Blackjack Dead or Alive (The Blackjack Series Book 3) (38 page)

I released one hand and dug down across his chest, feeling the ridges of his armor. He scratched and clawed at me, but I had him under control and with my full strength, Blackjack 2.0 couldn’t go anywhere. I found a rounded device that could easily be the emitter and grabbed it, ripping the thing away from the suit along with a trailing stream of sputtering wires.

Letting go of my nemesis, I threw the device on the ground and stepped on it, crushing it under my boot. He turned to face me, but the chilly feeling, the nausea, the weakness were absent.

“Oops,” I said. “Think I fucked up Pinocchio.”

Blackjack 2.0 didn’t react, which was strange, ignoring the dangling cables at his chest, diving in with a series of kicks I easily batted away. He was strong as hell, fast and powerful, but I was myself, and this guy was nothing to me.

I put my hands on him, picking him and throwing him into one of the cragged holes on the walls - one of my previous impact craters. He flew from my hands like a round from of a howitzer, embedding into the rock.

My boots brought me to him in an instant, and I lifted him again, this time using him as a missile against his teammate, Bloodstrike. Blackjack 2.0 slammed into her with a rewarding crack and for a moment, both of them were invisible. Apogee rolled onto her knees and gave me a little nod, her face pale and exhausted. She was spent and bloodied, but otherwise alright.

“What now, Haha?” I said, moving toward Silverback. The big beast was bloodied to a pulp, his face reminiscent of ground beef. He breathed heavily, fur matted with sweat, blood and rubble, drooling with froth. Epic had a little trail of blood on his nose, and his costume was torn in places, but he looked strong as ever.

“You think this is over,” Haha responded, but Silverback lacked his master’s bravado. He saw me approaching and lifted one massive paw pleading for mercy, using the other to support his bulk as he slumped over, exhausted.

“Are you alright,” Epic said, his swollen knuckles oozing with mingled blood and froth. None of it looked to be his.

“This is par for the course,” I said, and a second later, something crashed into me and lifted me off the ground. Blackjack 2.0 was full throttle on his boots, dragging me across the ground, not giving me a chance to recover. I threw an elbow into his face that separated us, and we both crashed into the shoreline. I stood as he approached again.

“This isn’t over, Blackjack,” Haha went on. “This is only the beginning. Remember, I have your beloved castle under my control and there’s nothing your little friend can do except monitor me. I’ve taken over the drones, and the…”

Haha paused and when he did, Blackjack stopped mid-step, as if someone had pulled the plug. I toppled him to the ground, landing on him in a straddle. I tore at his face mask and ripped it off…

…and I saw my own face.

He didn’t look like me – some tall dude with thick black hair and eyebrows. No, he was me. Haha hadn’t chosen a guy with similar features that he could conceal with the facemask and the hooded cloak, he’d found a guy that was my exact duplicate, and as Blackjack and I stared at each other, a horrible realization began to set in.

“What did you do,” I whispered, and as if on cue the lights of the place modulated much brighter – so much that some of the luminescent bulbs shattered from the increase in voltage. Despite of the exploding fixtures, the room was bathed in a white cold incandescence. Haha was in full control of the moment, having written the script that led to this moment, and now he wanted to capture it in full, for the whole world to see.

I staggered off my duplicate, dropping the mangled mask into the ankle deep mud. He also tried to get up, but I had hurt him. His upper torso twitched as if beginning to convulse. He vomited and coughed, almost gagging on the stuff.

“What did you do, Haha,” I bellowed, Apogee, Epic and Silverback sloshing in the swamp as they came closer.

“Oh my God,” Apogee said.

“I made another you, Blackjack,” Haha said, talking out of the room’s speakers instead of my doppelganger’s damaged suit. “A better you – more focused for the task at hand, if you get my meaning.”

Blackjack 2.0 rolled away from me in a slow, deliberate motion and that’s when I got a clear view of the back of his head. It was shaved and covered with wiring and circuitry that dug into his scalp and neck and working down into the back panel of the suit.

“I’ve perfected you, Blackjack,” Haha said. “Your problem was you couldn’t keep your eyes off the ladies. I saw it when you first met Influx. You couldn’t keep your mind in the game, buddy and it only got worse with Apogee. I understand, you see, it’s in your nature, part of how you’re wired. Humanity, that is. Sex is always foremost on your mind, especially an immature man-child like yourself. Well, I’ve solved that problem. I rewired you.”

