Legacy of a Mad Scientist Page 17

  “That’s retarded,” Snow replied.

  “Right,” King agreed.

  “I get it.” Ross looked at his comrades. “You really don’t get it?”

  “No, I don’t get it,” King answered. “What’s the point of having an invisible bodyguard if you have an order that says let them shoot me?”

  “I agree with you that hundred percent,” Snow added. “I’m not letting them shoot Ashley of Geoff. Not once, not ever. That is not happening.”

  No one spoke.

  The late afternoon sunlight faded from the sky.

  Ross glanced at his watch. “Ana is teaching gymnastics, two buildings away from Geoff and only one from Ashley. They are surrounded by dozens of people. They’re fine.”

  “They’re surrounded by a bunch of children and teachers, that is far from safe, or fine, and you know it,” Captain Snow said.

  “I also know that you are going to El Nuevo Jerusalem as soon as this conversation is finished. Aren’t you?” Ross asked.

  Snow waved her hand.

  “Look,” Ross said. “They’ve got no official rendition warrants for Andrew anywhere in the system. This whole gig is undercover.”

  Snow laughed. “So, Stanwood finally grew a pair and went off-book.” She stared at the stars, just appearing in the sky overhead.

  Ross spoke quietly, “Just go and make sure the old man is okay. It is a matter of National Security, if it makes you feel any better.”

  “You know he just wants me out of the mix,” she said.

  “And what’s so wrong with that? You’re an original, and the only one of us Stanwood will shoot on sight.”

  “You have to find Andrew. If you haven’t heard from him in a week, I’m coming back.”

  “He said three.”

  “I don’t see how Dr. Te needs my help in the first place.”

  “Orders are orders, Ana.”

  “Thanks so much.”

  “I swear, the moment we learn anything, you will be the first person I call. Hell, hanging out with Te, it will probably be you guys calling us.”

  Captain Snow smiled,

  King raised a hand. “Right, I’m off, must report oh-dark-thirty. Catch you cats on the other side.”

  Ross and Snow waved. Snow lingered for a moment.

  Ross raised his hand. “Objection noted.”

  Snow nodded, turned away and increased her elevation, heading toward her roaming vehicle, lost somewhere in the Angel City traffic.

  Chapter 30 – Flying Dragons

  Wednesday, July 8, 2308

  During her third match, Ashley attracted the attention of her instructors. Her assigned adversary, Roger, lanky and uncoordinated, wasn't a threat to anyone but himself. It took little effort for Ashley to stay out of his reach.

  She let him chase her around the ring, swinging for the fences and never making contact. However, despite ample opportunity, Ashley didn't hit Roger.

  Sihing Lopez was scoring the match, and at the first break, he approached Ashley. "Why don't you strike and end the round, take the point?”

  Ash didn’t answer. She just looked at Roger, gasping and wheezing in his corner. She wasn't even winded.

  "If you don't strike, the match will end in a tie," Lopez said.

  Ashley rolled her eyes.

  Lopez turned and approached the Roger, who was gloriously exhausted. "Breathe. Breathe," Lopez said. "That's it. Breathe.”

  Ashley decided to go for the tie. She would keep the match as close as possible. She would let Roger get as close as possible, but not give up any points.

  When the whistle blew, Ash walked to the center of the ring and raised her gloves. With her toe, she traced a line across the mat, daring Roger to cross it.

  Roger took the bait, but with trepidation. He raised his gloves and inched toward the line, preparing to swing.

  Ashley let him come.

  Roger fired off a wild jab-hook.

  Ashley watched the clumsy explosion of arm, shoulder and face. At no point was she in any real danger.

  Roger scrunched up his face when he punched, as if afraid that the act of punching would result in his being struck. Ashley could see why he'd become conditioned to think that way, with such an uncoordinated throw. She let it sail past without moving more than a fraction of an inch.

  Punch after punch, Ashley moved as little as she could to avoid him. Soon she was moving closer to his flailing fists, but he couldn’t hit her.

