anything larger than a cocker spaniel passes by. So don’t go back for anything! You’ll be sorry if you do.” He had black hair, brown skin, and a round face, and he was eternally cheerful, which was one of the many things Hale liked about him.
“Good work, Corporal. And thanks for the warning. Okay, let’s get in there, find the fuel core, and get the hell out. Remember, the pick-up point is on the roof, and there’s a whole lot of stinks up there. Corporal Yorba, please feel free to open that door for us.”
Yorba grinned happily, removed what he liked to refer to as a “door knocker” from the satchel at his side, and slapped a wad of plastic explosives onto one of the double doors.
“You’d better move back,” he suggested gleefully, and promptly took his own advice. As soon as he reached an appropriate distance, he turned and gestured.
“Open sesame!” With that, he triggered the charge. There was a sharp
That was a sufficient invitation for Gaines, who tossed a grenade into the space beyond, and waited for the resulting explosion. It came quickly, after which he gave the bottom of the door a kick. It fell outward, missing him by a matter of inches and landing with a crash.
He was the first inside, with Hale right behind him. Both darted to the side to avoid defensive fire, yet there was no resistance. The lighting was dim—so dim that it was impossible to see the ceiling—and what illumination there was came straight from spots located high above.
The rest joined them in the open area beyond. There were two doorways separated by a twenty-foot-long section of wall. That, according to the plan agreed to back in Nebraska, was the point when Barrie was supposed to assume overall command. And she was quick to do so.
“We’re looking for an elevator, stairs, or a ramp,” she announced confidently. “The fuel cores are probably stored in the lowest level. Let’s go through the left-hand entrance and keep our eyes peeled.”
Hale nodded. “Gaines will take the point, followed by me, Dr. Barrie, Yorba, Pardo, and Kawecki. Be sure to watch our Six, Sergeant… I don’t like surprises.”
“Sir, yes, sir.”
Gaines was six foot six. He had a big head, thin, nearly nonexistent lips, and a pugnacious jaw. Like all Sentinels, he was a good shot, and he possessed an almost spooky ability to spot Chimeran ambushes. Some people credited him with exceptional eyesight, others claimed he could smell the malodorous stink they exuded better than anyone else.
Whatever the reason, he was good at it. And that was all Hale cared about as they proceeded down a corridor flanked by seven-foot-tall transparent tubes. Each cylinder contained a Hybrid. They were hard to see, due to the pearly gas that surrounded them, but judging from a complete lack of activity, they were asleep. Or unconscious. Not that it mattered, so long as they stayed that way.
“I think they were damaged, and are being reconditioned,” Barrie offered. “Although they could be in storage, too… Especially if this is the equivalent of a warehouse.”
Hale hadn’t seen anything like the facility before, but didn’t like the feel of the place, which was eerily silent except for the soft
His thoughts were interrupted as Gaines’s voice came through his earplug.
“I see what looks like an elevator up ahead. Over.”
Hale saw that Gaines was correct, and more than that, an open platform was descending from above! Four Hybrids became visible as it cleared the ceiling—some of the surviving AA gunners most likely, sent down to intercept the invaders.
Gaines tagged one of the beasts, sent a burst of projectiles after it, and heard a screech as it went down.
But that gave the stinks time to begin firing back, and Gaines took a hit, which spun him around and dumped him on the floor. Hale and Yorba opened fire, and thanks to the way the Hybrids were bunched up, they were dispatched in a matter of seconds.
“Get control of that elevator!” Hale shouted. “We’re going to need it—and I don’t want any more visitors from above.”
Pardo ran forward to secure the blood-splattered platform as Hale knelt to check on Gaines. The shoulder wound, which would have taken most soldiers out of the fight, had already begun to close.
“You were lucky,” Hale said as he helped the other Sentinel up. “Duck next time.” Gaines grinned.
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay,” Hale said as he waved the rest forward. “We’re going down. Stay sharp. There’s no telling what’s waiting for us on the level below.”
Dr. Linda Barrie felt slightly nauseous as she followed Kawecki onto the elevator. Firing auto-cannons at a chromed gun-ball was one thing—but wading through a pile of dead bodies was something else. In part because of the throat-clogging smell, which was like that of rotten meat, and worse than anything she had encountered before. Part of it could be explained by the fact that one of the Hybrids had been eviscerated, but the rest of it was due to the Chimera’s typically rank body odor, which brought new meaning to the sobriquet “stink.”
One of the ?brids gave a convulsive jerk, and was in the process of sitting up when Hale blew its brains out. That was too much for Barrie, who immediately threw up.
There wasn’t much food in her stomach, so the episode was over quickly. She lifted up her head to discover that Hale’s golden eyes were waiting to meet hers.
“Sorry about that,” he said sympathetically. “We’ve all been through it. But they aren’t human. Not anymore. Try to remember that.”
Barrie brought the back of a hand up to wipe the bile off her lips. Was this how Anton felt the day he died? Sick to his stomach, afraid to fail, yet determined to go on?
Then there was a whirring noise and the elevator began to drop.
Hale and his men stood with weapons at the ready as the platform dropped down into the level below and came to a smooth stop. Again the light was dim, but when Hale looked out into the room beyond, he could see row after row of sturdy storage units.
“Don’t tell me,” he said out of the corner of his mouth, “let me guess. You want to go shopping.”
Barrie was fully recovered by that time. “Yes,” Barrie replied firmly. “I do. The fuel cores could be anywhere.”
“Roger that,” Hale replied stoically. “Kawecki and Pardo will guard the elevator while the rest of us walk the walk. I’ll be on point, the doctor will fill the two-slot, and Yorba will walk drag. Let’s go.”
Hale’s rifle wasn’t equipped with a light, not normally anyway, but that deficiency had been corrected by the simple expedient of taping a black flashlight to the barrel. So he slid the switch into the on position, and a blob of white light sprang into existence.
Barrie slung the Bullseye across her back so her hands were free to use a small video camera. It had a light of its own, and the two sources of illumination enabled them to examine the objects on the shelves. None of the items on display looked familiar to him until Barrie stopped to examine a chunk of machinery.
Before he could warn her, the insectoid-looking Patrol Drone came to sudden life. All Hale could do was reach out and jerk her backward as the machine fired from inches away. The blast missed, and as the drone wobbled up off the shelf, Gaines put a burst of automatic fire into it. The machine exploded, peppering everyone with tiny bits of shrapnel, all of which stung.
That was when all hell broke loose.
Having been “awoken” by the destruction of a fellow machine, more than a dozen drones came to sudden life and darted into the air. They produced an ominous humming sound which seemed to come from every direction at once, and they fired on the intruders. The blackness made them almost impossible to see as Hale, Gaines, and