“What did you do?” The question burbled out of me, on the verge of tears, already knowing the answer. I looked my doppelganger in the eye, and in those lifeless, blue pools, I knew what he had done. The mad robot had removed the parts of his brain that were unnecessary in some half-assed lobotomy. He had carved out useless parts, like a majority of the cerebellum and cerebrum, and wired in directly to the sensory, pain and nerve centers of the body, so he could control him directly as a puppeteer would a marionette.

“I’m sorry about arriving so late, Blackjack,” Haha said. “I realize now what you had planned for us, and I have to say, after studying the schematics and all this code you wrote – impressive, a real work of art.”

“What is it then,” Apogee said, kneeling next to me.

I pointed at it, “It’s a clone, Maddie.”

“God,” Epic said in disgust. “That explains everything.”

My gaze never wavered from my double, expecting him to attack. A moment ago I had wanted to cause him as much pain as he had caused me, to break every bone in his body, one painful crack for every time he had committed a crime in my name. A broken bone for each of those guys on the plane, but faced with the horrifying truth of my doppelganger, I almost felt sorry for him.

“Haha,” I said. “How could you?”

But he was off talking about the castle, praising the construction and the speed of the work. He was in now, accessing all the documents stored on the server, all my schematics and plans, all my work documents.

Everything.

“It’s funny,” he said. “If you turned all of this into a business enterprise, a legitimate business, you wouldn’t have to struggle another day. You’d be richer than rich. This technology could revolutionize construction worldwide, and you could be sitting pretty atop the empire built on the effort of your little drones. But no, you’ve wasted this all in an effort to lure me in. Well, I’m here and now all of this is mine. It’s the same for everything, Blackjack. You’re always distracted. You don’t see the end game.”

“Enough, Haha,” Epic shouted. “Your team is beaten. This poor guy is…” he paused and looked at me.

I nodded, knowing when I tore the suit’s systems; I broke the relay that allowed Haha to control my doppelganger. Blackjack 2.0 was no more.

“You’re beaten. Now do the right thing and surrender.”

Haha laughed, “Why would I do that? I have control of the castle, Epic. See, Blackjack, in all his wisdom, put a command key in the root directory. The key is a simple document with what seems like gibberish – only I figured it out, Blackjack. I figured out that the command key is the same number of characters as the server’s password. Its many hundreds of thousands of characters, but you forgot, didn’t you? You forgot my mind doesn’t see that kind of complexity. Numbers for me are simple. It was clever, very clever, but didn’t you think I would notice? Well, I did and I have you where I want you.”

I half expected Bubu to chime in during the monologue, but he didn’t. My Romanian partner just sat and watched, and waited.

“I have you where I…”

Haha stopped mid-sentence and said nothing for almost ten seconds.

Epic turned to me, “What is it?”

“He’s figuring it out,” I said. “Bubu?”

“Got him,” he said, his voice loud in the room’s speakers. “Want me to shut off the audio feed?”

“Not yet.”

“How did you…?” Haha said, once he returned. His bravado had faded, all that was left was the desperation of a small child who had been caught red handed. “Oh, my, Blackjack…”

I stood, “It was all a trap, Haha. You don’t have us. When you used the command key just then, you activated two protocols. One, you shut down all access out of here. This castle is now a closed server and when you took control of it, you closed your last road out. Second - and this happened a split second before everything went down - you also downloaded a Trojan virus into your botnet. You didn’t notice it because you were probably so pleased with yourself about figuring out the command key trick.”

“Blackjack, wait,” Haha said.

“Your core systems are now in my network,” I went on. “And your external databases are now going through a wiper program, deleting the hard drive of every computer in your botnet.”

I looked over at Epic and saw him smiling. Apogee was grinning too as she handed me a sash and gestured that I should use it to wipe the blood on my face. I had taken a pounding over the course of the last hour or so and everything hurt, in particular my face. Defending the castle, beating Epic’s team and catching Haha had come with a price. I doubt I looked much better than poor Silverback.

“Okay, okay,” Haha said, electronically breathless. “I get it. I understand, Blackjack.”

“All that’s left of you is what’s on the servers, Haha,” I said. “And when I give the command, my partner will shut down the servers and you’ll be wiped.”

“Ready when you are, bro,” Bubu said.

“No, no, no, no. Don’t. Wait. Please, Blackjack, wait.”

My double looked at me with a sense of confusion, as if his senses were starting to kick in. But in his child-like mind, he was unaware of what he was experiencing. If he was a genetic match, then Haha had stolen Retcon’s accelerated cloning system and been hard at work making copies of me since our last conversation on the tower. This one, the one in Amsterdam, maybe even the one who attacked the plane. Who knew how many? Maybe they were all the same? All a few months old, with the equivalent level of maturity.

