EXODUS

— by Jeff Karamales

Chapter 13
Blitzkrieg
 

Farbes listened to Wyatt tell of the reasons for his imprisonment, accepting his fate of a death sentence and being taken to the execution chamber, the needle being inserted in his arm with the world going black only to wake up in the facility where he met Emily Lesko for the first time. He related the tale of learning that the others he’d been put into Group 1 with had similar stories before describing the things that were done to him and the others. At times even the unflappable Farbes blanched when some of the procedures were described in macabre detail. They had made their way to the location where Farbes and the man Pete had set up their camp, the former SpecOps team leader handing the savannah cat a ration bar that was actually far better than the food he and the other prisoners had been living off of.

“This isn’t right,” Todd Farbes finally said as the sun began its long descent to the western horizon. He looked up at the hybrid with an expression that bore the hints of sympathy. “And this,” he said gesturing to Wyatt himself, “this can’t be undone?”

“I don’t know,” the feline answered. “Lesko said it was permanent. A complete rewriting of our DNA.”

“Using a process meant to cure diseases,” Farbes spat in disgust. “One of the reasons that I left the military was I’d seen too many bad guys taking things that were suppose to help and using them to force others to do what they wanted, using something good for evil purposes. A person can only handle so much of that.” He passed a canteen to the savannah cat. “What of the other guy with you? Pinkerton. Is he really the James Pinkerton that committed all of those murders?”

Wyatt nodded. “Yeah. That’s the same Pinkerton.” The cat man fidgeted slightly. “Farbes, I don’t have any right to ask this of you, but out of everyone I’ve gone through this with, he can’t be allowed to live. He’s too much of a threat.”

The man considered things for several moments before nodding slowly. “I can’t say I fault your thinking on that and I have to agree. I’ve met people like Pinkerton before. They committed some of the most vile acts because they believed they were right in doing so. Everything I recall about his trial just reinforces the idea that he’s a believer, that he believes he is superior to everyone else on the planet.” Farbes nodded. “Tell me what you want to do about this.”

Wyatt shook his head. “I don’t know. If those other two guys went after him I doubt they’re still alive…” 

*** 

Pinkerton finished what he’d been doing and looked at his handiwork with a critical eye. It had been difficult to scrape the extraneous tissue away without tearing the thin skin of the hunter’s face with the materials at hand. He wondered how Native Americans and other primitive peoples had been able to survive without modern tools and materials. The scraping of the second hunter’s facial skin had been carried out using a series of stones found along one of the trickles of water that the island was lousy with. He could have done a much better job with some of the implements that he’d seen in Lesko’s labs, but in all, the end result was acceptable.

With a smug expression Pinkerton lifted the cleaned skin and placed it over his own feline face, stretching the wrinkles out so that it conformed to his new topography. It took a little work to get the perforations of the man’s nose to line up with his own, the same going for the eyelids. It wasn’t easy to open his own furred lids, but manage he did and looked at the pale, pink flesh that stretched out over the broad bridge of his nose and muzzle.

With a snarl of surging rage Pinkerton pulled the skin of the dead man off his face and flung it as far away as possible. It had been his thought to perhaps wear the deceased human’s skin as a sort of camouflage. But why? He was now irrefutably superior to homo sapiens. He was the predator that he’d always known he was. Did he not have greater strength, greater speed? Was he not equipped with personal weapons that could rend and shred flesh with the barest of efforts? Why hide his superiority under a mask of weakness?

With complete nonchalance, Pinkerton plucked a small tidbit from the viscera that had once resided in the man’s body whose skin he’d carefully sliced away with a flake of rock and popped it into his mouth, savoring the warmth and the way the flavor flowed over his tongue and filled his senses. He closed his eyes in bliss before swallowing convulsively. Had he known that humans could be such a delicacy he’d have tried it much sooner. Maybe the character in that old movie had been correct? That and it wasn’t as if it was cannibalism. The process that had elevated him to the status of a demigod ensured that he wasn’t consuming his own kind. In his realization that he was the next state of elevated being and the epiphany of his supremacy was enough to cause a physical reaction that Pinkerton fought to not indulge.

