Path of Ranger: Volume 1 (32 page)

The new world was ahead of him. Dr. Gibson had told him that several weeks in the past, but JB realized the meaning of those words just now. It was time to make a choice, whether he would take lives, or the other way around – carry life.

It was time to act. JB walked away from the fire, leaving his company there. He came to Ellison and Vladimir. The closer he got, the stronger he sensed Vova’s weakness. The wounded student could barely breathe. The doctor had given him a few shots of painkillers to lower the pain but it didn’t do much good. As soon as Ellison noticed the mutant, she rose to meet him. She walked him aside for a private conversation.

“How is he?” JB asked.

“He’s in critical condition. Unconscious most of the time, but when he wakes up, he’s delirious,” Ellison shared her concerns.

“You look tired,” JB put a hand on her shoulder. “We have about ninety minutes left. Go get some rest.”

“I’m fine, I stay with him,” she said and yanked back right away.

“I look after him, you go,” JB insisted.

“Okay, but if anything…”

“I’ll call you immediately. Nothing is gonna happen. I promise.”

The doctor was exhausted and the hunter was persuasive, so she used that advice. Plus, she trusted JB, perhaps more than anyone among the group.

As soon as Ellison left, JB came to Vladimir. The wounded guy lay on the hard shelf surface. His eyes were half open. That lifeless stare made his look even more pitiful. His chest was pumping too frequently, because of all those stitches, he couldn’t breathe in full capacity. JB sat down beside him.

“Wow, man, you look terrible.”

Fighting the pain Vova tried to move his lips to respond. It came dry and silent at first but got better in a few seconds.

“Wait for me to get up,” Vladimir coughed. “I’ll kick your ass, B. You bet.”

“Yeah, right…” JB smirked.

Vova tried to smile in return. The pain got worse, he couldn’t open his eyes no matter how hard he tried. Nevertheless, he was glad to hear the voice of his friend.

“Look, man. I need you to be strong now,” JB said quietly, then he put a cleaned twig to his mouth, which he had made a few minutes before. “Here, squeeze it with your teeth.”

The mutant wasn’t exactly sure what he was doing, just followed his hunch. A few times before, when touching other people, he had felt a bond. In those cases, he was consuming their energy. This time Bridgers intended to share his own strength with Vladimir if it was possible.

The right hand laid on Vova’s face, the left one – on his damaged chest. This way he tried to set up a contact for better experiencing the nature of the illness. The mutant could feel his breathing, his heart rate. He closed eyes to see deeper. The contact was growing. JB felt blood running through the patient's vessels, muscle tension, but it wasn’t enough. He had to go even further. JB had fully deepened into the mind search, as a damage detector, he tried to find a malfunction in the broken mechanism which Vladimir’s body was for him.

Hearing Vova’s inner voice, JB gradually started to feel what he needed. The pain emerged in the mutant’s chest. Although he knew that it was just an illusion, it felt very much real. Then he stumbled upon something alien, something that wasn't supposed to be in that organism. That was a virus, which had polluted Vladimir’s body. It kept spreading.

When the reason of the illness was revealed, JB began looking for a solution. He focused on his own inner energy, imagined as of it was gathering in his chest. Then he thought of how that force might be going through Vladimir’s blood vessels burning the viral cells on the way. The mutant had no conscious idea how to initiate such a process, but his palms were heating up already. His own force transmitted to the patient’s body. JB’s pain lowered, but Vladimir’s increased. He coughed, seized and sweated coldly. The pain made his jaws squeeze the twig. The mutant felt a rise in the body temperature of his comrade. It already was critical, a bit longer in such a condition, and the heart might fail. Nevertheless, JB kept pushing.

In a minute, that torment made Vladimir gain consciousness. He thought that he would die any second. But only after opening his eyes, he saw that JB was sitting in a few feet apart from him. The mutant had done everything he could, it was patient’s turn to fight. The pain gradually passed. Vova got exhausted, he lost passed out once again.

When the deed was done, the hunter laid down himself. He wouldn’t mind having a snack. Unfortunately, he hadn’t brought any meal with him, and eating the group’s food felt wrong. One thing that warmed him was an image of being back on the continent, where food supplies were unlimited. JB stared at the sky. He thought involuntarily that, maybe, he might even miss this place after leaving it.

The break time was up. JB had found Skyman to tell him to gather up everyone. As for himself, he went to check on Vladimir. Ellison and Steven were already there. The big guy took a seat near them.

“JB, did he act strangely when you were here?” Ellison wondered.

“Not really, he just laid there,” JB shrugged.

“It doesn’t make sense… The heat dropped and the heartrate is normal now. I’ve never seen anything like that. Some kind of magic or something…” she said sarcastically.

“So, is he better?”

“Much better. The important thing now is to transport him carefully.”

“J, take a look,” Steve called for him. “We’ve made this.”

Wash was standing there along with Eugene, Fred and Vitaliy. They held a self-made stretcher, which were assembled from a couple bamboo sticks and a yellow raft fabric. It looked pretty solid.

“We thought since we don’t need a raft no more, we could use it this way,” Fred explained.

“Yeah, I see,” JB noted. “Get rid of everything that we don’t need. Any extra weight will slow us down.”

The group gathered near the edge of the shelf. The mutant stayed behind to put out a fire. He did that very carefully, to eliminate any possibility of its spreading. Everything was ready, they went back on the path. Only seven hours left.

When moving across the coast, the previous formation was reused. JB led the group, others followed him in a column, the men carrying Vladimir stayed in the rear. The hunter dedicated his attention to the road.

Seven hours after…

The group of survivors led by the mutant-thug walked ten miles along the coast. Most of the time they were hiding, climbing and waiting on JB. He preferred to scope each foot of the land before leading people there. So it went very dull and lingering.

