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Pulp Fedcom
by Andrew Borelli |
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24 FEB 3063
SILESIA, BLACKTHORNE DISTRICT
STEINER ZONE, SOLARIS CITY
SOLARIS VII
During this entire soliloquy, Dutch stared at Dr. Greer in shocked silence, enormous beads of sweat pouring down his back and neck, his shirt soaked.
“I can see you’re simply overwhelmed by this lesson. I do not know if you or your friend in there qualify as our normal choice of victim, but regardless, you’ve stumbled into something much bigger than yourselves, and I can’t allow you to take this information back out into the world. “
Dr. Greer backed away from Dutch and walked towards the panel in the back wall. “See you shortly, friend,” he called out as he walked away. The panel slid shut. The room was completely silent.
Holy good God Jesus Christ, Dutch thought. His mind was racing, the adrenaline pouring through him. His bulging eyes darted around the room, down to his shoes, anywhere there might be some kind of method of
escape. He pulled at the restraints holding him to the pole; they held fast. He tugged again, yanking against them as hard as he could. From the panel in the wall he could hear Marcus Flint moaning in obvious discomfort.
Most mech pilots learn standard escape training as part of their indoctrination, but few expect ever to use it. Dutch’s skills were admittedly rusty. His wrists were bound with simple nylon cord, which had been knotted. He began to run his wrists up and down the pole rapidly, all the while raising and lowering his body. Every few seconds he would yank against the restraints. He did this for five minutes with no appreciable result. Anger began to mix with the adrenaline rushing through his blood. His face reddened, his heart raced. He kicked at the pole, swore through the gag, and most of all, yanked at the hand restraints.
And then the nylon cord, which perhaps had not been knotted perfectly, unraveled and opened. His hands were free.
He yanked the gag out of his mouth and threw the restraints to the floor. He had to fight the impulse to gag and cough, God forbid someone in the next room heard him. Instincts took over. He bolted for the steps, made it about two-thirds of the way, and then heard Flint yelling again, this time in pain.
Tough luck on him, Dutch thought, and jumped to the top of the stairs. Then he paused again.
But I can’t leave him with these sick bastards, his conscience interjected.
He’s going to kill you, him or one of his boys. Only a fool would go to save him.
Dutch found that the stairs led to a doorway in the back of the shop; he ran down the aisles to freedom.
Nobody deserves to die like that. If I have to kill Flint myself, I'll kill him. But not like that.
He paused. He would need a weapon. He tore through the items on the shelves, finding all manner of tools and parts which might do for a makeshift club. He checked behind the counter where Dr. Greer had knocked him out and found neither the shotgun nor the neural disrupter.
Guess I can’t get that lucky twice in one day, he reasoned.
Then he stumbled across an attractively packaged item on a shelf right near the display window. It was a powered cutter built by CraftTech, a popular subsidiary of a large manufacturing company. It was meant to make accessing conduit paneling easy and was supposedly safer than using a welder. He ripped the cutter out of its package, searching frantically for a power source. At the front counter were packages of batteries of various sizes and wattages for different types of devices. Dutch had no idea what he was looking for.
After several tries and a few sharp curses one of them actually fit in the cutter’s battery panel. The blade sprang to life, vibrating rapidly. He got a feel for the tool, swinging it around a bit and seeing how the controls affected the carbon blade.
I must be an idiot, he thought. He turned around and walked cautiously toward the steps, taking each one as quietly as he could.
There was no one waiting for him in the basement. The broken restraints still lay in the middle of the room. Every now and then the lights in the room would dim. God only knows what they were doing to Flint in the next room.
He walked over to the panel in the back wall and did what seemed natural.
He knocked.
There was a sudden pause in the sounds coming from the other side of the wall. Dutch heard someone make a shhhhh sound.
Without warning the panel slid open. Jedediah was standing there, his service night stick at the ready. Jedediah might have been a killer, but he was no fighter. Dutch spun, kicked the stick out of Jed's hand, then pressed the button of the cutting tool and lunged. A deep, ugly rent opened up on Jed's chest as the cutter made its mark. He fell backward into the room and died.
The woman Yi Lin had managed to brace herself against the wall of the room next to the door. She sprung like a coil, screaming a ferocious Capellan war cry that Dutch recognized as a trademark of MacCarron's Armored Cavalry. She spun through the air, feet and fists twirling. Dutch revved the cutter again and ducked, swinging the cutter wildly. Wailing, Yi Lin smacked into a wall and came down in a heap, also dead.
Dutch turned to face Dr. Greer and the gurney that Marcus Flint had been bound to. Flint's shirt had been removed and his chest was covered in bioscanners wired back to the gurney.
Dr. Greer stepped away from Dutch, taken aback. Surprise had crossed his face. There was blood on his apron, all over neoskin on the walls (though some of that was the result of Dutch's attack), and on his hands. In the opposite corner of the room from where Dr. Greer was standing, the anti-mech shotgun lay against the wall.
Flush with victory, Dutch grinned. But there was no humor in his smile.
"You want that shotgun, dont'cha? Go ahead. Grab for it. Please."
"There's... there's no need for this. If you go now there won't be any trouble. The Maskirovka-"
"Ain't got nothing to do with any of this." He motioned towards Flint. "Unplug him from all that crap."
Dr. Greer very quickly detached Flint from the bioscanner apparatus and switched it off.
"Wake him up."
Using the same small tub of salve from before, Greer waved the substance under Flint's nose until Flint regained consciousness.
He waved the cutting tool towards the door of the room.
"Now get walking. I'm calling the branch office of the LIC. They can take care of you, you sick SOB."
The two men walked out of the small room. To his right Dutch saw Marcus Flint shaking his head, trying to get his bearings back. He would worry about Flint later.
"You got a phone in this place, Doc?"
"Upstairs, of course."
"Then get going. Slowly, up the stairs."
They walked upstairs and to the front of the store.
"Where's the phone?"
"Under the counter. I... I'll get it for you."
"Put it on the counter very, very slowly."
Dr. Greer reached behind the sales counter and seemed to stall for a moment.
"Don't fool with me, Doc. Ain't a good idea right now."
"I just need to detach it from its base, it's a mobile unit." |
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