So wrapped up in his state of elevated grace was he that Pinkerton didn’t realize that there was another behind him until he heard the low growl. He turned his head slowly, a smile lifting his dewlaps from glistening fangs.

“Wyatt,” he said with a purring growl that added an entirely new level to his already thrumming voice. “You made it past your hunters.” Pinkerton offered a small shred of liver to the other hybrid. “Now do you see? We are superior. It’s our right to replace the old. Don’t you see?”

The savannah cat fought down disgust as the Pinkerton popped the proffered bit of meat into his toothy maw with something that bordered on ecstasy. “You can’t go back, Pinkerton,” he told the panther. “I don’t have a lot left, but you’re a threat to what little there is left to me.”

The panther laughed, a harsh chuffing sound that was part voice, part feline growl and it caused the fur along Wyatt’s spine to stand on end while the ruff around his neck and shoulders sprung out like it was full of static electricity. “We can walk the world like gods!” Pinkerton said as he held out his paw-like hand for Wyatt to accept his proposal. “Be the first prince of a new world ruled by us!”

Wyatt swallowed, wanting to bolt as the insane light in the panther man’s eyes held the same baleful fire that he was sure the depths of Hell itself contained. He didn’t though, his own belief in that James Pinkerton was a threat to everything he cared for as much as Emily Lesko was a threat to everyone that she encountered. With a deep breath the savannah cat took a step forward, Pinkerton’s eyes widening as a smile of triumph pulled at the corners of his mouth, the split in his lips twitching in time with his triangular nose.

Just as Wyatt drew close enough to reach out and take the panther’s paw, he slapped the other’s arm up and out of the way before swinging hard with the fighting knife he’d liberated from Baldy and held behind his right leg. It was a testament to Pinkerton’s own enhanced reflexes as he reacted to the attack by pulling back in a leap at the last possible moment, the tip of the honed steel passing through his midnight black fur without touching the skin beneath.

“I thought that you would refuse,” Pinkerton hissed as he adjusted his own stance, dropping down to all fours, his tail lashing in anticipation behind him. “You’re weak, Renner. I’ve known since you and I first encountered each other. No stomach for the hunt, for the kill. You are a giant among Lilliputians and you don’t even realize it!”

Pinkerton leapt with his claws extended and splayed while his teeth were exposed in a primal scream that chilled Wyatt’s blood. The attack wasn’t directly aimed at the savannah cat but to the other hybrid’s left side. As Wyatt spun to lessen the blow and felt as two long furrows were gouge into his hip, though the damage was more superficial than anything else, his fur taking the brunt of the attack. The savannah cat was just as fast, perhaps a little more, and he brought the knife around with enough speed to open a long cut along down the panther’s lower back and buttock.

Blood had been drawn by both and the point where either would speak had passed and each realized it. Wyatt was no novice when it came to using a knife, understanding the underlying principle of one of mankind’s oldest tools. More than once he’d used one to avoid his own demise while scuba diving, another time being quick use when he was caught in a summer squall off the coast of Florida and a line snagged his leg and would have pulled him under the waves when a boom broke away from the deck of his boat. The fighting knife was extremely well balanced and it seemed Baldy hadn’t spared any expense when it came to the quality of the steel. It felt less like an object and more of an extension of his arm as Wyatt whipped it back up into a ready position as he turned to follow the panther.

Pinkerton ignored the cut and the blood that welled from the split in his flesh and flowed though his fur. He glared at the savannah cat, the gleam in his eyes intensifying as he eyed the other hybrid for an opening, his fingers flexing and slipping claws out to scratch against rock and wood debris. The thrill of the fight sang in his blood and the feelings that coursed through him were the same thrilling ones that he’d felt when stalking his victims. With a narrowing of the eyes, Pinkerton leapt low, pulling to a stop at the last moment and rearing upright, his left forearm catching the savannah cat’s wrist, the block preventing the blade from reaching its target. His own right arm was blocked by Wyatt’s, but there were other weapons that he was equipped with and in a blur his head darted to the side, his mouth wrapping around the Wyatt’s paw that held the knife.

