AZU-1: Lifehack (30 page)

“
What, wanna fuck?” Kris
said dispassionately.

Parker coughed a little. “That’s not
what I meant.”

“
Aw geez. Look, Robert.
You’re kinda fun and stuff, but this whole drama queen side of you
really isn’t my thing, alright?”

Parker just kinda looked into his beer,
and drank down a mouthful.

Kris looked at him. “Christ, if you
cry, I’ll punch you.”

“
Would it be so bad if we
were...?”

Kris downed her wine quickly, and put
the glass down firmly. “Grow up, Parker.” She stood, and began to
turn. “Thanks for the drink. Come see me later if you find your
balls.” And with that, she started back to the airlimb.

Stupid baby. Next thing, he’d be asking
her to the prom or some shit. She passed by where she’d seen Alisia
and Regan kiss, and trouble brewed in her mind. She was soon
standing between Regan’s and Alisia’s doors. Which were they in?
Were these damn doors soundproof? Oh well, try one, then the
other.

She whipped open Alisia’s door, and
pointed. “Aha!”

Alisia turned her head away from the
terminal and looked at Kris. Regan wasn’t here. “Is there something
I can help you with?” Alisia asked sardonically.

“
Eh?” Kris was shocked not
to find the two of them at the very least, lip-locked on the bed.
“Er.. never mind.” She left and closed the door. She then turned
around and opened Regan’s door just wide enough to stick her head
in.

Regan was in bed, half asleep. Her
peaceful face soured at the sight of Kris. “What do you
want?”

Kris looked around. Aside from the few
beer cans on the floor, there were no signs of any particular fun.
She looked Regan in the eye. “Wuss.” then backed out, closing the
door. What was wrong with these people?

~~~

Captain Harringer sat in the ops room
of the unmarked Lancer airlimb. He stared at the communications
terminal, waiting for Mr. Book to answer the call.

Finally Mr. Book’s remarkably joyless
face appeared. “Ah. Harringer. My apologies for making you wait so
long. To keep things quiet,-“

“
No apologies needed Sir, I
understand entirely. The regular military, unit A Zed U one, has
captured Coll. He’s taken up the alias ‘Erebus’.”

“
Really?” Mr. Book leaned
back in his office chair, loosening his tie a little. “That’s good
I suppose. Someone should have him. Where Did they find
him?”

“
Right where we were
looking. We must have missed him somehow. Either he was out at the
time, or very well hidden.”

“
Damn it. Slippery bugger.
Well, what’s done is done. Can they link him to us?”

“
Unlikely. Should we move to
reclaim Coll? He might start talking about the wrong
things.”

“
.....no, I’m not willing to
make a move directly against the regular military over this. We’d
lose more than we’d gain. Keep an ‘eye’ on him though.”

“
Of course, Sir.”