“Why should I wait, Haha? You’ve given me nothing but heartache and pain. I think it’s time we put your little ‘show’ to an end,” I said.

“Bro!” Bubu said. “The drones. He’s blowing the-“

I winced in pain as the radio connection was severed in a loud squawk that thinned out to a needling feedback until the speakers overloaded and blew out. Sparks rained down on us as the room plunged into silence, all external communication silenced.

“What’s the hell was that,” Apogee asked, seeing the worry in my face.

“Fuck, I did it,” I said.

“What,” Epic said.

“Monologuing…I got caught doing the villain’s monologue. Goddammit! And now he’s blowing all the support beams.”

“And if they all go, it all comes down?” Epic said.

I nodded.

Apogee looked around nervously, “Is there a way out?”

“For you there is,” I said, taking her shoulders. “Go. Get out of here.”

“No,” she said, “I’m not leaving-“

“You have to go,” I said, squeezing her arm, frantic. “Go, Madelyne. You’re fast enough. You can make it out.”

Another series of explosions went off, this time closer, as the whole mountain shook. The remaining lights exploded one by one, and dust filtered down from the roof.

“I can’t,” she said, tears streaming down her face. “I can’t.”

I reached in and held her tight, “You have to.”

She pushed me back, shaking her head.

“Save yourself, woman,” Silverback shouted. “You’re the only one of us fast enough to-“

Another explosion rocked the room, the ground beneath our feet shifting. We all struggled to keep our feet, as a wide crack opened over the marsh, water draining into the chambers below.

“Please, baby,” I said. “Go.”

Apogee looked over at Epic, who nodded, then back at me – and was gone.

“A doomsday device,” Silverback said, hunching low as the roof dislodged and large pieces of rock began to fall on us.

“No,” I said, looking around, and fell to my knees as the ground shrieked in its own agony. I didn’t have time to explain to either of them that Haha had taken control of the drones when he co-opted the Castle’s servers, nor to tell them that the drones were taking out the support beams that were the foundation of all I had built.

I lost sight of Silverback and Epic, though they were only a few yards away from each other as the ground rose, the roof dropped, toxic dust scoured my vision.

And Haha brought the mountain down.

I fought the falling tide as the roof crumbled on me. Massive boulders smashed the floor; the marsh water splashing even as larger fissures opened around us, the water draining deeper into the dying mountain. Everything went black as the roof collapsed on us, brought down with great fury by the falling material above it, the crumpled reinforcements unable to hold so much dirt and rock. I helped the larger pieces along with a couple of punches, trying my best to carve out an open space.

In the end, it was too much, even for my formidable strength, a massive surge of earth rode through me, slamming me against the ground. Trying to stand was near impossible, but I managed to get my hands up, pushing against the tidal wave and grasped a huge shard of rock as it slid across, ready to fall on me. I eased it onto my shoulders, then, putting everything I had into the move, I stood. I roared and coughed, but the big rock against my shoulders was holding, despite an avalanche of sand and dirt pouring around it and to my feet.

“Blackjack,” I heard Epic scream in the darkness, not too far from me, and imagined him doing the same as me. If that was the case, Silverback wasn’t too far.

“Here,” I said, fighting against the shifting rock and everything wedged above it.

“I need help,” Epic said, and from his voice, I could tell he was frantic, losing the fight against the sliding mountain.

I tried twisting the rock, but it would have been easier to juggle a tank. Instead, I turned myself in the direction where I had heard his voice, and shifted beneath the big rock, angling it away from me. The dark was omnipresent, impossible to penetrate. Without the artificial light, we were entombed within the heart of a mountain, deeper than men were supposed to be without technology to aid us.

A pinprick of light flitted across my eye line, emanating from a small crevasse. As I moved towards it, I saw a pair of stiff legs sticking from beneath a pile of rubble. My double sat there motionless, mauled by the falling rubble. I shook my head bitterly and slunk away from him, toward Epic, who was straining against a fallen support beam holding our small cavern in place.

The light I followed was emitting from Epic’s uniform, shifting from red to blue to yellow like police lights. I guess everyone got a tracker, for all the good it would do. The rock I held scraped against the beam, my efforts making things harder for him, so I pushed it off and it slid behind me, the rubble burying the remains of Blackjack 2.0.