  Ashley's dangerous ploy began to draw spectators. The waiting or already finished competitors became interested in her match and the more heads turned, the more heads turned.

  Roger stepped in with a haymaker.

  Ashley pivoted under the strike, coming up on his unprotected backside.

  He spun, panicked, uncoiling as if he were a broken metal spring.

  Ash slipped out of the way.

  Roger threw three jabs.

  Ashley dodged him, his gloves inside kissing range.

  Roger stepped in with a knee and a kick.

  Ashley eluded him.

  He lunged at her; she caught him and kept him from falling.

  He combined jabs, hooks and elbows, she gave him a pirouette, landing behind him and then spun twice more, just to keep him off balance.

  The timer rang, that was the end of the round.

  Sihing Lopez laughed, quite a crowd had gathered.

  During the break, Roger had a dozen coaches.

  No one said anything to Ashley. Her corner was closer to the wall and outside the action. She waited alone.

  In the last round, Roger got more technical, but it was too late, he was exhausted.

  After one extravagant punch, Ashley reached out and put a finger at the back of his elbow.

  Roger was overextended, his stance was compromised, and in order to escape, he was forced to collapse forward onto the floor.

  Ashley stepped back and let him wearily climb to his feet.

  Roger didn't raise his hands. He was beaten and knew it. He didn't want to fight anymore. He was humiliated.

  Sihing Lopez waved at him, "Come on. Keep going!”

  Roger just looked at him.

  Lopez looked over to Ashley.

  Ash had no intention of hitting Roger.

  After kneeing Scott in the face, quite by accident, she saw no reason to further facilitate Shou's brutal lessons. If he wanted people to experience pain, let him dish it out.

  Lopez seemed capable of reading her thoughts, but Ashley said nothing.

  She stood her ground.

  Lopez blew the whistle, ending the third round. He awarded the win to Ashley, as Roger had forfeit the match.

  Wednesday, July 8, 2308

  Ross adjusted his gear as the autopilot threaded the midday Angel City traffic. The computer chimed, alerting him that they had reached their destination vector. The major powered up his phase camouflage, opened the hatch and stepped into the wild blue yonder.

  As the gravity harness came online, his free fall was gradually reversed until he was ascending again.

  Ross activated his thermal lenses and went looking for his friend.

  “Are you sure you’re up for this?” Croswell asked.

  “We have to do something. And you shipped our MVPs to BFE, just when we needed them most.”

  “Ana’s trip has been planned for months. Te’s got some new tech he’s jumping out of his shorts to show us. And we need King right where he is, you’ll see I’m right about that.”

  “Hey, I agree with you there,” Ross said.

  “If we make a move now, Stanwood will say we’re trying to take over. He’s got the AG and half of the congressional branch convinced that Fox is planning a coup.”

  “Are we?”

  “What?”

  “Planning a coup?”

  “No.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Because killing Stanwood isn’t a coup, for one thing.”

  “I think you need to look a l
ittle deeper, we both know that nerd is Conway’s puppet.”

  “You think this is Conway?”

  “If not him, then Big John Phillips. Was Conway there for your little chat the other day?”

  “You know he wasn’t”

  “But Miller and Clarke, they were. And you think Miller is going to have something incriminating in his office?”

  “No. But it will piss him off.”

  “Let’s just wax Stan.”

  “If we kill Stanwood now, they will come down on us like a ton of bricks. I can guarantee you our names will come out as the active agents on the Centaur project; and then where will we be? Immortal but locked out of society? Hunted? Yeah, fun.”

  “Let’s go all the way then, straight to the top. A coup, mutiny, that will be fun.”

  “Are you suggesting installing Fox as the CEO? Let me go on record stating that would be a disaster.”

  Ross took a deep breath. “Can’t say I disagree with you there?”

  “And I don’t want that job,” Croswell said.

  “Who cares who takes it next? We know who it won’t be.”

