Brutus leaned over the toilet again, vomiting into the bowl. His stomach was empty of food and refused to give any more up. Nevertheless, he continued to dry-heave into the toilet, body spasming in an attempt to rid itself of whatever is wrong with it. Chills rippled through his body as muscles randomly cramped from dehydration. Finished, he crawled over to the counter where he hauled himself up. The mirror showed a sickly and feverish boy, veins standing out on pale skin. He turned the faucet on and lapped up water with his hands in a desperate attempt to dilute whatever was in his intestines.795Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvOpSxG1ZhA
Octavia tottered into the bathroom, limp, with crusted gunk around her mouth. Green eyes were unfocused, and her short cropped hair was mussed. From the pack den, sounds of groaning and vomiting were all that could be heard. Some were too weak to make it to the toilets. She looked at him, and her eyes were full of fear.
"Brutus, what is happening to everybody? Galba is unconscious, and two others are on their way. It had to be those injections they gave us yesterday! Have to call the trainers."
He nodded and staggered out of the bathroom, holding onto the wall as he went. She began throwing up behind him. Red Pack was a shadow of the lethal soldiers that were on a mission two cycles ago. Some sprawled on their bunks, a few sunken in chairs, and others limp where they laid on the floor. Puddles of vomit were scattered about the concrete floor, Scipio trying to mop one up. Brutus reached the door and turned the handle. Locked. His blood chilled in his veins; his mind raced through all of the possible explanations. Only one seemed to be possible. They were poisoned, and weren't expected to recover.
He turned around, and made for the first-aid kit located under the sink in the bathroom. Octavia retched in a stall as he entered. Brutus pulled the bag out from its cupboard and dumped the contents onto the white tile. Bandages, burn cream, painkillers, tape, flashlight, scalpels, and a syringe with a vial of clear liquid. The label said adrenaline.
He tossed the glass container around in his hand, weighing options. Shrugging, Brutus loaded the syringe, tapped it a couple times, and stuck a vein with the needle. Slowly he pushed the adrenaline into his bloodstream. Octavia crawled over to him and looked at what he was doing.
"Smart, maybe. Any left?"
He handed her the syringe, and she followed suit, emptying the vial into her body. They sat together, waiting for the chemicals to kick in. She started to say something, but cut herself short.
"What is it Octavia?"
She hesitated, licked her lips and looked up at the ceiling. "What happened when we were hanging from the bridge? My suit lost power temporarily, and others have said the same thing. How did Marcus's grapple break when none of ours did?"
He looked her straight in the eyes, "I haven't told anyone this, but Marcus shot himself."
She jerked her head up in disbelief. He grabbed her hand.
"I think the trainers disabled our suits. On my control mike, I heard him talking about the ferals to himself, he was scared out of his mind. Those monsters must have got in his head too much." She shivered when he mentioned the ferals, and he knew he was getting to her. "I think Command heard it too, couldn't stop him, and had to keep us in the dark so that it wouldn't affect ourselves when we would have to fight against the ferals in future."
He had to lie to her, for the best interests of the pack. She sat there, thinking his words over, and he could see that she believed him. As they talked, he reflected on his actions that day. Brutus could always see what the others thought, and found it easy to get them to do what he wanted. But Marcus had been unreadable to him, and Brutus feared what that could mean. He was the natural leader of Red pack, and Marcus had to be dealt with.
During their talking, they gradually began to feel better. Octavia's face assumed more of a healthier color than the previous white, and Brutus could feel his body dealing with whatever was poisoning him, filtering it out. He looked at her and she nodded.
He jumped up, and she reached into the first-aid bag. She dug the two scalpels, tape, and the flashlight out. She wrapped one of the blade's handles in tape, thickening it. Octavia gave it to Brutus while she treated the other similarly. He walked out of the bathroom and looked around for a way to get out of the room. The air vents above some of the bunks looked very promising. They were large enough that he or Octavia could crawl through them, so that they could get medicine for the rest. He pried the grill of the wall, exposing the ducts. He called Scipio over for instructions. He was to keep everyone calm, and if the trainers try to get in, don't let them.
Brutus wrapped a pillowcase around his knees to soften any bumps while inside the echoing ducts. Gripping the blade with his teeth, Brutus began crawling into the ducts. A few of the stronger Genesis whispered good luck to them as Octavia entered the narrow tube.