I inched into the small pocket of air. Epic kept it patent with raw strength, his muscles quivering; his face a sweaty mask of determination, curly hair matted and dirty against his face. The support he held was 3D printed, bearing a load measured in the hundreds of tons. I didn’t tamp down the spark of pride, letting its tiny light bolster my waning energy. His legs strained and popped, threatening to give, but shook his head when I approached, motioning to the upper torso of an unconscious Silverback.

“Forget him,” I said, but he shifted, spreading his legs slightly and I felt the raw tonnage above us give slightly.

“Get him up,” Epic managed, each word punctuated with heavy groan and sucking of air. He had little left, but he wanted me to check on the villain – who was probably already dead.

I slunk through the available space, moving to the corner where Silverback lay and grabbed the big gorilla. Pulling his shoulders, I dragged him out of the detritus that covered his legs and torso. Laying him down on the ground, I saw that he was breathing from the bubbles of blood popping in his mangled face.

“Silverback, wake up,” I said and struggled with his bulk to sit him so he could sit somewhat upright. His head was the size of my whole body, and I was frankly afraid that he would wake, see me and go on a rampage, but a look at Epic told me I had to try. I shook him hard, diffident to any further harm I might be causing. I was no veterinarian, but he looked rough. “Come on man, wake the fuck up!”

He shuddered in my arms, thin streams of blood sucking into his flat maw, dripping out again when the inspiration ceased. His eyes shot open, red and angry, burst blood vessels drowning the sclera. His muscles tensed in my grip and I let go, taking a large step back.

“Before you attack,” I said, my hands upraised and placating. “Look around and think.”

He followed my advice and said, “Fuck.”

“Help,” Epic said and I went to spell him, if only for a minute, but he shook his head and gestured to Silverback. “Him.”

“He’s all fucked up,” I said, but the big guy got more frustrated, his already red face lighting up with anger.

“No, dammit,” he managed. “Him.”

“I can help too,” I said.

Epic shook his head slowly.

“Him! I need you…to figure out…how to…get out.”

“Can you walk?” I said. The gorilla was as tall sitting as I was standing, but he was no idiot, allowing me to approach without hostility. I offered a hand that he refused as he tested his arms and legs. Other than the superficial damage, which was considerable, everything seemed to work.

“Help him,” I said, pointing at Epic.

Silverback glanced over his shoulder, the wheels turning. I couldn’t blame him. There was a time, not long ago, that my survival trumped everything. Realizing there was no escape, he found a sturdy place along the beam and dug his shoulder into it, extending his frame enough that both hero and villain bore equal shares of the load. Epic still strained under the totality of all I had built, but the deep lines etched in his face smoothed a little.

“Now it’s up to you,” he said, a faint smile crossing his face.

I walked over to Epic, his smile thinned out into a question. I grabbed the tracker, still phasing from one color to the next and tore it from the fabric of his suit. The texture was similar to what Superdynamic had given to me, flexible to the point where I almost had to tear the whole thing off to rip it.

“You really don’t like those things do you,” he said.

“I didn’t until I realized they doubled as flashlights. Now I’m going to build them into everything I wear.”

Moving to Silverback, I took hold of the leather strap crisscrossed over his broad chest, resisting the urge to rip it away dramatically, unlatching the heavy metal buckle, careful not to disrupt the gorilla’s burden.

Spreading everything I had to work with in front of me, it amounted to an eight foot leather strap, a flashlight/homing device, and my Asskickers, which despite being scuffed and dented, probably still had working thrusters.

“How far down do you think we are?” I said.

Epic laughed, “I’m not a geologist.”

“One, two hundred feet of rock above us,” Silverback said, sniffing the air.

“You can tell?” I asked.

The gorilla stared at me, “Can’t you?”

“As a matter of fact, I can’t,” I said. “What’s the shortest way out.”

He looked around, finally gesturing off to his left, almost level with our little cavern. “About eighty feet that way.”

I pulled the boots off, the socks with them, and dumped everything in a pile. Taking one of the boots in hand, I inspected it in a way only a creator can. I knew every rivet, every stitch, and every surface intimately. Undoing the laces, I dug into the dank, musty toe of the boot, moist leather scraping against the back of my hand as I ran a finger over the toggle. There was a resistance there that indicated it was working as intended. Forget the arrows, castles, all of it. These boots were my greatest achievement.

“Enough?” Epic asked, and it looked like he was bowing under the weight.

I stood, “You okay?”

“Fine,” he shot back.

“What’s he going to do with all that junk?” Silverback said, frustrated. “We’re buried under a million tons of rock! No trinket is going to get us out of here.”

“You saw the castle above us” Epic said, clearly straining again. “Saw it?”