At the end of the road, they got on a plain rocky landscape with a high concrete wall built upon it. That fence was coming from the jungle and lasted far into the water. Every fifty yards of the wall had a massive reinforcement pillar with a turret on top of it. JB expected something like that, recalling data from Gibson’s blueprints, but seeing it with own eyes was an entirely different thing.

Soon as they had a first glance at that gigantic structure, JB took the people into the jungle. He knew about the advanced surveillance system, and the last thing they needed was to get caught. They found a proper safe place inside of the thicket so JB could leave to find Dr. Gibson.

The most important part of the mission lay ahead. JB tried to tune himself for it. He ran along the wall keeping some distance and staying hidden in the jungle’s edge. As for the wall, the nearest ground to it was salted, nothing grew there.

When he got approximately around the agreed point of their meeting, JB had to come out. Only there seemed to be a problem. There was no way to get close to the wall without being spotted by at least one of the turrets. So he improvised. The mutant picked up a massive rock and threw it in the closest turret’s direction. His goal was to check if it was functional, but as it appeared, he was a better pitcher than he thought. The rock hit the turret itself to smash it from the wall. No repercussion followed. The system was off.

Gibson had to be somewhere close. JB wasn’t afraid of being shot anymore so he continued the movement closely to the wall. Soon the echo sounded from not far. It had to be Mark making a passage through the wall.

When JB arrived at the place, he saw a huge drilling machine and a ten foot high mech standing along. It had a large cabin, made of titanium and carbon, massive mechanical hands, and armored feet. The titanium armor was everywhere on that machine so it could take a hit. Most of it was painted in white, but the panels seemed old and rusty. Yet, this metal giant made a pretty solid impression on JB.

The mech was standing near the drill. Gibson looked very busy, he didn’t even notice JB’s arrival. Mia sat on a log aside, watching Doc’s work. Occasionally she looked around to check the area. Nevertheless, none of them could hear JB calling because of the drill. So he had to come closer.

JB clapped the mech on a shoulder. It seemed like a good idea at first. But it appeared to be unexpected for Gibson. Out of panic, he swung the arm back, kicking with the elbow. JB dodged that attempt, saving his head. Then Mark stepped back with his left leg to change the angle and tried to hit the mutant with the right fist straight in the chest. JB flashed into a roll on the ground forward. He stood up in full height before the mech.

Mia burst into laughter, watching that dumb performance.

“Hey-hey, Doc! Cut it out!” JB shouted.

Then Gibson finally recognized the intruder. He put the arms down and stood straight. A voice sounded from the speakers.

“Oh, JB, it’s you there…” Mark said surprisingly. “Excuse me, I thought that was monsters.”

“Damn, you made me nervous with all this Mu-Tai boxing, Doc,” the mutant replied. “Are you still high?” Not waiting for an answer, JB looked at Mia. “Is he?”

Mia carelessly shrugged.

“Who knows? I ain’t his babysitter.”

“Where are everyone else?” Gibson asked.

“Where is my mom?” Mia added.

The big guy took a look at them both, suspecting some kind of conspiracy.

“They are close. I wanted to find you first,” JB explained. “So, how are we doing?”

“Nothing to brag about by now. The drill did seventy-five percent of the work, but there is a problem. The inner layer of sensors has an independent power supply, so no turning them off. When a vibration level hits its limit, the alarm will be activated. Now, when the wall got thinner, the drill almost hit that vibration level.”

“What exactly triggers the alarm?” JB asked.

“A continuous vibration. This system was designed to prevent the drilling.”

“Turn it off,” JB came closer to the dent.

“Have any ideas?” Mark asked when pushing the button.

The engine stopped, it became much more quiet. Yet, that noise was still echoing in JB’s ears. The mutant took a look at the drilling machine. Then he used the handle to remove the blocking legs, which were used to fix the drill on the spot. He got into the cabin to move the machine away. Meanwhile, the white mech stepped back carefully watching the young man’s actions.

When the drilling point was cleared, JB went closer to study the dent. It was about the size of the average male, metal pieces were piercing out everywhere, the drill had cut right through them. But the reinforcement layers were only in the middle. Just a concrete layer lay ahead, the easy part.

“You’ve said that alarm gets triggered by a continuous vibration, right?” JB asked on his way aside, where he picked up a metal rail piece from the ground.

“Absolutely.”

“What about brute force?”

The mutant laid a two-meter long rail on his shoulder as if that weight was nothing to him. Then he chose a position in front of the dent, so there was enough space for a swing. After taking a deep breath JB made a roundhouse hit with his new ram. The concrete got cracked on the surface and the debris fell down.

“That may work,” a voice sounded from the speaker. “Go get others. I’ll finish here.”

Without saying anything else, the hunter dropped the rail and ran on his way. When bypassing the wall, he noticed more of those rails. They had probably been left there since the wall was built.

The mechanical giant picked up the ram to continue the work. Mark put the mech in a suitable position and began hitting the wall with all of the force that he had.

For all that time people spent on the island, they had seen lots of unusual things. And still that place kept getting them new surprises. The metal giant smashing wall with the rail was a bit unexpected. JB had brought the group.

“Is this that ally of yours?” the captain asked.

The mutant smirked in return. Just Gibson noticed the people, he dropped the rail and turned to them.

Mia got up to meet her mother. She went looking for her in the crowd. As soon as Ellison showed up, the girl ran to her. They met each other with open arms and happy spirit.

“Thank you,” Ellison whispered holding her daughter when she looked at JB.

He respectfully nodded.

“Is this everyone?” the voice came out of the mech’s speaker.

“Exactly,” JB responded when looking over the fresh hole.