Together they crawled along in the dark. The distant drone of fans echoing past them, periodically they would stop and discuss where they could be in the base. The claustrophobic metal seemed to stretch on for infinity, sometimes splitting into two directions, ascending or descending at random, or occasionally expanding to facilitate multiple connecting pipes.
They often passed vents and grills opening into rooms, but they were always occupied with people, and therefore not an option.
One grill enlightened them as to the reason of their intended execution. Sergeant Ramirez, their training instructor, walked alongside a tall colonel and followed by two men in combat fatigues. The colonel was a man with short cropped grey hair with a sharply-creased and clean-pressed black uniform highlighted with red. His uniform was devoid of decorations or medals unlike the usual suits of officers. If anything, complete anonymity was the focus, with no symbols or a name, other than a grey eye stitched out on his left breast.
The two grunts behind the NCO and the colonel seemed cut of the same mold. Black fatigues with mottled dark grey. Their faces were heavy and relaxed, eyes almost closed, giving them a sleepy look. They carried pistols in holsters, and Octavia whispered to him that they had knifes in their boots. They also had the grey eye on their jacket, and no symbols of rank on their arms. Brutus judged by their body language that they were focused on the sergeant.
The colonel stopped and turned to face Ramirez, his back to their vent.
"Sergeant, I hope your situation is clear to you. I would hate for there to be a misunderstanding between us."
Ramirez was obviously in the officer's bad book, he swallowed ever so slightly, but other than that sign his face remained collected and calm.
"I do sir. But I believe that more factors must be considered into the decision."
"Oh really? Because to my understanding, they failed. Both Orange and Yellow are several stages ahead of Red, and successfully completed their proving tests. Red lost a Genesis, and took three hours longer than allowed in cracking the seed vaults. Orange succeeded in what turned out to be a considerably trickier situation once the raiders activated that dirty bomb inside their base. The Signal had upgraded to a category three, penetrating the building and converting the defendants before Orange could negotiate with the leader. Two of them completed a successful deactivation the bomb, while the rest fought off the newly converted ferals and retrieved the shipments of ball-bearings."
"I was present at the debriefings sir, Orange did a fine job." Brutus saw that Ramirez's breathing had increased. Brutus hand-signaled to Octavia and she replied, considering outcomes and offering solutions.
As the boy and the girl manually communicated, the colonel stepped closer to the sergeant, getting right in his face.
"Red Pack is unforgivably behind man! You failed! I gave you Red because I believed them to be the alpha group. Your instructors and yourself have ruined what could have possibly been the most effective group of soldiers to ever walk the planet. They could have made the three hundred spartans look like the Baptist Church's Auxiliary knitting Club. Hannibal would have given up Carthage and Patton would have sworn language off forever to have soldiers like them under their command. Rome could have lasted ten thousand years with a population of Genesis. These kids are the future!"
Ramirez's façade began to crack under the pressure, "Colonel Steiner, sir, I believe that Red Pack needs to be given more consideration. Those children represent the hopes and future of mankind."
"Yes they do, and as such, we cannot afford less than one-hundred percent from them all. The judgement has been passed. Bio has been working on a new chemical agent, and we are unsure how much toxins their upgraded kidneys and livers can filter. Red Pack is estimated to go into total organ failure in several hours."
Octavia grabbed Brutus hand in fear, and he was glad that he had some support. Steiner turned and walked away, talking to Ramirez over the shoulder.
"Your work, though a failure, was useful enough. Your retirement has been accepted, and you have the rest of your life to enjoy the Pax's facilities. Your ashes will go to good use in our greenhouse complex." The colonel walked away, but the two grunts moved towards the sergeant, spreading out and one drew his pistol.
Brutus nodded to Octavia, and they both grabbed their scalpels out of their mouths. He drew his arm back before ramming into the grill. It tore loose and flew out from the wall. Octavia sprang after it, rolling across the floor before coming up in a slash that hamstringed the gun-wielding target who was going to execute Ramirez. Brutus followed after, tackling the remaining soldier in the knees as the grunt pivoted around. The man buckled and slammed to the floor. Brutus recovered from his dive and leapt on top of the soldier. The man tried to grab him, but Brutus grabbed his neck and squeezed with his augmented fingers, feeling little resistance. Out of the corner of his eye he say Octavia straddle her man with a hand over his mouth, looped a leg around his shoulder, circled his neck with her other arm, and jerked sharply up. Both of the grey-clad soldiers lay on the metal floor, a study in still life.