Wyatt saw the attack in time so that he was able to push his forearm further into Pinkerton’s mouth, the panther’s molars digging into the soft tissue beneath the fur but also keeping the other hybrid from bringing into play the full strength of his jaw muscles and avoiding the piercing fangs. There was enough pressure that he was forced to drop the knife and the sound of the tempered steel hitting the ground was enough of a distraction, Pinkerton looking at the flashing steel as it dropped. It was all the opening that Wyatt needed and cuffed the other anthrofeline hard along the side of the head with his left hand, his own claws digging deep into the flesh. With his own yowling roar, Wyatt ripped back and down.

The searing pain along the side of his head ripped a mewling scream from Pinkerton and the black panther tried to backpedal away from Wyatt, but the savannah cat stayed with him. It was too much like the moment that found James Pinkerton at the end of his spree when a man in a wheelchair got the best of him. It was an impossible situation and tickled the serial killer with a doubt that he had only felt once before. It wasn’t until he put a small span of space between himself and the other hybrid that Pinkerton realized that the right side of his face hung in tatters and that his right eye wasn’t functioning. He lifted a paw up to gingerly explore the damage and found that not only was his ear missing, but there was a strange object that bounced on his cheek. It took the panther a moment to realize that it was his own eyeball.

A scream of furious rage ripped through the woods, erupting from Pinkerton’s throat as he experienced a burning wave of anger and, for the first time in his life, fear. He launched himself at Wyatt the way a person would, an all out tackle in an effort to physically knock the other down and get the savannah cat into a submissive position. Wyatt was better prepared, though, and simply caught the other and rolled. No few bar fights had taught him that when a person relied solely on brute strength that the fight was all but over, but Pinkerton’s desperation also lent the panther strength. Fists pummeled the savannah cat while a high, keening yowl continued to sound from the other hybrid. The blows bruised his body and elicited grunts from Wyatt, but in the end they weren’t that damaging.

Where Pinkerton rained blows on the other as they tumbled about the forest floor, Wyatt used his flexibility and speed in conjunction with strength and claws. Fur literally flew as he tore strips from Pinkerton, each ripping gouge draining the anthropanther of a little more strength, a little more endurance. It seemed as if it went on for hours and only now was Pinkerton remembered he had claws of his own. A clumsy swipe opened two scratches across the bridge of Wyatt’s nose, but the pain was suppressed by the adrenaline flooding his blood. Then, much as he had with Baldy, Wyatt brought his legs and feet up, his toes curling and sinking his claws deep into Pinkerton’s belly. Unlike the human, though, Wyatt was on top of the other and kicked out with both legs as his paw-like hands sank as hard and far into the panther’s neck and throat as they could.

“Wyatt?” a voice inquired, though the savannah cat was oblivious to the calling of his name. “Wyatt!” it repeated more forcefully. “Wyatt! I think he’s dead. You can let go now.”

The words seemed to come from a long way off, as if they were spoken at the far end of a tunnel and it took a moment for them to sink in. It was only then that the savannah cat was able to shake off the red fog that filled his head and as his thinking cleared, Wyatt realized that Pinkerton was indeed dead. As he pried his hands away from the savaged neck and throat of the panther, Pinkerton’s head lolled a little, his remaining eye staring unseeingly at the tree canopy and blue sky beyond. It took a few moments for the hybrid to regain his feet and he stood shakily, his arms hanging limply at his sides as his chest heaved. For the second time that day his nostrils were filled with the scent of blood and the stench of ruptured bowels. It was a death smell and Wyatt, while sick of it, knew that there was more such in his immediate future.

“You okay, man?” Farbes asked where he stood with his rifle not quite pointing at Wyatt, but it would only take the minimum amount of motion to bring it to bear, his eyes wide and his face a little pale at the savagery he’d just witnessed.

The anthrocat nodded, his mouth open in heaving, panting breaths. “J…just….g-give me a…moment…” Wyatt stammered before staggering backwards and sitting down heavily. He looked up when something appeared over his left shoulder and took the offered canteen gratefully, gulping water as fast as he could pour it into his muzzle. “Thank you,” he husked when the contents were gone.

Farbes looked at the cat hybrid with a curious expression as he set the butt of his rifle on the ground and rested one arm on the other, his hand wrapped tightly around the muzzle brake. “Not to be too obvious, but wouldn’t it have been easier for me to shoot him? It really wouldn’t have been that much trouble.”

