Tazh Khan walked forward, his face blackened with soot. "Next time you warn me you throw grenade. OK?" he cheerfully scolded.
Chapter 110 110.
"THIS WAY!" HE pointed. "Termite soldier sc.u.m!"
The staccato crack! crack! crack! crack! of weapon fire was ringing in the air as I burst up through a trapdoor and onto the next level. I had my rifle ready, expecting the president"s guards to be there. of weapon fire was ringing in the air as I burst up through a trapdoor and onto the next level. I had my rifle ready, expecting the president"s guards to be there.
The first thing I saw was one of the Elite militia men. He caught a bullet and his head exploded like a sledgehammered watermelon-except it was filled with silvery microchips instead of black seeds.
"Kill the head! Like I said, Hays."
Lucy had come through like the warrior she was! She had met up with her team, and they had used their old-fashioned rifles with stunning accuracy to clear a path to Hughes Jacklin and the other leaders.
And then-there he was! The president spun around and stared at me like I was, well, some kind of human sc.u.m. The president spun around and stared at me like I was, well, some kind of human sc.u.m.
He stabbed a forefinger in my direction. "Kill him!" he commanded his guards, who were led by a guy I could have sworn I"d just killed-Devlin. Could they Could they all all have been clones? have been clones?
The outsize bodyguard made a quick study of the expression on my face.
"h.e.l.lo again, Hays," he said, stepping forward and waving the president and the other VIPs back toward a door, which led off of the dais. "You didn"t possibly think I"d have been hanging out in the parking lot with my clones while my president was unveiling the dawn of our new free society?"
"Funny how one doesn"t usually hear termite colonies described as "free societies," " said Lucy, edging forward with me and Tazh Khan as Devlin leveled his guns at us and his remaining thick-necked brethren formed a defensive wedge behind him.
There was no turning back-and there was no delaying. We couldn"t let the president escape. We had to kill the head before it reconnected with the larger body of Elite muscle beyond that door.
Chapter 111 111.
I SWUNG MY weapon around and fired as I dove to the ground. The glowing spray of the bodyguards" automatic weapons raked the room at waist level. But my shot went wide or-was it possible? Had Devlin somehow dodged my bullet? Had Devlin somehow dodged my bullet?
I watched in slow-motion horror as the feet of the VIPs pounded through the far doorway. After all this...
"Go ahead, be heroes for your boss," I shouted at the bodyguards as Tazh Khan, Lucy, and her platoon of human commandos took up position behind me. I"d never heard a sweeter sound than the kerc.h.i.n.k, kerc.h.i.n.k kerc.h.i.n.k, kerc.h.i.n.k of the rounds as they were racked into the old-fashioned, but nonetheless deadly, metal weapons. of the rounds as they were racked into the old-fashioned, but nonetheless deadly, metal weapons.
"Maybe he"ll give you a pay raise in h.e.l.l," I continued. "Think about it. You"re outnumbered ten to one! Easily. You"ll all be dead in seconds."
The Elite guards looked at the dozens of dull metal barrels aimed at them and only hesitated a second before tossing their guns aside and backing away toward the door and their escaping leadership. Despite all the deadly technology and strength of the Elites, there were advantages to fighting them: loyalty didn"t stand a chance against their ma.s.sive drive for self-preservation.
But one of them hadn"t dropped all all of his weapons-Devlin. As I got to my feet, he flung some sort of ceramic projectile that skimmed past my head and landed with a crunchy, thunking noise in something behind me. of his weapons-Devlin. As I got to my feet, he flung some sort of ceramic projectile that skimmed past my head and landed with a crunchy, thunking noise in something behind me.
As a hailstorm of at least a hundred rounds turned Devlin into a pink mist, I turned to see what the projectile was, and instantly wished I hadn"t.
The weapon, a small knife, was buried to its wicked hilt in Tazh Khan"s forehead.
Chapter 112 112.
LUCY EMBRACED HER fallen friend. I"d never seen a human expression of pain that held a candle to this one. Not even my own when my parents had died.
My heart screamed at me to comfort her, but now was not the time. I leaped through the door after the disappearing Elites and sprinted into the parking area, where they were spreading out toward their vehicles.