  “Look, to do this properly, we would need to eliminate all of Fox’s enemies. That’s at least fifty elected senators and congressmen. Once we kick that first domino, we have to keep going until half the governing body of the country is shifting six feet of black soil. Even as insulated as we are, we don’t have the juice for that kind of drama. Every agency will go on red alert the moment Stanwood hits the pavement. We can’t just go at this like a tank through a pre-school. I’m all for eliminating Stanwood. But we need to think bigger. We need to set him up, expose his weakness, whatever it is. We need to find out who’s feeding him his information.”

  “That’s obvious, isn’t it?” Ross asked.

  “Not to me,” Croswell answered.

  “You were there the last time Fox stopped by the Oval Office, before Epsilon. He hooked up Stagwell with an amplifier, but from what I understand, he’s never met with Conway about all this.”

  “Are you trying to say Conway feels left out?”

  “Maybe.”

  “If Stanwood has managed to convince him that he had something to fear, we don’t want to go confirming that. We need to discredit him, squeeze him out and then flush him, if you catch my meaning.”

  “I’m sorry I asked.”

  “Good. Can we get on with it then?”

  “You really think tossing Senator Miller’s office will be enough to shake them up?”

  “Stanwood was his right hand for nine years, He would have never gotten the Intel desk otherwise. Miller is behind everything Stanwood does, that much I am sure of.”

  “I’m glad Snow is in Jerusalem. She’d be examining his tonsils with her compensator if she thought he was behind all this.”

  Invisible, Ross and Croswell approached the window of Senator Miller’s unoccupied west coast office.

  “Let me clone his system, before you let everyone know we’re here.”

  “Hurry up,” Croswell said, attaching a small explosive to the window.

  “At least let me get what we came her for, before you go tearing up the place.” Ross operated his Micronix Amplifier, scanning the Senator’s network for open access ports.

  “Sheesh, Fine. Waiting,” Croswell muttered.

  “Wait quietly.” Ross smiled.

  “I believe Secretary of Defense outranks Major,” Croswell said.

  “You’re a civilian now. You don’t have a rank. Besides, I’m secret service. We answer to the President.”

  “La-ti-da. I could still whip you in a fist fight.”

  “Yeah, for about thirty seconds, old timer.”

  “You’re not too spry yourself. About as fast as a broken-down hound dog with hip dysplasia.”

  “I’m fast. I’m so fast I can hack a senator’s desk terminal while putting up with your lame put-downs.”

  “Are you almost finished? I have a charge here that really wants to pop,” Croswell said.

  “I’m done,” Ross said. “Indulge yourself.”

  Smiling, Croswell triggered the plastic explosive, blowing out the senator’s window. Inside, he sprayed thousands of tiny transmitters in wide band across the ceiling, and then he set about to trashing the room.

  Ross waited, hovering invisibly in the sky, as Secretary of Defense James Croswell literally tossed the office, throwing everything around, half of which made it’s way out the window and streamed away from the building with the afternoon breeze.

  The phase-cam warped the light particles around Croswell’s armor, rendering him completely invisible. The security guards opened the office doors and did nothing more than watch as Senator Miller’s shelves and desk drawers emptied themselves into the afternoon sky.

  Chapter 31 – Serene Violence

  Thursday, July 9, 2308

  When it was Ashley's turn to spar, there was already a buzz in the air. Her rebellious performance the day before was on everyone's mind. She couldn't be faulted for nonparticipation, but her style threatened to unbalance the ranking structure. In Ashley's desire not to break her own hands on someone else's face, she mastered lesson number two without even encountering lesson number one.

  Ashley's match was called. They all stared. She was the alien. She wasn't playing by their rules.

  Ash had no intention of allowing anyone to break her nose, spit her lip, or blacken one of her eyes. And since there was no requirement to hit anyone else, she didn't feel she was doing anything wrong.

  This time she was up against an experienced boy, Jason. He stretched, bounced and shadowboxed in his corner. For one so young, his musculature was already sharply defined. Ashley knew that if he hit her, he would make her bleed. He couldn't be allowed to hit her.