The gorilla shrugged, nonplussed.

“This guy built all of that and all these caverns down here in a day. Isn’t that right?”

I smiled, “How long were you tracking her?”

“Since she ran to Italy to check on you.”

Laughing, I sifted through the small pile, and didn’t like what I saw. I longed for my gear, especially the quiver. Several of my arrows would have been helpful, including the Nukes. I didn’t think the massive explosion would get us out, but maybe if the charges were properly placed I could open up more space.

No, that would just shake loose the rocks above us, bringing it all down. The Cretaceous room was the deepest, and that meant the bulk of the mountain was above us. Explosives weren’t going to get us out of here. If anything, they’d make it worse. I had to find a way to get us out without impacting the walls. Any vibration would threaten our small haven. That meant I had to dig without digging. I had to find a way to move earth and rock without shifting the bulk of stones that had settled above us.

Epic smiled watching me work, “There he goes,” he said. “He’s figuring it out.”

Silverback snarled, “What’s he going to figure out? I can dig us out of here in no time and-“

“Silverback,” Epic snapped. “Focus on holding up your share.”

The big gorilla growled but braced, taking half the load from Epic.

“Do your thing, Blackjack,” the hero prompted.

I didn’t want to tell him I was coming up blank. I knew what not to do, no explosions, no displaced rock, if I fired the rocket boots and tried to bore my way out, the flames would eat up all of our oxygen and our problems would be solved with asphyxiation.

But small plasma reactors powered the latest incarnation of my boots. I tore them apart with my teeth, revealing the raw power source. They were each the size of a small watch and if modified properly, the explosion would be a sight to behold. But I had already gone over that. Explosions were bad down here. I had to use them for what they were.

I held them in my dusty hands, knowing I had the first step of the solution; a power supply. Next, I had to figure out how to put that raw energy to use.

The boots were partially 3D printed, partially hand-cut leather, and looking at them, ripped into pieces made me wish that some of the drones would have made it, that something of my grand creation had survived the falling mountain. Apogee was right, I had to take the whole concept and turn it into a bonafide business. Put Bubu in charge of the whole thing and make us both rich beyond avarice.

That’s assuming he had made it out alive.

The control center was high on the mountain, and deep into it – the only deeper item I had dug were the holding rooms – so Bubu and the people in the stasis cells had a chance to make it out of this alive. The guy had a wife and kid, and while he was a bit of a thief and bastard, he had followed me. He was my friend.

I also worried about the heroes I had captured, Bamma, Slamma, Coach and the rest. I didn’t want them hurt – not seriously – and I knew if any of them were dead, it was on me. Epic’s mood would change dramatically, and I was in no condition to fight the big guy.

“You okay?” Epic said, noting the change in my mood.

“Fine,” I said.

“Have a plan?”

The rock shifted above, helped by Silverback’s nonchalant effort, and we were rewarded with streams of rocks and sand coming down on our heads.

“Quit moving,” Epic snapped at Silverback, but the big ape wasn’t taking him seriously.

“Silverback,” I said, using a calm tone.

“What?”

“You got anyone out there? Anyone special?”

“What do you care?”

“I don’t,” I said, wedging my fingers into the heel of the boot and pulling it off, revealing the thrust nozzle, surrounded by a neat braid of wires I was careful not to damage. “The fact is I don’t know your story. Are you a big ape that is suddenly smart, or are you a dude that got turned into a huge gorilla?”

He stared at me for almost ten seconds, expressionless. “You don’t care.”

“For now, let’s pretend I do. So what is it?”

Silverback fidgeted, more uncomfortable delving into his life than bearing tons of rock on his back.

“I was a man before this happened,” he said. “Someone experimented on me. I don’t remember anything, except waking like this.”

I paused, the heel of my other boot half off the sole.

“I’m sorry, man.”

He shook his head and angled away from me. “Just get us out of here.”

“So you have people out there, huh?”

Silverback nodded.

“What, a wife? Some kids?”

He sighed and looked away. “I’m not that old, dude.”

“Mother, father?”

He nodded, “Moms.”

“She knows about you?”

Silverback smiled, “I tried to approach her once.”

“She must’ve freaked,” I said, trying to keep it light.

“Well, we get out of here,” Epic said, looking over Silverback’s shoulder at me with a smile. “I’ll make sure she gets the whole story.”

They both went silent as I worked, tossing the heels away and gently bending the screw housings around the thruster nozzle built into the boot. I had one nearly out when I saw the boot dangling from my arm and got another idea.