I immediately spotted my mark, President Jacklin, running a good dozen yards ahead of the others. My G.o.d, he was running fast. Top-of-the-line-Elite fast.
He must have been doing forty miles an hour-and was just a split second from his stretch limo when I dropped to a knee and took the surest shot I could manage, right at his center of gravity.
The burst of fire hit him in the small of his back and knocked him sprawling, but I hadn"t delivered anything near a fatal blow. He must have been wearing body armor. I was actually glad for it-I wanted him alive.
I cast aside my a.s.sault rifle and quickly closed the gap. He wheeled to meet my tackle in a neat blocker"s stance.
And oh, how he met me. It was like running into a pile of steel rebar... that really really didn"t like me. didn"t like me.
We grappled and rolled in the immaculate genetically modified gra.s.s of the presidential mansion.
I quickly discovered that Jacklin was enhanced more than any Elite I"d ever encountered. With some sort of double-jointed throw that sent me sprawling, he freed himself and backed up against the presidential transport, feeling for the door.
"So, my knuckle-dragging friend," he said. "You see, you aren"t the only one allowed to have secret implants. In fact, I"ll let you in on a little piece of cla.s.sified information: I"m the most enhanced being ever to walk the face of the earth-the docs tell me I"m eighty-seven percent tech, by body ma.s.s."
"Judging by your general psychology, I"m guessing one of the first organs they "upgraded" was your d.i.c.k," I quipped. I was hoping to get under his skin and cause a distraction. But his reply rendered me the more distracted party.
"Your Jinxie could straighten you out on that matter of speculation," he said. "Personal experience and whatnot."
I tried to will my mind silent, but it was no use. How had he known her nickname? Sure, he could have gotten that fact somewhere other than from her, personally. Who knows what kind of information our fellow agents may have kept on us. But was there anything to his innuendo? I didn"t want to care; I shouldn"t care-there was no time no time to care! to care!
But even as I tried to compose myself, he yelled out, "Evac!"
His security-enhanced limo immediately recognized its master"s voice and sprang to life, hovering up off the ground as its doors flew open.
Oh no.
He leaped into its dark interior, and the vehicle lurched skyward. I barely managed to hurl myself after him in time to have the automated doors slam down on my hands. on my hands.
Chapter 113 113.
THANK G.o.d FOR safety features: the car was programmed not to injure any high-tech Elite hands, and the door politely refrained from severing my fingers.
"Foreign object occluding rear starboard hatchway. Please clear immediately," chirped the autopilot.
Expecting one or both of Jacklin"s immaculate Italian leather shoe soles to come down on my hands, I did the most energetic pull-up of my life, heaved the door wide, and sprang into the pa.s.senger compartment.
Fortunately, the vehicle was so large that Jacklin-a.s.suming I had missed the departure-had moved forward in the cabin to a control console of some kind. He managed to wheel around just as I tried to tackle him again, demonstrating that patented human inability to learn lessons.
"You"re doomed," he said, easily dodging me. I slammed into a credenza covered in crystal goblets and decanters, all of which probably had been pirated from some human antiquities museum.
I struggled to stand as the vehicle lurched into a steep climb.
Meantime, Jacklin began to yell. "Require immediate airborne tactical a.s.sistance, alpha priority-and all forces reclaim presidential mansion im-"
Something banged into the roof of the limo and sent us both to our knees.
"You hear that!" he screamed. "You thought somehow my defense department might not manage to notice your little insurgence on the f.u.c.king presidential grounds? That"s a commando squad, and I"ll say it again-you, Hays Baker, are doomed! You and your whole filthy cave-evolved species!"
Just then the pa.s.senger door, which had by now resealed itself, peeled back-the wrong way! The noise of the twisting metal was quickly lost in the roaring wind and the noise of the jet engines outside. The noise of the twisting metal was quickly lost in the roaring wind and the noise of the jet engines outside.
A wicked-looking segmented grappling hook plunged into the cabin and dug its sharpened fingers into a leather seat. And then, as I vainly looked around for something beyond antique gla.s.sware to use as a weapon, the first commando burst through the open hatch, two pistols leveled, and began blasting away- At Jacklin!