  Sihing Cleary was refereeing the match, and when he blew the whistle, half the heads in the hall turned to watch.

  Jason unloaded his prepared arsenal of combinations, jab, jab, hook, low kick, jab, high kick, hook, elbow, knee.

  Ashley dodged the first few strikes and realized Jason was a robot. He was programmed into formulas of strikes and kicks. Her father would have called him an automaton. It was also how Becca danced, mechanically. Jason was more dangerous than Becca but just as predictable.

  Ash stepped back far enough to exaggerate his flawed operation, he continued to chop and punch and kick at the empty air, two jabs, a hook, a roundhouse kick, a spinning kick and a front kick. Everyone could see how ridiculous it was, but he didn't stop. Ashley stood across the ring, waiting as he punched toward her.

  Frustrated and embarrassed, Jason charged. Ash spun past him, through him. He couldn't touch her. When he moved, she moved first. She was a matador and his bull was getting tired.

  Ashley walked to the edge of the circle and lowered her gloves.

  Jason recognized the arrogant gesture for the taunt it was and growled behind his mouthpiece.

  He charged again, swinging wildly.

  Ashley danced along the edge of the circle, and he kept coming, infuriated. She let him charge past her, out of bounds.

  Cleary blew the whistle and gestured for them to come back to the ring. Jason bounced with energy, stomping back to the center.

  Ashley walked slowly, taking forever to get into position, infuriating Jason. As Cleary prepared to blow the whistle, Ashley raised her hand and stepped away from the center, turning her back to them.

  She adjusted her shirt, rolled her shoulders and stretched her neck.

  The other matches had ended; the whole room was watching her. She took her time, not gloating or taunting, but making Jason furious just the same.

  Ash turned back to Cleary and Jason, who growled.

  Ashley laughed.

  He cocked a fist to swing at her, but caught himself and waited for Cleary to blow the whistle.

  Cleary was content to let Ashley dig her own grave, and he waited for her to get settled.

  Ash smiled and nodded.

  Cleary tu
rned to Jason, who nodded. He blew the whistle and Jason leapt at Ashley, throwing his whole body into the air.

  There was nowhere for Ashley to go, it was too late; she was caught. She collapsed under her attacker's assault.

  Jason, however, was not prepared to catch his prey so easily, and discovered himself falling with the girl under him. He wasn't going to hurt her as much as both of them and not deliberately or honorably, but stupidly.

  Ashley held Jason's upper arms as her butt hit the mat. Her feet came up from nowhere, and she caught his weight at his midsection. Ash transferred Jason's momentum as softly as if he were a baby and tossed him across the room.

  Ash watched him sail, ass over teakettle, through the hall. With his head down and his feet toward the ceiling, he flew through the air. People slid out of his way. He overshot the mat and crashed in a tangled heap on the hard gymnasium floor.

  Ashley got up before Jason even came to a complete stop. Yet relatively unhurt, suddenly he was back on his feet and sprinting toward her.

  No whistle had blown to stop him, as Cleary, fascinated by the action, had failed to blow it.

  Ash stepped forward as Jason reached her.

  She pinned his foot to the mat and turned to the side.

  Jason whip-lashed into the ground. The impact was so crisp and sharp that the entire room was rendered silent in its wake.

  Cleary found and blew the whistle.

  He gestured for Lopez and Shou to help and the three of them knelt beside Jason. Ashley stepped away from the action. Everyone was focused on the unconscious student.

  Ash drifted further away.

  Cleary saw her and led her back to the ring. He gestured for her to kneel, facing away from where Lopez and Shou worked on reviving the unconscious Jason.

  It took almost ten minutes for Jason to open his eyes, and another ten to get him walking and talking again.

  Finally, Shou decided he was well enough to return to the ring, where the match was called in Ashley's favor.

  Ashley's legs were sore and blood-deprived from kneeling. She thought it ironic, that both she and Jason limped from the hall, although separately.

  No one congratulated her. No one talked to her.