have been working to expose Maxim Bryant and put an end to his cruel experiments for some time now. But you compromised my position with your hasty flight and put everyone in jeopardy with your infernal snooping. Your escape has only made him angry. He is determined to retrieve Sasha and her brothers…at any cost!”

“I sense no guile in him, Melara,” Sasha stated aloud, very firmly. “Put your blaster away. He is telling the truth.”

“Sasha…” Melara began cautiously, unwilling to relax her guard.

“Enough!” Sasha insisted. Reaching out she shifted Gayla into the elf-girl’s original position atop Dogg’s broad shoulders.

“There will be time for further discussion later. Right now we must get Gayla checked out by the medi-bed. She is an original…she came before. She does not have the same genetically enhanced stamina, as we who came, after do. The trip from Terra to Nyla 6 has drained what little strength she has.”

“Come, Dogg!” with the dignity of a queen, Sasha walked over to the elevators leading down into the bunker. She didn’t bother to wait and see if the lion-like creature followed her. Which of course, he did!

The feline, Calista, followed faithfully at her heels.

Dumbfounded, Pax watched as the doors closed behind the small group.

Shrugging, he lowered his blaster and turned to approach the planet’s newest arrival. His mind was reeling. Except for Stanley, he had lived a solitary existence for many years. And now in the space of a few weeks he had been joined by seven living entities.

He extended his hand to the man still standing by the open door of the space-hopper. The library vids he had watched as a child said that shaking hands was the universal way to greet newcomers.

Elias Abram’s had piercing blue eyes that seemed to see right through him. Which, he probably could, of course. Not only was he descended from the Xenaclon, but he was an uncommonly strong psy-talent as well.

“I am Pax Vitar. I was born here on Nyla 6. This bunker is my home. It has been abandoned since Terra left my ancestors here more than fifty years ago. And that brings me to the real question on everyone’s mind here. How did you manage to get the bunker’s coordinates?”

Cautiously, Elias reached out and grasped the dark skinned stranger’s hand. His mind probed Pax’s mind for any hint of hostility. Finding none, he replied.

“A DOD computer picked up a brief remote transmission from the Lyiada Galaxy. A mole in the department sent the report to MBryO. I intercepted it before it could fall into Maxim’s hands. The computer triangulated the coordinates. I simply programmed them into the space-hopper’s navigation system. And the rest is history.”

“What remote transmission?” Pax repeated.

Melara came to stand at his elbow.

“How is that possible? I have lived here all my life. As far as I am aware there is no existing computer with a link to Terra.”

Melara shifted uncomfortably.

“I discovered the ancient com-link in the chem-lab. It had been disabled many years ago. In my excitement, I switched it on,” Melara admitted unwillingly.

Her fingers relaxed their grip on her weapon just a tad. “The beacon only transmitted for a few seconds, before I realized that it was far better to be hidden from the Terran drone ships than to be rescued. So I ended the transmission after only a few seconds.”

Pax digested her words carefully.

His parents had never confided to him there was a way for Nyla 6 to communicate with the outside world. In fact, he had always supposed that just the opposite was true. His parents had taken that secret to the grave.

He thought of all the years he had spent in isolation, abandoned on Nyla 6. He had to wonder why his parents had not signaled for Terran rescue before their own deaths. Had the original colonists truly been abandoned on Nyla 6, or in reality had they been hiding from something? Or, someone who posed a threat to their very existence, such as Maxim Bryant!

Had his ancestors been sent here to establish a starbase for intergalactic commerce? Or had they chosen to exile themselves here instead? Could they really be descended from the genetically enhanced race of warriors called the Xenaclons?

He pushed his niggling questions aside and pointed to the elevator across the docking bay.

“We can discuss this later. Right now, let me escort you down below and get you settled. The starbase has fifty living units. Only one of which has been used until just recently. But that seems to be changing on a daily basis.”

Tiredly, Elias Abrams looked back at the beckoning door of the space-hopper. He was not a man who trusted easily. He was finally free of Maxim Bryant and his tyrannical plans to control the universe through the creation of an army of genetically enhanced warriors. Did he really want to get involved in the comings and goings of the starbase on Nyla 6?

His mind screamed that he should jump aboard and fly off this Zander-forsaken rock! So why didn’t he?

He knew why!

He had unfinished business back at MBryO UNIX.

With a resigned sigh, he followed Pax to the living quarters down below. He was very much aware that the man was poised to level the mass-blaster strapped to his shoulder, if he detected any threat from Elias. So, Elias didn’t make any.

Her eyes bored a hole into Abrams’ back as Melara watched the two disappear into the elevator. Joshua and William stepped closer to her. The youngsters sensed her concern.

“We will monitor his movements, Melara,” William reassured her silently.

“Elias Abrams is a powerful psy-talent, able to block our attempts to read his thoughts,” Joshua told her. “He would have to be in order to work at MBryO for so long and remain undetected by our father.”

“Our father is fascinated with Xenaclon history and admires psy-talent above anything else,” he continued. “He would go to any extremes to collect a specimen such as Elias Abrams…or even worse, a naturally developed psy-talent such as Pax Vitar. Both men would be prime donors for the MBryO project.