Chapter 114 114.
BACK ON THE ground, Lucy and I stared down at the wounded Elite president, whose fear and disbelief were waging an epic battle on his artificially perfect face while synthetic blood and lymph oozed from the torn biotech conduits of his flesh.
Lucy covered him with a pistol as the soldiers-human soldiers-loaded him onto a gurney and strapped him down.
"We demand unconditional surrender!" Lucy snapped as soon as he was secure. "Right now, right here!"
"We?" he answered, regaining some composure. "You mean you represent this stinking pack of forest animals?" he answered, regaining some composure. "You mean you represent this stinking pack of forest animals?"
I might have admired something in his defiance, except that it wasn"t born of courage. Just sheer egotism and ignorance. He believed the world had somehow selected him and his kind, that somehow-despite the ludicrousness of the very idea-Elites were a natural natural evolutionary progression. evolutionary progression.
Clearly, he felt no remorse for Elite crimes against humanity, no compa.s.sion for the suffering he had caused, no accountability for the horrors he"d unleashed against us and the world in general.
"Yes, these skunks are exactly who I mean," Lucy said.
"You"re doomed!" he screamed. "You already nearly destroyed the world and, without us, you"ll do it all over again!"
"Shut up!" I screamed as I clamped my hand onto his throat, making sure he obeyed my command.
I leaned my apoplectic face over his and continued.
"Now listen-and I"m talking here to that thirteen percent of you that is is still biological, Jacklin-because what"s going to happen to you in the next weeks is going to make you wish you"d been born a tick on a skunk"s a.s.s rather than whatever in h.e.l.l you think you are." still biological, Jacklin-because what"s going to happen to you in the next weeks is going to make you wish you"d been born a tick on a skunk"s a.s.s rather than whatever in h.e.l.l you think you are."
And then I told him what we were going to do.
It was probably needlessly cruel. And needlessly human. But hey, when I was finished, Jacklin had gone completely white with terror.
Which, I confess, made me feel pretty good.
And then I got a hug from Lucy.
And that made me feel even better.
Chapter 115 115.
SLOW DEATH EQUALS slow torture.
That was what former President Hughes Jacklin must have been thinking one morning, three months later. He lay in an operating theater inside the vast and ultramodern New Lake City Hospital, waiting to be punished for his role in crimes against humanity. And he certainly had a very good idea what to expect next.
There was no arrogance on his face now. After all, he he was the one in a prison jumpsuit and shackles. was the one in a prison jumpsuit and shackles. He He was the one staring at the stainless steel slow death machine that was set up at center stage in the operating room. was the one staring at the stainless steel slow death machine that was set up at center stage in the operating room.
Lucy and an impressive a.s.semblage of human leaders, his judges and jury, stood facing him, ready to watch his sentence be carried out.
In fact, over two billion humans would be watching from all around the world.
Me? I was right there too. I was the appointed executioner of the president"s sentence. And I didn"t mind that duty at all. Justice is a wonderful thing-a human idea, one of our very best.
"All right, it"s time," President-elect Chantal Dugare said to Lucy, embracing her and kissing her cheeks. "The world is watching to be certain that justice is delivered here today."
The world really was watching. The war was all but over, and though there would be strong pockets of Elite resistance for some time to come, they currently had no central leadership to organize them, their seemingly invincible military was severely crippled, and they were outnumbered.
The Elites began to crumble fast without having humans to serve them. They were fine overseers as long as we were doing all the labor, but when it came to things like simple maintenance, even feeding themselves, they turned out to be surprisingly helpless.
Lucy stepped forward to address the former president a final time. She was wearing a simple black dress, and it struck me that I"d never seen her in a dress before. She looked very elegant, but somber and also restrained-especially for Lucy. It was as if she was attending a funeral, a state funeral, which I suppose she was.
"You stand convicted of plotting the most heinous crime in recorded history, the managed extinction of the human race," she declared, her voice ringing out strong and clear. "Have you anything to say in your defense? I cannot imagine that you do, but this is the time, war criminal."
Hughes Jacklin tried to put on an air of authority and Eliteness, but it was difficult to do so in manacles and with the certainty of slow death coming down on him like a falling ax.