~~~~~

Chapter 43: A Brisk Walk

~~~~~

Jonathan lay in his jail cell, waiting.
The little toys he released into his bloodstream should almost be
done their work. He could have taken advantage of the effect
already, but he saw no reason not to let them finish their task
before exerting himself.

The guard came around about once an
hour, and when the toys were done, he had just passed.

It was time to move. Jonathan was
ready; Erebus was ready.

He got up to his window and gripped the
bars. He strained hard and his newly nanite-reinforced muscles
helped him pull the bar out of the wall. Chunks and bits of cement
crumbled down. Erebus looked back around to see if anyone heard, or
cared. Well, too late to go back now.

He yanked another bar, making a gap he
could get through. First he did a sloppy job of making his bed look
full. There was only one pillow but it might be enough to fool
someone at a quick glance. Enough to buy some time. He squirmed
out, and dangling three stories up, put the bars back as best as
the damage would allow. Yeah, that’s really gonna fool them for a
long time.

He looked down and let go, sliding
three stories down the wall. Thump. Hmm. That didn’t hurt too bad.
He looked at his hands. They were sore. They had already bruised
badly from pulling the bars out. Hopefully the nanites would take
care of that quickly. Alright. Now to run to the nearest
electronics shop. And run he did. Not as fast as a car, but much
faster than human. By the time he was noticed to be missing he’d be
halfway to Meston.

Alisia pawed her nightstand for her
buzzing comm and put it in her ear. “Hello? Major Terone
here.”

“
Major?” It was the General.
“I thought you’d like to know that Erebus has escaped.”

“
What?”

“
We have people looking for
him, but we’re not having any luck. He’s been loose up to an hour,
so he couldn’t have gone far. There are no vehicles
missing.”

“
We’re on it,
General.”

“
Major, I really only wanted
to keep you informed. There’s not much else you can do right now
that we’re not already doing.”

“
Maybe not, but I’m not
going to just sit here.”

“
Very well. Good luck,
Major.”

Alisia disconnected, and woke the
others. “People, Erebus is loose. Let’s go.”

Shortly, Kris had them airborne. Alisia
went over some logistics while Parker and Regan scanned the terrain
out either side of the airlimb, through the scopes of zipper
turrets. Regan had next to no experience with the zippers, but she
had Parker give her a quick lesson one day.

“
Parker,” Regan said, “if
you spot him first, let me take him down.”

“
Don’t you think we should
capture him?”

“
Fuck it. He had his chance
for a nice little trial and he decided to run. I wanna smear the
fucker all over the ground.”

“
Yow. A little angsty,
aren’t we?” Parker hadn’t seen Regan like this.

“
You’ve seen what he’s done.
You tellin’ me he doesn’t deserve worse?”

“
This wouldn’t have anything
to do with your brother would it?”

Regan paused. She’d always blamed her
brother’s death on the whole Autar incident.. some programming
accident. It only recently sunk in for her that if Erebus caused
it, he effectively killed Harold. “My bro worked with nanites for
medical purposes. He and I were close. I can tell you for a fact
that he had nothing but good intentions. This guy.. why the hell...
but yeah, I guess this has a bit to do with my brother. Is that a
problem?”

Parker smirked to himself. “Nope, just
as long as we’re clear.”

Erebus staggered and collapsed against
a tree. He’d been running for the better part of an hour. The
Meston lights were an attractive pale hue over the horizon now. How
far had he gotten in that time? Eighty clicks? He’d stayed within
sight of the highway, and from what he could see, he’d been holding
his own in terms of speed compared to the cars. His body burned
though. Nothing the nanites couldn’t take care of, of course. And
the sooner he made it to Meston, the sooner he’d be safe- or at
least safer- from search parties. He dragged himself up again, and
shot off towards Meston.

“
All this ground’s been
covered.” Alisia mumbled to Kris as they both looked over different
luminescent displays in the airlimb’s darkened ops room. “He’s
either gotten some kind of ride, or he’s underground.”

Kris tapped around a map overlaid on
the main navigation screen. “Well, there’s no major underground
infrastructure in the area that would get him anywhere useful, but
there is the highway. Pretty easy to hitch-hike, I
guess.”

“
There’s already a
checkpoint in place. They’re stopping every vehicle to check for
hitch-hikers. Presumably no one’s going to hide a hitch-hiker from
us. I hope so anyway. They’re not about to strip search every
vehicle..”

Regan’s voice came to Alisia through
the comm. “Hey, leesha, can you come here a sec?”

“
Alright, hang on.” Alisia
left the ops room and headed back through the dim halls to where
Regan was manning a gun. “What’s up?”

Regan answered warmly. “I just wanted
to see you.”

“
Yeah, here I am, what’s
up?”

Regan kept her eye on the scope, but
reached out and took Alisia’s hand. “I told ya, I just wanted to
see you. Didn’t wanna leave here, in case I missed him.”

Alisia smiled a bit to herself. “I
really should get back up there.”

“
Kris can handle that on her
own.” Regan said assuredly, “You wanna discuss tactics with her,
you can use the comm.”

“
Aw, how cute,” Alisia
thought, “She’s jealous.”

“
Well, that’s not quite as
effective. I need to see the maps and such. Don’t worry, Regan.”
Alisia gave Regan’s hand a little squeeze before leaving for the
front again.

