Haywire (12 page)

Hands on her hips, the doctor thrust her chin out and said, “I have worked long and hard to get these pieces donated to the museum, and I want to see it all the way to its completion. Alex will understand. It’s also the perfect opportunity to show my son what his mother does for a living.”

The assistant looked at the doctor and then at her son before he bowed his head. “Very good.”

“
Quite. Now, take those men with you and make sure the display cases are ready. I’ll call you once I am done. Understood?”

“
Of course.” Her assistant waved to workers behind him and left the dock, his body ramrod straight as he walked away.

As soon as the dock was clear, Laroux whistled and gestured for his crew to empty the truck. The doctor winced when the crates were manhandled onto the dock’s floor. Once the pieces were out, the captain asked, “Doctor, how far is it from here to where we need to go?”

She balled her small hands into fists and closed her eyes before replying. “Not far.” She pointed at a large door across the dock. “We go through there, take a hallway to a freight elevator, and then go down another hall to a set of storage rooms. The wall where this supposed hidden access is at sits between those rooms.”

Laroux bowed with a flourish. “Let us proceed then,
ma cherie
. And quickly. Your assistant will wait, but not forever. The sooner we find what we came for, the sooner all this can be over for you.”

The doctor nodded, her face pale, and walked toward the door which opened automatically at her approach. Behind her walked her son, and then the pirates with their loaded dollies. The hallway to the service lift was relatively clear, with no one giving them a second glance. Once they were in the lower level they went down another hallway and then went through a pair of doors that opened into a storage room. Crates were packed to the ceiling along the walls.

“
Is this part of the original structure?” Laroux asked, glancing around.

“
Yes, though some repairs had to be made to it before it could be used. The only thing that saved it from total destruction was its depth beneath the lunar surface.”

The captain tilted his dolly forward and settled the crate he’d been carting around down onto the floor. “Open this and let us get on with it.”

Four of his crew walked over, opened the crate, and reached in. Straining, they lifted the Titan to her shaky feet and kept her steady as she exited the crate. Sadness washed over Gimble like a cold wave as he watched her shift her head around lazily, just like Marie had done near the end as the pain stole her mind and spirit. But, as the Titan took in her surroundings, a bit of clarity returned to her eyes.

“
I-I know this,” she said. “I’ve been here be-before. The doc-doc-doctor . . .”

Doctor Campbell nodded and took a step toward her. “We’re close, yes. Would you like to lead the way?”

The Titan looked around again, her eyes narrowing, but then they lost focus and she hung her head.

“
We go this direction, correct?” the doctor asked in tones usually reserved for children, pointing toward the double doors.

The Titan tilted her head up, followed the gesture, and nodded.

“
Go,” Laroux said.

Doctor Campbell took the lead, and the Titan shambled along behind her. Laroux grabbed the doctor’s son’s neck and pushed him forward. Behind them came the rest of the crew.

After making sure no one was outside, they walked further down the hallway leading from the freight elevator and turned to the left, which promptly brought them to a wall with storage rooms several meters away on both sides.

“
This is it,” Doctor Campbell said. “This is where your schematic leads to.”

Laroux pulled out the small computer and looked at its display. “Oui. This is the place. Now it is the Titan’s turn.”

The doctor nodded and stepped close to the towering metallic figure. “We’re almost to Dr. Groesbeck’s lab. Can you help us access the lift?”

The Titan looked over at her slowly, and then titled her head up to see where she was. Her head moved from left to right like a security camera searching for anything suspicious, but her gaze didn’t lock onto anything.

Fear that the Titan had finally lost control of her mind made Gimble want to gulp air and run. Crowe touched his back, letting him know he was of the same mind. After a few seconds the Titan shuffled to the wall and lifted her arms. The strain of lifting the colossal restraints that secured her arms together was obvious on her face, but she managed to get her hands high enough to place them against a section of wall at chest height. Small, dim lights began to glow within the wall. Gimble sighed in relief when the wall slid to one side, revealing an elevator.