Wyatt shook his head, his heart returning to a more sedate pace as his breathing slowed. “I know, but I had to face him.”

“Why?”

The savannah cat looked up at the man and tried to find the words for an answer. “Pinkerton scared me. I mean really scared me. The first time he confronted me I near lost control of my bladder. If I hadn’t faced him I’d never be able to get that part of myself back.” Wyatt stood and brushed his paws together before stepping to a container of water and using it to wash the claws on his feet and his fingers. “When I was a kid, maybe four or five, my dad took me to see a movie I got all excited about a boater that had an accident and wound up in shark infested waters with his friends. In the movie they got picked off one at a time until they were rescued. He then let me watch that old movie where that huge great white terrorized a little beach town before it was killed. Those movies traumatized me bad. Kept me out of the water and off boats for a whole summer.

“The thing was, I still loved boats and I loved the water. So I went snorkeling with my dad to look at sharks and saw they weren’t all man-eating monsters. They’re just fish. Sometimes they attack people, most times they don’t and you can’t really go to any beach in the world and not be more than ten to thirty feet from a shark. So, I got over being afraid by learning to interact with sharks, got back in the water and back onto boats. If I hadn’t I would have lost a part of myself that I enjoyed. I faced what scared me and got it back.”

Farbes smiled and gave a slight nod. “You know, there hasn’t been a single man that I’ve gone on a mission with that couldn’t say the same about the things he feared.” He extended his hand and this time there was no hesitation from the anthrocat when he accepted it. “You’ve got my respect, Wyatt. Better yet, you’ve earned my respect.”

Wyatt’s expression became slightly embarrassed. “Thanks. Coming from a guy that’s done the things you have-”

“No big, Wyatt. I had fears that I had to get over as well. I’m terrified of heights and you can’t do what I did without having almost every other mission include a parachute jump or helicopter extraction. It’s never easy and anyone that can face their fear and beat it is tops in my book.” Farbes looked around the site and shook his head. “Okay. This is one seriously FUBAR situation. What’s our next move? This is your show. Whatever you want from me, you got it.”

The savannah cat nodded solemnly and resumed washing. “Lesko’s got to go down. Both her and the mercs she has on a leash.” Wyatt sighed. “Problem is I don’t know how to get us back in Fort Freedom.”

“That’s what the place is called? Fort Freedom?” Farbes asked, watching the anthrocat nod. “Well, getting in is fairly simple, and you, my friend, get the easy part.” He smiled as Wyatt looked at him in curiosity. “You get to play dead and be a trophy.” 

*** 

“Comfortable?” Farbes asked as the Zodiac boat took another small swell and came down a little hard.

“Comfortable enough,” Wyatt replied where he lay in the bottom of the boat covered by a tarp. “How far out are we?”

“Maybe twenty minutes. The guards probably have eyes on us already. Now, do you remember the information that I gave you?” the man asked as he feathered the throttle to make it up the next crest then powered back.

“I do. Rear Admiral Katherine Hughs, seven-oh-three, five-five-five, zero-zero-three-one. When I get through tell her Farbes says ‘Babylon’. Then I give her the coordinates for Fort Freedom.” The tarp twitched a little as Wyatt grunted as the boat hit the trough of the last wave. “Why ‘Babylon’? What does it mean?”

Farbes chuckled. “Old book. A story about life in post nuclear war America called ‘Alas, Babylon’. It was a popular book during the Cold War. It wasn’t a bad book, The author was trying to get people to realize just what the world would be like after a nuclear exchange. Back when the Admiral was my Captain, both of us on the missile frigate AstonTooms, we talked about the book and how back when a nuke trade might have been limited, but in our present times it would be a full ante up with everything launched. Scary stuff. During an operation some things went down that I still can’t talk about, but she and I came up with a code for each other if things ever went pear-shaped and we needed help from the other.” Farbes pushed the throttle forward again as he crested the next swell. “You tell her that, she sends help ASAP.”

