Notes: We're back, baby! And things are getting DANGEROUS in here!
Title: Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Twenty-Three, Part One
***
Chapter Twenty-Three, Part One
Photo by Meagan Carsience
“You need…to go, right now.”
“Hold still.” Kieron finally wrangled the neuralink projector into place across his mother’s forehead, only for her to smack at it with her hand a second later. “Stop it.”
“You stop it,” she snapped, then groaned as her stomach cramped again. Kieron took advantage of the moment to hoist her into his arms. “Lizzie, are we hooked up?”
“Yes, Kee.” His girl came through on the com loud and clear…or quietly and discreetly, whatever, it worked. “The cloaking algorithm to link the fabric and the projector is live, and the Swarm isn’t significantly interfering with the visual effect. You should be well concealed both digitally and physically as long as you don’t run into anything.”
“Thanks, baby.”
“Not…a baby,” Carlisle said with a weak glare.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” Kieron snapped right back. “Now shut up and let me get you out of here.”
“Kee, should I enact my part of the protocols?”
“No, not yet,” he said. “Stand by, but don’t enact.” He had no idea how long it was going to take him to drag Carlisle out of here, after all. He already knew his mother—or not his mother, whatever—was going to fight him on this, but she also understood enough about operational security to restrict her complaints to Morse.
[I want you to leave me and go.]
Kieron ignored her as he began to retrace his steps. It wasn’t as easy as he’d hoped—everyone was heading for the command center to listen in on Trapper’s conversation with Elanus, and Carlisle was a muscular woman, heavier than he’d expected. He’d manage, though.
There was nothing else to do.
[Stupid to do this. Foolish. Idiot.]
Kieron gritted his teeth and kept going.
[You did it before.]
Yeah, he had, and he’d regretted it.
The sound of boots against the floor had him ducking in tight against the wall. Half a dozen people ran by, one of them actually brushing up against the two of them, but they were so intent on where they were going that by the time they looked back to wonder why they’d stumbled, the cloak was firmly in place. They ran on, and Kieron followed carefully. He was supposed to take the next right, but there were more and more people congregating in that area, and he wasn’t maneuverable enough to make it down the hall without another accident.
[Next left.]
“That leads to sanitation,” he murmured.
[Backdoor.]
“It’s not on the schematics.”
[Why would it be?]
“Secretive fuckers.” Kieron reoriented, though, heading down a hallway that had all the narrow, flickery feeling of some of the horror movies he’d watched with Zak back in secondary school.
[You have no idea.]
“Why do you have a secret backdoor?” Kieron asked almost subvocally.
[Closest exit to the comfort rooms.]
Oh. Fuck, all right then. No wonder the people who worked them felt the need for a private escape, not that it could be permanent under the General. But now the General wasn’t in charge, so… “Is the comfort room still operating?”
[Don’t know.]
It didn’t matter, he told himself. There was no time to do anything about it; even if there had been, nobody here other than Carlisle had shown him they deserved a rescue. He still felt like shit about it, but was able to keep them moving forward, step by step. He was going a little faster than he ought to be, but his mother wasn’t light and Elanus couldn’t talk forever. When the finally made the turn where the door was supposed to be, Kieron was relieved. Just a little more, and…
“Where is it?”
[Hidden door. Biometric lock.]
“Can you unlock it?”
She grunted and pulled away from him abruptly, falling to the ground before he could catch her. Kieron began to bend down, when—
“There you are, you bitch.”
Kieron turned just in time to see the tip of a plasma rifle light up. It was almost as long as the woman holding it—Alissa, her bright blue hair shorn short, rings beneath her eyes and scratches on her neck and arms. “Gotcha,” she said, and fired.
Kieron’s body erupted with a buzzing sound, and all of a sudden a shield appeared in front of him, gleaming bright and holden and reflecting the impact of the shot back the way it came—right into Alissa, who was blown down the hallway in literal pieces. A second later her plasma rifle experienced a secondary overload and exploded, and Kieron crouched down and gave as much cover to Carlisle as he could as the Swarm did its best to compensate against the backwash. He still wound up feeling singed, and at least one of his eardrums had burst, but it could have been worse. The pieces of the Swarm fell to his feet, entirely exhausted.
“Kee! Are you okay? Kee?”
Kieron would have replied, but his com was suddenly full of his fiancé crowing on the group frequency. “It worked!” Was he talking about his Swarm, or Kieron’s?
“You weren’t sure it was going to work?” Kieron rasped out as he got to his feet. Carlisle looked up at him blearily—shit, now she had a concussion on top of all the other damage? Biometric, biometric…he gave up on subtlety and hoisted her into his arms, then began to methodically press her hand to the wall in an effort to trigger the hidden door. No, no, no…
“Worry about yourself, baby! Or do I need to be worried about you too?”
“We’re fine, I just need to—”
“Alissa!” That was Doubles, rounding the corner and screaming as he found a recognizable piece of his lover. “Alissa!” He looked down the charred corridor and saw them, and rage transformed his face from grieving to vengeful.
“Oh, shit,” Kieron said. He raised his gun but Doubles was already firing, and this one was an old-fashioned shrap-thrower that his gear was able to catch most of, but most wasn’t all and Carlisle didn’t have any gear and that piece took most of the tip of the smallest finger on his right hand, fuck that hurt, and—
The door slid open behind him, and Carlisle dragged them through it and out into the chilly air a moment later. The door shut—just barely, and Kieron could hear the projectiles impacting it from the other side.
They were outside the compound, but the mercenaries knew their location…which was on the opposite side as Elanus and Catie. “Bobby, get out of the compound,” Kieron snapped into the com. It was raining but not heavily enough to hide them. “We’ve got to run for it,” he said as he turned to Carlisle, “or they’re going to—”
Carlisle had collapsed onto the ground. She was out, utterly and completely. Kieron would have to carry her, but now he didn’t have the camo shield and he didn’t have the Swarm. He’d be completely exposed. Damn it, he didn’t want to do this, but… “We’re in trouble,” he said into the com. The door was starting to glow—they were attacking it from the inside. Soon they’d be through. Maybe a minute, maybe less. “Carlisle is down and I won’t be able to make enough space to hide before they find me.”
“I can get Catie to come around and—”
“No, do not send Catie in here!”
“It’s all I can do!” Elanus shouted.
“It’s all right, Kee,” Lizzie said. “I’ve got this.”
“Baby, there’s not enough time for the protocol.”
“There is, though,” she said calmly. “Because I fired three minutes ago.”