Laroux shoved the doctor and her son forward with a harsh push. Both of them turned burning looks at him, but he couldn’t have cared less. He then gestured for the Titan and his crew to follow after them. As he turned to face the opening he leveled a finger at Gimble and Crowe.

“
You two, stay here. If anyone approaches, call down to me. Understood?”

Both men gulped and nodded.

“
Good. We will call when we are on our way back up.”

“
Aye aye, Captain,” Gimble said, hoping the tremor in his sagging chin didn’t give away the fear that crashed through his body. Once the doors were closed and the wall returned to its former featureless appearance, he sighed and leaned against the stretch of empty wall next to it.

“
As much as I hate being left up here to wait,” Crowe said, running a hand through his short, greasy hair, “I’d much rather be here than squeezed in next to that Titan. She gives me the willies.”

Gimble frowned and shook his head. “She makes me sad. Seems... so helpless.”

“
Tell that to the two blokes she killed when we woke her up. She’s sad, aye, in a forlorn beauty sorta way, but she’s also strong as an ox and mad as a hatter, so pardon me if I don’t care to trust my life to those restraints on her arms. Right now the last place I’d want to be is down there with that ticking time bomb.”

Whether he wanted to or not, Gimble had to agree with him. Envisioning dark, cramped hallways and the Titan with her crazed mumbling, it didn’t require much imagination to see blood splashing on the walls and whispers turned to ravings. No, his sympathies only went so far, and down in the deep dark was past his limit. He only hoped that when the elevator doors opened again, it wouldn’t be to unleash hell.

Riding the elevator down was the hardest experience of Shawn’s life. Behind him stood half a dozen armed men ready to end his life at a moment’s notice, beside him his mother held onto his arm so tightly her nails bit into his skin, and in front of him was a Titan who seemed to be teetering at the edge of sanity. He could barely remember how he’d gotten there, and he had no idea how he was getting out, or if he’d even be alive at the end of it. All he could do was wrestle his fear down and keep his chin up.

A soft ding filled the elevator, causing everyone in it to look up. The doors parted, revealing a room lit with flickering ceiling lights and corridors extending to the left and right. The air reeked of mildew and old rubber, and it felt thick in his mouth. Strange pieces of equipment stood on the floor and sat on counters like fossils from a distant age. Shawn remembered the smell from his youth, when he’d sat with his mother while she looked through boxes of old paper and lab tools. It was the scent of time and neglect.

“
Out,” one of the pirates said with a painful jab to his back.

The noise of everyone leaving the elevator was softened by thin layers of dust coating everything in sight. Shawn felt a sneeze build behind his eyes, but that was as far as it went.

“
Anything, Jones?” Laroux asked.

One of the pirates lifted a small device and waved it around in the air. After several back and forth swings he said, “This place is a tomb. No life to be seen, other than us that is. There’s barely enough power in the wiring to run the lights and lift.”

Laroux grimaced and shook his head. “No... something is here. Dr. Groesbeck was a genius, his intellect matched only by his paranoia. I know he left something here. We’ll have to look–”

The Titan tilted her head to the side like a dog waiting for a rustle from the brush. “I don’t hear them.”

“
Hear what?” his mother asked. Her fascination with her surroundings had pushed past her fear, at least for the moment.

“
It’s just... silence.”

“
Show us where the noise once was.” Laroux’s words were soft and placating, but Shawn could hear the greed beneath them, like shark teeth in a silk purse.

Whether she acted on his words or her own inner voice, the Titan shambled down the dark and grimy hallway on the right in jittery steps. After going several dozen meters she stopped and stared at a closed door on her left. “He-he-here. They used… they used to be here.”

One of the pirates shadowing her pressed a button next to the door. It opened, and everyone stepped through. The room beyond was small and incredibly dusty. The only real area of interest was the far wall. Meter-long canisters lined it in rows, stacked one on top of the other in metal brackets going up the wall. Piles of dust coated the area beneath them in thick drifts.