~~~

Erebus pushed through the pain. He was
used to it. You have to be if you’re going to experiment on your
own body. Just think of the pain as a blinking light reporting
bodily status, and then ignore it. The bruises on his hands from
opening the barred window were almost entirely healed, but now it
was his feet doing the complaining.

He had passed by the area of the
checkpoint long before it was even set up- and even if he hadn’t,
he wasn’t directly taking the highway anyway.

A gas station was coming up. He slowed
down and came to a stop behind it as to not attract attention. He
was a bit hungry. Certainly the nanites were getting a little low
on juice by now, but they would have to wait just a little
longer.

He walked in the front doors and
greeted the clerk with a casual wave and easy smile. He stuck a
chocolate bar in his pocket and opened a bag of chips, and started
eating them right away. The clerk assumed that no thief would be
quite so brazen, but he was cautious none the less. He rang up the
two items as a subtle hint that he did indeed notice the chocolate
bar.

Erebus looked around. “Oh, hey,” he
said, walking back for a pop out of the cooler, “Got any kind of
pain killers?”

“
Aspirin, Tylenol, Bayer...”
The clerk said, adding the pop to the bill.

“
Yeah, “ Erebus said,
walking back towards the counter, “Lemmie see those.”

The clerk put them all on the counter
for examination. Erebus immediately started opening one, and after
picking out the cotton, he started swallowing them, washing them
down with mouthfuls of pop.

“
What the fuck?” The clerk
said, now not so worried about shoplifting, “You tying to kill
yourself?”

Erebus started opening the second
bottle. “Nah. I have a unique metabolism.” He sniffed the opened
bottle. “No, this one’s no good.” He threw it aside, the pills
scattering on the floor. He started on the last bottle.

The clerk looked at him with eyes wide.
“I’ll call the cops...!”

Erebus looked up at him wryly, and then
looked down at the phone just behind the counter. He reached over
and pulled it up. “With this?” He considered putting the phone
though this poor idiot’s head, but reconsidered. He ripped the
phone upwards, snapping the cord. A panicky clerk whining to the
next customer would attract him attention much slower than the next
customer finding a corpse.

He stuffed down the rest of the pills
and picked up the chips again. He thanked the clerk and headed out,
passing a gas pump.

“
Freeze!” Erebus turned
around to see the clerk holding a gun at him. Erebus smirked, and
kept walking.

Krak! Pain in his right shoulder. The
little twerp actually shot him! Alright, now this is
personal.

~~~

“
Mr. Book, Sir. Coll has
escaped custody.” Captain Harringer talked with the image of Mr.
Book while consulting various displays. “Our ‘eye’ tells us he
ripped the bars out of his window and jumped out three stories
before taking off. He’s assumed headed for Meston.”

“
Damn it.” Mr. Book sighed
with all the weight you’d expect from an aging, heavyset man.
“Well, that confirms the data we confiscated from his bunker. He’s
been ‘playing’ with himself.”

“
Ah, yes Sir. What should we
do?”

“
Well, if he’s running
around loose, we might be able to grab him without too much
exposure. That airlimb you’re in now is the one with the
nanite-tight chamber?”

“
Yes Sir. I thought the
nanite lab onboard would be more applicable to this mission than
the dedicated gunship. So we’re to take him alive?”

“
I’m really not worried
about it, but if you do kill him, scoop his body and anything he
bleeds on, and get it into the chamber. The less of him left
sitting around, the better.”

“
As you know Sir, that
chamber isn’t able to hold out forever against a dedicated nanite
colony. I’m sure the ones Coll is using are-“