“Abrams will not voluntarily allow us into his thoughts. Not once in his time at MBryO has he slipped up and allowed his psy-talent to become exposed. But if he lets his guard down any at all, we will know it,” William finished. “And then we will learn his reasons for being at MBryO UNIX. As well as, why he decided to leave Terra.”

“Let us hope it will not be a case of too little, too late,” Melara returned.

The bedroom was in deep shadow, thanks in part to the dim glow of light coming from the baseboards. It was the wee hours of the morning and Elias was caught in the grips of an unfamiliar dream. The smart-sleeper curved to the form of his body. A gentle massage played gently across the pressure points of his skin as the sleeper attempted to counter the effects of the nightmare.

In his dream, Elias was back at MBryO, wandering the confusing maze of long white hallways. Every one of them looked the same, but he knew where he was going. He skirted a security desk and entered an obscure elevator. Gravity anchored his feet heavily to the floor as the small boxlike structure sank into the bowels of the building. His heart began to thump as claustrophobia overwhelmed him. Just as he thought he could stand it no longer, the elevator rocked to a halt and the doors spilled open.

The screams reached him first and he put his hands over his ears as he stumbled out of the elevator. He had made this trip many times in the past, but he never got used to the psy-talons of fear and angst that assailed him.

He shored up the walls of his own psy-talent and fought his way down the lines of glass laboratories and cells with iron bars that held the creatures. Many of MBryO’s experiments had gone awry, especially in the beginning. Some of the victims were housed in wire cages. Those creatures which displayed vicious behavior were kept in kennels.

Eventually Elias found himself in front of a locked door. A diamond shaped window occupied the top portion of the door. There was also a rectangular-shaped slot for food and water trays to be slid inside for the creatures to be fed twice a day.

He pulled a key from his pocket, unlocked the door and slid inside the narrow opening. The strong Xenaclon psy-talent of the ‘Old One’ almost overpowered him. Even though she was still recovering from her most recent procedure, her talent was still stronger than Elias’.

She possessed the type of psy-ability that could only be found in the queen of the Xenaclons. Once she had been known as Freezhia the Fierce because of her bravery on the battlefield. Now, his heart fractured as he looked at the frail figure lying on the sleeper.

Her features, so much like those of her daughters, were thin and pale. Too pale! He knew that she wouldn’t be able to withstand too many more of Maxim Bryant’s serum extractions.

“You must not keep coming down here, my Xenaclon brother!” his liege’s telepathic warning whispered through his mind.

“If he discovers that you are descended from the Xenaclons, he will stop at nothing to capture and use you, as he has me. With your DNA, he will have the link he needs to complete his evil plan. Only a member of the Barriosi would be as valuable to him.”

“I will find a way to help you, Queen Freezhia!”

Elias’ heart was filled with pain. He had fallen deeply in love with Freezhia, the first time he had ever seen her. It was killing him to know that she was trapped here, the victim of the heinous Maxim Bryant.

Frustration filled him! He felt so helpless. After six years at MBryO, he had yet to find away to help her escape the hands of the cruel monster that was Maxim Bryant.

“To my knowledge, you and I are the last of our race, Elias the Strong. I am queen of nothing! Do not worry about me. You must leave here, before it is too late! Go! Save yourself!”

“You must find my children. Guard them, as you would guard me. That is all I ask!” the Old One whispered hoarsely as she slipped into unconsciousness. The psy-echoes of her screams whispered through his mind, causing him to grab his head in pain and stumble blindly from the barren cell.

Elias awoke with a start, sitting up in the sleeper, his heart beat thundering in his veins. Looking around the strange room, it took a second for him to realize where he was.

He forced himself to relax. Lying back in the sleeper, he allowed its gentle massage to soothe the effects of the nightmare from his tormented body.

He knew he must confess his connection to the ‘Old One’. If he could only enlist some help to set her free.

After a scrumptious dinner the night before, Pax Vitar had escorted him to one of the empty living quarters on the third floor of the bunker. He knew the apartment was next door to the men’s unit. The females occupied the one on the other side of them. The strategy wasn’t lost on Elias. In Pax’s shoes he would have put Elias as far away from the women as possible, too.

Elias had met the robotic butler named Stanley. The robot’s dry wit had brought an involuntary smile to his normally grim lips.

Dogg had chosen to sleep on a cot under the space-hopper down in the docking bay. He was not willing to sacrifice the freedom he had found since his escape from the cages at MBryO. Not even for the creature comforts of the sleeping units. Elias knew the mutant half-Terran/half-animal had no desire to return to Terra, even to aid his mother, the ‘Old One’.

In the back of his mind, he sensed the door to his apartment easing open. He remained quite still, his mind sending out feelers in an attempt to identify the sentient intruder, who Elias knew, was even now crossing to the bedroom door.

His search met with a blank wall. Whoever was sneaking around his sitting room was either a very strong psy-talent who could block his attempts to invade his mind, or actually possessed no talent at all.

With one hand, Elias felt for the hand-blaster under his pillow. The door opened and a shadowy figure slipped stealthily inside, clicking the door shut behind him.