The Titan lowered her head and dropped to her knees. “No, no, no.”

Bright beams of light blazed to life when the pirates ignited flashlights and cast their glow around the room. The dust beneath the containers shimmered like diamonds.

“
What is it?” his mother asked, stooping down on her haunches. “What’s wrong?”

“
It’s th-the… the nanite containers,” the Titan replied without looking up. “No power, no integrity, no seal. They’re… they’re useless. Ruined.”

His mother grimaced and looked at the glittering mounds. “You mean these canisters lost power, and whatever was contained in them was lost?”

The Titan’s head barely moved as she nodded.

Laroux lashed out with a kick that sent sparkling dust into the air. “A fortune lost because of dead batteries!
C’est des conneries
!”

Shawn felt his insides grow numb as he stepped toward the wall of empty canisters. The only reason he and his mother had been taken was so they could lead the pirates down here and find some old Titan technology. Now that there was nothing to be had, of what further use were they? What would stop Captain Laroux and his men from shooting them and leaving them to bleed out in the dust? Shawn knew he had to find something, and quick.

The metal canisters were round, flat on the ends, and around the center of each one were thick glass viewing windows. Lights and small display panels were set around the windows, but all of them were dark, lifeless. He looked at each one, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up, hoping he wasn’t about to be just as dead. But, as his frantic eyes scurried back and forth across the wall, he noted that the dust pile was slightly smaller on the far right. He walked over and checked the stacked column, and his breath caught in his throat when he noted one of the canisters still had glowing lights on the control panel facing the wall.

“
Hey!” he said, his voice trembling. “This one looks good!”

The reaction his words received was instant and explosive. The Titan was on her feet and at the wall so quickly the air displaced by her motion buffeted his clothes and pushed him backward. Her armored hands were held close together by her restraints, but that didn’t stop her from grabbing the rails locking the container in place and peeling them back as easily as he would turn the page of a book. When it was free, she had the container cradled in her palms. Joy spread across her face.

“
Oh, yes,” she said with more life in her voice than Shawn had heard since meeting her. “It’s whole, and the se-se-seal is intact.”

The pirate captain stepped forward and held out his hand. “
Merveilleux
. Hand it to me.”

The Titan tilted her head up, a glimmer in her narrowed eyes. For the first time she looked fully present, and the dark glimmer in her gaze sent a shiver up Shawn’s spine. In that moment he saw the warrior the history books spoke of. A cold blue light slowly filled her eyes as she set the container on the floor.

“
I do-do-don’t think so.”

Without hesitating, Laroux drew one of his pistols, leveled it at her head, and pulled the trigger. Moving so fast Shawn could barely follow, the Titan brought up her arms. The energy pulse hit her restraints and reflected harmlessly into a wall. She then lunged toward the pirate captain, but before she could cross the room, her armor throbbed and she fell to her knees, her arm restraints dragging her down quickly.

The pirate next to Alicia uncoiled a metal whip similar to the one Laroux used earlier and struck at the Titan. The whip wrapped around her neck, and sparks shot out as electricity coursed down it. The Titan arched her back, threw her arms above her head, and howled. The pirate grinned and hit a button, increasing the voltage. The Titan slammed forward. Her arm restraints hit the ground with a resounding clang, and a second later they did it again, and again, and again. Within moments the concrete floor in front of her was chipped and gouged.

Shawn couldn’t believe the amount of damage she’d caused in such a short span of time, but more impressive was the amount of pain she endured. He couldn’t even guess how much electricity pumped into her body, and she took every bit of it. Then, without warning, the Titan pushed her arms apart, filled the air with a savage shout, and shattered the beat-up restraints. She then reached up to her neck, grabbed the flickering whip, and yanked it toward her. The pirate holding the other end was lifted off his feet. She grabbed him from the air and pounded him into the ground. The cement cracked from the force of the blow. Blood spurted from his nose, eyes, and ears. He was dead instantly.