“Just as long as the help she sends doesn’t gun me and the others down because we look like something from a monster movie.” The savannah cat sighed inaudibly, his insides tightening as he thought about the fight to come. With Baldy and then Pinkerton there hadn’t been as much time to consider actual physical confrontation. Now he was going to go against the focus of his worst nightmares for over half a year.

Regardless of the outcome of what he and Farbes had talked about, there was a nagging suspicion that if they were successful, a very large ‘if’ at that, it would only be the end of one nightmare before another began.

“Okay, Wyatt. Stay low and still,” the man at the helm directed. “We’re getting ready to pull into the sheltered dock. Get your game face on and remember you’re supposed to be a dead trophy for now. When we get in you let me take care of the immediate guards in my own way and time, then we bee-line for the operations room. You can do this and I trust you. All I ask is that you trust me right back.”

Wyatt went as still as he could as he and the man began to enter the cave that had been converted into a serviceable dock for boats and submarines. 

*** 

Peterson had gotten word that one of the two boats with the men that Senator Bingham had brought along was returning and had headed down to the docks in the area labeled as ‘The Cove’ on the facility maps. It wasn’t a big cave and the dock had been built to handle the submarines of the day, small Cold War boats when compared to the monsters the US Navy now employed, but it was an easily secured harbor. He had four other Janissaries with him, all armed, of course, and waited for the boat to make the Cove. The hydrogen powered outboard was fairly silent, the sound of the rigid lower half of the hull slapping the water making more noise than the motor, and Peterson felt his face twist into a frown when all he saw was a single occupant in the sturdy little boat.

“What happened to your friend?” the mercenary inquired, his hand slipping a little closer to the Kriss submachine gun he had strapped to a tactical sling.

The man at the wheel of the boat shrugged as he powered the throttle while turning the wheel so that the small craft nestled up against the dock in a perfect lateral shift. “Got careless and didn’t think that your critters were all that dangerous.”

“Where’s his body?”

Farbes looked at the man before stepping out from behind the console and grabbed the bow line, tying it quickly and efficiently before doing the same with the stern. “Back on the island about three klicks west-nor’west from our landing point under a big pile of rocks.” He then set his kitbag on the concrete surface of the dock. “Ya know, it’s sort of customary to help tie up a boat before you go interrogating someone.” At Peterson’s look of consternation Farbes shook his head and chuckled. “You had to have been Army at one point, or something else along those lines. A Navy man knows his priorities.”

“Whatever,” Peterson said. “The Doctor will want to hear about what happened.” He pointed to the lump under the tarp and scowled. “What’s that?”

“Trophy. Didn’t think I’d be able to keep the whole thing, but I do want a piece of it,” Farbes said as he finished shutting down and securing the Zodiac.

“Uncover it.”

Farbes looked at the other man with disdain for a moment before reaching down and flipping the synthetic canvas back to reveal the bloody, furred corpse of the savannah cat. He’d had Wyatt cover himself in gore from Pinkerton’s body so that there would be verisimilitude to their ploy. Just as hoped, the quartet of mercenaries and their officer forgot what they were there for and all leaned over to get a look at the body of the anthrocat. They were so busy looking at the still, bloody form that they didn’t see the pistol that Farbes removed from its hiding place tucked into the back of his brown fatigue trousers.

Four of the five suppressed shots were head wounds while the bead on Peterson was hampered by the man’s swift reactions and the concealment of the body of an underling. The .45 caliber round caught him in the throat. No sooner did the merc crumple, Peterson forgetting all about his own weapon as his hands clutched at the red ruin in the center of his chest, than Farbes was up on the dock in a crouch, his weapon tracking with his eyes as he scanned for more hostile targets. He spared a glance at the dying Janissaries man and shook his head. “You picked the wrong side, man,” he whispered. Without looking away from the door Farbes called to the hybrid in the boat. “Showtime, Wyatt. Get the weapons and spare ammo then cover the door while I look for anything else we might need like keys.”

The savannah cat did as he was told, collecting the machine pistols and spare magazines. “What do I do with the extra ones? I can only use one at a time,” Wyatt inquired nervously.

“Toss me one of the spares and dump the others into the water. Second rule: Don’t leave weapons for your enemy to use. Goes well with the first rule.” Farbes said as he moved forward to take one of the weapons.

“What’s the first rule?”

