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still, waiting for instructions from his scientist masters.
"I asked if I could go," Ryan repeated.
"Egress permission affirmative," the corner loudspeaker squawked.
The guard turned away from the two men in the cell and gazed down the
corridor.
Ryan clenched his fists together and swung a dreadful clubbing blow at the
creature's back, striking it with crushing force a little to the right of the
small of the back over the kidneys. The sec man gave a choked cry of pain and
shock, forced out past the voice activator, hardly louder than a whisper. Jak
darted in like a hunting animal and snatched the laser blaster as it dropped
from nerveless fingers.
As the guard dropped to his knees, almost paralyzed by the awesome power of
the double punch, Ryan flicked off his heavy helmet. The face turned up toward
him, eyes rolling in agony, the mouth drooped open, showing yellowed gums. The
hair was cropped to the scalp, one ear completely lacking.
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Despite all, it was unmistakably the face of a woman, pleading silently for
mercy.
Ryan didn't hesitate, chopping with the edge of his hand across the front of
the throat and crushing the delicate electronic implant. His hand also pulped
the thyroid cartilage and crushed the laryngeal branch of the vital vagus
nerve.
The sec guard was dying, sliding forward on the floor of the corridor on her
face, arms and legs moving spasmodically, gloved fingers scraping feebly.
Ryan glanced around to make sure the killing had been done out of sight of the
watchful vid cameras. Jak turned the power control dial of the gun all the way
around to the upper limit of twenty.
"Finn swears those blasters don't work ninety-nine times out of a hundred,"
Ryan said. "So watch yourself."
"Why we moving?" the boy asked.
Ryan quickly explained everything Doc Tanner had found out the previous
evening, adding that they now knew the scientists were intending to start
their physiological experiments on the white-haired boy that very day.
"And we don't think the bastards intended you to be up and walking after
they've done. Termination mode for you, kid."
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"So we blow 'em?"
Ryan grinned wolfishly. "Clean out the nest, Jak. What we're good at."
IT WAS CLOSE to in amber when Ryan and Jak finally arrived safely back at
B
the dormitory. One good thing about the vast research sections of the complex
being sealed off from them was that the scientists seemed to rarely move
anywhere else, having most of their living and eating quarters near their
precious work.
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Twice they'd seen sec patrols, but they'd been absurdly easy to dodge. More
and more Ryan had come to realize that the Wizard Island complex was like a
security sieve. When it had first been established, it had probably been the
last word in tightness, but over the years it had fallen apart. The research
had taken priority, and there had never been any threats to the scientists
from outside.
Everyone in the dormitory was ready and primed. Doc had recovered from the
alcoholic excesses of the night before and looked chipper. The first priority
was to get hold of some weapons, and the blaster Jak and Ryan had won was a
start. J.B.
had made the suggestion at their battle meeting that they should try to get
their clothes and weapons back. That way they would fight better and be ready
to make a swift run for it. At no time during their brief discussions had
anyone suggested the possibility they might fail.
If you succeeded, it wouldn't arise.
And if you didn't, then it wasn't going to matter much.
"When shall we start?" Krysty asked now, sitting cross-legged on her bed,
doing slow-breathing exercises to ready herself for the coming combat.
"Now's good as any time. Who wants to take this laser blaster?"
Finn grinned at Ryan's question. "Have to be me. I'm the man with blasters.
Don't have many skills, but I fucking know 'bout blasters. Gimme, Ryan."
He caught the short, vicious gun, then dropped into a fighter's crouch,
pretending to spray the room with the lethal blue beam. In the laughter, none
of them heard the warning sound of the main door hissing open.
"M-m-m-m-my suspicions were in affirmative m-m-m-m-mode," Dr. Avian said.
He stood there, a malevolent smile of triumph on his face.
He was flanked by four armed sec men.
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Chapter Twenty-One
"CAREFUL, FINN," Ryan Cawdor said quietly, not wanting to provoke the rotund
man into any action that might leave them dead within seconds. Whatever
Finnegan might say about the fallibility of the laser rifles, it figured they
had to work sometime. With four of the sec men, it was too long a shot.
"I trust you have recovered from the peculiar illness of last night," Doc
Tanner said, offering a half bow to the limping scientist.
"Poison, Dr. Tanner. Poison." With an obvious effort, the man was controlling
his stammer, speaking slowly and with great care.
"Poison, sir? That is an aspersion upon my honor! By the three Kennedys, my
seconds shall be calling upon you."
Ryan had no idea at all what Doc Tanner was rambling about. Neither,
obviously, did Dr. Avian. The scientist waved a threatening plas-hand at them
all.
"You t-t-t-try to betray us all."
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"What're you going to do 'bout it?" J.B. asked. "Take us in?"
Dr. Avian looked bewildered, as though he hadn't actually thought the
confrontation through. Without any sign from Ryan, the others had spread
slowly into a half circle, leaving a scattered target for the blasters, each
one waiting for a sign from Ryan to make a move.
Only at that moment did the crippled scientist notice Finnegan was holding one
of the sec guard's blasters.
"Where d-d-d-did you& And the white head is free from the& "
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In any firefight there is a crucial moment when the situation goes beyond
words.
If the moment is recognized, then there is a chance of staying alive. Missing
it kills a man deader than chicken-fried steak.
Ryan knew the moment had come.
"Chill the gimp," he told Finnegan in an ordinary kind of tone, the way you'd
ask someone to open a window for you.
Finn aimed the blaster and squeezed the trigger. The weapon spluttered and
fired a brief burst of blue-green light. The scientist squealed and staggered
back, the front of his coat scorched and smoldering. Finnegan threw the
useless gun on the floor.
"What a fucker!" he spat.
Already, Ryan and the others were moving in on the sec men. During the brief
stay on Wizard Island, Ryan had come to suspect that the guards operated with
virtually no free will at all, performing their patrols and chores by a simple
programmed rote. Anything above and beyond that had to come from a specific
order from one of the scientists.
That was a key factor in his risking an attack.
Unlike the unreliable blasters, it worked.
Not one of the mutie guards tried to defend themselves against the attack.
While
Dr. Avian rolled around on the floor, stammering cries for assistance, the sec
men went down like helpless tenpins. Ryan broke the neck of the nearest. J.B.
kicked the next one in the crotch, felling him, then did a jump and knee drop [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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