They stripped the would-be murderers of their guns and knives. Ramirez changed into the fatigues of the man Brutus strangled and helped them to stuff the bodies into the ventilation shaft, muscling them inside and returning the grill to its slot. He grinned at the two Genesis, "I don't care what that bastard says, you both learned your lessons in knife fighting."
He checked his pistol's ammunition and stuck the handle of a scalpel in his mouth, Brutus was similarly armed while Octavia took both of the grunts' combat knives. Together both children and the sergeant ran down the hall. They told him of how the adrenaline had helped give their bodies the edge to fight the poison off, and he formulated a plan to get enough to save the rest before they died. They were ignored by the other soldiers and workers in the hall, as they ran to the nearest med-bay. A chemistry lab that soon appeared promised to be of worth
It was empty when they looked inside. They searched around the spacious room eventually located a refrigerator filled with hormones and other organic liquids. They stuffed vials and syringes into a backpack. Octavia looked out the door and gasped. Brutus looked and saw a dozen of the soldiers who answered to Steiner walk down the hall. They saw the three as well. The men took cover and opened fire into the lab. Bullets sparked off metal, punctured walls, and smashed glass as Brutus dove for protection. All labs have a synthesizer stocked with a copious amount of raw materials to furnish whatever was needed for experiments and operations. It so happened that Brutus ended up behind the bulky machine. Remembering his IED training, he jacked the storage cover open. Inside, racked along with everything else, was one kilogram of liquid cesium. Jackpot.795Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjRQPGkUhZH
He shouted if anyone was by any kerosene. Over the bark of the guns, he heard Ramirez rattling bottles around. A gallon of kerosene in a glass bottle rolled across the floor a few seconds later. Wondering at how easy this was inserted the dispenser of the cesium into the bottle and injected the whole kilogram into it. he then capped the top and signaled to Octavia and Ramirez. He then crouched and hurled the container into the middle of their enemies.
It so happens that cesium is one of the most active metals known to man. it also happens that when it comes into contact with air, it explodes violently. Kerosene burns very well in addition. The gallon landed outside of the lab amongst the soldiers. Brutus heard a smash followed immediately by a tremendous boom, vials, stands, and other light objects were toppled by the explosion. A roiling fireball incinerated most of the grey soldiers. Ramirez and Brutus shot the rest as the broke cover to stamp their burning clothes out. Together the three grabbed what they came for and jumped over the flames spread out on the floor outside of the lab.
They managed to escape in the panicked crowd that formed around the area, making it back to the genesis barracks without being noticed. The two guards posted were short work for Octavia as she hid behind one of the automated carts moving though the halls until she was close. She jumped out and slashed both silently. The sergeant unlocked the door and they hurried in.
Most of Red pack was comatose now, and the three hurriedly injected all of Red Pack with the adrenaline. One that was done they barricaded the door and waited for the rest to recover. Brutus sat down next to Octavia on one of the bunkbeds. He smiled at her. She smiled back but returned to looking at the ground. Wondering, he asked what was wrong. She replied by hugging him. Surprised, he returned it, and she whispered into his ear, "Thank you". Brutus looked passed her at Lucius, who grinned and made an o.k. with his hand. Juno, recovering on a bed further down, nodded her head at him in a teasing manner. He blushed, "Yeah, no problem".
In an underground base, one of Red pack, presumed dead, fought a bloody war of extermination against the ferals as he neared the exit which led to the surface. Ripping apart the last monster that stood between him and freedom, he wondered what his pack was doing. Marcus smashed the lock with his prosthetic and entered the lift that would take him up. All of the restraints that had but put into his body had been removed by the former Pax Initiative scientist that had called herself Erin. Now she was dead, spared from the fate of being a bloodthirsty savage. Armed with his ripjack, and fully in control of all the enhancements that had been placed in him, Marcus vowed to return to Red pack, and to kill the one who had tried to murder him.
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