“Don’t leave an enemy behind you,” the man replied as he automatically checked the weapon’s load and charged it by chambering a round. “Look. This is the mag release, this is the charging mechanism. If you don’t use that the weapon won’t fire. This is the safety. Make sure it’s set to ‘F’ but keep your finger off the trigger unless you’re going to use it. You run out, hit the release, slap a new mag in and activate the charging mechanism. Got it?” he asked briskly seeing the feline nod in his peripheral vision. “Good. Now, these things are what we call a ‘room-broom’. Great for high volume in a confined space when you have a target rich environment. They aren’t all that accurate, though. I want you to direct us to the control room, but you’re going to be behind me to cover our butts, okay?”

Wyatt nodded, more than a little nervous and swallowed hard. Farbes put a reassuring hand on the anthrocat’s shoulder.

“Look, Wyatt. You can do this. I trust you.”

The savannah cat steadied and nodded again. “Yeah. We can do this.”

“That’s what I want to hear!” the man said brightly, the smile he flashed at the feline a little lopsided. “These Janissaries guys are soft. No one’s been giving trouble and they haven’t been in a hot zone in a while. That doesn’t mean they’re stupid, though. Don’t, whatever you do, show them an easy time of it. They would’ve killed you and your friends if they could’ve. Don’t give them even an ounce of mercy. Dash-and-smash are the orders of the day.” Wyatt nodded again. “Okay, man. Let’s go, and keep ‘em off our backs. 

*** 

Farbes had a Kriss looped over both his right and left shoulders but lead the way with his pistol. When Wyatt asked where the man had gotten the large suppressed pistol, Farbes chuckled. “I always, always, carry a piece of my choice with me no matter where I go. Like the old commercial says, ‘don’t leave home without it’.”

Their foray further into the bunker facility was aided with an information terminal that was just past the door for the docks and Wyatt realized just how big the bunker complex was. The control room and various labs, whatever they had originally been, formed the center of a wheel-like layout. Apart from rooms and chambers that lay along the corridors, each passageway led to the control section. Resistance was fairly moderate and the pair made it to the second junction of corridors before the alarm was sounded. Farbes cleared the way before them with his pistol, each round fired dropping a mercenary. Wyatt kept others from coming in behind them with less accuracy, but the heavy rounds from the high capacity weapon countered his lack of expertise. Every so often the man that led the charge would reassure the savannah cat with either praise or humorous quip.

It wasn’t until they reached the lab sections that the duo began to slow as the mercenary guards seemed to be concentrated in that area. Farbes fired the last round from his pistol, his magazines expended, and dropped it as he pulled the Kriss Vector on the right sling up and sent short bursts down the corridor. He ran in a crouch and Wyatt noticed that when the man turned, the weapon followed as if the two were one complete unit. The savannah cat tried to emulate his companion and found that it was actually easier to control the weapon and gave him a better hit ratio as he dropped a pair of Janissaries with his own burst before the weapon clicked on empty.

“Reloading!” Wyatt almost screamed, frantic to get another magazine into the weapon and learning from the former Navy man that it was a good idea to let the other know what was happening so that both directions could be covered.

“You learn quick, Wyatt!” Farbes said with an approving nod. “Keep it calm and together, though. Okay? We’re doing well.” The man paused while the savannah cat got reloaded and chambered a round. “We should only have two more intersections to go. The control room looks like it’s going to be pretty easy to defend until we get the call out to get help.”

“Do you know how long it’ll take someone to get to us?” Wyatt asked, his eyes bright and shining in the overhead LED fixtures as they darted in both directions looking for threats.

Farbes shrugged. “Don’t know. Depends on what assets are nearby. If there’s any kind of boat, frigate or larger, they could be here as quick as three to eight hours. If it looks like it’s going to be a while, Admiral Hughs will be more than happy to commandeer some Coasties for us. Don’t underestimate the Coast Guard, either. Those guys are good at what they do. Not that I wouldn’t mind a SEAL team showing up. ‘Course, the way we’re going there might not be anyone left for ‘em to play with, right?”

Wyatt smiled at the joke for a fraction of a moment before his eyes went wide and he tried to swing his submachine gun around to open fire on the mercenary that stepped out of a doorway in the middle of the lab section. The Janissaries merc was able to get off two rounds before the savannah cat’s own weapon sent a spray of rounds hurtling down the hallway. The inertia of the heavy copper jacketed rounds spun the grey uniformed man in a jerking pirouette, his body collapsing back into the room, the spatters of blood left on the edge of the doorway looking like a Jackson Pollack painting.

“That was too close,” Wyatt said as he let the breath out of his lungs in a tremulous shudder.

“Yeah,” Farbes replied, his voice tight and clipped. “Close.” Wyatt looked at the man as he pulled his left hand away from his abdomen, the palm and fingers slick with crimson. “This isn’t good, man,” Farbes told his companion. “This is so not good. We gotta get to that control room pronto.”

“What can I do?” Wyatt asked, his eyes frightened as he helped the man sit down with his back against the concrete wall.

“Finish the mission, Wyatt,” Farbes told him in a hard voice. He unslung the Vector that hung from his left shoulder and pressed it into the anthrocat’s empty paw-like hand. “Don’t stop. Get to the control room and make that call to Admiral Hughs. I’ll cover you as best I can from here. Anybody gets in your way, you waste ‘em. Save your people, Wyatt.”

The savannah cat nodded mutely but didn’t move until a sharp slap to his muzzle roused him from the state of shock he was in.

“Get moving! We’re running out of time, man!”

Wyatt nodded again before turning in the direction of the control room and leapt forward, bolting for the communications terminal while running on three limbs, his right paw still filled with the grip of the Kriss Vector and swept it left to right as he ran, looking for anything in grey that he could vent his rage and fear on.

The sound of Farbes’ weapon behind him was oddly reassuring, Wyatt knowing the man would keep good his promise of covering him as he ran. As it was, there was no one left for the savannah cat to engage and as he made the control room the only personnel he found were two technicians that were hiding from the sound of gunfire, one of the men sitting in a puddle with the trousers of his grey and green scrubs completely soaked with acrid smelling urine. The feline ignored them as he closed the heavy steel door and engaged the locking bolts then sat at the chair in front of the communications terminal. His fingers shook a little as he tapped in the number that Farbes had made him memorize, his limbs trembling far less than he thought they should and waited as he stared at the video screen that was attached to the phone unit.

It was on the seventh ring when the screen went blank.

His stomach knotting in fear and frustration, Wyatt turned to the tow technicians. “What happened? Why isn’t the phone working?!?”

The one that soiled himself huddled deeper into a frightened ball while the other pointed at a computer terminal next to the video phone. “F-f-failsa-afe! If i-it doesn’t get the ri-right code put in before use i-it shuts off!”

The savannah cat wanted to snarl in frustration. “What about a radio? Is there a radio and does it have a failsafe, too?”

The man pointed at a small console that looked like something out of an old movie that actually had analog dials and knobs with a small handset hanging from a cord that was attached to the lower right corner of the cover plate. It was fairly simple in layout and in his previous life as the captain of his own boat Wyatt had had to learn to use not only modern radio transceivers, but also more antiquated units. He turned the dial to the universal distress frequency and ensured the power was on. “Mayday, mayday, mayday! Anyone listening, we are being held prisoner for illegal experiments!” He continued to transmit information, his throat starting to dry out when there was finally a scratchy and static filled response to his call for help.

“This is the Swedish freighter SS Valkyrie out of Stockholm. We hear you,” an accented voice replied. “What is being the nature of your emergency?”

Wyatt relayed everything that he could including the coordinates of the island and the fact that he and dozens of others were prisoners undergoing forced experiments. The radio operator of the freighter promised to do what they could and that they would forward the information to not only the US Coast Guard, but also their own embassy before wishing Wyatt and his people good luck.

The radio went silent and Wyatt let out the air in his lungs in an explosive exhale before he turned to the two technicians. “You!” he snapped, looking at the one that had soiled his clothing. “Show me how to cycle through the cameras,” he ordered. When the man didn’t move the savannah cat lifted his lips to expose his fangs. “NOW!”

— NEXT CHAPTER —

Unless otherwise noted, all material © Ted R. Blasingame. All rights reserved.